new WC game?

[incubator]

well, I was thinking, would it be better if I would make a game solely concentrated on the WC universe?
Personally I would find this more satisfactory than a module in VS. That way VS can concentrzte fully on its own universe and (potential) storyboard.

But there is one thing I want to know, I want to know if I would be sued for creating something based on the copyrighted WC.

[mkruer]

AFAIK we have never gotten a cease and desist order from anyone, and also I believe you would have to start selling the material in question before any major action would take place. Look at how many other projects that are out there and no action has take place.

[incubator]

then I dont have to worry.
I dont intend to go in the commercial world for this.
(GPL)

[hellcatv]

cool! a new WC mod! please do it incubator
I've been waiting a *long* time for this

[charlieg]

1) I thought the WCUniverse mod was not a 'sub project' of VS, but a fully blown mod?

2) Wouldn't it be better to pool resources on such a mod rather than split them, given that resources are so thin on the ground?

[mkruer]

1) I thought the WCUniverse mod was not a 'sub project' of VS, but a fully blown mod?

I dont know were you are getting this idea. WCUniverse is seprate from VS, hences its own fourm.

2) Wouldn't it be better to pool resources on such a mod rather than split them, given that resources are so thin on the ground?

Yes, Hence the Ships Packs

[mkruer]

Ah I think I understand. I wrote something confusing for a reply.

So I will state it here now.

"All MOD’s are there own projects, the only thing they will end up sharing is the same code base i.e. engine, but not necessarily the same physics, and or model."

[hellcatv]

and they can borrow art/music as they see fit

[incubator]

I was more thinking of creating a full blown game instead of a mod.
It wont be using VS's engine, art or music, I was intending to create my own. (more fun that way )
And using the already existing WC models of course. (and that sweet Centurion model RFBurns and I are working on)

[MamiyaOtaru]

re: not using VS engine / making your own engine.

Why? If you are going to use existing models, why not an existing engine? The engine took far more work than the models.

Calling WCU a module of VS makes it seem like a tiny part, a little sub area within the main game. It will be quite seperate as a game experience, like Counter Strike and Half Life, or Unreal Annihilation and UT2004. Using an existing engine doesn't mean we are integrating it into the game the engine was made for. It will be its own experience.

Nothing stopping you from making your own engine, but in VS you have a good engine already, one that was originally actually made for Wing Commander.

[mkruer]

Ah ok. Then yes, you can use the models. The only thing that we ask for is that any models you use, you give credit to their author, and any new models that you either make for your project or acquire though the course your development, be added to the WCU Ship Packs.

[hellcatv]

why do you want to make your entirely new game engine?
VS was designed to be as extensible as you need it...

you won't believe how much work it is to make something from scratch-- and to what end..what feature would your engine have that VS wouldn't have? if it had something you could just dedicate yourself to adding *that* to the VS engine

of course you could use the VS engine nad make it a standalone game, instead of calling it a mod... that's legit...cus really it would be a different game than VS

[mkruer]

incubator, I think you are thinking the "mod" thing is not what you are think it is. I too am trying to create my own game WCWI as a standalone game, using the VS engine. That is why I have, and still am pushing so hard to keep VS modular as possible. Every release I ask for a full striped version of the engine that contains no information of then the engine itself, and all the components that make the engine work, i.e. sound, and what ever. Just no VS. Personally I just call this the Strike Engine. As to why all the other groups call there, mod’s Vega (insert name here) don’t ask me.

WCWI the project that I am working on does use parts of the WCU, but it is in no way dependant on it.

I don’t see why you can’t do the same.

Hellcatv We will have a bare engine again wont we?

[hellcatv]

ya I'll do it...after this the bare engine should look the same
in fact I'll try to hack it so you can use the last bare engine release as well...and drop in the new exes

[incubator]

wwell, there are multiple reasons why I want to make it myself:

1) I have major difficulties decyphering game code, from teh Quake 2, Freespace 2, Project: starfighter, anything. To me it is one big maze I cant cross.
Primarily this is because variables or fiunctions have shortened names sometimes and due to the fact I dont know much of 3d game engine design yet (but that will come soon)

2) As I reported in the bug triage, I still cant get the sound to work. I dont know what the cause of this is, but I am sarting to think it uses 3d sound by default. And I dont think my SB PCI 128 can handle that (HW accellerated I mean)
an openAL example prog to play a simple wav works fine and any other commercial/free game I have for linux has perfect sound.
So for that reason I cant use the VS engine.

3) Due to some personal preferences wich some of you might not agree with I cant use it either:
when moving around (with the arrows), the cockpit moves a bit behind the HUD, the gravity makes targeting tedious. I still prefer the way that your ship moves immediatly with each keypress withoutgoing further than desired (like in the other WC games)

The graphics engine however is perfect. Detail levels are excellent except for the fact that it doesnt integrate well with the bitmap cockpits like the centurion one. (fuel and energy rates do not show properly)

as a sidenote, suppose I would use the graphics engine of VS, I still would need to know opengl, right?

[charlieg]

1) I have major difficulties decyphering game code, from teh Quake 2, Freespace 2, Project: starfighter, anything. To me it is one big maze I cant cross.
Primarily this is because variables or fiunctions have shortened names sometimes and due to the fact I dont know much of 3d game engine design yet (but that will come soon)

You don't need to decipher game code to write a mod. Problem solved.

2) As I reported in the bug triage, I still cant get the sound to work. I dont know what the cause of this is, but I am sarting to think it uses 3d sound by default. And I dont think my SB PCI 128 can handle that (HW accellerated I mean)
an openAL example prog to play a simple wav works fine and any other commercial/free game I have for linux has perfect sound.
So for that reason I cant use the VS engine.

3) Due to some personal preferences wich some of you might not agree with I cant use it either:
when moving around (with the arrows), the cockpit moves a bit behind the HUD, the gravity makes targeting tedious. I still prefer the way that your ship moves immediatly with each keypress withoutgoing further than desired (like in the other WC games)

Those are very petty reasons to write your own thing from scratch. I don't think you realise just how much work is involved in writing an engine like VS. You'd be much better off pressing ahead with a VS mod and getting the bugs you encounter fixed along the way by reporting them.

The graphics engine however is perfect. Detail levels are excellent except for the fact that it doesnt integrate well with the bitmap cockpits like the centurion one. (fuel and energy rates do not show properly)

So use the VS engine and fix the cockpits.

as a sidenote, suppose I would use the graphics engine of VS, I still would need to know opengl, right?

Wrong. VS does the OpenGL stuff for you. I suspect the only thing you need to know is Python.

[incubator]

You don't need to decipher game code to write a mod. Problem solved.

yes I do, how else am I supposed to use it in the first place?
one wouldnt be using, for example, opengl without knowing how it works. When I create something of my own, I know all of its ins and outs
unless of course some documentation and usage is added for the VS engine

as a sidenote: some of the models have only an email adress, not the full name of the author

[hellcatv]

there's a lot of documentation on the python side of things I believe....
and you really don't need to delve into openGL and the engine side of things...

it would be a shame to divide the work and talent we've accrued in this forum into two (halving both progresses)

[scheherazade]

incubator <<

OH, i know what you're talking about.
i've modded quake too... VS is nothing like quake when it comes to modding.

quake : EXE + DLL
you CODE the DLL (or modify it)

VS : EXE alone
you edit config parameters and script in python


VS is made to have as many variables in the game be user defined.

so for example, you can go into your config and totally remove the laggy-cockpit thing you mention. you just make the lag variable say 0.
it's all text based.

doing the art is still the same work as with any other engine.

with VS to put in a ship :
-convert the model
-put it in the proper directory
-write a unit file for it (text editing an xml file, pretty much like writing html)
-you're done!

you can change the AI by stating different conditions in the AI directory.
it's text based too, and python. no coding (in the c++ sense like in quake).

you can totally change the behavior of flight.
you can make ships fly on rails by taking the inertia variables down to nothing,
or you can make them slide around like crazy by doing hte opposite.
you can adjust it per ship, AND per axis, by giving different thrust variuable values in the ship files that you wrote for whatever ship you put into the game.

if you wanna go from scratch, you can just delete all the VS ships and bases form the models folder, and from then on it's all your own stuff.

you can replace base art too... and make bases look like your own when landed.

AND you can script different and new places to go to when landed, using python.

basically, short of actually making new features (like the ability to transform like a robot, or lasso other ships iwth a giant space whip), you can totally customize VS into _nothing_ like what VS is to start out with.

physics, AI, art, etc. its all replacable, with _NO_ coding.

all you gotta learn is how to script with python, and how to edit XML.

-scheherazade

[charlieg]

You don't need to decipher game code to write a mod. Problem solved.

yes I do, how else am I supposed to use it in the first place?

Correction: for Vegastrike you don't need to deciper game code. Python bindings are well documented.

[incubator]

but the C++ source code in the gfx folder are not.
besides, I dont know Python.
I chose C++ for its speed

[hellcatv]

the engine is in C++
the missions are scripted in python

perhaps python's not the best language because of its lack of type safety--but as far as speed is concerned...when you're doing scripting the most important thing is turnaround time--that is how easy it is for average users with no compilers to add to your game...
this is why Vega Strike has the main engine using C++ and the missions and AI scripts using python---easy for extensibility...
if you're not planning on putting in a scripting engine for your engine how do you plan to make missions that will unfold depending on what a user does

[incubator]

I dont know yet, but I'll find out.
Thats also the main reason: to learn hot to make it.
and yes, I know it might take me a year or 2 or even more.
But I'm not alone. I have a small team with me for artwork and sound.
Additionally, we are all programmers with the same goal

[hellcatv]

I'd try to encourage you all to put your talent towards making Vega Strike better (adding new features that are unexpected instead of duplicating work, putting features in we *expect* from space sims)
but I know I'm speaking to deaf ears.

it's interestnig to do something *new*. VS was new because it was an open source space sim at a time when none was available...that's been done...it'd be more interesting to use VS to make a specialized terrain engine--or an easy to build campaign system... or whatever--rehashing old work is boring for the world at large.

I've told now 4 developers this...haven't seen anything out of any of them once they went off and "made" their own engines with their dedicated "teams"....
lets see that was 4 years ago, 3 years ago, 2 years ago and 2 months ago...

well... your odds don't look good of making the 2 year mark...

join us...and together we'll rule the galaxy!!

or do your own thing and realize that 2 years is a vast underestimate

[incubator]

alright then, but there has to be done something about the sound.
really, thats been bothering me for a long while now and I have no clue as to what the problem is. (and tehre are no stderr.txt and stdout.txt logs either :s )

Also the setup tool, perhaps I could make a Qt interface for the vslauncher, I have better xp with Qt and like it more than GTK+
because X keeps hanging on that.(when I click on the setup button)

and in the setup options we could include options to enable/disable that cockpit that doesnt move equally with the HUD.

but to do that I need a link or something to all the information/docs about the source.

something that would be usefull too is a map. (thats not easy but perhaps just a picture for a map will do until we can make a dynamic starmap or something)

weapon fire could be brighter, glowing. when I fire the hephaustus mini I notice the blue fire but its not solid enough, glow-less.

tractor beam should be easier, when in range, press a different key for tractor beam and the targeted object should be tractored in.

Are there going to be some improvements on the graphics? The engine afterburner fire could be a bit larger depending on the models (more glowing too) .
Damage: when hitting a ship, the damage you see on the shields is fine but I dont see anything when hitting the hull.

And I see some people are working on the WC/priv cockpits to integrate them, is all of the dynamic stuff (shields, energy etc) possible to adapt? because as I said, in the centurion model from RFBurns, the laser energy bar didnt change, jump fuel wasnt visible and mission info wasnt there either.

For the WC specific things, is there any way we could somehow integrate the confed vs Kilrathi in there?

but this WC part, would this be an integrated part of VS?

sorry if this should be more in the features post but I just had to say it

let me know what you think.