[Jard]

A demo for the game "Beyond the Red Line" was released today, you can get it as a bittorrent download here. It uses the freespace 2 engine and will eventually be freeware. Also it is based on the adventures of the Pegasus from the show Battlestar Galactica, possibly the best show on television.

Enjoy!

[teflon]

uh... it is freeware...

[nagromme]

Well, it's a demo, but it will STILL be free when it's complete

Using the Scylla/Pegasus story is very cool!

Slow torrent, but I'm patient.

I was bummed about the wait until next season, but I just downloaded the podcast commentaries for all my stored eps from iTunes, plus now I have this to tide me over

[Xavier]

The torrent was fast for me. Im going to install it later tonight. Looks really fun!

[dorkhero]

Xavier, on April 3rd 2007, 07:48 PM, said:

Im going to install it later tonight. Looks really fun!

Don't wait, DO IT NOW!!! It's frakking awesome!

Score so far: dorkhero 0
toasters 2

[nagromme]

It's very cool, but I have freezing problems if the mouse gets too close to the bottom edge. Impressive start though!

[placy]

Repost...

http://www.insidemac.......7623&st=640

[nagromme]

Thanks! Might be some good FS2-related tips in there.

In my case, mouse does work in-game, but in the menus it causes a hard freeze--even Force Quitting doesn't work... until 60+ seconds pass and then the app quits and my Mac is back to normal.

Workaround: nudge the mouse VERY carefully to just the TOP of the bottom-edge buttons. This reduces the freezes, but they still happen. It took me a LOOOOONG time to even get the tutorial started, just because the menus were not working.

I don't think this bug happens for everyone, but one other person at Macologist did report the same.

[nagromme]

OK, I've gotten the hang of NOT letting my mouse get to the bottom of the screen in menus, and the game is pretty stable now--I can get into the game quickly. And it's quite entertaining. LOTS of recorded voice acting, much better than average for even a commercial game.

I also edited fs2_open.ini (in App Support > Beyond the Red Line) to make the game run at my iMac's native 1920x1200 widescreen. Perfect! Menus are stretched, but 3D view is not. It just fills the screen properly and looks great.

Now that I know to AIM FOR THE OCTAGON, I do OK--at easiest setting--with a mouse! With gamepad stick, it's hopeless. No control--but I'm sure flight sim veterans would do fine.

Only problem is, my mouse at max sensitivity still can't turn fast enough to catch that last Raider by the mining ship. (Stick can, but up close like that the accuracy of the stick is more frustrating than ever.)

[mtr]

nagromme, on April 5th 2007, 08:01 AM, said:

Only problem is, my mouse at max sensitivity still can't turn fast enough to catch that last Raider by the mining ship. (Stick can, but up close like that the accuracy of the stick is more frustrating than ever.)

Known bug, and it will hopefully be fixed in the next version of FS2_Open.


The freezing issue is on the todo list of things to fix. There also appears to be a graphics problem for people with an ATI x1600 video cards, but hopefully that will be tracked down soon.

[nagromme]

Cool! Thanks for the update on those issues. I'm glad the mouse speed thing isn't intentional--and meanwhile I'm having fun anyway

For that one Raider ("Fractal"), I'll probably try burning far away at top speed, then turn around and try to get in some shots as he comes after me.

[BifBologna]

nagromme, on April 6th 2007, 01:01 AM, said:

For that one Raider ("Fractal"), I'll probably try burning far away at top speed, then turn around and try to get in some shots as he comes after me.

I chased that tin butt in circles for 20 minutes the other night when suddenly a little light went off in my head and it occurred to me that just maybe, that's what they put glide mode in for. Of course, I then ran out of ammo

Bif

[nagromme]

I thought glide mode was just strafing, but now I'll look into that--thanks

(BTW, a mistake in my .ini tip above: there's a "Beyond the Red Line" folder in ~Library. NOT in App Support.)

[mustang_dvs]

BifBologna, on April 6th 2007, 05:30 PM, said:

I chased that tin butt in circles for 20 minutes the other night when suddenly a little light went off in my head and it occurred to me that just maybe, that's what they put glide mode in for. Of course, I then ran out of ammo

I ran out of ammo, too... but, then I figured that if I could get up enough speed and get a raider to chase me, I could lead him right into an asteroid. I eliminated two toasters that way.

Unfortunately, my Fighterstick, Pro Throttle and Pro Pedals confuse the game's inputs, which leads to some nausea-inducing sommersaults when anything other than the Fighterstick are connected. (I posted this on the BtRL forum.)

[mtr]

mustang_dvs, on April 7th 2007, 01:38 PM, said:

Unfortunately, my Fighterstick, Pro Throttle and Pro Pedals confuse the game's inputs, which leads to some nausea-inducing sommersaults when anything other than the Fighterstick are connected. (I posted this on the BtRL forum.)

Yeah, the joystick controls are rather limited in the engine. It's one of the few things that hasn't had a single upgrade since the source code was released 5 years ago. That's going to change later this year though, as I'm redoing it all with support for more joysticks, more POV HATs, and more axes. At that point it should properly handle whatever you throw at it.

But for now there just isn't really anything that can be done to deal with the problem, it's going to take a major code rewrite to fix.

[nagromme]

That asteroid trick is pretty cool--I have to try that

[Dark_Archon]

I can't get past the briefing screens. The game freezes up.

[nagromme]

It may be the bottom-edge-mouse thing some people experience:

Try keeping the mouse above the bottom of the screen--don't touch that deadly last 1/2 inch. When you need to click Continue or something at the bottom, INCH THE MOUSE SLOWLY DOWN until the button JUST lights up, and click right on that top edge (sometimes even higher than the button will work). Get in the habit of not clicking bottom-edge buttons carelessly.

This made all the difference for me. Once you're playing, the issue is gone. It's just with the menus. (And they know about it--they're fixing it for a future version.)

Note, if it does freeze in the menus, push the mouse upward and wait maybe 120 seconds--it generally comes back to life.

[Frost]

Now this is friggin SWEET.

Voice acting resume fired at them post haste. No doubt they're full up by now, but judging by the off-kilter work of the briefing dude, they could use at least one more professional.

[paulc]

Just tumbled on this one... interesting.

Aside from totally running out of ammo on my first "mission" (exactly how close does one need to be to damage hostiles, it seem to me like I have to be on their tail within 100-150 feet) the one thing that seems problematic is that sometimes when I "launch" a mission, I sit there spinning like crazy. Sometimes it seems perfect, I'm flying pretty much straight and level from the get go.

Anyone having "flaky joystick" like I am? Known issue?