Game Engine

[BTAxis]

I've not looked at the code here (perhaps I should stop saying "we", since I've done nothing but play and make a few posts), but I'm hoping it's reasonable modular (OO); in which case I would recommend to someone who wanted to change engines that they develop a proof of concept.

It's C, which is not object oriented. Not that object oriented code has anything to do with stuff being modular.

[stevenjackson]

JerryLove

4) A UFO:AI developer with a desire to such a thing.

Zero, unless you want to do it JerryLove there isn't enough motivation/reason to change engines.  The time taken to achive this it better spend bug fixing/adding new features to the existing game.

Steve

[JerryLove]

It's C, which is not object oriented. Not that object oriented code has anything to do with stuff being modular.

While encapsulation is not unique to OO, it is a trait of OO.

Essentially I was mentioning that, if the engine is an object that interacts with other objects through exposed interfaces, then replacement of the entire thing could be done separate of most other development. As long as it takes expected input and produces expected output, the rest of the game has no idea what is going on.

If encapsulation has not happened... if various parts of the code interact directly with the methods of the engine, then replacing the engine would be nigh-impossible.

Zero, unless you want to do it JerryLove there isn't enough motivation/reason to change engines.  The time taken to achieve this it better spend bug fixing/adding new features to the existing game.

I agree with you: but that is exactly what I was discussing... what conditions would make that different.

Obviously a coder who just decided to do it would just do it regardless of any other conditions.

[hotdog]

I think the happy medium here would be to get everyones opinion on an engine and then a bunch non dev members can throw UFO AI together on that different engine. I don't see it happening but it could work.

You would just need a team of skilled anti social teenagers to catch up to the trunk version. I would love to take that project up when things settle down over here, I can't put and hold together a team though thus the problem with even trying it.

Another problem would be the second skilled anti social teenager team getting a place to store all their work and upload it to. As much as I would love to see a sub UFO AI forum on this site dedicated to the secondary team it would probably not happen.

All in all it's a lot of work and you would need dedicated people to do it. You don't find many people who take their hobbies or interests as seriously as I do (Having no life is awesome ).

[BTAxis]

If there were a serious group interested in porting UFO:AI to another engine, I'm sure a different subforum and a new SVN branch could be arranged. That leaves the issue of finding skilled people who are really motivated to do this as opposed to improve the existing game (we would prefer the latter), and I predict that that issue will remain unsolved indefinitely.

[hotdog]

Considering how many people are actually skills AND want it ported...I agree that I just don't see it happening. But it definetely deserves a workover at the least. After all if you can get a up to trunk date version on another engine that would be easier or better to work with it's worth a shot.

[shevegen]

While encapsulation is not unique to OO, it is a trait of OO.

I am not sure that this is an inherent trait for OO. For example to me the core of OO is about objects and messages.

The encapsulation is something I see as "artifical", like the discussion of multiple inheritance vs "mix in behaviour" in Ruby.
Personally I'd love to see a pure prototype language like Io, but with a nicer syntax (more similar to ruby and python)

I think C and C++ are rather complicated compared to either ruby or python. C is still on my todolist but pointers
and memory handling confuses and bores me I spent 5 years with ruby so far and do not regret it, except that
there really is so much in C and C++ in the Linux world... hardly a way around it. Game engines include that I guess
(Ogre3D is in C++ and crystalspace too afaik)

[ManicMiner]

I've not been following the projects too closely but about 2 years ago I took a look at a UFO fansite which listed over four projects which showed promise. Progress was so slow on them, I never got why the teams didn't get together.

Xeocide has a superb graphics engine but IMHO the gameplay is rather underdeveloped. AI has great gameplay but the UI is a bit primitive for some people (not my opinion).

I'm going out on a limb: what are the odds on the two teams getting together and helping each other out? I'm not talking about merging the projects but it strikes me that there's plenty of experience that could be shared.

[BTAxis]

We don't want to, and besides we're not license compatible anyway.