[Dark Hunter]

So, trying to play through Eye of the Storm, and something seems to be off.

When I place stuff, the platform stays at status: Deploying forever. I hit the "Activate" button once I'm done setting up everything, but nothing happens. Nothing fires. There's nothing in the "Activated" field on the drop interface. It's like they aren't there. And I'm not sure how possible it is to win this mission with just Falcata wing.

Further, the "dropship" effects (not sure what else to call them)... I assume they're supposed to fall down and impact on one of the platforms. But they don't. They miss and start whirling around it, eventually disappearing.

Is this me forgetting something stupid, or is the mission borked somehow?

[General Battuta]

That's an error that occurs sometimes. We're not really sure why. Restart the mission and it should go away. If it doesn't, restart the game.

The error is happening because the drop pods are missing the platforms.

Also I just want to say I think it's super neat that the Vishnan primary sound has Vishnan words mixed into it

[Dark Hunter]

Restarted the game and it work fine. The turn-off/turn-on omnisolution works again...

With that I've finished the campaign. Voice acting in War in Heaven? Awesome! Too bad you weren't able to voice act Tenebra, but given how long Acts 1 and 2 took, it's understandable.

(Also, was I mistaken or were there two VA's for Laporte... and a male name for Simms's voice?  )

Going to have to continue exploring Universal Truth II and see what I missed my first run through. I got a bit of input delay in the "Apocalypse" portion of the mission, but it's not like you really need precision controls for that section. The rest of the mission played smoothly.

Also, what's up with the weird tunnel-thing when you're running from... uh, the threats that are present in that mission? (Unsure if this is a spoilers-off topic.) I mean, I know what the name of its model is, but I don't recall that being there before? Was it intentional?


All in all: great work! You've also rekindled my interest in seeing future installments of the Blue Planet saga. Here's hoping more is coming down the line!

[-Norbert-]

Thanks for the tip with the anti-virus. I've defined an exception for the file and now I can select it.

The weirdest thing is that during that when I selected the file in the launcher(s), the launcher would freeze (no response), but the FS2open exe file would be running three times in the Task Manager even though they weren't started even once. And two of the three couldn't be closed. oO Really freaky behaviour.

But it's working now so whatever.

[The E]

When the launcher starts or a new executable is selected, the exe is run with a magic commandline parameter that orders it to write a file (called the flags file) which lists all commandline options. Maybe this antivirus thing interfered there as well.

[Riverstyx]

Also I just want to say I think it's super neat that the Vishnan primary sound has Vishnan words mixed into it

Whaaaaaaaaaa? 

Brb.  Looking for hidden messages in laser noises.

[Riverstyx]

Also, what's up with the weird tunnel-thing when you're running from... uh, the threats that are present in that mission? (Unsure if this is a spoilers-off topic.) I mean, I know what the name of its model is, but I don't recall that being there before? Was it intentional?

Spoiler:

That's the Great Darkness I believe.  It gets a rather cryptic tech room entry after completing the campaign.

[Dark Hunter]

Yeah, like I said, I know what it is, but is it supposed to be there?

Spoiler:

I know it's supposed to be there in the void, but I'm talking about seeing it when you're running away from Vishnans.

[CT27]

Things have been running fairly smoothly for me in BPC (I have just completed the mission where you rescue Snipes).  I am about to start the mission in FSBlue that begins with "DIVE DIVE DIVE!".  However, it won't let me start that mission.  The game crashes and gives me an error screen. 


Here is a log if that helps.

[attachment DELETED!! by Strong Bad]

[General Battuta]

Make sure you have your FSBlue VP patched to the very latest.

[CT27]

Thank you, that worked.  I thought I had the latest but I guess I didn't.


One more question about FSBlue if I may:  This isn't a gamebreaking error, but something seems different.  I was flying the Terran Mara in "Into The Lion's Den" and I had both primary slots filled with the Kayser. 

Did you change the way the Kayser fires in BPC/FSBlue?  Before when I had both primary slots activated, 4 shots would fire at the same time.  In the FSBlue version of this mission, when I had both Kaysers linked, it fired in more of a 2-2-2-2-2-2 etc. fashion (2 shots on the left, 2 on the right, repeat, etc.).

[AdmiralRalwood]

Did you change the way the Kayser fires in BPC/FSBlue?

It was changed to a cycle weapon like the Balor.

[General Battuta]

If we can get some cool screens I'll do a ModDB post!

[SF-Junky]

Sorry for the harsh language, but one thing that's really pissing me off right now is the bonus goal in Aristeia. If Paveways are destroyable now, then it would really be helpful if my Wingmen would actually accept my orders to protect me. *grrrrrr* Or is Torpedo Two supposed to go down and you just forgot to delete the bonus goal?

The latter is a general issue I recognized in other missions, too. Wingmen do not always accept my commands. That is confusing. If I'm able to give orders in the comm menu, then they should accept them.

[FrikgFeek]

Auxerre is pretty easy to save, Dea Bricta can be almost impossible on insane, but I'd reckon you can easily do it on the lower difficulties. Just dive in and wreck those beams with the scalpel, you shouldn't die due to the player damage reduction.

You can also try flying a draco with 1 bank of stil2s, using the burners to dive in close and wreck the beams with point-blank stil2s. Even on insane you can dive in and out quickly enough to survive, barrel rolling will help you dodge most shots. Of course, flying a Draco will make the rest of the mission a lot harder as it's extremely bad at dogfighting.

Bonus goals are supposed to be very difficult, not something you should be able to do without risk or effort(like launching double paveways from a safe range of 3500).

[SF-Junky]

I don't think that this was too easy in the previous installment. It always demanded exact timing from the player as you had to be in position to disarm the Medea in time and then instantly move on to detooth the Hood.

[General Battuta]

Sorry for the harsh language, but one thing that's really pissing me off right now is the bonus goal in Aristeia. If Paveways are destroyable now, then it would really be helpful if my Wingmen would actually accept my orders to protect me. *grrrrrr* Or is Torpedo Two supposed to go down and you just forgot to delete the bonus goal?

The latter is a general issue I recognized in other missions, too. Wingmen do not always accept my commands. That is confusing. If I'm able to give orders in the comm menu, then they should accept them.

If wingmen aren't accepting your commands, try ordering them to form on wing, then give them orders.

[sgtcanuck]

Thoughts on the 2015 BP WiH remaster:

Voice Acting:

- The principal VAs in WiH Act 1 and 2 were excellent. Laporte was just excellent, no complaints. Steele gave off the appropriate chillingly calm vibe.

- Simms' VA struck a nice balance between sounding like Katie Sackhoff from BSG and sounding unique. Example being when she zips through lines like a speed demon. However, some of Simms' lines sounded really quiet - almost inaudible.

- Manual Brie's VA saying the 'Desperta Ferro' line is exactly how I imagined it in my head. Calder sounds a bit too off-the-cuff, even a tad redneck. Given his backstory, it makes sense. Karen Ng'Mei's VA hit it out the park. Captain Sorensen of the Indus is male? I always imagined the captain with a female voice. like that of (the newly voiced) Indus tactical.

- The supporting characters sounded fine. But Microsoft Anna's dictation is still stuck in my head after dozens of replays.

Music changes:

- New music tracks really stuck out, because of how ingrained the old ones were. Examples such as 'Aqua Vitae' at the (old) end of Sunglare, the rock and roll at the start of Her Finest Hour, the OST in 'War in Heaven''s 'crew' transfer, among others.

Story:

- Extra pre-mission exposition in Act 3 is appreciated. Ex. Adm. Lopez and her officers before Her Finest Hour.

- Dreamscape character ships are still too far away. After the first time around, running around to all of Fedayeen and new 'dreamers' is not worth the time and distance, even with glide. I prefer if newly unlocked characters were right in front of Laporte once you enter Dreamscape. Or all at most 2000m away from the entry point.

Technical:

- I had dozens of crashes, until I downloaded the latest files (Nov 18) via installer. Eyes of the Storm was esp. problematic before Nov 18. Drop pods would circle around the platform, staying 'Deploying' on the command view. This happened with or without time compression (Shift + .), which does screw up torpedo trajectories, which I have experienced in the old version of Her Finest Hour. But even if the drop pods work, the mission still crashed before wave 1. Now it's all good.

- After turning some pretty graphics off (FXAA, post-proc, lightshafts, shadows, deferred, soft particles), the game runs nearly crash-free. My compliments on the team for their timely patches.

Gameplay:

- I'm so salty about the Ainsarii glide nerf. Going from a beastly 150 glide speed to 93 is jarring.

- In Her Finest Hour, turret Alastor 41 never explodes after you hack Neptune HQ's subsystems. It also stayed alive in the old WIH. Tev fighter visual sweeps make the mission harder. It used to be that you could glide straight under the Carthage to Neptune HQ after you take out the AWACS and Auroras.

- The Scalpel is now so good I might use it exclusively for beam-disabling during the close-in climax in Delenda Est.

Act 4 preview:

Spoiler:

- 'Pasquale'. Hehe. Tehehe.

- Durgas! GTVA Durgas! New blue Federation bombers beside the Solaris (edit: wiki says it's the UEB Lapith)? The new GTVA Durgas going after the Masyaf? By Steele's orders? Did Steele know about Laporte's Nagari dive? OMGawd my head is exploding!

Verdict: Bravo, as usual! Can't wait for Act 4 and 5.

[TacOne]

 I forgot about this thread and accidentally posted this in the changelog thread as well, but is the database entries for The Fall pts. 1/2 missing their text for anyone else with the new version?

[SF-Junky]

If wingmen aren't accepting your commands, try ordering them to form on wing, then give them orders.

Oh, that still workds? I was thinking this 'bug' (?) has been erased from the code long ago. I'll give it a try.

On the other hand, FREDers could just not give orders to wingmen with priority >89.