I'm not much of a TAC1 player, but I've seen many requests about the mod lately. It seems several people want to play, but no one gets anything organized. I'd like to direct any of those interested, to a thread in our forums and maybe everyone can get something working I'd love to see the TAC1 community reunited again:
http://tacmod.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5440&p=11889#p11889

I'll add my name to the list, I was and am SemiGod founder and former leader of [SPAM].

I'm in the process of retrieving the SoundPacks that I and Xyphoid made for TAC. As well as the TAC specific skins I collected. Most of them reside on backups or half-dismantled PCs in packing crates, I've moved home twice in the years since I played. They'll be on my webspace as I find them.

If we are to resurrect Team Aerial Combat in readiness for Play Tribes, I'd like offer my assistance to help get it off the ground again. My scripting isn't great (and a lot rustier than it was) but I can create Skins, Sounds, Sound Packs and 3D model. Also I can afford to run a UK/Euro based server when the time comes.

WHICH VERSION?

Can we start with a version of TAC that did not make too many crazy changes please. The Maps included in 1.3-1.4 should suffice. Maps that do not conform to the fly there, do it as a team play style which were introduced in ever more bloated unofficial revisions didn't ought to be included.

I'm personally not keen on extreme changes to the APCs' flight model; I think flying inverted was a step too far, but I'm not opposed to a little steeper climb and descent angle. I've been tinkering with the flight model script myself changing things like acceleration, top speed and gimble, but other than make large maps seems very small there's not a great deal to improve upon what was mostly right first time around.

I read that Farfel made a re-version of 1.4 that removed the silliness that appeared in later revisions. Does anyone have a copy of that version that they can share?

Amazing what you can find on old backups...


Iron Chef's Teen Beat parody 

Haha, I love it!  [SPAM] was one of my favorite clans just for the amount of propaganda and silliness they brought to TAC1.  The nerve of calling themselves "The Killer Elite" when match records have consistently proven otherwise just makes it even more hilarious .  Anyways, thanks for that picture, great stuff!

As for the server version, see my post here for details on the latest version 1.72:

http://forum.instantaction.com/smf/index.php/topic,12889.15.html

To paraphrase, like you said I went through versions 1.5 and 1.7 and removed all the "silliness" incorporated into those versions to basically produce a bug-fixed 1.4 version.  1.72 does have the new vehicle handling characteristics, but slightly modified to remove upside-down flying and progressively worse levels of handling for the 3 different APCs.

I really don't mind other people contributing to the mod, but I would strongly urge that we all work off a single unified version.  My opinion is 1.72 would be the best choice as it has all the previous changes in other versions, including new maps.

Farfel has basically been the guardian of the mod over the years since regular tournament play stopped, I'd be perfectly happy to let him continue in this position.  I'm not really an expert on the state of the mod itself, Farfel is probably in the best position to decide what changes, if any, should be made from older versions. But SemiGod brings up another interesting point.  I was going through the map pack yesterday and it is very bloated, my rough count shows 118 existing TAC maps, and SemiGod, if you haven't played in a while, a lot of these are definitely not what you'll be thinking of as TAC. 

I think we should get rid of Shooters, hijack, etc, essentially all the obvious non-TAC maps (or at least make them only selectable by admin)and then put together a list of maps we'd like to keep.  I imagine there will be somewhere between 30 and 40 that will be consensus, then we can start to cut it down.  I think there is a place for maps like JustHoldit and GiantGiraffe, there just needs to be fewer maps like those.  There are also a lot of very obscure D&D, F&R, and even TDM maps that I've rarely ever played, some of those I think can go as well. 

And as far as master servers go, check out this place: http://www.tribesmasterserver.com/

They claim to have listed all the current active Master Servers, which can be found simply by posting that text into the console, so I think there is a community, albeit small.  I was poking around last night and there were about 10 servers that obviously had PUGs going on.  Can anyone else fill us in on the Master Server situation?  In short, I feel like we should go ahead and try to get a server up and running now, depending on how many TAC people still have the game available. 

Add my name to the list of people that would love to see this mod alive and kicking again. I would love to see a server up and running before Play Tribes goes live. I'm looking forward to playing the mod that really got me addicted to Tribes with the people who made it all that much more enjoyable.

118 maps is the height of ludicrousitude* (*I'm only the third person to use that word on the internet according to google)

Trimming down the number of maps is a must, otherwise to rotate thru one full cycle of that heinous B-L-O-A-T would take a server over 48 hours.

I'd suggest a few simple tests as to whether a TAC map could be considered in the legitimate spirit of the game.
 1/ It requires the use of an APC
 2/ It encourages the use of teamwork
 3/ Structures in the combat area are minimal and spaced far enough apart to require an APC to travel between
 4/ It's not overly complex and noob unfriendly

If you applied all 4 of those tests to the bloated map list you'd find you'd be hitting the delete key on a fair number of them. I'm not the one true keeper of the Sacred Flame of what is the True Spirit of TAC™, Team is written into the name of the game. If we can come to a consensus and reduce to the Map list to a manageable size I believe we'd all benefit.



Oh and http://www.tribesmasterserver.com is what I use.

PS. JustHoldIt is a TDM map cunningly disguised as a C&H map. I was not a fan of it back in the day, because I was on 56k and is caused a lot of lag (a common problem with most TDM maps back then). However, it's authentic TAC and some of the old timers like Sledge and Iron Chef loved it.

Loved TAC1, and I remember notman (TPG I think?)!

Predator / -GB- Java here.

I no longer flame.

=)

TBR... but close

We'll just be playing Close_C&H ("CENTER OBJECTIVE ONLY!") anyway for the most part. ;p

Also, doesn't TAC already feature moddable map cycle separate from the list of voteable/selectable maps?

Yes, but 118 maps is bloat. It only takes one bad map or map vote to clear a server. I've seen it happen in many games, not just Tribes.

Think of PlayTribes as Year Zero, a clean slate to begin again. If we start with 30 of the best maps we can always add more later.

This is my major concern, I'd start playing today if there were a server active, that's why I'd like to get a server up soon.  I'm just curious if there is enough interest to go ahead and try to do that.  I'd also be willing to chip in money-wise, I'm just trying to gauge immediate TAC interest.

There's also a thread about the bloated map pack here(http://www.tacmod.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5444) if you want to take a shot at paring that down SemiGod, I think you'd be a good candidate for the job.

Mmrnmhrm / Ledi - bites the dust / bought the farm.

Hey, Ledi . Still 3d modelling?

I was supposed to looking thru the TAC map list today, but I couldn't resist firing up Maya and having a quick play...