Topic: Silent Fury release thread!

[Hunter]

This is something of a passion project that was long ago abandoned. I always wanted to get it done, but various factors got in the way.
Over the years I've worked on numerous mods for games, but I have to say that the stuff I did for Descent 3 holds a special place in my memory.
So 10 years since my last Descent 3 project, I've finally gotten off my ass and worked through an idea that I thought would never work.

After a whole year in development (sort of) I am pleased to announce the release of Silent Fury, a 5-level Hyperspace campaign for Descent 3.
Based on a concept from way back in 2006, Hyperspace: Silent Fury is a unique FreeSpace style space shooter using the Descent 3 engine.
If you are familiar with the multiplayer only 'Basewars' (aka Hyperspace: Genesis) from a decade ago - this is basically a single player version of that.
Using a wide range of new and former assets, this campaign is basically entirely different from what you'd normally see in Descent 3.

The Hyperspace/Basewars series was heavily influenced by various shows and games including Babylon 5, FreeSpace, EVE, Star Trek and others.

Here are some of the features, both old and new:

* 5-levels plus one secret bonus mission
* Tons of new objects including custom enemy ships, stations, turrets, drones etc
* A whole bank of new textures and sound effects
* A fully rebalanced set of Basewars weapons
* Features a music score from Dan Wentz (FS REDUX)
* The only Descent 3 campaign to be fully voice acted (nearly 400 lines of dialogue)
* Custom scripts including recharging when idle, repair/refuel support ship and other cool gadgets
* Some basic story to enjoy!

Overall, I am pleased with how the project has turned out this time around - This is not the first time I took a stab at this.
It's not perfect, there are some issues here and there - I spent countless hours bug fixing, and getting things to this stage was a lot of work.
You can expect to get about 2-3 hours of gameplay from it, so it's not a particularly long campaign.
The missions aren't too difficult, but you should expect a few bumps along the way.
I've added some tiny variations to keep things interesting which should give some replay value.

Setup

Before playing, you should consult the readme and make sure your game is setup correctly.
The 32-bit patch is highly recommended, along with custom command lines such as:

width 1920 -height 1080 -aspect 1.78 -usesmoothing -himem -hividmem -subpixelcorrect -nocompress
-nosparkles -nomotionblur -nomultitexture -z32bit -framecap 100

Adjust these accordingly to your requirements and tastes. WARNING: Do not use a high framecap. This will crash the game!
You will need a good computer - an old PC isn't going to cut it.  SOME systems may not be able to play this at all.
I've tried to isolate as many issues as possible (D3 is a nightmare to mod!) but I cannot guarantee it will work on all setups.

This is how the game should look if you have setup correctly:



Some Initial Tips & Info

* The first mission is a training/introduction mission
* Be conservative with energy and secondaries. Learn how to use the support and gadgets at the right times
* Set music to about 30% if sound is 100%
* Use the PING feature to make it easier locating your team

Known Issues

* The readme file lists most of the known problems.
* If you find a new issue, let me know - include your setup information (system specs, D3 settings etc)
* Multiplayer is NOT supported due to the way these missions work
* Only critical bugs will be addressed, if a fix is possible

Download Link

https://sectorgame.com/d3/downloads/files/SilentFury.zip (160MB)


Questions, thoughts, comments, problems etc just post them here.

[D2Disciple]

I'm gonna play the crap outta this next time I get the chance to plug up my joystick! 

[Scyphi]

Having gotten the chance to beta test the level set, I can assure that it's a fun little level set, with an intriguing story. It's very impressive what Hunter's been able to accomplish with this. 

[Hunter]

Scyphi did a great job helping out. Btw let me know if this version works on your 'other' laptop.

I'll probably record a walkthrough/guide for those that can't play it - when I get time.

[-<WillyP>-]

Can't wait to try this out!

[Hunter]

A fatal bug was found in the initial release which caused Silent Fury to crash on some systems (usually after loading the first level). This SHOULD be fixed now, simply download the installer again or place this hotfix in your Descent 3 folder: https://sectorgame.com/d3/downloads/files/SilentFury_hotfix_extract-to-D3-dir.zip

[Scyphi]

Btw let me know if this version works on your 'other' laptop.

Finally got a chance to install it on said laptop this past weekend, and sure enough, it works. Couldn't take the time to play the level set all the way through at that time, but everything on that first level seemed to be working perfectly, so I'm confident there would be no other major issues of note.

And as I thought would be the case, the audio was flawless on that machine, so this confirms what I had already thought--that constant audio "popping" I spoke of during beta testing was the fault of the sole computer I was testing it on, and not the level set. Doesn't that give you something to rest easy about?

[Hunter]

Hehe yes indeed. Though that fatal crash at start is something that kept me awake at night, glad to hear it worked

[TechPro]

I see you have width of 1920 and height 1080 at aspect 1.78 suggested in the custom command line.  My system cannot do 1920 and 1080 but is able to do 1600 and 900 (same dimensions, just lower numbers) but I've been unable to get my D3 to hit 1600x900, and always drops to the default (640x480? or is it 800x600?) instead.   Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[Hunter]

The resolution is recommended but not a requirement. Did you try reducing a little further, say 1580/889 and so forth? Or is it that you can't set custom resolutions at all?

[TechPro]

Actually, now that I've played around with Silent Fury a bit, it appears to not really be an issue.

Starting D3, and playing a number of levels, how well the width and size setting perform appears to be related to the width and height the level is design for.  The starting of D3 and it's menus is (as you know) constrained to the square/box dimensions such as 640x480. 800x600, 1024x768, etc. and a lot of levels are also constrained to those general dimensions.

After setting for 1600x900 in the custom command line, I'd checked how that looked for levels I've played many times... and they would assume the usual box shape (instead of the wide aspect)... but your level (Silent Fury) surprised me by taking the requested 1600x900 and ran with it.

Sir, I'm impressed.  Now I just need some time to play it.

[Hunter]

It should run fine with 1600x900, but if you're running an old system you might have some choppy parts. The only other things of importance are the graphical adjustments including the 32-bit patch.

[Hunter]

Welp, I've started preliminary planning for the second (and final) part to Silent Fury. Hopefully it will see the light of day !

[Hunter]

I've posted on the Sectorgame forums how to find the secret mission @ https://sectorgame.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=102&t=5275

I'm surprised at how many people couldn't access it - it's really simple 

[Hunter]

I'm (finally) doing a play through of the campaign on Youtube. Here are the first two missions: