Aaand we're back... yet again!
The goal of this thread is to coordinate development on our project codenamed HighSpace - a mod for Freespace 2 that will be a mashup between it and High Fleet. A description of how the mechanics of the two games could be combined is available in the first thread.
General Status of the Project
Between just being busy with life, and my general predisposition of jumping into a project and not really finishing it, I can't really promise that this time around will see more consistent updates than the last time. The good news is that if you kind of thought this project is cool, but you're afraid of joining and flaking out - don't worry about it. As you can see I'm no better, and the half the reason for this project is to have a community activity for TheMotte's tinkerers and artists.
The biggest update is a change in the approach to writing / art direction. Originally I was hoping we'll get enough people to hop in, divide jobs according to our strengths, and manage the project by some dialogue / mindmeld / flat-hierarchy mechanism. Writing specifically not being one of my strengths, I figured I'd leave everything vague, so someone better can have more freedom. That didn't pan out, so it became obvious that I'll need to take charge here, but the other problem was - I really didn't know where I want to go with the story, or even more broadly with world-building. Then, the other day, when I was stuck on a flight with nothing better to do but to daydream, I was hit with a sudden bout of inspiration. Ever since I had that thought about all my favorite space operas boiling down to Americans talking about their place in the world, I thought someone should make a non-Western Star Trek. I even had some vague ideas for a Gulliver-Travelsesque "fly around the universe bumping into various civilizations that satirize current-era humanity" story, but I never put pen to paper, and it's not really the kind of thing that works well with a space shooter, so it was of no use here. I don't even remember how I made the connection, but somehow I thought about Attack On Titan, and how well they pulled off the feeling existential threat, and I figured that that's the missing piece - some good old fashioned existential horror wreaking havoc, and a scrappy pack survivors trying to make it through.
So here's the setting: Sometime in the far far future - no one even knows when anymore - humanity conquered the stars and colonized the galaxy. All was well until the aforementioned horrors showed up. No one knows what they are, and what their greater goals are - not least because nearly all historical records were lost to the apocalypse they brought - but they do seem to seek out sentient life and "consume" it, assuming it's shape and behaviors in the process, but never getting it quite right, leading an uncanny appearance, as if to mock their victims with their existence. The once-glorious empire of humanity was annihilated, all that remains are nomad fleets and deeply hidden colonies. Several generations passed since this apocalypse, and the survivors got quite good at surviving, either by deploying superior tactics, or by becoming expert at hiding. Their current situation is stable, but they must maintain iron discipline at all times, and any slip will likely result in tragedy.
...and then it struck me that a post-apocalyptic Eastern European (that's where I'm from, so that's what you're getting) Star Trek with incomprehensible horrors looming at every turn is, yet again, a mashup between Freespace and High Fleet. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.
Updates
Not much to show off yet, but the whole Demo Scenario is getting revamped to reflect the changes in the setting. The current idea is as follows:
Someone did make a slip. A logistics taskforce flew right into the hornets' nest, and are now being pursued by the Incomprehensible Horrors. Captain Playername receives their distress call, and as the nearest ship, rushes in to help. Reinforcements are on the way, but will need time to assemble. The logistics guys can't jump to another system due to [McGuffin, or some clever Subspace jump mechanic I'm yet to come up with], so they opted to scatter throughout the system in an attempt to buy time and minimize casualties.
The player is in command of a mid-size carrier, and has to rescue as many friendlies as he can find, before the IH's get to them. Each successful rescue gives the player a new ship at their command (in case it's one of the escorts), and/or resources like bombs/specialized ammo (when it's one of the transports), but generates more aggro (which itself has trade-offs - more aggro on you means less on the relatively defenseless friendlies). All this culminates in an assault on the IH super-capital ship, that is the source of all this trouble. This will resemble an arcadey boss-fight, where fighters will need to take apart some critical components of the enemy ship, so the friendly capital ships can approach it safely and finish it.
I think a scenario like this will be more manageable. The previous one (where the player would have to hunt down pirates raiding freighters coming to/from a mining colony) would require a pretty complex AI, while here I'm planning to go with a pretty basic "chase the thing with the highest aggro" approach for the enemy.
Actual changes since last version
I started writing the map generator. Currently rescuable ships are spawned randomly throughout the system, and I'm now working on having the enemy spawn in their pursuit (far enough away from the friendlies to no immediately detect them, close enough that they'll get picked up by patrols sooner or later). I fixed a few bugs, but apparently introduced a whole bunch of new ones (random crash to desktop with a mysterious message, for example).
Now Hiring:
Slapper-in-chief
Do you have a sadistic streak? Did I get on your nerves while posting here, and now you really, really want to slap me? This is your opportunity!
If you're not up for joining in a creative capacity, one thing that I think would help me greatly, is someone to smack me if I start slacking around. The feedback I got from @netstack helped me a lot before, so like that guy that hired someone to slap him every time he opened Facebook, I figure that regular interactions where I report on what I did, what I'm planning to do, get screamed at for not meeting my deadlines, and get some feedback on what I accomplished would help me to stay focused.
The usual
Other than that I'll still need help from other creatives, including:
- developers: “mission” code, “strategic” system map code
- artists: 2D (user interface), 3D (space ships, weapons explosions) (@FCFromSSC, still interested / do you have more time nowadays?)
- writers: worldbuilding / lore, quests, characters
- testers: the way the any program works always makes sense to the developer, so feedback from people who aren't me is always appreciated. This is a pretty easy way to get involved, though it does require an initial investment of buying Freespace2, at least until we manage to turn it into a proper total conversion, and use only our content.
A small note for potential contributors:
Don't be afraid to ask questions however small, or silly you might find them. This is literally one of the primary functions this thread has. The Hard Light documentation is... there... but it's not great, and between that, the peculiarities of LUA, the FS2 scripting API, RocketLib, and other parts of FS2 modding, it really might not be obvious how to resolve issues you run into. I might not be able to answer all questions, but I've dabbled in all these things, so there's good chances I'll be able to help.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I can dig it. Sorta like an 18-wheeler being run in a stable corporate environment, versus the same truck being lived out of long-term by the driver and his family... Pure transport, versus transport/utility/shipyard/mining base/fuel depot. So less clean containerization, more signs of repurposing and jury-rigging for short-term needs?
BTW: What software are you using to make your models? I noticed that all the files are called
*_EXPORT.dae, which made me wonder about what native format you're using. Right now I'm using Blender to import / export them into Freespace, and so far it feels insanely unintuitive to me. Was wondering if there's an easier way to handle it.I use a program called Silo for the base modelling, but I save them as .objs, import to blender to handle normals and UV-mapping, and export from there for freespace. I think I was adding _EXPORT as a tag to mark which models were which in my archive.
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Yes, exactly! This might be generally a good vibe to go with for the non-combatant ships, but we probably won't need more of them until the demo first scenario is finished.
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