Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by pheonixstorm »

I think the file is incomplete.. should the file only be 8.8mb in size??
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

more like 328 MB.... thanks I thought that was a quick upload. Have to see what went wrong.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

travists wrote:more like 328 MB.... thanks I thought that was a quick upload. Have to see what went wrong.
*poke*

I'm looking forward to seeing this -- sent you an e-mail, btw. :D
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

I thought I re-uploaded that! been... away with Star Citizen.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

Thanks for the link. :)

Do you have any thoughts or notes to share wrt. the current state of development?

EDIT: Yes, you do. And you already did -- right inside the archive I downloaded. Excellent! :D
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by klauss »

travists wrote:I thought I re-uploaded that! been... away with Star Citizen.
They haven't released anything yet have they?
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

Hanger module out end of the month! get a chance to see your ships. If you have not pledged better do so quick. Later this year should be the dogfight module. Doing a staged public alpha/beta thing.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by klauss »

Yeah I remember those. I meant actual working code, ie, a beta.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

Nothing they are releasing yet. Hanger is a basic engine test, dogfight you can actually fly, beta should be mostly functional, but that is several months away.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

Travis,

Are you still interested in playtesting/developing the Privateer Remake mashup you hooked me up with? Can you shed some more light on your goals in point-form?

You see, I can learn to do the tech stuff (bugfixing etc.), but storylines and universe discussions are not really my strong suit...

But for starters, I'd like to e.g. be able to own more than one ship (a la Star Citizen) and I wouldn't be averse to being able to buy more ships than in Privateer proper. In other words, I'm fine with this being closer to PU in terms of features than the all canon GG (e.g. using the VS GUI and such). I'd also like to tweak the flight speeds, as they currently feel waaay too slow for me.

One thing I don't want to get too caught up in is fighting over the story-line. That's just a turn-off to me, though I understand that this is very important stuff to some people... :)
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Privateer Remake Revival -- Progress Report

Post by ermo »

Ok, a little progress report:

* Music playlists added for in-game music (yay!)
* The white-background-in-space issue has been narrowed down to an issue with the new data/textures/background/plasma_galaxy* textures
** I copied in the original Privateer Gemini Gold textures instead and they work fine. Klauss mentioned that he might take a look if he can find the time.
* I changed the Computer GUI textures slightly as I found the ones in the .zip rather unreadable.
* Fixed some python code using obsolete functions exported in the C++ VS python-bindings (not <iterable>.isDone()) vs (<iterable>.notDone()) -- the latter no longer works in VS trunk.

Outstanding issues:

* In my build of the latest VS trunk, the game can pause but not unpause again. Confirmed with both vanilla VS data and Privateer Remake 2012 data.
* No flightgroups are spawned in the Troy system, which is nice for making money but makes for a rather lonely (and static) experience.
Last edited by ermo on Wed Aug 07, 2013 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

ermo wrote:...but storylines and universe discussions are not really my strong suit...
Nor mine, I'd stick with the existing ones for now. Hash out the story after the technical stuff is done.
ermo wrote:But for starters, I'd like to e.g. be able to own more than one ship (a la Star Citizen)
I as well. If the cargo/wingman ship issue can be resolved and implemented even fly8ing your fleet around in a private carrier would be nice.
ermo wrote:and I wouldn't be averse to being able to buy more ships than in Privateer proper. In other words, I'm fine with this being closer to PU in terms of features
One of my major goals as well! Every ship in WC should be available.
ermo wrote:I'd also like to tweak the flight speeds, as they currently feel waaay too slow for me.
Well... My preference would be for cannon speeds, but that is relatively easy to change compared to building all the data, so I could create a cannon speed version when everything else is done. (Plus easier to balance than creating new speeds)
ermo wrote:One thing I don't want to get too caught up in is fighting over the story-line. That's just a turn-off to me, though I understand that this is very important stuff to some people... :)
Yeah... Best part of Privateer was the freestyle play anyway.

If you really need some story thoughts we can hash out some basics. Another thing we might do would be to include the plots and/or missions from WC1-4
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

Travis,

Could you perhaps try to outline your goals for your Privateer-like WCU + PU + GG mashup (or whatever it is supposed to be) in point-form, please? I've tried following your notes, but they don't make a lot of sense to me (sorry)...

:)

P.S. For starters, I'd prefer to just stick with the Privateer story-line + a few extra fixers (so basically like it is now) and focus on whipping whatever the technical side is supposed to be into proper shape.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

  • establish and maintain compatability with current engine.
  • expand ships and systems to include most of WC universe
  • utilize real game cockpits for all ships where they exist.
Hope that helps, I'll review my notes when I get home. I think it is a bug hunt list
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

travists wrote:
  • establish and maintain compatability with current engine.
  • expand ships and systems to include most of WC universe
  • utilize real game cockpits for all ships where they exist.
Hope that helps, I'll review my notes when I get home. I think it is a bug hunt list
Which project do you feel is the most closely aligned with your vision -- Wing Commander Universe / Privateer: Parallel Universe / Privateer Gemini Gold?

Is your goal to eventually have a WCU + PPU mashup called Privateer Remake 20xx, or?...

Just to clarify, I'm in it for the improved Privateer-ish gameplay possible on the VS engine, complete with the original story and a few extra fixers and side-quests as appropriate. In particular, I dig the way mass is accounted for in VS and as mentioned above, I'd also like to see more sensible speeds for the ships -- currently, 300kps in Privateer maps to 30 m/s (~108km/h) and 500 kps maps to 50 m/s (180 km/h) which seems like a rather small velocity delta to me, and certainly slower than the original Privateer gameplay would suggest. Of course, if the speeds are upped, the maps need to be made bigger and the speed increase has the side-effect of making asteoroids fields a slightly bigger challenge at normal cruise speeds.

I'd also like to be able to own more than one ship (e.g. a Galaxy and a Centurion for instance ) and have the freedom to be able to tweak / adapt the original ships slightly to the VS way of doing things if necessary.

And just so I don't set the wrong expectations, the WCU WC1-4 campaigns along with the PU separate storyline arc pipe-dreams are very much secondary concerns to me. :)
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

WCU over the top of GG. I dislike the have to do mission X for Y upgrade/ship in PU. Now if faction alignment got you access to ships/equipment that would be fine. Basically I want the original Privateer with the ability to break out into the larger WC universe. Story wise, Original + extras is fine, the rest of the stories is just a nice thought with what could be done with all of the ships added.

As for speeds, I did not notice that there was such a disconnect. I would like to match original specs as much as is practical.

So, I'd say start with GGesk on the new engine then add in additional ships and systems as possible. (I think in the lore one of the key factors of Junction was that it was the only Confed side link to the rest of the Confederation.)
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

travists wrote:WCU over the top of GG. I dislike the have to do mission X for Y upgrade/ship in PU. Now if faction alignment got you access to ships/equipment that would be fine. Basically I want the original Privateer with the ability to break out into the larger WC universe. Story wise, Original + extras is fine, the rest of the stories is just a nice thought with what could be done with all of the ships added.

As for speeds, I did not notice that there was such a disconnect. I would like to match original specs as much as is practical.

So, I'd say start with GGesk on the new engine then add in additional ships and systems as possible. (I think in the lore one of the key factors of Junction was that it was the only Confed side link to the rest of the Confederation.)
Ok, I can work with that, thanks.

So your goal is a mostly-canon/lore setting, but not necessarily a 1:1 Remake like GG aimed to be. I'm personally in favour of using the new VS functionality and interface as much as possible, such that we'll be able to make intelligent use of the extra capabilities etc. From your other posts, it sounds like you can live with that? :D
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

Yep. Cannot realistically have all the verities of nav screens throughout the games so most interfaces can be played with. In-Game cockpits and the are about all I'm set on interface wise. And those can be turned on or off based on preference. Also, current HUD stuff I think can be mapped to the MFDs

cannon in terms of lore, Gemini Sector civilian ships should be available to all pilots, rather than just the original 3+original setup, but those can be added later if you prefer. (Tallons at Pirate bases if you are allowed to land and the like too)
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

travists wrote:Yep. We cannot realistically have all the different varieties of 1./ nav screens throughout the games so most interfaces can be played with. In-Game cockpits 2./ and the are about all I'm set on interface wise. And those can be turned on or off based on preference. Also, 3./ current HUD stuff I think can be mapped to the MFDs

Canon in terms of lore, Gemini Sector civilian ships should be available to all pilots, rather than just 4./ the original 3+original setup, but those can be added later if you prefer. (Talons at Pirate bases if you are allowed to land and the like too)
1./ When you say "nav screens", which interface are you referring to? The in-flight interface where you set up nav points?

2./ "and the" ... what noun is missing here? :)

3./ Can you elaborate on this? Do you mean e.g. missions, where "Mission Completed" text currently shows up outside of the MFDs in e.g. the Tarsus?

4./ What do you mean by "the original 3+original setup"? Tarsus, Orion, Galaxy, Centurion?

If you are saying what I think you are saying, then I like your idea of having ship availability tied to specific base types (Talon in Pirate- and Militia-dominated systems and surplus/refurbished warships in Navy-dominated systems etc.). In fact, It'd be cool to take a cue from Star Citizen and have pirates utilize both Talon fighters and larger refurbished gunships used for capturing loot, such that a pirate flight group is not just 3 talons, but 3 talons and a gunship of sorts.

I also think it might make sense to e.g. be able to upgrade a standard Talon to "Super Talon" spec by simply buying better reactor/shields/afterburner/engines/guns etc. But I suppose this enters PU territory and might not be something that you'd like to see?
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

I just got PU to run on the newest VS (I had to make the same .py iterator changes as for your version).

And I must say, apart from having to complete a mission in order to unlock the jump drive (which we can remove as necessary), it feels like a pretty good base to work from. We can always disable the parts we don't like and polish/add the parts we need?:)
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

ermo wrote:
travists wrote:Yep. We cannot realistically have all the different varieties of 1./ nav screens throughout the games so most interfaces can be played with. In-Game cockpits 2./ and the are about all I'm set on interface wise. And those can be turned on or off based on preference. Also, 3./ current HUD stuff I think can be mapped to the MFDs

Canon in terms of lore, Gemini Sector civilian ships should be available to all pilots, rather than just 4./ the original 3+original setup, but those can be added later if you prefer. (Talons at Pirate bases if you are allowed to land and the like too)
1./ When you say "nav screens", which interface are you referring to? The in-flight interface where you set up nav points?

2./ "and the" ... what noun is missing here? :)

3./ Can you elaborate on this? Do you mean e.g. missions, where "Mission Completed" text currently shows up outside of the MFDs in e.g. the Tarsus?

4./ What do you mean by "the original 3+original setup"? Tarsus, Orion, Galaxy, Centurion?

If you are saying what I think you are saying, then I like your idea of having ship availability tied to specific base types (Talon in Pirate- and Militia-dominated systems and surplus/refurbished warships in Navy-dominated systems etc.). In fact, It'd be cool to take a cue from Star Citizen and have pirates utilize both Talon fighters and larger refurbished gunships used for capturing loot, such that a pirate flight group is not just 3 talons, but 3 talons and a gunship of sorts.

I also think it might make sense to e.g. be able to upgrade a standard Talon to "Super Talon" spec by simply buying better reactor/shields/afterburner/engines/guns etc. But I suppose this enters PU territory and might not be something that you'd like to see?
1: Yep, the ever changing "navi-comp"
2: and the cockpit
3: I was under the impression you wanted things like turret status and other info not currently in MFDs
4: yes again! Once you sell the tarsus in the original you can never find another one despite its "popularity on the used ship market" and the friendly ship dealer that indicates cost is the only barrier to buying a drayman is cost. And where to the hunters buy all those demons?

"gunship of sorts"... Galaxy with plasma cannons on all ports, maxed shields and armor? :twisted:

My only issue with PU is the altered setup. I.E. jumpdrives are "rare and exclusive" and some of the over the top innuendo in the add-on story lines.
I'm just fine with a talon supporting aftermarket parts above stock levels.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

Thanks for the clarifications. :)

Re. 3./, I briefly talked to klauss about turrets, yes. That would be a mighty nice thing to be able to control via an MFD. But there's also the question of having a gunner/targetting AI, so that one will have to be longer term I guess...

Last night, I tried fiddling with the in-game speeds. The default config makes the game purposely lie about its real speed -- it shows 300 'KPS' but in reality, the KPS are m/s and the true speed is scaled by 0.1.

The speed stuff is controlled in vegastrike.config, and the variables you want to look for are these:

Code: Select all

            <var name="game_speed_lying" value="true"/> <!-- privateer -->
            <var name="gun_speed_adjusted_game_speed" value="false"/> <!-- privateer -->
            <var name="gun_speed" value=".1"/> <!-- privateer -->
            <var name="insystem_jump_cost" value="0"/> <!-- privateer -->
            <var name="star_system_scale" value=".285"/>
            <var name="game_speed" value=".1"/>
            <var name="game_accel" value="1"/>
Looking at e.g. P51 Mustangs and Spitfires, they fought at speeds < 450 mph. Now 450 mph * 1609.344 (m /mile) / 60*60 s =~ 200 m/s. How about modern jet fighters then? Well, their optimal combat speed is around 400 - 450 knots, which is (400 | 450) knots * 0.51444... (m/s) / knots =~ 200 to 230 m/s.

For reference, the current fights are happening at 30 - 50 m/s due to the 0.1 game_speed scaling factor. With that in mind, last night I sat down and playtested game_speed and gun_speed values of 0.5 with great results. A Talon can fly 400 KPS, which will be reduced to 0.5 * 400 m/s = 200 m/s in the game engine -- or right where combat happens in modern fighter jets. And boy is it ever much more fun and challenging than lumbering around at a measly 30 m/s in a Tarsus, following 40 m/s Talons. I can't recall if I changed the gun_speed_adjusted_game_speed to true or not, though.

I also haven't yet played with the star_system_scale value, but I suspect that increasing the speeds means that we can reasonably set star_system_scale = 1 (assuming that this will increase as opposed to decrease distances of course)
Last edited by ermo on Wed Aug 07, 2013 6:33 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by TBeholder »

gun_speed_adjusted_game_speed doesn't add anything, it only messes up parameters explicitly set in weaponlist via an overcomplicated formula.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by Deus Siddis »

TBeholder wrote:gun_speed_adjusted_game_speed doesn't add anything, it only messes up parameters explicitly set in weaponlist via an overcomplicated formula.
Also make sure that "game_speed" and "game_accel" are set to 1 in the default "difficulty" preset. Otherwise all the acceleration and speed governor values will be lies.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

Deus Siddis wrote:
TBeholder wrote:gun_speed_adjusted_game_speed doesn't add anything, it only messes up parameters explicitly set in weaponlist via an overcomplicated formula.
Also make sure that "game_speed" and "game_accel" are set to 1 in the default "difficulty" preset. Otherwise all the acceleration and speed governor values will be lies.
Can you elaborate on this? Is it still possible to have 0.5 game_speed for PU or is this a different concern?
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