Well, it IS better than my absolute first FREDding attempt, in that you actually do something that makes some sense and then you leave when the job is done. I would have to say that releasing this like its some big deal... well, I wouldn't have done that. But oh well.
Now some of the ugly stuff.
1) At the end of the first level.. I think I just ordered the relief wing to jump out. O_o You should go to those wings, and set them so that they cannot take orders from the player, because it's very unrealistic for a wing to say "you're relieved of guard duty, you can return to base", and then you turn around and tell them to return to base... Try to avoid doing this. It's funny to do it though!
2) For such small missions as these are, do we really need lots and lots and lots of fighters protecting one Fenris, or a small convoy? I'd say you could cut the number of fighters in half, which makes it more of a challenge. It also helps with the minimalism policy you see in the vanilla campaigns; you want to be as efficient as possible, so you use only what is needed to get the job done.
Remember the first mission of FS1? It was only you and one veteran pilot doing all the work against several wings of Vasudans.
As for the Shivan numbers, they're fine as they are, although a small increase wouldn't hurt.
For example in the second mission, take away a wing or two. This could have the potential of making the player have to make important tactical decisions regarding convoy defense.
The mission becomes that much cooler just from taking away some Terran fighters.Of course, this is really just a recommendation..
3) The second mission was the worse of the two, and here's why and what you can do to make it better:
-Your wingmen
always collide with your ship at the start of this mission. You never want to hear the ship scraping sound coming from wingmen when its NOT a result of their stupidity (they fly into each other and the player all the time), and is only because thy were placed too close to each other. Always always always try to avoid this! Not only is is annoying to lose health because of a level design mistake, but... well personally, I would say its a sign of a crappy mission - it's like first impressions when you're doing a job interview! I wouldn't say your mission is crappy though: simply move the player ship a bit away from the others and it should be fine, but it also wouldn't hurt to go and spread them out a bit from now on.
-The speed of the Faustus and the rest of the convoy - why are they different? I end up with a good 2-3 km gap in between them, and for such an easy mission, that really isn't a good way to increase difficulty unless there is a logical explanation. But really it would be best to make sure they move at the same speed as they run their waypoints.
-The Shivan spawn points - From the looks of it, you placed all the Shivan spawn points pretty well, as they close in on the convoy from several sides, but there is one main problem: they are placed WAY too far away. The SF Dragons have the worst of it, warping in 15 km behind the convoy. Only the first wave is of any danger at all. I ordered all pilots to warp out after the first Shiva wave and the Faustus warped out when wave 2 was
6 km away. I decided to wait it out and take them both on, only to find that another wave spawns
another 15-16km away I decided I wasn't going to chase or wait for them, it would be a waste of time. I warped out and got my CONGRATULATIONS ON A JOB WELL DONE debrief (well, it didn't say that of course but I was done
).
-The fact that Shivans also warped in 7 km to the side also annoyed me. It gave me more than enough time to group up my 348592751470 wingmates and tell each of them what to do. One by one. So I suggest that these Shivans warp in no farther than 2 km away from the convoy. I also suggest that Shiva wing spawn
12-13km ahead of where you have them spawning now, given how late they end up spawning. Add one fighter to each wing of Shivans to make it more challenging, too, although you should try it with just bringing them closer before doing that.
4) Lastly as a mere suggestion, it's the first Great War, right? At one point, please bring in Vasudans.
OHGODWHAT I didn't think it'd be that long... oh well.
Now I'm sure if you take this stuff in mind, then these and future missions can actually be pretty good. However, they are a bit generic, and it's nothing we haven't seen before. Of course, every campaign has stuff we haven't seen before, so don't worry about it too much.
You do show that you have the basic skills to make a playable mission. Build upon them and who knows, you'll maybe make some fantastic levels later on.
To tell the truth, you've kinda already shown a better FRED level than I have ever put on HLP, since I simply... well.. haven't
