Outpost 2 Download

The current Outpost 2 version is 1.3.5 Beta 2.

Downloads

General notes on the downloads:

Music, Movies, and the game CD

Game downloads do not include music or movies. If you have a CD, the music and movies can be copied to the Outpost 2 folder on your hard drive. The files to copy are op2.clm (in game music), music1.wav (main menu music), and *.avi (all movie files). Alternatively, you can play Outpost 2 with the CD in the drive and these files will be read from the CD. All downloads will run without a CD.

Online Play

The Sierra released version of Outpost 2 does not work well with home routers. Technically, this is the fault of home routers breaking internet standards in place at the time the game was released. Regardless of the reason though, it leaves people wanting to play online with a problem which can be solved in two ways. The most basic solution is to simply setup a VPN (Virtual Private Network) such as Hamachi, and play the game over that. This however tends to have a negative performance impact, and requires people to setup and use the VPN software to play.

An alternative solution is to use the NetFix. The NetFix is a custom patch to the Outpost 2 network code that tries to attack the fundamental router issue at it's source. This patch has gone through numerous versions and complete rewrites, and in it's current form, actually provides a complete replacement for the lowest layer of the network code in Outpost 2. The NetFix has support for direct connect as well as a game match making server. It can function without port forwarding when using the match making server, or with only the host setting up port forwarding without it. It also comes wrapped with a new user interface that fully integrates with the game and streamlines the creation and joining of games. This version of the NetFix first became available for Outpost 2 - 1.3.4 R2 as an addon module (which required quite a bit of setup). It has since undergone further improvement and is included as an integral part of the Outpost 2 - 1.3.5 Beta 2 package. This provides a multiplayer solution that, for the most part, just works right out of the box.

The NetFix is however still considered experimental. As such, we didn't want to replace a known good TCP/IP option that people were using with Hamachi. This leads to the one oddity about using the NetFix. When it was integrated into the game, it was placed under the "Serial" option, as this seemed to be a now useless option that nobody was expected to ever use. When choosing the "Serial" option from the multiplayer menu, it should show the new NetFix user interface, and should allow connecting over the internet using UDP over IP (version 4).

As a final note about the NetFix, a number of people have reported it does not work for them with their router. This is entirely possible as there are quite a variety of routers out there, and a few are very badly behaved and do not conform to the current router standards in place (perhaps because they are too old). If you are one of these few (and buying a new router is not an option), then you are encouraged to try Hamachi. You can also try experimenting with some of the advanced NetFix options that can be set in Outpost2.ini, but currently these are not well documented. Also keep in mind that the game server won't introduce people using different versions of the NetFix patch, which means people using 1.3.5 Beta 2, and 1.3.4 R2 will not see each other's games.

IRC

None of the online play options for Outpost 2 have built in pre-game chat, or even a list of other online players. As such, we use IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to chat and organize games. You can join us on channel Outpost2 at irc.outpost2.net. Feel free to stop by and chat or play, or if you're simply curious, you can just lurk. Please keep in mind that many people in the channel keep their IRC window minimized while doing other things on their computer, or have stepped away from their computer for an extended period of time. It may be some time before anyone even notices you've joined the channel or responds to anything you say. Just be patient. If there is someone in particular you are looking for, then typing their nickname into the channel will usually cause a popup to appear on their screen. Also keep in mind that Outpost 2 is a fairly old game now, so there aren't always a lot of other players available, or the people that are present don't feel like playing at the moment. Sometimes people just like to drop by to chat with friends, or perhaps get into heated discussions about programming, or the next patch, or whatever hair-brained project they happen to be working on.

Differences by version:

1.3.5 Beta 2

• Latest NetFix patch integrated with the download.
• Fixed option button highlighting.
• Fixed Meteor Defense bug, that sometimes prevents Meteor Defenses from firing at EMP missiles.
• Fixed wreckage bug, that caused wreckage on some tiles to be loaded as rubble.
• Swapped centering behavior of <number> and Shift+<number> for group selection.
• Upgraded mod loader to support multiple mods.
• Broke some uses of the mod loader. (Additions were built using out of date code).

1.3.5 Beta 1

• Increased unit limit. (Max of 1023 units increased to max of 2047 units).
• Network game speed fix to prevent game from slowing down to half of set speed. (This can cause lots of network disconnect boxes to appear if you set the game speed higher than the game can run at).
• Fixed minimap scrolling, in some cases, were the scrolling would get caught on the edges.

1.3.4 R2

• Music does not cut out when switching to another application.
• Added history drop down to the IP box under TCP/IP multiplayer option.
• Added mod loading support.
• Improved NetFix to reduce need for configuration (other than port forwarding).
• Changed map cell types on top of cliffs where buildings should not be possible.

1.3.4 R2 - Lite

• Stripped down version of 1.3.4 R2, containing only a few basic multiplayer levels. For online play only.

Additional Links

You can find additional downloads (music and movies) here.
For some older information on network setup for online play (particularly with 1.3.4 R2), check here.