Author Topic: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.1  (Read 44428 times)

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Offline TopAce

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RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.1
A FreeSpace 2 campaign

Here it is, folks. As announced, I managed to deliver this campaign on June 15, 2012.

Story
Capella happened. Not only did the GTVA lose an entire system, most of the 3rd Fleet, but there are innumerable Capellan refugees left homeless by the cataclysm. The GTVA General Assembly hurriedly passed an act to facilitate sheltering the refugees in far-away systems, including Luyten. At first, the Luytenian Government, presided by the controversial Chancellor McCleskey, saw great potential in the new arrivals. They hoped that the influx of able-bodied workforce would help fix the declining regional economy.

However, the demographic shift turned out to be unfavorable. Within months, Luyten suffered its deepest economic crisis in its history. The populace blamed the Capellans and the ever-unpopular McCleskey government for the recession. The GTVA General Assembly would be willing to interfere with the McCleskey government's internal affairs, but the Beta Aquilae Convention grants them with no such power. Before BETAC could have been accordingly amended, the ruling government suffered a devastating defeat in the elections. The new Chancellor is Edward Keyes, who is determined to "purify" Luyten of its unwelcome guests and to enact unorthodox economic policies to cure the recession. Emboldened by sweeping popular support, the Chancellor announced that Luyten no longer recognized the GTVA's jurisdiction.

When it appeared that the crisis could be solved through diplomacy, three high-ranking GTVA dignitaries were abducted and stoned to death in daylight by an angry mob of anti-Alliance protesters. Peter Lindres, Special Operations Command, submitted a report the next day, showing indisputable evidence that Chancellor Keyes knew about the abduction, but let it happen. To make matters worse, intelligence reports that news of the diplomats' deaths was welcomed by extremist underground movements in Laramis and Barnard's Star as well.

Fearing that prior events would trigger a domino effect, the GTVA Security Council assembled and voted in favor of a forceful military intervention to Luyten. Their goal: get rid of Keyes and his closest associates.

Be prepared, pilot. Your hull is failing, your weapons are depleting, and time is running out.

Read the full story: Part I and Part II


Installation
Installation is like normal. If you don't know what it entails, consult the accompanying readme file or this Wiki page.

Notes
  • The missions have been most thoroughly tested on FSO 3.6.14. RC5. If there is a newer build, I recommend you use it unless that build is known to break mods. Actually, RC7 has a bug that makes mission 5 crash. For this reason, do use the RC5 build. If you're lazy to download RC5 just to play this campaign, here is a quick-and-dirty fix. Put the downloaded .fs2 file to LCW/data/missions.
  • Missions have been thoroughly tested on Medium, and to some extent on Easy and Hard as well.
  • Where available, the missions have been tested in the bomber role as well. Some missions play out differently in the bomber role.
  • The Hecate's turrets are more durable than in retail. Also the anti-fighter beams don't pierce shields.
  • Wingmen are autonomous, and the missions were tested (mostly) without player-issued orders. There are some scenarios where it is implied, or explicitly stated, through dialog that you had better find a good tactic and order your wingmen accordingly.
  • The default hotkey assignments are:
    • F5 - Friendly fighters
    • F6 - Friendly bombers
    • F7 - Hostile fighters
    • F8 - Hostile bombers


Known Issues
  • The camera at the beginning of mission 5 ("Encounter") will sometimes jump one step back. Wait a few seconds before toggling options and it will not happen.
  • Also in mission 5, it is possible that any of the bombers end up inside the station's hull. If it happens, use cheats to destroy that bombers (activate cheats by typing in www.freespace2.com, target the problematic bomber, and press ~K).
  • ALSO: mission 5 does not work with RC7. A fix will be submitted once the official 3.6.14. build is out.
  • In mission 12, when the player enters the battle as a fighter, his energy distribution will be zero on all three systems. The controls are no longer disabled here, so equalize them.
  • There may be some missing textures when playing without the MediaVPs.
  • I know of some instances where ~K-ing down every hostile will break the mission. If you want to cheat, use infinite ammo and make your wingmen invulnerable instead.

Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to swashmebuckle, who has given invaluable advice on the story and helped polish the dialog/briefings in the campaign. Though his role was limited, General Battuta's input had a positive impact on the final release as well.

LCW uses some publically available assets. I am thankful to all of them. A list of these people is given in the accompanying readme file.


Files and Links
Some Technical Data
File count:
Code: [Select]
Searching root pack 'D:\Games\FreeSpace 2\LCW\LCW_v11.vp' ... 219 files
Checksum:
Code: [Select]
Found root pack 'D:\Games\FreeSpace 2\LCW Release\LCW_v11.vp' with a checksum of 0x025c4402
MD5 checksum (of LCW_v11.vp):
Code: [Select]
0063b37d613ba58956ceded0c2bd27ea
(What are these numbers?)

Personal Remarks
Due to my other project commitments and general loss of FREDding drive, I decided not to undertake a new project of my own. It has been 9 years, 6 campaigns, with 137 released missions total, and that's enough. I wll not give up on my current projects, but I will not take up another one. Maybe I will find some extra motivation and upgrade one or two of my older campaigns, but not much else. Without further ado, I have only two (or, depending on criteria, four) words for you: Play LCW.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2012, 02:00:07 am by TopAce »
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Offline Droid803

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Gratz on the release, take a well-deserved break.

Probably gonna give it a whirl this weekend! (Work full time = no time to play campaigns during weekdays).

That said, from the screenshots, questioning the font choice for the panels, makes it look very...old fashioned and low tech, with the serifs and all :P
(´・ω・`)
=============================================================

 

Offline Black Wolf

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Congrats on keeping a release schedule! :D Looking forward to getting into this - will play and review once I'm back from work in a few days.
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Offline CommanderDJ

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Downloading this now, will hopefully play it soon! I've been looking forward to this for a long time!
[16:57] <CommanderDJ> What prompted the decision to split WiH into acts?
[16:58] <battuta> it was long, we wanted to release something
[16:58] <battuta> it felt good to have a target to hit
[17:00] <RangerKarl> not sure if talking about strike mission, or jerking off
[17:00] <CommanderDJ> WUT
[17:00] <CommanderDJ> hahahahaha
[17:00] <battuta> hahahaha
[17:00] <RangerKarl> same thing really, if you think about it

 
Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Completed first few missions, really enjoying it so far. Good job :yes:

Edit: Someone make a Highlight
« Last Edit: June 15, 2012, 07:42:51 am by The_Force »
May the Force be with you

 
Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Edit: Someone make a Highlight
Seconded!

Also, I'll download this and give it a whirl when I get home tonight.  Probably won't have much time to try it out until next weekend, though.  Congratulations on the release, though!  I'm looking forward to playing it.
"Wouldn't it be so wonderful if everything were meaningless?
But everything is so meaningful, and most everything turns to ****.
Rejoice."
-David Bazan

  

Offline Commander Zane

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
There are some pretty intuitive missions in this campaign; seven missions in and the experience is quite fun.

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
I've already played through it a couple times in testing, and the gameplay variety in this campaign is top notch (or ace, I suppose you might say).  I never got bored on repeated playthroughs, and I'm looking forward to coming back to it and trying to make it through on hard. :yes:

 

Offline Dan1

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Just played it through and very well done I must say.  Left me wanting more at the end now I'm gonna go back through and choose some different options.

Only encountered one thing in my first playthrough:


Parked bomber 16 -seems to be inside the facility (had to blow it up using the cheat commands) - mission: encounter

However I went back a few times doing the mission and didn't encounter it.  Maybe it got pushed into the facility I dunno.  Seems very solid so far though.

Oh, and I like your choice of music.  :cool:
Cause what you got is what we need and all we do is dirty deeds!
-Best FS Campaign Theme Ever

 
Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Glad to see that you made your chosen release date.  I've already started my download.  Hopefully I'll have some time to play through it this weekend.

 

Offline TopAce

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Parked bomber 16 -seems to be inside the facility (had to blow it up using the cheat commands) - mission: encounter

Oh? I haven't encountered this bug in the previous 15 or so play throughs, so supposed it has gone. Adding to known bugs section.

Thanks for all the kind comments so far. :)
My community contributions - Get my campaigns from here.

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Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Facebook wall spammed. If it runs on my end, I'll post a review of it here within the next few hours.
My blog

Quote: Tuesday, 3 October 2023 0133 UTC +8, #general
MP-Ryan
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Offline MatthTheGeek

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Bug report : if you select a GTF Stentor while there are no Circe available, the second, tactical primary bank gets fitted with whatever's available (in my case it was a Subach HL-11) even though it shouldn't be able to equip it.

Easily seen in LCW-7.

That might, actually, be worth a Mantis report.
People are stupid, therefore anything popular is at best suspicious.

Mod management tools     -     Wiki stuff!     -     Help us help you

666maslo666: Releasing a finished product is not a good thing! It is a modern fad.

SpardaSon21: it seems like you exist in a permanent state of half-joking misanthropy

Axem: when you put it like that, i sound like an insane person

bigchunk1: it's not retarded it's american!
bigchunk1: ...

batwota: steele's maneuvering for the coup de gras
MatthTheGeek: you mispelled grâce
Awaesaar: grace
batwota: oh right :P
Darius: ah!
Darius: yes, i like that
MatthTheGeek: the way you just spelled it it means fat
Awaesaar: +accent I forgot how to keyboard
MatthTheGeek: or grease
Darius: the killing fat!
Axem: jabba does the coup de gras
MatthTheGeek: XD
Axem: bring me solo and a cookie

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
I've tried out the first few missions, and I must say that I am very impressed. The custom music was a bit loud compared to FS2 music, but it was surprisingly fitting and sounds like it even has traces of FreeSpace at some points.

The mission objectives are quite different from the usual "escort this" and "destroy that". For those who haven't played, think "shuttle run" and "pretending to be space debris" as two examples of other objectives you will have to fulfil in the campaign.

I've only completed, what, three missions, and I already like what I'm playing. I look forward to finishing the rest of it. :)

Spoiler:
I also need to map my shield augmentation keys, because I don't have that many keys on this MacBook keyboard. Go me.

A little question: Is Level Chi a canon classification level? Information on the PCD Saturn from The Procyon Insurgency was classified Level Chi as well, according to its tech description.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2012, 05:47:52 am by Androgeos Exeunt »
My blog

Quote: Tuesday, 3 October 2023 0133 UTC +8, #general
MP-Ryan
Oh you still believe in fairy tales like Santa, the Easter Bunny, and free market competition principles?

 

Offline TopAce

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Level Chi? Where?
My community contributions - Get my campaigns from here.

I already announced my retirement twice, yet here I am. If I bring up that topic again, don't believe a word.

 

Offline TrashMan

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
My stuff....I see lots of my stuff. Gotta to give this one a try
Nobody dies as a virgin - the life ****s us all!

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Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Level Chi? Where?

It's not in the game itself, but on the ModDB page:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/luyten-civil-war/features/story-background-part-ii

Entry for January 7, 2369.
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Quote: Tuesday, 3 October 2023 0133 UTC +8, #general
MP-Ryan
Oh you still believe in fairy tales like Santa, the Easter Bunny, and free market competition principles?

 

Offline TopAce

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Oh I just wanted to write something other than the usual canon classifications. Chi is part of the Greek alphabet, so the GTVA probably uses it.
My community contributions - Get my campaigns from here.

I already announced my retirement twice, yet here I am. If I bring up that topic again, don't believe a word.

 

Offline Cyborg17

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Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
I've played through about half of it.  The mission variety is really high, but a few levels are annoying if you end up dying more than once.  (I had to deal with a graphical glitch that I think happens when my video card gets too hot, so it was harder for me to stay alive.)

But the Freding is top notch ace, my good sir.   :)

 
Re: RELEASE: Luyten Civil War v1.0
Went all the way with no problems.

Though, are the things the bombers docked onto supposed to be that explosive? I blew one up at like 60% health and full shields and it killed me. Also my wingmen all died due to killing a bomber dock. One time a whole wing was wiped out at once >_<