[RazorsKiss]

Tachyon: The Fringe.

Released unfinished, in most respects.  Broken, buggy, and full of problems from A to Z.

However, it's players have always loved, and perhaps adored it's flight model.  It was fast, quirky, and gave you manueverability options at a speed that could, literally, make you dizzy.

Given Novalogic's legendary lack of support for this title, I'm looking to ask a few questions, with an aim toward potentially converting Tachyon's models into the Freespace engine.  Even if we were to get the code for tach, ala Allegiance/Freespace, it's so buggy that I don't know if it would even be worth trying to fix.   In fact, every modder I've talked to for Tachyon has told me that it would be practically useless to bother trying to get the code.  It's that bad.

So, with that in mind:

1.  Is it true that you can put Descent-like multi-axis thrust on ships?  The lateral/reverse thrust in Tachyon is the basic foundation underlying why a game so horrible lasted so long as a multiplayer game.

2.  Is it true that there is a slide-like function in Freespace's code?  (Hold a button, and stay at the same speed/course indefinitely?)

3.  Is it possible to create bases with turrets, or just ships?

There's a few questions to start with.  I'll very, very, likely have more as I dig further into it, but there's a few to begin.

I love the base wars concept in Tachyon's multiplayer, although, of course, an arena-style combat setting is much, much easier. 

I know that doing a full conversion mod isn't an easy task.  Don't worry about warning me of that.  Trust me, I know.    I'm more interested in whether it's possible to do some of the things I asked above, before I worry about logistics.

So, would a conversion from Tachyon to Freespace be theoretically possible?

I always liked Freespace.  Don't get me wrong.  I "grew up" in Tachyon as a pilot, however, and I've always liked their flight style the best.

I'm a vet of a cool few dozen space sims, so I suppose I'd be called a space sim junkie.  It's just been a frustrating ordeal, thinking aobut what such and such game *could* have been. 

Anyway, let me know what you think.  I appreciate your consideration, and I'll listen avidly to what you have to say.

~ RK

[WMCoolmon]

1) Yes

2) More or less

3) What's a base? Any ship (whether or not it moves) can have turrets in Freespace. This includes installations in the original game (Freespace/2)

[Getter Robo G]

Anything is possible... But like me, you are going to hit a very big wall..

AFAIK their is no way to get at the model files, never mind convert them for a general format for prepping into FS2...

Bases on turrets or fghters? what could that possibly mean?

you can Have TURRETS on Starbases & Fighters, if THAT's what you are trying to ask..

edit: [WM you posted faster than me darn it ]

[RazorsKiss]

Very cool.  That's what I thought I'd read, and it piqued my interest, when looking through the forum archives here.

I'm only thinking multiplayer, at the present time.  Single player missions may be beyond any scope I need ot worry about, presently.  I'm semi-familiar with Tachyon's code, and I'm pretty sure I can get the ship stats.  I already have the models. 

It sounds promising, that's for sure.

[Getter Robo G]

Excellent....

  Now out of burning curiousity, how the hairy heck did you extract them from the .dat file? My KA utility that is designed for those files failed. Note, for years I searched for Tachyon mod sites or utilities with no luck.

[RazorsKiss]

First, the ships are in .pak files.   You have to, first, extract the entire tachyon.pff file.  Then, you have to extract every .pak file, to get the models. 

Anyway, that's how you do it.  PM me, and I'll shoot you links to the tools.

[RazorsKiss]

On second thought, I took some time and extracted all the .pak files.  I'm archiving them now, and should have them available for download soon.

They extract as .obj files, incidentally.  I'll let you know when I have them up.

[Vengence]

Hehe, this is what I love. Tachyon was one of my favorites. Too bad I couldn't play online.

[Getter Robo G]

WOW! That's awesome... I never could get beyond the .dat main file. does that include sounds ofr all teh great Bruce one-liners? "I think I hear your Mama calling!", 

That's ok don't send anything, I'll wait for your mod to finish. (bows)... Plus I am buried in stuff (help!) 

[Ferret]

I love Tachyon and I must say this is a pretty awesome idea. Wouldn't mind taking a peek at the models myself. (Sounds would be awesome too)

Released unfinished, in most respects.

How, pray tell?

[RazorsKiss]

GBR:

The .pff is what you have to crack first.  Next, you have to crack the .pak files, like I said above. 

I'm uploading the models, in two different archive formats, now.  I'll post the link in a bit.

Fetter:

I'll work on sounds next.

Bruce Campbell is, indeed, awesome

As for unfinished, NL's lead coder on this game left partway through.  The game was patched together by others on the team, and released with what had been done thus far.  They did a decent job patching it together, all things considered, but they never did much but bail water after that.

Edited:

Removed download link - see #25 for new links.

If there's any problems with them, let me know, so I can fix.  thanks!

[Getter Robo G]

Wow... Been a Long time since I played Tachyon. I just looked through you extracted archive so please take these C&C's with an open mind.


Ordinance: I suggest SOME of them could get better textures, but they all seem to be FINE. No problem, you can convert those missiles right over! 

Effects: Dump them! Alter existing FS2 ones or make new ones from scratch.
Same for Planets.

Ships: I could only find a handful, the rest of the files seem to be objects. Serious retexture issues here as they are simply too low res. (think HW1 but lower).

Objects: I found a few interesting ones.

If you got any questions I'll try to answer them, as my skils are limited. But I wish you luck with your project!

[asyikarea51]

Mako + Railgun FTW. 

 

[Vengence]

Crap, I just remembered the Demons. Man those guys were tough, but once I got a tractor beam they didn't stand a chance. But it would be good to fly those cool fighters. And yeah, I love those Bruce one liners.

[Freespace Freak]

We're gonna hunt us some Skavs, yeehaw!

Heh, I loved that game.

[Ferret]

Hah I went to play it yesterday, started playing the tutorial and pretty much finished it, then flew into a navbouy and exploded. (Too much Freespace)
So I tried again and got to nearly the same part and Tachyon crashed. XD
So I installed a patch... Then realised I couldn't be bothered.

[Getter Robo G]

I got as far into it as the second race track and story arc decision... then it crashes. I quit trying after that, but still it was fun back then.

[Ferret]

I actually finished the Galspan arc when I first got it, but haven't actually been back since.

[Darius]

Go back to it! The Bora arc is excellent.

The pay isn't as good, but you have more missions to make up for it. The story is a lot deeper as well.

[Backslash]

This thread makes me happy

Wow, I hadn't realized NovaLogic had such troubles putting the game together.  I am impressed they did as good a job as they did (counting the patch at least), because I know how hard that is.  Funny though; with the patched game, I've hardly ever crashed, and have finished the game twice with both story arcs, no problems (except joystick FF doesn't work anymore).  Maybe I'm just lucky, or have the right (old) hardware? But I must echo many people here: it's fun, and worth it.

RazorsKiss: I'm a bit late, but for questions 1 and 2, you may find this thread interesting reading.  For #2, the slide-like function is called Gliding and is toggled by pushing Alt+G, if the ship supports it (so grab Mike_A36's modular table).  Note that it's currently a toggle, not a when-key-held... but I'll try to implement that someday.  Still, the toggle does work exactly as you describe.

I've been working on improving many aspects of customizing Freespace's physics.  I'll be posting my progress in The Source Code Project forum from time to time.  This Tachyon mod idea is definitely possible, and with the right tweaking of values in the ships table, I bet you can come VERY close to the 'feel' of Tachyon's flight model!  Feel free to ask for tips, and I wish you success!

Very cool to see your success in extracting the data!  A long time ago, I goofed around with a utility I found, and listened to a lot of the sounds and stuff but had no idea about the file formats of the ships and other stuff.  Here, I'll attach the utility if anyone else wants to mess with it.

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