Matress_Of_Evil has gratefully agreed to post this, as well as give me tons of advice and help with this project. Thanks as well to Dafedz for supplying the theme images, for they were a big help.


Staff of Birth of the Federation 2,

Over the last few weeks, I have been secretly working on a project of my own. This project, currently titled "Birth of the Federation 2 - Browser Edition", is a browser based version of Birth of the Federation. However, this new game is not being built from scratch. BOTF2-BE is being based off of the Purely version of the Solar Empire game, which is protected by GPL. This does mean that BOTF2-BE will be open source as well. I decided that basing BOTF2-BE off of another game would be better than building it form scratch would be better for a few reasons. The main one however, is that the game is fully functional when the upgrades/modifications are being made. This means that an alpha/beta testing phase can be rolled out very quickly, and a public release coming soon after that as well. Another reason is that I do not have the time to build an engine from scratch, and frankly, do not have the knowledge. Solar Empire has most features already built in which are needed for BOTF2. The game play will be different than the original PC game, but this can be expected when porting such a game.

BOTF2-BE is massively multiplayer, meaning that one game can have hundreds of active players. The Alpha release will be one server, and will hold fast to the game play of BOTF, when related to empires. There are four empires, the Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian. When a new player joins, they must choose from one of those four. There are ONLY four joinable empires on the first server. Once a player is in the empire, they cannot leave, however this may be changed later. This is important, for the empire works as one body, with one fleet. A good way to explain is with systems in the original Birth of the Federation. Each new player is a ‘member system’, so to say, and works independently. They gather resources, trade, and build ships. However, the entire Empire works together as a whole to protect itself from other empires, and AI empires (such as the Borg). Cooperation will be needed to keep the empire together, for if players cannot work together, the other empire that can will invade. This will require a community of members which will have to be active socially as well as in game.

A key addition to the game already made is the theme support. The Purely version of Solar Empire has an unusual theme system, not using any graphics at all. The CSS code has been highly edited to support a graphical theme, as well as theme switching. When a player joins an empire, the theme will switch accordingly. The player can switch themes at will, regardless of empire choice. This code has already been implemented and is functional.

A good amount of the code has already been changed by me, and a massive amount more will be required. This is NOT just a newly themed version of Solar Empire. I have already begun to create a separate game, using Solar Empire only for the foundation.

The change log is located here:



The Change log is not complete, due to me not putting down every change I made. Most changes in the log are for the theme and aesthetics, whereas not all of the many changes to the code were added to this log.

Now enough talking, here are some two screenshots from the pre-alpha version.





This is the page that players will spend the most time on. The system screen will allow players to gather resources, attack other systems, and move their ships. The federation logo at the top left will rotate as well.

The plan for the development of BOTF2 – BE comes in a few simple steps:

1) Convert entire game to Star Trek theme (Completed)
2) Begin removing code that is not needed (Partially completed)
3) Begin adding necessary features
a. This is primarily still in the planning stage, for this is the biggest category. Some coding has already been coding has already been completed to make this step go faster.
4) Begin adding non-necessary features.


I expect the alpha version to be released to testers within the next few months, and the beta release to come along within the year. The general public will be allowed into a special kind of server, where changes are made while members are playing. This will allow members to enjoy the game while it is being developed. The Beta release will be the first version of the game released to the general public.

- If you have any comments, questions, or wish to contact me regarding this project, you can PM me since I am unable to view this thread.

This will be announced to the public on the Sunday the 24th of September. Please do NOT disclose any information regarding this project until I have made the announcement on Sunday. I thought it would be best to get your opinion before publicly announcing the game.

Thank you,

Nemitor_Atimen

(General_Nemitor)

You guys have no idea how hard it was for me to keep this project a secret. I haven't even told Billy!

As Nemitor said, he's been asking me for advice since he decided to commence his project. He's made numerous changes to his interface based on my observations, but we believe now is the time to get the point of view from a larger audience. Obviously discussing this with the entire community could be detrimental at the moment though, which is why I agreed to post it here instead.

Nemitor would love to have some feedback from you guys, epecially since most of you are more technically-minded than me.

Interesting..

i don't know if i am of any help, but i can do dhtml, css, javascript, php, mysql, flash. So perhaps might help. atm don't know if i got time tho. But looks good from what i can see.

looks cool, i have sent zack a pm telling him about this and for him to speak to nemitor before he announcesa it on hailing frequences.

very interesting - i am going to keep a close eye on this for a while first before i mention anything about it on hailing frequency - this is due to the fact that a large number of projects i have reported on in the past have ended up closing down, and i do not want to disappoint people again should this project end abuptly.....

having played solar empires in the past, i will be very interested to see how you have converted it all to star trek.

I've PM'd Nemitor, i'll post his reply here when he sends one.

*Edit - Posted on behalf of Nemitor

Of course.

I was stalling until I had a name. its got one now - Star Trek: Allegiance

Its a little hard when I dont have a forum or can access the staff room either

tell them to hold on, im fixing some theme bugs for a couple of brand new features and screens.

thanks a bunch.

So, are we ready to play?

sweet.

There is a more talked in discussion going on in the sticky located

Hence the reason to lock this.