Current Project Status

posted on May 5th, 2023, 8:15 am

It's better to not wait for NX, as it's something we work on during our free time. The pace of development may vary, depending on the amount of spare time we have available.

If you're seeking a "life sign", you can check the timer located at the bottom of the front page, which is linked to our NX repository. This will show you when was the last time someone has checked in code.

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posted on May 5th, 2023, 9:32 am

It's better to not wait for NX, as it's something we work on during our free time. The pace of development may vary, depending on the amount of spare time we have available.

If you're seeking a "life sign", you can check the timer located at the bottom of the front page, which is linked to our NX repository. This will show you when was the last time someone has checked in code.

Oh, only 5 days ago, that's a very nice surprise!

Is the new engine mostly meant for multiplayer improvements? Because apart from the AI the Fleet Ops/Armada 2 engine is still very robust and flexible IMO. And with the 3gb loader I've been able to squeeze a lot of graphical detail out of it (hundreds of high-poly ships, each with multiple 1024x1024 base textures still run smoothly, as long as you use LODs and bump-mapping) and the non-AI related gripes I have are all things that would be less complex to fix than the changes that were already made between A2 and FO (and even improving the AI may not necessarily be more difficult than creating new classlabels like you guys already did). But admittedly I don't have experience with the FO multiplayer and I mostly play the Roots Mod where odf load/check times are negligible.

I'm not saying a new, more modern engine wouldn't be welcomed by me, but I think there was still so much that could have been accomplished with the FO engine with a fraction of the time and effort.

posted on May 5th, 2023, 11:02 am

Is the new engine mostly meant for multiplayer improvements?

It is a new engine written from the ground up with multiplayer in mind.

Because apart from the AI the Fleet Ops/Armada 2 engine is still very robust and flexible IMO.
...
I'm not saying a new, more modern engine wouldn't be welcomed by me, but I think there was still so much that could have been accomplished with the FO engine with a fraction of the time and effort.

The Armada 2 game engine is for the most part quite good. However we never had the source code (we tried to get it to no avail). Changing one variable that would take a second in the source code may in certain cases take hours or days of tedious work in debugging and patching assembly to get done. A2-FO was one big hack built on top of Armada 2. Version 3.2.7 was the best we could achieve that way.

posted on May 5th, 2023, 11:20 am

The Armada 2 game engine is for the most part quite good. However we never had the source code (we tried to get it to no avail). Changing one variable that would take a second in the source code may in certain cases take hours or days of tedious work in debugging and patching assembly to get done. A2-FO was one big hack built on top of Armada 2. Version 3.2.7 was the best we could achieve that way.

Ah... I always thought you guys had access to the A2 source code. If you made FO with just a disassembler that must have been hell (I did that for Starfleet Command 3 and remember how hard it was). May I ask which disassembler you used (IDA Pro only gives me very mediocre disassembly with the A2 exe)? And is the source code for the Fleet Ops dlls (both 3.2.7 and 4.0) still around somewhere?

posted on May 5th, 2023, 12:21 pm

I used Ollydbg back in the day. Today x64dbg is pretty much the "successor" to that.
The source code for 3.2.7 and 4.0 still exist. It was written in Delphi Pascal, includes licensed code and compiles only on a very specific old compiler version. There are no plans to release it if that is where you are going with that question.

posted on May 5th, 2023, 12:39 pm

I used Ollydbg back in the day. Today x64dbg is pretty much the "successor" to that.
The source code for 3.2.7 and 4.0 still exist. It was written in Delphi Pascal, includes licensed code and compiles only on a very specific old compiler version. There are no plans to release it if that is where you are going with that question.

Too bad. I would've loved to add some of the improvements from 4.0 to 3.2.7, while keeping 3.2.7's tooltip system and without 4.0's memory issue (semi-random invalid pointer crash, sometimes it takes 20 minutes, sometimes 3 hours, but it happens more quickly the more unitorpedo-type weapons there are in the game) and maybe tinker with some easy stuff like the nebula rotation speed and the cloaking wave effect (I think that would boost the framerate), and bring back global events ("subspace anomaly detected").

posted on May 5th, 2023, 4:20 pm

I used Ollydbg back in the day. Today x64dbg is pretty much the "successor" to that.
The source code for 3.2.7 and 4.0 still exist. It was written in Delphi Pascal, includes licensed code and compiles only on a very specific old compiler version. There are no plans to release it if that is where you are going with that question.

But can you at least tell me what the fmodex dll does vs the fleetopshook dll (just for my personal bug-resolving purposes)?

posted on May 5th, 2023, 5:01 pm

But can you at least tell me what the fmodex dll does vs the fleetopshook dll (just for my personal bug-resolving purposes)?

A2-FO replaces Armada's integrated sound engine with the FMOD sound engine https://www.fmod.com/

posted on May 13th, 2023, 1:24 pm

Hello friends,
I read something about the Fleet Operations vs 4.0 .
That's some kind of a new game engine updating the ver 3.2.7 ?
Regarding the 3.2.7 version, runs great on my Linux distro.
Thank you so much.
I also have the older 3.1.2 version, which almost looks similar with the 3.2.7.
Even in 2023, this game is exceptional, and the graphics of the game look amazing.
Wishing you good health and happiness always!
Live Long and Prosper.

posted on May 13th, 2023, 3:18 pm

4.0 has been around for a while and development on it ended years ago. There is still a download link on the Fleet Ops Discord. It adds some minor improvements but recently I found two game-breaking bugs in the 4.0 game engine (that would cause crashes). Since these bugs are part of the Fleet Ops game engine and no one is allowed access to the source code they can never be fixed, so best to stick with 3.2.7.

posted on May 14th, 2023, 4:53 am

Thank you.

posted on June 27th, 2023, 4:55 am

Hello, everyone

posted on June 27th, 2023, 9:08 am

Hello, everyone

Still around i see

posted on June 29th, 2023, 5:37 pm

Hello, everyone

sigh I see the assassins have failed yet again.

posted on July 24th, 2023, 2:37 am

I'm still around, I check in every few months to see if there are updates. Praying for a 2030 release