Tag: diaspora

Oh.

Starting November 15th, 2025, Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock and all its DLCs will no longer be available for purchase on any platform. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/544610/view/570395033724780780?l=english

It seems to be currently on sale on GOG so mebbe grab it if you don’t have it yet: https://www.gog.com/en/game/battlestar_galactica_deadlock

That was one of the better space fleet pew pews. Sad to see this going. Guess their license expired. That leaves `X4` BSG mods and `Diaspora` (`FreeSpace 2 Open` mod), of course. Speaking of: There isn’t much talk about `Diaspora` but apparently they are cooking another campaign behind the curtains.

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Until now I used OpenTrack with my DIY IR tracker or the Neuralnet tracker. I knew that my XR glasses feature IMU data though and the xr_driver of the Breezy Desktop project allows to access the data via IPC on Linux PC. So I did what Linux user do: I wrote a script to access the IMU data and forwarded it via UDP to OpenTrack:

Pick your poison to watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njuumLUvqrM / https://makertube.net/w/2bNyxJhdyydTeFq17onikv

This reminded me that I also wrote a proof of concept to implement the FaceTrackNoIR (or OpenTrack) protocol into FreeSpace 2 Open on Linux PC ( https://makertube.net/w/7VtfAjW7EiAUS5aiPwG7if ) so I gave it a spin to test the data bridge. That was smooth sailing!

The mod is Diaspora: Shattered Armistice, still awesome today: http://diaspora.hard-light.net/ (Warning: This may fuel a desire to re-watch the BSG series again 😀).

The bridge code can be found at https://github.com/bekopharm/xr_to_opentrack (pending changes).

It works with the Breezy GNOME xr_driver: https://github.com/wheaney/breezy-desktop (but the Vulkan one works probably too but that’s untested). It should also be compatible with other glasses that have IMU for Breezy available.

Update: hodasemi wrote a Rust connector based on the idea that works without Breezy: https://github.com/hodasemi/xr_to_opentrack_rs – comes with a systemd service file so it can run in the background. Once installed the only step left to do is fire up OpenTrack 🤘

🤓 Painted the button box, added more buttons and the LCD and set it to playing the DRADIS animation[1] of the Pegasus just for show:

Next is wiring everything up (and when that is done finishing the frame for the display) and add decals.

Same thing really to see how it feels:

[1] The Loop was created by David Gian-Cursio (https://www.gian-cursio.net/2016/07/battlestar-pegasus-dradis-screens/) for Diaspora: Shattered Armistice (a total conversion for the FreeSpace Open engine).