Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Scuddie on January 24, 2005, 05:10:39 pm
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I'm curious, does anyone know of any BoE sized missions, except they actually served purpose? I dont mean just sit back and watch as a few capships and a couple dozen cruisers run pre-scripted battles. Nor do I mean a running of the gauntlet mission. I mean a mission where there are maybe six or seven fighter wings, three or four bomber wings, 4 cruisers, 3 corvettes, and a destroyer all at the same time for each team. I want to play a mission like that, where the outcome will be dependant upon every action every fighter takes.
IOW, I want a believeable, and actually fun BoE sized mission. Any missions like that?
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Freespace 2 can't handle missions that size, that's why there are none, or they're very rare.
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Have you played Inferno yet? The 'show of force' mission sounds a lot like what you're talking about (I can't remember the name)
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No one bothers because of the well-known BoE Syndrome.
That is, balancing big missions is a ****, it needs too much raw power and everyone will scream "BoE" at the sight of that kind of mission.
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I remember, loong ago, there was a mission made by somebody, who I cannot remember, that lasted a good 20 minutes, and had the player fly all throughout the map fighting a major battle in a war.
I liked it. Somewhat.
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Whats BoE?
I get the idea of what it is but not the actually meaning of the title.
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Battle Of Endor
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Yeah, I've tried BoE missions a few times (becuz they were absolutely critical to the storyline of the campaign I made), and they are a huge pain in the ass. It takes forever to get everything balanced, and to code everything just right. I have a computer that can handle the BoE missions, but just because mine can it isn't saying that others can't. So don't try looking. Because you won't find many- if any at all.
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well that sucks
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Derelict had one that was excellent. It had a huge beam fight going on about twenty klicks out while you struggled to protect the damaged GTFf Cypher from three Shivan cruisers and multiple wings of Seraphim.
They can be done fairly well. I had one for a campaign I never really took up where you were scrambled to help defend some shipyard or another, and there was a huge battle going on as you arrived, two friendly cruisers and a Sobek fighting off five hostile Fenris cruisers, with multiple fighter wings on either side and an Arcadia that the friendlies were trying to defend. That was all two kilometers away, just large enough that it tended to spill into your battle but not seriously. But ultimately that wasn't your problem. Your problem was the two wings of Medusas making a run on the repair and refitting docking ring right next to you.
It gave you the feeling of being in a big battle, even if you actually weren't.
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In theory, it can be done. But the skill necessary to make a good big mission is far and few between.
I mean, you could have wings of destroyers, corvettes, cruisers, etc.. keep jumping in again and again and again, but without some fancy events, it's guarenteed to elicit the impression that the mission was ill-conceived and ill-executed.
And those impressions would be 100% correct.
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Yeah, the battle-over-Earth Inferno mission was pretty good. :)
Battle of Endor Syndrome (http://www.volitionwatch.com/articles/ArticleDisp.php?ID=26) (keep in mind that this was written for FS1).
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Yeah, I know plenty of why these missions are almost never done, but I would imagine by now that somebody would have gotten it right. I mean look at these things.
Derelict had one that was excellent. It had a huge beam fight going on about twenty klicks out while you struggled to protect the damaged GTFf Cypher from three Shivan cruisers and multiple wings of Seraphim.
I remember that, and I also remember it being the only Derelict mission I didnt like, for that very reason. Pre-Scripted battles=bad.I mean, you could have wings of destroyers, corvettes, cruisers, etc
Oh, hell no! That was far from what I wanted in a "BoE" mission. For these missions to work, there HAS to be an attack and defensive Otherwise there would be no point to it. 2 big forces facing off. So what? When I said "believable", I meant just that. One big, but unsuspecting fleet was just hit hard by a major opposing force. You know... Kinda like the Battle of Endor.
OT: Anyway, as far as the Inferno mission, I'm afraid I havent seen it. For some reason, I cant get past mission 4 (I think). After all the shivan fighters were destroyed, and the station is ready to be captured, I get the OK to jump out. Then a cruiser pops in, and I arrogantly go after it. And ofcourse I die :(. Why cant I just be smart and hit alt-j? WHY?? DAMMIT ALL! :hopping:
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Because saving the Lyacon is good for a bonus objective?
Shockers. Extreme range. Scylla's forward beam mount. 'Nuff said. It jumps out on its own shortly after the beam is broke, so otherwise leave it alone.
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NTB had something like that.....
then I scrapped it cause it was too long and I didnt have time to make all the new weapons.tbls I wanted :P
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The last mission in Technological Superiority is pretty big.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
The last mission in Technological Superiority is pretty big.
Does anyone know if the author of that is still alive?
I'm waiting for the part2 for 3 years.
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He's not. Tech Sup's forum became a place to up your post count some time ago.
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Originally posted by DIO
Does anyone know if the author of that is still alive?
I'm waiting for the part2 for 3 years.
He must be alive. I think he simply left the community without saying goodbye.
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Originally posted by Janos
No one bothers because of the well-known BoE Syndrome.
That is, balancing big missions is a ****, it needs too much raw power and everyone will scream "BoE" at the sight of that kind of mission.
It can be done. They player must be in the possition to influence it (ie - intercept a critical bomber wing, or taking out enemy beam cannons).
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The trouble being of course - that you need an objective that can be completed whilst still swamping the player in ships (both friendly and hostile).
Ironically - XW:Alliances final BoE missions actually pulled this off as you struggled to reach a certain place / kill a certain number of enemy and what have you. It's very hard to do.
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Originally posted by InfernoGod
Yeah, I've tried BoE missions a few times (becuz they were absolutely critical to the storyline of the campaign I made), and they are a huge pain in the ass. It takes forever to get everything balanced, and to code everything just right. I have a computer that can handle the BoE missions, but just because mine can it isn't saying that others can't. So don't try looking. Because you won't find many- if any at all.
Yeah. The knife-edge balance is destroyed by the hordes of ships. Inferno is about as far as you can go in that direction and still have it enjoyable.
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In the last mission of the Macross part of RTII you should get the feeling that you are in a battle with 4 million enemy cap ships... In the alpha test I had waves of Caps instead of just fighters (each one individually fredded for arrival based on time back then as SDF-1 obilterated several every few minutes.)
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Hum, There are a time I was fredding to much i realize some BoE mission, and the computer are still alive, BUT the mission will be too difficult that i Have to play on GOD mode.
I've put at first one Sathannas, followed by a multiple cruisers (Demon, Ravana, Rakhasa, and so on, with a multiple wings og fighters and bombers.
But i put 7 wings no more because FRED2 doesn't support more than 300 objects. So to make a good BoE, I have to deal with the reinforcement.
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
Ironically - XW:Alliances final BoE missions actually pulled this off as you struggled to reach a certain place / kill a certain number of enemy and what have you. It's very hard to do.
If you take the final BoE from Rogue Leader, there no limits on killing ennemy.
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I'm planning to use backgrounds to simulate the hundreds of thousands of cap ships that slug it out in Starforce battles. Just make background images depicting huge fleets and put them wherever.
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X-wing Alliance did the same, I don't suggest it, it does not make the feeling of having encircled with warships.
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Fred2 crashes when I reach a certain poly-count. This means that I have 14 induvidual Sathanases, and if I add another, it crashes. If I add a Triton, it does not.
I tried BoE styles before, and I realized that it becomes a game of Dodge the Bar with all the red and green beams criscrossing in every possible direction.
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I don't think it's the poly count that's killing it. It's the number of subsystems.
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Yeah FRED has a hard limit on the number of objects in a mission, which refers to anything with hitpoints. I think the formula is (number of ships + total number of subsystems on all ships), not counting fighters in additional wings. By the time you get that high, Freespace will be crawling anyway unless you're using highly optimized models, and even then you've got issues with the number of rendering calls on all subsystems.
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[size=12]MISSION[/size]
This is a gigantic mission.
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Subsys_status is dynamically allocated now in the new builds. There could be other limits to worry about but theoretically this will allow *really* large missions. There are plenty of existing missions which go over the old limit. New builds will allocate it in relatively small blocks, until you run out of memory anyway. Should be able to fit at least 1,500 without worry though.
The other issue for mission size is the number of different models used. Before you were limited by the number of ships/subsystems, now you are only limited by the number of different ships loaded. If anyone has a large mission which still doesn't work with the newest builds then let me know and I'll see what I can do about it. No promises but we are in the process of removing as many hardcoded limits as possible anyway.