Source Code?

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USARMYGUARD
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Source Code?

Post by USARMYGUARD »

Im just posting because Im curious about something.

If you modders had the source code to BOTF... will you be able to make drastic alterations to BOTF.

Alterations such as

1. Making the Map 2 - 10x its present size
2. Adding More Graphics to each Ship
3. Adding more Races
4. Adding more Diplomatic options
5. Adding more Sabotage / Espionage Options
6. Making a more intelligent AI

7. Giving all the graphics a face lift

Please give comment.
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Post by trevtones »

Everything and anything would be possible with the source code. It's a shame that the great modders here don't have it already.
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Post by USARMYGUARD »

A programmer once told me that there may be a way to decode the game. Through this process we can assemble the source code. Is this possible?
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Post by thunderchero »

USARMYGUARD wrote:A programmer once told me that there may be a way to decode the game. Through this process we can assemble the source code. Is this possible?
If he can provide any info it would be welcomed with open arms :wink:

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Post by Flocke »

Sure you can try decompile the game, with for example rec from http://www.backerstreet.com/rec/rec.htm
But you would never get back the original code and variable names and so on. It would be quite unstructured and some parts would probably remain assembler code.
So it would still be a very very very very very very hard work to make any good improvements. Not to mention that decompilation normally is illegal.
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Post by Dr_Breen »

youre right it would be hard, but im not sure if it was still ilegal, since microprose is dead...is there anybody out thee who would still care?

or am i completly wrong
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Post by Malvoisin »

Atari Interactive might care. They hold the copyrights on botf right now. See wikipedia.org, botf wiki there and the bottom link to atari's official botf support page.
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Post by trevtones »

Well the ISO image is available for download on this website and no one has complained about that yet. I honestly don't think they care about this game anymore. Which is all the more reason that they should release the source code.
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Post by sean_west »

As for Microprose being dead, they are not.....
They have been behind the scenes making hardware, but they are begining to re-surface.

As for the ISO, as long as you have the original game disks, it is not illegal outside the Nordic Countries (the claim virtual emulation to be illegal)

And I am sure we all have disks and just use the ISO to be lazy, or prevent the original from getting scratched.

:)
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Post by stardust »

speak for yourself...I'm still using my original .. :Lol: i've burned a couple of backups a couple of years ago so i'm safe :D

i'm still wondering what they'll say if they ever got round to looking at BOTE
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Post by USARMYGUARD »

Honestly Publishers in general dont care about the fan based community.

I spoke with a Atari VP or Director, and am currently working with a Publisher now... and what I can say is they care more about future growth. They really dont care about fan based gaming. They dont see any threat as there is no funding for any sort of mass advertizing, nor mass publication.

As long as you distribute your mods / fan based games without any cost... your fine. Even if you do charge for such a product... I doubt a publishing representative would care much. To prosecute such small earnings with a corporate attorney would be of great loss to the corportation.

The reason I asked about the Source code is to see if you the fan based community can develop the code from decoding the title. Since that would be a very difficult task I may be able to see if such code exists in the hands of Atari.

I would advise that yous decompile to game and reconstruct the title to see if such alterations can be made. I highly doubt the source documents and files of BOTF will be easily found in Atari... if such files havent been destroyed yet.
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Post by Malvoisin »

look at bote and cdrwolfe's 3d battle engine available at startrek-games.com and you honestly don't want botf source anymore except you are very nostalgic.

I don't really wonder what they from Atari would say to bote, I'm more inclined to see what Paramount is going to respond when they are asked about giving permission for a trek bote mod..

anyway, there are tons of examples where fan-games were killed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_Que ... cial_Games (ctrl-f and "vivendi" as search term).
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Post by Flocke »

I'm sure that many modders would be very interested in getting the original source code! That would be really great!
But I'm not very sanguine about getting it. And I doubt that trying to work with decompiled code would be any better than developing a new botf (but please, show me the opposite). And well, as Malvoisin already mentioned, there's already existing a project for, no, wait, two projects. :lol:

But with having the original source code, here would be some guys solving some bugs, adding stuff and making even greater mods for sure!
BotF hasn't died yet and although BotE and Supremacy may be great, there are still people here that prefer BotF and I doubt that this will change in the near feature. 8)
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