What is to expect for the next version?

[Draken Stark]

So... What is planed for the next release of Privateer?

Some new ships would be nice.

[mkruer]

Something soo good we cant tell you LOL.

Seriously it will be core improvements. We are switching engines from the current VegaStrike Engine. To the Sleeker, Sexier, fuller featured Ogre Engine http://www.ogre3d.org/ which will allow us to do much more with the current models.

You can see the roadmap at http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/MOD:WCU:Roadmap
And for clarification WCU is a core module so changes that are made to the core, affects all the mods, which the Privateer 1.2 Remake is part of.

[Draken Stark]

Thanks . Nice signature.

[MamiyaOtaru]

The rebalancing is probably the biggest change to the gameplay. Dralthi and Demons (and some others) have new somewhat more fair characteristics that should make facing them less suicidal. This will probably also allow us to narrow the angle on the autotrackers, so pilots can rely more on skill than their computer against enemies where it should now be possible to do so.

Various tweaks like the addition of buyable missile launchers and torpedo launchers you need to pick up to hold your missiles (not on ships like the stiletto though which have regular external missile hardpoints)

Numerous bugfixes too, like fixing the situation you get with ECM, level 3 shields and level 1 reactor (try it). Throw in various graphical tweaks as well (see thread about planet graphics for an example).

That's just the stuff that's done already; we'll see what else comes up before then. As always the forum threads provide good inspiration for potential changes.

Ogre is of course a biggie we all look forward to. Shaders should make things a lot of fun, and perhaps we'll see some real time shadows

[z30]

Seriously it will be core improvements. We are switching engines from the current VegaStrike Engine. To the Sleeker, Sexier, fuller featured Ogre Engine http://www.ogre3d.org/ which will allow us to do much more with the current models.

Sounds like you've hit the limits of the Vegastrike engine, I've seen those fabulous Ogre shots - really looking forward to it.

The rebalancing is probably the biggest change to the gameplay. Dralthi and Demons (and some others) have new somewhat more fair characteristics that should make facing them less suicidal. This will probably also allow us to narrow the angle on the autotrackers, so pilots can rely more on skill than their computer against enemies where it should now be possible to do so.

Thank god to both. Don't feel quite right about the autotrackers in their current version but it's very difficult to kill fast ships without one. Glad that Demons are being looked into, my life expectancy in the Palan 3 mission is about 10 seconds unless I get really lucky. That many Talons in that situation are bad enough but something about the Demons make them a real nightmare to handle.

The low skill level of the wingmen are also a big factor, I guess it's the fact that Kilrathis are almost always aces that make them such a big factor in these very difficult missions.

It's gotten so bad that I always get this big grin on my face whenever I spot Kilrathi's around I definitely won't mind playing a Kilrathi in WCU, alien races and technology have always fascinated me and those Kilrathi ships....just incredible.

Various tweaks like the addition of buyable missile launchers and torpedo launchers you need to pick up to hold your missiles (not on ships like the stiletto though which have regular external missile hardpoints)

I'm fine with those launcher limitations, makes life more interesting plus it makes sense that small light fighters and older ones have hardpoints while more complex ships have launchers.

[klauss]

Sounds like you've hit the limits of the Vegastrike engine, I've seen those fabulous Ogre shots - really looking forward to it.

Not really... Vegastrike's graphics engine was going to get shaders until someone thought of the possibility of not reinventing the weel and use Ogre which already had everything. (plus a whole team developing it).

[blue_paladin42]

What exactly is Ogre? I have heard of it, but havent really looked into it.

[klauss]

see www.ogre3d.org

[blue_paladin42]

Woah, sexy. Does it support cutscenes?

[klauss]

It's just a rendering library, so it doesn't relate to cutscenes (they have to be part of VegaStrike, not Ogre). Anyway, cutscenes are in the To-Do list, and Ogre does make it much easier to implement them.

[Spaceman Spiff]

The rebalancing is probably the biggest change to the gameplay. Dralthi and Demons (and some others) have new somewhat more fair characteristics that should make facing them less suicidal. This will probably also allow us to narrow the angle on the autotrackers, so pilots can rely more on skill than their computer against enemies where it should now be possible to do so.

Various tweaks like the addition of buyable missile launchers and torpedo launchers you need to pick up to hold your missiles (not on ships like the stiletto though which have regular external missile hardpoints)

Numerous bugfixes too, like fixing the situation you get with ECM, level 3 shields and level 1 reactor (try it). Throw in various graphical tweaks as well (see thread about planet graphics for an example).

That's just the stuff that's done already; we'll see what else comes up before then. As always the forum threads provide good inspiration for potential changes.

Ogre is of course a biggie we all look forward to. Shaders should make things a lot of fun, and perhaps we'll see some real time shadows

What of this stuff is already in CVS?

EDIT:

How will the Ogrething effect the system requirements of the game?
Look at my system specifications and you'll know why I'm asking...

[klauss]

Well... one of the hardest problems I'm facing is mantaining low entry-level requirements (IIRC, TNT being the lowliest graphics card supported by the old VS). I'm pushing it even towards earlier models, when possible.

But it's difficult supporting both ends. Mostly texture compression is killing me. Happily enough, though, Ogre guys seem to be addressing that issue as we speak (a small compatibility problem with precompressed texture files), so it should work out in the end.

Anyway, I'm aiming at mantaining system requirements as they were, if not to reduce them (Ogre, for instnance, should be quite a lot more efficient in handling render queues and batching, so those tasks should go faster on slower CPUs - not a GPU issue).

In fact, Ogre should handle memory management much better (I would say, at all) for graphic resources (textures, meshes and stuff), so I would bet memory efficiency will increase many times. It'll need a lot of tweaking, though, but you can expect it to run much better for you with your limited memory. You won't have any issues, I think, with graphic card capabilities... I'm reading your card can run Doom3, so it must be quite decent (above a TNT2 for sure).

[Spaceman Spiff]

Anyway, I'm aiming at mantaining system requirements as they were, if not to reduce them (Ogre, for instnance, should be quite a lot more efficient in handling render queues and batching, so those tasks should go faster on slower CPUs - not a GPU issue).

Nice!!!
I guess there is no sense in downloading the current cvs-version then? Mine is from september 29. I guess there is also no timeframe for the next release?

[klauss]

No, no Ogre stuff on CVS yet, since I'm working ont the interface framework.
I don't want to mess with VS until I have the framework ready, that allows me to make design decisions as I need it free of "will break" worries.

[Spaceman Spiff]

[Spaceman Spiff]

you're the man!

[klauss]

Thx

[Ge0rgy]

its somewhat funny to read in a vegastike-foum about a transition to an other engine that can do more *laugh*

but as i understand ogre will be sort of a "backend" as it is a rendering-library but privateer and these will keep using a "vegastrike" - engine. just the fact that it is backed by ogre-libraries now.

did i get that right?

sorry for dumb asking...but i'm interested in that sort of stuff because i want to study sofftware-engineering in january. so i have to bring things in the right order in my head!

greetings,

Georgy

[klauss]

Yes... VS and Ogre are very different beasts.

VS is a game engine. That includes sound (don't get me started on this... I'll get started on this on my own later, thanks...), graphics, physics, input, AI... etc... lots of stuff.

Ogre is a 3D rendering engine. So... of all the components in VS, it's going to replace only one: graphics.

So, it shouldn't sound strange at all... they're not competing projects. It's quite common that games (mostly open-source games) use other projects to fulfill a specific role, like, for instance, graphics. Well, up until now, VS didn't do so, it used its own 3D library implementation. The idea of using Ogre is to stop that which not only is a load on developers (that graphic implementation has to be mantained and further developed), but also contrary to the opensource motto of not reinventing wheels.

I think the only problem that stopped VS from using other projects is portability... there aren't that many projects involving graphics and sound that can be safely ported to Windows, *nix and Mac. Luckily, Ogre supports all of them, and is quite mature, so I find it quite natural that VS would adopt it as its rendering backend.

[JonathanD]

so stuff I'm trying out on this version will work without change in the next? mostly referring to the turret AI stuff as I'm hoping someone will point me in the right direction on that soon...

[Draken Stark]

I think I missed something. We're "switching" to a graphics only engine, or are we just adding it to what's already here?

[MamiyaOtaru]

We aren't switching engines at all. We will continue to use the Vegastrike engine. The graphics portion of the Vegastrike engine is being replaced by Ogre however.

What of this stuff is already in CVS?

Not a lot of it really. CVS isn't representative of work done ATM.

[Ge0rgy]

wel, that just what i got from the texts above.

ogre become graphical backend for Vegastrike (and thus privateer Remake and the others)
but the rest stays more or less as it is.

just the graphics-part is taken over by ogre.
Cool thing.

yes, it's part of the open-source philosophy that the same work should never be done twice.
would be a waste of time since in the community this "work" is always open, and thus useable by others.

funny thing that the industry who wants alwasy be effective doesn't get that clue *lol*

something of this is also described in the hacker-howto
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

wigh good luck and much fun on that implementation... I'm greatly looking forward on showing people some screenshots of vegastrike when it uses ogre
People somehow seem to need a kick-in-the-ass to realise that not only monopoly-things can be good ones!

greetings,
Ge0rgy

[charlieg]

klauss: How much longer before you have at least an uploadable version of the OGRE port?

[hellcatv]

I think he's going to post some working code next week--doesn't link in with the rest of the game yet, just loads VS models for now---then comes the integration with the rest of the game bit--and dealing with double precision problems by recentering the world on the player