Author Topic: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread  (Read 46341 times)

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Offline CKid

Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
Was buzzing around using the screencap script collecting screenshots for this month's screencap contest and came across this little easter egg in the first mission. Thought I would share.

If I agreed with you, we would both be wrong

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
I legit don't remember adding that in there...
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Offline Novachen

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
This only happens if you play too much with Battlesnail Galactica   :wakka:
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
BtA Version 1.2.0 is going up on Knossos with MediaVPs 3.8.x compatibility and many, many bugfixes thanks to Novachen.
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Offline Novachen

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
As you were not very pleased with some of my changes in the first place and according to MediaFire you did not download the "other" one i send you via PM, i have to ask what you have actually left out? :)


If anyone need a changelog of the various mission bugfixes, i still have it :)
Female FreeSpace 2 pilot since 1999.
Former Global moderator in the German FreeSpace Galaxy Forum.
Developer of NTP - A Multi-Language Translation Library Interface, which allows to play FreeSpace in YOUR Language.

Is one of my releases broken or not working? Please send a PM here, on Discord at @novachen or on Twitter @NovachenFS2, a public tweet or write a reply in my own release threads here on HLP, because these are the only threads i am still participating in.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
I never downloaded it because I had already grabbed the update you put out on Knossos, looked over it, and made some of the same changes. Other things I changed back are things like a line of dialog (sir > madam > sir) and removing bta_assets-ship.tbm. I also fixed a few additional bugs that I found while working on this.
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Offline CT27

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
I haven't fully switched over to Knossos yet, so for now:  after downloading the files in https://fsnebula.org/mod/BtA and putting them in place of the similarly named files already in my BTA SOC folder...

[multimod]
primarylist   = ;
secondarylist   = mediavps_2014;

To be good to go would I then switch "mediavps_2014" in that last line of that part of the mod.ini to "MediaVPs_38X"? 



P.S.:  I also noticed that BTA files are labeled differently now.  In my current BTA SOC folder files are labeled "BTA1_xxxx" but in the manual download link I posted, they're now listed as "bta_xxxx".  I'm presuming I can swap out the equivalent files.  For example, I can delete "BTA1_core" and replace it with "bta_core".
« Last Edit: August 21, 2018, 08:21:35 pm by CT27 »

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
Yes to all of the above.
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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
Am I the only one having trouble with the newsroom in the new update?

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
What's happening with it? I honestly didn't check it because nothing really changed.

EDIT: I see the (obvious) problem. I'll fix it as soon as I can.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2018, 03:41:33 pm by mjn.mixael »
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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
What's happening with it? I honestly didn't check it because nothing really changed.

EDIT: I see the (obvious) problem. I'll fix it as soon as I can.

Awesome, thanks! BtA is such an immersive lore experience, especially with the system map...need to get the full experience!

 

Offline wistler

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
It might be a dumb question, but how do you deploy the beacon in mission 4 "Playing Pirate"? I get 3Km away from the transports but I don't know what to do next. I am playing on 3.7.4.

First off just wanted to say that I'm loving the campaign so far, you guys have done an amazing job!

I am struggling to fire the beacon in mission 4 Playing Pirates, i am over 3k from target and press 1 but nothing happened.
I wonder if I've re-mapped the button and that's whats causing the issue? Does FRED recognise the key-press or should 1 be mapped to a specific action?

 
Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
I played this campaign a few times and fired it up again recently. However, "Acts of Volition" refuses to load in and crashes my game...attached is a debug. Hope that helps

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
So, I just had two days of sick leave and threw myself at the campaign....

First some technicalities:

- I ran in to the bug with "Bringing down the Gavel" on more recent builds.

- I had big performance hits in "The Texas Seven", "El Chapo" and "Going out with a Bang"; framerates dropped consistently into the 10s and with the last one it made mission barely playable.

- I also skipped over "Black Flag", "To Steal a March On" and "Going out with a Bang" because the mission proved to be too difficult (in the case of the last one the permformance hit did play a key role):
Spoiler:
- - With "Black Flag" I had trouble with keeping up with all the stealth mechanics, going so far that I couldn't get a scan as soon as Tyr wing arrived.
- - "To Steal a March On" I had trouble with getting enough transports disabled without being shot down; I tried to break the mission by blocking the Jump Node with disabled ships only build a killbox for myself... (it would have worked if just the cruisers would have actually fired disrupters to away some of the turrets on ships that were disabled)
- - In "Going out with a Bang" evading the waves send specifically against you while maintaining the torpedo decoy just was too much to handle at once. The wingmen just took too long to intercept any target and I got swarmed each time. It doesn't help that you can't really stop to restock your countermeasures and get damaged systems back as you either sacrifce the Intrepid or yourself.



Now onwards to the metaphorical meat of the review.

This campaign has some of the most amazing production value I've seen from the community and it deserves a recommendation just for that. I am not exactly a fan of the realist stylistic choices made (tl;dr: Fiction should never try to cover too hard its own artificiality, as being recognizably artificial helps facilitate access to subtext) but they are esspecially fitting for the story at hand; attempting to make the campaign feel very authentically military works as sugar for more bitter parts of the narrative IMO (more on that in the spoiler tags). This extends to elevating the rather dull visual design choices, making this a very "earthy" campaign.

The story itself is well written and executed with a rather low thrills approach (Don't expect some big twist, though as the curtain is drawn back it is quite interesting), however the missions are very varied and many have nice one off mechanics. These mechanics are well introduced and while they are always "one and gone" most of them are quite enjoyable addtions - and they don't take you away from the core gameplay.
With regards to the narrative there is a big BUT...
Spoiler:
The story very much relies on Ozymandias being a very capable foe, and always one step ahead for a while as he has a lot of steps planned out. Meaning that the Intrepid and Admiral Po have really catch-up throughout the story and makes for a nice arc. (Side Node: I am positively suprised to see a capable adversary whose capabilites don't limit themselves to "biggest boat")

However there is a big bump in the narrative as it beats you over the head with just how much you blunder through the enemy plan. And it rather then involving you further by giving you a reason to see Ozymandias brought low, it felt like an attempt to break my spirit.
I recongize that putting you on the losing side for a while is signficant challange. But I wish there would have been more options to at least claim a token victory in some scenarioes - like "The Texas Seven".

Speaking of "The Texas Seven" that mission was most railroading this campaign had and it really was not a good experience. Having you have to hack your fighter was a nice touch as far as finding a new challange for the player. But on the other hand it quickly went from playful frustration to actual frustration as I realized that the whole hacking minigame was not meant to be beaten, only to be a time waster (I had several goes at it because multiple times I didn't beat until the Cardinal had already jumped out - something to do with the fact that the game reads my keyboard as an standard english configuration).

Summary: I would highly recommend this. It is top-of-field stuff - probably the best out there.
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
It always means a lot when someone enjoys my creation enough to share their experience of it publicly. I know you make missions and campaigns yourself. You have a deep understanding of just how much time, heart, frustration, stress, and sleep goes in to putting them together. That you gave it such kind words despite the clear issues you experienced speaks volumes to me. While I don't intend to change the more difficult parts of the campaign (though I do need to fix that Bringing Down The Gavel bug), hearing what didn't work is just as important as hearing what did... especially if I ever get back to finishing up the entire trilogy I had planned.  :nervous:

Thank you for spending your two days of sick leave with the campaign!

(Did you play the prequel 2-mission campaign as well?)
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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
TL;DR you should clone yourself to make the whole thing become reality~

 

Offline DefCynodont119

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
This is actually my fave FS mod over all, I think I said that before, but it's worth saying again.   :nod:
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Offline 0rph3u5

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
(Did you play the prequel 2-mission campaign as well?)

Yes, I did ... I liked it but due to how short it was it felt less substantial - it like comparing canapés to a full course meal. That being said, gameplay-wise I also liked it for same reason I like the main campaign as it was varied across the it lenght, and managed to expand/innovate on the core gameplay without distracting from it.
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

 

Offline DefCynodont119

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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
WOOT! It's here! ANTWERP IS out!

what are you waiting for? go play it!
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Re: BtA: Slaves of Chaos Discussion Thread
what are you waiting for?

I'm waiting for the update to download!

Grats on the release! Can't wait to play through all of it.