Sorry about the previous post and the use of that font, I thought the -s HTML was for spoiler. Anyway, I edited.
Instead of the Faustus, I have... nothing, but nothing with the lights from the reactors. I have no idea why, and did not investigate any further as I was obviously the only one with the problem and as my version of Open FreeSpace might be a tad old.
I never include "difficulty" in my FREDing assesment of other people work. I consider it normal that some levels are toughter than other, and since I play in Hard by default, I tend to die rather regularly. I actually dislike campaigns in which each level is harder than the previous one.
Most of the difficulty in TVWP comes from the "no-targeting" levels, because in those levels, if someone is shooting at you, he will most likely kill you before you know which direction you should face. So I used to tail my wingmates by 0.5 to 1 klicks when we were attacking anything.
The story is pretty robust and I read with pleasure all the faction infos in the tech room. The problems with TVWP Part 1 scenario are the following :
- We know WHO we are fighting, but we don't know WHY we are fighting. For instance, we never really know why the Martians attack us, and attack us in that particular place we start in, except the "they are jealous" and "they are evil commies" arguments. It is a bit of a let down given the extensive focus given to the background (tech room, faction logos, ...). Also, we don't know whether we are at war or whether it is only skirmishes with the Martians, and if it is only skirmishes (which I believe) we expect a bit more information in briefing / debriefing on the motives and consequences. In part one and in my brain, Martians = Pirates with a base on Mars.
- Due to this, the campaign feels like a serie of independant battles, first against the Martians, then against ML, then against KC. There is no clear links between the battles, except maybe for the last one of Part 1. Why ? Because, yet again, we are "without a cause". We don't see the Grand Scheme of Things. I understand it might be a way to show how confusing the situation was back then, but still. I understood the Lebanese Civil War better.
- Finally we have no sense of scale in the war. For instance, we don't know whether each battle is big or not. Is taking out a cruiser a large blow to the enemy or a minor drawback ? Is what I captured around the Gas Giant large for ML or minor for them ? And for us ? One idea would be add in the tech room some "estimated forces" for each side, so we have an idea of what we are up against. In Part 2, the briefing are clearer on the fact that 5 Damocles, 2 Atropos and 2 Constellation is a pretty sizeable chunk of the UNE Fleet.
- I forget - "we stroke a deal with ML and they are going to bring us a lot". Make it an alliance, or a scientist exchange program, or something that sounds like it is not the EU Commission that succeded in agreeing on the content of White Book #21 on Service Industries.
So yah, generally speaking, we are a bit left in a cloud in Part 1, but in part 2 it gets better and we have a good idea of the stakes