Back from a long hiatus

Hey guys, I should be on and off over the next couple of days. I've been going full load at school, but this semester will only be two online classes. It's the semester AFTER this one that will be hell: full load of classes in TWO colleges at once. I have to catch up on a lot of missed opportunities.

As for When Universes Collide, I 1) don't have CS4 anymore, and 2) the flv file extracted from the swf is too messy to put back together without some errors. So, since everything on the latest version is finished except for the planet and mission stats/texts, I'll try working on a plug-in that will finish setting the game world, and if you have the game downloaded, it will be a completed version. This will still take some time though, since I have to juggle this with school-work and a few other promises, but I've emptied enough spots in my schedule to go back to work on my old mod.

Admittedly, I kind of missed being a part of this forum again too. Made some really great friends here.

Here's a list of what I've got going right now, just so everyone will know what I'm up to when I'm not working on the plug-in files:
- Anatomy & Physiology + State & Local Government (college courses; still have to pick up the books from campus)
- Getting financial aid and high school transcripts straightened up with the second college I'm applying to (lots of form-signing)
- Family obligations (father running a greenhouse, taking care of grandparents' pets while they're away, working at my sisters' stand at the town marketplace)
- Teaching (I work as an assistant English teacher at the college; this actually demands 2/3 of my time during the weekdays)
- Roleplaying (an old obligation I've had since I first touched the internet as a kid; have a lot of old friends there that demand my attention, lol)
- Video editing (piecing together and editing videos for friends' websites)
- Miscellaneous (this week alone I will be repairing my computer, doing a school play, and taking part in a few baseball/market events for the college)

Just thought you guys deserved to know what has been keeping me away. Thankfully, I should still have a few hours at the end of the day to spend on this plug-in project, and I will spend every free hour I have (even while roleplaying) to get them done. My deadline is June 15th at the latest. If I don't make it by then, you may all freely label me the forum 'dunce' or 'fool', or whatever the modern equivalent of it is, lol.

JEROME!!! WELCOME BACK!!!

lol, i was playing WUC a couple days ago and was thinking about how you left without finishing it, and about 5 days later, you return! It's a miracle

Haha, well, now that I got a chance to play it over again myself, I do think it's a little unfinished. The factions at war with each other are wrong, and I can't change that from just the plug-in; somebody has to go in, extract the swf, convert it into an flv, clean up the mess (somehow), and program in each factions' reactions to each other. Unfortunately, I can't do it, and I kind of doubt anyone else can. It just seems impossible from the jumbled flv file you can get off of the extracted swf.

But I can still try to give a story-based reason for why Stargate Command and the Rebel Alliance are fighting one another, lol.

There are also a few glitches I couldn't figure out even while I was working on the game. They just seem to be implemented into FlashTrek itself or something. Sometimes crashes during a particularly epic battle, especially if you try to zoom out and see all the different ships participating in it. A script somewhere becomes unresponsive and then the game explodes. Wish I could have figured out how to prevent that, but at least it still auto-saves, so if it does crash, you can easily start back from where you left off.

I'll let you guys know when I finish with the plug-ins. Looks like I need to work on renaming some of the trading items too, and make the computer ships say different things, lol. Time to get busy. *rubs hands together*

Welcome back Jerome!

And I how I start toying with BM3 again, the circle is complete

But great to see ya! I was actually thinking about you not to long ago due to the Darkwing RP sequel and I was just trying to remember the really old one on Dondon's site

Welcome Back Jerome! =)

Darkwing wrote:And I how I start toying with BM3 again, the circle is complete

But great to see ya! I was actually thinking about you not to long ago due to the Darkwing RP sequel and I was just trying to remember the really old one on Dondon's site

You guys came up with some fun, entertaining RPs, I'll give ya that, lol! To be honest, I don't think I ever roleplayed on Dondon's site. I do remember starting in a Stargate roleplay (or trying to) and I think I took part in a Star Trek one you spearheaded. Those were fun.

You played the very original Darkwing RP on Dondon's site. In fact, you were the first officer in the Journey to the Arton Expanse. There was something about your eyes, some abnormality but I forget it

Cybernetic? Aw crap, it's been forever. I'll have to look for the posts later if they're archived. Already started work on those plug-ins and I'm also popping by some other places I haven't visited in a long time to say 'hi' and such, lol. Nice to finally have a break.

so the plug-ins won't fix the random races fighting eachother? aww

I'm not sure, but I vaguely remember something about perhaps being able to change the alliances of each planet and who there enemy is via plugins

i hope so; and if it is true then could you make it be more than one enemy? or else the game won't be as good (but it will still be pretty awesome either way)

Welcome back Person i do not know....

But something i kinda find nice, is my Picture for Guy Temple (my DW char) is your Avatar.

Darkwing wrote:I'm not sure, but I vaguely remember something about perhaps being able to change the alliances of each planet and who there enemy is via plugins

Actually, tbh, I kind of remember that too, but I can't find it to save my life. I'm also have trouble finding the default plug-ins on Vex's site -- a lot of things have changed since I last saw it. I still have some plug-ins for When Universes Collide uploaded to the net, but I'll have to sort through them and find out which ones go to WUC and which ones were parts of other 'plug-in mods' I made.

If you find out any more about changing alliances of each planet via plug-in DW, let me know! It would be a big help. =P

If memory serves, it's in the planet plug to begin with, the one where you identify it's ships and things. There's a couple numbers, one's for saying who the planet belongs to and the other for defining its primary enemy (though it was a tad glitchy if memory serves). This should work though because the plugins simply alter that code that loads in the last few frames of the preloader scene.

And there isn't a copy of the default plugins around here somewhere is there? It would most likely be in the archived FT sections if it were, but I can't seem to remember us ever storing them here.

I thought none of the Plug-Ins for FT no longer worked?

I don't know how that would be possible. Like they don't just stop working because enough time's passed

The plugins stopped being hosted by vex on webfossan, if that's what you mean.

I think when the forum went down and he changed servers that they stopped hosting everything, thus why our new Downloads section will be awesome! And I'd have to do a lot of searching, but I'm positive I have the original plugins on a CD-Rom somewhere...unlabeled of course

Hey, Darkwing, if you want, I have a list of a bunch of the plug-ins already on my computer. I'm not sure what all there was in the long list of things, but I have the plug-ins, the BMBible file, Dondon's guide (posted online), source codes, a lot of stuff...

And yes, you can change who is at war with who via the planets plug-in. Only problem is that Romulans still war with either Blender or Vex because they're two different enemies, and the plug-in only covers one... still wondering how that works. The exact specifications may be found on the bible file thing I mentioned above or the guide posted on the Gathering site.

^Another dude that has come back from humongous hiatus.

Yes Quantum, if you could find some way of shipping that to me, that would be spectacular!

I'll get it to you very soon then, I'll just run over it and compress it into a rar, find a way to upload it, etc...

I also have dropbox if you wanna go the adfree route

I've used plug-ins.. they didn't work on my other PC maybe I'll try them again if you get the originals out.

I actually have all of the plug-ins uploaded on my Mediafire account. However, they're not the default, but they still work. Dondon's plug-in guide was salvaged here: http://gathering.forumotion.com/t71-ultimate-plugin-guide-with-pictures

I've already started working on the planets. They're my top priority right now. Since I was rather busy this week, I didn't have time to work on them, but I'm starting now! I'll give it a test run and let you guys know how it all works out. I remember being able to set enemies for each individual planet, but I don't think you can set reputation levels for the player based on his faction with the plug-ins. Again, I'll give it a try first and see what happens.

DW, do you got When Universes Collide in swf form for download? The one I have is out-of-date, but your forum actually has the next-to-last update I made.

If it was posted on here then it should still be here.

Here, the original BM_plugins have been uploaded to our server:

http://ftfiles.earthlinkzero.info/plugins/bm_plugins.zip

Plus the old WWC section: http://www.flashtrek-tuf.com/f40-when-universes-collide

Good to see you Jerome! I hope you stay.