Author Topic: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune  (Read 15748 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
This is such a ****ing war, what a good mission.

Break, break, new post:

  

Offline General Battuta

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
You can give orders to Neptune HQ, Normandy and two supply platforms once they turn friendly. This allows you to tell Neptune HQ to warp out and it obediently jumps!

I would suggest maybe cutting one of the Dios? Dios were usually deployed independently b/c of doctrinal confusion ("it has a fighterbay so it's self-escorting, it's agile so we can afford to send it risky places") and two Dios is an INCREDIBLY heavy force for this early in the war. They could probably macerate a couple extra frigates.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2021, 02:38:56 pm by General Battuta »

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
This is such a ****ing war, what a good mission.

Break, break, new post:
Hey dude, glad you enjoyed it! Means a significant amount to me.  :D

You can give orders to Neptune HQ, Normandy and two supply platforms once they turn friendly. This allows you to tell Neptune HQ to warp out and it obediently jumps!

I would suggest maybe cutting one of the Dios? Dios were usually deployed independently b/c of doctrinal confusion ("it has a fighterbay so it's self-escorting, it's agile so we can afford to send it risky places") and two Dios is an INCREDIBLY heavy force for this early in the war. They could probably macerate a couple extra frigates.
Ah, fascinating! Thanks for the pick-up. I'll get right on that!

Ref the Dios, that makes a lot of sense, cheers! I've got an idea for its replacement, and I have a few hours spare tonight so I'll see what I can whip together.

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
Update is now live!

Changelog:

- GTCv Lezard now changed to a Deimos class corvette. Doesn't appear to affect balance on my runthrough but please let me know if things appear broken now!

- Installations are now unable to be ordered by the player.

- Sved's updated HUD icon script now live. Enjoy bombs and wing icons now.

- Dialogue fix as per Dekker's EOD subject-matter expertise.

- Default build now changed to RC3 in line with latest FSO updates.

- Glossary now available under Tech Room->Intelligence. Reposted here and just after the release thread for your viewing pleasure.

Quote from: GTVA Air Combat Manoeuvring 1-0-0: Introduction to ACM Fundamentals
CH 1: GTVA Brevity Code

The importance of brevity and a common operating picture of terminology cannot be overstated during ACM. All aircrew should ensure they are conversant with the below terms and can recall their meanings under significant cognitive duress.

AFATADS: Advanced Field Artillery Targeting and Direction System. Refers to the network and target acquisition architecture used by all GTVA vessels to produce firing solutions with both long-range missile and beam weapons systems. Forms spine of the TAG system. Also allows target acquisition by GTVA spacecraft for select ordnance types from platforms such as the GTF Ares.
As Fragged: Wing/Ship is performing action as per the Air Tasking Order. I.e. as ordered.
BLUFOR: Blue force. Refers to friendly forces.
BRAA: Bearing, Range, Altitude, Aspect. Taken from 21st Century ACM vernacular, BRAA is the format that all contact calls are relayed by AWACS and Mission Command controllers. E.g. “Contact, fighter wing, 120, 2 kilometres, low, hot.” Bearing and altitudes given relative to receiving callsign’s axis.
Bracket: Manoeuvre where friendly fighters will position on opposite sides of a target.
Commit/committed: Ship/Wing intends to engage specified target.
Contact: New sensor contact.
Cold: Given wing/ship is heading away from friendly ships. Opposite of Hot.
Cleared Hot: Ordnance release is authorised.
DAMCON: Damage Control teams aboard a given vessel.
Defensive: Ship is manoeuvring defensively with respect to an active threat. E.g. “Alpha 1’s defensive!”
FENCE In/Out: Refers to cockpit switches being set for in/out of combat. Mnemonic for Fire-control system/ECM/navigation/communications/emitters.
Fox: Missile launch. Fox 1 – Semi-radar guided missile. Used when target is being acquired by another ship, such as through the AFATADS interface. Fox 2 – IR guided missile, such as the MX-64 Rockeye. Fox 3 – Radar guided missile, such as the GTM-4a Tornado.
Grandslam: All hostile spacecraft of a given formation have been destroyed.
Guns: Laser fire from friendly spacecraft.
Heavy: Refers either to heavy assault/bomber variants, or a wing of more than four ships.
Hot: Given wing/ship is heading toward friendly ships. Opposite of Cold.
Merge: Friendly and hostile ships now in same visual arena.
Popup: Radar contact that has suddenly appeared inside of a specified range.
Press: Directive to continue attack, mutual support will be maintained.
Rifle: Torpedo launched from friendly bomber.
Ripple: Two or more munitions fired in close succession.
RTB: Return to base.
SATCOM: Satellite communications array. Primary radio communication means for all alliance vessels.
Separate/Separating: Given wing/ship is departing the field of engagement.
Spike: Enemy radar lock warning.
Splash: Enemy craft destroyed.
SPOTREP: Spot report. Used by reconnaissance units to transmit sightings of enemy high value targets.
Tally: Enemy ship sighted.
Visual: Friendly ship sighted.
Winchester: No ordnance remaining.

Quote from: Capital Ship Fire Control Orders
Capital Ship FCOs are the verbal format by which Battle and Assault Group commanders call for beam fire on designated targets. This is generally executed at the beginning and end of ship-to-ship engagements in order to synchronise beam fire from independent ships. They follow the format GROUP-TARGET-TYPE OF FIRE-NO. SALVOS.

An example may be “Battlegroup, reference the Ravana, beam-fire, cross-fire, three and three. Fire when ready!” In this instance, the battlegroup’s target is the SD Ravana. The commander directs for beam cannons to be employed in a cross-fire pattern, aiming to have all beams intersect a given point to maximise damage. This is as opposed to frontal-fire which gives freedom of fire pattern to each vessel’s commander. Three and three stipulates three bursts with three seconds in between. This is the standard opening salvo for most ship-to-ship engagements.

Aircrew should always monitor the FIRES NET during ship-to-ship engagements so that they can avoid beam fire where possible.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2021, 04:29:27 am by Dilmah G »

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
I love the battle chatter.

Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
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NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
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Offline Darius

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
That last paragraph  :lol:

This will make an excellent reference document for my own use, cheers.

 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
I am curious if this is derived from the (iirc incomplete) mission featured in this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAUQkpmp6Vo

 

Offline The E

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
That was the earliest iteration of the concept, yes. Dilmah wanted to do a Battle of Neptune mission for ages, but things kept happening that kept him from making it; now he's got the time and headspace to do it.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
Huh, running under Ubuntu 20.04 crashes occur:

https://fsnebula.org/log/6006e38fd2517f95b5a8d5a2

Ideas?

 

Offline SF-Junky

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
Almost unbelievable how old Blue Planet already is. Man, it's been over a decade, can you believe it? :)

I'll give it a try at the weekend.

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
That last paragraph  :lol:

This will make an excellent reference document for my own use, cheers.
"Avoid the beam and you won't get hit, pilot!"  :lol:

I am curious if this is derived from the (iirc incomplete) mission featured in this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAUQkpmp6Vo
Pretty much what The E said. Life got in the way with that old version, unfortunately.

Huh, running under Ubuntu 20.04 crashes occur:

https://fsnebula.org/log/6006e38fd2517f95b5a8d5a2

Ideas?
Unfortunately my knowledge of FSO and Ubuntu is pretty poor. :( If you haven't already, I strongly suggest asking on #freespace on the HLP discord!

Almost unbelievable how old Blue Planet already is. Man, it's been over a decade, can you believe it? :)

I'll give it a try at the weekend.
Freespace is going to be older than some of the people playing it soon!

Related: Thanks to the work of Colt, the GTVA ships now have nameplates! And Sved has kindly put together some UEF ship HUD icons. I've also been working on a hull repair mechanic that involves landing on the Meridian, thanks to a suggestion by Battuta. I'll look to be updating Knossos with them in the next few days, once the kinks are ironed out.

And as a longer term project, voice acting is on the horizon! If you've even half thought about voicing a Freespace character, now is a great time to put your hand up!

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
Update is now live!

Changelog:

- UEF ships now have HUD icons thanks to Sved!

- All major vessels minus the UEF cruisers now have nameplates, thanks to Colt!

- TTS now supported for those of us who enjoy it. Thanks to Iain Baker for the suggestion!

Unfortunately landing in the Meridian's fighterbay to repair hull and rearm is still off the table. Potentially in future...

 

Offline Iain Baker

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
Liking what I have seen thus far. Unfortunately I haven't been able to finish it yet due to numerous CTDs. In particular, it crashes if i try to bring up the message history. And when I tried to play it again it refused to load. I'll try again later.

Also found a funny glitch when using the checkpoints. First time around I was using an Erinyes with the second bank of primaries being Maxims. The next time I tried a Perseus - which can't carry maxims. When loading up the checkpoint the hud 'had a moment' and ended up looking like this  :lol:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10_X3l_tDw_GlQhm2XEAWadnVk-wuHyK7/view?usp=sharing

Starting the mission from scratch without using the checkpoints solved it  :yes:


NB - I noticed a few spelling errors here and there. Since I'm basically HLP's resident proof-reader if you send me the text files I can tidy up any errors I find :-)
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Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
Glad to hear it! What kind of machine are you playing on? CTDs were semi-frequent on some machines and I wasn’t really able to work out why.

So that’s a limitation of the way checkpoints work in FS - because the script takes a snapshot of EXACTLY how things were at that point in time, changing fighter will definitely bork it when trying to reboot it. Making the cutscene a “shoot to skip” in future may alleviate this slightly, but it’s in the OP for reference.

I’m curious about these spelling errors! Mind PM-ing me what you’ve found? I did discover one or two while I was slicing and dicing lines for voice acting.

 

Offline Iain Baker

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
Re my PXC specs:

AMD A8-6600K
Nvidia GTX 970
16GB of memory at 1600MHz
Standard HDD

I will PM what I found tomorrow :-)
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Offline Iain Baker

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
Hi all!

If anyone is wondering why NATO brevity codes are what they are, these videos do a good job of explaining it all



 :cool:
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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
I recorded the mission.  Spoilers, obviously. 


And re: brevity codes and Fox-X, Trebuchets should not be Fox-1, since they're fire and forget.  ;)  But on the other hand, Fox-1 is meaningless in Freespace since there are no semi-active missiles. 
"Courage is the complement of fear.  A fearless man cannot be courageous.  He is also a fool." -- Robert Heinlein

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
You're absolutely right, but yes, since there are no truly semi-radar guided missiles like the AIM-7 Sparrow, I decided to make it relevant by using it as the term for all missiles launched through the AFATADS interface. I figured acquiring the target for another ship is more or less in the spirit of launching a Sparrow (which involves an aircraft maintaining radar lock on the target for the entire flight time of the missile, for those who don't recreationally read up on A2A missiles). At the end of the day I was satisfied it passed the ultimate litmus test for all military fiction - does it sound cool?  :D

EDIT: Goes without saying, but big fan of the video!
« Last Edit: February 10, 2021, 05:58:17 am by Dilmah G »

 
Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
So speaking of Fox codes, would a Trebuchet launched at a fighter be Fox-1 if guided at a fighter by AFADwhatever (the advantage of which is apparently acquisition range though fighters not being able to do this for themselves seems arbitrary), Fox-3 if launched at a fighter on its own homing, and Bruiser if launched at a warship?   :p  I'm pretty sure modern weapons platforms don't have use cases that broad.   :lol:
"Courage is the complement of fear.  A fearless man cannot be courageous.  He is also a fool." -- Robert Heinlein

 

Offline Iain Baker

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Re: RELEASE: The Battle of Neptune
So speaking of Fox codes, would a Trebuchet launched at a fighter be Fox-1 if guided at a fighter by AFADwhatever (the advantage of which is apparently acquisition range though fighters not being able to do this for themselves seems arbitrary), Fox-3 if launched at a fighter on its own homing, and Bruiser if launched at a warship?   :p  I'm pretty sure modern weapons platforms don't have use cases that broad.   :lol:

The enhanced targeting range thingy would make more sense if the targeting fighter was an Aurora due to its advanced sensors. :-)

 
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