Author Topic: FINALLY!  (Read 3977 times)

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Offline Trasd

  • 22
Hello!

I've been playing RPGs for years (more than 35 - wow, when did I get so old?), but occasionally want to take a break.  GOG has been great in offering a wide variety of game genres.  I am a very patient person (that's spelled C - H - E - A - P, LOL) and have been known to wait years for a sale.

As part of my personal game growth, I wanted to try Vendetta Online, but wasn't ready to make that kind of commitment and really wanted to play alone, at least at first.  Checking around, I was steered to FS2 as a great space game - the kind I described that I wanted.  I installed the vanilla game, but was a bit disappointed with the graphics.  A short Google search lead me to FreeSpace 2 Open.

I bought a FS2 license well over a year ago, tried to get the Open Project to work, but didn't have time to follow the directions (spelled, L - A - Z - Y) and because of other commitments, I never got around to setting it up properly.  I remedied that today and am really looking forward to playing.

To that end, I'm looking for any advice on getting the most enjoyment possible from the game, especially on my first run through.  I want a good, detailed, fun, but easy introduction.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance and, I look forward to asking a lot of questions!
« Last Edit: December 27, 2016, 08:21:38 pm by Trasd »
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A. C. C.

"I'll tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." J. M.

 

Offline Black Wolf

  • Twisted Infinities
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The easiest thing to do is run the installer: http://www.fsoinstaller.com/

It's a big download, but just about everything you are likely to want (at first) should be automatically installed for you, including graphical improvements and user made campaigns.
TWISTED INFINITIES · SECTORGAME· FRONTLINES
Rarely Updated P3D.
Burn the heretic who killed F2S! Burn him, burn him!!- GalEmp

 
hi there

just like he said ^^

just run the installer from http://www.fsoinstaller.com/
it will do the whole trick...u just and relax..it will install and download everything u need
then run the Launcher and choose witch mod u need to play or choose
Media 2014 to play the original campaign but with graphical improvements and others

 

Offline Trasd

  • 22
Thanks guys, but I have everything up and running fine.  Once I followed the directions, it was easy enough.

I am looking for advise on how to better enjoy the game: specific mods, specific missions,  intro pdf guides, etc.  Anything to help someone completely new to the genre.

Should I just play the vanilla missions first?  Any well known "gotchas" I should be aware of that's common knowledge to veteran players?

This is the kind of advise I'm looking for....

Thanks.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A. C. C.

"I'll tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." J. M.

 

Offline deathspeed

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My preference was to play in this order:
FSPort v. 3.5, a recreation of the Freespace 1 campaign,
Silent Threat: Reborn, an enhanced recreation of the original expansion campaign, and
FreeSpace Blue, "a gently remastered rebuild of FreeSpace 2".
After that, you might want to check out this guide for more ideas:  http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80688.0
Maybe someday God will give you a little pink toaster of your own.

 

Offline Black Wolf

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My suggested order would be to start with just FS2 and the MediaVPs. Yes, you're playing the games out of order, but FS2 recaps the FS1 story well enough that you'll know what's going on, and it's a better game to decide whether you like this series and this universe.

If you enjoy it, try FS1 and Silent Threat Reborn. FS1 has some old school mission design, and feels a lot more dated than FS2, despite the fact that they're only a year apart, but it's still a lot of fun. You can skip the original Silent Threat entirely - it's buggy and poorly built - it seems to have been made on zero budget and inside of a few weeks. Some of the missions don't even have any events - no dialogue, no changes in AI orders, nothing. It's probably Volition's weakest release in the company's history. ST:Reborn is infinitely better, and brings much more modern mission design ideas to the FS1 era. It's a lot of fun.

From there, you have options out the wazoo. It really depends on what you enjoyed. If FS2 was really your jam, consider Derelict - it's one if the oldest user made campaigns, but it's fully voiced and holds up fairly well. Alternately, Vassago's Dirge is set during FS2 and is one of my personal favourite campaigns.

If you preferred FS1, consider Between the Ashes, which is also fully voiced and very well made, Bem Cavalgar, which is hard but very unique and very well FREDded - a true underappreciated gem, or (and full disclosure, this one is mine so I'm more than a little biased) Frontlines 2334, which is set before FS1, so no shields, and is quite a challenge.

If you want something more modern and dynamic in terms of gameplay, try Blue Planet, probably the most polished user made campaign of the bunch.

Beyond that you can go into some of the more unusual releases, like Transcend, which has a great plot but suffers a little from slightly limited mission design, or Procyon Insurgency, which can be frustratingly hard but is definitely worth the time to play through.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 07:47:26 pm by Black Wolf »
TWISTED INFINITIES · SECTORGAME· FRONTLINES
Rarely Updated P3D.
Burn the heretic who killed F2S! Burn him, burn him!!- GalEmp

 

Offline Black Wolf

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As far as general tips go... Do the training missions. They are slow and a little dull, but they'll teach you the basics if you're new to FS2.

When you first play a mission, use the default load out for the ship and weapons - the mission designer usually thinks about it and chooses pretty well. But if you struggle, definitely change your ship or weapons to something you're more comfortable with, or that might be more suitable. Just because a mission tells you to use bombers and bombs, or interceptors and harpoons, or whatever, doesn't mean that that's the only or the best way to do it.

Also, FS can be played perfectly well with anything from a full HOTAS simulator setup, to a basic joystick, to mouse and keyboard to just a keyboard. Each setup has its advantages - it's not a case of one being unquestionably better than another. So if you're really struggling, consider changing the controls you use.

Specifically.... Fighter beams have a 1500m range. Trebuchet missiles have a 4000m range. Make use of that. :)

Flak sounds more dangerous than it is, generally, so don't get too stressed, but it will wreck you eventually, so don't get too complacent.

Wherever possible, try to be killing turrets and subsystems. Disabling an enemy fighter or killing all the turrets on an enemy corvette makes your job much, much easier.
TWISTED INFINITIES · SECTORGAME· FRONTLINES
Rarely Updated P3D.
Burn the heretic who killed F2S! Burn him, burn him!!- GalEmp

 

Offline Trasd

  • 22
My suggested order would be to start with just FS2 and the MediaVPs. Yes, you're playing the games out of order, but FS2 recaps the FS1 story well enough that you'll know what's going on, and it's a better game to decide whether you like this series and this universe....

Nice, Black Wolf, thanks!  That's more of what I am after.

Right now, I only have MediaVPs' Root and Effects mods loaded, no separate mission mods - I assume this is what you mean?  I'm on a broken laptop right now and until I fix its dual ATI card, I'm stuck using the low-end Intel, so I'm keeping the graphic demands to a minimum (but where they still look decent), so I haven't loaded all the MediaVPs.  I may put them all on my desktop to check them out, but if I'm understanding it correctly, they don't add content, but help with graphics and such.

For now I'll work my way through the tutorial and learn the controls.

Again, thanks.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A. C. C.

"I'll tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." J. M.

 

Offline Trasd

  • 22
As far as general tips go... Do the training missions. They are slow and a little dull, but they'll teach you the basics if you're new to FS2.

When you first play a mission, use the default load out for the ship and weapons - the mission designer usually thinks about it and chooses pretty well. But if you struggle, definitely change your ship or weapons to something you're more comfortable with, or that might be more suitable. Just because a mission tells you to use bombers and bombs, or interceptors and harpoons, or whatever, doesn't mean that that's the only or the best way to do it.

Also, FS can be played perfectly well with anything from a full HOTAS simulator setup, to a basic joystick, to mouse and keyboard to just a keyboard. Each setup has its advantages - it's not a case of one being unquestionably better than another. So if you're really struggling, consider changing the controls you use.

Specifically.... Fighter beams have a 1500m range. Trebuchet missiles have a 4000m range. Make use of that. :)

Flak sounds more dangerous than it is, generally, so don't get too stressed, but it will wreck you eventually, so don't get too complacent.

Wherever possible, try to be killing turrets and subsystems. Disabling an enemy fighter or killing all the turrets on an enemy corvette makes your job much, much easier.

We posted at the same time (well, you a little ahead of me)!

You also anticipated my next set of questions.  Thanks.

If you think of more, by all means, please keep posting!  We are thinking along the same lines.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A. C. C.

"I'll tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." J. M.

 

Offline Trasd

  • 22
My preference was to play in this order:
FSPort v. 3.5, a recreation of the Freespace 1 campaign,
Silent Threat: Reborn, an enhanced recreation of the original expansion campaign, and
FreeSpace Blue, "a gently remastered rebuild of FreeSpace 2".
After that, you might want to check out this guide for more ideas:  http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80688.0

Sorry, I missed your post!

Thinks, I will check these out too.  I don't have access to FS1, so I think the recreation might catch me up.

That guide is a good find, too.  :yes:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A. C. C.

"I'll tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." J. M.

 
i just started weeks ago
first play the original FS2 but Mediavps 2014 and enjoy the hell of it lol

then play the mods

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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That's not how you install MVPs. You grab all of the files, perhaps except MV_advanced (you can download it and just move it out of your MediaVPs directory). I suppose that the best way to get your fps nice and stable would be disabling the shadows (launcher -> graphics) and disabling shaders (write -no_glsl into your custom command line). I think some people here actually play FSO on Intel HD.

As soon as you get your graphics working, I suggest trying out some nightly 3.7.5 FSO builds - they make use of another pretty graphic features, PBR&HDR. And do some experiment with custom lighting settings. If properly configured, this thing is a real beauty.

And note that installing mods for Freespace is actually a very easy process: you just download proper files and place them in proper directories. I'm pointing that out here, because the Installer doesn't list all of the mods that are around the HLP.
In search of mods after you play FS1, ST:R and FS2, I suggest checking out the campaign list on HLP Wiki - it's rather incomplete and a bit outdated, but still serves its purpose and has got the campaings sorted chronologically - worth checking out. I also suggest just looking at the downloads on freespacemods.net and sectorgame.com/fsfiles - if anything slipped under your radar, it should be there.

For reference, I've got a combination of Radeon HD5770, Phenom x4 9500 and 4 GB of RAM, and it's holding stable 30 FPS basically in every single typical FS campaingn - but things start to get ugly with lots and lots of objects on the screen, like sometimes in Between The Ashes and Blue Planet (the new Titan and Erebus...). But the choke point is my CPU, FSO utilises only one core, and my Phenom has terrible single-core performance.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2016, 05:42:24 am by MitoPL »
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 

As soon as you get your graphics working, I suggest trying out some nightly 3.7.5 FSO builds - they make use of another pretty graphic features, PBR&HDR. And do some experiment with custom lighting settings. If properly configured, this thing is a real beauty.

And note that installing mods for Freespace is actually a very easy process: you just download proper files and place them in proper directories. I'm pointing that out here, because the Installer doesn't list all of the mods that are around the HLP.
In search of mods after you play FS1, ST:R and FS2, I suggest checking out the campaign list on HLP Wiki - it's rather incomplete and a bit outdated, but still serves its purpose and has got the campaings sorted chronologically - worth checking out. I also suggest just looking at the downloads on freespacemods.net and sectorgame.com/fsfiles - if anything slipped under your radar, it should be there.


big thanx bro ..i didnt know about Nightly 3.7.5 FSO cus im using 3.7.4 FSO

 

Offline Trasd

  • 22
For new players, like myself, who are worried about their system not being able to handle all of MediaVPs' graphic and other enhancement mods, even on sloooow systems, it shouldn't be a problem.  I was running only the Root and Effects mods on my built-in Intel card, but when I checked, I was running 120+ fps.

I decided to try them all and I still run 80+ fps.  I haven't got into anything major yet, but it looks like my system will handle it and, if mine can, any modern system should do fine.  Plus, the changes are visually stunning, compared to the vanilla graphics.

This is just FYI.    :nod:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A. C. C.

"I'll tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." J. M.

 

Offline jr2

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Just to clarify, that is entirely dependent on what is loading and happening in a mission.  So if you have a couple dozen ships and they're all fighting, you might not be getting that 80+ FPS, methinks.

If you want to really push the limits, play Blue Planet.  ;7

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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Just be careful with Between The Ashes and The Aftermath Reboot. Both of them tend to throw large amounts of objects into missions. My personal favourite is a mission from The Aftermath, which is basically a dogfight of nearly 100 fighters and later a pretty big capship battle. I suppose that it isn't the only one like that there.

By the way, if you are by any chance using a 3.7.5 nightly build, perhaps try updating it to the latest nightly release. I happened to use a few months outaded one, and as soon as I got the latest up and running, my average FPS bumped up by about 15 (well, from ~45-ish to stable 60 when looking at most power-hungry vessels in the F3 Lab, and the same performance change in most of real missions).
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 

Offline Trasd

  • 22
Just be careful with Between The Ashes and The Aftermath Reboot. Both of them tend to throw large amounts of objects into missions. My personal favourite is a mission from The Aftermath, which is basically a dogfight of nearly 100 fighters and later a pretty big capship battle. I suppose that it isn't the only one like that there.

By the way, if you are by any chance using a 3.7.5 nightly build, perhaps try updating it to the latest nightly release. I happened to use a few months outaded one, and as soon as I got the latest up and running, my average FPS bumped up by about 15 (well, from ~45-ish to stable 60 when looking at most power-hungry vessels in the F3 Lab, and the same performance change in most of real missions).
Just to clarify, that is entirely dependent on what is loading and happening in a mission.  So if you have a couple dozen ships and they're all fighting, you might not be getting that 80+ FPS, methinks.

If you want to really push the limits, play Blue Planet.  ;7
Really?  I know the number of objects will always make a difference, but I didn't realize it would get up to ~100+!  I can't wait to really get into the game.  In fact, I might steal my gaming pad from my desktop, it's USB after all, so I can easily move it back and forth.

I think I'll adjust when I bottom out at about 15 fps.  I generally stick to stable releases (from previous experience), but if nothing else works, I'll download the nightly builds.

My laptop has 2 video cards, but the ATI is currently broken.  It's been like that for about a year and a half now.  It'd probably be better to finally get off my butt and fix the the thing, once and for all!  I might only have to reseat it; I won't know until I get it apart.

Thanks, good to know.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A. C. C.

"I'll tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." J. M.