1.04 and Beyond - Thoughts on Transcendence Modding

Freeform discussion about anything related to modding Transcendence.
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Periculi
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Over the past few weeks I have been re-acquainting myself with the transcendence game engine after a break of nearly 2 years from actively releasing mods. Transcendence has grown a lot, and George has added nearly all the features that I had ever come up with or whimsically thought would make the game engine an amazing and powerful platform for developing new content or, as George himself put it, a multiverse game system, that we can utilize to write our own sci-fi/fantasy space based games.

I am actually waiting to see if there is a 1.05 bug fix in the works before diving into a new phase of experimental development for the transcedence engine. In the meantime, however, I have come to the conclusion that anything that I am going to do is going to have to top what I have done before. Which is a daunting notion, really.

In the time that has passed since last building mods I have learned a lot of new tricks, and acronyms too. The first step to really kick off some multiversal expansion would, of course, involve an acronym: a transcendence platform developer SDK. Not that that means much. What it would most likely entail is a complete strip down of the game content to get just the most basic elements needed to run the game to start from, such as the kind and talented alterecco has already provided with his Miniature Transcendence, brought up to date for the current version of transcendence and repackaged in some various formats to take the work of re-adding all the sound effects, explosions, and other game basics off the typical developer.

So, expect to see something along the lines of a basic package arriving over the next few weeks, and get ready to drop into the realm of XML based transcendence loading (all you tdb-only fans need not read any further...)

A package such as I am proposing would make an excellent starting point for developing new storylines based on the gameplay style that is the core of transcendence, and also a way to get experimental new game styles started without having to dig through and alter the vast amount of content that already exists for the game as George has provided it.

Personally, I am taking this direction because I am not sure anymore what the game currently could ever really need from modifications to it's beautiful, well thought out and implemented design that hasn't already either been added to the core game or developed by the crew of modders we already have. Certainly the modders that are working diligently on improvements and enhancements have covered a lot of ground, and continue to do an awesome job. That is why I am going to have to raise the bar on what is possible.

I think that George already threw down a great challenge for us in the thread I linked above, to take the game engine to entirely new realms, other periods in time and even new universes.

I accept your challenge, George.

And to make it easier on more people to step up to multiverse creation, I am going to start out by making it really, really easy on those who follow by extending alterecco's work into a more or less robust SDK for these types of projects. [Pending permission from alterecco to do so, of course.. lol]

Now in order to put the 'robust' into the package I am going to ask for some additional content from you. Dig up all those pesky ships you modeled, rendered and painstakingly turned into a 40 facing strip but never finished adding to a mod, any lovely items, graphic and sound resources, and anything else you might think would make an excellent ingredient in this stone soup, er.. SDK kit, and post me a link here so that I can start getting things added together to make universe building a hobby we can all participate in with ease.

Remember that this will be an open license type of thing - stuff we want needs to be freely usable on whatever projects that people desire to use them for, with no holds or requirements on the creativity of said usage. The package will include a full credits section, and of course be restricted to use for the transcendence game engine and the modding community, per the usual.

Thanks for your help, in advance.
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alterecco
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Periculi wrote:[Pending permission from alterecco to do so, of course.. lol]
You have it (goes without saying)

Now I intend to just sit back and relax and let you surprise me :D
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Song
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While I'm in no way competent enough to take advantage of what you're intending to do, I have to say, it sounds brilliant. Good luck with it!
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digdug
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This is a beautiful idea Periculi. A transcendence platform SDK !

I suppose I really have to start to render all the ships to 40 facings :D
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ThePrivateer
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Wow, that's quite the new year's resolution there Periculi! ;)

Sounds good and I'd quite like to see a SDK, but like Shrike, I'm not in that league of modding to help you.

Good luck, and may your modding be successful! :D
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Ttech
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Well! Welcome back, i thought you'd never return.


You might be interested in something we cooked up on IRC a few months back, the "Transcendence Sandbox" - while it wasn't really a sandbox it was set in an entire differnt galaxy and we were planning on making it quite different from the original game. You can find the stuff lurking on the forums if your curious.
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Hi Periculi! WB to transcendence modding! :D
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Periculi
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Ttech - I have the dropbox thingy hooked up, and think there are already some files in there to peruse, the Sandobox project sounds interesting, however - it seemed to me that any projects of that kind could make use of the shiva principle, that is to say - before you create, you must first destroy.

So, basically in order to start up a new galaxy or universe of content for the game engine, we need a clean slate to begin from, in a sense 'destroying' the existing game content, or rather removing it and replacing it with new content as desired. Which is where a small selection of stripped down packages comes into play - then we add in some content resource kits, and a potential universe developer can jump right into putting the pieces back together into a new project.

Anyhoo, looks like the Miniature Transcendence upgrades to the latest version without too much trouble, yay.

My next step is to pull out a bunch of reference material from the source to help people get started swiftly - those handy helper globals and so forth.

Still looking for some resources, hint.. wolfy, helloooo..
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Ttech
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Periculi wrote:Ttech - I have the dropbox thingy hooked up, and think there are already some files in there to peruse, the Sandobox project sounds interesting, however - it seemed to me that any projects of that kind could make use of the shiva principle, that is to say - before you create, you must first destroy.

So, basically in order to start up a new galaxy or universe of content for the game engine, we need a clean slate to begin from, in a sense 'destroying' the existing game content, or rather removing it and replacing it with new content as desired. Which is where a small selection of stripped down packages comes into play - then we add in some content resource kits, and a potential universe developer can jump right into putting the pieces back together into a new project.

Anyhoo, looks like the Miniature Transcendence upgrades to the latest version without too much trouble, yay.

My next step is to pull out a bunch of reference material from the source to help people get started swiftly - those handy helper globals and so forth.

Still looking for some resources, hint.. wolfy, helloooo..
It seems to me your interested in making 'starter kits' and letting developers develop the other universes.

On a side note, you should come back to IRC, its pretty nice now, or still is. :)
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