Author Topic: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch  (Read 13308 times)

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[FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
I have finished my level and it is now ready to be tested! :)
http://www.geocities.com/kingzelchsmail/FAC2M3KingZelch.zip
It has been Zipped so I could upload it.
It should  :nervous: all be complete and fully functioning. Please try it and post what you think here. :yes: Thanks.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Okay, Managed to play the mission and technically I couldn't find much wrong with actually. Which is quite impressive. Usually I find at least a few technical problems. That said there are some issues with balance and aesthetics that I spotted while playing. Once I've gone through the list of what I found wrong with the mission when I played it I'll open up FRED and have a good look around there. :)

1) I found the mission a little hard. Things were going okay until the mass attack of Shivan forces. I found that I was dealing with far too much at one time after that happened. It seems like 5 wings all appeared at once. You should stagger the arrivals a little to make the mission a little more playable. I never actually managed to get to the end so I'll have to judge that based on the FREDding instead.

Of course this is just my opinion and you should probably get a few more from other people to see if they agree with me.

2) I found the mission goal is a little wordy. Something like "Protect the Julius" or "Protect the Julius Until it Jumps" is enough.

3) I got a message stating that some of the Shivans had gotten away yet I destroyed all three gas miners. It may be that there are other ships around but I never saw them. Consider adding another miner that jumps out as soon as the player gets within a certain distance of it. Alternatively better messages from the Deimos might have the same effect (although in that case you run the risk of the player managing to get to the miners quickly enough to notice that the 4th Rahu the Julius says exists is in fact non-existent).

4) The messages could use a little work as they were a little repetitive. Mix them up a little when you have several that say much the same thing. For instance instead of "I've got a visual on Libra wing, they're Dragon class fighters." followed by "I've got a visual on Cancer wing, they're Mara class fighters", change the latter to "Damn, I've got a new visual on 4 Mara class fighters" etc. It makes the wingmen seem more realistic.
 The same goes for the destruction of the Rahu miners.

5) Where's the music? :D Both mission and briefing musics were missing.


All in all that's actually a pretty low tally of problems. Now lets see what I find when I open up things in FRED. :)

1) I noticed the false Traitor Debrief. I assume that means you noticed that game supplies one automatically. :)

2) Just a minor thing but I noticed in briefing stage 4 you had this

and
-is-destroyed-delay
--0
--Julius
-is-destroyed-delay
--0
--Annatet

which in case you didn't know is basically equivalent to the much simpler

-is-destroyed-delay
--0
--Julius
--Annatet

3) Again another equivalence thing, you have this (simplified) in Leo Retreat When One Destroyed

when
-or
--or
---is-destroyed
----Leo 1
---is-destroyed
----Leo 2
--is-destroyed
---Leo 3

This is equivalent to

or
-is-destroyed
--Leo 1
-is-destroyed
--Leo 2
-is-destroyed
--Leo 3

Just use the add operator option from the pop up menu to add the 3rd is-destroyed-delay SEXP. That said there is an even better way.

when
-or
-percentage-ships-destroyed
--1
--Leo
-percentage-ships-disabled
--1
--Leo
-add-goal etc

Will have the same effect as your first two events in a single event. As soon as more that 1% of Leo wing is destroyed it will trigger, since each ship is worth 33% you'll get that as soon as one is destroyed or disabled.

4) In general I'm seeing a lot of cases where you should be using add operator rather than making a new event. It is more efficient to stick everything that should happen at the same time in one event using it than to have lots of similar events. It also means that you don't run the risk of having only 3 out of 4 events trigger cause you made a mistake in the 4th. Furthermore if you change the trigger you only need to do it once. A good example of this is the Find Annatet- Change IFF to F, Find Annatet- IFF is F= Visable and Find Annatet- Make Escort Ship Events which all could have simply been rolled into a single event called Find Annatet.

5) Your whole failsafe code is rather odd. Personally I'd remove the whole lot unless you can explain to me what you're trying to do there. I suspect that it's the reason why you're not seeing any ships jump out as it's setting some of the ships to self destruct.

6) You probably shouldn't have used Beta or Gamma wing for the other wings. Right from the start of the mission they are visible in the top right corner's wingman health display. You can change the name of the wings that are visible from the Mission Specs Editor->Custom Wing Names. Change those to wing names which don't exist in the mission and that minor problem should vanish. To be honest I suspect an SCP change is required here really as there are times like this one when you do want a ship to appear on the HUD but not for the entire mission.

7) The Alpha 2 Will NOT Survive! is practically useless. It only triggers after several days and it effectively ship-guardian's Alpha 2. Did you want him Guardianed from the start? If so just use when - true as your trigger. In fact I tend to always start my missions with a single event called Initial Events and stick all the mission start stuff in that event.

8) You probably should consider not instantly blowing up the Annatet if the Julius is destroyed. It seems rather forced to me. Allow the mission to continue but simply make the Shivan forces too much to hold back in that case.

9) You should turn trails back on by unticking that box in the mission specs editor. Since this is a nebula mission it turns them off (at least it should do. I could swear I saw them!).


Okay, think I'm done for now. Apart from my complaints this is looking pretty good. With some better balancing this could be a pretty solid mission.
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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
OK, I've fixed the problems you've mentioned and there's only one thing I am having difficulties with.
4) In general I'm seeing a lot of cases where you should be using add operator rather than making a new event.
I don't seem able to have a and operator in the results section of a script, at least not the way I can with the conditional part. In fact I am unable to use any of the logical operators in this case. :confused: Is this a bug or is there another way?

Anyway I've fixed all the other problems (except the long-winded scripts) and the improved version can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/kingzelchsmail/FAC2M3KingZelch2.zip

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
You don't use the AND SEXP for the action operators. If I have this

when
-true
-do-something

I can simply right click on the when SEXP, choose Add Operator and change that to


when
-true
-do-something
-do-something-else

for

And
-A
-B

I would right click on the AND and do the same to make

And
-A
-B
-C

As for the mission, I'm rather swamped at the moment but the time it takes you to fix all those events should give me a little extra time so I'll take a look once you've done that. :)
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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Well I've done that now and I certainly have allot less events! They're far more easy to manage now! :)
I made a few other slight changes as well. You can get version 3 here: http://www.geocities.com/kingzelchsmail/FAC2M3KingZelch3.zip

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
I will take a look at it this weekend (I've been rather busy lately).
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Offline karajorma

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Okay, I finally had the time to take a good look at this.

1) It's still too hard. My wingmen got wiped out very quickly leaving me and the Julius facing a wing of Dragons, Mara and Taurvi. Far too much.
2) I barely managed to extract myself from that situation with almost completely defensive flying near the Julius. I got the message to head for the navigation point (which I spent about 20 seconds pressing ALT+N to uncover before I realised you'd used a pharos beacon :rolleyes: ) only for absolutely nothing to happen when I got there. (I do know why nothing happened BTW but that's a little debugging exercise for you, ask if you get stuck though).
3) The quality of your events has improved significantly. There are still a few tricks you could learn to improve the way you've got things working but what is there is pretty solid and I'm sure you'll pick them up as you go along.
4) Minor oversight but the message about the Tauvi bombers came from command cause all my wingmen had been wiped out and the message is marked as high priority. You might want to shunt that message over to the Julius if there are no wingmen left or simply make it normal priority so that you don't get it if the wingmen are all dead.
 You might not have expected that but even with Command silenced you still will get messages from them if you have a high priority message with no one to send it.
5) Minor nitpick but there was no Knossos portal at the Nebula side of the GD jump node. You simply have a jump node there so you might want to update your briefing.

Get those bugs fixed and do something about the difficulty (either reducing the enemy numbers, when they jump in or guardianing a few of the wingmen) and I'll take another look cause this is actually quite a fun mission to play.
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Offline asyikarea51

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Version 3 on SVN build, first pass. Normal difficulty.

I got shot down by Libra 4's Hornet-sniping. (Somehow I find the enemy AI can use them Hornets with their questionable turn rate waaay better than I do against them...) Two ALP wingmen died prior to that happening to me. Will agree that it's fairly hard, the first part was deceptively easy although the Deimos' hull integrity dropped somewhat fast to me. I didn't see Beta wing appear on the wingman list though... or idk... then again, I'm in a hurry to knock off for the day that's already past, so I didn't look around. xD

Were the constant lightning flashes and sudden screen overbrights by both the sun and random unknown sources supposed to denote the "active" region of the nebula? :confused:

Will give this a try again much later in the evening if I have time to spare. The player's not supposed to successfully shoot down all of Leo wing, right? (I kinda jumped into the action after looking at only 2 or 3 pages of the briefing :lol:)

Also minor spell errors which to me is understandable. The wingman text, kinda... interesting..., "so-and-so wing has been (insert another way to write the word ELIMINATED here)". ;)

Prometheus R = :nervous: :sigh:
Inferno plz
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G5K: "The flipside of that is that if you don't announce your campaign, yet take too long to finish it, other people may independently come up with some of the same ideas."

 

Offline Blue Lion

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Ok I played through it once real quick, I'll have to do more later.

1st is scripting. Briefing, debriefing and in game. Wordy wordy wordy. But that's nothing. Simple and easy.


2nd Damn that's a lot of fighters! They jump in all at once and are very close!

Either stagger the jumps or have them jump in farther away.


3rd I got a message to investigate a second waypoint before the first waypoint was resolved. I have disarmed the shivan cruiser and my orders window was already telling me to hit another one, where I found the other cap ship. I'm looking at the Annanet while they're talking about looking for it. Just weird.

Suggestion, have the Annanet jump in after the cruiser goes down? You had it placed far enough away it shouldn't be seen.

Also, this is the first time I've really played the FSO, what is up with that voice? Can that be fixed? I know that's not your fault but it totally ruins the mission for me.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
You can turn off the voice synthesis from the launcher's speech tab.
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Offline McMad

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
I told him it was too hard but he wouldn't believe me :lol:
It IS possible as he has done it several times on medium.
Anyways he'll take a look at it later today (GMT)

P.S. I'm his twin, not some random person :)

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
A good rule of thumb is to always play missions you FREDded one level of difficulty higher than you play normally. That way the extra difficulty compensates for you knowing exactly what to do.
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Offline asyikarea51

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
2nd pass, fragged by Capricorn 5.
3rd pass, fragged by Virgo 3.
4th pass, fragged by Cancer 2.

4th pass was probably the most interesting. At one point I almost rammed into Beta 2 in the nebula and I saw it had "No Orders"? Was no order given, or was it issued later?

I lasted long enough until the Dragons came and did (for some odd reason) a slow frenzy on I-have-no-idea what, I decided to chase down one, got fed up, changed targets to a Mara and ended up getting backstab-sniped by yet another Hornet four-shot from out of nowhere. -_-||

While chasing down the Mara, I noticed that the entire Alpha wing had already gone down without me watching... at least now I know where the random "NOOOOOO!!!"'s and "AAAAAHHHHH"'s came from. :lol: There's enough enemies on the map to make me unable to read any of the text or actually follow the directives, and get fed up with the Perseus altogether. Or maybe I'm already used to high speed physics up to the point where even the afterburner feels useless.

And it's a mission that really forces me to use missiles/rockets in order to go the distance. My play style is heavy on primaries, so no choice but to improvise. At least the Perseus firepoints are accurate enough for Tempest use.

P.S. I used to play FS on Easy, but when I started playing around with mods I focused on Medium as it's sort of "the middle point". I quickly felt the pinch of no burners after the step up. I still think I'm not flying properly though. =\
Inferno plz
The Power of Nightmares
TheHound: "Nice idea, but I have a thing against announcing campaigns before having them already finished."
G5K: "The flipside of that is that if you don't announce your campaign, yet take too long to finish it, other people may independently come up with some of the same ideas."

 
Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
I decided to follow karajorma's advice so I played the level on hard. I was owned by the Virgo and Capricorn wave :shaking:
Hmmm :doubt: maybe the level is too hard...
I won't have time to re-balance it today although I have started with other changes (Including making it clearer that the nav points are beckons).

Blue Lion
I think I know why the speech with the Annatet got a bit mucked up when you played. I'll be onto that next.

asyikarea51
I'm not sure what you mean about random flashes. However it may be better to make the nebula less active.
I also agree with you about the Prometheus, however I had the player using one as a kind of compromise with people who may prefer it to the HL-7. I may change that unless others state they prefer it. As for Beta's orders, that has now been fixed.

 

Offline asyikarea51

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Well in the later part of the mission when the fighting starts to get thick, suddenly my screen will just overbright and then I have lightning flashes here and there somehow more frequently than normal. It could be that I'm just seeing things, but I experienced the overbright on each pass so I kind of think there's something there.

Being a nebula mission I also find it a bit odd that there's a sun in the system. If the sun's supposed to be there then I won't say anything. If not then maybe you could scale down the size to like 0.1 or something if you can't remove it? Like, really small...

Not too experienced with FRED myself, I'm relying on limited FRED1 experience to do things... :nervous:

On the Prometheus R, hmm, if this mission existed last year I might've agreed with you, but then came one day when I just had to read the wiki to find out. The added one-hit damage does help things a bit, but with stock FS rules by slowing down the fire rate with linked guns, I either went with HL7 + Tempest (despite being uncomfortable with using ammo), HL7 alone or PromR alone. I only linked guns against the bomber units.

Transcend is one good example of a campaign where the PromR's weaknesses really get to you. But if due to plot reasons the gun really really needs to be a PromR, then I can tolerate it.
Inferno plz
The Power of Nightmares
TheHound: "Nice idea, but I have a thing against announcing campaigns before having them already finished."
G5K: "The flipside of that is that if you don't announce your campaign, yet take too long to finish it, other people may independently come up with some of the same ideas."

 
Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Well according to the background editor there are no suns. :confused: I know there are as I have seen them in the level myself. :sigh: So I don't really know whats going on. Anyway adding a sun seems to remove the 'non-existent' ones. I have made this one as small as I can add put it behind the battle to try and make it less of a problem. Unless there is a way of removing the others without having this one that is the best I can do.

Anyway I looked at the veteran comments on the wiki about the Prometheus R and they all seemed to hate it. So that means I don't feel so much like I should do a compromise anymore. That means two Subach HL-7s! ;)

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
FS2 automatically adds a sun at 0,0,0 if none is specified in the mission file. The problem is that in most missions you're pointing at it right at the start too.
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Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Just to let you know I haven't forgot about this level and I am still working on it, I've just had other things to deal with recently. The rebalancing looks just about complete now, because I just completed* it on hard. I've also remade the briefing which is now allot shorter. I should finish version 4 soon. :yes:

*As the Beast jumped in to destroy the Annatet it gave me a 'little' shove.  :eek2: :shaking:

 
Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
I've finished version 4 now. You can get it at:
http://www.geocities.com/kingzelchsmail/FAC2M3KingZelch4.zip

 
Re: [FA] Campaign 2 Level 3 by King Zelch
Anyone there? :nervous: