Let's all get real for just a moment: no one is going to make SMAC 2 for us. Not EA, not 2k, not Firaxis, nobody. And, let's be honest, after seeing CiV do any of us trust them to anyway? If we want it done, and I know many of us do, we have to do it ourselves, and there's no reason we can't. The modding community has access to tremendous amounts of source for CIV and inexhaustible talent. We can make this happen, and I want to see it happen. I want it for myself but, at the risk of sounding too fanatical, I want it for my children. I learned so much from that game as a teenager (I still manage to impress people with my many memorized quotes) and I want my kids and all of yours to be able to enjoy a modernized version. What's more, I read the forums and I know you guys want it too.
What I propose is that we produce an independent, open source modernization of original SMAC plus SMACX. I have tried to raise interest before in a total conversion mod for CIV or CiV, but there has been little response in those forums, and a stand-alone development will provide the best opportunities for development and refinement independent of Firaxis and without the damn thing breaking every time a patch is released. I'm not a programmer, but I can help coordinate efforts, code XML, and translate user interface in a number of languages. If we can get a couple of programmers and a couple of graphics guys interested, we can get off to a good start.
The chief design principle, as I see it, should be conservatism. It would be too great an undertaking to try to produce an entirely new game and many of us really just want an update on the classic anyway. Mods can satisfy whatever hankering for a sequel anyone may have. To that end, I think our aim should be maximum use of original game text, sounds, and artwork (although on-map graphics could stand a major update). That also makes the job a little easier. For the most part, technologies, facilities, improvements, units, etc. would be just as in the original. So what should change? The following I regard as essential changes to modernize:
Graphics
Although much still artwork can be used from the original, city, unit, and terrain graphics need a major overhaul to be brought up to speed with CIV and CiV.
User Interface
So many little improvements have been made to this since '99, like the ability to see what cities are producing right on the map and the ability to move units in groups. Interface should be brought up to CIV standards.
Number of Factions on one map
Seriously.
Multiplayer
Simultaneous turns would be nice, for starters.
Besides this, there are a lot of developments in the Civ series featurally that I think could be fun inclusions to base SMAC with minimal adaptation: culture and attendant mechanisms (reflecting ideological influence), promotions, hexagons, city states (which could be an interesting way of implementing the Data Angels and possibly also the Nautilus Pirates, as they would not have very strong centralized governance anyway), and even religion (where the religions would represent global infrastructure projects like the Planetary Datalinks or the Planetary Energy Grid that, CiV style, would provide bonuses to the faction founding them and to all of the cities that link into them). Whether or not to implement these (and how to do so if they are wanted) can be a matter for further discussion once we have a project team together.
It won't be easy, but it will be fun and it will be worthwhile..
...I haven't discussed it with my partner, but we would be thrilled to host something here. It could have its own forum and all. Sisko will probably have more to say on this, but where better to work on AC2 than AC2?
There's potential for me to contribute some work towards something like this, mainly as it would be excellent practice for me doing something commerical (I want to do an X-COM clone for Android/iOS as my first game).
Still I'm not one for reinventing the wheel--FreeCiv is like 90% what we'd need as a base, just redo the UI and add more functionality into the areas I mentioned on CFC. That's like, probably a year of dev time already saved. :|
Has anyone looked at whether we can get the source code to the last published version of SMAC and SMACX?
If we can, I feel confident that between myself and the other talent, we can bring the code up to Windows 7 standards.
If we can't, then I don't think it is likely that the project can be done at all.
Earthmichael
You're looking for texture.pcx and ter1.pcx in the root folder. I doubt they'll tell you what you want.
The elevation has climate effects, and you can't have a +2100m tile next to a +10m tile. You've got five land tiers and two water ones, all of which have to be adjacent to tile not in excess of 1,999 higher or lower. Again, notwithstanding the elevation number the game gives, it rounds off to thousands.
Howdy, just found this thread. I haven't been participating in the discussion at CFC, since I doubt that anything will come of it. (For those who don't know, I'm the moderator of CFC's SMAC forum). Some comments:
* Source code: It's not known whether it even exists anymore. Scient tried to get some information about it, but ran into a dead end. If it does exist, it's owned by EA. ISTR that Brian Reynolds said he doesn't have it, or know who does.
* This link (http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2011/09/15/three-moves-ahead-episode-134-the-alpha-centauri-show/) points to a podcast in which Brian and Soren Johnson discuss SMAC. It's been about a year since I listened to it (and it's an hour and 20 minutes long). I believe they discuss the IP rights.
* I don't have any coding or graphics skills, but would be glad to help test the program.
Hi! I'm the same rcb guy from CFC thread.
As I said in that thread somewhere, I am a long time SMAC player. I also have wanted to code a TBS game since playing Civ. So the reason I am doing this is because I've wanted to do it for ages.
Also, I did not frequent CFC, here, Apolyton or anywhere else (something which I am going to change). So it was a very stimulating surprise to find out that there are so many people still playing SMAC! This is also something which I will keep in mind while working on the "still nameless" open source AC clone. Of course, I don't believe I can pull this off alone; but I guess that if I can make it get some traction, other people might become interested, and join.
What I have done so far was to try to find out what is the situation with previous efforts, and try to contact relevant groups. I am mailing Cazfi privately; he is developing a tutorial for freeciv ruleset creators, so I am creating a ruleset from his template, and giving him feedback.
I have written an email to the freecivAC mailing list; telling them that since their project is GPL I am forking it, but would love to continue where they left off (the last blip on that radar is from 2003). So right now I am going forward with the "updating" of the freecivAC ruleset for freeciv for it to work ("work" meaning here "not crashing with") a recent version of freeciv. In other words, I copied their code, but until I hear from them, I can't say exactly what is going on with that.
Last, but not least, I do agree that at some point someone has to shut up and start making it happen; and that's what I am doing. As soon as I have something interesting to share, I will do it (in one of the forums). Cheers!