Official DXX-Retro Installer

[A Future Pilot]

Well, I believe most (if not all) of the changes in the Retro Mod should be implemented in the next version of Rebirth. If they're not however, and the Retro Mod is still needed, I'll add it to the installer.

[RiTides]

Thanks, Future Pilot! That would be awesome :-)

Although, of course I'd be thrilled if all of the retro mod changes are implemented in the standard Rebirth version, but I had thought Drakona was making some fairly subtle tweaks to multiplayer mechanics, so I'm not sure if zico is aware of all of those.

Really appreciate all the work you guys put in to make this game play so well even almost 20 years after it was released!

[Drakona]

I've made Zico aware of everything I've done so far, and he's incorporated all of it. However, he's done alternative implementations in some cases, and of course Rebirth continues to make other changes. So while I'm cautiously optimistic, I can't give what he's done my full endorsement as an analyst.

It might be close enough. It might not. There's no way to know until we have the new version in hand and can look at it as a community. Every single change in Retro Mod has been individually evaluated and vetted by the competitive community. Rebirth's alternatives (and other changes) just plain do not get that kind of pilot attention, so I have no way to know.

I have planned to make some other changes, but almost everything left on my list is FFA-focused: P2P anarchy, alternative colors for ships 6 and 7, etc. So there are still some things I want to do that are not in Rebirth yet, and may (for all I know) never be. But everything I'm aware of that would significantly affect ladder play has already been fixed in Retro 1.2, and is already in Rebirth in some form.

As I take a look at FFA and co-op issues, I will continue to make my coding and analysis available to the Rebirth team. They seem pretty willing to use most of what I do. But it's worth remembering that we have very different philosophies about how to do development on Descent -- different ideas about what should be fixed, what should be left alone, what constitutes sufficient analysis and testing, how to interact with the community, even who is important to listen to. We're not ever going to produce the same product, and I'm skeptical that we'll ever be able to work together any more closely than throwing code and analysis over the fence at each other. But hey, that's something.

Anyway. I honestly don't know what the community will prefer. Perhaps the next version of Rebirth will be competition-grade, and the continuing development will be attractive to the community. Perhaps it won't, and the stability of Retro 1.2 will be attractive. I really don't know, and won't take it personally either way -- I want Descent to be the best it can be, and that means pilots playing what they think is best. So those of you who are my friends . . . please just evaluate and decide as pilots.

If it turns out Retro Mod isn't needed after the next Rebirth version, I'll stop working on it. If it is needed, I will keep working on it. The pilots will figure it out, and I'll go with that. I honestly don't know what's going to happen.

But I will say that I've been hearing the next Rebirth version is coming out Real Soon Now for about 8 months. I am not holding my breath anymore. I'd advise you to do the same; if you want your installer to be useful to the community in the interrim, it's worth adding Retro Mod to it.

[A Future Pilot]

OK, I've added the retro mod to the installer. Test it out and let me know what you think! I did have to re-upload the retro mod .exe files to my own server though, because the downloader inside the installer can't handle https requests. I also added my own icon to differentiate between the Retro Mod and default Rebirth. I hope you don't mind

[RiTides]

Sweet! I'm guessing I won't really need this since I already have Descent installed? But that it would be Very useful if I get a new machine, etc :)

I'm not very computer savvy so not totally sure what an "installer" is... right now I just download the latest executable file when Drakona has been making the retro upgrades, and put it into my Descent folder (and navigate to it to launch that particular version when I want to play).

[Drakona]

Well, an installer lets you go to one place to get all the essential stuff. It should be useful for new players! Right now, we tell them, "Get a copy of Descent, get a copy of Rebirth, get a copy of Retro mod, get a whole bunch of missions, get mumble . . . "

This should make several of those steps easy. In particular, we worked together to make Retro mod, the Ranger level pack and a DCL level pack installable from the GUI.

Should make things easier for new players. Though if you ask me, the big hurdle is still setting up port forwarding.

[A Future Pilot]

Currently, I'm still waiting on word from the leaders of the Rangers regarding the Rangers packs. I need them hosted on a separate mirror other than Dropbox to be able to include them in the installer. :/

[RiTides]

Including the retro mod and level packs sounds like a great idea! There were indeed a lot of hurdles to jump through to get this game working again on my system... eliminating some of those is fantastic :)

[A Future Pilot]

OK, I've now included the Ranger packs, so the installer should be all finished

[RiTides]

Awesome, thanks for putting in all the work to make this happen!