Hard Light Productions Forums
FreeSpace Releases => Mission & Campaign Releases => Topic started by: Warnstaff on April 26, 2006, 04:09:27 am
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Hi evryone. Following up to what I said a week ago in a previous thread, I have started a Shivan campaign, and have released a demo of it. There are only 3 missions, as these are the only missions that have been completed so far. Heres the readme:
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Shivan Demo Campaign
Requirements:
--Freespace SCP capable of model view for ship selection
--"Use models for ship selection" enabled (absolutly vital for changing ships)
Installation:
Unzip in Freespace2\data\missions
Copy weapons.tbl and ships.tbl to Freespace2\data\tables
Create these directories if they do not exist
Author backround:
I've been playing freespace for many, many years now, with alot of off and on since 2003. I saw lots of campaign in the comunity, but none of the active or complete ones featured the shivans as a playable side. I decided that after years of fighting mostly shivans, that it was time to play as them. Being fresh form a rather long break from freespace, I had to brush up on my modding and FREDing skills and abilities, which were sadly, negleted before. Now I have relreased a demo campaign that has took me a wekk to build. FRED has fought me all the way, even destroying several complex and completed missions on me. At least now I have a demo out, and a willingness to continue it.
Enjoy.
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I hope you guys enjoy this. Bear in mind though, this is my first serious attempt at Freding in years, so it's not the best, but at least you can fly shivans. If you wish, the .tbl files will allow you to use shivan ships in your custom missions as well.
Have fun :)
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Terrific. I'll give this a run tonight. :)
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Worked fine for me :yes:
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This was quite fun! You found an excellent way to make a Shivanish briefings. If those shivan lasers didn't suck so much... We need a whole campaign, it's lovely to finally attack the good guys.
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I did as stated and I kept getting this error:
Error: Required token = [$multi_text], found [$mirror: 0].
The error occured in several lines in each of the missions..same error for all 3 missions.
I am using the April 21st build. Maybe that's the problem I don't know. Gonna try it with an older build.
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it's possible he was using an older version of FRED...
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I used the retail FRED for the "framework" due to shivan-are-hsotile regardless of settings bug, then used the SCP 3.6.7 to do some "easier" editing and such. Everything got a run over with 3.6.8 (April 21st, I think) prior to release (before testing the campaign. Dan1, did you install the .tbl files? Could you also get a screenshot of the error, and be more specific on when it happens?
I've found that 2 shivan heavy lasers are pretty good. The mega laser is....... OK when it's linked with a heavy, and the light..... same thing. They don't do much damage. I've found that the Shivans tend to use far supurior numbers to win rather then the GTVA's supurior ships.Using missiles and supurior numbers/tactics I found are better then supurior "solo" tactics (common with me using GTVA fighters, don't know 'bout you guys).
Thanks for the reviews guys. I am going to continue my campaign.
Oh, almost forgot. If you see a Vasudan support ship, thats yours. The Shivans didn't have a support ship by defaut, so I copied he vasudan support ship, gave it a shivan tag, renamed it, and now the shivans have a support ship.
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Nevermind, I got it to work with a different build. Playing through it now.
Mission 1: Intruders
-page 1 mission brief: "acient" = "ancient"
-end mission brief: "happen" = "happened."
-recommendations button : "recomendation" = "recommendation"
Mission 2: Sleeping Lion
-page 2 main brief: "thier" = "their"
-end mission brief: "avaiable" = "available"
Mission 3: Raiders and Bandits
-page 2 main brief: "recieved" = "received" & "revolations" = "revolutions"
-page 4 mission brief: "enem" = "enemy"
-end mission brief: "managaed" = "managed"
NOTE: The default bomber you're placed in is very interesting.
No afterburner but how much energy you put towards engines
determines your max cruising speed...never seen anything like that
before.
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Glad you got it working :)
I'll correct the grammer errors today (I missed them in my "sweeps"). Thanks for the heads up :)
I edited the some shivan ships to allow for praticality weapons (like cyclops torps on the Tauriva), other then allowing for player usage. The Tauriva doesn't have afterburner by default. It's got a nice cruising speed and great sheilding and armour though :)
P.S. I can't remember if Tauriva is the correct spelling, LOL!
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Taurvi is what you're looking for, warnstaff. :)
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I'll tell you want, i just played the demo with one or two problems. but anyways. This campaign looks awesome, with recreating the main fs2 campaign but on the shivan side. kick ass.
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SPOILERS!
ugh, now you just ruined it. :(
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NOTE: The default bomber you're placed in is very interesting.
No afterburner but how much energy you put towards engines
determines your max cruising speed...never seen anything like that
before.
In fact, engine power ALWAYS determines the speed too. Strange you haven't noticed, putting engines too low on power has put me in bad situations loads of times.
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Ok...I downloaded the file twice just to be safe, but I still can't get the Shivan camp to work. Not FSO 3.6.5 or 3.6.7. The missions just refuse to load for some reason. Even in FRED. Anyone know why this is happening?
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get the latest CVS.
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I think we need more than "The missions just refuse to load" as that describes a whole bunch of locks, crashes and outright weirdness.
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There isn't much else to say. The most descriptive responce I get is "Unable to load mission". Quite annoying. But I'll try to find that CVS.
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At least we can search the forums for files now. that alone is a huge improvement trying to track down all the files to run SCP optimally.
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There isn't much else to say. The most descriptive responce I get is "Unable to load mission". Quite annoying. But I'll try to find that CVS.
I'd bet money that the full message is probably more descriptive to someone who can code than that. :)
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Then you'd lose money. I'd show a screenshot of it, but now it won't freaking run at ALL.
Tried the latest CVS build. Got this dumb error about missing flag files. Looked it up, apparently this OpenAl will fix it. It didn't do a damn thing. 3.6.5 is now not running at all for any reason, and neither is 3.6.7. Now I have to go uninstall and reinstall FS2 for the 3rd time in the past 2 days.
Edit: Just reinstalled everything. Here's your proof.
http://www.zingsdomain.com/culando/loadfailed.jpg
http://www.zingsdomain.com/culando/stillfails.jpg
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First of all, the shivan lasers are not very nice to use, they seem SO slow. If you're going to expand this campaign, I think you may want to introduce some new and more excitign shivan weapons. Secondly, it's really weird for shivan missiles to be the stock terran weapons and they don't look shivan. A little work on modifying this could really improve the campaign.
Other than that I think it's great, Good Work! The shivan briefings are definately cool, keeping them mysterious is a good idea, don't stray from it.
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Then you'd lose money. I'd show a screenshot of it, but now it won't freaking run at ALL.
Tried the latest CVS build. Got this dumb error about missing flag files. Looked it up, apparently this OpenAl will fix it. It didn't do a damn thing. 3.6.5 is now not running at all for any reason, and neither is 3.6.7. Now I have to go uninstall and reinstall FS2 for the 3rd time in the past 2 days.
Edit: Just reinstalled everything. Here's your proof.
http://www.zingsdomain.com/culando/loadfailed.jpg
http://www.zingsdomain.com/culando/stillfails.jpg
Actually I wouldn't. The full message allowed me to grep the code. When I was searching for "Unable to load mission" I was finding nothing.
At least I know where the error is (In freespace.cpp) even if I can't see what could be causing it.
Try the new CVS build (The one I posted in recent builds is probably the newest) and if you still get it see what happens with the debug build.
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Well lookit that. It works now. And so does Into the Depths of Hell. Sorry for being a bother. While dealing with FS2 crashing and everything along with my video card being uppity lately, I've gotten quickly frustrated with my computer. Thanks for the help.
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I've not tested this campaign with anything other the CVS builds 3.6.7 and 3.6.8 (several diffrent releases).
Glad you got it working Culando. I'd have responded earlier, but it's the weekend and I like to sleep.
First of all, the shivan lasers are not very nice to use, they seem SO slow. If you're going to expand this campaign, I think you may want to introduce some new and more excitign shivan weapons. Secondly, it's really weird for shivan missiles to be the stock terran weapons and they don't look shivan. A little work on modifying this could really improve the campaign.
All weapons are the exact same that the cannon shivans use. I guess volition didn't bother making new shivan secondary weapons ([V] probly didn't think we'd normally look that closely).
The shivan primaries are quite weak, but that's probly why there were so many shivan fighters in the main campaign, and why I give you lots of shivan allies. In my experience so far, the shivans have a very diffrent style of fighting to that of the GTVA. I currently don't have any plans to change this, barring a large outcry from the community. Just keep in mind that (at least to my knowledge) there isn't exactly any reference shivan fighting styles outside of this campaign and players speding lots of time studying shivans, as supposed to killing them.
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Then you'd lose money. I'd show a screenshot of it, but now it won't freaking run at ALL.
Tried the latest CVS build. Got this dumb error about missing flag files. Looked it up, apparently this OpenAl will fix it. It didn't do a damn thing. 3.6.5 is now not running at all for any reason, and neither is 3.6.7. Now I have to go uninstall and reinstall FS2 for the 3rd time in the past 2 days.
Edit: Just reinstalled everything. Here's your proof.
http://www.zingsdomain.com/culando/loadfailed.jpg
http://www.zingsdomain.com/culando/stillfails.jpg
Actually I wouldn't. The full message allowed me to grep the code. When I was searching for "Unable to load mission" I was finding nothing.
At least I know where the error is (In freespace.cpp) even if I can't see what could be causing it.
Try the new CVS build (The one I posted in recent builds is probably the newest) and if you still get it see what happens with the debug build.
I dunno, I've had several campaigns do just like Culando says with the Unable to load screen and that's it....but then I try several different things and usually get it to work somehow.
Anyway, with the weapon strenth thing, I agree with warnstaff, It's just how the shivans roll. Weak weapons but swarm in numbers. I like the realistic feel and I think you've made a great demo..can't wait for the whole campaign 8)
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I'm thinking about releasing the campaign in 3 "phases". First one is the nebula campaign (be it's own campaign). Phase 2 will be the p"post-nebula" campaign (also it's own campaign, to be renamed). Phase three would be a compilation of the first two, so it can be played either right through from beginning to end, or in diffrent experiences - nebula fighting and the gamma-draconis and capella fights. This would be quicker releases without comprimising quality. What do you guys think :)
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Game crashes right on the first bar of loading the campaign...
Error: SC-01.fs2(70):
Error: Required token = [$multi_text], found [$mirror: 0] .
File:parse/parselo.cpp
Line: 551
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]
Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
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You need to use a newer build of FS2_Open most likely. The inability to deal with the [$mirror: 0] generally means that the campaign was made with a very new version of FRED but you're playing on something more than a couple of months old.
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Well i downloaded the latest stable build, wich is 3.6.7 afaik
[edit]Well i downloaded the latest CVS build and i was able to play the demo through.
I found it very nice disregarding any spelling errors i encountered, the missions were nicely done, and had a good pace.
Finally i was able to fly a Manticore, shooting with that thing was a little tricky at times though.
Story was also very well done, and i liked how you managed to make the mission briefs shivanish.
I'd give this 4.8/5.0
I can't wait for some more missions.
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I'm gonna be releasing the "nebula campaign" part of the campaign when it's done. This way you guys can get a more full experience, and I am happy for creating a backup :p Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm not gonna have a capella part.
Just for the "record" of sorts, I've been using the latest released CVS builds for the game exe and FRED2. I'm not gonna be using any new ones that get released (except the officially stable ones) due to these problems that seemed to have arised for common older builds. Don't want these builds to go out of date to soon.
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You are off to a good start, but do something about the weapons. Either make them stronger of faster. At current settings they suck.
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^^ What he said. I know you want to be a "purist" about it, but the whole point of creating a campaign is so your players can have fun and enjoy themselves, and you can feel good when everyone says how great the campaign was.
It's just no fun to shoot stuff with those crappy weapons, period.
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Well, i played the whole demo last night. It's very interesting. The first thing i usually have to complain about fighters is the gunpoints, so far the taurvi and mara have gunpoints i'm comfy with. The shivan primaries aren't all that bad, the shivan heavy laser is nice, but generally works nice with refiring speed if you don't combine weapons. They are different weapons to use, and that's one reason why they're fun, i guess i should try using secondaries more often since shivan fighters usually hold a lot of secondaries. Like everyone says, i need to learn how shivans fight first, interesting to have your ass kicked by a myrmadon.
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I have an idea that can solve both weapons releated problems. I will create a second optional weapons table with improved weapons. That way you guys can either have the "purist" weapons or the "fun" weapons. It's five to 3am right now, so I'll do it tomorrow. Be advised, the missions are being designed for "purist" weapons, so the "fun" weapons will probly unbalance the campaign, at which point I'll reform the missions for a second campaign to balance it out (provided I have the time).
The weapon placements are very enoying, even for me. I'll explore the model stuff to change the weapon placements (if thats where I do it) to be more friendly (especially the astaroth and Seriphim). If I can figure out how to do that, I'll include it in the "fun shivans" campaign optionals.
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If you are using the stock Shivan weapons from FS2 then... Shivan weapons are much worse than any normally used weapon in FS2... Even the best of them (imo the shivan heavy laser) manages to be just a bit worse than crappiest weapon available normally in FS2.. the Prometheus R...
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I have an idea that can solve both weapons releated problems. I will create a second optional weapons table with improved weapons. That way you guys can either have the "purist" weapons or the "fun" weapons. It's five to 3am right now, so I'll do it tomorrow. Be advised, the missions are being designed for "purist" weapons, so the "fun" weapons will probly unbalance the campaign, at which point I'll reform the missions for a second campaign to balance it out (provided I have the time).
The weapon placements are very enoying, even for me. I'll explore the model stuff to change the weapon placements (if thats where I do it) to be more friendly (especially the astaroth and Seriphim). If I can figure out how to do that, I'll include it in the "fun shivans" campaign optionals.
I think that is a great idea. You don't have to make the weapons that much more ridiculously powerful... Just a little bit faster and maybe some optional variants as the campaign goes forward, you know, like you get new weapons the shivans have devised that we didn't see in the previous campaign, even some recolors of existing weapons with different firing rates would do the trick.
Another big thing for me is the missiles. It just doesn't make sense the shivans would use a weapon like "trebuchet" or "hornet" and still have it called that name. It would go a long way if the hornet was still the "hornet" but was called something shivan... and maybe had a different color or glow...
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Why would the name of the weapons mean anything? :wtf: The Shivans probably aren't big on weapon names anyway.
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It means something to me because i feel like it drops the realism of playing a shivan pilot. I really want to be completely immersed as a shivan, something this camaign will have the potential to do, and looking at my familiar terran missile names kind of detracts from that. I'm not suggesting shivans need all new missiles, but i just don't want to stare at terran missile names during the mission. Anyway, this is just a suggestion from one pilot, Command probably won't listen...
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Changing weapon damage or firing rates would just detract from the Shivalism(Shivan realism.. :nervous:), i just want the stock FS2 shivan weapons, whatever the ships used i want them like that..
I been waiting for a campaign like this for a long time..
You can always mod the tables yourself if you want more "fun" experience, it doesn't take much to tweak a few values.
I personally didn't find any weapon to be "not fun", each one was good, and balanced. Like their supposed to be, this is not quake afterall where you can kill everybody in shot or two cause its "fun".
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It means something to me because i feel like it drops the realism of playing a shivan pilot. I really want to be completely immersed as a shivan, something this camaign will have the potential to do, and looking at my familiar terran missile names kind of detracts from that. I'm not suggesting shivans need all new missiles, but i just don't want to stare at terran missile names during the mission. Anyway, this is just a suggestion from one pilot, Command probably won't listen...
Well, what would you call a Shivan Hornet?
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Hydra? Wasp? :doubt:
I say just keep the weapon names like they are, so far i aren't troubled at all by their naming.
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I ain't good with names, so I ask you guys to try to come up with names (credit givin in readme for contributions). In the meantime, I'll give them temp names, like the hornet will be "Shivan swarmer".
One more thing, how do I change the names of the weapons? They don't change ingame. I change the title and desription name, but thats all I know how to do on them. Little help?
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Update on shivan primaries: I've completed a prelimerary modification that makes shivan primaries more powerful. Heres a "list" of the cnages:
Shivan light laser = Subach with slightly higher damage
Shivan heavy laser = Prometheus S with slightly higher damage
Shivan Mega Laser = Kayser with slightly higher damage, slightler lower rate of fire, and lower consumption.
These will be subject to change as required at a later date.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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hmm, ok, i've played through the first 2 missions (damn my lack of RAM), and I must say, I think it's a little too easy. the missions were literally over in 3 minutes or so. try making it harder.
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I try, but I this is my the FREDing I've done in years, so I'm more then a little rusty (how do I use campaign persitant strings? Is there an "unless" command?). I've also found that with the Shivans, it almost either too easy and short, or too long and near impossible. For the moment though, the campaign is based ostly on hit and runs and other shivan nubula activities. It won't be untill......... mission six or so that theres some real heavy combat (might even include a variat of my Battle of Endor Syndrom mission in, if possible).
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(how do I use campaign persitant strings? Is there an "unless" command?).
What do you mean by an unless command. If you tell me what you want to do I can probably explain it. As for campaign persistent strings it sounds like you're looking for something which campaign persistent variables can help you with. There is a fairly detailed explaination of how these work in my FAQ. Learn how to use them and the new conditionals and you'll find a lot more interesting things you can do than you could when you first learnt FRED :)
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The new weapons are alot better. They still look and feel like shivan weapons, but now they also act like the weapons of a technologically superior race should as well. Fantastic !
My suggestion to you is this : make this campaign in episodes of several missions at once, that way you can gauge fan reaction and you can improve your FREDing skills along the way, instead of trying to do all the episodes in one huge campaign that never gets released.
If you want to see an example of a hard campaign, check out neo-terra, that campaign, you play as an NTF pilot and it's quite hard but not so hard that it is impossible, in fact it's quite fun and action packed. maybe it'll give you some ideas how to make this campaign a little more difficult as it goes on.
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(how do I use campaign persitant strings? Is there an "unless" command?).
What do you mean by an unless command. If you tell me what you want to do I can probably explain it. As for campaign persistent strings it sounds like you're looking for something which campaign persistent variables can help you with. There is a fairly detailed explaination of how these work in my FAQ. Learn how to use them and the new conditionals and you'll find a lot more interesting things you can do than you could when you first learnt FRED :)
By "unless" command, I mean.... well, heres a scenerio:
I want to have Cruiser "A" to jump in when Shivan corvette "C" is destroyed and/or Shivan cruiser "D" has departed, but (unless) not jump in if Destroyer "B" is destroyed. I don't know how to do that.
I've also read your FAQ, but it won't click in my head, so I don't understand how the campaign persistent variables work. All I really need them for are red alert missions, as the red alert command either crashes the game or doesn't take effect (after a bunch of errors).
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Right. What you need to do for that is make your arrival cue for Cruiser A look like this.
When
-and
--or
---is-destroyed-delay
----0
----Shivan Corvette C
---is-departed-delay
----0
----Shivan Cruiser D
--not
---is-destroyed-delay
----0
----Shivan Destroyer B
The important part is the Not SEXP. Remember that every "trigger" SEXP is a Boolean operator. It eventually evaluates to true or false. The Not simply reverses that meaning that Not-is-destroyed evaluates to true as long as the Shivan Destroyer isn't dead.
As for the red-alert problem what have you tried?
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Ahh, so there is an unless command (just long). Thanks.
My red alerts - I've tried putting the second misison as the red alert, disabled debriefings (also tried enabled) for the first one, set the "red alert" ships to red alert carry on status for the first mission, then the second misison, then both. I've done the red alert thing in the events, but I still get problems, and when the mission does load, it doesn't have the red alert status.
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Don't disabled debriefings, the red alert code automatically gets rid of them if the mission red alerts and you'll need them for your AWOL debriefs unless you've taken out the players jump engines. (You are using AWOL debriefs right? I mean it's mistake number 1 (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,29567.0.html)! :) )
Mission 1 should have red alert carry status on all the ships you want to appear in the next one. Mission 2 should have ships with the same name (and class I assume but I've never tried not doing that). Set mission 2 to be a red alert mission. End mission 1 with a red alert SEXP. Have no other branches in the campaign file other than to the red alert mission (You must have a campaign file. Red Alert won't work from the tech room!).
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I always try to remember to make an AWOL debrief (I read the common mistakes before).
I have put the ships on both missions on red alert carry stats. The red alert SEXP was listed as well, but it doesn't seem to matter. I keep getting crashes whenever I do it (with retail or SCP FRED). The test campaigns I've been using are only 2 missions long - pre-red alert and red alert. And yes, both ships were the same class.
Is it possible it doesn't like it for friendly shivan ships, especially for player controled shivan ships (aside for SF (Terrans) Mara)?
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Update on shivan primaries: I've completed a prelimerary modification that makes shivan primaries more powerful. Heres a "list" of the cnages:
Shivan light laser = Subach with slightly higher damage
Shivan heavy laser = Prometheus S with slightly higher damage
Shivan Mega Laser = Kayser with slightly higher damage, slightler lower rate of fire, and lower consumption.
These will be subject to change as required at a later date.
I hope the actual campaign is still balanced according to stock tables..
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Is it possible it doesn't like it for friendly shivan ships, especially for player controled shivan ships (aside for SF (Terrans) Mara)?
Make yourself a test mission with terran ships. If it doesn't work post it and I'll tell you what you did wrong :)
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that's a big pain in the ass. the Shivan tag is permanently hostile (probably since :v: thought we wouldn't try something like this). isn't there a table somewhere that determines that?
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Could change all the shivans to vasudans, but I have 2 ways around it. 1: Use retail FRED for the shivan ships, which allows you set them as friendly. 2: Use Terran ships, then when all is well, change their ship class to the appropiate shivan class, which retains their frinedly status.
I hope the actual campaign is still balanced according to stock tables..
Be advised, the missions are being designed for "purist" weapons, so the "fun" weapons will probly unbalance the campaign, at which point I'll reform the missions for a second campaign to balance it out (provided I have the time).
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it's possible to do that, but i think you would just have to do it old-school style and keep it retail, since SCP might correct that.
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The demo campaign was done with the retail then converted to SCP succesfully, along with the other current missions to-be-released when done.
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Is it possible it doesn't like it for friendly shivan ships, especially for player controled shivan ships (aside for SF (Terrans) Mara)?
Okay I'm confused here. Exactly what is stopping you from setting the Shivans to be friendly in the Ship editor?
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When using the SCP FRED, it automaticly designates the shivan ships as hostile. Changing the ship's team doesn't help. I can do with with the IFF SEXP, but it takes a couple seconds to take effect (just long enough to get shot be an AAAf). It's most ennoying, especially since it has caused some irreperal damage to nearly completed missions, causing them to be scraped (otherwise I'd be ready to release a full nebula campaign next week :( ).
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Why aren't you simply selecting the ship, pressing SHIFT-S to open the ship editor and changing the IFF there?
Post a mission which doesn't work. If there is an IFF problem it needs to be fixed. You might also want to try this to see if it works for you. I knocked it up in about 30 seconds in FRED to prove that there is no issue with friendly shivans.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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would notepad do the trick ?
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Probably but I really can't see why he has to resort to it. Setting Shivan ships to friendly in FRED worked perfectly well for me.
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Why aren't you simply selecting the ship, pressing SHIFT-S to open the ship editor and changing the IFF there?
The ships register as hostile when I do it alot of the time. Sometimes (but seemingly rare) it works. It worked at first, then it went back to hostile. Most the missions that have been damaged by this were deleted a while ago in favor of my new methood, so I currently don't have any, and ATM, it's working (don't expect it to last though :( like last time).
I've found the IFF in the ship editor thing to stop working (for me) after "friendlifying" several wings of shivan ships, and it's especially bad when the player wing has shivan ships in it. I'll work on gettting a friendly=hostile situation going on and post the mission, but it may take some time, and probly destroy another misison.
Of course, I *MIGHT* get lucky and it'll start working (make things alot easier).
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I've now encountered a second problem. I've started out with 3 wings of maras, and 9 gas miners. I add 2 fighters and crashes. I delete all but 4 miners, and I can put no more then 4 new fighters total before crashing. Mission attached.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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I tried it and it let me put in as many fighters as I wanted. I'l do some further testing in a bit and see if I can get it to crash.
EDIT : Couldn't get it to crash. No idea what you're doing wrong but the only crashes I got were due to having 5 secondary weapons on the Nephilim (which only has 4 secondary banks!) and the fact that you still have the Serephim and Nephilim as player flyable dispite the fact that no good will probably come of trying to do that.
Once I fixed those problems in the table the mission was perfectly stable in debug FRED with or without the media VPs.
My only advice is to run the debug version of FRED and tell me what error it spits out when it crashes.
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I'll try the debug FRED thing tomorrow (it's 4 am here, and I need sleep). And the fighter I was trying to add were myrms and Ulysses.
I've actually been abel to get both Nephilim and Seriphim bombers working. The nephilim tends to crash when it's involved in the ship and weapons selection as the selected unit. Aside from that, you can't change secondary weapons on either. The nephilim will be in scramble missions, and Seriphims are a "special case" bomber.
Hmmmmm, what version of FRED are you using? I'm using a later version (I think), and that may be the problem.
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I compile my own from CVS and it has some new team loadout changes that haven't reached CVS so it is different from the build you'll be using. That said I did try the mission with an earlier release version and it was fine.
One other thing though. If FRED eats one of your missions don't delete it. I could repair most damaged missions pretty quickly in notepad even before I was a coder. It's also woth pointing out that FRED saves .bak files which are basically the previous mission save and also autosaves your mission every 5-10 minutes or so as Backup.00x.
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I didn't know that notepad could be used in FRED!
Any chance of that new build coming out soon?
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I'm in the middle of adding a bunch of my features to FRED. They've been in CVS for ages but seeing as how I didn't understand MFC I couldn't add them to FRED so you could only add them via SEXP or with notepad.
Soon as I'm done I'll post a build.
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kara, since you're the only person that seems to be building at the moment do you think you can turn on support for optimizations for SSE in your builds and do 2 release builds, one with SSE optimizations (ala P4 / Athlon / P3) and one general build, like redmenace used to back in March ?
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Not certain how to be honest. I suspect I know which switches and levers to pull but unless someone knows for certain I'm sticking to the unoptimised builds.
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If you're building with VS 2003, as I suspect you may, check out this article : http://xona.com/2004/06/29.html
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Unfortunately I'm using VC6
The best you can expect is that they will compile, but you will still lose the use of your debugger.
That's me out then. If I get hold of VC.net at some point I'll give it a try though.
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Oh well. When you make the jump, you might as well just go straight to vs 2005, it's a lot better.
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I'll upgrade eventually but seeing as I'm learning MFC from a teach yourself Visual C 6 book, now's not the time :)
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No, of course, actually, you'll want to keep a VC6 Install on one dev machine because you'll probably run into trouble trying to build this on VS 2005.
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Good news guys. I gone back to using the april 21st build for FRED (I think it's the 04/21 one) and have not had any problems so far. If it keeps up like this, then the campaign will be back on at full speed again!
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http://www.penguinbomb.com/lightspeed/SMW03weapons.html
You might want to check out the shivan weapons on this page by lightspeed, those might be fun to incorporate in your mod.
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Good news guys. I gone back to using the april 21st build for FRED (I think it's the 04/21 one) and have not had any problems so far. If it keeps up like this, then the campaign will be back on at full speed again!
What were you using? The 21st is the newest build of FRED apart from one I released a couple of days ago.
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Good news guys. I gone back to using the april 21st build for FRED (I think it's the 04/21 one) and have not had any problems so far. If it keeps up like this, then the campaign will be back on at full speed again!
What were you using? The 21st is the newest build of FRED apart from one I released a couple of days ago.
The one I am now using is definetly the april 21st build. I'm not sure which one I was using before though. I renamed it some time ago fo a reason I can't remember :( . I'd post it, but it's too large, even in zipped/rar format :(
On the bright side, the campaign is comming along nicely now. Now that I'm not fighting FRED every time I do something, I've been able to get 2 more misisons done (including one pretty hard mission). I'd be farther along, but as said before, I was fighting with FRED.
neoterran;
I'll definetly have a look into those. If I can figure out (and I likely will, once I start working on it), I'll try to et those included as "fun weapons" available for optional download (like the first version).
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http://www.penguinbomb.com/lightspeed/SMW03weapons.html
You might want to check out the shivan weapons on this page by lightspeed, those might be fun to incorporate in your mod.
Darn those look whacked...so...not...FS2.
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Good news guys. I gone back to using the april 21st build for FRED (I think it's the 04/21 one) and have not had any problems so far. If it keeps up like this, then the campaign will be back on at full speed again!
What were you using? The 21st is the newest build of FRED apart from one I released a couple of days ago.
The one I am now using is definetly the april 21st build. I'm not sure which one I was using before though. I renamed it some time ago fo a reason I can't remember :( . I'd post it, but it's too large, even in zipped/rar format :(
On the bright side, the campaign is comming along nicely now. Now that I'm not fighting FRED every time I do something, I've been able to get 2 more misisons done (including one pretty hard mission). I'd be farther along, but as said before, I was fighting with FRED.
neoterran;
I'll definetly have a look into those. If I can figure out (and I likely will, once I start working on it), I'll try to et those included as "fun weapons" available for optional download (like the first version).
Cool. If you don't like they way they look, they'll be optional people.
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Lightspeeds shivan weapons are sweet. Very alien too. Those would be awesome in the mod, and now i also know why i haven't seen those other shivan lasers in the fs2 campaign. Also, thinking very probable here, but the shivans realistically would probably have more than 3 types of lasers. Shivans lasers with the light, the heavy, and the mega laser...the more powerful they are, the greater the time is before another laser is shot. The shivan light laser i was fond of, it's like a subach, but it seemed weaker than one :(
The fact that they have strength in numbers is why they are so powerful, just doesn't seem to cut it anymore. Shivans do have weapons, lots of them, and i would hope to god an alien species would have more than 3 types of a weapon for use on every single ship. Just trying to think about it in a realistic logic. There's tons of shivans, they have powerful warships, powerful bombers, great fighters like the mara and dragon, superior subspace technology, and yet for lasers they have only 3 types ranging in power which can be a limit in potential when you're not serving in huge numbers :lol:
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I can tell you from experience that half the fun of a new mod is seeing what kinds of weird and exotic new weapons you can use. Come on, you can't tell me firing a Subach HL-11 variant in Renegade Resurgence, or using Hurricane missiles in Inferno, or the Gauss Railgun in COW, or enjoying how much fun an Avenger is when you're so used to Prometheus - Shivans deserve no less. Go ahead and make it an optional 'fun' vp pack if you really want, but the campaign deserves its own personality, and you don't even have to make graphics for it.. what more can you ask for.
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Well i personally want to play a campaign that feels shivan, not just a another variant of GTVA, where you can solo along and destroy capital ships alone like their cheese, or destroy countless of fighter squadrons without any backup. Shivans are about the numbers, and the subspace technology they possess. The only edge they got over the GTVA is that they know more about subspace, and beam weapons, but GTVA has better fighters, and laser turrets. Shivans are about numbers when it comes to fighters..
The campaign has its own personality right now, its not just a another run-off-the-mill GTVA clone campaign, it actually is diffrent. Your weapons are weaker, but you also have alot more squad mates. Some of the words are changed, and plenty of other minor details..seriusly if you just want a campaign thats a clone of the GTVA gameplay, why don't you just play normal Freespace 2? Some of us here would actually want a campaign that feels Shivan, not a campaign thats GTVA in Shivan clothing.
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Dude, i just don't understand that attitude. Hell, leave the weapons exactly the way they are, weak , if you want, just use Lightspeeds hand tailored and much nicer looking weapons for them. He even named them. I think it adds so much to the game. But hey, it's not up to us, it's up to the campaign author.
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When I have completed the shivan nebula campaign (cappella campaign will be soon after) I'll get to work on the new weapons, and as said before, I'll make them optional. Because there are new weapons, I will have to modify the missions to allow them, so a re-download of the campaign would be needed for it's use. By default however, the campaign will be balanced for traditional shivan weapons, not the "fun" weapons (I might redo them post-release though for the fun weapons).
If I, for whatever reason can't get them to work, I'll try to enlist a team to get them working (not yet though). Also, I havn't been able to find a disclaimer anywhere on lightspeed's site......... I would feel more comfortable knowing for sure if it's alright to use them :)
Oh, a quick update on the actual campaign status: I've been working on mission 5 like a mad man, and it's very difficult (not impossible). Lots of ships (nearly BoES) and lots of fun :) Unfortionetly, it's taking alot of time. You wouldn't believe the amount of bugs that were in it :( But it (mission 5) should be 100% sometime today. I'd estemate that within the timeframe of 2 weeks that the nebula campaign will be released (DO NOT HOLD ME TO THIS DATE! It's a guess that's not accounting for possible major problems).
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Hey guys, I've been think...... the current shivan campagin I'm doing is being bogged down by errors, crashes, and my inability to easily tell the story from the shivan's point of view. I'm think about scrapping what I've got, and starting on a campaign where the player attacks the Vega-Cappella node bound destroying, and destroys it, thereby keep 1 node open for the shivans to swarm into the home systes of the GTVA. Though this won't solve my technical issues, it will allow me to freeform ideas and story, which I think is far more intresting. Be easier for me as well :)
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Hey guys, I've been think...... the current shivan campagin I'm doing is being bogged down by errors, crashes, and my inability to easily tell the story from the shivan's point of view. I'm think about scrapping what I've got, and starting on a campaign where the player attacks the Vega-Cappella node bound destroying, and destroys it, thereby keep 1 node open for the shivans to swarm into the home systes of the GTVA. Though this won't solve my technical issues, it will allow me to freeform ideas and story, which I think is far more intresting. Be easier for me as well :)
Bear in mind the Shivans could conceivably swarm in from any number of systems, as in FS1.
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True, but the Shivan's still have to use jump nodes, and they aren't anywhere near the Ross 128 and Ikeya uncharted jump points in the main campaign, and it apears, from what we (or I) can tell from the main FS2 campaign, that there are not ay uncharted jump points from Cappella or Gamma Draconis, hence, the Vega and/or Epsilon Pegasi nodes would have to remain open in order for them to not have to take a very long way around.
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How do you know there aren't any uncharted jump nodes? :D
Vega was one of the main areas of fighting in FS1, based on the briefs; I think you could make a pretty good case for it if you wanted to. Antares was, IIRC, the first contact the player makes, too, which would be another decent site;
[GTD Galatea
Antares System
1/18/35
The Shivans
Terran Command has confirmed the existence of a new species. Until further contact is established, Command has designated them "Shivans".
The Shivans have inflicted heavy casualties to both Terran and Vasudan forces in the Beta Cygni and Vega systems, and appear to be making a rapid push into other key systems along the Terran-Vasudan front. All contact has been lost with our forces in the Ikeya and Ross 128 systems.
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How do you know there are uncharted jump nodes from Cappella to Vega or Epsilon Pegasi?
In the second last mission of FS2, Cappella had 3 nodes, only one of which was used by Shivans: the Cappella - Gamma Draconis jump node. GTVA destroyed the Vega-Cappella and Epsilon Pegasi-Cappella jump nodes, and the campaign ended before it would be revealed that the Shivans could use any possible uncharted nodes from Cappella. The only known uncharted nodes, IIRC, are in Ross 128, Beta Cygni, Ikeya, and between Antares and Deneb (Shivan fleet circumvented the blockade the antares blockade and gained Deneb in FS1 prior to Vasuda Prime's bombardment, or was it Beta Aquilae....... I'll have to comfirm that).
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How do you know there are uncharted jump nodes from Cappella to Vega or Epsilon Pegasi?
In the second last mission of FS2, Cappella had 3 nodes, only one of which was used by Shivans: the Cappella - Gamma Draconis jump node. GTVA destroyed the Vega-Cappella and Epsilon Pegasi-Cappella jump nodes, and the campaign ended before it would be revealed that the Shivans could use any possible uncharted nodes from Cappella. The only known uncharted nodes, IIRC, are in Ross 128, Beta Cygni, Ikeya, and between Antares and Deneb (Shivan fleet circumvented the blockade the antares blockade and gained Deneb in FS1 prior to Vasuda Prime's bombardment, or was it Beta Aquilae....... I'll have to comfirm that).
Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
Um... these are uncharted nodes, after all, hence not on any chart nor known.
And even if the GTVA did 'find' uncharted nodes, they would have no real way of knowing which ones the Shivans used, because they would a) be unable to travel through them and b) probably wouldn't know how stable a node has to be for the Shivans to use.
So it's perfectly fair to bung them in. Hell, any sort of campaign from a Shivan POV is effectively rewriting canon anyways, so it's not exactly a problem to make a reasonable assumption that there are uncharted nodes between x and y should you wish or need to.
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It's true that no proof of somethig doesn't mean it's not there (UFOs for example, prior to 1947). But I'm trying to keep within Cannon... to a point (Vega node remains open, which changes alot). If there was however even a mention of uncharted or unstable nodes anywere near Cappella, I'd use those instead.
On a slightly diffrent topic, I've managed to get the first mission of this changed campaign all but complete, and FRED is behaving, somewhat. Backround nebulas a purrdy. I don't remember what Vega looked like in retail, and I'm so lazy to go get it, so I'm making it up as a go along (Yes, light side of planets will face the sun and be in front of nebulas).
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You know, if they came in through Vega...
Capella via Gamma Drac, anyone?
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You know, if they came in through Vega...
Capella via Gamma Drac, anyone?
Aye, but it means that node destabilised (for some reason) between FS1 and FS2 and also wasn't detected by the GTSC,er, Eriksson (I think) during its surveys.
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The Knossos portal the stabalized the node from Gamma Draconis to the shivan nebula, but was inactive, and not discovered when the GTSC Erikson scanned the system 15 years prior to the events of the FS2 campaign. The only reason it became active again was because the NTC Trinity activated it via Bosch's orders. How he knew it was there isn't known to me.
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How he knew it was there is one of the big mysteries of FS2. Like pretty much everything else connected to Bosch :D
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Heh, true. Still trying to decide how be a role he will play in my new campaign. Open to suggestions.
P.S. Whats with the mustache on that guy? And the hat? He looks like a French general the some old WW1 and WW2 films.
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How he knew it was there is one of the big mysteries of FS2. Like pretty much everything else connected to Bosch :D
Um... there are many mysteries in FS2, but that isn't one of them. :p
Stealing History
Through a rigorous study of Ancient archeology, Bosch learned the location of the Knossos subspace device, the portal to the region of the galaxy where the Ancients first encountered the Shivans. His genocidal war was a smoke screen to cover his plunder of Ancient sites in Vasudan systems. In Deneb, he learned how to activate the portal and deployed the Trinity to power up the device.
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How he knew it was there is one of the big mysteries of FS2. Like pretty much everything else connected to Bosch :D
I thought it was a consequence of plundering Ancient dig sites during the NTF rebellion, but that would raise further questions in itself as to what caused him to want to look at those sites.
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I was refering to how he knew to look for the location in the first place. It could be that he simply stumbled upon the fact while researching something else and then got the idea of starting the NTF war in order to plunder those ancient sites but that doesn't sound correct to me.
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Thought occured: Maybe Neo-terra existed long before it became any sort of power, just existed in secret and the GTSC Erikson was a Neo-terran ship, and detected the portal, but only ever reported it to Bosch, who did extensive research on it and activated it during Neo-terra's emergance.
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Wouldn't need to have much of an NTF actually. It would be very simple for the captain of a ship to tell the crew that the mission had been classified and thereby prevent anyone from ever mentioning it again as long as Command don't monitor all missions (which is a possibility during peacetime).
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I was refering to how he knew to look for the location in the first place. It could be that he simply stumbled upon the fact while researching something else and then got the idea of starting the NTF war in order to plunder those ancient sites but that doesn't sound correct to me.
Well, all we know AFAIK is that Bosch discovered 'something' during the GTI rebellion about the Shivans that led him to form the NTF ("As a young pilot I battled against the rebels of the great war, the Galactic Terran Intelligence whose research of shivan technology and biology would form the cornerstone of my project"), so my guess would be - from that - he was looking to find the place where the Shivans first met the Ancients (or at least, Shivan territory). Perhaps whether or not he knew of the Knossos is less important than whether he knew of the node (that it stabilised).
(as an aside, I always liked the notion of the GTVI playing Bosch, quietly manipulating him to act out a plan so dangerous, so risky, that the only way they could see it come to fruition was by an unwitting proxy)
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Hows this going as of late? Any progress? :)
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Yes and no. The campaign is coming along, and is in no way on any sort of hold. Unfortionetly, I suffer from "Battle of Endor" syndrom, and FRED ruins any mission with to many ships for me (crashes at either the 22 second or 34 second mark ingame with too many ships in FRED) destroying many, many, many hours worth of work. But I'm learning to work within the confines, and switching to a "Beyond Cappella" scenerio has saved me many hours of planning within a pre-set story line :D SO in short, it is coming along, and is not on hold.
Also, I'm adding certain weapon compatabilities to shivan ships that were otherwise useless (Aeshmas with torps for example) but still within reason of cannon.
P.S. My summer break is coming up in a couple weeks, so I'll have lots of time then :D
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did u actually make a new mod to enable shivan ships to be playable or used that wing glitch? i really need to know i use the wing glitch and the game crash if i restart within a mission, and u cant select ships or weaps with it. also wing glitch doesnt work in multiplayer, so plz help me out
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Anybody got links to mirrors for this campaign? The attachment is gone, and i can't find any links where i could get this. Reinstalled my FS2, and forgot to backup this awesome campaign..
Oh, and i ponder if you have done anything lately on this awesome campaign, Warnstaff?
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Attatchment deleted by admin... :sigh: