Enhance Armada Engine?

posted on December 28th, 2004, 11:22 pm

I was wondering, have you guys ever considered changing the games engine itself? It will eliminate a lot of limiatitions that the A2 engine has... just a thought..

posted on January 2nd, 2005, 2:26 pm

Yup that would be good, but what other engine do u suggest???

posted on January 2nd, 2005, 6:09 pm

if thay cood do that wich i think sawnds inposibal thay cood call it some thing uther than a a2 mod.

thay whood baskicly be bilding a new game.
i dont think thay whood have the time or engery for that. thay whood probly bild a mod for a nuther game.

posted on January 2nd, 2005, 9:23 pm

Well, they can enhance + modify the A2 engine cant they?I mean, the EF2 engine is an enhanced Quake 3 and EF2's graphics and physics are stunning..

posted on January 2nd, 2005, 9:29 pm

We could if we had the source code
and before starting such a project we would rather start a new non-startrek game to earn money in the end ;-) money keeps the world go round

posted on January 2nd, 2005, 11:37 pm

Isn't the way that as long as You are just modding the game [keeping the original engine( only modified), using the name armada 2, and making it for non profit] You can do it. I believe that If You would try to even name this game Armada 3 there would be problems from Activision. If You would change the engine the problems would be even bigger. I don't know how is it workout in other countrys but in mine it is like this - makers of the mod are not even legal owners of this work, they can have limited copyrights, but can't sell this work as it is expansion of the original A2 and cannot be anything more. Please, feel free to correct me.

posted on January 3rd, 2005, 12:58 am

yep as far as i know you are right. you can't earn money with a mod as long as you don't have the licence for the original game (and any other licences which would be required, the star trek licence in this case for example). You could then sell it as some kind of expansion pack or something.

But that's not the problem here. we love to make armada2 mods and we enjoy creating Fleet Operations (also some money is never ever bad. just click the donate button! ). But switching to a new engine would mean to create everything again from the start and the a2 engine is not that bad. we extended their limits as you can see on many special effects and it is a quite stable and fast engine suitable for a RTS game

posted on January 3rd, 2005, 3:58 pm

we have just to find the right ppl on the net, but concentrating on modding itself is enough currently for us now

thread title changed and moved to fleet operations general

DOCa Cola

posted on January 4th, 2005, 11:20 pm

Aaah.. I Get it.. it has to do with all the legal stuff.. How abuot Counter-Strike, its a Half Life "Mod" yet it got profits and stuff, perhaps it had a license? hmmm

Im just hoping that FO could be more famous

posted on January 4th, 2005, 11:25 pm

We could if we had the source code
and before starting such a project we would rather start a new non-startrek game to earn money in the end ;-) money keeps the world go round

but you whood give me a free coppy be cuss i am cool.

posted on January 5th, 2005, 8:58 pm

Counterstrike is a mod yes, if you have half-life you can get cs free (just the origional no con zero or source)

But Valve liked counterstrike and talked to the guys who made it and now market a version that comes with the half-life engine.

posted on January 6th, 2005, 12:37 am

Correction, both Half-life and CS can come with Half-life 2 game called half-life source and CS source. A mod for the Half-life 2 engine by the fleet ops team would be crazy fun.

posted on January 24th, 2005, 10:22 pm

I talk to someone in the Viacom Consumer Products Dept, which is the licensing division for Paramount Pictures. That is the department resonsible for granting licenses to game develoupers to make Star Trek Games.

As I understand it, Star Trek Armada and Armada II is owned by Activision and the engine was actually created by Activision for use on another game and was later adapted by MadDoc for use on the Armada series. BUT there is nothing stoping someone from making an Armada III as long as they hold a license from Viacom OR they make it a free game. The Game engine source for Armada II is not been released and there is no future plans to allow it to go into open source.

Unless you can find a way to decompile the EXE and DLL's which is not impossible, but is not reliable and it is against the license granted to you as the consumer and you could end up in deep dodo for it you will never find out every part of the game code.

The only option is to make do with what you hve or make your own engine which can take years of develoupment.

Im trying to make a game myself which is Star Trek based and so I had to learn all the do's and dont's and thats only half of it.

Hope this helps.

BTW game develoupers can request a license from Viacom. They will consider any team but will not grant a licence to an individual or a modding team. You must develoup your own material and game code. The only main problem is you need to spend money to make money.

posted on January 25th, 2005, 1:30 am

Unfortanatly right now Mac doc is in possession of legal rights to the code... NOT activision, also Paramount studios is at odds with activision for un related matters, meaning that an "official company" and the modification of the current Armada II engine in order to develop further games, and then market them would be pretty much illegal, as you would never get the agreements from the now three distinct and indiviudual companies, unless of course Activision, Mac Doc, and Paramount agree to get back together, it is highly likely that they do start paying attention to e-mails and comments if they are all on the same topic, so to say that an Armada III is impossible in not entirly true, but more so improbable

posted on January 25th, 2005, 8:23 am

Aaah.. I Get it.. it has to do with all the legal stuff.. How abuot Counter-Strike, its a Half Life "Mod" yet it got profits and stuff, perhaps it had a license? hmmm

Im just hoping that FO could be more famous

As you remember there was a change of the weapons (due to legal stuff; I think Heckler & Koch tried to sue the Developers) and the ValVe decided to aid the CS Devoloper;