Topic: UPDATE #1

[FireSoul]

Don't listen to Ronin, he is luring you into a false sense of security so he may ..uh....do bad things?  Something anyways, the jerk.

But all that aside, this is for EAW then?  I was rather hoping any changes would be made for OP.  However this turns out, great to hear something is being done.

It'll have to be to EAW: it's what we have the sources to. I don't think we have OP sources.

[USS Mariner]

Don't listen to Ronin, he is luring you into a false sense of security so he may ..uh....do bad things?  Something anyways, the jerk.

But all that aside, this is for EAW then?  I was rather hoping any changes would be made for OP.  However this turns out, great to hear something is being done.

It'll have to be to EAW: it's what we have the sources to. I don't think we have OP sources.

Unless I'm mistaken, they share the same base code, and from what I'm reading in the announcement, it appears that EAW is pretty much going to receive OPs weapons and enhancements. The (hyperbolic) difference between the two is what, a few dozen lines of code? That sounds like a really minor issue compared to bringing the base code of the game into something that can run in a multi-core computing world, let  alone the probable water-torture necessary to fix things like the UI ratio, DirectX updating/integration, a whole new interface, etc.

Besides, this not only sounds like a much more reasonable goal than, say, building an entirely new SFC game from near-scratch (which is what the SFC4 announcement sounded like to me), but in order to even attempt a new SFC, just modernizing and retooling the code is not only the first, but vital for that to even get off the ground, even if it may get stuck in development hell for eternity.

I'm really glad I decided to drop by the site early, cause this year already sounds like it's gonna be a great one.

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

Don't listen to Ronin, he is luring you into a false sense of security so he may ..uh....do bad things?  Something anyways, the jerk.

But all that aside, this is for EAW then?  I was rather hoping any changes would be made for OP.  However this turns out, great to hear something is being done.

How is Ronin being a jerk? He's just posting a positve comment. Why are you calling him or anyone here a jerk?

[knightstorm]

Don't listen to Ronin, he is luring you into a false sense of security so he may ..uh....do bad things?  Something anyways, the jerk.

But all that aside, this is for EAW then?  I was rather hoping any changes would be made for OP.  However this turns out, great to hear something is being done.

How is Ronin being a jerk? He's just posting a positve comment. Why are you calling him or anyone here a jerk?

I think its supposed to be good natured ribbing.

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

Put in a smiley then. 

[knightstorm]

Well, this part of the post would seem to indicate that he's not being serious.

Don't listen to Ronin, he is luring you into a false sense of security so he may ..uh....do bad things?

[Bonk]

Right, that is how I took it. Ronin is a Romulan no? The SPQR that does not exist? Everone stay cool, we're off to a good start and want to keep the good vibe going. The more positive the input here the better our focus will be (though we'll be looking for quality critique on the children of this project in due time...) Though it's OK to make sure everyone is playing nice Postman, don't worry, all your hearts are in the right place.

[The Postman]

Right, that is how I took it. Ronin is a Romulan no? The SPQR that does not exist? Everone stay cool, we're off to a good start and want to keep the good vibe going. The more positive the input here the better our focus will be (though we'll be looking for quality critique on the children of this project in due time...) Though it's OK to make sure everyone is playing nice Postman, don't worry, all your hearts are in the right place.

Bonk, I think you need some rest or a vacation.  This is my 1st post in this thread. I think you have been working so hard at trying to make this work for all of us, that you are starting to see things. In any case, thanks to you and ALL of the DNET crew for putting up with all of us and I hope I can start to contribute on this as soon as I can.
Thanks

[Bonk]

Oops, meant to say Tobin. Yes, been thinking about the beta group members... and you all end in n ... Tobin, Postman, Ronin. Definitely gonna call it an early night tonight. 

[Klingon Fanatic]

I am very confused about this whole topic.

I no longer own SFC: EAW and only have SFC: OP.

Is this project going to end up being like Mektek and what happened to the Mechwarrior: Mercenaries game?

That community updated the Mercenaries game engine, added custom mechs/other vehicles, online support and re-released the updated game for free.

Am I on track or am I really missing something?

[Bonk]

Sort of on track.

We are updating EAW so the dynaverse will work on Vista/7. (to produce a patch to apply to an existing EAW 2.0.3.6 install)

If we had the code for OP we would do it for that. But we do not.

That is step one. (Don't have a set of EAW discs? Hold that thought... but please give me a bit... only now in the last month have I been able to start this in earnest)

Then... we can start updating it to be on par with OP (but on one map layer - I think we can all agree that sucked...).

Then we can start talking all that great (hate to use the phrase) SFC4 type talk... engine upgrades, directx, races, andros, thols etc etc... and we're not on someone's production schedule, so it can be done right...

And yes evenutally that will be released as a community product essentially for "free". (Still under proprietary license restrictions of the original product though - i.e. not open source.)

Space Navy Control, an open source clone from scratch remains a possibility, but now that I have the EAW code in hand it would be silly not to try and fix it up first.

It will not be the same as any other community result as we are unique in our licence restrictions, however, the Dynaverse will live on, I swear, by the blood of a thousand targs! 

Hopefully that might clarify things a bit for you?

[USS Mariner]

I really think that, when you get EAW working on Vista/Win7, something to really keep in mind is the possibility of enabling multicore support, as most newer machines now are at least dual core. That might help later on in development, given that I doubt you'll do something as drastic as reworking the code to x64.

[Bonk]

Smartheap smp is not cheap. We could build our own... but then it would be worth more than the product itself. Definitely something to chew on anyway... then EAW can rape ALL your cpus!!! 

(actually I'm not sure if we don't already have the old smartheap smp libs... and I think I flipped the multithreaded switch in my compiler for the test build to the beta group... but it will take much more than that... it still saturates only one cpu.)

Just don't say .net. It is never going to happen with SFC, for many reasons.

64 bit? SFC does not currently need to address more than 4GB of ram, so I cannot see the need, nor would I encourage an application development path that would require >4MB of RAM for the game.... not all of us can afford movie house render quality super gaming computers... and I'm pretty sure 32 bit precision is more than sufficient for all the calcs...

edit: regarding open source library replacements for things like smartheap, miles, gamespy, won... we are relatively restricted by licensing - if we used any GPL components they would have to be unmodified... or wait, if we did use gpl components and modify them we are only obliged to release the code for the open source component modifications, not the entire product right? I need to think that through (not for immediate implentation, but eventually, we will need to replace those old libraries as they will be holding us back - already are... restricted to vc6 compiler... etc. etc.) I'll need to have a good long chat with someone well versed in software licensing issues. Or at least run my interpretations past some legal folks at aome point before we release any majorly modified product. (thus for now, the nice & safe approach of just try to fix it as is if at all possible... then move on.)

I think I'm approaching all this pretty sensibly. (but I have never led such a project, so be patient with me, and if someone better qualified and equally dedicated comes along then I'd be glad to heave off responsibility for leadership of the project on them with my consultation, but for now, it is just me. And perhaps I am best qualified, I got the client built within hours of obtaining the source. Evil Dave is in on it and I am immensely pleased that he has not been able to resist diving in... where he said he'd be around only for consults... FireSoul also has a working build environment now. Our main scripter and shiplist guys are in. (whoot!) FireSoul intends to maintain some reference build environments (via VMs?) as we go. Though no obligations here... as I phrased elsewhere I want everyone to have fun with this and not feel like it is work, and to feel they can contribute where they want to and are able to and be part of it all... but build environments are a critical factor for us... which SDKs... etc. etc. My leadership style will be one of stewardship.

Also I might as well let it out that we DO NOT have the art assets for the game. (hint, hint... get ready modelers and texturers and UI guys...). Expect some solicitave emails/PMs - start thinking about your portfolios and if you might like to participate... (but not right now - hold off a bit - just start thinking about it.) marstone's work is as important as ever. Quicksilver tools are not included in what we have from what I can tell, just the libs and headers...  but we should be able to build .q3 editing tools with that much more easily now though.

So, in summary, it is not going to be overnight, and it is not immediately going to be what people want. But we have actually started now. I am confident that the people involved intitally have the expertise and experience required for a good start. Once we are solid and have a steady build process and tidied up repository, then we will begin looking to include more members on the coding team. (unless as mentioned, a super-lead materialises)

I'm so excited, but I have a huge list of things to do and I keep getting distracted by discussion (that's OK, we need to think all this through carefully).

I'm still laying the surrounding groundwork for the sucess of the project (all will be made clear in time) and have not dived into the code full on yet myself, it is killing me, but hopefully I'll be free do so very soon. I know exactly where I want to go in the code...

* Bonk scurries off back to work...

[Ronin]

For the sake of clarity, Payne was kidding. We're old friends. We flew against each other back on MPig in the SL days and finally flew together when Whoo talked us into joining SoV in the league that was started up and played here a few years ago.

Besides... he flies Klingon. Where he comes from the comment he made could be seen as roughly equivalent to "hiya sailor, lookin' for a good time?"

Not a big deal, either way. But I wanted to assure everyone here that I am 100% certain that his comment was meant as nothing more than evidence of our friendship and does not blight this thread and the hope it represents in any way. Also, I very much appreciate my SHG brother TobinDax stepping up with murder in his eye at the possibility of a verbal slight having been levied my way. <S>

[Bonk]

OK, that out of the way (which was pretty much exactly as I understood it, name confusion aside...)

I feel obliged to explain my progress, or lack of it.

I am currently held up writing an EAW CD key generator. It seems Taldren did not provide that (at least one entire directory of the source tree is missing). Khoromag got only what they needed for maintenance and no more, and what we have came from Khoromag.

I have not even touched any network or Dynaverse code yet. (I officially had the source in my hands as of Dec 27th 2010). Two weeks later I am still working on EAW distribution. No sense updating the code if most players no longer have their disks. Last night I managed to produce an EAW CD Key Validator, so my key generator should not be too far off, however I expect it to take some time from here to get a proper EAW CD Key generator produced. Trick is what was the seed? Where did Taldren start? I have no idea, key uniqueness is going to be an issue. That information is just not available.

Personally I still find it very hard to believe that someone, somewhere does not really have the complete project intact, art assets and all. How could an entire staff of a 10 year old company totally destroy ALL of their assets with complete and total efficiency? Makes no sense.. Where is Taldren's hardware? Has it been sold? Is it still in a bank's warehouse somewhere? Did they never own it and used a hosted code management solution? Leased servers? What was the deal? How can it ALL be completely gone? I just don't buy it. (Not that I think anyone is lying to us, just that the real information is being withheld for some unknown reason)

Anyway, (grumble, grumble), I'm stuck on making a CD Key generator for now. The Dynaverse code will have to wait.

But  - in the interests of staying positive... we are lucky we at least have this! Better than a poke in the eye! 

[Soreyes]

Soreyes comes lurking back from his adventurs over in the Freelancer universe. (the only kitty there making a ton of money, J'inn would be so proud)

From what I have read, things seem to be swimming along here. I still keep in practice playing the single player game.

 

[Klingon Fanatic]

I understand that a key code needs to be generated because SFC: EAW and OP are not being published and are becoming rarer and harder to find games every day.

Can't you just make a patch for SFC: OP that downgrades it to use the base EAW stuff? IIRC the EAW shiplist/fighter list will work in OP...

[FoaS_XC]

We don't have the OP source, just the EAW source (and it seems it is a bit stripped down).

[Payne]

Your defenders will not protect you forever, Romulan.

Your hull shall feel the knock of death from my Bird of Prey yet!  Mwahahahaha...ha....haha....hack...spit ...ok I'm too old for that.


And yes, Ronin and I have been brothers in arms for 10+ years now. 

[Victoria]

I may have only posted here a few times, but I've been lurking on this site for years following this project.

I'll wait 10 more years if I have to, because this game and it's community are worth sticking around for.

I only wish I could help in some way.