Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => FRED Academy => Topic started by: McMad on June 17, 2008, 03:09:48 am
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I've finished my level now. :nod: anyone can test it.
I've fixed all the bugs and problems I could find but I think it's probably a bit on the easy side now. So anyway give me your feedback.
Get it at:
http://www.geocities.com/kingzelchsmail/C2M4McMad.zip
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Good, I'll test it ASAP. :)
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I would test it... But I have a little problem >_>
I can't fid the folder that I save the FRED files into, so I can't see them in the Tech Room...
Anyone know the folder name?
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Data/Missions or mediavps/data/missions if you use the media VPs. Since the Academy missions don't use mods they should be fine there.
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Thanks all, I apriciate it. :yes:
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Okay, I finally managed to get some free time to test the mission.
1) Your grid isn't aligned in the briefings. It's a very minor problem but a professional looking mission would have it correct. Use the level and align options from the menu to make sure that the grid is straight as it's the first thing the player sees.
2) There is a very long delay between the Julius saying it's engaging its engines and it actually doing so.
3) Damn bomb intercept in a node is hard! :D Forget for a second and the bomb shockwave wipes you out too. Still that's part of the mission charm. :D
4) Less forgiveable is the wing of Maras that start out 800m behind you at mission start, meaning they usually have a missile launch off by the time you turn around. You should move them back a little.
Apart from that I have no real problems with the mission. It's a pretty easy mission to make though so you might want to try something more challenging next.
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O.K. I made most of those changes. Except the jump out one. How do you tell an event to become true when the last message in a list is sent? :confused:
As for something else I've already signed up to Alcibiades' Gamble and FREDed a level :D
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The only way to do it is to simply time it and have the warp out trigger however many seconds later.
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I'm sorry, but I couldn't test the mission(I did test the briefing and an energy failure almost ****** my computer, also thank Goober).
I'll be glad to help you should you UL new missions - if I don't notice it send me a PM. :)
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I also tested the mission and here's my list of comments:
The more important issues:
Firstly and most importantly, the Deimos did not jump out to me. I had to open the mission in FRED and find out what's causing the problem. Theoretically, it should have jumped out in the way you had done it, but it didn't. The thing I did was to increase the Deimos's engines' integrity to 50% for each engine. In retail FreeSpace, this shouldn't be a problem. It's probably an FSO-related gameplay change. Still, since the decisive majority of the community uses FreeSpace Open, you should optimize your missions for that. Retail missions in FreeSpace Open sometimes do at first inexplicable things.
Secondly, the player receives the "Depart" directive before the Deimos actually jumps out. That way, you jump out "legally" and still fail your primary goal. My suggestion is to trigger the Depart directive with the has-departed-delay SEXP.
Thirdly, only a few wings had Initial Orders set. Without an Initial Order, ships will perform a very ineffective "Attack anything that comes within your sight." Still, it would be better to set an "Attack any ship" order with a high priority for fighter wings, and, for Alpha, a Protect ship -- GTCv Julius order to make the player's wing form up on the Julius. The Protect ship -- GTCv Julius should have a lower priority.
And least importantly, the transition between Briefing Stage 2 and 3 is odd. It looks like an invisible hand drags the Deimos icon out of sight so that Alpha's icon can replace it. My suggestion is to delete the Deimos icon in Stage 3 and create a new one for Alpha. Deleting an icon in Stage 3 will not make the icon in former stages disappear.
The less important issues:
- The mission needs a spellcheck. Most importantly, get your apostrophes right, capitalize "Shivan," and use commas before (or after, if your sentences is so) the addressee. "Jump out pilots" --> "Jump out, pilots."
- For every message in a send-message-list list, you give the delay of "300." This is in milliseconds, so with a build without simulated speech, the messages would appear practically all at once, making them hard to follow.
- Use the Y-axis. Currently, all the ships appear on the same altitude level. Place some wings or fighters a little bit up or down, because it looks more realistic, and it's easier to track on your rader how many enemies you still have.
- If you feel like, you can add a "Destroy all fighters" directive. If you do it like is-destroyed-delay -- (list of hostile wings), then you will get a counter that makes tracking the numbers of hostiles easy.
And on the positive side of things:
The mission is stable enough apart from the Julius not jumping out part. The mission is generally easy, unless you are stupid enough to shoot down a bomb while it's near you. I personally prefer easier missions over more difficult ones, so this mission's difficulty level is a positive thing. Be careful, though, because changing minor things like giving orders to enemy fighters to intercept might turn the tide around.
It is also good that you did not have any more fighters randomly jumping in at various points of the subspace tunnel. It's more realistic this way.
Dialogs are ok, apart from some spelling and punctuation mistakes. It's good that the final dialog starts up only after all the hostiles are down. Therefore, the player doesn't need to divert his attention between combat and reading what's going on.
It is commendable that some subsystems are damaged also, not only the ship's hull was reduced. I like it when a FREDder, especially a novice one, pays attention to details.
@Kara: Is there something else that needs tested? I see that the threads here are rather old.
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King Zelch's could also use a test.
Thanks for the help TopAce. I always appreciate you testing missions cause you're an even bigger nitpicker than I am. :D
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Thanks for the review, I appreciate it. :)
It's probably an FSO-related gameplay change.
Strange, I am using FSO. What build are you using?
Anyways, I took all the apostrophes out as they weren't showing up. It was a problem I later solved, due entirely to my spell checker replacing them with a different symbol that almost looked the same. :nervous:
The whole demos jump out thing is giving me grief, I'll have to have another look at things. I guess the only way to get the timings right for the speech is to go through them one by one :sigh:
My suggestion is to trigger the Depart directive with the has-departed-delay SEXP.
I almost did it that way, the only problem was that it appeared ages after the speech said you could. Maybe it would be better if the objective is completed by destroying all the Shevans?
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I meant to mention earlier. IIRC TopAce encountered a 3.6.9 bug which has been fixed in more recent 3.6.10 builds.
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Yes, I was using 3.6.9.
Time to try 3.6.10, then.
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Well, I've finally got round to making a new version. Here it is. http://sites.google.com/site/kingzelch/mcmad/C2M4McMad.fs2 (http://sites.google.com/site/kingzelch/mcmad/C2M4McMad.fs2)
Just a few points/questions:
1)I haven't added any new orders, I think someone forgot to check the wing ones ;)
2)Are wing orders identical to individual orders in the effect they have on ships?
3)Iv'e spent a long time on the speech timing. It's not perfect but I can't stand fiddling with it any more at the moment.
4)It should be now impossible to jump out when you've been told to and fail.
5)Alpha are still tasked to protect the Julius rather than to go after enemies. If that's what you want them to do you should give them orders, right? :nervous: