At genre for Botf 2 it says Total Upgrade to Botf.
I didn't get an original(legal) copy of the game when it appeared(and there were not many shops of the kind at the time in my country). When I finally tried to buy the original, no shop had it, and I dont't have an internet credit card(they also have awful card taxes here).
So, I certainly hope I don't need BOTF 1 for 2. Since it IS a new game(I presume). I have been waiting a long time for an improved BOTF game. Don't make me wait forever!
To think about it, I'm sure that you are making an independent game, but please reply. Also, are you forming a company or are you remaining a group of friends? I would much like a powerful, sturdy game being made on BOTF. I WANT the space empire builder I never had!

Welcome to the forums, LeQuack. To answer your question, there are currently two BOTF2 projects being developed form these forums. They both follow the same design documents and share resources. They are also both independent games, so the original BOTF will not be required to play them. I am developing one of those games (Star Trek: Supremacy), and Jigalypuff is developing the other (Star Trek: New Beginnings). No "company" is being formed, as we have no rights to the Star Trek intellectual property. This project's only hope for survival is as a fan-based project that Paramount will either not notice or not care about.

If you were unable to buy a copy of BOTF, you may download the game from Armada Fleet Command, as the game is now abandonware.

Hey there, LeQuack, welcome to the forums!

If you'd like to buy a copy of the game, you can always pick one up on ebay.

BOTF on ebay.co.uk

Obviously, you can try your own country if you're not from the UK.

Alternatively, as MStrobel said, you can pick up a copy of the game over on Armadafleetcommand.com but to be able to play it, you'll need to "mount" it as a virtual drive. There are instructions available in the forums to do this. To download the game, you'll have to sign up to the forums.

As you may have guesed, Armadafleetcommand is the parent site of these forums.

Technically, it is illegal to download the game if you haven't bought your own original copy.

However, as it is abandonware, (Since it's been 7 years and the company that created the game - Microprose - no longer exists) you're unlikely to ever encounter any problems. Most people ignore the legality of the situation, in fact. It's up to you what you decide to do.

If you decide to download the game, there are a number of things that you need to be made aware of. The game isn't 100% compatible with Windows XP, but there are a number of patches available through the link above to allow you to play the game.

I say that "there are a number of patches", because not every patch works for every computer. Some work for some, some work for others. We aren't sure why this is. Some unlucky XP computers are simply incompatible with BOTF. If you have this problem, get in contact with a guy called Joker on Armadafleetcommand.com. He created the patches, so he may be able to help you.

...

As with what MStrobel said, Birth of the Federation 2: Supremacy, and Birth of the Federation 2: new Beginnings are totally independant games.

They are by the fans, for the fans, and so, they are being developed for free. When they are complete, they will be downloadable, from this site, although they may be put on disks and posted if people with dial-up connections etc. need help. The game certainly will not be available to buy through the shops though.

Making money from the game would bring the wrath of Paramount, Viacom, Atari, and every other company associated with Star Trek down on the community.

That's obviously a bad thing.

Again, welcome to the site.

Wait... what? Not getting paid? Pffft... I'm outta here. I don't want to help out anymore.





























PS: Don't reply to this. I'm bored. I know it's very illegal. After you've read this line, forget it's existence.

Wow, thanks for the detailed answers.

i cant seem to find that. could u send me a hyperlink to its location? or is it the demo?

Alan, follow Jigalypuff's link, then SIGN IN to the site. You can't download stuff from there unless you're signed in.

Click on the "downloads" link (It's at the top of the page) then click on the "Birth of the Federation 1.0 Backup" link.

Right-click on the link in there to save the .iso copy of the program to your computer.

You can apparently either burn the .iso copy to a disk to play, or you'll need to "mount" it onto your computer with eg. Daemontools.

I managed to successfully install BOTF, patch and Multipack and it works fine(after also installing Update Tactical Combat), but regardless what I had installed, the game movies don't run, they are simply skipped. Does anyone know something about this? I have xp service pack 2, P4 3000, Nvidia 6600(I know modern equipment can make old applications go crazy).

hmmmm

try reinstalling, and the installing one patch at a time, testing it after each patch install.

and if you really need the movies that bad, you can manually open them.

They are under \ENGLISH on your BOTF cd.

No, reinstalling and stuff I have done many times over. I have tried watching the movies on CD, but most of it plays them as though they were merely sound files. Perhaps that is a clue:
The introduction plays without sound yet there is a sound file for it(they are separated)-maybe media player is to blame(version10), the race intros play normally, the endings play only sound, there are no videos for endings.

In that folder, there are also many sound files.

The movie files are the big ones, such as "open.avi", and "K.avi", and "R.avi"

if those arent playing right it could be a codec problem.

I happen to have every codec known to man, so it works fine for me. I'll send it through some checkers to see what kind of codec you'll need.

also, your ISO may be corrupted, MY ISO I made myself from my own copy I got in stores.

If your ISO isnt corrupted, then you may have a problem with your mounting software. What software are you using? I use Daemon Tools (the old version, before the bundled crap)

If you need a new player, get VLC player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) or media player classic. I use both of those for my media needs, as well as WMP11 for all my music and movies that I keep in the database.

The movies don't work because of our old friend, Windows XP.

This is a well-known problem; they don't work on my computer, nor countless other peoples. Nemitor seems to be the exception to the rule.

You CAN still watch them individually in Media Player etc. you just can't watch them in-game. If you want to watch them in Media Player, then you have to watch the .avi files. The .snd files are supposed to be sound files - that's why there are more of them than movie files. I have Media Player 11 Beta, and they work fine. I've used them before in Media Playr 10, and they also worked fine with that.

The non-playing movies is something to do with the "security access" of the game. Basically, the only way that we're gonna get the movies to play again is if Microsoft released a specific patch to sort it out.

This would mean messing up their "perfect" security settings, so I doubt such a patch will ever see the light of day.

open up iso copy. extract english folder to main botf folder. edit ini

Whilst I haven't got the .iso copy, I have got the .ini file and the movies ARE switched on. I've even copied the movie files into my BOTF folder, but they still aren't playing.

I thought there wasn't any point in downloading the iso unless your game broke?

What exactly do you mean? I'm not quite experienced and don't understand, I can only presume.

Other than that I can say they are all there except the videos for the endings(there are only their sounds), that the race intros are both video and sound together and the opening runs video and sound separately. That is how they play in my Media Player 10.

What is all that talk about ISO? I'm a total noob. Is it some archive the game uses to store information? Still, I don't know anything about its principles, how it works, its place in the picture, how to operate it.

I would ask, what are those ranks about? Services to the fans community or perhaps there is still BOTF Multiplayer hidden somewhere on net?

And how come I get so much attention? I suppose it's a different culture.

Don't worry about beeing a newbie, everyone has to start somewhere.

The iso is a freely available copy of Birth of the Federation. You can download it from Armadafleetcommand - but as with all other downloads, you'll need to sign into the site first.

It's pretty hefty in size - so if you're using dial-up, i'd recommend you download it overnight.

To use it, you'll either have to burn it to a disk, or you can "mount it" onto your computer as a virtual drive using certain programs. eg. Daemontools.

This method apparently makes the game run much faster, because the computer doesn't need to access the disk to run the game. instead of having a 52x speed, (Depending on your CD/DVD-ROM Drive) you can apparently get up to something like 200x speed! 8O

Obviously the annoying memory leak doesn't get fixed by this method though.

I haven't got a clue how you set it up though. I haven't downloaded it because I can still use my disk. I haven't got Daemontools so I can't guide you through that either!

There's probably a guide to help you install it somewhere in the forums on armadafleetcommand.com.

...

As for ranks, I suppose you mean the rank under your name here in the forums?

It's just a bit of fun, really. The ranks are based on the number of posts you've made - the more posts you make, the higher your rank will be. Generally, the system aims to help newbies like yourself identify those people who may be able to help you with problems - those people that have been around for a long time and have made many posts are more likely to know how to help you - so they have a higher rank.

Most forums employ a system like this, although the actual rankings and post limits for each rank are individual to the site.

I'm ranked as an Admiral coz I kinda spend too much time on the site...

You would prefer perhaps that we just ignore you?

you can still play multi-games via hamachi. goto afc botf site and look in the multiplayer forums.

we just happen to be (mostly) helpful guys.




yeah, im always online. (on my networks, Botf, and Botf One)

I dont think its an ini problem though.

For the stbof.ini file, this is what mine says:



As you can see, the movies are turned on. I've got all the files from the English folder of the CD in my BOTF folder as well. I've even got a copy of the English folder itself inside my BOTF folder just in case.

The movies simply don't work though. They don't crash or anything - they simply don't even attempt to play. It goes straight from the splash screen to the start screen, without the Planets flying by, and when I start a game, there's no sign of the Enterprise or the B'rels.

NONE of the videos work.

wierd i have no problems with the avi's on xp. I bet you don't have the correct codecs. If you don't DivX or somehting you normally would have the correct codecs installed, without much problems... a whatever. You can switch them of as matress showed.

Yeah, i've got DivX.

I'm downloading the K-lite mega codec pack at the moment coz that's the biggest codec pack I know of. I know that the K-lite pack has DivX functionality so i'll let it overwite that.

I'll post if it worked.

*Edit - no change, there's still no movies. When I load up the game, it simply goes straight to the title screen.