Multiverse Mod
 

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!!!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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?

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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/thr...?Number=570415

Hope this works!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.



[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon09.gif[/img] This one's for you Campeador. Great job. Thanks again!!!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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/thr...?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/thr...?Number=569854

3. Multiverse_Music-2 (new)
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?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!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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!!!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

"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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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?

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

Excellent work Campeador. I started to play the Multiverse 2 campaign and it is really fun. Thank you very much this new adventure.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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!!! [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon09.gif[/img] (trophy is for best SF mods ever and exceeds the stock game too)

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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 !!!

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.

Re: Multiverse Mod
 

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.