Just wanted to say it's awesome seeing campaigns of this scope and quality still being released - I just finished 'Bringing down the Gavel', and like others, found it deeply amusing. It was also, importantly, *cathartic*. Like most campaigns with a lot of grit and worldbuilding, this one has the player's side 'losing' a lot, or at least only achieving partial success at various points in the story. It's for the better, of course, but it also means that missions can wear you down. (DAMN YOU OZYMANDIAS!) Having this mission come so soon after Gerar's Judgement was smart. In fact, pacing has been excellent throughout.
It's also really great seeing how collaborative this campaign is. Hearing familiar voices, seeing fully integrated briefing cutscenes, and some major FRED judo, all speak to the labor of love these sorts of campaigns can be.
A heartfelt thanks to everyone involved for giving your time to this project.
so, small gripes because they were asked for:
*like others, noted a few grammar slips here and there in the newsroom. nothing embarrassingly bad*
*not to whine, but damn Gerar's Judgement is a rough one from a player-attention standpoint. Freespace 2's core gameplay is at odds with the logistics of space combat sometimes, as more challenging missions typically have more and more enemies, but this mission is happy to send whole wings of fighters and bombers towards the player, long after the original player wing is destroyed. I finally got through it by giving my wingmates flails and phoenixes to disrupt dive bombers and then spent most of my time nuking cruisers and fending off horus wings. It feels a little strange for Alpha wing to get so many divergent tasks - I think I got 3 directives in 5 seconds at one point, delivered with equal urgency. Perhaps Intrepid could launch some fresh fighters on arrival to take a little pressure off? Then again, as I said pressure is kind of the point...I'm just not sure I buy that HOL has this many fighters and goes so long undeterred by their heavy losses at each engagement. I really hope I get to burn that ship down.
*Could we get some consistency with function key and special action buttons? I don't use a HOTAS any more for ergonomic reasons, but if I did I would be baffled at the number of mission-unique key-presses. Alt-X, no wait alt-n, no just use the number buttons, wait no on this mission every item is on the F-keys. I greatly appreciate the mission variety, but 'key command inflation' seems to be a growing problem with more ambitious campaigns.
*better use of secondary objectives vs primary ones would make it a bit more clear which tasks to prioritize on certain missions, particularly the 2nd stealth mission (loki visiting an outer rim cargo depot, the one with that lovely cargo pilot chatter. Great stuff!). I couldn't tell if I would lose the mission if I missed some cargo or ships and then the priority ship warped out while I was dallying. Can't have the objective screen spoiling plot points of course, but sometimes tasking can be unclear.
Again, this is minor nit-picky crap written in comfortable ignorance. I've been enjoying the heck out of this campaign...reminds me a lot of BSG with it's emphasis on the postwar refugee experience, and may be the most successful use of the (largely community-enhanced) reconstruction period. Every plot point so far has felt like a natural progression. Thanks again for working so hard on this, I look forward to finishing it in the next few days.