The OpenMoO Project

[Urban Ranger]

Is there anybody interested in The OpenMoO Project? Can we get a team together to write an open-source version of MoO? There are already a number of such projects for Civ and there seems to be quite a bit of interest in MoO itself.

[Zoetrope]

I'm very interested, but what will we use for graphics?

Also, i do all my programming in unix. Is OpenMoO intended to be portable?

[Urban Ranger]

Thanks for your interest

Yes, it's supposed to be portable across the major platforms. It's good that you're a programmer, since I am somewhat rusty in that area. I think we need is a graphics artist and we can start to discuss the top level design aspects.

I am not too sure about your question on graphics. Can you be a little more specific?

[DaveV]

Interesting idea (you are talking about the original MoO, right?). The strategy guide contains a wealth of information about the algorithms used for various aspects of the game. This is a major undertaking, though.

I'm a long-time C programmer, but I wouldn't be able to contribute more than a few hours in most weeks.

[dexter4dxm]

i completely agree with everything DaveV is saying.

i might be interested. i know C/C++ and DirectX

[Zealot]

I can test the prototype!!

Sorry, I only know a little of Visual Basic.

Look, the idea is GREAT, but MoO1 is very different from MoO2, wich seeems to be very different from MoO3.

So wich of them are you going to choose?

[Urban Ranger]

What I am thinking is, we take the original MoO, add the bits we like from MoO 2, and throw in some extra ideas we have. Stir the mix thoroughly. Bake until done

It looks like we have enough people to form the original team. All we need are a few people to brainstorm and to analyze any ideas we come up with. I guess we can start the brainstorming session. The are two guidelines:

• It doesn't matter how crazy your idea is, we want to hear it
• Please don't criticise and/or analyse ideas. That's for the next stage.

What I like about MoO 2 (these are the bits we want to add to our game):

- Multiple planets per system
- Ability to create outposts

New ideas:

- Outposts/starbases in deep space

[catullus]

For maximum portability, you could consider Java. Should be possible to develop program very fast, and with that language's modularity, it would be easy to distribute the task of programming to more people. Developing tool is free, and program will run on any machine immediately.
Of course, I know some Java, but suck violently when it comes to C. So I may be a bit biased.

[Zealot]

catullus, did you ever heard about C# (sharp)? It's just Microsoft's way to kill Sun's Java. Windows XP won't support Java anymore. If you want IE6 to read java pages, you'll need to download a patch of 5MB to get the Java VM present on Win98. Because there will be a new Java VM, but Microsoft won't upgrade its VM the way Sun want's. There's legal stuff in the way.

So, I think it's better that "we" stick to C/C++/C# (when it comes out).

[open air]

i know VB... and delphi... most recently delphi...

and could probably easly learn C... i have the software and books... just havent gotten around to it yet...

and am very interested in helping with this project...

[Urban Ranger]

Wow, look at the interested people we have. Great

Okay, as I was saying, lets begin at the top and work our way down. I think we need to put some ideas before the coding can start

So, what do you like in the game?


zealot,

It doesn't matter. A player can always download the Java Runtime Environment from Sun's website That's what happens with Windows users right now.

[Zoetrope]

By graphics i mean how will we draw the races, the maps, the ships,
and the battles?

[DaveV]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
So, what do you like in the game?

I never played MoO2, so I'll list my hits and misses from MoO1. Although I have a lot of complaints, I don't want to give the impression I didn't love this game.

Liked:
1. AI diplomacy. This game was the best I ever played at making the AI players seem to have a real personality.

2. Racial characteristics and bonuses (although the racial abilities weren't very well balanced). Gave a good flavor to the game.

3. Tech tree and ship building. Lots of tough decisions to make in equipping ships with all the goodies you discovered.

4. Spying. Good flavor, without too much micromanagement required.

5. Planetary management. Again, some tough decisions to make, but not too many details.

Disliked:
1. AI tactical combat (especially retreating from a single nuclear missile). The AI was so weak here, it required:

2. Outrageous AI production cheats. At Impossible level, the only way I could ever win was to play defensively for almost the entire game, since I couldn't match up to the AIs' fleets and missiles. I think there must have been some overflow/underflow bugs in AI ship maintenance costs, since I've seen AIs with 32K+ large ships in a fleet on a medium map...

3. The High Council victory. If I play as Humans, it's way too easy to win this way. Otherwise, the AIs' production advantage can lead to me being outvoted in the midgame. At that point, I can't fight all the other races, so I have to abandon a game I've already played for a few hours (and that I probably could have come back to win).

4. Assorted bugs, all relatively minor.

5. The up/down method of dividing fleets. I'd love to be able just to type in the number of ships I want to detach, instead of having to hit the down arrow six times (and then not being able to select the number of ships I really want).

6. The stack limit on ships. Why not allow the player to put a million small ships in a stack? And why not display how many ships are really in that stack?

7. I think you shouldn't know the alien leader's personality type (erratic, honorable, etc.) until you've spied on him. I always used this information at first contact to plan my strategy vis-a-vis a particular race.

8. Random events. In something like a hundred games, I never got the ancient derelict, but it seemed like I always got the asassination event (against the key race that I'd spent the whole game cultivating). In a related complaint, it would be nice if you could spend some money on counterespionage to prevent other races from framing you.

[dexter4dxm]

i got addicted to the first MoO when i played it, and the same thing happened with the second one. i agree that we should take parts from different ones, as each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

now, as far as actual coding, even if we did decided on java, i could port it windows/directx pretty easily. this game is not graphically intensive, it shouldn't be too hard. i don't know how much time i will have to program, aside from work I am already programming an Alt-Civ game. i am however interested in this project, and with a reasonable amount of people working on this, it should come along good.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zoetrope
By graphics i mean how will we draw the races, the maps, the ships,
and the battles?

Are you asking for specific algorithms, languages, or something else?

[Urban Ranger]

DaveV,

Okay, if you are now asked to improve upon MoO, what game elements will you add, and what will you remove?


dexter4dxm,

Any concerete likes and dislikes about the two games?

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
zealot,

It doesn't matter. A player can always download the Java Runtime Environment from Sun's website That's what happens with Windows users right now.

Ok... boss!
(Well someone has to carry the responsibility, right? )

[dexter4dxm]

in MoO2, i liked how you could build individual improvements at each of your colonies, except that it became waaaaay too tedious when you controlled lots of systems. they included build queues, but that only helped so much. MoO was much more streamlined, as all the building up of a colony could be done from the main screen quickly, with sliders. i'm not sure right now how i would want colony management to be done, but we have to make it so that when you have lots of systems you're not bogged down with micromanagement.

i liked the huge fleets you could build in the first MoO. i liked the techs in MoO2, except i didn't like how every race in the game could select whatever technology you wanted. of course, unless you were a 'creative' race, you would miss out on two techs for every tech you picked, but most of the time this meant that you would pick the exact same techs every single time you played, which just makes the game limited and repetitive. i say we make the tech tree more like MoO and Civ2, where not all techs you can get are available for research every time.

[J.C.]

I am not a programmer or graphics artist, but I have played both MOO's & I have been in gaming for a long time. The very first thing you want to worry about is MP play..how does it function ? How smooth are the turns? As for the rest..if you throw it all together..you are going to end up with oatmeal .. nothing more & nothing less. My advice is to take the original ( MOO2 ) make it MP friendly, take out the annoying glitchy parts, make it so that it functions fully across the different editions of Windows, & run with it.

[MichaeltheGreat]

C# is not the way to go, if you're looking for any portability or speed. C++ or straight ANSI C is better.

I'm interested in strategic and tactical (combat) AI, since I've been kicking around TBS AI ideas for a while, for an a couple of dormant TBS game projects.

Of course, "Free" is one thing, but how "open" does everyone expect this to be? What I've been looking at on the combat side is a game-independent AI engine, running in a separate process, that could be adapted for different combat rule systems, and adapt by experience to a particular user's play style, using data tables to reflect a user's play style.

There is a potentially very serious problem with excess imitation of the MOO or MOO2 front end - although they are abandonware, they are two of the games underdogs.org was hassled over regarding copyright.

[dexter4dxm]

i say we just get going with this, meaning that at this point, we dont need to have a set language for this project. so many things need to be worked out before the coders can have something to implement.

if we had a basic idea about the main screen layout, i'd code it right now. i know plenty of DirectDraw to do this, but as for multiplayer, i'm not fluent enough in DirectPlay to handle that. i could probably use DirectSound for the all the music and sound, but that's not even needed for awhile.

it's good that a bunch of people are interested in this project, there's plenty to work to go around. it will be great to have different people working on different things. i've only done solo programming up till now.

so... uh.. shall we commence with the design?

[Urban Ranger]

"Free" as in freedom of speech

I used "Open" to denote that this will be an OpenSource effort, similar to OpenCiv, FreeCiv, and a host of similar efforts that are currently underway.

As for the interface, we can design something different enough so as not to infringe upon MicroProse's "look and feel" thingie. It's a silly idea if you ask me though.


dexter4dxm,

The graphics part can be separated from the backend (AI etc.), which is A Good Thing. I don't see anybody has any particular ideas on how the interface should look. Maybe you have some ideas? Oh, do you think we should settle for 600x800 since I saw a lot of people are unhappy with the need for 1024x768 to play Civ 3?

[N35t0r]

I am willing to help, but i don't have any special skills, and know nothing about programming

[dexter4dxm]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Maybe you have some ideas?

I haven't thought about the interface much, except that the actual view of the star map (or whatever it's called) should be as large as possible.

Oh, do you think we should settle for 600x800 since I saw a lot of people are unhappy with the need for 1024x768 to play Civ 3?

I suggest we have 2 options for resolution: 640x480, and 1024x768. Picking the higher resolution will allow you to see more of the starmap and more of any kinds of colony lists (etc.) we make. For now, we should just stick with 640x480, as it looks decent enough in that resolution (i'm pretty sure MoO2 used 640x480). Adding the higher resolution isn't necessary now, and it won't be too hard to put it in later.

Originally posted by HsFB
I am willing to help, but i don't have any special skills, and know nothing about programming

That's fine, there's plenty of stuff for the non-programmers.

To everyone involved:
I guess what we need is a master list of all the things that need to be done. Then, the people who are looking to help can pick something to do. Let's pick general areas, and list all the things that go with it that need to be designed. For example:

INTERFACES
- Star-Map screen
- Colony screen
- Combat screen
- Diplomacy screen
- Pick-Next-Tech screen
- Ship-Design screen

this is only a partial list, and there are plenty of other areas of the game that need to be designed (such as combat, AI, diplomacy, etc.)

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
"Free" as in freedom of speech

I used "Open" to denote that this will be an OpenSource effort, similar to OpenCiv, FreeCiv, and a host of similar efforts that are currently underway.

As for the interface, we can design something different enough so as not to infringe upon MicroProse's "look and feel" thingie. It's a silly idea if you ask me though.

I agree it *would be* silly, if (a) lawsuits and injunctions on publication for duplicating look and feel with different code hadn't been long established in the US, courtesy of the good folks at Lotus Development; and (b) if the IDSA hadn't hassled Underdogs, (and others) about copyright protection issues.

dexter4dxm,

The graphics part can be separated from the backend (AI etc.), which is A Good Thing. I don't see anybody has any particular ideas on how the interface should look. Maybe you have some ideas? Oh, do you think we should settle for 600x800 since I saw a lot of people are unhappy with the need for 1024x768 to play Civ 3?

I think doing a new graphics engine would be silly - a lot of development time for little performance gain, especially in TBS. Straight gifs ought to work just fine.

600 x 800 is depressingly tight - it's very simple code in Windoze to read/change the display settings, although I've never done it in Linux. I would think (since graphics are going to be less extensive than the back end) that once we got settled on a color scheme and interface, it would be nice to add available resolutions. The problem with 800x600 seems to me to be in the tactical combat area - do you reduce the size of the ship sprites to have more tiles for your combat area, or do you have to pan around to view the whole combat area? Either way, if you opted to keep one set of sprites, you could take advantage of larger resolutions to give you more tiles for tactical combat.

In the non-combat screens, it would give you more room for other info displays.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I agree it *would be* silly, if (a) lawsuits and injunctions on publication for duplicating look and feel with different code hadn't been long established in the US, courtesy of the good folks at Lotus Development; and (b) if the IDSA hadn't hassled Underdogs, (and others) about copyright protection issues.

I was saying that the business about allowing this "look and feel" thing to be protected by copyright laws was silly. Not that we should not avoid big companies with nasty attack dogs and deep pockets

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I think doing a new graphics engine would be silly - a lot of development time for little performance gain, especially in TBS. Straight gifs ought to work just fine.

Depends on the colour depth though. GIFs gives us only 256 colours and there is always that Unisys patent issue that hangs over our heads.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
600 x 800 is depressingly tight - it's very simple code in Windoze to read/change the display settings, although I've never done it in Linux.

There's always the source code of FreeCiv and a few other programs we can look at.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I would think (since graphics are going to be less extensive than the back end) that once we got settled on a color scheme and interface, it would be nice to add available resolutions.

Sure, I don't think it's too hard.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The problem with 800x600 seems to me to be in the tactical combat area - do you reduce the size of the ship sprites to have more tiles for your combat area, or do you have to pan around to view the whole combat area? Either way, if you opted to keep one set of sprites, you could take advantage of larger resolutions to give you more tiles for tactical combat.

In MoO 2 the solution they used is the dual map approach. One shows the entire area, a "strategic map" so to speak, and a large map that's centered on the player's fleet, more or less.

[tniem]

One solution to the resolution display is just to allow higher res to display more info on the screen.

If you ever have played Stars! that is how they do it. The more screen res you have the more map you can show. The bigger the res the more info about the planets and the units that you can have next to the map at the same time. It basically is all simply about what can be displayed not actually changing the unit look or anything like that.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by dexter4dxm
I haven't thought about the interface much, except that the actual view of the star map (or whatever it's called) should be as large as possible.

Yes, I think that's called the stamap. Okay, so which one is better: the MoO starmap or the MoO 2 starmap?

Originally posted by dexter4dxm
I suggest we have 2 options for resolution: 640x480, and 1024x768. Picking the higher resolution will allow you to see more of the starmap and more of any kinds of colony lists (etc.) we make. For now, we should just stick with 640x480, as it looks decent enough in that resolution (i'm pretty sure MoO2 used 640x480). Adding the higher resolution isn't necessary now, and it won't be too hard to put it in later.

640x480? We can always see how it turns out before we decide. It's easy to go to a higher resolution if VGA resolution isn't good enough, correct?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by J.C.
I am not a programmer or graphics artist, but I have played both MOO's & I have been in gaming for a long time. The very first thing you want to worry about is MP play..how does it function ? How smooth are the turns? As for the rest..if you throw it all together..you are going to end up with oatmeal .. nothing more & nothing less. My advice is to take the original ( MOO2 ) make it MP friendly, take out the annoying glitchy parts, make it so that it functions fully across the different editions of Windows, & run with it.

Thanks for your input.

Since you are interested in multiplayer games, what are your suggestions in this area? It seems that the least we could provide is MP games over the Internet using TCP/IP. This can be problematic as we may have no programmers familiar with such tasks. We'll see what we can do.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I'm interested in strategic and tactical (combat) AI, since I've been kicking around TBS AI ideas for a while, for an a couple of dormant TBS game projects.

Sounds like me I have have a number of game projects lying around. Some are TBS.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
What I've been looking at on the combat side is a game-independent AI engine, running in a separate process, that could be adapted for different combat rule systems, and adapt by experience to a particular user's play style, using data tables to reflect a user's play style.

An AI engine that could be adapted is certainly a great idea. One need not reinvent the wheel every time for a new game. I also happen to be interested in AI (just because existing computer players are rotten). Have you sketched out how this engine could work, other than on a very high level?