Tentative Enquiries from and old gamer, new to modding - Tie Fighter Thread

HI,

I know there's a specific thread for introductions but I thought it's be a waste banging out a "Hello" post that'd then just get ignored as I would have created this one anyway. So quick intro: I'm a 30(odd) year old gamer currently studying Industrial Design at university in the UK.
I spend at lot of time looking at gaming as a whole and exploring ways to harness game play experiences, to various creative ends. I think looking to the modding community is one of the best ways to achieve this.

A couple of very simplified examples of which include an occulus rift package for simulating the effects of certain disabilities, in order to promote more inclusive and thoughtful design of municipal areas and facilities.The second is something akin to the CIV5 Total Conversion mod, but with the entire game mechanic altered so that international cooperation is the primary driver for scientific and civic development.

I have no modding experience other that an couple of map/level editors and "Rules.ini" of red Alert back in the day, but am currently training on; Solidworks, Photoshop and 3DS Max. I have no idea if knowledge of these packages will help, but I'm happy to find out as much about modding as i can.

Anyway, I digress. The point in creating this thread (and my moddb acct) is that I'm in the process of designing an interface system for playing Tie Fighter.
( The Seminal Star Wars game in my opinion, if you haven't played it there's a site you can download it from for free. It comes as a package with dosbox and it's own installer, so it's literally click and play. The free versions are the original diskette [I think] version and the Defender/Enemies of the Empire one. There is also the collectors CD - which I believe is the best version to have- but you have to register and pay a couple of quid for it. I will put the link in the next post along with a link as props to a youtuber who uploaded a video detailing the site a couple of years ago, but has been silent since [ don't want first post to be pulled in case links are a no-no?])

In addition to the version of Tie mentioned above, I'm using a pretty simple joypad mapper called JoyToKey to configure my Xbox 360 controller for use with the game. I have managed to reduce the 55 (ish) key, 2 mouse button and Joystick setup down to a controller and 23 leys [ of which another 4 could be removed, 2 are duplicated throttle controls] and have removed all of the excess keys from a cheap keyboard and am sketching out ideas for the most logical/efficient placement of keys ( did i mention I wear winter, armoured motorbike gloves when I play? Yeah, and a gas mask. No it's not a rule 32 type thing, the interface system has to be usable by someone wearing a theroitical pilot's outfit [It links in with the ergonomics/usability module I'm working on]) Finally, I'm working on different fonts and symbols that strike a balance between cannonical authenticity and usability. I very much like the style of some of the icons for things like "Full power to lasers" in the Empire At War game at the moment.

So what I'm after from you, dear moddudes and moddettes is some advice as to where to start with a mod for Tie Fighter. I have watched a lot of footage of the Tie Fighter Total Conversion mod of some years ago and although it's a nice effort, IMHO it dropped the ball in a couple of key areas:

- The Music- Whilst generally I thought the converted score was fantastic and certainly felt more "Star Wars", it seemed to lake the situationally dynamic music of the original (dah da da, da da da da da ,da ,da da - will make your hairs stand up on some peoples' necks) which was a big factor in making the original so immersive.

-The GUI - I really didn't like most of the things that had been added. Was the purple background supposed to represent an in-helmet HUD? I don't know if it was a software limitation of the time, but I would like to see the actual interior of the cockpit as the interactive surface. It's very nice that the interiors are schematically correct, but they need to be more engaging that a texture overwhich all the information is overlayed. How difficult would it be, for example, to have the image of your targetted craft transposed on to the actual screen on the dash of the Tie? [I don't mean this thesiciously, I honestly don't know if that would be hard?] Same for hull condition, laser strength etc.

-The vanishing point along the left and right sides of the cockpit appear wrong,( certainly in the basic Tie) making the cockpit feel very 2D. This is excentuated by the very flat on, even just angling the info panels to mirroe either the contours of the cockpit or a helmet would help.

-There's a lot of wasted space on the screen taken up by cockpit interior, leaving very little visibilty of the sapce in front. I understand this may be cannonical and indeed, may be a delibarte effort to simulate the claustraphobic enviroment of a "Coffin Jockey"(As with the Spitfire in MS Flight Sim BOB). In which case fair enough, but it's be nice to think of a way to use that space a little, maybe with the map of goals being displayed there -when selected!

Which leads on to - TMI- Personally, I don't like having Goals, Mission log, etc. permanently displayed and there's a lot of duplicated information about targetted craft etc. This, again, seems to spoil the immersion a little as I feel I'm just working off a list of text information instead of listening and responding to realtime radio communications in a dynamically developing combat enviroment (They should have put it like that to the suits, maybe a new Tie Fighter would already be out there)

-The cannons seemed a little too buffed and, although sounding better, didn't feel quite "right". Same for Ions and lasers firing at gthe same time, or is that cannonical?

-The briefings, whilst really nicely voice acted ( maybe just pad out some of the pauses between sentenses a little) could be a little more immersive, even if it's just you sat in some textured ready-room.

I don't want it to seem like I'm railing on someone elses mod, from over a decade ago at that, far from it. The Total Conversion has some excellent touches that I'd like to duplicate: - I love the "Fully Talky" missions and briefings, - The added transitions of leaving the hanger with the droid servicing the ship THEN going in to hyperspace was very cool, I thought. The more accurate targetting reticule looks much better than vanilla and of course the ship tectures and enging glow etc. are a huge and appreciated improvement.This mod has been the catalyst for me starting this project and I'm grateful.

However I would like, now to improve the visuals of bothe the models and the ship interiors. I have no idea at all where to begin. As I'm working on cockpit elements out in the meatverse, I thought maybe redoing the interior of a Tie would be a good start?

Does anyone have any suggestions, comments? Is this game too old to even consider putting make up on? If not, is there a particular program/ package people would recommend? Is this post really boring? Would I be better off using a different game engine? Were those the droids I was looking for? Have I missed a link where this has already been don to death?

I've searched in vein, but the only "Tie Mod" I coulfd find here was an abandond post from a year ago?

Thanks in advance for any comments!!

TLDR: I'm Bill, me like pew-pew but me no know modding, please help me make Tie pew-pew better! - Much love.

Glad I came.