Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations

First, allow me to say this:  I have played Armada for almost 3 years now.  I received it as a birthday gift, and I have cherished it ever since.  After I found your site almost a year ago and installed the FleetOps mod, I was TRULY astounded by the shear beauty and fluidity of the game.  Not to mention the MUCH improved techtrees.

Now, I understand the Administrators of Webmasters of this site are giving all of this to us, completely FREE of charge.  As I am sure many of you are aware of, running a website is not free.  Bandwidth is not free.  I can only assume this site runs primarily off donations, and having developed programs in the past myself, donations are never enough to cover all the expenses.  I am fairly sure people are having to pay out of pocket to keep giving you this game.

SO brings me to my point.  BitTorrent.  You can find detailed information here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorent  But allow me to summarize.  The files are hosted locally on several computers.  These would be our computers.  Now with the small download of the default BitTorrent client (I will not link to it here until given permission), this will enable people to download the game, still free of charge, and remove quite a load of the servers because the files will be downloaded from several personal computers (called seeds).  This will result in lower cost to the guys who provide us with the best Star Trek game ever released (in my opinion).

I would be more than happy to begin the initial seeding of these files, on my own personal computer.  All that would be required is Administrator approval.

Please feel free to post opinions/questions.

Thank you,
Christopher Young

Welcome to the forums, Christopher  :thumbsup:

Yes, the Fleet Operations project is mainly driven by our fun doing it. It's not always fun doing such a big project over now this long period of time. The donations we received (http://www.fleetops.net/team.html) were spend on software for development and of course much on hosting. To provide a lag and ad free site over a few years these are of course not enough, so yes, we had to spend a lot more money by ourselves to keep fleet operations running the way it is now.

Despite recent setbacks (http://www.fleetops.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,3/topic,3258.0/) there are still other people out there that support free projects, so currently we do have access to a server with unlimited bandwidth where we can host the files for you.

I think someone actually published a torrent with Fleet Operations 3PR right after release. I don't know if it is still active, though.

I have attached the torrent file.  It may take a little while to initially get the file off my PC and out into the swarm.  I will now take the liberty of telling people how to install and download this file:

The install file for the default BitTorrent client can be downloaded here: 
Download BitTorrent
 (http://www.bittorrent.com/download)

After download, simply install the program.  Now download and double click the file attached to this post and it should automagically load it into the client.

A window should pop up showing all the files (3).  If you do not want to download the multimedia pack, just uncheck the box beside it.

Here is the part a lot of people do not understand about BitTorrent.  AFTER the file completes do NOT close the window.  This will make you computer a seed.  Now people will be able to download the files form your PC, thus reducing the demands on other seeders.  Leave the window open for as long as you can.  The longer the better.

I will be a "dedicated seeder".  Meaning, chances are, this file will always be seeded by me.  To take loads off my connection, I would appreciate it if others would download the file (even if you already have the files) and seed.

I believe this would have more effect if this torrent where added to the download page, asking people to use it instead of using the server.

Thank you,
Christopher Young

Welcome to the forums, Christopher! Great idea to spread FO via torrent!  :thumbsup:

Maybe I could make an addition:
Instead of BitTorrent this might also work with u-torrent which can be downloaded here:
µTorrent - The Lightweight and Efficient BitTorrent Client (http://www.utorrent.com/)
This program works without installation and does basically the same.
(And just another addition or maybe advice: If your contract doesn't say "flatrate", please be aware that the data you send or the data which is received from your computer is also part of your inclusive-volume!)

So, what are you waiting for? Go and seed the word.. uhm.. FO!  :thumbsup:

here is a tutorial i made along time ago it tells you most of the stuff you need to download and use torrents

http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/5591/how%20to%20use%20u-torrent.pdf (ftp://http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/5591/how%20to%20use%20u-torrent.pdf)

Oh.  I use UTorrent myself.  :P  I just wanted to be as upfront and straight forward as possible.  BitTorrent (official client)  requires almost no tweaking/input and is sufficient if the user never BitTorrents anything else. :P

It is just a hint to the ones among us who dislike to actually install something to their hardrive.
Your right, BitTorrent is more comfortable for those who simply wish to support the cause.

So, who of these are you?

You want to support Fleet Operations? You want to spread the word? You want to spread the game, too?
You want it as simple as it can get? Then please scroll back to the top of this page and read Christopher's post :thumbsup:

Wou want to support Fleet Operations and you want to do more than just spreading the word? You always wanted to spread the game and to do this fast?
Here's your chance: µTorrent - The Lightweight and Efficient BitTorrent Client (http://www.utorrent.com/)
Be part of it  B)

(utorrent.de requires registration to download the software?! That's frakking weird... )

Perhaps someone could make up some banners.
If the staff liked to have some of these I could try and create some. Just let me know your thoughts about it.