Development Road Map

This document contains the current plan to achieve the goal of producing a Stars! Clone.

Development Life Cycle

The Stars! Nova project is being developed in a spiral life cycle. Each turn of the spiral seeks to improve upon the previous release of Stars! Nova and to move closer to our goal of producing a Stars! clone.

The main phases of development are:
* Planning
* Documentation
* Coding
* Testing
* Release

A (Very) Brief History

• Version 0.2 was the first version made available on Source Forge.
• Version 0.3 included a more complete model of the ship components and a more capable component editor, as well as numerous bug fixes and graphical improvements.
• Version 0.4 was released in May 2010 and is the current release. It included a new map generator, a much smoother turn generation system, improved support for linux/mono and a great many other fixes.
• Version 0.4.1 is a bug fix. This release was added to address the more easily corrected bugs reported after release of 0.4.0.

Next Minor Release

Next release will be a major release.

Plan for Next Major Release

Version 0.5 is currently in the Coding/Testing phase, with much of the work already done. An updated status of the tasks planned for version 0.5 is available in the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=browse&group_id=188744&atid=926546&artgroup=688166 task tracker].

The main focus for 0.5 will be to get Stars! Nova to the point that it is playable. This means that it is possible to play a game through to conclusion, though not all features may be available. This will require focus on the following areas:
* Production
* Combat
* Invasion
* [Fleet movement]http://sourceforge.net/support/tracker.php?aid=3027827)
* Scanning
* Cargo transfer

To address some significant design and maintainability issues we aim to:
* Eliminate the use of singletons
* Complete conversion from binary serialization to XML files
* Implement in-process form switching
* Add more automated testing
* More extensive coding standard

Other:
* Improve documentation for developers to make working on Stars! Nova easier.
* Improve security of .order/.intel files.
* Explore the possibility of using a different GUI toolkit (determine the scope of work required) to improve cross-platform compatibility and solve some of the visual DPI and font scaling problems.
* Simple plugin architecture for map generators (cannot use MEF until Mono releases a .NET 4.0 compatible version).
* Improve the folder layout of content (non-source code) and user generated (save games) files to make setup packaging and deployment easier and improve cross-platform compatibility.
* Eliminate folder selection dialogs and rely on default locations.
* [http://sourceforge.net/support/tracker.php?aid=3027844 Improved Windows setup package]. Possibly switch to NSIS or WiX.
* [http://sourceforge.net/support/tracker.php?aid=3027845 Update graphics]
* [http://sourceforge.net/support/tracker.php?aid=3027846 Update map generator]
* [http://sourceforge.net/support/tracker.php?aid=3027847 Improve the AI]
* [http://sourceforge.net/support/tracker.php?aid=3027848 Improve network gaming]

Not all of the above issues may make the final cut, depending on developers time available, bug fixes required and emerging complexity.

The following issues will not specifically be addressed in 0.5.0:
* PRT/LRT peculiarities
* Random events (MT, wormholes, comets)
* Stars! fidelity (e.g. gravity range, etc.)
* Order of events

Plan to Reach 1.0

Version 1.0 is planned to be the version number given to the first fully functional Stars! Nova - a completed clone of Stars!

Currently there is not much detail to this plan other than:
* Version 0.5 should be a playable game.
* Versions 0.6 should implement all core game features
* Version 0.7 should implement all PRT specific features
* Version 0.8 should implement all LRT specific features
* Version 0.9 will be the Beta release, with no known issues greater than [[Task_priority_guidance|priority 3]].
* Version 1.0 will contain mostly bug fixes from 0.9

Beyond 1.0

These are the things that we might see in Stars! Nova some day but are likely to be left for a version 1+
* Re-balancing the game.
* Including additional PRTs/LRTs or changing the way races work altogether.
* Other major changes to game play.