Battlestar Galactica Community Game Diaspora Has Arrived

New submitter funtapaz writes "Diaspora: Shattered Armistice, the Battlestar Galactica game based on the FreeSpace 2 Open engine, has launched! This cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac) release includes the ability to fly the MK VII Viper, the Raptor (or the new MK VIIe strike variant), multiplayer, a mission editor, an original soundtrack, and full voice acting."

Re:Is that the game...

[Anonymous Coward]

According to wikipedia the majority of the developers involved in Beyond the Red Line left that project in 2008 and started Diaspora. BtRL has since been in development alongside Diaspora by those that remained. So this is sorta but not really a fork from BtRL (spiritually perhaps, but I don't know if any of the codebase / graphic resources were carried over. Both are based on the Freespace 2 engine I believe.)

Re:Is that the game...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the team lead for Diaspora and you're pretty much correct. We ended up with many of the assets that used to be part of BtRL. We agreed not to use the name or anything that wasn't 100% made by our team members in return.

The codebases are exactly the same at the time of the split. I have no idea what they've done with theirs but we kept using the same engine.

Looks Like We're Being Slashdotted and Kotaku'd...

[Swifti]

Hey guys. Programmer from the project here. Looks like our server is being hammered so here are some links to keep you company until our sites get back up.

Our Launch Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWt2m1xtJbw [youtube.com]
1st Mission Preview - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7yGXHQQlps [youtube.com]

Windows Torrent - http://diaspora.fs2downloads.com/Diaspora_R1_Windows.exe.torrent [fs2downloads.com]
Mac Torrent - http://diaspora.fs2downloads.com/Diaspora_R1_Mac.dmg.torrent [fs2downloads.com]
Linux Torrent - http://diaspora.fs2downloads.com/Diaspora_R1_Linux.tar.lzma.torrent [fs2downloads.com]

Awesome!

[Xelios]

Anyone who hasn't seen the wonderful things the Freespace 2 Open Source team has done over the years should really check it out. The game itself is $6 on GoG, and since Volition released the source code it's seen a complete overhaul for everything from AI to graphics. The classic campaigns are still there (and are well worth playing through), and there's been some really great fan campaigns released over the years too.

I'd highly recommend the Blue Planet campaign. Part 2 (War in Heaven) is especially noteworthy for really giving you the feeling of being on the losing side of a war, something you don't see very often in games. Part 1 has full voice acting, with voice acting for part 2 still in progress.

Re:flight model

[crazyjj]

The landings on Galactica were a bit weird though. They came in fast and had to decelerate quickly, like fighters on an aircraft carrier deck, instead of just slowing down and drifting in slowly and safely. But arguably you don't want to waste time in combat.

They only came in "hot" during emergency landings (before jumps, dodging cylons, etc.). In the pilot, Apollo comes in for a normal non-emergency landing and he just slowed down until he stopped and planted down vertically right on the deck.