XWA Upgrade

Greetings everyone. My name is Adam and I've been a silent member of this community since the dawning of XvT editing at Datamaster's website back in 1998. I was too young to communicate or interact with anyone so I didn't, but for the past 15 years, I've been diligently applying the day's standard of OPT design into a long-running project that has finally entered its final stages of completion. This project is a testament to the loyalty of the fans of the SW Combat Flight sim genre, and to the extraordinary talent of some of the people who have been a part of the OPT Project and the X-wing Community. In addition to including the work of many great OPT designers, this project (currently just an XvT game) also represents what I believe to be achievements in pushing the boundaries in the XvT/BoP environment that I have personally pioneered.

Most of the creative construction for this project is complete, which means that there is now a daunting task that lay before me, and for the first time, I'm willing to seek some assistance from this wonderful community. The daunting task that I speak of is the conversion of this project's 144 XvT missions into XWA missions that make full use of the better game engine and AI programming. If possible, I would not like to spend another 15 years constructing and beta-testing if a small team could help get this project done in a year or two. This is the only place I can think to submit a request of this nature, and I that my longest running life's work will invigorate some of you other with a life sentence to this stuff. I'll post some screenshots of the game in its current state as well as some thoughts I've had over the course of the years.

More screenshots. I know that by XWA standards, this is nothing impressive, but this is as good as XvT gets. I would like to push XWA in the same way with the conversion.

I failed 8th grade algebra because I was plotting missions all day, instead. When I was 17, I joined the US Navy so I could see how real navies operate, and I incorporated what I learned into the storyline and my mission design.

I am so sorry that it took me so long to bring this project to fruition. I wish that I could have been a part of the community when it was thriving.

I have to get some more up-to date screenshots. A lot of these are over a month old. I can do a lot of work in a month. Please contact me on this forum or via email if you want to help. What I really need right now is help with beta-testing and the first stages of the XWA conversion. I will post more in this thread soon.

For right now, even 1 person to help test missions would accelerate my progress significantly.

Thank you for all the wonderful OPTs over the years, guys.

What you did is really ambitious......were you hosted somewhere before ? I've never seen your project on the net.

Nice project, surely needs a good cleanout and update to XWA.
Looks like you'll not find an helping team here, works are pretty halted from a bit of time...

I've never posted anything about this project on this website or anywhere else on the internet before. I had a flight squadron a long time ago, and my executive officer helped me test a lot of my older missions over MP.

I did a rough conversion of a few missions that did not require and hyperlane travel, and just as I thought, the XWA AI is going to need some accounting for, especially as it concerns starships and gunrange, etc. I can that this is a sleepy place anymore, and I understand why more than anyone.

Hopefully someone lurking around here will take some interest and want to fly a few of these missions over MP with me. I'll upload more screenshots soon.

Hi,

very interesting!

I still fly XvT too.

That is mainly because I dislike some changes they have done in XWA to the gameplay (for example the nearly useless warheads in XWA - once my calamari survived a full TIE Bomber assault without a scratch as none of the torpedos hit its mark ).

I have tried to create some capital ship battles too. Most successful and convincingly is to place the ships in battlelines similar to the seaships during the Napoleon´s wars and World War I or as a "Battlewall".
This Wall of Strike Cruisers assisted by three Gunboats just disabled the Base and a Dreadnought without taking critical damage.

Unfortunatly I can not play online, since I have got a very slooow internet connection. Sorry!

Hmmm. I'm in the middle of my own project currently, but I suppose it can't hurt to work on some missions for your project, too. I like how you're making cap ship engagements, and I agree that XWA has its shortcomings (like the ridiculous ability of cap ships to shoot down warheads -- even starfighters shooting down projectiles was silly enough, if you ask me).


Edit: I don't have XvT, however, so can't play missions except in XWA.

I'm impressed by many of the scenes you've made, though, they all look really cool .

I've expanded XvT to accommodate twice as many craft as the stock game could handle.

You couldn't work similar magic with XWA? 192 ships in one region would be awesome .

To be honest, I think the smartest thing you can do is simply release your project for XvT. 144 missions is a lot of content to convert even with a dedicated team, and this looks like a professional, exciting project that I would love to try out.

So my advice, if I may, is make a website/blog, finalize your project and upload it to the Web for us to enjoy .

I'll be releasing the XvT build of this project regardless of whether an XWA production ever comes to fruition. I think that there are certain elements of XvT that make it more enjoyable than XWA, and despite all of its shortcomings, it will always be my most favorite game of all time. XVT will be on my gravestone instead of RIP.

I still need to assemble some kind of team to help me wrap up a lot of the loose ends. I want the finished XvT production to include custom awards and voice acting, and I know that is incredibly ambitious. I'm not expecting a great number of individuals to even have time to help with such a massive undertaking, but since there is always a faint chance that there will be some interest, I can justify taking some time and making it available here. In truth, I would have been a part of this community on my own accord if I was not so inundated with making this game. Between my job and this project, I really don't have a lot of time --especially in the spring/summer months.

I think that I am going to release this game incrementally over a course of several months so I have enough time to test the more recent missions. If anyone is willing to lend a hand with the mission testing, I would be very appreciative, and it would accelerate production significantly.

Contact me about this project at my personal email: AdamL_T@yahoo.com

I'll be releasing the XvT build of this project regardless of whether an XWA production ever comes to fruition.

XvT/BoP was a good game. It got some bad rep, but it had a good atmosphere and I had lots and lots of fun with it.


Edit: you know, voice talents is something you can get from other sources, too . Just that this is an XvT project doesn't mean you have to get your voices from the X-Wing series community . Hunt around, you'll probably find someone, somewhere who can help you!

This is a compilation screenshot of the available ships in my game as seen through XvTED. This represents the current state of the ship database in my game as of March 2013, and after years of revision, I think that the finished product will look very similar to this. The shipslots that contain a backslash separating two ships actually hosts two different craft in the game. This is because of a combination of techniques that I have employed that allow the game to *apparently* differentiate between two different craft within the same ship slot. I'll reveal more about those secrets later.


NOTE: The second asteroid hangar that shows up next to planet 3 is actually a free slot now, as the asteroid hangar has it's own dedicated shipslot that this game uses. This means that I currently have 2 free slots that I have been keeping open incase I have a great idea in the late stages of production that requires the use of a shipslot.

Amazing! When i saw these screenshots, then i first moment i thought... "Am i sleeping? Is it dream?". I remember how i saw such of dreams at nights after flying too much in Star Wars: Tie-fighter when was school student more than 15 years ago. I saw how i not just flying in space, but enter into atmosphere of a planet, flying around mountains and buildings. You made it come true.

I didn't make it come true. Hernan Barreiro and Abolisher made it come true, and those are just for the planets. In all truth, the personal touches that I added to the work of some of the community members was done without permission thus far, as reaching everyone has become increasingly difficult over the years. My primary contribution with this project is my work at mission design, which has been my privilege for the past 15 years. There are a few OPTs and some textures that I'm responsible for creating in this game, but I would hope to see them redone by someone who actually knows what they're doing. I appreciate the kind words, but if there is anyone to be thanked, start with Lt Hag and work your way out from there.

I'm compiling a version of the game that is about to undergo the first phase of scrutiny and testing. I am doing everything I can to produce a finished product that will be available for download soon.

I noticed you mentioned that you managed to get XvT to accommodate more ships than it was designed for.

1) Do you mean ships on the map or ships in the library?

2) PLEASE share how you did this!

3) Do you think you could reproduce that feat in XWA?

I would love to help if I can, although to be honest I don't know how much I can offer given work and family commitments. I really enjoy making missions. I particularly enjoy large naval battles (like you said I think it's a shame they never really got any love from the game). I actually think many aspects of XvT are better than XWA but in the end I just can't get enough ships for my rather ambitious missions. Now that I've found a good number of atmospheric opts I will be doing some planetside missions as well.

Nevermind #1, I realized it was already answered once I actually read the entire thread instead of practically jumping up and down with excitement upon seeing what you had accomplished.

Actually, there is a technique that I have developed, but I have not revealed it to anyone except for one person. I was going to reveal the secret when I released the game, but to be honest, I cannot say with any degree of certainty that I am the first one to develop this method for maximizing slot use in X-wing Vs TIE Fighter, so I'll let the community decide who gets the credit.

The way that I managed to convince the game to acknowledge 4 containers in 2 slots is the same way that I stacked planets within city slots. As everyone knows, every mesh in an OPT has a hitzone definition that refers to a part of a ship, ie: Wing, Bridge, Gun Turret, Hangar.

The operate values that make this technique possible are the weapon type hitzone definitions. Meshes that are designated "Gun Turrets" aren't even loaded with the OPT in the game when a "No Lasers" option is selected in the craft selection when using XvTED. This means that if I start with a large container, like container A, then, using OPTech, I import a smaller container and afix it to the same center coordinates as the larger container, the large container will completely cover the smaller one. In the game, you will see Container A as if the smaller container is not even there. Now, if container A, which happens to be only 1 mesh, was designated a "Gun turret", when it's lasers are switched off in XvTED, all you will see is the smaller container. Some clever editing with the CMD ID to display CON instead of CON/A and now I have two containers that use only 1 slot. Used in conjunction with another technique, which involves adjusting the Target Type, it can be made so that a craft cannot even be targeted, so in the case of larger objects, like planets, I can stack multiple craft without the player being aware. This is the most simple example of what I've done, but I do not care to reveal the more advanced undertakings I have accomplished using this method.

This causes some problems with color palettes that need to be considered, but they can be overcome. This method has required a great deal of testing, but I believe I have perfected it within the model of my game's structure.

That is genius. I was not aware that the laser turrets disappeared. I'm assuming it would work in XWA as well. Thanks for sharing that!

Now if only there was a way to come up with a way to bypass the limit on the number of ships on the map at a given time.

That would require the source code to the game. I'm every bit a proponent of obtaining it and modifying the game in that regard, but as far as I remember, every attempt at getting LA to release the source code to any of their games was impossible. It's an old subject, and I hope that fan productions like mine will convince Disney to reconsider our request.

I was told about someone who might have decompiled the .exe and changed the 32 ship limit per 30 second action radius, but I haven't been able to contact him.