[Useful Dave]

Spoiler:

In the second combat mission, identify the Elder, then hack the Mjolnir and order it to kill the Elder.

And I thought managing to glide in, pull off the objective and get out without even being hit once via careful lining up and alt+x was pulling it off nicely, damn! That shows the sheer range of options available.

[[Wolf]Maverick]

Just finished Act3.
I don't know how you guys did it again, but you raised the bar once more.
The Story is awesome, i loved the writing and the references to Richard Morgan
This mod impresses me more, than almost every other game. You guys really nailed the feeling
of a brutal civil war, where are no good or bad guys or right and wrong, just survival.
Some people are still whining about Freespace 3. Who needs FS3, we have Blue Planet
The Missions are one of the most complex and greatest i played. For my
taste there was to much sneaky stealthy stuff and not enough real fighting but
nevertheless the missions were great.
My only hope is that we dont have to wait too long for Act 4.

[niffiwan]

SF-Junky & Rodo,

If you still have the pilot files around that caused your issues, can you please zip them (don't worry about the size, they'll be tiny after they're zipped) and attach them to this thread, or the relevant mantis issue?  Thanks

[T-Man]

Just finished myself. Truly impressive work guys! Give yourselves a pat on the back and some time off; you've genuinely made some masterpeices here i'd say! As has been said, you've definately raised the bar once more!

Spoiler:

I loved how there's lots of different ways of completing many of the missions; definately seeing what you mean with the whole 'Deus Ex in Space' thing. Story had be gripped all the way, and there's some really memorable FS moments in this ("One Future" where you get to command the Custos-X was my fav i think). I'm also really intrigued with what you hear in the final Dream mission (some genuinely interesting ideas there).

I'm really looking forward to the future acts ... though i don't know if i'll ever forgive you guys ; not only did i find myself working with the HoL, my most hated faction in all of FS(!), but you possibly revealed a faction i have come to truly adore to be some kind of... abandoned fraud...

...I'm going to go cry in a corner now...

[manwiththemachinegun]

The main issue I had

Spoiler:

was disabling the Carthage's engines before it got too damaged. I called in fighters and gunboats as the briefing recommended, but the number of enemy fighters never seemed to drop. After a few minutes, I called in bomber support and told EVERYONE to disable the Carthage. Only problem was, that damn ship's engines were so hardened no amount of torpedo or anti-subsystem weapons seemed to deplete it fast enough before the hull went critical and the ship jumped. Destroying the radars are next to impossible due to point defense guns, and even virus infecting the corvettes didn't seem to do anything to help my strike team. I finally got lucky, but that is not a mission I plan on playing over and over again. It just wasn't, for me, fun at all.

[LordPomposity]

The way I beat "Her Finest Hour":

Spoiler:

1, F8, 2, F7, C-3-5, F8, 2, F9, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, C-3-4, F9, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, C-3-4, F8, 2, F9, F9, F9, C-1-1-1, F9, C-1-2-1, F9, C-1-3-1, F8, 2, F6, 2, F6, C-3-1, 1, C-4-1, C-4-3, C-4-3, C-4-3, E, C-3-2, C-3-1, 4, ALT-J.

Maybe I need to play on a higher difficulty.

[crizza]

Her finest hour is the Carthage mission?
Which missiles do you use?
Tried to use the grimmler like the trebs, but two of them did not destroy a mjolnir beam -.-
Now I think about using shrikes.

[Phantom Hoover]

Spoiler:

Mjolnirs are fragile and easy prey for your wingmen. Save your Shrikes for the AWACS and the Carthage.

[manwiththemachinegun]

The story elements were by far the highlight of this campaign. It seems no one can really be trusted.

Spoiler:

While I like the fact that the Vishnans are being presented as, perhaps, no more noble or trustworthy than the Shivans. I dislike the implication mankind's ONLY option to survive is to become the Shivan's lapdog, just like Bosch had intended all along. Forgive me, but I find the idea a war criminal like Bosch was, "right all along" distasteful. I liked the additional explanation of Shivan motives, especially their reactive war doctrine based around absorbing losses and learning from them. They take the long view because they can afford to. Traditional military victory is impossible.

The issue is, storywise, how to present a conclusion that:

A: Results in humanity not becoming slaves of Vishnan OR Shivans
B: Giving the player some kind of cathartic victory (I would really like to have the option to take a joint UEF/GTVA force to 'Shivantown') I get the Shivans/Vishnans are 'godslayers' but one has to assume they have some sort of weakness, if not militarily then within how they think and are self bound.
C: Generally giving the player character a fighting chance. The problem of creating godlike, powerful enemies is how to defeat them without involving some sort of Deus Ex. I give the designers and story writers of BP credit, but I hope the line can be walked between sticking it to our old enemies, the Shivans, ending the war between the UEF and GTVA, and in general find a way to survive that slips out from the old sci-fi cliche, "abandon war puny mortals... or we'll KILL YOU ALL!" the Vishnans offer.

All that's left is to see how this thing plays out. But as it stands, it doesn't seem like there's any reasonable option for any of the characters to take other than blind obedience. Freespace was always about fighting impossible odds. Maybe not winning in a traditional sense, but I'd like to see a resolution that allows for some kind of victory. Freespace 1 ended with the door to Earth being slammed shut in the Shivan's face. Freespace 2 required a sacrifice of a star system, but the barbarians at the gate were halted at incredible cost. What will be the outcome here? That's what I wholeheartedly look forward to finding out.

[Suongadon]

Just finished my second run through act 3 (and still forgot to scan the containers  ) Beautiful, beautiful stuff.

Spoiler:

Battle of Neptune was definitely my favorite mission though. Maybe even my favorite including Acts 1 and 2. A lot different than the BoE I expected, but it was really a refreshing departure at the same time. Not that I didn't valiantly try to duck and weave through walls of pulse laser fire half a dozen times before I gave up on that and sat back directing the battle.

Only bad thing I could say is that I didn't get to fly an Izra'il.

final mission:

Spoiler:

So who else turned around right away when Ken said not to? I shrieked like a child and spilled milk all over my (husband's) keyboard.

oh and 4th mission:

Spoiler:

The debrief text if you lose a lot of pilots, is this something that will come back to haunt/help in Act 4/5 or does it affect act 3 somehow?

[JCDNWarrior]

I'll add that while the missions feel intimidating at first, they're all (with the exception of

Spoiler:

the assassination

) pretty easy once you have a good plan down - none of them really require intense dogfighting skillz as much as caution, good command, and precision. And a lot of them have multiple approaches. Deus Ex in Space is kinda the name of the game.

I really really noticed the Deus Ex elements and feeling a great deal too, not just in the hub missions but the actual missions too. As said in the BP channel on IRC, i'm incredibly impressed by Act 3. Certainly it took me a while to understand that I'm actually a commander and don't need to perform all those duties myself (I still went ahead to do so though, most of the time).
The story and its elements and ways it's brought is very impressive, too. I'll have to admit that it was quite a lot of text though.
By the way, I noticed that many of the 3rd party music I wanted to use have since been used in Act 3, I was surprised every time I heard one come up during the game.
As expected, Act 3 has raised the bar so much for me that I for the second time (First after WiH1) have to spend a great deal of time and effort to write, wiki and FRED to reach that heightened bar so that my own project will be of sufficient quality. It's a little annoying but greatly exhilarating at the same time, as it allows me to retrace some of the 'routes' and efforts made to achieve what has been done. Almost like playing the detective, if you will.
Hopefully others will follow your example as well and raise their bar even more, too.
I definitely hope that you'll continue setting and raising the bar for many years to come. I'm certainly looking forward to play every new part that you'll release.

[Ravenholme]

Random question:

"Violence.ogg", where is it from?

Ah, I see it's one of Belisarius' compositions. Damn, I swear I've heard it before, outside of any freespace community context.

[Luis Dias]

The intro kinda gives it away about the Deus Ex theme and all.

So I've finished the first mission after 6 or 7 attempts (the penultimate had me shooting the last convoy ship while it was escaping.... and yeah I'm that bad a player) and I've tried the second mission once. Just to say that I am a bit surprised to see Serenity themes about the Fedayeen and that the missions seem amazingly well written out. Very solid, very believable.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised at the new Aquitaine music. Really well made, I'd guess it is Belisarius work. So congrats!

I'll refrain a more insighted feedback until  I've done more missions.

e: fast reviewing the vps, noticed the beautifully queer "requiem". That came from 2001?)

[LordPomposity]

Her finest hour is the Carthage mission?
Which missiles do you use?
Tried to use the grimmler like the trebs, but two of them did not destroy a mjolnir beam -.-
Now I think about using shrikes.

Spoiler:

On the easier difficulties, at least, you can complete the mission without firing a single shot. Even scanning the station is optional. The only thing you really need to do other than use your command abilities is move underneath the Carthage before you call in your strike package (the reinforcements warp in near you, and things go much more smoothly if they don't need to maneuver in order to get a clear shot at the Carthage's engines).

[Rodo]

Ok, the good:

Spoiler:

Nice little story you've got set, amazing indeed. ++
Options for the player on the outcome of the missions (like killing the carthage, suicide, etc) +
Dreamscape, a step in a good direction +

the bad:

Spoiler:

Feature Creep, it's over 9000!!!! --
Reasons:
I feel you guys went a little too far away with it, I honestly felt.... inferior, or like a subnormal person when playing your missions with thoughts like:
1) How patethic am I that I cannot win this ****.
2) Hell what am I supposed to do now?
3) ****, someone help meee!.
I'm not saying cut the features, just tone it down a bit to a more usable level.
For a FREDer is easy to know how to beat a mission but difficult to express to the player HOW to win it, next time focus on that second part eagerly.

Features badly explained -
Reasons:
Or maybe not, but too many of them presented at the same time... maybe a mission to make the player familiar with the system might work.

Chatter on combat, it's too damn high! --
Really, I know BP is a wordy campaign but.. really?
Something that crossed my mind a couple of times while playing was: "**** you Laporte, I'M LAPORTE and I'm watching the keys of my keyboard now, SO I CANNOT BE TALKING!"

All in all, as always, a real piece of work and a nice motivating campaign.
Will be waiting for the next release eagerly.

Kudos.

[crizza]

Spoiler:

What if I don't want to destroy the Carthage? Is there a way to capture, lets say by disabling the engine and then ordering my assets to avoid her?

[Shivan Hunter]

Spoiler:

What if I don't want to destroy the Carthage? Is there a way to capture, lets say by disabling the engine and then ordering my assets to avoid her?

Spoiler:

Didn't the option come up? I didn't call in the Toutatis since the situation was under control, and then I was given a "1 or 2" option of destroying the Carthage and accepting Lopez's surrender.

gaaaaaaah I just finished the campaign. omgz. You guys have outdone yourselves again.

The gameplay was the best I've ever seen in a Freespace campaign. Every mission was completely unique in the way it had to be handled, and I found the methods I had at my disposal were reasonably well explained (at least after a couple failed attempts ... hmmm... remind you of anyone else's war strategy?). I can see how the constant change in gameplay would be quite confusing to someone used to point-and-shoot FS missions, but all the info I needed was there in the briefing, and a lot of gameplay elements (like the stealth system) were consistent.

Specific comments on gameplay:

Spoiler:

Wait am I going to have to kill these Gefs holy **** I'm killing these Gefs why does this hurt, I killed dozens of Gefs in acts 1 and 2 (on subsequent playthroughs: hmm the dialogue changed based on how many of them died does that affect the possible repercussions) and holy **** I had to kill Buntus WTF they were wargods OMG what am I becoming

WOOOOOO INCEPTION

WOOOOOO THE BLADE ITSELF PEW PEW PEW PEW

how do I shot Carthage?!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FREESPACE TOWER DEFENSE also how the flying frak did you guys make that mission that is amazing

The story... holy ****, I can't even comment on the story yet. I need a couple more playthroughs (and a couple dozen playthroughs of Universal Truth) to really get what the Shivans and Vishnans are doing. One thing I really enjoyed seeing is the Vishnan's mysticism in AoA being deconstructed thoroughly and completely in WiH's techroom stuff and Tenebra. Also, very intrigued by the details of Shivan "biology" and everything about them that was revealed by Ken. That last mission... I imagine HLP will be wondering about a lot of that for a while.

9001/10 will play again

[knossosfs2]

I would just like to say that this is the best act yet! The performance was actually really good on my Radeon 4250 (all thanks to the BP team and their quick responses), and the graphics are amazing. I haven't had any problems yet. Kudos to the BP team!

[An4ximandros]

The "new" Aquitaine theme was not made by Belisarius, it was made by Dan Wentz (as well as other re-mixes of the FS OSTs) as part of a remastering project he did out of nostalgia, you can find his posts on the forums.

[CKid]

Fantastic Campaign! Loved every moment of it. Questions in the spoilers below. (There will be more at a later date)

Spoiler:

In the last mission Bei shows you the events that took place at the end of AoA in Delta Serpentis. However, you hear the Vishnans and Shivans having a different discussion then the one you heard in AoA. Is Bei and Laporte hearing two separate things? How did Bei find Laporte In the crazy acid trip dreamland. Did the Vishnans help him find and connect to her?