Author Topic: [FA] C2 M8  (Read 10817 times)

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Offline SypheDMar

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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.

 

Offline Mobius

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:bump:

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


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

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.

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.
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Offline SypheDMar

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

 

Offline Mobius

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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. :)
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Offline SypheDMar

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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?

 

Offline Mobius

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Sure, why not? You can also randomize the initial hull strength to make each playthrough unique. Do you want me to play the mission now or your prefer to get the final version done, first?
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Offline SypheDMar

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Now's good. :) Rather have feedback now than have the last mission I make be unnecessarily buggy.

A few things I should do but haven't:
Remove Guardian from Alpha 2 and 3.
Turn all waves into wings
Give Shivan fighters order to attack all instead of targetting Alpha Wing*


*Might make the mission too easy, but lots of ships start leaving, anyway.

 

Offline Mobius

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The link isn't working... :(

EDIT:

Maintenance Progress:
Scheduled time: 12:30pm to 11:59pm CST      
31%



Looks live I'll have to wait...
« Last Edit: September 07, 2010, 04:13:13 pm by Mobius »
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Offline Mobius

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Nice work, I can see the improvements over the previous version since the very beginning of the mission. :)

1) You definitely need to add more messages to let the player "feel" the battle. :)

2) Better arrangement through the Y axis is also welcome.

3) There's a line in the briefing which IMHO should be "rest of the fleet" instead. I may be wrong, though.

4) I think you should reduce the number of Shivan ships located far away (one Ravana, a couple of corvettes and less than five cruisers would surely be enough), as they slow down the game very often. Also, don't forget to arrange them to the Y axis, the way they're currently sorted is not that realistic IMO.

5) Many allied ships are disabled during the battle, so you may wish to a) add "we're doomed!" like messages and/or b) prevent at least some them from being disabled.

6) At the end of the mission, Command sends a message starting with "Command! The Shivans are asending out bombers [...]" or something similar. I'm pretty sure Command isn't supposed to be the source of that message.

7) The player can still warp out at any time, even if he's not near the node. For plot-related reasons, this needs to be fixed. :nod:

8) At some point, the Julius is safe enough for Alpha to contribute to the defense of other Terran ships in the area. This is not a must-do, anyway, so feel free to ignore this. Now that I think of it... why there aren't any Vasudan ships in the mission? ;)
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Offline SypheDMar

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Alright. By the way, do you think the mission is too easy/hard at the moment, or is it good enough? Oh, the reason why I didn't add any Vasudan ships is because I imagined the fleet we see is part of the Terran fleet. I'm assuming that if there were any Vasudans, they'd be providing cover to the GVD Memphis and can't be bothered to defend Terran ships.

 

Offline Mobius

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The mission is very well balanced, and IMHO is also one of those few missions in which balance isn't that important (the goal is protecting the Julius, not the GTVA fleet). I'd say to add more content, especially messages, to make the mission more epic. :)

I think at least one wing of Vasudan fighters protecting Terran ships would be nice, but the final choice is up to you.
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Offline SypheDMar

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Mission uploaded. Hope I didn't break anything. Seeing as I'm heading to college tomorrow night, this might be my last time FREDding.

http://www.mediafire.com/?f8k8y3nu1kmm1v9

Eliminated bomber waves
Added a Vasudan wing
Added more messages
Attempted to arrange Y-axis better
Fixed a few typos
Subtracted some of the cruisers and corvettes that aren't in the battlefield
Added a message for one of the disabled ships
Fixed a message placement
Locked warp until near the node*


*Before, I allowed warp before because I wanted the player to have the option of running away from the battlefield at the expense of the mission. You'd still lose for being a coward. I decided to get rid of it because it's a pretty dumb idea after all.

 

Offline Buckshee Rounds

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Hi Syphe. One little niggle I found while looking at your mission in FRED. The no jump event specifies that Alpha 1 never-warps when distance to the node is less than 500. Shouldn't it be more than, or is it intentional? I quite liked your mission otherwise, a few more messages would've been nice. The Castrum crashes into the Julian in some playthroughs, a waypoint path instead of a stay-close order would fix it. The Shivan Ravana always crashes into the Knossos and has a nice merry-go-round with it. After all ships have completed their waypoints the Shivans have a huge group hug at the node, which looks odd. If you could fix these it would be pretty sweet.

 

Offline SypheDMar

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The jump node thing will eventually be replaced altogether. Waypoints, yeah, I'll get that straightened out eventually. >.<

 

Offline Buckshee Rounds

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You going to take out the node then? I wasn't sure from the mission description if it is supposed to be there or not since mission 9 takes place at the Epsilon Pegasi node.

 

Offline Mobius

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Ouch, I knew I forgot something. :sigh:

I don't have the full report here but I do remember that the mission was affected by multiple issues, many of which have been already mentioned by Buckshee Rounds. Work more on ship replacements, add more messages and the mission will be fine. :)
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Offline SypheDMar

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http://www.mediafire.com/?pzrt2shuoy132zy

Made lots of big changes. Added more waypoints and deleted the node because the Julius isn't supposed to reach it yet. Also removed the Knossos because no mention of the Knossos is made anywhere. Added "objectives" for disabling beam turrets. Possibly removed all waves at the expense of making the mission harder. The length of the mission is shorter, though, so as long as you stay alive, everything should be fine.

 

Offline Mobius

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Quote
Unrecognized operator.

In sexpression: ( or
   ( has-departed-delay 0 "Balian" )
   ( <= ( hits-left "Fortitude" ) 30 )
)
(Error appears to be: <=)
<no module>! KiFastSystemCallRet
<no module>! WaitForSingleObject + 18 bytes
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>

Is that even possible to do in FRED? Did you use Notepad?
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Offline General Battuta

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Mobius, are you still using **** old FRED? If so you are missing out.