New Mod: Babylon 5 Shadowfall

blargue · #1 July 22nd, 2006, 12:20 AM

Hmmmm, so far I can't seem to run anything besides the smallest map size without the program crashing. Any suggestions?

Psientist · #2 July 22nd, 2006, 02:43 PM

I'm very unhappy to hear that...Can anyone replicate this problem, or confirm that the mod is working for them? It's working fine for me... but again, I'm on a Mac.

Mobbex · #3 July 22nd, 2006, 03:12 PM

Man, this is awesome. I'm on a mac too, and its working great.

Honestly, this is the most advanced WW mod I've ever played. Great Job!

blargue · #4 July 22nd, 2006, 06:01 PM

I wouldn't even care except that I had the misfortune of playing the betas and seeing how slick they were! You may want to post your mod to the Infinite Space Federation site. I think the Shrapnel guys frequent that place a bit more for some reason. The link is:

http://z7.invisionfree.com/SAIS_Foru...p?showforum=11

(as I'm sure you knew anyway)
One way or another, you should post it there anyway so more people can get a taste of all that hard work you put into your mod.

Thanks for all the hard work!

ImUrOBGYN · #5 July 22nd, 2006, 09:35 PM

I'm still playing beta 3 and occasinally get the strange black hole quirk. Your nebula masses anger me to no extent as I often find myself trying to cross them without realizing it until it's too late. But, it does finally make one of the items quite a bit more useful (can't remember the name offhand, it's used to outline the edges of the nebulas or whatever), so I say it's a go. :-) Whether on purpose or not. Can't wait to try your 1.0 so I'm off to do so!

ImUrOBGYN · #6 July 22nd, 2006, 09:50 PM

Ok, simulator seemed to work, though selecting Babylon 4 is pointless as it seems to be derelict. It does not attack, defend, and you cannot board and take control. Tried the full game (only starting it) and I am able to begin a small and medium map game, but the large map crashes to desktop everytime. This was tested with each ship with low nebula mass and max enemy every time.

ImUrOBGYN · #7 July 22nd, 2006, 10:49 PM

After playing the 'medium' map, it seems it's 'large' map size. I haven't tried the 'small' map, dunno if it's the correct size or not.
I did run into a couple other small problem. When entering a black hole and meeting some ancient ones, I received my 'gift'. I had a full cargo hold at the time and had to quit the game due to the fact I could not move anywhere. There was nowhere to put an extra item like you would on a planet and the item I received could not be equipped without displacing another item into cargo. I know your anti gravity item for entering black holes has a warning about using it w/full cargo, but this is more of a needed fix and not a 'game/role playing' type of error. I assumed that having a full cargo and entering a black hole would kill me or something, not do that. (yes, i entered it anyway, lol).
The second problem, unless this was done intentionally, is that I cannot fill the cargo bay on the whitestar. There's two rows for cargo, but you cannot fill the last two spaces.
All in all, a very enjoyable mod and one of the best I've played so far!!!

Psientist · #8 July 22nd, 2006, 11:31 PM

Some great feedback! Thanks. Some responses:

1. I can't track the black hole thing down. I assumed it was a quest STAR definition somewhere, but I paid double attention to them this time through with no luck.

2. I tried to make the nebula masses look more like the wispy nebula gases you see in Hubble telescope images, and yes, give some actual value to the nebular extent calculator item. As long as you pay attention to the projected travel times between stars, however, it won't be a problem- but if you jump before you look, it might. That was on purpose... whether it was a good call or not remains to be seen.

3. The White Star is only supposed to have 6 cargo slots. It's not a full size frigate, so I comprimised - the game needed more than four slots but 8 seemed over-generous. It's easy to fix if everyone thinks it is too restrictive.

4. I agree about the black hole item dropping thing. It snagged me in playtesting, that's why I put the warning on the Gravitic Field Inverter and changed the icon so everyone would give it a close look. I tried to add a custom planet to black holes to give you a place to dump items, but black holes are hardcoded it seems to not allow planets! And, if I move the First Ones quests out of black holes, it kind of ruins the whole point. I wanted to give a reason to check out black holes at all, and make it a little hard to find First Ones and the goodies they can give out.

5. Babylon 4 is designed purely as a derelict. It doesn't have maneuvering thrusters or a drive, and isn't intended for play ... so no, I wouldn't imagine it would be much fun in the simulator. I could remove it from the simulator selections I guess.

6. I "upsized" all the maps. The small map is the normal game's "medium"; the "medium" map is the normal game's "large", and the "large" is an "extra large" one for extended play. It shouldn't affect stability... you can always try deleting the "distribution.ini" file in the mod if you want to go back to the default map sizes, but I haven't tested stability on that.

7. It seems that the map sizes, and the mod itself, is not uniformly stable across both the PC and Mac platform. Unfortunately, this doesn't help me debug any.

8. To be honest, I wasn't aware of the Infinite Space Federation site. Thanks for the link!