Not bad so far. The dialogue is quite good, and the missions are flyable (albeit difficult from time to time), though the characters who speak throughout the missions should probably have more consistent ship-guardian flags.
Also, there were a couple instances where it might have been better to do a return-to-hangar rather than standard jump-out. (But then I thought, perhaps you were trying to make it Retail-playable. Dunno if that's the case.)
However, the most pressing thing I can think of is this:
I've played through the missions, as well as reading through as much of the info as I could find, in case I missed something in the heat of battle or a debriefing somewhere, and there just doesn't seem to be any reason given (except maybe irrational paranoia) for the villain to be doing what he's doing.
So, why, particularly, is he waging a personal crusade against the GTVA and its citizens, and why in the heck are the officers and crew of the Altair Fleet enthusiastically following him in his mad campaign of genocide?
Also, there were a couple instances where it might have been better to do a return-to-hangar rather than standard jump-out. (But then I thought, perhaps you were trying to make it Retail-playable. Dunno if that's the case.)
Retail compatibility was indeed the goal.
So, why, particularly, is he waging a personal crusade against the GTVA and its citizens, and why in the heck are the officers and crew of the Altair Fleet enthusiastically following him in his mad campaign of genocide?
In case the spoiler tags aren't enough for you, this is one of those really, REALLY big spoilers. These are really big spoilers, as in spoilers to this campaign and another that I've not even started development on yet.
Bast is a pretty paradoxical character. For two years, he has watched the GTVA ignore the possibility of another shivan incursion. There has been no campaign to seal jump nodes, and proposals he has personally made the Security Council for the study of the potential of hybrid GTVA-shivan technology have been officially and repeatedly rejected. What Bast sees is a government failing to even acknowledge its most basic goal of defending its citizens. What Bast sees is the need for a demonstration.
His initial plan isn't to carve a path of destruction from Altair to the capitol, though. Initially, he attempts to sneak the Firestorm through lightly-trafficked areas to Delta Serpentis. Once there, they were to take control of the communication systems on the planet and attempt to send out a signal to 'wake up' any shivan units in GTVA space that may have gone into hiding after the destruction of the Lucifer in the Great War. He was then going to deploy the Galen to mop up these shivan forces as the demonstration that he thought the Alliance needed.
Unfortunately, the Firestorm broke down in Alpha Centauri, and the transport it was escorting was captured rather quickly, after abandoning the cruiser. Bast's subtle plan was doomed to be ruined by such x-factors as criminal activity and technical troubles, so he abandoned that. Utilizing the de facto communications blackout in Altair and his background in counter-intelligence, he convinced those in the Altair fleet that the Alliance was facing a widespread rebellion, the likes of which dwarfed even the Neo-Terran Front. Though this seems like quite a lie to swallow, intel coming into Altair has been getting filtered through Bast's office for some time now (recall that he cut the system off from civilian traffic, and most direct transmissions from GTVA Central Command never quite make it to Altair), so he had been finessing information to make this seem plausible to his subordinates for quite some time now.
(An important bit to note here is that a solid week passes between missions three and four, so the Firestorm has had time to be repaired and mobilized with the rest of the Altair fleet. I'm not sure I made the passage of time clear enough in the briefings.)
To call Bast's campaign one of genocide is to misunderstand his intention. He isn't out to kill off a particular group or even out to kill indiscriminately. Recall, he jammed communications in Aldebaran, and only attacked its fleet vessels when they attempted to intercept his fleet. He would have continued to act in such a manner, until, in Alpha Centauri, he was unable to establish a comprehensive jamming field, until after the Chicago and Phoenicia were able to get the word out about his attack of the blockade. At that point, the goal became speed (with the exception of approaching the Chicago slowly, rather than performing an intrasystem jump, allowing the station's crew to evacuate). Bast never goes out of his way to attack targets of opportunity, opting only to attack what stands directly between him and his objective, attempting to minimize casualties until the bitter end.
The big exception is the end of the final mission, if the battle goes lop-sided for the Phoenicia. Bast opts to bombard the capitol city, if he manages to jump into orbit. He is obviously unable to acheive his goal of capturing the central communication node on the planet, so he opts to destroy it and its backups, using bombardment of the city to mask his goal. At this point, his objective has become escaping GTVA space, as he has given his demonstration of hybrid technology in the worst way possible, and if the Alliance is unable to coordinate intersystem interception efforts, he will be able to get away without causing any more significant damage to the GTVA fleet. Even on the 'victory' track in the last mission, Bast seeks to escape, but the Galen is in no condition to attack the orbital blockade.
I'll leave it to you to figure out why he and his ship disappear in the Ross 128 system, though I will point out that it is more than just the Galen's combat systems that have been overhauled.
Were there any points that felt like they were more difficult than they should have been? Some bits are meant to be tougher than others, but I don't want trivial moments to be stupid-difficult (example: "Can't....scan....cargo....fast....enough.....AAAAAUGH!").
Addendum -- Woo. That's a big spoiler block....
Played about 1/3 of the way through so far. Impressive first release, BlueFlames. :yes:
The mission balance and design is good, and at the moment I can't come up with a real criticism of either.
I haven't finished the whole campaign yet, and although I haven't noticed anything cool so far I'll wait for the storyline to develop.
Only one specific bug I'd like to point out. In the 2nd or 3rd mission, where you have to scan the incoming freighters and their cargo around Chicago station, a pirate Poseidon jumps in with two Hercs escort. I can kill the Poseidon and Hercs first, and the enemy only goes hostile when I scan the Poseidon. Maybe you should make these pirates go hostile once they take signficant damage. Also, on the same mission, one of the cargo that I was supposed to scan was destroyed by a shockwave and debris collision and I had a neverending mission; you should make the cargo ship-guardianed, or invincible since you don't use SCP.
Also, I'm curious, why do want to maintain Retail compatibility? Practically everyone uses SCP now and won't need retail support.
My actual first release. (http://web.archive.org/web/20010423164315/archives.volitionwatch.com/fs2/review/display.php3?MissID=149)
Also, I'm curious, why do [you] want to maintain Retail compatibility? Practically everyone uses SCP now and won't need retail support.
I play retail, and since I consistantly get so little feedback on my work, I make missions/campaigns that fit my preferences. I could belabor the point, but this is well-trod ground (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,47359.msg963909.html#msg963909).
That being said, I also have a preference for relatively bug-free releases, so likely during the semester break, I'll be addressing bugs reported here and noted in the readme, as well as doing another thorough bug-hunt of my own.
[edit]Incidentally, to those who have played through...
...which path have you been taking through missions six and nine? (SF2-9.fs2 is actually two missions crammed into one file [biggest FRED-induced headache ever], with the mission playing out much differently depending on your relative success/failure in mission six. The final mission also accounts for you letting one or both of the cruisers slip past your blockade in the previous mission.)
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UPDATE
Beta 0.5 is on the way. I'm going to give it a play-through this weekend to make sure I didn't break anything while fixing the bugs I addressed tonight, and after that I'll be posting it. There's only one bug left on my list (involving breaking up a list of 19 messages so the player can interrupt it by being stupid), and I think I've cleared out everything brought up by Mustang19 and Trashman in this thread. In light of that, this should be close to the final version (assuming I didn't introduce a host of new and exciting bugs to fix).
Change List (spoilers are pretty mild until the last line)
0.5
Protected a number of cargo containers from destruction in the second mission.
Allowed certain ships to return fire against Alpha 1 in the second mission.
Adjusted timing of orders for fighters in mission three.
Adjusted scripting of the Memnon to make it more likely to last through mission three.
Made sure that key-resets and training-context-speed were reset at the beginning of the loop mission and mission seven.
Reduced asteroid density in mission seven (hopefully reducing collision detection issues near the end)
Adjusted false start conditions in mission seven.
Increased delay before Firestorm makes its initial jump in the final mission.