[Droid803]

Played 1.5 missions (not counting the dreamstuff) and I'm liking it more than WiHp1 a lot already.
I actually get to do stuff.

I'm getting ****ed by lack of reverse thrust/AB on the Anuswhatever (I'm going to call it that because fighters without reverse thrust are ass...that means everything except the kent but okay) though. Seriously, that makes it from a cool fighter to a lame one. Entirely my fault though. I can't fly without it anymore - I SMACK into things like the AI

More to come later when I get some free time to finish actually playing.

[General Battuta]

I hate to be that guy who spews negativity, but I CANNOT finish a mission I am stuck on.  The mission where
(spoiler-riffic)

Spoiler:

the elder of near unkillability needed to be assasinated was bad enough, I had to do that thing at least ten times with difficultly making very little visible difference.  Currently I'm stuck at trying to take out the freaking invincible defenses around neptune in a rather short amount of time.  The turret virus doesn't have much effect and destroying the carthages radar dishes are nigh impossible with the turrets there to either shoot me dead instantly with seemingly perfect accuracy and massive volume of fire or permadisable my wingmen (at least until the carthage loljumps).  The radar dishes themselves are quite durable and having the frigates target the 'mine layers' hasnt changed the survivability of anything that is detected by the turrets that are trying to deal with the radar dishes.  The fact that I have to hang back and babysit the frigates while fighters and bombers harass them (took me three tries to figure out that was happening) doesn't exactly help matters either. 

This could go on for hours, I have been trying to get through that mission for what seems like ages now.  Its a huge atmosphere/mood killer when I am constantly dying or 'failing' because the carthage decided to pull out with its seemingly indestructible engines.  Which by the way take bloody ages to be destroyed by anti turret strikes that are 'great at taking out subsystems' to paraphrase.  With that rant out of the way I have to say I'm rather dissapointed, I completely lack the capability to get through this campaign.  The fact that this is bloody axe murderer **** my wife while I watch difficulty compared to previous versions doesn't help much either.

I vow to you that mission is easy as heck. You don't have to fire a single shot. Just do what the little box at the top of the screen tells you.

Spoiler:

Start by ordering your wingmen to guard the Serenity. You can help out if you like. Meanwhile, tell the artillery to shoot the tankers to your left. Get a nice high angle and shoot the Mjolnir beams out. Once that's done, tell each of your wingmen to kill an Aurora. Snipe the AWACS domes. If you've got time, make a run in and scan Neptune HQ's comms, weapons, and sensors.

You should have plenty of points by now. Get in position under the Carthage's belly. Call in anti-turret teams, space superiority, strike bombers, and gunships. Have them all attack the engine subsystem. As soon as the Carthage is disabled, just tell them all to depart.

Fly away and wait until you get the option to call in the Toutatis. Unless you've taken a lot of casualties (more than 17 or 18), you should be fine from here on out. Grimler any Mjolnirs that shoot at the Toutatis.

And pretty important note - always use an Ammo Pack and Grimlers.

[KyadCK]

So... First mission... Review Battuta style. 

Spoiler:

Briefing: Uh... Wat?

1st Try:
Well, ok... Tell gefs to attack sensor thing. *boom*
Take my time scanning all the important things, trying to find them all.
Kill gas miner #4. Stick around to kill little ships.
*BOOOOM*

...K, that was a bad idea.

2nd Try:
Order to kill the sensor thing. *boom*
Scan one, kill it, move on to scan the next.
*BOOOOOM*

**** those things have a big blast radius.

3rd Try:
Order to kill the sensor thing. *boom*
Somewhat quickly scan everything, I'm learning the formation now.
Kill miner 1, go to kill miner 2, turn around to see if 1 is down yet.
*BOOOOOM*

That was stupid of me...

4th Try:
Orde-... wait, lets try something.
Order to kill the sensor thing.
Notice I can tell when it'll go down by watching my wing mate indicator and seeing how many Gef are dead/dying. Surprisingly accurate.
*boom*
Scan everything quickly.
Kill miner 4
Kill miner 3
Kill miner 2
Kill miner 1
Continue in a straight line to get the hell away. Wait for aftermath.
I really should have taken the ammo pack, it's worth more to me then this secondary gun...
Tell wing mates to engage at will, call gunboat support on the cruisers, mop up survivors.
I gotta kill the Kents? awww maaaan...
Realize my ETS controls are still screwed from when I had an older keyboard. Oops.
DAMN I love the Sidhe, good bye Kents.
Ya, I kinda wanna see their reaction... Besides, more story stuffs.
LOL, stupid Tevs.
*Jump out*

And yes, I chose to kill the Gef pilots. They're scum anyway.

I must say, while the learning curve seemed just a tad high, when I got it, I felt really good and clever for figuring it out. It was satisfying to win, not just another batch of silhouettes to add to my canopy. Great way to start off the new chapter. 

[FIZ]

Really enjoyed this release.  Thanks for everything!  I really liked how I was strategizing for every mission, even if it did mean multiple restarts.

Congrats on one hell of a release to everyone who contributed! 

[Dark Hunter]

Check the read me in the install thread. You need to adjust your -spec_point. It's a consequence of FreeSpace's default weird lighting settings interacting oddly with the deferred lighting.

Derp. 

Serves me right for not reading the instructions, I guess.

I decided to replay the full BP series to lead up to this new release, so reviews of new material are forthcoming...

[An4ximandros]

 I have to confess, I was lame and already extracted the soundtrack.
 Darius seems to have no trouble holding firm the good in BP's writing and music.

[SF-Junky]

Just came home from Munich. Downloading already. Still to minutes to go. I neeeed this.

[Darius]

I have to confess, I was lame and already extracted the soundtrack.
 Darius seems to have no trouble holding firm the good in BP's writing and music.

As with everything in this mod, story and sound is a team effort. A lot of the awesome music you heard is from Belisarius as well (personal favourite being War_in_Heaven.ogg).

[SF-Junky]

What is happening here? Is Laporte drunk? Overdosis sedatives? Or graphics error?


[attachment deleted by a basterd]

[The E]

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=83310.0

also, when posting logs, please make sure you're a) using the correct build, b) using the correct mod, and c) actually running the appropriate debug build. I can not help you if you're using a mod that has nothing to do with BP.

[General Battuta]

Almost certain that's due to a resolution our hud gauge table isn't supporting.

[SF-Junky]

Oops, sorry for the wrong fs2_open.log there. This indeed seems to be a resolution problem, because when I switched to 1024x786 it worked just fine.

But now I have another problem. When I try to launch with the normal build it says:

Code: [Select]

Malloc Failed!

ntdll.dll! ZwWaitForSingleObject + 21 bytes
kernel32.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 67 bytes
kernel32.dll! WaitForSingleObject + 18 bytes
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>

Loading with Debug doesn't work at all. Doesn't Malloc Failed mean I don't have enough memory? Why is that now? It worked 20 minutes ago.

€: I have 4GB of RAM, by the way.

[Rodo]

I have the same problem as Junky apparently. I'm pretty sure it's pilot code related.

Code: [Select]

Malloc Failed!

ntdll.dll! ZwWaitForSingleObject + 21 bytes
KERNEL32.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 67 bytes
KERNEL32.dll! WaitForSingleObject + 18 bytes
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_6_17_SSE2_BP.exe! <no symbol>

This happened after I went to the mission selection option on the regular build and tested the last mission of act 1 (already reached that point), I was testing different command line options to make the ambient a little less dark, now it doesn't run when trying to progress on the campaign, and the debug doesn't even start, when selecting the mission viewer it crashes as well.

Been playing with a "new" pilot, well actually the pilot name is the same as an old one, I figured the build would rewrite it but apparently it does not, because when I first when to the mission selection I could see all missions unlocked.

EDIT:
I have a 122MB player file on the data/players/ folder corresponding to the WiH player, WTH FS2?

[crizza]

Still playing this and while I don't realy like the shadow war style, the capship mission...Oh my god, this is so awesome

Since I read about the Phoenicia...just a standard rebuilt Hecate or did she get some gimmicks?

[General Battuta]

Sounds like the new pilot code is giving you guys trouble. New pilots for both of you!

[manwiththemachinegun]

Okay, some constructive criticism guys.

I get this campaign is designed for veterans. I get that Freespace needs some new life injected into it. However, in comparison to War in Heaven part 1, and definitely Age of Aquarius, that feature creep is becoming an actual problem instead of adding to the fun.

In each mission, I am given a completely different set of mechanics to operate with no training on how to use them. I am commanding fleets with no idea what effect they are having on the enemy. I am being shot down countless times because I flat out do not understand the rules of each engagement, since they keep changing mission by mission.

The story of War in Heaven is amazing, like a great book you can't put down. I think it's worthy in its complexity to rival an official Freespace 3 sequel.

But in contrast prior campaigns, I am simply feeling overwhelming with the sheer amount of STUFF I am being told to do. I felt, well, justifiably pissed off when the mission briefer snarked, "Oh, do you need to take notes?" I'm sorry, but I don't feel that is good game design. I am sure many vets will oogle over the sheer amount of stuff you can DO in each mission, but the main point has to come back to, "is it fun?"

The FREDDING is amazing, the graphics are amazing, the story is amazing. But from where I am right now, the campaign just isn't FUN. It feels like a chore.

You know that meme that came out a while ago for Modern Warfare 2? RAMERIEZ! DO EVERYTHING! Well, that's what I feel WiH act 3 asks of the player. And for me at least, it's too much.

I'll be playing future releases to be sure, but I would ask the team to take a look at how much complexity is really required of the player in each mission. I spent more time in the first major fleet action on Neptune staring at my keyboard mashing commands than I did, you know, doing fun stuff like shooting down fighters and helping friendly capships.

Maybe my feelings will change as I move forward, but right now, "most complex Freespace 2 missions to date" doesn't read like a selling point.

So, (so far)

AoA fun factor: 9
WiH part I & II fun factor: 9
WiH part III fun factor: 6.5

[The E]

One of the big criticisms we got for WiH part one was that the missions were not very innovative on a gameplay level. Sure, they were solid and well-executed, and they had new and exciting stuff in them, but when you got down to it, they were just the same old FS2 gameplay remixed a bit.

We tried to address this with the Fedayeen missions, as we felt that this was an opportunity to stretch our imaginations a bit, make missions that are very very nonstandard. We are aware that much of it comes at the player cold, and we apologize for this, but at the same time, we feel that none of the missions are unwinnable if you think about your way through them. Yes, this requires a greater deal of attention to briefings and dialogues, but then, you are supposed to get into the mindset of the Fedayeen, or SOC, and ask yourself what covert ops and spec ops means in terms of FS gameplay.

That being said, we do plan to dial back the crazy for later missions.

[Scotty]

Amusing realization: The gameplay complexity and diversity for BP is increasing in a fashion similar to the literary concept of rising action/climax.

Granted, I can't see the last two acts, and kind of doubt the actual climax of the story happens in act III, so that's probably a totally meaningless realization.

[General Battuta]

It's definitely something we worried about a lot. Task overload is a real issue. We wanted to take the core principle of BP2 (you are just one soldier, and not very powerful) and overturn it by providing a ton of information and capability, rather than by providing sweet guns and loads of hit points. But it's a challenge to grapple with.

Try focusing on the command aspect of each mission. Do as little as possible yourself. Specifically (major spoilers) -

Spoiler:

In the first combat mission, scan the gas miners yourself, but use wingman and gunboat commands for everything else.

In the second combat mission, identify the Elder, then hack the Mjolnir and order it to kill the Elder.

In the third combat mission, you'll definitely need to fly the ship yourself, so that one's pretty hands on. But you've only got a couple abilities to keep track of.

In the fourth combat mission, the battle at Neptune, just focus on one task at a time. You have a lot of options, but you don't need to execute them all.

In the fifth combat mission, place your turrets, and hang back. Intervene with missile fire and wingman commands, but don't get bogged down in a furball.

In every mission the key principle is to avoid the standing fight. Hit hard, then get out. Fight task overload by coming up with a clear mental plan. All the HUD gauges and keys to press can be overwhelming, but like a real fighter pilot you'll quickly learn how to filter out everything except what you need for your immediate goal.

[General Battuta]

I'll add that while the missions feel intimidating at first, they're all (with the exception of

Spoiler:

the assassination

) pretty easy once you have a good plan down - none of them really require intense dogfighting skillz as much as caution, good command, and precision. And a lot of them have multiple approaches. Deus Ex in Space is kinda the name of the game.