The FringeSpace Project

Posts tagged “FringeSpace

Fringespace Moves to the Unreal Engine

Fringespace has become a game project, not a mod project, effective immediately. There is lots of work to do, and most of it will be on the back end in the immediate future, but we have decided to move forward with a complete game and will be utilizing the Unreal Engine for all future development.

Before we say anything else, we want to offer a heartfelt thank you to the FSO/SCP team, Hard Light Productions, and the extended mod community that has graciously given to us over the years. We appreciate you all, and we wouldn’t have got here without your help. We’ve given this move a great deal of thought in the recent past, and while we’ve enjoyed working with FSO, and alongside all of the other mod teams, we’ve finally decided that we just can’t do what we ultimately wanted to do within that platform. FSO is a great project, and we wish every mod which continues to use it all the best.

Tachyon: The Fringe’s multiplayer action is still the best space combat experience ever produced in the history of space simulation. Our ultimate goal is to produce a game with all of those elements, with all the enhancements that modern gaming can offer that experience. Unreal’s multiplayer system can give us everything we want in that regard, and the engine can handle all the visual enhancements that the title has always deserved.

For the immediate future, our plans are to build the framework for Tachyon’s unique flight and combat model. That is what makes the game what it is. We still have the same visual assets, and they will be of use in the future – but the core gameplay, especially the flight model – is of paramount importance.

We thank you all very much for your patience. Small projects like this often take twists and turns with the vicissitudes of life. We hope you will bear with us through this change, and that we’ll see you in the Fringe in the not too distant future.

Just as a personal note – it’s good to be back. As some of you know, I’ve taken a very extended hiatus from the project due to family concerns and job requirements. There has never, ever been anything else like Tachyon: The Fringe. Those of you who know me, know that there are very few people who have loved, or played, this game more than I have. Some of those few have worked with us on this project, and may do so again one day. Whatever else this may be, it has always been a labor of love for me to recreate the best darn game I have ever played.

Again, it’s great to be back in the saddle. I look forward to giving you some progress reports soon. Last, but by no means least – special thanks to JGZinv for keeping the faith for so long, and z64 for his herculean efforts over the years. Everyone owes those two a whole heck of a lot.

I’m back in black – and the Demon Pirate rides again in the Arena. Come get some.

-Joshua “RazorsKiss” Whipps


Greetings space scallywags.

It’s been a while since I wrote an update on the project. This will be a bit long, but very important, so please stick with me.

October has historically been a time of change for the project, we started the last week of September 2006 between just myself and RazorsKiss. Over time that grew to about 13 members and reduced back down. There were quite a few stumbling blocks along the way. Some of those in our personal lives, and many functional setbacks.

2006 in the game development world might as well be ancient history. When we looked across the landscape there was barely even a handful of options to “mod” Tachyon into. Things we now consider staples of industry like Unity, didn’t start gaining legs under their projects until 2007 or UE in 2009. It was barren territory and a different universe. As you know we settled into the Freespace 2 Open community and worked within that framework ever since. We’ve had the pleasure and honor of talking to a few of the original Tach devs over the years and I’d like to think we helped our fellow mods at times leading to a positive, if relatively quiet, presence in the community. We’ve been blessed to learn from and work with everyone.

Ultimately however, the last few years we’ve been asking ourselves “where are we and where do we want to go with this?” Around 2016 we honestly stalled. A huge part of that was not having the features we needed to make progress. Can’t finish a HUD, can’t finish a weapon, ship handling, and so on ad infinitum. Coupled with life stuff, hosting being taken away, losing our file management system, it hurt a lot. We backed up everything, so nothing was truly lost, but it’s comparable to being evicted from your house with no notice. You flounder around for a while and have to find yourself again.

So the team has collectively come to a decision, and unlike you often hear with old mods, it’s not us closing down. We’ve determined to abandon development on the FSO mod, and pursue Unreal Engine two ways.

First, UE is now a very mature engine that several other space games have used over time. It practically has a feature for everything, and the forthcoming enhancements make us all that much more excited for it. We have always firmly believed Tachyon has the best and most fun flight model, and it deserves a true high fidelity, complex world, continuation. We’re also aware THQNordic now has a presence in the USA, and when they purchased Novalogic’s assets they called for project proposals for those licenses. If there is any chance at the project going commercial, becoming official, it has to be done on a licensable engine.

Make no mistake, we’re keenly aware this tantamount to starting over, and reinventing the wheel because UE is a toolset. It’s not pre-set for being a space sim. It’s a cold, empty universe, with an instruction set on how to code DNA left behind by the code gods.

To see the ultimate vision we wanted to in 2006 however, it’s a necessary leap of faith. We’re also more experienced now than a couple of fresh-faced mod noobs in 2006. Those years were not a waste.

Secondly, we have a sub-goal we hope will benefit all space sim fans. Again it’s 2020, when we looked at alternatives to going to UE there isn’t much out there that’s moddable. So much now is games as a service, or locked down like Squadrons, or dead because it is so old/inflexible. Before we load in the Tachyon assets and approach THQ, we intend to build up the various features that all space sims have needed. This sounds like a ton of work, but really there is a great deal of crossover when you start making a list. We want to document this and offer it as a prepared mod kit to the world to spur space sim development. The bottom line is that we’ll have to largely build this anyway, to make Tachyon. It’s a waypoint on the roadmap.

Are we any less ambitious or crazy than when we started? Nope.

We do however have some renewed vigor in the direction we want to go and some hope for where we are taking things. We anticipate we’ll have an easier time recruiting for the project with this path as well.

Support that I’ve offered over the years for Tachyon will continue. Believe it or not, we are still able to host public games ourselves 21 years later.

If you’d like to help us with the project in any capacity, please join us on our Discord. https://discord.gg/0VT8HgdsF0nTsRAH If you can’t contribute like that, feel free to drop by to chat, or join us for a game in Tach for old times sake. Emotional / fan support is still support, and appreciated.

So FringeSpace is here to stay, and we look forward to opening that megagate to an even more amazing universe for you.

Thanks for sticking with us on this journey.

~JGZinv


Rock Paper Heavy Laser

Just like to mention we got a shout out at Rock Paper Shotgun
during their 15 Best Space Games article, which featured Tachyon.

You can read it here:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/03/17/best-space-games/

Thanks RPS!


FringeSpace – Year 7

September 26th 2006, when RazorsKiss and myself started FringeSpace we knew we were
starting something big and we’d be over our heads from the get go. While that’s
certainly been a consistent theme over the course of our project, it’s been a
ongoing learning experience.

In review:

In late 2012, we closed our forums, rebuilt the website totally, and moved our
forums to Hard-Light.

In a collaborative effort with some helpful people at the Xentax forums, we
managed to figure out the audio format used for the in-game music, and recompiled
them, to release a complete soundtrack for Tachyon the Fringe.

Over the last year Z64 has rebuilt the model extractor from scratch pretty much
and allowed us to get small to medium content out.

From there, we got all 11 of the Tachyon powerups / refills in FSO.

We squashed about 45 bugs while keeping up with the new SCP releases.

Our Tachyon Facebook group of fans has grown to over 300 strong.

Lastly, we have recently completed rigging of 18 primary ships so they are
all in game.

For the interested, these are:

-Gal Span-
Pegasus
Orion
Poseidon
Archangel
Phoenix

-Bora-
Battleaxe
Mace
Cutlass
Warhammer
Claymore

-Pirate-
Demon
Manta
Marauder
Nighthawk

-Merc-
Gar
Corvus

-Other-
Mako
Worker Drone

…and we have another 7 about halfway completed already. This doesn’t include test models, new
higher poly replacements, or structures we’ve imported already.

As this is a large enough set to meet our initial alpha goal, we will be transitioning from
working on models, to polishing the interface; namely the HUD and game menus. While a good deal
of ship handling was polished in the past by staff, we’ll also be taking a look at this again,
since features and models have changed. For example, we didn’t have gun convergence in 2006…

What we will need however, is some additional talent. Namely someone with some familiarity with
FRED, and we’ll be needing some help with LUA scripting. If one or both of these is something you
can work with, we’d like to hear from you!

There’s also an opening for a texture artist for a handful of new models, but this isn’t
an urgent need currently.

So there you have it. Even though we’re one of the smallest mod teams, we still keep pushing
on towards our release. We hope the following year will be more productive and look forward
to sharing more progress with y’all.

Thank you… friends and fans alike, for all your support.

~ JGZinv


Bora Fighters Complete!

Woot indeed.

Instead of just giving you pictures of the models, thought this time
we’d give you something to play with. Click and drag in the model boxes
to move them around, scroll wheel zooms, and there are menu buttons for
each model on the side.

[iframe_loader src=”http://p3d.in/e/Jojgh/spin” width=”100%” height=”500″]

[iframe_loader src=”http://p3d.in/e/tHVpZ/spin” width=”100%” height=”500″]

[iframe_loader src=”http://p3d.in/e/oBP4Q/spin” width=”100%” height=”500″]

[iframe_loader src=”http://p3d.in/e/QfFl0/spin” width=”100%” height=”500″]

[iframe_loader src=”http://p3d.in/e/GJJMu/spin” width=”100%” height=”500″]

[iframe_loader src=”http://p3d.in/e/Nmejy/spin” width=”100%” height=”500″]

[iframe_loader src=”http://p3d.in/e/LYTNp/spin” width=”100%” height=”500″]

[iframe_loader src=”http://p3d.in/e/yRQKE/spin” width=”100%” height=”500″]

These should all be in game tomorrow. They are each about 80% rigged currently.


A year in review…

Alright, so this has been due for quite some time.

Let’s get the sad news out of the way first:
Over the last year roughly we’ve had several folks come and go with the project:
RK has for all intents and purposes handed FS over to me (JGZ) as he is switching jobs and will be on the road full time. He still funds the site and some other things,
and started this project with me way back in 2006, so I am keeping him in the Staff list as co-founder.

Several of the team members from Hard-Light, have moved on to other interests or otherwise needed to pick up jobs and/or college so they’ve had to step away. I myself became employed full time back in April, working 14 hour shifts, so that has left next to no time to do much of anything.  To his credit, a large portion of the work this year was done by Shadow Z (more on that in a moment).

Essentially we are down to really 2-3 “regulars,” and 2-3 people that are still “attached” but not actively doing any task for one reason or another. Due to this, we really need new blood and
I will be making several posts out on the net in the vein of Help Wanted ads. A post will also be made here shortly with more details on what we’re looking for. If nothing else, spread our
name and new website around, word of mouth (or social networking) gets around really quickly and may indirectly yield the help we would like to see.

Moving on…  So what have we accomplished?
Well…

We figured out the SBF file format, so we can listen to all Tachyon’s audio.
As such, a Tach fan (docfoo) is putting together all the clips and reworking them into a proper
soundtrack we hope we can make available soon.
We combined all the Tachyon concept art we could find and made one big collection for your enjoyment.
All current fighter craft and weapons were created tables (settings) for by MetalMilitia.
Shadow Z spent a good amount of time on optimizing the Fenris Arena stations so they don’t eat
your FPS down to a crawl, and also fixing some geometry errors.
Rstar created several slick new models, a new Demon, a new Manta, and a regular Tachyon gate.
We 3D printed a 3.5 inch Demon, Manta, and Pegasus. (This was very cool ^_^ )
We fixed/replaced the website…  (ok obvious I guess)

Later on in the year, we were able to get the source code for the old PAK model extractor that had been made by Delphy, as having a way to get non-screwy UV mapped models out of Tachyon would be a huge help with our own project in a multitude of ways. Shadow Z began working on this solely and did make some progress. I’ve also been hunting around for quite some time, trying to offer a bounty on someone who could correct the PAK extractor’s faults for us. Some have tried, no one stayed with it to really yield the needed results. We ARE still looking for someone for this task…  please contact us if you have any experience with picking through raw data, C++ or Visual Basic, or a knowledge of texture mapping in relation to coding.

In other news:

Sort of a sister Freespace 2 mod to ours, Diaspora (Battlestar Galactica related), released a few weeks back. Diaspora actually began as Beyond the Red Line (BtRL) not much longer after we began FringeSpace. So we congratulate them on getting released. You can find their mod here:  http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?board=175.0

Also of note is that Chris Roberts of Wing Commander fame, has come out of retirement to propose a new space combat sim game. That being Star Citizen, which he’s trying to crowdsource the funding on. Being that one of the main features is modding for dedicated servers and a current generation game engine under the hood, I’m keeping a close eye on this project. If you’d like to see his trailers or get in on it, his site for the game is here:  http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/

Well that’s about it for now fellow scallywags of the Fringe. Stay gold…


Back from the Twilight Fog…

Ok so as the posts will show below, we’ve been offline without a working website
for nearly a year now. It’s been a long time in coming but I finally sat down and
plugged away and got our new blog/site up and running.

Most of the same stuff is here, you’ll find the majority of information in the menu
bar at the top of the page and you’ll also notice our forums were absorbed into
the main forums at Hard-Light Productions. Stop by and say hi…

There’s probably a few things still broken or otherwise not filled in, such as the
gallery, but we’ll work on that. Do let us know if something looks really messed up
though.

Quite a few things have changed with the mod since the last update, which we’ll
hopefully get to covering and filling you in on soon.

Thanks for sticking around and being patient!

~J


Forum Section Shut Down

This is just a notice that I’m taking the FringeSpace.org forum offline.
Due to the age of the forum software, which I don’t have access to change,
the board is being flooded with spam bots, posting everything from porn,
to pill ads, and giant posts of mindless text. I’ve been fighting it for well over a
month already, deleting and banning posts/accounts.

Frankly it’s taking up more time each day, and that time can be better
spent modding or any number of things.

So rest assured the posts are not gone, the board is just deactivated.

If there’s some information you need, or you need support for Tachyon,
please go to our other forum at Hard-Light:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?board=195.0

…or post to the Tachyon Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tachyon-The-Fringe/184709132945

…or you can reach me directly via Email:
#JGZinv#@gmail.com (remove the # symbols)

The board will be kept offline until I can reach Razor and a update can
be made, or someone needs something off it and I’ll reopen it for a short time.

Thank you.


Late April Note

Well a little bit of an update on things:

We’re moving along a little bit better now, Thaeris from the Stellar Assault
mod has been helping us convert models so that we can get a useable set
of regular ships. These will not be hi poly versions, but you should notice
an improvement in texture quality appearance over Tachyon.

Angelus has come back from a long trip and will start on model
upgrades again.

ShadowZ will be off for some time due to work.

The old Tachyon SBF archives were made playable thanks to the Xentax
modder forums. So that’s nice to have available for reference.

The Tachyon Facebook group has been seeing some activity, please stop
by or follow it so you can be aware of updates from plzdie and myself.


Note for March

Hey guys…

I know I don’t post much around here. Best I can say is sorry…
Time and energy is hard to come by.

As to a status report on things here’s where we sit.

At the moment, Shadow Z is occupied with school classes and that there in. He’s made some progress on powerups,
and some items, as well as optimizing / repairing the fenris bouy and station. Both had geometry “fat” and
errors that needed help.

We’re expecting Angelus to return from business matters within this month, he’s been globe hopping so he
can’t really model much. A lot of his work on objects was lost before he had to leave, so we’re hoping we can
remake those quickly.

RK is pretty much going to be away from the mod for an extended period.
He’d like to do something, but he’s working pretty much every hour of the day and night.

Bax is having a rough time with life currently as well. He could use
some encouragement if you have a minute to drop him a note.

Nutri has made known to me he’s working on new music for the menu screen.

Carl, I’ve still not heard anything from. You alive dude?

Slap, nope not heard from either…

Me – I’m trying to stay afloat myself. Been putting resumes out there trying to get work at some decent rate.
Fighting colds and other life problems. Last thing I worked on was the Gal Span Classic HUD, which I managed
to get a fair ways started. However while new HUD code was released, it has poor documentation and a lot
of features we particularly need for FS… aren’t there. So I’ve been sort of wait n’ seeing on that.
Been gathering links to threads and trying to stay on top of topics related to FSO in the meantime.

So yes, not a lot has been done as of late. Let’s be honest though,
we’re less than a skeleton crew trying to do what 15 full time people
would have trouble with under normal conditions. The last couple of years
I think most can agree have been exceptional circumstances.

Hopefully as we can find jobs, time, or new blood, I’ll have some progress to report back with.

Also I’d like to remind folks to pray for the people in Japan, Haiti, and other places around the world that
have been devastated recently. For those in the USA, we know that New Orleans still remains a damaged
city. How much longer then will the destruction on other countries be felt, at such a larger scale?


LanWar & Other News

Few different things to cover today.

First, January 14th through the 16th I’ll be present
at the Louisville, KY LanWar 48 gaming event and tournaments.
LanWar Site Come see me at the Alpha Hall
Row 6 Seat 12 (JGZinv).

Along with trying a little world of mouth promotion of FringeSpace,
I’ll be hosting a Tachyon server there for as long as possible.

We should be able to use Novalogic’s lobby, so if anyone out on
the net wants to drop in and play we can explode together. Voice
servers will depend on what people at LanWar have the most of, and
I won’t know that till I get there. IRC and the usual will still be up.

For the folks that don’t have Tachyon:

The game itself is still available as a downloadable version,
from Steam, GameTap, and Novalogic itself among others.

$7 on sale at Steam Store

In addition to the 2 multiplayer modes (up to 32 players per map)
in has a full two sided campaign.

The FringeSpace Service Bay mod pack will be used to host
and play with different ships. It is recommended to have for
existing players. New downloadable copies of Tachyon seem to have
been patched by Novalogic, but I can’t confirm this.

With that said, since Novalogic moved the lobby in 2010, I’ve yet to
properly update the Service Bay and optional packs. I’ll be making
an effort to upload new versions prior to the LanWar event that are
also a little better balanced.

If there’s questions or further interest let me know.

Second – I didn’t properly introduce them before, but Shadow Z
and Angelus from Hard-Light have been helping out with models since
October. I thank them both greatly for their assistance.

I’ll have some pictures below, but be aware that some of these are in
the process of being remade, as we had a hard drive crash that
wiped some of the models out.

Furthermore, with their experience we’ve identified some problems
with earlier models (ie. fenris tower, etc) that have to be repaired.

Updates to just about all models in terms of normal maps and
optimization still need to be done, I just haven’t had the time.
Did get around 98% of Fenris Arena rebuilt, just waiting on the
remaining powerups, sound, and megagates, then she’ll be finished.

Due to responses to our YouTube video, Nutri is working on new theme
music to replace the “eerie” clip we had before.

Thirdly, we have had a separate forum up at Hard-Light since August.
HLP FringeSpace

We’re not taking anything from here or moving, it’s just a matter of
getting more exposure to the HLP/FS2 community. It’s easier to get help
when the people are already registered there, instead of asking them to
come here. If there’s something majorly important, I’ll copy it to both
sites.

Fourth – in case no one was aware, Tachyon has a Facebook page:
Facebook Link

It’s not something I have control over, I believe it’s SM plzdie’s page.

Lastly, here’s some of the things Shadow Z and Angelus been working on.

Crystal

Energy Powerup

Mega Powerup

Shield Powerup

NavBuoy

Quad Turret WIP

Different Turret WIP

Satellite

Training Beacon


Comm Static

Just wanted to mention to folks following the site that we’re not dead.

We’ve had some new helpers come on board with the project that are making headway
with our models. We’ve been using another forum more closely related with Freespace 2
to try and drum up awareness about the project.

There’s been some issues along the way as well, not catastrophic issues, more like “oh
sheesh… again?” kind of things. I’ll get into those at another time.
With the exception of our new staff, things have been very slow in general as well.

Suffice to say that I’m planning on doing a proper news update once we’ve got a couple
more models to show. We should have a few objects and several powerups for your viewing
pleasure once we get to that point soon.

I’d also like to remind the Tachyon players that since Novalogic has been moving and
upgrading their servers, we have been using Kali to host games. Unlike normal person
to person play this doesn’t need a ton of annoying ports to clear and firewall rules, it just works.
Look into our Tach forum section for more details.


Few things of note…

Figured it was about time folks had something
new in the way of news….

Besides the usual issues of work, time, and difficulties
therein, we have had some changes around the place.

While SparK and 5XL (megaman) have left for various reasons,
we’d like to welcome Mike and Slap to the team. Mike
will be helping with some coding and Slap is working with
the tables files.

Forum member Timmon and IK Ghost have been providing us
with some neat concept art. The Demon warship is rather awesome:
Demon Hydras

There’s been a development at HLP where the HUD system has
been overhauled and per ship unique HUDs are now possible.
It’s still somewhat a work in progress, but we should be able to finally
recreate the Tachyon HUDs and expand in the future. This is a
feature we’ve been wanting/needing since we started.

Not a great deal of developments due to the economy and
folks finishing up school, but we’re still here.


Notes from the Meeting

Yesterday we had a staff meeting for those available and I’d like to
share some of what what discussed so you guys can know what’s
will be transpiring in the future here with FringeSpace.

First off I know I’ve said it 3 times now, but RK’s back and is working
on the Warhammer, which is partially complete. We’ll have some pictures
up once she’s a bit more welded together.

It wasn’t per se brought to a vote, but the opinions were unanimous in
deciding that FringeSpace will be a “clean” game in the sense of text,
imagery, and verbal communications in the game. In other words we don’t
feel it’s necessary or appropriate to use vulgarity in our voice acting.
We should be able to play the game with our kids and in the company of
others. Now there still will be “slaggers,” “cowards” and an over-the-top fenris announcer guy, so we’re not really changing much, except increasing the size of audience the game can be enjoyed by.

In the ships department, we’ve actually got enough vessels made that we can tackle the alpha now. However, the last group of fighters prior to alpha will be the Bora. So they will be in alpha, but it will be a pausing point once they are finished in order to focus on other needs before we continue with the remaining ships/objects.

Since we’ve got the additional ships, we will be actively looking to acquire
a dedicated texture artist to help us get them fully completed. If you
have skills in the areas of UV mapping or texturing ships, please let us know.

In addition, we also have need of a dedicated FRED or map/mission creator.
If you’ve not worked with FRED but might be interested, that’s ok. The basics can be learned in about 10 minutes time. There’s plenty of documentation and people that can be asked for advice.

Of course if you’re a modeler, coder, or anything else, we can also use your talents as well.

Furthermore, we’re not real certain on a time frame due to the workload, life, et cetera, but there will most likely be a website redesign in the future, as well as branching out into more social networks. We’re aware there’s several areas of the current site (gallery for ex’) that are in need of updating now and we’ll try to get that more up to par than we have in the past.

To give an idea of what we’ve got to-do before alpha:
12 model related items
14 issues with tables
15 programming related items
4 things to take care of with audio
7 missions related issues
13 misc items that need work

So in short, we’ve come a long way, but there’s still work yet to be done.

Oh and if you break it… you bought it ^_^

…and a little picker upper from Nutri:


A bit o’ news

Hey folks, got some stuff for ya.

First off I’d like to announce we have a new staff member SparK.
If you’ve not already seen the sidebar, he’s lending us a hand
with his skills in coding. Tis’ much appreciated.

RK should be making a return in February as I mentioned below.
He’s already checked in a few times and is excited to be working
on things again.

House Paladin or “HP” is undertaking a period of restructuring.
They’d like to request any current or former members check in
at their forum. Link

About the last week that SparK’s been with us, we’ve been
working on getting various features fixed or put in the system.
Thanks to a joint effort between Bax, SparK, myself, Nutritious
and several of the FS2 SCP staff, we have a nice looking main
menu. Looks new and familiar all at the same time. Videos
available here:

YouTube: Video Link
Direct (HQ): Video Link

Not a huge amount of stuff going on, but a just taste of what is
yet to come. Thanks for stopping by. ^_^


Happy New Year!

Hey guys, 2009 has been turned to space debris leaving 2010
in it’s wake, ready for a fresh start. Feels good eh?

Not a great deal to update you on, but a little news:

RK will be returning to active status with the mod around the first
of February. We’re excited to welcome him back aboard.
He’s already done some work on a new Warhammer model and
will be finishing it up.

We’ll likely be headhunting as well after his return, so if you have
interest in modding, please give us a shout. A staff meeting
will likely be called in February, so if you’d like to drop in to
take a listen, watch the boards for updates around the end of
January.

We’ve secured permission to use some of the base and
structure models from the collection of SolCommand.
He’s got a picture blog here:
http://solcommand.blogspot.com/

We’ll probably be using these structures primarily for
testing (turrets, landings, loadouts, etc) and giving the
alpha testers some more things on their maps.
Saves us some time having them already largely built.

I’m in the last stage of doing a tutorial update to include
debris for the ships we make. Plus I’m doing most of the
editing on the SolCommand models above so we can get
them in-game.

Carl’s doing some touch up on existing fighters and on
the SP Cruiser.

I don’t expect a great deal of news out of us till about
Feb when we start gearing up again. As I’ve said in my
earlier updates, ’08 ~ ’09 was a pretty hard year on the
team for jobs and families. By God’s grace we pulled
through the trials and tribulations, so we’re looking forward
to getting back on track and pushing the alpha out as soon
as we can.

In the meantime, I’d like to mention that a new
Mechwarrior mod has been released, based off the
Crysis engine. Tachyon fiction usually had a close
relationship with the Mechwarrior universe, so you
might check it out. http://www.mechlivinglegends.net

Some gameplay can bee seen in these videos:
Videos Link 1
Videos Link 2

Thanks for stopping in and we’ll have some
more news for you in a bit.


Fringe Interview Now Live

Hey spacers and scalawags, sorry we didn’t have an
update for you in September. Was trying to hold off
for the interview done in October, which is now online.

Here’s where it’s located:
http://www.fringespace.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=242

There’s new pictures of the updated ship series after we made
improvements to the textures, and some info on where we’ve been
and where we are headed.

Enjoy ^_^


Little Big Update

Well folks it’s been about a month since we had an update. Sorry to have
kept y’all waiting. On the bright side we’ve got a super size picture update
this time around for your ocular pleasure.

First off here’s Carl’s new Sappers, textured and ready to go:

Next I’d like to say that we’ve got the whole ship rigging issue
figured out. I’m also writing a tutorial so that when it comes time to
have fan made ships or campaigns, you won’t have to go through
all the troubled we did.

Out of this though we do have some things gradually getting in game.

Such as the Fenris Bouy:

First time it got in game, the scale was way off and the bouy was
the size of a small moon!

Later tried some tests to see if we could cause some lag. With 62
bouys shoved together, we were still getting about 60 fps, so no lag.

Also have the Archangel:

…and my favorite pic:

Also the Orion:

Do note that we may end up doing some more tweaking to the
textures, since the rendering quality is different between our
modeling programs and the game itself.

For Tachyon itself, our Saturday games seem to have reduced
their activity, but the Sunday games have picked up around 1:30 PM
Eastern Time (GMT -5). We’ve had 4 and 5 players in regularly lately.

Here at FringeSpace, we’ll continue working on getting vessels in
game and should have some more news shortly.
Thanks for your continued support.


Instruments of Destruction 3 & Steam

Sort of a little update here…

First off I’d like to show off Carl’s latest weapons:

Tiger & Sunspot Missiles

Tesla EMP (minus glows) & Swarm Missile salvo

In addition, I’d like to make mention that evidently Novalogic
has licensed Tachyon to sell on the Steam service. Steam is most
well known for being a part of Valve, and games such as Team Fortress 2,
Portal, Half-Life, etc. Besides being featured on Steam’s main site, Joystiq
and some other games news sites have picked up the story and there’s a bit
of a surge in pro-Tachyon comments.

Evidently like GameTap, they’ve got the downloadable version of the game.
There’s been a few players dropping in the servers lately, so be kind – rewind,
and try to teach them some basics should they not know how to get setup.

I believe it’s only an introductory price, but Tach is currently $8.99 on Steam.
See here for more details: http://store.steampowered.com/app/32760/
They also have a forums section for Tachyon Steam users.


Instruments of Destruction 2 & Notice

Hope all you spacers had a pleasant month of May.
Got a couple things to discuss and some new toys to show off
this time around.

::: Challenge :::

First off I’d like to announce that we are establishing a schedule
for Tachyon games, in which we hope to further facilitate players
to meet up with each other.

Tentatively, if you’re up for a game, there should be people
online Saturday or Sunday, 8 to 10 PM EST (that’s GMT -5 time zone
for those outside the USA. No one of course is require to be online
at those times, just that you’ll have the most likely chance within that
time bracket.

DarkRaven also has also thrown down the proverbial gauntlet with
a statement squarely aimed at veterans:

“I am also issuing a challenge to all the old timers who just seem to talk and
talk but do not show up. Lets see if you are as good as you talk…”

So get your stick out of mothballs, clean yer’ rust bucket’s windshield,
and bring a body bag. This could get ugly fast.

I’m considering putting up a permanent server like NB Overkilled has,
but this will depend on many things coming up.

If you’d prefer another time period, or have a suggestion, please leave a
comment in this thread: http://www.fringespace.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=1389#1389

::: Our Status :::

Secondly – I’d like to explain some of the reasoning behind our
lack of updates.

As most folks are either experiencing or are aware of, the US economy
took and continues to maintain a nosedive. Thus leaving jobs and
stability a rare commodity.

In our case, here’s how we stand:

RK – has been “on leave” for both job, family, and education since
about July of ’08. Nothing much changed here. He’s not dead and still
posts and checks in about the time we start to wonder if Baron Hajod caught him.

Carl – still pluggin away at models. His job has forcibly required
more from him and he’s had to battle a computer virus which ate some of the
more recent stuff he’d finished.

Nutri – still available for working on audio and music. Most recently he’s
been able to complete out most of what we needed for the Wells Cargo test mission.

Backslash – Got hit by a megavirus and pretty much wiped out all his
computers. Also still around and trying to get back up running.

Sonic / Killjoy – Job situation managed to settle down some, but of course
it requires more time. In the process of moving houses.

Megaman / 5XL – Haven’t heard from in a while. Anyone want a
bounty contract? We’d prefer “alive” if possible, no desentigrations.

JGZ – What business I’m related in, has been very up and down week by week.
Some times it seems good and others you wonder if you’ll be in bankruptcy
tomorrow. My primary laptop PC, keyboard died on it, and then it caught
over 20 viruses. Got a new laptop for a month, returned it, then built a
desktop. Currently looking for a cheap laptop. So my files
have been displaced all over the map. Looked into taking some college
courses on game design and artistry, but just don’t have the income to
manage it right now.

So in a nutshell, that’s why we’ve been sidetracked since about March.
Technically, things started getting tough in September, but as you can
see we’re still around and pressing forward as we each can.

Main reason I do these kind of updates, is that I know as fans, you all
like to know there’s progress still being made. There’s legitimate
reasons for the delays, and we hate delays every bit as much as you do.
So take comfort in knowing we’re still on the right track, with goals in mind.

::: “We Need Bigger Guns” :::

So enough with the mushy stuff, how about some eye candy!

Here we have the newly textured torpedo weapons from Carl:

Please note that we’re not sure if the electric green is better than
blue right now. It’s something that can be changed if it becomes an issue,
so don’t be too concerned if “that’s not right!” popped into your mind.

Plus we have the new textured Bora lasers to pair with the earlier Galspan set.

Thank you for your continued support, and we hope to see you
in some weekend games soon.


Instruments of Destruction 1

Got a big update in terms of pictures to show off…

Carl’s been working on the weapons models and has them finished off.
Now the texturing has begun.

If it seems like these are low poly (less detailed) it’s because they
don’t have a texture yet (see below). Plus with having lower poly models,
that means you can have many more weapons on screen, more players, more
AI ships, etc… without as much slowdown on your hardware.

In reality, evereything being made is of a higher poly standard than what
was used in Tach. So on with the show and tell…
Click on the images for a larger view.

All the basic weapons except for the plasma and helios rockets.

Sappers.

Plasma rocket.

Helios rocket.

Missiles and torpedoes.

Misc weapons (railgun, chatter cannon, emp projector etc).

Bora lasers.

GS lasers untextured.

GS lasers textured 1.

GS lasers textured 2.

That’s all for now folks. Should have some more weapons updates
with the textured versions soonish.


How do you spell awesome? C.a.r.l.

Fresh off the Tachband, we’ve got a special treat courtesy of
Carl… he’s really outdone himself this time.

We proudly present the completed Fenris Observation Tower.
Go on, click those images for a better view… you know you want to.


…and in the Fenris gate corner

We have the Fenris Bouy, all decked out and scuffed up by Carl.
Ain’t she a pretty piece of polysteel?

Concerning that gameplay video I mentioned I’d be putting up a
while back, still haven’t managed to get one. Mainly because I’d like
to get the HUD in place, and FRAPS seems to have developed a major
problem so I’m looking into other recording app options.

We’re in the process of tweaking all the weapons and I’ll probably be adding a couple more from Tach to the set we already have.

Nutri’s been getting the Voice Actor clips in and we’ve just about got a
full mission acted out.

That’s about all I can comment on for now. Short but sweet. Quick and dirty,
to the point… you get the idea.


Little Update & Notes

Sorry about being a tad behind on the update folks,
lots of stuff keeping us occupied.

First off Carl’s posted hi final shots of the Fenris tower and
he’s already working on the skin for it.

Overview:

Top Antennas:

Bottom Antennas:

Landing Pads:

Been doing a lot of tweaking to the archangel settings lately, getting
one of our alpha maps setup properly, and some weapons edits. Hopefully
if things go well, I’ll be able to make a pre-alpha play video from one of the
test missions soon and have that up for your enjoyment.


Ho ho ho….

Merry Christmas citizens of the Fringe…

Carl’s gone and given us a present early in the form of
an update on some of the new map models we’ll be using
for the alpha testing.

We’re also in the process of acquiring several people to voice
act some roles for use on said maps.

Click on the images for a higher resolution version.

WIP wireframe of the Fenris Bouy:

Fenris Bouy against a Archangel:

The new ECM powerup all finished:

A Fenris Tower WIP shot:

Hope y’all survive the holidays and we’ll see you in 2009.