Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
The dimensions in the ini file do nothing right now! They are probably collider dimensions for if there is no collisionhull specified in the file, except that they got ripped out for some reason, and in the vast majority of cases, do absolutely nothing. At that point, I think they just left them in for reference. They are not even accurate; don’t use them!
Example: in the sims/ships/navy folder, the advanced_patcom_mk1 and heavy_corvette_mk1 both have these dimensions:
; Dimensions
width=80
height=70
length=120
Seriously, I tried setting them all to 1 on a ship, and it did absolutely nothing at all. They’re kinda pointless really; I never did figure out what they were for for sure.–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂[quote=”Chessking” post=20231]
I have also imported the other ships I have made into the game, scaled them all down to the correct size, and got it so that the engines and thrusters scaled properly as well. Now that I have the biobomber, a need for information has become apparent. I used the descriptions on this site to scale the ships to the correct length, but some of the information is “classified”. In addition, I need to know the lengths of stations, the speed and power of different weapons, etc. At the moment I am not sure where to find the information.
[/quote]
Übermodder to the rescue! :cheer:You can find all the game files in resource.zip. For example, in resource.zip/sims/weapons, you will find the actual weapon projectile objects. These contain properties like speed damage. sims/ships/player/heavy_corvette would have the acceleration and top throttle values, and hitpoints and hardpoints and the paths to the .lws file that sets up the graphics for the ship. You can use the reverse-engineered .pso converter to convert the ship’s model from .pso to .lwo, then open it in blender, and you have the untextured 3D model. You can simply measure then.
Also, subsims/systems/player has all the player systems, from A-M PBCs to LDS drives to countermeasures. To tell you what to expect there, the pbc file would have weapon fire rate, a path to the weapon sim (in this case ini:/sims/weapons/pbc_bolt or something like that), max energy, energy used per shot, heat per shot, power consumption, hit points, all kinds of good stuff.
Now for stations, which is what you actually asked about, that’s a little different. They are entirely modular, so you’d be getting the dimensions of the various modules. But it’s simple math to put them together, so it shouldn’t be hard.
Yay, I actually rattled all this right off the top of my head! Seems I truly know a lot about the game from the many hours spent sifting through the files.
[quote=”Chessking” post=20231]
Is anyone interested in screenshots of this?
[/quote]
Me. :whistle:–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂[quote=”Chessking” post=20231]
I have also imported the other ships I have made into the game, scaled them all down to the correct size, and got it so that the engines and thrusters scaled properly as well. Now that I have the biobomber, a need for information has become apparent. I used the descriptions on this site to scale the ships to the correct length, but some of the information is “classified”. In addition, I need to know the lengths of stations, the speed and power of different weapons, etc. At the moment I am not sure where to find the information.
[/quote]
Übermodder to the rescue! :cheer:You can find all the game files in resource.zip. For example, in resource.zip/sims/weapons, you will find the actual weapon projectile objects. These contain properties like speed damage. sims/ships/player/heavy_corvette would have the acceleration and top throttle values, and hitpoints and hardpoints and the paths to the .lws file that sets up the graphics for the ship. You can use the reverse-engineered .pso converter to convert the ship’s model from .pso to .lwo, then open it in blender, and you have the untextured 3D model. You can simply measure then.
Also, subsims/systems/player has all the player systems, from A-M PBCs to LDS drives to countermeasures. To tell you what to expect there, the pbc file would have weapon fire rate, a path to the weapon sim (in this case ini:/sims/weapons/pbc_bolt or something like that), max energy, energy used per shot, heat per shot, power consumption, hit points, all kinds of good stuff.
Now for stations, which is what you actually asked about, that’s a little different. They are entirely modular, so you’d be getting the dimensions of the various modules. But it’s simple math to put them together, so it shouldn’t be hard.
Yay, I actually rattled all this right off the top of my head! Seems I truly know a lot about the game from the many hours spent sifting through the files.
[quote=”Chessking” post=20231]
Is anyone interested in screenshots of this?
[/quote]
Me. :whistle:–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂Awesome! If I have to rebind all my controls at some point, I’ll download it and give it a shot. I’ve been using the same controls for years, and see no reason to change just yet. Maybe when I get that nifty new $200 Saitek space-sim joystick… [/pointlessavarice]
–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂Awesome! If I have to rebind all my controls at some point, I’ll download it and give it a shot. I’ve been using the same controls for years, and see no reason to change just yet. Maybe when I get that nifty new $200 Saitek space-sim joystick… [/pointlessavarice]
–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂I wouldn’t worry about copying Josh Parnell. He’s a whoppin’ nice guy who will completely understand, especially since LT itself is heavily based on the game Freelancer. Josh said somewhere that the game is basically Freelancer 2 in everything except name.
Also, no, I can’t sell my I-War2 remake. That would almost certainly be plagiarism. I’m going to be selling other games though, such as the Pinball game slated for completion in October. The thing is, I still am working on my own “inspired by I-War2” game, and am also making a small space game for a contest. I can recycle code and assets across these projects. The contest game is due by the end of the month, so it’s a good place to whack up a basic flight and combat model. The I-War2 remake would truly be simple to make after that. It would mostly consist in just migrating the vast majority of I-War2 to Unity. Then, with an artillery battery of space game code and assets under my belt, I can make my own, main space game.
At least, that’s the plan. The Pinball game will kinda edge out the two non-contest items, but I think I can get a I-War2 Instant Action running in Unity by the end of summer. Even if it’s got all of one ship type, I still think I can do it.–IronDuke
P.S. I think we are different kinds of lazy. 😆
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂I wouldn’t worry about copying Josh Parnell. He’s a whoppin’ nice guy who will completely understand, especially since LT itself is heavily based on the game Freelancer. Josh said somewhere that the game is basically Freelancer 2 in everything except name.
Also, no, I can’t sell my I-War2 remake. That would almost certainly be plagiarism. I’m going to be selling other games though, such as the Pinball game slated for completion in October. The thing is, I still am working on my own “inspired by I-War2” game, and am also making a small space game for a contest. I can recycle code and assets across these projects. The contest game is due by the end of the month, so it’s a good place to whack up a basic flight and combat model. The I-War2 remake would truly be simple to make after that. It would mostly consist in just migrating the vast majority of I-War2 to Unity. Then, with an artillery battery of space game code and assets under my belt, I can make my own, main space game.
At least, that’s the plan. The Pinball game will kinda edge out the two non-contest items, but I think I can get a I-War2 Instant Action running in Unity by the end of summer. Even if it’s got all of one ship type, I still think I can do it.–IronDuke
P.S. I think we are different kinds of lazy. 😆
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]I have a very different plan.
Someday I would like to build my own game engine (with rendering engine). This engine would allow me to make things work exactly as I want them to. Therefore, if you want normal mapping in the game, I can add normal mapping to the game. Considering I have written 0 lines of code for the engine, consider this worth a grain of salt…[/quote]
That’s hard. And I’m lazy. Bad combination, so Iwon’tcan’t help with that. But I wish you the best of luck, although attaining the level of skill needed to do that with one person would take about thirty years. 😉[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]
I also have a plan regarding copyrights. Atari is really slacking in good game output, especially in the space-sim genre. The Roller Coaster Tycoon series is the best that I’ve seen on their site. Perhaps they would listen to a beautifully rendered trailer, with its own engine, a fighting chance in the space-sim genre, and a couple of good programmers willing to make a deal. From what I hear, there are quite a few people out there with memories of I-War.[/quote]
People have been contacting them with requests for permission to make an I-War3 since 2003-4. They have either never responded, or said heck no. Possibly they could be budged a little by a trailer and engine already made, but I doubt it. And the fact that they are slacking in good games is one of the reasons I don’t want to attach myself to them. Plus, I don’t know what kind of deal they’d want. I feel edgy at the prospect of ‘deals’ with large companies.[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]Anyways, it would still be useful to import proper UVs from lightwave for something like this… 🙁
If you get into I-War 3 in Unity full swing, let me know. I can probably help with things like new ship models.[/quote]
First point: bah, just gotta make new models. It’s entirely possible that the UV’s are accessible, but I haven’t found them. I never poked the 3d-models part of the game too much. I was more into changing gameplay and such.
Second point: I will definitely let you know. Whatever you are able to help with I would appreciate. :cheer: A project that size would be hard, although I can use a lot of the default I-War2 assets this way.–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]I have a very different plan.
Someday I would like to build my own game engine (with rendering engine). This engine would allow me to make things work exactly as I want them to. Therefore, if you want normal mapping in the game, I can add normal mapping to the game. Considering I have written 0 lines of code for the engine, consider this worth a grain of salt…[/quote]
That’s hard. And I’m lazy. Bad combination, so Iwon’tcan’t help with that. But I wish you the best of luck, although attaining the level of skill needed to do that with one person would take about thirty years. 😉[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]
I also have a plan regarding copyrights. Atari is really slacking in good game output, especially in the space-sim genre. The Roller Coaster Tycoon series is the best that I’ve seen on their site. Perhaps they would listen to a beautifully rendered trailer, with its own engine, a fighting chance in the space-sim genre, and a couple of good programmers willing to make a deal. From what I hear, there are quite a few people out there with memories of I-War.[/quote]
People have been contacting them with requests for permission to make an I-War3 since 2003-4. They have either never responded, or said heck no. Possibly they could be budged a little by a trailer and engine already made, but I doubt it. And the fact that they are slacking in good games is one of the reasons I don’t want to attach myself to them. Plus, I don’t know what kind of deal they’d want. I feel edgy at the prospect of ‘deals’ with large companies.[quote=”Chessking” post=20220]Anyways, it would still be useful to import proper UVs from lightwave for something like this… 🙁
If you get into I-War 3 in Unity full swing, let me know. I can probably help with things like new ship models.[/quote]
First point: bah, just gotta make new models. It’s entirely possible that the UV’s are accessible, but I haven’t found them. I never poked the 3d-models part of the game too much. I was more into changing gameplay and such.
Second point: I will definitely let you know. Whatever you are able to help with I would appreciate. :cheer: A project that size would be hard, although I can use a lot of the default I-War2 assets this way.–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂Well, I have blisteringly good news.
I asked about my idea with the folks on the Limit Theory IRC, and they said it’s been done before quite safely, so here goes.My plan is to do a remake of I-War2 in Unity. However, it would have to draw some of the assets from an original I-War2 installation. Otherwise, maybe a ship wouldn’t exist, or something similar to that. The best part with this plan is top-of-the-line graphics, and the ability to throw in as much extra stuff as I want. Including an additional story. (I-War3! :woohoo: )
The only hole I see is that someone could simply identify which files my remake draws from the original game install, copy those files, and put them online. But actually, someone could just do that to the installer for the GOG version of the game, so…As I mentioned, this has been done before, to even well known games like X-Com. I think one or two of these remakes got a cease and desist, but only one or two. In any case, if it was taken to court (which would be a hilarious waste of money for Atari) they would probably lose, according to the IRC folks.
What do you think of that plan?
–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂Well, I have blisteringly good news.
I asked about my idea with the folks on the Limit Theory IRC, and they said it’s been done before quite safely, so here goes.My plan is to do a remake of I-War2 in Unity. However, it would have to draw some of the assets from an original I-War2 installation. Otherwise, maybe a ship wouldn’t exist, or something similar to that. The best part with this plan is top-of-the-line graphics, and the ability to throw in as much extra stuff as I want. Including an additional story. (I-War3! :woohoo: )
The only hole I see is that someone could simply identify which files my remake draws from the original game install, copy those files, and put them online. But actually, someone could just do that to the installer for the GOG version of the game, so…As I mentioned, this has been done before, to even well known games like X-Com. I think one or two of these remakes got a cease and desist, but only one or two. In any case, if it was taken to court (which would be a hilarious waste of money for Atari) they would probably lose, according to the IRC folks.
What do you think of that plan?
–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂My current plan is to see whether or not Blender’s export as Lightwave function will produce a file readable by I-War2. I think I did do something once that successfully got a model into the game, but I don’t remember exactly what that process was. I do know that the model was a fixed collider for the Heavy Destroyer, as the ingame collider is too small by, I think it was 50%.
I’m going to hunt down that file and start poking things to find out what I did. I have a veritable treasure-hoard of ancient files for I-War2 that would be utterly impossible for someone else to understand, and are hard enough for me to do so. But I’ll blow the dust off my archives and have a look.Speaking of textures, it’s an absolute pity that the game does not support normal mapping. 🙁 It could look stunning if it did so.
Oh, I just got an idea. I’m going to look into it straight away… :whistle:
–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂My current plan is to see whether or not Blender’s export as Lightwave function will produce a file readable by I-War2. I think I did do something once that successfully got a model into the game, but I don’t remember exactly what that process was. I do know that the model was a fixed collider for the Heavy Destroyer, as the ingame collider is too small by, I think it was 50%.
I’m going to hunt down that file and start poking things to find out what I did. I have a veritable treasure-hoard of ancient files for I-War2 that would be utterly impossible for someone else to understand, and are hard enough for me to do so. But I’ll blow the dust off my archives and have a look.Speaking of textures, it’s an absolute pity that the game does not support normal mapping. 🙁 It could look stunning if it did so.
Oh, I just got an idea. I’m going to look into it straight away… :whistle:
–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂I don’t know if the game actually HAS a max resolution for textures, considering that Torn Stars/Unstable Space has some pretty high-res textures. I do know that 3d-models do. The UV maps, which are built into the .pso format that I-War2 uses for 3d-models, are locked at whatever resolution they were assigned. I think the only way to fix that would be to make new 3d-models, which I’m planning on doing anyway. If we were to use say a 512×512 instead of a 256×256, it would only use the top left quadrant.
But there is a problem with making new 3d-models. The version of Lightwave used by PS was very old. Annoyingly, the file format appears to have been changed only a year or two afterwards, and the game can’t read the new file format. None of the Lightwave versions after the reformat support the old one. In order to make 3d-models for the game, we have to get our hands on a very old copy of Lightwave, ie before version 6.0. I know from a screenshot a dev took that their version was 5.6. It’s possible that there’s some trick that can bridge this problem, but I don’t know of it.–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂I don’t know if the game actually HAS a max resolution for textures, considering that Torn Stars/Unstable Space has some pretty high-res textures. I do know that 3d-models do. The UV maps, which are built into the .pso format that I-War2 uses for 3d-models, are locked at whatever resolution they were assigned. I think the only way to fix that would be to make new 3d-models, which I’m planning on doing anyway. If we were to use say a 512×512 instead of a 256×256, it would only use the top left quadrant.
But there is a problem with making new 3d-models. The version of Lightwave used by PS was very old. Annoyingly, the file format appears to have been changed only a year or two afterwards, and the game can’t read the new file format. None of the Lightwave versions after the reformat support the old one. In order to make 3d-models for the game, we have to get our hands on a very old copy of Lightwave, ie before version 6.0. I know from a screenshot a dev took that their version was 5.6. It’s possible that there’s some trick that can bridge this problem, but I don’t know of it.–IronDuke
I-War 2 Discord: https://discord.gg/RWaabWB
Very little about the game is not known to me. Any questions you got, throw them at me. 🙂
