New Mod: Babylon 5 Shadowfall

[Psientist]

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NOTE! This mod has been updated! Be sure to get the most recent version later in this thread, or at
Shadowfall Version 2.0 (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=437278)
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Here is the first release of my Babylon 5: Shadowfall mod. It has a few foibles and quirks, and is only about 50% of what I envision the final version to be, so I'm releasing it as a beta version (2). Whether or not I do any additional work on it depends on the feedback and assistance I get from the WW:R2IS community.

It contains several new weapons and hulls, new races and planets, new quests, and a few other new items.

I hope you enjoy!

[blargue]

I tried to play the mod but it crashes the game (shuts it down) immediately after I select the mod and try to proceed.

Notwithstanding that, I poked around the files and the graphics look awesome! Nice work indeed. That must have been killer to put together. Looking forward to trying it.

[Psientist]

Hmmm. I developed this on a Mac, and haven't had the chance to test it on a PC. When I install it from the ZIP archive, it runs fine on my Mac.

Tell me - can you read the ReadMe.txt and ResourceLinks.txt files, and do they look OK? One of the differences between how Macs and PCs is how text files handle line returns, and it could be the PC version can't read any of the .ini files I've edited or created.

[blargue]

Forget I said anything. My computer is the problem. I can't run WW at all for some reason.

While I'm writing you though - did you make the ship graphics with screen shots or from scratch?

[Psientist]

I made them from a combination of sources. Check out the "ResourceLinks.txt" file in my mod for specific URLs. Mainly, I produced them from large-size ship schematic images from gaming / fan sites and from exporting and re-editing from 3D models that have been produced by fans for other games and programs.

I also used fan sites / schematic data to produce the weapon descriptions and strengths.

There are some FANTASTIC resources out there for people who want to make their own fleet mods.

[blargue]

Finally had a chance to take a look at the mod. Whew, it's nice! You did a really slick job with the combat animations too.

I think the only thing I would change is the strength of the summonnable ship. It's so powerful that any fight except the shadows is way too easy. Man, that's a slick mod though. Nice work!

[Psientist]

Thanks for the feedback!

I agree entirely - the Vorlon Star Dreadnaught is too powerful to summon any old time. It's supposed to be a one-use replacement for the Chromium Gong and Klakar beacon. However, I have yet to figure a way to make it one-use (hence, the "beta" version). I do have a quest activation that *should* steal the Vorlon beacon without warning, but it is unfortunately random.

[Black_Bear]

I just installed the mod. Fantastic Job!! Thank you!

[Psientist]

I've attached a significant update to the Babylon 5 Shadowfall mod (now Beta 3). I've added a few quests with rare trigger requirements, and my playtesting hasn't been able to confirm that they work as intended. So, I would appreciate if anybody would post when they encounter the following:

- catching Dureena
- Lorien
- the Keeper
- Lorien ridding you of a Keeper (and how)
- the Yarg, the On, the Arisia colony
- the "special" tracking computer

New in this version:
- Added "Dureena" quest and item
- Added "Book of G'Quan" item
- Added "Triluminary" item
- Added "Lifegiver" item (thanks, Voltayre, for the idea)
- Added "Lorien" quest and item
- Added "Keeper" quest and item. I'm proud of this one!
- Added "Arisia" quest
- Added "cursed" tracking computer.
- Added "Nashabban Hiddenbeast" (icon is actually one of Godzilla's enemies), "Zarg" and "On" creatures.
- Implemented "vorbeacon" quests to randomly take away the Vorlon beacon once used. It's too powerful to be able to use continually - and I still haven't found a way to instantly remove it after one use.
- Graphics: intro screen, end screen, navigation map, nebula map

[dod488]

I played b2 a few times and loved how difficult it was. I deinstalled b2 before installing b3. When selecting the mod, beta 2 displays. Love the new splash screen. The first time playing b3 as Omega class, my G4 10.4.7 box locked up and had to hard reboot. After the reboot, no problem.

Will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the mod. I'm really enjoying it.

Hal

[Psientist]

Oops! Missed that detail on the title. Should be fixed.

If I could figure why it sometimes crashes, I would fix it and release this as an "alpha" version instead of a "beta". I've tried to track it down (and the map-size bug too) - but there are no debugging utilites in WW:R2IS, and the development team seems MIA, so I've kind of thrown my hat in the ring on those issues.

[ImUrOBGYN]

Can't wait to try the update. I've been enjoying ver 2 for about 3 days now. I loved B5. One of my fav sci fi shows of its type ever. [Right after Farscape. ;-)]

[Psientist]

Full final release due soon - playtesting now.

[dod488]

Really enjoying the mod. Shadow ships are a great challenge but doable.

The biggest shock that I had was using the corvette. I had other ships in my fleet which ended up getting destroyed. I didn't realize that my cargo capacity had grown with the other ships. So that when my fleet was destroyed my cargo capacity went back to "normal" and half my stuff was gone. The conquered enemy offered to sell my cargo back to me. Thought it was a bug ... at first.

Thanks again, hal

[Mobbex]

ImUrOBGYN said:
Can't wait to try the update. I've been enjoying ver 2 for about 3 days now. I loved B5. One of my fav sci fi shows of its type ever. [Right after Farscape. ;-)]



Whoa a Farscape mod would be fantastic... <font color="red"> </font> <font color="black"> </font>

[Psientist]

Well here it is. I have spent way, way, way too much free time I don't have to bring you Version 1 of the Babylon 5: Shadowfall mod. It has new maps, and lots of new items, quests, events, and other details over even the last beta version.

There is still one quirk I couldn't track down; sometimes on startup the map will display a hidden black hole, and the Terran homeworld data is lost and you cannot retire. If you see that happen, quit and restart Wierd Worlds.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with everything. I will appreciate feedback... let me know if you like the mod!

[blargue]

Hmmmm, so far I can't seem to run anything besides the smallest map size without the program crashing. Any suggestions?

[Psientist]

I'm very unhappy to hear that...Can anyone replicate this problem, or confirm that the mod is working for them? It's working fine for me... but again, I'm on a Mac.

[Mobbex]

Man, this is awesome. I'm on a mac too, and its working great.

Honestly, this is the most advanced WW mod I've ever played. Great Job!

[blargue]

I wouldn't even care except that I had the misfortune of playing the betas and seeing how slick they were! You may want to post your mod to the Infinite Space Federation site. I think the Shrapnel guys frequent that place a bit more for some reason. The link is:

http://z7.invisionfree.com/SAIS_Forum/index.php?showforum=11

(as I'm sure you knew anyway)
One way or another, you should post it there anyway so more people can get a taste of all that hard work you put into your mod.

Thanks for all the hard work!

[ImUrOBGYN]

I'm still playing beta 3 and occasinally get the strange black hole quirk. Your nebula masses anger me to no extent as I often find myself trying to cross them without realizing it until it's too late. But, it does finally make one of the items quite a bit more useful (can't remember the name offhand, it's used to outline the edges of the nebulas or whatever), so I say it's a go. :-) Whether on purpose or not. Can't wait to try your 1.0 so I'm off to do so!

[ImUrOBGYN]

Ok, simulator seemed to work, though selecting Babylon 4 is pointless as it seems to be derelict. It does not attack, defend, and you cannot board and take control. Tried the full game (only starting it) and I am able to begin a small and medium map game, but the large map crashes to desktop everytime. This was tested with each ship with low nebula mass and max enemy every time.

[ImUrOBGYN]

After playing the 'medium' map, it seems it's 'large' map size. I haven't tried the 'small' map, dunno if it's the correct size or not.
I did run into a couple other small problem. When entering a black hole and meeting some ancient ones, I received my 'gift'. I had a full cargo hold at the time and had to quit the game due to the fact I could not move anywhere. There was nowhere to put an extra item like you would on a planet and the item I received could not be equipped without displacing another item into cargo. I know your anti gravity item for entering black holes has a warning about using it w/full cargo, but this is more of a needed fix and not a 'game/role playing' type of error. I assumed that having a full cargo and entering a black hole would kill me or something, not do that. (yes, i entered it anyway, lol).
The second problem, unless this was done intentionally, is that I cannot fill the cargo bay on the whitestar. There's two rows for cargo, but you cannot fill the last two spaces.
All in all, a very enjoyable mod and one of the best I've played so far!!!

[Psientist]

Some great feedback! Thanks. Some responses:

1. I can't track the black hole thing down. I assumed it was a quest STAR definition somewhere, but I paid double attention to them this time through with no luck.

2. I tried to make the nebula masses look more like the wispy nebula gases you see in Hubble telescope images, and yes, give some actual value to the nebular extent calculator item. As long as you pay attention to the projected travel times between stars, however, it won't be a problem- but if you jump before you look, it might. That was on purpose... whether it was a good call or not remains to be seen.

3. The White Star is only supposed to have 6 cargo slots. It's not a full size frigate, so I comprimised - the game needed more than four slots but 8 seemed over-generous. It's easy to fix if everyone thinks it is too restrictive.

4. I agree about the black hole item dropping thing. It snagged me in playtesting, that's why I put the warning on the Gravitic Field Inverter and changed the icon so everyone would give it a close look. I tried to add a custom planet to black holes to give you a place to dump items, but black holes are hardcoded it seems to not allow planets! And, if I move the First Ones quests out of black holes, it kind of ruins the whole point. I wanted to give a reason to check out black holes at all, and make it a little hard to find First Ones and the goodies they can give out.

5. Babylon 4 is designed purely as a derelict. It doesn't have maneuvering thrusters or a drive, and isn't intended for play ... so no, I wouldn't imagine it would be much fun in the simulator. I could remove it from the simulator selections I guess.

6. I "upsized" all the maps. The small map is the normal game's "medium"; the "medium" map is the normal game's "large", and the "large" is an "extra large" one for extended play. It shouldn't affect stability... you can always try deleting the "distribution.ini" file in the mod if you want to go back to the default map sizes, but I haven't tested stability on that.

7. It seems that the map sizes, and the mod itself, is not uniformly stable across both the PC and Mac platform. Unfortunately, this doesn't help me debug any.

8. To be honest, I wasn't aware of the Infinite Space Federation site. Thanks for the link!

[ImUrOBGYN]

1. black hole thing isn't that big o deal
2. I like the idea of the nebula masses the way you have them. Frustrating at times, but forces me to pay more attention now
3. Figured that was the reason, but wanted to be sure
4. can be dealt with, it's worth the trouble.
5. I've met up with Babylon 4 before in one of the betas and could not board it without attacking it before which is one of the reasons why I tried using it in simulation. Just to see how it'd hold up against other ships. Also, I could've sworn I saw it using weapons in the title screen auto melee.
6. as big as the med map is, I don't guess I need the large map that badly, but it still crashes it. Any ideas on why?
Again, great work. Looking forward to any future iterations.

[Psientist]

#6 - I have "ideas", but only ideas. The large map does increase the map size and number of stars and quests. However, those never seem to cause problems in my experiments. There is an EVENTs flag in the distribution.ini file which seems more sensitive, and could be the problem.

It could also be the mission.ini file, which seems really sensitive to IPAY settings (the negative starting bonus each mission type is set with).

Experiment: Since I can't recreate any problems on my end, if anybody wants to try a few things might help track down the problem.

1. Delete the distribution.ini file in the mod and see if it works on all map sizes. This would revert to the default. Play game to see if that helps or hurts.

2. Edit the mission.ini file in your mod copy, and set the IPAY numbers to 0 for all three missions. Again, separately, play game to see if that helps or hurts.

And let me know if that makes a difference...

[blargue]

Okay Psi, I think I've solved your large map quandry. The problem, so far as I can tell, is that you have the DIF set to 3 for that map size. When you create a game with 'large' map size and 'more' for enemy strength it generates fleets for which there aren't any discriptions (I'm guessing the DIF modifier for 'more' is +2, therefore creating DIF 5 fleets). So when the game tries to populate the map there aren't any fleets to do it with, hence the crash. If you just adjust the DIF setting for the large maps to 2 instead of 3 it works fine.

The only thing I can't figure out is how it still works on a mac.

[Psientist]

I'd presumed that the DIF setting was for scoring purposes -- since there's no documentation of the distribution.ini file setup -- but it would be great if that was the problem! Does that fix it for anyone else with crashing problems, before I go posting an updated version?

[Black_Bear]

The first time I ran Babylon 5 Shadowfall v1 it crashed, after that I have NOT had a single problem at all. I probably had a memory dump. The playing is fantastic, love the ships, weapons, and the GAL.... enough said!

At my age I almost had a heart attack! Thanks for keeping this 66 year old gamer going!!

A job well done!!

[Black_Bear]

FANTASTIC JOB!

[Psientist]

black bear, thanks, it makes me glad I took the time to make it!

[ImUrOBGYN]

Ran into the "full cargo and full ship so I gotta quit problem" again when finding the technomage and receiving their gift. Technically, no planet so I couldn't dump something off. Guess I'll have to watch going into double binary systems w/full cargo, too. I never really paid attention to not being able to dump in one.
Still loving it and still getting my arse handed to me by Shadows!

[Psientist]

Hmm, I guess I didn't check to see if binaries can't have planets! I thought it might be handy to have the technomages always in binaries.

I've adjusted the technomage quest to generate a planet, so in the next version that won't happen again.

[ImUrOBGYN]

Had another cargo problem. Had 4 'guests' on board and acquired a fifth. Since you can't leave guests on planets, I was forced to restart. Sad thing is, it was the last planet I had to explore. Doh. I think I'll dig into the game and see how easy it'll be to increase cargo loads.
Ok, I've increased the cargo hold of the Whitestar (fav ship) for items, but it doesn't seem to include the cargo hold for dignitaries(guests). Where would I find that?

[Psientist]

Unfortunately, under the "engine limitations" for the game, the game itself only allows four passengers. I assumed that any extra passengers would just get ignored, but I guess I was wrong! I'll have to go through and make sure that the number of potential passengers is limited - which is too bad, it's kind of fun to have all the B5 cast as potential passengers!

BTW - I have just added the Minbari and Drazi races, and a few new quests and items. I'm still taking help from contributors if anybody wants to work on some items or ships.

Has anyone else confirmed the distribution.ini fix helps crashiness on the PC?

[Psientist]

OK, major major upgrade for the next version in the works - hopefully with complete stability (so far so good). Also, new minbari, narn, and drazi races.

If anyone feels up to it, I could really use somebody converting the text in the race files so that the Muktians are the Hyach, and the Urluqai are the Pak'ma'ra. and the Tanru are the Gaim. No graphics editing skills necessary.

[dod488]

Wo! V1 is certainly more challenging than b3. Definitely the coolest mod that I've played. Enjoying it a lot.

Thanks very much, Hal

[ImUrOBGYN]

So, is there a ver. with the Minbari and Drazi races already? Or not yet? I'm confused by the last two posts of yours. Either way, I CANNOT wait!

[Psientist]

sorry. I will be releasing a version 2 - hopefully this week (first week of august 06) - with several new races and quests and items, and hopefully more stability. I'm playtesting for quirks now.

[ImUrOBGYN]

woohoo!

Aw, man. It's only been like two mintues. I have no patience. Hurry up! ;-)

[Psientist]

ANNOUNCING - the Babylon 5 Shadowfall mod - Version 2!!!

OK, here it is. I think I have improved the stability quite a bit, and there are lots of new items, quests and races. Unless there are some quick small fixes to make, this will be the final release of the Shadowfall mod. I don't plan any further debugging at this point. There are a few quirks that still show up - sometimes Z'ha'dum is undefended on the highest difficulty settings, the Sunhawk merc quest hasn't made an appearance in a while, and sometimes an ally ship doesn't "load" correctly. But it should be very playable and complete.

And no, I'm not planning any future mods. This took too much time, and the WW:r2is mod system is too undocumented for me to spend months trial-and-error exploring the mod limits and requirements. If I had it to do over again ... i might have made a Futurama mod instead!

[ImUrOBGYN]

Sweet, I just sat down ready for the boredom (waiting on a game in the mail... didn't come again) hoping against hope you would have ver.2. And here it is. Thanks for making my day.
Just wondering, I transferred the torc of babylon and hyperdrive into your ver.1 mod. Are there any items that take the place of those in this new vers? If so, I don't want to go back and add them again.
I hope to see more mods from you in the future as I've really enjoyed this one and I'm sure anything after this would be as good if not better. Hopefully, you'll find the time again.
Thanks again.

[ImUrOBGYN]

I think I got the ally ship thing. After finding a Centaurian hulk. Couldn't select the Centaur ship no matter what I tried. Crashed when I tried to enter a battle. Back to try again.

[Psientist]

Yeah, that's the ally bug alright. I have been trying to track that down for two weeks. But, the allys play fine for about 4 times out of 5 in my tests... so who the heck knows what it doesn't like? Unfortunately, I have no way of guessing what I can do to fix it or even recreate the problem consistently.

The Torc of babulon is not necessary - it just grants hypervision. Both Mr. Bester and the Neutrino Array give that ability.

The Hyperdrive has been replaced by the Jump Point Generator, which is quest item. If you don't want it quested, you can turn off the "nogen" flag in the item file.

[ImUrOBGYN]

In previous versions, Mr Bester (telepath?) and the Neutrino Array (orange globe?) didn't seem to show cloaked ships in battle. I'll try again later with those items and the torc. In the new version, are the shadows the only cloakers? If you feel it gives anything away, don't worry about it. Im sure I can dig in there and find out.

[Psientist]

The shadows are the only cloakers. I think they both are working now, but you can confirm... if they don't, then it's a bug with the mod language, because they both have the "hypervision" flag set.

[ImUrOBGYN]

I've been trying to confirm while playing but haven't had encountered a Shadow while carrying those two items yet.

I have had it crash to desktop twice now just as I reach a planet. You can hear the sound effect of a planet window start to come up then *crash*. All I found was this:<font color="red">Fatal signal: Segmentation Fault (SDL Parachute Deployed)</font>

I don't mind that but I'm afraid I'm missing out on something. Especially, if it's the same thing every time. I'll never get to see it!! lol Any ideas?

Also, I've yet to repeat the sidekick crash. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[ImUrOBGYN]

Hmm, you know, I don't remember if I've seen a Shadow yet on this new version, but I'm not worried yet.

I've noticed the Narn BattleCruiser never launches fighters. I've fought them, I've had one escort me, and I've tried in 'simulation', but they never launch whether you're targeting something or not.

Sigh... time to go mow.

[Psientist]

I never got the Narn fighter bay to deploy. It's in the "readme".

No clues on the crash. Usually that crash timing signifies a quest "STAR" or planet definition...

[Psientist]

OK, try this. I redid most quests' STAR sections.

[ImUrOBGYN]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot. Sorry about the Narn thing, I must've missed it or didn't remember.

[Captain_Kuroyi]

Hi!

Awesome Mod so far! Seriously the best in my opinion!

Exept: For the debugging. It keeps crashing all the time (as mentioned above, ally bug or sometimes randomly when visiting a planet.. no clue what event would have come and at some other instances too). Anyway, if you manage to get it stable it would be.. hyperawesome! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[ImUrOBGYN]

Have you downloaded his newest installment 3 posts up, yet?

[ImUrOBGYN]

Finally crashed when entering a planet again. Also, I've noticed when encountering a planet with mulitple races fighting, none of them ever ask you to ally with them. They'll all just attack you unless they've already sworn allegiance to you previously. Love the nebula masses. It was a good idea. The blackholes name stays white, though. I wonder if it gets counted towards your exploration score?

Attached are two notepad files that may or may not help you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[ImUrOBGYN]

Couldn't put both files there so here's the other.

[Psientist]

Dang, that did help. Thanks, ImUrOBGYN. I've never gotten one of those files... where do you find it? It will help me resize the fleets.

It looks like I am exceeding the maximum number of ships in the game variable. It is keeping the Shadow, Drakh and a few other homeworld fleets from loading, and explains why latter fleets do not load such as the Sunhawk quest.

Unfortunately, that means I have to make smaller fleets! Which is too bad, because it's FUN to take on a couple hundred Gaim at once...

[ImUrOBGYN]

Yea, fighting the huge fleets are fun, especially when you've built a crazy, powerful ship for ripping through the hordes, full power ahead.
The files are found in C:\Program Files\Shrapnel Games\Weird Worlds by default. Figured they might help after glancing through them. Always glad to help as it helps you to create something bigger and better for the rest of us! ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif That sounded selfish. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

[Psientist]

Hmmm... One of those has never showed up there on my mac. I'll have to just experiment at getting the number of ships down. Since there is a bit of randomness, there will be some guesswork involved - unless I reduce the number of ships per fleet to a maximum of 8 (since the large map has 30 fleets - 8x30=240 plus a few allies / quest fleets).

[ImUrOBGYN]

Maybe it only shows up as a debugger. So basically, you have to have the crash for it to show. If it's not crashing your Mac, then there's no reason for the file to be created. Just a shot in the dark.

[ImUrOBGYN]

Also, I've been meaning to tell you that the beacon for one of the "Firt Ones" never seems to work no matter when I use it. It always tells me I used it but nobody comes. I hit 'Ok', then another window comes up saying I sent the signal and then that's it. I hit 'Ok' and the beacon selection disappears. (If I'm in the battle screen.) It used to work in earlier versions if I remember correctly.

[Psientist]

It's all the same problem. A number of the fleets are not generating. The crash log you sent me showed that I was generating too many ships in the mod, exceeding the engine limitations (256 max ships in the game at any point). The mod would generate all the race fleets until it hit its limit, then just stop. On my Mac, it would play; on the PC, it would sometimes crash (but obviously not always).

Quest-generated fleets / ships would then also not get generated - the Vorlon destroyer (which is what should be summoned), the Drazi sunhawk, and very probably the fighters from the Narn G'Quan cruiser fighter bay.

I have significantly reduced fleet / ship numbers in the mod so that they should be less than 2/3 the maximum limit at most. However, it hasn't seemed to be changing the behavior of the mod, so there might be something else that is causing it to not generate more fleets past a certain point and I don't know what. I can post my latest version, and if you could share any crash logs (if any appear), that might give a clue... but I wouldn't make any bets!

[ImUrOBGYN]

Yea, put it up or send it to my email address. I replied to yours a couple days ago.

[Psientist]

OK, here you go. Send me a few crash logs if you get them. Crossing fingers...

[ImUrOBGYN]

Cool, I'll give it a shot here in a few minutes. If I don't post later tonight, I should be able to by Sunday.

[Captain_Kuroyi]

Hey, in 2.1 I always also crash when a Minbari Ship joins me.

The ship is red and blinking as if damaged and I can't access it to check its equiptement.
If I get into any fight later, it crashes as soon as the battle screen is loaded. Couldn't check it in 2.2 jet.

Cheers

[ImUrOBGYN]

Ok, so far...

No crashes so far! Haven't played the large map yet.

Vorlon Beacon is working.

Narn fighter bay still does not work. They're not very powerful already and without that, they're really weak. Which is sad because I really liked the Narn on the show. Especially the delegate. (Can't remember name offhand but you use his avatar.)

Will it ever be possible to make allies/enemies when entering a multiple race planet/battle screen? Generally, even if I kill every race in the battle, it still doesn't have any bearing on my future relations nor am I ever able to make allies.

BTW, I noticed the little stars move on the map. Took me awhile, lol. I had to go back and check the original version. Didn't think they had 'em. Nice touch. Going back to the original.. hardly remembered what it looked like. Though the nebulas look pretty cool.

I don't know if I'm missing something because it doesn't work or not. I'm going to go back through your 'readme', etc later and see if there's anything you implemented that I've yet to find or come across. Or you could just send me all the quests, etc and make it easier for me.

Attached is my latest stdout file. No crashes, so the other file was not produced.

[Psientist]

In multi-race battles, I think all diplomacy is suspended. I think the game design documentation mentions somewhere that they had planned on implementing "betrayal" and other features into such events, but never got around to it.

Glad to see everything else is pretty stable right now in v2.2.

[ImUrOBGYN]

In previous versions and various other mods, there were times when I would meet two races or more without having established a relationship with them and have been asked to join their side. I've even been asked to join the side of both races one after the other! I'll see if I can find the text in the default folder for this.

Okay... I remember this happening with the Zorg before, for example. Here's text from the file zorg.ini located in C:\Program Files\Shrapnel Games\Weird Worlds\default\gamedata\races. I've also attached the zorg.ini file but in notepad. (Forum won't let me attach an .ini file.)

The first one is if you've already established a friendly relationship with the Zorg the second paragraph is if you haven't attacked or established a friendly relationship with them. Two possible requests for each.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TEXT greetallyfriendly
&lt;color=990&gt;Uninvited guests come to pilfer from the table of wisdom, yet they do not express humility nor do they relinquish arms at the door. We ask your aid that we may teach these curs some manners.&lt;color=999&gt;
&lt;color=990&gt;Although our adversaries' negative waves convey ill intentions, our auguries portend victory. Will you join us in celebration as we confront them?&lt;color=999&gt;
END

TEXT greetallyneutral
&lt;color=990&gt;Uninvited guests come to pilfer from the table of wisdom, yet they do not express humility nor do they relinquish arms at the door. We ask your aid that we may teach these curs some manners.&lt;color=999&gt;
&lt;color=990&gt;Although our adversaries' negative waves convey ill intentions, our auguries portend victory. Will you join us in celebration as we confront them?&lt;color=999&gt;
END

[LSTAR]

Heh. Love the mod. It's great fun and better than the full game I'd say. But, I'm afraid to add that I've had ally-able aliens for some time (I probably sohuld have mentioned it...).

[ImUrOBGYN]

Hate to be the harbinger, but here's the files after the crash. The usual, on my way to a planet and just as I arrived, it crashed to desktop.

[ImUrOBGYN]

...and the second file.

[ImUrOBGYN]

While digging through your mod, I noticed under the 'gamedata/items' folder, you only have fb_gorith.ini for fighter bays. Would this affect the non-working narn fighter bays?

[Psientist]

not really. "Gorith" is the name of the narn fighter hull! Thanks for looking though.

On the crashlogs, it shows that the game is still generating too many fleets, even though the fleets-per-race and distribution.ini FLEETS settings should limit it well below the engine limitations. Sigh.

[ImUrOBGYN]

Would it have anything to do with map size? When started playing this game, one of the first things I messed with was the map size. When I increased it too much, the game would crash. I don't know if there are map size limitations or by creating such a large map, I had in turn caused the game to produce too many fleets. Another shot in the dark... I'm going to try that other file you sent in a few mintues.

[Psientist]

There are indeed map size limitations, but this shouldn't be coming close to them. And, if that was the case, the "small" and "medium" maps should behave much differently than the "large" maps, since they are the same as the unmodified "medium" and "large" map settings of the default game.

I've got no more solutions, sorry.

[Jamiri]

Great mod! Really enjoyed it so far. Had the Vorlon Destroyer once. Won all battles then ;-). The other day, however, the Vorlon did not show up at all even though I had the beacon. Bug?

Please, make all the other ship conversions as well (Gaim and others). I'd also remove all the original WW items as they distract from the B5 mood a bit.

Another thing: sometimes I reach a planet and the music for meeting an ally plays, but no ally at all shows up, neither anything else is found on the planet. Is that intended?

Keep up the excellent work! Waiting for the next updated version. By the way: is 2.2 the most recent one?

Jamiri

[ScreamerSimon]

Hi Psientist,
first of all my respect for this fantastic mod, even if it still has some glitches. It was also trying to track the problems with fighterbay and some others you mentioned, but without success so far. But in order to keep this most promising mod alive I will submit my "stderr" and "stdout" from my recent crash to desktop, on the big map with the terran battleship.

Hope someone more into coding can make anything out of this.

Regards from Germany,

Simon

EDIT: I just noticed from the post above me that 2.2 is available, the crashlogs I have submitted were from 2.1. Sorry.

[ImUrOBGYN]

I think he's left this one 'as-is'. I could be wrong.

[chabex]

Greetings, Is there any trail to follow in order to meet the Shadows? I am playing for a long time but have never met them (only the Drakh)

[Fingers]

It appears the fighter bay problem is caused by a simple error of not naming the race correctly in the fighter bay file (fb_gorith.ini). It refers to "Narn" rather than "Narn Regime" which is the name of the race. Correcting that should make it work.

[ScreamerSimon]

Whoa, it finally works!!! Fingers, you are truly the man that makes things work! Huge thanks for your help with that problem.
Only one word missing that made so many people desparate.
I hope Psientist wouldn't mind if I upload the revised file " fb_gorith.ini". Copy it into "\...\Weird Worlds\B5_Shadowfall\gamedata\items" and replace the old file.

[Jamiri]

Cool, will try that change in ini tonight. Hopefully, now Psientist picks this one up, too, and comes back to finishing this mod!

[Jamiri]

Added comment: Looking at the quest.ini file I see lots of events that I have never come across in my many games of Shadowfall. Am I the only one thinking that most of the quests are broken?

[Dylan]

In the large map setting, the Vorlon, Shadows and the planet killer don't show up, even if the quests come up. I think it's been suggested that it may be a limitation on the number of ships.

[Jamiri]

Aha, so if I played the medium or small maps, all the events would work?

The Narn have become much tougher enemies now, at least if fighting a couple of their carrier ships.

[PaddirN]

This is probably one of the best mod for WW or SAIS I've seen, but there were a couple of things that bothered me about it so I went in and started fiddling around some:

* Neroon wasn't showing up as an ally, turns out you need to add a line to the top "FLAG ally", and prolly change the ALLY # in distribution.ini. Also didn't know how else to get friendly with the centauri, so having the Primus now makes them friendly towards you.

* For some reason the drazi merc doesn't work. I even checked that quest file versus the garthan merc in the original and I still don't see why not. I added a pak'ma'ra ranger ally and had no trouble with that one showing up. very strange b/c i remember the drazi working in an older version.

* Didn't like the way mr. morden just drops off a drakh cannon and then everyone else hates you. Instead he now asks the chilling line, "What do you want?" and acts more like a timeless bauble instead, only i upped the penalty. Seems like a better trade off now.

* Brought some unused ships over from the original WW and added ships for drazi and made a new race, the raiders, even included primordius fortress (now a raider mothership) as a mission, but have yet to see it show up so I don't know if it even worked.

* I'm wanting to add in the rivalry between the narn and the centauri by having their ally ships make you enemies of each other race. So if you get the narn ship the centauri will attack and vice versa. Good idea?


Well, I prolly completely overstepped my bounds by making all those changes, please forgive me psientist, if anything, take them as suggestions.

[Jamiri]

I like the changes you made (as from reading), PaddirN. Why don't you make your version available as a download here?

Psientist seems to have abandoned this project (he even does not comment on it in this forum any longer), so why don't we just optimize the mod a little bit for him. I think the mod could be much more complete, if it was an open project to which everyone could contribute.

BTW: do you know how to get friendly with the Brakiri or other neutral races? Because I don't (except the Drazi).

[PaddirN]

Aight, I might throw it up on here, but I'll check with Psientist first. I just feel like I'd be stepping on somebody else's toes if I released an updated version of their mod. Also with the release of v1.2 I'll need to update the files in the gamedata folder.

Other changes made and/ or planned:

* Starfuries! Already got it in, just trying to tweak the gameplay. In my first simulator runs they were getting creamed by raiders and something about that just didn't seem right.

* Might take a stab at adding jumpgates in game, although in a rather cheap way. Psientist tried before but I think he abandoned the idea.

* A couple of ideas I've got floating around that will hopefully take advantage of v1.2 features.

[Jamiri]

PaddirN said:
Aight, I might throw it up on here, but I'll check with Psientist first.



Hopefully, he'll answer at all. Haven't seen him on this forum for a long time.


PaddirN said:
Other changes made and/ or planned:

* Starfuries! Already got it in, just trying to tweak the gameplay. In my first simulator runs they were getting creamed by raiders and something about that just didn't seem right.

* Might take a stab at adding jumpgates in game, although in a rather cheap way. Psientist tried before but I think he abandoned the idea.

* A couple of ideas I've got floating around that will hopefully take advantage of v1.2 features.



Cool, Starfuries! I was really missing them. So, will they be a fighter add-on to the player ship (launch bay)?

The jumpgates are already in the game (as an event) although they don't seem to work.

Keep going, PaddirN, so we might see a complete mod eventually! If you need help for playtesting, I'll do it.

Jamiri

N.B.: Just found out about the 1.2 upgrade of WW. Cool thing!

[PaddirN]

yea, the starfuries aren't much to jump and shout about, but they're prolly the most recognizable ship from the series, it seems a crime to not include them. For now it seems the best place to put them is in a fighter bay in an upgraded Omega class ship. I'm toying with the idea of including the EA as an encounterable race and including the Earth conflict in this.

From what I could gather, Psientist was trying to use an aethric mirror effect for the jumpgates. I tried messing around with it myself, but nothing worked and I can see why he dropped it. I've got something a little different planned that might even add a new element to the game. Or it might just be plain stupid.

[Jamiri]

Sounds good to me having the Starfuries as a fighter bay add-on. However, don't you think it would make the Omega a little bit too powerful right from the start? Maybe you could make the fighter bay only available from Babylon 5 (i.e. the Glory system) or any other race (maybe from EA Earth??) once you fulfill a mission or two. That would be really cool!

Looking forward to the jumpgates!

[PaddirN]

Aight, well tried contacting Psientist and haven't recieved a response yet and it looks as though he hasn't even posted on this forum in about 4 months the last time I checked. I'm gonna go ahead and start up a new thread and try and post a newer updated version of the B5 mod.

As for the starfuries in fighter bays, I'm not planning on making them available to players, but you should be able to see them in game &gt;hint hint nudge nudge&lt;

Also, I'm planning a name change in this newer version (for a number of reasons I'll get into when I post), credit still goes out to Psientist, wherever he is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Jamiri]

I think Psientist wouldn't mind to meddle with his (abandoned) mod, as long as you give him the credits he merits!

And while you are at it "modding the mod": can you change the Minbari ally into a Tinashi Light Frigate? I always found the Nial Fighter such a poor addition to my fleet. Well, actually any lone fighter ally is useless, imo.

[ImUrOBGYN]

I haven't heard from Psientist myself nor have I been on in a long time, either. I see PaddirN has created an update to the Babylon mod that I've yet to check out but will in a moment.
For this mod, one of the problems was the Narn ship being unable to launch fighters. In your b5shadowfall_v22 mod folder, open fb_gorith.ini and replace line "STR0 Narn" with "STR0 Narn Regime" without the quotes, of course. This will allow the fighter bays to work. I have not tested any other fighter bays, yet. Thanks to Fingers for pointing out the simple name error that we missed before. I find it's usually something silly like that people miss.

[Psientist]

Hey everybody.

My apologies for my absenteeism. I have been *very* busy with work, and the forum activity really dropped off for a while, and after investing so much time in the B5 mod I just got burned out for a while.

I'm overjoyed you guys got the Narn fighter bay to work! I haven't played it in the working mod version yet, I was concerned about it making narns too strong. They are supposed to be, militarily, probably the weakest of the major babylon races.

As to stepping on my toes... Let me be official. I am releasing my work on the babylon 5 project to the gaming community under the GNU license where appropriate ... basically, everybody can do what they want with it so long as it's not for commercial profit, they give acknowledgement where credit is due (not just to me), and they make clear indication about changes from the original (starting a new Mod title/thread, or collectively managing a common updated mod).

I really don't have the time to continue development on this mod, so everybody else's efforts are welcome.

I did try to maintain a very high level of quality in this mod, so I would request that either a few of you work together to maintain standards, and that the moderators keep a copy available of the original b5 shadowfall mod v2.2 I designed out there.

As to the other questions - I'll try to rummage through my memory to respond -


Jumpgates don't work. They were wishful thinking, I couldn't make them work. I would have preferred a couple of jumpgates and no hyperdrive or black hole surfing to change the game's strategy significantly.





I wanted starfuries too! never got around to them...

I did not include special diplomatic conditions for all the races (e.g., brakiri, gaim, etc.). You might not be able to "get friendly" with all races.



In the large map setting, the Vorlon, Shadows and the planet killer don't show up, even if the quests come up. I think it's been suggested that it may be a limitation on the number of ships.



Map size shouldn't affect this. Those are set as random quests, and I think I flagged them so only one of the major quests would show in any given game (like the planetkiller).


Vorlon did not show up at all even though I had the beacon. Bug?



The vorlon ship will not show if it has been destroyed, or cannot reach you for some reason.


Please, make all the other ship conversions as well (Gaim and others). I'd also remove all the original WW items as they distract from the B5 mood a bit.



I agree... but it's so time consuming to make proper, high-quality custom fleets and fleet graphics ...


first of all my respect for this fantastic mod, even if it still has some glitches.



ah, thanks, glad to know it's appreciated.


* Didn't like the way mr. morden just drops off a drakh cannon and then everyone else hates you. Instead he now asks the chilling line, "What do you want?" and acts more like a timeless bauble instead, only i upped the penalty. Seems like a better trade off now.



Well, in 2.2 you should have the option of turning down help from Morden. but if you accept, then you unfortunately have signed on with the Drakh, and they make you behave hostile to other races... that was my "deal with the devil" idea. Don't change it too much, because there are about 3 other quests that check on how you responded to Morden.


* Brought some unused ships over from the original WW and added ships for drazi and made a new race, the raiders, even included primordius fortress (now a raider mothership) as a mission, but have yet to see it show up so I don't know if it even worked.



I tried to leave as few original WW ships in the game as possible, using babylon-universe ships only. Time limited creation of all new fleet graphics.


I'm wanting to add in the rivalry between the narn and the centauri by having their ally ships make you enemies of each other race. So if you get the narn ship the centauri will attack and vice versa. Good idea?



good idea, there are a few events in there to make that happen. Defeat Centauri Prime, and then go exploring, for example.


sometimes I reach a planet and the music for meeting an ally plays, but no ally at all shows up, neither anything else is found on the planet. Is that intended?



well, I reused music files alot. I never made any original music for the mod, which was needed, and maybe I made some wrong music choices for events/planets... sorry?

Apologize for the late and long reply, and good luck to any future work you folks undertake on it!

[ImUrOBGYN]

Thanks for dropping in. It's too bad you don't have enough time for this any longer. I stopped checking in and playing for awhile, too. You did such an awesome job and the quality is great. Maybe one day you'll get a chance and an urge to start up again.
Any other games you've got into the mod community with?

[Psientist]

I'm starting on Dominions 3 (also by IllWinter / Shrapnel). Much of the modding is similar, some differences. I may find more motivation for modding Doms3 because of the ability to have play-by-email games with friends, and it seems to support "small" mods much more easily (you can play multiple mods at once).

However, there appears to be a lot of undocumented limitations / parameters for modding Doms3 too, so we'll see!