File Hosting for the SH Community

[-SWCowboy.]

Beyond the Shadows - Mods, Skins & Downloads

Some of you know about this site, while some of you have seen my staff team posting around these parts displaying their sigs, and fewer still take advantage of what we offer at www.bts-mods.com (http://www.bts-mods.com)

We're a small and growing group of Silent Hunter lovers who have put in our own time to making mods, skins and other downloads for Silent Hunter 3 & 4. We believe we're developing a community to benefit all Silent Hunter players, add-on developers, and newcomers by designing and implementing a community where the majority of the mods for these games can be found with a few clicks of your mouse.
We offer a relatively hassle-free site to upload your Silent Hunter downloads in one location where everybody is able to find them. We don't put up advertisements, popups or inject malware into our site code, and your files are never removed for space-saving measures. All add-on developers who sign on to our site receive their own FTP log-in directly to one of our two servers with unlimited space to host their work.
bts-mods.com, on its own, has 1500 gigabytes of space available for our hosting needs. Transfer is never a problem with 1.5 Terabytes available each month. Our mirror hosting site offers the same specifications. Mod developers also have the option of requesting a free @bts-mods.com email account if they are interested.

Every designer is assigned their own folder within our Downloads folder. That folder belongs to them; only they and my staff members have access to its contents.
All designers need is a FTP program such as FileZilla, and once the request for hosting has been made and received, the details to their FTP access is emailed to them and they can begin uploading their files.

We would prefer that the designers upload their files themselves, but if they are limited for whatever reason then we have no problem stepping in for them. The main reason I ask not to always have to upload files, is that I would not like my staff over-burdened from what they already do.
At the present we are in the process of re-designing our content management system to make our site more user-friendly, that means for now the files can only be linked through our forums to registered users. I don't want to go into specifics because how our files will be displayed has yet to be determined.

Registration is a requirement for this community, it's just like SubSim in those respects. We believe in the security of the files we host on our server, we don't like people stealing our bandwidth for their own purposes and we'll do everything we can to prevent that. Registration is another measure we take to narrow down our search should some sort of bandwidth theft occur.
With the topic of file hot-linking, this is only meant for game addons. I personally do not mind if you want to use our image gallery to host your pictures as a substitute to imageshack or whatever else is out there, as long as there is nothing of pornographic nature posted in them.

If there are any questions I, or even the staff members who frequent these boards, would be more than happy to answer them. If I missed anything I'll be sure to put it out there in an edit. :cool:

As mentioned before, I just overhauled bts-mods.com for hopefully the last time. I got sick of the "site-in-a-box" that we used previously. Not everything is in total working order; I still have tons of coding to do. If you see website errors you're more than welcome to blame me! :rock: Our forums (http://www.bts-mods.com/forums/) and our image gallery (http://www.bts-mods.com/gallery/) are fully functional for your enjoyment and use :up:

Lastly, I would like to thank Neal Stevens for giving me permission to post this and RDP for his support & advice. :|\\

[ReallyDedPoet]

Congrats on the work you and others have done with your site, best of luck as things continue to develop with Beyond the Shadows :up:


RDP

[Venatore]

Support from Venatore [I'm in] :up:

[Abd_von_Mumit]

Great idea, congrats. :up:

But I really dislike the idea of registering just for download. :nope: I'll be happy to use your site, if you choose one day to share the files to unregistered users. :up:

[-SWCowboy.]

If you take into consideration that I pay for these sites out of my own pocket and do this out of my own generosity for this community, I can't see how registration on that site is such a difficult request. I don't understand why people complain about it when obviously they wouldn't be posting here without having done it. I'm sorry you feel that way, I really am, but I won't be changing my setup anytime soon. :cool:

Ven I've got you setup, your info is in a PM if you haven't read it yet, and RDP thanks again!

[Kpt. Lehmann]

If you take into consideration that I pay for these sites out of my own pocket and do this out of my own generosity for this community, I can't see how registration on that site is such a difficult request. I don't understand why people complain about it when obviously they wouldn't be posting here without having done it. I'm sorry you feel that way, I really am, but I won't be changing my setup anytime soon. :cool:

Ven I've got you setup, your info is in a PM if you haven't read it yet, and RDP thanks again!

Sounds absolutely reasonable to me.:up: :up: :up:

Your site... your rules.:yep:

[Abd_von_Mumit]

If you take into consideration that I pay for these sites out of my own pocket and do this out of my own generosity for this community, I can't see how registration on that site is such a difficult request. I don't understand why people complain about it when obviously they wouldn't be posting here without having done it. I'm sorry you feel that way, I really am, but I won't be changing my setup anytime soon. :cool:

Ven I've got you setup, your info is in a PM if you haven't read it yet, and RDP thanks again!

Sounds absolutely reasonable to me.:up: :up: :up:

Your site... your rules.:yep:
That's true, so I'm not complaining or demanding anything, I just support the idea and kindly inform why I'm not using it as for now. :) Just a non-user feedback. :up:

[-SWCowboy.]

All feedback is certainly welcome, and I do appreciate it! :up: The more we get the better we can improve our efforts.

I can't please everyone though, some of my staff members want it for registered users only, others tell me it's my call, but I don't want to seem as if I'm favoring one side over the other :huh: It's a unique juggling game when you're walking through territory like this, and I am trying to make this appealing for everyone interested. ;)

[ReallyDedPoet]

It's a unique juggling game when you're walking through territory like this, and I am trying to make this appealing for everyone interested. ;)
Don't get to stressed about pleasing everyone, that is difficult to do, I am sure the site will do fine. Do what you think is right\fair, in the end it will all work out for you and your team.


RDP

[-SWCowboy.]

For those wishing to have new accounts setup or if your current account is messed up, you'll need to get in touch with CapZap1970. After this message is posted consider me deployed to the Atlantic.

:up: Yall take care now :cool:

[jpm1]

good initiative

[michaelshawn]

Good work and congrats on the work you and others have done with your site, best of luck as things continue to develop with Beyond the Shadows.

[-SWCowboy.]

Thanks guys!! :cool: :up:

[-SWCowboy.]

Just an update for those keeping an eye on our activities:

I've been working on the site since my return a week or so ago, most of the wrinkles are ironed out but I still have some work left to do and I don't have much time before I get deployed again :damn:

I hope yall get a chance to explore the site and see what we've got to offer; it's getting better as my php coding continues :up:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Just an update for those keeping an eye on our activities:

I've been working on the site since my return a week or so ago, most of the wrinkles are ironed out but I still have some work left to do and I don't have much time before I get deployed again :damn:

I hope yall get a chance to explore the site and see what we've got to offer; it's getting better as my php coding continues :up:

It's looking good SW :yep: When do you deploy again ??


RDP

[-SWCowboy.]

Just an update for those keeping an eye on our activities:

I've been working on the site since my return a week or so ago, most of the wrinkles are ironed out but I still have some work left to do and I don't have much time before I get deployed again :damn:

I hope yall get a chance to explore the site and see what we've got to offer; it's getting better as my php coding continues :up:
It's looking good SW :yep: When do you deploy again ??


RDP

Thanks RDP!
I get shipped off again on Saturday :damn: Oh well...the sea pay and flight deck pay are helping pay off my car and hopefully should fund the next computer I buy :up:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Just an update for those keeping an eye on our activities:

I've been working on the site since my return a week or so ago, most of the wrinkles are ironed out but I still have some work left to do and I don't have much time before I get deployed again :damn:

I hope yall get a chance to explore the site and see what we've got to offer; it's getting better as my php coding continues :up:
It's looking good SW :yep: When do you deploy again ??


RDP
Thanks RDP!
I get shipped off again on Saturday :damn: Oh well...the sea pay and flight deck pay are helping pay off my car and hopefully should fund the next computer I buy :up:

Yeah, better to look at it on the positive side SW :yep::up:


RDP

[Fubar2Niner]

Excellent news -SWCowboy

Don't know how I missed your site before, just registered. Waitng for my verification email, but on first observation it looks rockin :rock: .

Best wishes for the future

Regards.

Fubar2Niner

[-SWCowboy.]

I'm rather disappointed that I won't see the mod database function as it should while I'm at sea, unfortunately my php guru/master still has to teach me how to use MySQL effectively but hopefully he'll have time to fine tune it for me while I'm away.

At least I'm not leaving without having put some effort towards the community though, felt pretty rotten that I even left the site as an empty shell the first time :down: :nope:

[-SWCowboy.]

Excellent news -SWCowboy

Don't know how I missed your site before, just registered. Waitng for my verification email, but on first observation it looks rockin :rock: .

Best wishes for the future

Regards.

Fubar2Niner

Thank you Fubar2Niner! :cool: Took a lot of off-duty hours to get it looking that way so I really hope it's useful to this community in the future! :up:

[Carotio]

Message deleted, since my BtS identity is deleted...

[-SWCowboy.]

For the final time this year I'm going back out to sea for 2 months; I can't say when I'll be back or where I'm going exactly, but it'll be some time in June before I return.

Til then everything is in the hands of the staff team, so if you have any questions go ahead and point them to CapZap, Koondawg, Yamato9 or Carotio. If they can't help you, they all have my email address to the ship; it'll take a little while longer to get anything squared away, but you'll be taken care of...this isn't the first time :lol:

Wish you all the best, hope to see more modders & skinners join us before I get back and I'm looking forward to seeing all the new developments around the community!

:arrgh!:

Take care!

[ReallyDedPoet]

Bump :up:


RDP

[onelifecrisis]

Umm, I forgot my BTS password and, worse, I forgot what email address I used to register. When I click "send me my password" it says it has emailed me. I believe it, but none of my "current" email accounts have got an email in them.

:oops:

If a BTS moderator is reading, please PM me and I'll supply a current email addy in exchange for my password! :-? ;)

[-SWCowboy.]

Umm, I forgot my BTS password and, worse, I forgot what email address I used to register. When I click "send me my password" it says it has emailed me. I believe it, but none of my "current" email accounts have got an email in them.

:oops:

If a BTS moderator is reading, please PM me and I'll supply a current email addy in exchange for my password! :-? ;)

OLC, PM me and I'll fix you right up bud! I can change the email for you if you need it or reset your password bro. :cool:

[-SWCowboy.]

I hate being the bearer of bad news..but... we kinda hit a lamp pole in the middle of the road, so to speak...


Most of you know we've got 192 files and 150-some-odd images in use within our forums to bring you all the great mods that we host for SH3 and SH4, well today we (I / me & Phantom) managed to bring that to a grinding halt with a few clicks of a mouse.

What happened was this, in our efforts to keep you all from having to register once more on our site to access files we decided to piggy-back off of our forums database and use the memberlist from there. In order to get the files to show up with the correct creator, the author's name needed to be the same as it was on the forums as well as the author's folder. Therein lied our problem, 95% of our authors had to have their folders changed to match their name. 3 of them needed new accounts altogether and if you got an email from me at 0130 EST you were one of them, the rest, since they were either admins or for whatever reason didn't need adjusting, weren't quite effected as badly by the FTP bug, however they were still screwed because now they need to go back and adjust the links.

So if you can understand what I'm trying to say, a simple thing such as changing a folder has rippled into a massive cluster of chaos for us. I don't have an ETA on when we expect to be back up, word has been put out to either ride this out and wait for us to do our job or go in and start adjusting links; I left that up to the developers to decide for themselves.

The good news is that none of the files were harmed when we did this, all your mods that were on here before still are and we're still taking new mods, they just might not be available as of yet.

I'll keep you posted on what's going on, it's a bit of a mess and it's time for me to go to bed so I'll see what I can clean up tomorrow.

Sorry for any inconvenience this might've caused, I can say though that it's about damn time we get these files off the forums and on to the site for you guys cause this is gonna clean everything up real nice!



I can add though that we got our login menu working on our main page, it'll disappear as soon as you log on and redirect you right to our forums for now until I get that part fixed!!!

[Madox58]

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n12/privateer_2006/thonoz11-1.gif

We broke another forum/website!!
:huh:

I'll take my Beer and stand in a corner for the weekend.
:roll:
:rotfl:

[-SWCowboy.]

We're actually unveiling the new version of the BtSMSD layout for the file library:
http://www.bts-mods.com/?page=files

Hope you guys enjoy this, Phantom really is putting all his effort into this part and I'm eternally grateful for that!!

[Madox58]

BtSMSD
:hmm:

We really need to get beyond the Military Acronym stuff.

I've been out for over 20 years and I'm getting confused.
:doh:

[-SWCowboy.]

BtSMSD
:hmm:

We really need to get beyond the Military Acronym stuff.

I've been out for over 20 years and I'm getting confused.
:doh:

Sorry Privateer, I'm still in and it just feels natural to me :rotfl:

[Madox58]

Is OK Mate.
:up:

Just ribbing you a bit.
Mr. FSBND3DC
:rotfl:

We pronounce that Russ

[-SWCowboy.]

hehehe or as my neice Kharma calls me, Uncle Wuss seems to work too these days :lol:

[onelifecrisis]

BTW, how come this isn't also stickied in the SH4 mods forum? :hmm:

[-SWCowboy.]

It used to be but it was removed long ago :nope:

Our experience has taught us the best way to let people know about us is to uphold a good reputation on other community sites, be as helpful as possible and display something in our sig linking back to BtS :cool: It's worked pretty good for us with 401 members to day since January :up:

[Koondawg]

Might wanna update Russ...

[-SWCowboy.]

The update is that there is no update yet....we've got everything setup but Phantom's got lots of other sites to finish before he can work on ours again so whenever I can persuade him to just link things together then we'll be back in business.


I am, however, tossing around the idea that registration may not be required unless you're planning on hosting files. Just an idea since our bandwidth still remains relatively low at this point... :hmm:

[Carotio]

Original message deleted, since my BtS identity is deleted...
Account banned without even an issued warning, just because I refused to log back into the forum as a result of a change in the chain of command.

Post 40:
I encourage people to come check us out and get their mods hosted with us. By and far, we're still the best site to have your work hosted with. In the year we've been doing mod hosting I haven't deleted a single mod yet, and won't delete one ever. Our server still has space for millions more mods, and we're always ready to host more for the community!
BtS FAQ: http://www.bts-mods.com/?page=faq
Why should I have my mods hosted on BtS-Mods.com?
There are a number of reasons you should have your mods hosted with us. For starters:
-We are more reliable than FileFront or RapidShare
-Your mods never get deleted for any reason

Hollow words...

My mods, at least, are no longer available at BtS.

[-SWCowboy.]

Ok here's the latest scoop:

I huge sigh of relief coming from the homefront, I won't be deploying anytime soon. That was one of the many reasons why I haven't been around as much due to work being so hectic.

Now the better news, the files are once again available for download on our site:
http://www.bts-mods.com/?page=files

For now you won't have to register to download them, but you'll have to be sure of what you want because the library is still in it's infancy and has some more growing pains to do, but at least you now have file access! :up:

More to come - stay tuned!

[Ktl_KUrtz]

A great site by SWCowboy and others.
Lots of good stuff.
KUrtz

[-SWCowboy.]

Long time huh bros?


Been a little busy getting ready for a new addition to my family and haven't had much time to mod or work on the site. That's changing. Last month I got a PM from Sailor Steve, and I regret not knowing my password because I would've started this sooner had I read it when he sent it to me.

I get the vibe that there's something not 'centralized' about BtS-Mods.com
That's my fault and if it truly is the case then I apologize.

Me and Tuddley are going to start reworking the site. It started today, I tore down our old files page and building a new layout from scratch. It's going to be organized by username. Once you click on say...Tuddley's page, you'll see icons of his mods. I'll organize them by either SH3 or SH4, and once you click on the icon you'll get a new page showing you the details, size, and description along with a bigger picture.

I'm doing this by hand, it'll take us a while so please be patient with us!! We'll get through each modder as we progress along.

I encourage people to come check us out and get their mods hosted with us. By and far, we're still the best site to have your work hosted with. In the year we've been doing mod hosting I haven't deleted a single mod yet, and won't delete one ever. Our server still has space for millions more mods, and we're always ready to host more for the community!

I realize some changes we've made in the past were erratic at best, especially when we switched our files from site to forums and back again etc. For that, I apologize.

Standby, got some great changes coming to a computer screen near you!

[-SWCowboy.]

I've spent the last hour and a half working on this new layout for BtS-Mods, this is gonna be the new look for us for a very long time. Hand-typing this code sure isn't a walk in the park but it does look pretty dang good!

http://www.bts-mods.com/?page=sh3-skins

We'll be doing this for all of our categories, each page will have 30 downloads and I expect to have my modifications for this site completed by at least the New Year. 26 mods down, about 400 left to go. :rock:

I sincerely hope you guys like what we're working on, as always I'm open to suggestion so please, don't be scared, I won't bite - I'd love to know what you guys want so I can improve it for everyone!

[piri_reis]

Nice job! I think alternative download sites are very important for us living in eastern europe. (eg: Turkey) getting a file from Filefront is a PITA, goes through after trying for an hour or two. So thanks for the effort! and sorry if i'm beating a dead horse :-?

[-SWCowboy.]

I took down the old site for BtS-Mods today; our old blue layout. Instead of what you remember we now have a shiny new green colored site with a few new toys to play with:

-horizontal CSS menu with drop-down links
-scrolling news blocks with link bar on the left hand side

I still need to add all the links to the menu, and I still need to fix all the tables surrounding the download links, but overall I'm pretty impressed with how this turned out, I hope you guys are too! :cool:


...back to work now :lurk:

[Sailor Steve]

Looks good so far!:rock:

[-SWCowboy.]

This is the absolute last time I decide to take on a complete overhaul of my site, I think it looks pretty good too, glad you like it Steve! :cool:

[Ktl_KUrtz]

Yeah!:up:
Looks good!:rock:
KUrtz

[evan82]

Very good looking site. Nice colors. Good mood!:rock:

[Sledgehammer427]

-SWC-
you can host the skins i made on your site, excellent collection!
still have to get to the forums, i think im still registered

actually, i want to change my screenname, because i (now) hate that screenname, PM me!

[-SWCowboy.]

I'd love to have your work hosted on BtS-Mods.com Sledgehammer, PM sent :cool:


One of my members liked the green I had going on in my banner, when he said do a site with that in mind I think I got the best looking site theme I've ever done, I'm real proud of it :yep: :up:

[Sailor Steve]

I like the way you're getting it organized by mod type. Once it's ready I've got a bunch of stuff that can be uploaded. Of course much of it you probably already have, but it's good to make sure that everything is available.

[-SWCowboy.]

Steve I'm taking this project easy - it's a lot of work for one guy to be doing! We're still taking mods so let me know when you'd like to upload them and I'll set you up with some FTP access :cool:

[Sailor Steve]

No hurry. Do your work, make sure it's right and the future will look bright. I can wait my turn.:sunny:

[-SWCowboy.]

Steve I'm ready when you are :cool:


Hey we ran into a brick wall the other day, over the past two weeks my site has been maliciously attacked by forum spam bots.


I'm sorry to all that are affected by a bunch of damn mama's boys living in their basement who have nothing to do but code BS programs that set off my CPU errors. This all happened 2 weeks ago when I added a crappy code to my boards that resulted in numerous CPU over exceed errors. My host provider shut me down for 2 days, I had to clear out my ban lists and reformat the forums; not to mention start coding more anti-bot scripts that won't set off the CPU to max capacity.

[-SWCowboy.]

I want to make a correction to the above post; I enabled a new anti-spam sequence and user registration is back to normal.

For now, while I'm still making sure it works, admin approval is still going to happen, but hopefully these dumb bots stop assaulting my site :hmm: Registration is re-enabled, and once I make sure you're real I'll approve your account and send off the email

[SeaWolf U-57]

your start screen looks realy cool good job :up: stupid me for messing up my chance to use the site :nope:

[-SWCowboy.]

your start screen looks realy cool good job :up: stupid me for messing up my chance to use the site :nope:

Dude I coulda sworn Tuddley told me to unban you? Try logging in again with your old info, if that doesn't work contact me and I'll update your account. :cool:

[SeaWolf U-57]

yep all working ok :up: and "gosh" i have a lot of reading to do

[-SWCowboy.]

We haven't heard from him in a month, and I've sent text messages to his cell phone too... no reply...

I hope he finds his feet sometime soon, especially since Cali's got those wildfires going on... kind of brings on more concern when you think about that aspect too..

[SeaWolf U-57]

Best wishes to Todd may his flag fly high :up:

[Sandman_28054]

Look forward to joining myself.

[-SWCowboy.]

Look forward to joining myself.

:up::up:


You should be able to now, our boards had a slight hiccup today :damn:

[-SWCowboy.]

Made some upgrades today that I think everyone's going to like...

A lot of times I link up new mods and they're forgotten as days & news articles go by or you're not sure which category it's in. Well I think I came up with an idea today that should sort this out.

http://www.bts-mods.com/?page=mods

I added a 'recent files' box to the site. From here on out I'll update that page as we get new additions. That's just a start to it, I'll probably add more tomorrow but that should do for now :cool:

Enjoy!!!

[-SWCowboy.]

Here's another update I wrapped up today:


On the mods pages you'll notice something like an index that shows you which mods are on that page and the author that created them. There's also a Page Menu link that sends you back to the top of that index so you can continue your mod search.


Crunched some numbers today, as of today we're hosting:
109 SH3 Sub Skins
2 SH3 Visual Effects Mods
3 SH3 Audio Mods
21 SH3 Interface Mods
2 SH3 Super Mods
14 SH3 Unit Mods
1 SH3 Mission
3 SH3 Gameplay Mods
1 SH3 Utility and a patch

1 SH4 Visual Effect Mod
21 SH4 Audio Mods
1 SH4 Interface Mod
2 SH4 Super Mods plus a manual and a patch
2 SH4 Gameplay Mods

Not trying to toot my own horn here (well ok maybe I am), but in the year since I started BtS-Mods.com, the site has acquired 329 files hosted through us that make up the 190 unique mods, skins, downloads, utilities, patches and manuals for SH3 and SH4.

:cool:

That's pretty freakin awesome :up:

[Madox58]

Santa delivered a present to you last nite!!
;)

[-SWCowboy.]

Santa delivered a present to you last nite!!
;)
I see that, thank you! :cool:

It's just the one file or should there be more?

[Madox58]

You Sir,
Have the ONLY uploaded copy of the Single installer.
:lol:

It's an all in one deal!

[-SWCowboy.]

You Sir,
Have the ONLY uploaded copy of the Single installer.
:lol:

It's an all in one deal!


Still trying to locate it too! :oops: My server has so many folders it takes me 10 minutes to read through them all :yep:

[ReallyDedPoet]

See the new thread here:

New Version (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147763)


RDP