Again... unfortunately...

I know that this topic has come up several times. However, I don't seem to recall anybody mentioning Exobattle, a freeware networkable game by Matt Burch—at least, not recently. Maybe that could be modded into something EV-ish. According to a Google search, this topic has been talked about before... years ago—here and here. Somebody build a dev team... and PLEASE make it compatible with my aging 6500 ;-). EVN and Exobattle are. I hope I don't have to write that myself...
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This post has been edited by The Apple Cřre : 06 February 2005 - 12:22 AM

Hmm...Exobattle is n longer up, it seems. If you have it, could you send it to mac (dot) gamer (at) gmail (dot) com? Thanks.

I believe Exobattle was mentioned once. I don't remember the topic - it was quite a long time ago. EV3D has been mentioned more than just twice before though. Maybe not as much as multiplayer EV but still enough for there to be a topic pinned on the Nova board saying "Please do not post a topic in this forum about this subject".

If you want it then you make it. I'm not going out of my way to make it just because you are too lazy to learn how to do it.

I think that an EV4 engine would be a better idea. There are quite a few things I'd like to see, such as a scripting language and more mission resource availiability.

rmx256, on Feb 6 2005, 11:35 AM, said:

I think that an EV4 engine would be a better idea. There are quite a few things I'd like to see, such as a scripting language and more mission resource availiability.
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Jules, on Feb 6 2005, 07:02 AM, said:

If you want it then you make it. I'm not going out of my way to make it just because you are too lazy to learn how to do it.
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Hmm...Exobattle is n longer up, it seems. If you have it, could you send it to mac (dot) gamer (at) gmail (dot) com? Thanks.

You got it... if I can find it again. Beware... this is the GAME, not the source. BTW, I suggest putting that address up as a JPEG in a hard-to-read font (spam prevention/trawler bots and similar).

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I believe Exobattle was mentioned once. I don't remember the topic - it was quite a long time ago. EV3D has been mentioned more than just twice before though. Maybe not as much as multiplayer EV but still enough for there to be a topic pinned on the Nova board saying "Please do not post a topic in this forum about this subject".

Exobattle was mentioned. I provided links to two of the topics. I know EV 3D has been mentioned a lot... but I provided links to two of the strings where EV AND Exobattle were mentioned. The forum where "Do Not Post About This In This Forum" was the EVN forum, which is where development talk shouldn't happen. If this gets closed, it's going to come down to PM-ing and similar.

I don't have Exobattle's source... or CodeWarrior for that matter. If I build this with what I have, it will come out as a Debian package for the PowerPC architecture. That doesn't mean I will cut out the boarding of ships (FUN! and HARD), the landing on planets (hard again), Manticore ion cannon glows (I hope), tracking turrets on bots (definitey) and similar. I'm not sure Unrelenting would be that much fun to fly any more, though. If I build it, it will be as similar to EV as I can get it, and (mainly) multiplayer. I'd ask for a dev team, but technical difficulties have made network communications next to impossible (need a card Debian likes). If somebody has Exobattle's source sitting around on their hard drive, it would be helpful. Very helpful.

Even with that, I'd say there's a 90% chance that this is vaporware. Keep your fingers crossed...

EDIT: Ignore what I said about not having the source. I found it in a place that I really should have looked before: in the ExoBattle game folder. Now it's only a matter of time before I pick it apart bit by bit and have a similar 3D game ready to fly. As for making it EV-like and putting textures to 3DMFs, that will be a very long time. GŽŽ.

This post has been edited by The Apple Cřre : 19 February 2005 - 11:03 PM

EV4 - that would be cool... I also think it would sell a lot of copies. Funny, I don't think EV:N has lived up to it's full potential yet, though.

Shrout1, on Feb 7 2005, 04:31 PM, said:

Funny, I don't think EV:N has lived up to it's full potential yet, though.
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People are still buying it frequently, so I think it hasn't, plus we're still exloiting the engine- thanks to Edwards, we can now make tracking (visibly turning) turrets!

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EV4 - that would be cool... I also think it would sell a lot of copies. Funny, I don't think EV:N has lived up to it's full potential yet, though.

Didn't you read the fine print? "dpkg -i ev4-ppc-1.xx-xx-xx". Oh, well, just going to be hard to get beta testers... maybe ;-). EVO was still in the works while people were tweaking EV to its limits, and similarly with EVN.

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People are still buying it frequently, so I think it hasn't, plus we're still exloiting the engine- thanks to Edwards, we can now make tracking (visibly turning) turrets!

Funny. That's possible even with EV (only primaries, though... but still!). EVN could probably show your raven turrets moving, if you tried. Still, you can't shoot the turrets off your opponent's ship (When will LucasArts release TIE Fighter's source?).

More fine print... if EV4 is 3D, we developers will have to declare the location of every gun in the game. This isn't the Turret Y Offset value-this is X-Y-Z-coordinates and orientation. If EV4 is 3D, it's not going to be the developer's cakewalk EVN is... and EVN is bad enough that TCs take better than three years with full-sized development teams. No, I'd have to say that this will have to be a 3D, multiplayer version of EVN. If I don't make vaporware, I'm going to have to talk to the Atmosians and take them on the relative developer's cakewalk of simply designing brand new ships and developing storylines. Besides, this thing is going to take a lot of my time and sanity. I'm still working out the trig functions related to 3D ship control (ExoSource please! SOMEBODY!)

(It took me a while to get the guts up to post this)
The Apple Cřre: Are you serious?

I would appeal to you, if so, to leave it 2d. Even when EVO was released it wasn't state of the art as far as what was graphically possible. It appealed to us because we were the people meant to like it- it didn't try to get everyone (I'm paraphrasing Joel Hodgeson from MST3K). Even as far as the early development of Nova and the EV3 engine it was 68030 or 68040 compatible- for those new on the scene, they were the original, pre-PowerPC Macintosh computers that had 25 megahertz fast- and it still does not require any kind of graphics card at all. I think, but I'm not sure, that it ended up being the first PowerPC only Ambrosia game.
I play, and develop, for EV partially because it is a game that does not have these outlandish system requirements (it will even run in 8-bit color on a 640*480 screen!) that newer games do. Part of what makes EV EV in general to me is the fact that by these 'constrictions' placed upon it by it's relatively low-tech engine cause the little things in the game to be more important- like the story. Like landing descriptions and a very well-thought-out plot. Personally Nova will be the last EV that I have anything to do with if the next one requires a 128 meg graphics card with a dedicated processor faster than the processor on my computer, or three disks of stuff for the install, not to mention the four bonus soundtrack cds, etc etc. It's not about the 'graphics' and never has been- they're just a perk of Nova's to those of us who remember playing EVC.

I guess my bottom line is that an EV3d won't be an EV to me. It'll be homeworld or something like it (which I have never played so I guess I can't judge). A 2D EV4 engine, in my opinion, could implement lots of improvement over the current one without sacrificing either gameplay or ease of programming (I made a to-do list for Kemet and Tycho said "I have no idea what half of these are; EVO was so much simpler... "- think of EV3D!). If we think making a TC takes a long time now...

How many developers and potential developers would being 3D price out of the market, BTW?

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(It took me a while to get the guts up to post this)
The Apple Cřre: Are you serious?

I would appeal to you, if so, to leave it 2d. Even when EVO was released it wasn't state of the art as far as what was graphically possible. It appealed to us because we were the people meant to like it- it didn't try to get everyone (I'm paraphrasing Joel Hodgeson from MST3K). Even as far as the early development of Nova and the EV3 engine it was 68030 or 68040 compatible- for those new on the scene, they were the original, pre-PowerPC Macintosh computers that had 25 megahertz fast- and it still does not require any kind of graphics card at all. I think, but I'm not sure, that it ended up being the first PowerPC only Ambrosia game.
I play, and develop, for EV partially because it is a game that does not have these outlandish system requirements (it will even run in 8-bit color on a 640*480 screen!) that newer games do. Part of what makes EV EV in general to me is the fact that by these 'constrictions' placed upon it by it's relatively low-tech engine cause the little things in the game to be more important- like the story. Like landing descriptions and a very well-thought-out plot. Personally Nova will be the last EV that I have anything to do with if the next one requires a 128 meg graphics card with a dedicated processor faster than the processor on my computer, or three disks of stuff for the install, not to mention the four bonus soundtrack cds, etc etc. It's not about the 'graphics' and never has been- they're just a perk of Nova's to those of us who remember playing EVC.

I guess my bottom line is that an EV3d won't be an EV to me. It'll be homeworld or something like it (which I have never played so I guess I can't judge). A 2D EV4 engine, in my opinion, could implement lots of improvement over the current one without sacrificing either gameplay or ease of programming (I made a to-do list for Kemet and Tycho said "I have no idea what half of these are; EVO was so much simpler... "- think of EV3D!). If we think making a TC takes a long time now...

How many developers and potential developers would being 3D price out of the market, BTW?

I don't know. In any case, I'd at least try to build a dev app for it. Actually, my system right now is a 6500/250 and it won't handle a 3D-accelerated game beyond 65536-color 640x480 (and even then it doesn't particularly like Nanosaur). No, there will not be the outlandish hardware requirements of a dual 2.5 gigahertz G5 with ATI's best. Besides, the low number of polygons will make the programming go faster. No, a 128 meg graphics card is out of the question. I can't even put a 64-meg card in my 6500. It will definitely run playably on a 2 meg one, because the newb that developed it has one ;-). I'm going to have fun throttling the draw rates and making it playable. IDK, maybe I could give Ambrosia a game eerily similar to EV and have them cook up a name for it that doesn't include the words "Escape Velocity". Maybe I'd better do some work now... and I still need the source code for ExoBattle. I just hope my PM to Matt Burch isn't crushed out by overflow...

I still think that a joint effort with the VegaStrike team with AmbrosiaSW could make for some good results.

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I still think that a joint effort with the VegaStrike team with AmbrosiaSW could make for some good results.

Perhaps, but so could this. That, and those of us with Performas wouldn't be complaining about one frame/two seconds. Even so, Exobattle is borderline unplayable, so I've got the added problem of tweaking performance, something I've been itching to do with a lot of inefficient, sloppily written (modern big-name-brand-Bloodrayne anybody? Ask MacWorld about it lol) software ;-). I'd consider myself lucky to get anything that remotely looks like EV... and somebody PM me if they have Exobattle's source sitting in a corner of their hard drive.

I think that a 3D version of EV definitely wouldn't be EV - it would be something else entirely. And Homeworld doesn't have anything to do with EV, for those of you who haven't played it.

Since we're so wildly speculating, I think an online or LAN type game implementation into the EV universe could be cool - even if it was just being able to put a crossover cable between two computers and then going pirate hunting with a buddy. I doubt that will be implemented, though as it too would break the EV mold. (It would also be difficult to manage)

Shrout1, on Feb 8 2005, 03:50 PM, said:

Since we're so wildly speculating, I think an online or LAN type game implementation into the EV universe could be cool - even if it was just being able to put a crossover cable between two computers and then going pirate hunting with a buddy. I doubt that will be implemented, though as it too would break the EV mold. (It would also be difficult to manage)
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The whole concept of a pre-existing universe in which to play would have to be revised.

(QUOTE)I think that a 3D version of EV definitely wouldn't be EV - it would be something else entirely. And Homeworld doesn't have anything to do with EV, for those of you who haven't played it.

Since we're so wildly speculating, I think an online or LAN type game implementation into the EV universe could be cool - even if it was just being able to put a crossover cable between two computers and then going pirate hunting with a buddy. I doubt that will be implemented, though as it too would break the EV mold. (It would also be difficult to manage)(/QUOTE)

Yes... but that's why I need Exobattle's source. All it needs are a few thousand tweaks, an EV engine, and a few other things.

(/QUOTE)The whole concept of a pre-existing universe in which to play would have to be revised.(QUOTE)

If this goes MMO, I'd have to be really picky about who I let add systems and similar... because that will have to happen to keep it reasonably interesting. EV 4.5 will be a necessary intermediate step... "MMO" with 64 (or so) players over gigabit ethernet before I work out how to decentralize and streamline bandwidth use, and bittorrent-style downloads of the changes (and I can't even fly a Viper yet with the code I have, much less draw a planet).

I hope the plug devs don't mind keeping the spins around (explosions, some weapons, planets at a distance, SHIELD GLOWS, and anything else to make the game Performa-friendly). First things first-I'll have to build EVN 2 for lack of the ability to make up my own hundreds of storylines and ship graphics (though it won't be without a few Lego-based custom jobs).
Progress so far: something a good dev could build better in five minutes.

rmx256, on Feb 8 2005, 04:59 PM, said:

The whole concept of a pre-existing universe in which to play would have to be revised.
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I think I see what you're saying, as in, if one player had destroyed one planet and yet the other had not, there would be a conflict.

That brings up a good point about running the game MMO style also - a changing, shifting universe would be to chaotic; the current "time in hyperspace" system would have to be eradicated (i.e. 1 day = small ship, 2 days = large ship etc.) and the way that rush missions worked would have to be changed (a countdown timer would be really cheesy); Ships would no longer be randomly generated on entry into a system; if a player was already in the system when you arrived then they might be viewing ships that were there before you showed up. Landing on and leaving a planet also presents that same problem.

I must admit, however, it would still be fun to hunt pirates in some uninhabited system while your friend is flying around in a starbridge next to you.

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I think I see what you're saying, as in, if one player had destroyed one planet and yet the other had not, there would be a conflict.
That brings up a good point about running the game MMO style also - a changing, shifting universe would be to chaotic; the current "time in hyperspace" system would have to be eradicated (i.e. 1 day = small ship, 2 days = large ship etc.) and the way that rush missions worked would have to be changed (a countdown timer would be really cheesy); Ships would no longer be randomly generated on entry into a system; if a player was already in the system when you arrived then they might be viewing ships that were there before you showed up. Landing on and leaving a planet also presents that same problem.
I must admit, however, it would still be fun to hunt pirates in some uninhabited system while your friend is flying around in a starbridge next to you.

Yes... but the other point of this is seeing who can fly a modded starbridge best, or <gulp> a PVIV (but no 360x270 ions/railgun turrets, maybe 15x15 or 30x30). That, and seeing who can siphon the most income from the EVN universe when there are hundreds of others taking that same challenge. Sorry about Unrelenting, though... I don't think it will be quite as hot-roddable as in Nova. Yes, the first version of EV 3D will be Nova. Again, the fine print: If I make it, it will be a Debian Linux package for the PowerPC architecture. If it's as good as I say (and hope) it is, you will more than likely get your Mac/Windows copy. Still, don't give up on that Performa/Pentium I box in your closet. Can you say LAN party—where hyperspace time isn't quite so much of an issue (everybody jumps and preferably has the same-sized ship)? Meantime, I'm off to get Descent's source—I've got to compensate for lack of inertialessness.

The Apple Cřre, on Feb 11 2005, 07:27 PM, said:

Yes, the first version of EV 3D will be Nova. Again, the fine print: If I make it...
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Do you have the rights to the game? Or the engine? Are you going to completely recode it? Are you planning on making money off of someone else's idea through a sequel?

I know you're well intentioned but there's a lot to think about before you venture down that road.