Star Blazers Mod

[Lancefighter]

Nice mod you have going here. i found some stuff on the internet, i was looking for bsg stuff though, i thing it is the right ships
i cant get the url thing to work so
http://www.shipschematics.net/yamato/

[Campeador]

Thanks Lancefighter,
Yes I am aware of that site. While doing reserch on the ships, I did purchase a book called "Star Blazers - Technical Manual". Good book, it has identical drawings as the site you mentioned, in addition of weapon descriptions, story, etc. so they provably copy it from that book (printed on 1998), but at least the site saved me the trouble of having to scan each picture of the ships I wanted, since it was easier to just print from the drawings from that site.
I am also grateful for many online sites were I could download some pic's, music, as well as the creator of "SFSlotModder"(that program made things easier), and the few tutorials right here on this forum about how to use some of the different drawing programs, which by the way I almost quit after messing with it for two weeks.
The story about my ships, I have never made a space ship until I started this game. I hapen to have a "CAD" program, I also have acess to 3dMax, in addition to a few other 3D free programs, the problem was that even thought I do have them, I have never used them before, and I was not willing to spend 6+ months learning "3DMax" which is very complex and intimidating. The only program I know how to use is the one I learned in college called "Solidworks".
The problem was that it does not transfer files into the X format. So I created it in "Solidworks" into an "IGS" format, from there I transfered into "3dMax" into "3ds" format, from there I transfered into "anim8or", and from there into "LithUnwrap". I spent 3 weeks creating my first ship the "Yamato". It came out very good in "Solidworks", but by the time I was done with the transfering, the ship was transparent, and with holes (missing sides). Not good. At that point I quit the project for a week. Fooling around with 3dMax I discovered that it has a feature to patch the holes, but at the same time it distorted any round part. I quit for another week totally frustrated.
To make the story short, I made 3 or 4 versions of the "Yamato", it went from very realistic to the one you see on the game, ok for the game, but not the beauty I originaly created. I had to make them using angles, no round parts for them to work. (None of the ships have a single round part). Well except for the cannons, they came out ok since the distortion is hard to notice and they are small, and I needed the cannons. Anyway the ships are not exact or perfect, far from it, at very least I wanted to capture a good resemblance, I simplyfied them alot also to make the files smaller. It is funny, 3 weeks on the first ship, and the last 3 ships in one day.
I do not even want to talk about skin painting, another nightmare.
By the way as you start the game, the starting ship you can see it on a 3d window rotating, my ships do not work on that window for some reason, that is why I had to start the game with one of the ships of the original game. If I were to use any of my ships as the origimal ship the game will crash. I am actually amazed that I was able to make the game by bypassing the problems and moving on, instead of finding a solution, that at the time I could not solve.
Good luck hunting for the bsg stuff.

[Campeador]

Heads up!
The second part of the "StarBlazers Mod" (which will conclude the "The Quest for Iscandar" story) is going well. I just finish creating the last ship and I am starting to code them into the game. There are going to be over 12 new designs (there were 13 original designs on the first part). So that's a total of over 24 ships when all combined! Between the new ones there are going to be 5 new Gamilon fighters, in addition to new Carriers, Destroyers, Battleships, Cruisers, and a few other surprises.
Now that the ships are done, things should start speeding up. The story is already 50% done, and I hope to finish it between the next 2 weeks, and maybe another 2 weeks for testing and bug hunting, totaling one month (That is assuming that all goes well). This second part is going to be a little bit longer than part one (but not by much), but still fast and to the point as the first one.
As the story goes the solar system is free of Gamilons for the moment (part one), thanks to the "Star Force" and their ship the "Yamato". At the start of the second part of the game, the Star Force is leaving their solar system for the first time, and going into the unknown, through the dreaded Gamilon sector in rout to "Iscandar". "Leader Desslok" have assigned a more competent general to deal with "the little matter called the Star Force"; his name is "General Lysis". How good is he? That will be for you to judge...

[Q]

Good news. I look forward to play the second part.
Thank you again for your work Campeador.

[Captain Kwok]

After being pasted by the Gamilon in one of SE:IV pbw games - I'm looking to return the favour in this new campaign!

[Campeador]

"Star Blazers Mod: The Quest for Iscandar, Campaign 2" is up for download!
As I mentioned before it is twice as long as the first one, still is relatively short (4 to 6 hours?). If you like story telling, you are in for a treat, since you get to find out how the story ends.
I made a few changes on the mechanics on how the game play as compared to the first campaign. There were a few ideas and sugestions that I let pass before because I did not had the desire to go back and change things after it was done, but in this second campaign I did implement some.
Armor is more important than shields now. The shields are 1/2 as powerful per tonage, and the armor is double.
Items will not get experience, this is a very heavy combat mod and the "Yamato" was getting too powerful. Anyway I spent almost a month playing with it to see how things turned out, and I am pleased.
You do not need to play the first campaign to play the second part! If you lost your previous saved game, do not worry. Even thought the game continues in the same sector as part one ended, I gave the player the option to pick up the "Yamato" from the hangar at "Minerva". The only thing is that you will not have the experience. Anyway I am sure that the player will have to use the port to adjust the armor/shield relation and to pick up more fighters. I replayed the game at least a dozen times picking a new "Yamato" again and the previous experience is not necesary to beat the game. I also did it with all the stock items that came with the ship, and adding a few items to fill up the tonage.
In some sectors this game has more "celestial objects" than the previous one so the game will tend to slow down a bit, specialy with alot of asteroids, but it was not too bad. Remember that the game will pause for a second or two when the bad guys show up, so do not freak out. Another persistem problem is when a battleship blows up, the game may freeze. So, save the game before you face one of those. Reload if it happens. It is still a random thing, I still think that it is a video card/ram thing.
Have fun.

[Baron Munchausen]

Clarification -- does this replace the first campaign or supplement it? In other words, is there another file to download than 403431-StarBlazers-Campaign2.rar or is this the whole thing and you have removed the previous version?