[Ferret]

Oh no 11 days since last reply.
Come on, what are we going with then? I'l like to see this rolling along.

[Ransom]

Since nobody's come forward with any more suggestions, I'll say again: Is it worth making a poll? We still need to decide on which message and which ship name to use.

So far we have these lines of dialogue to choose from:

"Holy crap!  Command, do you see this?  Something's coming through!"
"I picked the wrong day to join the NTF."
"Naturally.  It's the first rule of government spending.  Why build one, when you can have two for twice the price?"
"Did you have any idea what you were getting into when you volunteered for this assignment?"
"See if you can get into the Lucifer's docking bay."

And either Vale, Scorn, or Wraith for the ship name.

I'm wondering whether the NTF and/or Lucifer messages should be removed, since they're a little specific. Although personally I think we should just go with:

"Did you have any idea what you were getting into when you volunteered for this assignment?"

...Since it's the one I think allows for the most variation without sounding too generic. But it's up to everyone else.

[NGTM-1R]

I agree with that; the others would provide a tad more context, but not the same variety.

[Ferret]

I'm wondering whether the NTF and/or Lucifer messages should be removed, since they're a little specific. Although personally I think we should just go with:

"Did you have any idea what you were getting into when you volunteered for this assignment?"

...Since it's the one I think allows for the most variation without sounding too generic. But it's up to everyone else.

Took the words right out of my fingers.

[Mefustae]

Sounds good to me. How about having all three ship-names open and leaving the choice up to the FREDer, perhaps?

[Ransom]

I think that would kind of defeat the point of including a defined ship name. Since FREDers are free to do whatever they want with the name, we might as well decide on a particular one.

Or I suppose we could include all three. Since the FREDer's not limited in how the names appear in the mission, it probably wouldn't do any harm.

[Blaise Russel]

Yes. 

[Ransom]

I guess that settles that, then.

So as it stands, the criteria for each tangent is the inclusion of a line of dialogue and three names. Is there anything else anyone wants to add? Because if not, it looks like we're nearly good to go. Couple more things I can think of that need clarifying:

- Does anyone have any objections to allowing participants to make more than one tangent?
- What'll be the policy on mods? I'm hesitant about new ships, but I don't see any problem with things like custom loading screens and new sounds so long as it doesn't balloon the filesize too much.

Also, at this point I think supplying a template mission file would be largely pointless considering how open the criteria is.

[Colonol Dekker]

Is that the only defining feature, One line of dialoge and three names?

What about setting?

[Mefustae]

Giving a setting would mean creating an actual mission. As it stands, the project is loose enough to allow all sorts of weirdness and post-modern creativity, while at the same time constricting enough that every submission will have a few things in common regardless of what they are.

[Colonol Dekker]

You mean like a Collab ?

OK, fair enough.. So this will be a case of DL a base mission and add to it then?

[Mefustae]

Given the very few mandatory inclusions for your given Tangent, a template mission would be unneeded as Ransom previously stated. Even a completely new FREDer fresh out of the extended walkthrough should be able to set up the message and names wherever and whenever they choose to apply them.

[Colonol Dekker]

I'm just tryong to get the concept, anyway regardless of my inability to grasp the basic premise of this, I understand that the theoretics are finished?

[NGTM-1R]

- Does anyone have any objections to allowing participants to make more than one tangent?
- What'll be the policy on mods? I'm hesitant about new ships, but I don't see any problem with things like

No objections to the first.

As long as they swear they'll use .tbms and package everything in a VP, I have no objections to new ships, either.

[Blaise Russel]

Okay. I'll start things off.

High concept THIS!

Ordinary Day is just that: an ordinary day for a member of the GTVA Volunteer Corps. Volunteer Corpsmen are men and women who are too old or too badly injured to fight ol' Aken and his NTF dogs up close and personal, so they give him what-for by guarding depots, patrolling trade routes and escorting merchant freighters behind enemy lines, freeing up soldiers to fight at the front lines.

Things, however, will not turn out as expected.



Oh, for the background, you'll need LS' nebula backgrounds.

[Ransom]

Haha, that's great. Perfect way to start off the project.

I was going to wait a couple more days to make sure nobody had anything more to add at the last minute, but since people are anxious to start I've edited the first post of this thread with the finalised guidelines we decided on. I'll also update it with each new tangent that gets released so people don't have to hunt through the thread to find the actual releases.

If I forgot to mention anything in the first post, let me know. I've tried to make it understandable for those who happened not to be around while we were deciding everything, but if anyone thinks it could be improved, suggestions are welcome.

[Mobius]

I'm creating a Tangent too!!!

[Dark Hunter]

Mine's in the works. Should be done by the day after tomorrow. People should get a laugh out of it...

[NGTM-1R]

I regret to report, BR, that your tangent is giving 3.6.9 RC7 a fit.


Error: tangent-str.tbm(line 149:
Error: Missing required token: [$Debris:]. Found [debris01]  instead.

File:D:\C++\Freespace\fs2_open 3.6.9\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 638
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------

[TopAce]

This whole stuff just got explained to me, so I think I will give it a try some time in the future. However, I think there should be more guidelines, maybe one in addition would do. Something like "one of the three ships named must survive" or "the mission should have at least one stealthed target." I think it would result in interesting missions.