Author Topic: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian  (Read 70251 times)

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Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
I am now experimenting on fast cruiser and corvette sized assets that are flagged as "fighter" in the ship table. They behave correctly as I intended them. Taking out capital ships. They are really fast, the player has to keep up to disable them! Insane! Perfect!

The problem is that capital weapons will not target them. But this can be worked around. So research, research, research.

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
That should be very useful with scanning targets moving at high speed, especially when there is only a brief window of time to actually scan the target before it goes too far away to chase it down. You could even make the scan time dependant on difficulty level.

Really? Oh man, this will be interesting. I wonder if this implemented on 3.7.4. I hope it does.

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
UPDATE:
Presently experimenting on cruiser-sized and corvette-sized fast moving ships that behaves like fighters. I will add an item in the Target Priorities table (***-obt.tbm) and try to get capital beam weapons to bear on them. Of course, the beams will not hit them because of their agility but that's the point of the story.

 

Offline 5thAce

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
UPDATE:
Presently experimenting on cruiser-sized and corvette-sized fast moving ships that behaves like fighters. I will add an item in the Target Priorities table (***-obt.tbm) and try to get capital beam weapons to bear on them. Of course, the beams will not hit them because of their agility but that's the point of the story.

Makes me think of the role the defiant, bird of prey, or jem'hadar attack ships play in DS9.

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
UPDATE:
Presently experimenting on cruiser-sized and corvette-sized fast moving ships that behaves like fighters. I will add an item in the Target Priorities table (***-obt.tbm) and try to get capital beam weapons to bear on them. Of course, the beams will not hit them because of their agility but that's the point of the story.

Makes me think of the role the defiant, bird of prey, or jem'hadar attack ships play in DS9.

Yeah, kinda like that. I am a huge trekkie fan even since 1975.

The Reboot is heavily influnced by Startrek, from the names of the ships, the tech entries, to the weapons. Even the sounds.

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
EXPERIMENT UPDATE:

The corvette-fighters behaved perfectly against the capital ships at first. But after 2 hours of thorough testing, I saw something I did not like. They spin terribly fast and they are funny. Another thing, they attack fighters. I could give them "ignore" order with 101 priority but it is not really reliable. I can solve it by adding a new type of ship in the Objectypes Table aside from fighters, cruisers, corvette, and etc. But then it means, I have to set the Target Priorities and Weapon Target priorities for every ship and weapons in FS2 and my mod. It is workable but I might miss something and cause more bugs.

So, I have to revert and have them classified as corvettes. I guess, I will have to do some pretty elaborate SEXPs using a combination of Waypoints, Ship Maneuver manipulation, chained events and time-elapse element for every single corvette to get them to behave like I want to --- like vultures over a carcass.

EDIT: I can make it simpler but just giving them only waypoints to follow. BUT they decelerate in every path points and I don't like that. I want their movements to be seemless.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2018, 02:42:35 am by herkie423 »

 
Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Have you thought about using the "No dynamic goals" flag?

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Have you thought about using the "No dynamic goals" flag?

Yeah, I placed that flag. They don't attack anything else except what they are ordered to. But then again, I saw their funny movements while attempting a broad side attack (set to YES in the OBT table). It's their occasional wierd movements that I don't like.

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
A NOTE ON THE SEQUEL

The sequel is an "add on," an expansion of the Reboot and not a separate mod itself. The size of the download will be less than 100mb or even less than 50mb. The VP files will just be added to the Reboot root folder.

NOTE: OP is updated.

 

Offline CT27

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
A slight update:

We've pretty much got a rough draft of the entire plot done and will be looking at a final draft over the next week or so.  Progress has been going good.


It's possible we could see a release in December 2018/January 2019.

  

Offline Mito [PL]

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Uhhh... That's like two to three months from now. I find it hard to believe that two FREDders are able to make a good campaign with about 30 missions (Is it going to be that many?) even if working full time on it. And then you need to have some more time for beta tests.
And I don't want to force my ideas and/or opinions onto your work, but I've got a slight suggestion. The Aftermath Reboot suffered immensely from some issues, mainly very uninteresting escort/defence missions with most of the action being slapping enemy fighter wings and some other ones where you threw hundred after hundred of fighters at the player without any actual reason to... Among other things (have I told you already that the United Pirate Coalition is dumb?).
I just want to suggest to avoid these problematic solutions, even if your campaign developement is slowed down by this.
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
To MitoPL

Yeah, I know. If I can rewrite the Reboot, I will cut the United Pirate Coalition part short and start with the Shivans straight away. Those were my early ideas and I was just trying to follow the FS2 story pattern --- the NTF then the Shivans.

Anyway, the sequel is focused on the main characters. Sure, there will be BOE's but it will only be in key moments where the story demands it. I am no longer that liberal. I am finding the correct balance this time.

Regarding with how fast we are doing the projects, there were only few additions to make, few table modules to code, a little POF model tweaks and re-skin, and some LUA scripts, which I already finished. The assets are done. The only thing left to do is mission coding and design and Alpha testing which will done at the same time. It will take me around 3 hours to design a 12 minute fairly complex mission then at that very day, I send them to my 7 Alpha testers who are just living near my house, plus my 2 daughters. I have 5 Beta testers more who are just waitng for the sequel's completion.

CT27 is my writer and he is excellent. Most of the story is his work. On a daily basis, we were sending drafts back and forth and we are basically done.

Yes, two Fredders. You can say that we are in overdrive but not necessarily. We already completed most of the works last year before I temporarily disappeared. We just resume where we left off.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2018, 09:15:16 pm by herkie423 »

 

Offline CT27

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Yeah, I know. If I can rewrite the Reboot, I will cut the United Pirate Coalition part short and start with the Shivans straight away. Those were my early ideas and I was just trying to follow the FS2 story pattern --- the NTF then the Shivans.


If you did a rewrite of Reboot, maybe it would be better to just call the UPC forces NTF remnants instead (and still take out a few missions if you want).



For MitoPL:  We actually had most of the plot written back in summer of 2017.

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
If you did a rewrite of Reboot, maybe it would be better to just call the UPC forces NTF remnants

Oh, did he meant the name? Yeah, I should have named them properly. It's already out there, too late.

 

Offline CT27

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
This is just hypothetical, but if you did ever do a Reboot new version, I don't think people are asking for all BOE missions to be cut out (I enjoy them)...just that 68 missions is a lot and it could be trimmed down.  If you ever did want recommendations on that I'd be glad to help (cutting out most of the UPC missions like you said could be a good start).

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
This is just hypothetical, but if you did ever do a Reboot new version, I don't think people are asking for all BOE missions to be cut out (I enjoy them)...just that 68 missions is a lot and it could be trimmed down.  If you ever did want recommendations on that I'd be glad to help (cutting out most of the UPC missions like you said could be a good start).

I think I will leave it be. I placed a lot of hard work in that. Anyway, our sequel is just 33 missions. It's the right lenght.

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Reboot has got many issues and I think it would be a good idea for you to get some feedback from people who can compare it to other works of HLP by their experiences. Because stuff like Capella resulting in unrest in GTVA, which results in yet another civil war isn't unlikely. It's just how it's presented at the moment. BoE missions aren't a real issue when compared to long escort missions with no substance to them...
At some point I started to replay it writing down every conclusion I could think of. But a few moments after that you dropped under the radar and I didn't finish even with the first act.

Oh, so you've got a really good foundation for what you're doing, that's awesome! I'm kinda starting to get excited about this. :P
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Reboot has got many issues and I think it would be a good idea for you to get some feedback from people who can compare it to other works of HLP by their experiences. Because stuff like Capella resulting in unrest in GTVA, which results in yet another civil war isn't unlikely. It's just how it's presented at the moment. BoE missions aren't a real issue when compared to long escort missions with no substance to them...
At some point I started to replay it writing down every conclusion I could think of. But a few moments after that you dropped under the radar and I didn't finish even with the first act.

Oh, so you've got a really good foundation for what you're doing, that's awesome! I'm kinda starting to get excited about this. :P

Yeah. The Reboot had some issues but I'm sure it had some good moments as well especially the Third Shivan War chapters. I'm already considering every advise the community gave me in making this sequel. And I am careful. Plus I have a good writer, I am no longer alone.

 

Offline CT27

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
We've finished the plot for the campaign and now Herkie will work on mission design.

 
Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
We've finished the plot for the campaign and now Herkie will work on mission design.
Good luck with that! :yes: