Well, I wasn't sure how to go about this, but I come across the Mechcommander2 Source awhile ago, and I've been tinkering ever since. I've been also getting into XNA a little, but I'm new to programming, and some of this confuses the heck out of me...

...anyhow, on to the real topic;

I've been wanting to use the source for Mechcommander2 to make my own game (free, of course) for anyone who loves Classic Battletech. I've found some excellent resources that extends the game, adding a lot of mechs, tanks, and even a few pilots, but one thing I have NOT found was good documentation on the source code.

I was trying to find information on it...I found the three webcasts that Frank Savage did awhile go, but it never addressed specific issues I have run into (and that the small MC2 community could not answer). I was hoping to maybe see if I could ask Frank Savage, although I realize he is a busy man, and it would have been a 'shot in the dark' attempt.

Most specifically:

1. How do I remove the limitations on the number of mechs I can add to the game?
2. How do I remove the limitations on the number of pilots added to the game?

The reason I ask this, is because I have an idea for a rather ambitious project that I wish to pursue. Basically, it is an online, multiplayer stategy game. While I don't have enough resources to make it an "MMO", I can at least accomodate several hundred players, if I can get it to work. Seeing that no game based on Classic Battletech is coming any time soon, and that I am craving some serious mech action, I was hoping to pass the time by doing this.

I dont know if anyone knows the answer to my question, or if Frank Savage himself reads this...or what.

Without actually having the source code, we can't tell you how to do these things. However, there are definitely reasons for these limitations. Likely you can't add any more mechs because the code and engine wasn't written to handle any more than that limit, because of performance issues. You probably can't add more pilots (if I understand correctly, a pilot is a player) because of networking limitations.

It would probably be quite a task to change these things, since the whole engine was probably written with these numbers in mind.

Sean James:

Without actually having the source code, we can't tell you how to do these things. However, there are definitely reasons for these limitations. Likely you can't add any more mechs because the code and engine wasn't written to handle any more than that limit, because of performance issues. You probably can't add more pilots (if I understand correctly, a pilot is a player) because of networking limitations.

It would probably be quite a task to change these things, since the whole engine was probably written with these numbers in mind.

Microsoft released the source two years ago (approximately), and the game itself is about 5 years old. Technology has progressed significantly since then, which means that the limits can be relaxed without too many difficulties. It is my understanding that technology was the primary factor of these limits.

(you can download the source here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6D790CDE-C3E5-46BE-B3A5-729581269A9C&displaylang=en )

The game is a mech game based on Classic Battletech. Each mech has has a pilot of variable abilities based on experience. This is essentially an RTS has unit (pilot) experience persistence built into it. Thus you can 'grow' the abilities of your forces from mission to mission.

Anyhow...I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about it, or if anyone knew of some documentation/resources that exist to make sense of the source code. The game offers a very good core engine, and I wanted to build upon it....

From what I understand, the core game technology was wrapped up into a binary library ("GameLib" perhaps?) and the sources were not released. The reason for that was that the code did not show "best practices," and MS didn't have time/resources to clean it up for the
release, as the release was intended to prove the efficacy of using MSBuild to build game assets. From what I've heard, it actually turned out that after using MSBuild to extract dependencies, instead of the old build system, something like 40% of the assets they shipped on the CD weren't actually used!

Also AFAIK, the MSBuild behind the content pipeline in XNA is a descendant of that proof project.

WraithKind:

I was trying to find information on it...I found the three webcasts that Frank Savage did awhile go, but it never addressed specific issues I have run into (and that the small MC2 community could not answer). I was hoping to maybe see if I could ask Frank Savage, although I realize he is a busy man, and it would have been a 'shot in the dark' attempt.

Most specifically:

1. How do I remove the limitations on the number of mechs I can add to the game?
2. How do I remove the limitations on the number of pilots added to the game?

He does, in fact, read the forums!

Which limitation on number of mechs/pilots are you looking to remove?  The total number of mechs/pilot allowed per mission or are you looking to just add more mechs and pilots to take on missions?  Adding more mechs and pilots to the game itself is actually pretty easy and you would have a much larger list of them to choose from in the logistics phase of the game.  Adding more during a mission isn't much harder but the player UI was designed for the max number and would require some changes to accomodate the additional mechs and pilots.  There were limits on the number of mechs for multiplayer as well but those are gone since most of the multiplayer code was removed before shipped out the source.  In today's security minded world, the networking code in MechCommander 2 was not a good example of secure network programming.

-fs

I was thinking the same...you know Microsoft released a MMRTS once...where one guy was commander and all the units were actually people playing the game. It didn't do well commercially so they open sourced it...anyone else remember what I'm talking about?

 

I think combining MC2 and that game would make a nice combo!

I remember the name...it's called Allegiance http://www.freeallegiance.org/