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Comment by mikae1 | Hacker News Reader

When it comes to open source RTS games, https://www.beyondallreason.info really deserves an honorable mention.

Beyond all reason is not open source though, since a lot of its artwork is licensed CC-by-NC-ND. https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/Beyond-All-Reason/blob/...

Another Total Anhilation clone is ZeroK which is unfortunately also not completely open source because of its artwork license (Wikipedia mentions CC by NC ND but I could only fjnd this summary https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K-Artwork/issues/16).

Unfortunately it is near impossible to setup a local LAN game with ZeroK, since there are no current instructions to setup the required spring-engine lobby server.

Edited, because I recognized to late, that Wikipedia mentions that zeroK-Artwork might also be under CC-by-NC-ND.

Edited again to clarify, that its not open source because of the artwork.

Difficult without Steam? A friend of mine plays Zero-K on Linux without Steam.

Maybe drop by the Discord to see if anyone can help you debug the issues you've run into.

Also, just because it might be hard to use on non-closed systems doesn't make something not open source.

It's still somewhat easy for Zero-K : just copy the game and maps into the respective folders inside the engine folder and run the engine binary (bypassing the lobby).

It's somewhat easier for BAR despite in theory being harder due to the lack of these standalone files due to the rapid file system, but in practice easier because you can just use the unofficial Skylobby (BAR still uses Springlobby protocol, at least for now).

Hmm. I read the licence.md. Does this mean if I fork the game to try my own patches, I'm forbidden from using the game's artwork in my forked version?

If so, that is a serious impediment, tbf.

It just concerns some of the artwork, which is a major endeavour to recreate. For example https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K-Artwork/blob/master/musi... is under a Noncommercial License, so you can probably fork ZeroK just fine, as long as you don't have commercial plans.

Unfortunately non-open source artwork is a problem with many games whose sources were released by the original publishers, after they abandoned any commercial plans.

For example I'm a big fan of OpenRA, but its artwork is still non-free.

I think ZeroK is a great game, and BAR probably also, so I didn't mean to distract from the great accomplishments of its FLOSS gameengine authors.

> Since version 4.0 [of ND], derivative works are allowed but must not be shared.

played Zero-K at local LAN party without any issues, it was a breeze to get to work.

How is it possible that as an RTS fan, I've never heard about this? They even had a pro tournament: https://youtu.be/_dq9Xwfh4h4

Some aspects vaguely look like C&C Generals, and some like Starcraft, if I'm understanding stuff from the video correctly. Thanks for sharing!

As an RTS fan, I'm surprised you compare it to Generals and Starcraft instead of the obvious inspiration: SupCom. BAR is basically Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander reincarnated. I think even the devs call it a clone or derivative.

I had skimmed the video from my phone, and I still didn't have the chance to look at it in detail, so apologies if I misled anyone! I still long for a successor to RA2 and C&C Generals, that is also probably skewing my perception heavily :)

BA/Spring still has tournaments too, and predates SupCom1 (though Spring was of course following the promotional materials released for it, the Supreme Strait map was already in it before the name of Seton's Clutch that it's based on was even known), and BAR(/Recoil) used to stand for Balanced Annihilation Reloaded.

https://challonge.com/CROWN_CUP_7

Looks compelling! Could you offer a 3 sentence summary of what I would lean, were I to sped 10 minutes understand what exactly this game is? Also is it fully playable already?

It's a sci-fi RTS game. Focused on multiplayer (co-op, 1v1 and teams). It has cool explosions and giant robot armies.

Yes, it's fully playable (and indeed being played by thousands of people) right now.

looks like a Spring TA successor, nice!

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