[Kestrellius]

Seriously. Subspace. It's awesome.

First, I played Sync, which by the way wtf just happened, which had that one mission in subspace. Then I finally completed the FSport, and of course its final mission takes place there.

So I have to ask: why only one retail mission in such a fascinating and fun environment? For one thing, it's simply gorgeous. It's that particular shade of deep blue, mixed with the color contrast between black and those thin glowing wreaths of white. And then of course there's the feeling of careening along at high speed, which messes with your sense of movement in a very interesting way. Plus, capital ships look great barreling down a subspace corridor.

I dunno. Maybe I'll start FREDding, and do a BoE in subspace set during the Battle of Capella.

[General Battuta]

Everybody has this question and everybody starts FREDding and everybody makes a subspace mission and then everybody figures out why there aren't very many of them (because they get monotonous really fast).

[Kestrellius]

Ah. ...really? Why would it get monotonous any more quickly than a mission in normal space? i.e., is it because the missions are all designed the same way, or because of subspace itself?

[General Battuta]

There's no variety in the backgrounds, contrast is a challenge, and you're dealing with a constantly spinning landscape, no shields, and a high-pitched whine.

The sense of careening along can also really depend on which subspace skybox you're using. The retail one doesn't seem super fast compared to some of the custom ones.

[Kestrellius]

Yeah. I noticed that the LP of "Good Luck" posted on the wiki had a texture that didn't actually move at all, just spun. ...I hope that's not still in the MediaVPs.

[General Battuta]

That's how the canonical skybox worked, as I recall.

[Kestrellius]

...huh. Then I wonder what the one in my game is from. Is it an effect of the port? I'm not using the MediaVPs...

[NGTM-1R]

Other issue is setups for them are awkward. They don't slot well into most campaigns.

[The E]

The subspace skybox not moving was actually a bug in FSO that went undetected for ages (you'd think that something like this would get noticed quickly but...). We fixed that a couple of years ago.

[Kestrellius]

TBH, I find that the lack of shields adds some very interesting dynamics to the mission. It makes Dragons a whole lot less obnoxious, for one thing.

But for example, I realized that if I wanted to use ML-16s (I like the visual effects; I have a thing for blue guns) in that mission, I could. Of course, I actually can't, because it's a red alert, and the game refuses to let me play it with my own loadout. But anyway.

I also realized that if Maxims had existed in FS1, there would be absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever use anything else during it.

And, well, I tend to prefer glass cannon type gameplay in general. One- or two-hit kills, fast characters/ships, that sort of thing. It doesn't really go that well with Freespace -- it has the whole big, heavy ships feel going on -- but that's mostly a stylistic choice.

Edit: on-topic: wait, it actually effects movement? I just came across a VolitionWatch article on the topic. I hadn't realized it actually made ships move differently; I thought it was just a normal missionspace, but with shields disabled and a big static animated subspace tunnel that created the illusion of movement...

[AdmiralRalwood]

Edit: on-topic: wait, it actually effects movement? I just came across a VolitionWatch article on the topic. I hadn't realized it actually made ships move differently; I thought it was just a normal missionspace, but with shields disabled and a big static animated subspace tunnel that created the illusion of movement...

Er, it is a regular missionspace with a subspace tunnel...?

[Kestrellius]

According to an old (and by that I mean really old, like 1998) VolitionWatch article, there's some sort of effect on movement.

Edit: Here's the piece. http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Tunnel_Vision:_Why_Subspace_Mission%3F

First of all, there are the most obvious changes in subspace: No shields, no support ships, and everything's being dragged along. At first, this just seems to be extra challenges to overcome - and everyone wants a challenging mission, right? Well, having no support ships is one thing. It does force the player to conserve both countermeasures and missiles. This creates yet more problems for craft like the Ulysses, which have little ammunition as it is. But the lack of shields turns a human player into a superpilot. The computer AI does not adapt well to subspace, while a human does. But more importantly, Shivan craft's defenses are centered on shields. The Shivan fighters' low armor is enough of a disadvantage in normal space; in subspace, with no shields, a single Hornet salvo can shatter a Basilisk. Because speed is not very useful in subspace - you're pretty much going in one direction, whether you like it or not, and you can't really move quickly in a new direction long enough to use afterburners and countermeasures - missiles are that much harder to dodge. And as speed is no longer a major advantage, the Hercules is the ship of choice, if available. And a single sextuple-salvo of Prometheus shots - which a Herc can sling off rather fast - will blow most any fighter to space dust. While the mission creator can set shields to be on in Subspace, it would be going against the rules that Volition laid down. So in any believable Subspace scenario. But computer fighters don't know how to handle the unique properties of Subspace, and so die fast. This alone makes subspace missions barely worth playing, as the enemy fighters can be splattered pretty much at the player's will.

[AdmiralRalwood]

According to an old (and by that I mean really old, like 1998) VolitionWatch article, there's some sort of effect on movement.

1998 was well before the source code was released; I can't be specific without knowing what article you're talking about, but it sounds like flat-out incorrect speculation. At the very least, the current state of the codebase makes very few changes based on the MISSION_FLAG_SUBSPACE flag (or the Game_subspace_effect global set by it).

[Kestrellius]

There you go. Yeah, I suppose it could just be wrong.

[Klaustrophobia]

Subspace tunnel doesn't affect movement.  It just alters your perception.  All relative motion is the same as in normal space, but you've got the moving warp effect giving everything the appearance of really fast forward motion.  If you turned off the skybox but kept everything else the same, it would look just like any other mission as far as movement goes. 

[Kestrellius]

Yeah see that's what I thought.

[AdmiralRalwood]

The skybox (and the ambient sound) is pretty much all the subspace flag changes (also stops rendering stars, suns, nebulae, and lightshafts). The gameplay changes associated with subspace (no shields, no support ships) are entirely up to the FREDer to specify.

[Vrets]

I associate subspace missions with:

• that mission in SGWP2 in which the player must debeam four Sathanas juggernauts whilst hurtling through a subspace tunnel
• cargo container assault squad from DEM

On second thought, let's not go into subspace...it's a silly place.

[Mongoose]

that mission in SGWP2 in which the player must debeam four Sathanas juggernauts whilst hurtling through a subspace tunnel[/li][/list]

best mission evar

[Vrets]

It's one of my most vivid FreeSpace memories. It's the mission that Ed Wood would make if he had known of FreeSpace.