Episode 3 status report... with screenshots!
Just a quick update today to show off some screenshots from another of Ep 3's missions, and to update the status page. It ended up looking like there's not much progress apart from the fiction which went all the way from yellow to blue, but I can say that both items which depend on me (additional videos and graphics) are now a more blueish green. :-P I just need to render a couple cutscenes and finish off one of the splash screens. Tempest has also made some good progress in the voiceover area, but we can't work miracles there since it depends on a lot of other people as well. Apart from that, some missions still need to be debugged, and Michael still needs to finish all the cutscene music. So, Episode 3 is close, but not quite here yet... but who knows when it might arrive? :-P

Episode 3 goes... lime green, maybe?
Another long-overdue update triggered by the rest of the team (*cough* Q *cough*) threatening to kill me for not updating the site. Episode 3 is coming along - the missions are progressing nicely, we have implemented about 60% of the voiceovers, and both versions of the intro cutscene are done, except for the music... but that's because Michael's been busy working on the music for the video cutscenes, which is almost done! The fiction is not progressing because Quarto is doing other stuff, but he says the fiction will be done in a day or two when its turn arrives. Some new screenshots have been uploaded - Q insists that the Crossbow score visible on one of them is pathetically low, but we think he may be smoking something. The other screenshots don't show anything particularly new, they come from one of the campaign missions... as you can see, you'll finally have the opportunity to fly a Rapier! However, if you are concerned about the Rapier's thin armor plating, you can in most cases fly a Gladius instead. (Ha ha!) Also, we have added Cougar's profile to the characters section. So, that's it for today. Stay tuned for Ep 3 is coming soon-ish.

Episode 3 goes... well, yellow
This is another one of those long overdue updates which only get so overdue because I have more important things to work on for this project (but the rest of the team keeps telling me that unless I come here and say that directly, you guys will think I'm dead or something instead). That's good news, and you can see what I mean for yourselves over at the progress page. Episode 3 is progressing fast, and more importantly, the progress is nicely balanced throughout all areas - this is the first time that everyone on the team manages to be on schedule simultaneously! :-P There's still quite some work to do, but we're definitely working at a faster pace than in the first two episodes.

Happy Birthday CIC!
It's that time of the year again... the Wing Commander CIC's birthday. The Standoff Team wishes the CIC a happy 7th birthday, and sends out a big 'thank you' to everyone in the CIC's staff - and it's not just thank you for hosting us, but thank you for being a great source of WC info, and a great place for fans to hang out at. Unfortunately, due to all the effort we've put into getting Episode 2 done, we didn't have time to make the CIC a gift this year. D'oh!

Episode 2 nearly complete
Today we've begun testing the package that might end up being the one we release on wednesday. All the features are in, all the bugs we could find have been fixed, and unless a new bug is found, we'll have no reason to change anything in it. The progress page has been updated to reflect this. There's not much else to say today, so just wait until wednesday and check back here at our site... or, even better, at the CIC's birthday party, in their #wingnut IRC channel, where you can watch Ep 2's release live, chat with other WC fans, and win neat WC prizes like the novel I won a couple years ago. :-)

More progress, new screenshots
Quick update with a few new screenshots from simulator missions. Also, Episode 2's magical number is 534. Yes, we're done with all the voiceovers for this episode. We're done with all of a lot of things too - check out how blue is definitely winning the war over at the progress page. No release date announcement yet, but we're close.

Another routine update
Another quick update today. The progress page has been updated, and the blue army seems to be defeating the red army. There's also half a dozen new screenshots or so, all from Episode 2, to show y'all just how much different stuff we'll have in there. Still no release date announcement, but go check those screenshots out while we go back to work. :-P

The world's tiniest news update
Just a quick site update today to inform you all that I've updated the screenshots page with some shots that had previously been posted only on our forums, and that I've also updated the progress page to... yep, to reflect the latest progress (you didn't see that coming, did you?) on Episodes 2 and 3. So, go check it out. :-P

Another long overdue website update
Again, an update that's just meant to tell you all that Episode 2 is progressing steadily (well, that, and to get the rest of the team to stop bugging me :-P) even though we haven't had any site updates in a while (you can blame that on my working on more useful stuff instead). Basically, we are two cutscenes, a few voiceovers, and some bug-fixing short of a release, but due to the unpredictable rate at which voiceovers usually come in, I'm not going to announce a release date just yet. Rest assured that we will be releasing this episode *soon*, and that the following episodes will have shorter development cycles. We still had to fix a lot of ship models for Ep 2, and get all the Sim missions and the Sim music in, apart from the usual voiceover and cutscene trouble. For Episodes 3 to 5, all of those problems will be reduced (some of our great voiceover people have already completed all of their Episode 3 lines, for example). Anyway, that's it for today, keep checking this website, for a release draws near.

A long overdue website update
As some of you may know, I'm not too fond of updating this website when I have more important things to do for Standoff, but I'm making an exception today since it's been too long since our last update. So I just took a break from menu editing to give you all a quick update. We're still working on Episode 2 and adding some cool new stuff to it, while trying to not take too much longer to release it. Just so you guys get the idea, I've redesigned our Crossbow to make it more accurate, and I've also recolored all the menus to match Standoff's setting better (you can see all of this at the Screenshots section)... and that's just for starters. We're going to have 500% more talking heads scenes in Episode 2 than we had in Episode 1. We also have two or three pretty cool surprises in the missions themselves, so I'd say that all in all, you guys can expect Episode 2 to be more fun than just "more of the same". This is all coming along nicely... Apart from some simulator missions, we just need, basically, two things: voiceovers and debugging time. Voiceovers are always tricky, and with the increase in our cutscene action, we'll be relying on our voiceover volunteers more than ever for this release. I'm sure everyone will pull it off as quickly as possible, though (hey, we didn't pick these people at random - they're a reliable bunch), and then apart from Michael and myself (who have to work on the cutscenes once the voiceovers are in) the rest of the team can concentrate on debugging the missions, to make sure that Episode 2 ends up being as polished as Episode 1 was (Episode 1 was pretty damned bug free if you ask me). So, that's the quick update for today, there's screenshots of the Crossbow and of one menu at the Screenshots section, the progress page has been updated to reflect our progress, and there should be a new character profile on the website soon. With that, I'll go back to menu editing... I still owe you all a completed game. :-P

Standoff wins Fan Project of The Year!
The results of the Wing Commander CIC's annual voting for best site/fan project of the year are out, and this time Standoff won as Fan Project of The Year all by ourselves! :-P Our sincerest thanks to everyone who voted. It was probably even tougher to vote than last year, since WC Saga is also looking pretty close to a release, and since a very nicely polished Privateer Remake has shown up during 2004 as well. Well, the more great projects the better, since we are all really just WC fans who want more stuff to shoot at! :-) Most of all, we hope the result of this poll reflects the Wing Commander-ish fun everyone has been having since our first release a couple weeks ago. Enough talk, here's this year's nifty award graphic:

While we're on the subject of end-of-the-year closure, I'd like to wish every one of our fans a happy new year on behalf of everyone on the team. We wish you and your families all the best for 2005... And we hope Standoff wins the Fan Project of The Year Award again one year from now, and after that, never again! :-P

Three Episode 1 mirrors now available
Our downloads page now has three download links for Episode 1, our first release. Apart from our primary mirror at the CIC, you should now be able to get the file from the WingCenter (yes, it appears the good, old and deutsch WingCenter is back!) and from BoomTown.net (a free registration is required, but there are lots of great mods and demos available for download there to make it worth your while). I've also added a link to the CIC-hosted Secret Ops starter package, because some people have been confused as to where they could find it, and if downloading it is still legal. Yes, downloading the starter package is still legal - it's only the other episodes of Secret Ops which can now only be obtained by buying WCP Gold (but you don't need these other episodes to play Standoff).

Now just where do I begin?
I really have no idea.

Standoff's first episode is coming...

December 23rd, 2004.
Ah, there. Now that I've let that out of my chest, on to the news.

Standoff will feature video cutscenes!
First (second? ;-)) surprise on the site today is that Standoff will feature video cutscenes with WC2-style talking heads. There's screenshots over at the screenshots section for those who wanna cut to the chase. These will be used to help develop the storyline and to try to make the player relate to the characters a bit more, hopefully adding more immersion than what was possible with in-game cutscenes. There won't be many video cutscenes in the Prologue since this idea only started being worked on a couple months ago, but depending on how people like it, we might make these cutscenes more common in later episodes. You'll all be able to check them out for yourselves soon. :-)

The last Episode 1 voiceovers are in!
Six hundred and fifty nine voiceover lines. That's how many lines Quarto and Tempest have processed and converted into the game during the last couple weeks. You won't hear them all in episode 1, since some of them are the comm sets for pilots which will only appear in later episodes, but they're all here already. This is one of the areas in which it was harder to progress during the years we've been in development, and now that we're good to go, thanks are due to all our voice actors and everyone else who has helped accomplish this. Needless to say, it's something we - the half dozen people coding the mod - couldn't do on our own. This has actually more implications than it might seem at first: the bulk of the voiceover work was the "generic" lines which the AI spontaneously uses during missions, and almost all of those are done now. Voiceover work for the remaining episodes is mostly the special lines used to develop the plot in missions and cutscenes. That's probably still a few hundred lines, but we have had great progress in this department already.

Standoff's theme now available for download!
Michael Mahadeen, composer of the Unknown Enemy soundtrack fame, has finished his work on the Standoff theme a few weeks ago, like I had already mentioned. He suggested that we made it available for download, so it's here now. Head on to the files section, grab the Mp3, and listen to it while you wait. Get yourself used to it, and buy Michael's stuff when he's famous. :-P

In other news...
Thanks to Filler, author of UE's HUDs, I've learned how to make HUDs that use transparency maps properly. The result was an update to all of Standoff's HUDs, which are now anti-aliased, scale to different resolutions much better, have translucent bits, and don't have problems on nVidia cards anymore. There's a bunch of shots at the bottom of page 9 of the screenshots section. If you compare those to the Ralatha strike screenshots which are a few rows above, you'll be able to tell just what these improvements mean.

New ship, character and screenshots
I've finished the Errant model a while ago, and there's a bunch of screenshots of it up now. There's no ships page entry for it, though, since it's a civilian ship that'll appear in different, owner-customized versions in the game. The screenshots page also has a few generic battle screenshots taken from Episode 2 and from the Simulator missions, so you can all check out what the Kilrathi-hunting will be like in our actual missions. Finally, we've added Commodore Reismann to the characters page. He is the commanding officer of the TCS Firekka as of the player's tour of duty on that ship (starting in Episode 2), so he'll be giving you mission briefings (via great voice acting by Andi Kravljaca) and angry emails when you fail to meet his (high) expectations. In other news, Quarto has finished all the fiction pieces for the Prologue, and Michael has completed Standoff's theme track. Me and Quarto were really impressed by it. :-)

New screenshots!
I've updated the progress page today to reflect our latest progress... and apart from that I've added screenshots of the Raptor's cockpit and the Dorkathi to the screenshots section (which is now 8 pages long, yay). The Dorkathi's stats have also been added to the ships section. Enjoy!

Minor site update
Quarto has been going over our ship stats again to make sure they all scale up from their original stats proportionally, and he found a few inaccuracies. I've now corrected these inaccuracies on our ships pages, so you can all face the cats better prepared.

A bit of re-organizing going on
As the prologue's release approaches, I've decided to reorganize the site a bit. I've moved last year's news to a separate page since this page was getting too big. The link's at the bottom of this page. Also, the Progress page has been somewhat revamped so that it's easier to spot what's left to do until the release of the next episode. I've split fiction, music, voiceovers, additional graphics, and comm videos between episodes, since these items will be added to each episode as they're needed (unlike, say, cockpit graphics, which will *all* be included in the Prologue's release, even though you don't get to fly all the ships in the prologue). The extra red squares may scare you at first, but rest assured, it's just a more detailed way of keeping you informed of our progress. It'll also force me to update this site more often, which should hopefully make y'all a bit more confident that we have indeed always been making progress, even when we didn't post a single update in eight weeks or something. :-P

Prologue coming along
These past few days, I've played thru the Prologue from beggining to end without any crashes or bugs (and I assume the rest of the team has been doing the same) a few times, testing out all the possibilities, etc. It's still missing all the voiceovers (since it's too much trouble to build a "half-finished" voiceover package, we won't add any voiceovers until all of them are final - that means stuff like volume equalizing, effects, conversion, etc.), but other than that, we're running out of things to fix/add. I just figured these news were probably worth mentioning... right? ;-)

Site is back up
The CIC had a server crash a few days ago (you can read about it at their front page), but they've already restored our Solsector.net FTP account, so I went and re-uploaded our site today. If anyone finds a broken link, please email me. As far as the project is concerned, the past couple weeks went pretty well. There's been some more progress with the voiceovers, and Quarto got a big chunk of campaign writing done. I'm pretty impressed with some of these campaign missions we're coming up with, I hope you guys will feel the same way when you play them. :-) (And the best part is that I'm not even talking about the Battle Of Terra missions, which will undoubtedly be the most complex in the campaign).

Oh my god, it's a website update!
I guess I owe everyone a big apology for the huge period of quietness here. The good news is that wasn't because of the mod becoming dead or anything - I'm the only one on the team who hasn't done anything for a while due to some serious lack of time. Work on all other fronts has continued, and the progress page has finally been updated to reflect the current state of the project. Quarto has finished off the remaining missions for the prologue and is now working on the last cutscenes. Tango has been working on sim missions, and Tempest made lots of progress with voiceovers (although they're still a long way from not being our main concern :-P).

Crossbow cockpit
I've finished the Crossbow's cockpit today. There's a couple shots of it in the screenshots section. They were taken in Warsaw, one of the best looking systems of the main campaign, in my opinion. I think we didn't have any shots of this system up on the site until now, so there you have it.

Rapier cockpit, new menu screen
As expected, I've finished the Rapier's cockpit. There's quite a bunch of shots of it in the screenshots section, also showing off a pirate's death comm video. I've also added a shot of our new ship selection screen, which will show up after the briefing in missions where you can choose which wing to lead. This might not be the final version of this screen, but I figured I'd upload it as a teaser or something.

Exeter completed
Just a quick update today to show off the recently-completed Exeter. There's three shots on the screenshots section, and some stats up on the ships section. This one wasn't in the original plans for the mod... so it'll be used in some of the places we originally meant to have Gilgameshes in, for variety's sake.

Make yourself at home
I've recently finished the Gladius' and the Sabre's cockpit struts... you can check them out in the screenshots section, and you better get used to them - you'll spend a good portion of the game flying these ships :-) These will also double as the Ferret's and the Talon's cockpit struts (you will be able to fly those ships only in the simulator, via the 'alswantsmoreships' cheat). One of the Sabre shots also includes a preview of the Exeter model, which is already nearly completed.

The Fralthra is making its attack approach now!
Progress on the mod continues steadily, with fiction and mission progress for the prologue. Voiceovers remain the most time consuming task left to do. Today I've also finished the Fralthra. It's been added to the ships page, there are four new shots on the screenshots section, and the progress page has been updated accordingly. The last screenshot shows a Stiletto getting hammered by the Fralthra's flak turrets - notice the Stiletto's armor display :-) Anyway, I believe that's the first public appearance of our flak guns. Next up: the Exeter (I kid you not).

Fan project of the year voting results
The results of the Wing Commander CIC's annual voting for best site/fan project of the year are out, and Standoff tied with Wing Commander Saga as best fan projects of 2003! Thanks to all who voted, and here is our nifty award graphic:

Speaking of nifty graphics and WC Saga...
Today I've finished Standoff's version of the Jutland-class carrier, an original design by Michael "Lynx" Lechner of the WC Saga team (and of our voiceover team, too) based on descriptions from WC novels and reference material. There's some screenshots over at the screenshots section, some stats at the ships section, and the progress page has been updated accordingly. It's also worth noting that an extra change in the progress page lists our simulator music as "in progress" - that's because Daniel Brito has sent me a few tracks, and will work on a few more in the future, so he's now our official techno/industrial simulator music guy. Campaign music will remain in the capable hands of Michael Mahadeen, the man responsible for the UE music you all loved and wanted more of. :-)

Quick! Vote for us for fan project of the year!
The Wing Commander CIC is holding their annual voting for best site/fan project of the year, and Standoff is again one of the nominees for best fan project. Last year we didn't get anything, but hey, maybe we've impressed a few more of you boys and girls since then ;-)

Voting is still open, though probably not for long - last year's was closed on December 27th. So, if you think we deserve to win be sure to e-mail the CIC's staff at vote@wcnews.com with "Voting 2003 Site/Project" in the subject line, naming your picks for best fan site and best fan project (that's us!) in the e-mail.

New staff member... and a not-so-new one
Also, I've updated the staff page with two more of our members. Overmortal is our newest member, he's in charge of getting all the voiceovers organized and imported into the game. Tempest has been writing some of our comm lines and fiction for a while now (d'oh, it seems like I always forget to add someone to the staff page).

Christmas eve, Standoff style!
I'm just taking a break from my usual schedule (which consists in "wake up, study, study, study, have lunch, work on Standoff, study, study, study, have dinner, take a shower, go to bed") to wish WC fans everywhere and everyone who is looking forward to this mod (whatever it is you are a fan of :-)) happy and safe holidays! Have a merry christmas - or whatever it is you celebrate - and a happy new year! Party it up, get some rest, or just do something to get away from your routine, and get yourself ready for 2004... I'm sure it'll be a very special year, with olympic games, an extra day in february, and even a release from us, wow! ;-) I wanted to include screenshots of two ships which I thought I'd have finished by now to go along with this update, but alas, I guess they'll have to wait until new year's eve or something :-P

New cockpits, comm videos, and team member... a long and long overdue update!
First and foremost, let me start this update by giving a much delayed welcome to our latest team member, Silvo "Tango" Fusaro. Tango has already been on the team for over a month, and has been a very important help - thanks to him joining in with the rest of us, almost all the Prologue's missions are complete. Most of the coding work now is being directed towards Prologue mission debugging, cutscene making, and Pierre is about to start working on the first mission of the Main Campaign!

The Prologue's actual release still depends on a few limiting factors, though. There are still tons of voiceovers to be recorded, edited, and converted into the game (even though thanks to our great voice actors, some characters already have all the voiceovers they need up to the first part of the main campaign :-)), and there's still a lot of fiction to be written as well.

Well, now the part everyone likes best: progress you can see! I've finished rendering most comm videos that'll be needed for the whole game... I just need dying variants of most of them (along with about half a dozen capship comm officer videos which haven't been started yet), and that'll be it for comm videos. There's been a minor setback, though. Due to WCP's "background comms", we won't be able to use custom faces for the most important wingmen. That means that videos like the one you see in screenshot number 89 of the screenshots page had to be scrapped in favor of more generic versions :-( Also, I've gotten the hang of cockpit strut editing, thanks to Blackwolf from the Macross TC, so now I've started working on the cockpit struts which you'll see in the final release.

Me and Quarto have taken two screenshots showing off the Stiletto's cockpit strut, along with a Kilrathi comm video, which you can see in the screenshots page. The first of these screenshots is from the Prologue's second mission, which is already fully functional, as you can see by looking at Quarto's armor indicator - his Stiletto got redecorated by a Talon, according to him :-P

Finally, speaking of Quarto, a big thanks to him for keeping the mod progressing, since I have been extremely busy with real life issues. For a couple of months now, he's been managing the distribution of missions and other assignments to the team, while I handle voiceovers and comm videos mostly (work on the ship models will be resumed once I have more free time) since the artsy side of things is still entirely up to me (well, me and Michael :-)).

Voiceover roles are out
All those who have volunteered to help us with the voiceovers for the project, you already have our eternal gratitude :-P Now what you should do is head on over to Standoff's forums, check out the sticky thread to know which roles you will be recording voiceovers for and, depending on the role, e-mail me (or even better, simply reply to that thread... you don't even need to be registered at the CIC's forums) to let me know wheter you're still alive and wheter you want to write your generic comms (only possible in some cases) or not - if we're not allowing that for your role, just sit back wait for the actual lines to get sent to you. Now that we have all the people we need for the entire game, I'd be thankful if all of you who are on the list reported in just to let me know you're still available (since, specially for the first people who have volunteered, it's been a long time since I've talked to you).

Lend us your voice!
Most voiceovers for the Prologue are well underway, and we're about to start writing specific dialogue for the main campaign... so this is a good time to start looking for voice actors and actresses. If you have a good microphone and a good english, contact us via email to lend us your voice! We will need people for various parts, ranging from the smallest of roles to some of the main characters, so no matter how much or how little time you have, you can probably help us. We also are in serious need of female voices and Kilrathi voices, so if you are a member of the fairer sex or someone with disfunctional vocal chords, we really could use your talents! We're going with WCP-sounding Kilrathi, so if you can do anything like that (no matter what sound editing program you use, or wheter you can only apply this effect to others' voiceovers or record them yourself) you're exactly what we're looking for.

Last sim ship done
I've finished the Wraith today. There are a few screenshots of it on the screenshots section, and I've also updated the progress page accordingly, and revamped the capship section of it a bit. You might remember that the Wraith wasn't in the original plans, but we had to fill a spare simulator slot. Now we have all 14 ships for the simulator: Ferret, Hornet, Stiletto, Epee, Talon, Rapier II, Wraith, Morningstar, Sabre, Gladius, Raptor, Crossbow, Broadsword, and Tarsus. Yay.

CIC's Fifth Birthday!
To celebrate the CIC's Fifth Birthday, we've made the WC Movie's Rapier available for download on the downloads page! This ship will not be in Standoff itself, but it was made by the Standoff team and can be used in the original Secret Ops missions just by renaming some files - instructions are included in the package. Also, here is a little extra something to celebrate the CIC's birthday and thank them for all their dedication to WC over the years, along with a few screenshots of the Movie's Rapier:

 
 

Kamekh done
I've finished the Kamekh today. It has been added to the ships page, and there's a couple of screenshot of it on the screenshots section. I've also updated the progress page accordingly. Other areas of the project are progressing well as usual, with only three of the Prologue's missions still unfinished (not counting the in-flight cutscenes).

Grikath done
I had a couple of hours with nothing to do, so I thought, what the hell, let me finish that Grikath today. And there it is... on the screenshots page! Now I can travel with a clean conscience :-)

Third Kilrathi capital ship
Today I've finished the Ralatha from WC2. I've also created a page for the Kilrathi capital ship stats, with the three ships we have so far. Like I said, I'm gonna make a short trip to Rio tomorrow morning, so the Grikath won't be finished at least until thursday morning or so... Check out those Ralatha screenshots in the meantime.

Second Kilrathi capital ship
Today I've finished the Fralthi from WC1. I still haven't created a page for the Kilrathi capital ship stats, but I've uploaded four Fralthi shots to the screenshots section. I've also removed the first few screenshot pages, since everyone can download those as a .zip file (from the downloads section) anyway. I'll try to have the Kilrathi capital ships page as well as the Grikath done by monday, since tuesday I'm flying up to Rio for my 2-day vacation (yes, I should probably sue someone).

First Kilrathi capital ship
Today I've finished the Snakeir from WC1. I planned to use the SWC version, but after importing the model into the game, it showed some quite unsolvable collision problems, so I had to go back to the drawing board and use the WC1 version instead. This one has much less collision problems (about as many as most other capital ships)... anyway, I haven't created a page for the Kilrathi capital ship stats yet, but I've already uploaded three shots of the model to the screenshots section (which has got almost too many pages now... I'm considering removing some of the old screenshots next time I add new ones).

Another new ship
Today I've added a few screenshots of the Jalkehi to the screenshots page. As usual, the ships stats have also been added to the ships page... and an extra item was added to the progress page, since this ship wasn't even in the original plans :-P Personally, I think this is the best looking Kilrathi ship we have so far.

Progress report
There's been some steady progress on various areas of the project lately, such as music, voiceovers, missions, and bugfixing. As you can notice, that's not the kind of thing we can upload a screenshot of... so today I've taken a half-finished Hornet I had lying on my HD and decided to finish it and include it in Standoff :-P There's some screenshots of a pair of Landreich Hornets over at the screenshots section.

New ship and character
Today I've finished the TCS Lexington! There are three screenshots of it on the screenshots page, and its stats are available on the ships page. Also, there is now some info on the player character, Captain William Bradshaw, on the characters page. Head over there and get used to your new face.

Three new ships!
Today I've finished the Krant, Jalthi, and Clydesdale. All three ships have been added to the ships section, and I've uploaded half a dozen new screenshots as well. Whew, this was one busy weekend for me :-)

New ship and character
Today I've finished the Drakhri. There are screenshots of it on the screenshots page, and its stats are available on the ships page. Also, there is now some info on the player's not-so-trusted wingman, Spoons, on the characters page. This is one of the wingmen which will have all-new in-flight comms (and he's probably the most talkative one as well).

HUDs completed
I've finished working on the last remaining HUDs - the ones for 1024x768 resolution... this should be it for HUDs, unless any bugs are found. Anyway, it's great to finally be able to test Standoff in high res. In other news, the Snakeir is almost done... I just need to place turrets on it, and test it.

The first Confed corvette since 1990
Today I've finished working on the Venture-class corvette. It has been added to the ships page, and there are also three screenshots of it on the screenshots page. Feedback is always welcome.

Voice actress still needed
As of today we have all the voice actors we need for all characters in the Prologue, except for the one and only female character, so here are our requests: chicks, play Wing Commander. It's fun. Then, after you realize just how fun it is, help us out so you get more Wing Commander to play! Isn't that simple? All we need is a female with a good microphone and reasonably good english and acting skills. Unless someone gives up on recording their share of the voiceovers, we should need no more male voice actors until we start working on the main campaign.

The marines are here
I know everyone thinks that updates without screenshots are just a load of B.S., so here's something to please everyone who's waiting for this mod. I told you I'd get the Hermes-class marine LC done this week, and here it is... There are two shots of it on the screenshots section, and it has also been added to the ships page. By the way, we still need one voice actress, and a couple of voice actors for minor roles, so contact us if you're interested in helping out. In other news, today is my birthday, so how about yelling "Happy birthday, Eder!!" from wherever you are? No? Yeah, didn't think anyone would ;-)

New patch from HCl
HCl has finished work on a new patch that will be used in Standoff. This patch allows mission functions to be triggered from keyboard keypresses. In theory, this means that we can make it possible for the player to press a key to scan a ship for contraband, another key to jump out to a different system, etc... just as if these were regular built-in engine commands.

Easter is good
The Easter holidays allowed some extra progress on the project, though it is now plagued by a very serious disease: Morrowind addiction. If me and Quarto seem to not get anything done from now on, blame it on Bethesda. This update brings you the Characters section, starting with information on one of the most important characters in the prologue... the Lionheart's comm officer. Go check it out, and then be sure to check the forums for a poll in which you can vote for green only or full color comm videos. Oh, I've also taken a break from all this FMV editing and fiction writing to go back to ship making... the Hermes-class marine LC should be done soon (it's about 50% textured).

Mission outlines completed
Quarto has finished work on the mission outlines today. This means that everything that happens in all of the prologue's missions is already figured out down to the last detail. It also means that a few days from now, I'll have sorted through all the dialogue lines we need, and sent them to everyone who is going to record the voiceovers. By the way, we're still in need of a few more voice actors (and one voice actress, which should be the most difficult to find) so if you have a clean sounding microphone and a good voice (we'd prefer native english speakers, but don't let that stop you), send us an email. The roles we have left are mostly minor ones, so it shouldn't be too much trouble even for those who don't have a lot of time to dedicate to this.

New file added
The downloads section now contains a wallpaper in 1600x1200 resolution (should be enough for everybody) showing off the Concordia, Guadalcanal, and generic Gilgamesh models (there's also two Rapiers there, but you can barely recognize their shape against the Concordia's gigantic deck). The models' aren't anything new, and special effects are nonexistant, but it still makes for a nice wallpaper... This was really just something I rendered to test out one of the high res starfields-and-nebula combos that will be used in the pre-rendered cutscenes, but then I thought "Why not upload it?" This looks better than I imagined it would, considering it's just a test, so it might become the starting point for a proper wallpaper to come in the future - like that really cool one on the UE site :-)

Here is
As expected, I'm done with the Hhriss already. There are a couple of shots of this baby over at the screenshots section. I'm also almost done with a big unidentified object, and PopsiclePete reports mission 1 is 85% functional - yay! Oh, I've also updated the screenshot of the Lionheart's room to reflect the latest changes: a slightly less greenish color to the walls, and an animated briefing room door :-)

Another little update
Today I added the Talon and the Gratha to the ships page, and did some more work on the Hhriss, which will probably be the next ship I'll be done with, even though I should be working on that damned marine LC instead :-P Work continues on the mission programming front. Pete has started coding mission 1 already, and Quarto's already wrote all the mission outlines up to mission 5A. I've also already assigned most of the voiceover roles we will need up to this point, though wheter people will actually record them remains a mistery ;-)

Another new screenshot
They caused you trouble in WC1, they caused you more trouble in the Secret Missions, they caused you even more trouble in UE, and I'm sorry to report that the Grathas have arrived in Standoff, and their purpose remains unchanged... If anything, the Gratha wings will now have their similarly dangerous Gothri buddies along for the bombing rides :-) On a side note, I apologize if there has been any sort of noticeable reduction in the quality of the last few screenshots I've uploaded, when compared to the older ones. I've had to sell my old video card, and until I can afford a new one, I'm stuck with one of them on-board pieces of crap.

Two shots up
Progress continues steady. Today I've uploaded two screenshots, showing off the Militia Talon and its evil twin. As always, feedback is welcome.

How are we doing?
Well, thanks for asking! Quarto's writing the Prologue's missions. He's up to mission 3B now. Pete'll start coding mission 1 soon, there are still some quirks to be worked out (thanks to HCl, we can now use automatic landing cutscenes!)... In the meantime, I'm finishing up the remaining ships needed for the prologue, and trying to put together the voiceovers we need. Corsair is coming up with some comm videos to go along with those voiceovers, otherwise it'd look really stupid.

New screenshots
I've just noticed that I hadn't posted any screenshots of the Gilgamesh-class destroyer... That was probably because my soundcard got busted only a few days after I had finished that ship, but that's not the point. Today I've finished the TCS Lionheart, which is basically a beefed-up Gilgamesh with hangars and launchers, so I thought I'd post a few screenshots of it instead of taking screenshots of the "regular" Gilgameshes. They look almost the same except for the hangars, anyway. There is also a screenshot of Standoff's second room (which is actually the first room, if you go by the storyline chronologically :-P) - it's inside the Lionheart, the player's first assignment in Standoff. As you will notice, it looks smaller, less chaotic, and better illuminated than the Firekka - but then again, this is during peacetime :-)

Yet another new member on the team
Looks like we're picking up one UE survivor each week now - Pierre "PopsiclePete" Deshaies is as of now Standoff's third mission programmer. My sources tell me he's the guy responsible for Johann Daniels' K'Ha'Haf fun inside the Kurasawa asteroid belt :-) Welcome aboard, PopsiclePete! Looks like we've got all the mission programmers we need now, at least until UE2 development starts.

Very good news
I've fixed my computer's sound card. That means I can run Standoff again (it wouldn't launch while DirectSound wasn't working), so development is back to full speed again! I'm going to get the rust out of my editing skills by doing a few minor updates to the escort carriers, and adding a Confed version of the Guadalcanal while I'm at it.

Another new member on the team
Alex "Pedro" Barnfield is the newest member on the Standoff team. He'll be responsible for mission programming and voice acting... in the role of the player character!

Happy new year
Let me inaugurate the new design of the Standoff site by wishing everybody out there a happy new year - let's all give our best to make 2003 even better than 2002 was! On a side note, Standoff's final mission will take place exactly 666 years from today.

New member on the team
Andy "Corsair" Coyle is the newest member on the Standoff team. He'll be responsible for all pre-rendered animations - the part which JarJarThomas was beginning to work on when he had to leave the project. Welcome aboard, Corsair!

New sections on the site
A few new sections have been added to the site. The ships section contains information on all of the ships which I'm already done working on. This page contains more or less the same information that will be available from the in-game tech database, and new ships will be added to this section as soon as I'm done working on them. The up-and-coming characters section will contain information on the most important characters in the Standoff story. New characters will be added every once in a while until there are no more characters worth writing about left.

New site design
Over a year has passed, and this project is much more mature now than it was back when I started working on it. There's a lot of things which are already in place... and that's why I've decided to update the site's design in order to add more content about the project itself. To that end, the new sections were added, and the rest of the site was updated as well. All screenshots I've ever posted on this site are now available from the downloads page in a single .zip file, and the old news can be found here, if for some reason you want to read them.

Merry xmas
The Standoff team wishes all Wing Commander fans and miscellaneous living things out there a merry Christmas!

New Forum
The official Standoff forum is now located at crius.net - the link on the nav bar has been updated accordingly. You don't even need to have an account at crius.net to post on the Standoff forum. On a side note, the TCS Firekka will be joining the Third Fleet precisely 666 years from today... unless you get the losing path :-)

Site Move
The official Standoff site is now located at http://standoff.solsector.net - yep, we're now hosted by the CIC, and I'll see if they can get one of their nifty forums up and running for Standoff discussion. The old site over at the UfoS network will remain available for as long as it remains available - I'm not sure when it's going down - but either way, it will no longer be updated. Also, to make things easier on people with 2400 bps modems, the screenshots page on the new site has been split into several pages.

A long overdue update
Well, well, well. As anyone with half a brain has probably already figured, something's been holding back Standoff's progress. Yes, it's true. My soundcard is busted and I can't afford to buy a new one right now, since I am going to upgrade my computer in january anyway (so I'll be able to get a onboard sound card for only a few bucks). That means I can't even launch Standoff or TrueSpace (for some reason!) without getting a bunch of weird DirectSound errors, but even so I've worked on a few "extra" ships in the past few days, as well as some new storyline content (yes, that means more missions than originally planned!). This content will be released as Standoff's preview version, which Quarto (from the Unknown Enemy team) and I are trying to put together as fast as possible. It consists of a short storyline that will serve as a prologue to the main campaign, which will only be available in the final version (I've decided to do this separation since the main campaign and the sim missions still need a LOT of mission programming and new ships, but the Prologue basically has everything it needs already in proper working condition). There's a bit of work left to do, and part of this work will have to wait until I fix my computer and am able to test the mod mysel -this includes the music and video pieces that some people volunteered to help me with - if I haven't given you feedback on the work you sent me, don't think that I'm not interested in your help anymore, it's just that I haven't had a way to organize this media content in the formats that the SO engine can use. I should get my computer fixed soon, though, and then I'll need all the help I can get with animations, music and voiceovers.

CIC fan project of the year nomination
The crew over at the Wing Commander CIC are holding their annual awards fan site and fan project of the year, and this year Standoff is among the nominated fan projects - I have to admit that while it's been slow around here for the past two months, this project saw enormous progress during 2002 (Heck, I even finished that Hakaga model ;-)). The other fan project nominees are Battlegroup Serpent, Vega Strike, Unknown Enemy, Holding the Line, Kilrathi Empire ORPG, and HCl's WC Editing Site. Everyone is allowed to vote for one fan site and one fan project. You just gotta head over there and click the voting link on the CIC's front page. So, start voting. Let's try and put a stop to UE's two decade long winning streak in the year that they've actually released their mod :-P

Site trouble
On a final note for today, this site will probably be moved to a different server before 1/1/2003. I'm not sure yet, but I'll update the news if this is confirmed. Just be sure to check here again before that date, as the site may become unavailable from then on.

Unknown Enemy release
A quick update today, just to congratulate all members of the UE Team on the release of their project - way to go, guys! (I haven't had the chance to play the final version of UE yet, as anyone who knows just how hectic my life has been lately might have guessed... but if it's at least as good as the last beta I've played, then it sure is good enough! :-P) I would also like to apologize for the site's downtime last week. Apparently, something went wrong with a server move but I had no clue as to what happened during the first couple of days, because I hadn't been informed there was going to be a server move in the first place.

ByeByeThomas
Last week I got a message from JarJarThomas, in which he told me that unfortunately he won't be able to help me with Standoff anymore. That's very bad news for the project, since he had already started working on the comm animations for us... Now I guess that's another thing I'll have to work on myself. That's a shame, because I don't think I'll be able to produce anything as good as JarJarThomas' animations. Other than that, there hasn't been any visible progress on the mod. For the past weeks what I did was finish some models up and get them ready for texturing... but I haven't completed any of the textures yet. That's it for today... now let's give a big round of applause to Thomas Ganshorn for all the stuff he contributed with to this project!

Progress page updated
Today I've added two ships to the progress page... I hadn't noticed they were missing until I went to update their status :-P I've been quite busy with school for the past couple of weeks, but I managed to get some of the 800x600 HUDs done.

A pilot's best friend
Today I've finished all the work on the new 640x480 HUDs... converting them to other resolutions is just a matter of calculating the new coordinates, so it won't take too long. To go with Standoff's "love the Rapier II or die trying" design philosophy, I've added a screenshot of the Rapier's HUD to the screenshots section. The only things that aren't final on that screenshot are the cockpit strut and, of course, the comm video depicted. Feedback is welcome, so drop by our forum to say what you think of the new HUDs.

A whole lot of progress... indicators
Due to a request made at the Standoff forum, the site now has a progress page. I'll try to keep it updated as much as I can so that it's actually useful. So if you're curious as to what's already been done and what's not, just click our old menu bar's new link right there.

Another overdue update
I've been pretty busy in the last three weeks, and unfortunately will be equally busy until late november... this would mean slower progress than in the past two months, if it wasn't for some very good news I've got in this last week. First of all, Mario 'HCl' Brito has sent me a new version of the Standoff DLL file, which now includes most of the patches he created for Unknown Enemy, along with a patch that changes the colors of the HUD's fonts to match the mostly green Standoff HUD gauges. This means that as of now the only thing missing from Standoff engine-wise is the option to run the game in 32 bit color depth, but that'll also be implemented after I send HCl a new image to use as the launcher's menu. Aside from that, Pedro from the Unknown Enemy team will help me with the mission programming, which should let me devote more of my time to finishing ships and writing fiction, things that I simply don't want anyone other than myself messing around with :-) Since the last update, the more important advances in Standoff's development have been the completion of ALL the sector files, thanks to Killerwave and JarJarThomas (sector files are the files which store space background graphics and lighting information for the missions) and the completion of the first Standoff HUD, which now needs to be adapted to all the othey flyable ships and available resolutions. I'll make a screenshot of the HUD available after I'm done with that. I'm still considering wheter or not to add new 'cockpit struts' for each ship, re-use some of the original Secret Ops struts, or disable all of them altogether. Use the forum or email me if you have any opinions on that subject which you think are worth defending :-P

Cat-lovers, rejoice
So you're really a fur freak? So much that yesterday's update wasn't enough for you? Well, then check out the Screenshots page again today - the Gothri has just been completed and is there for you to look at. I've also uploaded a screenshot of the Tarsus, which has been completed for a while... but apparently I had forgotten to take any pictures of it.

So many news, so little updates...
Anyone who checks WC news sites like the CIC and the Wingcenter every now and then saw something about Standoff in the past few weeks, but there have been no updates on the Standoff site itself. Weird, huh? Well, the reason for the lack of updates is that due to some password trouble, I've been unable to update this site for the past couple of weeks or so... But today I'm making up for that, so here goes all the news due since the last update... stuff you may have seen elsewhere, and brand new news as well:

The Kilrathi are here!
And they're here in S-T-Y-L-E. The following screenshot won't be added to the screenshots page since it shows an unfinished ship... but I'm going to post it here on the news page because this unfinished ship is nothing short of a Hakaga-class carrier:

Make yourself at home
Thanks to Quarto from the Unknown Enemy project, I've learned how to make room graphics for the Secret Ops engine. So go to the Screenshots section and take a look at what I came up with so far... it's the interior of the TCS Firekka, from where you'll point and click your way to all the Standoff features. It hasn't got any animations yet, but it will once I get enough free time to render all animation frames (my computer is slow as hell).

Uh... Make yourself at home... again
The Standoff forum is back up, thanks to our hosts. No need to be shy, so just go there and post anything you wanna say about Standoff. You don't even have to register.

Bringing out the big guns
Nine new screenshots are up today, showing off the Concordia, a Bengal-class Strike Carrier, the Free Trader, and a few more ships. There's also a screenshot of the Standoff launcher, masterfully coded by Mario 'HCl' Brito. I'm sure that by looking at this screenshot everyone will notice something very interesting: the launcher has an Exit button! ;-)

There's no news like no news!
The project isn't dead! Some people have been led to think so by the unusual lack of updates, but that's not the case at all. In fact, I didn't bother updating in such a long time because I've been busy working on aspects of the project which don't show up in screenshots (and JarJarThomas was on vacation, so he didn't get any graphics done either). Thankfully for all of us, these invisible aspects of the project have evolved into a state where the mod is almost fully playable. Now it's mostly a matter of polishing things up, adding a lot of missions, and a lot more ships... which isn't as hard as planning stuff out and including new features. Some very nice people are helping me debug the gameplay aspects of the project and fix a few graphical glitches... If this goes as planned, a public beta test version (without any campaign missions or Kilrathi ships... only simulator gauntlets against Confed ships) should be available soon.

Ferrets on patrol
The Ferret is completed! Go check it out on the screenshots section! If I stick to my original plans, there should be no more confed fighters added to Standoff (but you never know, right?). So let's double-check the complete list, shall we? Ferret, Epee, Stiletto, Gladius, Rapier, Morningstar, Sabre, Raptor, Crossbow and Broadsword. In other news, there are only 3 or 4 Confed capital ships left to do, and the first Kilrathi ships have entered texturing stage.

The good, the bad, the useless
The good news is that there's a couple of new screenshots up on the site today, showing off yet another new ship... and that ship is the Epee, thus explaining the rest of todays headline. ;-)

Another new ship!
One month without site updates, and all the news we got is a single new ship? Well, not really. The Broadsword is the only thing which got finished in the last month, as you can see for yourself in the screenshots page... but a few other ships have also been worked on: we now have a final version 3D model of the Free Trader, along with a roughly 40% finished model of a Kilrathi carrier. Right now I'm working on an Epee model for Unknown Enemy, but I figured that I could include it in Standoff as well, as a simulator-only ship, since it'll only require a bit of re-texturing (UE's textures have Border Worlds markings and brighter, cleaner colors than Standoff's, so I can't use the same texture for both versions).

New member on the team!
JarJarThomas worked up some of his contacts and found someone to compose some original music for Standoff, which I think is a much welcome addition to any game. Our local maestro is Stephane Pepin, from Slim Productions, and he's already working on the tracks for the simulator! After he's done with those, he'll work on a few different orchestrated tracks for the campaign missions. He has already sent me a sample of his work, and although I'm not an expert on this subject, I think the man's quite talented :-)

We got nukes!
Only a single new screenshot today, showing off the brand new Morningstar. Progress in the last few days has been very good, with JarJarThomas finishing off all the background graphics we need, except for some moons, which he's still working on. Me, I've been messing around with guns, missiles, and ship stats. All the ships are acting a lot like their original versions, the only few exceptions being intentional, such as underpowering the Sabre and overpowering the Rapier II a little bit, for gameplay balance reasons. Most of the missiles and guns are near-final as well, with the exception of the capital ship guns (Anti-matter, Flak, Phase Transit.... oops, nevermind that) which are still using experimental stats and placeholder sounds and graphics, and also the Mace, which is still acting too randomly (Sometimes it wipes out an entire squadron, sometimes only a single ship), due to the way it's being implemented. Now stop reading and go check the Morningstars out!

Standoff's second capital ship!
Looks like I got myself a formula for quick capital ship making here! There's four screenshots of one of Confed's Escort Carriers, the TCS Firekka, in the screenshots page. One of the shots also shows New Detroit, one of the many gorgeous background graphics JarJarThomas has been working on lately. These screenshots are actually from Standoff's first mission, which already "kind of" works... that's actually very good news, since it means I've already learned the basics of mission programming!

Standoff's first capital ship!
The Waterloo-class cruiser is now complete (apart from turret placement, which I haven't figured out what I'm going to do about yet). I've added two screenshots of it to the site, along with two new Sabre screenshots thrown in for good measure.

More new screenshots
I've uploaded another couple of new screenshots to the site, this time showing the big bad Raptor in action. I've made the cockpit smaller than what's seen in the Claw Mark's blueprints, to make the ship actually look like it's 36 meters long. This one will probably only be available in the simulator mode, like the Broadsword, because both are too damned huge to fit through the hangars of the capital ships you get to be stationed in during the campaign.

New screenshots
I've uploaded a couple of new screenshots to the site. They show the Rapier II and the new Particle Cannon (Or should I say the old one, since it's the WC2 version?) in action. Too bad you can't listen to screenshots, because the new sound for the Particle Cannon has been completed too, and it sounds really great.

Technical mumbo-jumbo
This mod will now use the Secret Ops engine, and the storyline has been changed a lot, to include more action, and more ships. Most of the ships that were already completed have already been converted to the new engine, except the ones which won't be featured in this mod anymore, such as the Scimitar and Hornet. Those ships were removed because they have no place in the new storyline. However, many, many, many new ships have been added to this project, here's a few examples: Sabre, Broadsword, Crossbow, Gladius, Stiletto, Tarawa-Class Escort Carrier, Dralthi, Vaktoth, Gratha, Snakeir-Class Carrier. Not all of those are finished yet, but the ones which are can be seen in the Screenshots section. Some of them won't be used in the campaign mode, but will be available in the simulator missions. That, combined with the fact that any mission designers who download this mod can make their missions specifically for the Standoff set of ships, should provide some extra replayability to this project... I hope. Last but not least, thanks to everyone who applied for a part in the cast of characters - we got all the faces we need already, since the new storyline will only need a few faces, for capital ships' comm officers and stuff like that.

News for the braindead: We've got a new site design!
After a long period without any site updates, due not only to the fact that I've been busy with real life issues, but also due to the heavy changes this project has undergone, I've decided to change this site around a bit. The new site won't have so many useless sections as the old one, so that it's easier for me to keep everything up to date. Basically, besides this news page, it features a small presentation of the project, a staff page, and a screenshots section. The new screenshots section will only feature screenshots of the final or near-final version of each ship, already running in the Secret Ops engine. Therefore, if while playing the final version of the mod you notice that any of the ships don't look like the ones you saw on this website, you'll get twice your money back. :-)