Author Topic: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice v1.0 (Windows, Mac & Linux)  (Read 854764 times)

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Offline karajorma

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
My alternate plot for R2 is very character centric. It will get made eventually, maybe for R2, maybe as a solo FREDding project for me. :)


That's the other nice thing about Diaspora, many of us have our own side projects we want to do at some point in the game. :)
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Offline TwentyPercentCooler

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Wow, so much hard work went into this. Congrats on the release! I don't know anything about the source material, but I'm downloading it now and I'm going to play.

 
Re: Diaspora : Shattered Armistice Released
Awesome, I have been waiting years for a FS2 BSG mod!!

 

Offline Ace

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Not a mod, a standalone game.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
We don't like it too much when people call us a mod or TC cause it makes people think you need Freespace 2.

We're an FS2_Open Engine game if you want to get technical but mostly we just describe ourselves as a freeware game. :)
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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
WRT the rearming issue I was discussing elsewhere: what about rearming by flying through the hangar bay? Adding a pitstop in the middle could break up combat enough that you wouldn't do it in the heat of a fight.

I'm also having random CTDs, but I don't have any more diagnostic information than "it happens". It's a segfault, apparently. How enlightening.
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Offline Ace

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Rearming by flying through the hangar works in a gamey-sense but not a BSG sense.

If we do in-game rearms it'll be something like a dedicated support ship that's a small capital ship that you berth inside of.
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Online Shivan Hunter

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
So I've only played the first few missions so far, but the production quality here is off the charts. I have no words to fully express the awesomeness I've been experiencing. I feel like I should go watch some BSG so I can enjoy it even more. Even the voice acting seems professional (something insanely difficult to do with an indie title).

To be honest, I had always thought of Diaspora as "that amazing unreleased project that's so hyped that it'll never live up to expectations"... but now that I'm playing it... it does. It seriously does.

Frakking toasters!

 

Offline Fallom

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
hi gents quick question .. the game is refusing to recognize(wx launcher sees it and i can calibrate from there) my joystick saitek x-52 pro ingame when i try to bind a button it just shows a flashing question mark at the bottom ... is this me ? am a being a retard ;;; actually dont answer that... but any suggestions would be good

Andi

I'm having the same problem with my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro. Joystick works fine in Windows as well as FSOpen and is detected in the Diaspora launcher, just doesn't work ingame.

Edit: Should've read further to find the solution. Setting it as the preferred controller in Windows fixed the problem.

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
My alternate plot for R2 is very character centric. It will get made eventually, maybe for R2, maybe as a solo FREDding project for me. :)

That's the other nice thing about Diaspora, many of us have our own side projects we want to do at some point in the game. :)

That's quite a bit like TBP, isn't it, and TBP is also standalone, just like this?


We don't like it too much when people call us a mod or TC cause it makes people think you need Freespace 2.

We're an FS2_Open Engine game if you want to get technical but mostly we just describe ourselves as a freeware game. :)

The thing with working and playing FreeSpace 2 for so long is that, since most of the stuff released actually are mods that require FreeSpace 2 as well as the FS2_Open engine to run, even if you do see a standalone game or a total conversion like Wings of Dawn, you'd still think "FreeSpace 2" while playing it. It just will not go away.

TBP did a good job in more or less not making people think like that when they are playing the Earth-Minbari War demo and the Raider Wars campaign, and they did it with less, so given the acclaim this already has within less than a day of its release, I think it would do a better job at what TBP mostly succeeded in doing, which is to present itself as a game whose only relation to FreeSpace 2 is to use an FS2_Open engine so heavily modified, it is almost beyond recognition.
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Offline An4ximandros

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Finished the campaign about 2 hours ago, amazing, it felt really "BSGish" and I loved the voice acting.

Pros:
-Felt well paced, though , the whole combat landings felt really frustrating when
Spoiler:
I died dozens of times trying to land on the damn Theseus before it jumped on the assault mission, and once I actually clipped through it and was left behind (the other times I was blown up by a random raider) :P
-Loved the HUD, not many games have HUDs that feel right to me, congratulations.
Spoiler:
-The chance to get the frak out and leave the group at the end was a nice touch, being the nugget I am, I took it since I was gonna die anyway :drevil:
Cons:
-Some bugs, (CTD on the last mission and
Spoiler:
affromentioned clipping through the Theseus
-Not enough fraking missile variants!

This is all I can think of at the moment.

I want to thank everyone on the Diaspora team for putting so much work and sweat into this, it really feels like a labor of love, not some soulless product. *cough*everyofficialBSGgame*cough*

 

Offline Ace

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Thanks for the comments. Getting the VA work right was pretty tricky especially since everything was on a volunteer basis. We had a few professional voice actors and actresses do lines but many had to be done in one or two takes since they had limited time for pro bono projects despite being fans of the show.

Androgeos Exeunt: One thing I'd like to do if we can find a dedicated scripter and 2d artist to do it as a side project is revamp the entire interface (i.e. everything not in-game). The "legacy FS2 GUI" is showing its age and isn't the most efficient interface.

An4ximandros: the crashes and collisions are being looked into. We thought we had fixed those issues in the release candidate betas.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2012, 11:25:22 pm by Ace »
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Offline QuakeIV

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Good grief this has been AWESOME so far.

Good work.

 
Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
I suppose I should chime in, in the public forum and add my support!  As everyone has said, this is a very, very polished, professional product.  The models are superb, very detailed and true to the show.  The non-canon ships, especially the Theseus, are right on the mark in terms of what I would imagine in-universe ships would look like.  The Mark VII-E should definitely get honorable mention here as well.  I typically cringe whenever I see games stuffed with a bunch of fan-wanked stuff but, these are superb!  The music feels like you guys cloned Bear McCreary, the VA is great (it sounds like a few VAs did BtRL), the missions are well balanced and interesting, and the flight mechanics/physics are challenging without being overly frustrating.  You guys are probably generating a lot of revenue for Logitec, since the first thing I did was buy a joystick.  The last time I used one was on a Win 2000 machine with a game port, for playing X-Wing Alliance and that thing was a piece of crap.

Now, on to something that Ace said about the interface.  During the missions I felt very immersed in the BSG universe, but between missions, I couldn't help to imagine how cool it would be if the mission briefings were done in a pre-rendered or fully 3D flight ready room or war room, the main menu was the CIC, the pilot selection screen was the locker room (where you click on the lockers to select pilots, view medals and stats) and, the hangar bay was the ship and weapons selection screen.  So, the question is, can the FS2_Open engine actually do this?  At the least complex end, 2D backgrounds/skins could be used for the various screens - these could be stills from the show, or custom pre-rendered 3D art.  At the most complex end, fully functional 3D backgrounds (stills) with an overhauled interface, animation, etc.  Having some interior 3D assets could also be used for between-mission cutscenes.  Anyway, if this can be done, what are the challenges, and what kind of skills would you seek in addressing these challenges?

 

Offline Ace

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
A more wing commander like interface as you suggest would be doable but we'd need a dedicated team of artists and scripters to work on that while not detracting from other parts of the project.

My own thoughts on updating the GUI if it were to be done would be keeping with the idea that all of the menus are part of a PDA.

The other issue with doing halls like you suggest is that we'd want different ones for each major ship class. (even if Valk/Pegasus and Galactica/Sobek are using basically the same models but redressed). So the PDA is a better option.
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Offline The E

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Theoretically at least, you could replace the entire pre- and post-mission interface with prerendered films; the amount of work involved is just prohibitive, however.
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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Congratulations!!

 
Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Lol at bringing down the site, guys!

 

Offline Raven2001

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Congratulations on an excellent release! Played it this afternoon, and it felt astonishing! :)

Others have already mentioned the inumerable pros of the game (atmosphere, VA, game mechanics, art, etc).

Some critics\issues I have:
- There's no hotkeys assigned to enemy wings, which I found was very annoying whenever heavy raiders or missile raiders were involved. The heavy raiders were very dificult to target, since at anytime they were around, there were also lots of bombs in the air.
- The Basestar HMT's issue was already mentioned, and I second that.
- In terms of interface, I found it very hard to understand when my guns were auto-aiming at the target. I simply didn't understand the pre-requesites for it. I think it should be better explained, or have an interface cue that informs me that my guns are "locked" on the target.

Those are minor things anyway. :)
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Offline TwentyPercentCooler

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Re: [RELEASE] Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Lol at bringing down the site, guys!

Having now played a few missions, I think HLP just imploded from awesomeness.

I am now going to watch BSG to see what I'm apparently missing. Just wanted to chime in again and say this is great work. The amount of polish (engine issues aside) is astounding. I can't comment about faithfulness to the source material, unfortunately, but the models, the new interface art, and the voice acting are all very professional.

Spoiler:
I didn't actually have any problems hitting the heavy missile launchers on the Cylon ships with torpedoes. Having played mostly FS2-based campaigns, playing without shields was a little scary at first, and playing on harder difficulties takes some getting used to thanks to getting easily splattered by the Raiders, which remind me a lot of FS2 Maras. Not quite as annoying as Scorpions/Dragons, but close.  :P Later, when I have more time, I'm going to try playing through with a joystick - I suspect having easier access to the directional thrusters is something I'm missing (I usually play with a trackball mouse).

I love the little touches, like launching/landing and having limited primary ammo and a realistic number of secondaries. It makes each pull of the trigger a choice, and really helps with the immersion. The modeled cockpits are eye-poppingly cool, though the bottom hemisphere of the radar can be a bit tough to make out at times. But now I'm just nitpicking.