[Nyctaeus]

Just finished. Veeery cool little campaign, with nicely freded BoE. I guess it's a good way to solve Lucifer side beam cannon inconsistency as they are orange in FS2 intro. Gosh, even placement of other warships is correct. This is really impressive !

[Goober5000]

Thanks!

[CT27]

I came up with two more questions Goober, hope that's okay (you could take it that people engaging in dialogue about your campaign means it's really cool):


1-This is a response to your recent response to my previous question:

Spoiler:

Why would they think it wouldn't deviate from attacking the planet?  That seems like a risky assumption to assume a ship wouldn't make a slight maneuver since they know ships can move.  In a similar vein, wouldn't it have been better to park the Legion behind the Lucifer instead of to the side which is in close view of its planet cannon?  I understand you had to place it the Legion there though because that's where it was in the FS2 cutscene.

2-This question kind of is about the final mission but also about FS in general:

Spoiler:

The FS wiki says that while Helioses do much more damage to an overall target, Harbingers are much more effective at destroying subsystems/parts of a ship.  Does that mean if a shielded Lucifer came back in the FS2/post-FS2 era and heavy enough bombs can damage it, the GTVA would be better served to bring back Harbingers rather than use Helioses?

[Goober5000]

I came up with two more questions Goober, hope that's okay (you could take it that people engaging in dialogue about your campaign means it's really cool):

Indeed it is.  And yes, I take it in that spirit.

1-This is a response to your recent response to my previous question:

Spoiler:

Why would they think it wouldn't deviate from attacking the planet?  That seems like a risky assumption to assume a ship wouldn't make a slight maneuver since they know ships can move.  In a similar vein, wouldn't it have been better to park the Legion behind the Lucifer instead of to the side which is in close view of its planet cannon?  I understand you had to place it the Legion there though because that's where it was in the FS2 cutscene.

Spoiler:

The Lucifer had already attacked two planets previously, SR-5 (in Ross 128) and Ribos IV.  In both cases, once it reached its target orbit, it followed its pattern of bombarding the surface and did nothing else until the bombardment was complete.  (Reference the mission briefing, which says "We do not believe the Lucifer will leave orbit until it has devastated most of the surface with its flux cannon weaponry.  In previous engagements, the Lucifer has demonstrated unwavering focus on its primary mission objective, its shielding system allowing it to shrug off any distraction.")

Either the Lucifer needed to route all available power to the planetary bombardment beam, or it takes a bit of time to reconfigure from "planetary bombardment mode" to "capital ship attack mode".  Note that in the mission, the Lucifer stops bombarding the planet after its reactor is destroyed.  Furthermore, it doesn't attack the Guardian right away; it sits there doing nothing for several minutes.

The GTI expected the Lucifer to do exactly what it had done in previous engagements.  In both previous occasions, it a) did not deviate from its orbit, b) used its forward beam cannons for attacking warships and its side beam cannons for attacking planets, c) did nothing else while it was bombarding the planet.  But the GTI failed to consider that the destruction of a reactor might provide sufficient incentive for the Lucifer to alter its behavior.  It may be single-minded, but it's not stupid.

Both the Legion and the Guardian were positioned out of the firing arc of the Lucifer's forward cannons, which is where the GTI assumed that any attack would originate, if the Lucifer decided to switch from "planetary bombardment mode" to "warship attack mode".  They also assumed they would have a bit of warning if this were to happen.

2-This question kind of is about the final mission but also about FS in general:

Spoiler:

The FS wiki says that while Helioses do much more damage to an overall target, Harbingers are much more effective at destroying subsystems/parts of a ship.  Does that mean if a shielded Lucifer came back in the FS2/post-FS2 era and heavy enough bombs can damage it, the GTVA would be better served to bring back Harbingers rather than use Helioses?

Spoiler:

I suppose, but neither Harbingers nor Helioses are particularly effective when the Lucifer's shield is operating.  The overriding factor is the shield penetration ability.  If the Helios is good at penetrating shields, it may inflict more subsystem damage despite being less effective against subsystems on unshielded craft.  This is the sort of thing that would be up to the mod designer.  The ideal strategy, of course, would be to use beams, against which shields offer no protection.

By the way, The Scroll of Atankharzim, Part I features the arrival of a Lucifer-class destroyer in the post-FS2 era.  Though Sesquipedalian and I hold different opinions on what precisely happens when all five reactors are destroyed and the ship is not traveling through subspace.

[Vidmaster]

Played it this evening, very neat overall :-) I felt that M1 was the weakest and M2 the strongest (suprised?) due to the thematic writing there.

Issues I noticed:
* M1: the line "all remaining lambda transports have docked" is played when all 4 transports go down. While technically true, its somewhat cynical ;-)
* M3: there seems to be no Debriefing when loosing the Guardian in the fourth phase + plus some instances of colliding cruisers

Overall, it felt very FS1-like in all the right (or wrong) places. Great job. Voice-acted would be much appreciated by the way.

[Goober5000]

Played it this evening, very neat overall :-)

Thanks!

I felt that M1 was the weakest and M2 the strongest (suprised?) due to the thematic writing there.

Oh, interesting!  Would you mind elaborating?  M2 has a lot of plot development, but it's more in moving the pieces on the chessboard than any overt actions.

Issues I noticed:
* M1: the line "all remaining lambda transports have docked" is played when all 4 transports go down. While technically true, its somewhat cynical ;-)

I'll look at this.

* M3: there seems to be no Debriefing when loosing the Guardian in the fourth phase + plus some instances of colliding cruisers

The no-debriefing is intentional.  Note where Command orders you to jump to.

Which cruisers collided?

Overall, it felt very FS1-like in all the right (or wrong) places. Great job. Voice-acted would be much appreciated by the way.

On my list of things to do is to ask Sesquipedalian to generate synthesized speech for these missions using the same technique we used for Scroll Part I.

[Vidmaster]

I am one of these people how always found the beginning of a story or teasing for future plot points most interesting. As long as the story is not locked onto a single plot branch, it could "go anywhere" which means the narrative possibility space is largest. M2 is very interesting from a plot standpoint: Lots of things happen "around" us, tension mounts and "irregularities" start to occur. I really like how it escalates purely through writing.

Yeah, voice acting would really go a long way here (as usual). Personally, I would *REALLY* interested in the technique used for generating good Vasudan Voices.

[Goober5000]

I am one of these people how always found the beginning of a story or teasing for future plot points most interesting. As long as the story is not locked onto a single plot branch, it could "go anywhere" which means the narrative possibility space is largest. M2 is very interesting from a plot standpoint: Lots of things happen "around" us, tension mounts and "irregularities" start to occur. I really like how it escalates purely through writing.

Excellent.   This is the kind of feedback I love to hear.

Yeah, voice acting would really go a long way here (as usual). Personally, I would *REALLY* interested in the technique used for generating good Vasudan Voices.

I'm going to see if I can get Deneb III voice acted using the same speech generation that was used in Scroll Part I.  That particular technique is known only to Sesquipedalian, but if you want to use the style in the main FS campaign or in ST:R, we have snippets of the Volition Vasudan voice posted in the Extras section on the FSPort website.

[Assassin714]

The only thing I really did not like about this campaign was the idea that the Lucifer's shields can be overwhelmed by conventional weapons. I am generally of the opinion that only special shield-piercing weapons (like beams) should really do anything to a sheath shielded ship. I do think that enough energy could defeat the shields (like flying into a supernova or something) but Harbinger bombs doing anything at all seems very sketchy to me. I recall Ancient-Shivan War where the Akrotiri and other ships fired their cannons at the Lucifer for many minutes on end and did no damage whatsoever. I know this campaign and ASW probably aren't meant to be canon to each other but it seems jarring and the ASW version makes more sense IMO.

[Goober5000]

That's a fair criticism.  But this particular concept was based on statements from Volition that the SD Lucifer was not invulnerable per se, merely that the Terrans and Vasudans didn't have weapons powerful enough to damage it.  I decided that for the purposes of this campaign, the Harbinger was just on the ragged edge of being powerful enough.

(Of course, once you have the ability to bypass shields using beams, the use of conventional weapons to damage them becomes a moot point.)

[Nightmare]

Why didn't they just fly into Lucys fighterbays... Vasudans did kamikaze in the past, they could've done something useful...

[Goober5000]

That's an interesting thought.  But IIRC in retail FS1 you just bounced off the opening.  Maybe there are force fields there.

[Nightmare]

Or they were able to close the doors to the fighterbay, and only opened them when tons of Scorpions came out.

[rubixcube]

Welp, finally got round to playing this.

Not quite as true to the intro as the other campaign "Death of the Legion" or whatever it was called, but the mission design is better.

This campaign makes me wish FS had a more complex damage mechanics system; something more along the lines of world of warships.
Shields would maybe act like Armour plating that regenerates but also degrades when shot at. Beam cannons probably shouldn't totally bypass shields, but have a high enough penetration value that they can usually punch through without issue. The lucy's shields might provide some protection from sgreen's and terslashes, but almost none against anything larger.
And as you say, Harbinger bombs might be right on the edge of being able to penetrate.

[DefCynodont119]

Welp, finally got round to playing this.

Not quite as true to the intro as the other campaign "Death of the Legion" or whatever it was called, but the mission design is better.

This campaign makes me wish FS had a more complex damage mechanics system; something more along the lines of world of warships.
Shields would maybe act like Armour plating that regenerates but also degrades when shot at. Beam cannons probably shouldn't totally bypass shields, but have a high enough penetration value that they can usually punch through without issue. The lucy's shields might provide some protection from sgreen's and terslashes, but almost none against anything larger.
And as you say, Harbinger bombs might be right on the edge of being able to penetrate.

"Legion's Demise" you mean? 

[rubixcube]

Not quite as true to the intro as the other campaign "Death of the Legion" or whatever it was called, but the mission design is better.

"Legion's Demise" you mean? 

Yes, that's the one, derp, sorry  .

Interesting there are some areas of the cutscene up for interpretation:
Are the Lucy's bombardment beams orange or blue?
Was that Demon the Eva or another destroyer?
Did the Lucy bombard Deneb III?
Was the Typhon the Hope or another destroyer?

[DefCynodont119]

Not quite as true to the intro as the other campaign "Death of the Legion" or whatever it was called, but the mission design is better.

"Legion's Demise" you mean? 

Yes, that's the one, derp, sorry  .

Interesting there are some areas of the cutscene up for interpretation:
Are the Lucy's bombardment beams orange or blue?
Was that Demon the Eva or another destroyer?
Did the Lucy bombard Deneb III?
Was the Typhon the Hope or another destroyer?

There is a massive continuity error in the mission dates: the battle of Deneb happened on 2/28/35 according to the intro, but the in-game briefings state the the Lucy and Eva did not enter Deneb until 2/31/35.

So, you could say the first thing that's up for interpretation is whether or not the mission even happened. 

I wanted the destroyer kill-able for gameplay reasons so I used an AoA one instead of the Eva.    The Anhur at least is a cannon ship.
As far as I can tell from In-game text, the Hope was nowhere near Deneb at this time. (But It's never mentioned for the entire 2nd act of FS1)

I dunno, the Hope could be anywhere.

[Goober5000]

Welp, finally got round to playing this.

Not quite as true to the intro as the other campaign "Death of the Legion" or whatever it was called, but the mission design is better.

I take pride in my mission design, so thank you.   But "not quite as true to the intro"?  Dagger!   Did you look at the ship placement, the number and type of ships, the various easter eggs?  Did you look at the different camera angles?

In what way do you think it was not quite as true to the intro?

This campaign makes me wish FS had a more complex damage mechanics system; something more along the lines of world of warships.
Shields would maybe act like Armour plating that regenerates but also degrades when shot at. Beam cannons probably shouldn't totally bypass shields, but have a high enough penetration value that they can usually punch through without issue. The lucy's shields might provide some protection from sgreen's and terslashes, but almost none against anything larger.
And as you say, Harbinger bombs might be right on the edge of being able to penetrate.

A good concept.  Yes, it would be interesting to have weapons partially penetrate shields when the shields are at middling integrity, as opposed to preventing any hull damage whatsoever until the last 1% of shield integrity is gone.

[jr2]

Can you edit the OP to include this  link + image?

[Goober5000]

Done, thanks.