567 MB Zipped. Most of the files are compressed already so it's only 604 MB unzipped. That's including the 4x, 2x, original images, and voices.

Did you need to modify the voice files?  If not, I'd suggest that you let people download the voice content pack from its official location (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sc2/uqm-0.7.0-voice.uqm?download).  That would make your download quite a bit smaller, and eliminate an unnecessary fork of the voice pack.

I would much rather have a self-contained installer that doesn't tether the install to a website anyway.  What's the total size?

0)  Theoretically, sure, but...
1)  Don't know.
2)  Don't know.
3)  It could be a bit tricky, because I believe the game compresses its save files, so you might have to decompress the file, edit it, and recompress it.

Most people run afoul of the time limit the first time they play, and either don't finish in time, or have to really rush to make it.  The second time, they usually finish easily, and it's possible to finish in less than one year; there are ways to optimize the order you do things in, short-cut travel time, and acquire large amounts of resources quickly once you know what you're doing.

I'd encourage you to just play out your first game, and then try to play more optimally the second time through.

[Explitives deleted]
Is anyone actually working on anything or is it all some scam?

Dude...chill.  Nobody is getting paid here, so stuff gets done when it gets done, even if it takes years (and it often does).

Wow, these are awesome-looking planets!

A few cents to throw in the ring:

Emerald World:  I echo comments there about this needing to look more crystalline somehow.  What would an emerald the size of a planet look like, after it had been pelted by asteroids for a few billion years?
[Edit:  Just saw the 'cracked' version on a later page; I like that one better.]

Treasure World:  This makes me think of sulfur rather than treasure.  Maybe it could look like a ball of gold ore; mostly rock with veins of silver and gold running through it?  As opposed to an Auric world, which would just be a big ball of gold.

Rainbow World:  Having the texture height determine the color makes it look like, well, a false-color altitude map.  Is is possible to de-correlate the texture from the color?  I imagine the rainbow worlds as planets where the precursor waste dumps have been mutating the landscape's color, or at least the apparent color as seen by sensors...sort of like they're covered in thermosensitive liquid crystal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4721x8kfdA).  The texture would be like a rocky world, but the color would be like a heatmap with hotspots independent of the texture.

Could you or the p6014 programmers post a summary of the technical issues that were encountered in trying to get the HD graphics working in p6014, ideally with references to the p6014 checkins that fixed those issues?  That would provide a starting point for other developers to step in.

[Strategic/Role Playing/Adventure]

From my point of view, designers really dropped their imagination here.
 
Wrapping this Strategic/Role Playing/Adventure game with a fucking retro shooter from the 70's is as bad as implying that this title is a shoot'em up.

It's like mixing a bottle of Cognac with some Pepsi. Disgusting and unappealing.

I'll note that you're posting on the forum for a community-maintained version of this game, which is mainly used by the game's biggest fans.  Clearly, you're not one of them.  That's fine, but if you're just going to complain about how awful you think the game is, it would probably be more productive to go post somewhere else.

As for the programming of the battle scenes, while its minor its not as hard as you think but, I might be wrong. Im just a mathematician without even looking at the code. Besides, all of that is already done. It would be a question of copy and paste with the original code the computer does the rest of calculations for you and the game does seem to support two layers but... maybe it doesnt and hyperspace is actually just one layer. The AI is also in place, you would just have to copy that and see how it works with more than one ship and if it doesnt, add a few lines.

I'm passably familiar with the code, and I'm fairly sure this underestimates the difficulties involved.  But if you think you see a way to do it, by all means give it a shot; I'm sure you can find people here to test what you come up with. 

Why not release your mod, when it's done of course, and also release an updated compiled 0.8 exe as well? That way we all win.

I do most of my work on Linux, so my original intent was to release it as a source patch, not as a binary. 

While I'm gratified to hear that people are enthusiastic for it to come out, I think it's probably too early for this discussion to be useful.  Once it's close to ready, I'll make a decision on the exact form and timing of the release.

Note that Apple has banned GPL applications from the App Store (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/no-gpl-apps-for-apples-app-store/8046).

Note that the last time we heard anything from the developer of this project was over a year before that article you linked was posted.  Even if it would have been a concern to him, it hadn't happened at the time he was discussing the idea in this thread. 

My comment was mainly for the benefit of people wondering about the prospect of an iPhone port; a warning that it would probably be prudent to check into Apple's license policy ahead of time.  If they do allow GPL apps, great.  But it would really suck to do all the work for a port, only to have it get rejected due to the license.

In any event, it won't be released before 0.8.0 comes out

Why? 0.7 is still fairly new, just a year old , and that took 4 and a half years from the time 0.6.2 was released. Unless development has picked up some incredible speed recently, making the commitment to wait for 0.8 is not a good idea right now.

Your choice if you want to go that route, but personally, I'm not interested any more if that's what you're doing, because I doubt it'll ever be released on those terms. Plus, there just isn't any benefit.

There is a significant benefit:  The mod is built on the current SVN head, and makes use of many of the unreleased post-0.7.0 changes from the core team.  Releasing against 0.7.0 would require me to backport it, which would be a heck of a lot of throwaway work.

And it's an academic question right now, since the mod isn't ready yet anyway.

I just made adjustments to some of the new technologies based on my first round of playtesting, and am now doing another round.  There's still a lot of work to do on polish, and I'm debating whether I want to try to incorporate the graphics improvements from p6014/UQM-HD.

In any event, it won't be released before 0.8.0 comes out; I'm building it on the current SVN head, and the diff set from 0.7.0 would be impractically large.

Note that Apple has banned GPL applications from the App Store (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/no-gpl-apps-for-apples-app-store/8046).

I think that having the ability to store an inventory of the ships you can acquire but not build would be nice.  That way, you could stash the Pkunk, Yehat, Arilou, and Umgah ships you receive, and pull them out at need.  Currently, you've got to trash them if you don't want to keep them with you.

I believe that nameable savegames is the only must-have feature for 1.0 at this point, although there is also a desire to improve the modability of the core code first.  Changes already in for the next release include simplified threading, cleaned up memory and handle leaks, and C++ compatibility.