Hi Dog and Star Dragon, thanks for your comments.
The course plot bug is the first time i've heard of this bug. I can't actually test whether the same thing is happening with me because my PC is being fixed, (I'm writing this on my Wii) but if someone else can confirm this bug or if I get my computer back soon and I get the same result, i'll let Mike know about it.
Earth has more than one Moon for programming reasons; the Moons are completely random, and CANNOT be set. I've already asked Mike if he could change this, and he says it would involve major programming changes for something that would actually give very little improvement to the game; he is therefore unwilling to make the change - at least not until the game is more, much closer to completion.
The Stars in Supremacy are actually just very simple animations; five images (Per star) repeated over and over. They can easily be improved just by replacing the images. The files are located in Supremacy/Resources/Images/Stars. Let us now if you find some.
Yes, we *hope* to implement ship naming, but we've had bugs with previous attempts to implement it, so I believe that feature is on hold until the bugs can be worked out.
We hope the division of manpower will add another element to gameplay as well. That's why Mike implemented it in the first place. Fingers crossed it will work the way we hope it does.
The interface is one of the areas of the game we really wanted to improve; BOTF had a good interface but times have moved on and now it looks dated. We copied the interface and freshened it up, but it's by no means finalised yet; there are lots of new features in the pipeline that will require additions or the changes to the interface to implement. If you have any comments or requests to change any parts of the interface though, we'd like to know.
No, as Star-Dragon pointed out, Supremacy can never be sold because it is a fan game; we don't have the Trek licence so it would be illegal to profit from it. We're all just fans of BOTF that just really, really want a sequel. As nice as it would be to make money from it, profit has never been our goal anyways. There is still the possibility that Paramount (Or whoever has the licence) may one day decide they want to sell the game though, so you never know. But it's highly unlikely that will ever happen. Since our game won't have an impact on an existing project - there's no official BOTF sequels being worked on afterall - it's unlikely that the project will be squashed in legalities either. The only other Trek game in development is STO, and Supremacy obviously won't be able to compete with that. Obviously it's still possible, but we're toeing the line as best we can.
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As for estimates of game completion...it really depends on what you define as complete. If you mean every single last feature, image, ship model, and piece of text, then we're looking at a year or four down the line. Remember we're a fan project that are making the game in our free time with extremely limited resources - we're not a multinational corporation with a legion of highly paid artists and programmers. We're doing our best though. People will likely also come up with their own mods and improvements for a long time to come as well. Just look at BOTF - it's 10 years old and the community is still actively developing mods and improvements. Who knows how long Supremacy will be around?
If you're looking at just the game being playable though, the implementation of the AI is our biggest priority - but also the single most difficult to create part of the game. We're hoping that that will be complete by this time next year. Once the AI is complete, we'll be able to implement combat (Which CdrWolfe is working on and already has a demo available of), a proper diplomacy and intel system, system governors to take over system micromanagement to make life easier, and a host of other things. Mike has barely started work on it though, so it will be a wait before even the most basic game AI will be available for testing.
No, the combat isn't salvageable. We would need to hack the game - which would have all sorts of legal implications - and modify it actually work with Supremacy, and I don't even know if that is possible. And besides, like I said, CdrWolfe is already working on the combat system and even has a demo available already. It might have a ways to go, but it's already packing some serious eye candy. If you visit the site portal much, you'll have already seen this screenie I made over christmas, but if not, then it really does look this good already.
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I'm glad you like the new images, but we've got more on the way - there's still tons of structures that lack images or need improved/replacement images for quality or legal reasons. Zeleni and Kenneth are in charge of creating the images, i'm simply compiling them, so direct your thanks their way. As i've said in another recent thread though, the Cardassian interface is going to be scrapped because it has a bug that banks out the fleet movement orders. Don't worry though, Mike's going to replace it with a fully working version as soon as he can.
The random freeze bug I can only apologise about, but there's nothing we can currently do about it. We still have no idea to the cause. Mike is currently working on recompiling the game though, which promises to improve game performance, so you'll be able to get back to where you were more quickly. And who knows? It may even help to solve the problem. We can hope.
_________________"Anyone without a sense of humour is truly at the mercy of the rest of us."