TO CHILE AND SOUTHAMERICA
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Over the course of the next few months I will be digging thru my files and sorting out the stuff that might be useful for BMS. Nearly all the stuff that I have from FF that is Pre-RV/DXM is pretty usable. I had last rights on several old theaters and have all the source files for them, that previous devs gave up on. Unfortunately, it is distributed over three different hard-drives on three different computers, none of which I currently have setup right now. Some of my stuff goes all the way back to when was Heading up MacFalcon and doing the installers and terrain stuff there.
One of the things I have learned over the past 15 years is that folks tend to think way too big and fail to answer some basic questions about a theater: 1) Is this theater going to be significantly different than any other theater? 2) Do I have the critical mass of developers and code support to solve issues I may encounter over the course of the project? 3) How long will my project realistically take given all the features I wish to have? 4) Am I prepared to accept complete DB and terrain rebuilds if/when the executable incorporates significant improvements invalidating my previous work (this loops back to question 3)? If the answer to any of these four questions is no - STOP, do not pass Go and do not collect $200. You are wasting your time and everyone else’s. For things that require code changes - let the smart guys on the BMS Code Team take lead and itemize what is possible and what isn’t and be happy with that … if the code won’t support and will never get changed - move on to something else. There is a ton of stuff we can do without pissing and moaning about code that is nothing more than dream.
Having dreams is good but in Falcon development this usually leads to a stalled project that either never gets released or spends years in never-ending Alpha/Beta testing with lot of website buzz and attaboys for cool screenshots but in the end fizzles and often results in a total loss of all the work that was done. This is perhaps the biggest frustration for me when really neat project fail catastrophically. Many times their material is also lost. I am unsure of all the reasons but when folks begin to close hold their work and concern themselves with EULAs and protection of intellectual property, those are valid concerns at the time but often just result in a loss of material. I myself fell into this trap as well. Which is one of the reasons I decided when Steve Wooters and I shut down FreeFalcon, to make everything available to the community. Surprisingly, I am not sure anyone ever asked for anything. Maybe the material was crap? Maybe folks didn’t understand? Dunno. Honestly, I am not sure how much time Falcon has left - it has been around a long time but without continued code changes, its future is limited like any software program. I guess that is why I would like appeal to devs here at BMS to start kicking their work and source files up . . . stop holding things back. Every time a new model get 95% done and then gets dropped and there are source files - someone else has to start from scratch. Skinning PSDs are another example - why reinvent? Just modify what has been done.
Last observation and I will shut up for a bit – if you want to start a theater - make it simple first, simple models, simple terrain tiles, and build your TEs and Campaigns - get the thing running first - skipping the eye-candy in favor of seeing if you can actually close the deal on a theater by getting the basics done first. The theater graveyard is filled with theater work that had neat models, skins, UI, music but failed to work in game; Campaigns wouldn’t work, TE’s crashed, Dogfight inop, and IA inop – what is the point of all that effort if you cant get things to work? Once you have a working theater - then you set the artists and modelers loose and let them go to town - plan sequential updates for the eye-candy. The difference is now you have a working theater that is only going to get better with age instead of making excuses for needing another “2-3 weeks.”
Now that I think of if, I will repost this on the general Theater forum for more visibility - since my response morphed at bit and may be useful for others to consider.
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I have some news… some pictures of the southamerica theater updated
we have a 128 Segments theater from de north of Peru to Antofagasta Chile and 100% of Bolivia, part of amazonas brazil and north of Argentina, the work just started
some of the art and elv work …just first impressions
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Great news Krakos!
I see a very big project ahead, with a lot of work to do.
I was retired from BMS, but with this, you can bet I will be back online again
What do you think in involving more people in order to get this great project done?
I’m sure we have people from South America that will be glad to work with us.
Y por supuesto, el idioma no seria un impedimento.
Salute
Gavilan -
Well, count me in
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Krakos if you need any help you can count on us , You’re doing a great job!!!.
Our squadron is based in south america, We have pilots from chile, peru, bolivia and venezuela
http://blacksquadron.forochile.org/ -
Excellent!! Amazing job dear friend if you need a beta tester for you theater, count with us for anything, in the Black Squadron we have a server for this, obviously if you want.
Congratulations again
Greetings
Gr@y Fox
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Copy all above.
And if I’m allowed to propose this, I would volunteer for the same task - even if I’m not precisely from your Countries
With best compliments and regards,
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Buen dia donde puedo conseguir el skinf del f-16 Venezolano. Gracias.
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another unfinished 4.33 project… in case it’s of some use - or somebody can take over the job, here’s the zip.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/lvb3n5msurgxpbr/Add-On_Peru-433.zip/file
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Hi CCC, is this zip newer than the one that Starrats was working on some time ago?
Cheers Obi1
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i did some DB edit work on it.
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another unfinished 4.33 project… in case it’s of some use - or somebody can take over the job, here’s the zip.
I have another South American theater, Venezuela, 128 segment which is probably 50% done!!! Another person started the original Dem work and needed help, so I finished it and did all the tiling, and everything else objective wise and assembly for inclusion into 4.33. He’s Venezuelan. Just prior to the fiasco down there he disappeared, never to be heard from again!!??
It’s pretty nice, but does require some work. It can be converted straight over to 4.34 as the DB was vanilla, no new models or anything like that!
C9
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Glad to have a mod covering this area.
the reasons i upload the zip for the pubic are:
1. we already have many unfinished mods, no harm to release another one.
i think many bms simmers still interested in south america mods - whether they are complete or not, so one bird in hand is better than none.2. few modders cannot do the job forever, time to let others take over. Starrats once worked very hard to push Peru mod forward, but we cannot reach him for a while. the mod needs somebody to kick it rolling again.
In recent years, many unfinished mods have been revived successfully by serious modders, so it’s not a bad thing to let zip out. Note: Peru mod is first created by Tweety (Mexico) back in FreeFalcon days.3. the zip better be kept by the community - we already lost some mods that could be revived these days
4. the last thing is recent news about new BMS terrain code. though not a reality in near future, it’s time to let old stuff out and see what can do in the meantime.
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3. the zip better be kept by the community - we already lost some mods that could be revived these days
Would you help me in recall some names about and their version, ccc?
Who may know…
With best regards.
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In recent years, many unfinished mods have been revived successfully by serious modders, so it’s not a bad thing to let zip out.
Please explain what you mean by serious modders. You mean the ones who take theaters that are idle and cheat the code by not adding inland water and bridges so the .mea/.thr files and the code are a moot point. The ones who assign every land tile as a plains with a road path so links and landscape no longer play a part in the campaign. I could go on, but I’m sure I’ll receive backlash over my comments. They really should discontinue to listen to the “ONE” supplying them with these cheats.
IMO, there is only one team faction on this forum that are serious theater modders, and that’s the BMS team. There are a few others that work on theaters that are trying to do the right things, but they don’t receive any credit for their work because they don’t release them under public pressure and scrutiny and they take their time.
Since I posted in this thread about having another South American theater, Venezuela, I have received many requests from individuals asking for the theater. That won’t happen. I have several theaters I am working on and I won’t let them go public until they are right and worthy of being released. Those include, Venezuela, Alaska, Baltic and several others I won’t divulge at this time. If I were to release them, they’d only end up being altered and disfigured.
Yes, it takes time, but I’m not going to release half baked theaters like what we see on a regular basis here on the forums. There’s also the consideration of the BMS update versions. They’ve already said something is in the works and more things will come and theaters will need to be rebuilt again, and who knows when that will settle down. So really, there’s no rush to bring them up to date with something new then have to turn around and do it again in a short period, well short by the Falcon timeline!! LOL
Cheers,
C9
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Very well said, C9.
And I couldn’t agree more, if I daresay here, because this is a honest speech and with a clear purpose in mind, too.
Just in true Falcon and this Community spirit.Please always count on me for a (only little, sorry for being not able to do more) helping hand at its due time, if you think so, by the way.
With best compliments and reagrds.
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@Cloud:
Please explain what you mean by serious modders. You mean the ones who take theaters that are idle and cheat the code by not adding inland water and bridges so the .mea/.thr files and the code are a moot point. The ones who assign every land tile as a plains with a road path so links and landscape no longer play a part in the campaign. I could go on, but I’m sure I’ll receive backlash over my comments. They really should discontinue to listen to the “ONE” supplying them with these cheats.
I don’t doubt for a second every theater is started with the best of intentions, but most simply do not realise the scale of the job they are starting out on and lose interest. This can be exacerbated by a complete lack of support from the community. Panama was a real labour of love, and it took years. It wasn’t until after it was released for several different iterations of our sim did the modding community sit up and take notice. By this time though I’d had enough.
I started Kuwait and had a pretty good campaign working to recapture Kuwait itself, reminiscent of ODS perhaps? It wasn’t until I tried to advance the fight to Baghdad that I started to run into real issues. A distinct lack of defined roads and objectives meant distances between links were too high and the campaign would stall. I hit upon the idea, we’re in the desert so no need to stick to defined roads cos we are in tanks and APCs that can handle desert terrain easily so I removed a load of rivers - left in Euphrates for obvious reasons - and made unmarked terrain crossable. Things picked up a bit but not enough. I gave up, got so tired of spending long long hours testing and not getting desired results. In the end I thought **** it, and went back to actually flying the sim. However, I make no apologies whatsoever for trying something a little different.
Anyway, I digress. Bottom line is, if you are going to start a theater you better be sure that, without a committed team to back you up, it’s either going to take a very long time or simply a long time. If you’re not prepared to accept this and are perhaps looking for instant gratification, forget it.
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Anyway, I digress. Bottom line is, if you are going to start a theater you better be sure that, without a committed team to back you up, it’s either going to take a very long time or simply a long time. If you’re not prepared to accept this and are perhaps looking for instant gratification, forget it.
I totally agree, I also think if your going to get into theater production/modding, you should do it the correct way. Just like getting into models, that’s a lot of work and depending on what you’re doing, like cockpits it’s a ton of work. As we see, if you build models, there is no getting around things cutting corners or cheating, if you do, it’s going to look like SH$T and everyone will know!! VERY FEW people will know if you’ve cut corners in a theater, as long as it doesn’t CTD and the campaign has an ending, even if it’s a Time-Out stalemate, everybody’s happy!! LOL
I know you did all you could to get that running well, you’ve been around quite some time and I know you don’t throw out garbage. The deal with long distances can be overcome by creating shorter routes using junctions or something of the sort, while maintaining waters and bridges, still some extra work with adding them and linking them all up. At any rate, you don’t have a problem letting someone else take a shot at something! At some point I’ll get these ones I have out into the public, but not until they’re proper.
Cheers,
C9
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no debate on release policy, modders can release their work as they wish.
my very own reason is simple - enough for me.
i don’t think i can keep the pace with next generation BMS…just too old to learn the new trick. -
i don’t think i can keep the pace with next generation BMS…just too old to learn the new trick.
I don’t know about that, you make models for the most part! You’re contributions over the years are already enormous!
C9