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.
Who we have
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@FCfromSSC - 2D/3D artist
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@Southkraut, @RenOS, @netstack - Interstellar Warfare Consultants
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Me - developer
Who we need
The more the merrier, you are free to join in any capacity you wish! I can already identify a few distinct tasks for each position that we could split the work into
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developers: “mission” code, “strategic” system map code
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artists: 2D (user interface), 3D (space ships, weapons explosions)
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writers: worldbuilding/lore, quests, characters
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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 if you want to contribute:
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 might be able to help.
What we have
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An official Highspace Github Org and Repository
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An official Highspace Wiki
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Even more concept art for ships, curtesy of @FCfromSSC:
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A proof of concenpt for “strategic” system map we jump into on start of the campaign. It contains a friendly ship and 2 enemy ships, you can chose where to move / which enemy ship to attack.
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A “tactical” RTS-like in-mission view where you can give commands to your ships.
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A somewhat actual-game-like workflow. Attacking a ship launches a mission where the two ships are pitted against each other. If you win, the current health of your ship is saved, and you can launch the second attack. If you clean up the map you are greeted with a “You Win” message, or “You Lose” if you lose your ship.
Updates
This has been quite a productive month! FC exported a few stripped down models to the Freespace native format, and after tinkering with game data, and the resulting files we managed to import them to the game:
- A frigate vs a cruiser
- A frigate having a very bad time against a cruiser
- A frigate with working engines
On the development front we now have:
- Orbital movement of ships. Orbits are automatically calculated based on your distance, and the orbited body's mass.
- Ships can get caught in the orbit of another body
- Real time conventional and subspace movement.
- Collision detection with planets.
On that, I was also experimenting with calculating any collisions with the plotted course, but this might be a bit of dead-end. Currently you set the destination relative to the body you'll end up orbiting, rather than in absolute coordinates, and that makes the usefullness of showing these potential collisions to the user questionable. The code might still be useful for the AI to plot the optimal course so I'll hold on to it for now.
What's next
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Fleet info in the System View
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Splitting / merging fleets
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AI code for System View ships, first for plotting the course, and if time permits for some basic enemy movement as well.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Glad to see progress continuing!
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Nice stuff in those videos! I like what I see.
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Ack! I was not planning on embedding an image - is there a way to remove it?
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