[The E]

As mentioned in this thread, the indie space sim known as Starshatter has been open sourced. As an interested little fellow, I grabbed the code, and put it on a google code repository.

Now, as you may have heard, the former starshatter community hub, starshattermods.net, seems to suffer from an acute case of not being reachable by anyone, and has been for a week now. In keeping with our motto of bringing modders together, I would humbly request a subforum for Starshatter development on this here board.

[Thaeris]

I second this winning proposition!

[SpardaSon21]

I third this.

[MatthTheGeek]

I am not familiar with Starshatter. How does it compare with FSO in term of mission-building capabilities/tools, and modding capabilities in general ? Are the assets free to use in any fashion as well ?

[General Battuta]

There are some FreeSpace mods for this pretty cool looking game as well.

[mjn.mixael]

More and more this is becoming a community about modding and not about modding Freespace...


Which is a good thing. For so many reasons.

[Droid803]

Yes this is much good thing

[Goober5000]

Hmm.  Do any HLP members actively mod for Starshatter?

[General Battuta]

Someone awesome did a Blue Planet mod for it, I think it was rxc

[Thaeris]

It was not! I believe rscaper is working on something, however.

Matth, Starshatter, like FSO, is not and never will be perfect, but the game engine is set up inherently different than FSO's. Gameplay is centered around a type of dynamic campaign system. It can't compete with the complexity of something like Falcon 4.0, but then again, now that it's open source, there may be ways of making it better still. The engine allows for single, scripted missions as well, but I do not believe it's nearly as sophisticated as FreeSpace in this regard...

Then again, FreeSpace won't let you re-program your own mission objectives and waypoints, jump to other planetary systems around a star, or launch from your carrier, break from orbit to do an atmospheric strike, and then fly back to your carrier... much like a boss.

[General Battuta]

yeah same guy

[Fury]

Considering you can get the full game for free and its source code can be tampered with, I suppose it'd make an excellent addition to HLP. Perhaps a year from now HLP might have substantial Starshatter community. Of course, spreading the word that we have one is important for it to succeed.

I also hope there is much to learn from Starshatter source code that might be useful in providing insights into development of FSO. And vice versa. Perhaps one day FSO can do what Thaeris described two posts back.

[jr2]

So, who ultimately approves this?  Goober5000?  FWIW, this has my vote.  More community, more good fuzziness... or was that Snuffelupagus?

[MatthTheGeek]

I haven't seen anything AGAINST the idea at least.

What do we know about the Sharshatter fan/modding community ? Are they cool guys, are they a bunch of morons ? That's something to think about for a sec or three too.

[Black Wolf]

What do we know about the Sharshatter fan/modding community ? Are they cool guys, are they a bunch of morons ? That's something to think about for a sec or three too.

This would be the only reason against it that I could see, although it would be a HLP forum and HLP rules would be applied. I think we've got a (reasonably) good track record of keeping people on the straight and narrow though. That said, if there are any very prominent members of the starshatter communities who are massive tools, it might be worth knowing in advance.

[karajorma]

So, who ultimately approves this?  Goober5000?  FWIW, this has my vote.  More community, more good fuzziness... or was that Snuffelupagus?

What am I? Chopped liver?

[MatthTheGeek]

Errm... I don't see you stating your approval before this post...

[karajorma]

I've already had that conversation with The E.

[Goober5000]

I'm not opposed to this per se, but as I said I'd like to find out if there are any active Starshatter modders on HLP first.  Is it only this rxc guy, and if so, is he registered on HLP?

Previously, we have successfully branched out into new modding avenues using HLP members as seed starters -- witness MechCommander OmniTech.  But this sounds more like attempting to bootstrap a Starshatter branch out of thin air.  That would be a lot more difficult.  And if there is next to no overlap between the two communities, then there may be significant cultural or organizational differences between them.

[General Battuta]

no, rscaper