[TopAce]

The bomber docks are supposed to be volatile, but only in a few meter range. Unless you are very, very close, you shouldn't die of its explosion. What difficulty level were you playing on?

[EDIT]Yeah! After 48 hours, the ModDB guys finally authorized the news item I posted about the release. 

[Alex Heartnet]

Well, think I found my new favorite secondary weapon.  The MX-70.

The GTVA would do well to replace their hornets with this, and start phasing out the Harpoon.  (Granted, the only reason the GTVA is even still using the Hornet is because of the huge stockpile of the darn things)

[MatthTheGeek]

Why on earth would you need anything else than Tempests I don't even.

[TopAce]

Styles, styles, styles...

[CommanderDJ]

Just finished this. Its simplicity is its strength; it's an old-fashioned cog-in-the-machine style narrative that definitely harkens back to retail gameplay, but introduces new elements at a frequent enough rate to keep things remarkably fresh. Not once was I bored. The stealth missions, for some reason, were incredibly fun. No idea what it was, but I enjoyed those two the most out of the campaign. A very enjoyable campaign! I've been looking forward to it for a while, and it definitely met my expectations.

[MikeRoz]

I was extremely pleased that

Spoiler:

the double agent did try to kill you. After my suspicions about his being a double agent were confirmed, I was left thinking "Why didn't he shoot me in the face? Knowing how FS2 played out, that would have been a more devastating blow than any of the capships he managed to lure to their death." I guess he had. I wonder if he read the instructions for the detonator.

[Meneldil]

Just finished this. Its simplicity is its strength; it's an old-fashioned cog-in-the-machine style narrative that definitely harkens back to retail gameplay, but introduces new elements at a frequent enough rate to keep things remarkably fresh. Not once was I bored.

I'll second this.
I know next-to-nothing about fredding, but some of the things you pulled off were impressive. Is the "intro menu" you used for choosing an entry point an SCP addition, or a hack? I've never seen it before.
For some reason, blowing things up with remote control drones was especially fun
Also, thumbs up for appropriately naming the Albertine's turrets: I wish that was a more common practice in mods.

Minor complaints:
- going through the mod files to find the stats for primaries is unnecessarily tedious
- the choice prompt in mission 6 shows the default key bindings (1 and 2), but expects whatever is bound to "(multiplayer) message all" and "(multiplayer) message friendly".

[Commander Zane]

- going through the mod files to find the stats for primaries is unnecessarily tedious

How? Open LCW_v10.vp with VPView32, go to Tables, double-click weapons.tbl, click the + next to Primary Weapons, and there's the list.

[TopAce]

I know next-to-nothing about fredding, but some of the things you pulled off were impressive. Is the "intro menu" you used for choosing an entry point an SCP addition, or a hack? I've never seen it before.

Kind of a combination. The graphical part (arrows, help dialog) were facilitated by an SCP feature that allows you to draw all kinds on things on the HUD. The rest of it is done in FRED alone.

For some reason, blowing things up with remote control drones was especially fun.

Good. It was meant to be.

Also, thumbs up for appropriately naming the Albertine's turrets: I wish that was a more common practice in mods.

Thank you. I wish more people appreciated small things like this.

- going through the mod files to find the stats for primaries is unnecessarily tedious

Do you mean their use wasn't obvious from the descriptions? Because I didn't use any "special" method to create my weapons.

- the choice prompt in mission 6 shows the default key bindings (1 and 2), but expects whatever is bound to "(multiplayer) message all" and "(multiplayer) message friendly".

Yes, you are right about this. I wonder if anyone would modify the keybindings for them. You have?

[Dragon]

They occasionally get wiped for some reason and usually are not rebinded. I have no idea why. That's always a risk if you're not binding a key via LUA.

[Meneldil]

How? Open LCW_v10.vp with VPView32, go to Tables, double-click weapons.tbl, click the + next to Primary Weapons, and there's the list.

In my case actually more like try to find a .vp viewer on your hard drive, fail, dowlnoad it, find the weapons.tbl, calculate what you need. No, it still didn't take more than 10 minutes, and it is kind of nitpicking... it's just that I consider giving the relevant data in-game to be a better practice.

Kind of a combination. The graphical part (arrows, help dialog) were facilitated by an SCP feature that allows you to draw all kinds on things on the HUD. The rest of it is done in FRED alone.

I haven't played the relevant mission to know how much difference your choice actually makes, but it's definitely a feature with a great potential and an interesting way to expand the retail's gameplay.

Do you mean their use wasn't obvious from the descriptions? Because I didn't use any "special" method to create my weapons.

Well, no, they're fine, but I still couldn't make an informed choice between the night wolf, subach, prometheus and kayser without seeing the numbers, especially since I prefer the slower ROF of the old primaries.

Yes, you are right about this. I wonder if anyone would modify the keybindings for them. You have?

Yeah, I guess most people leave them alone, but I use the mouse constantly for precision aiming, and WASD for maneuvering, so I had to rebind everything crucial to their vicinity. It's a snug fit :|

p.s.

Spoiler:

Does making an (implied) sequel qualify as undertaking a new project?

[TopAce]

In response to your last questions:

Spoiler:

Yes, it does, and I've never thought of making one. The story, though ends in a cliffhanger, is whole. If I decide to make a new campaign, it will feature Shivans.

[achtung]

http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.843

Seems as if this release is fairly stable. I'll go ahead and mirror it.

[Spoon]

An actual good campaign. Lots of mission variety and a decent freespace-ish military story.
The only cons I could really find are more like nitpicks. Like a planet being fully lit while the sun is behind it. Not to fond of the music selection, which was limited and tended to loop a lot. There are two new primary weapons (subach HL-11 and the nightwolf) but there is no information given in the loadout screen on what these weapons do aside from 'good all round weapon'. And the campaign uses default freespace A.I., which makes your allies pretty much incompetent at whatever task you put them. But the missions are balanced around this A.I. so its okay.

It's a medium length campaign that is polished and a solid experienced. As said before, with a lot of mission variety. Which makes this campaign continuously interesting to play. The setting is clear and well written, with characters that you'll at least remember through out the campaign. After the first mission you have a pretty clear idea on what you are doing in this system and what the conflict is about (Take notes, Syrk ). You'll be presented with ample choice in weapon and ship selection, with the missions partly adjusting on your ship selection. Which is a nice touch. The mission 'encounter' has you choose your starting point through a in mission menu, which is cool. I ended up replaying that mission like 15 times before I finally beat it though (wingmen being too dumb to help you with the objective and too stupid to kill that one last remaining fighter which is slowly killing them off one by one etc. Also, why do parked bombers have active shields? Aren't they suppose to be powered down?). I didn't minded it much because the mission gives you a lot of freedom on how to approach it. So it just took me a bit of experimenting on how to best get it done.

This might be your last campaign, Topace. But it is definitely your best one.
I'll give this a 8/10 rating and would definitely recommend it to people. Especially ones that are looking for a 'Retail-ish' kind of experience.

[Legate Damar]

I just started playing this and so far I really like it. There is some excellent FREDding here. Some comments on the missions I have played so far:

Spoiler:

In mission 2, you leave 4 Ulysses fighters on the enemy station? Seems kind of weird. Also the debriefing said I fired on civilian vessels when I didn't (however the station's turrets hit them a bit when they were trying to shoot at me).

In mission 4, at the end when the support ship docks with you, at first I thought it was an enemy ship in disguise that had captured you based on the comment. That would have been an interesting twist.

I will keep playing it and give the rest of my thoughts.

[Black Wolf]

Spoon has summed up my thoughts pretty well - definitely a rock solid campaign with lots to recommend it. I'm at mission 7 at the moment - I'll PM you some more detailed observations when I get through the whole thing.

[TopAce]

Legate:

Spoiler:

Why not, if you acquire 4 superior fighters in the process? About the station: it would have been better if it were disarmed. Though you must have had a very, very unlucky playthrough, unless you hid behind a container.

Also, has anyone started advertising the campaign? Its ModDB page had 514 views yesterday  and today is looking pretty damn good as well, and it's 8:12 here only.

[MatthTheGeek]

I'm at mission 7 at the moment - I'll PM you some more detailed observations when I get through the whole thing.

Why PM him ? Aren't release threads made for reviews from players ? We're interested in what you have to say too !

[Black Wolf]

I'm at mission 7 at the moment - I'll PM you some more detailed observations when I get through the whole thing.

Why PM him ? Aren't release threads made for reviews from players ? We're interested in what you have to say too !

A lot of it's somewhat technical or just "TRhis is how I would have done it" type stuff, and if I post it all publicly, it might well come off as overly negative and nitpicky, which wouldn't be an accurate reflection of how I feel about the campaign. That kind of review might be useful for Topace as a FREDder, but it's not the message I want to convey to someone reading this thread trying to decide if the campaign is worth his time or not.

[Spoon]

What, no accusations on how I ruined this campaign too? I'm disappointed