GTI Acheron Final Version, by Robin Varley 	5th Jan, 2001

(This is actually the final version of my GTI Charon, however the Black Water Ops people are using that as the name for their Terran Knossos device - so I've changed the name to Acheron)

INSTALLATION

Copy Acheron.pof to your freespace2/data/models dir.

Then you need to cut and paste the data.txt into the ships.tbl file in your freespace2/data/tables directory

If you don't have these tables, download the *.vp viewer from those great people at:

http://www.descent-freespace.com/

you will then be able to extract them to the tables directory

The station should then appear in FRED2 as the GTI Acheron.

Please note that the Ships.tbl (indeed all of the *.tbl files) are limited to being 380kb in size, the easiest way to deal with this is to delete the descriptions for the ships, this gives you loads of extra room.

The bit to delete looks like this:

+Tech Description:
XSTR(
"blah blah blah.", 3162)

simply remove what ever blah blah blah is, but don't delete the quotation marks.

To take up less space in the ships.tbl, I've left the description blank, if you want it, copy the one from below.


DESCRIPTION

In Greek mythology Acheron is the river that the ferryman, Charon, takes you across after entering Hades, the land of the dead.

The GTI Acheron is cruiser-sized, manned installation, designed to provide fire support for other installations like the Arcadia, freeing up cruisers and corvettes for more important tasks.  It is generally found in the more heavily populated systems of the Alliance, and so did not have much part in the second Shivan incursion, though it proved it's worth against NTF forces.

It's four large turrets house anti-capital ship slashing beams, arranged so that it can usually bring more than one to bear on the same target.  The rest of it's armament consists of 2 anti-fighter beams, 2 missile launchers, 2 maxim guns and 6 standard turrets.


GAMEPLAY

It's not quite as powerful as it was before, I thought 22 turrets on something that small was too much.  So this version's only got 16 turrets but I've made them more varied, including two turrets with maxim guns, which are good at shooting down incoming bombs.

When fighting Cap ships, it performs well against all of Volition's Terran cruisers, the GVC Aten, the SC Cain and the SC Rakshasa.  The odd turret layout of the Mentu means it depends on how the Mentu approaches the Acheron - sometimes it wins, mostly the Mentu is toast though.  The Lilith however, will turn it into so much space dust.  Asking it to fight Corvettes and Destroyers on it's own is too much, though it did beat a Sobek a couple of times.

Without any fighter protection it tends to perform poorly against more than a couple of wings of fighters.

All the paths for the turrets and sub-systems are working and it has one docking point.
It has 4 LOD's, debris, and the big turrets even appear at the second level of detail!, which had been a problem in the first version.


PROBLEMS

As it's the final version, technically there shouldn't be any.


COMING SOON

Time permitting, I will be doing a web site to stick my creations on to.

I've got a completed sentry gun, and very soon a new Cruiser and Freighter.  I also have an SD Lucifer with a "working" shield mesh, however it does have some bugs, namely that if you shoot it in certain places too many times the game crashes.  Ask me If you want it.


THANKS

Volition, of course
Volition Watch, for recommending my the first version of the GTI Charon
Scott Perry, for FSMM2
Garry Knudson, Richard Garand and Frank Krueger for WinCOB2F2, COB2FS2 and POF2FS2

And a special mention for the makers of Warzone and Derelict, I just finished playing them over the holiday and it was like getting Freespace 2 for the first time all over again, they're great campaigns and if you haven't downloaded them, do it now.

Blackwater Ops. is going to be very cool...

Feel free to use this as you wish, just please give me credit for making it.

Comments, or bugs, please e-mail me at:

r_varley@limpbizkit.com



If any thing breaks, remember - I didn't do it.

Though I'd advise backing up your tables directory before changing things

