[Selectah]

Eh.., Mongoose; don't get your hopes up yet. I sifted thru me old CD's and Lo! and Behold!, I actually managed to find the Demo Campaign VP..! If you'd see my CD cataloguing system -- two cardboard boxes filled w/ caseless CD's -- you'd agree that finding it really is a major feat.

After copying it to the FS directory, I noticed that yours truly has tried to be a funny guy once upon a time; for some bizarre reason I had made the "Initiation" MP mission in the demo the first mission of the campaign(!), just converted and balanced to single player mode. So, now my stupid VP is a three mission (plus the training mission) campaign.

It's fully voiced, of course, so it's kinda cute in that sense, but except that stupid converted Initiation mission, it's pretty much the same as the demo. I remember correcting quite a few bugs from both the "Crimson Sky" and the "Crisis In Capella" missions, tho.

If you really want da VP, I guess I can try to find a host for it. It's 9.5 MB, I checked.

[Mongoose]

Don't go through any sort of bother to find a host just on my account.  It's probably about time that I learned to create VP and campaign files anyway; I'll just download the demo and get to work. And if you're having any problems getting those audio tracks to Goober, just let me know; I have a little bit of webspace that might come in handy.

[Selectah]

Anyway.

[link killed] (2.4 MB, zip) are the ancient's doing their Academy Awards acceptance speeches.

Oh yea, and [link killed] (6.8 MB, zip) the FS2 Demo camp. It's not exactly the FS2 Demo camp verbatim, tho. Sorry. Couldn't be bothered to change it. I was going to, but I changed my mind. It's been years.

Have at you. If you are unsatisfied w/ the product, you'll get back every $ you paid for it. The URL's will be gone by Tuesday (somewhat), so if you want 'em, get 'em.


PS: I've noticed another strange thing in the Port, btw:

'Out of the Dark, into the Night'
You're supposed to escort the Plato to the jump node, aight? The Plato is not supposed to make it, aight? However, I've noted that the self-destruct trigger seems to be missing, strangely. In the 'vanilla' FS1, the Plato goes boom all by herself at the moment a Shivan bomber is annihilated. In the Port, she doesn't; if the Shivan threat is contained, the Plato happily continues to the node and begins her Prozac-like slow gyrating around her own axis, as do most bigger vessels when they're given no further orders upon arrival at their destination. Is this by intent?

From the original FSM:
$Formula: ( when
   ( or
      ( is-destroyed-delay 0 "Unknown 6" )
      ( is-destroyed-delay 0 "Unknown 8" )
   )
   ( self-destruct "Plato" )
)
+Name: Shivan bombers destroyed hack
+Repeat Count: 1
+Interval: 1


Ain't nitpicking the pits?

[Mongoose]

Thanks for the link. As for the bug, that one wasn't intentional; I believe that it's going to be fixed in the next release.  In the meantime, what I've usually done is, after killing one of the Shivan fighters to get the bonus objective, to send my wingmen away and turn on time compression.  The Shivans usually manage to take it out, and then the mission ends normally.

[Annorax]

Originally posted by Mongoose
Thanks for the link. As for the bug, that one wasn't intentional; I believe that it's going to be fixed in the next release.  In the meantime, what I've usually done is, after killing one of the Shivan fighters to get the bonus objective, to send my wingmen away and turn on time compression.  The Shivans usually manage to take it out, and then the mission ends normally.

I reported this one a while back. If I manage to contain the Shivans (which is only insanely tough for a bad player like me), I have to ~k the Plato or just sit there forever.

[Selectah]

Yee-haw.

Da Selectah is in da house.

For tha campaign-hungry:
Since I've already dug thru me CD-collection, I quickly dusted off my DemoCampaign VP file and decided to flesh it out a bit. I guess no-one's really interested, but anyhoo: I ripped all the multiplayer missions from FS1/FS2, made single player of them all, corrected some bugs and slapped them onto the Demo Camp. It's sort of a 'Secret Campaign', if you will. Meaning, all the stuff that V made, but stuff that peeps w/out multiplayer capabilities can't play. Oh yeah, the Templar Campaign is on there, as well. I didn't convert the fifth Training Mission from FS1, since the required weapon is missin'. But the rest should be here. Has anyone done this before? Ah, I don't care. It took me perhaps an hour to do, so don't expect too much, okay? It's not properly balanced, and I noticed some bugs in there as well. At times the de/briefings are fuXX0red, but mostly it works fine.

So [link finally killed, after a year with seven(7!) hits ... so much for new campaigns ...] have at you[/URL] (16.7 MB, .rar), a fully voiced (by V) 28 mission campaign. Just unzip it in your vanilla FS2 folder (requires the Port, tho), and gasp at the incredible cheesiness of playing unbalanced multiplayer stuff with one AlphaOne.

bleargh

[Solitaire]

 Could have sworn that mission with the Plato worked differently in my case... and I'm not using a particularly new version of FSPort either. Once the Plato was damaged and close enough to the node (or even in the node) it would disgorge one or two escape pods which would then haul ass outta there, IIRC. But it has been a while... and I'd have to install FS2 on my old PC to even check (my new one had a hissy-fit at the worst time possible and is now off for repairs, me = owned )

I wonder if Templar would be more doable on a 2-player LAN... if the HotU version can even run a LAN game... Irony being that I'm not even in a position to create said setup (having just one PC now), let alone test it...

[CaptJosh]

Originally posted by Mongoose
Thanks for the link. As for the bug, that one wasn't intentional; I believe that it's going to be fixed in the next release.  In the meantime, what I've usually done is, after killing one of the Shivan fighters to get the bonus objective, to send my wingmen away and turn on time compression.  The Shivans usually manage to take it out, and then the mission ends normally.

How the HELL do you kill one of the Shivans in that mission?! I've never been able to do that. I've done minor damage, but kill?

EDIT: BTW, for fixing that mission, the goal per your briefing is to get the Plato out intact, so the change should be that the Plato jumps out if it actually makes it to the jump node.

[Goober5000]

That's not the way the original mission was designed, though.  Whenever we bugfix missions we remain true to the original intent of the mission.

[CaptJosh]

Funny, that's not what the briefing says. Still, I suppose the Shivans are supposed to blow the ship up...

That, of course, still doesn't explain how you kill a Shivan fighter or bomber using only the basic weaponry you have before even the Avenger cannon comes out.

[Admiral Nelson]

Furies. Lots and lots of them

[StratComm]

The Plato is supposed to self-destruct if the Shivans don't finish the job.  That's the correct resolution.  Briefings are supposed to be speculative for the player, not themselves a canonical source of every event that happens in the mission.

[Mongoose]

Like Admiral Nelson said, Furies are the way to go for that mission. If you double them up and stick right on the tail of one of the Shivans, it doesn't take too long to crack through their shields.  I've never attempted to take out one of the Shaitans, although I suspect it wouldn't be overly hard.  I usually go after the one Scorpion that hangs around after the others jump out; there's more than enough time to take it down.

As for what's supposed to happen to the Plato during that mission, as StratComm said, it was set to self-destruct in FS1 if the Shivans didn't completely take it out.  The briefing for that mission only considers the threat posed by the Vasudan forces; Command had no idea that the Shivans were in the area (or, for that matter, that there were Shivans at all ).  If I remember my FS1 playing days correctly, the Shivans usually managed to take out the Plato on their own without having to rely on the self-destruct, or else, if the self-destruct did trigger, it did so when the Plato was severely damaged, so you couldn't really tell the difference either way.

[CaptJosh]

Well, the Shaitans are bombers. THey'll be more heavily armed and armored. I'll try this after I'm done downloading the SuSE 9.3 Pro ISOs that I'm getting.

[StratComm]

They also don't move as quickly as the Scorpions, which makes landing Furies on target much easier.

[Trivial Psychic]

Resolutions to the Plato dilema:

1 - Change it so the Plato can jump out if it makes it

   Necessitates new voice acting for both mission and debriefing

   Verdict - Bad

2 - Edit the mission so that the Plato will self-destruct if it looks like the Shivans won't kill it (in other words, if all Shivan fighters & bombers are desroyed before the Plato is)

   Necessitates very few changes, and has both precident in the original FS1 mission, and in the later Ramses/Taranis mission.

   Verdict - Acceptable

3 - If all Shaitans and Scorpions are destroyed and the Plato is still alive, deploy 2 full wings (6 each) of Basilisks armed with Phoenix/Trebuchets and a good-secondary-time sexp, firing from a distance but from a random direction (arrive near ship) to take it out the Plato in a manner that the Player can't stop.

   Looks more convincing and has precident in the destruction of the Trinity in FS2... overwhelming odds.  May require additional voice in mission.

   Verdict - ??? (that's what I want your opinion on.)

[Annorax]

One vote for option 3... but you don't need additional voice. The only voice needed that I can see is the standard Command "Incoming" line for when the new wings of Basilisks come in. Quick, painless for all but the Plato, and meshes well with continuity.

[StratComm]

As much as I hate to say it, option 2.  This is one of those rare instances where it wouldn't actually make that much of a difference if they were pathological about killing the Plato and jumping out, but it also goes back to the same issue raised in the "Changing missions" thread in Freespace Campaigns.  That, and I don't think the tech entry for the basilisk is freed at that point.

[Galemp]

We're going to ensure the Shaitans have enough bombs to destroy the Plato and that they deliver their payload next time around, with some self-destruct hacks to make sure this doesn't happen.

[Selectah]

Heiya,

Hmm.., I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but the original FSM mission was pretty fool-proof. I think that all of this is simply 'cause someone forgot to put in the 'self destruct hack' event in the ported mission. I'd say that it'd be more 'canon' if additional tasks for the player or the NPS's are kept at a minimum. Disregarding any bugs, of course.