THE BIG QUESTIONS
Diaspora?
Diaspora is a single and multiplayer space fighter combat game set in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica universe.
What ships can I fly? I want to fly a Viper!
Both Vipers will be available to fly. As will the Raptor, Cylon Raider, Blackbird and several other fighters from the BSG Universe.
And the Galactica?
No. You can't fly the Galactica. Wrong style of game. We'd rather concentrate on trying to make the best fighter game possible than try to do everything and spread ourselves too thin. There are other RTS mods and games who can do a much better job of that than we could.
You will of course be able to fly around the Galactica, launch from it and land on it.
Will I need anything besides your download to play the game?
No. The game is entirely standalone and everything you need to play will be included in the download once we release. While it is based on the FreeSpace2_open game engine, it is not a mod, but a game in and of itself.
Any estimate would be a best guess and would be subject to refinements and revisions depending on how much work is getting done and if we've hit any snags.
When will it be done?
The team basically consists of volunteers who are giving up our spare time in order to produce a game. Since we can't work on it full time it's very hard to make estimates. If someone important to the team gets busy with real life commitments, things can slow down. They always pick up again eventually, but we can't give any predictions for when the game will be completely done.
However since we are planning on having episodic releases, as as we get close to completion on each one we will be able to give rough estimates for how long it might take us to get the next release out.
How much does it cost?
It is completely free. The download has everything you need to play the game.
Can I play online?
Yes. You will be able to play as a team against the computer or another human team. Or you can just choose to play a free for all deathmatch against other human players.
GAMEPLAY
Will we be able to fly the armed Raptor versions?
Yes.
Will we be able to play stealth missions in the Blackbird/Stealthstar?
Yes. The engine already supports stealth missions with dedicated stealth ships but we're planning on adding improvements to make it possible to also stealth other ships (such as the Raptor) by shutting down and simply drifting as this has appeared in the show previously.
Are you going to be using Newtonian physics?
Nope. The show doesn't so we won't be either. The show uses a cross between Newtonian and "Aeroplanes in space" which we are trying to reproduce. Going to a fully Newtonian model would actually result in combat being less like the show. Given that we are aiming to be as close to the show as possible that's simply not going to happen, no matter how many people tell us it would be cool.
You'll still be able to do all the cool manoeuvres you see in the show though.
Will I need a joystick to play?
The engine supports joysticks, mouse or keyboard.
Will I need a super powerful PC to run the game?
Anything moderately powerful from the last few years should run the game well but the absolute minimum specs required for the engine have proved to be pretty low actually. If your computer can run most modern games it will run Diaspora.
RELEASES
Will there be a demo?
As we will be releasing in stages there won't be a demo as such. Instead we will make Release 1 available as soon as it is ready and move on to working on Release 2. Our basic plan is to release several smaller chapters which explore side stories in the BSG universe building up to the final release which will follow the main plot line of the show.
What will a release be like? What will it contain?
The goal for each release is to give the fans a new package of ships to play with and missions that show them off. Since we will be working on the releases at the same time as working on the main game each release will be quite small (4-8 single player missions per release most likely).
So once I finish a release, that's it?
Nope. We will be including the tools needed for fans to make their own missions and provide extensive help for those who wish to do so. Release 1 will include a Battlestar, Basestar, several RTF ships and the most important Cylon and Colonial fighter craft so there is a lot of scope for making your own missions. The FS2_Open Engine's mission editor (FRED) is a very powerful yet fairly easy piece of software to learn. We expect to receive a lot of fan made missions very quickly so even if you aren't interested in making your own missions there will be plenty to play between our releases.
THE TEAM
Who are you?
The majority of us are just Battlestar Galactica fans who wanted to play a computer game that let us be Viper pilots. Since we are hosted on a Freespace 2 board occasionally a fan of that game wanders in and gets sucked into our Vortex of Evil without having seen the show. We usually make them rectify this grievous error of judgement pretty quickly though.
The game engine is provided by the Source Code Project team (or SCP) who are working on improving the open source Freespace 2 Engine. They provide the code, we provide the game that sits on it. Several of our members are on both teams.
How can I join? I have skills that may be helpful to you.
Weren't you working on a BSG mod before this one?
The core of the team were originally part of the Beyond The Red Line team. A creative differences resulted in the majority of the active team leaving and starting this game. Quite a few of us were never on that mod though since we have recruited heavily ever since the split.
So what happened?
I was told to always save something for my memoires. Let's just say that there was a difference of opinion over our vision of the game, release schedule and management styles and leave it at that.