Author Topic: [RELEASE] Operation: Cloak and Dagger 1.0.6  (Read 14972 times)

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Offline Mito [PL]

  • 210
  • Proud Member of Slavicus Mechanicus
Re: [RELEASE] Operation: Cloak and Dagger 1.0.6
So, I took a moment to appreciate this mod. I am in no way disappointed. This is one solid piece of gameplay, and a very decent first campaign. A whole lot of bonus points for it being a functional total conversion, too.

Generally, this is quite fun. This mod should be used as a positive example of the "if it not FRED, it ded" principle of Freespace modding. There is no deep, mystic and epic plot, no vast amount of super high quality assets or ambitious lore spread around the place. The mod has filled its basic responsibilities: be playable, don't have serious bugs, be released.

So here's just some things I've noticed while playing through it, some of these seem to have been noticed by others too.
Hidden Text: Show
General:
cosmetic - no music track in the main menu? what's that noise?
The "apply loadout to rest of wing" button seems to be hidden unless you hover your cursor over it

M1:
freighters get disabled but the mission still progresses... maybe add events that make it look like they've repaired them and are heading to the node, or tell the player that someone else will take the duty of covering these until they repair their drives
the firefly fighter has improper warp effect position, also its second primary bank has terrible position for dogfighting
wingmen often get disabled by the last enemy wing, which knocks out the immersiveness a bit - enemies just stand there and unload at disabled friendlies, being sitting ducks for me

M2:
De Gaulle wing says "let's jump out" but they say it before enemies are destroyed and jump out only after the last enemy dies. Also I can give them orders.
The subsystems on the Fubuki (namely turrets) are massive!
also, another disgusting primary placement fighter :P

M3:
A fun little mission. I like it. Although the player ship has botched warp placement, again?

M4:
Oh, that's pretty fun too. The fighter you get is fantastic, and missiles make my day...
One more thing is that the message about the energy spike is being played by Command and quite a bit after Nidhogg unloads its weapon.

M5:
Wow, the concept of glide scanning is a really new and fun one. Although it might be a tad frustrating when you need to find *exactly the perfect angle and speed* to scan a subsystem. Still, fantastically innovative!
As for the mission itself, I would really dream of a checkpoint at the start of the Accountant fight. After such a long time spent scanning, it's quite annoying to have to fight in such a strange fight and need to repeat the entire sequence again. The fight is really unbalanced, because you have a really sluggish fighter (which actually kinda helps with the scanning, though) and if the enemy as much as looks at you for more than two seconds, you're dead. I'm not saying that this fight should be made easier, because it was actually fun in a way, but reaching that fight to repeat it might be a little less tedious. Eventually, you could do it like in Antagonist or something, when you just start a new mission after that subspace entry.
Speaking of the subspace entry, the warp effect appears in a totally wrong position.
Also, the fighters chasing you just break off their pursuit after some distance.

M6:
Hm, Gryphon wing's default loadout has no primaries... also, only Sidewinders as bombs?
Okay I didn't need the bombs anyway. Because the Nidhogg doesn't fire its turrets at all. Also I think I just got under its shield and unloaded at the beam cannon. Maybe make the ship invulnerable until shields go down?
lol egg planet

I realise that many of these nitpicks are mostly related to me playing on Insane, and that you have no intention of making changes to accomodate me specifically, but I'm too lazy to cut them out of my copy-paste. :P Also I'm pretty much aware that you can't really invest the time into this mod anymore, so I'm just leaving this feedback here just in case you feel nostalgic at some point and want to touch up on that again, or if some Freespace content archeologist comes over to fix something.

Still, this mod deserves praise for simplicity that doesn't compromise on fun, and for some really innovative and cool solutions you came up with. The scanning mission is definitely the crown jewel here, but the buoy hacking is worthy of mentioning too, as you managed to make a semi-stealth mission that isn't annoying in the slightest.
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 
Re: [RELEASE] Operation: Cloak and Dagger 1.0.6
The scanning mission is ridiculously patience trying and anything but fun.  Engine wash makes it nearly impossible to scan the engine, the fighterbay is a death trap, and the other two subsystems require you to be at ridiculously specific angles.  It's too easy to glide of course and lose the scan. Severely hurts replay value in what was otherwise a really good campaign
« Last Edit: May 03, 2021, 01:05:33 am by ShivanSlayer »

  

Offline Strygon

  • 28
  • So long, and thanks for all the fish!
    • Steam
Re: [RELEASE] Operation: Cloak and Dagger 1.0.6
Taking your time to line up your velocity more precisely is exactly what you're supposed to be doing, rather than rush through it like you did by the sounds of it. The Nidhogg is going to take at least 15 minutes to get to its waypoint, so you can take all the time you need to ensure you've got a clear angle and position.
Makes missions sometimes.
Finished Projects: Operation: Cloak and Dagger

Current Projects: Scrolls Part 2 (FREDding), Dimensional Eclipse (Art),
The First Contact War, GTDr Amazon HTL

[23:22] strypolygon: andrew
[23:22] strypolygon: i have one favor to ask of you
[23:22] strypolygon: never try speaking german again
[23:23] Andrewofdoom: No.

[18:50] 島風改八百三: the duck has multipli
[18:50] 島風改八百三: many duck
[18:50] 島風改八百三: left side
[18:50] 島風改八百三: even side
[18:50] 島風改八百三: handle it

[21:34] MP-Ryan: Why on earth would you Google this
[21:34] The_E: why would you not

[06:46] Strigon: how big is a mini-campaign again?
[06:46] Asteroth: smaller than a campaign
[06:47 ]Strigon: thanks

[05:56] Strigon: If I had to take a shot for each time I randomly decided to change the UI sounds, I'd have died of alcohol poisoning by now

[17:36] qazwsxal: time to have some fun
[17:41] z64555: VC++5 is not my idea of fun

[EatThePath] do your missiles do anything absurd?
[Strigon] describe absurd
[Strigon] the entire mod is absurd