Hi Ben, While I think these are all really great ideas, you need to be practical. I am only one person programming these games and can not throw every possible feature into a game just because it is a really good idea.
For example, below you mentioned being able to perform mission scripting, create custom maps, custom menus, custom weapons, the ability to modify the ship, etc. All of that sounds good, but it is extremely time consuming and quite a lot of work for one person to program. Since my engine currently has none of these features I'd have to pretty much add all of them from scratch. I'm not sure I'm willing to [put all that time and effort into something that would essentially be a free game. Its just not worth it to me personally. Plus the one thing about too much custom functionality is its almost impossible to balance the game. If I balanced the game for a Soverign-Class ship like the Enterprise E you would end up being at a serious disadvantage if you ended up playing the game as a lightly armed explorer like the Intrepid-Class. Likewise if I balanced the game for a Intrepid-Class then a Sovereign-Class battle cruiser would make the game too easy. Its things like this that can be pure hell to program. When it comes to mission scripting it certainly could be done using Angelscript, VBScript, or some other scripting language, but at the same time it would require a massive rewrite of my game engine to do it. Instead of loading and playing *.wav files I'd probably have to use SAPI given the fact that the more missions, enemies, and custom objects end users would bring into the game the more flexible the speech would have to be. Something like AT&T Crystal would sound fine, but something like Microsoft Sam would be horrible. From my point of view the game would sound better with prerecorded speech, but if you want the ability to create custom missions etc then we'd have to use something like SAPI to speak custom content. Its a case of one or the other. Cheers! On 1/15/12, Michael Gauler <[email protected]> wrote: > I forgot something, something not talked about in canon Star Trek (TV shows > and movies) and that is quantum slipstream, shown only in the season four > finale of Voyager and another episode in the fifth season. > That would technically still be wormhole like in Armada and Armada II, > allthough user created mods exist, you cannot realice them, because all > wormhole objects in the games are jump points, where you are at point a, > select your point b and jump to it. And this kind of tech is allways a > special weapon, meaning that it is not standard. > > And if we are talking about a ship simulator, then we should do something > like Bridge commander, but then it should be possible to allow the users to > create their own ship modifications, at least for a free battle mode. You > still could create campaign missions and expand your game after initial > release with new missions and put something in like the quickbattle of > Bridge Commander. > Or you could give users access to more aspects of your game. > Remember Star Trek Eliteforce and Elite Force II? > Both were based on Quake 3, and besides mission scripting the user could > create their own maps and could also alter some more things like game menus > and weapons if you had the source code to several compiled files you were > allowed to recompile, since you did not alter the main EXE files. > The Armada titles allowed you to create multiplayer and singleplayer maps, > but no missions (scripted missions), and I am not sure if Legacy allows it > either. > The only thing I know is that most Legacy fans are encouraged to download an > over 1 GB big universal Legacy modification called Legacy Ultimate Universe > to add more game modes, more ships, improoved models/textures, better music > and sounds, before gameply becomes worthwhile, according to fans... > In either case, if we go for a ship sim, we should have it as open as > possible, even if it is not open in mission mode, but I'd like the idea of > creating my own missions... > If we were going for strathegy, then I'd say not to hold back when it comes > to non scripted maps where it's free for all as you like. > Even if Dauntless was not a federation ship, I'd like to use her, or to be > able to command the ship of the borg queen for once in an accessible game... > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > [email protected]. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to [email protected]. > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. 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