Slocket

http://rapidshare.com/files/183036600/Rebellion_model_exchange_2.0.zip Files from this website. It shows how models are added and exchanged. Using Resource Hacker, you should be able to put things back in. It gives the locations of the DLL and folders of what ships .X and .bin are at. That is the two tutorials made by someone here from the past. Tactical.dll :file Resource Hacker :tool 2590 Galleon :folder You get two files, one is the mesh info .x and the bin, which is like the skin texture stored as binary instead of the more modern today use of picture formats ---I think. Oh, the bin is converted over from the bmp file using a tool. But that is not what your asking I think. I think to restore, simple extract that resource file inside 2590 and replace the one in your custom folder inside tacticial.dll. And you may have to extract and copy over the Galleon near and far data BMP skin."STRGAL.BMP" and "STRGAL_m.BMP".

Jump anywhere regular hyperspace speed. Though maybe make some main routes faster between system trade routes. This makes the espinouge spying important, because you never know when and where the enemy may sneak up on you. A solid line system is too much prediction to me. Plus jump anywhere always for those hit and run behind the lines tactics. The down fall to those behind the line tactics would be the longer transit times to get behind enemy lines and having them out of control for a long period of time. I think by localized jump, you can jump anywhere but not across the whole long distance galaxy in one shot?

First time I seen this thread. Sounds like a nice idea. The more versions the better. I guess everyone has there own particular reason why they would rather work lone wolf style. For me, it is the level of my programming skill and what I am used to working with. I just want a decent space game with real strategy. Too many games today are just too dumbed down, So I am trying to make one I like to play. I always wish all good luck. OP -A new game is one way of avoiding copyright infringement? Just add in a Star Wars TC Mod? Sometimes I worry about using/recycling original artwork for a remake. I am not a graphics artist. I like that type of resource system. No credits. Plus have the refineries slow down if the planet is not very loyal to you. Similiar to Rebellions, but a bit more complicated. Have an option for a decent AI to off load some of the work. I want economic sobotague to be more of a real option for the Rebels to use against the Empire. (guerrila war tactics). Regular Rebellion you almost do not need to worry about it. Too much resource available in game. Thus if a player is in a losing position, instead of him quiting the game, he could launch an attack upon a stratic resource to cripple the other player bloated economy. The bigger the Empire, the more it take to maintain it. Give a losing player a chance to keep playing and win. Sins of a Solar Empire does that to an extent. Custom made capital ships via research, ala StarFury game?

exactly! The more expensive technology LCD have the quality I would certainly be happy with, but the prices are way out of my reach for now. Maybe another year once I burn through these last CRT monitors I have. They realy do not make new ones anymore. The last used CRT I bought had a Jan 2004 date on it. I expect it to only last for about one year at 24/7 usage. When I build up a new computer, I will have to upgrade to a LCD, I hope the prices for the nice wide viewing angles, response time, and color sheen IPS something will come down in price. Money is a bit tight right now due to this down turn in the economy. Priority of paying off all credit card debts must come first. Later I think things will get better in another year or so.

With any hex editor, you can open that file up and change the names (as long as they are the same size or smaller than the original, with simple letter substitution. I think you can add in longer names if you are careful not to destroy the file structure. There is no way to add more names to the list ASFAIK. You can try, maybe the EXE will read in the extra names...that is what I programmed into the Rebellion 2008 Remake, just add the names on using a text editor and the program will read in the whole list to the EOL; so you could have a whole bunch of names. Maybe yea old reb exe will reads in the names strings the same way; but somehow I doubt it. My code is much more flexible. I want it to be Mod friendly. So it is taking alot more time to code that ability in.

The last time I looked at LCD monitors that are affordable about 3 years ago; they really suck in contrast and viewing angle. The expensive back lighted LCD with a larger view angle are much better, but my god they want way too much money for me. I can buy a 21 inch monitor CRT tube that kicks the crap out of any LCD at teh resolution and refresh rate I play games at for only 35 USD I have three of them as back ups to last for a decade until the LCD prices for the GOOD one come down to earth.. LCD are getting there, but not there yet. They have advantages over CRT such as longevity, low power, small size...but the picture is horrible to me, and it may just be a personal choice here.

You can use Resource Hacker IIRC to see the names I believe are inside textstra.dll. look under folder 1297-1325. I do not know if this list is exhaustive. In another thread there are more names for ships for any future remake. I think you could change the names if you wanted to with resource hacker.

Thanks for the insight Moribundus, good ideas. I think the easiest would be a window mode from the INI file, then later user choose from the most popular resolutions ( I need to look that up). I do not own a wide screen LCD yet to test it on, so I guess I will try to do that. Plus this is only tested under WinXP 32 OS, though DB claims it works under Vista (32 bit at least). I wonder what performance hit if any from going windowed mode using DB, it is only one window and does do things not under complete programmer control as it would be under C++ or DX. The price to pay to use the DB pre-programmed stuff. I am glad I thought about this at the last minute, else people would wonder why the screen is all messed up. Back to work...I thought I would be done in 6 months...but this seems to be the hard part, GUI and was the 3D graphics. Update: set window on set window layout 1,1,1 set window title "Rebellion 2008" set display mode 1024,768,32 set window size 1024,768 show mouse Wow, that was easy. I can run it in Window mode and it can go in any resolution you want. Just resize the 'Window Box' as you would any other. You can make it full screen, or just re adjust the Box to whatever you want.

Since I love my CRT tube monitors compared to LCD displays, I need to know if you all can support 1024*768 resolution apart from your native LCD screen size. I never owned one, yet. Cause, I may need to recode so the program will read the display info format (get xhorizontal) you know, then auto adjust the images so they fit the resolution that is being run. Or I can place inside the INI file a 'windows' mode so you run the game at 1024*768 whilst your destop LCD can run in another mode. THX for input.

I seen this map version of the Navmap.com pic. Have you seen it yet? http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/5056/408137-swgalaxymap_lg.jpg http://www.xs4all.nl/~wrvh/galaxymap/index.html I was looking for more unique planet icon pictures. Two of your links are gone. I guess you can make the whole NavMap now, I need to release something since peeps will probably want to modify things. So far, I wondered how big to make the planets icon for pretty pictures verses real estate space. You can add, modify the planet names via simple text wordpad list file. I have an auto size planet fit sector design ( IE you star locations are the solid positions, the sector map pop-up planets is relative only in its relationships, I hope it will not be a problem, the Sector.dat file contains the exact center of gravity translation vector to center each sector into the correct position on screen when in close up view). It is the best way to keep all these hundreds of planets , text, names, locations, all together without making too much of a mess. I was using the original DAT file for the locations. You can place in your 200 map locations too and it should auto align, very simple. Better yet, use this neat little program I found for photo editing to get the exact co-ordinate of each star planet off the map and use those coordinates into the StarMapper and viola! It is automatically generated. You set it for manual loyalty, owner, or random. Plus HQ initialization. There is no size limit, but for release I just used 300 planets and I guess 30 sectors. It will read the file for size if you want more planets or sectors. What planets should be included? IS 300 enough? 400? What else is there to do when it is colder than Hoth outside?

Yes. we had 2 inches (5 cm) of hard ice here in the Midwest. Temperature was 11 below zero Farenheit , wind about 30 miles per hour. -35 degree wind chill. Fatal stuff if your not in shelter. Survivorman from the TV show should see if he can handle it here for a week outside. Yep another day in paradise. I think Moscow does get worst weather -so that makes me feel better.

Starting deployed before battle is a good point I overlooked. Maybe I 'll keep it that way. I thought no matter how many fighters you have, the Rebels always get one shot at the Death Star Run for 1/7 chance to blow it. Then it repeats as long as Rebels can maintain superiority of fighters for each fighter group they have left. Do the Rebel's always get one shot with a fighter at the death star??

Ice is real good at weighing down power lines and tree limbs breaking them. Here in the Central North MidWest we get them too often. Tonight the artic blast is below 0 degrees Farenheit with serious wind chill around 35 below zero. Fun. Looks like Hoth. Summer time the humidity is so terrible. Extremes in temperature changes. Does Germany get crappy weather like ours?

Is the Extended Universe of star wars copyrighted? I thought writers of books made a 'new' lore on the star wars theme using new plots and unique characters. Do they answer to LA, or are they their own? Ya know, it really is nice to know this answer; else what a waste of time. Jeez even if it is public use??

Yep, I guess they figured that one out years ago. I guess the DB engine uses mipmaps. A basic technique. It seems that even the original Rebellion used three LOD object mesh models/textures for the ships. Near, Medium, Far distance. There maybe even an application to produce three levels of lower polygon models from an original model. Reading that article, it seems to be different methods to achieve the desired results. It can be simple to rather complicated. I learn something new every day. Good find. EDIT: Actually, I do not know what the DB engine uses. I guess it must be similiar to DX9 algorithms since there is only one model loaded into memory.

The original EAW had both sides limited in how many ships you could have , via points, around 20 per side? It is a problem. What I was using in those above pictures are much, much lower polygons and simple textures no shaders. If you can figure out a way to place all those displayed up close and those further away less polygons, and far away a bitmap billboard. Some of those models on the net I seen are quite huge!

The game engine does restrict far away sounds from playing. There is fora ll cards a sound buffer limit on how many sounds can be played at once. The sounds are loaded up into the sound buffers 'files in memory'. Then the 3D calaculation are done to determine the mix and sound levels, etc. Using DirectX sound program funtions that come with DX9. So in reality you never hear 10,000 laser firing. Only those close lasers and engine sounds, explosions, all mixed together. correct about interference. Some times a common mistake in programming. hardware delay etc. Causing beat frenquency (F1 -F2) http://www.podcomplex.com/guide/physics.html The game program must make sure what sound is being played, what is loaded and exists, then freeing up that memory and resources after it is played (mixed together). (so there is no interference as stated above, I wrote the program so each sound is tracked and make sure if one is being played 'exist'). I think maybe 16 dynamic sounds can be mixed and played at once on my very old SB card? So far I had no problems. The screen lighting up green is a bit of humor. I think 1000 captial ships per side should be fine in a given battle. I want the game to be strategic and tactical, else why care if one or two captial ship get blown away. Why make each ship have a detail damage model. I want each ship to count for something and be valuable and complex. Not a simple RTS mindless million unit Zerg bum rush. Even more so than in the original Rebellion. Similiar to StarFleet Battles you have armor, shields, shield generators, engines, power plant, auxillary power, hyperdrive, targeting control, life support, tractor beams, damage control, ship marines, officers, hangars, missiles, command and control, etc.

Is the word "Imperial Star Destroyer" or "Storm Trooper" copyrighted? What if someone drew up there pictorial version of those things? Is that fan made original photo copyright infringement? I can see the names like Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker being a copyright I guess, and the story, or hard copy pictures from the movie and studio; but how far does it go? What about all those movies that are clones of other movies? It all seems abit over board to me. Dissing your fans is not good PR.

Very nice. Amazing to see Freelancer is still being modded to that degree. The last time I did anything with that game was the OpenSp_v1.1 dll just to allow the game to be played in 'single free mode' without the story line or net connection getting in the way. Lancer's Reactor.net something back thing. The effects and models are really cool, and the music. Love to use couple songs myself to spice up the track for Rebellion. Will LA ever make another space game with decent gameplay for the PC platform...after Force Unleashed, I think the PC is gone for them. Beautiful work!

Sorry if this thread got high jacked. OK with DarthTex help for readable coordinates from systemsd.dat file (it is nice to see it in more readable form to speed things up) I taken the absolute coordinates. Now I am using higher resolution so I am leaving them as absolute, the dev tool I created you can make your own maps any way you want for sectors and planets, for now I set one up for 300 of which only 200 original game planets are going to be used. There is no limit to number of planets. I would say 600 would start to crowd the map. The 768*1024 resolution is higher than the original 480*640. I made a proportion factor /(1.6) to scale. Then if you imagine the small box inside the bigger box, (plus some odd linear translation x,y to make it look pretty centered inside itself). So the original universe is smaller in relative size on screen, you have 60% more real estate to work with. The original game coordinates are used so there is plenty of room. 200 planets is alot of work to translate and place into the game. For the demo GUI toggle the Loyalty random off/on inside the INI file. You can make your own custom maps and / or set loyalty or randomize. I am using these same coordinates to create the position of the system close up sector map pop-up in exact proportion; I hope using this higher resolution (roughly in the original game it was strectched by 25% in the verticle) as mentioned not as noticeable. The planets will arrange themselves automatically inside that sector map. the names will change color and such just like the original game. I take a breather after that run on sentence. It takes alot, alot more work to give this mod ability, but this modablility and ease of use I hope will allow modders to create their dream custom galalxy with the command based dev tool galaxy mapper. Please give some time later to make that tool more user friendly with a nice GUI to place and plot planets easier. A simple Visual Basic application program is not that hard to do for a final release of the dev galaxy maper tool. I swear, this is th hardest most boring tedious part of the project! But worth the work. You can use the primitive tool I created to make the very map, but take some practice with it. Later you can add in more custom planet pics not just limited to what I scabbed from the games resource files. Higher res look nicer, each planet can have its own unique picture since computers today have GIGs of RAM not limited to 32 MEG of the last decade. The graphics I am using are the recycled ones from the game, so just drop replace it inside the resource folder for the new custom pictures, you create or find off the Net. These posts could be moved over to the development thread.

cool! an easy to use editor is the ticket. Yes and, the good old planet coordinates, and that small delima of view true size and absolute in game calculations.

It would seem a ship that almost never really gets built in a game, needs to be changed or else just dropped out completely. I would advocate making it more useful somehow just so a person would use it in game.

OK, send me both. I think the reason they are a tall rectangle is because even though on the galaxy view screen a sector is square, but when you click on it to expand the view, the square must become a tall rectangle to fit on half the screen so you can flip from the given system to the target system. Two system maps can/must exist at once on the screen. I had to make the absolute coordinates off the galaxy view star map be the true travel time. The System close up view of the 10 planets is actually distorted, stretched vertically and horizontally to fit inside the one half of the screen. It is that way in the original game. If I made the system view the same in dimensions, it would be difficult to place a close up pick of an item and open a second system map for a target. Unless I made a TAB key to flip the whole view from one to the other... I sent PM. Thanks for help and insight into this negling problem. I think you understand the problem. I'll try to figure out a better way to display the system maps - I hope. Or just leave it as the original game did. Just knwoing the dimensions are stretched and squeezed in the close up sector view. You will see this in teh original game and what I did so far, in the two week behind demo I am trying to finish up over this Thankgiving Holiday weekend.

DarthTex, do you have the games orginal co-ordinates for the star map galaxy view? I can not seem to dechipher (takes forever)the relative locations inside sector/system.dat files. Doing by hand is a pain in de arsce. Maybe even for your version of the galaxy, the real on screen coordinates using 0,0, 768, 1024 absolute. The galaxy mapper and tools are ready for release, I just want something for people to look at , like a full galaxy. Then they can play around with it. It can handle that whole map, it would be alot of work to plot in every star!

You know, just for speed (the code can be added later), a person could simply drop the 'drag and drop' neat visual and just make so if you clicky on the icon (it highlites it), then it just reappears where you click the next spot target(assumming it is a legal spot check for the icon to go there.) That is a good place to slip in the hyperspace icon visual. I am not doing it exact vanilla game either, whatever works the best quick and easy to understand. Yep, it does get tedious, redoing what alot of enginneers with alot of experience did over a few years full time! Plus, they got paid for it. But keep up the good work.