[Nuke]

whats the bare minimum of files needed to get the freespace engine to run without freespace? i was playing tbp 3 and it amazed me that they werent requiring freespace at all to play the mod. other than info entered into tables, what files are absolutely nessisary for the game to run, specifficly anything that is hardcoded directly into the engine.?

[WMCoolmon]

Mostly the interface.

Also the jump node POF. And most of the tables themselves. The HUD images. Fonts. Squadron and player logos, maybe. The mouse cursor.

[DaBrain]

TBP still uses some FS files. They were just included...

But if a few skilled people worked together on this we could make the FSO engine standalone.


It's not as easy as one might think.


But what could you gain by this?
An engine without ships and missions....

[karajorma]

As DaBrain says the problem is that unless you've also replaced all of the ships in the game it's a little pointless.

Yes you'd have a stand alone engine but what could you do with it?

[Inquisitor]

Not a lot. Not allowed to make a game to sell from it, so you'd put a lot of effort into something that, for some minimal licensing fees, you could get elsewhere AND be able to sell the game.

WMC put together a list of the required files for me a LONG time ago, I'd have to search this forum to find it.

[Flipside]

The only imperative I can think of for this is if you are a Masochist like me and have plans to create an entirely new Universe from the SCP Engine one day, simply for the fun of it

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by karajorma
As DaBrain says the problem is that unless you've also replaced all of the ships in the game it's a little pointless.

Yes you'd have a stand alone engine but what could you do with it?

Nothing, of course!

[Nuke]

you forget that im a modder, make the engine stand alone and mods become free games, the babylon project for example. mainly it would be aimed at the total conversion modder. seriously if you consolidated every mod ever made for freespace you could make your own universe anyway.

[StratComm]

But only with great difficulty could you eliminate everything from the pile.  Terran you can get away with since it's well, us, but you can forget anything relating to the Freespace universe.  And that includes the often-used tile textures.

[Fury]

Just to clear any possible confusion. TBP still does use some FS2 files, not everything has been replaced just yet. The biggest problem is the interface, where there are hundreds if not thousands of files that we still would need to replace. A lot of work for quite minimal gain.

I'd love to get those files replaced but its just too much work.

[Nuke]

any chance a console based or menu based interface could be coded into the engine that may override the freespace interface system. it may prove to be less laborous that making new interface art. with all the total conversions comping out it might be something they all will want to use.

[Flipside]

The way I look at it is this, I'd love to do the work to be able to create a free non-Freespace combat game using the SCP. It WOULD be hard work, no doubt, else the TBP crew would have done exactly that, but I think if push came to shove, some things, mice pointers etc, Volition couldn't give a toot if you used it, I mean how much Intellectual does it take to make an arrow?

That said, it's probably best to play safe, but either way, one day......

[Tolwyn]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury
Just to clear any possible confusion. TBP still does use some FS2 files, not everything has been replaced just yet. The biggest problem is the interface, where there are hundreds if not thousands of files that we still would need to replace. A lot of work for quite minimal gain.

I'd love to get those files replaced but its just too much work.

We at Wing Commander Saga go the same way. We use FS2 demo, which is free, as core package: mostly interface, hud as well. The gain is obvious: people, who do not posses FS2 can still enjoy the mod

[karajorma]

Originally posted by StratComm
But only with great difficulty could you eliminate everything from the pile.  Terran you can get away with since it's well, us, but you can forget anything relating to the Freespace universe.  And that includes the often-used tile textures.

If you've replaced almost everything like TBP have or if you're likely to have a huge fan base who haven't played FS2 then I'm fine with going stand alone but I don't like the idea of FS2 mods going stand alone that much to be honest. Quite frankly I don't see the point.

What I'd hate to see is every single mod released as stand alone with  their own launchers cluttering up my desktop and hard drive for something that could be done using only one.

If we're going to be putting up the interface files for all of these stand alone mods why not just simply put FS2 up for download and be done with it?

Originally posted by Tolwyn
We at Wing Commander Saga go the same way. We use FS2 demo, which is free, as core package: mostly interface, hud as well. The gain is obvious: people, who do not posses FS2 can still enjoy the mod

Unfortunately we don't get the option of watching the really ardent FS2 haters in the WC community have to eat humble pie and get themselves a full copy of FS2 in order to play it that way

[WMCoolmon]

If you were to replace all the art in the default FS2 VP files with a completely unique and original universe, you could stuff all that on a CD and sell it, completely legally, with a few restrictions:

- No use of volition files, ie POFs or VPs.
- You could include the Launcher, but not FS2, FRED2, or POFCS. (The latter depends on the legality of reverse-engineering file formats)
- Pieces of art specific to the FS universe in the mediaVPs (ship skins) could not be included but, AFAIK, you could include missile trails and such as their likeness would not be owned in any way by Interplay or Volition and wouldn't have anything to do with the FS universe.

That of course is based on my knowledge of US copyright laws.

[Tolwyn]

Originally posted by karajorma
Unfortunately we don't get the option of watching the really ardent FS2 haters in the WC community have to eat humble pie and get themselves a full copy of FS2 in order to play it that way

hmm... it would not change anything. Loaf, the Uber-FS2hater, does not play any mods. And he has no love for WCS either

EDIT: Take a look at this .

[KARMA]

Originally posted by Inquisitor
Not a lot. Not allowed to make a game to sell from it, so you'd put a lot of effort into something that, for some minimal licensing fees, you could get elsewhere AND be able to sell the game.

could you post some examples plz?
On my own I've heard about torque and seen something about truevision, dunno exactly about the first one but TV didn't seem to me all that good.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by karajorma


If you've replaced almost everything like TBP have or if you're likely to have a huge fan base who haven't played FS2 then I'm fine with going stand alone but I don't like the idea of FS2 mods going stand alone that much to be honest. Quite frankly I don't see the point.

Well, how many people in the world have FS2, and how many places are there where you can get a copy?  Not many, I'd wager, and only a small percentage of those are likely to still be playing enough to stumble onto here (and I'd wager most of those have already).... if we want to attract new people & even get publicity for our wee community, then we need something like this that we can use as a long-term base.  

I think most of us mod as much for other people as ourselves, after all.  I can make a ship or campaign or whatnot, but only about 100 or so at most will ever see or play it.  Let them get the full monty for free, and I reckon that amount would at least double.

[WMCoolmon]

Originally posted by KARMA

could you post some examples plz?
On my own I've heard about torque and seen something about truevision, dunno exactly about the first one but TV didn't seem to me all that good.

Torque's actually a pretty good example of a licenseable engine...IIRC, the price was something around $100 for the source code, I'm not sure if that allowed you to sell what you did with it.

I've not heard of any recent arcade-space-sim engines being openly licenseable, but then, I haven't really been looking.

However AFAIK you can sell all the artwork and stuff that you make, you just can't provide the fs2_open exe. *Bumps open a source code file*

/*
 * Copyright (C) Volition, Inc. 1999.  All rights reserved.
 *
 * All source code herein is the property of Volition, Inc. You may not sell
 * or otherwise commercially exploit the source or things you created based on the
 * source.
 *
*/

The question is the definition of 'commercially exploit'. As long as you make something that doesn't use specific SCP features, you're in the clear as far as selling it goes. But if you sold something that took advantage of SCP features, you're in a grey area. You'd not be directly commercially exploiting the source if the exe's not on a CD, but it could be considered to be indirectly exploiting the source. (There's probably a court precedence on this somewhere.)

[Col. Fishguts]

Originally posted by Tolwyn
. Loaf, the Uber-FS2hater, does not play any mods. And he has no love for WCS either

EDIT: Take a look at this .

It's funny how he blatantly ignores everyone who explains the ambient-factor setting to him.
And for some reason he argues like this:

unidirectional, more realistic/dramatic light (a la FSO) = no lighting
omnidirectional light without any actual shading (a la WC) = A1-supar!!

I don't know what FS has ever done to him....