Linking with other MP Space Sim Groups

In an unrelated forum, I encountered someone who is an ardent fan of Tachyon: The Fringe online MP space sim play. With apologies to him (Slippster), here's an excerpt of one of his posts:
_______________________________________________________________
You really need to venture in to the online portion of Tachyon.

its nothing like 1 player.

there are 2 games online.

by the way, the tachyon lobby link i put up in the previous post does work, i just put it there so you could see what the online lobby screen looks like.

both links work by the way.

ok back to explaining Tachyons online games;

Base Wars involves the 2 factions in the game ;
namely Galspan and Bora.

each has their own base, and the maps are usually divided up into 3 sectors, Galspan, Bora, and a common sector in the middle.

the mid sector is where alot of tthe action happens.

basicly you "mine" crystals and fly your "credits" home and your base and your ship gains experience.

you progress through technology levels, aquiring new weapons and equipment at each "Tech Level" ( 1-10)

the object is to get to tech 10 where you get access to the nuke weapons Helios Bombs and you drop 25 of those on their Life Support and win the game.

Dogfights are fast and furious, as well as defending your base from attackers who attack your "credit plants" that appear on your base as you mine credits.

the other online game is called ARENA.
its your basic head-to-head deathmatch where you kill everything you see and try to get the most kills in 20 minutes before the server resets.

its a good area to practice ships, dogfighting,and weapons so that in base wars you become a better pilot.

the ppl in tachyon can become your best friends and your hardest opponent , and as in any game, theres a few bad apples but dont let that steer ya away!

Tachyon community is a very close knit group of people.


The ships in multi are much faster and stronger than any of the ships in single player so if you do manage to get online be ready for a shock!

you may think your a "hot pilot" but multi will melt all of that away fast, lol.

you may find yourself re-learning many aspects of flight .

your game will need to be patched to improve performance because Novalogic dropped support and hasnt made a patch since 2000!

and you can find that patch on my msn groups site i call GAMING PIX2.
you can download it here:
www.gamingpix2.pwp.blueyonder.co ... lsetup.exe


I have a wide collection of player made Maps as well
as screenshots from the game and Videos too.

if you would like direct contact with me or anyone in the tachyon community you cal logon at this site, its an ez-board so youll need to register a screen name to be able to post. ( free)

New Breed Clan: p197.ezboard.com/fnewbreed2frm7

welcome to da Fringe!

regards, Slippster
__________________________

Apparently, this is a dedicated group of online gaming fans who love this space sim, and the play Tachyon affords. I thought it might be worth mentioning it here, to the I-War2 Star Wars MP mod dev team because the same problem that has plagued the awesome MP options available through I-War's engine in the past will likely continue to do so in the future...even with the Star Wars appeal: Lack of players.

My suggestion would be to make contact with this group and play with them a little in their world (they're always looking for new players), have some fun, build some relationships, then invite them to help us play test or beta test the Star Wars mod, maybe even review it for us. If this could be set up as a concerted group effort and get lots of them to see this mod, we stand to benefit through a) recruiting new interested players if they truly find it fun, b) gaining valuable feedback about the game and its play from other experienced online space simmers, and c) potentially get some positive word of mouth PR. The downside would be trying to coordinate the event, making sure they all have a working copy of the mod, installed right, tested, and trained on the EoC flight model/controls, etc. It might not be worth all that effort, but I thought I'd bring it up as a suggestion anyway.

Here are a couple more links:

nw2.novaworld.net/ttflobby1.htm

groups.msn.com/GamingPix2/_whatsnew.msnw

This latter one I think, is Slippster's own page. I'd make the contact myself, but I've never actually addressed Slippster directly, and I know too little about setting up MP play. My guess is MT or SC would be best to make this contact, if at all, but I leave the rest up to you.

--
Hot4Darmat

Yeah, Tachyon looked pretty cool when I bought it (it stars B-movie icon Bruce Campbell). I had trouble running it on the system I had back then. Never really played with it again after that. I was going to get into it again, hoping to make some mods for it (it looked really nice visually). But as I reasearched it I found out that it had less modability than a Derek Smart game and was apparently plagued by numerous technical problems. Many of which were never solved, or even addressed, because Nova Logic had apparently abandoned the now very bitter Tachyon fan base and stopped supporting it.

But what the hell, why not. I'll bust it out and try it again. And it's always a good idea to network with similarly interested players. But let me try out the game again before we start interfacing with anybody we might regret (many of the Tachyon fan posts I've read are extrememely bitter towards the developer).

Good idea though Hot4, I'm glad you mentioned it.

*edit*
Download the demo here:
www.game-revolution.com/download ... fringe.htm

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

Tachyon was a fun game, and one of my favorite (non-newtonion) space sims but I never tried MP.

Your comments about the lack of players in EOC is also something I'm concerned about. Additionally, even though you can play offline by yourself, starting and playing the EOC MP game to get the star wars mod going is a bit awkward, or at least very un-accostomed. I'm afraid that may keep some people from playing too. (Hi, Shane )

I've thought about the possibility of using the Instant Action part of the game for bot matches: I think it offers the possibility to use more than the standard limit of 5 player pilotable ships and it might well allow us to run the MP maps. Unfortunately we don't have the source for the IA game.

Roi, do you have any knowledge about EOC-IA or have you ever tried to do anything with it?




Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Originally posted by MajorTom

Roi, do you have any knowledge about EOC-IA or have you ever tried to do anything with it?

No, sorry. We've never worked with it. Just replaced ships for testing them in early development stages but we never looked into scripts.

---

~Buda5 Designer & Scripter
buda5.firstones.com

I played Tachyon about halfway through when it came out, and I remember enjoying it thoroughly. It was a fun story, the ships were cool looking and the voice acting was fantastic. I think I got stuck on a very tough mission and after about a gazillion times trying to get through it, gave up.

Apparently the MP version is quite different, so don't make any assumptions about gameplay, difficulty, flight mechanics, etc., until you've played it with these guys. My point wasn't to sell Tachyon, though. It was simply to maybe try to get some dedicated MP space sim players to try out a new MP space sim game (the SW mod for EoC) to see if they like it, and can help spread the good news. We may be able to recruit a few of them into a regular monthly "Star Wars" night game for a bit of variety in their Tachyon gaming schedule.

MT, your point about making this SW MP mod easy to use, quick to install, accessible, and instantly fun is a good one, and could go a long way to making this mod's release a success story.
--
Hot4Darmat

Sorry about sidestepping there

The idea to involve fans from other space sims and related genres is great. I think we should persue it. That could also be a good source of game play ideas too!
I've spent some time on the the X-Wing-Alliance forum, met with general acceptance for the mod and even got some good suggestions from them too. The interest has waned lately but primarily because we don't have anything new to show them.

I would assume, the best way to get there interest would be to show up at one or several of their games and then start chatting with them? Unfortunately, I can't reach any of the Tachyon MP games from my location here in Europe.

We can probably follow up on this best once we have the beta running and have attracted some attention from a few potential "missionaries" that we can motivate to go out and preach the mod "Gospel".

Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site