Feature Freeze!

Development directions, tasks, and features being actively implemented or pursued by the development team.
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Brendan
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Feature Freeze!

Post by Brendan »

Hi,

I assume there are a lot of people (like me) who check Vega Strike's main page every month or so, hoping to see something new. I know the project is still bubbling away in the background, but as far as anyone else can tell the project mostly died 3 years ago. The last official release (0.5.1 beta 1) was March 2011.

What I'm suggesting is a feature freeze, where any developers that are still left do the least amount of work possible just to get a release out the door (even if it's a buggy/incomplete release that only works on some OSs, that's still far better than nothing at this stage).

My hope is that this will renew interest in the game, and encourage more volunteers to help.

- Brendan
DarkVixen
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by DarkVixen »

I'm still checking in every now and then, I think this game needs a clean-up/bugfix and revival. It still has potential! :)
Deus Siddis
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by Deus Siddis »

Brendan wrote:but as far as anyone else can tell the project mostly died 3 years ago.
A fairly accurate assessment. I would say things have been quite dead for the past year.
What I'm suggesting is a feature freeze, where any developers that are still left do the least amount of work possible just to get a release out the door
That is precisely what is needed. Unfortunately, the only two people with the knowledge and talent to successfully put out a release for linux and windows have not even had time to log into the forum in 1 and 2 months, respectively. Without a great deal more free time then they currently have, a release won't be possible. And without one, the project may be circling the drain.

It is a race against time if ever we have seen one!
loki1950
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by loki1950 »

We have been at that state before :shock: Not the first time that I have been the one holding the fort though I don't have svn commit rights.I will hang on and hopefully kluass and pheonixstorm will manage to free some time for the project.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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Deus Siddis
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by Deus Siddis »

Yeah, I hope so too.

It seemed like the project was really coming around to focus on features that were both readily achievable and which affected game-play, so as to deliver a game rather than a once-promising tech demo experience.
Primordial
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by Primordial »

I still check back every month or so. I really like the Vegastrike project, but the release cycle is like glacial molasses. I think Pioneer is a good example of the traction you can get with regular releases. The updates come out every month or so, and they're not even giant chunks of content, they are often the general updates that we see in the SVN log - half of the people downloading it don't even know what they're reading. Most of the time I don't. But it does confirm for people that the project is alive and under development, and they're not going to have to wait three years for an update. If the project wants new developers then it could do worse than to give people a consistent incentive to contribute. I'm certain that Pioneer doesn't have a giant 'team', but I have watched it long enough to know that the number of contributors has risen, and I'm also fairly certain that that's because they are likely to see the fruits of their efforts.
charlieg
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by charlieg »

Active lurker here! Hope things come back to life. Klauss, phoenixstorm, the new guys such as ezee etc...

I think workflow has held VS up. It could do with moving to a collaboration platform that better encourages external contributions e.g. github.
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loki1950
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by loki1950 »

A move to Git would be a bit problematic with all of our data files being in binary formats not sure how efficient it would be.

Enjoy the Choice :)
my box::HP Envy i5-6400 @2Q70GHzx4 8 Gb ram/1 Tb(Win10 64)/3 Tb Mint 19.2/GTX745 4Gb acer S243HL K222HQL
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Deus Siddis
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by Deus Siddis »

loki1950 wrote:A move to Git would be a bit problematic with all of our data files being in binary formats not sure how efficient it would be.
You mean the textures?
Because the models could be converted back into XMESH, which is text based.
loki1950
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by loki1950 »

Yeah them and the animations/sound files for the comm as well as the music files but it can't be all that restrictive as 0AD has a github mirror of their svn repo and modders use it as well mods are just json, xml structures and textures and .dae/xml for the models and animations.

Enjoy the Choice :)
my box::HP Envy i5-6400 @2Q70GHzx4 8 Gb ram/1 Tb(Win10 64)/3 Tb Mint 19.2/GTX745 4Gb acer S243HL K222HQL
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gnome
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by gnome »

Glad to see people are still thinking about this project, Vega Strike is one of the few space sims I find a joy to jump into at any time, I would be pleased to see more in its development future.
gonzo
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by gonzo »

charlieg wrote:Active lurker here! Hope things come back to life. Klauss, phoenixstorm, the new guys such as ezee etc...

I think workflow has held VS up. It could do with moving to a collaboration platform that better encourages external contributions e.g. github.
+1 I'm looking into it.
loki1950 wrote:A move to Git would be a bit problematic with all of our data files being in binary formats not sure how efficient it would be.
In what way would binary file content affect us?
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Darkmage
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Re: Feature Freeze!

Post by Darkmage »

Please rip off FRED2 and the PCS2 Ship editor from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/alliance/ For a decade now Vegastrike has lacked a decent ship editor and a decent mission/campaign editor. Fix those two things and there are a lot of people who will come back and start adding art to the game.
If you're interested in helping with mission editor/engine development contact me at jcarthew@gmail.com or irc.freenode.net #vegastrike.
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