Battlestar Galactica: Beyond the Red Line demo released!

Unknown Target

Hello everyone. Awhile ago I came here posting about the Battlestar Galactica: Beyond the Red Line mod for Freespace 2 (it is, however, STANDALONE - you will not need FS2 to run it). Well, now the time has come for the demo release - please, download and enjoy!

THE BEYOND THE RED LINE TEAM IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF THE BEYOND THE RED LINE DEMO, AVAILABLE NOW!

SPOILER WARNING: The following announcement and the game itself contain spoilers for Battlestar Galactica Season 2.

We thought we were saved. A week after the Nuclear Holocaust our rag-tag fleet of civilian ships, led by the captain of the Scylla, wandered aimlessly through space. When the Base ship appeared, most of us were resigned to our fate.

But then, appearing like a savior from the Gods themselves, a lone battlestar pounded through the Cylons’ defenses. We cheered the arrival of Battlestar Pegasus; her crew had saved us. Or so we thought... Death at the mechanical hands of the Cylons would have been better.

Drafted and pressed into service, your only hope of survival is to fall in line and train to join the ranks of the elite Viper pilots of Battlestar Pegasus. Get a taste of the action that awaits you in the upcoming main campaign with intense single- and multiplayer missions. Will you become one of Pegasus’ elite, or will you give your life in the vast, cold battleground of deep space?

Game features:
• Powered by the revamped Freespace 2 engine
• Entirely stand-alone, Freespace 2 not required
• Accurately detailed high-resolution ship models
• High quality, originally engineered audio
• Authentic, original in-game soundtrack, in addition to pieces by Bear McCreary and Richard Gibbs
• Original characters and voice acting
• A three mission single player campaign depicting never-before-seen events, interwoven with and true to the series’ storyline
• Head online and go head-to-head with your friends—and foes—in intense multiplayer missions including Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and others
• Exciting Viper combat with authentic weaponry and flight controls






Head over to our website for download links: Beyond the Red Line

Make sure to check out the forums![/quote]

cwapfobrains

Hell yeah! downloading now!

Big Dookie

Holy crap, this takes place in the Pegasus storyline? Awesome! I didn't realize this. I'll have to check this out immediately when I get home from work. That is HOT.

Athenor

Oooh! Link-whori---- OH FUCK IT'S BSG, PEGASUS...

Ooohhh. *drool*

Fuck, man. Don't let this be an april fools.

Malkor

Oh Freespace, you make great things even greater!

No Great Name

The torrent isn't working for me.

edit: Now it is.

Athenor

It is for me, but by the looks of it, this got posted here as soon as it went online.. IE very few seeders. I'm about 22% done, so if that's any indication it'll pick up in about an hour or so.

Unknown Target

Grab it from Filefront if you can't get the torrent to work

Silpheed

Well I'll be fucked, I thought this would die before completion. Guess it's nice to be wrong once in a while.

Shazkar Shadowstorm

You think I could run this on my MacBook? In Windows of course.

darleysam

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

i'll be downloading this as soon as i find new jeans

august

Noice.

Unknown Target

Shazkar Shadowstorm wrote: »

You think I could run this on my MacBook? In Windows of course.

Actually, we have an OSX and Linux installer coming out tomorrow or so (hopefully). We had some problems with the installer unfortunately, which delayed their release. But cross your fingers!

powersurge

Having never played Freespace I assume this is sort of like Tie fighter? Does it support gamepads such as the 360 one?

major_tom

Holy Shit! They actually got somewhere with this? Massive kudos to the BTRL team for not letting their project slip into mod obscurity like so many other awesome announced mods.

My god, if they can reproduce even one iota of the awesomeness of the newtonian-physics-influenced space battles in the series, then I will be one happy man.

Unknown Target

powersurge wrote: »

Having never played Freespace I assume this is sort of like Tie fighter? Does it support gamepads such as the 360 one?

Freespace 2 is basically the big daddy of space combat games, acclaimed by almost all as the best space game ever made. But yea, it is like TIE Fighter
AFAIK, yes, it does support gamepads.

Pheezer

There are too few ships and too limited of a scenario for the current BSG to make for a good single player campaign if you ask me.

If they made a game about the first Cylon war, I could see that maybe.

Talonrazor

Fuck yes, I've been waiting for this.

CrossBuster

So, has anyone played this yet? The installer isn't working on my computer.

about a second into the process, it gets to the point where it's unpacking "z_root_BtRL_Demo.vp" and becomes unresponsive.

Goomba

I've played the first two missions.

I like it.

No Great Name

CrossBuster wrote: »

So, has anyone played this yet? The installer isn't working on my computer.

about a second into the process, it gets to the point where it's unpacking "z_root_BtRL_Demo.vp" and becomes unresponsive.

Just let it keep going, it'll finish.

And yes it's pretty cool.

Trying to figure out if I can/how to multiplayer it.

edit: Okay I got that done, but there are no servers up for multiplayer.

I'm not confident enough in my connection to host.

Unknown Target

Crossuster: That file is quite large. It might take several minutes to install - just let the installer go, it'll finish eventually.
From our demo release thread (multiplayer steps are at the bottom):

karajorma wrote: »

DEMO README

THE BEYOND THE RED LINE TEAM IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF THE BEYOND THE RED LINE DEMO, AVAILABLE NOW!

SPOILER WARNING: The following readme and the game itself contain spoilers for Battlestar Galactica Season 2. If you have not seen the series as far as the the episode "Scar", you might want to avoid playing for the time being.

1 INTRODUCTION

We thought we were saved. A week after the Nuclear Holocaust our rag-tag fleet of civilian ships, led by the captain of the Scylla, wandered aimlessly through space. We were overcrowded, under-armed, low on fuel and nearly out of food. Our handful of battered Vipers were only minor nuisance to the daily Raider attacks and after a week, when the Base ship appeared, most of us were resigned to our fate.

But then, appearing like a savior from the Gods themselves, a lone battlestar pounded through the Cylons’ defenses. We cheered the arrival of Battlestar Pegasus; her crew had saved us. Or so we thought...

Scylla was first. We watched from the observation deck of the charter liner Requiem, as the Raptors docked with it. We caught a brief burst of wireless comms from Scylla, frantic and distorted, but the message was clear: get away. It was too late; when Pegasus' Raptors found Requiem a few minutes later, they brought nothing that gave us reason to praise the Gods. Mechanics arrived to claim Requiem's vital systems, and Colonial Marines--with guns drawn--claimed warm bodies. Death at the mechanical hands of the Cylons would have been better.

1.1 ABOUT THE DEMO
Drafted and pressed into service, your only hope of survival is to fall in line and train to join the ranks of the elite Viper pilots of Battlestar Pegasus. Get a taste of the action that awaits you in the upcoming main campaign with intense single- and multiplayer missions. Will you become one of Pegasus’ elite, or will you give your life in the vast, cold battleground of deep space?



Game features:
• Powered by the revamped Freespace 2 engine
• Entirely stand-alone, Freespace 2 not required
• Accurately detailed high-resolution ship models
• High quality, originally engineered audio
• Authentic, original in-game soundtrack, in addition to pieces by Bear McCreary and Richard Gibbs
• Original characters and voice acting
• A three mission single player campaign depicting never-before-seen events, interwoven with and true to the series’ storyline
• Head online and go head-to-head with your friends—and foes—in intense multiplayer missions including Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and others
• Exciting Viper combat with authentic weaponry and flight controls

1.2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

WINDOWS

Minimum Recommended Specifications:

Computer: 100% DirectX 8.1 compatible computer
Operating System: Windows® 98SE/ME/2000/XP
CPU: Pentium® 1 GHz or AMD Athlon 800 MHz processor
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics Card: 64 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 3, ATI Radeon Hardware T&L card or other OpenGL compatible video card
Sound Card: Windows® 98/2000/XP-compatible sound card
Input Device: Windows® compatible mouse and keyboard
DirectX®: DirectX® version 8.1 or higher
OpenAL: OpenAL is a cross-platform 3D audio API appropriate for use with gaming applications and many other types of audio applications.
Installation: 600 MB free HD space

Recommended System Specs:

Computer: 100% DirectX 8.1 compatible computer
Operating System: Windows® 98SE/ME/2000/XP
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ or equivalent Pentium® processor
Memory: 1gb MB RAM
Graphics Card: 256 MB NVIDIA® GerForce 6, equivalent ATI Hardware T&L card or other OpenGL compatible video card
Sound Card: Windows® 98/2000/XP-compatible sound card
Input Device: Windows® compatible joystick
DirectX®: DirectX® version 8.1 or higher
OpenAL: OpenAL is a cross-platform 3D audio API appropriate for use with gaming applications and many other types of audio applications.
Installation: 600 MB free HD space

MAC

Operating System: Mac OS 10.4
CPU: 933MHz minimum CPU, 1.2Ghz recommended, PPC or Intel
Memory: 512 MB RAM minimum, 1 GB recommended
Graphics Card: GeForce 3 or better, Radeon 9200 or better
Input Device: Mouse and keyboard
Installation: 650 MB free HD space

LINUX

Operating System: Linux x86 compatible
CPU: Pentium® 1 GHz or AMD Athlon 800 MHz processor
Memory: 512 MB RAM, 1 GB recommended
Graphics Card: 64 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 3 or ATI Radeon with closed source drivers, Mesa 6 or better with S3TC extension available for open source drivers
Input Device: Mouse and keyboard
Installation: 650 MB free HD space


1.3 KNOWN ISSUES
• When playing the game with a dual-core processor, you may experience poor framerates in graphic intensive missions. Setting the processor affinity to only one core (in Task Manager) can help this issue.

• Some game files are very large in size. During the unpacking process the installer may stop responding. This may last several minutes (up to ten minutes in some instances), and is normal.

• Faulty audio playback may occur if audio is set to anything other than software acceleration.


1.4 INSTALLATION
To install the Beyond the Red Line Demo, simply run the BtRLDemoInstaller that you downloaded. Follow the steps, and select the folder you want to install to. At the end of the installation, there will be important post-installation notes that need to be followed. If you don't follow these instructions, it is unlikely that the Beyond the Red Line Demo will work.

1.7 MULTIPLAYER (Credit to MatthewPapa for the basis for steps 2-5)
So, you'd like to see how you measure up against the rest of the world? To get multiplayer working:
1. Make sure your installation is up-to-date. Make sure you are connected to the Internet, then run BtRLDemoUpdater.jar or BtRLDemoUpdater.exe in the root installation folder. It's got the same layout as the installer, so you should have no problems with it.
2. Register a multiplayer account here. Be sure to write down/remember your multiplayer account information.
3. If you want to host multi games, you'll need to forward port 7808 to the machine you're playing on. If you don't know how to do this, you can look up your router on portforward.com.
4. Start up the BtRL Demo, and click the Multi tab on the choose pilot screen and create a new pilot. Give the pilot the same name as the account you made in step 2.
5. From the main menu, select Options, then click Multi at the top left. Make sure that the settings are:
- TCP is selected, IPX is deselected.
- You don't need to do anything with the IP box unless you're playing a Lan game.
- Make sure /MULTIDATA is turned off.
- Make sure PXO is turned on, and enter the account and password from step 2 into the appropriate fields. You can leave Squadron blank, it doesn't do anything.
- Object Update should always be on Low, unless you're hosting, in which case it should be on High. We can not stress this enough! Most of the lag problems you experience will be due to someone not having the correct Object Update settings. During testing, we played ten-player dogfights with little to no lag. When one person switched to Medium Object Updates, the game was almost unplayable. Make sure that when you stop hosting, you switch back to Low Object Updates. Having Object Updates set to Low will not make the game any less beautiful.
- Transfer Missions should be set to /MISSIONS, not /MULTIDATA.
- Flush Cache should be set to Never.
6. Hit Briefing, and you'll connect to the Multi Server and will be able to start playing.

No Great Name

I see

Big Dookie

Oh man, first NiGHTS is real, and now this.

This is going to be the best April Fools Day ever.

august

Man, the suits at Sci-Fi need to hire these guys.

Big Dookie

By the way, everyone who plays this needs to give some impressions for those of us currently detached from their computers.

No Great Name

More people in multi, NOW

Hardtarget

yeeeeeeessss downloading now

Goomba

You fly around, then you press alt-g and then you spin around while still going the same way prior to pressing alt-g.

Bursar

It's downloading so frackin' slow...

His Corkiness

Man, I just watched the incredibly awesome season 3 finale last night, as well.

I don't think I can wait until season 4.

No Great Name

Errr, as soon as I got into a multiplayer game I could no longer move? But my mouse worked fine in the option menu's in game...

edit: And I did training just fine so I have no idea what was up.

Goomba

I see one server with 2 people that I can't join. Is that the right one?

Talonrazor

Goomba wrote: »

You fly around, then you press alt-g and then you spin around while still going the same way prior to pressing alt-g.

That sounds way awesome.

No Great Name

Goomba wrote: »

I see one server with 2 people that I can't join. Is that the right one?

That's the one I was in, we had 4 people for a co-op mission.

But then it started and I just flew off into the distance and couldn't do anything.

galenblade

Times like this make me wish I actually had a working joystick.

Unknown Target

SirToons wrote: »

Errr, as soon as I got into a multiplayer game I could no longer move? But my mouse worked fine in the option menu's in game...

edit: And I did training just fine so I have no idea what was up.

You need to enable your mouse in the options menu. Hit F2 then go to mouse and turn it on. Also, you might've accidentally bumped glide. If all else fails, kill yourself (there's a suicide key, it escapes me at the moment), then respawn and see if that fixes the problem.

Galen: You can play with a mouse


I'd also recommend everyone remaps their controls to something easier before they start playing. The default controls have a little to be desired (it's the source code though, not us, we couldn't change them).

No Great Name

Unknown Target wrote: »

SirToons wrote: »

Errr, as soon as I got into a multiplayer game I could no longer move? But my mouse worked fine in the option menu's in game...

edit: And I did training just fine so I have no idea what was up.

You need to enable your mouse in the options menu. Hit F2 then go to mouse and turn it on. Also, you might've accidentally bumped glide. If all else fails, kill yourself (there's a suicide key, it escapes me at the moment), then respawn and see if that fixes the problem.

Galen: You can play with a mouse


I'd also recommend everyone remaps their controls to something easier before they start playing. The default controls have a little to be desired (it's the source code though, not us, we couldn't change them).

Yeah I enabled mouse.... but now there aren't any games up

galenblade

Yeah, I'm sure there was something in the options for a mouse, I just wasn't able to spend too much time with it yet.

I just really miss my joystick. All the old Wing Commanders, Freespaces, et cetera played so much better with it. It just seems like a more fitting way to play.

Unknown Target

Well I'm game if any of you want to fly against a Dev (who's really rusty by the way ).

AndoCommando82

Downloading this right now... looks awesome.