Darksaber himself posted in the thread at the XWAUP project forums.
He basically invited us to leave.

It's sad to be rejected by such a personality in the X-Wing scene. I'm feeling a bit heartbroken with this.

I always contemplated the possibility of this happening, but also kept hopes for it going the other way too, especially after learning that the guy that made the X-Wing module for TableTop Simulator got permission to use Darksaber's models. And that game has absolutely nothing to do with the XWAUP project.

Oh well. The show must go on, as they say. There is always hopes that someday he will reconsider his stance towards us. Until then, we will need to make do with our own models, even if that means we will have to spend much more time building these models, or reusing the ones in the games.

Woah, I didn't expect an answer like that... quite a childish attitude though. I mean, I've created my fair share of online projects myself, and some of the stuff even sells on eBay to this day, and I don't make a fuss about it. Being protective of your work is one thing (and absolutely okay), but snubbing other (obviously ambitious) fan projects is kinda sad.

Ah well, if you manage to make XWVM flexible enough to swap models afterwards, using XWA's original models for a start should be absolutely sufficient.

Well, don't feel bad. He was always some kind of asshole with a huge ego. The work you are doing exceeds dark sabers work by far even at this stage.

Darksaber has apologised and is offering permission to use his models:
http://www.xwaupgrade.com/phpBB3008/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11623&start=50#p151116

He seems to have had a bad day before posting in that thread, but has since cooled down and has apologized several times after user General_Trageton made him reconsider his view.

I cannot get mad at him or anyone in the XWAUP project, especially after finding out what other people have done to them and their efforts. Even if he didn't want us back and didn't want to give permission to us (we aren't entitled to it, really), I still think he attitude is a product of of the many disappointments one gets from dealing with people in the Internet. I cannot blame him.
Thing is, I have had my share of disappointments too (the last of them, the space game I was working on before this one) and I have a hard skin by now. :)

What does not kill you only makes you stronger ;)

I appreciate you very much ! Both your attitude and your project.

Okay, that's a very nice and mature apology... Obviously my criticism was unfounded after all. Group hug!

The news obviously means we are able to put a demo out much earlier than we thought. There is still stuff to do before that happens, but it really isn't that far off now!

and for those that don't know, we have a Facebook page as well....

Facebook page

Not dead.
I have been working on AI, (as usual, and probably as long as the project lasts :D) and on implementing the torpedo launchers on the Y-Wing, with the instruments and all.

The torpedoes themselves need some further research. There are several "features" of them that aren't numerically described anywhere, as far as I know. I will need to ask in the XWAUP forum in case anyone there knows, but I ask here also. These features are:
- Homing rating: How well a torpedo turns around to face their target. Do torpedos and missiles lead their targets? How many degrees per second can the turn?
- Locking rating: How long does it take for a torpedo to get target locked on a target? When does the reticule becomes yellow first (I mean, how many degrees away from the target is good enough?). What happens when you look away from the target for a moment?

Let's call "target lock quality" to how much a torpedo is currently locked on a ship (before or after firing it).
With a ship that we have not spent any time locking at all, it will be 0.
With a ship that we have a red target lock, it will be 1.
With a ship we have a yellow target lock (reticule), it will be a value between 0 and 1.

Somehow, this quality seems to grow while we look at the ship, at a pace that seems to match 1/7 per second. That means, it takes 7 seconds to go from total blue reticule (quality 0) to red reticule (quality 1).
My values are just from experimenting informally.
I wonder if this target lock quality increase rate is higher the more centered we keep the target ship while locking at it.
Also, I guess looking away from it decreases the quality in a similar rate? You don't totally lose all quality in one go, because if you re center the target ship, you get a red back much faster than in 7 seconds.

Also, does all of this change depending on the distance to the target ship, or the size of it?
I know that you can target Freighter-class and Capital-class ships from as far as 6 kilometers, and smaller ships can be targeted first at 3 kilometers(?). But I mean the build up and fade off times. Do you remember them being affected?

Finally, how does this target lock quality value affect the torpedo once shot?

What I have done is basically multiply the "homing rating" times the "lock quality" value.
So if a torpedo has a homing rating of 15 degress per second, that means that at a totally red target lock, it will be able to turn towards its target at a rate of 15 degrees every second, but at a yellow 0.5 quality target lock, it will be able to turn only half that much, 7.5 degrees per second.
Does this sound right to your ears?
Is there something that feels off with this design?

I honestly can't even remember if they home at all without a solid red lock. If you've tested already and confirmed they do (but at a lesser rate) then that's better than my memory.

Also, this may be an area that could be improved from the original, depending on how you want to implement it and based on additional gameplay testing. Might be another switch for original or improved behavior.

They do home at yellow. The longer the lock, the better the home.

You might implement a chance of AI craft also firing Torpedos at fighters, since the player does it from time to time.

As opposed to only missiles? I thought they did already fire both at fighters. Gunboats do, TIE Bombers do. Unless I'm confused and remembering their behavior from the later games.

I fear you are mistaken.
The AI never shot torpedoes to fighters. Not even in XvT (I am not sure about XWA, I only played thru that once). In fact, an easy way to play a melee against the AI in XvT was to select a ship that could carry advanced torpedoes, and off you go. Nobody shoots them at you, but you shoots them at everyone.

Thanks for a peer confirmation. I was starting to think that I was crazy because I was seeing that happening too, and nobody else seemed to notice it.

The AI always shoots torpedoes towards freighter-class ships or bigger, never smaller. And only once per attack run. They don't release two torpedoes or more while approaching. Instead they lock their targets at the maximum distance available, release one torpedo, then get closer to attack with their lasers.
When they are too close, they break off, get some good distance, and face their targets again, releasing another torpedo. Repeat.

Making the AI shoot torpedoes at fighters could seriously affect balance for most missions, as much as making the AI release more than one torpedo per attack run would.

I do agree we could add some extra intelligence to the AI in regards to using their warheads, but we must be careful to make sure it doesn't affect the original missions, only new modes like skirmishes, multiplayer, campaigns, etc.

I will use an example.
Imagine you need to protect a corvette from 3 incoming TIE Bombers on your X-wing, that appear at 10 km from it, and about the same distance from you.
When they approach the corvette and are at 6 km from it, they will release 3 torpedoes, 1 each.
With some luck, and master use of your ELS settings, you manage to close your distance to them on time to destroy one torpedo with your lasers and then engage the TIE Bombers, perhaps killing one or two in a tense dogfight, where only one of them sneaks past you and starts another attack run on the corvette, releasing another torpedo.
A corvette explodes with 6 torpedoes, so the player performance described above would be sufficient to make it survive, since the corvette took perhaps 4-5 torpedoes before all TIE Bombers were destroyed.
The player would end quite stressed up and tense, but also very much excited by the dangerous situation and feeling good with himself for having managed to protect the corvette.

Now, think what would happen if the TIE Bombers were actually smarter and all of them released 12 torpedoes as soon as they had a target lock on the corvette, as real players would do. There would be 36 torpedoes coming towards the corvette, and there wouldn't be anything the player could do about it. Not even sending 6 X-Wings would prevent that from happening. Not even by reducing the amount of bombers to half or to just one. Sure the player could blow up a couple torpedoes in the way there, but probably not enough to make a difference.

Many missions, both in X-Wing and in TIE Fighter, involve many flight groups of ships being sent to destroy one single capital ship or two, that you need to protect, by rushing here and there in the battlefield and taking care of the bombers before they deal too much damage. Those missions feel epic and challenging, but they really are balanced and not by chance, but because the AI is intentionally held back with artificial limitations such as those.

You end killing tens of ships and feeling like an ace in those missions, while the reality is that those ships are basically fighting with a hand tied behind their backs, so to speak.

That is why I think X-Wing and TIE Fighter could work in multiplayer as long as the multiplayer is coop only, and not versus. The experience is much different when you face perfectly balanced and choreographed AI rivals, than when you face cutthroat human players.
In my opinion, XvT experienced worse sales, and was mostly considered one of the worst in the whole series, because of that.
The engine was an improved version of that in TIE Fighter, the graphics were better, the sounds were better, the mission designers where the same people. Then what failed?
The game wasn't the same at all with human rivals.

I think a little bit of it would happen in this one, if the AI would be much more "logical".