Rebellion Remake Release Demos!

[JeZuS]

Hey Slocket, hope all is going well.

 

Haven't checked in here for a while. Tested out RebRel0001 and RebTact006. Both worked great on my system.

 

That little escort carrier can just go back and forth for ever getting hit by that SD

 

Love ya work

Jez.

[Slocket]

Thank you testing it out. All seems to be working as designed for a very alpha test of the engine. I did not have the escort ship explode once hull and shield is zero for testing. I should make an update for it. Still is a great game after all these years.

 

I am still alive and still recovering slowly. I hope to get back back to doing what I like this Summer. It seems like forever.

[Phobos]

Hello Slocket,

 

I first got here because my brother started playing Rebellion again yesterday and I was looking for a new version, remake or any update on the game for him to play. He loves this game.

 

I first got to your another thread and was surprised to see that you have been on it for so long. That's not common to see in the modding scene, usually the modders give up or abandon the projects after the first couple years. That's impressive on itself. Even better, I like your work, all of it looks pretty cool!. I will try to test it with my brother, to see how it goes.

 

Then I got to this thread and read about your cancer. I had to join the forum just to write this. I don't know you, but just as with your project, I'm glad you don't give up. I really hope you get well soon and fully recover!. My brother suffers from a very aggressive form of systemic lupus, which just gets worst every day. I can kinda relate to those kind of illness.

 

I guess all I can say is: May the force be with you!

[Slocket]

Thank you for your sentiments. I am doing better but it is painful. I hope your brother does well. Cancer is a scourge on Earth I hope it can be eradicated some day. It really is unfair and nasty.

 

My arm is only half use for now. Fun typing. But hey, I am still alive.

 

As for the game, using a procedural language as Dark Basic it is a bit limiting. I have look at more sophisticated language that use object oriented programming and wonder how to do it. One thing Dark Basic has going for it is the simple programming so you do not need a doctorate to make a game and anyone can contribute looking at the open source code. A problem since many people know so many different OOP languages that are different.

 

Dark Basic has a ready to go 3D engine. Other languages are very complicated to fit in a 3D engine. Dark Basic pro does not sadly do window forms or multiple windows very well, which is very much need to transmit all the text string data for reading to the user. Well, it means making your own windows and that will take a lot of programing. too much I discover. I would like a computer language that does window forms and has a decent 3D engine. Either procedural or object orientated is OK.

[Slocket]

I came across this newer update of a game engine that has been maturing over the years.

 

http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d/fps#/1-setup/1 Torque 3D.

 

It has the latest graphics DX9 stuff, a new 2d and 3d audio engine, and supports Windows forms (a must have for me if a person wants to code this game with in a life time). I am really excited by this prospect. I am evaluating the Torque 3D demo before purchase to see about migrating the project over to it. Torque 3D is an Object Oriented Language, but it is written so much more cleanly (than lets say Game Studio A8 which I tried to no avail)- to understand via script language which is very common. I hope it it a winner.

 

I do hope your brother is around to play this game in the future. If you believe and see yourself as being triumphal it over it, it will come to pass. I suppose in a way it is God, the force, quantum mechanics at play? Good Easter Sunday to you, I wish.

 

----------------------

It is good he has someone who cares, the truly hardest part of the journey.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Slocket

[Phobos]

Hello again Slocket,

 

I have been reading about some 3D engines and, besides Torque, I found these to be interesting, maybe you would like to check them out in case Torque doesn't make the cut:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Blender

 

There are too many at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines. I'll be traveling for work the next two weeks, but once I come back, I can check them one by one to see if they can help in any case.

 

I did read about DarkBASIC, which looks very simple to use. Too bad it doesn't do windowing very well.

 

I'll try to help you in any way I can.

 

Maybe I do know you, somehow... Have a great day!

[Slocket]

Phobos you may be interested in this link. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/rethinking-healthcare/one-drug-could-cure-7-different-cancers/8339?tag=nl.e550

 

Finally a real cure it would seem.

 

The pre made such as Unity and Torque 3D always need to fit into their specific templates. Rebellion is such a heavy based window form game, I have seen this new plugin a person made called BBBGUi that basically gives access to the windows commands in Dark Basic to use parent and child windows with scroll bars and list trees, very much need to display all that information.

 

While exploring Torque 3D I think I know what steel came up against in his project, those pre made engine do require a very tight fit to make them work. I may have to do it the hard way using that new window pugin for DB and write it from scratch.

[Slocket]

Well, try and try again -I do.

 

Scrap Dark Basic Pro for now. I caught onto XNA and C# and it looks like the real winner for coding.

 

Working title change. how about...

 

Yavin to Coruscant: Empire's End.

 

Empire's End.

 

Conquest of Coruscant (reminds of ...) ideas? Battle for Coruscant?

[antillies]

Any progress you can share? I'm glad you've switched over to C# - it's much more geared toward this type of thing than DarkBasic is (imo).

[Kallyn]

Also looking forward to news about this remake...

[Slocket]

Slow coming. I was busy over the summer which I thought I wanted time to put into this. I will try to pick up the pace. Sorry for the delay.

[DarthTex]

Keep up the good work Slocket

 

Any specifics on what you're working on/making progress with?

[Slocket]

I am learning C# for XNA 4.0 as I go. I had to go back and rewrite code that I did wrong. I needed a better way to input basically thousand lines of resource files, text, fonts, sounds, wav, mp3 etc into the content pipeline. The basic way it is shown for learning is not practical obviously for large groups of data. So I learned how to write a 'text parser' to enable reading in files much easier and organizing them. It really cuts down on code management.

 

Yes, slow crawl to the finish line. I am getting faster, now that I have more time to devote to this. Summer is over.

 

I think redoing porting this whole project over into a common C# language all can relate to will be worth it. But is it a giant amount of work. Better now than years down the road when it becomes truly huge.

 

These are the stumbling blocks of remake. The programming language, expertise, ideas. Many or most remakes do fail. I hope much for this one. I am porting it over from Dark Basic. I have to change all artwork to exclusively Wide Screen format, not trivial. Resources need to be converted. Just takes time. However, by releasing a basic skeleton program, others may fill in the spaces too. I think all can do XNA 4.0 and understand C#. I am still learning as I go. I can see it why it takes four years to get good at it for programming. I would rather do linear basic programming, but I would have no access to the extremely important library functions ("methods") that have already been created.

 

I am sorry for my slow speed. I guess I am glad this is a free project. Of course I would like to see it complete before I die of old age.

[Master_Xan]

I may have said this before, or not, but I'm willing to help with alpha/beta testing (when it comes to that), and story boarding and other idea creation-type stuff in the meantime. You just have to email me, as this site no longer informs me of replies for some reason.

 

Any luck with the port?

[Slocket]

Sorry for the delay. I am getting up to speed on C#, it took awhile to get a decent understanding of the language from learning it off the internet from youtube and free ebooks. I tell you it is the most obtuse computer language made. I can make sprites, master reading in and writing batch files for resources.

 

I learned how to make the mouse object click events since XBOX (XNA 4.0) and Smart Phones was not originally designed for a mouse or keyboard. Also seem some nice techniques for click and drag mouse function with balloon tip text. I am embarrassed it is taking me so long to port over what I have done, it just seems C# object oriented language is not how a computer thinks. I have to use since that is where the whole lifetime sum of computer code knowledge is stored so a person does not have to spend literally several lifetimes trying to reproduce it. Everyone before me used it so I must use it to. Similar to still using the English measurements system instead of converting over to Metric system.

 

One major thing I am struggling with is to eliminate the original GUI multiple windows, somehow re imagine that clunky interface of the original Rebellion. Can you give me some ideas?

[Evaders99]

Sins? Except for the research and diplomacy screens, it rarely uses windows that overlay each other. The quick unit selection on the left, the mouse-wheel zoom and 3D interface, plus click-and-drag for most operations. It really works efficiently.

 

You haven't seen obtuse until you've tried to program an Android app. It's written like a CS professor would write a language, horribly abstract and in Java no less.

[Master_Xan]

I actually just purchased Sins, so I'll be playing with that in the next few weeks. Therefore cannot comment on it. But I do have lots of ideas that, so far as I know, I've never seen in any strategy game. Or at least not like how I envision it.

 

I do think SOME windows need to exist. Its a given that the battle screen must overlay anything else. I'm not sure how to do production without some sort of screen; certainly it can be made more efficient than Rebellion's. To change target destination, you can let players drag n drop. When they hover mouse over a given sector during drag n drop, have the game zoom-in on it for easy selection. You can have the game put the three most recent produced units there, so you just click and confirm # of units to make instead of opening another box, with a drop down menu to pick a unit not in the three most recent produced.

 

Or, and I like this better, you can do a radial system. Main screen, click sector to zoom in (or maybe allow manual zooming too!). Each planet has a ring of icons representing present data; something for popular support; symbols for enemy or allied personnel performing missions; a symbol for troops and their #s; a symbol for ships, etc. Something like this

 

Each symbol is faded unless something is there, and if there, a number represents how much of whatever it is is there. This system can be simplified to show little detail (# of ships present), expanded to show a lot of detail (# of fighters, # of capital ships, # of support vessels), or you can give the user options on what is displayed (or a choice between simple/expanded details).

 

Hovering the mouse over each symbol can pull up a small window with greater detail (such as a listing of what types of troops are on Coruscant, or which enemy personnel is doing what on Byss). Clicking the symbol can make the window appear but remain after losing mouse focus, allowing interaction with the things in that system and other systems/sectors. If you clicked on a planet/radial symbol, then moving the main display moves that planet to the upper-right, where the radial functions behave like normal, but allow the rest of the screen to shift around to view other planets. Sort of like the 'saved' windows of Rebellion, except fewer of them, only one per planet, and each has full functionality while displayed. Something like this

 

Players can double-click the planet to auto zoom to it in the main display, or interact with the radial symbols and issue orders from and to it as if it was in the main display.

 

Or, and I like this idea as well, make an information panel. Pick a side, like the bottom of the screen as is traditional. Normally the galaxy map takes up the entire screen, but when a planet is selected, this area becomes an info panel with tabs for performing different tasks. Like any standard RTS; select unit, see options for movement orders, production of other units, special abilities, etc. This lets the player move the main galaxy screen around.

 

Or, combine the two ideas. The panel becomes the basis for giving orders, while the radial stuff allows a quick glance for information, particularly helpful when you have a fleet in one sector and you are deciding where the enemy is weakest in an adjacent sector before sending it in (or other such situations). Like this

 

Or, have a panel, perhaps on the right side of the screen, divided out from the main view. This panel is divided by tabs- one tab for production, for instance. Choosing that tab gives a Red Alert style option set, where you pick what you want produced, in what quantities, and can then select where production is happening (either by a drag n drop interface, or drop down menus, or some other method). Targets for locations can also be set this way. The panel could have tabs for production, personnel (with a checkbox or other filter system to change whether displaying all personnel, or only busy ones, or whatever), troops (with locations and movement options), fleets, you get the idea. Each item on the panel allows the user to double click, auto zooming the main display to the system connected to that fleet/factory/whatever.

 

Again, the radial system could be used to boost that last option, again for quick access to information.

 

Also, when more information is released about Planetary Annihilation, I bet it has some interesting GUI components that could be, er, borrowed, for your project.

 

I can probably come up with other ideas, but its after 2AM and I've only had 4 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours. I'm turning in.

[Master_Xan]

Double post. I'm not really sorry though.

 

Played SoaSE. I like the GUI, particularly the notifications. I was struggling with a better way to adapt Rebellion's notification system; something like what Sins has would be good. Perhaps a cross between the two? Fewer categories than Rebellion had, maybe one for all deployments (troops/fighters/facilities/etc), one for personnel and fleets, and one for combat (enemy missions/fleets/uprisings). Like Sins, have the player click on the notification to see a bit more detail; clicking again rotates to the next notification in the same category. Maybe a right-click zooms to the area in question; Sins has you click on a separate image to do this, and I don't think that works as well.

 

Ironically, what I described before is similar to how Sins shows information about a system. I thought it would be more useful to split it into categories, like fighters in one group, capital ships in another, which Sins doesn't do until you hover over the info portion, but they are similar. It would need to be expanded for the extra details Rebellion has, but a similar thing nonetheless. The lower-right panel is similar to what I described as a traditional approach, and it works fairly well in Sins.

 

The left panel in Sins, where ships are 'pinned,' isn't my favorite. Its too messy; it should be a great place to get a summary, but it gives too much detail for a summary. If you wanted something similar, I'd recommend that instead of putting pictures for each ship, instead have a summary of each ship class with a number next to it. Easier to get info quickly without taking up half the screen and without the player having to manually count or interpret the data themselves (like memorizing ship profiles).

[Evaders99]

I agree with those points. Definitely the left pane is an eyesore with too many ships. A summary few with numbers is ideal.

[captericsh]

Slocket, it's been a while since anything has been posted about the remake. Are you still working on the project?

[Slocket]

Yes. I made a scrollable and zoom-able 2D interface with planets and such about 3 months ago. I can upload here, but it is not a professional product. Maybe you can add more planet artwork to it?

 

I would like to make it more of a true turn based "Master of Orion II" style theme. "Master of Coruscant" so to speak.

 

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5235/rebellion2013.png:http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/7486/rebellion2013b.png

 

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5235/rebellion2013.png

 

 

http://www.sendspace.com/file/e0uqa8

[Master_Xan]

Yay progress!

[birgador]

Is this still active

[Slocket]

yes

[Avarice1987]

Hello, i am a german rebellion player. I have seen this topic. Nice screens. I have wuestion to the status of the mod.

Have it a new KI ?