[TopAce]

I'll give you some behind-the-scenes background on that mission.

Spoiler:

It's inspired by the Shredder Repair quest in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King quest. In it, the player must fight his way into a logging camp, jump into a shredder and take it home (three shredders must be returned). I don't think a level 80 warlock with no prior experience in handling machines could do it any credibly than a GTVA pilot could credibly enter a hangar, jump into a fighter without being shot and take another fighter to a carrier four times. Also what about those regular soldiers (player characters) in Battlefield who can pilot any kind of embarkable fighter or bomber? It's hard to believe that all regular troopers (players) received training in piloting ALL available fighters or bombers. In IMDB reviews of Pearl Harbor, people complained that WWII pilots needed training for each fighter and bomber to fly them, so the way the movie depicts the protagonists' presence in a bombardment operation without prior training in bombers is considered a plot hole. As a consequence, the Battlefield portrayal of a regular soldier is incredulous. These are simply small sacrifices you must make as a (mod) designer if you have an idea you want to materialize. I could have inserted a boring "Defend the transport until it captures the station" or a standard "Disable all Ezechiels and protect the boarding operation" mission there, but I figured it would be better to have Alpha 1 take a more direct role in the heist.

[Commander Zane]

Besides, it's not like the original FreeSpace campaigns really dwell deep into ship familiarization for new ships you get access to before flying them.

Training to fly the Dragon? Nope.
How about the Mara? Nope.
What about Slaying Ravana where you go from flying fighters and suddenly BAM. Bombers. Still nope.

[TopAce]

...What about Slaying Ravana where you go from flying fighters and suddenly BAM. Bombers. Still nope.

I actually lean towards believing it. As far as I know, cars in the '20s and '30s were much harder to drive than present-day ones, so I see no imaginable deterrence to pilots suddenly skipping from fighter to bomber 300 years later.

Theories, theories, theories.

[bigchunk1]

I ran into a bug in the fight between the stealth destroyer and the washington. I was unable to destroy the sensor subsystem as ordered because I was unable to target the ship! I tried to open the .pof for the agammemnon while playing the mod to check the location of the sensors but aparently you can't do that (who knew?) Anyways the stealth destroyer destroys the washington and the screen goes black, but here's the thing... nothing happens. The mission just keeps on playing with a blacked out screen. I can even hear the blue planet victory music on repeat as I type this message.

So far there have been interesting fred innovations. The scuicide robot bomb mission was interesting. Other notables were the remote beam cannon disabling in the first mission, the ship stealing mission, and the stealth mission for some reason was interesting. I liked the night wolf primary (the feel of it etc.). The plot ideas seem fitting for a freespace campaign and makes for an overall entertaining experience. Did I mention solid freding? Your experience in that department shows.

List of criticisms so far:
Overuse of blue planet victory music!
The bug I mentioned.
more in game plot development, less use of briefings and command briefings to expand setting (to be fair though I seem to think this about most campaigns now)
Overuse of blue planet victory music!

Other:
Asking alpha 1 to make decisions and play commander during a mission in a military setting does not seem fitting, but I like the added player involvement so I think it was a good decision overall. It is the future after all. Anything is possible!

[CommanderDJ]

I ran into a bug in the fight between the stealth destroyer and the washington. I was unable to destroy the sensor subsystem as ordered because I was unable to target the ship!

You're expected to do it without targeting it. The dialogue points out it's the big illuminated tower.

[Alex Heartnet]

Well, after blowing up no less then five enemy fighters in the initial pass with MX-70's during the mission The Duel, I can hereby confirm that the MX-70 is just as overpowered as the Trebuchet in its own way.  They don't require a lock and seem to do even more damage then Harpoons - a couple of laser hits and a duel-fired MX-70 volley is enough to ensure the swift destruction of most fighters.  Two missile volleys is a guaranteed kill in much the same way as a Tornado missile volley.  The lag-curve that they travel in just isn't a big enough disadvantage to reduce their effectiveness.

Also, after playing The Duel a few times, I can say with confidence that it is too easy.    There are a few areas where you can mess up, sure, but other then that most of the perceived difficulty comes from the intimidating mission briefing.  The destroyer's anti-fighter defenses aren't anywhere near being fearsome (at least not when being hit by multiple fighter wings), and the battle can go way smoother then it should if you survive the initial engagement with your wingman intact.  On Medium difficulty, I don't even need to call in Delta wing.

And I found the Night Wolf to be entirely too loud of a weapon on my Realtek HD Audio.  Good grief, had to give my wingmen HL-11's instead.

About that tower, yes, it does need to be illuminated moreso then it already is.  It needs to be a bright glowy thing on a darkened ship, to help draw the player's attention to it.  And as long as we are using lightmaps to guide the player, might as well make the areas closer to the tower somewhat brighter then the areas further from the tower.

[bigchunk1]

Alright I managed to do it. The 'illuminated tower' reference must have slipped by me while I was trying to bring down stealth fighters. There's still an error that does not end the mission if you fail. I guess none of you failed?! Well it was an entertaining mission overall.

I forgot to mention the many action cutscenes which were made. They look nice. I also like how you call the luytan leadership the 'high circle' as in the high circle of elites which rule the system. It paints them in a similar light many exclusive social circles, secret and loyal to their own power. Was that some more mischiff at the end? Those Luytens and their mischiff.

Alright I managed to do it. The 'illuminated tower' reference must have slipped by me while I was trying to bring down stealth fighters. There's still an error that does not end the mission if you fail. I guess none of you failed?! Well it was an entertaining mission overall.

I forgot to mention the many action cutscenes which were made. They look nice. I also like how you call the luytan leadership the 'high circle' as in the high circle of elites which rule the system. It paints them in a similar light many exclusive social circles, secret and loyal to their own power. Was that some more mischiff at the end? Those Luytens and their mischiff.

Edit:

Also, after playing The Duel a few times, I can say with confidence that it is too easy. 

My play experience says otherwise. I had to play it 3 times to beat it. (2 failures and one success) I think for a final mission it is well balanced and quite entertaining with multiple forms of combat taking place at once. The tower reference could have been more clear though 

[Cyborg17]

Maybe adding a green subtext to the directive to destroy the sensors (if there is a directive, I don't remember if there is) would help.  By the way, the stealth fighter attack carries very little threat, as far as I can tell.  I ignore them both times I tried and came within 1% hull on the stealth destroyer to passing.  Second time I succeeded with 60+ percent on the Washington.

[swashmebuckle]

I found The Duel to be pretty well balanced--lost a couple times during testing (I also got the screen-goes-black-but-mission-doesn't-end bug) and managed to pull it off a couple times too.  I added in the lines about the illuminated tower after being confused about it myself, but I agree that in a revised version of the mission, it would be nice to have a clearer and less easy to miss indication of what the subsystem is.

[Cyborg17]

It's definitely a good mission.  One thing I forgot to mention though, is that on my second attempt, I switched out Gamma wing with fighters.  It really improved survivability.  I actually never used an MX-70 during the entire campaign.

[TopAce]

Okay, lots of points to answer.

In the first minute of the last mission, the Albertine goes stealthy for a second or two, and if you read the previous Command briefing, you should be aware that the Sensors are responsible for the Albertine's stealth. Therefore I expect you to realize that you should learn where the Sensors are. You have time to do it as you approach the fighters for the first dogfight - actually, this is the PURPOSE of the initial dialog/approach stage. In an earlier version there was even a "Which subsystem was it again? The sensors, right?" kind of message, which was meant to imply this further.

I can confirm the bug. The mission indeed doesn't end when you fail the mission. This wasn't so the last time I replayed the mission and failed it. Looks like I accidentally managed to cut that end-mission SEXP. This oversight alone justifies a patch, but I'll wait for some more issues people discover so I could make a comprehensive patch. Meanwhile, added to OP.

The difficulty of the last mission greatly depend on the orders you give. I am aware it could be easy if you fly well and give sensible orders.

It always help if you keep your wingmen alive, and the balancing of most missions requires you to do it. Mission 7 especially where you have a time limit.

The destroy Sensors directive is there. Unfortunately though new directives have a tendency not to appear. I even increased the number of displayable directives from 5 to (I think) 7.

The stealth fighters don't disarm the Washington as quickly as two wings of bombers are supposed to. However, if you don't pay attention, they may kill one or two beams, and the outcome of the duel may depend on it especially if you weren't too good in the first stage.

You are not supposed to always need Delta's help. They help a lot though.

The MX-70 - like any heat-seekers - is well usable in front combat. From other directions, it's not too good, unless you know more  about heat-seekers' behavior than I do (possible).

[Legate Damar]

Okay, just finished it. Overall it was a very enjoyable campaign. Comments:

Spoiler:

First of all, don't feel upset that I figured out the traitor so easily. Cardassians can spot treachery from a parsec away.

The bonus objective to destroy all the bombers yourself was a nice surprise. The Ulysses that attacked in that mission I thought might have been the same ones you left on the station - that would have been ironic.

I loved the mission 10 briefing music.

Was the Tyrant's Spear somehow inside the Oddysey?

The visual damage inspection was an interesting idea.

When I flew the transport my ship icon was an Ursa, and the energy gauges behaved oddly (increasing power to engines didn't increase my speed, for example)

Slight grammar error in the mission "Uncertainties", it said "turns to you to with"

The drones were fun, but I'm going to go against the popular opinion and say they weren't really necessary, a conventional attack on the convoy (or even using drones and the conventional attack at the same time) would have made more sense from a tactical standpoint, it seems that they were just added as an excuse to try something different with the FREding.

You should have given a directive to inspect Mu wing to determine what they were up to.

I enjoyed the cutscenes, I love watching huge battles. However I noticed during the first one there was a "watch the cutscene" mission objective that was not present in the later ones. I was also a bit confused by the fighter wing that got destroyed by a beam from its own ship once it left the hangar.

I enjoy that the final mission wasn't a trench run, possibly another unpopular opinion but I find those to be overdone, and often they just make me think the enemies are incompetent for designing their ships with such vulnerabilities. I liked the way the Albertine was taken down, it was more realistic if you ask me.

Finally, I don't see the point of making a sequel hook if you're not planning on making a sequel. That's just kind of mean, IMO.

In conclusion, great campaign, would play again.

[MatthTheGeek]

For the destroyer duel, I didn't know where the sensor tower was and never bothered to find out, I spend 90% of the mission with the Albertine cloaked, just killing enemy crafts and Albertine turrets, to the point where there wasn't any enemy fighters/bombers left and no intact turret able to fire at the Washington. At which point I finally tried and located the sensor tower. I kind of expected it to be muuuuuuuuch less fragile than it eventually was, had I known I might have gone for it sooner.

In any case, I'm not even sure killing the sensor tower makes things any easier, the Albertine was already in the 15% health range when I took it down and offered no resistance whatsoever afterwards.

[Spoon]

For me it went like this: "Take out the sensor subsystem!" *5 seconds later* "Good job!"
I'm guessing a beam or a bomb from a wingman must have been on course with it already.

[TopAce]

It happened to me like twice. I am reluctant to guardian that subsystem for a few seconds just to prevent this from happening. It doesn't break anything, and if you're the lucky type, you deserve your free completed directive.

[Commander Zane]

...trench run, possibly another unpopular opinion but I find those to be overdone...

I've played a good deal of campaigns and I don't quite remember there being a lot of trench run style missions, final or otherwise.
WoD pretty much takes it to the letter, and DE to an extent, but that's about it to my knowledge.

[Alex Heartnet]

It's definitely a good mission.  One thing I forgot to mention though, is that on my second attempt, I switched out Gamma wing with fighters.  It really improved survivability.  I actually never used an MX-70 during the entire campaign.

Or you could tell Gamma wing to wait at the Washington, while Alpha and Beta wings fight the initial attack wave.  Then Gamma Wing will be at full health for taking on the Albertine.

But yeah, Ursas don't have enough survivability for this mission.  I had to swap them out for Artemis bombers.

On Medium Difficulty, my strategy is the following:

Spoiler:

For loadouts, I give Beta Wing Perseus Interceptors instead of Herc MKII's, and Gamma gets Artemis Bombers.  To assist in destroying subsystems, Beta and Gamma are given Stiletto II's (even though there's not enough of those for both wings.)

During the initial attack wave, I order Gamma to hang back and guard the Washington while Alpha and Beta fly ahead to meet them.  Once within range, Alpha and Beta are ordered to break and attack, rather then just defending Alpha 1.  This seems to ensure the destruction of the attack wave with minimum casualties, so long as you fly out to meet the attack wave rather then waiting for them at the Washington.

Once the initial attack wave is defeated, I call for Delta Wing, order Delta, Gamma, and Beta Wing to disarm the Albertine while Alpha Wing goes after the Herc Wing before helping with the disarming effort.  Having four healthy fighter wings all disarming the Albertine at once is enough to decide the outcome of the battle.

At this point, things should be going well enough that the Albertine's fighter wings aren't able to turn the tide of battle.  I have noticed that the Pegasus stealth fighter wing has a distressing tendency to get destroyed by beam fire before it reaches the Washington.

[Legate Damar]

...trench run, possibly another unpopular opinion but I find those to be overdone...

I've played a good deal of campaigns and I don't quite remember there being a lot of trench run style missions, final or otherwise.
WoD pretty much takes it to the letter, and DE to an extent, but that's about it to my knowledge.

Well by trench run I generally meant all "hit the weak spotreactor for massive damage" style missions, started with the final mission of FS1, but has become really overplayed, IMO.

[MatthTheGeek]

More like started with Star Wars and the death star.

[Legate Damar]

I meant in terms of Freespace