Battlefleet Gothic

[Huet]

So, not sure if anyone knows what it is, but battlefleet gothic is a tabletop game set in games workshop's 40k universe. I haven't actually played it for quite a few years now, but that's not why I'm making this post anyway... lol

On A2F there are two ships from the battlefleet gothic universe available for download (Lunar Class, and Retribution Class) and I was wondering if anyone knew if there are others floating around somewhere, or if any headway was ever made on a gothic total conversion for A2?

 

[Majestic]

A few years back now, 2008 or something, a fellow called Rangar was making a total conversion for the game however he and his mod has disappeared like so many others over the years.

 

[swilson0907]

A few years back now, 2008 or something, a fellow called Rangar was making a total conversion for the game however he and his mod has disappeared like so many others over the years.

Majestic, I just wanted to say that your post makes me see a point about some mods. - Some good, or even exceptional mods get started then sometime down the road the creators and their mod team seems to loose interest or something happens that is unforseen and then the mod is never going to be. Many of these mods I have seen mentioned in the forums here and also at File Front, and like the StarGate mods for example, there is lots of interest in them and next thing you know "puff" their gone or discontinued or even stalled... never to be heard about again. It sounds very sad and what makes it worse is some of these people either just left the community or got tired of modding. How sad.

 

[thunderfoot]

His username was "Ragnar". I think I may have an archived copy of his work somewhere on one of my thumb drives. The ships he released were about all of the mod he had completed. Nearly everything else is obviously at the very beginning of what he had planned. Meshes not hard pointed. Very few complete textures. No odfs or weapon sprites. Minimal coding on the few things which were done besides the ships he released. They are truly beautiful, though. I tweaked the ships and added them to my A2 install because I really like the whole WH40K universe. Here are some pics I did of them.

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

Spoiler: Battlefleet Gothic

If you like, I can harvest these two ships from my old archived install and send them to you.

 

[StarBlade]

Ragnar sent me the full WH40K BFG mod that he'd completed as well-- as he was leaving he didn't have any use for them. What thunderfoot's done with them has been more than what I did with them, since it was beyond my ability to mod at the time. Actually, it probably still is. Beautiful stuff, though.

 

[thunderfoot]

Majestic, I just wanted to say that your post makes me see a point about some mods. - Some good, or even exceptional mods get started then sometime down the road the creators and their mod team seems to lose interest or something happens that is unforeseen and then the mod is never going to be. Many of these mods I have seen mentioned in the forums here and also at File Front, and like the StarGate mods for example, there is lots of interest in them and next thing you know "puff" they're gone or discontinued or even stalled... never to be heard about again. It sounds very sad and what makes it worse is some of these people either just left the community or got tired of modding. How sad.

Can't speak for others here. This would be presumption upon my part. But the very last time someone went on a public tirade about something I had done and how wrong it all was made me realize I needed to go back to modding for myself and not sharing. Further, I needed to stop caring what others thought of my mods. Because they disliked the mods did not mean they disliked me personally. But it surely felt this way some days. I am not sure what you're really trying to say here.

Modding projects, especially TC's or full race addons, simply do not spring full blown from fifteen minutes of texture manipulation and copy/pasting an existing ODF. Takes work to get some of these mods off the ground and running correctly so they do not wreck someone else's game. As you've found out recently with the HiveShip.

Real Life can and should always take precedence over modding. Surprising how few modders there really are whom are publicly known within the Community. And we are all attention mongers to some degree or another. Sometimes the membership of this Community can play a little rough with one's ego. Hard to continue keeping the enthusiasm up when something one spends several weeks' worth of free time gets met with dislike. Or worse, indifference. I do not believe there is a modder anywhere whose work has not been publicly declared a heresy or a hack by someone or another. After a few years, this gets really, really old and tiresome.

 

[Huet]

Do you happen to still have contact with Ragnar, thunderfoot?
I'd like to contact him and see if I can get the unfinished models. While I'm not *that* good at modelling, I know my way around uv maps some and can do vanilla armada1/2 odf editing, maybe I can get some more of his stuff going in Armada?


I can understand what swilson is saying, but conversely I also understand how much effort is necessary to create TC mods and more often than not "life" happens (or people simply lose interest). I play and mod a game alot called men of war, and one thing that bugs the hell out of me to be honest (and it's not that mods aren't released) is the sheer number of people using cheap knock-off hard drives. I swear modders have the highest incidence of hard drive failure in the world, and that is incredible as I still have a 20mb hard drive that still functions sat around in my "bits box" lol.

 

[thunderfoot]

Do you happen to still have contact with Ragnar, thunderfoot? I'd like to contact him and see if I can get the unfinished models. While I'm not *that* good at modelling, I know my way around uv maps some and can do vanilla armada1/2 odf editing, maybe I can get some more of his stuff going in Armada?

Nope. He dropped the files on me about a year and a half ago ago and I haven't seen or heard of him since. You might be able to find him via FileFront. The one email address I had was via FF. It no longer works.

I can understand what swilson is saying, but conversely I also understand how much effort is necessary to create TC mods and more often than not "life" happens (or people simply lose interest). I play and mod a game a lot called men of war, and one thing that bugs the hell out of me to be honest (and it's not that mods aren't released) is the sheer number of people using cheap knock-off hard drives. I swear modders have the highest incidence of hard drive failure in the world, and that is incredible as I still have a 20mb hard drive that still functions sat around in my "bits box" lol.

HDD failures are unusual. Unless one is a modder apparently, lol. Lots of folks around the A2 Community have also had this peculiar mishap occur to them as well. Allows one to stop working on a mod without having all those guilty feelings about screwing people out of something one has loudly and publicly promised for a long while.

Most people are simply unaware of how much effort and time modding takes. Especially when one is doing something from scratch. People will dive off into modding ODFs, say. Then they will allow their ambitions and desires to get the better of them. They will publicly announce they are working on the "Blah Blah" Mod V2.55. There will be a website with really cool pics and everything! There will be a team, with credits for moving a comma from one side of the page to the other gushed out onto every fan site possible. Including the one just made up for the Team. The rest of us will be treated to a neverending parade of screenshots and updates breathlessly posted one on top the other. There will be FanBoys. Whose sole reason for existence is the Blah Blah Mod v2.55. These will kneel and worship at the feet of Team Blah Blah. All us mere mortals whom have made things like the Art of War or the Physics Project in the past are now definitely relegated to steerage class for the rest of our miserable lives. Team Blah Blah, the real modders, are now on the scene making everything right. Children will eat all their vegetables wthout prompting from parents. The whole human race will have So Cali weather, no matter where one lives. World peace will be achieved at last!

Then there is the other side of this. Someone comes into the Community and likes something which was released incomplete or not done very well in the first place. This person likes the show/book/genre/film the release is based upon and then decides he/she wants more of the same. Said release occurred about five years ago, Real Time. Which is equal to at least one, possibly two Ice Ages ago in InterWebs Time. This person will begin diligently searching for mods for their other favorite games to adapt to their new found fave. The meshes and coding for the other game will be in a different format from A2 and require extensive conversions and changes before they will begin to work. At some point someone will comment/speculate on what a shame it is no one is working on this "Reeely Kewel Schtuff" any more and how upsetting it is people no longer work on this material because I bet there are at least one or two more diehard fans out there who would D/L this in a New York second.

Translation: How come you modders are on your lazy butts not doing something about this when I want it?! Aren't you people aware of how badly me and my three or four friends need this?! So we can place the new MegaGodShip, MkII into our games which will then be unable to be played online. How sad you let Real Life get in the way when someone like myself wants this. Guess I'll have to do it all myself! As usual! *sighs* BTW, can someone show me how to move one pixel from the other side of the ship to this side? I know there are tons of tutorials out there and all kinds of stickies full of advice and help. But I cannot be bothered with ackshually taking the time to read all that stuff because I am far too busy doing things and breaking my game repeatedly. Yeah, yeah. I know the people who put all that advice and help together are really trying to get me into modding as painlessly as possible so I do not repeat all the mistakes they made while learning. However I want that half finished MegaGodShip Right Frakkin' Now!

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? It is, because we've seen it all before. And doubtless, we'll see it again in the future. People ought to do things the way Doca Cola and the FLOPs group did them. Or the way Maj and Syf did way back when they first started working on YesterYears (Sorry, YY still gets me a little fired up, lol).

Make a website so everyone working on the mod has a place to meet and upload stuff to each other.
Then, mod/test everything before saying anything to anyone anywhere.​

 

[Huet]

/me is crushed under weight of WOT* attack

I hope the last paragraph or so isn't directed at me :Y I wasn't trying to come off like that , I'm more interested in finding out if I could use already existing unreleased models as a base to work on my own battlefleet gothic mod. I know the ships were released a few years ago, I was just hoping I missed some more somewhere or if there was a beta or something of a mod, I'm not trying to push anyone else to begin working on one (it's a highly unlikely event, I think Armada2 modding is at such a point that unless you're going to learn modding yourself to make what you want, don't expect or hold out hope for anyone else to do it, we're all off doing our own thing these days).
I'm definitely not someone who can criticise others about mod releases, and I hope my posts haven't been construed as such. Although I never announced any mods, I've been making them for just over a decade or so now for various games in some form and I haven't once released anything to the "public" as it were, all of my mods have been purely for personal use or for small group "Clan" use, I agree 100% with a modders choice on whether they release or not, my hard drive comment was more for lulz than anything, I'm of the opinion a modder doesn't need an excuse to pull a mod. Now, if that modder was actually a games developer, and I had a preorder placed where I've actually parted with my cash, well, then I'd want to slap them about a bit


*Wall Of Text

*edit* Figured instead of making a new thread I'd also ask if anyone knows of a Blender SOD exporter (don't really need an importer right now). I'm more used to blender than milkshape, and MS3d costs the same as a decent secondhand car around here. Also, another question; Does anyone know how to get the "test" mode going in the FLOPS map editor? In the vanilla I press CTRL+A and I can test out...stuff, but that doesn't work in FLOPS, anyone know if it's been changed, or removed completely?

 

[thunderfoot]

The WOT isn't really directed at anyone. And most especially not at you. Sorry if it came off that way. The others around here should have warned you it may not always be a good idea to ask me how I think or feel about something. My Special Weapon is "Loose Cannon". It is an Area Effect weapon which affects everyone and I normally am set on High Special Weapon Autonomy. You may find out waay more than you want to, lol. To borrow a few phrases -

"All of this has happened before and will happen again."
"So say we all!"​

I can look thru my thumb drives to find what I have and you're more than welcome to it. It is a large file and I'll have to use YouSendIt to get it to you.

 

[Terra_Inc]

Nope. He dropped the files on me about a year and a half ago ago and I haven't seen or heard of him since. You might be able to find him via FileFront. The one email address I had was via FF. It no longer works.HDD failures are unusual. Unless one is a modder apparently, lol. Lots of folks around the A2 Community have also had this peculiar mishap occur to them as well. Allows one to stop working on a mod without having all those guilty feelings about screwing people out of something one has loudly and publicly promised for a long while.

Most people are simply unaware of how much effort and time modding takes. Especially when one is doing something from scratch. People will dive off into modding ODFs, say. Then they will allow their ambitions and desires to get the better of them. They will publicly announce they are working on the "Blah Blah" Mod V2.55. There will be a website with really cool pics and everything! There will be a team, with credits for moving a comma from one side of the page to the other gushed out onto every fan site possible. Including the one just made up for the Team. The rest of us will be treated to a neverending parade of screenshots and updates breathlessly posted one on top the other. There will be FanBoys. Whose sole reason for existence is the Blah Blah Mod v2.55. These will kneel and worship at the feet of Team Blah Blah. All us mere mortals whom have made things like the Art of War or the Physics Project in the past are now definitely relegated to steerage class for the rest of our miserable lives. Team Blah Blah, the real modders, are now on the scene making everything right. Children will eat all their vegetables wthout prompting from parents. The whole human race will have So Cali weather, no matter where one lives. World peace will be achieved at last!

Then there is the other side of this. Someone comes into the Community and likes something which was released incomplete or not done very well in the first place. This person likes the show/book/genre/film the release is based upon and then decides he/she wants more of the same. Said release occurred about five years ago, Real Time. Which is equal to at least one, possibly two Ice Ages ago in InterWebs Time. This person will begin diligently searching for mods for their other favorite games to adapt to their new found fave. The meshes and coding for the other game will be in a different format from A2 and require extensive conversions and changes before they will begin to work. At some point someone will comment/speculate on what a shame it is no one is working on this "Reeely Kewel Schtuff" any more and how upsetting it is people no longer work on this material because I bet there are at least one or two more diehard fans out there who would D/L this in a New York second.

Translation: How come you modders are on your lazy butts not doing something about this when I want it?! Aren't you people aware of how badly me and my three or four friends need this?! So we can place the new MegaGodShip, MkII into our games which will then be unable to be played online. How sad you let Real Life get in the way when someone like myself wants this. Guess I'll have to do it all myself! As usual! *sighs* BTW, can someone show me how to move one pixel from the other side of the ship to this side? I know there are tons of tutorials out there and all kinds of stickies full of advice and help. But I cannot be bothered with ackshually taking the time to read all that stuff because I am far too busy doing things and breaking my game repeatedly. Yeah, yeah. I know the people who put all that advice and help together are really trying to get me into modding as painlessly as possible so I do not repeat all the mistakes they made while learning. However I want that half finished MegaGodShip Right Frakkin' Now!

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? It is, because we've seen it all before. And doubtless, we'll see it again in the future. People ought to do things the way Doca Cola and the FLOPs group did them. Or the way Maj and Syf did way back when they first started working on YesterYears (Sorry, YY still gets me a little fired up, lol).

Make a website so everyone working on the mod has a place to meet and upload stuff to each other.
Then, mod/test everything before saying anything to anyone anywhere.​

TL;DR

I agree with you. I have seen too many mods that were announced as "ULTIMATE ALL RACES MODIFICATION MOD". The people working on those usually disappeared after a while, or whined about how no one was helping them. Others came into the community, with a favourite show / game / whatever, and demanded a full-race mod (or even a TC) from the active modders. Short story: If you can't do it yourself, don't expect the community to do it for you. The community can and will help you, but it won't do the work for you. (This is not directed at anyone here, btw.) Also, I can't stand people that post in the comment thread of EIGHT YEAR OLD files, asking stuff like "this does not work, help :x" or "when is the full version comming out :x".

Talking about ambitious projects: Here I am. j/k Of course, I don't have fanboys. And I don't have a fancy website. But I hope that my neverending parade of screenshots keeps y'all interested while I am busy.

 

[Huet]

correction: 3DS costs about as much as a decent secondhand car, not MS3D (a €25 decent secondhand benz? lol)

 

[Dominus_Noctis]

/me is crushed under weight of WOT* attack
Also, another question; Does anyone know how to get the "test" mode going in the FLOPS map editor? In the vanilla I press CTRL+A and I can test out...stuff, but that doesn't work in FLOPS, anyone know if it's been changed, or removed completely?

You can press CTRL+E to get there If you have further questions about FO hotkeys, modding etc, it may be a good idea to visit the FOguide as well

 

[Huet]

Ah thanks Dominus, I was about to just sit here and press every key combination I could think of to see if i could find it lol. I checked the fleetops intro to the editor previously but the shortcut wasn't listed, thought it was removed completely.

@thunderfoot: Cool, I was more worried I'd offended you somehow than being offended myself . What's the rules around here on using models from people that are no longer available to contact? I've been in communities from both sides of the fence, where either it's completely banned, or where it's allowed if the original author didn't specifically say to no longer distribute or modify their stuff. I'm going to try contacting ragnar on filefront, but if not it'd still be cool to see what he had done and see if I can work on it if it's allowed


Yet another question, in the vanilla editor, is there a way to silence the **** button noise in the menu?
I've muted everything but the buttons will not be silenced!

 

[Dominus_Noctis]

Unfortunately I think you actually just have to outright delete those button noises (or change their volume)

 

[thunderfoot]

Ah thanks Dominus, I was about to just sit here and press every key combination I could think of to see if i could find it lol. I checked the fleetops intro to the editor previously but the shortcut wasn't listed, thought it was removed completely.

@thunderfoot: Cool, I was more worried I'd offended you somehow than being offended myself . What's the rules around here on using models from people that are no longer available to contact? I've been in communities from both sides of the fence, where either it's completely banned, or where it's allowed if the original author didn't specifically say to no longer distribute or modify their stuff. I'm going to try contacting ragnar on filefront, but if not it'd still be cool to see what he had done and see if I can work on it if it's allowed


Yet another question, in the vanilla editor, is there a way to silence the **** button noise in the menu?
I've muted everything but the buttons will not be silenced!

Dominus is correct. The only way to completely eliminate the noise in vanilla A2 is to remove it from the sounds folder. Had the same problem with the repair noise from the shipyards which looped endlessly and over rode other things which are more important to hear.

I'll PM you with the YouSendIt D/L codes later on. The file is 103 MB and cannot be sent as such for free(What can I say, I'm cheap. lol.). I think Ragnar added in a lot of PDF material for background and reference. If I split these off into a separate D/L, both should go through okay.

As to using the materials made by someone whom is no longer within or part of the Community, I do not believe this subject has come up here at MSFC before. Ragnar specifically states within the ReadMes of the two ships he released on A2Files he wants to be contacted prior to someone doing something to his textures or ships and re releasing them publicly. As he made both of them from scratch, this is simply common courtesy. As long as you do not release anything of his publicly, you are good to go. If you can get in contact with him and receive permission, great! He is good people anyway and will probably allow you to finish and release his work. But procedure should be followed and he should be contacted prior to such an event occurring. It is all still his work and he ought to recieve credit for what he's done.

 

[Huet]

Ok, cool. I'm trying to contact him through filefront, so far no luck. Hopefully I'll get through to him. Thanks for all the help thunderfoot

 

[Majestic]

As to using the materials made by someone whom is no longer within or part of the Community, I do not believe this subject has come up here at MSFC before.

Your are correct it hasn't, which in this case I would take to the staff along with Starblade and Terra before I would make any decision if it ever came up with someone wanting to host something here such as this BFG mod by Rangar.

 

[StarBlade]

Actually, Majestic, I have Ragnar's permission (via e-mail) to use the Battlefleet content any way I want to, provided credit for the initial work is given where due. Since thunderfoot and I have copies of basically the same thing, if someone seriously wants to go through the stuff and have at it, I don't see why the permission couldn't be extended to whoever does the rest. He was quite explicit in wanting to see the mod carried through to a release and I sort of feel shameful knowing I boxed the models on the back shelf of my priority list. This work deserves the full attention of a better modder than myself.