Armada 2 Engine

posted on November 8th, 2004, 2:41 am

I noticed that a lot of times, in Feature Requests, that many good suggestions were rejected becasue the Armada 2 Engine was not capable of it. I'm just curious that how "far" can the Armada 2 Engine could go to, is FO the best the Armada 2 Engine could do or is it capable of more?

Might be a stupid question but Im just curious..

posted on November 8th, 2004, 5:04 am

Alert to all Tal Shiar reading this thread. You are ordered to acquire the source code for Armada 2 so that the Fleet Ops team may create awesome features with reckless abandon!

[DOCa Cola]

posted on November 8th, 2004, 8:38 am

Last edited by DOCa Cola on November 8th, 2004, 8:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

that's a good question but i cannot tell about every limit there is. for special abilities i can say, that basicly only variations of existing ones are possible, so we tweaked them and played there setting after a lot of thinking work how to made something new out of the existing. the graphics is a different matter because there are only limited effects on how to display graphics to the user. also it is not possible easily to make a user interface - yet impossible. the armada developers made us work in guidelines, we cannot influence some of the processes like much how the ai works in basic, we cannot give the ai new actions like playing only in defence for example (so we try to find a good balance).
i know, there are many good ideas that were posted here and we are reading them all, we would like to bring you such ideas but the only thing we can do is to think a way round to get near ideas that may not be releasable. for version 3 we have gone even far with getting out most of these limitations. we also advance these possiblities we have with the help of getting external programs jobs done armada doesn't even during game. thats also the reason there is the fleetops.exe that launches the armada main program and modifies it in runtime and calls operations after loadup or begin a game. I haven't seen this method in other armada mods yet but in some other game mods that exist. so i am proud that fleet operations is the only armada mod that uses these advanced possibilites and not only plays within limitations gave us by the programmers but trying to reach your ideas getting a mod that star trek fans want.

Thread moved to Fleet Operations General

DOCa Cola

posted on November 8th, 2004, 11:05 am

great, well to bad about the limitations,

aren't there people who can alter the program code and take away some/most limitations?

posted on November 8th, 2004, 11:18 am

aren't there people who can alter the program code and take away some/most limitations?

Sorry, it's not allowed to alther the code/exe permanent, thier for the only way to change something is 'memory hacking', who doca already explained

posted on November 8th, 2004, 11:43 am

ahh right copyright and stuff!

ok my bad

perhaps u dudes can write an all new engine haha

[Detektor]

posted on November 8th, 2004, 12:18 pm

Last edited by Detektor on November 8th, 2004, 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nope, we only need the source code from mad dog and the source code form activion and der star trek licence form paramount

posted on November 8th, 2004, 12:18 pm

hehe, yep
DOCaCola already explained the situation. The main gameplay limitations come with the structure of the ODFs (the files which define all ships, stations, weapons and such) and the type of the current ODF. We were able to modify some ODF structures and type a bit to get new effects and gameplay possibilities working which are not possible in any other mod released so far. V3 uses everything we can do so you could say v3 will be the upper limit at the moment but may be we will find new ways and tricks in the future so i think you can expect some candy from v4 and his successors, too ^_^

[ewm90]

posted on November 8th, 2004, 1:53 pm

Last edited by ewm90 on November 8th, 2004, 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

so what i so for giveing out alot of my ideas the days. is i think about allredy exsiting fuchons and think about haw to make tham beter.
just dont get to big with tham.

for the staff:
good work on the mod dont let pepal tell you haw long to take on it. love you work fleetops developers giys.

posted on November 8th, 2004, 7:44 pm

If I may ask, who programmed this type of runtime management program (fleetops.exe)? I am developing something similar for my mod, but it hasn't been perfected yet. In Fleetops Version 2 - there is a fleetops exe that launches the game. In the game, what features were added by the runtime enhancements? There was a lot of stuff in the mod that I never saw in any other mod - maybe it was the worker bees flying around the stations or the fog in asteroid belts? I tell ya, Fleet Ops 2 was awesome, but from what I can see, Fleet Ops 3 is going to be the Armada II mod of all-time! The developers of the mod must think like I do - because they added the Dominion in the upcoming version - my favorite underused race in the original games. That's why I'm so surprised Armada II didn't include the Dominion in the first place - but, I guess it gave me a chance to try adding a race myself. I've been working on my Armada II mod for 2.5 years - it's advanced overwhelmingly far since its origins. The background is the newest thing I've added - there are several new ones for maps. Personally, the coolest map type I've seen is the high-energy map that Fleet Ops 3 is going to have. Your screenshot of the Enterprise-E in this map was awesome - I saw it posted on a2files a while back and it was one of the best screenshots on the picture of the day that I've seen for a while.

I agree with ewm90 - take as much time on the mod as you need - the best things actually take longer. And it will be well worth the wait to see this mod. You must have a heck of a team developing the mod - my congratulations to them all! I may need to get a team together of my own so that my mod may see the light of day. I don't think I will be able to compete with Fleet Ops, but I may have some tricks up my sleeve to get around a few limitations!

posted on November 8th, 2004, 8:30 pm

Just wanted to add some rare words of praise...
I thought I knew the limitations of the Armada2 engine before I found FleetOps. The makers of this mod have truly pushed those limits pretty far.
I still haven't found out everything you did (esp. in the not-yet-released version) and how you did it, but whatever you did, you did it right.

posted on November 8th, 2004, 8:35 pm

Hehe, thx Elrond (btw, are you the same Elrond active on afc?).
DOCa Cola programmed the launcher and the other external programs like the map manager.
Yep you are right. A few of the special effects and animations are done with the help of our old friend, the fleetops.exe, as well as some gameplay features. Some other new parts are the voice-over-network thing of course and the interfaces (with race-dependent cursors! ). In v3 the new features will increase cause we have the avatars and a new 'trigger system' for the odfs which is used for several new special weapons and effects in v3 and will be advanced for more complex gameplay systems in v4 and the following fleetops releases
We can't see what the future brings for Fleet Operations, but at the moment we have so many new ideas in mind that we are quite sure there will be a v4 or even v5
well i'm back on the v3 development to bring it to you as soon as possible! even if the wait was quite long

posted on November 8th, 2004, 9:52 pm

What can I say, I am just glad that i spotted FleetOps before one year and keep playing it still. The avatar system for V3 will definitely pay some attention of armada community.

posted on November 8th, 2004, 11:50 pm

I agree that you guys have truely pushed the limits of this game, and I am glad of it, How you made the avatars I could only hope that if there is a god he would point out to me the magic words you guys typed in, past that they are mystafieng, anyways, I would also like to say that Fleet OPs is the ONLY mod in the 3-4 or something in that are years I have been following the Armada mods, ect. that there is more than just flashy new ships, a new storyline or some other loft idea that just dwelves with the basics, You guys and take this to heart please, Are by far the Best mod Team I have ever seen what you have done is so far beyond what even I think Activision, Mad Dog, ect. ever had in mind for this Jewl of a game. So You have my Praise.

Fullphaser

posted on November 9th, 2004, 2:49 am

Everything fullphaser said. This is an even larger leap than Opposing Force was over Half-Life, and that was a professional job. My heartiest congratulations also. Might as well get warmed up before I fall all over myself praising the FO team when version 3 is released ...