Hard Light Productions Forums

FreeSpace Releases => Mission & Campaign Releases => Topic started by: Voelkel on April 07, 2022, 10:37:07 am

Title: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 07, 2022, 10:37:07 am
(https://i.ibb.co/zhJW5t4/Title-Screen-WITH-TEXT.png)

                                                                                                              DOWNLOAD LINK (https://fsnebula.org/mod/Reunion_Crisis_1)


THE STORY CONTINUES
______________________________________________________________ ___


(https://i.ibb.co/g68s8c7/titl1.png)


The story of Reunion continues from the viewpoint of Lieutenant Alex Miller, a rookie GTVA officer assigned to patrol the newly discovered systems beyond Laramis. Miller’s combat unit, stationed on the GTCv Warsaw, enter the uncharted LHS 288 system just as the Alliance opens the Olympus subspace portal in Delta Serpentis.

Unaware of the disaster unfolding a few systems away, Miller and his team soon find themselves in a lonely, desperate and chaotic world. The inexperienced officer will have to rapidly build up his leadership abilities to survive the ensuing collapse.

Even as the Terran and Vasudan species are facing the return of their greatest nemesis, shadowy political figures seek to exploit the disaster to their own advantage, forcing Miller to make difficult decisions.




NEW FEATURES
______________________________________________________________ ____________


(https://i.ibb.co/fFQJNBD/titl3.png)

Like Act 1, Reunion Act 2: Apocalypse draws upon the vast creative talent the Freespace 2 modding community has amassed over the years, introducing a wide variety of new ships, skins and weapons, some entirely unique to this mod.

Special care was given to implement the community feedback the first installment received into Act 2, so the new chapter introduces an overall more balanced gameplay, better ship mechanics, improved characters and storytelling and save / load features.

The Reunion campaign now includes:
     ○   25 new missions.
     ○   2 endings for Act 1, 3 endings for Act 2.
     ○   More than 50 new ships, installations and stellar objects.
     ○   A dozen new weapons, most of them never before seen in any other mod.
     ○   A dynamic plot with interesting and diverse characters.
     ○   Epic music and custom skyboxes.


Full credits are listed in the mod's root folder, it will also be listed at the end of the campaign once it is fully complete.

WHAT IS REUNION?
______________________________________________________________ ____________


(https://i.ibb.co/MV63yHP/titl5.png)

Reunion is a lore-friendly, story-driven Freespace 2 campaign with fast-paced fighter combat and epic capital ship battles. The mod aims to capture the look and feel of the original Freespace franchise, providing new content with a sense of authenticity.

The main campaign is set 12-13 years after the Capella incident, as the GTVA is nearing the conclusion of its gate construction effort in Delta Serpentis. The Alliance couldn't quite recover from the second Shivan incursion, stretching its resources thin in an effort to both rebuild its fleet and find a way back to Earth.

Reunion is different from other campaigns of a similar theme in that it is not centered around the theme of exploring Sol, but is heavily focused on the internal politics of the GTVA and the social problems the Alliance faces after the Capella incident. As thus, a high degree of attention was given to craft Reunion’s story in a way that it is full of scheming, plot twists and political intrigue.

For more information, please visit the release thread of Act 1 (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=97494.0).


GAMEPLAY SCREENSHOTS
______________________________________________________________ ____________


(https://i.ibb.co/qptPxKK/5-OLJ31643885573.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/N1yvtvk/6u-UFi1643885683.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/cvPcxq9/f-GD1z1643885838.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/hfGhn7d/It-FZp1643885398.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/w07S7yJ/s4kh-O1643885518.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/hZ8BbCB/YFJfx1643885768.png)



FAQ
______________________________________________________________ ____________


Q: How do I install Act 2?
A: Act 2 is not a standalone mod, but an update to the Reunion mod file released earlier. If you have Reunion already installed, you only need to update it in Knossos. If you don't have it downloaded, please use the links provided in the thread or the Knossos installer.

Q: Can I play Act 2 without finishing Act 1 (again)?
A: Yes, Act 2 is accessible from the campaign selection room as a standalone campaign. It is however, recommended to go through Act 1 even if you finished it earlier, as many things have been modified since the initial release.

Q: Why did Act 2’s development take so long?
A: Aside personal reasons, the mod is in an overall much more refined state than Act 1 was, when it was released. It is also longer, offering an altogether 15 playable missions (out of which you’ll go through 12-13 depending on your decisions), whereas Act 1 had only 10.

Q: Still no GTVA-Earth war?
Spoiler:
A: No.

Q: Why does the Act 2 of Reunion carry on from the viewpoint of a different protagonist?
Spoiler:
A: One of the possible endings of Act 1 is that the previous protagonist, Captain Simmons, dies.

Q: I would like to explore a different ending, how do I do that?
A: For now, only by replaying Reunion – Act 2 or tweaking the mission files.

Q: I found a bug or have a suggestion! Where can I make a report?
A: If you encounter any bugs not listed in the "more to come" section, please contact me either via a private message or post in this thread. Please do the same if you have any suggestions with which this campaign could be improved. I am very grateful for any feedback I can get and I made sure to implement as much of the feedback I got for Act 1 as I could into Act 2 as well..

Q: When will Act 3 be released?
A: No exact timetable yet.

MORE TO COME
______________________________________________________________ ____________


(https://i.ibb.co/f21N3Gf/titl4.png)

Even though the first two acts of Reunion are now playable, improvements are still planned for both the currently released missions and Act 3 as well.

Long term plans include the addition of:
     ○   Act 3
     ○   Improved HUD
     ○   Custom mainhall and briefing animations
     ○   End credits cutscene
     ○   Full character voiceovers
     ○   Custom fonts
     ○   Better tech descriptions
     ○   Correction of potential grammar and spelling mistakes


While the development continues, do not hesitate to give feedback! Your thoughts are very much appreciated.

                                                                                                              DOWNLOAD LINK (https://fsnebula.org/mod/Reunion_Crisis_1)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Nyctaeus on April 07, 2022, 01:11:19 pm
Congratulations :]. It's actually very reasonable timeframe for Act 2 development, and you've made it further then majority of mod projects on HLP with 2 released acts. Including both of mine...

I'll give it a try at the first, free moment I get.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 07, 2022, 01:47:30 pm
Congratulations :]. It's actually very reasonable timeframe for Act 2 development, and you've made it further then majority of mod projects on HLP with 2 released acts. Including both of mine...

I'll give it a try at the first, free moment I get.

Thanks! Also, thanks again for your assets and I wish you luck on your projects! :)

Looking forward to your feedback!
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on April 07, 2022, 06:39:23 pm
I'll give this a try in about a week or so (I usually wait that long after a campaign releases to try it...just in case any quick updates/fixes are released) but I'm really looking forward to it.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Goober5000 on April 07, 2022, 07:58:01 pm
I'm looking forward to playing this :nod::yes:
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: ShivanSlayer on April 07, 2022, 09:13:33 pm
I'll play in the next few days. I want to leave time for fixes, plus I lost all my data when cloning my pilot and am waiting for a fix
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 08, 2022, 01:42:45 am
I'll give this a try in about a week or so (I usually wait that long after a campaign releases to try it...just in case any quick updates/fixes are released) but I'm really looking forward to it.

Hope you'll enjoy! Looking forward to your feedback!

I'm looking forward to playing this :nod::yes:

I hope you'll enjoy it! Also, thanks for the highlight! :)

I'll play in the next few days. I want to leave time for fixes, plus I lost all my data when cloning my pilot and am waiting for a fix

Hope you'll have a great time! Make sure to write feedback! Also, you can play Act 2 with a newly created pilot as well :)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: ShivanSlayer on April 08, 2022, 11:59:32 pm
I was able to get through most of it, but the Olympus gate mission doesn't work properly.   Sigma 1 doesn't die, it drags on enough that I had to use time compression, and although I technically beat it, I couldn't dock with the Pharoah class destroyer, preventing me from properly completing it.  Up until then, it was pretty good
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 09, 2022, 10:05:56 am
I was able to get through most of it, but the Olympus gate mission doesn't work properly.   Sigma 1 doesn't die, it drags on enough that I had to use time compression, and although I technically beat it, I couldn't dock with the Pharoah class destroyer, preventing me from properly completing it.  Up until then, it was pretty good

Apologies. A hotfix has been published.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: ShivanSlayer on April 09, 2022, 11:59:11 am
The mission works now and I properly completed the campaign
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 10, 2022, 11:06:12 am
The mission works now and I properly completed the campaign

Excellent, I hope you had a great time.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Nyctaeus on April 11, 2022, 08:30:43 am
I made it. Like it, but sadly, not as much as I liked the first act.

Spoiler:
The best part of this campaign is the isolationist arc and entering desolated GTVA space. Narrative, mission style, music and chatters executes gloomy, post-apocalyptic mood that I dived hard into. Mission with desolated civilian station in Ross 128 is excellent, and the moment of shivan arrival perfectly sells "we're ****ed!" vibe. Isolationist efforts in the newly-discovered systems portrays bureaucratic inertia, that should follow potential Shivan invasion. FS universe in the first half of the campaign is eerie, mysterious, opressive and... Appropiately dying. It's one of the rare pieces of FS post-apo that sells the mood right.

Unfortunately the campaign takes different direction after our reunion with the GTVA, and offers no detailed writing and interesting plottwists. We just counterattack the Shivans. Fortunately it still offers entertaining gameplay that I know this campaign from. The mission with rescuing Formidable is interesting challenge that requires player to figure out the mission flow, but fortunately does that well. Operating drone wing is crucial, as they are the most powerful asset at player's disposal, so carreful and considered deployment of this wing nicely defines balance of that mission. Seeing our drones crushing swarms of shivan bombers before they die is hella satisfying. Go, my AI bois! Get 'em!

The mission with 3 civilian stations is my very favourite in the entire campaign. The RTS aspect is briliant, entertaining and makes player extremely influential at the mission outcome. I killed that poor Demon :]. And I saved all 3 stations. I have two small complaints: Before the last wave of shivan bombers appears, our carrier notifies us that it's proper moment to call the support ship, but it's simply not enough time for resupply. I was close to the middle station, when Vidys and Yalis reached the station, and when I was ready to fight, I was forced to rush like hell to that attacked station. It miraclously survived at 9%. The second issue is arrival of our torpedo cruisers. I suspected that they will arrive at Demon's flank so the destroyer can still kill them, but I wasn't aware which flank it will be. Fortunately I guessed correctly and killed the LRed at the right broadside, so our cruisers hammered the Psoglav safely. A simple Pharos indicating the arrival position of our cruisers would help the player a lot, and reduce the guessing game.

This is where nightmare begin. The first Sathanas mission.

Aaaargh...

I get a bomber with 10 gunpoints by default, and a Kayser in 6-firepoint bank. I think "this things must be nuts", so I make my attempt. Sarissa runs out of energy after 4-5 of Kayser bursts. Quick adjustment of loadout to replace Kayser with Uber Subach... And I'm completely op xD. This thing has basically no energy consumption... So let's rock!

But it was just the first step. The briefing recommend me a light bomber with 10 guns, so I assumed this thing has all the firepower to accomplish the task. It does not. Killing a single shivan carrier is hard due to low amount of ordinance my bomber carries. I quickly figured out that this thing is basically OP Athena, so I quickly switched my tactics to killing shivan drones, while my heavy bombers were dealing with carriers... And that drones are nuts. They just keep coming. Endlessly. I scored something like 40-50 kills in this mission, dogfighting like hell, but my heavy bombers still died. Nothing I had at my disposal was even close to damaging a Sath, so I figured out that this one is just scripted to be a failure. Perhaps heavy bomber would do better work as default choice, but this mission suffers from being designed to be a failure.

Default craft suggests a lot to the player. If it's loaded with Akheton by default, it suggests that disarming/disabling of large target will happen in this mission. Players assume, that default loadout is good to accomplish the mission. This time the default pick is a deadly trap. Argh, and the distances... Half of this mission is just "smash your tab like crazy". This one was bad, confusing and overwhelming.

Second mission with Sathanas is the opposite. It's self playing. I'm locked in my OP Athena due to red alert, so again I have 0 firepower against the Sathanas. My bank of 5 Jackhammers is not enough to kill a single beam. Fortunately my vasudan fellas quickly do everything for me, and the poor Sathy used it's beams 0 times. Again: **** the Sathanas. Let's just kill every annoying, shivan mosquito around.

Debris of the Sath hit the civilian station hard, and while station itself seems to be guardianed at this point, the large, blocky liner docked in the station's ring provided victory fireworks probably at the cost of thousands of lifes... But who cares? We killed a Sath!

Suddenly enormous fleet of friendly warships appreared around. None of them fired a single shot at Sath. They do absolutely nothing, but making me confused. Themis did basically everything here. Aquitaine never even tried to bring her main beams to bear, heading at random direction without participation in the battle... At all. At this point I focused on defending Themis, but even without my dogfighting she would be completely fine.

What now... Aww, right. The counterattack in Delta Serpentis. I have to TAG targets for Themis, but she rips everything to pieces without my intervention. Friendly and hostile warships around me, heading to random directions, shootin... Everything is confusing like hell. Normandy dies, Themis is going for pair of Vassago destroyers, they withdraw after a single volley... I have no idea what I was supposed to do in this mission. I dogfighted entire time, sometimes tagged something for Themis if some shivan warship is outside her firing arcs.

Reunion was known from well-fredded BoEs in my opinion. Neither of those 3 BoEs are well-freded. All are chaotic, confusing and unbalanced.

Fortunately that's where the pain ends. The Olympus mission was good, full of chatters and sets the mood correctly. I sided with terrans, because I wanted to go to Sol and check what's there. I'd like to have option to explore the vasudan branch without replying the entire campaign.

The mission in Sol nebula was cool, eerie and features good chatters again.

So...

Did I enjoy it? Yeah. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but overally it's much more good about the sequel, then bad. Character development improved a lot. I loved the plot of our former, butthurting squadron leader, and Tex is feeling like that closest buddy that player character can go to hell and back with. I hear less anime music, but way more cool stuff. Vikings soundtrack fits to the campaign surprisingly well. Overally the music pumps adrenaline into my veins in right moments and rocks ass, depsite lacking... Consistency.

What should be improved:
- Messy BoEs.
- New weapons use basically no energy at all.
- Some shivans craft, like Vidy and Gorgon needs rebalancing. They are sponges for damage, mostly due to overclocked shield values. This campaign continues the unholy tradition of the community to make Vidy and Gorgon a nightmare to fight.
- All of new weapons are the same, except the Spear. And none of them has good shield damage. Circe is still available, but has low projectile velocity, so it's performance is lackluster against all those crazy shivan interceptors.
- Many older models still use vanilla tilemaps.

Final verdict: 6,5/10. Still a good campaign I would recommend, but Act 1 seems to be much more polished.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 12, 2022, 03:21:05 am
I made it. Like it, but sadly, not as much as I liked the first act.

Spoiler:
The best part of this campaign is the isolationist arc and entering desolated GTVA space. Narrative, mission style, music and chatters executes gloomy, post-apocalyptic mood that I dived hard into. Mission with desolated civilian station in Ross 128 is excellent, and the moment of shivan arrival perfectly sells "we're ****ed!" vibe. Isolationist efforts in the newly-discovered systems portrays bureaucratic inertia, that should follow potential Shivan invasion. FS universe in the first half of the campaign is eerie, mysterious, opressive and... Appropiately dying. It's one of the rare pieces of FS post-apo that sells the mood right.

Unfortunately the campaign takes different direction after our reunion with the GTVA, and offers no detailed writing and interesting plottwists. We just counterattack the Shivans. Fortunately it still offers entertaining gameplay that I know this campaign from. The mission with rescuing Formidable is interesting challenge that requires player to figure out the mission flow, but fortunately does that well. Operating drone wing is crucial, as they are the most powerful asset at player's disposal, so carreful and considered deployment of this wing nicely defines balance of that mission. Seeing our drones crushing swarms of shivan bombers before they die is hella satisfying. Go, my AI bois! Get 'em!

The mission with 3 civilian stations is my very favourite in the entire campaign. The RTS aspect is briliant, entertaining and makes player extremely influential at the mission outcome. I killed that poor Demon :]. And I saved all 3 stations. I have two small complaints: Before the last wave of shivan bombers appears, our carrier notifies us that it's proper moment to call the support ship, but it's simply not enough time for resupply. I was close to the middle station, when Vidys and Yalis reached the station, and when I was ready to fight, I was forced to rush like hell to that attacked station. It miraclously survived at 9%. The second issue is arrival of our torpedo cruisers. I suspected that they will arrive at Demon's flank so the destroyer can still kill them, but I wasn't aware which flank it will be. Fortunately I guessed correctly and killed the LRed at the right broadside, so our cruisers hammered the Psoglav safely. A simple Pharos indicating the arrival position of our cruisers would help the player a lot, and reduce the guessing game.

This is where nightmare begin. The first Sathanas mission.

Aaaargh...

I get a bomber with 10 gunpoints by default, and a Kayser in 6-firepoint bank. I think "this things must be nuts", so I make my attempt. Sarissa runs out of energy after 4-5 of Kayser bursts. Quick adjustment of loadout to replace Kayser with Uber Subach... And I'm completely op xD. This thing has basically no energy consumption... So let's rock!

But it was just the first step. The briefing recommend me a light bomber with 10 guns, so I assumed this thing has all the firepower to accomplish the task. It does not. Killing a single shivan carrier is hard due to low amount of ordinance my bomber carries. I quickly figured out that this thing is basically OP Athena, so I quickly switched my tactics to killing shivan drones, while my heavy bombers were dealing with carriers... And that drones are nuts. They just keep coming. Endlessly. I scored something like 40-50 kills in this mission, dogfighting like hell, but my heavy bombers still died. Nothing I had at my disposal was even close to damaging a Sath, so I figured out that this one is just scripted to be a failure. Perhaps heavy bomber would do better work as default choice, but this mission suffers from being designed to be a failure.

Default craft suggests a lot to the player. If it's loaded with Akheton by default, it suggests that disarming/disabling of large target will happen in this mission. Players assume, that default loadout is good to accomplish the mission. This time the default pick is a deadly trap. Argh, and the distances... Half of this mission is just "smash your tab like crazy". This one was bad, confusing and overwhelming.

Second mission with Sathanas is the opposite. It's self playing. I'm locked in my OP Athena due to red alert, so again I have 0 firepower against the Sathanas. My bank of 5 Jackhammers is not enough to kill a single beam. Fortunately my vasudan fellas quickly do everything for me, and the poor Sathy used it's beams 0 times. Again: **** the Sathanas. Let's just kill every annoying, shivan mosquito around.

Debris of the Sath hit the civilian station hard, and while station itself seems to be guardianed at this point, the large, blocky liner docked in the station's ring provided victory fireworks probably at the cost of thousands of lifes... But who cares? We killed a Sath!

Suddenly enormous fleet of friendly warships appreared around. None of them fired a single shot at Sath. They do absolutely nothing, but making me confused. Themis did basically everything here. Aquitaine never even tried to bring her main beams to bear, heading at random direction without participation in the battle... At all. At this point I focused on defending Themis, but even without my dogfighting she would be completely fine.

What now... Aww, right. The counterattack in Delta Serpentis. I have to TAG targets for Themis, but she rips everything to pieces without my intervention. Friendly and hostile warships around me, heading to random directions, shootin... Everything is confusing like hell. Normandy dies, Themis is going for pair of Vassago destroyers, they withdraw after a single volley... I have no idea what I was supposed to do in this mission. I dogfighted entire time, sometimes tagged something for Themis if some shivan warship is outside her firing arcs.

Reunion was known from well-fredded BoEs in my opinion. Neither of those 3 BoEs are well-freded. All are chaotic, confusing and unbalanced.

Fortunately that's where the pain ends. The Olympus mission was good, full of chatters and sets the mood correctly. I sided with terrans, because I wanted to go to Sol and check what's there. I'd like to have option to explore the vasudan branch without replying the entire campaign.

The mission in Sol nebula was cool, eerie and features good chatters again.

So...

Did I enjoy it? Yeah. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but overally it's much more good about the sequel, then bad. Character development improved a lot. I loved the plot of our former, butthurting squadron leader, and Tex is feeling like that closest buddy that player character can go to hell and back with. I hear less anime music, but way more cool stuff. Vikings soundtrack fits to the campaign surprisingly well. Overally the music pumps adrenaline into my veins in right moments and rocks ass, depsite lacking... Consistency.

What should be improved:
- Messy BoEs.
- New weapons use basically no energy at all.
- Some shivans craft, like Vidy and Gorgon needs rebalancing. They are sponges for damage, mostly due to overclocked shield values. This campaign continues the unholy tradition of the community to make Vidy and Gorgon a nightmare to fight.
- All of new weapons are the same, except the Spear. And none of them has good shield damage. Circe is still available, but has low projectile velocity, so it's performance is lackluster against all those crazy shivan interceptors.
- Many older models still use vanilla tilemaps.

Final verdict: 6,5/10. Still a good campaign I would recommend, but Act 1 seems to be much more polished.

Thank you for your honest feedback, Nyctaeus! It means a lot! :)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on April 14, 2022, 01:46:48 pm
I notice there is an update on knossos. Has it been changed since the version I playtested? If so, what's changed? Is there a change log?
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 17, 2022, 02:32:07 pm
I notice there is an update on knossos. Has it been changed since the version I playtested? If so, what's changed? Is there a change log?

A lot has changed indeed! I did my best to implement as much of the valuable feedback you and other beta testers gave me before this version was released. Sadly, there is no change log.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on April 18, 2022, 04:37:37 am
I notice there is an update on knossos. Has it been changed since the version I playtested? If so, what's changed? Is there a change log?

A lot has changed indeed! I did my best to implement as much of the valuable feedback you and other beta testers gave me before this version was released. Sadly, there is no change log.

Guess I'll just have to play it to find out then :-)

Did the update affect part one too? IIR that had many of the same issues - ships with the wrong number of guns being the main one. Replaying it with the correct amount of Pew Pew would be great :-)
 
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: praseodym on April 18, 2022, 01:25:14 pm
"Copying retail files failed". Act 2 does not recognize the Act 1 or retail installation via "old-knossos" on Ubuntu 20.04

Additionally, all retail mods and any other mods from there are not showing up
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 20, 2022, 03:23:04 am
I notice there is an update on knossos. Has it been changed since the version I playtested? If so, what's changed? Is there a change log?

A lot has changed indeed! I did my best to implement as much of the valuable feedback you and other beta testers gave me before this version was released. Sadly, there is no change log.

Guess I'll just have to play it to find out then :-)

Did the update affect part one too? IIR that had many of the same issues - ships with the wrong number of guns being the main one. Replaying it with the correct amount of Pew Pew would be great :-)

Indeed, Act 1 has been updated as well and I tried to stamp out the issue with the misnumbered gun ports as per your recommendation as well. However, I'll have to admit: tech descriptions still are probably the weakest aspect of the mod and there is more work to be done in this regard.

"Copying retail files failed". Act 2 does not recognize the Act 1 or retail installation via "old-knossos" on Ubuntu 20.04

Additionally, all retail mods and any other mods from there are not showing up

I'm sorry, I am absolutely unfamiliar with the Ubuntu operating system. However, this looks like an issue with Knossos, rather than this mod in particular. I recommend maybe contacting the creator of the Knossos launcher.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on April 20, 2022, 07:53:23 am
Indeed, Act 1 has been updated as well and I tried to stamp out the issue with the misnumbered gun ports as per your recommendation as well. However, I'll have to admit: tech descriptions still are probably the weakest aspect of the mod and there is more work to be done in this regard.

Awesome! I’ll give both campaigns a whirl once I get finished playtesting another campaign - so probably next week. Let me know when you need my writing skills and I’ll add Reunion 1 and 2 to the list 👍
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: praseodym on April 20, 2022, 02:28:01 pm
It Asks me where to find the root_fs2.vp which is located in
/home/$USER/FS2/FS2 while all other stuff is located one Level higher.
All generic Installations via Knossos
Something changed from act 1 to 2 from your end? Act 1 worked but not anymore
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on April 20, 2022, 06:50:58 pm
I just got done replaying Act 1 and overall it was great and I encountered no gamebreaking errors.

However, a couple minor issues:

1-This isn't really a glitch but a question:  what is the point of the Lance cannon?  I get that it's supposed to be some kind of sniper cannon but I don't see the point of it or why I would pick it over other weapons.  I'd rather have another bank of PromX or UD10 than the Lance since it's much slower to recharge than the other two good primary cannons and it doesn't seem to do more damage in the same amount of time than either of those other two guns I mentioned (and its range is only 1500 which is equal to the good Prom weapons).  IMO, to make selecting the Lance worth it you would need to buff its damage and increase its range.

2-In the final mission of Act 1 ("Reunion"), there are no stars in the background or 'sky' or 'space' or whatever term one wants to use for FS.  Other than a green nebula and ships the background is just totally black.

Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Durandal on April 20, 2022, 07:50:54 pm
I, like Nyct, really wanted to love Reunion Act 2, and it does have it's good moments, but overall I found it lacking in consistency. I think 6.5/10 like Nyct said is a fair assessment. For the most part the FRED execution is great, and the atmosphere of the first several missions of the campaign is spot on. Things really start falling apart around the middle of the campaign though, and I don't think they really recover. Details below:

Spoiler:
The initial reunification with the GTVA isn't poorly handled by any stretch, even if I'd hoped for something a little more bleak. The missions with the Formidable and the 3 stations are well fredded, fun, and narratively consistent with what's going on. Unlike Nyct, I didn't struggle too hard with the first Sath mission, but I can see how someone would. There's definitely some valid criticism about unclear directives, and maybe some poor loadout signalling going on there, but overall not too bad.

Character writing was a bit of an ouch. I found myself wanting to kill Zach not because I didn't like him as a person, but because he didn't feel like a person at all. His entire purpose in the first quarter of the act seemed to be to piss the player off. Not everyone here is a writer and I definitely don't expect War in Heaven levels of writing from anyone releasing a campaign, if you're going to put in characters you should at least make them tolerable, if not interesting or realistic. It's one thing for a character not to be engaging, but quite another for you to actively want them gone.

Zach was definitely the most egregious example, but there was a lot of stereotyping going on that eventually got old. You did take my feedback from Act 1 however and definitely reduced the number of people to keep track of/didn't have personal plot threads which dead-ended, so that's a +1 in that field. It was nice finally seeing the pay-off with Tex & Korhonen (spelling?) at the end, as I chose to side with the Vasudans.

The SOC pilot randomly handing me access to an encrypted comms network right after meeting me was very jarring, and I feel like that could've been done better. The entire conspiracy angle needed far more foreshadowing (it honestly received more in Act 1 than Act 2), and wtf ever happened to Navarro and the Sakoku? Maybe that gets resolved in an ending I haven't played yet, but it should've been resolved in all of them.

I didn't like the Vasudan ending at all. When I betrayed Admiral Togo (whose betrayal actually was a nice twist and decently executed imho, though it needed more foreshadowing), I felt like I was being a, if morally ambiguous, good guy. Joining the Vasudan side isn't morally ambiguous at all however, and stereotypes them as practically murdering for sport in the next mission. This has little to no payoff and left me really not even caring to see where it went. If you were going to make them the bad guys, it would've been a much more satisfying ending to have them actually kill Miller, or have him perform some sort of unspeakable act of betrayal that he can't live with. Instead I was performing fratricide and war crimes on a pretty abhorrent level, all while he internally monologued what boiled down to "I guess we'll see if this is okay or not". Hopefully the other endings are less disappointing, but I'd seriously consider redoing the Vasudan one.

Anyway, I really don't want to knock it too too hard. The gameplay was by and large mostly great, the atmosphere of the opening missions was great, the new weapons and ships were a joy to use, even if the Subach Alpha was a little OP and the Viper was a tad underwhelming.

I am looking forward to Act III, and if I had one piece of feedback I'd ask you to take to heart, it'd be to redo that final Vasudan mission.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: praseodym on April 22, 2022, 11:12:47 am
Ok, looks like it works again after reinstalling FS2.exe one level higher (again)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Antares on April 23, 2022, 10:01:02 pm
I've got broken dependencies in Knossos; Reunion 2.0.2 says the Freespace Upgrade MediaVPs are missing when they aren't.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 27, 2022, 03:29:37 am
Indeed, Act 1 has been updated as well and I tried to stamp out the issue with the misnumbered gun ports as per your recommendation as well. However, I'll have to admit: tech descriptions still are probably the weakest aspect of the mod and there is more work to be done in this regard.

Awesome! I’ll give both campaigns a whirl once I get finished playtesting another campaign - so probably next week. Let me know when you need my writing skills and I’ll add Reunion 1 and 2 to the list 👍

Excellent! :) There's still some work to be done, but I'll make sure to notify you!

I just got done replaying Act 1 and overall it was great and I encountered no gamebreaking errors.

However, a couple minor issues:

1-This isn't really a glitch but a question:  what is the point of the Lance cannon?  I get that it's supposed to be some kind of sniper cannon but I don't see the point of it or why I would pick it over other weapons.  I'd rather have another bank of PromX or UD10 than the Lance since it's much slower to recharge than the other two good primary cannons and it doesn't seem to do more damage in the same amount of time than either of those other two guns I mentioned (and its range is only 1500 which is equal to the good Prom weapons).  IMO, to make selecting the Lance worth it you would need to buff its damage and increase its range.

2-In the final mission of Act 1 ("Reunion"), there are no stars in the background or 'sky' or 'space' or whatever term one wants to use for FS.  Other than a green nebula and ships the background is just totally black.

Awesome! Glad to hear you enjoyed the first act.

1 - The weapon balancing might need another looking at, I'll make sure to include the Spear as well :) It will probably get a range / damage increase.
2 - Noted, thanks, that will be corrected in the next update!

I, like Nyct, really wanted to love Reunion Act 2, and it does have it's good moments, but overall I found it lacking in consistency. I think 6.5/10 like Nyct said is a fair assessment. For the most part the FRED execution is great, and the atmosphere of the first several missions of the campaign is spot on. Things really start falling apart around the middle of the campaign though, and I don't think they really recover. Details below:

Spoiler:
The initial reunification with the GTVA isn't poorly handled by any stretch, even if I'd hoped for something a little more bleak. The missions with the Formidable and the 3 stations are well fredded, fun, and narratively consistent with what's going on. Unlike Nyct, I didn't struggle too hard with the first Sath mission, but I can see how someone would. There's definitely some valid criticism about unclear directives, and maybe some poor loadout signalling going on there, but overall not too bad.

Character writing was a bit of an ouch. I found myself wanting to kill Zach not because I didn't like him as a person, but because he didn't feel like a person at all. His entire purpose in the first quarter of the act seemed to be to piss the player off. Not everyone here is a writer and I definitely don't expect War in Heaven levels of writing from anyone releasing a campaign, if you're going to put in characters you should at least make them tolerable, if not interesting or realistic. It's one thing for a character not to be engaging, but quite another for you to actively want them gone.

Zach was definitely the most egregious example, but there was a lot of stereotyping going on that eventually got old. You did take my feedback from Act 1 however and definitely reduced the number of people to keep track of/didn't have personal plot threads which dead-ended, so that's a +1 in that field. It was nice finally seeing the pay-off with Tex & Korhonen (spelling?) at the end, as I chose to side with the Vasudans.

The SOC pilot randomly handing me access to an encrypted comms network right after meeting me was very jarring, and I feel like that could've been done better. The entire conspiracy angle needed far more foreshadowing (it honestly received more in Act 1 than Act 2), and wtf ever happened to Navarro and the Sakoku? Maybe that gets resolved in an ending I haven't played yet, but it should've been resolved in all of them.

I didn't like the Vasudan ending at all. When I betrayed Admiral Togo (whose betrayal actually was a nice twist and decently executed imho, though it needed more foreshadowing), I felt like I was being a, if morally ambiguous, good guy. Joining the Vasudan side isn't morally ambiguous at all however, and stereotypes them as practically murdering for sport in the next mission. This has little to no payoff and left me really not even caring to see where it went. If you were going to make them the bad guys, it would've been a much more satisfying ending to have them actually kill Miller, or have him perform some sort of unspeakable act of betrayal that he can't live with. Instead I was performing fratricide and war crimes on a pretty abhorrent level, all while he internally monologued what boiled down to "I guess we'll see if this is okay or not". Hopefully the other endings are less disappointing, but I'd seriously consider redoing the Vasudan one.

Anyway, I really don't want to knock it too too hard. The gameplay was by and large mostly great, the atmosphere of the opening missions was great, the new weapons and ships were a joy to use, even if the Subach Alpha was a little OP and the Viper was a tad underwhelming.

I am looking forward to Act III, and if I had one piece of feedback I'd ask you to take to heart, it'd be to redo that final Vasudan mission.

Thank you for the honest feedback, Durandal! :) I'll definitely take these into consideration as well, as I worked with your feedback on Act 1 as well.

I've got broken dependencies in Knossos; Reunion 2.0.2 says the Freespace Upgrade MediaVPs are missing when they aren't.

Excellent! I'm glad to hear that! Hope everything else will work fine as well.

I've got broken dependencies in Knossos; Reunion 2.0.2 says the Freespace Upgrade MediaVPs are missing when they aren't.

That is very strange, it appears to be a local problem and I am unsure what might be causing it. Maybe a reinstall would solve this issue as well?
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Antares on April 27, 2022, 02:10:59 pm
I've got broken dependencies in Knossos; Reunion 2.0.2 says the Freespace Upgrade MediaVPs are missing when they aren't.

That is very strange, it appears to be a local problem and I am unsure what might be causing it. Maybe a reinstall would solve this issue as well?
Reinstalling Reunion appears to have fixed the issue, whatever it was.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 28, 2022, 12:00:41 am
I've got broken dependencies in Knossos; Reunion 2.0.2 says the Freespace Upgrade MediaVPs are missing when they aren't.

That is very strange, it appears to be a local problem and I am unsure what might be causing it. Maybe a reinstall would solve this issue as well?
Reinstalling Reunion appears to have fixed the issue, whatever it was.

Awesome! Great to hear it works now.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 28, 2022, 09:30:10 am
Added a small update with some minor bug fixing.

The bug that forced some players to play the "C" ending with two Akheton guns instead of proper weapons has also been fixed (sorry, it was unintentional).
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on April 29, 2022, 08:31:50 pm
I just got done with Act 2.  For now I'll give my gameplay thoughts (I'll post my thoughts on the story later):

Technically this was done very well for the most part.  I didn't see major gamebreaking errors that totally stopped play.  A technically sound campaign is always a good thing.  Good work here.

A few relatively minor issues though:

1-
On the first mission
Spoiler:
  Maybe you should make the pirate carrier's engines invulnerable.  Sometimes the Warsaw or allied ships/fighters can disable it and that breaks the mission since after a while the Warsaw and its escort ships don't bother firing on it anymore and move out of range and it's not destroyable by fighters (nor do you have bombers or anti-capital ship weapons).
Either this or change the Warsaw's flight path so it can destroy this ship.
This problem can be avoided though if you pull back and have your wing fly around you.  Eventually the carrier then jumped out.

2-On mission 10 (I believe that was the mission number) where you
Spoiler:
destroy the Sathanas
, I encountered the same problem I did on mission 10 of Act 1...that there was nothing in the background/sky.  It was all black. 

3-You said in an OP that you were working on custom main halls for this.  Until that happens do you think it would be possible to make this work with MJN's HD mainhalls (at least the Aquitaine one)?
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on April 30, 2022, 11:50:16 am
I just got done with Act 2.  For now I'll give my gameplay thoughts (I'll post my thoughts on the story later):

Technically this was done very well for the most part.  I didn't see major gamebreaking errors that totally stopped play.  A technically sound campaign is always a good thing.  Good work here.

A few relatively minor issues though:

1-
On the first mission
Spoiler:
  Maybe you should make the pirate carrier's engines invulnerable.  Sometimes the Warsaw or allied ships/fighters can disable it and that breaks the mission since after a while the Warsaw and its escort ships don't bother firing on it anymore and move out of range and it's not destroyable by fighters (nor do you have bombers or anti-capital ship weapons).
Either this or change the Warsaw's flight path so it can destroy this ship.
This problem can be avoided though if you pull back and have your wing fly around you.  Eventually the carrier then jumped out.

2-On mission 10 (I believe that was the mission number) where you
Spoiler:
destroy the Sathanas
, I encountered the same problem I did on mission 10 of Act 1...that there was nothing in the background/sky.  It was all black. 

3-You said in an OP that you were working on custom main halls for this.  Until that happens do you think it would be possible to make this work with MJN's HD mainhalls (at least the Aquitaine one)?

Thank you for the kind words, CT27! :)

I'll take a look at these suggestions! :)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on April 30, 2022, 05:19:45 pm
If I may make a suggestion for those who want to see the different endings but don't want to play the whole campaign again:

Just trying playing it through the techroom.  Use ctrl+shift+S on the mission screen to show all available options.  The final three entrees there are the three different 'endings' (depending on what happens in mission 12).

"Fruits of our labor"
Spoiler:
is the ending if you stick with Admiral Togo and save Olympus and go through it

 The other two endings (I forget their mission name):
Spoiler:
-You stick with Admiral Togo but don't manage to save Olympus
-You go over to the Vasudan admiral's side


I unofficially call these three endings:
Spoiler:
-"Olympus ending"
-"SOC ending"
-"Vasudan ending"

Voelkel, are those okay names for the endings?

Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on May 02, 2022, 01:37:15 am
If I may make a suggestion for those who want to see the different endings but don't want to play the whole campaign again:

Just trying playing it through the techroom.  Use ctrl+shift+S on the mission screen to show all available options.  The final three entrees there are the three different 'endings' (depending on what happens in mission 12).

"Fruits of our labor"
Spoiler:
is the ending if you stick with Admiral Togo and save Olympus and go through it

 The other two endings (I forget their mission name):
Spoiler:
-You stick with Admiral Togo but don't manage to save Olympus
-You go over to the Vasudan admiral's side


I unofficially call these three endings:
Spoiler:
-"Olympus ending"
-"SOC ending"
-"Vasudan ending"

Voelkel, are those okay names for the endings?

Absolutely, thanks, CT27 :)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on May 02, 2022, 06:35:49 pm
I thought of another gameplay issue I'd like to address before I comment on the story:

How is one actually supposed to deal with the Shivan carriers?  I know one is 'supposed' to attack the glowing reactors which should bring down the carriers.  However, that didn't work for me.  I dumped multiple Helioses into the reactor subsystem but it took zero damage.  It was quicker to order my bomber wings to just do general attacks on Shivan carriers to destroy them.

I don't know if something's broken or I'm doing something wrong.  Could you offer any advice Voelkel (or anyone else who might know what to do)?
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on May 02, 2022, 07:16:08 pm
I thought of another gameplay issue I'd like to address before I comment on the story:

How is one actually supposed to deal with the Shivan carriers?  I know one is 'supposed' to attack the glowing reactors which should bring down the carriers.  However, that didn't work for me.  I dumped multiple Helioses into the reactor subsystem but it took zero damage.  It was quicker to order my bomber wings to just do general attacks on Shivan carriers to destroy them.

I don't know if something's broken or I'm doing something wrong.  Could you offer any advice Voelkel (or anyone else who might know what to do)?

IIR I had the same issue but forgot to mention it. Oops.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on May 04, 2022, 02:42:28 am
I thought of another gameplay issue I'd like to address before I comment on the story:

How is one actually supposed to deal with the Shivan carriers?  I know one is 'supposed' to attack the glowing reactors which should bring down the carriers.  However, that didn't work for me.  I dumped multiple Helioses into the reactor subsystem but it took zero damage.  It was quicker to order my bomber wings to just do general attacks on Shivan carriers to destroy them.

I don't know if something's broken or I'm doing something wrong.  Could you offer any advice Voelkel (or anyone else who might know what to do)?


IIR I had the same issue but forgot to mention it. Oops.

Well, the reactors are glowing because they are shielded, you're supposed to bring down the shield system before you go for the carrier's reactors. I found myself in a dilemma what to do with this issue previously, as disabling or significantly weakening the shield system made the carriers too easy to destroy, while in their current state, they might be too difficult to take down without dedicated anti-shield weaponry.

I'll explore my options what to do with this issue again though, thanks for the note :)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on May 18, 2022, 06:56:03 pm
Before I post my thoughts on the story I have a question about some things which might clear some things up:

Spoiler:
  Maybe I misunderstood, but what were Admiral Togo's actual orders regarding Olympus?  Was it directly to destroy it or merely to 'secure' it?  That would make a difference between outright disobeying orders or merely misinterpreting them...or interpreting them very liberally. 

Plus, if you get the "SOC ending" I mentioned, the SOC craft that rescue you don't seem bothered by what Togo tried to do and they supported your efforts.  They seem more upset by the Vasudan admiral.  If Togo was committing treason/disobeying orders then I would think even some Terrans would be against what he tried to do but it seemed in the "Olympus" or "SOC" endings all Terrans present supported him.  Whereas if he was truly going rogue like the Vasudan admiral said more Terrans would be against him.

However, if this stuff is discussed in Act 3 and you don't want to spoil it right now, you can tell me that and that's fine.  I'll try to post my story thoughts sometime next week.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on June 27, 2022, 07:29:19 am
Before I post my thoughts on the story I have a question about some things which might clear some things up:

Spoiler:
  Maybe I misunderstood, but what were Admiral Togo's actual orders regarding Olympus?  Was it directly to destroy it or merely to 'secure' it?  That would make a difference between outright disobeying orders or merely misinterpreting them...or interpreting them very liberally. 

Plus, if you get the "SOC ending" I mentioned, the SOC craft that rescue you don't seem bothered by what Togo tried to do and they supported your efforts.  They seem more upset by the Vasudan admiral.  If Togo was committing treason/disobeying orders then I would think even some Terrans would be against what he tried to do but it seemed in the "Olympus" or "SOC" endings all Terrans present supported him.  Whereas if he was truly going rogue like the Vasudan admiral said more Terrans would be against him.

However, if this stuff is discussed in Act 3 and you don't want to spoil it right now, you can tell me that and that's fine.  I'll try to post my story thoughts sometime next week.

Well,

Spoiler:
in the SOC ending, it is detailed that Togo wasn't actually acting alone, he had supporters within the Security Council and Terran representatives of the General Assembly. The same is detailed in a more propagandistic manner in the Vasudan ending. 

I planned to explain this split in a more transparent manner in Act 3, but it is unlikely that it will ever be made, so this is the deal:

Many influential Vasudan politicians fear that the reunion of the human species would cause friction between the Vasudan and Terran species, eventually leading to a split between the alliance. This is the reason why they try to actively sabotage efforts to return to Sol.

Influential Terran politicians in the meantime secretly order Togo's task force to explore the other side of the DS gate. They do this secretly to avoid a PR disaster if the mission goes wrong. Togo was just following orders, he did this despite the risks it involved because of his belief in the reunion of the Terran species.

This general distrust and the active acts of sabotage on both sides eventually leads to the collapse of the GTVA anyway, the outcome both sides with to avoid. This would be (would have been?) the theme of Act 3.

Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on June 27, 2022, 11:19:20 am
I planned to explain this split in a more transparent manner in Act 3, but it is unlikely that it will ever be made, so this is the deal:

That's a shame. How come? Do you still want to work on improving the writing, and fixing the typos and grammar mistakes. If so, let me know?
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on June 27, 2022, 07:07:25 pm
That's disappointing to hear.  I was really looking forward to Act 3.

Do you think we could get a plot dump at least to show what would have happened in the story of Act 3?

Will we ever find out
Spoiler:
1-What really happened to Sol?  It looked like in the "Olympus" ending that Sol was destroyed.  But I remember some speculation that the coordinates for the Olympus Knossos were off and it was actually some other region of space.

2-What were those macguffins the SOC was hauling around for a while?  We never really found out how they were vital for the future of civilization.  What did they do?

On the note of what you posted in the spoilers, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the Vasudans in the ending (I share the sentiments that were mentioned earlier in the thread):
Spoiler:
  The Vasudan ending comes off as paranoid at best and villainous at worst IMO.  They seem to slaughter civilians for no reason at all and randomly shout 'anti-Alliance cabal' at lots of turns.  At first the Vasudans seemed better and there were shades of grey in that it could be bad to open another Shivan invasion point and that it should be closed...but after that they came off as the bad guys. 

Did the Vasudans not think the Knossos technology would ever be used?  It seemed that way after a while.  Funding isolationist rebels and sabotaging/killing Terrans...I can see why Terrans would be very upset at this situation.  I think Inferno handled this a little better:  the Vasudans thought it was a waste of money to return to Earth and didn't fund the Terran effort but they at least stayed out of the way and didn't try to stop things.

In general I think the Terran desire to return to Earth was a reasonable one and I don't think it was bad on Togo's part to want to recon the other side before they destroyed Olympus.



That was some of my thoughts on the story (the end part at least) of Reunion Act 2.  I said earlier I would say my general thoughts so here are some thoughts I had on the earlier parts:

Spoiler:
This isn't meant to be a major critique, but I just had a slightly different opinion than some of the other posters.  I wasn't crazy about the smaller scale pirate stuff at the beginning for the first few missions.  I was thinking that a major invasion just happened so we should have some big stuff happening right away.
I also wasn't crazy about Zach the character nor did I miss him when you had to kill him.  It seemed like there was going to be some character drama...Zach the blue collar guy vs. that rich kid.  The rich guy never seemed like a major problem though...Zach was the annoying and rude one.



Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on June 28, 2022, 02:50:01 am
That's a shame. How come?

Life. Can't complain, it's mostly good things, but I won't have time to work on FRED-ding for a while.

Do you still want to work on improving the writing, and fixing the typos and grammar mistakes. If so, let me know?

Your help has been extremely valuable to me, Iain during the development of this mod. I'll make sure to reach out to you if I continue my work.

For now, I'll probably churn out a final update for Act 2, which will contain some of the balance fixes the community recommended, then I'll disappear for a while. Maybe I'll come back in a few years, Freespace 2 has been one of my all-time favourite games and I tend to pick it up again every 3-4 years.


Do you think we could get a plot dump at least to show what would have happened in the story of Act 3?

Maybe, I'll try to find time to do a writeup.

Will we ever find out
Spoiler:
1-What really happened to Sol?  It looked like in the "Olympus" ending that Sol was destroyed.  But I remember some speculation that the coordinates for the Olympus Knossos were off and it was actually some other region of space.
Spoiler:
Sol got destroyed by the Shivans while trying to develop experimental subspace technology to reunite with the GTA. Humanity however, survived, one of the possible endings of Act 3 would have been actually reuniting with them.

2-What were those macguffins the SOC was hauling around for a while?  We never really found out how they were vital for the future of civilization.  What did they do?[/spoiler]

Spoiler:
They were ancient artefacts used for developing the Delta Serpentis gate (Olympus) and possibly other jump gates in the future.

On the note of what you posted in the spoilers, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the Vasudans in the ending (I share the sentiments that were mentioned earlier in the thread):
Spoiler:
  The Vasudan ending comes off as paranoid at best and villainous at worst IMO.  They seem to slaughter civilians for no reason at all and randomly shout 'anti-Alliance cabal' at lots of turns.  At first the Vasudans seemed better and there were shades of grey in that it could be bad to open another Shivan invasion point and that it should be closed...but after that they came off as the bad guys. 

Did the Vasudans not think the Knossos technology would ever be used?  It seemed that way after a while.  Funding isolationist rebels and sabotaging/killing Terrans...I can see why Terrans would be very upset at this situation.  I think Inferno handled this a little better:  the Vasudans thought it was a waste of money to return to Earth and didn't fund the Terran effort but they at least stayed out of the way and didn't try to stop things.

In general I think the Terran desire to return to Earth was a reasonable one and I don't think it was bad on Togo's part to want to recon the other side before they destroyed Olympus.



That was some of my thoughts on the story (the end part at least) of Reunion Act 2.  I said earlier I would say my general thoughts so here are some thoughts I had on the earlier parts:

Spoiler:
This isn't meant to be a major critique, but I just had a slightly different opinion than some of the other posters.  I wasn't crazy about the smaller scale pirate stuff at the beginning for the first few missions.  I was thinking that a major invasion just happened so we should have some big stuff happening right away.
I also wasn't crazy about Zach the character nor did I miss him when you had to kill him.  It seemed like there was going to be some character drama...Zach the blue collar guy vs. that rich kid.  The rich guy never seemed like a major problem though...Zach was the annoying and rude one.

Thank you for the feedback regarding the story! :)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on July 22, 2022, 06:18:21 pm
You said that in Act 3 there would have been multiple endings (like there was in the first two Acts); could we at least find out what those would have been (if you don't do a general plot dump)?
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on August 05, 2022, 08:28:44 am
You said that in Act 3 there would have been multiple endings (like there was in the first two Acts); could we at least find out what those would have been (if you don't do a general plot dump)?

Certainly:
Spoiler:
Three endings were planned:
1) Humanity gets reunited with whatever's left of Earth forces, the Vasudan Empire gets severely weakened, the GTVA falls apart.
2) The Terrans remain permanently isolated from Earth forces, the GTVA however, becomes stronger than ever.
3) The Shivans vipe out the human and Vasudan races.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: slayer tier on August 16, 2022, 03:19:14 am
hi, is it possible for you to make the MV_CB_ANI_1 MV_CB_ANI_2 MV_CB_ANI_3 MV_Cutscenes_1 MV_Cutscenes_2 not compulsory installs?
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on August 16, 2022, 09:54:25 am
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

As I mentioned previously, I no longer have the capacity to develop Reunion for a while and the situation will likely not change for a few years down the line.

The good news is that Iain Baker has volunteered to continue the project in my absence, so the development of Reunion will continue with his supervision.

Iain has been extremely valuable in the testing and bug-fixing of both Act 1 and Act 2; his ideas and feedback have helped this project move forward in the past many times already. He has FRED-ding skills that in many ways surpass my own and is altogether a very experienced member of this community.

I thank Iain for carrying on the torch of Reunion and I thank the community for being with me during the journey that has been the development of Act 1 and 2 of this project.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on August 16, 2022, 02:28:03 pm
Thank you, Voelkel, you are too kind.

I should point out that my FRED-ing skills are actually pretty much non-existent at the moment, so I will either have to assemble a team to help me with it, or learn it all from scratch. Can this old dog learn new tricks? I guess we will find out.  ;)

An update to acts one and two may come out in a month or two, as I have already made several minor balance and gameplay changes based on simple table edits, and Voelkel has a partial update ready that can be incorporated too.

I'm also working on the text and dialogue to fix any grammar and spelling errors I find, fixing typos and the like.

I have also added TTS (Text To Speech) support for act one so that it matches act two. It will be included in act three as standard (unless it is voice-acted of course.)

Tech room text etc. will also be created where needed.


Act three, and any more substantive changes to acts one and two, will be a job for 2023 since I have several books I need to get into a publishable state first. That and, you know... learn how to FRED  :D

I'll publish my ideas for the future and a rough development roadmap in a week or two. If, after they have seen that, anyone would like to get involved to help make those aspirations a reality, then the more the merrier. I'll set up a Reunion Dev discord and the like to help keep things organised and all the team members connected :-)

I’m planning on being realistic, and I’ll scale what I attempt to do with it based on how well my FRED-learning goes and/or the size and skill set of the hypothetical team that grows around it. The design doc and roadmap will reflect this. Too many multi-act campaigns have been left unfinished on cliffhangers due to well-intentioned ambitions outstripping resources, so it would be good to bring Reunion to a satisfactory conclusion. 😊 (That and show Valve that we can count to three  ;7 ) 
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Marguel on August 16, 2022, 04:29:34 pm
That's great news!!!
That's no small effort you're undertaking, and congratulations are in order!
Looking forward to act 3, whenever it may come.
I've been experimenting with FRED, and have my own project to work on...if I sharpen my skills and get a little time, expect my message offering assistance!
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on August 16, 2022, 05:32:08 pm
Thank you, much appreciated.  :yes:
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: CT27 on August 22, 2022, 07:25:28 pm
I'm glad to hear there's still a chance for Act 3. :)

A question for Voelkel about the plot of Act 2:

A little bit after the protagonists reunited with the GTVA main forces, it was alluded to that:
Spoiler:
The main characters from Act 1 died.  I believe it was said they died when they stayed behind to fight the Shivans that emerged from the opening of Olympus.

My question based on that would be:
Spoiler:
  Would they really have stayed behind at Olympus when the call to retreat was given?  None of them seemed super gung-ho about dying in a blaze of glory.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Voelkel on August 25, 2022, 04:40:56 am
I'm glad to hear there's still a chance for Act 3. :)

A question for Voelkel about the plot of Act 2:

A little bit after the protagonists reunited with the GTVA main forces, it was alluded to that:
Spoiler:
The main characters from Act 1 died.  I believe it was said they died when they stayed behind to fight the Shivans that emerged from the opening of Olympus.

My question based on that would be:
Spoiler:
  Would they really have stayed behind at Olympus when the call to retreat was given?  None of them seemed super gung-ho about dying in a blaze of glory.

Yes, indeed, however, it can be explained:

Spoiler:
Even if you chose to depart in the face of the Shivan invasion, the Formidable jumped out much earlier. So Alpha wing went MIA in the face of the chaos that unsued in Delta Serpentis after the arrival of the invasion.

Regardless, I was planning to make Simmons and his wing show up in SOC in Act 3, if they survived Act 1. I guess now it depends on how Iain and his team decide to work this one out :)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on August 28, 2022, 02:21:30 pm
Hi all! If anyone is interested, here are my plans for Reunion, including roadmap, progress report, change log thingy. I'll set up a Discord for it on Monday 🙂 If anyone would like to join the Reunion team (current memembers - er, me and Voelkel - who is too busy with IRL stuff to do much for the forseable) message me on here or join the Discord once I have it set up - the more merrier :-)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bmus84XyWgeNKxUhjIVIpjgF-AE4LKLX/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101417727212119794448&rtpof=true&sd=true
Google Docs
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on August 29, 2022, 06:57:01 am
Hi everyone: If anyone would like to join me in bringing Reunion 2.0 to life please join the Reunion 2.0 Development Discord server - DM me for the link :-)

Punch and pie ;-)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on September 06, 2022, 02:48:13 pm
Updated to-do list and project ideas for anyone interested  :) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bmus84XyWgeNKxUhjIVIpjgF-AE4LKLX/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101417727212119794448&rtpof=true&sd=true

Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Shivan Hunter on April 02, 2023, 03:10:17 am
 :bump:

Finally got around to playing this! Overall a really enjoyable campaign, with a perfectly satisfying about of beamz. ;)

Spoiler:
I loved the first few missions, which absolutely nailed the desolate and uncertain atmosphere out in uncharted space. I'm pretty sure we killed fleeing civilians in that mission with the jump node - would have liked to see that revisited in dialogue, with another character having an "Oh ****" moment (Maybe I missed it?) Otherwise, the reintroduction of the Shivans was spot on. Also liked the Tex/Korhonen subplot woven in amongst the mission dialogue.

I also enjoyed the twist when Zach goes ape**** on you - it seemed like it was building up to a "Make your wingmen play nice" subplot that's in so many campaigns like Blaise Russell's, only to be tragically cut short (but in a realistic way, not a "subverting tropes for the hell of it" way)

The Shivan slog in the middle was probably the low point of the campaign IMO. It felt a bit paradoxical: the missions didn't make the Shivans feel terrifying the way they "should" be (they have an astonishingly small force compared to the GTVA, and we kill the Sath pretty much immediately), and yet the gameplay itself can be quite frustrating.

I ended up modding the Kvasir (or whatever you renamed it to) to carry TAGs for that TAG mission, because FUUUCK doing that mission in a ship that can't reach 200m/s. I also was ready to fail the Sath mission until Korhonen berated me for not doing exactly what I had in fact done and bringing all bombers etc etc so I www.freespace2.com'd my way through that mission. (The follow-up mission basically plays itself and the Aquitaine shows up (yay!) and tbh I think that's the right decision gameplay-wise)

Loved the way the politicking played out during/after the jumpgate mission (I played all three scenarios - I tentatively consider the ending where you fail and bug out and meet up with the SOC to be the "best" ending, but of course I have no idea what you have/had planned for the sequel!) It all felt like the natural conclusion of each faction's motivations, rather than being forced for the sake of plot.

I'll echo someone else's critique that the Zod ending seems almost cartoonishly evil, to the point that I was rolling my eyes at some of the dialogue. I like the idea that being loyal to the system and to keeping the peace turns out to be the "worst" ending, and I *do* get that they're a paranoid anti-Terran cult (as explained - though possibly with their own biases - in the SOC ending) but it could have been far less on-the-nose about it. Miller's intermal monologue seemed especially out of character there.

Though, I DO like that no ending gives you all the information. Each ending gives you context about what's really going on in the others. (Seriously peeps just play all three from the tech room, they're just single missions)

BUGS that I can remember atm:

[Edit2ElectricBoolgaloo]

Here (https://mega.nz/file/1IlnDYTB#EV_agRaFPIGMa6gcgPZeBhHw84EBvEqiVDPJU4PusMw)'s the models with fixed dockpoints for the Chiron, Sleipnir, Gryphon, and Ymir. I tested all the new ships available in the Sath mission so I may not have gotten everything, but the other new ships in that mission seemed fine. Docking procedure (support ship called in right at mission start) cut down by about 14 seconds in each case (which is an eternity when you've got Shivans shoving missiles up your butt)

In general, based on my cursory testing (and observation of the ones that work), a fighter dockpoint path should look like this: Vertex 1 (the outermost one) about 100m away from the dockpoint, with huge radius (~1000); Vertex 2 about halfway between vertex 1 and the dockpoint, with a radius of 60-70ish so it encompasses Vertex 1, but doesn't extend out by a lot; Vertex 3, only about 10m above the dockpoint with a radius of about 10m; and Vertex 4, at the dockpoint, with a very small radius. There are some very different dockpoint path setups out there and they seem to work less well. You can vary vertex 1's distance if you want it faster, or want to be really sure the support ship can avoid bumping into you if coming up from below; >100m will make it take longer and <100m can make it a bit faster to dock.
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on April 05, 2023, 02:29:13 pm
Hi all!

I stopping by to give everyone a quick progress update. Herkie and I are hard at work fixing up Reunion, so please send through any suggestions you may have.

Here is a quick run-through of what we are and what we are not doing.

I'll start with what we are not doing:
•   We are not creating the third act. Reunion is still Voelkel's campaign, and he clearly had a plan for where act three was going story-wise, but he didn't tell us what it was. This will be for him to do if/when he comes back. (With our help of course, if he wants it.)

•   We are not radically changing anything story-wise for Acts One and Two for the same reasons. Again, if Voelkel wants to make such changes, we can help him if he wishes it.

What we are doing
•   Adding TTS to act one to match act two

•   Fixing grammar and spelling mistakes

•   Fixing the bugged models, dock points etc.

•   Fixing and rebalancing bugged and unbalanced weapons. For example, the missiles from the Njord missile cruiser have been doubled in power but have had their RoF halved – no more being tied up in frustrating missile spam.

•   Adding shield icons to the ships that were missing them or using the wrong ones (no more generic shield doughnuts of Doom 😊)

•   Fixing / replacing bugged skyboxes

•   Extra eye and ear candy

•   Adding optional GXYZ movement for the player's craft

•   Adding optional GXYZ movement for enemy crafts (They will be far more interesting to fight now)

•   Adding optional and configurable auto-aim for those who want it

•   HD Radar Icons – Generic as an optional dependency

•   Better radar icons


•   Some minor (and possibly not so minor) mission alterations to improve balance, fill up 'downtime', make them more interesting etc.

•   We may overhaul capital ships blob turrets too so they don’t suck and are actually a threat too, so long as this doesn't horribly unbalance everything.


ETA for all this - sometime this year. I can't be more specific than that since I'm tied up in so many other projects. So it's a case of 'it gets done when it gets done.' We will try out best to make it worth the wait. :-)
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Shivan Hunter on April 05, 2023, 06:56:23 pm
Awesome! :D
Title: Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Post by: Iain Baker on December 05, 2023, 03:05:00 pm
Hi everyone, I hope you are all getting ready from Crimbo and not waiting to the last minute. Not that I would ever do that, not me, no :nervous:

Ok, progress update. Due to Herkie's tragic demise work on this was on hiatus whilst I was doing other FS stuff, getting my book ready for release, life stuff etc etc. but now those are done I'll get back to this in the new year.

The first thing I will need to do will be fixing the errors that it has suddenly started throwing up - I don't think it likes FSO 23 and / or the new MVPs. I may need some help with that since this will be my first time having to do that. If there is a tutorial or wiki page I should be looking at, please let me know.

Next will be fixing the spellings and gramma, which I can definitely do on my own, and then the missions, which I should be ok doing on my own (hopefully.)

If you have any suggestions for gameplay improvements please let me know and I'll see what I can do.

I know someone mentioned it was kinda odd that the Chiron had the same normal speed as a Perseus, but had a full afterburner speed of 180MPS. This is a fair point, but some of the missions involve having to travel some considerable distance in FS terms, and slowing it down would make traversing such distances even more of a chore, and would probably bork mission balance since everyone would be dead by the time you got there, especially on higher difficulties. So I probably can't do much about that without radically altering said missions, which I'm not planning on doing.

I also recall someone saying the Subach Alpha was a little overpowered, which is also a fair point. This I can do something about. I have just created an Excel spreadsheet which auto-calculates the DPS, RoF, range etc etc of the various primaries for this very purpose. Expect a far more balanced line up of primary weapons with the next release.

If anyone wants to join the project send me a DM on here or Discord, I would definitely welcome the help - especially from people who are more experienced at FS modding than I am. (Which, to be fair, is probably most people on HLP - I'm still a padawan. Oh, wait, wrong franchise :lol: )

That's all for now, so if I don't hear from you in the meantime, Merry Chrismas, Happy Hanukkah and the bestofius to the restofus  :)