[Admiral Nelson]

Beyond the Red Line



Beyond the Red Line (BTRL or BtRL) is a standalone total conversion based on the popular Re-Imagined Battlestar Galactica series. It features a seminewtonian flight model. A tutorial, two single player missions and multiplayer are included. In February 2008 Beyond the Red Line received Mod DB's "Mod of the Year Award" for "Best Independent Game."  Although it is quite short, the missions are interesting and have high production values as well as clever and elaborate Fredding.

The original 2007 release of BtRL relied on certain syntax that is no longer supported in current FSO builds.  This release adapts BtRL to function using the new syntax so that it can be played again!

1) INSTALLATION



Alternatively:

* Extract all contents of the zip file below to your Freespace folder.
* Select the mod "BtRL" via your FSOpen mod launcher.


2) CREDITS

BtRL Team - Original concept and campaign
Admiral Nelson - Patch to version 1.1 as documented below
FrikgFeek - Testing
Axem - texture fixes

3) FIXES IN 1.1

Tables revised and debugged to function in current builds
Certain textures adapted to current usage of alpha channel
Audio and music file corrections
Minor bugfixes
Spell check
The speed of the the mining ship in mission 2 has been increased to eliminate needless asteroid shooting


4) ALTERNATIVE DOWNLOAD

Mediafire

[General Battuta]

Ahhhhh what!

I loved these missions, they really captured the naturalism of BSG's dialog and chatter. Curious to see if they hold up.

[praseodym]

Must...Play...Again

[Novachen]

Actually i had prefered a conversion of this campaign for Diaspora, because Diaspora does not have many custom content .

That is a surprise, nonetheless.



And what a pity that several BtRL custom campaigns are lost... for example there was a modification with several BSG ships back then for it and at least two campaigns with 20+ missions for BtRL with this modpackage.

[Admiral Nelson]

If anyone has any of that old custom content it should still work with this pack....

[FrikgFeek]

Diaspora works on FSO builds though. Not sure how else exactly you'd want to convert this to Diaspora? Use their assets, tables, and flight model? That would be more of a remake than a restoration.
And doing it that way would actually break compatibility with existing Btrl custom content.

[Novachen]

Diaspora works on FSO builds though. Not sure how else exactly you'd want to convert this to Diaspora? Use their assets, tables, and flight model? That would be more of a remake than a restoration.
And doing it that way would actually break compatibility with existing Btrl custom content.

I have to admin, that i never see a Restoration coming for BtRL . For me it was always more likely that someone would make the BtRL campaign playable as an Diaspora campaign, so that you have all BSG-related campaign in only one FS2-game.

So to speak, the same thing that was done with "The Minbari Project" back then, that was converted to a "The Babylon Project"-campaign/mod.

[HLD_Prophecy]

Great to see this done! It sounds fun. I should try it sometime.

Sometime. 

[Cobra]

Oh, man! I'd almost completely forgotten about this. I'm actually kind of sad this would never be continued... I really, really loved how it nailed every aspect of the show, right down to the chatter and even the music! Wonder how this runs in recent builds with shadows and all.

[emark4]

This sounds very cool to play.

I know its a long shot buuuut....

Do the viper have cockpits like in diaspora?

If not, i probrably try to mod it in. Any particular freespace ship you can recommend me to use as a viper cockpit?

[Cobra]

Did someone say BtRL in Diaspora?

:D

[FrikgFeek]

EDIT: No need to have double embeds now that you fixed yours.

Yes it is

Put just the youtube video code(that thing after v=) between the yt tags, not the whole URL

[Cobra]

And apparently it breaks emoticons, too. :V

[CT27]

By semi-Newtonian...is that like the physics in the old version of Lightning Marshals?

[Cobra]

No need to have double embeds now that you fixed yours.

WE NEED ALL THE DOUBLE EMBEDS

But thanks.

[Grizzly]

By semi-Newtonian...is that like the physics in the old version of Lightning Marshals?

Yeah, pretty much. I also once made a tablemod (Realflight on FSMods IIRC) that does something similar for FS2 proper, blatantly abusing Sushi's velocity mod and hacking some BtRL-style damping and side strafing on top of it  (although originally FS2 also had side-strafing, but only for the Shivan ships and the Terran Mara). Ultimately I don't think it works *that* well, as such speeds and physics don't really mesh well with FS2's aesthetic. The flight model itself is still great fun though, especially in it's BtRL and Diaspora implementation. It might be a lot better now: Fury AI didn't exist back then, and IIRC it's a lot better at handling faster ships.

There is another reason to try out BtRL, and that is how intrinsically fredded those missions are, in ways that are not immediately obvious. People have already mentioned the voice acting: It's brilliant. A lot of AAA games don't get people talking over each other right, BtRL does. It's worth replaying that campaign too, as it has a few neat surprises.

Spoiler:

The game reacts to you breaking the mission by trying to prevent the "scripted deaths" which, actually, you can! Or you fail and you get chewed out for disobeying orders. Which is neat! It's a pity I had to find out by digging trough the FRED file itself though O_O

[WeatherOp]

Oh yes, BTRL, we had such good potential. We won the ModDB award and was really at the top with everything going well. Then I lose my hard drive and internet access for a month to get back and find myself kicked off the team with half of the team gone.

Haha, didn't matter as RL had killed the time and desire to mod a game anywho.

[Sushi]

Oh yes, BTRL, we had such good potential. We won the ModDB award and was really at the top with everything going well. Then I lose my hard drive and internet access for a month to get back and find myself kicked off the team with half of the team gone.

Haha, didn't matter as RL had killed the time and desire to mod a game anywho.

Has the original BTRL project admitted they are dead yet?

[The E]

Well, the site in all its passive-aggressive glory is still live, albeit unchanged for years.

[jr2]

Is this on Knossos?