[willy_principal]

December 26th, 2004:
The Mission 1 from the Campaign 1 of the FRED Academy is ready.
i think it took me about 35 hours to make it...
It has everything. Command Briefing, briefing, in-game chatter, civilian traffic, debriefing, background, etc...

update, February 4th, 2005. Minor changes...
update, February 5th, 2005. micro changes...
update, February 7th, 2005. minor changes...

To download use this link:
http://www.geocities.com/willy_principal/fac1m1-willy_principal.zip

It's a zipped VP file, with everything. The model, maps, sounds, mission, tables and interfase icons...

This mission is finished, i'll no longer improve it (unless someone find some sort of problem in it)

[karajorma]

Okay. I'll test this as soon as I'm done checking through the rest of HLP

EDIT : It's now 2 damn hours later and I still haven't finished I've got to trim down the amount of HLP I read!

[Akalabeth Angel]

I'll give it a whirl too.

[karajorma]

Okay. I gave it a try

1) I noticed a couple of minor gramatical errors. For instance you repeatedly refer to someone fighting on a system rather than in one. Not a huge problem though since on average your English was a hell of a lot better than my Spanish

2) Don't add the hotkeys for each wing to the directives. It tends to clutter things up. You don't need the alt-J for warp out either since I think anyone playing this campaign should have been through the main one already

3) While we're talking about directives you forgot to chain the Return to base event to the one above it. As a result you get the return to base directive as soon as you start

4) Give Aries and cancer wings a delay between waves. It doesn't look good for another wave to appear out of subspace immediately after the last one died every time.

5) Don't refer to GTI Acheron 1 by that name. Rename it to something suitable. Big Earls Bar and Grill or something suitable

6) Your AWOL message didn't work. The flaw is most likely your use of the is-goal-incomplete SEXP.  This and the corresponding is-event-incomplete should not be used in debriefings as immediately upon the end of a mission FS2 reclassifies any event that didn't trigger as false. As such is-event-incomplete will never trigger in a debrief.

7) You might want to tune the salty language in the AWOL debrief down a little. Some of us are below 18 you know

8) As a test I flew to about 12,000km out at the start and just let the mission run at high speed. To my surprise the GTVA won the first time cause the enemy just hung about ignoring the Acheron. Probably a glitch but if there is any reason why you think they might do that you may want to address it

Apart from that I pretty much enjoyed the mission

[willy_principal]

I remade the Mission............. BEFORE i read your post Karajoma. I fixed some bugs, but others that you mentioned and still there...

even so, the mission has been greatly improved.
it's more complex, longer, and bigger...
Go here to get the download links:
www.geocities.com/willy_principal/freespace_sector

[willy_principal]

1) I noticed a couple of minor gramatical errors. For instance you repeatedly refer to someone fighting on a system rather than in one. Not a huge problem though since on average your English was a hell of a lot better than my Spanish

Willy: oh....they are fighting IN (inside) the system, not ON (like, above, or something)...

2) Don't add the hotkeys for each wing to the directives. It tends to clutter things up. You don't need the alt-J for warp out either since I think anyone playing this campaign should have been through the main one already

Willy: alright, ALT-J removed...but the wing hotkeys are still there, and they are even more...

3) While we're talking about directives you forgot to chain the Return to base event to the one above it. As a result you get the return to base directive as soon as you start

Willy: Fixed...

4) Give Aries and cancer wings a delay between waves. It doesn't look good for another wave to appear out of subspace immediately after the last one died every time.

Willy: problem still there..........fixing in progress...

5) Don't refer to GTI Acheron 1 by that name. Rename it to something suitable. Big Earls Bar and Grill or something suitable

Willy: Errr.......problem is still there. Fixing in progress...

6) Your AWOL message didn't work. The flaw is most likely your use of the is-goal-incomplete SEXP.  This and the corresponding is-event-incomplete should not be used in debriefings as immediately upon the end of a mission FS2 reclassifies any event that didn't trigger as false. As such is-event-incomplete will never trigger in a debrief.

Willy: problem is still there...fixing in progress...

7) You might want to tune the salty language in the AWOL debrief down a little. Some of us are below 18 you know

Willy: lol...fixing NOT in progress... (Why? the AWOL message doesn't works anyway)

8) As a test I flew to about 12,000km out at the start and just let the mission run at high speed. To my surprise the GTVA won the first time cause the enemy just hung about ignoring the Acheron. Probably a glitch but if there is any reason why you think they might do that you may want to address it

Willy: I think i forgot to effectebly Beam-free-all the NTC Horizon. problem fixed.

Apart from that I pretty much enjoyed the mission

Wily: the mission is longer, and i tried to make more tight the campaign, so i added a connection with the Mission 3 of the Campaign 1...

[willy_principal]

Karajoma: all problems appointed by you are solved...except some minor problems that i didn't found...

[karajorma]

Okay. Time for another test then

[pecenipicek]

meh... didnt test... im just waitin for C4...
what missions are still WIP for C1?

[karajorma]

Well this one is.

Since the beams were enabled on the cruiser the mission's become too bloody hard. Hmmmm. Maybe if I try sticking near the Acheron I'll stand a chance.

[willy_principal]

That's what the player is supposed to do...
that's why Alpha 2 (or alpha 4) tells you that's better to stay near the Achilles and wait till the rebel fighters get blasted by the Achilles' guns.
(Well, alpha 3 tells you that you must attack the NTC Horizon before it's beams destroys the GTI Achilles...but...remember that the Horizon beams are slash-type...ineffective at long range)

[karajorma]

Odd. I don't recall seeing that. Oh well I'll play it again.

[willy_principal]

You may have an older version...
i uploaded a newer version with those things in 05/12/04 (December 5th, year 2004)....
download it again...
the links are here:
www.geocities.com/willy_principal/freespace_sector

I think the file is this, not sure:
www.geocities.com/willy_principal/fac1m1-willy_principal.zip

[karajorma]

Okay. I downloaded it and gave it a try. Can't say much about the play balance cause I only realised after I finished that I had it on very easy (which I'd set to play another mission)

I'll give it another try on a slightly harder setting in a bit

[karajorma]

Nope. Still finding it way too hard (even if I stay near the station) What level are you playtesting this on?

[willy_principal]

It's in Medium...
i stay near the Achilles....wait 'till the NTC Horizon is at 2000 meters...then attack with all my forces...fire double guns, double missiles...and destroy it...you might get one or two AAA shots, but you'll survive....

[karajorma]

Hmmmm. I'm finding every mission I test too hard in medium. Maybe there's a pattern there...

Oh well until I get some playtesting done by someone else I can't tell if it's just me being crap or if the mission really is too hard.

I didn't detect any major FREDding errors though. To be fair I was too busy dying to look hard

[pecenipicek]

no karajorma. you do indeed suck
so do i. WE ALL SUCK

[karajorma]

Okay. Gave this mission another try. I've got some serious problems with it this time cause I managed to do a little better this time.

1) By sticking close the Achilles I was able to avoid getting killed. However I didn't enjoy it much. We're supposed to be playing fighter pilots not cowardly-custards who need to hide behind a big installation in order to survive.

2) For some reason following the destruction of the Horizon the ships in the two wings of Loki's proceeded to wait 4000m away from the Achillies and come at me one ship at a time as if they were the baddies in a Bruce Lee movie. This made it pretty easy to kill them off one by one even though by that time they

3) Upon killing the final loki the game called me a cheat and blew me up. This REALLY has to go. Upon checking the mission in FRED I noticed that the only conditions needed for this to happen is if the player manages to destroy Aries and Cancer wings. Frankly I've always considered the use of anti-cheating code in FRED to be rather pointless as anyone can circumvent it in a matter of a few seconds. This however is a particularly hamfisted attempt at it which can only serve to annoy the player. It is quite possible to blow up two wings of AI loki's especially with the support of the Achilles. Penalising the player for doing it is a really dangerous road to take as it simply means that they stop playing your missions.

4) Even if you take out the anti-cheating code the mission would break more often than not at this point. The event Rebels Retreat is dependant on the Achilles being above 50% hull damage. If the NTR have managed to damage it beyond that the mission comes to a screaching halt.

5) Why are you using variables to check for conditions like the mission ending? Variables have a lot of power but in this case they are less precise than simply using the and SEXP together with is-event-true-delay

[Singh]

Its pretty damn hard. The fighters dont engage till your in range of the guns, and then its 10 times more difficult.

If you gave a directive that allowed the fighters to engage you at a certain distance, and then chase you back, it would fit in a lot better.  Also, why is the Acheron showing up as an uly for me????!