Native FleetOps for libsdl in Linux available ?

posted on October 1st, 2009, 6:55 pm

If there is a unofficial Armada 1.2 Patch available, the source codes must also be public available ...

Anyone considered porting it from that directx shit to libsdl for linux?

... to get 64 bit performance benefits at least would not be the only advantage.

PS: No, I dont use wine because i have a pure 64 bit gentoo system and 32 bit binaries will not work here ...

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 7:33 am

unfortunately the source code is not available (i wish it was ). all modifications the Patch Project and especially Fleet Operations did to Armada 2 were implemented through 'hacks'.

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 8:42 am

do you have asked for a source code release? because i would myself dedicate to the porting team ...

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 10:15 am

yes, so far no result has been reached. i have been in contact with some of the developers long ago, but today it's hard for me to get in touch with them. chessmess is still or recently was in talk with some of the developers of st:legacy. (st:legacy uses more or less a totally upgraded armada 2 engine - both games were made by mad doc software). armada 1's source was being developed by activision, armada 2 has been developed by mad doc software. activision ditched their star trek license some time after as they were arguing with paramount that they didn't support the star trek franchise enough. the guys from mad doc software who have the source were bought by rockstar games. there is only a slim chance that the source will ever be released to the public.

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 1:13 pm

Hmmmmm...... The way I see it....... make an engine is the best way to evolve this game... Though I gotta say... if we were to make a Armada/Legacy Hybrid. That would be cool. You know... there'd be a tactical map that act similar to the A2 thing where it shows icons of the various ships. Clicking on a icon of your fleet will make you switch to it. Plus I liked how you can twist and turn as much as you like. Though does it have to be such a RAM hog? I can barely run it on my Vista because of its Ram hog. Plus when ever I can... it has horrible lag.

[n1ghtmare]

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 2:00 pm

Last edited by n1ghtmare on October 2nd, 2009, 2:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

maybe it is time to write a completly new core for fleet ops in plattform independent style. maybe after 3.0.8 which should be officially namechanged to 3.1.0 because of the bunch of changes in almost every aspect of the game.

A personal request : please raise the max player limit to 32 players for real massive battles

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 2:20 pm

A personal request : please raise the max player limit to 32 players for real massive battles

I'd love to have more players! But we'll have to make it not a band width hogger...

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 2:40 pm

do U ppl even consider how much time it takes to develop such a thing. the dev team do it in their free time, it's not their full time job.
next thing is: why bother? i can understand: "i've found linux yesterday and open source, free software, gpl, stallman, stallman, stallman" but do U really want to wait 2 years just to run the same FO on linux. i would prefer if the dev team fix some bugs, add balance and content to FO over that time. afaik they already said that armada engine was fine and quite capable.
8 players = LAG
32 players = unplayable

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 2:45 pm

more than 8 players: Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Is 8 the limit?

i never have written an engine from scratch and honestly i don't plan to. it is just an unbelievable amount of work, even with a team of people.
it's not just about the graphic engine of course but also ai, network, weapon and damage logic, a modding interface and so on. it's work you can invest years into. also you have to carefully plan how you code, it will be really hard to integrate a working multiplayer if you don't plan your code to later integrate one. syncing a strategy game over multiplayer can be really a pain in the ass. you need a lot of experience if you really want to program a game from scratch, which nobody of us has - i'll leave that to others. we'll stick to the current armada engine. despite it's source is not available it's not that bad - we like working with it.

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 3:55 pm

I should probably stop bringing up the subject of additional players...

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 4:01 pm

well if i heard right, the netcode(how the information of the game gets to the payers) is REALLY ineffective, because everybody sends his game-data to everyone. an example:

you play 1 vs 1. you send your 1 kB of data to your opponent and receive 1 kb of data from him

2vs2: you send 3 X 1 kb= 3kb and receive 3kB , too
and at last 4vs 4: you send and receive 7 KB, so 14 kb in total that is 7 times more than in 2 vs2. now imagine 16 vs 16....

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 4:56 pm

Well, here is how the netcode should work... basically the data is sent to the host comp. The host makes all the calculations, then the results of all calculations is sent to the others, and then it is applied. Naturally the host would have the downside of his RAM getting clogged full of calculations... but it'd probably work better than the current net code.

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 5:30 pm

well, that has a downside, too: you need a good comp in every game...
now the processing power gets diverted between all comps equally...
aaanndd: the host would have the same networking stle as everyone has now, so he would also need a good connection, just as he needs now.

all in all: i would say a host/client netcode style would be better, too^^

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 5:30 pm

more than 8 players: Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Is 8 the limit?

i never have written an engine from scratch and honestly i don't plan to. it is just an unbelievable amount of work, even with a team of people.
it's not just about the graphic engine of course but also ai, network, weapon and damage logic, a modding interface and so on. it's work you can invest years into. also you have to carefully plan how you code, it will be really hard to integrate a working multiplayer if you don't plan your code to later integrate one. syncing a strategy game over multiplayer can be really a pain in the ass. you need a lot of experience if you really want to program a game from scratch, which nobody of us has - i'll leave that to others. we'll stick to the current armada engine. despite it's source is not available it's not that bad - we like working with it.

we should bring this up onto the FAQ section

posted on October 2nd, 2009, 5:34 pm

I'll put it on the homepage of the guide--maybe that'll help get the point across a bit better to those who read it at least