Space Trader: Merchant Marine's for OpenPandora/Pyra and Linux x86-64


gbudny

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Hi

Many years ago, Hermitworks Entertainment released Space Trader: Merchant Marines for Linux x86, which was available for a short period of time. The later releases worked only on Windows and Mac, but they released the source code for this game before the company closed in 2008:




Do you think it will be possible to build it for OpenPandora/Pyra and Linux x86-64?
 
You can always add port request in the port-request thread. But here it should be visible to :)
 
You can always add port request in the port-request thread. But here it should be visible to :)

Thank you for your advice.

I hope someone will notice it, and maybe, I won't have to do it.

I remember when this game was released for Linux in 2007, but I didn't buy it. I didn't know it had single-player mode. Many Linux users probably don't know a Linux version existed because Wikipedia and Moby Games don't mention it:



It's the last commercial FPS game for Linux based on the Quake III engine. Some online stores still sell the versions for Windows and Mac.

Linux users lost access to Space Trader 17 years ago, but with the source code, it's still possible to revive it as an open source project. The founder of Hermitworks Entertainment later became one of the co-founders of Beamdog.
 
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Hi @gbudny
I give it a check but didn't find anything usefull to try to build. It say it could use cons ( a pre Scons utility) but don't see any Sconscript to build.
Instead i found a Rantfile that seems like a Makefile...but don't know how to use it.
If someone could give a hand @ptitSeb or @jedi23 or someone else...i could give the link of the gifted game on GOG that @gbudny kindly donated to me.
I already bought the game on GOG.
Thanks
 
I haven't looked into the source yet. Maybe ioquake3 can be a base for porting parts of the game. The game is a Win/Unix native game for x86, so asm should be ignored. And I guess tools like Fex won't work yet for the Pyra.
So if our serial porters want to pick it up I can always donate another GOG copy if needed.
 
Hi Farox,

Thank you for your response.

Hi @gbudny
I give it a check but didn't find anything usefull to try to build. It say it could use cons ( a pre Scons utility) but don't see any Sconscript to build.

I think this instruction with cons is for Quake 3.

The README file doesn't give too many details about building it:

Exported from SVN revision #726 of spacetrader-gpl/branches/st-legacy

Compile the solution in the libs folder first, then the solution in the code folder.


Instead i found a Rantfile that seems like a Makefile...but don't know how to use it.

I didn't know about KDevelop, but it is available for Linux:


I have no idea if they used to build the Linux version.

If someone could give a hand @ptitSeb or @jedi23 or someone else...i could give the link of the gifted game on GOG that @gbudny kindly donated to me.
I already bought the game on GOG.
Thanks

I didn't know that you bought it on GOG.

Go ahead and donate it to one of the serial porters or anyone who wants try to build it.

I can donate the second copy of the game if someone wants to try building it on OpenPandora/Pyra and Linux x86-64.
 
That does looks pretty good in game, compared to the covert art imho. Are the sources publics? they can be put in github @gbudny ?
The Sources are on the first post and i copy here https://code.idtech.space/hermitworks/st
About Github...don't know but i think they are like the others code from ID..so it could.
If you need the game...i could gift it to you the copy from @gbudny
Let me know.
 
That does looks pretty good in game, compared to the covert art imho. Are the sources publics? they can be put in github @gbudny ?

Hi @ptitSeb

Thank you for your response.

Farox already answered that you can download the source code from https://code.idtech.space/, which is also available in my first message:


The license is GPL, which is the same as for Quake 3, and the original name for this file was SpaceTrader-GPL-1.1.14.zip.

Latest version of the Space Trader source is now available. Space Trader is based on the Quake 3 GPL release. You can get it here:

Go ahead and put it on GitHub.
 
So, I have some kind of build on the Pandora, but it's very frankenstein and I have no confidence this actually work. I used Smoking Guns makefile as template, there are certainnly some stuffs wrong

Thank you so much for building it for Pandora!

Can you publish some screenshots from this version of Space Trader?
 
So, I'm unsure the code is in sync with latest data. I'm having trouble getting the VM to correctly run the qvm files from the data. I'll try to build an x86 version as vanilla as possible to see if it can at least run there...
 
Yeah, pretty sure the public source code is not the one used for the current version of the game on GoG. The UI VM indexes are not matching. The exe has been stripped, so I don't see any practival when to get the new syscall index used by the ui.qvm
I don't know if the company is still up, but the sources code is outdated... that's what I see on my side.
 
@karl43
Yeah, pretty sure the public source code is not the one used for the current version of the game on GoG. The UI VM indexes are not matching. The exe has been stripped, so I don't see any practival when to get the new syscall index used by the ui.qvm
I don't know if the company is still up, but the sources code is outdated... that's what I see on my side.

Yeah, pretty sure the public source code is not the one used for the current version of the game on GoG. The UI VM indexes are not matching. The exe has been stripped, so I don't see any practival when to get the new syscall index used by the ui.qvm
I don't know if the company is still up, but the sources code is outdated... that's what I see on my side.

Thank you for your response.

I have to check this version from GOG.

I can buy you the Steam version if you want to try it. Please send me a private message with your email address if you want to receive it.

I suspect the issue is with the source code for the Linux version because the last version was 1.0.8, and I'm not sure if they had the unreleased builds. I know that the Mac version was regularly updated, but it's probably not useful to build it on Linux. There are probably some differences between 1.0.8 and 1.1.4. I'm just guessing here. However, I think all necessary files should be in this source code.
 
@karl43




Thank you for your response.

I have to check this version from GOG.

I can buy you the Steam version if you want to try it. Please send me a private message with your email address if you want to receive it.

I suspect the issue is with the source code for the Linux version because the last version was 1.0.8, and I'm not sure if they had the unreleased builds. I know that the Mac version was regularly updated, but it's probably not useful to build it on Linux. There are probably some differences between 1.0.8 and 1.1.4. I'm just guessing here. However, I think all necessary files should be in this source code.
If you have installed the Steam version, can you tell me how many pakX.hwp is there in the "st" folder? The gog version have pak0.hwp -> pak4.hwp
 
If you have installed the Steam version, can you tell me how many pakX.hwp is there in the "st" folder? The gog version have pak0.hwp -> pak4.hwp

Thank you for your response.

There are four of these files in this directory:

/Space Trader
BugPost.exe ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.dll st steam_appid.txt
Bugs.dll SpaceTrader.exe steam_api.dll

/Space Trader/st
pak0.hwp pak1.hwp pak2.hwp pak3.hwp


Please send me a private message if you want to receive this version.
 
Ah, so the Steam version is less updated than the GoG version!
I did a bit of changes in the source code to make sure the packX.hwp were handle in the correct order, but still no go. I'm still pretty sure the public source code doesn't match the game data (with or without pak4.hwp)
 
Ah, so the Steam version is less updated than the GoG version!
I did a bit of changes in the source code to make sure the packX.hwp were handle in the correct order, but still no go. I'm still pretty sure the public source code doesn't match the game data (with or without pak4.hwp

Thank you for your response.

I send you a private message with a key. Perhaps there are also differences in size and the number of files inside paks. I didn't check it out.

I have no idea what could be inside pak4.hwp.
 
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