Author Topic: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign  (Read 5493 times)

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Offline HLD_Prophecy

  • PVD_Hope in a former life
  • 29
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Sorry I didn't get to it sooner, but I tried the mission tonight! Here's some thoughts:

In the pre-mission bit of story, "regular" is misspelled as "regulary"

Somehow someone named "Command" is giving messages during the mission. I think it's supposed to be one of the fighter pilots. "Command" sends the message telling you that there's nothing at the Navpoint.

I was kind of confused as to what is actually going on. Are you a civilian? What exactly are you and your buddies doing? Eventually I figured out, more or less, that you're fleeing from a civilian station to get away from the coming war, but I didn't figure that out until the in-mission messages.

I really liked the early-mission chitchat that the characters are throwing around. :)

Speaking of characters, I notice that you're trying to make this into a more character-driven, personal story. Nice work! Giving everyone unique callsigns, names, and personalities is a big step towards fleshing out your story.

Wow, this is intense! I can't even beat it yet, and I'm playing on Easy! Honestly, I would suggest turning the difficulty down a bit, especially with this being the first mission of a campaign. The transports go down in seconds.


All in all, great start! Asking for beta testing was a good move. Take people's advice and I think you'll have a campaign that everyone will enjoy.  :)


 
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Hello PVD_Hope,
thank you for your feedback!

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In the pre-mission bit of story, "regular" is misspelled as "regulary"

Somehow someone named "Command" is giving messages during the mission. I think it's supposed to be one of the fighter pilots. "Command" sends the message telling you that there's nothing at the Navpoint.

Thank you, both mistakes have been corrected :)

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I really liked the early-mission chitchat that the characters are throwing around. :)

Speaking of characters, I notice that you're trying to make this into a more character-driven, personal story. Nice work! Giving everyone unique callsigns, names, and personalities is a big step towards fleshing out your story.

Yeah, this is correct. Since I'm new at fredding but not new at trying to create little stories, I'll stick to my strengths, hopefully :) But maybe the missions will get more complex when my knowledge of FRED advances.

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Wow, this is intense! I can't even beat it yet, and I'm playing on Easy! Honestly, I would suggest turning the difficulty down a bit, especially with this being the first mission of a campaign. The transports go down in seconds.

Hmm, this is strange since I tested it several times on different dufficulties? Did you use your wingmen? You can give them commands so that they can intercept the pirates before they reach the transports (Press "C" and than choose the commands). I gave some of these priates a higher priority for attacking the transports than attacking the wingmen, so it seems they can shoot your transports right from the start without being disturbed. The key is to intercept them before they are close enough to fire. For this reason, heading back from the waypoint as soon as possible is the key. The scimitar has a great, fast reloading afterburner, use it :)

But once the first three missions are ready, I will put them in a campaign file and finally rebalance the difficulty if necessary.

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All in all, great start! Asking for beta testing was a good move. Take people's advice and I think you'll have a campaign that everyone will enjoy.  :)

Thank you :)

 

Offline HLD_Prophecy

  • PVD_Hope in a former life
  • 29
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Hm. For some reason I forgot about wingman orders.  :p I'll give those a try.

Also, is visiting the waypoint really necessary? If there's nothing there, I mean. I tried not going to the waypoint at all and the pirates showed up anyway.

Incidentally I really like flying a Scimitar.  :yes: Nice work picking the Scimitar and Claymore, it makes more sense for civilians to use those than, say, Uhlans.

 
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Well, the waypoint is not important for the pirates showing up at all but if you visit the waypoint, they show up earlier. You could run into trouble if you take too long to fight them because when your transports get closer to toe second gate, some other enemies show up and you might get problems there ;)

But you made a point, i might look at that again because players could really run into trouble later on...

So thank you, though this wasn't intended :)

 

Offline HLD_Prophecy

  • PVD_Hope in a former life
  • 29
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
You're welcome! Soon I should have a little more time to retry the mission, then I'll get back to you. :)

 

Offline HLD_Prophecy

  • PVD_Hope in a former life
  • 29
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
I really hate to say it, but I tried it a few more times and I just couldn't get the hang of it. It's just a little too steep on the difficulty curve. Too many enemy fighters to deal with, even with all friendly fighters attacking and me spamming Darts one or two pirates get through and eat the transports for breakfast.

I'm not sure if there's something that you want the player to do that I'm not getting? But I think - and I really mean this well, don't take it personally! - it's a little tough for the first mission of a campaign. Sorry if I'm not getting it.

 
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Hey, no problem :)

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I'm not sure if there's something that you want the player to do that I'm not getting?

Well, no. It's just: Fight them off  :D

Since I just almost finished the 3rd mission of this campaign I will now review all missions and look after the difficulty. Maybe I will make less fighters appear or set the time up between the waves, this might help. Or let them appear a few more clicks away from the transports so you have more time. I will also use another model for the FP Salamanca, a tougher one so that she doesn't die that early.

Good to know about your problems, so I can solve them maybe :) I will look at the points you said, I promise :)


 

Offline HLD_Prophecy

  • PVD_Hope in a former life
  • 29
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Hey, no problem :)

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I'm not sure if there's something that you want the player to do that I'm not getting?

Well, no. It's just: Fight them off  :D

Since I just almost finished the 3rd mission of this campaign I will now review all missions and look after the difficulty. Maybe I will make less fighters appear or set the time up between the waves, this might help. Or let them appear a few more clicks away from the transports so you have more time. I will also use another model for the FP Salamanca, a tougher one so that she doesn't die that early.

Good to know about your problems, so I can solve them maybe :) I will look at the points you said, I promise :)

Thanks, those sound like good changes.

Keep it up! You have a great idea for a character-driven campaign here, it feels like something that will really make you care about the people you're fighting and surviving alongside. I'd like to see a full-blown campaign of this!  :nod:

 
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
I would note that if you like the aesthetic for the model you're currently using for the FP Salamanca, you can set more hitpoints for it via SEXP, IIRC.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.

 
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
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Thanks, those sound like good changes.

Keep it up! You have a great idea for a character-driven campaign here, it feels like something that will really make you care about the people you're fighting and surviving alongside. I'd like to see a full-blown campaign of this!  :nod:

Thanks for the Flowers  :D

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I would note that if you like the aesthetic for the model you're currently using for the FP Salamanca, you can set more hitpoints for it via SEXP, IIRC.

Well thanks for the input. I wanted to change the model anyway, so that's not the point. I found a nice ship model at the wiki :)

But the possibility to change the Hitpoints via SEXP sounds interesting and might come in handy some day... Do you know how?

  
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Not personally. I really don't FRED yet. I remember some of the BP people talking about doing it for story reasons during some missions.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.

 
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Ok thank you :)

Since I opened a campaign-thread with an updated version of this mission and a few others, I would like to advise all interested players to go to this thread: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92860.0

So I think we're done with this thread :) I don't know about the habits here, but maybe the mods would like to close this?

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: Testers wanted: First Mission of campaign
Threads that run their course are typically left alone, not closed.  We'd have our hands full trying to close every thread that people are done with (as well as figuring out whether people are in fact done with it).