I can imagine limitations of either resolution, file type, palette colors, color depth.
Isn't there a way for UQM people to just make code for alternate display with custom graphics?
If they can't replace current code, they might want to make this alternate display code, unless display is to hardcoded in different portions of the code.
The problem isn't the display code. It's that all sort of gameplay coordinates are maintained in display pixels. We need to decouple the display coordinates from the game coordinates, but so far no one has dared to venture into that snake pit (and there are actually at least three different coordinate systems used in the game). It will get easier as we clean up other things, so we'll probably get there eventually. Also, display coordinates are used in lots of places throughout the source code, often as absolute numbers, so if you change the resolution, there is a lot of code to change.
The goal of the project, as I understand it, is to make Star Control II playable on a variety of modern platforms. Until the project reaches version 1.0, that is what they will concentrate on. Modifying the game is something else, which will be worked on (or not) after 1.0.
One of the goals of the UQM team is indeed to make the game playable on a variety of modern platforms. We kindof achieved that goal. The other one is to make mods and translations easier. This is an ongoing project. And personally, I also still have things I'd like to improve with respect to netplay.
We may actually call the game 1.0 before that, when all the original features are in. This means (and has meant for a couple of years now) that we have nameable savegames. Doing that means breaking the savegame format, which we'd like to do only once, so we're not doing that until we have a new extensible savegame format (possibly XML-based).
None of the current core team members are currently interested in modifying the gameplay ourselves, but if one of us does want to create some mod at some point, it won't be called UQM.
