PHILOSOPHY

(Much of this text is stolen/edited from Chocolate Doom.)

1oom has been designed around a careful and deliberate philosophy that
attempts to recreate the original (“Vanilla”) DOS executables for
Master of Orion. This document describes some of that philosophy and
the reasoning behind it.

This document is descriptive, not proscriptive.

# Vanilla behavior

Ideally 1oom aims to recreate the behavior of the Vanilla binaries,
but different aspects of Vanilla behavior are held to varying degrees
of importance. It can be imagined as different “tiers”
of compatibility:

 * The game and gameplay itself is of central importance. Here, the
   Vanilla behavior ought to be maintained as accurately as possible.
   This includes the look, feel and sound.
 * The surrounding aspects of the game that aren’t part of the central
   gameplay experience can be extended as long as there’s a good
   reason and Vanilla behavior is respected.

“Vanilla” is defined as:

 * Master of Orion v1.3.

Compatibility with older versions of the DOS binaries is out of scope.

# Compatibility

1oom aims to be compatible with Vanilla MOO1 in several different ways.
Examples are:

 * Data file compatibility: the original data files (LBX) are used.
   No additional data files are required or provided.
 * Bug compatibility: the aim is to emulate compatibility of the
   original game down to bugs that were present in the DOS
   executables. Most bugs are fixed, but the AI behaviour is
   maintained as closely as possible.
 * Savegame file compatibility: 1oom provides a tool to convert savegames
   to/from Vanilla format.

# Exceptions

1oom differs from Vanilla MOO1 in a number of ways. Here are some
examples of situations where changes are considered acceptable:

 1. Vanilla behavior can be broken that is harmful, eg. can damage the
    player’s computer, or is just outright misleading. For example:

    - Vanilla has crashes that force the user to reboot the machine.

 2. Supporting obsolete technology is not a goal: it’s considered
    acceptable that 1oom does not support every type of hardware
    from 1993. However, 1oom should aim to recreate the functionality
    in a modern way. Examples of technologies that aren’t supported are:

    - No 286 version.

 3. Fixes from the unofficial patch 1.40m which do not alter the Vanilla
    behaviour much may be included unconditionally. Examples:

    - Psilon leader "Zygot  " name correction.

A good litmus test of when it’s acceptable to break from Vanilla
behavior is to ask the question: “Although this is Vanilla behavior,
is there anyone who would want this?”

# New features

While 1oom recreates the Vanilla behaviour, it also extends it:

 * The "classic" UI (1oom_classic_*) will always remain reasonably close to
   the one in the DOS binaries, but alternative UIs are within the scope.
   The UI can be scaled to allow the player to see more of the galaxy at once.
   New/improved UI features are documented and enabled using appropriate
   flags in the configuration file.
 * The "Classic" AI will always remain reasonably close to the one in the
   DOS binaries, but alternative AIs are within the scope.
 * The "Classic+" AI will always remain somewhat close to the one in the
   DOS binaries, but includes small fixes (some from the unofficial patch).
 * Doom-like file patching is supported via PBX files.
   PBX files can be used for enabling fixes for Vanilla bugs.
 * Multiplayer! (only local for now)

# Other philosophical aspects

1oom aims for maximal portability. That includes running on many
different CPUs, different operating systems and different devices
(ie. not just a desktop machine with a keyboard and mouse).

1oom does not need to be installed. The only required data files are the
LBX files from the original game. The other data files are the savegame,
configuration and log files.

1oom is and will always remain Free Software. It will never
include code that is not compatible with the GNU GPL.