FreeSpace Port ReCharged Dev Log 02 - Modding with FRED

FRED in all its glory

Hi all, and welcome back to my FreeSpace Port Recharged Development log. In part one, we looked at my inspiration for creating the mod in the first place. Now we will delve into how I'm making it via FRED, the FreeSpace Editor.

The first obstacle I needed to overcome was that I didn’t know how to code (and still don’t). 

Thankfully, FreeSpace was very mod-friendly from day one (back in 1998) due to its hilariously titled, but very powerful, built-in editor ‘FRED’ (FReespace EDitor, get it?), which enables modders to do a great deal with zero coding experience.

That said, getting to grips with FRED was a challenge in of itself. This was partly on me - I was expecting its UI to work like Homeworld's (which it doesn’t) and partly because the various guides and wikis all suffer from 'written by engineers for engineers' syndrome - i.e. not being especially beginner-friendly, particularly for those who don't come from a software development background. 

Thankfully, there are lots of veteran modders around to answer my inane questions - some of whom had already created YouTube tutorials on the subject.

Silver Angel Playlist

This tutorial series was a life saver...

Video by SilverAngelX

But to be honest, the biggest challenge was that there was simply so much to learn. This didn’t just involve FRED, it also involved almost all the other...er... 'features?' ‘aspects?’, ‘things?’ - not sure what to call them - that made the game work and could be tweaked to change things. 

This included - but not limited to: The table files for ships, weapons, graphical effects, sounds, music, etc., what they do, how they work and how to tweak the individual entries in them, how to import and edit 3D models and textures, music, voice acting files, how to make in-engine cutscenes, what ‘scripts’ and ‘SEXPs’ are in this context (no sniggering at the back) and whatever LUA is. (And probably a whole host of other things I’m forgetting to list.) 

Thankfully, YouTube provided many of these answers too :-)

Big Chunk1 Playlist

...as was this one

Video by Big Chunk1

It’s worth remembering that I - like many a middle-aged modder - was having to do this alongside having a full-time job, family, pets, a household to run, bills to pay, DIY to be done and a long list of health issues to manage.

But after a good year and a bit's brain sweat, frustration and bombarding the good people on the HLP discord with my dumb-a$$ questions (sorry peeps), I finally got the hang of it. Then the real work could begin…

NB - I should stress that not everyone who makes a FreeSpace mod would need to know all of the above - only those who are looking to create something large-scale and/or something out of the ordinary - but more on that in the next post.

See you all in the next one ☝️ 

Iain is a 40+ author and gamer from England, who started his gaming journey on the Atari 2600 36(ish) years ago. His specialities include obscure cult classics, retro games, mods and fan remakes. He hates all sports games and is allergic to online multiplayer. Since he is British, his body is about 60% tea. He can be reached via email at nomadsreviews@gmail.com

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