::decloaks::
Since Ryleh 1 was created back in the FreeSpace 1 days, the star system location isn't cannon. We weren't sure what would happen in FreeSpace 2, and basically expected more nodes to be discovered. How we were wrong...
FSM2A was a "harder" version. I remember that the community review on combat difficulty was mixed, so I made things easier in the official release. Both mission 1 and 2 were reviewed and subject to some pretty extensive beta testing (see the readme).
I'm pretty sure that I've lost the notebook with my comprehensive notes on the campaign. Here's what I can remember about the history:
I've always enjoyed the first few missions where the Terrans and Vasudans fought with no shields. The heightened risk of low-tech combat really drove home the idea that Alpha 1 and *every* other fighter pilot was disposable against the powerful capital ships. The tech shift from flying without shields to flying with them should have been an incredible shift in the viability of fighters. Of course, then FreeSpace 2 turns it all upside down again. The first fighter engaging a slashbeam would have been toast, just like in the early FreeSpace days.
The funny thing was that a lot of other people enjoyed Ryleh 1 (Ryleh Rising) because of its no-shields "hardcore" combat. When Volition didn't include it in their first mission contest, a lot of people were unhappy. Pacing is incredibly important in making such a mission "winnable" without being too easy. For the time, I think it hit the right skill level for those in the community. If you took a wrong turn, you were vaporized. It was challenging, while winnable.
Ryleh 2 was about putting a credible capital ship attack on the space station, especially with the early era ships. The readme discusses the software limitations of 3 capital ships + a station often being too much for the time. But the goal wasn't capital ship combat. The player has to defend the station while it's being repaired, which was intended to create a tense defensive situation. I was also experimenting with positioning of "light" cruisers like the Aten and Leviathan. If the player is busy enough, the Atens weren't so vulnerable.
Ryleh 3/4 were proof of concept bridge missions that were missing final elements. Basically, they were to set up the final 2 missions by developing a story hinting at the Hammer of Light's own Bosch-like strategy. But rather than working with the Shivans, the HOL wanted to lure the Shivans into attacking Terrans at Ryleh Station. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs right to the front door.... I had some ideas about spinning it out and actually doing a more drawn out battle chasing the Hammer of Light, but those only made it to concept stage.
Why couldn't I get the last 2 missions done? First, the toying with Ryleh 3/4 concepts meant that I'd have to commit to an ending in Ryleh 6. Second, the FreeSpace community kept taking more development time and IceFire was really pushing for working on a community-developed campaign. Mostly, things got bogged down when Pastel and I were experimenting at putting together a new space station in Truespace. I decided that the existing station wasn't interesting enough to hold together as a "new" cooperative effort between the Terrans and Vasudans. We thought we were closer to figuring out the POFs than we turned out to be, this experiement is where the campaign fell off track. The AI had become really problematic with crashing into the station rather than defending it, and I thought a more rounded and bulbous station would be easier for the AI to fly around. Instead, it turned out that we had all sorts of problems with being able to fly thorugh the station. Not quite what I had in mind.
Ryleh 5 would have involved defending ships coming from a nearby planet to a rally convoy point to escape from the system. Much like Battlestar Galactica, defending civilians fleeing from the Shivan threat. If the player was *too* good at killing Hammer of Light in the early missions, more of the Vasudans would start "defending" themselves against the "murderous, trigger-happy" Alpha wing and eventually fly in their own convoy. Alpha wing would be ordered to defend the break away convoy along with the original convoy. The Hammer of Light and a few advance Shivans would swtich off attacking with some fun event scripting (using distance sexps) to make sure Alpha kept getting pulled in different directions. The second convoy would probably become dogmeat and maybe a Hammer of Light ship (to be seen at the end of Ryleh 6) would come to "rescue it." I thought this would be necessary to give story time for developing the "anti-Shivan" prototype technology used in Ryleh 6 and work back in the Hammer of Light. The Shivans were the boogeymen, but the Hammer of Light were intent on turning off the lights and playing scary music as an invitation for the monsters to attack.
The last mission would have been a multi-part last stand. Splitting the mission into several parts would have let me fix some events so that a Hammer of Light wave appear in the distance followed by some Shivans who would attack it, then warp out. The Hammer of Light would barrel towards the station, damaging it in an attack. Then an explosion in the station would occur, triggering a red alert as Shivans appear. The station's going down and has to do something desperate. The player has to destroy certain turrets on the Shivan capital ship to force it into the right position so the station can send out a prototype beam weapon (jury-rigged) to damage it. The ploy hopefully works as the system works and the Shivan scout gets destroyed. Then the mission comes to a screeching halt. Something blows up, the station is screwed and Alpha is doing a final clean up of fighters trying to finish off the ship. Then the Hammer of Light gets the last laugh by finally taking out the station. Alpha watches the madness in horror. Do they destroy the HOL ship or capture it? Maybe it's one of the freighters that turned on Alpha before. My guess is 4 out of 5 times the Vasudan would get fried.
I toyed with the idea of an ambiguous ending where it's not clear if the Vasudan ship that appeared actually was responsible. Maybe they didn't fire on the station at all, but instead might have been escaping and had a warp problem. Panic or friendly fire was always an option. Sometimes it's more fun to plan and code a mission than actually to release it....
