Battlestar Galactica Community Game Diaspora Has Arrived

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Battlestar Galactica Community Game Diaspora Has Arrived

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday September 4, 2012 @07:45PM from the so-say-we-all dept.

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."

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flight model by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 19:50 · Score: 4, Funny

But does it have a realistic air combat physics model for space battles?
1. Re:flight model by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 19:53 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I hope not. Otherwise it wouldn't really be like "Battlestar Galactica".
2. Re:flight model by jtownatpunk.net · 2012-09-04 19:57 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Trick question! You can't have an air battle in space.
3. Re:flight model by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 20:00 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Trick question! You can't have an air battle in space.
  Of course you can, just watch how TIE fighters and X-Wings fly in space.
  Now if you want full newtonian flight dynamics Babylon 5 all the way.
4. Re:flight model by JosKarith · 2012-09-04 22:17 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I loved Frontier. Admittedly my combat technique involved a Panther stuffed to the gills with shield generators and letting the enemies get behind me then just slamming on the brakes and watching them smash into my shields like bugs on a windscreen but hey, it was funny...
  
  --
  'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
5. Re:flight model by quadrox · 2012-09-05 00:09 · Score: 2
  
  And boring as shit to play. Space combat in independence war just isn't fun. At all.
6. Re:flight model by 1u3hr · 2012-09-05 02:22 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  BSG (the show, no idea about this game) seemed to have fairly realistic space flight. The ships could spin and reverse; they didn't bank and dive. The Vipers were aerodynamic, but they also were used in atmosphere.
  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 did the usual movie./TV sci-fi thing of having all the ships, including the big capital ships, engage at ranges of a few hundred metres, instead of a few million miles. And no real explanation of why they didn't just nuke each other with guided missiles instead of shooting more or less conventional guns at each other. It was basically WWII naval battles IN SPACE.
  It'll be interesting to see how they do Ender's Game since that is supposedly to be filmed soon.
7. Re:flight model by crazyjj · 2012-09-05 02:41 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  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.
  
  --
  What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
8. Re:flight model by bungo · 2012-09-05 03:34 · Score: 2
  
  As I recall, they didn't just nuke everything as the nuke missiles were easy to identify and shoot apart.
  Given the resources to make a nuke, unless you're guaranteed of a hit, then throwing pieces of metal at high speed is probably a better option.
  In the Razor episodes, they show the surprise Cylon attack on the other battlestars, and the Cylons did use nukes, since the defenses were down and the hits were almost guaranteed.
  
  --
  "The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
9. Re:flight model by allcoolnameswheretak · 2012-09-05 05:50 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, Battlestar Galactica does have moderately realistic air combat physics for space battles.
10. Re:flight model by JeffAtl · 2012-09-05 06:14 · Score: 2
  
  The humans on BSG only had 5 nuclear warheads. BSG actually didn't have any weapons of any kind when the war started as it was being turned into a museum.
  BSG was able to get to the lone surviving weapons depot but was only able to get a limited number of nukes.
Re:Is that the game... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 20:20 · Score: 3, Informative

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:Not to be confused with the social network? by DarwinSurvivor · 2012-09-04 20:24 · Score: 2

I believe it was always open source (and yes, many people DO run their instances). The recent announcement was that they would be accepting community-written code into the main trunk.
Homeworld anyone? by aneroid · 2012-09-04 20:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

Homeworld was, for me, the first truly 'epic space battle' type game. Full 360 deg space-mapping, camera views, fighter-POVs.
It would have been a perfect fit to mod Homeworld into a BSG game for RTS.
I have played TIE Figther which would have also been great for the FPS perspective.
Looking forward to playing this.
Re:Is that the game... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 20:28 · Score: 4, Informative

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... by Swifti · 2012-09-04 20:29 · Score: 5, Informative

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
1st Mission Preview - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7yGXHQQlps
Windows Torrent - http://diaspora.fs2downloads.com/Diaspora_R1_Windows.exe.torrent
Mac Torrent - http://diaspora.fs2downloads.com/Diaspora_R1_Mac.dmg.torrent
Linux Torrent - http://diaspora.fs2downloads.com/Diaspora_R1_Linux.tar.lzma.torrent
Re:Not to be confused with the social network? by mwvdlee · 2012-09-04 20:30 · Score: 2

Diaspora, the social network, isn't bound to PHP by use of some wierdo PHP-only internal data-structures or anything is it?

--
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Re:Not to be confused with the social network? by LordNightwalker · 2012-09-04 20:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

And the rabbit hole goes deeper: you may now officially criticize a computer game for using the same name as a social network, that uses the same name as a *previous* computer game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(computer_game) You know, you could probably have found that, had you used a search engine yourself before criticizing others for not using a search engine. ;)

--
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
Slashdotted by rebelwarlock · 2012-09-04 20:49 · Score: 2

Good job, guys - it's down. Now if only we could actually set fire to their servers.
Diaspora* is the best social network by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 20:51 · Score: 2, Funny

It's even got Battlestar Galactica Community Games!
Awesome! by Xelios · 2012-09-04 21:04 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

--
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Re:Looks Like We're Being Slashdotted and Kotaku'd by Karajorma · 2012-09-04 21:06 · Score: 2

What resolution are you running it in? I could see that error being generated if you run in less than 1024x768.
Otherwise I'll need more data.
Re:Looks Like We're Being Slashdotted and Kotaku'd by MojoMagic · 2012-09-04 23:07 · Score: 2

Oh wow! This looks so much better than I thought it would. Well done! ... Now, to grab that torrent.
Gamer Diaspora by finity · 2012-09-04 23:19 · Score: 2

I saw this headline and was worried about the Cheeto and Mountain Dew famines that would occur if a community of displaced Battlestar Galactica Gamers was unleashed upon this land.
Re:Not to be confused with the social network? by 0100010001010011 · 2012-09-05 00:00 · Score: 2

Diaspora was written in Ruby, so a swing and a miss.