Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => FRED Academy => Topic started by: Luigi30 on March 26, 2005, 08:02:13 pm
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I think I got it to work. Unfortunately, my FS2 is a bit broken at the moment so I can't test it. Does it work? It's my first mission, so I can't tell from looking at the events if it works right.
Download here (http://luigi30.com/c3m9a.fs2)
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:lol:
It works, but...
Your mission reminded me of the Lucifer thing in Deux Ex Machina.
As soon as the mission begins, an objective is instantly completed. Sorry, but that had me laughing for a good half-minute, especially since I had just read Karajorma's "13 Unlucky Mistakes" thread.
Also, all ships begin on the 2-d plane. Debriefing is...meh, and why does poor Alpha wing (flying bombers) go in without fighter cover? I got cut to pieces by those Lokis. Furthermore, you don't need to rotate the briefing screen like that. Just leave it stationary, and move the icons around.
No background. Hostile corvette doesn't even move, and thus makes no attempt to escape into the node it happens to be sitting right next to. All ships start facing the same direction.
All in all, this mission is either unplayable, or impossible to lose. You are guilty of 11 out of 13 of the "unlucky mistakes." On the bright side, I now view Karajorma as an insightful genius. What a prophetic thread that was...
You should have tested this at least once, although I can understand that you didn't have anyway of doing so.
But what good is criticism, if I don't tell you how to fix the dang thing?
1.) Use the X, Y, and Z axis, so the ships don't just sit in a line.
2.) Give the corvette orders to at least *do* something, other than sit around next to a node it could be escaping into.
3.) Fix the crazy objective that insta-completes itself.
4.) Give Alpha wing an escort or something, and then consider adding more than a wing of Lokis.
5.) Add a background with nebula, etc.
6.) Open a retail campaign mission and compare its dialog text with yours. That helped me a lot.
7.) Listen to what Karajorma has to say when he pops up in a couple minutes.
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Hey, it could be full of spelling errors. Or have the GTA Suck My Balls. That's about all I didn't do, apparantly :(
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Well it is the guys first attempt Blitz so be a little nicer :)
What are your problems with FS2 Luigi? Sounds like it's important that we fix those first so you can playtest yourself (missions should always be playtested by the designer before they are posted here. That way you could spot a lot of your mistakes and rectify them.
I haven't had the chance to play this one yet but it's never a sign of a great mission when their only appears to be 5 Events in the mission as it generally indicates that not enough is going on.
Anyway lets get FS2_Open working for you and then I'm sure you'll be able to improve the mission :)
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I just fixed it by reinstalling FS2 into a different folder. Now I can test the mission without getting OMGTABLEBROKEN errors every time a mission loads.
EDIT: Well, setting the SEXPs for an objective seems to help... the primary goal was the only one with any.
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:) You also have tonnes of messages that aren't linked to anything. Put those in and the mission will probably be a lot more impressive :0
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You think this is bad? Wait till you see what I made! :p
I haven't fredded in over four years! :p
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Okay, I think I got it to work, but the enemy Lokis tear apart anything that isn't ship-guardianed. How can I make the mission easier? Give the Lokis a Fenris to shoot at? Bump their AIs down a notch?
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Bumping down the AI sounds like a fair solution.
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Or give Alpha wing an escort, Beta wing. Who sends a single wing of unescorted-bombers to take down a corvette and a cruiser, anyway?
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Terran Command, that's who. :) I added a wing of Perseuses and another wing for reinforcements in the version I have now. With my level of mission-making skill, I could make a Deus Ex Machina-style campaign quite easily, in fact why don't I make that my next goal? ;)
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Okay, I think I fixed all the bugs. Tested it, too, it actually worked. Use link in first post.
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Okay, some feedback...
1.) Only a few events, kinda boring.
2.) Delta wing is supposed to be a reinforcement, but they come in whether or not you call 'em. You forgot to set 'em as a reinforcement, but to be honest, you don't need them at all. Makes it too easy.
3.) The Corvette should start facing the node. Also, during the mission, it kinda...goes stupid. It flys in a crazy pattern, and then...meh. Try messing with the waypoints.
4.) No delay between enemy waves. Kinda hokey looking, and seeing as there's only one wing of allied bombers, you get cut down quickly.
5.) What's with the cruiser? And the message that goes "why would a corvette need a cruiser as an escort?" Needs work.
6.) Not sure if beams are enabled.
7.) One one nebula is visible, and it's a tiny little square. Backgrounds, dude, backgrounds!
8.) Too easy if you manage to take down the Lokis.
9.) Again, look at the retail Fs2 briefings. They don't spin around like yours do. You don't need to twirl the screen around when you could just leave it stationary and move the icons.
Keep at it, and spend some time testing, future-FREDer. Some improvements I did notice....
1.) Good use of the 3d-plane, although some units still have questionable starting positions. Big improvement, I think.
2.) Mission dialog has improved. Good job. :)
3.) Objectives function correctly, as far as I can tell.
4.) Quit as soon as I killed the cruiser and corvette, so I couldn't tell you about the briefing. I assume you have one, though.
5.) You seem to have waypoints down, although they need tweaking. Good work!
6.) Generally, although you have a few things to iron out, you're learning. And that's what matters. Keep at it! :yes:
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...You're not supposed to kill the corvette, you're supposed to disable it. 10 seconds later the Ravana jumps in and blows it up, then escapes through the node.
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Oh...right....I knew that...I must've missed something in the briefing. Sorry... :nervous:
*mutters*
Well, scratch that complaint. Try to fix the other problems, though.
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Reading the briefing is goooooood. :) Anyone know how to move in the X and Y axes without having to tilt the camera all over?
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Originally posted by Blitzerland
Okay, some feedback...
1.) Only a few events, kinda boring.
Don't know what to do about that :(
2.) Delta wing is supposed to be a reinforcement, but they come in whether or not you call 'em. You forgot to set 'em as a reinforcement, but to be honest, you don't need them at all. Makes it too easy.
Forgot to change the message.
3.) The Corvette should start facing the node. Also, during the mission, it kinda...goes stupid. It flys in a crazy pattern, and then...meh. Try messing with the waypoints.
I'll move the corvette's starting position. It follows the same waypoints as the Ravana (across the galaxy to the node).
4.) No delay between enemy waves. Kinda hokey looking, and seeing as there's only one wing of allied bombers, you get cut down quickly.
I thought I fixed that. Oh well, I'll get it.
5.) What's with the cruiser? And the message that goes "why would a corvette need a cruiser as an escort?" Needs work.
The corvette took a beating in the last battle, I'm assuming. The cruiser is there to protect it while it can make repairs. The turrets are all severely damaged.
6.) Not sure if beams are enabled.
Oops, should fix that.
7.) One one nebula is visible, and it's a tiny little square. Backgrounds, dude, backgrounds!
Working on it.
8.) Too easy if you manage to take down the Lokis.
That's what the cruiser is for.
9.) Again, look at the retail Fs2 briefings. They don't spin around like yours do. You don't need to twirl the screen around when you could just leave it stationary and move the icons.
I don't know how to manipulate the FRED camera that well.
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I don't know how to manipulate the FRED camera that well.
You don't need to move the camera at all when creating briefings. Make the mission first, then do the briefing, and you won't have to move the camera. One more thing, if the corvette took a heavy beating, why are only the turrets damaged? Reduce the hull a little bit.
Other than that, it looks like you know what to fix.
Good luck! :yes:
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I thought I did knock down the hull.
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I haven't tried this one yet but I'll make a point about the backgrounds.
You should definately give making backgrounds a try but I'm not hugely worried about them at the moment because once the campaign is ready we'll have to make sure that all the missions share a common set of backgrounds. It will look odd if the nebulae change in between missions :)
That said the person who does the best job gets to see their work in all the missions for that system :D
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I tried to add another nebula and FRED crashed with a table error.
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Updated. Would it be bad for continuity if I voice acted the briefing?
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It depends on your age, and subsequent deepness of voice. Go for it, if you want. That'd be a quality addition, if you do it right. :)
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I've been told on IRC that I "spontaneously grew a sexy voice" in the past year.
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C3M9A with voiced briefing and debriefings, here, in VP form (www.luigi30.com/c3m9a.vp)
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I'll give this one a try later today.
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Okay. I tested the mission and although it's not bad it does need a fair bit of work at the moment.
[List=1]
- You might want to remove the helios bombs from the mission (Leave them in for now actually. It makes it much easier for me to find bugs when I have them!). Helios bombs are very special issue. Due to the fact that I had them I was able to screw up the mission in a surprising large number of ways. I could have probably done them without the helioses though. Anyway these need fixing
a) If you blow up the Apos (possible with Cyclopses too) the game complains that the Ravana blew it up (even though it's not present). You need to check when the Apos was killed. It's very easy for a player (and his wingmen!) to get carried away and blow up something that they were meant to disable.
b) I disabled the Ravana too (and then blew it up). Oddly enough I never saw the ravana fire at the Apos a single time. The Ashema and the Apos are both on the same team. It's probably a good idea to assign all of the Apos' forces as neutral and the Ravana as hostile. That would ensure that the Ravana fires at the Apos. (Unless the problem is firing angles!).
- The reccomendation in the third debrief stage is not really needed. If the player has managed to defeat the Ravana's fighters then there is no need to warn him to just fight the fighters. Reccomendations should only be used when the player has failed somehow.
- Are you using FRED2_Open for this mission? If so why are you using beam-free-all still? Just go to mission specs and turn it on by default for all ships
- You've ticked all teams at war but I see no neutral or unknown ships present. If you have neither you don't need it (and only sometimes even if you do).
- I found the mission pretty hard in the Boanerges (except when I cheated and used Helioses).