Say hypothetically...

[willdieh]

WE WILL NEVER RECEIVE A RED CENT

I just thought it might be a low-risk way to re-kindle the fan base and feed a starving C++ programmer at the same time

If you're getting anything at all form Steam sales, it might help those.

If not prohibited by your publishing agreement (probably is), you could sell the kickstart funded "fan packs" directly on your website (tied to the purchaser's steam ID?) for $5-$10-$20 each.

As for the mod tools, I was just hoping to get the development asset pipeline utilities and other development quality tools out there... From (old) forum posts, they were already being used in-house, but were not quite consumer ready which is fine as I don't think that would bother anyone left modding today. I'm still trying to reverse engineer the model and animation formats and then there's the UI element editor I want to write

[Slashman]

If you're getting anything at all form Steam sales, it might help those.

I really don't think so. And I'm assuming you mean sales of other games. Because you clearly can't mean the sales of SOTS 2. Right?

And even there...I don't think so. SOTS 2 is a game project that could have been but wasn't. The thing is that most of the fanbase is long moved on. That's why they are trying to generate a new community by trying other properties with the SOTS name.

[Rossinna-Sama]

And Rossinna, yes I realize that's what you want...but please understand the world changes in eight years. How many people do you think that worked on "Shoot more Robots" still are working at the same company and have a set of decade old compiler tools laying about? We support games far longer than the norm in computer gaming but even we have limits. People have lives. They move on. Or worse, they forget things.

And I fully understand that, but there's still a practical reason for what may simply be my own stupidity.

What other game is even similar to SOTS2, apart from SOTS Prime? I... genuinely do not know of any. Everything I've encountered or seen has a major flaw somewhere in how the game is played; such as weapons all being the same or combat control being an afterthought. So this 'old' game is still the only viable one for that genre of game for me and possibly others like me since there's nothing else out there as of yet.

Unless I've missed something, but I don't consider games like Stellaris, Endless Space 2, Stars in Shadow, Star Ruler 2, Master of Orion (remake) and so on to be anything like SOTS.

Ohh well.

[Mecron]

For the record, from looking at your work and posts over the years, I don't think the answer will EVER be that you are stupid. Sadly there were a lot of things in that code base that were only meant for initial implementation but there was never the time or the staff to clean them up and expose them for modification. We barely survived that experienced and the pressures ravaged our programming team at the time including our lead.

And yeah there is a whole lotta "oh well" for me in that project as well. I was trying a few dangerous things that I thought might add to the genre but since they never performed as designed due to lack of programming, they are cast into the dustbin. And for a designer, that's always a hard pill to swallow. To be very honest that's really the greatest appeal of working on boardgames, as what I design pretty much becomes reality very quickly and can be tested to see if its actually a good idea.

[Slashman]

Does this mean another boardgame in the near future?

[ZedF]

Given that board games design at Kerb fits in the spaces between software release design, probably, for a given value of “soon”. But we first started hearing about SotSverse board games a couple years ago so “soon” could easily take awhile to come to fruition.

[balti knights]

I'm sorry Mercon.. I guess it's so long ago it's easy for us end users to forget that these games and ideas are your 'babies' it must of been heartbreaking for you to see what happened to SOTS2. Boardgames must be a whole lot easier to nurture and watch grow into an end product you envisaged. Also being a fan of Traveller means you have the imagination to see beyond the board, dice or cards in your hand. Sadly I think that is a skill that is starting to be lost on the young gamers of today. I play a lot of fortnite with my son, which is great fun. But when I tell him that when I was his age I used to run around a deserted golf course with a dozen mates playing war with our cap guns he looks at me a bit gone out.

Anyways back to this hypothetical thing.. getting pros on board, well maybe that was the wrong question to ask...

There is are many talented folks this community that might be able to offer real input but pinning down what is really wanted is key to finding a starting position.

If it was to be a rework/mod of what we have in PRIME what would be the one thing as players you would change?
Gameplay?
Graphics?
Something else?

It's pretty obvious what I would want to do, but what I have done so far doesn't sit in the SOTSVERSE and that's why its in my own private imagined space.. I would like to have stuff that was truly SOTS stuff but making that from scratch is just way to much for a solo hobbyist.
Which is why I keep looking under the woodshed, just in case

[Mecron]

We are scheduled to start testing a new board game in January.

[Slashman]

Nice. I don't play them personally but it's kinda fun to see what you come up with.

[THIEFs]

And Rossinna, yes I realize that's what you want...but please understand the world changes in eight years. How many people do you think that worked on "Shoot more Robots" still are working at the same company and have a set of decade old compiler tools laying about? We support games far longer than the norm in computer gaming but even we have limits. People have lives. They move on. Or worse, they forget things.

And I fully understand that, but there's still a practical reason for what may simply be my own stupidity.

What other game is even similar to SOTS2, apart from SOTS Prime? I... genuinely do not know of any. Everything I've encountered or seen has a major flaw somewhere in how the game is played; such as weapons all being the same or combat control being an afterthought. So this 'old' game is still the only viable one for that genre of game for me and possibly others like me since there's nothing else out there as of yet.

Unless I've missed something, but I don't consider games like Stellaris, Endless Space 2, Stars in Shadow, Star Ruler 2, Master of Orion (remake) and so on to be anything like SOTS.

Ohh well.

Rossinna, perfectly described... There are currently no alternative games to play... as all those games promise on variety, but cant deliver because core elements are mere gimicks and clickfest for the sake of keeping player busy, whereas SOTS Prime was always about making meaningful choices, adapting to the constantly changing environment, and fantastic AI who behaves like player... there was really no single best way to go in terms of weapons & strategy & diplomacy... Many above mentioned titles were were promising the grand scale and depth and ease of play, but for me they end up being games where all weapons feel the same or there is only one single best weapon, or battle mechanics are simply dull with not tactics or just huge pile of of ships playing it out.... SOTS Prime was the one who delivered perfect balance, unpredictability, challenge and replay value.

The reason we want SOTS reboot is because no other publisher title so far manages to get close to what SOTS delivered. Why I don't mention SOTS2 is because for me it was not fully finished product... KERBEROS simply did not have time & human resources to fully out-flesh the whole thing to the fullest.

[fivve]

Why not just do a remastered version with updated graphics, don't really need to change anything to be honest. They did it with Homeworld.

[Slashman]

You do know that Homeworld was rewritten essentially from scratch right? It used the Homeworld 2 engine and that caused some serious issues. They then went back and did a rewrite of weapon behavior and fleet formations and that's on TOP of redoing the major effects and graphics.

Your memory is very off if you think that the Homeworld remaster was "just add new graphics and stir".

[Rossinna-Sama]

Starcraft is the one which got a true 'remaster' where all they did is fix a few actual major bugs and focused otherwise on graphical updates and compatibility with modern systems. That was also apparently a side project for blizzard employees and something which only became official much further down the track. Indeed as far as I am aware, you can play in the original game at a mere button press and both games are compatible with one another.

As for Homeworld Remastered... half of me wishes they left it alone, but the other half is merely happy they actually allowed homeworld 2 to be legally purchased again alongside homeworld 1.

[Slashman]

As I recall they lost the original assets for Starcraft and had to recreate many of them. But Starcraft was easy to remaster and I was totally pissed that they listened to the F'King Koreans and left the pathing bugs in that they could have fixed along with the rest of the game.

[fivve]

Slashman, I'm 100% sure Mercon and the crew would do a brilliant job if they did a remaster of SotS. Yeah Homeworld had problems, but they are not Kerberos.