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New Executables

 
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Cheese
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 10:56 pm    Post subject: New Executables Reply to topic Reply with quote

If you are reading this and you have previously written a module for ASSS, your help is needed!

As we all know, the Continuum client was made by priit, who probably wrote some C++ code to stitch together disassembled code probably stolen from the VIE subspace client.

As you might have heard, Continuum was listed on Steam Greenlight and was recently approved to be listed on Steam. This might be the game's last chance to avoid completely fading out of existence.

In my free time, long, long ago, I began work on a new client, which obviously was never finished due to the amount of work required of 1 person. Yes, there are already 9999x unfinished new clients already, probably some of which I will be stealing code from. However, this one was made in the exact same style as ASSS, meaning that anyone who could make a module could make a module for any part of the game. Why the same as ASSS? It was written in C, meaning it compiles into machine code, meaning it can be run on all operating systems without requiring anything to be installed first, and because C++ gets messy quickly and anyone who even remembers MERVbot is long gone.

Now that there is actually a demand for new things, I have been asked to lead a push to actually finish the new client, which I can still not do alone. Additionally, I have created a basic skeleton of a directory and a biller, similarly in the exact same style as ASSS.

If you have ever written an ASSS module, you can positively contribute to the future of the game. Additionally, if you know contact info to someone who has, you can inform them as well.

The advantages of this are many, including that we can free ourselves from any dependence on priit or anyone else, will be free from any legal liability that priit may have caused as we have the original graphics artists' permission, and we will be free to add new features to the game.

Everyone is free to contribute!

Development progress tracker:
https://trello.com/subspacecontinuumdev

Code Repository:
https://bitbucket.org/roxxkatt/subspace-continuum/wiki/Home
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Grelminar
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 4:09 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Good luck with this project!

I poked around at the trello board and bitbucket project. A handful of comments:

Legal stuff:

For the record, all of the game protocol code in ASSS that I wrote (which is probably almost all of it) was a clean-room reimplementation, in the sense that I didn't have access to any of the original source and didn't disassemble the binary either. The exceptions are the VIE encryption code, which I copied from another project and I believe was originally obtained through disassembly, and the continuum encryption and security checksum code, which came from Priit directly (that stuff isn't public, though, so I suppose it doesn't matter).

ASSS is licensed under the GPL version 2. I might not have made the same choice today, but it's impossible to change now, so we all have to live with it. As a derived work, your project also falls under the GPL. You should document that and be aware of what it means.

Technical stuff:

I appreciate your motivations, but I have to point out that writing new components in C in 2015 is unwise. There are many modern languages that offer higher overall productivity with less potential for security and other bugs. The biller and directory server in particular have no excuse here. The client and game server are sort of arguable, but only because you're building on top of the work that's gone into ASSS. (My excuse for why I started with C is that it was 2000 and I was much dumber.)

Looking at what you have, though, it seems like you've just copied a bunch of code for the different components. I think it will be much easier to manage if you factored out the common framework bits and modules so they could be shared.

I don't mean to be discouraging, but it sounds like these plans will require a lot of effort, and from volunteers, so setting things up for development efficiency is important. I can offer more advice here if anyone cares.
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Cheese
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 3:32 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

the legal status of pretty much anything having to do with this game is a grey area at best.
some people will try to argue that even making use of the protocol itself regardless of its implementation is a violation of priits or even VIEs copyrights.

the reason i chose asss as an model is because it is the most well structured large project the community has produced and as a result a large portion of the community has experience working with it, as well as because it is written in a nonproprietary language that compiles into machine language and does not require a dependent runtime.
additionally, i have made things as similar to asss as possible, and there are some things which were directly carried over such as app.c, but a large majority of things have either been nearly completely rewritten such as net.c, large enough that this can not be classified as a derivative work, and as such is able to break away from your choice of classification.

the entire point of this project is to break away from individual people and their questionable legal statuses and free the entire community from their slavery to these individuals' intentional or unintentional negligence.
and in that interest, i will not be making any claim upon any part, and i will to the best of my ability prevent any other individual from making any claim upon any part.

and since the objective was to be as similar to asss as possible, the programming language would naturally remain the same, additionally since C is arguably by many to be the best programming language in the history of computers for a large number of reasons.
there is a reason for its longevity.

another reason is that, as you began to notice, the common modules are indeed being seperated out to be shared by each exe where possible, and the modules are being structured so that each exe will be able to be run on every OS.

regardless of the choice of language or amount of work, i hadnt done any programming in a few years and it was fun to do a logic puzzle again
although it would have been a fun exercise to make this in haskell or something
its great to hear from you and see that you are still around
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Cheese
Wow Cheese is so helpful!


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 7:59 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

also, for the people that have no experience in programming, have no desire to do any programming, and still want to help:

go onto the google and find a copy of subgame, subbill, and subdir, as well as source code to subspace projects, and post links to them here
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Cheese
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 1:10 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

MGB if you read this, please move this thread to the "Misc User Apps" subforum.
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Cheese
Wow Cheese is so helpful!


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 3:47 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

ty mgb
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