Getting a bit impatient for this Kickstarter project to move into overdrive. Would love to have this as Steam Deck Verified on day one but trying to not get my hopes up.

I might have to chip in some money to help them reach those stretch goals, and Proton compatibility or Native Linux build should be in there somewhere.


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cosmicfrontier/cosmic-frontier-override/faqs


“Cosmic Frontier: Override will initially be released on Mac, Windows and Linux. We intend to make it available via digital platforms such as Steam, GOG, Epic, etc.”

“There has been a lot of discussion and controversy in recent times about platform exclusivity deals. By the time our project is in a position to consider any such deals, the competition situation among download platforms may well have changed such that they are no longer an issue, but it’s worth addressing the question anyway. We do not rule out accepting such a deal if it met our conditions related to issues like sales guarantees and duration of the exclusive period. As a small fledgling team, we can’t afford to rule out accepting support that could enable us not only to complete this project as successfully as possible, but also plan with confidence for future ones.”


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cosmicfrontier/cosmic-frontier-override/posts


“The renderer is still powered by OpenGL (or Metal if it is available on macOS), but the groundwork has been laid to include DirectX and/or Vulkan in the future if it becomes necessary. This is thanks to the improved architecture.”

“Endless Sky has many surface similarities to Escape Velocity, but structurally it is based on a completely different engine that works totally differently under the hood. In essence, while Endless Sky looks a lot like EV, it's simply another game in the same genre that has gone for a very similar aesthetic to EV.

One of our project’s goals is backwards compatibility with Escape Velocity resources. This is not possible with Endless Sky, however much like EV it might look, as its resources are structured completely differently. The Override scenario content would have to be rewritten from the ground up, as would the past work of any Escape Velocity plug-in author looking to bring their work across to the new engine.

In addition, Endless Sky is a free project and we don’t believe that its creator(s) want to compromise that. This project is a commercial one, as there is a lot of work to do to make it happen, which will take time and energy away from our regular work-lives.”


ENGINE

Cosmic Frontier will feature a brand new game engine which will at least match the capabilities of the game engines of the games in the Escape Velocity series. In the future, we intend for this engine to be available for use by further projects, both by us and independently of us. Helping to fund Cosmic Frontier will also help to fund development of this game engine.

The engine itself is referred to by the name Kestrel. For practical reasons, Kestrel will not be source-available during the initial run of development, but following the release of Cosmic Frontier: Override it will become open-source, with a licence that will allow people to use it as the main engine in the development of their own games.

Kestrel will permit modification of the game on four different levels:

1. Base Engine (C++). For fundamental changes, such as graphics rendering and physics calculations.
2. Core Gameplay (Lua) - Changing how the resources and assets of the game are handled and the game experience is delivered.
3. Mods (Lua) - Additional functionality, and changes to core functionality.
4. Plugins - Traditional EV-style plugins that add content to the game without altering functionality.

Last edited by Craggles086 on 29 June 2022 at 11:54 am UTC