[CKid]

Finally got a round to playing Antwerp. Short but very sweet. Nice to see that the quality of missions, voice acting and just the attention to detail of the campaign is to the same standards as Slaves of Chaos. Very immersive. The trailer at the end had me at the edge of my seat. All aboard the hype train!

[General Battuta]

Who are you calling an twerp!?

[perihelion]

I also got around to playing Antwerp this weekend.  Excellent production values all around.  Polished.  Bad guys were dangerous despite the lower tech level.  It was vitally important to dodge well, make your shots count, and protect your wingmen.  I loved the pilot chatter towards the end of the 1st half of mission 1.  Beta 2 in particular had me in stitches.  "Um... can we talk about what just happened?"

Honestly, I'm going to have to play through the 2nd mission a couple more times to let it all sink in.  There was so much going on in that mission that I'm sure I missed most of the detailed touches.

The almost immediate desire to replay pretty much says it all, I think.

[perihelion]

Hmm.  Subtle didn't seem to do the trick.  Let me try again.

Oy!  HLP type people!  Get off your browsers, play BTA - Antwerp and PRAISE THIS MAN!

Sheesh.

[DefCynodont119]

So uh, did anyone try the included Operation: Templar? 


PLAY ANTWERP GOSH DARNIT.   

[0rph3u5]

Antwerp is a prologue and not a story it its own right; as such it resembles Mephistople, although that was less dependant on Slaves of Chaos to stand as Antwerp to whatever comes next. As such an substantial evaluation of Antwerp must wait IMO until there is something for it to lead into.

[mjn.mixael]

Antwerp is a prologue and not a story it its own right; as such it resembles Mephistople, although that was less dependant on Slaves of Chaos to stand as Antwerp to whatever comes next. As such an substantial evaluation of Antwerp must wait IMO until there is something for it to lead into.

Arguably the two Antwerp missions are more like an SOC epilogue than a prologue for what's next. It serves both, but as it developed it became more about what came before.

[perihelion]

So uh, did anyone try the included Operation: Templar? 


PLAY ANTWERP GOSH DARNIT.   

No!  I completely forgot!  I must rectify that.

* Perihelion dons the Cone of Shame

[CP5670]

I just played Antwerp and the new Operation Templar. Like Slaves of Chaos, this is amazing work, I love the CB animations and the overall level of polish, really a step beyond any other FS campaign. The new cutscenes are great and the music fits the missions perfectly. Definitely looking forward to more of this.

I do get poor performance in the second mission of Antwerp (FSO 19 and latest MVPs, with a 4790K/1080ti). I don't recall any issues in Slaves of Chaos, but this mission runs at 25-30fps and crashed the game a few times. I wonder if there is a memory leak or something, or there is just too much happening in the mission.

[DefCynodont119]

I just played Antwerp and the new Operation Templar. Like Slaves of Chaos, this is amazing work, I love the CB animations and the overall level of polish, really a step beyond any other FS campaign. The new cutscenes are great and the music fits the missions perfectly. Definitely looking forward to more of this.

I do get poor performance in the second mission of Antwerp (FSO 19 and latest MVPs, with a 4790K/1080ti). I don't recall any issues in Slaves of Chaos, but this mission runs at 25-30fps and crashed the game a few times. I wonder if there is a memory leak or something, or there is just too much happening in the mission.

That mission is near FSO's ship limit and has some very intense scripts handling the mines, Antwerp mission 2 is probably the biggest CPU burner on this site. . .       We never got any crashes though, when does/did it crash?

[Solatar]

Loved the new release. Everything's polished, fun, and up to modern professional standards. Antwerp was really cool (second mission was nearly unplayable on my rig, but I pushed through it). I also really liked Templar with the added tech and rebalancing of the missions a bit. Made me actually happy to be able to fly a Myrmidon for once.

I know it's a small detail in the grand scheme of all the cool stuff that this mod does well, but I really like the background skyboxes in this mod. They've got all the right nostalgic colors from the original FS1 in-game nebulae and CBanims, and a more retail aesthetic (IMO) than the now-traditional Lightspeed backgrounds that come in the MediaVPs. I figured they were based on output from Spacescape, but they're really tastefully done, and I love how the briefing screen backgrounds match the systems.

[CP5670]

The crashes seemed to be random. I have the memory dump files, but it's probably more of an issue with FSO than the campaign. The game tends to become unstable if there are too many ships/objects in a mission.

In Templar, I especially liked how the "Brothers rejoice" bit in the fourth mission was made into an actual threat. I just barely made it out of the blast radius in time. I did encounter a bug in the third mission (maybe also in the original version) where if only one of your transports gets destroyed, the mission doesn't fail or let you know, and eventually got into a stalemate with the Tanis where I couldn't damage it past 10% and no bombers were left.

[mjn.mixael]

I could probably tame Operation: Garden by removing some of the mines where the player is unlikely to fly... I'll look into it.

[DefCynodont119]

The crashes seemed to be random. I have the memory dump files, but it's probably more of an issue with FSO than the campaign. The game tends to become unstable if there are too many ships/objects in a mission.

In Templar, I especially liked how the "Brothers rejoice" bit in the fourth mission was made into an actual threat. I just barely made it out of the blast radius in time. I did encounter a bug in the third mission (maybe also in the original version) where if only one of your transports gets destroyed, the mission doesn't fail or let you know, and eventually got into a stalemate with the Tanis where I couldn't damage it past 10% and no bombers were left.

Ugh, Original Templar had SO many stalemates. . Figures one would slip past. .  Just to help narrow it down, do you know what transport it was?

[CP5670]

The crashes seemed to be random. I have the memory dump files, but it's probably more of an issue with FSO than the campaign. The game tends to become unstable if there are too many ships/objects in a mission.

In Templar, I especially liked how the "Brothers rejoice" bit in the fourth mission was made into an actual threat. I just barely made it out of the blast radius in time. I did encounter a bug in the third mission (maybe also in the original version) where if only one of your transports gets destroyed, the mission doesn't fail or let you know, and eventually got into a stalemate with the Tanis where I couldn't damage it past 10% and no bombers were left.

Ugh, Original Templar had SO many stalemates. . Figures one would slip past. .  Just to help narrow it down, do you know what transport it was?

I think Zeta 2 got destroyed and Zeta 1 jumped out. The bombers may also need a default order to attack the Tanis, or else they end up dying and you cannot destroy it without them. When I played it again, both transports jumped and I gave the bombers that order manually, and everything seemed fine.

[DefCynodont119]

I think Zeta 2 got destroyed and Zeta 1 jumped out. The bombers may also need a default order to attack the Tanis, or else they end up dying and you cannot destroy it without them. When I played it again, both transports jumped and I gave the bombers that order manually, and everything seemed fine.

That's very VERY strange, The bombers do already have "Attack the Tanis" as one of their default orders.  :/   Not only that but a second wing of bombers (delta) jumps in to help once the Transports are gone, and Delta is 5 waves of Ursa's with Harbingers with arrival delays of 8 - 12 seconds. .  Either Delta is not arriving or they are somehow getting killed super fast. . .

Also the Tanis is not supposed to be attacked until the Transports are gone/dead anyway, and it is protected before then. . That could be what you are seeing.

As for the unending state issue:
Just to disprove a hypothesis I have, did either Taurus one or two dock with the Tanis? I just want to make sure because I'm looking at it now and I might of just found a missing contingency with Zeta 3. .

[CP5670]

No, I disabled both of them before they docked. I think the bombers all died eventually, and I called in the Herc reinforcement wing but they could not damage it past 10%.

[DefCynodont119]

@CP5670 The cause of the issue(s) you had regarding Operation: Templar have been found.

Should be fixed When MjN releases the next update/patch. 

[CP5670]

Also, I think the performance problem I was having was due to some legacy FSO flags I had left turned on. I changed some of them and it seems to run fine now.