BitTorrent: Save the site bandwidth.

posted on August 16th, 2007, 4:53 am

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

posted on August 16th, 2007, 8:12 am

Welcome to the forums, Christopher 

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 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 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.

posted on August 16th, 2007, 5:53 pm

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

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

Attachments

Fleet Ops v3.0.torrent

(14.37 KiB) Downloaded 259 times

posted on August 16th, 2007, 6:35 pm

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

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
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! 

posted on August 16th, 2007, 8:48 pm

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

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

posted on August 17th, 2007, 5:02 am

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

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
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! 

Oh.  I use UTorrent myself.    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.

posted on August 17th, 2007, 5:35 am

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

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
Be part of it 

(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.

[Zebh]

posted on November 12th, 2008, 8:34 pm

Last edited by Zebh on November 12th, 2008, 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was just thinking that when v3 comes out, perhaps it would be a good idea to have a link to possible torrent file in download area.

If there is going to be a torrent file it probably won't be noticed too well, if the link is only in some forum topic. I didn't know there was v3pr torrent after I read this topic. So I just wonder, how many actually downloaded v3pr using torrent.

Edit: Just noticed that it says downloaded 5 times.

posted on November 12th, 2008, 10:10 pm

Currently there are two versions in circulation Beta 2 and V3.0PR, we should wait before V3Full is released to start the torrent process. I would be happy to assist, I've used utorrent for...a while. =]

posted on November 13th, 2008, 1:55 am

umm try not to nudge an old topic and just start your own.

and if you have read what other people have said including the admin they get their storage free so it does not matter. now if you have another reason to have a torrent and you think every one will use it then ok. but I think the people that for some reason cant download it from a server and do most of their downloading from p2p then I think they can figure it out all by them selves. and if you are worried about bandwidth filefront can host their files for them and they dont have any bandwidth restrictions.

[Zebh]

posted on November 13th, 2008, 6:53 am

Last edited by Zebh on November 13th, 2008, 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ok, next time I start a new topic instead of using really old ones.

Sometimes when I have downloaded something quite big I have noticed that the file is broken and I have to start download again. I don't think that there is same problem with torrent. And I have noticed that torrents are a little bit faster, than usual downloads.

I didn't mean that the old versions needed torrents, just thought that when v3 comes out it could have a torrent.

[Anonymous]

posted on November 13th, 2008, 5:10 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on November 14th, 2008, 6:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have to agree with Zebh. A torrent is somehow safer if you want to avoid broken files. I know that kind of problem and since it was okay for V2 I guess it will also be okay for V3 and maybe even more people will share the file. It's a good addition to the file being hosted on servers only.

@ Meredith: I don't know why it should have been wrong to use this thread for his request. Request and topic fit. Age doesn't matter. Better an old topic is used than ten similar topics are created.