Source Code, Lag, and the Future

[LtSurge]

I've spent some time with Forged Alliance Forever against the AI, and I have to say that despite some of the strange cosmetic changes made to buildings, I am quite impressed with what the community has been able to do in order to keep Supreme Commander alive.

However, on the subject of Lag, I suspect that I am of the few odd cases that has an otherwise higher-end machine (at least for 2012 standards) and still has crippling lag that makes the game virtually unplayable after about an hour into a Skirmish with AI. Being kind of a novice doesn't help my enthusiasm, as by the time I had anything going on I already had Tactical Missiles coming at me from all directions, in 5frame-per-second glory.


In any case, this has driven me to searching for the causes of this Lag, and it seems that there is some irreconcilably mediocre AI code, not to mention an apparent lack of support for multi-core processors.


So, the gist of the matter seems to be that the game is old, the original developers are nowhere to be found and the game is on life-support through a dedicated few enthusiasts(who should probably be getting paid for their efforts). Although much has been accomplished, I fear that, without the Source Code, the original Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance will slip into deeper obscurity until the greater community that exists finally evaporates.


Now, I have no idea how involved I could be, but I certainly love this game, and would hate to see any of that happen. Ultimately, I would like to see the Source Code released and all the rest of the dreams come true. So I have to ask: What do you think it will take to get the code?

Who do we need to talk to, and what do they want in exchange for it?


As far as I'm concerned, that code is probably lying in a hard drive in a GPG (Wargames) building somewhere, collecting dust. Since Supreme Commander 2 and the supposed upcoming Supreme Commander 3, the original developer probably has no intention whatsoever of helping keep the game alive, much less improve upon it so that it can actually function in 2016. So, what's stopping them from giving it away or selling it?


It's all rather frustrating, because I see an enthusiastic community surrounding a game I love, and it risks going the way of TimeSplitters, the first time I ever fell in love with a game franchise and witnessed its agonizing demise through neglect, "intellectual property" crap and corporate nonsense.


If it's any consolation, I would be happy to donate some money to the effort if there was a petition for the source code.

[RocketRooster]

Supreme Commander is a marvel of design and programming.

Access to the source code would be great, but I suspect that would be the final death knell. The community is already consuming itself over disagreements at the mod level, never mind the engine.

What's needed is a benevolent dictator with plenty bux and the wherewithall to buy the IP outright and set up a studio dedicated to it.

[biass]

we tried getting the code but we cannot seem to negotiate, its considered a lost hope at this point

please use the search function next time to avoid wasting too much time

also, 5 fps will probably be caused by your machine, if the sim starts to collapse under pressure the game slows down but doesnt become choppy

[LtSurge]

Supreme Commander is a marvel of design and programming.

Access to the source code would be great, but I suspect that would be the final death knell. The community is already consuming itself over disagreements at the mod level, never mind the engine.

What's needed is a benevolent dictator with plenty bux and the wherewithall to buy the IP outright and set up a studio dedicated to it.

I suppose, then, the only thing that can be done is to buy the whole IP? I had hoped not, but then again I suppose that's the most practical, if not exceedingly difficult, thing to do. I was hoping it would be more probable to pitch into a giant moneyball/petition to Wargames to make only necessary necessary updates to the game, perhaps even working with some of the modders who handled a lot of the balancing issues.

I had no idea there was in-fighting. Care to share a nutshell as to what's happened?

we tried getting the code but we cannot seem to negotiate, its considered a lost hope at this point

please use the search function next time to avoid wasting too much time

also, 5 fps will probably be caused by your machine, if the sim starts to collapse under pressure the game slows down but doesnt become choppy

I suppose I will use Search a bit more... I know what it's like to see an umpteenth Thread on the same subject matter, but I suspected I may be reviving Threads that are too old.

Also I was exaggerating the 5fps, but thank you

[Uveso]

Well, even if we had the source code from the SupCom.exe, what we do then ?

Most people expect, we could make the game insane fast if we only could change the exe.
But this is not the case. Only if we convert all LUA programms into c#/c++ code, the game would run in light speed.
But this is the same then programming a whole game from the beginning.

Call me pessimist, but this will never happen.

Also, as long as the game will be sold by steam, we will never get any rights to make more then mods.

But this is only my point of view. Maybe i am wrong

[TheKoopa]

Actually I don't think visi ever said that negotiations necessarily failed, he said something along the lines of:

"They will hear who is asking for the ip and they will go 1 miiiiiiilllion dollars"

And unless visi potentially wants to make a supcom 3 himself and sell/market it I highly doubt he will actually buy the code, besides the point we really should not reach into his money box every time something goes awry.

[LtSurge]

Who is Visi?

[TheKoopa]

Visionik

[Katharsas]

Legal and free:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design

Basically reimplementation of the engine, similar to OpenMW. Good knowledge about original engine needed (source would still help, but doesnt need to be avaliable officially), but much more importantly people needed who work a lot for free, sutained over multiple years (random guess: 5-10 years for a small team, not paid).