[HN Gopher] TFTC (TIE Fighter Total Conversion) v1.0
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       TFTC (TIE Fighter Total Conversion) v1.0
        
       Author : omnibrain
       Score  : 198 points
       Date   : 2021-07-17 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.moddb.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.moddb.com)
        
       | deagle50 wrote:
       | I used to run home from middle school to play Tie CD. It's my
       | favorite game of all time. This looks amazing.
        
         | ethbr0 wrote:
         | Confirming that I ran both home and down the neighborhood
         | street to a friend's house for X-Wing.
         | 
         | I doubt I would have ever gotten into computers if it hadn't
         | been for Oregon Trail, Treasure Mountain, Escape Velocity, and
         | X-Wing.
        
           | deagle50 wrote:
           | If I got home asap I'd have at least 2 hours of gameplay
           | before my parents returned and made me do homework lol.
        
       | baq wrote:
       | TIE Fighter, for those old enough to remember it, must be the top
       | 3 space shooters ever created. The campaign, the secret
       | objectives, the little touches here and there. I don't remember
       | playing anything close to that game. Freespace 2 was kind of but
       | not quite there (it also is a great game, though!)
        
         | raverbashing wrote:
         | Agree
         | 
         | The side issue was probably overlooked since, as a continuation
         | of X-Wing, the players were more interested in the upgraded
         | experience than in which side they were playing.
        
         | omnibrain wrote:
         | If you are still interested in Freespace 2 check out Hard
         | Light: https://www.hard-light.net/ There is a vibrant modding
         | scene for Freespace 2.
        
         | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
         | The most amazing trick it pulled was how quickly it converted
         | players to the imperial side.
         | 
         | I was initially a bit hesitant playing for the bad guys, but by
         | the end of the first campaign I couldn't wait to blast some
         | traitorous drug trading rebel scum!
        
           | whatever_dude wrote:
           | Same! It felt like a weird premise for the game before I
           | started and I was a bit uneasy about it. But it was a bit of
           | a lesson on how things are not always black and white like
           | that (the protagonists had actual motivations), and also on
           | "hey you know what, it's just a videogame, why not be the
           | baddie one in a while?" at the same time. Kinda ahead of its
           | time, but very well executed.
        
           | shoto_io wrote:
           | Absolutely! I loved shooting down Y Wings in particular.
        
         | puchatek wrote:
         | I was in the inner circle, had the tattoos and everything. I
         | had real power back then.
        
         | SkyMarshal wrote:
         | Agreed. Also, the TIE Missile Boat from that game is still the
         | most fun and engaging simulated space fighter I've ever flown.
         | 
         | It had an afterburner-like mode that would give it short bursts
         | of immense speed, but would rapidly consume the ship's energy
         | reserves.
         | 
         | The mini-metagame of constantly shifting power around between
         | engines, weapons, and shields in order to optimize that ship's
         | combat effectiveness on large complex missions is something I
         | still recall fondly.
        
           | ravenstine wrote:
           | The missile boat!!! I haven't played that game in decades but
           | I remember that being the best one. That game was awesome.
        
             | rl3 wrote:
             | Despite being six years old at the time, I still have fond
             | memories of being instructed on how to systematically
             | destroy Rebel forces using the Missile Boat:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax68wZX9ZQg#t=1m05s
             | 
             | Starting the video from the beginning is also highly
             | recommended; TIE Fighter's clickable menu system was
             | incredible!
        
         | Zardoz84 wrote:
         | try StarLancer. For me, was the best space shooter since Tie
         | Figther
        
           | hesdeadjim wrote:
           | Great game, one of my favorites. Tie Fighter, Freespace 2,
           | and Starlancer have been undisputed champions in their genre.
           | Everspace came close for me, but it lacked a compelling
           | story.
        
       | ZeroCool2u wrote:
       | Wow, this is really impressive. There's a huge number of
       | scenarios and the assets look really good considering it's fan
       | made.
       | 
       | If this appeals to you, I'd highly recommend giving Star Wars
       | Squadrons a try in a high end VR rig. The game overall isn't
       | perfect, but it's by far the closest I've ever felt to feeling
       | like I was flying a tie fighter or an x wing.
        
         | kjander79 wrote:
         | This conversion has VR support as well, so you should get that
         | same immersion, with the stronger gameplay provided by the
         | Alliance game engine. I haven't played Squadrons myself.
        
           | dstick wrote:
           | Squadrons was amazing, and amazingly disorientating at the
           | same time. Really awesome VR experience though. Up there with
           | HL Alyx in terms of "unique to VR"
        
             | kjander79 wrote:
             | I would think a cockpit VR experience would be much
             | superior to a FP one.
        
               | messe wrote:
               | I've heard _Elite: Dangerous_ is meant to be fantastic in
               | VR. Although the latest expansion which adds a first-
               | person shooter element doesn 't support it (yet?).
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | Does whatever the current Mechwarrior game is support VR?
        
               | kjander79 wrote:
               | My first response is, I don't know. But I guess it
               | depends on what you consider the current MechWarrior
               | game. I know of MechWarrior online, which I don't believe
               | does, but I suspect there's a newer MechWarrior game out,
               | or coming soon. There's also a newer strategy BattleTech
               | game which I doubt would benefit from VR.
        
               | kjander79 wrote:
               | Shamelessly replying to my own comment, there's
               | MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. I don't see VR support
               | mentioned.
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | Today I learned. Appreciate the comment and lookup. Nice
               | to see them retool Mercenaries.
               | 
               | Battletech always seemed trapped in a 40k-esque lore vise
               | of its own making, in such a deep focus on a specific
               | slice of time that progressing the greater narrative
               | forward seemed inconceivable.
               | 
               | But I guess that's tabletop-derived worlds and games in
               | general.
        
               | ZeroCool2u wrote:
               | I've just looked into this recently and the sad answer is
               | no. It's a really fun game and perfect candidate for VR.
               | Really a shame they couldn't make that happen.
        
           | aceazzameen wrote:
           | I had read the frame rate is locked at a low rate in VR
           | though. It's an issue with the X-Wing Alliance engine itself.
           | I want to be wrong though, because I would love to play this
           | in VR!
           | 
           | My biggest gripes with Star Wars Squadrons are the poor
           | campaigns, or lack thereof, and ships tuned for competitive
           | multiplayer only.
        
             | sircambridge wrote:
             | they fixed this!!! This was true last year when it first
             | came out. Im not sure since when but as of this week, I was
             | able to play 120hz VR mode on my RTX 3090. the VR mode in
             | this game is so immersive! it makes up for the lack of
             | gameplay mechanics, it kind becomes just a beautiful arcade
             | space shooter, which is ok.
        
               | aceazzameen wrote:
               | This is the best news! I also have a 3090, so I'll have
               | to try it out tomorrow!
        
             | kjander79 wrote:
             | This does use the Alliance ships, which are slightly more
             | tuned towards multiplayer than the original Tie Fighter
             | models. Specifically, shielded fighters suffer a bit.
             | 
             | Editing to add, I just saw your user name, and at first
             | assumed you created it just to reply here.
        
               | aceazzameen wrote:
               | Haha, just a fan. :)
        
           | shostack wrote:
           | How is the flight model in comparison?
           | 
           | Squadrons is a blast in VR but I wasn't the biggest fan of
           | the feel of the flight model. Especially coming from combat
           | in Elite:Dangerous with much nicer cockpits, etc.
        
             | fsloth wrote:
             | The Squadrons flight model was atrocious, IMHO. It felt
             | like first person FPS, except you have the craft around
             | you.
             | 
             | I wanted to love it to death in VR because it looked so
             | nice but the flight model was not my piece of cake.
             | 
             | The cockpit immersion was _so good_.
        
         | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
         | I didn't play Squadrons, but looking at some gameplay videos I
         | was disgusted how blatantly they've nerfed Tie Fighters, by
         | making the radar occupy so much of the screen. So the craft
         | with the best possible view from a cockpit became almost the
         | same as X-Wing with its huge nose.
        
           | ozten wrote:
           | It is hard to judge what a VR experience will feel like from
           | a 2d video.
        
           | rozab wrote:
           | Possibly a deliberate choice to reduce VR sickness?
        
             | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
             | How would that reduce VR sickness? It was clearly moved way
             | more up than it was in Tie Fighter (and there is zero
             | chance that Squadrons developers didn't play it), so it was
             | really obscuring the view - in fact, more than X-Wing's
             | nose. I suspect it was done for the balance purposes, or
             | maybe some rebel scum in the development team was
             | sabotaging the imperial starfighters.
        
       | lencastre wrote:
       | I never got the hang of X-Wing but the tractor beam, the Tie
       | Defender, the secret inner circle, made Tie Fighter a really good
       | game!
       | 
       | At least as I look through the rose colored nostalgia glasses.
        
       | shoto_io wrote:
       | Awesome! I loved TIE fighter.
       | 
       | I'm curious to know how copyright is handled?
        
       | cheschire wrote:
       | I wonder how many hours this will stay available before Disney
       | sends a takedown notice to the server host for moddb.com
        
         | cloudking wrote:
         | Do you think they are violating any laws? They aren't profiting
         | from the mod and it requires a legit copy of the game. It's
         | arguable that it actually helps Disney by increasing sales of
         | the original game.
        
           | pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
           | Definitely. The ability to create derivative works is one of
           | the exclusive rights of a rightsholder as laid out by Title
           | 17 from the US Code.
        
           | shakna wrote:
           | None of those things have stopped companies from issuing
           | DMCAs in the past.
        
       | gibrown wrote:
       | omg omg omg
       | 
       | I played this so much on my pentium 100mhz as a teen. I think I
       | broke multiple joysticks dodging xwings. My biggest concern is
       | that it won't live up to the memories I still have. I think I
       | need to buy a joystick. I have much more disposable income and a
       | lot less time... my six year old isn't too young to join the
       | Empire right?
        
       | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
       | Tie Fighter is the golden standard of all space fighting games.
       | Definitely worth checking out.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
       | A curiosity from someone that doesn't know the project: the host
       | game for this mod is reported in Steam to be from 1999, so it
       | looks like it should be... also rather aged. But the graphics
       | from the mod look awesome (definitely not 1999 graphics). How
       | come?
        
         | forbiddenlake wrote:
         | It is based on the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade project which is a
         | major fan-made upgrade: https://www.xwaupgrade.com/
        
       | njharman wrote:
       | Dude, yes please.
        
       | cloudking wrote:
       | Wow this looks impressive, I hope it starts a trend of
       | remastering older games into the modern era. Many games like this
       | from the 80s to 2000s were masterpieces in their time.
       | 
       | I've seen an official example with Blizzard and Diablo 2:
       | https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo2/23658118/diablo-ii-r...
       | 
       | Any other old games being remastered officially or unofficially?
        
         | markdoubleyou wrote:
         | Freespace 2 (available on gog) has a big community behind it
         | that's rewritten the engine, modernized assets, and created new
         | missions/campaigns.
        
         | srgpqt wrote:
         | Games remade that come to mind, some from the same people or
         | reusing the old codebase:
         | 
         | * Warcraft 3 remastered
         | 
         | * Theme hospital -> TwoPoint hospital
         | 
         | * Dungeon Keeper -> War for the Overworld
         | 
         | * Jones in the Fast Lane -> No time to Relax
         | 
         | * System Shock
         | 
         | * Descent -> Overload and also Descent Underground
        
           | yawnxyz wrote:
           | Descent would be so crazy as a VR game... I remember being
           | getting lost pretty much all the time...
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | Descent _launched_ in 1995 with support for stereo displays
             | (or maybe it was added in a patch, I can 't find the patch
             | notes, anyway it was supported within the support window)
             | I'm not sure if there's good support for the modern crop of
             | stereo displays though; I think Overload does have VR
             | support though.
        
           | ethbr0 wrote:
           | Nice to see Descent getting remade. I remember the extra DoF
           | (and later, indoor / outdoor environments) blowing my young
           | mind. Also, TIL Volition was a spin off / successor of
           | Parallax Software.
           | 
           | Descent is still one of my favorite 90s-era boxes.
           | 
           | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5f/Descent_cover.
           | ..
        
         | kuzee wrote:
         | Total Annihilation, a classic, has been remade under the TA
         | Spring RTS engine project: https://springrts.com/. It's pretty
         | fantastic.
        
         | m-p-3 wrote:
         | Like this Super Mario World modded to widescreen
         | 
         | https://github.com/VitorVilela7/wide-snes
        
         | rubyn00bie wrote:
         | The Final Fantasy VII remake on PS4 is literally the (only)
         | reason I own a PS4... I'm a big fan of remakes of classics as
         | long as they stay true the original. Playing the FFVII remake
         | has been beyond magical for me, it's like playing the original
         | _how I remember it_ (for the most part) instead of how it
         | actually is (which is dated). How often in life do you get the
         | chance to (re-)experience something like that? It 's pretty
         | freakin' awesome. I really hope some other classic games get
         | the chance to shine again...
        
           | cloudking wrote:
           | Amazing, looks like they completely rebuilt the game, thanks
           | for the callout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luIUJ5sgT1I
        
         | dmos62 wrote:
         | Blizzard remastered the original Starcraft (and made the
         | original free to play):
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ypU9j4w3_w
         | 
         | There's also a cartoon version:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCcg8XUh3tY
         | 
         | Btw, I just found out that they're making SC2 free to play too.
         | 
         | Edit: checkout this replay with commentary in a custom toony
         | skin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoxcPwUnVuc
        
           | mobilio wrote:
           | Original SC is free, but doesn't look good on HD screens.
           | 
           | But SC remastered with HD graphic will cost you $15. Or 15
           | Euro.
        
         | tasogare wrote:
         | Age of Empires (all of them).
        
         | sedatk wrote:
         | Many, including most of the LucasArts adventures like Full
         | Throttle, Monkey Island 1-2, Day of the Tentacle. Also strategy
         | classics like Command & Conquer and Red Alert. For some reason,
         | they still manage to feel old.
        
           | kjander79 wrote:
           | On gog.com, remakes and updates come out pretty regularly.
           | The quality varies wildly. But there's definitely an
           | enthusiastic market for them.
        
       | koonsolo wrote:
       | I used to play Tie Fighter a lot when it was new.
       | 
       | I tried the recent space battles of star was battlefield, but
       | somehow I cannot get the hang of it (maybe I'm getting too old?)
       | 
       | Would love to have the same experience, but maybe I'm doing
       | something wrong or looking over something?
        
       | dugditches wrote:
       | How does this play without an actual joystick.
       | 
       | Was happy to see X-Wing etc come to Steam. But trying to play
       | with a keyboard or controller felt awful.
       | 
       | I remember Rebel Assault 2 needing a joystick for a few flying
       | missions(freighter in the tunnel(3), tie fighter in the
       | canyon(7), speeder bike in the swamp(9?)). But the X-Wing/Tie
       | Fighter games just needed one.
        
         | forbiddenlake wrote:
         | It's still poor on a controller. I tried an Xbox controller on
         | Windows 10, with no additional software (but I hear that third-
         | party joystick/remapping software may improve this?)
         | 
         | 1. The triggers are detected as an _axis_ , the throttle axis
         | by default. Hold LT for 0 throttle and hold RT for 100
         | throttle. Release them for 50 throttle. This is .. not ideal.
         | They cannot be remapped to, say, use the triggers to fire your
         | weapons.
         | 
         | 2. The right stick's horizontal axis is not usable at all.
         | 
         | 3. There's no support for button combinations. So you are very
         | limited button-wise.
         | 
         | 4. You _can_ switch around the mapping for the axes that are
         | detected, so you can put pitch /roll on the left stick.. but
         | that leaves yaw on the _vertical_ right-stick axis, or on the
         | triggers. But TIE Fighter 's flight model is not the same as a
         | space sim's, so trying to fly it like one may not be advisable.
         | 
         | I tried to play this like I play Elite: Dangerous, which has
         | very robust controller support. But TIE Fighter really, really
         | wants to be played on joystick and keyboard (which is how I
         | played it when it was released). Alas, I don't own a joystick
         | now and I am not sure I have room for one anyway.
        
       | kjander79 wrote:
       | It's great, I've been really enjoying it. Everything you love
       | about Tie Fighter, but feels thoroughly modern, has that feel,
       | "this is just like the movies!". I just hope my 20 year old
       | joystick survives, prices for replacement are off-putting.
        
         | samstave wrote:
         | I would love to build a Tie Fighter Cockpit gaming rig some day
        
           | kjander79 wrote:
           | If anyone on here has built a flight simulator rig, I'd love
           | to hear about it.
        
           | Tarq0n wrote:
           | Star Wars Squadrons in VR is essentially this. Feels amazing
           | to be able to look around an x-wing or tie-fighter cockpit.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | this is incredible. I mean, I have fond memories of playing Tie
       | Fighter (until a glitch with the floppies and an upgraded PC
       | meant I couldn't install it again!!), I don't game or follow
       | retrogaming land, so what is the background here:
       | 
       | What is X-Wing Alliance? Someone 'out of nowhere' (is the code
       | open sourced or something) decided to redo all the
       | engine/graphics to be 'modern'? It's incredible to me that this
       | could exist/that someone put that much work into it. If the code
       | is open, is it a matter of simply updating the engine and then
       | replacing all the 'sprites' and textures with updated stuff, so
       | really just a massive graphics update?
        
         | aceazzameen wrote:
         | https://xwaupgrade.com/
         | 
         | X-Wing Alliance came out in 1999. Fans on this website have
         | been modding and upgrading its graphics ever since. There were
         | campaign editors also. The holy grail was to bring the original
         | TIE Fighter campaigns to XWA. It never happened, until now.
        
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       (page generated 2021-07-17 23:00 UTC)