View Full Version : Multiverse Mod
Campeador
December 10th, 2007, 07:50 AM
December 09, 2007
What is Space Empires: Star Fury?
--- Star Fury is a hybrid game; it is like an RPG / shooter in space. You start basically with a small space ship, as you do missions (trade, bounty hunt, etc.) you get credits to buy better ships, and as you do this a story also develops. You get experience, and the items on your ship also improve as the game progress (that is the RPG part). The combat part is excellent and in total 3d, and you only need to use the mouse to maneuver the ship, really easy.
What is Multiverse Mod?
--- Multiverse is a Mod created for the Space Empires: Star Fury game. The Multiverse Mods will be composing of at least six parts or campaigns.
What is Multiverse?
--- Multiverse is, as the name implies, a conglomeration of various universes, and in this first mod it is about the Star Blazers Universe and some of the races that composed the Star fury original game. In the second Multiverse Mod the player will discover new universes.
What is “Multiverse_1-Enemy_From_Beyond” about?
--- That is for you to find out but I can safely say that it is Star Blazers meets Star fury!
Is there any background to this mod?
--- Even thought the mod is independent from the previous “Star Blazers mod: The Quest for Iscandar (campaign 1 & 2)”, it would be helpful if the player try that mod first since the game play is very similar and that story serves as background for the Multiverse Mod.
Star Blazers: The Quest or Iscandar” Mod follows the original TV show series created by the master story teller and mechanical designer Leiji Matsumoto. Multiverse on the other hand was just put together by me with a little story to serves as glue for all the universes that the player will discover. My ability as a story teller is poor (this is my first try), but at least the action should keep the player entertain.
What is Star Blazers?
--- If you have never heard of Star Blazers it was a cartoon TV show, (japanimation) and the story is straightforward but with all the elements of a (space) soap opera. It came about 2 years before Star Wars. The story goes like this:
“In the year 2199, Earth was under severe attack from a mysterious planet Gamilon. Gamilon planet bombs covered the Earth with radioactive pollution, and as a result, in one-year time, Earth will be unlivable… But on the planet Iscandar there is a machine that can remove the radioactivity. A team of star blazers called the “Star Force” undertakes the perilous journey, but can the Star Force travels 148,000 light years and back in just one Earth year?”
What will be next?
- Multiverse_2-The_Fourth_Dimension (99% completed)
- Multiverse_3-(cannot reveal the title at this point) 95% completed
- Multiverse_4-(cannot reveal the title at this point) 95% completed
- Multiverse_5-(cannot reveal the title at this point) 75% completed
Multiverse_1-Enemy_From_Beyond – Mod is composed of two major files:
1. Multiverse_1-Enemy_From_Beyond
a. Data folder
b. Images folder
c. Xfiles folder
(It also contains many '.txt' files)
2. Multiverse_Music-1
a. Music
b. Sounds
Installation:
1. Open the Star Fury original game folder where you installed the original game on your hard drive. There you will find a folder called "Campaigns". With the mouse drag (copy) the “Multiverse_1-Enemy_From_Beyond” and placed inside this "Campaigns" folder.
2. For the folder named “Multiverse_Music-1" you are going to find:
a. Music
b. Sounds
You are going to take the content of the Music folders (8 songs) and insert them inside the music folder of the original game, and the contents of the Sounds folder inside the Sounds folder of the original game.
NOTE: Multiverse-1 will only need the Multiverse_Music-1, wile Multiverse 2 and 3 will also require “Multiverse_Music-2”, all in due time.
General game play advice:
Read the manual, especially the part about the keyboard shortcuts, like if the game looks too dark you can use "L" to make it bright and "K" to darken it. "+" and "-" for game speed, etc. Have the game patch to 1.17.
REMEMBER: save the game often!!!
rstaats10
December 10th, 2007, 01:09 PM
I have got this mod downloaded and and looking forward to playing it. Your last starblazers mod(s) were absolutely awesome. I will post later if I have a question or let you know what I think about multiverse. Thanks for making the mod.
Q
December 10th, 2007, 02:29 PM
Nice to hear again from you Campeador and thank you for this new campaign.
One small problem I encountered so far: the Pluto starbase is invisible. The Minerva starbase however is shown as expected.
Campeador
December 11th, 2007, 02:43 AM
The invisible base or ship also happens on the original Star Fury game from time to time. The fix is to save the game and reload until the invisible ship or base is visible.
Note: In addition to the music that I have provided, the game also uses some of the music of the original SF game. I have noticed two variants of the same music score that merit some attention. For example in some instances the music appears like this:
Starfury-Track 01.mp3
Or
Space Empires-Starfury-Track 01.mp3
Multiverse uses the shorter version. If for any reason you have the long version you will not be able to hear some of the music. The fix is simply to copy the original 21 tracks and edit the name by removing the “Space Empires-” part, and put back on the original music folder.
Q
December 11th, 2007, 06:31 AM
Yes I think the invisible ship problem is an old bug in Starfury itself and not in your campaign.
The second mission (scanning the enemy base in the Vallon systems) seems quite difficult if not impossible due to the large numbers of enemies there including fighter that you cannot outrun! Did you succeed this missions without cheats?
Campeador
December 12th, 2007, 12:47 AM
All the missions in the game are beatable without cheats. All I am telling is that the armor and engines of the enemy is better than yours, but there is plenty floating around to salvage from the first mission. Remember Captain Hardass Lesson one.
rstaats10
December 12th, 2007, 03:20 AM
I completed the second mission! Hooray! It was hard to do and I didn't use any cheats. It was harder coming back from the main mission. ha. I was killed about 10 times before I finally could figure out a way through. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I must say this is challenging but I do like it. The story is really cool too.
One problem I encountered during the 3rd mission was a screen lockup twice. One time was when I was attacking the enemy "big ship" not to give away the name to others playing. The other I am not sure which ship was involved. It's really hard to tell what ship when there are so many that could be involved. Would have to check all the ships from mission 3 to be sure. This error detail was a hungapp error and I am about 99.9% sure I can fix this. The cause of this error is component placement on a ship at the far edges at the top bottom or sides. Easy fix is to move the component in slightly on the x or y coordinates away from the far edge. Overlapping of slots is ok. Trust me I figured this out after hours of frustation during the making of my mod (btw which is over 50% done right now). The large ships are most likely to have this problem with the componets at the edges. To fix just create a folder and place the ship's Main_ComponentConfigurationEnemy into this folder then import the ships Main_ComponentConfigurationSlotsEnemy into SJ's Slot modder with the ships image loaded into the slot modder and move the culprit slots inward away from the edge. Then export to the folder then C&P the "Slots" to the ingame file remembering to remove the old "Slots" entry. Or you can just manually do this in the file. I will look into this tonight or tomorrow and fix the ships involved. Also just to let you know this error will not always present only when the culprit slots are damaged or possibly destroyed.
Overall though so far, I really like this mod and it is really cool. Great job. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Campeador
December 12th, 2007, 07:23 PM
Good advice, rstaats10. If you are going to look into it then let me know the results. I understand what you are saying, but do not understand the why the components at the edges crash the game. If you manage to fix it I will be grateful. On my part I will check them also.
Yes I did rework all the ships and decreased their size for this mod, but also increased the amount of ships on the screen trying to have some massive battles;). I think that in some scenarios I may have overdone it.
Campeador
December 12th, 2007, 09:34 PM
Ok on mission 3 most of the ships are from the original Star Fury game which I did not change. So, the only ones to fix were mine. I loaded them into “Slot modder” and found six that the slots touched either the top or bottom of the edges. I was not aware that this could be an issue until now, but as rstaats10 pointed out, easy to fix.
Later tonight I will edit the main Mod and will post it as Multiverse 1.01.
But for those that already have the Mod I am posting the edited correction. It is only one text file: Main_ComponentConfigurationSlotsEnemy.txt
Download and place it on the Multiverse-1 campaign.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=570415
Hope this works!
rstaats10
December 12th, 2007, 10:49 PM
Ok I fixed the ship. It was the Battleship Musashi (allied ship actually). I went into Main_ComponentConfigurationSlotsEnemy and changed the Spaceship Yamato Layout slot 1 WMC18 from ypos 0 to ypos 7 and changed the slots 1,2 and 3 for the 3 bottom engines from ypos 658 to 655. The ship does not cause a freeze in the game now when destroyed. I know for a fact that when ypos =0 or xpos=0 is used the game freeze will occur. As far as the xpos or ypos on the far right or bottom of the screen respectively causing this error I dont know. I just make sure nothing touches the edges and everything is good. I haven't looked at the Main_ComponentConfigurationSlotsPlayer to change the coordinates but I should probably fix that too incase this is a player ship later. (no hints please)
Thanks for fixing the 6 ships. I will download the attactment now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
PS The Main_ComponentConfigurationSlotsPlayer will need to be changed too if any of these are player ships. I haven't looked to see. I want to keep it a suprise.
Q
December 14th, 2007, 04:43 PM
I really enjoy your new campaign although I must confess that I find some of the missions very difficult. After the "long journey" I failed the mission to protect the starbase in the Minerva system because it was already too late when I arrived there. Then I get the order to go back to Pluto but there seems to be no further missions available. Is this a bug?
What I like most in this campaign are the battles with several ships on both sides!
Campeador
December 14th, 2007, 09:31 PM
Ok, I check the scenario. This one is similar to the one on the first mission. By the time you get there three enemy ships are attacking the base. It is very difficult for three destroyers to take down a starbase, but as we found out, not impossible. (They will appear next to the Starbase and it is possible that as they materialize one of the ships collide with the Starbase, or they just got lucky and managed to destroy the Starbase just by themselves).
Since the occurrence is rare I did overlook the possibility of that to happen. So it is my bug ;(
I will make a note and will find a work around and will post as another update later on, but I am going to wait in case another bug pops up.
So for now just reload that mission and by the laws of provability on our side (as it was on the first mission), the starbase should still be there by the time the player gets there to assist the base. Then you are to protect the base until the next event happens. (It won’t be as easy as the first mission).
On the other hand if you get a command to "Retreat to the Pluto Base" and once you get there you receive a new mission, then that is the way it is supose to happen!
On a second note, I am working right now on the fifth campaign, and through all the five campaigns, in some scenarios the mission will fail no mater what you do. On those instances the player is to continue on as long as the mission moves on. There are missions that specify that “failure is not an option” and that you are to repeat the mission. In other instances I am indicating that ”even if ‘Fail’ it is ok to continue”. So press attention to the messages that pop up during battle, and mission status. If you do not get a message to redo the mission then you are ok.
The Star Fury interface to place missions and messages is not very flexible, so I am forced to jump through hoops to make the game do as I expect. The game is designed for a single player controlled ship, yet I am using the game as a single player, side kick support, and even squad group. For example some of the ” jobs” are like this:
Kill Target Ship 1
Clear System 1 Of Enemies 2
Escort Ship 1 Against Enemies 2
On any of those commands we have the player ship and the enemies. On the first two, any friendly ship or group that I try to use as the cavalry to assist you, the interface will treat them also as an enemy and therefore the mission will always “fail “ unless all the ships are destroyed including the friendly ones. The third one is the same except for the single ship (not even a group) that you are to protect. I did manage to find work arounds but not always. So sometimes I am forced to allow a “fail” mission even thought the player is doing ok.
There is nothing wrong with the original game. It is working as intended, but it is difficult to make the game the way I want.
Campeador
December 15th, 2007, 01:00 AM
Some Multiverse Fetures:
On the Star Blazers Mod most people found it easy (except for the very first mission and maybe the battle at "rainbow" sector), so on Multiverse I increased the challenge:
--- Decreased the chance to find a planet or starbase to fix your ship on the ‘fly’, and run back to battle. (There are some but far in between).
--- Beefed up all the original Star Fury ships, increased armor and maxed out the weapon slots (we have to be fair!).
--- In some instances increased the enemy ships and frequency of appearance.
--- Sometimes from 10 against just you, to like 40 against your 4! (Not really but will feel like it).
--- Created some impossible scenarios, that means that sometimes you are going to get your *** kick and you will have to run with your tail between your legs. (Or get killed). Yes sometime the mission will "Fail" but be ok to continue (see previous post).
--- The player may not be able to fly the greatest kick *** ship (like the Argo/Yamato), or what you know as the greatest kick *** ship may not be the greatest kick *** ship in the game (Multiverse will have ships that can eat the Argo for breakfast!).
--- Created some really ugly monster battles or we can say, try to create some great epic battles (and hope that the game does not crash).
--- The WMC will not be able to target all ships (by the way, you will fly the Argo on only one of the Multiverse Mods).
--- More evil duds, maybe not as cool as leader Deslock of Gamilon, but no one was cooler than Deslock!
--- I am sure that there is something else, but can’t remember…
The good:
The same as the bad but in addition:
--- New cargo items to help you fix your ship, like gold, alloy ingots, beer, food ratios, and a few more.
--- You are not always alone; sometimes you are part of a fleet!
--- Some new really cool heroes. (Well some of them not always thrive to be heroes).
--- There are going to be some WOW! I cannot believe that you have that on this mod!
--- There is a big story twist involving many universes, and something else but cannot talk about it now.
Q
December 15th, 2007, 04:34 AM
Thank you for the explanation Campeador and again thanks for your huge work.
One small suggestion: you increased the waepons slots, but there are few hull slots. I frequently have enough space left to put one more hull component on the ship but there is no free slot left!
Campeador
December 20th, 2007, 02:20 AM
I did not increase the weapon slots at all; on the contrary I decreased them around 1/3 to 1/2 from the previous Star Blazer Mod. But the comment I made before was about the original Star Fury ships. Those I did not change their slots at all. It is just that on the original game their weapons on their weapons slots were never maxed out, it was a random thing but some weapon slots were always empty.
About more hull slots on the Multiverse player ships, I will take your suggestion and will be adding a couple more on the next update.
rstaats10
December 31st, 2007, 03:39 AM
Excellent Mod Campeador!!! I just finished Multiverse Campaign 1 tonight. I was the last surviving ship as well. This Mod is fun and challenging. I completed it using no cheats either. The battles and your timing of the ships appearing is just incredible. Great story line as well. I applaud you and Thank You for a great Starfury mod. You have managed to breath "new life" back into Starfury. Guys reading this should definately check it out.
PS. I cant wait to play Multiverse Campaign 2.
/threads/images/Graemlins/icon09.gif This one's for you Campeador. Great job. Thanks again!!!
Campeador
February 14th, 2008, 05:03 AM
Multiverse Campaign 2
You will need three files:
Mod file
1. Multiverse_2-The_Fourth_Dimension V1.01 (update: 02-18-08)
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=581131
Mod Music
2. Multiverse_Music-1 (The one used on Multiverse 1) -Extra note: 'Multiverse_Music-1' also contains a 'Sound' folder that you need to have installed)
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=569854
3. Multiverse_Music-2 (new)
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=581133
All the mods are going to be progressive with the Music files.
Multiverse 1 - needs Music 1
Multiverse 2 - needs Music 1 + 2
Multiverse 3 - needs Music 1 + 2 + 3
And so on. All of them will also need the 'sound' file located on "Multiverse_Music-1'.
'Multiverse_2-The_Fourth_Dimension' is the continuation of 'Multiverse_1-Enemy_From_Beyond'.
On Multiverse 1 our heroes were starting to explore this place called the 'Multiverse'. On Multiverse 2 they will go much deeper. The Star Force will be reunited and the player will be at the helm of the Argo (Yamato). It will be like the good old times of the Star Blazers mod, but with the action/style of Multiverse 1...
This new campaign offers many changes on the graphic visuals of the components and skins of the ships from the previous campaign, some insignificant but others will stand out. A few new components were going to debut on the second campaign, but I also improved the graphics on some of the previous ones. so I am going to go back and update Multiverse 1 with the new candy so that the whole series is consistent.
I hope you like it.
p.s.: Thanks rstaats10. After reading your nice words I cannot go any higher but down!
rstaats10
February 16th, 2008, 12:11 PM
I am going to start Multiverse Campaign 2 this weekend. I am looking forward to the battles and taking command of the Argo (Yamato). Thanks for releasing the campaign Campeador!
Suicide Junkie
February 16th, 2008, 02:56 PM
It would be good to link the downloads here.
PS:
Mission 2, intel report typo:
"...we will see how <strike>though</strike> tough it is..."
Some of the fighters in mission 2 have shields, but no regeneration ability at all. Is that intentional?
Armor has levels, but they don't change any of the armor's properties.
Campeador
February 17th, 2008, 03:05 AM
Good idea about making links for the mod here (I was not sure if it was allowed). So I will edit my previous post and add them.
Mission 2, intel report typo - I will look into it.
Fighters:
Some of the fighters in the game will have shields while other does not. All the fighters on the game will have very slow regeneration variations according to ship. It will be a native ship specific setting and not through items. For example Star Blazers Earth fighters will have regeneration on hull (0.5) and Armor (0.1) but no shield regeneration Shields (0.0). The Star Fury universe (all fighters): hull (0.5), Armor (0.1) and Shields (0.5).
The Star Blazers Universe is on the beginning levels of shield tech. That is why also the Star Blazer ships has only one hull space slot for shields per side and none are higher than 20 shields. Some Universes may have very high tech in some areas but none in others. For example, there are some very powerful ships on the game that have no shields whatsoever like the Arcadia, while its counterparts from the same universe do have shields like the Illumidas.
Some fighters will have energy regeneration or a ship specific attribute. Interesting enough there is a race that can even tolerate be on the vacuum of space without any gear and those I assigned native crew regeneration. Naturally attributes for fighters will vary from the other ships. The why hull regeneration on fighters is that after a really long period of time they may heal enough to move around instead of remaining frozen in position forever.
Armor, shields and all the items on the game are set at only level =1. So they will not change. (Setting them = 0, may have some weird reaction on the game) Except for 'Phased Shield Generator (40kT), (80kT), (160kT)' that are set a level = 50. This is a bug- But since the player will not have access to them (and if he does he just may not use them) they will not affect the game. But thanks for pointing that out, I will make a note and will have it fix on next the update.
Suicide Junkie
February 17th, 2008, 03:21 AM
One thing that would be quite handy is if you made an auto-firing version of the cannons.
Let the aft gunners just fire at will while you manage the main batteries yourself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Otherwise, those aft guns don't see much use at all.
Tech issue:
Light shock cannons are superior to medium cannons. Smaller, but 10% more Dmg/s
Campeador
February 17th, 2008, 09:00 PM
The 'auto-firing version of the cannons' is a good idea for the rear cannons. Especially since beam weapons do not do friendly damage like torpedoes and ‘point defense cannons’ (which are 'bolts'). But I would have preferred a setting witting the game so that it would have been player selected.
Pros: If set to auto-firing, they will fire automatically at the closest ship, you do not have to think about it, a good thing.
Con: If you are low on energy the rear weapons may be firing at a ship on your rear while you have little power to maybe deal with the ship you want to kill in front of you. Also usually you fire the front weapon then pass your target and hit it again with the rear weapons. The problem is when there are many enemy ships where auto-fire may attack the closest enemy instead of the most dangerous or the one you want. Also if your front is destroyed you may want total control of the weapon on the rear.
By the way the Hood Battlecruiser (which the player got to use on Multiverse 1) did have a special weapon on its rear (ABC high speed missile launcher) set on auto; a heavier version of the point defense cannon.
It is an excellent idea but I would have preferred a toggle button to be able to switch at will while on battle. Still I will do a practice scenario to see how it will behave on a battle.
Tech issue:
About the light shock cannon being superior to medium ones: On that one I actually lost the initial train of thought. For example the light cannon from the Argo being a battleship should be greater in size than maybe the heavy cannons of a destroyer, do more damage and have far longer range. My screw up is that I forgot about it and give them a linear progression from small to medium to heavy without making a distinction of ship class. Therefore without going into making too many changes I will simply reduce the light shock cannon so that it will be slightly less the Dmg/s of the medium. The same thing will happen between the medium and the heavy. For sure the heavy shock cannons will keep their present value; just the medium and light will be decreased accordingly.
In case someone notices, there is a weapon on the game where I was experimenting. That weapon will cause the greater damage at maximum range while at close range it will do little. (Not for the player to use, sorry)
Interesting thing to note: On the Multiverse you will find ships that are for example cruisers (300m in length) on their universe, yet they will be larger than the Argo (266m in length) a battleship. So there will be an apparent discrepancy in that respect, but each universe does its own scaling. But I did make all the ships of the game to scale (except the fighters). Thanks to Jeff Russell’s ‘Starship Dimensions’ comparison chart, great tool for comparing all the science fiction ships ever made to scale.
Thanks for the input, my update is growing, and so will the one for Multiverse 1 since they are all linked.
Campeador
February 18th, 2008, 05:32 AM
Multiverse Mod 1 Update to V1.03
Multiverse_1-Enemy_From_Beyond-V1.03
Bugs that could crash the game:
Scan base bug – it was possible to not do the scanning and continue with the mission. That would have caused a crash later on. (Thanks ‘Enrico’ for that one!)
-- The FIX: Now the player won’t be able to get the next mission unless he does the scanning successfully.
There were some planets on the Star Fury system (the Beta sectors) where the player could land. Since the landing sites were not coded into the game this will cause an immediate crash when trying to land.
--- The FIX: The landing site of those planets was removed.
Bugs that could impact the game play:
Illumidas carrier with no fighters
-- -The FIX: The carrier has fighters now.
The Fazrah cruiser had only half the intended power generators.
-- The FIX: The Fazrah cruiser has two power generators.
There was the possibility of a starbase being destroyed at mission start due to collision as ships materialize. This will prevent the game to continue on.
---The FIX: This could have happen twice, the first time on the very first mission as the Fazrah attack the starbase. Now the mission has a time limit were the player is required to protect the base and emphasizing that the starbase MUST survive or that ‘failure’ is not an option. If the base is destroyed before the timer is out the player has to redo the mission. The player could have done this before without the change but now this issue is resolve in the first five minutes of the mission and not half an hour into the particular scenario.
Some weapons were rebalanced. This also includes the last minute change on the Argo’s shock cannons (Thanks ‘SJ’ for catching that one).
Some scenarios were rebalanced due to the minor changes on weapons that actually impacted the game play. --- The cause of this was the Mogami ‘Light Missile Type-2’ (not the Argo).
The Starbases were rebalanced -- There was really not much difference between small bases and large ones. Now smaller Starbases are naturally weaker than large ones.
Other Improvements:
The grammar was revised and corrected by ‘RasterOps’. Special Thanks! ---I did add some minor new changes on various txt files after RasterOps corrections, so if there are some mistakes I am sure that it was my doing.
Some of the new components, ship skins and pictures bitmaps were improved. Now the ships skins do not look as washed out as before and it also have better contrast. Special thanks to my big-bro John! ---This was done for Multiverse 2, so I am also applying it to Multiverse 1.
Added some degree of randomness on cargo items on ships, especially enemy ships.
Campeador
February 18th, 2008, 06:05 AM
Multiverse Mod 2 Update to V1.01
Multiverse_2-The_Fourth_Dimension-V1.01
Many of the issues resolved on the update of Multiverse Mod 1 are transfer into Mod 2 also.
The principal ones:
Crash if player lands on unsupported landing site on a planet on the Beta sector. (Not the ones that follow the storyline) But in case that the player likes to wonder around it has been fixed.
Corrected the Argo's shock cannon small Dmg/s ratio discrepancy. (Only 'SJ' would notice a thing like that! Thanks)
Rescale some fighters that were kind of big as compared to the rest of the fighters in the game.
An error on the Main_BitmapEffects.txt -Wrong naming on weapon on a fighter. But since the AI operates those it never affected the game... But is fix now just in case.
rstaats10
February 19th, 2008, 12:55 AM
Campeador, Great job with this mod. This is a lot of fun to play. I am not finished yet. I'm about 6 or 7 missions into it so far. I have not noticed any bugs myself aside from the occasional slow down when all the fighters battle. You have done an incredible job with this. All your mods are great though. The story line is just awesome. You continue to breath new life into Starfury and to be honest this Multiverse 1 and 2 surpass even the stock game in my opinion. Guys reading this should definately check it out. It's a lot of fun to play. I will post again when I have completed Multiverse 2. Thanks again for the great mod Campeador!!!
Suicide Junkie
February 19th, 2008, 01:47 AM
Scan base bug – it was possible to not do the scanning and continue with the mission. That would have caused a crash later on. (Thanks ‘Enrico’ for that one!)
After three tries, I figured it wasn't supposed to be possible, so I left when I was told to after getting blasted by all the fighters at the warppoint...
Then I accomplished the scanning when I came to destroy it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Ended up doing 99% damage all on my own, only for my allies to come in and steal the kill at the last second.
Campeador
February 19th, 2008, 03:20 AM
Version Update on Multiverse Mod 2
Multiverse_2-The_Fourth_Dimension- from V1.01 (02-18-08) to V1.02 (02-19-08)
This fixes a bug that I just discovered and it was very important not to wait.
The bug was introduced from version 1.01 to 1.02.
Power Reactor (100kT) was missing from some of the ships encountered on the 'Omega' sectors. The lack of these engines will greatly affect the performance of those ships.
Players that already have version 1.01 only need to transfer the 'Main_Components.txt' fron V1.02.
The cause of this was a last minute change on the name of the Power Reactor of the Arcadia of Multiverse 1 that would have resulted in an early story spoiler for Multiverse 2. I overlook to return the change on Multiverse 2 since other new ships were using these reactors.
Campeador
February 19th, 2008, 03:57 AM
"After three tries, I figured it wasn't supposed to be possible, so I left when I was told to after getting blasted by all the fighters at the warp point..."
Wrong! It was very possible to do the scan. I did it many times. (I know, after doing it dozens of times testing the scenario it start to becomes easy) But I am sure that someone other than me has done it! It was so possible that that is why on the latest update the player will not be able to take care of it latter but when instructed.
I went back to check on the mission and it did specify to scan first then to get out.
Some scenario observations:
Every time you go to that sector the enemies will behave differently, so sometimes it will be more difficult than others. The three enemy fighters at the warp point will keep chasing you so it is better to take care of them early on. Last, speed is very important and your engines are slow, but there were plenty of enemy engines and armor that were better than yours floating around (not to mention repair cargo) from the previous battle on Minerva.
Players are resourceful but I had to have it fix because if the base gets destroyed before the scan was accomplish the mission would have remained in progress and that would have definitely cause a crash latter on since the game can only handle a maximum of three missions in progress at once which was going to happen later on.
Baron Munchausen
February 19th, 2008, 09:38 PM
I've started playing Multiverse 1 and seen one oddity. The EDF destroyers don't seem to have textures. They are white silhouettes floating around, even though my own ship of the same type does have a texture. Could there be a typo somewhere? Or could I have not got all the files due to an archiver error while unpacking?
Campeador
February 20th, 2008, 12:55 AM
This is an old occurrence from the original Star Fury game. It is usually the two ships following a third leader ship appear just white with no textures as you mention. Sometimes a ship, starbase and even your own ship shows invisible, a real annoyance since you may collide with it.
All that you have to do to fix this is simply save the game (right were you are at) and reload it, it should clear. If not keep doing it until it does. I suspect that it is video card/memory combo but I have tried the game on four different computers and from time to time it does happen in all of them. So I will tend to suspect more a bug on Star Fury.
rstaats10
February 20th, 2008, 01:51 AM
Yes the invisible ship happened quite a bit in the SF stock game too. I haven't had it happen yet in the Multiverse 2. I used to hate when that happened with the SF enemy ships and I couldn't see anything then a ship just opens fire on me. But I later just pretended they had a "cloaked" ship. They still show up on my radar though.
I have seen this "invisible ship" more often when I am modding and place 2 identical type ships sequentialy in the map file. If I place a different ship in between the same 2 ships in the map file then it seems to happen less. Really don't know why though.
One suggestion I have is to make the starbases have more ambient light to see them better. Just open LithUnwrap and double click on the materials and click on the diffuse box to change to white color and the ambient color box change from black to a dark grey color and overwrite the xfile.
I am getting ready for a climatic big battle I am guessing it is near the end. I would say Multiverse 2 is easier than Multiverse 1. Multiverse 1 was doable by me with no cheats. It was really hard in some parts though. Multiverse 2 is just right as far as difficulty. However I still have a big battle and maybe more left so we will see if that holds true.
Q
February 20th, 2008, 11:39 AM
Excellent work Campeador. I started to play the Multiverse 2 campaign and it is really fun. Thank you very much this new adventure.
rstaats10
February 21st, 2008, 01:04 AM
Q said:
Excellent work Campeador. I started to play the Multiverse 2 campaign and it is really fun. Thank you very much this new adventure.
Yes I second that!!! Excellent work Campeador!! I just finished Multiverse 2. This mod is just awesome: the battles, the storyline, everything! Your storyline/characters development, creative ships and weapons , and battles bring SF to a whole new level. I am impressed. Thanks again for providing the Mods. I can't wait for Multiverse 3. The suspense is there. Excellent job, Campeador!!! /threads/images/Graemlins/icon09.gif (trophy is for best SF mods ever and exceeds the stock game too)
Suicide Junkie
February 21st, 2008, 07:33 PM
Campeador said:
"After three tries, I figured it wasn't supposed to be possible, so I left when I was told to after getting blasted by all the fighters at the warp point..."
Wrong! It was very possible to do the scan.
After having reached the "kill it" mission, it is clear what was supposed to happen.
However originally, Admiral whats-his-face was talking about not being a hero and rushing off to do foolish things.
I'd purchased more PDCs to help against the fighters, but;
1) the fighters were respawning
2) the station wasn't on the system map
3) the order pops up about there being too many enemies and to get out of there
I figured this was the kind of thing he was talking about, so I followed the order and left http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Campeador
February 22nd, 2008, 03:58 PM
SJ you are not the only one who interpret the orders that way so that tells me that things were not clear enough. So on the next update I will try to go over the orders and make them so that players do not get confused. So, keep it up and let me know as you guys find any other orders that need clarification and I will have it fix.
ps: Multiverse 3 will be out hopefuly in a couple of weeks.
enrico7113
February 23rd, 2008, 05:52 PM
Hi everybody
honestly I bought the game only to play star blazers mod because it is the only PC game around to play star blazers
well the mod was wonderful !!!
I liked so much to play a game based on my favourite cartoon serie
then I played the standard 3 campaigns then ... what a surprise !!! multiverse mods where you can fly and fight with star trek and star wars universes wow !!!
I think it is just my opinion that multiverse mods are better than the original game
graphics are better
races are different in their technology
while in the original there were no real differences since every race could get same things (shields engines sensors... )
in the multiverse every race has a unique flavour
what I liked so much is the guns icon for triple mount turrets of yamato and others it makes things look even more real http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
ok that is all for now ...
Campeador made a wonderful job !!!
thanks a lot !!!
Baron Munchausen
February 25th, 2008, 04:33 PM
I've run into a problem in campaign 2. When I try to return to Eternus as ordered, I get an event when entering the Octopus system, but this event doesn't work. It screws up the system and I can't get the game to do anything. When I Alt-tab out and come back it becomes possible to recover, sort of. The message for the event plays, but then the hidden ship never appears no matter how long I sit around and wait for it. When I finally quit the game, the is a message about an "access violation". So something in this event doesn't work properly.
Oh, and the sheer volume of fighters and weapons effects flying around in the Star Wars part of the campaign really overloads my computer. Yeah, it's an older computer. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif You might think about how to reduce the load there. As cool as it looks, it's just too much going on. I had to turn off the sound to get a reasonable degree of performance. Another thing that seemed to help was speeding up the weapons bit-maps effects. Since they spent less time being drawn, there was less over-all load.
Campeador
February 26th, 2008, 02:08 AM
Baron, I was scratching my head on that one, but at the second try I was able to recreate the bug. You are the first person to report this occurrence, which normally does not happen.
This is what happens:
1. From the Epsilon system you are told to return to Eternus.
2. Before reaching Eternus an event happens in Octopus.
3. In Octopus you are to help one of the ships from Earth (a Hood BC) that is being attack by an unknown ship.
4. There are actually two events in progress: Help the Hood cruiser and destroy the enemy ship.
Now the bug problem:
The ships on the event are to appear kind of late, 5 to 7 ticks into the mission (due to radar interference). They will show up by the "Tentacle" planet next to the Octopus warp point.
The error occurs when the enemy ships materializes, either it hit the planet or another ship. If this happens somehow the game does not register what just happen even thought it should declare the mission a fail or completed.
Even more, since two things could happen, either the Hood destroys the enemy ship or the enemy ship destroys the Hood. Either way the third event will start when either one of the ships is destroyed. But just in case there was also a timer on the mission in the case that the Hood and company can hold the enemy long enough, and declared the mission completed.
Therefore by the enemy ship being destroyed due to collision the AI does not compute the mission properly between its own parameters, and then due to the timer it creates a second error. I do not know why it does that. If the ship is destroyed it should simply declared either success or failure instead of an error. I have checked and recheck and the only conclusion I come up with is that it happens too soon before the AI is able to time the event or something like that.
The fix: once again by the laws of provability all you have to do is redo the scenario which is activated the instant you enter Octopus. The enemy ship should not hit the planet or any other ship; instead they should start fighting each other as they encounter. So if you saved the game just before entering Octopus you are ok.
On my part on the next update I will have the enemy ship materialize by the Warp Point instead than around the planet. This should minimize the collision occurrence.
Still I am not sure if it was my bug, since the AI of the game should have stop the mission timer and declared the mission completed or failed without creating an error. Either way is a learning experience that I will try to remember as I continue with the series.
ps: If this is not exactly what happens then let me know.
Campeador
February 26th, 2008, 03:10 AM
Ah yes the second part of your post. I have played the game in four computers. My laptop (HP Pavilion zv6000 2G ram, AMD Athlon 64, 2000Mz) tends to overheat and freezes from time to time on this game only (well it is the only game I have played in the last 3 years). Other than that nothing, no slow down or anything, just that the fans are at full blast and eventually overheats... annoying. It's ram was 512, I increased to 2G, still behaves the same.
My regular desktop pc, another Athlon xp 2167mz 1G of ram. It runs fine until recently. It started to have very erratic video problems especially during this game until it died. I think that is the motherboard so I just order a replacement one for $35. I hope that this fix it.
My brother’s pc, a Pentium 4 3000Mz, 1G of ram. On his there are some slow downs and the mouse gets erratic... This cannot be the game? Maybe he has conflicting software or maybe he needs drivers since his pc behaves worst than some of the other slower pc's...
On the four pc another Pentium 4 3000Mz 1G of ram it runs fine. All this four pc's are average pc and they were my ruler as how many ships to put on the screen.
I can tolerate some slow downs but so far nothing that have prevented me from enjoying the game. But yes if I would have experience the problems you have I would have put less ships on the screen. I do not know why so many other games far more complex like Homeworld for example runs so fine with no problems... To think that I would have liked to have more ships instead of less...
I could decrease the graphics by speeding up the weapons effects, or having fewer ships, or decreasing something, but that will be unfair for the people that the game runs fine.
At least you know the work around to make it work. You can also play the game at 16 colors instead of 32 colors. Now that I think about it there is the setup were the "Sight distance", "Stellar Detail" and "Background Detail" can be set to medium or low (by the way on the 4 computers I mention before all was set to high).
If more players are having this problem please let me know.
Q
February 26th, 2008, 06:32 AM
I finished campaign 2 without any problems and for me it is just excellent. I like the huge battles and my PC (Athlon 64 3400+ 512 MB RAM, NIVIDIA GeForce FX 5500) had no problems with it.
Your campaign shows what possibilities Starfury has.
Just one question concerning the music: where should I place the folder exactly and under which name?
If I place it in the campaign folder under the name "music" I don't hear your specific music, just the Starfury standard one.
rstaats10
February 26th, 2008, 10:42 AM
I have finished campaign 2 as well with no problems except for when all the fighters battle it slows down a little. It would probably speed up if I set to low detail, etc. However I like to keep my display setting set to high since I like the look better than when set to low and have my video card set to high quality. I was playing on my desktop Pentium 4 2.8oC GHz 2GB Ram Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS.
Q said:
Just one question concerning the music: where should I place the folder exactly and under which name?
If I place it in the campaign folder under the name "music" I don't hear your specific music, just the Starfury standard one.
Place the contents of the multiverse music folder in the main SF music folder. That is the only way to get the music into the mod.
Campeador
February 26th, 2008, 04:20 PM
Yes, the music content goes into the main SF Music files. Multiverse Music 1, 2, and eventually 3 also goes inside the main music file just keep adding to the main SF music file.
Do not forget to the same with sound. Take the contents and place them inside the main SF sound file.
rstaats10
February 26th, 2008, 09:33 PM
The music content has to go into the main SF Music file, but the sounds would be ok in the mod campaign sound file. It doesn't have to be in the main SF sound file.
Baron Munchausen
February 27th, 2008, 04:00 PM
Campeador said:
Baron, I was scratching my head on that one, but at the second try I was able to recreate the bug. You are the first person to report this occurrence, which normally does not happen.
This is what happens:
1. From the Epsilon system you are told to return to Eternus.
2. Before reaching Eternus an event happens in Octopus.
3. In Octopus you are to help one of the ships from Earth (a Hood BC) that is being attack by an unknown ship.
4. There are actually two events in progress: Help the Hood cruiser and destroy the enemy ship.
...snip...
ps: If this is not exactly what happens then let me know.
Not with me, no. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But it's good that you found this other possible mess-up. I had an old event sticking in my game and apparently it was this that caused the error when more events were queued up. I used the 'warpmap' cheatcode to go to the system where the old event wanted me to go (yes, I had been there once already. Dunno how I got two copies, or another copy of a past event). Once I had cleared that event it was possible to enter the system and get the scenario setup to work. But once it was working I have to say that it is basically impossible to fulfill without cheating. On the one hand you have to destroy this strange 'evil Fed' ship, and on the other you have to save Captain Harlock. And it turns out that saving Harlock is the real requirement, while destroying the 'evil Fed' doesn't really matter because it will have wiped out all your allies long before you can get across the system to save them. hmm... But the number of pirates who turn up chasing Harlock is quite spectacular. If you've already damaged your ship going against the 'evil Fed' it's likely to be impossible to also defend Harlock, even if you can reach him in time.
Baron Munchausen
February 27th, 2008, 04:08 PM
Campeador said:
Ah yes the second part of your post. I have played the game in four computers. My laptop (HP Pavilion zv6000 2G ram, AMD Athlon 64, 2000Mz) tends to overheat and freezes from time to time on this game only (well it is the only game I have played in the last 3 years). Other than that nothing, no slow down or anything, just that the fans are at full blast and eventually overheats... annoying. It's ram was 512, I increased to 2G, still behaves the same.
My regular desktop pc, another Athlon xp 2167mz 1G of ram. It runs fine until recently. It started to have very erratic video problems especially during this game until it died. I think that is the motherboard so I just order a replacement one for $35. I hope that this fix it.
My brother’s pc, a Pentium 4 3000Mz, 1G of ram. On his there are some slow downs and the mouse gets erratic... This cannot be the game? Maybe he has conflicting software or maybe he needs drivers since his pc behaves worst than some of the other slower pc's...
On the four pc another Pentium 4 3000Mz 1G of ram it runs fine. All this four pc's are average pc and they were my ruler as how many ships to put on the screen.
I can tolerate some slow downs but so far nothing that have prevented me from enjoying the game. But yes if I would have experience the problems you have I would have put less ships on the screen. I do not know why so many other games far more complex like Homeworld for example runs so fine with no problems... To think that I would have liked to have more ships instead of less...
I could decrease the graphics by speeding up the weapons effects, or having fewer ships, or decreasing something, but that will be unfair for the people that the game runs fine.
At least you know the work around to make it work. You can also play the game at 16 colors instead of 32 colors. Now that I think about it there is the setup were the "Sight distance", "Stellar Detail" and "Background Detail" can be set to medium or low (by the way on the 4 computers I mention before all was set to high).
If more players are having this problem please let me know.
I guess I am suffering from my choice of video hardware. I was never very interested in ATI and nVidia cards because Matrox always wins the image quality comparisons on the review sites. They have decent 3D as far as quality, but the performance of Matrox 3D is always a generation or two behind the contemporary ATI and nVidia stuff. Since most people seem to buy ATI or nVidia these days, their cards are probably picking up much more of the actual graphical rendering work than mine. Between having 'only' a 1.2 Ghz CPU and 'only' a 32MB Matrox video card, I guess there is just too much for my old system to handle. When I get a newer system (soon, I hope) I'll get much closer to the common specs of the 'average' PC... for now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif And in another 5 years I'll be way behind the times again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Campeador
February 28th, 2008, 04:27 AM
Ha, yes the pirates chasing Harlock... It was no challenge at all until I decided to give the pirates stealth armor on the last minute... That single detail transformed a mediocre group into a fearsome one!
Thanks for the info rstaats10, I stand corrected about the sounds file. I still do not get why we have to transfer the music while not the sound nor any other file, from any particular mod. It would have been really nice if no transfer was needed, but who can argue with the game gods?
About the video hardware, I am very aware that I am pushing things on this mods with the amount of ships, but the problems with the graphics seems to be the mostly fighters, and some fighters more than others (especially the ones from Epsilon system). This game by now is old, and I remember running the original game on an 800Mz with a video card holding 32Mb, barely the minimum requirements for the game. But it ran! (Writing this post just now I realized that I did surpass the original game requirements, my bad!)
On my mods one of the problems is my lack of knowledge on the graphic department. I am sure that there are artist out there that can make all my models with half the polygons I used or even less. A feat that would have fix most of the slow downs. By the way that is why most of the systems were battles take place have very little space objects.
I will still try to remember those with slower systems on the next campaigns 'if' possible.
rstaats10
February 28th, 2008, 10:44 AM
I really like playing your mods and you do a really good job making your ships. (Hard to make them in my opinion) I have made about 6 ships. However most I have to use from other mods. One tool I have used is Polygon Cruncher. Works well to reduce polys. You can get a free 1 week trial, which is what I did. It's a plug in to Lightwave (and 3DS max I believe). I got a free 30 day trial to Lightwave then added the Polygon Crucher as an Plug In and away I went. I took some really high Poly ships down over 70% and they are playable in SF.
Baron Munchausen
February 28th, 2008, 05:26 PM
Just an extra thought: when you do any 'optimizing' of ship models, how about adding a few more for some of the empires/races to flesh out the selection? If we had a couple more Fed ships it would then be possible for someone who doesn't have ship modeling skills make a nice Trek campaign using material from your mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
A decent 'destroyer' class vessel like the Saladin/Hermes single nacelle design, and a 'heavy' class like the Nebula or Galaxy would make the Federation ships complete enough to use in a full campaign of some sort. The Miranda (USS Reliant from Wrath of Khan) would be very cool to have, as well. And maybe the Akira class. Various science vessels could wait for a full-scale dedicated Federation mod. Oh, a Fed-style starbase is also needed.
The Klingons need at least one 'heavy' ship. The K'Vort might be a good choice. And a unique starbase design for them, also. And I see you've got one Romulan model even though they don't appear in this campaign. The original Romulan 'Warbird' would be really, really cool to have and then of course a unique Romulan starbase. Hmm. Seven or eight models. Got any helpers with all of this? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
The Millenium Falcon as a Rebel freighter would be very nice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif The Imperial Super Star Destroyer is out of bounds, though. It'd take up half a system all by itself! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Campeador
February 28th, 2008, 08:09 PM
There are so many science fiction universes out there that I would have liked to recreate. The problem is time and energy to do so. If it takes me a minimum of one year to do a mod, then to do five universes it would have been five years minimum, and this Star Fury game is not getting any younger.
So, in order to do so I came up with Multiverse (2 – 2.5 years).
If I were to create each universe with many ships classes as suggested, I would not be able to launch Multiverse when I did in Dec 07, but maybe in 09 or longer...
I am aware that other people are working on other mods, like the Star Wars mod, and I do not want to take their thunder. I do want them to make the mod with all the ships and glory that the Star Wars series deserves. (I really want to play a game other than my own!)The same goes for Star Trek and the others. That is why I only used no more than 6 ships max from each universe (and those were divided like 3 for each faction within the universe. Some universes I used even less). Also the ships I selected were the classics that every body knows, nothing new, so there is plenty of room for a full mod on each of the Universes where I just have a glimpse or cameo appearance, except the Star Blazers mod where I went in detail on the previous two mod series.
At least no one is giving me any complain because I put three laser beams instead of two, or I put it on the wrong place or something. I am not an expert on none of the universes out there.
I did some experimenting with some other ships that even thought I may not be using on the game may be together with the rest on the files. It is better to leave them there than try to go through five or six files, remove them and then having some type of error on the game because I forgot to remove something some ware. (Like all the ships from the previous SB Mod are still there.)
Anyway I am doing all this mods just for fun, so you can use any ships I created and try to do your thing. I did use the original Star Fury ships, and even recycled the Gamilon ships from my Star blazers mod to create the Illumidas and Iscandarian fleets. A little skin change can make nice variations. Anyway I am sure that someone other than me and with far more talent can create ships. All you have to do is to ask around.
rstaats10
February 29th, 2008, 12:47 AM
I can respect the time you put into making the mods. I have been working on my SF mod for about 6 months and still working on it. I too mod for fun. I hope to be done with my mod in next month or two (wishfull thinking). I am making a Stargate Mod and have all ships configured for the game, maps done, components, etc. The mod will be 80% or so accurate to the Tv show but I wanted it to have it's own flavor too. That is why I have added some new race ships and what not to the Stargate Universe to spice it up a bit.
I will release the mod when I get done with it. One of many things I have discovered while modding is to keep the texture images resolution down to 256x256 or 512x512 for the most part. It saves memory and reduces file size.
The SF game engine is old and wish I had half the knowledge of my older brother and younger brother who have been programers at their jobs for years.
I will finish my mod though since my 8 year old son likes to play the game too and has given me the motivation to complete it.
Campeador
March 16th, 2008, 03:09 PM
For three weeks now I have been trying to fix my pc. At last I was successful!
The problem was a repeatable one. The problem was happening on the “x-wing vs tie fighter “areas.
It goes like this: I land on the sector and fighters are engaging each other. It is going well until I get close then most of them freeze except like one or two. All the beams, bolts, missiles, smoke effects are frozen in space, yet the Rebel Cruiser is moving and my ship also…
I played the same scenario on three different PC’s and it runs fine in all of them except on mine…
A little background: A few months ago something happened on my pc and the monitor died. I replaced the monitor but as the months pass I was having some freezes and crashes until finally like 3-4 weeks ago my pc died. A new motherboard later I was running again. Played the game confident that that may have fixed the game bug, but the bug was still present.
My system:
AMD Athlon XP 3000+, 1G (2x512) of ram. ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128M of ram on an AGP slot. 300W ATX power. Previous an Asus motherboard now a PC Chips.
Possible causes: an AMD vs AGP incompatibility, a processor going bad, bad ram, insufficient power, and bad video card.
I did a memtest on the ram overnight, not a single error. I played with all possible settings on the motherboard and video card, nada. I went to all the pertinent websites for drivers, and forums looking for advice. Nothing works… Went to the ATI forums and everyone seems to be having some time of graphic trouble with artifacts, freezes, crashes etc. A lot of people were jumping boat and swearing that they will never buy another ATI product and so forth. Time to go shopping.
I bought a NVIDIA 7600GT with 512M of ram, and a 500W power supply. Installed and this for sure will solve my problem… wrong again, the same bug... I played with all possible settings on the motherboard and video card, nada. I went to all the pertinent websites for drivers, and forums looking for advice, again. Nothing works… Went to the NVIDIA forums and everyone seems to be having some time of graphic trouble with artifacts, freezes, crashes etc. A lot of people were jumping boat and swearing that they will never buy another NVIDIA product and so forth. Déjŕ Vu … I am done shopping.
The only thing I have not changed is the RAM and the processor… The ram was tested and it is good. Luckily I found my previous processor, a 2000+. Slower than the 3000+ but it should work. The problem persists. By the way all the other programs work fine even other games like Oblivion runs fine, all but this one. OK, downloaded “3dMark06” and did a test. It passes, even thought that in some parts the frame rate were down almost to ‘0’ (still using the 2000+ processor), shoppy, slow, but did not crash or freeze. What the heck? On my game while the fighters are freezing the frame rates were from 20 to 30…
I decide to decrease the enemy fighters from 30 to 3… still happen! I went to a friendly rebel base, no battle any ware, but when the rebel fighters were nearby, my ship freezes then moves and then freezes again as they fly close to me. On the middle of the battle there was a lot of noise from weapons and explosions, but now I do recall not hearing the annoying noise of the Tie engines… Time to play with the sound. The sound on my motherboard is integrated an “onboard AC97 audio controller”, so was on my previous motherboard.
I replaced on the scenario the Ties for Illumidas fighters, but the problem persist (I did forgot to replace the x-wings). I replaced the engine sounds from the empire and rebel fighters to standard “Earth fighter engines” and THE BUG WAS GONE!!!
Anyway I decided to investigate what makes those SW sounds caused problems while the stock sounds do not. It turns out that the stock sounds are 16bit with a frequency of 44100 while the SW sounds that I was using were 8bit with a frequency of 8000 to 11025. Now how come it works fine in other three different pc’s – 2 pentiums and one an AMD laptop? Also none of the people playing have reported this issue other than slowdowns? Obviously I have a sound driver/hardware conflict or something. Special note: I aded the different sounds on the game after all the scenarios were made. At the time I was ussing my laptop to finish the mods since my regular pc was acting up and it was running fine on the laptop.
Instead of going again into another quest to solve the sound I went the easy sure way to fix this: I converted the sounds into “16bit with a frequency of 44100” just like the stock sounds and problem solved! So for the benefit of those who may have this problem I will have the “fixed “sounds included on Multiverse 3.
I am sure that after reading this a smart *** is going to tell me how simple it was to diagnose…
rstaats10
March 16th, 2008, 04:18 PM
Wow I never would have guessed the Wav files were to blame. I believe that sound drivers are usually updated from your pc manufacturer website. Did you update that as well? I notice my problems with slowdowns occur when I have too many ships or too many weapons effects firing. I always thought it was a game engine "overload" problem. If I had the source code for SF my brother said he would look into helping me improving the SF exe files. I don't think I would be able to get the source code for that game.
My pc has the nvidia 7600 Gt as well and it plays oblivion just fine as well as other games. I will check my sound files as you have mentioned above Campeador. Thanks for the insight on this.
On another topic Campeador: Have you used Doga before? I have a fighter attachment to show you what I made. it's easy and quick. It took a few minutes to make this one.
Q
March 17th, 2008, 02:42 PM
Campeador I had this sound problem too.
But for me the fix was to download and replace the campaign files again. Did you change the sound files in the Multiverse campaign 2 now?
Campeador
March 17th, 2008, 03:54 PM
Q, there are no sound files on Multiverse 2 but music files, and nothing was change on the music. The music files are not a problem. The issue for me was the sounds on the 'Sound' folder inside the 'Music' folder of 'Multiverse_Music-1'. 'Multiverse_Music-2' only contains music.
But for Multiverse 2 you were supposed to use the music and sounds of 'Multiverse_Music-1'and 'Multiverse_Music-2'.
On Multiverse 3 you will use all of them in addition of 'Multiverse_Music-3' (not yet released).
To answer rstaats10, I did have the latest sound drivers from the motherboard manufacturer even thought their latest is an 05. Apart of my mod the slow downs on this game seems to be normal, I get the same in all pc's. For example every time there is a nebula or asteroids in front of you the game slows down a little. Naturally this is depending on the power of your pc, the stronger the pc the less noticeable. On my mod all this is far more pronounced since I am always pushing the boundaries of this game trying to create the biggest battles possible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
About Doga, no I have not used it before. Your ships look cool, and if the polygons count is small then it will be ideal for this game. I will look into it as time permits.
rstaats10
March 18th, 2008, 03:25 AM
Campeador I found something to help prevent slowdown when I have lots of fighters (about 20 or more fighters) firing their weps. I took the effects bitmap of a torpedo bitmap and reduced it by 50% to 128 x 128 with no real noticable game difference in quality. By doing this my wep effects were firing much better. There was no slowdown as there was previously when I had the effects file at 256 x 256. It was as if the fighters were on "steroids" or something. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif
Another thing I try to do is keep the texture images sizes down to 256 x 256 for fighters and most ships for the most part. I do have some higher 512 x 512 for ships and what not. I noticed a lot of the fighters in multiverse have texture size 512 x 512. Try it out and reduce it down to 256 x 256 and see what you think. It will save memory use in the game.
Something else I want to share with you that I stumbled upon is that you can use jpg instead of bitmap for landscapes and portrait images. Just reference the images in the files as jpg instead of bmp. Big-time savings on file sizes. You may not what to mess with this now since it would take too much time to convert but in the future it is good to know.
Campeador
March 18th, 2008, 05:17 PM
rstaats10, I am glad that you are finding new ways to increase performance on the game. Since you mention the jpg size the last time I have been experimenting with it and like you said no real noticeable game difference in quality. On the next mod the 512 x 512 skin textures of the ships will be reduced to 256 x 256 except for one or two that benefit from the higher resolution like the Arcadia (the main star of the story).
On my mod I do not mind changing anything but with the original game I try not to mess with what is already there since after all this time is well proven to work. But if reducing the effects bitmaps of the torpedoes improves the game so dramatically I will look into it.
I am not that concern about landscapes and portraits since the game stops when those are on the screen. My may concern is game play. I never thought about converting the bitmaps into jpg, I was pretty much following what was there on the original game, but you are right making this changes would have save a great deal of space on the hard drive, even thought the download will not be reduced more than what it is since both bmp and jpg graphic files do compress tremendously. You are also correct about making changes now in the middle of the series. It is an easy way to have a mess on my hands.
Changing ships skin size is easy and can be exchange in any of the campaigns on the fly without any problems since there are no changes on the code. The bitmap files is a different story since I have to change the graphic name calling from bmp to jpg and I want to use the same format from campaign one to the last and I do not want to go back and edit the first two campaigns. But on the next mod I will implement a few.
"It was as if the fighters were on "steroids" or something." mmm... that means that I can have even more fighters... I did have a scenario with over 100 capital ships but stretched over a long period of time, but so far my record is 66 fighters (not counting the ones on capital ships) appearing between 20 tics of time (that is that is like having all of them at once on the screen) on a scenario (Multiverse 2), ... mmm... Now if I can have more fighters than that run stable on my Athlon 2000+ (1.67GHz), mmm... the mayhem I can create!
Baron Munchausen
March 19th, 2008, 04:48 PM
That's exactly the problem I was having. Here I thought it was simply that my system was not powerful enough to handle so many fighters and bitmap effects at once. But it did work when I turned off the sound. Interesting that a 'mix' of 16-bit and 8-bit sound would have such a weird effect. I'll make sure to download the updated versions of all of the mods now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
rstaats10
March 19th, 2008, 09:58 PM
I have converted the Multiverse sounds to 16 bit 1(mono) 44kHz PCM. That was the exact format for the sounds in SF stock game. I have provided an attachment so if you want to download you can. I hope you don't mind me providing this Campeador since I did it for myself and thought I should share it with all. I can't wait to try out the Multiverse Mod again.
Campeador
March 20th, 2008, 11:45 AM
Thanks rstaats10, sorry for being so slow and not doing this sooner. Anyway I also posted the sounds on the Starfury: Data/Campaigns.
Fizar
March 26th, 2008, 12:27 AM
@Campeador,
I've been playing/modding SF for years. Mostly tweaking the original campaigns to my liking. I recently downloaded your mods and began playing them. I am now 3 missions into Multiverse1 and now I am inspired to create a more serious mod as opposed to just tweaking.
I haven't done more than small adjustments to the files, no adding of ships, no mission additions, groups, etc... Would you be up to answering some questions, providing a more indepth modding guide, or just advising on some of the pitfalls and inevitable mistakes I'm likely to run into?
Campeador
March 26th, 2008, 11:10 AM
Fizar, glad to help as time permits. Also on this forums there are plenty of people who are knowledgeable and my be able to assist too.
Suicide Junkie
April 4th, 2008, 02:37 PM
Another good resource is the #spaceempires channel on irc.freenode.net
Me and Fyron, at least, can be found idling there 24/7
Campeador
April 12th, 2008, 07:57 PM
Multiverse Campaign 3
Multiverse_3-Space_Pirate_Harlock
You will need three files:
Mod file
1. Multiverse_3-Space_Pirate_Harlock
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=597143
Mod Music
2. Multiverse_Music-3 (new)
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=597146
3. Multiverse_Music-1 and 2 (This are the same previous ones used on Campaign 1 and 2)
All the mods are going to be progressive with the Music files.
Multiverse 1 - needs Music 1
Multiverse 2 - needs Music 1 + 2
Multiverse 3 - needs Music 1 + 2 + 3
Campeador
April 12th, 2008, 08:55 PM
Multiverse Campaign 3
Multiverse_3-Space_Pirate_Harlock
This is all about giving the player the opportunity to fly the Arcadia.
On each campaign the player will command a different ship (s):
On Multiverse 1 it was the ships of the Earth Defense Forces (EDF) from Star Blazers.
On Multiverse 2 it was the Argo/Yamato
On Multiverse 3 is Harlock's Arcadia.
On Multiverse 4 and 5 it will be a different one.
How to accomplish this while following the story... that is the tricky part, but so far so good. I do not want the player to think that the whole series is just about Star Blazers because it is not. Star Blazers was just the starting point since it follows a good progression from the previous Stat Blazers Mod.
There is a new twist on the story. Campaign 3, 4 and 5 does not continues were we left off at the end of Campaign 2 but before and during the events taking place on Multiverse 1 and 2. Therefore we are going to see the same story!
I know, you may be thinking what the fun on that except of flying different ships. We already know what is going to happen... That would be a true statement except that instead it is the story (as in the case of Multiverse 3) from the point of view of Harlock, the Space Pirate. Before, we only saw him and the Arcadia making cameo appearances, now you will get to experience firsthand what he was doing while we were sweating fighting off three enemy invasions.
About Harlock and the Arcadia:
This is the creation of Leiji Matsumoto.It aired on TV on 1978 for the first time. Matsumoto was also the co-creator of Star Blazers. In addition of two TV series (the first one had 42 episodes) there are also over half a dozen movies. Matsumoto continuity with the Space Pirate story can be confusing, since every movie or series many things are different, he seems to like to give a different spin to the story every time he tries, just like been born on a Multiverse...
My approach on the story is just one between their many versions. If you want more info just do a search on the net.
Campeador
April 12th, 2008, 09:43 PM
Multiverse Campaign 3
Multiverse_3-Space_Pirate_Harlock
Game play:
The Arcadia is a Battleship not a carrier, not really a battle-carrier either.
Ships that can be consider battle-carriers:
The Argo/Yamato
The Illumidas Revenge
The Zentradi Scout
The Star Destroyer
The SDF-1
And a few others. The thing is that any of those I mention can dish out an incredible amount of damage like a battleship (or greater) and have exclusive dedicated pilot crews just for their fighter squadrons.
The Arcadia on the other hand can dish out a great amount of damage, but it does not have a exclusive dedicated pilot crews, instead some of the crew do double role function as crew of the Arcadia (and just a very few) pilot fighters. Remember the crew of the Arcadia is only 41. They have no replacements. That is the reason for why can you only have 3 fighters out at any given time. Yes, you are going to feel like you wanted more... Be happy, at least I included some at all. So my advice is not to stuff the Arcadia with too many fighters unless you want to move with the speed of a snail.
Some annoying issues with the AI controlling fighters. Sometimes they like to hit your ship as soon as you launch them. I have no settings to control the delay of collision for fighters unlike mines (mines you can set a delay time for activation).
How to deal with it:
1. Launch the fighters when the Arcadia is moving.
2. Try to launch then when there is no enemy in range - not always possible especially in the middle of a battle. The problem during the battle is that when the fighter detect enemy nearby it slow down. If the fighter does not get away of the Arcadia in like 3 seconds (I really do not know the timing) it may blow up if it is within the boundaries of the Arcadia.
3. Take some time and practice. Or at least remember to save often. Eventually you will get the hang of it. A similar thing was happening with the Argo/Yamato, but the Arcadia being bigger it is more problematic.
There are a few other things on the Arcadia but I will let you find out on your own!
Note: The game ran flawless on my AMD Athlon XP 1666 MHz and with all the previous bugs corrected, not a single crash!
Q
April 13th, 2008, 02:46 AM
Great work Campeador! Thank you very much for the new sequel of this excellent story.
rstaats10
April 13th, 2008, 12:39 PM
Yes, Thanks Campeador. I am looking forward to this new adventure. This should be fun coming from Harlock's point of view and some prequel adventures too. I will post again later. Thanks again, Campeador. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
Q
April 14th, 2008, 12:34 PM
Very nice campaign. Some tough combats. I liked especially the completely different ship you use as player.
Is there a chance that we may have the federation ship Enterprise as player ship in one of the next campaigns?
Campeador
April 14th, 2008, 09:58 PM
I am glad you liked Q. The game play was a tad more intense than the previous two campaigns. The Arcadia was a fun ship to play, and by the way, I have to thanks my brother the 'artist' for going over the bitmap skin of the Arcadia making it really stand out. He also went over the rest of the pictures on the game.
I think that I left a very big hint at the end of the campaign about what ship is next http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
douglas
April 15th, 2008, 03:16 AM
Yeah, the picture is kind of obvious.
Good series, just finished part 3. I especially liked the gigantic battle at the end of part 2, and I was a little disappointed that part 3 didn't bring Harlock's part of the story up to that point - though I'm not quite sure whether he was present for that one or not now that I think back on it.
I think the EDF's level of success before the final stand shown in the end of part 3 was a bit too low. When I played through that sequence in part 1, the Musashi was long gone before Harlock showed up, and I don't remember the odds being quite that overwhelming.
I was mildly amused to note that the original assessment of the Wave Motion Gun in the Starblazers mod isn't quite accurate any more. One full power hit is actually not sufficient to destroy a Star Destroyer. One hit will cripple the ship pretty thoroughly, but it will still be able to fight back, just with greatly reduced firepower.
Campeador
April 16th, 2008, 12:48 AM
Thanks for sharing Douglas. You made very good observations. Let me clarify some.
Harlock was not on either of the last two battles of Multiverse 2. Wildstar, captain of the Argo was wondering the same thing.
I had originally planned to make two campaigns for the Arcadia. But the second part would be after Multiverse 5 (if I were still planning to make it -will see). I know where I am going but the middle is still a little fussy. I am still pondering on Multiverse 6. As it is we will see the Arcadia again now and then on the rest of the series, but I want to give the player an opportunity to try the other ships.
Ok, on Multiverse 1 there were two alternative paths where concerning the Musashi (it seems that no one noticed!). If the Musashi was destroyed at Pluto then you would not have seen it at Mars. If you did not destroyed the Musashi at Pluto before the Starbase was destroyed, then the orders would have been changed and you would have been order to retreat to Mars (Making the battle at Pluto shorter). In this instance the Musashi would have showed up at Mars on the last battle.
Since it was possible for the Musashi to be present at Mars I decided to have it on Multiverse 3, just for the player to have a try at fighting her.
I remember two players commenting that their EDF ship was the last one standing at Mars. I try the scenario many times and in some instances I accomplish the same but in others the Outpost survived and even the Arcadia. How the AI does battle varies a lot. It is also difficult to recreate the battle identical to the version on Multiverse 1. On this instance the player ship, the Hood Battlecruiser, was on the battle since the beginning to the end (It had to be for the player to win!)
On Multiverse 3 the AI cannot do what the player does to make it last the whole battle. Also any ship on the players hand if far deadlier than the same ship control by the AI. Not to mention that the player can use items to do repairs. With this behavior it is difficult to recreate an identical battle from two different points of views unless all ships were AI controlled (but we want to play!). Then again the battle may have been more intense from the Arcadias’ point of view since it was fighting alone from the rear, while the Hood was being backed up by the Starbase, EDF fighters and destroyers. Also if the Hood would have been on a player hands there would have been far less enemy ships out there that would have make the Arcadia’s load lighter!
Since I cannot do an identical battle at least I try to capture the same flavor, which was like this:
“Late into the battle and after the third wave of the Illumidas forces entered the sector the Arcadia arrived. By then the thick of the battle was between planet Mars and the ‘Mars Outpost Starbase’ and the Hood and a few other EDF ships were barely holding.” – I think that I recreated just that.
The Wave Motion Gun, I did notice that also. Yet the WMC has been unchanged since the Star Blazers mod (at the time I never dreamed about facing Star Destroyers). It still does 8,000 of damage and it is only surpass by the SDF-1 Main Reflex Cannon' which does 10,000 points of damage. On the TV show the WMC is far more powerful; it can take out a whole fleet with a single shot. On Star Fury the weapon can only hit one target (on the game we can only have dozens and not hundreds like on the original story). At the time of Star Blazers mod 8,000 points of damage was more than enough to be able to take out any ship. So, on this game it remains unchanged, still the Argo can take down any enemy ship with a single shot from its own universe…
Do note that if you move the ship out of its short arc while firing the WMC it will not do full damage. Also the WMC can be interrupted by fighters getting on the way of the beam. But yes, the Star Destroyer can still survive a direct hit. It is in a class of its own. Armor and shields alone on any side is 4,000 points! The Arcadia better not try to ram it either.
By the way did anyone notice something peculiar about the ‘Cosmowing’ fighter?
rstaats10
April 16th, 2008, 02:06 AM
Yes I see now the cosmowing fighter has a microfighter Bay. But on my cosmowing fighter there is no bullet fighter in the cargo hold for it to release. I will watch for this in the future to check for this. That would be cool to see the microfighter released from the cosmowing fighter.
I just finished the Battle at Zeta 3. That was hard. Took over 10 times. (escort ship was getting destroyed mainly) But I wised up and decided to used my ram nose (battering ram) to take out the 2 Zentradi ships. Worked like a charm first time I did this. Still took some fancy manuevering to get to next destination.
I really like this mod so far. I will post as I get more completed.
Btw tell your brother he did a awesome job on the Arcadia Texture. Pirate flags look really cool too!
Campeador
April 16th, 2008, 02:36 PM
When you look at the Cosmowing on your bay, you will not see the fighters it contains. But when you use the 'Long range Scanner' and the Cosmowing is in flight you will see that it contains two Bullet fighters (bullet-1 and bullet-2). As any enemy approaches it will release the fighters just as any carrier do. It can only release one fighter at a time, so once one bullet is destroyed, and then it releases the second assuming that the Cosmowing Fighter Bay is not damaged.
It is not perfect since fighters never return back to their carriers since the AI carriers never recall back their ships. This means that if this Bullet survives it will just remains in space, while the Cosmowing can be recalled, re-launch and have more Bullets out.
The thing is that thanks to this the Arcadia can actually have 3 fighters out, plus an extra bullet making it 4!
The Bullets are really the weakest fighters the Arcadia posses. One uses two Energy Cannons and the other uses two Light Missiles. Also it is good to know that these Light missiles just like the Arcadia's side cannons (Sea Galeon Energy Cannons) can bypass shields.
The ram is a risky maneuver. You have to do some math before deciding to use it. Ram damage capacity + front armor vs. enemy shields + armor. Usually it can take out one Zentradi scout but I would not attempt a second ram since by then all the Arcadia's front Armor is gone.
On the TV show the Arcadia has a retractable weapon that someone called ‘The Big Freakin Bayonet’. I was trying to recreate something similar and what you see is my version.
rstaats10
April 19th, 2008, 01:30 PM
Great job on Multiverse 3. Campeador! It was a lot of fun commanding the Arcadia. The Mod was a little more challenging than Multiverse 2. I particually enjoyed the last few battles. I enjoyed hacking the Illumidas fleets down. In the early battles, the Zentradi scouts proved to be most worthy opponents and the most difficult for me to take down. The Ram Nose for the Arcadia was cool (and usefull) too. This mod was flawless. I had no problems (errors) during the Mod. Thanks again for an awesome SF mod, Campeador!
douglas
April 19th, 2008, 04:26 PM
Oh, just a side note, I actually did manage to take out a star destroyer once with the Arcadia.http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
It helped that it had already fought a Zentradi scout. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Suicide Junkie
April 21st, 2008, 01:02 PM
Hey, have you considered making a torrent of this to put on Fyron's tracker?
It could use some starfury stuff.
http://bt.spaceempires.net/index.php
enrico7113
May 3rd, 2008, 01:31 AM
these mods are absolutely wonderful ...
Campeador
October 21st, 2008, 11:20 PM
Multiverse Campaign 4 is out!
Multiverse_4-Space_Time_Continuum
Time to play Star Trek!
Same story, similar events as before, but for the point of view of the Federation. This time around the player gets to be a Federation Officer joining the crew of the Enterprise. So there are going to be a few instances were the player gets to experience events from the previous campaigns (2 and 3), but from a different perspective.
The campaign is a short one but I may put the player in control of the Enterprise and the Arcadia again in the future before I finish the series.
Enjoy!
ps:
Download at: Starfury Scenarios and Mods
Q
October 22nd, 2008, 07:34 AM
I am very glad that you continued your excellent work.
Thank you very much Campeador.
Probably I won't be able to play it until next weekend, but I will let you know if I encounter any problems.
rstaats10
October 25th, 2008, 03:34 PM
Cool! Thanks Campeador for releasing the 4th multiverse. I can't wait to play it! Just to let you know, I have finished my SF mod and I am testing it all the way through right now. Should be done in a week or so then I will post it on the forum.
Q
October 26th, 2008, 02:15 AM
Very nice campaign again. My only complaint is that it's too short. ;)
I have seen no problems.
rstaats10
October 27th, 2008, 08:42 PM
Excellent job Campeador! I just finished and there was no problems at all. I really enjoyed playing as the Federation. Thanks for making this mod!
enrico7113
November 2nd, 2008, 09:42 AM
Thanks Campeador
flying for the Federation was fun :)
it is a super cool mod !!!
Campeador
September 28th, 2009, 11:28 PM
:D
Multiverse Campaign 5
Multiverse_5-Bird_Of_Prey
You will need three files:
Mod file
1. Multiverse_5-Bird_Of_Prey
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8901&d=1254192483 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8901&d=1254192483)
Mod Music
2. Multiverse_Music-5 (new)
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8902&d=1254193067 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8902&d=1254193067)
3. The previous Multiverse_Music files:
a. Multiverse_Music-1 & Sounds http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5855&d=1197285679 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5855&d=1197285679)
b. Multiverse_Music-2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6021&d=1202976522 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6021&d=1202976522)
c. Multiverse_Music-3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php? attachmentid=6189&d=1208044203 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php? attachmentid=6189&d=1208044203)
d. Multiverse_Music-4 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7145&d=1224620026 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7145&d=1224620026)
This is also posted on the Scenarios and Mods section
rstaats10
September 30th, 2009, 08:54 PM
I am really looking forward to camapign 5. I will post back when I've completed it. Thanks for your hard work Campeador and for making these excellent Mods!
rstaats10
October 19th, 2009, 12:02 AM
What more can I really say? You've made another awesome mod Campeador! I enjoyed playing the Klingons. There was no bugs in the gameplay at all. The only mission I struggled with was the one to take out the Federation starbase. The first time I focused too much on the Federation battlecruisers and that left me fighting in the end against 11 Federation battlecruisers and the Federation starbase. Needless to say, I didn't make it the first time. The second time I focused my attacks on the Federation starbase, as the mission states to do, and destroyed it. It was a good feeling to blow it up and have about 10-11 Federation battlecruisers chasing me to the warpoint.
Also very nice music selection. I really liked it.
Some minor things to condider changing:
(1) have player start with the bird of prey instead of the fighter
(2) change weapon beam burn colors in the component text to match the color of the beams used for the weps. (burn color is the color effect at the end of the beam when the beam hits a target)
(3) make the point defense cannons in the bitmap effects text have a width of say 0.5 instead of 4 but keep the 0.15 height. I tried it out and the pdc's effect looks better imo. BTW using a beam effect for pdc's acting as a bolt was an awesome idea. The effects come out really nice.
Thanks for your hard work in the mods. Your stories are great. I love playing multiverse from the different perspectives (races). The idea of cloaking the ships/bases was a great idea even if my eyes had a little trouble seeing the objects. I especially loved playing the Klingons! I am looking forward to multiverse 6 coming out! I own a lot of pc games...different types...old...new...Turn based and RTS...and I tell you this Starblazers and Multiverse you created ranks right up near the top in the most enjoyment I've had in a pc game. Thanks again!
mikewhl
December 11th, 2009, 07:49 AM
Love it!
Going to make some ship models for it if you dont mind.
Mike
Baron Munchausen
December 23rd, 2009, 03:23 PM
Well, finally I got around to playing the latest chapter of the Multiverse. My main complaint is that it was too short! :D Just when I got a D7 the scenario is over. :p This was definitely the most fun chapter so far. Too bad SF doesn't have working options for cloaking. The "tachyon sensor" component is in the game, but cloaking was never implemented.
rstaats is probably right in his technical suggestions. The only glitches I can report are the usual ships without textures, which is a problem with SF itself.
Campeador
December 27th, 2009, 10:44 PM
Rstaats10, Q, Baron, Enrico, mikewhl - I am glad you guys liked the mod!
I have been gone on vacation for a month, and shortly before that I was dedicating time to test some of the suggestions, so forgive me for not responding sooner.
About Rstaats10 suggestions:
(1) I would have liked to start not only this mod but all the previous ones with one of my custom made ships but the game always crash. The program I have used to create the ships and therefore the "xfiles" does not agree with Star Fury. When for the first time you select the player ship you will notice the ship 3D detail, the ship just spinning. The inability or bug on the program I used to create the ships is what crashes the game. That is the reason of why I have to use always a stock ship just to start.
(2) Weapon beam burn colors - what an eye for detail you have! I have played the game a zillion times and never noticed that. If I do an update I will have it fixed, for sure it will be fixed on the next campaign.
(3) Point defense cannon on the Fed and Klingon Battlecruiser - I borrow those from the Star Destroyers that I used on the Mod. Those ships are so big that the effect looks ok. But when used on a smaller ship like the ones on Star Trek they do look long... I try them at the setting you suggested from 4 to 0.5 and they indeed looks much better, so you will see them trim on the next campaign! Thanks for your input!!
For all people complaining that he campaign is short - you are all absolutely right! It is just a decision of waiting six months to play a mod or waiting a whole year to play one twice as long.
The Bird of Prey campaign was not difficult and that is partially because their presence had to match what the players have seen on the previous campaigns which was not much, just a few encounters. The next campaign, Multiverse 6, it will be more challenging and it will finally move the story from the previous 5 campaigns forward!
PS: I have tried to find entertaining song selection when the player dies, which one is your favorite? Campaign 1&2 use the same but the rest are different. (Just start any campaign and crash the ship against a planet or something so that you can hear it.)
Q
December 28th, 2009, 01:22 PM
Hi Campeador.
I am very happy to hear that campaign 6 will go further in the entire story of multiverse. I am impatient to see what comes next, but take your time anyway.
Regarding the "death song": my favorite would be the one from campaign 3.
Thank you again for your excellent mod and my best wishes for the new year.
mikewhl
December 28th, 2009, 08:07 PM
Could you fit this beauty in your next mod? An nice design.
Plus. I worked up a Exterminator.
Mike
Campeador
January 5th, 2010, 12:54 AM
That is another nice ship. The Exterminator also!
<?xml:namFor those wondering the Andromeda class was the heaviest class of EDF space battleship with a "wide energizing beam wave motion cannon" (the Yamato was focused instead of wide). Yes, the ship was a tad more powerful than the Yamato, more firepower and one third more tonnage (dedicated to armor) but there was only one Star Force crew and it was on the Yamato!!!
<O:p</O:p
The Star Blazers mod was dedicated only on the first of the three seasons (or stories) of the series. The Comet Empire was on the second season. According to the Star Blazers story the Andromeda 1 was destroyed after been commissioned for one month while in action against the "White Comet Empire".
<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
Since you have done such a nice job I could indeed include it on one of the future mods of the Multiverse. Just send me the file and if you can also do the skin paint the better. I could call it the "EDF Space Battleship Mikewhl class Andromeda"!
By the way Star blazers is still strong in Japan
[Star_Force] Space Battleship Yamato Live Action Film Trailer‏
http://www.youtube.<WBR>com/watch?<WBR>v=ONkh786EbSg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONkh786EbSg)
<O:p</O:p
mikewhl
January 7th, 2010, 07:56 PM
As you can see I have been busy.
enrico7113
January 23rd, 2010, 09:52 AM
awesome ships
I hope they can be used in the future to play a campaign by Campeador :)
mikewhl
January 27th, 2010, 08:47 PM
Maybe this will help to get him back into the game Enrico.
enrico7113
February 3rd, 2010, 05:04 PM
wow awesome models
I would love to see them in action in a future mod :)
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