Modding, Mission Design, and Coding > FRED Academy

[FA] C2 M8

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SypheDMar:
http://www.mediafire.com/?oie30mydlzu

UPDATE: http://www.mediafire.com/?ubauo1u5ui8i8bj
Added waypoints, subtracted prefixes, removed Delta and Gamma wing from display, added cargo to the Argos, named the unnamed, and added some messages.

UPDATE: http://www.mediafire.com/?f8k8y3nu1kmm1v9
Did a whole bunch of more fixing and changed a few things.

UPDATE: http://www.mediafire.com/?pzrt2shuoy132zy
Revised the mission a whole lot. Deleted jump nodes, added secondary goals. Mission may be more difficult.


Spoiler:Mission eight (ASSIGNED to SypheDMar) is red alert from Mission seven. Turns out the node doesn't go to Gamma Draconis - nothing could be further from the truth. The node leads all the way to the Capella system, skipping Gamma Draconis totally. It turns out that the subspace corridor was unstable, and kept on switching from the nodes in both systems; with an ever-changing exit point the chances of the trio of corvettes following is quite low. But now the problem is that the Julius has emerged smack bang in the middle of a battle between GTVA and Shivan forces. The Julius (and Alpha 1) runs through beam fire, GTVA ships, Shivan ships and whatever else you can think of in an attempt to get away from the crossfire. GTVA forces cover the Julius's retreat as they themselves start to retreat and head to the node to Epsilon Pegasi. Alpha 1 leaves just as the trio of corvettes show up nearby. ---> Escort Mission with BoE-styled setting.

Mobius:

--- Quote from: Mobius on August 17, 2010, 04:04:00 pm ---:bump:

No one tested it? Let me do it. Expect a report in less than 20 hours. :)

--- End quote ---

Sorry, but I couldn't do it in time. Don't take the - as an offense or something, they're just suggestions. :D


--- Quote from: SypheDMar on May 27, 2010, 05:44:18 pm ---Spoiler:Mission eight (ASSIGNED to SypheDMar) is red alert from Mission seven. Turns out the node doesn't go to Gamma Draconis - nothing could be further from the truth. The node leads all the way to the Capella system, skipping Gamma Draconis totally. It turns out that the subspace corridor was unstable, and kept on switching from the nodes in both systems; with an ever-changing exit point the chances of the trio of corvettes following is quite low. But now the problem is that the Julius has emerged smack bang in the middle of a battle between GTVA and Shivan forces. The Julius (and Alpha 1) runs through beam fire, GTVA ships, Shivan ships and whatever else you can think of in an attempt to get away from the crossfire. GTVA forces cover the Julius's retreat as they themselves start to retreat and head to the node to Epsilon Pegasi. Alpha 1 leaves just as the trio of corvettes show up nearby. ---> Escort Mission with BoE-styled setting.

--- End quote ---

I don't see the trio showing up at the end of the mission, not even if I sit and wait. While yours appears to be a nice mission, I think it should fit more in the context it's meant to be used. It's not 100% necessary, however. ;)

+ I was kind of expecting the classic BoE, but the mission was well balanced.

+ Congratulations on hiding the names of Shivan spacecraft which are not directly involved in the mission: I strongly encouraging doing so in BoE missions to prevent confusion without altering the number of ships.

- There's an unnecessary space between "that" and "the" in the briefing.

+/- ? This is a matter of tastes, but... do you need prefixes in ship names? "GTC", "GTD", "GTCv", etc. etc. are already displayed and identify the class, so you don't need them in names. It's... redundant, if you get what I mean.

- This can be summarized with two words: Y axis. Most ships are spread on a plain, and while this is necessary because many of them are headed to the jump node it kind of reduces the potential of the mission. Imagine to get close to the node while Shivan and Terran ships pass above or below your path: it would have been very cool. I suggest reading 12.

+/- ? Wings Gamma through Delta, IMHO, should not be displayed as wingmen on the HUD. At the beginning of the mission, I had to figure out which wings were actually ordered to escort the GTCv Julius. IMHO, it's way better to focus the player's attention on Alpha and Beta because monitoring their status is very important.

- The Julius collides with the GTM House during the mission. More waypoint paths and better arrangement on the Y axis should solve the problem. The Serenity and Dawkins also collide with said medical vessel, and I've seen the Kush Argo transport colliding with the Stevenson as they approached the node. Many of these ships got disabled during the mission, so that's why a wise arrangement on the Y axis is necessary: unless you protect engine subsystems, you can't give for sure that ships A and B will not collide during the mission.

- The Balian comes out with a rather weird maneuver during the mission, which IMHO should be controlled via AI orders and waypoint paths.

- The player can jump well before getting close to the node: is that supposed to happen? Subspace drives should be activated only when necessary. It's easy to do in FRED and feel free to ask if you have any questions.

- The Argo transports carry "Nothing", but since they seem to take part in a serious evacuation their cargo should be edited accordingly.

- I have seen two warships whose names have attracted my attention during the mission: GTC Fenris 106 and 135. Naming properly anything larger than a transport is very important: read 4.

- I believe there should be more messages in the mission. They can vary from hull integrity warnings to destructions, but they should definitely be added. The Julius is the ship the player is supposed to protect, and you can see its hull integrity dropping without any messages telling the player to focus more attention on the corvette. Many allied and Shivan ships are destroyed in the mission, but no messages are devoted to this side (but still notable) events. The whole process that leads to the (possible) destruction of the GTD Balian deserves more messages.

- At some point in the mission, when the Julius is close to the node, many Shivan wings seem to focus on that ship and completely ignore other Terran vessels, which are way closer. While this can be justified if said ship is the main target for the Shivans (it's not the case of the Julius, apparently), it's a bit odd during a battle.

- The Bauer, Fortitude, Nihil, Reason and possibly other vessels remain immobile. At least, they should try to escape from the advancing Shivans.

- The directives "Destroy Capricorn" and "Destroy Aquarius" aren't satisfied even if said wings are destroyed.

- There should be a "Jump to Node" directive or similar in the mission, possibly after the Julius departs. Alpha and Beta wings should jump in when they're sufficiently close to the node (+ congrats on using a training message to inform the player) instead of waiting for the player to order them to do so. More in general, in such missions wingmen should never accept the warp out order. (You can edit Player Orders in FRED.)

- There should be more Shivan wings, but with less waves. For example, why sending in 4 waves of Nephilim bombers if you can send Taurvis, Nahemas, Seraphims and Nephilims instead? In a mission, I think it's always a good thing to achieve more with the very same number of ships.

SypheDMar:
:jaw: Wow. Thanks.  So this is why everyone else's missions are funner than mine. xD I'll fix 'em some day.

Mobius:
IMHO, it'd be ideal to follow my suggestions, edit the mission accordingly (if you want to make additional changes, feel free to do it! :)) and then re-upload it. It will be a pleasure to play it again. :)

SypheDMar:
UPDATE

http://www.mediafire.com/?ubauo1u5ui8i8bj

So I attempted to fix the thing as much as I can, but it's still not finished yet. Waves in particular, but I think I came up with a way to eliminate the need for them. Anyway, seeing as this is a Red Alert mission, should I subtract the health of the Julius into something more believable? Like a placeholder at 85 for now until the campaign becomes a reality?

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