So, over the years, in idle chat, the only thing I ever said in Hipster when the subject of video games comes up is 'I play this space game you've probably never heard of before.' Then I tell them about Allegiance. But I always follow up with Freespace 2.
I know Turney had the installer, but that doesn't seem up to date, and I also believe a new one is in the works. I tried to come at the HLP as a new user for my experiment and I know where to go, but it took some digging. So I sat down on a forum where someone asked me about bringing FS2 up to speed from scratch and tried to hash it out. This is from a few weeks ago so it is probably already out of date and if their is a better 'how to from I just bought this game off of GOG,'
please point me to it to me and I will cease and desist and point to that link henceforth. It was a little strange for me to write just because I have been incrementally upgrading for 3-4 years now.
Finally, it is intended to install BP the latest (as of 25/1/2013). For all of you BP-haters out there, I am sorry. I took the time to include how to get your FS2 optimized for must of the modded goodness.
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If their are some weird codemarks in there, I am using the original post code, hoping that most of it will format correctly. Forgiveness please. My intentions are noble!
Step A: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=70736.0This updates the visuals and installs the 'launcher' that you use to select mods. Any mod that was released after this is more than likely going to need this. Unfortunately I don't think they have the installer at the moment, or I am not seeing it. I believe all you need for Blue Planet is the first on the list, the MediaVPs_3612.zip, which extracts I believe directly in your FS2 folder.
So from that link grab:
fs2_open 3.6.12 Final from step 2 and
MediaVPs_3612.zip from step 3.
Step B: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=70745.0 The actual mod.
They actually have a complete installer, usually you unzip mods into your FS2 directory. All you should need to grab here is
Blue Planet Complete InstallerStep C: This is not needed for BP, as it comes with its own .exe. For other mods, you will need to download the compatible .exe. Usually the most recent one is compatible with older mods, but not always:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=82648.0 This seems to be the most recent stable build: 3.6.14
The difference for those downloads is an expanded operation set for your CPU. More than likely, if your CPU came out after 2008, the SSE2 build will be your choice. Related material is listed in that thread, along with a tool to help you identify if your CPU is SSE2 compatible.
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That should be all you need to download for other mods. Again step C is not required for BP. You will use the launcher instead of the old exe to run the game. It is a cool tool that will allow you to enable different mods and choose the compatible exe.
Its kinda tricky to put into typeface, can easily get long winded, but is not too difficult. You aren't actually moddifying any files, moreso expanding on what is in the directory. The cats over on hard-light are happy to help, read through those 3 links first though. I know more than one has been active on this board before.
