Print Page - RELEASE: Walls Closing

FreeSpace Releases => Mission & Campaign Releases => Topic started by: Colt on February 07, 2019, 10:31:51 pm

Title: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on February 07, 2019, 10:31:51 pm

Hello HLP! So after a month of work and some long nights, I can finally do what I've wanted to do: To give back to you something for the countless hours I've had with what's offered here!

Now, it's not much; a 4 mission campaign set during and after the battle between the Colossus and the Sathanas, where the GTVA search for the Phoenicia after it narrowly escaped the juggernaut in Bearbaiting, but we all gotta start somewhere. I focused more making something that was playable and bug-free, rather then super-cool scripting and the sort.

It's available on Knossos (at least from what I see) as of this announcement. I look forward to hearing what you like, dislike or think needs improving, so I can apply these lessons to future projects. Also thank you PIe and ngld for the last-minute help with uploading this to Knossos.

This announcement is pretty barebones, so have a video.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: PIe on February 07, 2019, 11:12:30 pm

Congratulations on the release.
To embed a YT video, put the id between the tags like so:

Code: [Select]

[yt]2gUvPcIIDQc[/yt]

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on February 07, 2019, 11:27:39 pm

Quote from: PIe on February 07, 2019, 11:12:30 pm

Congratulations on the release.
To embed a YT video, put the id between the tags like so:
Code: [Select]
[yt]2gUvPcIIDQc[/yt]

Fixed. Thanks again!

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nyctaeus on February 08, 2019, 07:46:59 am

This looks solid. I will check it out in my spare time.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: AdDur on February 08, 2019, 06:07:05 pm

OK - finished. Simple mini-campaign, but i don't regret time i have spent in Walls Closing. Difficulty is fine to me (3/5), but the second mission can be a true pain in the ass - nahemas jump in a short distance, and one volley of bombs is enough to cripple AA screen of defended warship. I have not seen any obvious bugs. In last mission, i think that there could be few more fighters during last phase - i mean that there could apper another wing or two, after you destroy the first one - i felt a bit of emptiness there.

Is it your first campaign?

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on February 08, 2019, 07:44:05 pm

Quote from: AdDur on February 08, 2019, 06:07:05 pm

OK - finished. Simple mini-campaign, but i don't regret time i have spent in Walls Closing. Difficulty is fine to me (3/5), but the second mission can be a true pain in the ass - nahemas jump in a short distance, and one volley of bombs is enough to cripple AA screen of defended warship. I have not seen any obvious bugs. In last mission, i think that there could be few more fighters during last phase - i mean that there could apper another wing or two, after you destroy the first one - i felt a bit of emptiness there.

Is it your first campaign?

Indeed it is my first campaign. I'll play around with the Nahema part a bit, because when I was testing it they would either be too close and do as you mentioned all the time or too far and not land a single hit. The last part of the final mission I found the one dragon wing to give enough trouble (given the Shivans limited numbers by this point), but maybe increasing the wave size to six would be good. I'm thinking of weakening Zeta wing as well, since their bonus goal I found way too easy.

Thanks for playing!

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: CKid on February 09, 2019, 05:25:37 pm

Just finished. A nice litte campaign stuffed with action. Played on medium difficulty and the challenge was good. Keeping my wing-men on a short leash and kept feeding them orders provided me a very helpfully hand in completing the bonus objectives. Keeping close to friendly capships helped even out the odds against superior numbers of shivan craft. Who doesn't love blue beams piercing your enemies. Each mission could be described as "intense" as you had to keep on your toes chasing down bombs and dealing with fighter sweeps. The large fur ball at the end was the cherry on the top. I didn't come across any bugs in my play-through. Great first campaign, very enjoyable.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on February 10, 2019, 02:39:31 pm

UPDATE: 1.0.1

Assuming I did it correctly, then version 1.0.1 should be up on Knossos. A handful of small balance fixes but not too much.

Quote from: CKid on February 09, 2019, 05:25:37 pm

Just finished. A nice litte campaign stuffed with action. Played on medium difficulty and the challenge was good. Keeping my wing-men on a short leash and kept feeding them orders provided me a very helpfully hand in completing the bonus objectives. Keeping close to friendly capships helped even out the odds against superior numbers of shivan craft. Who doesn't love blue beams piercing your enemies. Each mission could be described as "intense" as you had to keep on your toes chasing down bombs and dealing with fighter sweeps. The large fur ball at the end was the cherry on the top. I didn't come across any bugs in my play-through. Great first campaign, very enjoyable.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: CT27 on February 20, 2019, 10:09:14 pm

It was a fun campaign.

Can I make one suggestion for the third mission: Since the Moloch present at the beginning of the mission needs to leave for your allied corvette to come in, could you make it so its hull and engines can't be destroyed. After destroying the two Cains I managed to disable and destroy that Moloch, but that breaks the mission.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on February 21, 2019, 11:58:08 am

Huh. I thought I fixed that in the previous update, but I didn't save it from the looks of it. Thanks for the heads up. Fix has been updated.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: woutersmits on February 27, 2019, 04:45:32 am

ive tryed toplay no weapons
heres log
https://fsnebula.org/log/5c7669b4cb0d3350a67569c2 (https://fsnebula.org/log/5c7669b4cb0d3350a67569c2)

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on February 27, 2019, 02:01:44 pm

Quote from: woutersmits on February 27, 2019, 04:45:32 am

ive tryed toplay no weapons
heres log
https://fsnebula.org/log/5c7669b4cb0d3350a67569c2 (https://fsnebula.org/log/5c7669b4cb0d3350a67569c2)

:confused: Strange. I was thinking maybe I forgot the add the initial weapons when I uploaded the recent version, but I see them. I'm not too familiar with coding, so nothing stood out for me. Maybe uninstall/reinstall the mod?

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nightmare on March 28, 2019, 12:24:52 pm

3 things so far:

1- I can confirm woutersmits- no weapons in the first mission. The mission is configured correctly; the problem lies in the lack of weapons in the .fc2:

Code: [Select]

+Starting Weapons: ()
2- I'm receiving extraction errors (i.e. broken archives) on all 3 Knossos links (I'm installing manual, only use the links to get the most recent version). This doesn't seem to effect the main mod files, the only ones that have been corrupted are the ones in voice/special folder.

3- As awesome as they are, is it necessary to include MJNs high-res CBAnims again? AFAIK they're already part of the regular MVPs and they increase the size of the mod from ~35MB to almost 240MBs.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on March 28, 2019, 04:13:53 pm

Quote from: Nightmare on March 28, 2019, 12:24:52 pm

3 things so far:

1- I can confirm woutersmits- no weapons in the first mission. The mission is configured correctly; the problem lies in the lack of weapons in the .fc2:
Code: [Select]
+Starting Weapons: ()
2- I'm receiving extraction errors (i.e. broken archives) on all 3 Knossos links (I'm installing manual, only use the links to get the most recent version). This doesn't seem to effect the main mod files, the only ones that have been corrupted are the ones in voice/special folder.

3- As awesome as they are, is it necessary to include MJNs high-res CBAnims again? AFAIK they're already part of the regular MVPs and they increase the size of the mod from ~35MB to almost 240MBs.

Thanks for the heads-up about these.

1: I started a new campaign, and yet all authorized weaponry at the start were available. I'll try to remake the .fc2 again and double check the starting weapons/ships, hopefully that fixes it.

2: No idea why that happened.

3: I was under the impression that all CBAnims were the same, so I extracted them from the first place I found them (3.8.0 I think). I'll see what I can do to reduce the filesize, as long as the smaller-sized ones aren't too downgraded.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nightmare on March 28, 2019, 04:30:16 pm

1- Just edit the file with notepad.

3- MVP dublicates can be deleted unless you edited them.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on March 29, 2019, 02:02:16 pm

Quote from: Nightmare on March 28, 2019, 04:30:16 pm

1- Just edit the file with notepad.

...Oh. That makes things a lot easier :lol:

Will upload 1.0.3 tonight.

Also, just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, if I were to remove the CBAnims folder from the mod and keep the filename in the command briefing (example 2_cb_sm1-01_a.png), then the game will search the mediavps and use those instead?

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nightmare on March 29, 2019, 03:27:26 pm

Quote from: Colt on March 29, 2019, 02:02:16 pm

Also, just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, if I were to remove the CBAnims folder from the mod and keep the filename in the command briefing (example 2_cb_sm1-01_a.png), then the game will search the mediavps and use those instead?

Yep. Atleast I don't know a single reason why it shouldn't work. The filenames are also identical to the retail ones, if someone wouldn't have them installed, the game would use the retail ones - probably you should rename them in the mission to "$Ani Filename: 2_cb_sm1-01_a" without the extension (the game will find the correct file).

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on March 29, 2019, 04:09:44 pm

Mod's updated! Weapons should appear now (I hope) and the mod just came back from the gym after shaving off some excess CBAnims. Older versions 1.0 and 1.0.1 have been deleted as well.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nightmare on March 31, 2019, 09:11:50 pm

Fine fine. :nod:

So, I completed this neat little thing. Pretty good stuff - writing, FREDing and balancing were very good, I'd certainly recommend it. The only mission I felt that was a bit generic was mission 2. While the story part - put out bouys - was good, the mission didn't had much more than waves of enemy craft pouring at you, it could be shortened a bit or receive a new twist. Besides that, it's a pretty fine thing. Other people have come up with infinite worse ideas despite being here for, like, 1000 times longer. :)

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 05, 2019, 07:11:03 pm

Quote from: Nightmare on March 31, 2019, 09:11:50 pm

Fine fine. :nod:

So, I completed this neat little thing. Pretty good stuff - writing, FREDing and balancing were very good, I'd certainly recommend it. The only mission I felt that was a bit generic was mission 2. While the story part - put out bouys - was good, the mission didn't had much more than waves of enemy craft pouring at you, it could be shortened a bit or receive a new twist. Besides that, it's a pretty fine thing. Other people have come up with infinite worse ideas despite being here for, like, 1000 times longer. :)

Yeah I wanted a somewhat calm(ish) and straight-forward mission before the chaos of the next one, but knocking off a couple of minutes wouldn't have been a bad call.

Enjoyed all the feedback so far. Its certainly helped with my current project :)

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Fusion on April 06, 2019, 09:40:59 pm

Played through it. It was a very enjoyable mini-campaign. I liked it quite a bit and would highly recommend people play it. You did a good job in explaining what happened to the Phoenicia and its recovery.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mito [PL] on April 07, 2019, 01:05:03 pm

So I decided to take this thing for a spin... And boom, no weapons! I can confirm that these weapons are there when I launch these missions from the Tech Room, so I think something went wrong? The version is 1.0.3.

Edit: So, it seems like there aren't any starting weapons in your campaign file. That's a very quick fix that I've done myself, so if you want I can throw the file in here or through Discord.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nightmare on April 07, 2019, 01:31:48 pm

I think the problem is that the weapons are name the way as in the techroom (with the GTW/GTM prefix).

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 07, 2019, 02:13:46 pm

Whoops. Can confirm I edited it with the gtws in it. On mobile so I'll fix it when I get home.

Also may as well ask here, but can I update the current version 03 instead of making .04, or is that necessary?

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: PIe on April 07, 2019, 03:21:07 pm

Updating 1.0.3 would only upload any metadata changes, not any actual mod changes. Being able to substantially change an existing version would defeat one of the main benefits of Knossos, easily distributing updates and fixes like this.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 07, 2019, 03:41:06 pm

Think I understand. Was worried about releasing a 1.0x version every time I update something as small as a line of text in case it seemed spammy. Then again I worry over wayyy too many things.

EDIT: Aight just got back. Mito if you have done that then I'll gladly accept the document here just to make sure I don't make another broken update :p

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mito [PL] on April 07, 2019, 04:24:02 pm

Nah, it's perfectly fine. Small incremental updates like this help mod makers a lot. Everything is fine as long as your version naming scheme is logical, so i.e. some simple grammar corrections don't cause a 1.0.3 -> 2.0.0 upgrade. :P

Edit: It should be this one. Just look if I didn't place some weapons that shouldn't be there. You can change this stuff by going FRED -> Editors -> Campaign and then opening the campaign file.

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 07, 2019, 05:25:12 pm

Hmm. I just compared the file you gave me and the .fc2 I have, and every thing appears to be the same. Nightmare pointed out about the prefixes which is also still present here. I checked the initial status' in the campaign editor and found I only left the Myrm and the defaut weapons available though. Going to fix these things and edit when it's updated. Let me know if I'm forgetting anything.

Edit: Actually! Just checked the .fc2 file for v1.00 and everything there looks like how it should be. Only thing I changed from 1.00 to 1.01 were some mission balances, so simply replacing the .fc2 with that would would do the trick?

Edit 2: v1.04 Released. Let me know if there's any issues :p

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mito [PL] on April 17, 2019, 08:25:08 am

1.04 is locked to only a single specific FSO build (20190112). This annoyed me a bit, so I just modified my mod.json file to use moar versions:

Code: [Select]

                    "id": "FSO",
                    "version": ">=3.8.1-20190112",
                    "packages": []

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 17, 2019, 10:45:28 am

Quote from: MitoPL on April 17, 2019, 08:25:08 am

1.04 is locked to only a single specific FSO build (20190112). This annoyed me a bit, so I just modified my mod.json file to use moar versions:
Code: [Select]
"id": "FSO", "version": ">=3.8.1-20190112", "packages": []

They work good? I haven't had a chance to check since I'm a bit neck-deep in on another campaign. At the time the newest version was 20190124 but the debris field objects in the first level were stretching all over my screen. Can not recall why I didn't use 20190113 though.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mito [PL] on April 18, 2019, 04:53:33 am

My tweak makes it use any FSO build at least as recent as 20190112. Currently I'm running it on the latest nightly and I'm not facing any issues.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mito [PL] on April 19, 2019, 11:30:10 am

Okay, so I've finished this pretty little campaign and it's made really well. Mission design is rather simple, the good old way of doing things, but a very nice addition were the fiction reader texts. While short and rather simple, they also were decent, a nice insight into the story from the eyes of someone different than the player. Missions weren't too easy, I think that with a small tweak to one of them this campaign will be a nice and mildly challenging play on Insane.

On to some details about the missions themselves:

Hidden Text: Show

Basically, this is another small but solid campaign release. Definitely try it out!

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 19, 2019, 01:27:18 pm

Glad you enjoyed it! In regards to the mission reviews there are a few things that could use some tweaking (for some reason I thought an ecliptic plain only needs the star and no planets for reference :banghead:). Honestly thought mission 3 would've been the one most prone to bugs (that one alone took like half the development time).

Quote from: MitoPL on April 19, 2019, 11:30:10 am

"medel" lol

Whoops.

Should have an update out by either this weekend or next.

In the meantime, back to working on Olym-
:warp:

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: 0rph3u5 on April 24, 2019, 03:41:13 pm

So, I had the opportunity to try out this campaign because I needed to kill some time before a midnight screening at the local movie theatre.

First technical issues:
- The Debriefing for the final mission appeared twice for me. This is because you made mistake with the Debriefing - Debriefing stages do not replace each other but add to each other in order, i.e. each stage is only displayed if its conditions are met, in the order they are entered (Stage 1 before Stage 2, Stage 3 after that). If you want to have a exchange a paragraph in the middle you just have to put in, say, Stage 2 and the replacement in 3 and then rest of the Debrief in 4.
- The files did not arrived on my end packaged as a .vp. Knossos offers the option to do that automatically. It is a good way to keep the files consistent with the download you provide, and will make debugging a bit easier.

Gameplay ~~issues~~ suggestions:
I recommend you get and impliment Axem's Mark-Box-script from here (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94909.0). It is huge quality of life improvement for players when it comes to "destroy X beam"-directives.

Narrative issues:
I can immediatly recognize that you are rather unfamiliar with military proccedure and ideas behind how military leadership is supposed to work - that's fine, not everyone had an officer for a father, like me.
But it leaves some big holes in the narrative for me:

Firstly, in Command Briefing to Mission 02 Command commits the big transgression against its own authority by admitting they have been wrong. The orthodox view on the matter is that commanding officers are not supposed to admit that a previous decision was wrong, as not invite their judgement to be questioned by those under their command. When a decision is reversed the previous decision is not be framed as an error in judgement but that change in the situation has occurred - a superior officer is supposed to inspire confidence in the lower ranks and that begins with projecting their own confidence in their own judgment. As an officer, to question and evolve your own judgement is supposed to happend among peers or in front of superiors only - but it is also required to happen.

Secondly, in the same CB Command breaks with proccedure by dropping the charges on insubordination without proper procedure. This would never happend in a modern military simply for the effect it would have on cohesion of the chain of command. Insubordinate soldiers still have to go through the proper displinary proccedure, even if there has been grounds for their insubordination to go without punishment (like questionable legality of orders, or statue for consciencous objection). To wave this procedure is considered to be encrouaging further insubordination.
Furthermore in matters of discipline, the consquences of an action are never supposed to outweight the action itself.
EDIT: Also, as a matter of procceedure, discipline is not enforced through the chain of command in a modern military - with minor infractions direct superiors usually are still handing down the judgements, however if you go up insubordination, just based on conflict of interests alone, the matter is generally handeled by officers outside the direct chain of command.

Thridly, and most impactfully, in a force that does not take the loyality of its soldiers for granted, search-and-rescue missions (and POW-exchanges) do serve an important secondary objective with regards to force cohesion (tl;dr "force cohesion" is mix of morale, a functioning chain of command and discipline): The demonstrate the commitment of the force has a whole to the individual soldier, which as per a principle of reciprocity is considered to inspire soldiers to do their duty in similiary dangerous situations. This is supposed to work for both unit being rescued and the unit doing rescue, and by extension every other unit in the force as soon as the operation is made public. Historically, the rescue of units from surrounded positions gets a lot of propaganda attention for this reason.
It felt that element was missing - it could have worked great to help build urgency.

^{(Quiet transition to praise)}
Speaking of urgency: I really liked how you used the fiction viewer to suppliment the Briefings, to build urgency and provide addtional perspective. You recognized and utilized this space well.

For a first time, this campaign is a solid effort. It could use some polish in the details.
Recommended to give a look.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nightmare on April 24, 2019, 04:49:37 pm

Aside the thing with the debriefing, the term "suggestion" would be more fitting than "issues".

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: 0rph3u5 on April 24, 2019, 06:57:58 pm

I yield on "gameplay". I stand on "technical" and "narrative".

With regards to technical:
Having the files not packed as .vp may not be an issue that is problematic to the user but becomes a big problem once you try to chase a solution to a problem, vis-a-vis verifying the integrety of the package*. It an entirely developer-side issue, and with "Knossos only" distribution almost a mute point.

(*e.g. I dropped the table required to for my prefered HUD config in to the mod packge because I can't stand to look at that intrusive MVP HUD. If I had been less experienced with FSO and it had caused an issue just finding the out that I dropped a table in there via the fs_open.log would be harder. In the fs_open.log you can see which clearly identify the .vps of mod, but with single files you have to go down every line to spot the foreign file.)

With regards to narrative:
The "issues" are clearly quailified as personal - Colt is free to disregard them at their own pleasure. The assumption at the beginning of my issue is clearly stated.

As to why they are "issues" to me: It broke my suspension of disbelieve. If a story cannot compel you to meet it at its own terms, that is an issue with the narrative.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 24, 2019, 07:16:54 pm

First off, thanks for the detailed feedback. Indeed my understanding of military procedure is pretty simplified, and I purposefully decided to not dive too deep into it so I could keep focus on producing as bug-free a campaign as I could. My current project is definitely more narrative-heavy however, so your explanations will certainly help there.

Technical-wise, I was under the impression that the mod was packaged as a .vp. I may have forgotten to click on the "package as VP" button in the last update? Also thanks for the heads-up with the debriefing bug; I didn't encounter when testing the mission and it's endings, so I'll take a look into it.

That script is the one used in Inferno Nostos, right? I'll see if I can add it for the next update. Thanks!

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nightmare on April 24, 2019, 07:43:41 pm

Here's the easier-to-use version of the script: https://github.com/AxemP/AxemFS2Scripts/tree/master/MarkBox/data

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 27, 2019, 08:20:55 pm

Well, I promised an update.

Version 1.1 Released
Required: Knossos with Nightlies 3.8.1-20190406 or newer.

General Changelog:
-Added Axem's Mark Box script. Should make it much easier to disarm those pesky beams.
-Some small fixes to a few message personas. Couple dozen changes/additions in messages/fictions and grammar fixes.
-Lots of balancing and changes, see below.

Changelog:

Hidden Text: Show

Was originally going to call it 1.0.5, but as I played through this again and the fixes mounted up, I figured I may as well just call it 1.1 :p

Thanks for the helping me improve this, guys.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: CT27 on April 27, 2019, 10:09:27 pm

I tried 1.1 but got this error when trying to launch:

Could not find index 'LuaSEXPs' in type 'Mission'

------------------------------------------------------------------
ADE Debug:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------

stack traceback:
[C]: ?
[string "markbox-sct.tbm - On Game Init"]:283: in main chunk
------------------------------------------------------------------

1: Userdata [Mission]
2: String [LuaSEXPs]
------------------------------------------------------------------

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 27, 2019, 11:12:53 pm

Something I did when adding the markboxs did that. No idea what though.

EDIT: Found the issue (I think). Make sure you're running with nightlies on and with build 3.8.1-20190406 from your FSO settings.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: CT27 on April 29, 2019, 03:27:13 pm

I don't think that will work for me. Any nightly after 10-31-2017 seems to break graphics for me (in all campaigns).

The thing is, this campaign worked fine in previous versions (1.0.4 and prior) with using that particular nightly I mentioned. In other words, I didn't get the error box and was able to play the campaign.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on April 29, 2019, 04:28:23 pm

I see. I can make a copy of 1.1 without the markboxs while running on the previous version and pm it to you then. I wanna shift gears back to my other campaign so the only update WC will be getting in the immediate future is if something breaks (which seems to often be the case :p)

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: CT27 on April 29, 2019, 07:38:40 pm

Thank you. That worked.

I wasn't using Knossos but rather 'regular' FSO so I didn't use the mod.json provided (I created a mod.ini for the folder).

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mito [PL] on May 01, 2019, 05:17:47 am

Quote from: CT27 on April 29, 2019, 03:27:13 pm

I don't think that will work for me. Any nightly after 10-31-2017 seems to break graphics for me (in all campaigns).

I'm pretty sure you should grab a debug log and ask FSO staff some questions about the bug, then.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nyctaeus on August 10, 2019, 08:29:10 pm

:bump:

...is good. Very good. Last mission has some stuff I dislike, but overally very enjoyable. Another project I owe a simple review.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on August 10, 2019, 09:24:39 pm

Glad you liked it! As for the stuff that didn't go over well, might I ask what it was? It may be something I could look out for or implement into my current work.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nyctaeus on August 10, 2019, 10:27:03 pm

Spoiler:

Basicly I had no way to prepate myself for Lilith. I already used majority of my Trebs on bombers, with only pair to take down Lilith's main beam... And unfortunately it's not enough. In such scenario I tried to finish off that beam close-quarters but she fired before I reached the destination and Phoenicia died. It's about player being capable of doing anything to keep mission progressing. This time I wasn't capable of doing anything and had to replay. Next time I saved 4 Trebs for this Lilith with success, but forcing player to replay mission is bad mission designer practice. WiH: Tenebra is perfect example.

Plus the Demon. I don't buy the thing with Demon-class destroyer idling outside battle area for her ships to strike untill she finally rush her engines to strike. It's not how Shivans work. She should jump close to Phoenicia. Fire delay is acceptable here for gameplay resons [She is charging power after jump or something?] This kind of stuff.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on August 11, 2019, 09:48:16 am

Quote from: Nyctaeus on August 10, 2019, 10:27:03 pm

Spoiler:
Basicly I had no way to prepate myself for Lilith. I already used majority of my Trebs on bombers, with only pair to take down Lilith's main beam... And unfortunately it's not enough. In such scenario I tried to finish off that beam close-quarters but she fired before I reached the destination and Phoenicia died. It's about player being capable of doing anything to keep mission progressing. This time I wasn't capable of doing anything and had to replay. Next time I saved 4 Trebs for this Lilith with success, but forcing player to replay mission is bad mission designer practice. WiH: Tenebra is perfect example.

Spoiler:

I'll keep that in mind. Unfortunately it's a bit easy to make a challenging mission too challenging (in this case having to fail at least once), and I agree that's not fun at all.

Quote from: Nyctaeus on August 10, 2019, 10:27:03 pm

Spoiler:
Plus the Demon. I don't buy the thing with Demon-class destroyer idling outside battle area for her ships to strike untill she finally rush her engines to strike. It's not how Shivans work. She should jump close to Phoenicia. Fire delay is acceptable here for gameplay resons [She is charging power after jump or something?] This kind of stuff.

Spoiler:

In regard to the idling part, I'll admit I did that for a number of reasons. Having it approach from a realistic distance without the fight commencing too early was the big one for me, so easiest way was the develop the "they're probably saving strength to go home" narrative.

On that subject, that is super weird Shivan behavior! Perhaps my next campaign will explore that more in depth ;7 (not an excuse to avoid more engaging fleet behavior however). Also that engine/beam power usage scenario sounds good. I'll remember that. Thanks for the response!

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mito [PL] on August 11, 2019, 05:30:03 pm

Regarding the last mission:

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Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nyctaeus on August 11, 2019, 06:19:04 pm

Spoiler:

Treb is anti-bomber, long range missile. Anti-damn-bomber. It's not anti-subsystem missile for unexpected issues so I mostly use it according to it's purpose assigned by V. At the same point I actually saved pair of them knowing nature of fanmade campaigns, as mission designers often require me to use Treb as anti-subsystem ordinance... I actually expected Moloch with additional beam or Ravana, than Lilith jumped and ****ed me up.

So no - mission designer has no right to expect that I will read his mind and predict correctly what will happen. I often try to do so, but this time I failed. It's common issue of aspiring mission designers - they're omnipotent about their missions, they know the way to play it correctly but they sometimes forgot that other, potential players are not them.

It's not a serious issue and obviously I'm not gonna cringe about it, especially when I enjoyed rest of the campaign. Some simple message would help. Something like "Pilots, save your Trebs. We're expecting heavy shivan reinforcements, so be ready for taking down their beam cannons." It's just a small nitpick I found worthy to be noted, to help Colt in his future fredding endeavours... And hoping to play any, if he decide to make such :P

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mito [PL] on August 11, 2019, 07:56:14 pm

Quote

It's not anti-subsystem missile for unexpected issues so I mostly use it according to it's purpose assigned by V.

Whatever V makes the Trebuchet to be in their descriptions, realms of gameplay tend to disagree. Both the Treb and Maxim fill a very specific role that is met pretty often during the game, and it's a real waste to use the ammunition to shoot down secondary targets that could be dispatched just as easily with dogfighting weapons or by your wingmen. Two Trebs can take down a single bomber, or efficiently get rid of a corvette's worth of beam cannons or even defang a Ravana with some luck. What's worth more?
Of course, there are instances where the relative value of multiple beam cannons is lower than a couple bombers, but that's usually due to the ship with these beam cannons being massively displaced in the battlezone.

IMO these arguments are rather self-evident after several years of playing Freespace?

The mission designer isn't supposed to expect the player to read his mind, of course. However, I believe that the mission designer should be at least allowed, if not also encouraged, to create scenarios that reward and/or require the player to employ certain ways of thinking about possible future developements in the battlezone. This also works very well when combined with immersiveness. Look at this like: you're military. The responsibility of the military is to be always prepared for whatever comes and threatens you. You're fighting Shivans of all things. With such an enemy, you must always expect the worst. This means you need to manage your resources carefully to minimise the chance of being caught with your pants down.

This is exactly why after a fight you should always rearm and let all your ship's energy reserves recharge. Or why you take a bank of Trebuchet or Maxim with you for an escort mission, if possible - even if it isn't said that there will be a capship to defang around the place, you have to be prepared for one. Or why warships join formations - to be more resilient in case of fighters and bombers, and to be able to more efficiently respond to threats.
For me, it's a large part of the immersiveness of a mission. Treating the player as if he's thinking like the pilot he is - fighting against an extremely dangerous foe, expecting and preparing for danger and always trying to make the best out the current situation, as compared to a person who sits there and thinks "well I'll just follow the common mission design tropes, what can go wrong?".

I just think, Nyx

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Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nyctaeus on August 11, 2019, 08:49:07 pm

Dedicated anti-subsystem weaponry in both FS games is Stilletto and official doctrine dictated by GTVA is taking down subsystems with Stiletto... But we all known that Stiletto is useless piece of crap and Treb or Maxim are just significantly better. In fact it's your statement that breaks military vibe, because it renders GTVA non competent as it requires you to use useless weapons to achieve the goal with better solutions already available in their arsenal.

But let's not get sooo far and let GTVA do their job. FS was always somewhat rough on the edges as a game, and Treb is actually one of the most OP weapons available for player in FS2, while Stiletto is underwhelming. It has inferior range and it may be intercepted... But Treb is awesome. I'm not surprised why mission designers prefer to give player a Treb when it's about disarming enemy beam cannons. V screwed up, but background they made for individual missions remain valid.

Dude, you're approaching dangerously close to overestimate your ability of judging how other people think. Even if you joke :]. My point is not derived from "****, this thing is not intuitive! I'm so frustrated like a child, because I can't beat this! Who freded that?!".

A well-freded mission may be hard, pushing you to the limits and if you can't beat it, it means you need more skill and perhaps you should play on easier difficulty level. One of the most annoying missions of FS1 - the Tenderizer is excellent example. But this case is different. You have your Pers equipped in Trebs by default, but other player may pick different fighter or not pick Trebs at all in favour of more Harpoons/Tornadoes/Tempests whatever. Mechanics of this mission does not accept that, as you have no other way of dealing with Lilith than quad Trebs. In fact, mechanics of this mission play tic tac toe with you, and leaves you with no option to handle things without loosing it if you decide to go with other approach than the one the mission designer prefer. I'm not sure if team loadout is available in this mission, but even if it's not, tic tac toe issue remain valid. In fact every mission play tic tac toe with player, but it's up to player to win. In this situation, there may be no way to win simply because you use Trebs for what Trebs were bloody hell made for :P . With more time for player to approach the Lilith and kill it's beam by primaries/harpoons, it would be acceptable. Currently this part of the mission is designed for imminent failure.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on August 11, 2019, 09:59:00 pm

Quote from: Nyctaeus on August 11, 2019, 06:19:04 pm

And hoping to play any, if he decide to make such :P

Oh there will be :yes:

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: manwiththemachinegun on March 27, 2020, 07:33:53 pm

Really enjoyed this. I always appreciate a good "meanwhile, off-screen" campaign. The battles were fun, but not overwhelming with good wingmen commands. It helped I played Windmills a few days ago.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on March 28, 2020, 03:50:30 pm

Quote from: manwiththemachinegun on March 27, 2020, 07:33:53 pm

Really enjoyed this. I always appreciate a good "meanwhile, off-screen" campaign. The battles were fun, but not overwhelming with good wingmen commands. It helped I played Windmills a few days ago.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on June 15, 2020, 11:04:49 pm

Update ~~1.20~~ 1.21 is out on Knossos!

~~1.20~~ 1.21 is both a late spring cleaning update and an update that brings it up to the same standard of the still-WIP campaign called Shepherds. New features include Axem's BP-like HUD, scripts and effects from Between the Ashes and Ancient-Shivan War, and a hot retexture of the GTD Phoenicia, courtesy of Nyctaeus. Also loading screens!

(https://fsnebula.org/static/kn_download.png) (https://fsnebula.org/mod/WallsClosing)

Screenshots:

(https://imgur.com/a76nmNq.png)

(https://imgur.com/ZxLpgpq.png)

(https://imgur.com/KgfZ6O5.png)

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: manwiththemachinegun on June 16, 2020, 05:39:00 pm

That's the problem with all these upgrades, I have to play everything again. *sigh* The struggle continues. ;)

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Nightmare on June 16, 2020, 06:04:06 pm

Oh cool an upgrade~ :yes:

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: unsrm on July 29, 2020, 04:11:04 pm

Colt,

I've just finished your campaign, I really enjoyed it, thought the logs added to the tension and at no point did I feel like 'rage quitting', it felt like 'classic Freespace 2' which as far as I'm concerned is a compliment.

One bug that I encountered was no debriefing on mission 1.
One comment - I'd prefer that mission designers not use the message noise as for those of us that use text to speech to 'hear' messages in mission that noise 'replaces' the text to speech.

Overall, massively enjoyable and I hope you decide to work on a new project in the future, new creations are always welcome :D

Chris

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on July 29, 2020, 05:05:13 pm

Hey! Glad you enjoyed it. :)

Quote from: unsrm on July 29, 2020, 04:11:04 pm

One bug that I encountered was no debriefing on mission 1.

Ah, I think I found the culprit. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. :yes:

Quote from: unsrm on July 29, 2020, 04:11:04 pm

One comment - I'd prefer that mission designers not use the message noise as for those of us that use text to speech to 'hear' messages in mission that noise 'replaces' the text to speech.

I've no intention of removing the message beeps, but I think TTS should work if you remove the msg.wav file from the mod's Data>Voice>Special folder.

Quote from: unsrm on July 29, 2020, 04:11:04 pm

Overall, massively enjoyable and I hope you decide to work on a new project in the future, new creations are always welcome :D

Already well ahead! I'm working on a follow-up campaign called Shepherds, set during the days between Argonautica and Into the Lion's Den. https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=96154.0

Progress has slowed, but still being made. ;)

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: unsrm on July 30, 2020, 03:52:36 am

Great idea on the message.wav, will do that in future! Thank you!

Good luck on the new project, I await with interest! :D

Chris

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Mobius on August 10, 2020, 02:57:54 pm

I've just completed my playthrough. Quite an enjoyable campaign! :yes:

The last mission in particular was quite challenging. In order to beat it, I had to completely change my loadout after a couple of failed attempts.

Title: Re: RELEASE: Walls Closing
Post by: Colt on December 11, 2023, 09:25:31 pm

Update 1.3 is out!

Featuring some small mission redesigns (and a whole new intro for the final mission :cool:), new scripts, music from ShadowOfLight's Freespace Soundtrack Expansion Project which were featured in Shepherds, dialogue and more. If you haven't played it, now's the time! (and if you have, play it again!)

(https://fsnebula.org/static/kn_download.png) (https://fsnebula.org/mod/WallsClosing)

Have a few screenshots:

(https://imgur.com/hlbFpCe.png)

(https://imgur.com/WBhqlC5.png)

(https://imgur.com/XFGcu9v.png)

Hard Light Productions Forums

FreeSpace Releases => Mission & Campaign Releases => Topic started by: Colt on February 07, 2019, 10:31:51 pm