[hack-wizard]

... but last night, after working thru the extended mission walkthru in the FredDocs I had what I think is a rather interesting idea for a Campaign, though I'm only partly sure of how I'd implement it at this point.

Not going to reveal much of the actual story/plot concept yet (mainly because it is obviously incomplete) but the general idea is I want incorporate Role Playing elements into the campaign, allowing the pilot to make choices on how to proceed with missions both in and out of the cockpit.  Most of these choices will have a significant impact on the actual progression and flow of the story.  For instance, and this is just a very general example: the pilot can either fly a mission to save a research convoy or to protect a planetary evacuation.  Both missions cannot be flown, due to his/her wing being the only one available, and there will be a minimum of 3 consequential mission paths after this:

• The pilot saves the research convoy, which was developing new military tech that will soon become available; consequentially most of the refugees from the planet are not able to escape, causing a significant drop in morale as well as replacement pilots and resources as the civilian population is quite displeased
• The pilot saves most or all of the refugees, which boosts morale, civilian support and enlistment rates; unfortunately, the technology was either lost or captured by the other side ...
• The pilot fails to save much of anything/anyone, creating a very difficult worst case scenario in which there are very limited resources, few or no reinforcements in future missions and a potentially giving the enemy access to a powerful new weapon

So my question is, which of the many resources I'm seeing on here would be most useful to me in this case?

[General Battuta]

Axem's PromptBox script shows up a lot, and it is very easy to use once you have the necessary files and you've figured out the syntax. It's a great way to present choices to the player.

[Goober5000]

Bem Cavalgar used this same concept, so you can review that campaign to see examples of tools and techniques.

[hack-wizard]

Thanks for the suggestions.    Also, I'm having trouble finding the Colossus in FRED2  ... is that a separate model I need to add or somehow make available?  I had a rather ... Bombastic anti-cheating idea I wanted to try. 

NVM, found it, made it so cheating in a mission both locks on jump drives and triggers a hostile colossus jumping in 500m from the front of the player.

I think I'm evil.   

[niffiwan]

replace all the turret weapons with UltraAAA's and ~then~ you'll be evil 

(also see: Mr Cuddles, BP:WiH)

[karajorma]

Actually, this brings up an interesting point for me. I'm going to have to start a new topic on this rather than hijack hack-wizard's thread.

[hack-wizard]

replace all the turret weapons with UltraAAA's and ~then~ you'll be evil 

(also see: Mr Cuddles, BP:WiH)

Oooh, you're giving me ideas, such ideas! *evil laugh*

Actually, this brings up an interesting point for me. I'm going to have to start a new topic on this rather than hijack hack-wizard's thread.

It's cool, I've hijacked threads before ... and login passwords, with permission of course!

Also ... I'm wondering what I'd have to do to make the Colossus a player flyable ship, just because I'd like to be able to say I'd flown the Colossus ... and beam-spam cap ships that are now smaller than me.

[zookeeper]

This is more like a general principle I like, and it's not necessarily going to be possible for you in this particular case, but still something to keep in mind:

If possible, let the player make the choice through gameplay. For example, maybe the choice can be presented at the end of the previous mission in the form of which jumpnode to use or which carrier to land on. Or, the mission simply starts with protection of the planetary evacuation and very soon the information about the convoy comes in and you have to choose whether to engage your jumpdrive to abandon the evacuation and go save the convoy instead. Or maybe both the evacuation and the convoy are physically in the same mission but far enough apart that it's impossible to succeed in securing both.

As said, maybe not something you'd want to do in this particular case, and there's nothing wrong as such with presenting the choice explicitly in the interface, but sometimes gameplay-driven choices are a bit more immersive and exciting, especially on the first playthrough.