So, I had the opportunity to try out this campaign because I needed to kill some time before a midnight screening at the local movie theatre.
First technical issues:- The Debriefing for the final mission appeared twice for me. This is because you made mistake with the Debriefing - Debriefing stages do not replace each other but add to each other in order, i.e. each stage is only displayed if its conditions are met, in the order they are entered (Stage 1 before Stage 2, Stage 3 after that). If you want to have a exchange a paragraph in the middle you just have to put in, say, Stage 2 and the replacement in 3 and then rest of the Debrief in 4.
- The files did not arrived on my end packaged as a .vp. Knossos offers the option to do that automatically. It is a good way to keep the files consistent with the download you provide, and will make debugging a bit easier.
Gameplay issues suggestions:I recommend you get and impliment Axem's Mark-Box-script from
here. It is huge quality of life improvement for players when it comes to "destroy X beam"-directives.
Narrative issues:I can immediatly recognize that you are rather unfamiliar with military proccedure and ideas behind how military leadership is supposed to work - that's fine, not everyone had an officer for a father, like me.
But it leaves some big holes in the narrative for me:
Firstly, in Command Briefing to Mission 02 Command commits the big transgression against its own authority by admitting they have been wrong. The orthodox view on the matter is that commanding officers are
not supposed to admit that a previous decision was wrong, as not invite their judgement to be questioned by those under their command. When a decision is reversed the previous decision is not be framed as an error in judgement but that change in the situation has occurred - a superior officer is supposed to inspire confidence in the lower ranks and that begins with projecting their own confidence in their own judgment. As an officer, to question and evolve your own judgement is supposed to happend among peers or in front of superiors only - but it is also required to happen.
Secondly, in the same CB Command breaks with proccedure by dropping the charges on insubordination without proper procedure. This would never happend in a modern military simply for the effect it would have on cohesion of the chain of command. Insubordinate soldiers still have to go through the proper displinary proccedure, even if there has been grounds for their insubordination to go without punishment (like questionable legality of orders, or statue for consciencous objection). To wave this procedure is considered to be encrouaging further insubordination.
Furthermore in matters of discipline, the consquences of an action are never supposed to outweight the action itself.
EDIT: Also, as a matter of procceedure, discipline is not enforced through the chain of command in a modern military - with minor infractions direct superiors usually are still handing down the judgements, however if you go up insubordination, just based on conflict of interests alone, the matter is generally handeled by officers outside the direct chain of command.
Thridly, and most impactfully, in a force that does not take the loyality of its soldiers for granted, search-and-rescue missions (and POW-exchanges) do serve an important secondary objective with regards to force cohesion (tl;dr "force cohesion" is mix of morale, a functioning chain of command and discipline): The demonstrate the commitment of the force has a whole to the individual soldier, which as per a principle of reciprocity is considered to inspire soldiers to do their duty in similiary dangerous situations. This is supposed to work for both unit being rescued and the unit doing rescue, and by extension every other unit in the force as soon as the operation is made public. Historically, the rescue of units from surrounded positions gets a lot of propaganda attention for this reason.
It felt that element was missing - it could have worked great to help build urgency.
(Quiet transition to praise)Speaking of urgency: I really liked how you used the fiction viewer to suppliment the Briefings, to build urgency and provide addtional perspective. You recognized and utilized this space well.
For a first time, this campaign is a solid effort. It could use some polish in the details.
Recommended to give a look.