Sim Missions & Progress

Starkey

Starkey

Avenging Rooster
To the Standoff staff: Do you have the storyline all written already? I noticed that almost all ships are ready but you haven´t started working on the missions yet.

Also, we are going to have 10 sim missions. Will they all be released with the Prologue?

Finally, the "Forum" link in the Standoff page is leading to a 404 now, probably because of the CZ engine upgrade.
 
Starkey said:
To the Standoff staff: Do you have the storyline all written already? I noticed that almost all ships are ready but you haven´t started working on the missions yet.
Click to expand...
The storyline is all written alright... The reason there are just about 5 missions done so far is because programming these missions has been taking a lot longer than expected. The good side to this issue, is that I'll probably have time to add 12 different versions of each ship to ever appear in WC1, WC2, Privateer, SM1, SM2, SO1, SO2, Academy, WCATV, and SWC before all the missions are complete (well, not really). The bad side is, of course, that Standoff is going to be pushed back *a lot* further :( The really bad side is that even if I code more missions myself, like I did with one of the Prologue's missions, we'll still have to push the release back a lot further, because I couldn't possibly code the remaining 35 missions myself (I'm counting variations of the same mission as different missions here, but I'm not counting the cutscenes) :( Pierre has probably been busy with real life, and Pedro has been too busy to code for a while as well... hopefully, things will get back to normal soon, but even if they do, we've already fallen behind schedule too damn much. The whole problem is that the entire mod absolutely needs to get done by early 2004, because then I plan to take my studies more seriously and not spend most of my time working on this kind of thing anymore.

Starkey said:
Also, we are going to have 10 sim missions. Will they all be released with the Prologue?
Click to expand...
Nope, none of them will be released with the Prologue (there's not even a simulator in the Lionheart's menu room)... they will only be available onboard the Firekka. The reason we've decided to do this is that at first, the idea was to get the prologue out really soon instead of having to code 10 extra missions for it. This makes even more sense now that I've realized missions will take a lot longer than I had anticipated.

Starkey said:
Finally, the "Forum" link in the Standoff page is leading to a 404 now, probably because of the CZ engine upgrade.
Click to expand...
Thanks for pointing that out, I'll fix that after they're done with the solsector.net server move.
 
So you DO need more coders... I wish I could help you. I am VERY good with computers, "a nível de usuário". But I don´t know anything about programming. If there´s anything I could do... I am a very fast typist (but I presume most people here are). If there is some easy, horsework job to be done, let me know and I´ll help.

Good idea in releasing the sim missions with the main package. That way we can test the Prologue sooner and give you all sorts of feedback.

I bet things will get better in the following months. People from the North have those summer vacations and I´m sure they´ll have more time to help.
 
Thanks :) We do have a job that needs lot of typing, which is writing the fiction... but since I'm the one who gets to create all the characters and etc., I prefer to do that myself. Once I see the missions are getting underway, I'll stop messing around with unnecessary ships and move on to stuff like writing more fiction, sorting through voiceovers, and adding animations for in-flight comms (that's all there is left to do apart from ships and missions, really... oh, and the animations for the Firekka's room too. Right now, only the Lionheart has an animated door - but I can render the Firekka's animations in two or three hours)
 
Got you one coder already, a ronaldace dude who´s been posting in the UE forum. He says that he sent you an email today.
 
Yeah, I've talked to him already. Even if it works out we still need at least two other coders to be on the safe side, but it's a good start already :)
 
Iceblade reporting for duty.

P.S. Anybody seen-or really heard from-Ronald? I haven't seen him do any posts or even visit the site when I am on.
 
:( :( Man! You know that character you play, Bradshaw. Well, there was a guy named Joshua Bradshaw who died on the 26th in a driving accident at around 4 in the afternoon. He was 23 years-old. I just wanted to mention this unusual concidence. :( :(
 
Yeah, and? It's not like it's a horribly uncommon name. I'm sure there's probably someone named Blair who's died recently, too.
 
Iceblade said:
Anybody seen-or really heard from-Ronald? I haven't seen him do any posts or even visit the site when I am on.
Click to expand...
He's probably busy coding missions for Standoff. The guy's a really quick learner.

As for Bradshaw, it's a common name, and even moreso in the WC universe, it seems. There's a TCS Bradshaw and a Bradshaw star system. :)
 
Hey guys I have got a very good mission here-tough and almost UE except for the fact that the last part is easy.
 
Coming up with missions is not a problem, since we'd tell you exactly what to do... it's just a matter of doing exactly what you're supposed to do. For example, have you got all those bugs fixed yet? We can teach you how to use functions, but you should really know how to avoid/fix bugs in your own code... after teaching you the needed functions and variables we can't really afford to go thru your code half a dozen times just telling you to fix things like setup variables and actionspheres (which are all basic things, covered in the few online tutorials already), specially if you've changed the whole mission without testing it step-by-step (that is, potentially having created a dozen different bugs at the same time, leaving everyone clueless as to where to look for them). It would take us more time to fix your code than to start coding the missions from scratch again. :(
 
To all construction personnel of Standoff:

Hey guys listen if worse comes to worse what you could do is pull some guys off of the other stations of contruction and put them on the missions itll help to catch up on things but seriously do not I REPEAT do not release the prologue with out the Simulator missions in place plz????
 
Everyone who can code missions is already coding missions... there's no one we can "pull off from other stations", apart from myself... but that's probably not a good idea. If I stop doing ships now and help with the missions instead, the Prologue might come out sooner, but after it did, *nobody* would be able to code *anything* until I finished all the ships necessary for the main campaign's missions (missions can't be created without ships in them :)).
Bottom line is, I'd rather delay the prologue so that we can release the main campaign not too long after it.

As for the sim missions, the prologue will *definitely* be released without them. It will already take long to code the Prologue's 7 missions, so I think it's in everyone's best interest to not add another 10 missions and new room graphics on top of that. As a rule, when a game is bound to get delayed, you shouldn't add more stuff to it :p
 
Eder you must be joking-I will never give you anything that isn't already debuged and if I have any problem I can't solve and have already tried everything I can thing up, then I will e-mail you guys. And there are several things that are still required to may this practice mission better.

I think you will like it. Very hard-or impossible-on level 4 difficultly. :D :D
 
Iceblade said:
Eder you must be joking-I will never give you anything that isn't already debuged and if I have any problem I can't solve and have already tried everything I can thing up, then I will e-mail you guys. And there are several things that are still required to may this practice mission better.
Click to expand...
The coders we work with, we need guarantees :p. At this stage, you're still having trouble handling simple code for things like navpoints. So, either we'd be spending a lot of time helping you, or we'd wait quite a while for you to fix the bugs yourself. Neither of these options, as you can imagine, is particularly appealing to us.

Don't get us wrong. We do need more programmers, and we'll be happy to accept your help - once you've demonstrated that you would indeed be helpful, rather than a hinderance.

I think you will like it. Very hard-or impossible-on level 4 difficultly.[/QUOTE]
We already have our missions designed, however, and adding a new mission or replacing an existing one would require various plot changes and such, all of which takes time time. If there's one thing I learned the hard way while working on UE, it's that working a new mission into an existing campaign is almost always more work than making the actual mission.
Secondly, your mission is designed with 2681 fighters and capships. Ships aren't interchangeable - if we were to take your mission and replace all the ships in it with Standoff ships, it would require even more effort in order to balance it.
 
Woah Woah, Hold The Phone!

This mission is not to be added as anything more than a show of my programming abilities and imagination. With a few changes-like ships-it could even be a mission for the sim. Not something to be added into the story. I probably should of been more clear. I will probably e-mail you guys this code soon-maybe in 1 or 2 days. At least until I add in a few more things-already have a faliure in there.
 
Eder (from the UE forum) said:
We definitely could use more coders working on Standoff. Anyone with even the most basic WCPPas skills would probably be helpful already, but I don't think there's many people around which fit that description (if you do, please, contact me! :D)
Click to expand...

I don´t know anything about WCPPas, but seems to me that Iceblade fits the above description. Eder, you said that with two more coders, at least, the project´s schedule could be met. With Iceblade and Ronaldace added, what´s the perspective now?
 
Iceblade hasn't really been added... I think he should try and learn a little more bugfixing first, or like me and Quarto said, we are going to end up taking more time to fix missions.

The perspective has already improved a lot this week, though. Ronald has coded the essentials of the last three missions of the Prologue... I'm finishing up the intro cutscene, and Quarto is going to be polishing up Ronald's missions soon (adding briefings, etc - things which would take too long to teach). After that, we're about 7 missions (1 cutscene, 3 missions and their variants, actually) short, although of course, there are still bugs to be hunted down in all (7) other missions.

Apart from that, we have to wait for HCl to compile a new launcher for us so I can add all the comm animations... I also need to fix some turret placement and add briefing versions of certain capships... and, let's see... I need to add one or two ships to the object viewer... add a couple of models we need for a cutscene...write a few missing pieces of fiction... find and remove a sound file... come up with an easter egg :p... record about 40 lines worth of Freyers' voiceovers... and, of course, pray that everybody gets their voiceovers done on time. i think that's it, I might be forgetting something, but nothing big.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top