dauntless

Open reimplementation of the Bridge Commander engine.

Legal notice

This project is an independent engine reimplementation. It does not include any game assets, scripts, or content from Star Trek: Bridge Commander. A legitimate retail copy of Star Trek: Bridge Commander is required to use this software.

This project is not made by, affiliated with, or supported by Activision or Paramount.

Setup

Drop your BC installation into game/ and your BC SDK into sdk/.

uv sync
uv run pytest

See docs/project/gap_analysis.md for the engine gap analysis and implementation phases.

Running the renderer

Build the renderer host from the project root, then launch the binary directly:

cmake -B build -S . && cmake --build build -j
./build/dauntless

Keys: WASDQE flies the ship · 1-9/0/R throttle · arrow keys orbit the camera · scroll wheel zooms · C resets · F8 toggles the RmlUi debugger overlay · F9 toggles UI visibility.

NIF parser corpus test

native/tools/scan_nifs/ is a C++ binary that walks a directory tree, runs nif::load on every .nif file, and reports per-file outcomes — files that reached End Of File, files where the walker stopped on an unknown block type (grouped by type), and files that threw (grouped by message). It exits 0 only if every file reached EOF.

It's wired up as a ctest target (scan_nifs_corpus) that points at game/data when a BC install is present. The test is registered conditionally — if game/data is absent, no test is added (CI without assets just skips it). Re-run cmake configure after dropping in game/.

cmake -S native -B build
cmake --build build --target scan_nifs
ctest --test-dir build -R scan_nifs --output-on-failure

You can also run the binary directly against any directory tree:

./build/tools/scan_nifs/scan_nifs game/data

Game-loop harness

tools/gameloop_harness.py discovers every SDK mission script, calls Initialize(pMission), fires ET_MISSION_START, and advances the headless GameLoop for N ticks per mission. It reports per-mission pass/init-fail/loop-fail status and a grouped error summary — useful for catching regressions across the full mission corpus.

uv run python tools/gameloop_harness.py              # default: 36000 ticks (~10 min @ 60 Hz)
uv run python tools/gameloop_harness.py --ticks 600  # shorter run
uv run python tools/gameloop_harness.py --profile    # adds a ranked stub-call profile

TGL harness

tools/tgl_harness.py walks every .tgl file under game/data/TGL/ and sdk/Build/Data/TGL/, parses each via engine.missions.tgl_reader.read_tgl, and reports per-file pass/fail plus a grouped error summary. A file passes if it decodes to at least one string or sound; it fails on a parse exception or if it parses to an empty TGL. Missing roots are skipped silently so checkouts without a game/ install still work.

uv run python tools/tgl_harness.py

Information for modders

Additional ship conventions

Dauntless reads extra, optional conventions from standard BC hardpoint files. When guarded as shown below, the same file also runs unmodified in original Bridge Commander — the guard is false there, the block is skipped, and the file behaves exactly like the stock version. This has been verified against a real STBC install.

Baked glow regions. Subsystem properties (engines, sensors) can declare the volumes Dauntless uses for hull-glow effects (nacelle glow, impulse exhaust, sensor spot), replacing the engine's automatic geometry fit with hand-tuned shapes:

if hasattr(PortWarp, "SetGlowRegionShape"):
    PortWarp.SetGlowRegionShape(0, "Cylinder")             # "Sphere" | "Cylinder" | "Box"
    PortWarp.SetGlowRegionPosition(0, -1.30, -2.10, -0.06) # body-frame game units
    PortWarp.SetGlowRegionAxis(0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0)           # Cylinder only
    PortWarp.SetGlowRegionRadius(0, 0.45)                  # Sphere / Cylinder
    PortWarp.SetGlowRegionExtent(0, -2.0, 2.0)             # Cylinder only: aft, fore along axis
    # Box shape instead: SetGlowRegionScale(i, sx, sy, sz) # half-extents, body frame

• Positions/axes are in the ship's body frame, in game units — the same frame and units as the property's own SetPosition(...). If SetGlowRegionPosition is omitted, the region defaults to the subsystem's hardpoint position.
• A subsystem may declare several regions, indexed 0..N; Dauntless stops reading at the first index with no SetGlowRegionShape(i, ...).
• Any block that must also run in original BC is limited to Python 1.5 syntax: no True/False literals (use 1/0), no f-strings, no import X as Y. The hasattr(...) guard itself is always safe — it is an interpreter builtin.

For stock ships, Dauntless applies the same kind of data from engine-owned override files (engine/appc/hardpoint_overrides.py, engine/appc/ship_overrides.py) after the stock hardpoint/ship files load, so the SDK tree is never modified. Modded ships ship their conventions inside their own hardpoint files using the guarded blocks above.

References & acknowledgements

The Phase 2 NIF parser draws on two open-source projects:

• OpenMW — its NIF parser (components/nif/) is mirrored into native/third_party/openmw_nif/ and used as a test-only diff oracle. Many thanks to the OpenMW team for building and maintaining a robust, GPL-licensed NIF implementation we can hold our own work to.
• NifSkope — its nif.xml schema is the authoritative documentation for NIF block layouts and explicitly includes Bridge Commander in its compatibility list. Thanks to the NifTools / NifSkope team for keeping the format documented.

See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for the formal attribution.