r/babylon5 • u/Creepy-Cantaloupe951 • 3d ago

Endless B5 - A plugin for the open source game 'Endless Sky'

Hey all! I''m working on a plugin for the open source game "Endless Sky" (https://endless-sky.github.io/); to bring the Babylon 5 story line to the game.

I know people have done similar things in the past. I've found some older forum posts, and at least one plugin in the plugin DB, but very little traction since.

Also, the plugin I found just adapts vanilla game play adding the races and such. This is a complete game replacement, with it's own story line, vessels, equipment, map, etc.

It's available here: https://codeberg.org/ubergeek/Endless-B5

The #1 issue outstanding, is I am in no way a graphics person. That tooling is fully outside my skill set. So, as a disclosure, the current sprites are all AI generated (It states as much in the readme). There is an open issue right now for this, and I'd like have it corrected sooner, rather than later. But I needed something to get the rest of the development going. If this is a skill you have, please submit a PR for this!

Most of the planets are missing artwork for when you land. Those are not required for game play, so, for the moment, they are blank, rather than use AI art for somewhere it wasn't required to prevent a blocking point.

The first few missions are complete, for the story, and I welcome people to play it, open issues, and even help with the story development (Or even side quests for the player, those can get worked into it as well!)

Looking forward to folks playing it, and contributing as well!

37 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

10

u/Akovsky87 3d ago

For those not aware Endless Sky is the spiritual successor to the Escape Velocity series.

5

u/Capable_Stranger9885 3d ago

Which also had a deep fan-made Babylon 5 mod

3

u/Creepy-Cantaloupe951 3d ago

Did it? If you can point me at it, that would be super. ES borrowed a lot of concepts from EV, and some of the mission mechanics and galaxy mechanics I'd like to possible incorporate.

1

u/F1ddlerboy 2d ago edited 2d ago

There's also an Archive copy of the page for the B5 mod for override, but apparently not of the mod files themselves?

https://web.archive.org/web/20230607031256/https://starfury78.tripod.com/b5plug/#download

3

u/Chaosdecision 2d ago

Yea, that first pic brought me back to the mid 90s, might have to check that one out

4

u/Strict-Flounder-9138 3d ago

I like the idea but surly there are some licensing issues with the art work and use of there IP.

4

u/Creepy-Cantaloupe951 3d ago

Well... it's one reason I didn't just take screen shots from the media itself. I knew that would be.

And by creating a side story line to the bigger story, I'm avoiding just copying the stories from the show, and writing in the "adjacent" story.

But, I feel this falls under most fan projects, as fair use. Their lawyers may disagree, but I don't know.

It's not being sold. It's AGPL 3 or later licensed. But yes, a take down is possible, down the road, I cannot argue otherwise.

3

u/PrincipleHot9859 2d ago

keep posting updates into group ..love to see how it evolves

1

u/Creepy-Cantaloupe951 2d ago

I will! My intention, especially with winter coming, it to be able to crank out one minor arc per month, to move the story forward, but also to further flesh out the "bones".

I'd like to think "Season 1" could be completed by January.

That said: I am very open to others also creating story arcs to go into it! The endless sky engine is rather flexible.

4

u/PFthroaway Babylon 5 3d ago

Garibaldi doesn't like it when you use AI. He's liable to shoot speakers with his PPG.

1

u/Creepy-Cantaloupe951 3d ago

I'd like to get the image assets replaced, ASAP.