I wonder if that is possible with the Aurora and Aurora II UI? If there isn't too much game logic in there is it possible to post it and have the community help and pretty it up, while keeping the backend (the interesting stuff) closed? Particularly, I am thinking of the system and galaxy views. This is a decisively non-artist game, but those two can still do with some love.
Interesting idea. At the moment the 'graphics' are handled by each object. So a planet knows how to display itself for example and a star knows how to tell its planets and moons to display themselves. Most of the work is not done within the actual window code so it may be possible to send that information to another program somehow. I was considering one path to Aurora II as developing the graphical side first and running VB in the background for most of the code until I could change it over. So the galaxy map would be a C# program for example that would request information either directly from a VB program or via information placed in a database by the VB program. Of course, the problem is that if someone else was involved in the graphics side then I would have dependency on that person for anything I needed to change and I really don't like that idea.
As you mentioned, the real obstacle to Aurora II being developed is not the technology but the maintainance of my own enthusiasm for the project. At the moment that enthusiasm is firmly directed toward newtonian Aurora. At least I am programming a lot more lately
Steve