Author Topic: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2  (Read 12197 times)

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Offline CT27

  • 211
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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.


 
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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.

 
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
Ok, looks like it works again after reinstalling FS2.exe one level higher (again)

 

Offline Antares

  • 28
  • Author of The Shivan Manifesto
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
I've got broken dependencies in Knossos; Reunion 2.0.2 says the Freespace Upgrade MediaVPs are missing when they aren't.
We have returned to continue our purification of this galaxy. It is again your turn to be crushed beneath the great force that is the Antaran army. All your petty squabbling with the other beings in this galaxy is meaningless. The Antaran fleet will destroy you all, one by one. You may not surrender. You cannot win. Your only option is death.

 

Offline Voelkel

  • 25
  • Reunion dev
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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?
« Last Edit: April 28, 2022, 12:01:18 am by Voelkel »

 

Offline Antares

  • 28
  • Author of The Shivan Manifesto
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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.
We have returned to continue our purification of this galaxy. It is again your turn to be crushed beneath the great force that is the Antaran army. All your petty squabbling with the other beings in this galaxy is meaningless. The Antaran fleet will destroy you all, one by one. You may not surrender. You cannot win. Your only option is death.

 

Offline Voelkel

  • 25
  • Reunion dev
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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.

 

Offline Voelkel

  • 25
  • Reunion dev
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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).

 

Offline CT27

  • 211
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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)?

 

Offline Voelkel

  • 25
  • Reunion dev
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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! :)

 

Offline CT27

  • 211
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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?


 

Offline Voelkel

  • 25
  • Reunion dev
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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 :)

 

Offline CT27

  • 211
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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)?

 

Offline Iain Baker

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Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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.
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Offline Voelkel

  • 25
  • Reunion dev
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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 :)

  

Offline CT27

  • 211
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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.

 

Offline Voelkel

  • 25
  • Reunion dev
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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.


 

Offline Iain Baker

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Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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?
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Offline CT27

  • 211
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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.




 

Offline Voelkel

  • 25
  • Reunion dev
Re: [RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
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! :)