First two TIE Fighter missions reimagined into XWA

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First two TIE Fighter missions reimagined into XWA

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AngeI
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Post by AngeI » Wed Feb 03, 2016 2:11 pm

Hello all. So I’d like to test an idea with you guys. First a bit of backstory for me but for those of you who hate walls of text I will quickly sum it up in a TL:DR sentence before proceeding further! =P

I’ve reimagined the first two missions from TIE Fighter into XWA and would like people to test it and give me feedback on it and if you’d like to see more reimagining of all the other TF campaign missions. See bottom of this post for dropbox link. It’s important you play the original versions of these missions to see how it compares!

Now with the TL:DR out of the way, here’s the full explanation!

So TIE Fighter was one of the first PC games I ever played and of all the entries in the X-Wing games, TIE Fighter was my favourite (as I’m sure it was many others) for the simple fact you played the bad guys... and actually made you feel like a good guy, fighting the good fight against terrorism and maintaining peace and order. With very little in the way of cut scenes or dialogue beyond your briefings and special missions from the Emperor, TIE Fighter managed to build that atmosphere for you and it stays with me even to this day with generous amounts of nostalgic tinted glasses.

So I’ve not actually played TIE Fighter in a long time until I saw X-Wing Alliance on sale on Steam, so I grabbed it. After playing my way through the XWA campaign, I hunted around and found the TIE Fighter Conversion mod 2.0 and have been enjoying seeing my old favourite in the much better and prettier XWA engine (once the upgrade pack is installed ofc!)

But in playing through the missions, something really struck me. Whilst some missions play absolutely fine, others are rather broken. Not because they were bad missions (although there are a few of those) but because the differences in how the TF engine and the XWA engine handle things, notably that XWA allows much larger ship numbers and that capital ships shoot down your missiles and torpedoes. This leads to several missions where assaulting stations or capital ships were necessary, but due to the lack of ships on the field (max was 32 I think for the TF engine) AND the cap ships shooting down any warheads, it made the mission near or absolutely impossible to complete without cheating your way through it. Remember when shooting down a corellian corvette only took 6 torpedoes? XWA versions seem to take a lot more than that and there are numerous missions involving you blowing up multiple corellian corvettes! That and corvettes in XWA absolutely MURDER fighters!

I also noticed the pacing of some missions was off, with some stretching for up to 10-15 mins before something new happened or mission was complete, again I believe some of this down to the XWA engine and its better AI changing the pacing of the mission from its original version in the TF engine. Plus in TF you could speed up time whilst you waited!

So I wondered if anyone had tried to reimagine/remaster the TF campaign into XWA beyond dumping the missions into XWA and doing minor tweaks to ensure they work in XWA without breaking it. What I mean by this is to significantly alter the missions of TF to take advantage of what XWA can do, namely larger battles and more regions to fight over, changing the structure of missions lacking in decent pacing or interesting design to make for a TF campaign that is more interesting in as many aspects as can be improved upon. XWA also has many new ship and station models to work with over TF that can be used in expanding the variety of craft encountered during the campaign.

As a proof of concept, I’ve spent most of January re-learning how to use AlliED after about 15 years and have reimagined the first two campaign missions of TF (Patrol Outpost D-34 and Defend Outpost D-34). Whilst the core mission goals and narrative remains pretty much identical to the original versions, many details have been changed, including recording all new voice work for the briefings and in-flight radios. I wanted to try and make you feel like you were at an imperial stronghold, hence upgrading the D-34 platform to a more robust Golan (often seen in XWA as strongholds/outposts/inspection points), lots more TIE’s flying around, more traffic. You want to FEEL the might and superiority of the Empire. Being the first couple of missions, the Rebel attacks are pretty easily shrugged off (depending on difficulty level played ofc :D ) as they should be but should also help establish the Imperials superiority in numbers.

So basically I’d be very interested in having people fly the missions, compare it to the originals and see how you feel about it. If this seems like a promising venture, I’d be quite interested in continuing to reimagine all the remaining missions and battles of TF into a whole new campaign and label it TIE Fighter: Reimagined (TF:R) =P

Below is a dropbox link with the missions. You will require the TFC v2.0 mod installed first , I’ve included my own PLT file (named Angelus) which has unlocked many of the other missions already, go to the simulator and look for Battle 1: Missions 1 and 2 (Patrol/Defend Outpost D-34).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/di9xjspohke2m7r/TF-R.rar?dl=0

I've also uploaded a youtube video showing comparing the new VO work with the original ones during the map briefing sessions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzB5rgem4YY

I look forward to your feedback :D
Last edited by AngeI on Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Drinkinmiester
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Post by Drinkinmiester » Wed Feb 03, 2016 5:16 pm

I watched the video, good work!

LtGrandMaster
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Post by LtGrandMaster » Mon Feb 08, 2016 8:07 pm

does TFC work with the GOG version of the game? I haven't tried for fear of having to reinstall the game.

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AngeI
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Post by AngeI » Tue Feb 09, 2016 12:32 pm

I think it should, I don't see why it wouldn't since it was created before the Steam version came along :)

What I would suggest is creating a copy of your XWA directory then if I want to go back to a clean install, I can simply delete the existing one and rename the copy, saves the reinstallation :)

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AngeI
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Post by AngeI » Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:25 pm

No bites I guess then, not surprising given how old this game is now I suppose! Nevertheless, if anyone does play it, I hope you do enjoy what I did ;)

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Post by Atruejedi » Mon Apr 18, 2016 10:12 am

I think with the recent release of all the classic Star Wars flight sims on GoG and Steam, we'll be seeing a resurgent interest in converting TIE Fighter to the XWA engine. I haven't played your mission, but I watched the video, and good work! I'm currently replaying XWA with the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade and the resolution changes. It holds up so well! But it's harder than I remember... I guess I'm just getting old.

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Post by Bman » Tue Apr 19, 2016 5:17 am

It's being worked on. But with DICE's gorgeous graphics of Battlefront, it's stealing the show and best engine out there. But it's different. High probability they will expand their flight sim modules in the future and with new maps and new battles all over the galaxy. Ground game play is more popular for many fans I guess.
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AngeI
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Post by AngeI » Mon May 02, 2016 11:20 am

The Battlefront flight combat is on-rails arcadey, not much skill involved if you ask me. The X-Wing series was a HARD game :D

I'm still very interested in trying to perform a remaster of TIE Fighter, but it just doesn't seem there's enough interest right now :(

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