[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by Windrunner
WOW, this cam out of the blue. two new camapigns, i am impressed. And some of the guys are right this is mabye one the bigger releases we have had over the past few months

You mean ever, right?

[kv1at3485]

Yup, I'm back.  I have just completed the first two sections of "Sol: A History" and I have extremely little to say.  It can be summed up in just two small sections...

1) Is it just me, or do the command/mission briefing stages go by pretty quickly?  And in the very last mission of the second subcampaign, you could give the player more time to read and digest the broadcast from Earth.  There's no need to rush it at all.

2) Aside from that, very, very good.  The missions are (so far) bug free and challenging.  I hope you're considering working on some of the other campaigns in development.  Talent like this is in great demand and should not go idle for long.

[adwight]

Just one bug that I have found.  On the mission where you first jump into the system with a bigass sun (damn that thing bugs me), the Custodian warps out without any warning whatsoever, and so does everything else.  I can't warp out, and none of the objectives were completed.  What am I supposed to do?

[kv1at3485]

Umm, can you be a little more specific?  Mainly: what's the name of the mission?

[Terorist]

I believe there's a word for this...

Whoa!

What an entry!

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by adwight
Just one bug that I have found.  On the mission where you first jump into the system with a bigass sun (damn that thing bugs me), the Custodian warps out without any warning whatsoever, and so does everything else.  I can't warp out, and none of the objectives were completed.  What am I supposed to do?

Oh dear. This is... baffling... could you maybe open up the mission in FRED (I'm guessing it's Hmsk-B4) and see if there's anything messed up in it?

That should not be happening in any case. You should be getting chatter from the Custodian, Alpha 3 et al about the blue giant, and then the Trotsky and Guevera should jump in at long range.

1) Is it just me, or do the command/mission briefing stages go by pretty quickly? And in the very last mission of the second subcampaign, you could give the player more time to read and digest the broadcast from Earth. There's no need to rush it at all.

Uh... do they?

Yeah, the broadcast goes by pretty quickly. I'm a hasty person, me. I'll change it one day, but only when I've got other changes to be a-making, 'cause 12MB is a lot of uploading time.

2) Aside from that, very, very good. The missions are (so far) bug free and challenging. I hope you're considering working on some of the other campaigns in development. Talent like this is in great demand and should not go idle for long.

Good, good. I wouldn't want to have to upload it again... *shudder*

But yeah, I've already been approached by Inferno and TVWP with offers I cannot refuse... but in the nice way, of course!


By the way, thanks for providing such detailed feedback! You've helped me iron out a few flaws in my work and I know what to concentrate on for next time - speak slowly and clearly, so to speak.

[Black Wolf]

Dude! That was pretty damned fine, and the fact that you did it on your own makes it even more so. Hats off. The only thing is, now I've spent almost every free minute for the last two days playing this, I'm behgind on both TI and NTV

Meh. Twas worth it methinks

[TrashMan]

Will have to download this....

[Triple Ace]

There were a few missions in Homesick with bugs. What I mean is some missions I was not able to jump out and had to kill myself to advance.

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by Triple Ace
There were a few missions in Homesick with bugs. What I mean is some missions I was not able to jump out and had to kill myself to advance.

More information. Which missions? You completed them, received a pat on the back for a job well done and told to depart, but couldn't? Or for mission failures? Something else entirely?

[Skippy]

Added to the HLP Campaigns' list

[kv1at3485]

I think I found the problem in Hmsk-B4.fs2.  The Custodian is set to warp out 120 seconds after the Trotsky arrives, but the message from the Custodian saying they're jumping out only activates after the Trotsky's been around for 180  seconds.

Normally, 'Command' would have sent the message (since the Custodian would not be around to send it herself), but with the build-in messages disabled, the message never gets sent.

Even then, Alpha 1 should be able to warp out once the events in the chain become true.  However, you have another problem that doesn't allow this to happen.  You used 'never-warp' to break Alpha 1's warp drive.  The effects of never-warp cannot be reversed, so your event that fixes it has no effect.  Use 'break-warp' instead.  That should allow for the restoration of Alpha 1's drive system.

I think that should do it!  I'll go back to S:AH now...  (Crazy ultra-maneuverable Claymores!  Impossible to control! )

EDIT: In retrospect, how did I get past that mission then???  How perplexing... )

[kv1at3485]

Right.  I have finished "Sol: A History", a most worthwhile experience.  A good balance between crazy and not-so-crazy missions that keeps one on his/her toes.  But, as always, on to the problems and complaints... Drum roll please...

In EAC3-A8.fs2 ("Enemies United") I have too little concerns.
The first is this: the player starts just barely inside the 1000 m. zone around the Macavity.  I suggest making the start position closer by 50 to 100 m.  The reason is that when the Macavity starts to move, the player may automatically fail the mission.   By not having the split-second reaction time required to speed up when the Macavity speeds up, the 1000 m. mark is easily reached in those early seconds of the mission.  
The second conern is Command's warning about being too close to the Macavity.  You have the event repeat every second.  This leads to a backlog of messages such that when the player withdraws from the danger zone, the 'warnings' just keep coming and coming.  Consider making the message repear over a greater interval of time.  Around five seconds, perhaps?

In EAC4-A5.fs2 ("The Unexpected Quarter") there is a very small, minor bug.  The DirDesFleet event's directive shows up as the following: 'Destroy Cruisers (6)'  This, of course, is incorrect since there are only five enemy cruisers.  The 'sixth' is a result of including the 'not-destroyed-delay' event for the Lindos (a.k.a. the Lindos is the sixth 'cruiser'.)  Consequently, when all cruisers are destroyed and the directive is completed, it looks like there is still one target left.  As I said, very minor, and the rest of the mission works just fine.

In EAC4-B2.fs2 ("The Star that Failed") there is another minor bug.  At the end when the Throne and Majesty are slated to be destroyed, I had the Majesty surviving the 'execution' (hull was only down to 85%).  I suspect that the destroyer is not quite in the line of fire.  Easily fixed, no?

As a side note, I've just realized that many of the mission briefing stages seem to be missing icons in the visual component.  The result is that you have the screen turning to center on some invisible batch of ships.  It could be that I am the only one having this problem, and I'm not quite sure how to correct this.

Well, enough from me already.  Back to brooding over my own mission...

[Blaise Russel]

Good news: Homesick's been patched! Derelicts now are derelict, events trigger at the right time, the Khufu and Kintyre now dance, and the Geryon can shoot again. Plus, there's an extra check for the bomb in the Speed! bonus mission.

I'll check SAH now, but I must mention that icons disappeared when I played through SAH with FSOpen, but were there originally when I was making/testing it with normal FS2. One culprit I'm thinking of is an Arcadia icon in EAC3-A1, first mission of the 2357 'Cold War' campaign, which ought to be just above the 'Pirates' fighter wing in one of the briefing slides. Then again, I may have simply just done something horribly, horribly stupid...

Updatin' time!



...



Um. Patch for Sol: A History now available, some minor fixes and Freespace icons that I forgot to put in first time 'round... New Sol: A History being uploaded now. 12.5MB, that's a lot of stuff to upload.

[Drew]

soo far, on a scale of 1-10 how is it?
im still grappeling with the speed that you did this...
im gessing you dont have a gf

[karajorma]

Originally posted by kv1at3485
The effects of never-warp cannot be reversed, so your event that fixes it has no effect.  Use 'break-warp' instead.  That should allow for the restoration of Alpha 1's drive system.

That's slightly incorrect and since this is the FRED forum I ought to correct that

From My FAQ

I noticed you are using never-warp. Why not break-warp?

Never-warp prevents the ship from leaving until the allow-warp order is given. Break-warp merely breaks the jump engine. It can be fixed by the fix-warp SEXP but it can also be repaired if the player docks with a support ship.

 

[kv1at3485]

Hmm, didn't know that, karajorma.  Thanks for pointing out mistake.  This is something I'll have to remember...

[adwight]

Alright, for some reason when I replayed the mission after about 10 times it did it.  I think one of my wingmen died so it didn't happen or somethings.  Anyways, I'm pissed because of the mission after Return to Oz, the Shield has 3 hp and I can't protect it worth a ****...  I'm tempted to just die 5 times and move on.

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by adwight
Alright, for some reason when I replayed the mission after about 10 times it did it.  I think one of my wingmen died so it didn't happen or somethings.  Anyways, I'm pissed because of the mission after Return to Oz, the Shield has 3 hp and I can't protect it worth a ****...  I'm tempted to just die 5 times and move on.

Oh dear.

All I can suggest is redoing Return to Oz. Did the Mammon do that damage to the Shield? If so, order your wingmen to attack the Mammon (after you've taken out Osyluth wing, of course), 'cause it runs away once you get it down to 35 strength.

[karajorma]

One minor complaint I'd make is that quite often there is a delay of a few seconds between the Deimos leaping out and you recieving orders to do the same. Quite often the orders only appear once you're the only ship left.