Topic: Babylon 5 Starship Commander and Severed Dreams

[Cyberkada]

Shameless plug

coming... real... soon... now...

[Lepton]

Looks interesting.  Is this a 2D movement system?  Looks as if SFC was your point of departure which is OK with me, certainly.  Is this something you will be selling?

[Cyberkada]

B5: SC:
SFC was the definite influence/ point of departure, notice the SSD boxes on the MFD.  Higher poly models - 4000 to 20000 polys.  Moving gun turrents and rotating sections (the OCD and B5 Stations).  No shields - except for some Minbari.  Kinda like SFC Sublight Battles.  Reverse and 3D movement.  1 to 6 PvE battles. Based on the B5Wars ruleset

I have some models available in SFC mod format, but might break the Taldren engine due to poly count

B5:SD is still in the very early stages.  Mainly a canon fighter sim. Super high poly counts.

Both Free, unless MongoosePublishing (current Babylon 5 licensee) is interested...

[KBF-Crim]

Awesome cyber...

I must say...this is bout the only thing that might ever draw me away from SFC...

Hope you find the help for it you are seeking...

[EmeraldEdge]

So, what's Severed Dreams?  I think I only saw some model pics, which were cool, but I didn't really get a grasp of what the game was about.  I never really had a chance to get into B5, work and life was just too hectic at the time, but the few episodes I saw I enjoyed.  I hope these turn out well, because they look like a lot of fun.

Ah, looks like I had to adjust the date that posts were shown for and now I see what's goin' down.  Lookin' good.

[CaptJosh]

Severed Dreams is a Babylon 5 episode from Season 3. In it, Babylon 5 is finally forced to declare independence from the Earth Alliance, due to President Clark's unconstitutional order to bomb civilian targets on Mars.

EDIT: It's also the location of possibly my favorite quote from the whole series.

To set this up, Babylon 5 and two renegade Earthforce ships have just fended off an attack by two Earthforce Omega Destroyers and two smaller ships, plus several wings of fighters, and now a new "loyal" battlegroup has just come in. B5 and her commander, Captain John Sheridan, are at a severe disadvantage at this point because one of the renegade ships that was fighting with them has been destroyed. They think they're going to have to surrender when they detect 4 jump points forming right on top of the station and 4 Minbari ships jump out of hyperspace, 3 Sharlin class heavy cruisers and a Whitestar gunboat...

(Note: I'm using some screenplay terms to give an idea of the rythm of the speech. Something in parnthesis is not spoken. It's a direction to an actor)


DELENN: This is Ambassador Delenn, of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw! (beat) or be destroyed.

EA CAPTAIN: Negative! We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship.

DELENN: Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. (beat) He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!

[Lepton]

I am really curious as to how difficult what you are doing here actually is.  I think it is truely amazing that you are coding this up just for the heck of it.  I'd love to do something similar for SFB that would not even need to be real time.  More like emulating playing a miniatures game of SFB but with 3d models for visual interest as well as weapon and shield effects.  ADB's SFBOnline service is truely pathetic.  Just on overblown IRC chat client with java functionality laid over it.

[Cyberkada]

To get something out quickly, we have switched development to the orge/ vegastrike engine.  Open-source is the way to go.

[Lepton]

Any word on where this project stands??

[EmeraldEdge]

Well, I don't know how Starship Commander is going (haven't checked the site in a while, as there didn't appear to be much going down) but I don't think he's attached to Severed Dreams anymore.  They have had several lead programmers there, and I know they got a new one, but I'm not sure where it's progress stands.  Seems to be going through spurts of activity and design changes.

[Ravok]

 You have tweaked my intrest.
 I wonder why they never made any B5 games.

[EmeraldEdge]

There was at least one in development, but it got cancelled.

[Dash Jones]

You have tweaked my intrest.
 I wonder why they never made any B5 games.

Because B5 stunk rotten eggs...



Actually I don't know.  I never really was interested in it, and never watched it really.  Tried one or two episodes, but was bored out of my mind when I did (a long time ago when I was younger).  Didn't know any of my friends who watched it either.  Perhaps the audience wasn't all that big, and hence not really as profitable to make games?

Or perhaps it's just the groups I hung out with and the audience is there...just no one has really gotten involved with a project with it that were also fans?

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

To get B5, you really have to watch it from the beginning. Unfortunately, it's not one of those shows that you can just pick up in the middle of the run and go with. I remember watching a few episodes when I was younger, but I didn't really get it until I started watching it on Sci-Fi Channel when they started running it from the beginning.

[EmeraldEdge]

I agree with that.  I couldn't get into it when I saw it in pieces, but when I caught it all in order, it was pretty good.  Now, the first season... well, they had to start somewhere, I guess.  There are some kind of lame throw away episodes that don't have much to do with the storyline, but the next few seasons are pretty good (although I haven't seen season 5)