[Akalabeth Angel]

I'm gonna give a shot at logical deduction. You have been playing FSO with the mediavps, right? With decent framerates, right? And you experience severe slowdowns during explosions? Conclusion: You've had mv_adveffects.vp in your mediavps folder. Removing it could've easily increased performance.

     Hey  just to let you guys know I threw in the uh, new MediaVPs and they seem to work fine for the most part. I think the problem I had before is that I didn't know what I was doing, I just downloaded everything and threw it in there. Darn, now I have more stuff to play. Though . . . the new assets VP. Hmmn, yeah my computer doesn't like the Asteroids. Totally unplayable in the field. Otherwise I didn't notice any slowdown in the few missions I did . . . though some of the models seem to be adding detail for the sake of detail (Triton container for example). But whatever. Also I think I prefer the Mjolnir with the shiny lights.


     There is actually another single player mission for this campaign, but it's in the FRED contest. So you guys'll have to wait til that contest is done before you can play it I guess. It's kinda a fun mission, nothing too fancy.

 
     EDIT - oh yeah another thing I noticed is that with the new MediaVPs some of my nebulas are all crazy now. Random colours everywhere . .. oh well.

[Jeff Vader]

     Hey  just to let you guys know I threw in the uh, new MediaVPs and they seem to work fine for the most part. I think the problem I had before is that I didn't know what I was doing, I just downloaded everything and threw it in there. Darn, now I have more stuff to play. Though . . . the new assets VP. Hmmn, yeah my computer doesn't like the Asteroids. Totally unplayable in the field. Otherwise I didn't notice any slowdown in the few missions I did . . . though some of the models seem to be adding detail for the sake of detail (Triton container for example). But whatever. Also I think I prefer the Mjolnir with the shiny lights.


     There is actually another single player mission for this campaign, but it's in the FRED contest. So you guys'll have to wait til that contest is done before you can play it I guess. It's kinda a fun mission, nothing too fancy.

 
     EDIT - oh yeah another thing I noticed is that with the new MediaVPs some of my nebulas are all crazy now. Random colours everywhere . .. oh well.

Of course, there is another option. Since The 3.6.10 mediavps are in a beta phase, and the 3.6.10 build isn't exactly official yet, you could try fs2_open_3_6_9 and the 3.6.8Zeta Mediavps. Again without adveffects. That's a pretty purdy solution and the asteroids shouldn't be a problem ,that is, unless you forget to enable jpg/tga textures, in which case you won't even see the asteroids.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Of course, there is another option. Since The 3.6.10 mediavps are in a beta phase, and the 3.6.10 build isn't exactly official yet, you could try fs2_open_3_6_9 and the 3.6.8Zeta Mediavps. Again without adveffects. That's a pretty purdy solution and the asteroids shouldn't be a problem ,that is, unless you forget to enable jpg/tga textures, in which case you won't even see the asteroids.

    I might just uh, play with the new asset VP and then whenever I get an asteroid field mission, just take that VP out of the folder. Or . . I could always make a new VP sans asteroids but that would be more trouble than it's worth I imagine. Even so, it's cool to know I can play with prettier graphics these days. Thanks guys.

[Jeff Vader]

Oh wait. I've heard rumours that once the final 3.6.10 mediavps come out, the asteroid lag will be no more. That'll be a relief. I'm also getting slowdowns in asteroid fields.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Oh wait. I've heard rumours that once the final 3.6.10 mediavps come out, the asteroid lag will be no more. That'll be a relief. I'm also getting slowdowns in asteroid fields.

     Well. . . wouldn't call mine slowdowns per say . .. more like "press ESC to quit now because this is ridiculous, but still wait 10 seconds for the screen to come up". Glacier combat.
     Also the first time I played with the Assets is was like "What the hell did they do to the Shivans?" Few hours later I figured out I needed to enable the glowmaps. guess there's a few other options, specular something, which I can try out . . dunno what they do.

[Jeff Vader]

Also the first time I played with the Assets is was like "What the hell did they do to the Shivans?" Few hours later I figured out I needed to enable the glowmaps. guess there's a few other options, specular something, which I can try out . . dunno what they do.

The basics of using the mediavps: Enable at least specular, glowmaps, and environment maps. Trust me on this one. With 3.6.9 it is also necessary to enable jpg/tga textrues. Use models for ship selection is also funny.

[NGTM-1R]

I'd be against environment maps personally, since I think seeing stars reflect off battleship-grey armor plate is stupid, but...

[jediben20]

i have strangely enough encountered another problem, although i am not sure if it is of my own creation or not 

in mission 9, the freighters just sat there during the entire ordeal. I'm not sure, but it may have something to do with the fact that i ordered my wingmen to destroy the euthanasia instead of letting one of the cruiser's deal with it.

also, the nimue has this really awful tendency, at the beginning of the mission, to just immediately ram through the convoy, sending many of the freighters in several colorful directions.     

all in all, the freighters don't get anywhere near the station.  i've checked the events and that seems strange because their new ai goals should kick in regardless of who destroys the euthanasia. in any case, i've got a bit of a headache trying to figure it out, so i think i'll call it quits for tonight.

       Uh . . . that's a new one.  Did it do this more than once? I don't see how destroying the Euthanasia will do anything different . . . I mean, there's the possibility that the freighters will ram the Boehme if it isn't out of the way in time, but the Nimue ramming the freighters? Odd.

Unfortunately this appears to happen every time. It seems that even though the nimue doesn't appear to quite physically touch the freighters, at first,  it still has such an effect (first on the rear left freighter) and then it gets messy. and unfortunately the boehme will forever be safe from being rammed by these freighters. they never move, even after the euthanasia goes boom.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Unfortunately this appears to happen every time. It seems that even though the nimue doesn't appear to quite physically touch the freighters, at first,  it still has such an effect (first on the rear left freighter) and then it gets messy. and unfortunately the boehme will forever be safe from being rammed by these freighters. they never move, even after the euthanasia goes boom.

     Wierd, maybe they lost their inital orders?
     Freighter 1+3 should have initial orders to go to waypoint Freight 1&3
     Freighter 2+4 should have initial orders to go to waypoint Freight 2&4
     
     then with regards to events . . .
     "AIDIR: Convoy Speed"
     should set all freighters to speed 16

     "Go Freighters Go"
     should set all freighters speed 30
     And add new waypoints for Freighters 1 + 2 with (Freight 1 Run, Freight 2 Run respectively)

     If the freighters aren't moving at all, there must be a problem with one of those . . . I don't know what else it would be. (most likely the initial orders in the ship editor). Sounds like you looked at the events but not the ships themselves?? One other thing I thought is maybe somehow the table is being overwitten (ship.tbl) so the Syndicate ships are Fenrises instead. But I think if it was missing, FS2 would just turn them into Ares Fighters not Fenrises anyway . . . (the Fenris is faster than the Syndicate cruisers so in that case the Nimue would overtake them and run into them).
    Remember if there's <> around anything, like for example <Freight 1&3 Waypoint> it means the waypoint is missing.


    What version are you running? Retail or Open?

[Akalabeth Angel]

I'd be against environment maps personally, since I think seeing stars reflect off battleship-grey armor plate is stupid, but...

    Makes sense for windows and shiny bits, but yeah armour might be a bit of a stretch. I'll have to check it out.

[jediben20]

Unfortunately this appears to happen every time. It seems that even though the nimue doesn't appear to quite physically touch the freighters, at first,  it still has such an effect (first on the rear left freighter) and then it gets messy. and unfortunately the boehme will forever be safe from being rammed by these freighters. they never move, even after the euthanasia goes boom.

     Wierd, maybe they lost their inital orders?
     Freighter 1+3 should have initial orders to go to waypoint Freight 1&3
     Freighter 2+4 should have initial orders to go to waypoint Freight 2&4
     
     then with regards to events . . .
     "AIDIR: Convoy Speed"
     should set all freighters to speed 16

     "Go Freighters Go"
     should set all freighters speed 30
     And add new waypoints for Freighters 1 + 2 with (Freight 1 Run, Freight 2 Run respectively)

     If the freighters aren't moving at all, there must be a problem with one of those . . . I don't know what else it would be. (most likely the initial orders in the ship editor). Sounds like you looked at the events but not the ships themselves?? One other thing I thought is maybe somehow the table is being overwitten (ship.tbl) so the Syndicate ships are Fenrises instead. But I think if it was missing, FS2 would just turn them into Ares Fighters not Fenrises anyway . . . (the Fenris is faster than the Syndicate cruisers so in that case the Nimue would overtake them and run into them).
    Remember if there's <> around anything, like for example <Freight 1&3 Waypoint> it means the waypoint is missing.


    What version are you running? Retail or Open?

I'm running Open. 3.6.9

You are right. I peaked at the events. But, I have been avoiding looking at the ships themselves. It just so happens that whenever I do and I don't have the particular model in my data\models and associated table that it automatically reverts into a wonderful ulysses fighter and then a ton of errors come up. So I've definitely avoided that.  Since the freighters never went anywhere and since there was a definite collision course with the vasudans, I assumed that the "Go Frieghters Go" was the first cue for the freighters to turn on their engines. Apparently not.

I've checked the initial orders of the freighters and the events and they both seem in order. The waypoints are also definitely there.

So then the question becomes: why are the freighters not obeying their initial orders? since no body else has reported the problem it is probably just a fluke on this side.

[Akalabeth Angel]

I'm running Open. 3.6.9

You are right. I peaked at the events. But, I have been avoiding looking at the ships themselves. It just so happens that whenever I do and I don't have the particular model in my data\models and associated table that it automatically reverts into a wonderful ulysses fighter and then a ton of errors come up. So I've definitely avoided that.  Since the freighters never went anywhere and since there was a definite collision course with the vasudans, I assumed that the "Go Frieghters Go" was the first cue for the freighters to turn on their engines. Apparently not.

I've checked the initial orders of the freighters and the events and they both seem in order. The waypoints are also definitely there.

So then the question becomes: why are the freighters not obeying their initial orders? since no body else has reported the problem it is probably just a fluke on this side.

      I dunno what's going on. I uh took the same mission, and opened it up in FredOpen and then just made new waypoints and redid the exact orders. So basically the same mission, but with the problems redone with FredOpen code. Maybe it'll work??? (see attached file) I don't know.

      Incidentally, a question for those who've played Mission 9 (second part of the Syndicate Convoy)

Spoiler:

Did people have problems with the Dakla blowing up the Boehme? I played the mission through, like LITERALLY a hundred times in Retail and after a certain amount of tweaking, the Boehme would always survive with like at least 15% health. Then when I loaded it up with FSOpen the Boehme died twice in a row. So I thought "okay, maybe someone "fixed" the firing arcs on the Mentu. And played without the Assets.VP and for two missions, it survived . . . then on the third it died again. Completely baffling to me.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[NGTM-1R]

My first attempt, it blew up. The Mentu apparently has quite the mean beams on it, the Boehme went from very minor damage (I think 97% hull) to 33% hull in one salvo. Or that was just its trashy Fenris ancestory showing. I'll try again later.

So I finally get around to really playing this.

Spoiler:

Thoughts so far: I have to admit the FRED quality is a little...jarring. Some of it is very well done, but there are some newbish persistant errors (like the cargo scanning, which was clearly meant to show "unknown cargo" and then reveal but instead gives you "not scanned" and "scanned", a few missing or messed-up head ANIs) as well. And the characterization of your main character struck me as...very odd, in the dreams sequence. Much too calm.

Yet at its core, it seems to be very well thought out and very well designed. Parts of it are simply superb, though a part of me is still twitching over the fact that some of your ideas about peacetime GTVA ops parallel mine so closely; I was just working on my own jump node patrol mission prior to starting the campaign and felt more than a little bit of deja vu. And will admit to probably going to be lifting a few things.

[Akalabeth Angel]

My first attempt, it blew up. The Mentu apparently has quite the mean beams on it, the Boehme went from very minor damage (I think 97% hull) to 33% hull in one salvo. Or that was just its trashy Fenris ancestory showing. I'll try again later.

      Damn . . . does not compute. Maybe I should've made the battle a little more staged, though as I said it worked fine in retail. Odd how things change for no apparent reason in Open.

Spoiler:

Yet at its core, it seems to be very well thought out and very well designed. Parts of it are simply superb, though a part of me is still twitching over the fact that some of your ideas about peacetime GTVA ops parallel mine so closely; I was just working on my own jump node patrol mission prior to starting the campaign and felt more than a little bit of deja vu. And will admit to probably going to be lifting a few things.

[/quote]

      Yeah, some of those missions are very Noobish. Before I started this campaign, I did . . . hmmn maybe 4-5 serious missions I think? So still very much a noob.

Spoiler:

The Dream sequence was one of the things I thought was kinda iffy when I released it . . . everything's cool the first time, then when I play it two years later I was a bit . . 'eck'. But oh well. And hey, there's nothing wrong with lifting stuff. I just played Age of Aquarius and it has some similarities to my own ideas . . . so I might lift a few things he's done there, though at the same time do them differently. Lots can be done with the new FredOpen stuff. I was planning to have more node missions, but . . . they're so damn boring to Fred I just cut them out. Plus I can do what they intended much easier with Open. And ontop of that, I think I can accomplish the story with fewer missions basically . . . I've seen that from other people's campaigns. Need to be less verbose, but more convincing.

[woutersmits]

it still not working m 4

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Akalabeth Angel]

it still not working m 4

      Hey man I think I figured it out. Check your freespace2/data/tables directory. You should NOT have any files in there. If you have for example, a ships.tbl . . that file will be used INSTEAD of the VP's ships.tbl file. I don't know if you need those files for another MOD, an easy fix is to create a new subfolder and simply throw them in there while you play the mod.  So like, make freespace2/data/tables/backup or something and put your existing files in there. Then when you're done with the campaign, simply move them back and do whatever you were doing before. My VP files has a few new tbls which are needed for several missions, weapons.tbl ships.tbl and stars.tbl.

      That's the first mission with a new fighter (by aldo), though you maybe have seen it before. Normally if there's a new class that freespace doesn't have it'll just throw out the first fighter in the table. Typically a Ulysses. But the thing is, I have an event that adds that fighter to the tech database so you can look at it in the techroom. Apparently FS2 really does NOT like having Sexps mentioning ships that dont exist. (I crashed my fs2 pretty good!)

      Hope this solves your problem man. Let me know if it works or if you don't understand what I mean.

[Jeff Vader]

it still not working m 4

Make sure you don't have any extra vp files in your \freespace\ folder.

[woutersmits]

no thats not be a problem

[Akalabeth Angel]

no thats not be a problem

   Is it working now? Or no?

[jediben20]

I'm running Open. 3.6.9

You are right. I peaked at the events. But, I have been avoiding looking at the ships themselves. It just so happens that whenever I do and I don't have the particular model in my data\models and associated table that it automatically reverts into a wonderful ulysses fighter and then a ton of errors come up. So I've definitely avoided that.  Since the freighters never went anywhere and since there was a definite collision course with the vasudans, I assumed that the "Go Frieghters Go" was the first cue for the freighters to turn on their engines. Apparently not.

I've checked the initial orders of the freighters and the events and they both seem in order. The waypoints are also definitely there.

So then the question becomes: why are the freighters not obeying their initial orders? since no body else has reported the problem it is probably just a fluke on this side.

      I dunno what's going on. I uh took the same mission, and opened it up in FredOpen and then just made new waypoints and redid the exact orders. So basically the same mission, but with the problems redone with FredOpen code. Maybe it'll work??? (see attached file) I don't know.

      Incidentally, a question for those who've played Mission 9 (second part of the Syndicate Convoy)

Spoiler:

Did people have problems with the Dakla blowing up the Boehme? I played the mission through, like LITERALLY a hundred times in Retail and after a certain amount of tweaking, the Boehme would always survive with like at least 15% health. Then when I loaded it up with FSOpen the Boehme died twice in a row. So I thought "okay, maybe someone "fixed" the firing arcs on the Mentu. And played without the Assets.VP and for two missions, it survived . . . then on the third it died again. Completely baffling to me.

I've just tried out the mission as attached. The freighters and the Boehme aren't going anywhere. I did notice that they do have the time-till-waypoint function, but it said "unknown" or something along those lines. So they are definitely registering their initial orders. There has been one other campaign I've played (at least last summer) where there was a similar problem with one of the ships. I think it is probably just a bug.

On another note, the first few times I tried playing the mission I was completely blindsided by the immediate destruction of the Boehme just after the beam was fired. I say blindsided because I had absolutely no idea what I should have done or could have done to prevent it. When I jumped back after being ordered to, I got an AWOL debrief and the debrief that pertained to success of the pirate attack. So I was kinda lost indeed. You might want to make the Bohme guardian threshold at something like 60 percent or so.