Anniversary Version of Armada

posted on September 3rd, 2013, 10:23 pm

yh i was refering to this

Sometimes I think you guys should just make a standalone Fleet Ops. And beg for money for a Star Trek license on Kickstarter. Altough the license would not come cheap ...

but with there own unviverse they wuldnt need a star trek liecence

right, but they still wouldn't have permission to use anything from stock a2, such as the game engine. that would always require each player to buy stock a2. they couldn't be "standalone" without a license to distribute parts of a2. i'm not sure if the star trek IP holders would need to be involved if activision were to try give away technical parts of stock a2, parts that don't use the star trek IP. still, just convincing activision to donate the engine is unlikely.

posted on September 4th, 2013, 11:41 am

to get standalone they would need there own engine like whats mentioned in this news item
//www.fleetops.net/news/item/241-10th-anniversary

posted on September 4th, 2013, 12:00 pm

to get standalone they would need there own engine like whats mentioned in this news item
//www.fleetops.net/news/item/241-10th-anniversary

sadly that wouldn't clear everything up. if they replaced everything from stock a2, then they wouldn't need to be a mod for a2 any more. which is a double edged sword. also this goes back to time consuming, a new engine is a lovely idea, but one that will take a very long time for them to create.

the problem with getting a new engine and ditching stock a2 is that they would still be using the star trek property. even keeping fleetops free doesn't give them the right to use copywritten and trademarked star trek content. copyright law in most western nations is a mess of complex laws that are unfit for purpose. the two possible laws to consider here are US and German, star trek's IP owners are in the US and fleetops is developed in Germany. I'm no expert on German copyright and trademark law, but from what little i've seen (eg GEMA) it's similar if not worse than the US version.

CBS could get pissy and demand that the fleetops team cease and desist using the star trek property. it's possible they'll let it go as long as fleetops is always free, it's also possible they'll put an end to it.

so to be completely in the clear for standalone they'd need two things:
1) get rid of stock a2, new engine and everything
2) get rid of star trek content, write a new universe and possibly change the ship models to be similar but distinct.

they'd basically be making a new rts almost from scratch. a lofty goal. doable, but over a very long time.

posted on September 4th, 2013, 9:20 pm

which was the point of my last few posts
bit like sigma but with a fully new engine

posted on September 4th, 2013, 10:05 pm

One interesting work around I've seen was to make an engine and simple game, then have the 'real' game as a mod for it.

posted on September 4th, 2013, 10:17 pm

One interesting work around I've seen was to make an engine and simple game, then have the 'real' game as a mod for it.

that would add a little protection, cbs couldn't c&d the base game. the problem would be letting new users know about the mod. presumably the intent is that everyone install the mod over the base game, hence the site where the base game is hosted would have to prominently link to the mod. this gets really clumsy as the number of users grows. also cbs would push for the link to the mod to be removed from the main site, although the fight would be fairer. the core players could share the mod around unhindered, but new users would need to be told. which also gets clumsy as the community grows.

posted on September 4th, 2013, 11:52 pm

which was the point of my last few posts
bit like sigma but with a fully new engine

Again the problem is time, they have been working on fleet ops for 10 years and now your talking about starting from scratch, something they didn't have to do originally. Creating a totally new engine from scratch might be more then they can do, (no offence to the devs). Programming a new game from scratch is a far more difficult (and time consuming) task compared to just modifying an existing game engine to suit your needs. You need a small army of programmers and developers to undertake such a task if you want it to turn out as a good polished product. You have to remember they are doing this for free, during their free time.

posted on September 5th, 2013, 1:28 am

We should always be in the clear regarding Star Trek IP - back when trying to get Fleet Ops stand alone that was the first thing inquired about and given the go ahead from CBS . We aren't and never will be trying to make money off our Star Trek work

posted on September 5th, 2013, 9:32 am

We should always be in the clear regarding Star Trek IP - back when trying to get Fleet Ops stand alone that was the first thing inquired about and given the go ahead from CBS . We aren't and never will be trying to make money off our Star Trek work

it's nice to know that some IP holders are fair. if fleetops ever does ditch a2, I hope that said agreement is still honoured. it'd be nice to see an actual high quality standalone star trek fan game make it to release.

posted on September 5th, 2013, 10:58 am

Making money or not is not the point imho. It's to get rid off some limitations the engine unavoidable comes with ...

posted on September 14th, 2013, 11:07 am

i think im right in saying that star trek Excalibur is using its own engine with the star trek IP, with it being distributed free and they are not having any problems with licencing..

so i would assume/hope fleet ops would have a similar situation

posted on September 14th, 2013, 11:20 am

i think im right in saying that star trek Excalibur is using its own engine with the star trek IP, with it being distributed free and they are not having any problems with licencing..

so i would assume/hope fleet ops would have a similar situation

hopefully. sadly leaving excalibur alone doesn't guarantee they'll leave other games alone. also they can change their mind any time they like, for example if they have a change in management that isn't favourable to fan content. or they start work on their own game that would compete with excalibur.

also they might not know about excalibur yet, or they might doubt it will ever release.

posted on September 14th, 2013, 11:23 am

i think they got permission but i could be wrong, but yeah like you say they can change their minds

posted on September 15th, 2013, 8:44 am

Excalibur is getting a beta release by the end of the year

posted on November 5th, 2013, 2:30 pm

Excalibur is getting a beta release by the end of the year

It is not really a beta release, but a Quick Battle mode - more like a preview version for the upcoming full version. The Devs saw, that there are just too many people demanding something playable, so they decided to pull out the working parts of the game into some kind of combat simulator.

Still, this is just a tiny aspect of the whole gameplay, as further game mechanics (like landing on planets, full interior support, an economy system etc. are planned either by the Devs of Excalibur or the modding community supporting it.

The fog is fading away and I eagerly await the Quick Battle release to have something to play with over XMas.

On that point: If some of you are interested in helping out, the community will start modding Excalibur after the Quick Battle release. One key elemet of the engine, is that you can mod everything - you may even have the ability to include a strategical gameplay-element like we know from Fleetops into Excalibur - still, all that stays and falls with community support.

Edit:
I see many people around here who argue, if this game will ever be finished. I can tell you: The engine is ready and the Devs are now working on filling materials into the game - ships, planets, star systems... all that stuff. If you go to the wiki page of Excalibur ( http://www.stexcalibur.com/wiki/ ) you will find a lot of ships and systems already implemented into the game from which you can tell, that all the basic assets to have a properly working Star Trek universe are already present.
Right now, things are being fleshed out to fill in more material.

There is still a lot of work to do, like all the interiors, special systems, crew experience handling/morale, more AI functions (like formations or attack patterns) etc. Nevertheless, the basic game stands, meaning: We did it! From building the engine and all the content into a working game.