[General Battuta]

Here are some of the features you can look for in our new release of Blue Planet! I'll spoiler those that might be more fun to discover on your own.

AGE OF AQUARIUS

• Implemented new models for all Threat Exigency Initiative warships, from the Hyperion cruiser to the Titan and Erebus destroyers
• Added new techroom entries for all Vasudan and Shivan ships, and all FreeSpace 2 weapons.
• Added new JOURNAL and DATABASE options so that players can consult the techroom without having to leave the mission
• Aurora fighter gained maneuverability and a special new flare system
• Kulas fighter gained massive afterburner sustain and more shields
• Myrmidon fighter gained the fighter-bomber role with Cyclops compatibility
• Balor cannon received damage, velocity buffs
• Maxim now requires ammo
• Morning Star reroled as a proximity detonating anti-bomb weapon
• Circe shield DPS buffed, velocity buffed
• Lamprey can now stun warship turrets
• New visual and sound effects for next-generation beams and other weapons
• New next-generation weapons, the pulsar AAA beam and the anti-subsystem beam
• Reshot intro cutscene, 'Departure'
• Added new player training to Mission 1
• Added diegetic explanation for camera movement to cutscene 'Lucifer'
• Added contextual tips for new players across the campaign
• The Sanctuary's fighters now use only Prometheus cannons, fitting their origin
• Enhanced Abel survivability in 'Forced Entry' so that it has a prayer against the Temeraire
• Lucifer survivability enhanced in 'Curse of Prescience'

Hidden Text: Age of Aquarius feature spoilers • Show

Attacking the Vishnans in 'First Contact 1' can produce unusual outcomes
Player ship now tumbles uncontrolled in First Contact 2
Attacking Vishnans display a little more tactical acumen in 'Preserving the Balance'
All Vishnan ships received subsystem and hull regeneration
New Vishnan weapon: Vishnan Proximity Gun
New Vishnan weapon: Vishnan Gravity Spike
Vishnan Missile re-engineered into a double-tap with an anti-shield and anti-armor warhead
New Vishnan weapon: Vishnan Subspace Missile
New Vishnan weapon: Vishnan Flechette Pod
On higher difficulties, Shivan vessels begin displaying highly unusual behavior...
Encounter with COLD CHAIN in 'The Great Preservers'
Possible encounters with ASSASSIN, HOT SWARM, GLARE, and BERSERKER in 'The Great Preservers'
Keepers of Hell now includes powersliding Rakshasas
Possible encounters with CHAIN, HOT SWARM, COLD SWARM in Keepers of Hell
Orestes and battlegroup use more sophisticated tactics in Fallen Angel, including Trebuchet attacks
SD Hyde may emit BERSERKER in Fallen Angel
Possible encounters with BLINK, HOT SWARM, and BANSHEE in Fallen Angel
Added a method to unlock the Draco interceptor for Universal Truth
Added new dialog in Demons of the Past CB

• Added a dialog skip to A Time for Heroes
• Added multiple cutscene/dialog skips to Universal Truth so you can replay it quickly because...
• Massively increased Shivan opposition on Universal Truth
• Rewrote and re-acted key dialog in Journey's End

WAR IN HEAVEN ACTS 1 + 2

• Full voice acting for Blue Planet: War in Heaven Acts 1 +2
• On higher difficulties, plot-critical wingmen can now be knocked out of action, disabling their weapons and forcing the AI to ignore them. Good luck!
• Allowed wingmen to freely use afterburners in most missions
• UEF ships received minor tweaks for balance
• Full rebalance of UEF weapons to create a more varied, interesting arsenal
• Rapier slightly nerfed
• Maul range nerfed, Maul deals bonus damage within 150m
• Vulcan re-roled as an anti-hull weapon
• Scalpel massively buffed, now performs as a combination shield breaker/leech/subsystem disruptor, velocity matched with Vulcan
• Dirk buffed to improve tracking vs countermeasures. Dirk now an excellent long-range anti-bomber missile
• Paveway missile now switches to second stage within 1500m of target. Second stage moves faster but can be intercepted.
• Added Agile Grimler first stage to some NPC Grimlers so they can provide 360x360 fire support
• Warship-launched torpedoes gained muzzle flares, looks sooo coool
• Added Bifrost missile for Tevs
• Added Eos ISM missile for Tevs
• Added Gorgon fortress bomber for Tevs
• Solaris-class destroyer gained more gun firepower
• Remastered intro cutscene,
• Remastered mission 'Post Meridian' to feature the Hecate Mark 2 and more gunship tactics
• Remastered mission 'Darkest Hour' to smooth difficulty and add a checkpoint
• Remastered mission 'The Plunder', adding a new EWAR system which asks the player to disable hostile jammers to swing the balance of power. Chimera-class corvette Siren now alters tactics with beams disarmed and attempts to win a close-range gun duel with pulse cannons. Choreographed Tev warships tactics to present Hyperion cruisers working closely with Chimera to screen against torpedoes.
• The Hood in 'Aristeia' is now a Hecate Mark 2, with much better chances against the Toutatis
• A hidden, sly watcher in What Binds Us
• Improved Shepseskaf loadout in Deals in Shadows to better reflect modern Vasudan navy. Made Simms more helpful.
• More enemy fighters on high difficulties in 'Pawns on a Board of Bone'
• Remastered Delenda Est to smooth the pacing of the air wing final showdown. Beam overload sequence will not happen unless on high difficulties, and it behaves more logically w/r/t to beam weapon fiction. Katana and Altan Orde attempt to deploy beam decoys against the Imperieuse.
• Remastered Sunglare cutscene by completing the missing motion in the long tracking shot. Added multiple music options for techroom replays.

WAR IN HEAVEN ACT 3

• Rewrote all Briefings in a more terse, clear style
• Rewrote various dialog through the act to reveal more information about what's to come
• Gained conditional fiction viewer support, so we can position fiction entries where they correctly belong
• Added many snippets of new fiction about the Masyaf and the Fedayeen aboard her
• Nerfed Ainsarii glide. Let Ainsarii carry equipment on both banks
• Reduced Sidhe range slightly
• Made the UX Accelerator feel so, so good. Uriels can now carry the UX on their underslung main gun mount.
• Added a new weapon, the Gauss Sidhe
• Rewrote and retimed a lot of dialog in the Dreamscape
• Dreamscape characters now banter with each other when player is not speaking

Hidden Text: Act 3 spoilers • Show

Added a new friend to the Dreamscape
Added another new friend to the Dreamscape

• Added the ability to choose what Dreamscape stage to replay from the techroom
• Player can now choose to train for the next mission
• Kovacs provides training on gas miner bombers and AWACS slayage before Nothing is True
• Falconer provides training on stalking, killing, and evading before Everything is Permitted
• Vidaura invites all of Falcata Wing aboard to learn how to fly the Vindicator before One Future
• Thorn trains the player on artillery and air wing control before Her Finest Hour
• Remastered mission 'Nothing is True' to be less ****. Moved mission to Neptune to provide visual contrast. Cleaned up the dialog flow by hiding Vasudan dialog behind an Intercepts toggle. Changed timing of events so fewer events can overlap at once. Rewrote closing dialog to make the Fedayeen slightly more clear and less nutty.
• Expanded maximum detection range for signals in 'Everything is Permitted'
• Player can now select Vindicator crew in One Future, buffing different aspects of the ship and altering mission dialog
• Player can select Vindicator loadout in One Future
• One Future foreshadowing in Act 1 explicitly recalled
• Holy ****, MacDuff puts up a hell of a fight in One Future
• Vindicator abilities slightly rebalanced to discourage damage control spam
• Remastered mission Her Finest Hour. Tev fighters can now perform visual sweeps for the player and wingmen. On high difficulties, the Tevs commit more warships to the fight. On high difficulties, the Tevs will send Auroras actively hunting for the player. The Carthage may repair its engines if left along too long after disabling. Made huge, huge gains in mission performance by cleaning up event logic. Built a more robust stealth system for the wingmen. Wingmen give a visual cue when stealthed and when they get knocked out.
• Remastered mission Eyes in the Storm. Brand new interface for tank control. New, more robust stealth system for wingmen.
• Remastered mission Universal Truth 2. Some voice acted dialog from Sam. Increased risk of sanity drain on first stage. Removed buggy nebulae in later stages. Fixed a bug that prevented all players from seeing the correct mission outro. Added unexpected outcomes. (Cut proposed feature to let player choose loadouts such as 'kitten widget' and 'namkha' to change sanity behavior).
• Hugely remastered end cutscene War in Heaven to make it stand alongside other great BP cutscenes.

THE BLADE ITSELF

• Voice acted this critter too
• Removed Katana's Active Armor ability
• Added Katana ability 'main gun hotload', player can manually fire salvos of gauss cannons and mass drivers
• Added Katana ability 'launch decoy', player gets a single beam decoy launched from the fighterbay
• Rebuilt Triteia attack behavior to better smack you up, fool
• Added penalties to the damage control ability to discourage damage control spam

FREESPACE BLUE

• Added FreeSpace Blue, a gently remastered FreeSpace 2 campaign
• Remastered 'Slaying Ravana' to smooth difficulty and bring in allied warships the player would never see (and accidentally give the player a faceful of Sobek)
• Remastered 'High Noon' with new TAG mechanics and a more dangerous Sathanas
• Remastered 'Straight, No Chaser' so the player can hear the Psamtik's full dialog
• Remastered 'Their Finest Hour' with a smarter, not-disabled Colossus that fights long enough to deliver all its dialog
• Added TAG systems to all missions in which TAG missiles are available, giving the player a frighteningly powerful new option
• Incorporates buffs to FS2 weapons from Blue Planet, to create more diversity in player loadout
• Removed some particularly stupid wingman loadouts
• Prevented situations in which the player might encounter NTF ships firing Balors if playing with BP mod

Will add more if I remember it!

[Phantom Hoover]

• Added diegetic explanation for camera movement to cutscene 'Lucifer'

did you ever know that you're my hero

[Klaustrophobia]

Yeah, I remember pointing that out and then getting flame sprayed for it here.  Glad to see it was recognized, look forward to playing ALL the new things.  (But you guys suck for the massive addition to my already massive backlog.)

[Leeko]

• Added new techroom entries for all Vasudan and Shivan ships, and all FreeSpace 2 weapons.

SC 5 got a good laugh out of me. 

Fascinating stuff though. Tons of insight into BP's take on the Shivans right there in the tech room. I'm eating it up like the crazed fan I am.

[The E]

We eagerly await the speculations.

[Leeko]

We eagerly await the speculations.

I'll be back with some deep thoughts after I take neural nets next semester. There's some hefty cognitive science lingo in the new Shivan techroom entries! I appreciate the hell out of the thought that's gone into... well, everything about BP. Especially the cosmic side of things.

[The E]

Seriously, any thoughts are appreciated, even if they aren't backed by a university education

We really want to hear people's thoughts!

[X3N0-Life-Form]

We really want to hear people's thoughts!

Nice try, Summed Psyche.

[Kolgena]

On higher difficulties, plot-critical wingmen can now be knocked out of action, disabling their weapons and forcing the AI to ignore them. Good luck!

wtf I'm pretty sure WiH 2 on insane/realistic is now impossible

Can't wait to replay missions 10+ times

[PsychoLandlord]

I would just like to state that AoA Universal Truth is crazy fun now, and that the Erebus is a goddamn monster

[Vidmaster]

I have finished it again :-) I love it. Again.

Battuta, if you and your team finish this campaign fittingly, I am going to kiss you. And you might just let me.


Now for the serious part of the post. It is a really solid release with most of the voice acting done EXTREMELY well. There are a few nitpicks of course, with the biggest one being the uneven volume which I hope you will fix. Some lines are also almost not understandable but for the post part, all the contributions of our community work well among the more professional ones. That WiH3 is not yet voice acted is a bit of a letdown but what the hell, I am sure it will come.

Keep up the good work.

[General Battuta]

Post all lines that need amp (with filenames) and I will do it.

[danilm]

Started playing through FS Blue and I noticed something weird: in the briefing for The Place of Chariots, all the sentry guns have GTL Anemoi icons instead of sentry gun icons.

[Vidmaster]

Post all lines that need amp (with filenames) and I will do it.

Hope I get to make a list this week-end...         hope...

[Kiloku]

Not to be pushy, but do we have an ETA for WiH Act 3 Voice Acting?

[General Battuta]

If somebody generates a good script with filenames and usable stage directions: a couple years!

[Kiloku]

Oh, when I saw the "We're basically done" in the Voice Acting thread, I thought most of WiH A3 was part of this "basically done" but not yet in the game 

Who did the script for the previous campaigns? Are they still around? If not, do you have anyone in mind who'll do it?

[General Battuta]

I did the script. I'm still around. Do you want to do it?

I'm a little wary of throwing down another couple thousand dollars for a casting director and actors right now.

[Kiloku]

I'd be lying if I said I was experienced with it. I took acting classes for a year, but they weren't amazing classes. And of course, they were for actors, not writers.

Still, I feel like I could try.

I'm a little wary of throwing down another couple thousand dollars for a casting director and actors right now.

Now that part is more complicated. I (foolishly, I guess) believed the voice talent was all volunteers from HLP.

[General Battuta]

Mostly volunteers, but we needed to go pro for some of the main roles.

Go for it! It'd be a huge help. Don't forget to split all the lines up by role (and be suuuure you get the role right!)