31

FreeSpace Discussion / Re: Looky what I found!

« Last post by Krackers87 on January 05, 2026, 01:28:18 am »

Derek Smart...

Have not heard that name since the very early days at HLP.

Anyone remember the full story? I think it's worth explaining for the newer folks.

I found the OG thread: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=25162.msg503400#msg503400

Linked at his first post.

The short of it is, DS expressed an interest to buy the FreeSpace license and develop FS3, but HLP was very familiar with how garbage he was, both as game dev and general human being, and in one of our finest moments of history, collectively trolled the **** out of him till he ****ed off, lol.

A number of people actually tried to be reasonable with him or were polite in explaining how much we didn't want him anywhere near our precious, but dude was such a ragey lolcow that we weren't kissing his feet in praise.

32

Getting Started / Re: Not Dead

« Last post by Krackers87 on January 04, 2026, 11:47:50 pm »

Holy ****, he returns from the grave. 13 years and a shoutout to boot? Homies 4 lyfe indeed.

(Still kind of hilarious that the only mod I ever made has seemingly been lost to time, because it's apparently not in this collection either. )

I found it lol. The GTSC Plato, right? I saw the name in one of the screenshots of the website I had and searched my NAS thats storing all my unorganized backups and found it along with a bunch of other files that happened to be in a different upload directory for some reason.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NQDcao77Ac5YqEk29WqlHsNy3zuoSNJt?usp=drive_link

Did you make the GTI Gaza too? The readme file only lists "me" as the author but I noticed so did the Plato, though it also has your sn there further up in the readme, lol.

Either way they are both in that folder, and there's a bunch of mission files in a subfolder.

Also incase anyone ever wonders, the few fs2 files that show recent edits (2026) are missions I made, and had either an old SN or my IRL name in the author field and wanted to change those before i put them back on the interwebs lol.

In case you're not aware yet, the big new development in FS modding is the Knossos installer/launcher/mod repository. You'll want the .NET version since the original is kinda pants.

Dope! I downloaded it and checked it out, thanks for the info

33

Nightly Builds / Nightly: 04 January 2026 - Revision e5c4c58eb

« Last post by SirKnightly on January 04, 2026, 01:06:39 am »

Here is the nightly for 04 January 2026 - Revision e5c4c58eb



Group: Linux-arm64
nightly_20260104_e5c4c58eb-builds-Linux-arm64.tar.gz (Mirror)


Group: Linux-x86_64
nightly_20260104_e5c4c58eb-builds-Linux-x86_64.tar.gz (Mirror)


Group: MacOSX-arm64
nightly_20260104_e5c4c58eb-builds-Mac-arm64.tar.gz (Mirror)


Group: MacOSX-x86_64
nightly_20260104_e5c4c58eb-builds-Mac-x86_64.tar.gz (Mirror)


Group: Win32-SSE2
nightly_20260104_e5c4c58eb-builds-Win32-SSE2.zip (Mirror)


Group: Win64-SSE2
nightly_20260104_e5c4c58eb-builds-x64-SSE2.zip (Mirror)

Code: [Select]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
commit e5c4c58eb
Author: Daniel Cazares
Commit: GitHub

    fix(graphics): measure ellipsis before shrinking in force_fit_string (#7165)
 code/graphics/software/font.cpp | 5 ++++-
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
commit e567ae7c8
Author: wookieejedi
Commit: GitHub

    Fix warning of unbound keys for newer controls (#7173)
 code/mission/missiontraining.cpp | 11 +++++++++--
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
commit 46d3e490b
Author: Kestrellius
Commit: GitHub

    Render reorder (#7177)
 freespace2/freespace.cpp | 16 ++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)


[Hidden Text: Alternative Launchers •]

34

FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) / Release: 25.0.0-RC9

« Last post by SirKnightly on January 03, 2026, 08:22:20 pm »

Change log: (chronologically ordered)
PLACEHOLDER

Deprecations:
PLACEHOLDER

Deprecations are a mechanism in FSO where a certain feature or aspect of the engine has changed or is no longer supported. Since this would normally break existing mods, we have the mod table feature "$Target Version:" with which a mod can specify what version of FSO it was developed with. Any features listed under Deprecations will be removed or changed when the target version of a mod is at least the version released in this post.

Previous 23.2.1 Release Thread

Launchers, if you don't have one already:
All platforms: For every day use, we recommend Knossos.NET, an integrated solution for downloading and launching mods.

Hidden Text: Alternative Launchers • Show

Cross-platform: wxLauncher 0.12.x Test Build (legacy project for a unified launcher)
Important: For best compatibility with FSO 3.8 and later you should use at least wxLauncher 0.12.

Windows:  Launcher 5.5g (Mirror) (Mirror) Not compatible with Windows 8+, use wxLauncher above
OS X:  Soulstorm's OS X Launcher 3.0
Linux:  YAL or by hand or whatever you can figure out.

Windows (32/64-bit)
Compiled using GitHub Actions on Windows Server 2019 (10.0.17763), Visual Studio Enterprise 2019

64-bit: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-x64-SSE2.zip

32-bit: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Win32-SSE2.zip
This one is based on the SSE2 Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler.

Hidden Text: Alternative builds • Show

64-bit AVX: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-x64-AVX.zip
This one is based on the AVX Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler (fastest build if your CPU supports AVX instructions).


32-bit AVX: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Win32-AVX.zip
This one is based on the AVX Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler.

What are those SSE, SSE2 and AVX builds I keep seeing everywhere?
Your answer is in this topic.
Don't want to deal with that? Use Knossos.NET and it will download the best build specifically for your PC!

Linux
Compiled with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, GCC 9
x86_64: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Linux-x86_64.tar.gz
arm64: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Linux-arm64.tar.gz

These builds use a mechanism called AppImage which should allow these builds to run on most Linux distributions. However, we recommend that you compile your own builds which will result in less issues.
Alternatively, if there is a package in your software repository then you should use that. If you are the maintainer of such a package for a distribution then let us know and we will include that here.


macOS
macOS 10.9+
Intel (64-bit): fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Mac-x86_64.tar.gz
Apple Silicon: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Mac-arm64.tar.gz

These builds are not signed and so by default will fail to launch. To run them simply right-click on the app, click open, then click open again on the security confirmation dialog. You should only have to do this once for each app.
If running the game through Knossos or Knossos.NET this step should not be necessary.

NOTE: macOS builds currently have limited support and may exhibit issues not present on other platforms.

Hidden Text: TrackIR Users • Show

Important!!
An external DLL is required for FSO to use TrackIR functions.  The following DLL is simply unpacked in to your main FreeSpace2 root dir.
TrackIR is only supported on Windows.
TrackIR SCP DLL (Mirror) (Mirror)

Known issues:

• Github issues and pending pull requests
• See the list of bugs ranked by priority

35

FreeSpace Discussion / Re: Transferring data to new computer

« Last post by ShivanSlayer on January 03, 2026, 10:35:46 am »

No success.  I copied the files and it still shows an empty list and medal case in game.  Sucks to lose those, but it would have been worse if the old laptop died in middle of a playthrough

36

The Babylon Project / Re: B5 Digital Art

« Last post by Trivial Psychic on January 02, 2026, 03:53:06 pm »

"It was the dawn of the 3rd age of Mankind."

37

The Babylon Project / Re: B5 Digital Art

« Last post by emi_100 on January 01, 2026, 08:57:39 pm »

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
A present for all of you! Enjoy! 🎁😁

Have a great year! 🤍

Thank you to everyone who has supported what I do all this time with kind comments and words of encouragement! Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart!


https://linktr.ee/DigitalEraStudios

38

Gaming Discussion / Re: Current FREE Games Promotions

« Last post by Antares on January 01, 2026, 05:13:40 pm »

Today's Epic freebies are Total War: Three Kingdoms and Wildgate. These are the last games of the holiday giveaway; they will remain free until January 8, when Epic resumes its regular giveaway schedule.

Sadly, GOG had nothing special to offer throughout the holidays, apart from its regular discounts.

39

FreeSpace Discussion / Re: Screencap Contest: December 2025

« Last post by Colt on December 31, 2025, 06:10:50 pm »

God a couple Typhons to add to the mix 

40

General Discussion / Re: The Size of the Universe

« Last post by Mobius on December 31, 2025, 12:10:17 pm »

Not quite my field of expertise, but this reminds me of the controversial dark flow hypothesis (there's a rather interesting video by PBS Space Time about this particular topic), as it also points to vast regions of the broader universe located beyond the cosmological horizon.