The Starport

Freelancer Mod Studio gets real models

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:50:00 +0200

The day has finally come that Freelancer Mod Studio has implemented real models. With this it is now actually possible for modular station editing and in general makes correct object placement in systems way more easier. However shapes have still their place in Freelancer Mod Studio as those help finding tiny objects like fighter ships. There are also a bunch of other improvements so check out the changelog!

Download and FAQ (please read): http://code.google.com/p/freelancermodstudio
Official thread: http://the-starport.net/freelancer/fo ... hp?topic_id=2174&forum=10

Now mod away the system of your dreams

PS: Screenshots taken from a system of Discovery 4.86

Freeworlds: Tides of War Demo Patch 1.3

Sat, 05 May 2012 08:43:12 +0200

Over the past two weeks, the team has been fixing all remaining bugs, performance glitches as well as adding several new gameplay related programming features into the mod; like player dockable capital ships. We also have been re-editing our normal/specular maps to improve their overall look and feel with great results:

Probably one of the biggest changes in the 1.3 patch is the new fix for XP OS users. So, if you've had any issues in the past, please reattempt with this new patch fix and let us know if this improves your problems with launching the mod.

And for those people still considering whether or not to try this mod, please take a look at the video below:

Freeworlds: Tides of War - Capital Fleet Battle! - Mod DB

Patch 1.3 Change Log:
FREEWORLDS: TIDES OF WAR UPDATE III CHANGELOG
---------------------------------------------

Bloom pixellation fixed
Added mobile docking (carriers) support
Added possible Windows XP crash fix ~w0dk4
Fixed Y-8 bug
Fixed Corellian Cruiser turrets (inverted, placement)
Added mag-pulses for fighter cruise disruption (50m explosion radius) and increased ion-pulses to 500m radius and only hp_torpedo_2 carrying ships
DP20's HpTurret13 need to be fixed (bad orientation)
A-Wing Hitbox Fixed
Shield and Thruster hitbox fixed
B-Wing - made its agility to that of a light patrol ship to account for its smaller profile
Added three simple systems to allow for some degree of faction gameplay to take place.
Doubled Hull Hitpoints of all capital ships
Golans indestructible
Reduced k-wing turbo turret axis from 50 to 45 degree
fixed hole in mc90 sur
fixed docking moor issues in capital system
fixed ISD window bug
Corellian Cruiser model smoothing fixed
Corelllian Cruiser normal/specular mapping fixed
X-Wing normal/specular mapping fixed
Added ship docking points to all capitals with a hanger
modular_conveyor.sur fixed
lowered starfigher loot drop rate
fixed position of b-wing reticule
fixed position of quasar fire reticule
fixed position of VSD reticule
fixed position of TIE Defender reticule
fixed position of E-Wing Reticule
adjusted power/shield hardpoints for several capital ships
removed CMs/Ammo from NPCs
replaced Lancer hitbox
reduced speed of proton torpedos/heavy rockets/proton bombs and increased their lifetime
fixed lancer tractor beam error
cut collision damage in half
New A-wing normal/spec maps ~hakre1
New X-wing normal/spec maps ~hakre1
New Corellian Cruiser normal/spec maps ~hakre1
New YT-1300 normal/spec maps ~hakre1
New MC90 diffuse texture ~Sizer

[center]Download the 1.3 Patch Release here:
Moddb link: http://www.moddb.com/mods/fwtow/downl ... des-of-war-demo-patch-v13
Mirror:
http://programexpert.net/Secure/fwtow_update_3.exe

Main Demo Download[/center]
To all our fans, if you like what you see, and have been playing, please don't forget to tell your friends, your communities you frequent and social sites like REDDIT/Twitter about this mod. Player word of mouth goes a long way and we'd appreciate any of the support we can get for this mod of ours! Thanks everyone!

Freeworlds: Tides of War Demo Patch 1.2

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:43:45 +0200

Over the past week the team has been working on the demo release to improve stability and performance. FriendlyFire has been a key component to these fixes spending countless hours rewriting the rendering pipeline code to improve overall performance and minimize bugs. He's done such a spectacular job that we will be releasing a Battle System where demo players will take part in a huge scale battle between the New Republic and Imperials. We cannot wait to watch players reactions when they see this massive battle happening before their very eyes!!

For those of you that have not tried the demo yet, I strongly encourage you to give it a try. We also will be having a large scale PVP event between the New Republic and Imperial factions that have formed on our demo server. This event is taking place on: Saturday,April 21, 21:00 GMT

Take a look at some of the player captured images below and see what you're missing:

Freeworlds: Tides of War - Showcase - Mod DB

Download the Demo Release 1.2 (includes the 1.1 patch) Update Here:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/fwtow/downl ... des-of-war-demo-patch-v12
http://the-starport.net/freelancer/do ... lefile.php?cid=7&lid=2674
http://programexpert.net/Secure/fwtow_update_2.exe

Please be advised, those that use XP operating system will still have an unstable demo. We are currently searching for fixes to the issue.

Change Log Demo Release 1.2:

Major improvement to dynamic lighting pipeline
Added "shift camera" option which centers the chase camera's pivot (3rd person default camera) on the ship's center; helps with capitals and patrol boats during turns
Added vertical synchronization toggle option (only in fullscreen, no effect in windowed mode)
Fixed cockpit glass not rendering properly on AMD graphics cards
Fixed emissive mapping not rendering on Nvidia graphics cards
Improvements to anisotropic filtering support
Fixed mipmapping support
Minor improvement to effects rendering
Minor bug fixes/optimizations on the client hook
Fixed camera bugs
Fixed loot drop bugs
Improved sur collision registering
Fixed pricing issue with DP20/Marauder
Added ALL equipment to lootprops
Increased range of MC30c clusters
Decreased volume requirement of MC30c (adding more ammo)
Increased loot drop for larger ships
Added Ion-Pulse Missile for cruise disruption
Added Tractor Beams to all capital ships (unlimited cruise disruptors)
Increased charge time for cruise to 6 seconds for all starfighters, 10 seconds for traders, 12 corvettes, 14 frigates/interdictors/carriers, 16 destroyers, 18 cruisers, 20 for battleships
Added Battle System (Battle of Bilbringi)
Introduced camera ship (usable by players, too)
Fixed known infocard issues

Main Demo Download (for those that have not downloaded):

http://www.moddb.com/mods/fwtow/downl ... eworlds-tides-of-war-demo

From the Freeworlds: Tides of War development team, we thank you for your continued support of this mod.

Freeworlds: Tides of War Demo Patch 1.1

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 03:10:00 +0200

This past week has been an incredible time for the Freeworlds: Tides of War development team. For those of you that haven't been following us, we released our first public demo, which showcased our new graphical interface and all our ship models, to a large general player base. So far, the support has been overwhelming. We are so thrilled that so many of you have enjoyed our work. The team was even more delighted to have over 900 distinct IPs log onto our server in the past week! Not so bad for a 9 year old game!

Now that we have a very good sized player base to test the mod, our team has been working hard over the past week to fix the inevitable bugs that come up during a release of this magnitude. FriendlyFire has been painstakingly going through the DX9 code to look for ways to improve performance and to fix the bugs that some people have been having. To get a better idea of what FF has done, please watch this video below:

Freeworlds: Tides of War - Development Video #16 - Mod DB

I have been working on fixing the bugs with ships and the client server as well as balance some glaring issues we had in our first release.

Now that we've fixed a number of these bugs, and have improved gameplay performance, we are releasing our first client side patch. If you haven't already downloaded the main demo download, you can do so here:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/fwtow/downl ... eworlds-tides-of-war-demo

Here are some nice player donated screenies of the first week of the demo:

And a quick video of a player's experience on the server:

Player captured battle scene! - Mod DB

After you finished downloading the full install, please download our first client patch which will allow you to see all the improvements we've made in addition to getting massive performance gains on our server. For those who run XP as their main operating system, we're currently still working on a fix for you. You will just have to be patient with us.

For those that a curious, here is our current change log:

major rewriting of the rendering pipeline to optimize speed and rendering of planets, hopefully also improving compatibility
important improvements and changes to the deferred rendering through dynamic control of the number of lights drawn on screen
proper implementation of anisotropic filtering
fixed Alt-Tab crashing the game when in fullscreen
fixed ship handling bugs which would cause turning to be much slower under certain situations
changed volume of proton bombs, heavy rockets, adv. proton torpedo
changed damage of adv. proton torpedo and heavy rockets
changed refire rate of proton bombs, heavy rockets, adv proton torpedo, adv concussion and concussion missiles
changed strafe to 20% previous power
changed camera z distance. Increased all starfighters by 30%
changed camera swing settings - reduced
added missiles/torps to all bases in combat prototype system
fixed pricing bug with imperial bombers
removed battle atmosphere
fixed space bomb bug
added in hull plate phantom loot. Increased drop rates and price
fixed VSD loadout
reduced NPC spam
increased NPC density in all areas
y-wing ion placement bug
toscan internal equipment error fixed
removed old code
fixed dp20 crash bug
increased NPC visual distance to 10km
increased player visual distance to 30km
fixed fuse code
fixed firespray camera. Made it more inline with other assault shuttles
fixed UHH: 0 bug ~ Thanks to Cannon
fixed energy bug with planetary fighter
fixed starting TIE fighter engine bug
increased phantom spawn
placed 3 assault concussion missiles on mc30c
improved cluster bombs of mc30c
added baby deathstar
moved cockpits that were shifted to centre
added phantom physics to docks
fixed VSD model/wireframe

Please find the latest client update download here:

The Starport

Mirror I

From the Freeworlds: Tides of War development team, we thank you for your continued support of this mod.

Freeworlds: Tides of War - Demo Release!

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 21:17:27 +0200

Today, we are proud to present to you the demonstrational package of our mod.

Since it has been taking time for us to finesse the gameplay elements for full release, we wanted to get something out there to our loyal fans. The demo version features prototype systems where you can check out all the ships that will be available in the final build. Also, you can fight in basic NPC battles.

Another reason for a demo release was the opportunity to test our multiple enhancements to the Freelancer graphics engine on a multitude of different systems. Please note that some of our more recent achievements (shadows, distortion mapping, etc..) did not make the final cut. However, rest assured that we will be updating the demo with fixes and improvements. Also, we plan on expanding the demo later on - stay tuned for more details!

But now, have fun flying around and shooting stuff in our demo! Download links below:

http://the-starport.net/freelancer/do ... lefile.php?cid=7&lid=2672

https://rapidshare.com/files/267699227 ... worlds_tow_demo.exe?bin=1

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7167769

From the Freeworlds: Tides of War development team, we thank you for your continued support of this mod.

Freeworlds: Tides of War Demo Announcement!

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:17:23 +0200

Over the past week, we’ve posted up three images speaking to something BIG happening to FW:ToW on April 7th 2012. Speculation on what this may be referring to has been everywhere from new models to a full release of the mod.

While it is not either of these things, it is something pretty big for our fans that have faithfully following us for over almost 4 years of development. You’ve stayed by us through the thick and thin and understood that developing a mod such as this is very much a journey rather than just a destination.

As a development team, we were disappointed in ourselves that we were unable to make the March deadline of full beta release. While we all had legitimate reasons for this, and a vast majority of fans understood these unsaid reasons, but it still ate at us for the past month.

So, to thank our fans for all they’ve done for us, for their constant support and encouragement, we decided to release a demonstration package of the mod.

In this demonstration package you will be able to fly over 100 vessels, see firsthand the improvements to the freelancer graphic engine, engage in combat with the non-playable characters (NPCs) and engage in player versus player (PvP) with other players. In the demo, there are two systems where all of your interaction will take place; the combat prototype system and the capital prototype system.

What this demo will not contain is full gameplay functionality that will be in the final release such as dockable capital ships, dynamic economy, player influence system or any of the final canon star systems. Those are still being worked on and tweaked for a full beta release. It also will NOT contain a freelancer server program. All people who download the server will play on what will be our official server come full release. We decided to release without a server to be able to monitor server stability and to fix any program related bugs with this mass test. By having you put the program through its paces, we'll be able to see where we can improve it for full release.

To also make things interesting, we’re giving all new players just enough cash to buy a new fighter class vessel. For anything else, the player will have to work for it. They’ll have to destroy our NPC starfighters and sell the loot they drop. So, for those looking to fly one of our huge capital ships, you’ll have to work for it, a bit. Teaming up in groups would probably your best bet at being able to buy new ships, quickly. We also hope to arrange a few PvP events just to keep people interested.

So, that’s the big news. I hope you all are as excited to try the demo out as we are excited to release this demonstration package to you all.

I’d also like to take this article and showcase some of the amazing work that’s been accomplished by our very own FriendlyFire. He’s been painstakingly improving our solar system with beautiful new planets and effects. For those of you who haven’t seen his work in the past few weeks, please take a second and take a look at these beauties!

And lots not forget our distortion mapping:

New Distortion Mapping - Mod DB

From the Freeworlds: Tides of War development team, we thank you for your continued support of this mod.

Hyperneon Cluster

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:50:00 +0200

Hyperneon Cluster is a Freelancer mod and the server that runs it. The server is an anarchy server, meaning that there are no rules.

I've recently started playing the legendary game again and I have enjoyed using the Freelancer mod this server is running.

The mod has 300 additional ships from very light fighters up to heavy destroyers, all balanced with the servers proprietary balancing software.

Hyperneon Cluster has hundreds of new bases, new weapons, armour, shields and other devices with their Freelancer mod. There are also hyperspace expressways to make travel and trade quicker. In addition there are highly profitable trade routes and custom trade goods.

Clans and factions are very welcome and may purchase bases, wage war and take bases from other clans/factions via military campaigns. This is a role-playing and player-versus-player server.

Come Check it out at:

http://hyperneon-cluster.com

Freelancer gets true shadows to its graphics engine!

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:50:44 +0200

After implementing deferred rendering, shadowing has always been a secret priority for me. I think shadows are a fundamental feature of next generation graphics as they add a crucial visual clue about the environment and where things actually are. Next to obviously making a game look better in general, shadows can also play an important role in gameplay. In the case of Star Wars and space games, I think the most prominent example for that would be star fighters hiding on the shadowed side of an asteroid or moon. This would tie in with another feature planned for later where you would be able to turn off your ship engines and electronics to hide somewhere, without popping up on the enemy’s radar. Think the Millenium Falcon on the back of the star destroyer in The Empire Strikes Back.

Now, let me give you a technical insight into what has been accomplished. Since we do not have access to the source code of Freelancer, implementing shadow mapping was not a trivial task. As shadow mapping requires rendering the scene from the light’s perspective, the key was to have control over the camera including frustum culling. After this had been figured out, the implementation was rather straight forward as shadow mapping is not really complicated. I won’t talk about shadow mapping in this article as I think a Google search will point you to a lot of articles that will explain it a lot better than I could do here, including comparisons with other shadowing techniques such as stencil volumes.

As of now, only a basic shadow mapping technique is implemented, with only the player’s ship casting shadows. The actual shadow is smoothed using percentage closer filtering on the shadow map lookup, and then blurred using a standard Gaussian blur. So, it is a pretty standard, basic shadow implementation. You will be able to see this type of shadowing in our upcoming open beta.

Here is a little video, also showing how shadows fade out with increasing distance:

For our release version later this year, I want to implement more advanced shadowing techniques such as cascaded shadow mapping with variance shadow maps to get nicely smoothed shadows over vast distances. This will allow us to let every object cast shadows, from small fighters over star destroyers to big planets!

Now, some words about the overall mod progress. As real life is taking its toll on many of the developers, we are currently in a feature lock-down to ship this mod sooner rather than later. You can expect more graphics features for our final release, however for our upcoming open beta release there will be no more improvements other than optimizing and bug fixing.

Since we want to release the mod with a minimum set of features so that beta testing actually makes sense, we are not sure we can make our March deadline. Even though the basic framework is pretty much complete, there is still a lot to do on the gameplay side. We are confident to reach open beta status within the coming months, however do not expect it to be March.

Thanks for all your support so far and see you in space, in a galaxy far far away, soon!

As always any comments, suggestions or questions are always welcomed!
----------------------------------------------------------

Discovery Freelancer 4.86: Beta Released

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:20:00 +0200

Discovery Freelancer 4.86: Exiles Beta released
4.86 really does exist!

After 2 years of work since the last update, the Discovery development team have finally released the first Discovery Freelancer 4.86: Exiles public beta.

The following trailer was released 3 weeks ago, at the same time the release date was announced:

This is still beta, so there are lots of bugs still. Cannon has said "We're thrilled that the server is only crashing once per hour rather than 10 times per hour. We've been going slightly insane trying to fix these problems."
Indeed, the bugs were a big problem from the start of the public beta. Cannon counted over 100 official server crashes in 12 hours.

Since the public beta started, the development team has been working hard on bugs, and have already released a new update that includes minor changes and bug fixes.

This release includes over 90 new bases in 20 new systems in the Gallic Core Worlds alone. It also adds new features like player docking on capital ships, jump drives, different cruise speeds, turret zoom. Some other features are planned but not released as of yet.

Some confusion was caused by the way the release was done on the official community forums; it wasn't made clear that this was, in fact, a beta, instead of a full release. When Cannon was asked about this he promised that the person responsible for the oversight would be shot. 4.86 will remain in beta for 2-3 weeks.

You can find download/install instructions here.

The Underverse 2.26 Arrives Christmas Day 2011

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:46:03 +0200

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The Latest Release From Team [RIP] Arrives Before Midnight on Christmas Day
Merry Christmas and happy holidays From all of us at Team [RIP] & The Underverse

A Sneak peek at our latest Ship Addition THE MARAUDER

Thanks for Watching

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