Flexibility of the game and editor / future plans

[erazerhead99]

Hey there,

i am a fan of the older games and excited for SS. The showcased improved engine and UI gave me high impressions. I've got some constructive criticism and a few questions:


1. Graphics and Sound
UI, Map and counters look very good! It seems, howether, that the unit inspection again just shows a black silhouette of the equipment. Seeing the actual weapons in some detail is an important part for many wargamers and contributes to the games marketing and overall appeal. Maybe the post-launch addition of photographs or even detailed pictures, or, alternatively, the possibility to mod this aspect could be considered. I also loved the dramatic music of the older titles. It really set the mood in a fitting way and i hope that FC:SS has more of the same.

2. Steam release and Linux compability through Steam Proton
I assume this game will at some point be available on Steam and i really hope for compability with WINE, a software which runs Windows games on UNIX-like operating systems. Most new Windows-only games on Steam run flawlessly with Proton, an adaption of WINE developed by Steam. We Linux users are to no small part grognards and your perfect target audience, i assure you. The old games sadly dont run with this software and get stuck on the turn resolution, though i assume, this has to do with it beeing a generally older 32 bit engine.

3. Flexibility
Do you intend the mod support to be as broad as including different eras and places? Or will the combat models be too hardcoded to, say, be able to develop modifications for contemporary conflicts in and outside of europe?

4. Future
Can you give us some hint what else you have planned besides the central european cold war theatre? I am sure, that with the total rewrite of the engine you will have larger ambitions than just FC:SS!


Regards,
Robert

[CapnDarwin]

Answers:
1. Unit images are still silhouettes (larger base art for the new game engine) and also the option for NATO symbols (and even large NATO if you like zooming out). The game, like Red Storm, is highly moddable. We do not have the resources or cash to get all color artwork, nor try to deal with Copywrite issues. As for music, we have the same audio at the moment, but closer to the end of development we will look at more audio.

2. We are only officially stating Windows OS support. The new game is 64bit based versus the 32-bit from Red Storm. Red Storm did well on both Linux and MacOS emulators and we don't expect Southern Storm to be any different, but the Dev team does not have MAC or Linux folks in it.

3. We are looking to be better documented and offer a bit more ability to mod the game. While a map editor is not possible, we do provide the information to make maps in a similar fashion to what we do. Data, images, sound effects, and other items can be modified. The game might do WW2 but we already know and plan to do a new game engine to deal with WW2 and the scale in the future. Same for more current-day battles. We also are building up a content creation team(s) to help with the timely output of new DLC for the game (maps, countries, scenarios and campaigns).

4. As noted above we want to expand into a WW2 game engine with scale and capability to deal with the short ranges better. Also Want to do a Modern game engine to cover 2000+ type conflicts and capabilities. Also, we would like at some point when we get past all that, to do a Kriegspiel version as more of a training tool or entry-level wargame. We have more ideas than hours and years right now. As for Cold War DLC, we have already mentioned Central Storm that will be a reqrking of Red Storm materials into he new game engine and then do Northern Storm. From there we want to expand into other decades and locations (Mid-East, Dessert Storm, maybe the Far-East, etc.).

[erazerhead99]

Thanks for your reply. This sounds amazing! I am looking forward to most of this. I really think that hex-based WEGO is the best way to do tactical to operational wargames and i am happy that more games are starting to use this concept. I hope that FC:SS turns out to be a financial success so we will see all your plans come to fruition.

[nukkxx5058]

Are they any plans to add Lua to the editor ?
Would be great...

[CapnDarwin]

nukkxxs, Maybe on Lua, but we do want to add a scripting component to the scenario editor post-release at some point so folks can have the means to change events or allow for branching in the new scenario setups.

Edit - Maybe LUA was no before, but it seems LUA may be on the table after all. The team is still investigating the best approach to the scripting efforts.

[nukkxx5058]

Ok, no prob
Scripting tools in the editor can be a nice in-between ...
We shall see

[byzantine1990]

Answers:
1. Unit images are still silhouettes (larger base art for the new game engine) and also the option for NATO symbols (and even large NATO if you like zooming out). The game, like Red Storm, is highly moddable. We do not have the resources or cash to get all color artwork, nor try to deal with Copywrite issues. As for music, we have the same audio at the moment, but closer to the end of development we will look at more audio.

2. We are only officially stating Windows OS support. The new game is 64bit based versus the 32-bit from Red Storm. Red Storm did well on both Linux and MacOS emulators and we don't expect Southern Storm to be any different, but the Dev team does not have MAC or Linux folks in it.

3. We are looking to be better documented and offer a bit more ability to mod the game. While a map editor is not possible, we do provide the information to make maps in a similar fashion to what we do. Data, images, sound effects, and other items can be modified. The game might do WW2 but we already know and plan to do a new game engine to deal with WW2 and the scale in the future. Same for more current-day battles. We also are building up a content creation team(s) to help with the timely output of new DLC for the game (maps, countries, scenarios and campaigns).

4. As noted above we want to expand into a WW2 game engine with scale and capability to deal with the short ranges better. Also Want to do a Modern game engine to cover 2000+ type conflicts and capabilities. Also, we would like at some point when we get past all that, to do a Kriegspiel version as more of a training tool or entry-level wargame. We have more ideas than hours and years right now. As for Cold War DLC, we have already mentioned Central Storm that will be a reqrking of Red Storm materials into he new game engine and then do Northern Storm. From there we want to expand into other decades and locations (Mid-East, Dessert Storm, maybe the Far-East, etc.).

May I ask what the difficulty is with creating a map editor? I have no programming experiemce.

[CapnDarwin]

There is no "simple" editor used to make our maps. It is a process involving several third-party tools and a means of rendering a map from a data set from real-world data. There is no simple "tile" map here. William, who is one of our developers, put together this system and has done a good number of the Red Storm and now a reives and enhanced version of the process for Southern Storm and the future DLCs. Because map-making is a more involved process, we are adding dedicated map makers to our content team to knock out new maps and new content quicker post-launch.

[springel]

The so called me-ware, an assorted collection of 3rd party tools and custom hacks that works for the single person who put it together, but that will explode in the face of any unprepared user.

Many of the best products in the world have been produced with me-ware.

[22sec]

Answers:
1. Unit images are still silhouettes (larger base art for the new game engine) and also the option for NATO symbols (and even large NATO if you like zooming out). The game, like Red Storm, is highly moddable. We do not have the resources or cash to get all color artwork, nor try to deal with Copywrite issues. As for music, we have the same audio at the moment, but closer to the end of development we will look at more audio.

2. We are only officially stating Windows OS support. The new game is 64bit based versus the 32-bit from Red Storm. Red Storm did well on both Linux and MacOS emulators and we don't expect Southern Storm to be any different, but the Dev team does not have MAC or Linux folks in it.

3. We are looking to be better documented and offer a bit more ability to mod the game. While a map editor is not possible, we do provide the information to make maps in a similar fashion to what we do. Data, images, sound effects, and other items can be modified. The game might do WW2 but we already know and plan to do a new game engine to deal with WW2 and the scale in the future. Same for more current-day battles. We also are building up a content creation team(s) to help with the timely output of new DLC for the game (maps, countries, scenarios and campaigns).

4. As noted above we want to expand into a WW2 game engine with scale and capability to deal with the short ranges better. Also Want to do a Modern game engine to cover 2000+ type conflicts and capabilities. Also, we would like at some point when we get past all that, to do a Kriegspiel version as more of a training tool or entry-level wargame. We have more ideas than hours and years right now. As for Cold War DLC, we have already mentioned Central Storm that will be a reqrking of Red Storm materials into he new game engine and then do Northern Storm. From there we want to expand into other decades and locations (Mid-East, Dessert Storm, maybe the Far-East, etc.).

May I ask what the difficulty is with creating a map editor? I have no programming experiemce.

Did you play Red Storm and do any map editing? If so, the basics are still the same in how the engine reads the data from the png files. I will say the possibilities are great as to what a person can do with the system. Not only in creating maps, but modding or creating your own underlying terrain data.