"Don't get be wrong--we could have solved all of these problems, given enough time. However, there are more exciting features we would rather have spent our time on, like God Powers and supporting 50 units on a screen in a 3D engine. You can't take a game as huge as AOK and bolt all of AOM's features on top of it. You end up with a titantic mess. Something has to give, and conversion seemed like an easy candidate.
...but we didn't delete the code, because we needed it for something else. After thinking of this and remembering some features of AOK, I believe that he was referring to the idea of a "Boarding Galley". In AOKTC, there was a unit available only through using the #const number feature in a random map script called the "ABGAL" - short for Armored Boarding GALley. This was described by DS as 'the monk of the seas' after a scripter named MrED used this feature in a random map script called Sea Haven. There were some shortcomings in its use - as long as a player kept moving his ship, an ABGAL could not convert it. ES thought the feature was not good so it was not included in the game other than as above. Now, we know from looking at some of the screenshots and from discussion here that the idea of boarding enemy ships seems real in AOM, so I strongly believe that this "conversion code" that Greg Street was referring to was converting enemy ships by boarding them and taking them over. Obviously this will work differently than in AOK with the ABGAL but the idea is similar, and what better programming than to use the idea of conversion. There will likely be some military action involving units on the boats from what we have heard. Here is a link to the discussion of the ABGAL on the MFO Random Script forum from January 30, 2001: If you want to find and try the rms script for AOK:TC 'Sea Haven' by MrED to try the ABGAL you will have to click on the link that is the title 'Sea Haven' in Mr Ed's original post available via the link above. Let me know what you think of this!! [This message has been edited by RF_Gandalf (edited 05-10-2002 @ 09:46 AM).]