Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: dukka on July 04, 2013, 05:10:24 pm
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(http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/badbannernotext.png)
TAGS: alternate universe, conversion, pseudo science, procrastination, FRED limbo, the twenty circles of digital purgatory
About
A complete departure from the Freespace universe, Children of Rosenthal seeks to tell the story of an expansive stellar empire fracturing under the weight of coup d'etat brought about by a cadre of military and political elite. All is not as straight forward as expected however, as the sheer size of the holdings of the Rosenthal Imperium leads to more than just a split among the loyalist and separatists, but several independent factions as well (some of which seek intentions far more vile than even the separatists). Played from the point of view of Second Lieutenant Marcus "Palisade" Narmak, a recent entrant to the Royal Guards, the campagin begins at the ignition point of the coup and follows the young flight officer's struggle to preserve his oath to protect the nation that bares him life and prosperity. Occasional deviations from this main character are also planned for short mini acts that focus on other characters that will be previously established, such as Palisade's former wing CO and a newly met contemporary in the remnants of the Royal Guard.
Structure
I am looking for the campaign (or maybe I should just say total conversion instead already) to be structured and released in short arcs of anywhere from 5 to 8 missions (obviously allowing for more or less when needed), along with a 3 mission prologue with the release of the first arc. Part of the reason for this is I wish to iterate on releases, allowing for mistakes to be far less costly should any particular arc be 'bad' (mission design, overall plot, storytelling, actual legit bugs) and also chances to be taken as I learn more and more about FRED and what I feel comfortable attempting to do.
I understand the ambitious nature of a no-name going headlong into this whole thing and while there is a lot of I can use from past development with other games at least at a planning and logical level, I still want to take on the project with a certain amount of care. I may be crafting my own universe, but I first and foremost want to it be as enjoyable to experience as it is to create.
Fluff
- Supplement 001: Why We Don't Design Spacecraft For NASA (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84969.msg1698249#msg1698249)
- Supplement 002: The Sunday After (The First Post) (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84969.msg1698805#msg1698805)
Gallery
Of course, I didn't spend the last five months doing off and on prep work for nothing, have some pictures!
5th Assault Picket, Group B - Silence (http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/pre_promo_01.png) | 3rd Emergency Task Group - Fend (http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/pre_promo_02.png)
3rd Emergency Task Group - Standoff (http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/pre_promo_04.png) | Alpha Wing - Pursuit (http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/pre_promo_03.png)
Credits
Once I hit the first release, I will check my credits.txt to make sure I don't miss a single pixel. In fact, I will check it so many times that my eyes bleeding will be the 'looks good!' sign.
Closing
Speak your mind! Words of encouragement, harsh criticism about what dodo head I am, links to excellent references/design philosophy, or anything else you may want to spill out onto the page thanks to your keyboard!
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Sounds very cool!
Everyone's a no-name at some point, and its good to see you have some well thought out ambition. (As opposed to "im gonna make a campain guyz, its gonna have stuff and be 100 missions long", but really, who hasn't said that?)
The best thing you probably need to find is a partner who would be a good sounding board, so they can tell you when your ideas rock and when they stink.
I hope to see cool stuff come from you, sir!
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I wish you luck.
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We need a certain welcome to HLP pic no?
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Good Luck, dukka. :yes:
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/me approves of the ship choices
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Sounds a really interesting idea, some people made their own universes, and damn they are awesome campaigns. I would like to participate in a project, i am a bit noob to intermediate fredder. Know the basic stuff, if you form a team, just pm me. Also, good luck
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The best thing you probably need to find is a partner who would be a good sounding board, so they can tell you when your ideas rock and when they stink.
Finding a way to summon xX_LORD_ULTRA_DEATH_Xx might delay the project forever.
/me approves of the ship choices
I HAVE NO IDEA WHY.
Sounds a really interesting idea, some people made their own universes, and damn they are awesome campaigns. I would like to participate in a project, i am a bit noob to intermediate fredder. Know the basic stuff, if you form a team, just pm me. Also, good luck
Once I iron out some of my personal notes a bit more so they are easy to digest (as compared to how they currently are, ie: > FINISH OBJECTIVES YOU NERD (7/2/13 - added) ) I will most likely start giving considerable thought to involving people who are interested.
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Completely unique universe √
Droid803 approving the ship choices √
Kicking creativity into maximum overdrive √
I approve of your campaign, if it is as well as I believe it'll be, it might as well be turned into a game.
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Nice then. Good luck Again.
P.D: Good lucking pics. ;)
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Very nice! I must say, I'm pleased with the recent trend of original universes - they open up a lot of options that wouldn't be possible within a FS story. I'm looking forward to this.
Your pics look very good, but just a small heads up: you probably want to use a starfield skybox instead of the hardcoded FS stars. In the background editor, put "starfield.pof" in the "Skybox:" field and it'll use the one from the MediaVPs. (If you don't want to rely on the MediaVPs, you could include starfield.pof in your mod - I doubt the MVP guys would mind).
Of course, if you like the look of the hardcoded stars, that's fine! It took me a while to get used to skyboxes since I liked the streaks the old stars made when I looked around.
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Yep, definitely looks better full of stars (http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/pre_promo_01_new.png), thanks for the heads up!
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/me approves of the ship choices.
I wonder why.
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Yeah, I was very curious when someone pick up and use the Tethis pack. Can't wait to see more updates :)
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Lots of luck! I like your approach of trying to produce 5-8 missions each time and I like your explanations why this is so.
So while I know so little about what you are gonna do, it seems it's being developed intelligently.
I also find the thematic possibilities here have potential.
:yes:
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Thanks for the all kind words and whatnot so far guys. Here is a small blurb of just a few of the topics I have some pre-assembled and await periodic posting.
Supplement 001
Why We Don't Design Spacecraft For NASA
Preface
Hey everyone! Welcome to the first of a long series of posts in which I will detail all sorts of things in relation to this project. For this test run, I am going to go over three of the ships (two of which are player ships) that will be quite prominent in the first arc. As with all things still in development, all of this is prone to change should I smash my head when I majestically fall out of my bed at a nondescript point in the future.
Oh, or if need arises due to some kind of shift in design apporach.
Content
(http://contingency-plan.net/cor/pro/fight2.png)
Shimada Heavy Industries Model 778 'Flint' - Revision A
Space Superiority Fighter
A lightweight superiority fighter, the Flint is easily the most numerous model of strikecraft in service to what was formerly the Imperial Navy.
- Known Operators CI+16: Rosenthal Imperium, Itlan Junta, Iszenbeck Autonomous Zone
- Primary Weapon Banks: 6 (2,4)
- Compatible Primary Weapon Systems: VWA Type 72 Light Railgun Repeater, VWA Type 74 Heavy Railgun Repeater, VWA Type 48 Light Coilgun
- Secondary Weapon Banks: 1 (80)
- Compatible Secondary Weapon Systems: Aspect, Heat, Dumbfire, Swarm (secondaries are still pending THE LORE PASS)
(http://contingency-plan.net/cor/pro/fight1.png)
Minga Branch Type 440 'Tetunic' - Revision R
Prototype Heavy Assault Fighter
A craft exculsive to the Royal Guard, the Tetunic has suddenly (though understandably) seen a drastic decrease of serviceable examples. Most survivng strikecraft of this type are either in the hands of the Royal Guard remnants centered around their stronghold in the Northern Fringe or insurgent groups still operating in Junta occupied space.
- Known Operators CI+16: Rosenthal Imperium
- Primary Weapon Banks: 8 (4,4)
- Compatible Primary Weapon Systems: VWA Type 72 Light Railgun Repeater, VWA Type 74 Heavy Railgun Repeater, VWA Type 48 Light Coilgun
- Secondary Weapon Banks: 2 (70, 70)
- Compatible Secondary Weapon Systems: Aspect, Heat, Dumbfire, Swarm
(http://contingency-plan.net/cor/pro/frig1.png)
Fenfir Aerospace Frames Serial 32 'Ragath' - Block 5
Breakthrough Frigate
When you think fleet in the CoR-verse (working title, zero trademarks pending), think Ragath. The simplest expression of a warship, it is a completely fair assetment to see the Ragath as nothing more than a carriage for its axial railgun, granted the gun is far bigger than a VW Beetle. While quite bare if left alone against a group of strikecraft, the Ragath is more than capable of bringing the pain to other frigates and capital craft.
- Known Operators CI+16: Rosenthal Imperium, Itlan Junta, Iszenbeck Autonomous Zone
- Weapon Hardpoints: 5
- Weapon Loadout: MT-A Model 12 Rail-Accelrated Flak (x4), VWA Type 32 Axial Railgun (x1)
Closing
Well, short as this was, this is about all I really feel should be said about the topic presented this time. As said, there is just too much that could change at any point down the line. It would just be egg on my face to type out some for-sale on Amazon novella about this three ships only to decided the week after that "nope, that was dumb".
As for those notes of the Itlan Junta and Iszenbeck Autonomous Zone... well, one is obviously the jerks in charge of the coup. The other? Well, maybe later.
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That's nice. Just one litttttttle detail, perhaps it would be really easy to do: I see you got three ships there, two blue one red. Change the latter to blue or the formers to red. Consistency, and so on... (and why are they blue or red in the fist place?)
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That's nice. Just one litttttttle detail, perhaps it would be really easy to do: I see you got three ships there, two blue one red. Change the latter to blue or the formers to red. Consistency, and so on... (and why are they blue or red in the fist place?)
Personal speculation is that AndredofDoom/Droid and Esarai had some kind of large scale power struggle, the end result of which was them choosing to use red and blue respectively as major color elements on their textures.
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makes sense. although I was asking for your in-world explanation. (not expecting an answer, but just provoking you to think on those things too)
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makes sense. although I was asking for your in-world explanation. (not expecting an answer, but just provoking you to think on those things too)
Heh. Haven't gotten around, nor have I decided if, I am going to do texture modifications for the sake of fleet/faction schemes yet.
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While I was texturing it, I chose red for the Impervious because it's a...red shirt. Why not send the point home by painting it red too?
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It should be "easy enough" to change the color striping (or make it team-colored even).
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i wish you the best of luck with this project
utilising freely available assets and freding short campaigns sounds like a good idea to me
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I have a handful of things to muse about and posts to quote so as to leave self-proclaimed witty comments to, but first thing first.
Supplement 002
The Sunday After (The First Post)
Preface
Four. Four what? Well four factions of course. That is right, the first branch of this venture into the CoR-verse (maybe if I keep using this term enough it will be considered 'good enough') tells of the interactions between four different bodies of power. Three of them have already been revealed due to the first Supplement. The fourth though was skipped due to its position and power, something that is about to change (at least the part about it not yet being revealed).
Content
(http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/emb_ri.png)
Rosenthal Imperium - Royal Guard
Loyalist Centerpiece
Thrown into disarray as the Itlan coup struck fast and hard against any opposition, the Royal Guard is nothing short of mess. Reduced to only a handful fo insurgent groups in the Core Systems and Borderworlds, the Guard is lucky for its bastion of hope: the Paradon System and the fortress they forged in the Northern Fringe. Turning the limited number of intersystem connections to their territory to their advantage, the Royal Guard has been able to hold the Junta's forces at bay, the latter being unwilling to show any strong commitment as long as problems remain elsewhere.
It is from here, in this sanctuary formed by a stroke of luck in an otherwise disastrous situation, that the Crown Prince rules what is left of his family's shattered realm.
(http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/emb_ij.png)
Itlan Junta - The Reforged Imperial Navy
Separatists Centerpiece
The self-proclaimed interim government established by the men behind the coup that shattered the Imperium, the Itlan Junta heeds its name from its most important conspirator: Charles Gish Itla. The former high minister of the interior was the binding force that brought together the private elite and military dissidents. Every man or woman added meant an untold number of assets fell into the warchest of the Junta. The end result of Itla's scheming was the near destruction of the Royal Guard and imprisonment of the emperor, Douglas Milling IV.
(http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/emb_iaz.png)
Iszenbeck Autonomous Zone - Industrial Vanguard
Loyalist Aligned
Created by an imperial decree centuries ago, the Iszenbeck Autonomous Zone represents a strong coalition of industrial powerhouses. Operating under its own set of laws, Iszenbeck seeks to create the place for businesses (especially those on the industrial side of things) to set up shop. There is a catch however: not only is the Director of the Autonomous Zone selected by the Emperor, but the administration is also contractually bound to stay by the Imperium's side no matter what. Thus in the raw production possibility of the Iszenbeck Autonomous Zone exists a glimmer of hope for what remains of the Imperium.
(http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/emb_mf.png)
Mascarenas Fleet - The Seamus Garrison
Independent
As the confusion caused by the coup d'etat spread like a plague across Imperial space, one man of power decided to stand against the change. Admiral Adrian Mascarenas of the 9th Fringe Fleet publicly expressed, at least to those that could hear it, that he would stand against the change in guard. With his fleet 'trusting in his sound judgement', as the man himself claimed, Mascarenas was poised to keep the Seamus system (and more importantly the Fairlight Corridor) open for the Royal Guard and Iszenbeck.
In a strange turn of events, perhaps after the defection of parts of the Junta's Fifth Assault Picket and the liberation of the civil defense arsenal in four systems, Mascarenas also declared his opposition to what remained of the Imperium. "Those that can not defend even themselves do not deserve to be" is the quote often cited by the Imperial intelligence group, Interior.
Closing
Good news: the actual intel entries for all of these are far better written.
Bad news: they are still written by me.
i wish you the best of luck with this project
utilising freely available assets and freding short campaigns sounds like a good idea to me
Yea, it is such a great idea and I am glad he thoug- wait a minute.
(thanks :))
While I was texturing it, I chose red for the Impervious because it's a...red shirt. Why not send the point home by painting it red too?
Something something all digital life is made equal, you're a monster, something else.
It should be "easy enough" to change the color striping (or make it team-colored even).
I am hella spooked by those air quotes. Something tells me I'll mess up hard in the most unintentional way.
Also, while working with Black Wolf's Constellation, used in my case as Axis-class Installation (http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/pre_axis_defend.png), I think I had texture deja-vu (http://i.imgur.com/u19xpH8.jpg).
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Well after playing computer janitor for a few days, it was nice to spend time on something a bit more enjoyable. I have decided to go against my former decision that "oh color schemes would be to much work a bloo bloo bloo" and started on some minimal edits.
Rosenthal Vaguely Blue (http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/colors01.png) | Mascarenas Dollar Store Purple (http://contingency-plan.net/cor/promo/colors02.png)
While I have a feeling I should instead go right into the normals and take advantage of the team coloring technique introduced last year, I have decided to just keep on doing this. Granted I am sure that once I get through every last texture it will finally dawn on me that I have opted for the stupid route.
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Time for something that vaguely comes across as an update!
The Missions
When it comes to FRED, everything is looking pretty damn good. Thus far six of the eleven missions (three for the prologue, eight for chapter one) are in a near complete state, only needing timing and writing passes from myself before they are ready to go on the shelf and await more diverse testing at some point in the next two to three weeks. As for the other five, while not much exists that can be played, they have all had their major elements laid out in writing.
The Machines
Ships and weapons I have learned, are a whole different monster. Even the slightest alteration can lead to a huge difference in the smallest engagement in a mission. While everything I expect to include in the first release is rigged up (minus actually giving my own little charm to the secondaries), I am holding off on any fine tuning until I start devoting my time to intensive balance passes.
The Maps
Actual maps, not textures you weird 2D wizards.
Here is a chunk of the system reference chart relevant to the prologue. (http://i.imgur.com/rAWQqSl.png)
The Media
Two shots with the HUD, and two without. Why the mixture? Dunno.
click for big
(http://i.imgur.com/Em2WQJCm.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/Em2WQJC.png)(http://i.imgur.com/KRLQ1Onm.png) (http://i.imgur.com/KRLQ1On.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/NQRPri7m.png) (http://i.imgur.com/NQRPri7.png)(http://i.imgur.com/Ro3xwa9m.png) (http://i.imgur.com/Ro3xwa9.png)
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Very nice work, I must say I am looking forward to a release.
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Well, after two weeks of a really awkward work schedule, time to get back to work on this!
(http://i.imgur.com/pGwSs7Mm.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/pGwSs7M.png)(http://i.imgur.com/FRw85yqm.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/FRw85yq.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/pXWb2pem.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/pXWb2pe.png)(http://i.imgur.com/hZv8J4dm.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/hZv8J4d.png)
As for progress, everything is feeling pretty good. Aside from what I mentioned in my last post, the remaining missions now all have their basic framework (capital vessels, major stage transitions, etc) laid out, leaving just their fluff passes and eventual fine tuning.
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man, how's going with this mod? your screenshots make me eager to play it! ;)
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Once upon a time more important commitments kept piling up, some motivation dried up, and uhhhhh a harddrive sort of disappeared.
Then three years later none of that mattered. I found the harddrive in an embarrassingly obvious place, free time is aplenty again, and just lurking around this place for a bit has lit the fire under my ass. Freespace is goddamn great and I want this thing to be so too. So have some real rough cuts of what I am sure can tangentially be considered missions. They may not be the prettiest or most refined, but it is action and I will take what I can get.
opening sequence to a surprise raid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYxzhosIq7M&feature=youtu.be)
opening sequence to a planetary landing operation intended to stop a factual madman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeWt6-gaEF0&feature=youtu.be)
hey, this one actually has dialogue and directives rigged up, such a tryhard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSHXT0KJvfM&feature=youtu.be)
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A bit past 5AM seems like the perfect time for an impromptu update, right? Right!
The Missions
The first step for me getting back into this project was seeing where exactly I left off in terms of mission development. After a day or two of reviewing everything I came to the following conclusion.
- Five missions are essentially gameplay complete. They only require some changes to pacing, fluff (some more in-mission messages and finalized briefs/debriefs) and minor pre-balancing tweaks.
- Three missions have their major pacing and sections roughed out, but still require secondary elements and more player engagement. Additionally, all of the above.
- Finally three more missions have full concepts and only a minimal amount of FRED work done. Obviously all the above plus more apply those these three.
So yea, I guess that also means 11 missions total between a real damn short prologue and the first chapter.
The Guns and Gun Stoppers
If there was one thing that was still a mess from my original setup, it would have to be the weapons, both player usable and non. I don't really mean this in terms of balance, as the numbers on the weapons and their capabilities, but rather the organization of them all. My table file was left in the state of being a hot mess. Going forward with it as it was would be abysmal, especially when it would come to fine tuning everything. For example, I never made gun1#x and gun1#y when placing the same gun on different ships, an actual nightmare should I needed to have tweaked it on one or other. So, I spent a few hours going through every last bit to give some sane structure to the file as well as ensure I had every last variant I would need.
As for player primary and secondary weapons, there isn't really a whole lot to write home about yet in terms of anything beyond the norm. Except maybe for the fact that I have four different unguided rockets. Don't know why.
Armor and damage types are another element that I should of taken care of much early, but kind of didn't with the exception off making a rough cross chart of the interactions of the two. At the same time, I don't except to do anything crazy with the stupid number of types for both that I plan to have. Instead, I guess it is more about a) future proofing everything, just in case and b) it is a nice way of having some fine control beyond just hull/shield/subsystem factors.
Drones: A Dumb Gameplay Element I Should Feel Sorry For
I wanted a fodder-esque fighter that I could use when needed, but didn't want to have this strange thought of "are these various factions really throwing around human capital that hamfistedly?". My solution? Lore out one of the fighters as being an autonomous unit that is relatively cheap and quite pentiful, even on the fringe of (formerly) Imperial claims. As part of this I created a different set of AI presets to use with these drones that cause them to play in a much more selfless and aggressive manner. I say 'set of AI presets' however as I want there to be an alternative gameplay way of handling the more difficult levels of drones. Essentially, the lowest level of the drone AI is seen as fully autonomous. The more advanced tiers however require some kind of anchor or relay present on field to allow for their more (seemingly) advanced tactical power. This might take the form of a regular piloted strikecraft leading a wing of drones, a signals strikecraft(s) support the drones, or even a warship using its more advanced capabilities to augment the drones.
Of course, these all have a downside, if the relay is taken out (lead fighter killed, signals strikecraft killed, warship communications subsystem destroy, etc) it will hamper the drones. This may be a simple decrease in the drones' capabilities (IE: moving to a lower AI preset) or even disabling them for a few seconds due to a data feedback spike with the sudden loss of their proxy processing power.
Overall, these drones will be easy to pick out from the rest due to the type of craft (currently I am only earmarking one fighter for this) as well as their wing identification (drones are organized into xth TacAuto, or Tactical Autonomous, groups). Lets say Cancer wing is a drone wing, you could tell from a glance that they are drones as it would be something along the lines of 'Cancer # (440th TacAuto)'.
Anyways, that is it for now. Maybe I'll get something a bit more visual during this weekend. Regardless, until next time I suppose!
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After watching the videos, this looks totally great!
Awesome choice of music, it looks like you put a ton of thought into this and I can't wait to play it! Loving the red-yellow atmosphere skybox!
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So long story made incredibly short, work on this whole deal got really sidetracked soon after that big review I mentioned in my last post. Essentially two of the missions (c01_01 an c01_02 to be precise) fell real short on multiple levels. They were lifeless really compared to the rest, and there wasn't really any room to inject some into them. So I figured, with roughly the same amount of work, I could completely rebuild them. This also has the added benefit of letting me rework the structure of the missions (they were both absurdly basic) while keeping the general plot thread going.
Anyways, I had some other stuff I wanted to write about, but I'll leave this one short for some completely arbitrary reason.
(http://i.imgur.com/MxdsP27m.png) (http://i.imgur.com/MxdsP27.png)
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Hey, I like this a lot! That music reminds me Firefly :D. Why the hell I forgot to check for updates xD