[ShadowGorrath]

Inferno from EA's view is Sol: A History campaign . It's my second favourite now , because Blue Planet got first place . And Darius , as my teacher likes to say , BE QUICK !  It's a great story , and now I , and everybody else for that matter , want to see the sequel . 

[DiabloRojo]

I'm thinking of taking out the Alt-A thing entirely, and making the event automatically trigger. Does that sound like a better way to go? It's not like the player has much choice in what to do in that mission anyhow.

Even though I had the ALT+A problem, I'd say leave it, honestly.  Maybe in the future for things like that, it would work better to use some crazy-obscure key combination that requires you to dislocate a few fingers, but seeing as how that mission already rides on rails, leaving some interactivity is nice, IMO.  It gives the player a chance to at least admire the nice ship for a bit (or blow it up in frustration should ALT+A not work  )

And yeah, where's the sequel's beta test sign up sheet?!?  Gimmie!

[ShadowGorrath]

I don't think there'll be any beta tester signup sheets . But if there will be , then I'm gonna take them all . 

[Flaming_Sword]

Flaming Sword, some of those debug errors are missing textures that are included in mv_effects, some are missing LODS for explosion files, and the rest are messy table errors that I forgot to clean up before relase 

Well, I guess either my mediavps are out of date (timestamped Jan 3rd, 2007), or some things have been misnamed or some things are in mv_adveffects (I don't have that one so I don't know the file structure). My version contains Kayser_AniBitmap, but not Kayser_Bitmap, for example.

[Viko]

Great campaign 

great work ... please a sequel 

[Darius]

Spoiler:

The Vishnans and Shivans aren't at war, they just have a difference of opinion on the survival of the remaining Terrans in that universe. So destroying the ship isn't on the agenda...but hurting the ship enough so that the Sanctuary and the fleet could escape would be. Think of the Dante as a vessel by which a universal force can shape its will upon the universe, much like the Preserver being a vessel for the "Great Psyche" (The Dante is Nuke's by the way, from nukemod).


...Also, probably best not to think of it as a Council as such, but as a place in the triad of forces that shapes the universe...

[Flaming_Sword]

It seems I'm getting an intermittent crash in the loadout screen in bp-20. I'm starting to think most of my problems can be attributed to the dodginess of my machine.

[ARSPR]

Ooops if I try to launch the MOD with 3.6.9. debug build I get the next warning:

Code: [Select]

Warning: weapons.tbl(line 149:
Warning: Error parsing XSTR() tag XSTR(
", 3245)

File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 657
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
    lcl_ext_get_text()    lcl_ext_localize_sub()    lcl_ext_localize()    stuff_string()    stuff_and_malloc_string()    stuff_malloc_string()    parse_weapon()    parse_weaponstbl()    weapon_init()    game_init()    game_main()    WinMain()    WinMainCRTStartup()    kernel32.dll 76343833()
    ntdll.dll 774ca9bd()
------------------------------------------------------------------

Try to clean up your weapons.tbl

[Cobra]

Uh, dude, if it works, don't fix it.

What I want to know about is the screwed up Shivan beam effect that's in the .vp.

[Darius]

Do you know which beam effect, or which mission you see it in?

[Jeff Vader]

Hey, I had that issue too.

Spoiler:

It was at least in the mission where you had to ram through the Shivan blockade with the Vishnan forces. At least the Ravana on your right fired beams that were monocolour and frankly quite thin.

[Ransom]

Well, I just finished this. Darius, the first half of your campaign is sheer excellence. It's at once mysterious, creepy and dramatic - very classily done. I loved every moment of it.

But I didn't like the second half so much.

Spoiler:

It went downhill for me from the point where Samuel merges with the Vishnan. The idea of the Great Destroyers and the Great Preservers being two separate forces... it kind of seems to miss the point of the Shivans. They're meant to be both. That's really what's so appealing about them and, for me, Freespace as a whole. Shivans being depicted as (effectively) mindless killing machines kind of spoilt the campaign for me.

I also don't think showing the dialogue between the Dante and the Preserver was a good decision. It strips the mystery from the exchange and, well, it felt cheap and unconvincing.

My only other complaint is that the writing of the in-mission dialogue was a bit shaky at times. But it had moments of brilliance as well, so it balanced out.

Despite my criticism, I did love the campaign. As your first campaign, you've made me feel very outclassed, because it's certainly a hell of a lot better than mine. I also very much appreciated the character-driven plot. Always a breath of fresh air as far as Freespace is concerned.

Spoiler:

Probably my favourite part of the campaign, and maybe the thing that saves it in my mind, is the philosophical component. It was a very nice touch. Not many other campaigns have tried to do it, but you had a point to make and you made it without being too preachy. That's thematic **** right there, man. Rock on.

[Flaming_Sword]

Well, I decided to take some time and grab the tables from the latest patch and mess with them myself.

I'm not sure which version of the mediavps everyone's supposed to have (haven't kept up, really, but 3.6.8 zeta with the 710 patches here) but I changed them a bit to point to textures I actually have. Changes listed below with comments.

Changed for FS2 Open 3.6.9, 3.6.8 zeta mediavps with Lightspeed's nebula pack.

Changes to weapons.tbl:

• Added missing double quote to line 149 (Balor tech description)
• Removed "fire down normals" flag from all weapons
• Replaced "Kayser_Bitmap" with "Kayser_AniBitmap" (missing texture, Huge Railgun)
• Replaced "glow08" with "2_laserglow03" (missing texture, Terran Turret)
• Replaced "HVasuden_Bitmap" with "VasTurret_Bitmap" (missing texture, Vasudan Huge Turret, not actually referenced in ships.tbl)
• Replaced "Shiven_Megafunk" with "Shivan_Megafunk" (looks like a typo, Shivan Megafunk Turret)
• Changed "Vishnan Ultra Bomb" to "Vishnan Ultrabomb", since that was the name in ships.tbl
• Replaced "beamwhite" with "beam-white" (looks like a typo, HRed, the messed up beam)

Changes to ships.tbl

• Removed Hornet Retrofit references, no longer exists in patched weapons.tbl
• Removed duplicate GTSG Mjolnir, had same values except for tstrings.tbl references set to -1

I know some other problems were pointed out when starting missions with the debug exe, but I'll get to those later.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[perihelion]

Darius, I also had the issue with some of the Shivan beams being washed out.  It's like the glow is there, but the beam itself is missing.  It seemed to effect the main beam cannons of the Ravannas and the Lucifer.  It did not effect the beam cannons on the Sathanas or the Dante.  It seemed to be a problem only for destroyer-class ships.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the campaign.  Good story-telling, and the events move very smoothly. 

Spoiler:

I screwed up the first time I played the mission in Delta Serpentis trying to destroy the Lucifer.  She got away, and I was bummed about that and thinking I'd need to replay the mission.  But then the dialog kept going, and then having the Sathanas show up and waste the Keeper...  I actually felt the blood drain from my face.

It was very well done.  Really sucked me in.

[Cobra]

Spoiler:

It went downhill for me from the point where Samuel merges with the Vishnan. The idea of the Great Destroyers and the Great Preservers being two separate forces... it kind of seems to miss the point of the Shivans. They're meant to be both. That's really what's so appealing about them and, for me, Freespace as a whole. Shivans being depicted as (effectively) mindless killing machines kind of spoilt the campaign for me.

Spoiler:

This IS an alternate universe, though.

[Koth]

Spoiler:

Did you ever saw the Shivans preserve anything?

[Jeff Vader]

Spoiler:

Did you ever saw the Shivans preserve anything?

Spoiler:

Well, they 'preserved' humanity and the Vasudans from the Ancients.

[Ransom]

Spoiler:

Did you ever saw the Shivans preserve anything?

Perhaps you've played Freespace 1? It's really quite good.

They come right out and say it in the ending cinematic.

[Koth]

I did and I also know that the Shivans by eliminating the Ancients enabled the survival of the Terran and Vasudan species. But why are the Shivans then fighting against Terrans and Vasudans? Its not that there are any lesser Races around that have to be preserved. Perhaps they preserved Terrans and Vasudan from themselves? But if that's true wouldn't there have been an easier way to do this instead of trying to destroy Earth or blowing up Capella? Sometimes I get the feeling that Volition never had any real ideas of how to end the Freespace series and included the supernova because it was 'cool'.

[Ransom]

I'll just go ahead and quote that cinematic, shall I?

I know why the Ancient Ones were destroyed, and I know what they knew. I know that if not for the Shivans they would have perished long before. Without the Shivans, someone would have discovered the Ancient Ones in their infancy, and eliminated them, just as surely as they eliminated countless billions of others. I believe it is only the destroyers who are killed. The Shivans are the great destroyers, but they are also the great preservers. That is why when we moved into space, there was no one powerful enough to kill us. Long had we been the destroyer. Our turn had nearly come.

Regardless of the details, it's pretty clear that Volition intended the Shivans as both sides of the coin. Preservation through destruction.