OpenSE4 0.12.0

OpenSE4 is an open-source engine for Space Empires IV Deluxe. It plays the classic game on your own installed copy of Space Empires IV Deluxe and contains nothing from the original game.

OpenSE4 is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the game's publishers.

What changed since 0.11.0

Thank you for the reports on Discord. This release answers them, and completes the modding SDK's documentation.

Ship movement

• The Log waits for your ships. When you end a turn, the ships you are looking at now finish moving first, as in SE4. The Log, and anything else the new turn brings (battles to watch, questions such as a new colony's type), opens after they arrive. Click or press any key to skip the moves.
• Faster, at the original's pace. Ship movement used to take nearly a second per square; it now follows SE4's own timings, about 1/20 of a second per square.
• Speed slider. A new "Ship movement speed" slider in Game Menu → Options, under "OpenSE4", goes from 1/8x to 8x. It also sets the speed of the movement replay.
• Movement lines on moving ships. While a ship moves, its blue movement line now shows the route it is following from the square it left, and it shrinks when the ship arrives.
  • As in SE4 on a fresh install, "Display Ship Movement Lines" starts off until you start a new game. Press Ctrl+L (or use Game Menu → Options) once and it stays on.

Window and files

• Hide the title bar. Settings → Graphics → "Hide the window's title bar" removes the system's title bar from the game's window. Drag the game's top row to move the window and its edges to resize it. The game's minimize button and Alt+Enter still work.
• Portable saves and settings.
  • Settings → Files → "Keep saves and settings in OpenSE4's folder" keeps your saves, settings and mods in a userdata folder next to the game, so the whole folder travels together. It offers to copy your files across and never deletes anything.
  • You can also put an empty portable.txt next to the program.
  • This needs the zip or tarball unpacked to a folder you can write to; the installer's Program Files copy can't do it (see PORTABLE-README.txt).
• Saves folder. Settings → Files also lets you choose a folder for your saved games.

Modding SDK documentation

• The documentation matches the SDK as released: the modder's guide, the SDK pages and the design document. The examples in the documentation are now checked by tests.
• Help texts: every program's --help describes what it really does.
• The shipped documents' links work in the downloads. They lead to the package's own copies, or to this release's files on GitHub.

Fixes

• opense4-datacheck --help prints its help instead of reading "--help" as a folder.
• Release builds of opense4-sdk no longer contain the path of the computer they were built on.

Compatibility

0.12.0 plays together with 0.11.0 over the network and by e-mail (protocol 7), and they read each other's saves (save format 9). It also loads saved games from 0.7.0 to 0.10.0. Every player in a network game must have the same game-changing mods.

Downloads

File	For
OpenSE4-0.12.0-windows-x86_64-setup.exe	64-bit Windows 7 SP1 to 11: the installer
OpenSE4-0.12.0-windows-x86_64.zip	64-bit Windows 7 SP1 to 11: the same programs to run from any folder
OpenSE4-0.12.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz	64-bit Linux on PCs with glibc 2.34 or later (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 35, SteamOS 3 and newer)
OpenSE4-0.12.0-linux-aarch64.tar.gz	64-bit ARM Linux with glibc 2.34 or later (Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, Asahi, Ubuntu and Debian on ARM)
OpenSE4-0.12.0-linux-armhf.tar.gz	32-bit ARM Linux (ARMv7 with NEON) with glibc 2.34 or later (Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit)
OpenSE4-0.12.0-SHA256SUMS.txt	SHA-256 checksums of the downloads

Every download holds five programs:

• the game (opense4);
• the dedicated server for network and play-by-e-mail games (opense4-server);
• a data checker (opense4-datacheck);
• the saved-game converter (opense4-convert);
• the modding tool (opense4-sdk).

It also holds the Hegemon mod (mods/; turn it on in the Mods window), the modder's documents and examples (sdk/) and, in the zip and tarballs, PORTABLE-README.txt. Libraries, our own fonts, the manual and the lessons are built in.

Running it

• Windows: run the installer, then start OpenSE4 from the Start menu, or unpack the zip and run opense4.exe. Neither is code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn the first time ("More info", then "Run anyway").
• Linux, on a PC or on ARM: unpack and run ./opense4, or run ./install-desktop-entry.sh once to start it from your desktop's application list. On ARM boards without a Steam install, copy the game's files from another computer (see docs/SETUP.md).

The game looks for a Steam install of Space Empires IV Deluxe. See README.md for other locations and command-line options (opense4 --help). Modders start with sdk/docs/README.md.

Known limitations

• This is still an early build, marked as a pre-release.

• Not yet tested on real hardware:

  • Windows 7: only under Wine, with each program's imports checked against what Windows 7 provides.
  • ARM: only through emulation and native ARM test runners; the game window hasn't been opened on a real ARM graphics chip yet.

  Reports are welcome.

• Scripts run on MicroPython: in-game scripts use a built-in, sandboxed Python (MicroPython with additions), so libraries such as numpy are only available to external bots.

• Rules mods near their time limit: a rules mod that runs very close to its per-turn time limit could, rarely, replay a turn slightly differently.

• Hegemon rarely finishes off an empire within 150 turns; it wins by growing far ahead.

• Following warps: the view follows your ships through warp points in local, hotseat and e-mail games, but not yet for players who join someone else's network game.

• In network and e-mail games, every battle is resolved strategically, as in the original.

• The classic computer players hold slightly fewer colonies by turn 100 than the original's (about 15.8 against 17.0 per empire).

• Designs window: it doesn't yet remember which tab was open, as the original does.

License

OpenSE4 is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later. The Noto Sans fonts are under the SIL Open Font License. THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt in each download lists the bundled libraries and their licences, among them MicroPython and miniz.