Author Topic: Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)  (Read 11551 times)

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Offline Cetanu

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
I heard more then once that the BWO Demo represent the best designed missions around. I got curious and opened them up in Fred and searched for some sophisticated Fred tricks that would do justice such a statement. Well, I didn't find much so I thought:  maybe it's time to start some lessons ;) to show what's possible with that FS2 editor. Some of the tricks I used in my missions for PXO had clearly to deal with multiplayer-only situations (variable amount of players, different player skills, respawn feature, etc.) that won't ever bother a singleplayer mission designer, but they hold some teaching value nonetheless, right? :)
Some of the events I would create different today if I had to rework the missions, but done-is-done and the effects I wanted to achieve worked fine anyway (within the given limitations of FS2 and Fred2).

Part 1of the lessons is based on my mission Breaking the Seal (cet_m03) that looks like one of the favorite valid missions on PXO... maybe cause of a destroyable Sathanas in there? ;)


The situation:
As a final threat for the players a SJ Sathanas (Nergal) arrives and the only capital ships that help the players are a Hecate (Tereus) and a Deimos (Halcyone) - if they didn't get destroyed by a lot of hostiles earlier in the mission. More on these 2 friendly capital ships later...

Now that I didn't want  the Nergal to be a sitting duck that waits endless for its destruction  -  it was clear that it will try to jump out after a given time, so I had to create 2 events for that. In the first I made a variable (NerDep) that should hold the seconds for how long Nergal would stay around. As a basic number I used 1080 (18 minutes).
Another value that influenced the departure was the total number of players - 60 seconds per player looked like a nice value to reduce. Since this check happens later in the mission any players loosing their connection won't actually matter for that value and the remaining players won't have to deal with harder circumstances.



In a 2nd event that got chained right after the upper, I made the actual check for the departure.
One of the problems with multiplayer missions on PXO influenced this departure check too: any mission with a flight time more then 30 minutes may cause unpredictable errors - so my max limit for the Nergal staying around was set to 1740 (29 minutes). And it won't ever jump out under 60 seconds. To add some realism I made sure that the Nergal won't jump out without not repairing some of its engines first.



To spice it up I added 2 more events that would raise the NerDep time if the players disabled the Nergal and/or destroyed the navigation subsystem at least once.

« Last Edit: September 24, 2003, 09:49:18 am by 556 »
Work is the curse of the drinking class
Keeper of BDHR's Holy Grail of Beer

Valid PXO/F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Additional valid F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Voicefiles for these missions - mirrors: 1,2

 

Offline Cetanu

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Another thing I head to deal with - what happens with the friendly capital ships if they got enough cover to survive until the SJ arrival?

The Tereus (Hecate) had to go down for a practical reason: I design all my missions so that the action happens in a roughly 4000x4000 space around the players. Now with the SJ jumping right into the players faces this Hecate was to close to not get kicked away like a ball. If it would have been in a safe distance in the first place the players wouldn't have had a chance to actually protect it earlier in the mission. With the ball kicking in mind I created an event that made sure the Tereus won't survive the SJ  BUT that a successful cover would lead to Tereus explosion reducing a bit of the Nergal hull.

Work is the curse of the drinking class
Keeper of BDHR's Holy Grail of Beer

Valid PXO/F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Additional valid F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Voicefiles for these missions - mirrors: 1,2

 

Offline Cetanu

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Another thought I had to deal with in that mission: The actual fighting starts after more then  2 minutes in the mission. Well, 2 minutes is a long time on PXO - with different players around some get bored really fast and start shooting friendly ships just to have something to do. Since there isn't something like the singleplayer traitor function (only the 90k space limit) in multiplayer I wanted to simulate that too.



Any necessary subsequent event after "traitor" has the traitors variable check until the Shivans are definitely around and any more damage dealt can't be that easily distinguished between friendly and hostile fire.

Work is the curse of the drinking class
Keeper of BDHR's Holy Grail of Beer

Valid PXO/F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Additional valid F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Voicefiles for these missions - mirrors: 1,2

 

Offline Cetanu

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Finally just a little repeating message event.

In this mission a Shivan comm node (Nirah) should call more and stronger Shivan capital ships once the previous wave got destroyed. Again I used a variable (SCN)  for that. The "callnext" event has a Repeat Count high enough so that all the Shivan capital ships fit in and a minimum Interval time of 10 seconds.



Every destroyed capital ship resets the SCN variable, example:



If you are curious why I locked the beams once the capital ship got destroyed. Well, without that sexp the FS2 engine shoots beams as long the explosion animations keep running - and beams out of nowhere between a lot of debris look... strange at least, not to mention it's annoying to already have taken out a threat for friendly ships and then have to watch how such impossible beams still manage to kill something ;)
« Last Edit: September 24, 2003, 10:28:41 am by 556 »
Work is the curse of the drinking class
Keeper of BDHR's Holy Grail of Beer

Valid PXO/F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Additional valid F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Voicefiles for these missions - mirrors: 1,2

 

Offline karajorma

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Very nice work there. I don't think I learned anything new but it did remind me of some tricks I already knew that I had partly forgetten about :)
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Cetanu

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Well I did more then one mission....
If there is enough interest I may continue the lessons and get to more sophisticated stuff ;)
Work is the curse of the drinking class
Keeper of BDHR's Holy Grail of Beer

Valid PXO/F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Additional valid F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Voicefiles for these missions - mirrors: 1,2

 

Offline karajorma

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
One of the pieces of advice I frequently give to newbie FREDders is to open other peoples missions up in FRED and see what they did.
 Here we've got the same thing but with the designer of the mission telling you exactly why he did certain things. Very useful especially as you can't comment your code in FRED :D
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Cetanu

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
lots of replies... guess no one is interested :blah:
np, I can waste time with something else

thx kara for the note :)
Work is the curse of the drinking class
Keeper of BDHR's Holy Grail of Beer

Valid PXO/F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Additional valid F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Voicefiles for these missions - mirrors: 1,2

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
This is good stuff. :nod: Always helpful to get new perspectives on tricks that may have been missed.

 

Offline Nuclear1

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
You're a god, Cet. :yes:
Spoon - I stand in awe by your flawless fredding. Truely, never before have I witnessed such magnificant display of beamz.
Axem -  I don't know what I'll do with my life now. Maybe I'll become a Nun, or take up Macrame. But where ever I go... I will remember you!
Axem - Sorry to post again when I said I was leaving for good, but something was nagging me. I don't want to say it in a way that shames the campaign but I think we can all agree it is actually.. incomplete. It is missing... Voice Acting.
Quanto - I for one would love to lend my beautiful singing voice into this wholesome project.
Nuclear1 - I want a duet.
AndrewofDoom - Make it a trio!

 
Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Thanks - always worth the time to see what another modder uses in situations.  Can't speak for anyone else, but anything in thhe line of ifo or how tos is definitely read with interest.
All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.
And a laughing yarn from a merry fellow rover.
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
- JOHN MASEFIELD

 

Offline pyro-manic

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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Impressive! You should join a project (if you're not already on one, that is) :nod:. Good FREDders are always in demand.
Any fool can pull a trigger...

 

Offline DragonClaw

  • Romeo Kilo India Foxtrot
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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Wow didn't see this till now. Weird.

Good stuff, I'm not all that great with FRED, have no idea why, but :yes: I never really thought of locking beams after destruction to prevent those 'impossible beams'

This stuff is really helpful, but yeah, as pyro said, FREDers are in high demand.

 

Offline Setekh

  • Jar of Clay
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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
Indeed, this is funky. The arcane art of Fredding is quite beyond me... I'll leave that to the experts like yourself, Cetanu. ;)
- Eddie Kent Woo, Setekh, Steak (of Steaks), AWACS. Seriously, just pick one.
HARD LIGHT PRODUCTIONS, now V3.0. Bringing Modders Together since January 2001.
THE HARD LIGHT ARRAY. Always makes you say wow.

 

Offline Cetanu

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    • http://165thbdhr.com/
Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
finally some attention
ok... I will search a bit and dig up something for another lesson ;)
Work is the curse of the drinking class
Keeper of BDHR's Holy Grail of Beer

Valid PXO/F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Additional valid F2NETD multiplayer missions - mirrors: 1,2
Voicefiles for these missions - mirrors: 1,2

 

Offline karajorma

  • King Louie - Jungle VIP
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Cetanu's Advanced Fred2 Lessons - part 1 (with images)
I figured this would be missed when I first saw it posted. Steak reappeared a few minutes later and HLP2.0 went online shortly afterwards :)
 I'm certainly interested in this. I may even crack open a few of my missions later and show off some examples later :)
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]