[Redstreblo]

For mission 5 I would like to see some input about it.

It may cause some problems if it is a straight up port from the POV of the Vasudans because you are going to get wiped out before you get to do anything, unless you are into story so much you are willing to DIE.

We could do a custom mission where because the Terrans never got the Avenger, the science cruiser isn't even there. We have a completely different mission where the Shivans are introduced in a different way.

Or we could do a custom mission where it is a port, however because the Terrans never got the Avenger it could be available to you. This means that you would be able to fight the Shivans effectively on your first encounter if you happen to have the Avenger equiped. However that reduces the Shivans impact and it is a little too easy. You lose that OMG they killed everything and I couldn't do a thing about it feeling.

What it comes down to really is how much of a twist do you want this campaign to have? Do you want me to have the original missions remade, or do you want some new ones thrown in here and there?

And even better there is an other button, I would like to hear from you! Any suggestions that I haven't thought about here? any opinions on the above?

Thank you for your support. 

[Droid803]

I'd say just have a different cargo, and a different ending.

You sucessfully destroy the Terrans and the Plato, then the Shivans come and WTFPWN the Taurus. (which can then launch an escape pod)

Donno if this qualifies as "other"...I just voted for the first one.

[Galemp]

You sucessfully destroy the Terrans and the Plato, then the Shivans come and WTFPWN the Taurus. (which can then launch an escape pod)

Genius.

[Goober5000]

You successfully destroy the Terrans and the Plato, then the Shivans come and WTFPWN the Taurus. (which can then launch an escape pod)

Genius.

I agree... but unfortunately this removes the aspect of the mission where the Shivans are seen to attack both Terrans and Vasudans.  Easily fixed by having the Shivans show up before all the Terran fighters are wiped out, or by having a Terran reinforcement wing arrive.

We could do a custom mission where because the Terrans never got the Avenger, the science cruiser isn't even there.

It doesn't even have to be a different cargo.  Remember that the Avenger was developed by the Terrans; McCarthy just stole the plans and prototypes.  Presumably they have backup plans lying around somewhere.

You could say that the Terrans are cutting their losses by moving the remaining Avenger technology to Ribos.  This provides an opportunity for the Vasudans to press their new advantage, whereby destroying the Plato sets the production of the Avenger back even further.  Perhaps it would force the Terrans to pull the manufacturing all the way back to Sol, rather than staying in the thick of things at Ribos.  (This would put the Terrans at a decisive disadvantage during the first month of the Shivan incursion, perhaps allowing the Vasudans to take the leadership in fleet logistics.  This would have long-term political implications.)

[MatthTheGeek]

I quite like the reasoning of Goober here. You don't need to change a lot in the mission to change a lot in the whole plot.

For the "Shivans attacking both sides" thing, you can say that Terran Command doesn't consider the system as secure as it did in FS1 (logical given that they now have a bunch of Vasudans armed with Avengers lying around) and that the remaining Avenger prototypes/plans are much more valuable to them now that they have lost the "first one to have the Avenger" advantage, so they commit a Leviathan cruiser on hot standby, ready to jump and defend the Plato if required.

You attack the Plato, the Leviathan jumps in and duels the Taurus, you blow up the Plato and its escape pod, the Shivans jump and blow both the Leviathan and the Taurus.

[Galemp]

It doesn't even have to be a different cargo.  Remember that the Avenger was developed by the Terrans; McCarthy just stole the plans and prototypes.  Presumably they have backup plans lying around somewhere.

Are you quite sure about this? Because McCarthy stole the Avenger from a Vasudan cargo depot.

[MatthTheGeek]

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Heist_of_the_Avenger_Prototype

And also, it's GTW-15 Avenger. Which implies Terran-made.

[T-Man]

They were Terran, but were were stolen by the Vasudans which is why they were there. It mentions in one of the debreifing chunks for the mission.

[Goober5000]

Are you quite sure about this? Because McCarthy stole the Avenger from a Vasudan cargo depot.

More like he recaptured them before the GTA could recapture them.  It's rather weird; the Avenger gets stolen back and forth a few times, as described in the wiki entry.  (Perhaps Volition was trying several ideas that eventually got merged into one.)  But look at the very first mention of them in mission 3:

It appears that among the cargo were some stolen weapons prototypes.  We had feared that the Vasudans had already found and moved them from the area.  Recapturing the weapons would have been a great victory.

Unfortunately, the contents of this cargo were stolen by a traitor, flying the Omega transport.  These prototypes will need to be recovered.

Also, McCarthy wouldn't have needed to sell the plans to the Vasudans if the Vasudans had developed them in the first place.

[Woolie Wool]

Geez, Fenris only has 8,000 HP, compared to the Aten's 18,000 and the Leviathan's whopping 35,000. No wonder it goes down so easy. Some hackery is definitely needed there... although I really hated that FS1 mission where the Shivans attacked the Rameses and it died slloooowwwwlllyy.

It's funny that the Fenris is more of a threat in the second mission. I wonder what can be done? Send in Poseidons with four Avengers each to chew up the player?

I actually bumped the Fenris up to 20,000 HP in Twist of Fate for this very reason.

[Trivial Psychic]

I agree with Goober's reasoning regarding the Terrans still possessing some Avenger prototypes, allowing the Plato and its original mission to be retained.

I suggest that you have the player as part of the Taurus' escort, just play with the timing a bit.  Have your group arrive just as the first wave of Vasudan ships are attacking the Plato.  When they are all shot down, your wing is ordered to make for the Plato to first shoot down the escort, before bombers will move in for the kill.  As you reach the half-way point between the two ships, the Shivan wings attack the Taurus and the player's wing is ordered to abort the attack and defend the Taurus.  The player gets back about 30 seconds before the Shivans destroy the Taurus.  The player will have an opportunity to destroy a Shivan craft (fighter or bomber) for the bonus objective.  Once the Taurus is destroyed, the Shivans jump out (as they do in the original).  Vasudan command is still a bit shocked, and is considering recalling your wing (given ship-guardian-threshold to ensure that enough ships survive to provide dialogue sources), but a wingman points out that they still have a job to do... destroy the Plato.  As you head off to engage the Terrans, the Shivans attack the Plato and its escort.  The engagement there gives the player additional opportunities to get the bonus objective for the Shivan kill.  A final bonus objective is to destroy both of the Plato's escape pods.

On another note, we never actually learned what the circumstances behind the original theft of the Avenger prototypes was.  It might be interesting to create an additional mission (perhaps an alternate to the FS1 asteroid mission) covering these events.  Maybe they were piloting captured Terran craft, operating on intel they received from McCarthy.

Just a thought, but if this project is getting enough backing from the Port team, perhaps it deserves its own sub-forum just like ST:R.  That way, each mission's discussion can remain in separate threads to avoid confusion.

Later!

[Redstreblo]

Mission 5 is here!

I found this to be a very fun mission and I hope you come to the same conclusion.

Enjoy 

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[Galemp]

Galemp here. I made Mission 6, and it's all-new. Try it out. Media VPs highly recommended.

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[Redstreblo]

I felt more than a little worried the whole time I was playing this mission. It is a pretty scary plot 

And future missions will mostly be new ones, not simple POV changes.

A lot more excitement is in store for you guys later on, so stay with us. 

[mjn.mixael]

Just finished playing all of the current missions. Well done! Though it is a bit weird to see the Rasputin get away... 

The last mission (#6) was probably the most unique mission I have seen, granted that aside from BP, FS2, FS1, and STR, I haven't played much yet.

I also really liked the mission 5. Really enjoyed that one from the Vasudan's perspective. I KNEW what was gonna happen, but couldn't stop it. Nice 

Highly recommend you play through these if you haven't already.

[T-Man]

Mission 6 is fantastic; missions like that need a lot of attention to work and it pulls it off really well; it really does feel tense sneaking through those debries, especially as you can't lock onto he Shivans. The timing of youknowwhat at the start is fantastic; made me smile when i noticed (though you may want to change its name to 'Unknown' so the F4 menu doesen't display the name, which the player's char wouldn't know yet )!

[Redstreblo]

Mission 7 is now here! New Technologies and that much closer to getting shield technology! 



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[mjn.mixael]

DOWNLOADS

[Snail]

Played the first mission. Here are my comments.

Spoiler:

Mission 1
The default FS2 briefing music makes me physically sick. Echo BlackDove's comments on Requiem of a Dream.

Canon Violation - Command Briefing Stage 1 claims the Goliath and the Rexias 4 occupation force was destroyed. Canonically, this happened 12 years before 2335. Given the date of this mission is supplied as 2334, this makes little sense and should be rectified.

Why are you using FS2 music? D:

The transports and freighters that jump in need to do a little dance before they do the waypoints. This looks stupid. This is caused by putting transports into wings, which need to fly in some hard-coded formation, I believe.

My fighters destroyed one of the cargo pods (I think they were firing on the freighters, but missed). I don't have any control over this (to tell them to ignore) and that sucks.

Destroying armoured transports with the VLL-9 turned out to be pretty dull.

The Orff got destroyed (I destroyed its weapons subsystem, and it got finished off by my wingmen) and I self-destructed.

I thought it was ok.

[Redstreblo]

Played the first mission. Here are my comments.

Spoiler:

Mission 1
The default FS2 briefing music makes me physically sick. Echo BlackDove's comments on Requiem of a Dream.

Canon Violation - Command Briefing Stage 1 claims the Goliath and the Rexias 4 occupation force was destroyed. Canonically, this happened 12 years before 2335. Given the date of this mission is supplied as 2334, this makes little sense and should be rectified.

Why are you using FS2 music? D:

The transports and freighters that jump in need to do a little dance before they do the waypoints. This looks stupid. This is caused by putting transports into wings, which need to fly in some hard-coded formation, I believe.

My fighters destroyed one of the cargo pods (I think they were firing on the freighters, but missed). I don't have any control over this (to tell them to ignore) and that sucks.

Destroying armoured transports with the VLL-9 turned out to be pretty dull.

The Orff got destroyed (I destroyed its weapons subsystem, and it got finished off by my wingmen) and I self-destructed.

I thought it was ok.

mission 1 was the first mission created, when Galemp first thought of the idea (5 years ago) he made this mission and packed in with fsport. This mission is below the standard of the missions we are putting out now and should not be rated with missions 2-7. We know of its problems and we will be doing a complete overhaul soon. These missions are also in a pre-release state. PLEASE give us feedback on them and report any bugs. They will be fixed eventually for the final release. I will be putting these missions into a campaign file once mission 10 is finished and releasing it as a demo, all fixes to missions 1-7 and 8-10 as nessassary will be posted there.

Thanks