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I would like to make a game that amalgamates Homeworld and Freespace with inspirations from the novel Ender's game. This is probably not a new idea, but I haven't seen anything that did anything like it. It would be team based and allows players to control units in an RTS (Homeworld) or first person fashion (Freespace)

I was doing some research on frameworks to help get me started, and my findings are summarized below. I believe one of the hardest parts is going to be UI, which Homeworld did a decent job at, but could be improved slightly.

OGRE: just covers graphics, with plugs for collision detection

Irrilicht: Covers graphics / collision with plugins for Sound. looks dated, though mainly because of aged art assets

Unity: While looks fairly complete, the Free version is feature robbed, and Feels more like a "for artists" tool. I would like to be figuring out programming problems, not where buttons are on menus.

Torque: From what I hear is abandoned.

Are there other obvious choices that I missed?

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    \$\begingroup\$ I had forgotten about Homeworld... that was a cool game \$\endgroup\$
    – Dream Lane
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 7:14
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    \$\begingroup\$ Potential duplicate: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/7602/… \$\endgroup\$
    – PrettyPrincessKitty FS
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 11:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ not a duplicate. Homeworld would not be a suitable Dota engine, and Starcraft 2 would not be a suitable Homeworld engine. \$\endgroup\$
    – EnabrenTane
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 22:07
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    \$\begingroup\$ I remain wary of a million questions "What engine is good for a game like X?" for all possible games. From the perspective of choosing an engine, Homeworld and DotA are very similar. More specialization is really asking for someone to have made your game for you. \$\endgroup\$
    – user744
    Commented Jan 24, 2011 at 13:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ Unfortunately, "what technology to use" questions are off-topic, now. Regardless, this seems very opinion based. Many users will have their own opinion on what is the best engine for the requested suitability. \$\endgroup\$
    – Gnemlock
    Commented May 29, 2017 at 5:02

2 Answers 2

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Unity is fairly easy to use, may take a small while, but it is worth it. Learning it can be fast thanks to UnityAnswers, a site stackoverflow-styled where you can ask pretty much anything about Unity and they usually answer pretty quickly. Unity supports a couple languages, like Javascript. Unity is pretty interesting, you make prefabs of your game objects and put them in your scenes. Performance is good, and I believe networking is fine as well.

It has great water surface assets, real-time lighting, tree creator, landscapes, skyboxes, a nice way to "expose" variables and quickly edit them without going directly into the code, nice HUD system, etc. Apparently, Unity Pro comes with a couple great performance tools that might come handy when drawing your game scenes too. There is also the Asset Store. You can buy graphic packs or other code projects, in case you need a boost somewhere in your game development.

Unity has a strong community, support and good documentation covering all the supported languages. Worth giving it a go. Learning may take a while thought.

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    \$\begingroup\$ What do you need tree creator for in deep space game? At least you could tailor your PR statement to question. \$\endgroup\$
    – przemo_li
    Commented Apr 20, 2013 at 15:17
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The Homeworld Engine is available and open for use. Though I'm not 100% sure about the license for distribution. I would say that the Homeworld engine would be a great place to start for a Homeworld Style game. It it is free you are after look no further.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I looked into this. It seemed like a great idea. However, the license prohibits me from using the source as a starting point (b) distribute the SOFTWARE PRODUCT and the MODIFIED SOFTWARE, solely for non-commercial purposes, and only to registered members of RDN-RELIC Developer's Network who have agreed to abide by the terms of this Agreement. \$\endgroup\$
    – EnabrenTane
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 8:40

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