Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm Coming Soon

[Vyshka]

Looking forward to this finally coming out. It has been quite a journey since back when you initially started on the Simulations Canada project and then morphed into Flashpoint Germany.

[CapnDarwin]

Rob has been at it for a number of years more than my coming on board. Been fun and we think Southern Storm will top everything to date we have done with this great team we have.

[governato]

We are still pushing hard for late Q2/early Q3 as we have had a bit of a slowdown fixing a number of things and also a number of real-life issues the past few months with the team. All is good now and hopefully some new info soon.

One of the many things I appreciate of FC is the movement of units in a turn, it's 'bouncy', but fluid.
I like other WEGO games but their movement is not as nice (Desert War is pretty good but it's java based and it shows here and there, Attack at Dawn is Unity, Campaigns of the Danube is well, old but moves are ok...)

May I ask you what engine/coding language does FC use? UNITY perhaps?

[CapnDarwin]

We are coding in Delphi (Object-oriented pascal). Version 10.4/11.1 with a number of third-party tools.

[governato]

We are coding in Delphi (Object-oriented pascal). Version 10.4/11.1 with a number of third-party tools.

Tx!

[Duck Doc]

It has been four months since this announcement. Any progress? How is it going?

[CapnDarwin]

@Duck Doc - Busy. Lots of bug fixing, feature finalization, testing, documentation work started (there's a ton of it), testing, and more testing. We are also working around members of the team and their RL needs and situations. We do hope to be able to share more in the near future as we are closing out some critical code items and a few mean bugs. Lots of complex code and data and multiple hands touching it.

Stay tuned for more.

[Keltos01]

I immensely enjoyed flashpoint and though am now busy with Armored Brigade (modding mostly) i think this southern storm is gonna hit my shores!!

How easy will it be to mod it? Add units/factions to the game?

It's been three months since your last message, how is it coming along? Can you post a few new screenshots too please

Great work !

Keltos

[CapnDarwin]

Keltos01,

Sorry for the silence, we are just crazy busy with bugs, polish, and documentation (a lot of documentation). I'll try to post a couple of new pics this weekend in the coming Soon forum for Southern Storm.

As for modding, like Red Storm, we have a very open setup for adding everything you mention and more. We will also release, with that ton of documentation, a number of manuals related to the various content creation avenues we have with the game.

We are also interested in finding additional Content Creators to join our team to help us produce future DLCs. So if you are interested in that work, let me know.

[zbig]

We are coding in Delphi (Object-oriented pascal). Version 10.4/11.1 with a number of third-party tools.

I like coding in Delphi, I'm glad it is still being used

[Crossroads]

We are coding in Delphi (Object-oriented pascal). Version 10.4/11.1 with a number of third-party tools.

I like coding in Delphi, I'm glad it is still being used

Me too, what a language and IDE!

[CapnDarwin]

What we need to find is a better 2d graphics engine so we can improve the map effects and layers. Also, be something that does not need a full rewrite of the game engine. I have been working in Delphi since it first came out, and it is a decent programming environment and has improved greatly over the years.

[CaptainMaxwell]

Considering that you are not exactly creating Starfield, wouldn't Unity be a useful off-the-shelf option? This puzzles me with most wargames. People are still fiddling around with custom code from ages ago. And I also play Tiller (or WDS, nowadays) games, where changes like new shortcuts or a new command bar are celebrated like sliced bread.

Just curious.

[CapnDarwin]

The vast majority of the code deals with game engine stuff (data, spotting, combat, AI, etc.). Having to redo all of that in Unity would be a step backward for what we have. We need a better 2d game engine piece that works natively with Delphi to improve performance and visual effects.

[governato]

Totally unrequested advice as you have surely thought of this: perhaps one should evaluate the time scale for the future 'non cold war' projects vs the useful lifetime of the current software used for coding (Delphi) to make sure that the software stays 'current'. Also, it sometimes pays off to find a smart fresh faced intern (if there is such a thing in gaming) tasked with "try to port FC to Unreal and see if we are surprised by the results, no big deal if it does not work'..and be surprised. Again apologies if you have tried this already! Btw recent game 'Attack at Dawn' was coded with mainstream software (Unreal I think) and it surely looks great.

[scout1]

wow .... at the beta phase you guys are still discussing software platforms ..... isn't this something typically nailed down by now ? Or am I all wet ..... ?

[CapnDarwin]

Scout1, we are firmly rooted in Delphi for the codebase. Some of the 3rd party tools we replace when a better solution is available. One we would love to get updated are the graphics components. While they work, we would lkve to have a bit more capability for future improvements.

[scout1]

No problem ....

Just let me know if you're looking for additional beta testers .... I'm in ....

[byzantine1990]

Hello,

This game looks very interesting but I'm worried about spending $50 when it sounds like the new and improved version will come out any day now. Should I wait?

[wstraka]

How is the bug quashing? Are you still pushing for Q3 or do you think it will be Q4? I'm looking forward to this quite a bit!