Bionic Dues Source Code May Be Released -- Thoughts?

[LikeableHades]

Hi everyone,

In a thread about a now cancelled expansion and corresponding patch, the suggestion was made to open up the source code for members of the community to modify the game themselves.

Firestorm_01 thought to make a post on the official Arcen Forums (https://forums.arcengames.com/bionic-dues/bionic-dues-source-code-may-be-exposed-to-community/), so discussion there is encouraged, but we will also be reading everything posted here and giving it equal consideration.

This was what Chris had to say in the original Steam Forums thread:

Originally posted by x-4000 (Chris Park):

...
Next up, when it comes to the source code, I'm not too enthusiastic of just making that a free-for-all. If we did, then that probably wouldn't impact sales particularly negatively (most people who buy it wouldn't be aware of the source code), so that isn't my worry. But how do you get the source code changes BACK into the game itself? People start forking it and presumably the "best" experience then migrates off of what is in Steam, and then people start complaining about it not being up to date with the latest fork, etc, etc.

Then there's a whole new set of problems, basically, which also costs time and money on my end, and probably frustrates Steam customers as well as potentially opening them up to malicious code. Probably that last bit is not really a worry, but it always does run through my mind when I think about unreviewed code going out to customers. If something happens, where is the liability on that, etc.

...
With that in mind, what I'd prefer to do is probably just open up our svn repository to interested parties that approach us. That does mean that someone can just grab the code and run away with it, but I'm not really worried about that impacting sales, as I noted before. It would mainly be something that's easier for me to keep an eye on, and do pulls and pushes from, is my thought. I'm not a big fan of git, and our existing repo history isn't something we could easily export somewhere else to my knowledge.
...
My thought is that the process could basically be:

- People who are interested in working on the source code contact me at chrispark7 at gmail and I'll give them access. You're on your own figuring out what stuff does, for the most part, though.

- They can then compile this and just share around the one code dll with others for testing purposes as much as they wish.

- Once things are to a point where they are stable enough for me to review, and probably not more than once per month, I'll take a look at the unified diff in svn, make sure everything is kosher, and then push the update out through Steam so everyone benefits.

He followed it up by saying the following on the Arcen Forums:

Originally posted by x-4000 (Chris Park):

Restricting how many people are open to developing on it isn't really a top concern of mine, to be honest. For someone to be interested enough to do something of value, they mostly have to already want to get the proper dev tools and figure out what the game is doing. I figure that writing to me for a login to svn is the least of the worries if that's something they're up for.

I suppose one potential option, which I'd have to talk to Keith about, would be a public git version that people can mess about with, and then periodically someone helps out by merging those into svn and then I do a push to steam.

This is a link to the discussion on the Arcen Forums: https://forums.arcengames.com/bionic-dues/bionic-dues-source-code-may-be-exposed-to-community/

[Firestorm_01]

Well, more than week passed. Zero reaction of community.
Nothing on official forum. No (almost) reaction on Temple of Roguelike:
http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?topic=5428.0

[LikeableHades]

Part of it may be that people don't really care much one way or another. I'm adding a poll to it, though, so that may get more people to weigh in, but probably not.

[MayXCN2013]

Originally posted by Dominus Arbitrationis:

Part of it may be that people don't really care much one way or another. I'm adding a poll to it, though, so that may get more people to weigh in, but probably not.

hey, I have some bugs to report to you
if one exo with 3 weapons that also has virus hacking mines turrets, then if it also has overload, its overload skill icon will not display so we cant use it.
this bugs maybe cause due to the UI, make a bit bigger UI or use the space of UI more clever

another bug is::sort items by "kind " really always not correctly ,they just display items like::
computers、shields、computers. I mean the game doesnt put all same kind items near/together.
most part of same kind items are put together but always some of them dont.even if the item has only one "kind"----I mean some items can be shield and weapon at same time, but some dont.

And the Blasterbot can attack player or player squad bot even after its ammo downto 0.this must be a bug


in the end ,I want to ask you a question as a new player :
Salvage (weak the robot army)
Factory (weak the robot army)
Robot Command Center (5 days less to the final day)
Lion's Den (thinning the robot army horde for the final day)
Assassination (kill some Bosses out of the robot army)

for these 5 kinds of missions ,which should do as early as possible, and which shoud do as late as possible??

[MayXCN2013]

Originally posted by Dominus Arbitrationis:

Part of it may be that people don't really care much one way or another. I'm adding a poll to it, though, so that may get more people to weigh in, but probably not.

and would you please add a new fliter by item type::shield/reactor/computer/weapon etc
so I can search for certain type of items quickly

[MayXCN2013]

Originally posted by Dominus Arbitrationis:

Part of it may be that people don't really care much one way or another. I'm adding a poll to it, though, so that may get more people to weigh in, but probably not.

and would you add a new DIY difficult mode:: players can set all number of the level/ atk/shield /price etc

[MayXCN2013]

Originally posted by Dominus Arbitrationis:

Part of it may be that people don't really care much one way or another. I'm adding a poll to it, though, so that may get more people to weigh in, but probably not.

would you like to add a hotkey to show all [detection range] of all enemies in exo's sensor range??

[LikeableHades]

Originally posted by MayXCN2013:

would you like to add a hotkey to show all [detection range] of all enemies in exo's sensor range??

Our development of the game has been suspended indefinitely. If someone wishes to mod the game using the full source code, they can contact Chris Park (x4000) on Steam, Arcen Forums, or email.

[sePL80]

I hope some of the guys that are working on the continued development of Starward Rogue will find the drive to put their hands on Bionic Dues. (hello Misery & Co. )

Btw. Is there any news on the planned Starward Rogue add-on/DLC which was planned to go through Kickstarter?

Best wishes,
sePL80

[pepisolo]

This is a super late response, but the main problem with the Starward Rogue team working on Bionic Dues is that the engine for SR is way way more moddable than the BD engine, so the work on BD would require much more coding ability, which the team doesn't really have at the moment. The SR team is made up mostly of designers rather than programmers, but due to how easily moddable the SR engine is, we don't need much technical progamming ability to work on it.

Personally, I would like to see a Bionic Dues expansion and would even consider working on it in some small capacity -- not anywhere near the extent that I've been working on SR, though.

As for the SR expansion, what a coincidence that you made your comment around same time we posted an announcement for the upcoming expansion. You might've already seen this but:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/410820/announcements/detail/1498994199459591991

That should explain where we're at with the expansion, although things have progressed a fair bit since that announcement was made. Cheers!

[katie kat]

i would love to see some mods for this game