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Hosted Projects - Standalone => First Contact War => Topic started by: Strygon on March 24, 2022, 06:47:55 am

Title: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Strygon on March 24, 2022, 06:47:55 am: (https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519220662640836631/956726530174779442/kn_banner.png)

The First Contact War - Episode 1

REQUIRES FSO 22.0 RC4 OR LATER

Go install it right now

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

Manual download links pending... Please Wait Warmly

It's finally here, the first act of the mod I've been working on since October 2020! 10 missions await you in this Total Conversion set in a wholly original new universe, beset with over 40 new, totally unique ships crafted specifically for this mod (along with the Baikal I may have nabbed from DE/WoD).

In this story you play as Ayako Matoke, a fresh graduate from the Solar Federation Naval Academy, and new ensign to the 58th Stormclouds. Together with a cast of varied and interesting characters, you wage war against the bloodthirsty Glisean Steel Pact, but not all is as it seems because there's another, much more sinister threat lurking in the shadows.

Next to the standard missions, you also get to spend some time with your fellow wingmen off-mission in Visual Novel-style sequences.

This has been a project I've been conceptualizing since 2016, and have been working on proper since October 2020. This is only the first of four planned Episodes, with each further Episode also adding more to the existing ones. Excepting the testers and the occasional beta reader checking my writing/Lafiel helping me with scripts, I've been doing this project essentially all on my own.

Known Issues:
-The VN Scenes aren't exactly brimming with lots of dialogue at the moment.
-Sometimes Head.ANIs don't show up properly.
-Mission 9 may not give you the Marker missile. I have applied every possible fix to this bug I can do from my end but it can only be fixed by switching to the latest RC builds.
-The "Skip to First/Last Stage of Briefing" buttons don't work. I don't know why that's happening, I've used essentially just reskinned files from base FS2, it should by all accounts be working.

Special Thanks

-Massive thanks go to Lafiel for helping me out with the VN Script and just maintaining it in general. This is a crucial cornerstone of this mod's overall vision.
-Sparda for beta testing the final batch of missions and giving me valuable feedback on some of them.
-spart_n for occasionally telling me to get off my arse and work on this, and also for coming up with better mission names/ship names because I am not good with names at all.
-EatThePath for handing me the Deathball weapon which formed the basis for the Bluespace Artillery Munitions.
-Spoon for making Wings of Dawn, which inspired this mod in the first place.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Ertanax on March 24, 2022, 06:50:08 am: Marvellous. Well done, Strygon. Downloading now. I'll get back to you with my initial thoughts, promptly.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Goober5000 on March 24, 2022, 02:27:32 pm: Highlighted. :yes:
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: wookieejedi on March 24, 2022, 03:39:35 pm: Oh this looks fantastic, congratulations on the release! Downloading now :)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: starlord on March 24, 2022, 06:00:37 pm: Congrats Strygon.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: CT27 on March 25, 2022, 12:49:14 am: Pretty good for the most part. However, there are a couple errors I ran into:

When I tried to play mission 8, I got "attempt to load mission failed". This was in the normal campaign and through the techroom.

In mission 9, after you tag and destroy the warships and the shuttle Omega comes in...if the shuttle gets destroyed nothing happens. Command or your wingmen don't say anything. You think they would tell you to return to base with a failure message or something.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Strygon on March 25, 2022, 07:16:19 am: Quote from: CT27 on March 25, 2022, 12:49:14 am

When I tried to play mission 8, I got "attempt to load mission failed". This was in the normal campaign and through the techroom.

I'm not able to reproduce this bug on my end. I'm definitely looking into the Mission 9 issue and am deploying a fix as we speak, but this is something I can't really fix as-is at least. Could you try submitting a debug log? Maybe I can at least identify the source of the error that way.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Nightmare on March 26, 2022, 11:16:49 am: Congrats on the release~ :) :yes:
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: ShivanSlayer on March 26, 2022, 10:49:27 pm: Mission 9 is bugged as I don't get the marker missile
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Strygon on March 26, 2022, 11:03:46 pm: I've already looked into this bug, there's nothing I can do on my end to fix it. You'll have to fiddle around with FSO versions. Try the latest RC and some of the newer nightlies.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: CT27 on March 26, 2022, 11:19:06 pm: I figured out my issue.

I was playing on final 21.4. I tried downloading 22.0 RC4 and using that instead.

That worked and fixed my issues. I was able to play mission 8 and there were successful failure and success messages on mission 9.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Strygon on March 26, 2022, 11:21:16 pm: It's bizarre that Knossos let you play with versions that are too old as per my settings, but I'm glad you managed to fix it regardless.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: CT27 on March 26, 2022, 11:34:25 pm: Quote from: Strygon on March 26, 2022, 11:21:16 pm
It's bizarre that Knossos let you play with versions that are too old as per my settings, but I'm glad you managed to fix it regardless.

For what it's worth, I wasn't using Knossos for this. I manually downloaded the files from the fsnebula page and made a folder and mod.ini.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: ShivanSlayer on March 27, 2022, 12:34:23 am: Quote from: Strygon on March 26, 2022, 11:03:46 pm
I've already looked into this bug, there's nothing I can do on my end to fix it. You'll have to fiddle around with FSO versions. Try the latest RC and some of the newer nightlies.

I was on the latest version of the mod. I just did the 5 times suicide trick to bypass the mission. Other than that, this was a pretty good mod that leaves me wanting more. Some suggestions I have are adding destroying one of those blue ships on mission 8 as a bonus objective. I destroyed one and felt there should have been a congratulatory text in the debriefing like with mission 5 of the original Freespace campaign if you take down a Shivan fighter. Also, the debriefing screens could use some music
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Strygon on March 27, 2022, 12:41:55 am: Happy to hear you enjoyed the rest of the mod at least. I'll be sure to add your suggestions in the next patch.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] The First Contact War - Episode 1
Post by: Strygon on June 22, 2022, 04:56:18 pm: Newest update fixes a couple red-alert related bugs and removes the Demo campaign and Cloak and Dagger.