I must say music is awesome in BOTE!!

yeah. thx to eric james, he did it again

btw. it's as always, check it baby check it this server features the "old" 0.45c exe version (the 3rd one I was talking about earlier the day). We had a silent update in the meantime from our last remaining ww2 submarine stationed somewhere near madagaskar (no I'm getting off-topic here..) so go for one of our mirrors and download the 702kb zip file (the other one has 704kb).

it's exactly the bug that CBot fixed last week.

I had announced it earlier here but maybe a bit too hidden. I will pm jig first hand the next time. Safer is safer ain't it ?

Applaus for Eric!

Moalvoisin can you give me link to "mirrors" ?

I read somewhere that only 2 000 of 40 000 german submariners survived ww2! That is horror indeed!

don't need the mirrors (they are all outdated anyway, wow we run silent pretty deep it seems )

wait here, I'll get this fixed.

I am waiting....

Now you can download the current version here in the forum. Goto the downloads modul, there you can find the right version. The zip file has a size of 702kb.

Been thinking more about the music (since you ramped up the default volume, heh). Most obvious is that the tracks seem too short, especially if they're more energetic than the Coalition music. At first I figured longer tracks was the obvious solution, but then I started thinking about how it could be made more interesting... meaning way more complicated to implement, I imagine.

Different themes for different tech levels. Take the Coalition (I'll go by ships rather than actual tech level because I tend to start over by the time I get to tech 3), which is of course easiest if you're basing themes off music from the series and movies.

Start: Jerry Goldsmith (First Contact)
1: Dennis McCarthy (Enterprise)
2: Alexander Courage (classic)
3: James Horner (Khan/Spock)
4: Dennis again (TNG, DS9, Voyager)
5th era: Same as Start but different theme.

I'm not sure what copyright law would have to say about using recognisable themes from the shows and films, but since BotE is a profitless venture, Star Wars fanfilms may have set a precedent. Thinking about this whole thing reminded me of two scenes from TNG.

At the end of the last scene in the Klingon two-parter, the music is its own until it finishes with Jerry's instantly recognisable Klingon theme; and near the beginning of the Romulan two-parter (while Perin speaks to Picard about Sarek's illness in his ready room), the music starts with something resembling James Horner's Spock theme, but it almost immediately goes its own way.

I was also thinking, assuming there will be an option to turn the voice off but leave the music on, there could be a snippet of something that plays when a tech level is reached; like Alexander's trademark ST jingle when the Constitution becomes available.

...And at this point I'm thinking it would be fun to have a different combat track for each empire you face. I should probably shut up now.

no way we ever gonna use or develop similar themes from ST or SW worlds, just not legal I'm afraid (i.e. derivative work in lawyer's english).

as far as switching off some sounds, well, they are ogg files in the bote sounds folder, so just rename the ones you don't want and they aren't in the game anymore (if that doesn't work, "record" some "silence" with (or better) without a microphone using your soundcard recorder, reencode it with oggdrop and replace original files. there you are .

Mal is right, Trahern. Using music from the films/shows/games is legally way too risky. We're already toeing the line just by making a Trek game, and using more trek stuff without a licence will only make things worse.

We've got some talented music makers working for us, but unfortunately they're rarely on the forums so I honestly can't tell you what their creations are going to be like.

We're a fan community though, so if you - or anyone else - wants to have a go at making something for the game(s) you are ALWAYS welcome to do so.

A work around is a mp3 player ingame so u can just browse to a folder to play a folder full of music, what music u play is not the fault of the developers. Lets say i had a folder of startrek movie OST soundtracks, i could in theory just use a inbuild mp3 player ingame to play them.

skeeter's right.

if you go that way, you can even reencode the mp3s to ogg and place them as your own in-game music played by bote internal ogg player (but this of course totally inapproved and prohibited as stated in the legal notes of bote readme.txt ).

Or you put off the music in the ini file and start your own music in mediaplayer in the background.

So you'll risk copying the game but not the music, heh. I guess that makes some sort of sense since Microprose went splat. But when it comes to music, I tend to think of it as paying homage to, rather than ripping off, composers.

Something I did a few years back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5XD0-GriCw

Last musical software I played around with was Geniesoft's Overture 3. Don't have room for it on this old hard drive anymore (thanks to the WoW expansion) but I plan to reinstall it when I put a new box together. Star Trek music has always been orchestral (6 french horns minimum, as I recall), and since I own more movie soundtracks than any other kind of music, it makes the most sense to me.

Never used ogg files before, but... how much work would it take to tell the game to play different tracks depending on tech level? Sure, I could just use a player in the background, but it just isn't the same, is it?

there's not much to it of course. but we have to have some free titles first before we implement this or it would be rather odd if we had to copy the same file a dozen times so to have "different" music for each era. gonna listen to your composition in the meantime .

Edit: good tune. needs a bit tweaking here and there but overall, good job.

@Trahern: That sounds real good but a bit depressing. Understandable considering it was inspired by the aftermath of a Borg attempt that could have wiped out the Human race and could have led to the downfall of the entire galaxy...


To All: Haven't the works done by the classic composers like Mozart passed into public domain? Can you just imagine it? Bach music while negotiating with the Romulans or hearing Ride of the Valkyries when playing as the Klingons during war time.

The orchestra performing the music may still clam rights to that rendition. (Music written by Elvis is OK but a recording of a performance by Elvis is protected.) I have seen were you can download music like The Planets. The US military orchestra in question only asked that credit be given. Even that suggestion was scoffed at here so I have given up.

Why would that idea be scoffed at? It seems like orchestra music done by a US military band would be a perfect fit for the game. At the very least music done by composers like Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven could be done put together with a synthesizer. For some reason I can't help but think a few classic numbers mixed in with the original music would work really well.

Do it. Upload it to SharePoint and the devs will decide if they can us it.

I probably would do it but I don't have a synthesizer... I just liked the sound of the idea and shared it.

If ogg files are going to be a problem, just make them as .mp3's then convert them later. NCH's Switch program can convert files into .ogg's, and quite a few other file types as well. It's a free download (But certain functions are time-limited) so just do a google.

I will deny all knowledge of ever posting this, but I know of certain ways around the time problem...

I've seen a couple of comments about how the music in BOTE becomes bit repetitive after a while. If you're looking to add new tracks, I would suggest taking a look at this (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/275740). It's a simple orchestral melody that, in my opinion, matches the feel of the COP. I've often reflected that it would make a great anthem for the Coalition. It's released under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which basically means that you're free to use the music for non-commercial use as long as you attribute the music to the author (there's a Commons deed link on the page with more details).
Even if you're planning on releasing the game with all original sound tracks, songs like this would make a good stand-in until the new tracks are released. If you're interested, I'll post more tracks if I find them.

I like it. It feels at times a bit medieval church-like but overall it's good as an additional track to choose from. Would be nice if you find some more of those .

I like it too...

Sorry it took a year for me to reply (in my defense, Alpha 6 is really fun and distracting)

"Ascension" (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/293002) is another classical by Bas3008, who wrote the previously mentioned "Theme Orchestration 2009!." Since the part at the end was never finished, it may need to be shortened, but overall I think it goes well with both the Coalition and Hyoun themes.

There's also Deep Space Paradise (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/68241) by mechanoid-9. It's one of my favorites, though I'm not sure if it matches the other game music as well.

I was going to post Edgen's "The Battle Begins" but I saw that you've already included it as the Khaoron's theme. Nice choice.

Finally, this would make a good defeat by elimination song. Or not