Babylon 5 Total Conversion for Freelancer

Foxer · Post by **Foxer** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 2:42 pm

Hi guys, im new to here and Norlion sent me here to get some help....we are in a bit of trouble and would need scripters.....I am just asking for help, but if you want I can help you back for your help.......lets just say I can help in 2d/3d and in programming

We need help

and making a MOD with only 2 active modders isnt quite fluent
Anyways Thankyou for listening even if you dont help

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:34 pm

Why don't you guys help ethereal walker out with this mod instead, that way pooling resources and hopefully being able to make the mod more quickly.

Reasons why you'd be better off doing a VS mod rather than a Freelancer one:

VS is Free Software, GPL - you don't need to buy a game in order to play the mod
Because VS is GPL, if there are problems with VS you can modify the source!
You've no idea just how many awesome models ethereal has waltzed through. The guy is a modelling machine.

Also worth noting, it's pretty bad karma to advertise "help needed" in other game's forums. But it could all be good, esp. if you help out ethereal with this B5 mod!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:38 pm

I'm very interested but feel a little uncertain about my ability to help. I have some C programming experience plus a bit of experience with various UNIX scripting languages but the bulk of my programming comes from the days of FORTRAN.

Let me know what you have, I'll let you know whether I think I can do it or not.

Be seeing you,

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 10:06 pm

Hum, while browsing the modding areas on the web, I saw that my mod has the first things other modders have problems to find: The graphic stuffs. It's common in open source community, there is many nice progs deserved by awfull artworks. As CharlieG noticied, I'm a modelling machine

and yes, I have more material on my hard drive than on this forum. And no, I will not send my meshes before releasing my first beta/alpha. I made ALL the artworks, and you should imagine that's it's a long work, I'm on it for more than 1 year now. Funny, that's the opposite problem of many gpl projects

artist OK programmer missing

. I really don't want to release something without AI or stuffs like that, I don't want to output a simple graphical modification of VS. I worked as a mad man on this stuff, and I don't want to see my work deserved by total lack of scripting/AI stuffs. So help me, and I will help you. But before helping you, I must finish my mod.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:02 pm

ethereal: you could always make your meshes available under a more restrictive license for now. (i.e. Not for redistribution other than in the VS B5 mod.) That way it might be easier for you to attract people to contribute to the scripting side of the mod as they'll have access to the models, whilst you can keep concentrating on the modelling. Also, more screenshots on the VS B5 mod page might be encouraging.

JungleJim · Post by **JungleJim** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:45 pm

EtherealWalker,

I'd love to help you in any way that I can. I don't have any experience in modeling, Python, etc. but I have a fairly strong computer background.

What do you need help on?

What skills will I need to assist in those areas?

Be seeing you,

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 2:08 pm

@charlieg
You might be true, I should update the web page, and make a "teasing screenshots" thread. Only pb for now is that I have problems with cockpit exporter, but all the other things work well
@JungleJim
Basically I'm in need pof a python programmer, or someone able to do some changes to current pyhton stuffs in vegastrike. I honestly don't know how hard is it. In the long run I want some missions guided by a storyline. But at first I only want to extend some behaviours of current VS things. As example, I want that the player cannot drive some ships. I don't see the point for an EA soldier to pilot a shadow scout or the Torvalus Dark Knife. Second, I don't want to buy ships, but instead having some ships you can own according to your popularity with their creators. I don't know how hard is it, of sure

Foxer · Post by **Foxer** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 3:03 pm

Why don't you guys help ethereal walker out with this mod instead

Ahem I said im willing to help you out if you need anything......its meant to be "you help a bit us and we help you even more" sort of thing

it's pretty bad karma to advertise "help needed" in other game's forums.

But it was our last best hope

I'm very interested but feel a little uncertain about my ability to help. I have some C programming experience plus a bit of experience with various UNIX scripting languages but the bulk of my programming comes from the days of FORTRAN.

G.O.D. bless you mail me at Foxer_F1@hotmail.com we dont care how much you can do you will learn it fast anyway and if you dont have FL then dont worry we are willing to give you a working full version (ofcourse not install only copyed files)

Hum, while browsing the modding areas on the web, I saw that my mod has the first things other modders have problems to find: The graphic stuffs. It's common in open source community, there is many nice progs deserved by awfull artworks. As CharlieG noticied, I'm a modelling machine

I understand that and I am willing to help you with modelling.....only if you give me a 3ds importer for Lightwave 7.0, then we will both be modelling Maschines

Anyways if someone wants to give us a helping scripter hand then mail here: Foxer_F1@hotmail.com

And etheral walker mail me too I will help you with something

JungleJim · Post by **JungleJim** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 5:41 pm

Ethereal,

How about if we start working on some mission layouts based either directly upon the action in the show or upon the action inferred by the events in the show? Python experience is essential for scripting in the Vs, but the the Python programmer will need to know which ships & action (s)he needs to program, n'est ce pas?

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 11:59 pm

that's the problem, we are both modelers, an both we need programmers... do you think it is usefull if both games have the same history?For me I want to follow the main plot but I will had some things from part to part. I had already made most of my story and missions, I just need to code them, now

Post by **hellcatv** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 1:38 am

BTW have you folks figured out the new campaign system in VS...
currently the Privateer mod uses the campaign system to tell the story in Privateer--it's very flexible and open ended

http://priv.solsector.net/ you can check in the modules/campaigns.py file for more details campaign_lib.py has the implementation of this

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 1:03 pm

I never noticed it before, but it seems really nice and well documented... I'm currently trying to understand it

Post by **hellcatv** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:35 pm

If you consider that well documented I'd like to see what a poorly documented feature is

I think it may be reasonable and somewhat clean--but well documented is not one of its strengths

of course if you need any help coming up with documentation about campaigns let me know-- basically you make a tree (or digraph--or even graph ) of missions that connect to each other and give a user missions of varying types (cargo mission, exploration mission, etc) and as a user passes one mission he may proceed to the next...
it deals with the nitty gritty of making sure the mission was done right, making sure the cargo was loaded/unloaded--the bounty mission was passed---it makes sure the user can quit, reload, and talk to the dude to get the mission again--all that

JungleJim · Post by **JungleJim** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 7:18 pm

Ethereal,

Using what Hellcatv said, I had planned to give a short description of several missions based upon a variety of mission types. Such as "scouting, VIP transport (why am I only transporting 1 guy?!), critical cargo transport (hand weapons/ship components), diplomatic (come see Aliens on Parade!), small combat (1 to a few against similiar), large combat (large groups against large groups), key objective under combat conditions (scan/retrieve/transport while ships around you fight).

Anyway you get the idea. Once several of these are worked out we can tie them into the story line with background, specific objectives, ship names, etc. Then link them together using the model described by Hellcatv.

All-in-all I think this would allow a fairly open ended way to allow participants to add new missions to the mod, AS LONG AS, due diligence is made to keep them sync'ed with each other.

Does anyone have a guide to learning Python or some sample problems & code that they'd recommend?

Post by **dandandaman** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:30 am

JungleJim wrote:Does anyone have a guide to learning Python or some sample problems & code that they'd recommend?

I don't have the one I used on me atm, but you could always try the official ones:

http://www.python.org/doc/Intros.html

Otherwise if you want I can find the pdf I used on one of my backup cds

I didn't have any programming experience and was able to start doing some VS stuff within 2 weeks ... with a lot of hand holding by Daniel of course

Dan.a

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 5:00 pm

Some scripts to generate random traffic in universe should be nice too... I will sent you more stuffs, JungleJim

JungleJim · Post by **JungleJim** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:24 pm

Dandandaman,

Thanks for the pointer. I'll check it out.

EtherealWalker,

You can email me at jim.batka@ugs.com

Be seeing you,