[AdmiralRalwood]

And then another attempt at a unified launcher/installer was made, but the people behind it just... stopped showing up.

[karajorma]

Well the problem is that whatever we decide on now, we've got a massive duplication of efforts for such a small number of coders. The idea of the discussion about the launcher was to avoid that. To this day I still don't understand why we ended up here.

[krevett62]

But i think that promotion in general is much more important, because i am not sure if most of you here here knows, that there is a complete Starlancer Standalone Total Conversion based upon Freespace's engine out there, even for dreamcast, for nearly two years, for example.

Is that true? I've never found such a total conversion and that's why I started doing my own for personal use... Could you give us a link to this conversion?

[Deepstar]

Mh, for the Standalone vs. Mod thing.

Actually i do not understand this discussion at all.

Where is the difference in that? Only that the standalone is a "install and play"-thing.
Maybe i am dumb... but why is that not possible with a mod?

Where is the problem to create next to the well-known "do-it-yourself"-package, where you can install everything individually a "All-in-One" File with a mod that contains all VPs, a recommend build aswell the launcher with predefined settings and that you can install in the Freespace 2 folder? Sounds like an easy install for me, like the Silent Thread addon in 1998.


But for the topic. I am do not like JAD very much, because i am for the serious view on the Freespace universe

But BtA... i played Mefistofele a few weeks back for my YouTube channel, was very interesting. Even it seems that i will not create let's plays anymore, i think i will play Slaves of Chaos, when the german translation is finished .
But actually i have a very long backlog freespace related.. i am not even played any of the Blue Planet campaigns or things like Shadow Genesis.

[General Battuta]

Standalone doesn't require FS2.

[Goober5000]

I for one am currently playing through BtA and enjoying it immensely.

[T-Man]

I would definitely recommend both the campaigns Spoon mentions; have played through both and they're both quality creations, as well as good examples for newcomers of what FRED and SCP-enabled scripting can achieve. Both have also been through extensive testing and bug-fixing by this point so you shouldn't run into issues, and they're both also on the installer so installing them just takes a couple of clicks and a bit of download time.

BtA is a great canon-connected storyline that will surprise you as it goes on and give you some memorable moments (I shall spoil nothing, but they are memorable), and you'll only pause JAD because your laughing to hard to play (seriously, I had to several times, especially a particular mission with perfect music and the best intro ).

There's a lot of other gems on the installer too actually; check out a little gem tucked away at the bottom by the name of Twilight. One of my favourites to this day.

[Snarks]

Alright! It took me a few days, but I've finished BtA. Here's my short, spoiler-free (minus some minor details that shouldn't really spoil anything) review of the campaign. I played it on medium difficulty.

Pros
-Interesting variety of missions (the FREDing was top notch on several missions)
-Some missions were very fun and creative.
-I liked the central idea behind the plot; it certainly gives credence to the antagonist's plans.
-There's a lot of eye candy, from ship models to custom HUDs!
-Fairly solid progression in the Freespace timeline.
-Voice acting was good for the most part, particularly when it came to pilot dialogue during the "down time" in some of the missions
-Music choice was excellent!

Cons
-Some of the writing feels a bit off. There's some redundancy in the writing, and I have some trouble believing people would talk in such a manner. I also totally forgot I was flying for the GTI a few missions in due to the nature of the first few missions.
-Some missions were really frustrating, from a "it feels unfair" kind of perspective. I actually gave up on a couple of them and skipped them.
-Pacing felt all over the place. For instance, the pilot is given 3 days leave during a major offensive?
-Command felt really stupid in a lot of ways, from doing things like assigning hulking slow Hercules for escort missions to deploying a whole squadron for minor missions but deploying only a wing for big, mission critical ones. Assigning Disrupters for the 4 gun mounts on a Herc? Among other things, this really messed with my suspension of disbelief. Despite being a galactic state, the GTA felt really weak while the antagonists felt ridiculously well equipped for what's supposed to be police action.

Overall, BtA is a solid campaign and ranks up there with several of the classics. Some of the missions felt really frustrating and could use some adjustment, but the ones that were fun were legit fun to play and replay. Minor things like unnecessary down time in missions gets frustrating when you're redoing the mission for the 4th time. Some adjustments can be made for the default deployment setups to let them make more sense. Several missions out right restrict my options for no apparent reason. I think the writing could use some refinement, to help make it sound more natural and help build suspension of disbelief.

[The E]

But i think that promotion in general is much more important, because i am not sure if most of you here here knows, that there is a complete Starlancer Standalone Total Conversion based upon Freespace's engine out there, even for dreamcast, for nearly two years, for example.

Link?  I'm not having any luck with Google!

Novachen has claimed to have developed a version of the engine with various enhancements for private use, but has so far declined to share any patches.

[Novachen]

But i think that promotion in general is much more important, because i am not sure if most of you here here knows, that there is a complete Starlancer Standalone Total Conversion based upon Freespace's engine out there, even for dreamcast, for nearly two years, for example.

Link?  I'm not having any luck with Google!

Novachen has claimed to have developed a version of the engine with various enhancements for private use, but has so far declined to share any patches.

Only the PC builds are exclusive to private use or to standalones, because my branch is incompatible to FSO one and i never intended to force a "split" with totally different builds that would only flood the forums with messages that have their reasons only in compatiblity issues. But the playstation 2, x-box classic, openpandora, dreamcast and gamecube/wii ports of my branch are freely available on the several homebrew pages, because there are no other builds for this systems . Even nearly noone plays Freespace 2 on this old consoles.

But Starlancer is still freely available, at least the console versions on such pages. But because you need a softmodded or a chipped console to run inofficial software and also you have likely games, you have to buy regulary, i actually do not send any links, because these pages contain also illegal content.

[Rodo]

I've been neglecting FS for quite a while. Need to get back into BtA and then start JAD

[The E]

Only the PC builds are exclusive to private use or to standalones, because my branch is incompatible to FSO one and i never intended to force a "split" with totally different builds that would only flood the forums with messages that have their reasons only in compatiblity issues.

I can honestly say that I don't really understand this. The features you have claimed to have developed are interesting enough to warrant a closer look by us, no matter whether or not they're incompatible with what we're currently doing. I'd rather have a codebase to pick apart and integrate into ours than be forced to develop everything "in-house", as it were.