Star Trek Armada and Fleet Operations futute

posted on March 29th, 2009, 11:36 am

Why do they need a new engine?

As Optec has already said, they have already extended the game, added so many new features that were previously thought impossible. And still they are learning new things for future changes.

Because of this, we are a LONG way off from needing a new game engine.

posted on March 29th, 2009, 7:45 pm

okay, but it seems like everyone agree, we will need a new one in the future, so i think itd be best to start now, little by little, so that when we finally do need one, there wont be as much to do

posted on March 29th, 2009, 8:22 pm

okay, but it seems like everyone agree, we will need a new one in the future, so i think itd be best to start now, little by little, so that when we finally do need one, there wont be as much to do

I don't see everyone agreeing with that - I see Optec saying "the Armada Engine is quite capable and does not need to hide compared with modern games.", and that the FleetOps team discussed trying another engine but decided not to.

posted on March 29th, 2009, 8:24 pm

we will try to get more eyecandy in the next patches, but the next patch will focus on a few new features and balancing. Perhaps 3.07

posted on March 29th, 2009, 8:33 pm

I have a couple questions: If FO did migrate to a new engine, wouldn't the team be able to keep the models they designed, etc., which would cut down a lot on new development?

I am only kind of in favor of moving to a new engine, the problem is there just aren't many good options and it would take a long time to get a result.

HOWEVER, I think that FO really has a strong option of selling their work to whoever owns the star trek license now (Bethesda?) and letting them repackage & market the game as new.  There are some really good reasons to do this. First of all, not everyone can get access to Armada 2 in order to install the game.  Simply reselling the game with FO would solve that problem.  Also, Fleet Ops is clearly superior to Armada 2 and is in itself almost a new game.  I think it warrants sale as a separate game.  Now, does that mean they need to do all this extra work that the team is not capable of?  No, thats for the publisher to do.

Even if the team doesn't make very much money off of it, I think optioning the mod to the publisher is something that is simple and ultimately very rewarding.  And it will really expand the mod to an inconceivably larger market.

posted on March 29th, 2009, 8:35 pm

yes, and we will have a new engine and newer things to mod

but also to optecs post, yes i like new features, im really looking forward to the fed redo, and i hope it will shock me, i really would like to see a re work of them

posted on March 29th, 2009, 8:54 pm

Another thing we seem to be forgetting is that this is a Star Trek game, it would not be possible to sell without licensing, which would effectively give Paramount/CS (Psycho might be right about Bethesda, or maybe Mad Doc), all rights to the game, if they were interested in it. And if not, they just wouldn't them the guys here sell it.

I don't see what advantage they can gain right now from making a whole new engine. 3d Engines take years to build with lots of paid professional employees. I'm not saying the FO team aren't capable, but obviously they can't expect to work on FO in their spare time and equal the output of a large company.

I think they should stay with A2 as long as they can until they really is nothing more that can be added to the game, which I hope will be a very long time to come.

posted on March 30th, 2009, 5:20 pm

Is there any chance if we asked activision nicely that they would give us the A2 source code? i dont suppose you would understand this ray but the reason that FO is so good is because Optec and DOCa Cola have been modding it for so long if they switched to a new engine FO might just become an average mod. However on the other shoe it would be nice to see the FO stuff in sins of a solar empire, but whatever the team decides i will agree with them.

posted on March 30th, 2009, 6:26 pm

Many people have tried asking for the source code before. Activision said no. Mad Doc said no. Paramount said no.

And ray, not everyone agrees that a new engine is needed. I don't agree, for a start. Fleet Ops was designed for the Armada engine, and the team are more than able to make any changes needed, to increase it's abilities again and again. Why should they move to a different engine (with it's own limitations), when they have managed to counter every limitation in THIS engine?

"but whatever the team decides i will agree with them"
You don't need to use future tense there. The team HAS decided. Read Optec's replies.

posted on March 30th, 2009, 7:01 pm

seems like u r some kind of badass hacker or pro software dev ray. here's a thing u can do:

find a nice engine, see how much is needed to mod it & move fleetops to it, show us ur results with source code if possible. that would be really helpful.

yes armada is 8 years old and starcraft is 11 years old, so what? there r still people playing c&c u know. plus FO looks so much better then sc

posted on March 31st, 2009, 2:46 am

"but whatever the team decides i will agree with them"
You don't need to use future tense there. The team HAS decided. Read Optec's replies.

I guess i ment in a more general term, besides they could change their mind. some really sweet rts engine could come out thats super easy to mod and they might like it better.

posted on March 31st, 2009, 4:05 am

Ah true, but I'd still suggest sticking with A2. If this "wonder-engine" is so easy to mod, everyone would be doing it. Think how much pressure there'd be on Optec and DOCa to keep ahead of the rest of us...

For this reason, I'm against the release of any such game, hehehe.

posted on March 31st, 2009, 4:10 am

maybe but think how much the team would grow and how much faster "we" could expand the game.

posted on March 31st, 2009, 4:24 am

I still think the game can be repackaged and sold separately by the current owners of the license.  There are a lot of benefits to this.

posted on March 31st, 2009, 4:37 am

Many people have tried asking for the source code before. Activision said no. Mad Doc said no. Paramount said no.

Sadly true, but i wonder if anyone tried it recently?