Hello JSRNerdo,
I'm pretty sure you played the version 1.0, not the updated 1.1. I reworked mission 01 to make it a bit easier (no dumbfire missiles for the enemies for example). You also can order your wingmen to help you in this mission. The most difficult part is to survive the initial engagement where both groups are flying on each other. This is pretty hard without your wingmen occupying some of the pirates.
I also reworked M 04 (the flashback/dream), but also in the initial release you couldn't kill the transport. Since this is a dream sequence about things that already happened long ago, you can't change the outcome. The fail state of the directive is intended to be there
The salvage and persistence mechanics are real good! There's some great potential in these if you're considering a sequel.
Well except the salvage mission I dnd't really use variables in this campaign. The additional ships you could find by achieving the bonus goals were activated by the goals giving you an additional +1 on a certain ship in the loadout screen. But the sequel will use the persistence mechanics by giving you more money for bonus goals (and this is used to buy additional equipment). But I'm glad you liked it
In M2 when I'm supposed to attack the pirate spyboats your friendly wingmen don't actually do anything and you can't order them to attack the spyboat.
Since Arctic is the wing leader in this mission, he's the one giving orders. The attack on the spyboats was an idea to test if I could bring the results to a later mission. I was new to FRED and experimenting. If you don't kill them in M02, they will arrive in M03 making it a bit harder to protect your boarding pod, but all in all it's not that of a big deal if you don't manage to kill them both. Someone also said that he just concentrated on the spyboats first and, after they were killed, headed over to support the medical frigate.
Is it really necessary to have the ship prefixes (GTCv, UEFg, etc) in front of ship names?
Definitely not. In the sequel, the prefixes are deleted (and will be after reworking this campaign).
I really don't like the bit in Treasure Hunt where you have to actually land your ship. I took ~60% hull damage just trying to find out where I'm actually supposed to land and then 20% more in the next mission crashing into the hull while launching. It's a cool concept and I can understand why you did it but FSO really doesn't do collisions or tight spaces well enough for it to be viable.
I might put the navpoint somewhere saver. Though I didn't find it that hard nor did someone else say something about it.
Overall there's a lot of good stuff here, the gameplay's enjoyable and it's technically quite well executed. Just one request: Give me more hellfires!
Good to hear, and yes, maybe I'll look into the loadout again
So thanks for the reply, glad you enjoyed most of it