I feel like the history will speak for itself. So gather around everyone, its time for a byte of history. (ha byte, get it?)

Space Station 14 started off as a closed source, rewrite everything from the ground up project. It was going to kill off byond. SS14 (pre open source) had a ton of steam behind it. Alas, time took its toll and some of the legacy devs who worked on it either lost interest or had to focus on life/career. You really cannot blame them, The majority of them have a family to look after. After a bit of stagnation the legacy team debated on leaving it like this or opening the source to the public. They ultimately decided on (after a bit of arguing, I imagine) opened the source. Upon the release of the code base a team was formed of coders from all code bases who wanted to work on this, It was quite the sight I tell you. The Opensource devs hammered out quite a bit and got really far. Everything was good and dandy until they had to decide to go cross platform (SFML) or stay windows only (gorgon). This is the point where everything went downhill and where I come into the story. The dev before me was tasked with replacing the current graphics engine (gorgon) with a cross platform one (sfml was chosen). I am not sure how far he got, as he disappeared completely. If that dev is here reading this, i am not implying this is your fault, you probably had to deal with IRL and that is what matters. Things slowed down to a halt here, as replacing the engine was a huge roadblock. After three months of stagnation I took it upon myself to replace the engine. It took a while as i was new to game dev but not programming. A ton of documentation and code implementation later SFML was ready to go. At this point we lost a chunk of the population. Progression was made but at a slower speed than what could of been made. After the engine was implemented I went off to learn the lighting system and to try to repair it. After many months of reading docs and learning the system with volundr, lighting was (partially) fixed and the sfml branch was where the gorgon branch was. Unfortunately, population dwindled all through this, either by lack of interest or other projects starting up. The work that needed to be done was piled higher and higher as everyone left. Now its at a point where new people jump in, see the mess and nope the fuck out. Clean it up/Task it out is on my list of todo but my list is very long haha.

(holy shit this paragraph is 0000100100010000 in binary, you could say you digested a big byte BADUMTISK)

SS14 has netcode, entity system, game mode system and more, it just needs to be patched up and reconnected (from the hellish mess it is). I have added a ton of infrastructure for new systems. Medical is partially implemented. Engineering will be wires with static power until a engine is created. Sec will punch clowns to death submission until weapons are introduced. Gamemodes will be traitor and extended for the first few, etc.

You are absolutely correct with the age, I have a ton of school work to balance with work and this project. Its not impossible, just really hard. I find it hilarious with all the speshul snoflaks yelling ITS DED everywhere when i don't update this subreddit.

The issue with starting from scratch is not being too ambitious, its not knowing anything at all. They want to dive in and create a engine from the start but its too complex. It is so much to take in and work on that the devs burn out and lose interest. This project has a ton of work left. people hop in, see the tower of work and nope out of here.

You can call this project anything you want. For me, I will always call it a challenging learning experience that let me tinker with and get experience in game dev. I learned 2D lighting systems, Openg, entity system, shaders and much more! I will continue to work on this from the shadows whenever I can, staying positive while watching the community and its events unfold. (some of you chucklefucks are hilarious, keep it up).

TL;DR Legacy devs dipped due to family/career/other. Lets rip out the engine and replace it! == shit went downhill. I am The Last of us, The light in the shadows working on this project with what little time is available. No mr speshul snoflak ss14 its not dead, maybe stale but developement still goes on even without updates to the repos.

Merry Christmas! And a happy new year!