Epic: Middle States Released

[GrandpaTrout]

Epic: Middle States Released!

Epic: Middle States is a total conversion mod that enhances the freeform experience of Trade and Piracy in Edge of Chaos. The Middle States introduces a new cluster and the new occupation of merchant trader, as well as forming a platform for future releases.

Download Page (http://www.i-war2.com/epic/default.asp?nc=1145&id=43 )



Description and Features

The Middle States is designed around a freeform Trade and Pirating experience, similar to X, Elite, or Privateer. It is based on the Edge of Chaos engine (Flux), but adds many, many new features.

Setting

The Middle States is a whole new cluster built from scratch using custom geography creation tools written by the Epic Team. The cluster is a huge 26 stars, packed with rival governments, corporations, and pirates.

The Middle States features a rich history and background written by Duncan Day (who also wrote the excellent Iwar stories “The Meeting”, “Out in the Cold”, and “Uncertain Freight”. Find them at www.i-war2.com).

Reworked lighting and artwork give the Middle States a whole new look. The lighting is darker and more dramatic. Station reactors glow in the dark. Ship silhouettes cross the Milky way galaxy like ghosts. Collapsing nebula glow with new stars.

The music system is a whole new concept. Sensor sounds build in layers to form a haunting, shifting, sound environment. Planets wail in the electromagnetic spectrum, and station LDSI fields beat out a pulsing rhythm against the passive sensors.

Trade

This mod adds a whole new economic system to EoC. Pricing is based on stations and trade routes. Inventory levels are reduced and replenished via trading and manufacturing.

Unlike most space sims, you hire wingmen to physically move cargo pods from system to system. No phantom cargo holds with phantom cargo.

Also unlike most space sims, your ships burn fuel and require constant upkeep. You need to plan carefully to keep your income higher than your fuel costs. Average Traders live on the ragged edge. But smart traders can build a trade empire!

Piloting and route planning are crucial. Pirates haunt Lagrange points, looking for cargo ships to extort. Governments protect merchants but they charge heavy taxes for the privilege. One pirate toll or government tax could be the difference between profit and bankruptcy.

Your reputation is the key to building your fortune. Ally with powerful factions, governments or corporations to get the best trade goods.

Piracy

The Pirate occupation is fully developed in the Middle States. A new faction relation system makes piracy much more challenging. Corporations will track those who make frequent attacks and will soon be hostile.

Governments track those who attack innocent shipping. The government patrols will intercept and attack pirates on sight. No longer can you sit still while government corvettes do nothing about your deprivations.

Looting cargo becomes more challenging. You must hire wingmen to collect the cargo and keep them safe from vengeful corporations. Legal stations will not handle stolen cargo. You need to develop a reputation in the underworld and work with Fences and Pod Scrappers to sell off your loot. They take a cut, of course.

Wingmen

The Middle States builds on the wingman control features of iFleet. Build a trade armada that can empty a station of cargo in one visit. Or hire a fleet of mercenary corvettes and terrorize the trade lanes.

A new command system makes grouping and controlling your fleet easier than before. New formation code stops them from piling up. And new cargo pod commands make moving dozens of cargo pods a snap.

Your new wingmen burn fuel and supplies, so make sure to keep them well paid. If you don’t, they will desert with your precious cargo pods as recompense.

Save Nearly Anywhere

The player is no longer tied to a single base. You can enter any station in the game. You can even save your game while in deep space.

Your location in the cluster is remembered when you save. And so are the locations of your whole fleet. No longer do you reload your game only to find yourself several systems away from where you saved.


THIS MOD IS NOT MADE, DISTRIBUTED, OR SUPPORTED BY INFOGRAMES OR PARTICLE SYSTEMS LTD. ELEMENTS TM & (C) INFOGRAMES AND PARTICLE SYSTEMS LTD.

[tombe0]

*Drool* :p

And of course this happens the very next week after my joystick finally "bought it" :/

Gotta buy new one as soon as I can...

[Momaw]

Downloading now. I'll get right on it once it's done. :) Er... which, at 4kbytes/second will be in a day or two. :(

Congratulations on bringing a project to release, GT. Must be a good feeling for the crew.

[hoom]

WOW sounds helluva impressive :) Kinda scary steep learning curve though :eek:

Are you publicising anywhere else?
I think a lot of people could get into this if they hear about it.

[Parias]

Excellent work GT and the rest of the team! This definitely sounds fantastic.

[Shadowcat SFC]

Congratulations to the whole team!! So many mod projects -- even small ones -- never see the light of day, so it's doubly impressive (and inspiring) to see something of this size and scope make it to release. Superb effort!

[GrandpaTrout]

The mod comes with an excellent and professional installer. It will have you up in running in just moments. And it is worth trying, as one of my favorite scenes happens when you dock with the very first station.

We added some camera work to station docking that really gives you a feeling for the size of the stations. They are huge. And the starting station gives you this fantastic sun set, with station lights glowing. If you never play further, it is worth seeing that scene. You won't find anything like it in Freelancer, or X. The PS Flux engine still shines.

There is a bit of a learning curve. But we have reduced the needed keybinds to just a few. Most of the functions are menu driven and there is extensive in game help.

Thanks guys for all the support. So many people have contributed help and ideas (answers to questions) over the years, it feels (to me) like a community project. Almost like a garden!

The Epic team is working on rewriting the standard traffic scripts to include more dialog and interaction. And we need to fix the bug that is preventing us from displaying the very best planets. Once those are done, I think we will crank up the publicity machine!

[RMSe17]

Oh yea, sweet! Time to pull out IW2! Awesome job guys, can't wait to try it.

[Red_Hex]

these new graphical and scripting features. imagine a machine that can barely run eoc satisfactorily to start with; what sort of an impact on performance will the new stuff in this mod have?

[GrandpaTrout]

I kept you in mind during testing (not kidding). I only ran 800X600 so that all the menu's would work. And I ran with max graphics to make sure that if the graphics went out of hand, I could notice.

The script engine is very well behaved. And the main bits of script were designed to run when you were capsule jumping or docking to a station. (Times when the extra load would not mess up combat).

Please give it a try. I would like to know how well we did. Worst comes to worst, we could put together a patch for you that had simpler nebula. (But they are worth a tour even at low frame rate first).

[Hotfoot]

Congrats! I'm really happy to see you guys complete this. I'll be checking it out in full when I get the time.

Thank you for putting in the time and effort to get this done. I'll spread the word. :)

[MichaelShane]

Originally posted by GrandpaTrout
Please give it a try. I would like to know how well we did. Worst comes to worst, we could put together a patch for you that had simpler nebula.

Red_Hex isn't the only one. :D I run EoC on a machine purchased in 2001; not exactly what could be called state-of-the-art. In fact, I tended to get slowdowns and crap framerates during the original unmodded game.

But so far not a single one while playing Epic.

If you need data I can start keeping track of framerates.

[Red_Hex]

ok then, since you considered me ill set it up now, i would have done it before long anyway. i dont actually have the machine i used to have, that went kaput some months ago; i purloined a new one that mixes up the specs but seems in the end to have similar performance, or lack of, to my old one. i used to have a gf2mx; this one has an nforce motherboard with a built in gf2mx. i used to have an athlon 900; this one has an athlon xp 2000+ at 1.6 ghz, a step up you might say - but it only has 224 megs of ram, instead of my old 256, which believe me, i feel all the time, and seems to counteract the faster cpu. put it this way - i still chug bad as ever, running freelancer at 800x600x32 with no graphical frippery. i cant even install the warhammer 40k dawn of war demo on it, i could have before. a processor twice as fast has zero impact on games.

i havent run eoc on it yet but i expect it would be the same. you know the bad thing about installing eoc? binding my joystick the way i want it before i can play. its almost as bad as reinstalling the custom scripts one needs for tribes 2 - which incidentally also runs as badly as ever, and i have to play looking like im fighting swamp monsters in mud.

so i should still be the best low end test platform. ill report back later.

edit: i think we need captain lo-res here

[Stone]

Downloading it now.

Wow! Congrats to you and everyone else that put this together!

Combine this release with Duncan's new fan fiction book "The Meeting" and this is a great time to be part of this community! :up:

Thanks!

[GrandpaTrout]

Hey Thanks, Hotfoot, I am glad your still about. I wish I had saved a copy of your "Inertia" poem, I would have worked it into the help somehow!

RedHex and Shane: Please do let me know where you find slowdowns. And if you run into menu troubles at 800x600. There is always a pause when new models load, which should not happen (everything preloaded). The memory limit would be the worst problem, because there is 100megs of new textures and sounds.

[Hotfoot]

Haha, yeah, I wish I still had it myself. Damn disappearing forums... :(

This used to be the link to the thread in question (http://ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=135338)

Went and downloaded it. Do you still have a copy of the trailer floating around somewhere?

[GrandpaTrout]

The Dogs of War trailer?

DoW Trailer (http://www.i-war2.com/downloads/Nolans%20Intro.zip)

[Hotfoot]

That's the one, thanks :)

[GrandpaTrout]

300 Downloads!

My prerelease guess was 50 remaining forum members. I was way, way under.

The Middle States release is meant to be a platform for further releases. Please DO post bugs or problems. And please do ask questions. It all helps refine and improve the design. The more bugs we get now, the less there will be to find in the next round of testing. (I will do my best not to sound protective)

[Nanoprobe]

Hoo this looks interesting - I haven't gotten around to downloading it yet (having your head stuck in horrible VB.NET database code makes you oblivious to the outside world), but I really like the sound of what you've done - especially the dynamic 'music'. Hell, I'd be downloading the mod if it were for that feature alone!

Nice work, tell you more later.

[Shadowcat SFC]

Originally posted by GrandpaTrout
My prerelease guess was 50 remaining forum members. I was way, way under. I don't know how many forum members there are, but I certainly advertised the release in a couple of other places where I knew that fans of the game still lurked, and presuming that others did the same, it's a safe bet that not all those downloads came from people who saw this thread of their own accord :)

I'll be sure to pass your comments on sending feedback to the same places I mentioned the release in. (edit: Done :)

[jessica00]

i suspect the download count is so high because...well...i've had to retry it a dozen times cause it keeps stalling to 0bit/s

worst download server i've ever seen, yet the speed is decent. it just cant hold a connection to save its life.

torrent? :)

[Cougaris]

I'd like to tip my hat to GrandpaTrout and the other contributers. This is really quality stuff, by far one of the best mods around. Good work!

Also, needs some screenshots, for publicity!

[YodaSean]

Yay! Congratulations on completing it, that's a pretty big accomplishment as far as game mods usually go. :)

I certainly want to try it this weekend, if I don't just end up ignoring everything else and starting it this week :p

[SoupDragon]

The download count registers successful downloads not attempts. Sorry if people are getting issues. I've put a flea in the ear of support.

[GrandpaTrout]

Here is another mirror:

MiddleStates (http://www.streamload.com/TangoMango/epic_setup_8_0.exe)

There is a known bug that has been talked about in the Iwar2 forums, and I should mention it here.

The symptom: if you are flying in space, and "Escape" to the options menu and change the volume or graphics settings, you can no longer open the Ship Computer menu (UniGUI).

This is an EoC bug that I could not work around. You have to quit the game and restart. The only solution is to block people from using that menu, which will be done in the next release.

There is a known bug list in the ships library, under game items. If you hit a major problem, it is worth taking a look to verify symptoms (I do expect new bugs however

[Shadowcat SFC]

jessica00, all you'll need is a download manager that supports resuming. If it dies you can just restart it (which your manager might do automatically), and if it stalls you can kill it yourself and restart it manually, and it should carry on from where it left off.

There are some fancy ones around; maybe someone can recommend something. I just use wget (http://xoomer.virgilio.it/hherold/wget-1.10.1b.zip) from the command-line myself. The command to use is:

wget -c -t 0 http://URL

where URL is either the original download address, or the mirror that GT just posted. -c tells it to continue the download if you already have part of the file, and -t 0 says to keep on trying to get it until the download is complete, no matter how many times the connection dies. If you need to kill the process manually (because it stalls, for instance), just use ctrl+c.

[hoom]

I used to use Getright religiously but haven't bothered since I got mah 2mbit ADSL since pretty much everything finishes downloading too quickly to get time to fail :)

[ogremagi]

W00t!!

Now I have another reason to reinstall EOC. :cool: :D

EDIT: That was a nice solid pull; 300+ kb in 4 1/2 minutes from the first link. Someone must have got the server right. ;)

[YodaSean]

How does one buy a ship that isn't a tug? I've visited at least 4 defence docks and none of them are selling anything as far as ships go.

Do most of these stations not sell ships, or is it that my reputation needs to be higher?

[GrandpaTrout]

Hi YodaSeen,

Yes, you need to be friendly or allied to get those warships. It is clear I need to change that screen so it always shows the ship you can purchase (but just refuses to let you buy them).

Thanks for posting. Every question like this makes clear a needed improvement. The programmer is just too close to see these kinds of flaws clearly.

I hope everyone is enjoying the MOD. I would love to have some feedback on the Music System. It is unique. We were not really sure how people would like it.

What do you think about hauling cargo pods? Mdvalley, over in the iwar2 forums coded up the changes needed to actually use the pod spewers. We will put that into the next release.

[Digitalia]

Is there any change in multiplayer?

[YodaSean]

Originally posted by GrandpaTrout
Hi YodaSeen,

Yes, you need to be friendly or allied to get those warships. It is clear I need to change that screen so it always shows the ship you can purchase (but just refuses to let you buy them).


Ah, I thought it was something like that but I couldn't be sure. It seems like it would make sense to just put a " - denied" thingy on the end like you have on the cargo pods when they aren't buyable due to reputation.

The music system was interesting, at times it could get a bit odd though because sometimes it seems to obsess on sort of squirty weird sounds, sort of amusing I guess. But these sounds are so distinct that they become very apparent as they continue to play.

How does your music system work, exactly? I guess it uses some sort of algorithm to put together sequences?

I haven't got to play it too much more, so I haven't tried out the combat yet...
:)

[Cambrogol]

I think those squirty weird sounds you are hearing are the actual 'planet' sounds I used. These were recordings of actual atmospheric events on Jupiter, Saturn and earth. They are electromagnetic sounds that have been reprocessed to be audible to humans.

They sound weird allright, but kindof 'realistic'. And interesting.

[Indie]

Man... am I late or what? Downloading now...

Great job!:up:

[Roy_Fokker]

Hi,
I don't post here often, But this mod has fun potential

I just wonder one thing.

I started (following the tuts), got 6 box from Common metals mines.

Now, for some reason my Snrv pilot only picked up 5. (i suspect it was because i left for the processor too soon, with wingman in formate)

no worries, i return to pick up the 1 box that was left. but the snrv pick up that and other boxes meant for other factions.

Now those factions hate me :(

Is that planned (by design)?


BTW, this mod is quite cool, made me install EoC again. just when i think i've kicked the habit, damned game pulls me back in. :P

[jessica00]

can someone post a save with well established monetary funds and general goodness?

*for the lazy*

[GrandpaTrout]

Hi Roy,

no, stealing cargo pods is not illegal (yet). Only shooting ships. It sometimes happens that your wingmen collide with another ship.

Because EoC has ramming weapons, this gets counted as an attack. I guess, in short, I am not sure what happened.

[Roy_Fokker]

OK then i think i know what happened.

While docking with Mining Station, i happen to collide with 2 ships (it was on auto pilot)

One of the ship (i collided with) kinda got stuck in station, (hilarious, never seen that happen before), that might have had something to do with their "hate".

No worries, (/me goes to make peace)

[tombe0]

Finally got my new joystick and got to test this beauty out.

At first I was a bit lost there, just admiring the scenery and all.

Then read the walkthrough and proceeded to play and *WhoopS!* got myself killed :D

While I was gonna go and pickup something to sell, I noticed 3 outlaw corvettes attacking the station and decided to join the fun of killing them *Wrong move* :D I was promptly shot to pieces by them :p

Gotta try again with a little more restrictive trigger finger tonite :)

[MajorTom]

Originally posted by Digitalia
Is there any change in multiplayer?

There is a Multiplayer Mod called "Epic Online" that was intended to support the middle states mod. It is in a final beta version and has actually been openly distributed over a year ago.

It allows you to trade Cargo from your single play game with other players online.
The cargo you traded for is then added to your single play game inventory. (and the cargo you traded off is deducted from your inventory)

I guess the mod never found much attention as it also makes you vernurable to "real" pirate attacks from other online players who can actually steal your single play game cargo (whatever you took into a game for a trade) by staging an online attack.

Thats probably too realistic for most people because they don't want to risk loosing thier own personal inventory. :cry:

[DrCR]

Awesome! I'm a little late to the action, I know, but this is some seriously sweet news! :D :up:
Haven't checked the forum since summer since in uni. Can't wait to check the release out. Going to have to wait until Christmas break though. Too busy with uni right now. :sour:


OK, do I have this right?:

- Epic: Middle States is now called Torn Stars
- Unstable Space is an addon or sorts and will be integrated into Torn Stars i.e. seems like the same game as before, but with an additional dimension

Project Traffic . . . where does this fit in? Will it be integrated into Torn Stars at some point similar to Unstable Space?


Seriously, you guys are incredible! Who needs an offical EOC2 now?! :D

[DrCR]

Originally posted by Red_Hex
this one has an nforce motherboard with a built in gf2mx . . . has an athlon xp 2000+ at 1.6 ghz . . . but it only has 224 megs of ram


Your bottleneck probably isn't your vid card but your ram. You can get a pair of 256s (512MB Total) for <$50 easy (USD). You'll see a world of difference not just in games (among other things, much faster load times) but also in every day usage if you're using Windows Xtra Pain.

If you have an pair copy of 98se floating around you could install that secondary to your XP (if that's what you're using) and play the mod in 98se, which has a smaller memory footprint.

Just some ideas for a computer hardware geek. :)

Edit: Does the built-in GF2MX have dedicated memory?

[Cambrogol]

In answer to DrCR's questions:


Yes, Epic Middle States is now called Torn Stars

Both Unstable Space and Traffic are addons for Torn Stars. They will expand upon almost every aspect of Torn Stars, in addtion to adding many new features. Just check the website for details!

[DrCR]

Cool deal, Thanks. Nice work!

[Klaatu]

Cool, I'll try it. Thanks.

[tiger_tim_b]

What can I say..? I am absolutely flabbergasted at the emergence of this lovingly created new-world mod. It was almost too good to be true... MORE I-WAR. It felt like Christmas morning with no relatives to see. :D

The only frustrating thing is I'm right at the start of Defiance, and then need to complete EoC (I only got as far as Jackson's Yard, then stopped to play the series 'properly' from I-War) so I've a little while to go.

But that's like complaining that it's the first day of the holidays. :)

My only issue with Torn Stars so far is the name. A bit too close to Porn Stars for my liking. Edge of Chaos: Middle States sounds much better to me - but I suspect there are copyright issues with this.

Torn Stars is slightly melodramatic. Middle States has the gratifying double-meaning of: a) Geographical entities within a larger world, and b) In-between 'states of being'. Ah well. The game is what matters, and it looks - and more importantly feels - very good indeed. :heart:

[Shadowcat SFC]

Weird. I also liked "Middle States" better than "Torn Stars" as a name, and I'm also in the sad situation of needing to play through EoC first! (though hopefully by the time I'm done the various Torn Stars expansions will be finished :)

I'm a little bit ahead of you in having just recently played through Defiance after several years of ownership (well, recently by my standards at least), but I'm not sure when I'll actually get to EoC properly so you may well overtake me!

Maybe us slow players just take longer to get accustomed to new names?

[tiger_tim_b]

Hmmmn... you may well be right, Shadowcat. I do get attached to what I know. However, although 'Edge of Chaos' was also a dramatic choice of title, it did pertain to the story. Perhaps Torn Stars relates to something I don't yet know about the new modworld..? :)

As for me overtaking you, I seriously doubt it. Dad duties take up an increasingly large portion of life. And we've number two on the way. Gulp! :bulb: Ah well... it makes those little 'escapes' all the more rewarding.

I LOVE SPACE.

Feel better now. :D

[King's Specter]

*stumbles in from Guild Wars to see what's new*

HOLY SCHNIKIES!!

Congrats GT and all! I can't wait to try it out!