Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: DeepSpace9er on June 26, 2003, 09:53:00 am
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Im in the process of making a new mission, my first, that is :p. I know.. it sucks like **** right now but if anyone wants to give it a whirl, ill e-mail it to you, as long as you have HSI and an address other than hotmail. THere are no objectives, there are no messages, there are no beams firing... yet. Its in its own category of an alpha test. ;)
Actually... its only 21kbs... so i retract that statement about hotmail and HSI. :o
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Fully understandable you don't want to do anything special for the very first time. My first mission was when I had to destroy three Basilisks inside subspace(FS1 mission).
The most important in doing a mission with FRED is difficulty. Try to hit the correct rate of enemy/friendly fighters to make your mission balanced. Debriefing/Briefing is also required to make a good mission, messages are not so important, only to inform the player on changes.
We'll assist you from the far, you are free to ask questions if you have any. :yes:
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My first mission has a Hecate Destroyer about 5k from the Sirius Node in Deneb. about 2.5 minutes later, an Aeolus Cruiser jumps in and begins to hit the destroyer, while 3 waves of Zeus bombers coming in once every minute fire cyclops and helios bombs at the destroyer and 2 waves Myrmydon fighters come in once every 50 seconds. A little later on, a leviathan jumps in on the other side of the hecate and does almost nothing before its toasted. Alpha wing flys Mk. IIs and Beta Wing, a reinforcement wing flys Perseus'. The unofficial objective of the mission is to get the hecate to the node in order to blockade it for sotryline purposes. I had an Orion jump in at the Node but since i couldnt get it to fire beams, i removed it. If you're not paying attention to the bombers, the hecate will get blasted... it happened to me already :o
Ill try to put it on an FTP server later today. If you want it, e-mail me at [email protected]
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Not a bad mission for start. Storyline? You want to make a campaign immediatly?
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This mission, when its finished, is slated to be the first mission of a campaign. It takes place 5 years after the Second Great War. Pirates are trying to disable the almost destroyed GTVA. The GTVA is trying to rid its systems of these pirates while trying to maintain stability and hold power. There are several organizations that threaten the GTVA in the systems Deneb, Regulus, Sirius, Epsilon Pegasi, and Polaris.. the same systems that The Neo-Terran Front had controlled. Since the outbreak of the Seconds Great War was so soon after the fall of the NTF, the systems broke into chaos. The organization Serpentis Coil is bidding for control of Deneb and Sirius, while the Vasudan Group Arch Defiance is in controll of Epsilon Pegasi, Regulus, and is bidding for Polaris. The GTVA has dispached 4 new Hecate class destroyers along with 2 older ones: The GTD Jotunheim, Olympia, Princeton, Augustus, Excellence, and the Aquitaine. Several Orion Destroyers already in these systems have been overwhelmed by corvettes and bombers. It is hopeful that a demonstration of the new and modern Hecate destroyers will convice the Arch Defiance and Serpentis Coil that the GTVA is the only legitimate authority in this part of the universe.
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How many missions are you planning? You will experience making a mission is not as easy as you imagine. Making a mission(or map, level) is very complicated, requires patience, calmness and idea to follow. It is apparent you have the plan in your head, only you will just have to make it. I would be interested in the full campaign. Will you put it up into the 'Campaigns' thread?
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Im going to both agree and disagree with TopAce here. Firstly, I don't believe that messages in a mission are less important than briefings and debriefings. When you get right down to it, there isn;t an awful lot of variety in FS2 once you break it down into bombing, assault, guard etc. Messages and unusual, interesting in mission events are what make missions unique and special. Forgo them, and you risk getting caught up in "KILL TEH SHIVANS!!1" syndrome - a whole heap of barely connected missions where all you do is blow stuff up, for no real reason.
I will agree wioth some of his other points though. Yes, mission making is a difficult and complex process, and requires patience and practice. Though it's only my opinion, placing your first mission ever as the first of a campaign is probably bad idea, especially if you plan to release it. Ideally, you should practice a bit with single misisons, then maybe join another campaign nd learn from the FREDders on the team, who would undoubtedly be able to teach you a lot of useful stuff. Then you'd be armed with all the abilities you'd need to make a campaign, and you'd have a network of friends and contacts within the FS2 community who you could call on for mission making advice, or assistance.
This is, of course, just my opinion. If you want to try and break out on your own, it's up to you - some people (Myself included at times :D) learn best by fiddling around and learning stuff for themselves.If you're one of them, then I wish you good luck with your camp :)
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Dude, you just discovered where FRED was, right? Maybe you should put the campaign on hold for a while.
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I had an Orion jump in at the Node but since i couldnt get it to fire beams, i removed it.
ok, your new, and didn't exactly ask, "Why dont the beams fire???" so we wil tell you nicely... :nod: simply go to the events window and make the following event;
when
>has arrived delay
>>Orion
>>>1
|
then
>beam free all
>>Orion
and we strongly suggest you do the walkthrough if you got it, because it explans how to do amost everything...
--Hippo
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If you download FRED2_Open, it can set it for you automatically. However, the orginal FRED is more stable, and it doesn't occur as many problems.
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Dude, you just discovered where FRED was, right? Maybe you should put the campaign on hold for a while.
People still buy FS2, remember. Not everyone has had it for 4 years. :doubt:
I'd agree that ingame messages are more important than the briefing/de-breifing. The breifing is often made void by changes in events in the mission, and all the de-breifing can do is tell you what you've already done. The Tactical Breifing however is more useful, as this is where the greater picture of campaign storyline should be created.
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I remember my first mission... I had just DL'ed the Robotech mod and did the first of my eventual 1gig of voice rips from the DVD's. I redid mission Booby Trap. Main problem was getting the timing right for all the voice messages and the events to mesh cause I STILL can't seem to get evens to trigger in the right order (LOL!).. it was a mess.
Now it's a decent mission and I've got a vision of having getter 1 fighitng off a mech monster that's in the acceleration disk of a black hole and is tractoring caps ships in one at a time to be destroyed! (when I figured it out if floored me hehehe) Worse the enemy fleet was hiding in subspace and now has blockcaded the jumpnode out, It's a trap! Of course a showdown occurs, a sacrifice made and the alliance fleets is saved running to the node as the fighters clear a path to safety... But many pilots/crew are PISSED! (plus choosing emotional musics will help bring the scene to life).
Don't forget the right music will evoke even stronger feel than messages if done right! With each attempt you get used to the interface and more comfortable with making missions. They don't have to be masterpieces, just as long as you are happy with them.
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I actually started fooling around with FRED starting only a couple of weeks ago after reinstalling FS2 for the first time since my first go at the game years ago.
I found the walkthrough and the rest of the help files extremely useful. Karajoma helped me with some minor problems. Overall, if you do the walkthrough, then you should be able to do and troubleshoot on your own 90% of mission building if you aren't using mods or the like.
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Originally posted by Star Dragon
Main problem was getting the timing right for all the voice messages and the events to mesh cause I STILL can't seem to get evens to trigger in the right order (LOL!).
Ahh, how I love chained events. ;)
If you want to know how to make great missions, first extract some of the original FS2 missions and open them. (Or dowload a mission, play it, then open it.) Next to the walkthrough, going through a completed mission and seeing how it was done is the single most educational experience an aspiring FREDder can have. Trust me, I know... I took apart every single one of the original FS1 missions. :shaking:
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well my mission is coming out ok so far. The plot of it is what i want.. just getting it from point A (my head) to point B (actual mission) is whatim having problems with. What I want is for an enemy Aeolus class cruiser to jump in and start firing its beams on the Hecate Destroyer (which it is doing and doing very well). I also want the Hecate to blast it to bits within a few seconds too to prove the power of the GTVA against rouge groups :devil: Now the problem is that the Hecate will fire its little blue beams, but doesnt fire its big ones. Im thinking i have to add a special event for it to vaporize the Aeolus.
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Originally posted by DeepSpace9er
well my mission is coming out ok so far. The plot of it is what i want.. just getting it from point A (my head) to point B (actual mission) is whatim having problems with. What I want is for an enemy Aeolus class cruiser to jump in and start firing its beams on the Hecate Destroyer (which it is doing and doing very well). I also want the Hecate to blast it to bits within a few seconds too to prove the power of the GTVA against rouge groups :devil: Now the problem is that the Hecate will fire its little blue beams, but doesnt fire its big ones. Im thinking i have to add a special event for it to vaporize the Aeolus.
The Hecate has uncooperative firing arcs for most of its anti-cap beams. See if you can get the Hecate to follow a flight plan which will expose the Aeolus to its beams better.
Edit: Oh if you want the Aeolus to go down quickly, you might considering using Volition's tactic of getting a ship to 'overload' its beam cannons. Essentially that entails replacing the normal Bgreens with LRBGreens or BFGreens like they did on the Colossus in 'High Noon'.
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The Aeolus warps in and proceeds to fly directly in front of the Hecate, then turns around and flys back in front of it again. I think its a pretty good exposition. Also, a Deimos corvette jumps in at the end of the mission. It fires its little beams but doesnt fire anything big.
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Originally posted by DeepSpace9er
The Aeolus warps in and proceeds to fly directly in front of the Hecate, then turns around and flys back in front of it again. I think its a pretty good exposition. Also, a Deimos corvette jumps in at the end of the mission. It fires its little beams but doesnt fire anything big.
There should be no reason why it fires anti-fighter beams but not its anti-cap beams...
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Hmmm... if it is directly in frnt of the hecate, the main beams should fire, but if its off to the side even a tiny bit at that range, the main beam can't hit it because of its small firing ark...
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Originally posted by beatspete
People still buy FS2, remember. Not everyone has had it for 4 years. :doubt:
No, dude, he posted another thread asking where he could find FRED. AFAIK, he's been modding for about three days, and is already planning a campaign. I'm just suggesting that he not get over ambitious, see?
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oh let him start... it will probably crash and burn like all the others, and he can learn from that too... (no offense)
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i've been planning a campaign for a while. I already have the plot secure. I wont release the campaign until im satisfied with what I produced... nothing half-assed. I may be a newb at FS2 campaign making, but i've seen enough P Made campaigns to know what would be acceptable and what is not.
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good luck, just don't be suprised if it gets harder and harder on you...:nod:
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And the sexp`s can be a problem also, i`ve had a few crash and burns..:sigh: