Open Source TC

I believe we've had enough time for voting, if the lack of activity in this topic is any indication. So, here's the results...

Monarchy w/ Church: (6)

Advanced Freedom Republic: (5)

Culturally Developed Warrior Nation: (3)

Extreme Militaristic Culture (2)

Loose Confederacy: (2)

Bureaucracy: (2)

Technocracy: (1)

Federalist Empire: (0)

Since we're taking the top three, that gives us the Monarchy, Republic, and Warrior Nation. The others are always open for minor groups, though I do ask that we first put some focus on getting the three main factions and those directly affected at least partially developed before we start adding smaller groups. As for names of the govts, we can go with whatever the best ones people come up with as opposed to having yet another poll. If we have polls on everything, we'll never get anywhere. Same for the back story. Said back story will likely get partially, maybe even fully, developed a bit by the descs we write, so feel free to exert some creative freedom when writing those. Any lore conflicts that arise can be settled as they appear.

I got a few world ideas in mind for that Monarchy, so time to go create them...

I move that you take the techset from the "Order" govt in EnigmaTC. For the religious monarchy of course.

This post has been edited by LNSU : 06 November 2008 - 11:15 PM

sounds like a mighty fine plan there, ill try and stir up some creative juices this weekend.. got a 5 day weekend for vet's day. so i should be able to come up with something

Spoiler

Viva La Laconia!sorry couldnt resist..

Josh; I've been looking at the planets you've put into your contributions file. The planets are placeholders from EVO shipyards, I assume?

I can't for the life of me figure out how to make a donation. I have my own dropbox, and I don't know how to switch to the TC one.

Go to www.getdropbox.com/home. If you're already logged in there with your account, log out. Log into dropbox using ossNovaTC@gmail.com with the password <insert the name of a legendary figure the player become in the Polaris storyline line including caps>. You should now be able to upload and download files from that dropbox.

@jacabyte, on Nov 8 2008, 02:17 PM, said in Open Source TC:

Josh; I've been looking at the planets you've put into your contributions file. The planets are placeholders from EVO shipyards, I assume?

Except for Marotiri's landing shot, all the graphical resources came from donated files. Check my log if you want the exact IDs.

Ah, good. I'm going to supply planets as they're needed, so expect replacements for those (and more) in a week or two.

Alright, just remember we don't need an individual graphic for every spob. With the except of the important spobs, like Earth, govt capitals, etc, I'd say we use a set of generic spobs like the trilogy does. For example, have something like 2-4 barren worlds, 2-4 ice worlds, etc. Later, when we actually know how big the galaxy is, then we can determine if having individual graphics for every spob is feasible.

Anyways, went ahead and added a fighter and simple weapon to my Submission plug, complete with graphics from VA and Enigma, written descs, and a placeholder sound from Ares. I'll probably look for a replacement for said sound tomorrow or otherwise in the near future. Might also look for some beeps too.

Don't be shy everyone, make some contributions! I'm looking for an excuse to update the Seed with a first, official update. Some submitted content would be the best possible excuse.

This post has been edited by JoshTigerheart : 09 November 2008 - 12:51 AM

Even if individual planet graphics would be feasible, they aren't necessary. I'm going to re-use Acheron planet graphics simply to save time.

Of course, with everyone contributing, individual planet graphics might be a little easier. And it would be cool, for sure.

I've gotten a burst of creativity lately, and now that I've got Photoshop I can try some techniques I've never been able to use before. I've got one generic ice planet and one desert planet so far, I think you guys will like them. But I'm not ready to submit them yet, not until I make some more...

Isn't there a limit of something like 64 for different spob types? I remember the limit being high enough, but low enough to make individual graphics impossible in larger galaxies, such as all three EVs.

Max Stellar Classes 	256

So it's possible to have up to 256 unique planets, but in the long run, it probably isn't worth it since many of the planets will start to look alike after a while. Not to mention the work involved. On a related note, it's possible to give each stellar its own landing pict, since that's governed by a field in the spob resource which refers to a PICT resource.

And on yet another note, "stellar classes" is literal; not only does it change the planet's pict, but I'm pretty sure it also assigns it a different string name when you hail it, e.g. "Class M Planet" or "First Generation Space Station" will be assigned to a planet depending on whether it's got the graphic for a temperate water/land planet or a space station given to it.

This post has been edited by JacaByte : 09 November 2008 - 12:40 PM

I added disguised pirates to my submission plug (update not uploaded yet, perhaps tomorrow along with some other additions) and noticed that planets with a govt of -1 will get angry with you if you shoot at them, even if they are shooting at merchants or police. I've stealthily rectified this by adding an "Independent" govt for use with planets only. It is allies to merchants and police, but against all types of pirates. Hence, you can blow up fake merchants without getting penalized.

In the meantime, the monarchy is being weird by liking it when I blew up merchants before I made them allies. They presently have no relations with the fake pirates, but still improve your legal status when you blow them up. Go figure. If they decide to arbitrarily start docking you for blasting fake pirates, that can always be fixed by making a govt for use with the planets and a govt for the ships, giving them the same class, and then allying them together. The planet version can be enemies with fake pirates while the ship version won't and will consequently ignore them. However, a military version not allied with the merchants will need to be added later.

But, from the player's perspective, it'll look like it's just one, single government instead of several.

In short, using these fake pirates is making our government system look like this:
Tangled_Mess.jpg (10.17K)
Number of downloads: 26

In a good way, though.

Eh, not really. Ever taken a look at Nova's govt resources? It has seven different versions of the Federation! And that doesn't count the Bureau or Roughnecks, in which case you get up to fourteen Fed related govts. Fake pirates just requires two or three of each of the main govts and one to replace planets that'd otherwise be set to govt -1.

Edit: I'm going to update the Seed Wednesday at some point. All submissions up before then will be added.

This post has been edited by JoshTigerheart : 10 November 2008 - 12:21 PM

I never said that Nova didn't have a government system that looked like that.

Anyway, I need to find time and inspiration to contribute something...the inspiration is the hard part.

You can always try adding basic and simple stuff if you can't come up with anything, like freighters or empty systems. We're going to need those too.

I've got some really good looking planets here, I dare say they're the best I've ever made. So far I've got some generic ice planets and one desert planet, but I'm thinking about holding back one of them because it's too dang cool. That particular planet deserves something special, since it was originally a throwout when I started, but morphed into something neat. I'd like to add the spob it belongs to myself, along with the planet sprite.

I've updated the seed, though I split it into two files since it was almost at 13 megabytes. I'd likely have to split it next update regardless. The new files are OSTC Data and OSTC Graphics. The Seed and all submission files who had all of their resources used up were moved to Deletables. I'll be emptying that folder Friday.

Presently, OSTC will run on its own straight from the Nova Files folder. So just drop a copy of those into said folder and you can test any new additions you make straight away.

Submitted resources were not checked for balance or bugs before being added to the version control files. Odds are, any of the latter they may have will be fixed before the next update.