Star Control

An Adaptation Proposal

Did anyone here ever play a game called "Star Control" as a kid? For those of you who have never heard of it, it was a space trading / combat diplomacy game from way back that resembled EV in a great many ways. It was a wonderful game, and one I've always looked back on with nostalgia.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a plug adaptation of the old game, a la the old (old old old old) Elite Frontiers plug for EVC. I'm toying with the idea of starting work on something along those lines, but I want to know first if anyone here is interested, or indeed has heard of the game at all.

If you haven't, and you're curious, there's an open source adaptation available here. Don't you love it when companies give out mothballed code to their old fans?

(edit)Damn typos...(/edit)

This post has been edited by CrazyTom9 : 10 November 2005 - 10:11 AM

Ah, so you were thinking of Star Control. The "Star Command" bit inside made me wonder.

The Androsynth Guardian's acid bubbles can work, but I don't know how you'd pull Blazer mode off-in theory, with KeyCarried ships, you could do everything but the collisions and the instant transformation (back to Guardian).

Arilou transportation, I'm sure, will not work.

The Broodhome has a few problems. First off, the DOGIs can't drain energy as they're supposed to, and the crystal gun wouldn't have the same characteristics as it usually does-you would have to settle for a very long range, as opposed to a (Virtually infinite) controlled range.

The Chmmr Avatar's drones can't rotate in the manner they do, but aside from that, there's nothing wrong.

Ooh boy. First off, the Druuge Mauler relies on crew for refuelling-and since crew and protection aren't quite the same here, well, you can understand how this would be troublesome. In theory, you could have a weapon with just enough impact (close to you) to kill off a crew member while providing more energy, however.

The Earthling Cruiser shouldn't have any impossible to correct problems.

Avenger is easy-in fact, probably the most possible of all the ships with special abilities. Cloaks are a piece of cake with Nova.

The Kohr-Ah Marauder has basically the same problems as the Chenjesu Broodhome, although you can fix the problem with early death rates and one submunition (same for the Broodhome, although with this, it's more important that it stops).

I don't think the Melnorme Trader is possible at all. Sorry.

Edit: For the Mmrnmhrm X-Form, it's more likely you would use Deprez's stuff.

The Mycon are like an inverse of the Druuge. Only much easier, because of how the EV series works. As far as the torpedo, well, submunitions combined with constant fadeaway and different weapons for each stage of it should work.

The Orz Nemesis is harder than the rest. The turret won't work exactly the same as in Star Control, so you'll have to compensate. The Orz Marines won't work well, I'm afraid. But if there's any way to influence what happens on weapon collision, you could have them stall before doing damage for a few seconds. Average out what Orz Marines do in SC, and it works. Sorta.

The Pkunk Fury's main guns are possible, I believe, as well as the secondary weapon. But the "Special" feature is another thing entirely. I don't know how it could be implemented, and although that doesn't mean it's necessarily impossible, it seems likely.

Everything about the Shofixti works-the Glory Device could be a powerful weapon with a significant enough impact to do significant damage to the enemy, while destroying the actual Scout.

The Slylandro Probe isn't possible to replicate exactly, I'm afraid. But you can do a good imitation of it, if the recharge is slow enough and you set it to hunt asteroids. Unfortunately, that also means that it might become a wimpy trader. Ah well.

Nothing about the Spathi Eluder that should be impossible, I think. If this plugin is actually started/finished, however, you must make all Spathi ships Wimpy Traders. It's just fitting.

The Supox Blade's special can be done, to my knowledge...with a lot of trickiness. Qaanol, I believe, has some experience with retro thrusters, and can give you the exact idea.

The Syreen Penetrator's main gun can be done with ease, but the stealing crew, I believe, is simply not possible within the Nova engine.

The Thraddash could be done, I believe, entirely.

The Umgah Drone would require a recoil weapon. I don't think their-erm, "unique" way of restoring energy is possible to easily replicate. However, you could have a weapon trigger the energy boost.

The Ur-Quan Dreadnought, surprisingly enough, is fine...up to firing fighters depletes protection. That's no big deal, since it does that with the Druuge-but getting them to restore protection is another thing entirely. I do think that this would require a serious suspension of fanaticism, because it wouldn't work exactly the same way as the normal Dreadnought. Granted, you could use tons of KeyCarried ship features (if I understand them right, but I probably don't), but it probably wouldn't be worthwhile for the (admittedly minimal) effect.

I don't think the Utwig special is possible to replicate at all. Sorry.

The VUX limpets can't be replicated, but their laser is fine. Getting them to warp in right next to you isn't, however. Ah well. It isn't like they do it in the normal scenario.

The Yehat...well, all I'll say is to the crowds who don't know, they have a shield that works like the one in Maelstrom. I frankly have no idea how this could be done to replicate the normal game.

The Zoq-Fot-Pik Stinger should be easy as anything, considering all the other ships.

The Vindi isn't bad, either.

-----

All that said, I think this is a good idea-but if you do it, it should be more of a "Star Control III-ish" setting-not in the III scenario, of course, since that, from everything I've heard, is horrible. But in a scenario that takes place after II, or at least finds an excuse from it, to have a more Star Control I-type (EV-favoring) scenario.

I would be willing to give off advice, even if I can't take actively in the development.

-Bob

This post has been edited by Consul Bob : 11 November 2005 - 06:37 PM

Given the vastness and complexity of SC-II, it's unlikely you'd ever pull it off in EV.

A Super-Melee style scenario might be possible, but given the limitations of EVN, you'd have a hard time recreating all of the unique weapons which made the game a classic, as Consul has pointed out.

For me, the biggest limitation of the SC-II engine is that you can only ever fight one ship at a time, even when facing a whole fleet. That always seemed kinday lame to me. A full scale battle in EVN involving dozens of New Alliance and Hierarchy ships would be ace.

This post has been edited by tycho61uk : 10 November 2005 - 09:02 AM

Well, the good thing is that if it took place after SC-II, you wouldn't have to replicate all the ships. The Chenjesu Broodhome/Kohr-Ah Marauders were classic, but neither of them would exist. Same with the Androsynth Guardian. And you could bypass the Druuge/Melnorme, if you needed to.

-Bob

Go for it. You'd have the whole community's approval once the newer members are told what it is. Since I have pretty much no project going right now, I might be able to contribute.

I like the idea, but why make a Star Control plugin for EVN when anyone can download and play the real deal?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed SC2 immensely and would be interested in seeing someone's take on it via EVN.
Currently I'm unavailable to help with any real work, but if you want to discuss your ideas on the matter I'd be
more than willing to contribute.

And...

Well, as-is, Star Control (II) doesn't have quite the same number of possibilities-I wouldn't imagine this to be an exact port, although if you wanted to try one, it would work. As far as creating it when you can play the real thing, well, for challenge, for the skill you would undoubtably gain as a result-and besides, it'd be pretty fun, and allow you to modify the game via plugins.

-Bob

This post has been edited by Consul Bob : 10 November 2005 - 06:32 PM

Nick Anderson, on Nov 10 2005, 09:49 PM, said:

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Why did your bridge turn purple?

If you're serious, I can help with ship, weapon and planet graphics. I'm no longer working on EV stuff, but I love SC-II.

I just noticed a serious problem that would effect an attempt at keeping the Earthling Cruiser exactly the same: Since how frequently the missiles can be released depends on the energy bar, you couldn't get the volleying effect seen in SC without some manipulation.

I don't personally see what the problem would be-the Cruiser would work fine, from all I've seen of Nova.

-Bob

Consul Bob, on Nov 10 2005, 09:10 AM, said:

All that said, I think this is a good idea-but if you do it, it should be more of a "Star Control III-ish" setting-not in the III scenario, of course, since that, from everything I've heard, is horrible.

I played SC3 prior to any of the others, and enjoyed it a great deal.

All things considered, SC2 is better, but SC3 isn't as bad as some people say.

SC3 is a very different kind of game. It's more like Warcraft than Star Control in a sense. But it has much nicer graphics than SC2, I've heard.