Will the NX Project be capable of importing Armada files?

posted on July 8th, 2014, 6:16 pm

It would be really cool to see Armada 1 and 2 remakes (Even ST Legacy) with entirely new Graphics and full modability.

Is this possible with the new NX engine, even the campaign missions and videos?

Will the FO team, who was working on the compatibility patches in the past, get involved in remaking the Armada games?
Dear FO team: It would be cool if you could spare a team to remake the Armada engine games.
I am really looking forward to each next version of FO. But STA 1+2 are classics, I and surely many of the fans here would like to see in a modern cloth.
Other modding teams are sadly not as commited as you are, that is why I ask you.

posted on July 8th, 2014, 7:38 pm

I doubt this will happen, the compatibility patches were purely to help Armada run on modern systems and to put back some existing code flops removed which broke mods that used certain special weapons, it's main aim was never to fully integrate the single player missions to work with flops modded engine.

also the team isn't big enough to spare a team to remake something that can be played in vmware these days or be made to work on modern systems already.

The whole point of them creating their own engine was to get away from the restrictive code of the Armada engine and the basic files it handled. The new engine will use a completely different set of files and would be a massive waste of time to make it compatible with the restrictions they were trying to get away from and not to mention pointless as they might as well of carried on working with the restrictive and dated armada engine.

However as this is being built from the ground up with the community in mind it will no doubt come with a great set of tools that would make it a simple task for any modder to create the whole of Armada 1 and 2 single player campaign for it if they so wished but this isn't something I can see the dev team doing.

posted on July 8th, 2014, 8:04 pm

I doubt this will happen, the compatibility patches were purely to help Armada run on modern systems and to put back some existing code flops removed which broke mods that used certain special weapons, it's main aim was never to fully integrate the single player missions to work with flops modded engine.

The whole point of them creating their own engine was to get away from the restrictive code of the Armada engine and the basic files it handled. The new engine will use a completely different set of files and would be a massive waste of time to make it compatible with the restrictions they were trying to get away from and not to mention pointless as they might as well of carried on working with the restrictive and dated armada engine.

However as this is being built from the ground up with the community in mind it will no doubt come with a great set of tools that would make it a simple task for any modder to create the whole of Armada 1 and 2 single player campaign for it if they so wished but this isn't something I can see the dev team doing.

Agreed.

You can only throw so far back before what you throw hits you in the back of the head. I can see a community mod that adapts whatever NX will be back into the original.And redman would be completely accurate were fully-customizable addable campaign missions a feature

posted on July 8th, 2014, 8:14 pm

They've said it will be backwards compatible with some things, like SOD files. In light of that, I find it probable that many of the old ODF lines, like buildtime, will return, simply because they're familiar and simple, but they may not be in ODF format. Other things are iffier. I'm not sure if you need a license for Bink Video, for instance. I also wouldn't be surprised if mission scripting was completely redone.

Whatever happens, things like the Classic Mod show that someone will probably port the old games to FO-NX.

posted on July 9th, 2014, 3:19 am

A lot of the team really enjoys/ed A1 - Doca would for sure appreciate an A1 like version in NX . Whether we do it or not is an open question for at least quite some time. Campaign mission videos and other direct content I don't know about - it's not legal to import those into another game, and we have run into brick walls on that before, so that will likely be a no for an official A1-NX modification. As an add on not created by us, shouldn't pose a direct problem, and we fully intend to have a nice toolset for the community to use to remake A1,A2, or whatever else they should choose. If you see that content in other gaming communities, it's done without permission - if Activision desired (or rather, cared), they could send CnD. Their position is that all game content belongs to them, because they wish to monetize it in the future.

Yes, NX uses a different (and much more powerful and user-friendly) file format for odf-type files etc, but the way commands will work and are named will be reminiscent of A1/A2 in their simplicity and nomenclature. A1/A2 are quite moddable, just also geared toward too much copy-pasta and not enough automation. We will be keeping the good of Armada in terms of simplicity and ease of access and aim to make as much of NX as compatible with Armada as possible

Yes, mission scripting, when we get around to it, will be user friendly. MMM is a great first attempt, but its restrictions are another result of Armada's problems

posted on July 9th, 2014, 10:30 am

copy-pasta

These are really good news. I am looking forward to the release of FO in this engine to take a closer look at the code and file system. Maybe I will try to mod a little on my own.

About copy-pasta: Sounds delicious, is this some kind of replicated noodles?