Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: The E on July 01, 2009, 11:55:45 am
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One day, I had the uncontrollable (but understandable) urge to re-play Blue Planet. In an effort to do something useful as well, I decided to use the beta mvps currently undergoing testing instead of the released ones. I'll use this to make notes about anything strange I'll see graphics-wise, as well as a few non-mediavps related things.
Okay, here goes:
First Note: The erected gunbarrels of the Orestes(?) in the first mission do look a bit silly. Considering that they have strong indications that something is wrong, wouldn't they be at combat readiness? Especially considering the "The enemy is only 2 minutes away" bit mentioned in NGTM-1R's post about pirates?
Second:
I'm not certain whether this is something that is wrong in BP, or in the beta mvps, but the skybox in the first mission seems stretched. Please note the red star I've boxed in.
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0010.jpg)
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0011.jpg)
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0012.jpg)
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Sol wasn't supposed to have nebulas, period.
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IT DOES NAO
Right, Darius?
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So, the Lucifer has arrived, and Earth's final hour has come.
No, wait, in a cunning plot twist, the Terrans have replaced Earth with a giant, floating, cardboard cutout of Earth! Surely the Shivans will be fooled by that...
But alas! Exposure to vacuum has deformed the cardboard cutout so much that the shivans see right through this cunning deception, and go looking for the real Earth...
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0013.jpg)
Hmm, Journey of a thousand Miles:
Nothing obviously wrong (except for the buggered starfield, which looks somewhat ugly when compared to the mvp one), but one thing should be considered: Its first stage starts off with the "Subspace" loading screen, the other three do not. Breaks the mood a bit, IMHO.
Also, a custom load screen for the last part would be really cool.
While we're on the subject of mood-breaking: Skulls and Bones? Why would the refugees put skulls and bones on their ships? Consider this a bit of fridge logic.
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Maybe they kept to the tradition of giving squadron names like suicide kings, or simply skulls (in the first commandbriefing of vanilla FS2, you can see a list of the Bastions fighter squads in the ani. One squadron was called "skulls", with the obvious number before it, but I forgot which one it was).
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The charred earth also looks a lot different from what I see. Given it's darker, better, and way more realistic, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
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Yes, but I believe that was a change in BP 3.6.10, not in the mvps.
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That Earth is stretched by the FOV settings. The skybox as well, probably. Do you use a custom FOV?
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The cutscene, at least, could benefit from set-FOV.
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That Earth is stretched by the FOV settings. The skybox as well, probably. Do you use a custom FOV?
Nope, my FOV is untouched.
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Is the beat testing of new mediavps open to everyone (I would like to help with it).
As for first note (Orestes guns pointing straight up), thanks for poiting it out, in fact I completed turret angling for stratcomm's ships some time ago, I must haven't noticed that BP is missing it.
I think it will be done in voice acted version.
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Dragon, could you post those up on internal?
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OK, I actually have angling done in other mod, so I will soon make a handy .tbm for BP.
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Is the beat testing of new mediavps open to everyone (I would like to help with it).
No, it isn't. I have them primarily to test them in Multi, and that testing phase will be over soon. You'll have to check with the actual FSU people if or when there will be a public beta.
Damnit, and now "Forced Entry" comes up. This is going to take a while...
That went better than expected. Only three tries until I finished that one.
Now I'm at "First contact", and I have to say that the skybox in that one is really, really deformed, especially when viewed on a widescreen monitor. While it looks gorgeous, it's also a bit dizzying.
The best description for the effect I can come up with is "like being stuck inside a globe". Could this be due to using a skysphere, instead of a skybox?
Another note: When playing FS2, you're being conditioned to wait for a "Depart" or "RTB" objective before actually jumping out. Not seeing one is a bit unsettling...
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Sol wasn't supposed to have nebulas, period.
IT DOES NAO
Right, Darius?
That's an Inferno tradition which isn't even canon. In the last cutscene of FS1 it's possible to see blue nebulae when the spacecraft that destroyed the Lucifer emerged from the node. Those nebulae are not prominent in the cutscene, but they can still be seen. :nod:
And thanks to the modified milky way starmap, who needs nebulae? :p
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Yeah, no. Not an Inferno tradition so far as I know, nothing you can take credit for. It might be a case of parallel evolution.
which isn't even canon.
In the last cutscene of FS1 it's possible to see blue nebulae when the spacecraft that destroyed the Lucifer emerged from the node. Those nebulae are not prominent in the cutscene, but they can still be seen. :nod:
Wow, funny, you just contradicted yourself and proved it is apparently canon.
And thanks to the modified milky way starmap, who needs nebulae?
Can I get a look at it? Could be useful/cool.
Nice of you to take a moment to point out why your Sol campaign is better, though. You're a prick.
(sorry for messing up your forum zen, Darius :nervous: )
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Keepers of Hell....And the mission before it...
Again, that damn (comparatively) low-res starfield and those distorted skyboxes.
Gameplaywise: What I said before about RTB objectives? Applies here as well, especially in Keepers of Hell. While the dialogue makes it clear that you won't be executed for AWOLing, the conditioning months of FreeSpace give you kick in in full strength.
Now, graphical issues with the models:
I know this was mentioned elsewhere, but chrome spacesuit is chrome-y:
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0015.jpg)
And highly reflective Vishnans are sort of mirror like:
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0017.jpg)
Although, to be honest, I believe this doesn't really have to be fixed, as it actually enhances the "otherness" of the Vishnans.
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Notin' it all down, The_E. Thanks!
We've got a fix for the turrets all lined up thanks to Dragon, and I bet we can get a cool new skybox for those missions. It's pretty crazy distorted.
Darius has some kind of magical ability to make assets appear, so I'm sure it'll be good.
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Another thing: I mentioned this in IRC before, but I think I should repeat it here: Some of the command briefing texts (I'm looking at you, intro to Demons of the past!) would work better if presented through the fiction viewer instead of command briefings.
While we're on the subject of Demons: Shouldn't that mission use the backgrounds of "Apocalypse"?
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Well, it should be Capella at the very least.
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Good point, good point.
Hang on, retitling topic.
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Next point: In "A time of Heroes, would it be possible to increase the spacing between the ships of Alpha wing or adjust their initial orders? They keep ramming me while I'm holding station near the Orestes. Professional behaviour this isn't.
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0018.jpg)
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bahahahaha
It's a time for heroes, man. They love you.
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hey have you fixed the issue with the Orion not beign destroyed in the cutscene (because of using super speed up function?) that could be checked to if it wasn't already fixed.
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Because of time compression? That's a fundamental issue with the engine and the way beam damage is applied, not with Blue Planet. Just don't use time compression.
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So, Universal Truth....
I believe this mission desperately needs more work. Beginning with the opening cutscene (I think it would be a good idea to split the cutscene and the mission proper into two separate missions), which apart from the sweeping camera move in the beginning, is basically a bunch of static scenes with captions (and as such, just not very interesting), continuing with the lack of music. This honestly surprised me. It's been a while since my last complete playthrough, but in a campaign renowned for its exquisite music selection, a mission with NO BGM whatsoever is a bit jarring (Apart from the bit in the beginning, before the cutscene started). Add to that the thing Fury noted in his review about the horrible quality the FS sound engine sometimes produces, and you get a mission which, for me, was more exhausting than Keepers of Hell and Forced Entry combined. It wasn't made better by the debriefing.
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0021.jpg)
In the next mission, I found it a bit strange that my trusty Ares, which brought me through Universal Truth, had suddenly transformed into a Pegasus....
Also, lack of music makes me sad.
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Wait, what. That wasn't how this mission worked before. It had a rockin' decent soundtrack, and it cut straight to the next mission without a debriefing.
We should polish 'er up!
I'll add a suggestion, Darius. We need to implement Shivan secondaries throughout the campaign.
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I concur with your assessment Dr Battuta. We need to prep her for reconstructive surgery.
This thread is a gift, The_E. I haven't picked up half the things that you've mentioned so far ;7 Thanks!
EDIT: Looking at Universal Truth, I've pinpointed the lack of debriefing. In the original release, that mission finished on a red-alert so there wasn't normally any debriefing. Later versions had the red alert thing removed, and the no debriefing option wasn't set.
Music should definitely happen, however, after the camera resets onto the player.
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My usual cautiousness kicks me to remind everyone that one tester is just as bad as no tester at all. So please, test the hell out of these missions and see if what I encountered holds true for everyone, or if it's some weirdness on my end.
Oh, and just for completeness' sake, my command line (especially the custom lighting options) looked like this: -ambient_factor 0 -spec_exp 11 -spec_point .6 -spec_static .8 -spec_tube .4 -ogl_spec 80
EDIT: Surrounded by morons, Alpha 1 does the only thing he can think of to make the situation bearable:
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0019.jpg)
This has been in my head ever since I played "A Time of Heroes", and I needed to let it out. Are you happy now, subconsciousness?
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Darius I know it was mentioned elsewhere that on one mission you forgot the show-hud sexp after an in mission cut scene. Is it possible you also forgot this in "...With Vast Seas"? I just played through it with your new VP from the 3.6.10 update thread, using the 3.6.10RC3 executable and had to use the Shift+O solution again.
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Because of time compression? That's a fundamental issue with the engine and the way beam damage is applied, not with Blue Planet. Just don't use time compression.
How about adding a destroy-ship and fire-beam SEXP to it? :nervous:
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That's actually not a bad idea. (But the cutscene is all of a minute long, I don't see too much need for time compression!)
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In my last playthrough, the Terran fleet did not fire their heavy beams at the Renjian in the final mission. I actually had to cheat and destroy the ship myself to prevent it from slowly nibbling the Orestes to death.
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I believe that's a consequence of difficulty level settings. What were you on?
We should fix that by using fire-beam there.
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I dropped down to Very Easy because I was sick to death of Universal Truth.
I suggest you edit the ai_profiles.tbl and set Max Target Turret Ownage to 999 on all skill levels.
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We actually did that in the WiH AI table, so it'll also apply to the re-release. Except I think it's 20, not 999. And I think it should be 999. ;7
Sorry about Universal Truth. What was going wrong?
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Because often I'd have several different capital ships being attacked by several different wings of bombers thousands of meters apart. Deal with any of them and all the the others will still be raping your other escorts. I don't recall the order in which the capital ships jumped, but it was always the last destroyer-sized ship that ended up dying and screwing me over.
Also the Ravana in Forced Entry needs to be moved back from the Temeraire to give more time to take out the LReds. Even with Trebuchets the SD Whatchamacallit gets in range too quickly. (Although I noticed I still had the glitched Ravana vp in my mediavps folder, no wonder many of my Trebs didn't seem to hit their mark).
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Hurh. They should largely be able to handle themselves with their pulse weapons and stuff. That's frustrating, though, don't blame you for turning it down.
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I thought the pulse weapons were really cool, I'm considering using their trails for my "adv turrets" in Twist of Fate and The Third War. Although the Shivans could have used some new guns of their own, but it's too late for that.
Also, I noticed that the Shivan ships haven't been changed over to the new 3.6.10 Shivan secondaries.
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In my last playthrough, the Terran fleet did not fire their heavy beams at the Renjian in the final mission. I actually had to cheat and destroy the ship myself to prevent it from slowly nibbling the Orestes to death.
Was it possible for you to order the warships around? I know the first version of AoA allowed me to do that.
...the SD Whatchamacallit...
Abel. :rolleyes:
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Yeah...maybe the Abel should be pushed back a weeeee bit. It's hard enough to get that far in the mission on your early playthroughs.
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Distance isn't a factor with the Abel, it's time. The main beams are locked up until ~60 secs after Abel jumps in. Easy enough to change at what point the main beams fire, and can link it to difficulty as well to give players a bit more room to breathe.
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In my opinion, the only thing that needs to be fixed on that mission are the last 5 minutes where nothing happens. At all. -.- Other than that, that mission is perfect. It's hell, but perfect.
As a more general suggestion, I'd like some breathing room during some of the missions. Especially for dialogue. Now I can't remember exactly during which missions but I do remember having a lot of dialogue going on during intense fights and having to press F4 to stop and read the messages. This surely isn't such a big deal, but having a few seconds for you and you wingmen to speak shouldn't hurt much. I think.
Btw, I just finished this campaign and I loved it. It's awesome.
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Superb! Go check out the website and get caught up for War in Heaven.
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Oh, I just had an idea... what if the Abel weren't directly behind the Temeraire? I'm not sure if there's any dialog that mentions its position, but as long as there isn't, changing it slightly wouldn't break the voice-acting job. Maybe some nasty 'Jaws' maneuver, i.e. coming up at an angle from below... Something so the distance from the Temeraire might be about the same, but the distance from the player wouldn't be so bad.
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Yeah, no. Not an Inferno tradition so far as I know, nothing you can take credit for. It might be a case of parallel evolution.
It is an Inferno tradition, though (no attempt to have any kind of particular credit in this claim). There are no nebulae in INF's Sol backgrounds since, well, the very beginning of the project. :pimp:
which isn't even canon.
In the last cutscene of FS1 it's possible to see blue nebulae when the spacecraft that destroyed the Lucifer emerged from the node. Those nebulae are not prominent in the cutscene, but they can still be seen. :nod:
Wow, funny, you just contradicted yourself and proved it is apparently canon.
What I meant is that Inferno's tradition of refusing to use nebulae in Sol is not canon because :v: made use of such nebulae in FS1's Endgame cutscene. :)
Can I get a look at it? Could be useful/cool.
You can find screenshots on ModDB. :)
Nice of you to take a moment to point out why your Sol campaign is better, though. You're a prick.
I wasn't. Adding nebulae improves a background, and your choice of using nebulae is well praised. ;)
It's be nice, IMO, to merge the features (nebulae + dedicated starfield). :nod:
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You're releasing blue planet with voice acting in polish before English :wtf:
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Polish, as in polishing a rock. Not Polish as in the language.
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:lol: I knew that, who polishes a rock in real life. . .looking forward to the update. Custom spacesuit please, the default one was a bit. . . .cumbersome.
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There's one without all the guns and stuff.
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When it comes to polish, What about the Stars in the mission where you first encounter the Vishnans? I remember the issue with the line. I know i'm being very vague, but its as best i can describe it atm.
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Yeah, that mission needs a better skybox.
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Got just the thing for that mission.
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Well, technically the mission you first encounter the Vishnuans is when you're going to find the Sanctuary in that damn nebula. One of them practically rams you. But if you mean the mission to actually follow them around, yeah. That background is rather hard to see the interface in.
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This tiopic is for reporting of all bugs / gameplay hacks and or irregularities.
Those that i can think of are..
The mission where Bei nicks a Spacesuit and sees the sacred keeper for the first time.. You are able to jump out. (Theres no debrief for that scenario)
Sometimes it's just my fighter flight on the other side of the sol node (final mission) and the Renjian.
Expect updates as i replay the campaign..
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Topics merged.
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:(
Kay......
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Sometimes it's just my fighter flight on the other side of the sol node (final mission) and the Renjian.
That one should have been fixed in the latest release. If it's still happening, we need to know.
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Its listed, so it happened :s
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Dekker probably downloaded the campaign well before that fix was introduced.
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Can we have the player be invulnerable during nightmares, flashbacks, and hallucinations?
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Well, the player is invulnerable during that mission where Eriana and Mei Ling died...
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Well, the player is invulnerable during that mission where Eriana and Mei Ling died...
Yeah, but that's a given, considering you're unarmed. Sam's dream of the Lucifer destroying the Orestes and killing his father, on the other hand...I explored a bit and got hit by a Lucifer beam. It's an unnecessary annoyance.
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I thought it was just as well that I wasn't invulnerable. After all, you do die or have near-death experiences in nightmares. If I were invincible there, it would pull me out of the sense of urgency and fight-or-die atmosphere that mission creates.
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I've never heard of anyone dying in a dream, though I can't discount the possibility. However, it just doesn't make sense to have to replay a dream mission because, say, a stray heavy beam hit you. Besides, you don't have to know that you're invulnerable in your first time playing the mission - in my own experience, the way I realize that I'm in a dream is usually by something defying my known laws of physics. It would make sense for the player to gradually realize that the Lucifer encounter is a nightmare before the game tells you and ends the mission.
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If I get shot to pieces in nightmares, I wake up. How's that?
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If I get shot to pieces in nightmares, I wake up. How's that?
Actually, come to think of it...is there a way in FRED to end a mission when the player dies? (Like actually end a mission and bring up the debrief/next mission without having to replay)
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There's a clever way to fake it.
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I noticed a couple of typos to be fixed.
In the pre-briefing text (not sure exactly what they're called, you know what I mean) of The Dragon Awakes when they're talking about the state they found Earth in, they say we're still "seeking out sources of Terrene activity." Not to mention the wording is kinda strange.
Sam's dad also tells him that his request to transfer to the "Oreisis" was approved in the pre-briefing text of Journey of a Thousand Miles :wtf:
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...With Vast Seas and Frankenstein's Monsters both have "mission goal text" as the objectives when you press F4. I'm pretty sure some other missions have this problem too. Should just be a quickie FRED fix.
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Have nameplates been mentioned yet? :nervous:
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...With Vast Seas and Frankenstein's Monsters both have "mission goal text" as the objectives when you press F4. I'm pretty sure some other missions have this problem too. Should just be a quickie FRED fix.
Added to list.
I noticed a couple of typos to be fixed.
In the pre-briefing text (not sure exactly what they're called, you know what I mean) of The Dragon Awakes when they're talking about the state they found Earth in, they say we're still "seeking out sources of Terrene activity." Not to mention the wording is kinda strange.
Sam's dad also tells him that his request to transfer to the "Oreisis" was approved in the pre-briefing text of Journey of a Thousand Miles :wtf:
Also added. Except 'Terrene' is valid and will stay.
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Er... shouldn't it be Terran?
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I would think. . . Unless the le'bouchere says it.
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It's an older form of the word "Terran" (usage pre-20th century, before "Terran" became popular). It's still correct, just not used nowadays.
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It's an older form of the word "Terran" (usage pre-20th century, before "Terran" became popular). It's still correct, just not used nowadays.
:wtf:
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If "Terrene" isn't used nowdays, what makes you think it will be used 300 years in the future?
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The fact that people are mistaking it for a typo is bad enough on its own...
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If "Terrene" isn't used nowdays, what makes you think it will be used 300 years in the future?
Today we use phrases from latin, that the people in the middle age didn't use (at least the common folk), so it isn't that unlikely that "dead" words or phrases come back to life so to say.
It happened before, it will probably happen again.
Also don't forget that the people 300 years in the future are most likely to speak a language that is a combination of those we speak today. Considering that french used by many people all over the world, at least a slight french influence in this language is only logical.
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A lot more people speak English than French. Hell, even a lot of French speak English. If anything, English in the future will have substantial Chinese influence like in Firefly due to the fact that there are a crapload of speakers of Chinese in the world.
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I like Terrene. I vote for keeping it.
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It's just weird if it's only used once there, nowhere else. The entirety of FS uses "Terran", heck even the rest of the campaign does. It's just this one line that's messed up. The language may have been influcenced, but for sure the word "Terran" wasn't - just witness every single dialogue in FS1, and FS2. I mean, they call themselves the "Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance" but they use "Terrene"? :wtf:
WTF?
Sense, it makes none! It's like they're trying to make things more confusing than it needs to be, which is stupid.
For consistency purposes, change it!
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If it's not used now, why would it be used then?
The central axis of which my opinion revolves. . .
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For consistency purposes, change it!
If for no other reason, I agree. As Snail said, it's bad enough I mistook it for an error. :P
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And...quoting from the old AoA thread:
I was going to say the same thing. 'Terrene' isn't exactly wrong in this sense, but it is rather like using a sentence like "I would as lief drive the Haywain to town as the Phaeton" in the 21st century. It made me think of old science fiction novels such as something by E.E. Doc Smith when I saw it here. :)
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I would as lief drive the Haywain to town as the Phaeton!
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What does that mean, anyway?
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I think 'as lief' is some sort of preference, like "I'd rather do this than that"
And... maybe they're vehicles... or horses?
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A lot more people speak English than French. Hell, even a lot of French speak English. If anything, English in the future will have substantial Chinese influence like in Firefly due to the fact that there are a crapload of speakers of Chinese in the world.
Chinese is a bit of an oddity, though. Sure, one in four people on present-day Earth speaks it, but it has very little connection with other common languages. It has a wildly different orthography, phonetic system, grammar, etc. from languages like English and French. And from personal experience I can say that Chinese is incredibly difficult to learn (not to mention inefficient in digital communication), even though I've been hearing it used around the household by family members my whole life. Even though "there are a crapload of [Chinese speakers] in the world" it's more likely that they'll pick up more and more English and other influence, rather than the other way around.
You can definitely see the effects of the huge current Chinese population in BP, though. The Chosen One is of Chinese descent (even though he's never been to Earth or to China), and Sam mentions that there are hundreds of GTVA service members with the last name Bei, even though Bei isn't a very common Chinese name at all in the current world.
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A lot more people speak English than French. Hell, even a lot of French speak English.
Hence only a single french(-like) word on a whole page of english text (or several pages as a matter of fact).
If you think just because more people speak english than german means no german words will ever get into a common Human language, then please tell me why a place were children too young for school are taken care of, while the parents work is called "kindergarten" in english.
Or "Uber"? There is no source of this word in english. It comes form the german Über, but since english layout keyboards lack Ä, Ö and Ü and most people don't want to bother with ASCII codes it become Uber instead.
Also there would be the Tremair (okay, I just realised I don't know how this is spelled correctly....) and the Lebouchere. Those are clearly french-stemming names (even though the british navy did take over the name Tremair at some point in the past.
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Ü is alt+666 :P
It's so easy to remember, I don't know why people don't use it.
Yeah, the word itself is fine, but it looks out of place, it's used in place of another word which is commonly seen (Terran -> it's even in the name of the GTVA), not to mention people think it's a mistake at first glance. That's definitely not good. You can't expect everyone to just know archaic words like that, nor can you expect them to bother looking it up.
That leaves the question - why does it have to be that particular word? I'm sure there are other words you could use to provide a nod to other languages (if you really wanted that), without breaking consistency and worst of all making it look like a mistake!
And it's Temeraire.
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That leaves the question - why does it have to be that particular word? I'm sure there are other words you could use to provide a nod to other languages (if you really wanted that), without breaking consistency and worst of all making it look like a mistake!
Considering that modern English contains as many words borrowed from French as from Old English, thanks to the Norman conquest of Britain, French influence is already firmly entrenched in BP whether we realize it or not.
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is it possible to make the starmap in sol realistically accurate?
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I think we're going to try to avoid that. Sol is going to have nebula backgrounds - the game just looks really lifeless without them.
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Not if you have the milky way as the skybox... :nervous:
Well...it doesn't look completely lifeless and nebulas on top of that would look strange.
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What i mean is like, constellations, star formations, etc. the view of the stars from sol. You could put some nebula on top of that too. It sounds ridiculously complicated though, and probably shouldn't be attempted unless extremely dedicated.
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Was the issue ever addressed of the Minnow's glowpoints not being deactivated in Journey of a Thousand Miles (I forget which part)?
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This is bound to have been mentioned already but i'm adding it as well cos I just remembered it happening to me too. . .
Standard no hud after cutscenes.
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Was the issue ever addressed of the Minnow's glowpoints not being deactivated in Journey of a Thousand Miles (I forget which part)?
I'm guessing yes after my last playthrough.
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Not if you have the milky way as the skybox... :nervous:
Well...it doesn't look completely lifeless and nebulas on top of that would look strange.
I'm sure I have suggested that in the past, see this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/adijr/3196219911/sizes/l/) for an example
Another example ! (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070508.html)
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I'm just replaying the full campaign again, well it feels odd to have nebulae in sol, particulary because we know for certain there are no largely visible nebulae from our system, maybe a little nebula here or there wouldn't hurt but what you added seems way too much.
It didn't felt like sol, also note that the sun bitmap is kinda strange in some missions, EG in the 3rd mission in the asteroid belt, the sun seems too small and it's not white-yellow how I would have expected.
Overall the campaign presents a couple of bugfixes that are noticeable and make it better, like the fact that you changed the position of the Sacred Keeper on the first mission it appears, that was a good change :yes:
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There aren't any asteroid fields like that in Sol either, but nobody seems to mind. Rule of Cool, perhaps?
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Or maybe noone who played the campaign was ever inside the asteroid field to take a look at how it really is :P
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There aren't any asteroid fields like that in Sol either, but nobody seems to mind. Rule of Cool, perhaps?
So what's the Kuiper belt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt) then?
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Is there going to be a credits cutscene mission like Derelict? That'd be nice.
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There aren't any asteroid fields like that in Sol either, but nobody seems to mind. Rule of Cool, perhaps?
So what's the Kuiper belt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt) then?
Even emptier. The asteroid belt is much, much less dense than commonly depicted. The Kuiper belt is less dense than that. Oh, both of them are navigational hazards, but not as extreme as that.
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Yeah. You'd have to fly for ages on FreeSpace scale to find more than one asteroid in an area. Of course, the Oort Cloud contains three times the mass of Earth (last I recall?) but it, too, is just as empty.
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But that would make Paving the Way a horrifically boring mission, so thankfully :v: went for a far less realistic take on things. :p
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(a.) "Preserving the Balance"
I found that the GTL Solace's docking point causes it to actually be inside of the GTD Temeraire. The Solace thus shakes around as if it's being rammed, etc. It also is visually unappealing. This must be due to issues with the model itself; I assume someone who knows their way around PCS2 might fix the problem.
(b.) "Universal Truth"
For the most part, the mission runs well. The cutscene does not cause the HUD to disappear when you return to the fighter, which is a nice change from campaigns which rely heavily on "shift-O" (such as JAD) to counter that problem. However, the music is disabled when you return to the cockpit. This did not appear to be a problem in the Tech room after I had finished the story, but the point is defeated when you can't enjoy the full extent of the mission while the campaign is in progress. On a separate note, would it be possible to add a SEXP that would either limit the speed of the fighter in the beginning of the mission so it does not stray far from the Orestes OR add one (this would be better) that would bring the player's fighter to a stop when the dialogue between the Shivans and Vishnans commences? I didn't think to cut my throttle the first time I played the mission and ended up between the Vishnan Juggernaught's field generator when the cutscene ended... after which I had to rush back to the fleet...
-Thaeris
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Merging with the existing thread devoted only to discussing and reporting bugs/suggestions in general. :p
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Oh ... in Proving Grounds you can give the attack order to the Miranda and the Boreas. This will cause the Lucifer's beams to target them, rather than the Orestes (just by distance), and the lucifer, hull will eventually get depleted without the Orestes being destroyed, resulting in the mission failing.
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Oh ... in Proving Grounds you can give the attack order to the Miranda and the Boreas. This will cause the Lucifer's beams to target them, rather than the Orestes (just by distance), and the lucifer, hull will eventually get depleted without the Orestes being destroyed, resulting in the mission failing.
I swear I reported this in the original release...
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I believe it was fixed in BP 3.6.10.
My latest internal version of the mission definitely doesn't have the problem.
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I have a (very) little suggestion for the cutscene were the Lucifer blows up the Orion.
Wouldn't it make more sense if the Orion concentrated all it's firepower on the Lucifer instead of firing at (and missing) the fighters?
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That's actually a very good suggestion... :yes:
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I have a (very) little suggestion for the cutscene were the Lucifer blows up the Orion.
Wouldn't it make more sense if the Orion concentrated all it's firepower on the Lucifer instead of firing at (and missing) the fighters?
The Lucifer had impenetrable shields it wouldn't have mattered either way. Visually it might look a little cooler.
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Even if the gunners "knew" those shields were inpenatrable, they'd probably try and shoot the Lucy anyway. It's the natural reaction to do when you're up against the wall... you'll do anything to defend yourself despite the knowledge you inherently have that says "there's no way you can win."
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The blobs would take quite a while to hit the Lucy...
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Credit mission with out-takes.. :yes:
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Even if the gunners "knew" those shields were inpenatrable, they'd probably try and shoot the Lucy anyway. It's the natural reaction to do when you're up against the wall... you'll do anything to defend yourself despite the knowledge you inherently have that says "there's no way you can win."
The alternative is though the gunners might think "there's no way we can take down that ship but at least I can take down some of these damn fighters with me before I die."
Even so, I think getting ships to fire at other ships with blobs has always been problematic. Unless there's some new SexP. Best thing to do would probably be to make a missile weapon that looks like a blob like the Fusion Mortar on the Leviathan so that it fires at the ship.
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I have a (very) little suggestion for the cutscene were the Lucifer blows up the Orion.
Wouldn't it make more sense if the Orion concentrated all it's firepower on the Lucifer instead of firing at (and missing) the fighters?
Speaking about this cutscene. I always thought it would be great that during the scene, the escape pod would pickup the commutation transmissions from the Orion and fighters.
An example could be something like this:
Gamma 1:
Gamma wing, Form up and prepare to attack!
Delta 1:
Delta here, Lauching now.
GTD Orion:
GTD (enter name here) here, pilots, the Lucifer is almost in range! Engage all fighters
*Lucifer hits the Orion with first beam salvo
GTD Orion:
Navigation Hit! Fires on decks 23 through 37! All gunners continue firing, we must buy as much time as possible for the transports to escape!
*Fighters engage
Delta 1:
Delta 3! Two Manticores on your six! Put out!
*Lucifer hits the Orion with second beam salvo
GTD Orion:
The Hull is going critical! We are not going last another hit! All remaining fighters, fall back and join with the escape transports, you must defend them at all... "static"
*Lucifer hits the Orion with last beam salvo
Gamma 1:
****! The (enter name here) is going down! We have to get the hell out of here!
*GTD Orion Explodes
Delta 1:
This can't be happing, this can't ****ing be happening!
Screen fades to black
Whenever I watch the cutscene, this is pretty much what goes through my head.
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Hrm. Could work.
More lines to get voice acted, but it might enhance the mood if we could get people who could actually act. Maybe.
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They wouldn't have to be "name" characters, either. In fact they shouldn't, really.
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/me recalls seeing a ship called the GTD Washington orbiting around Sol during the end credits of FSPort.
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That was added just for the credits (tis fanon), but you can use that name if you want. It'd be a nice nod.
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So, the Lucifer has arrived, and Earth's final hour has come.
No, wait, in a cunning plot twist, the Terrans have replaced Earth with a giant, floating, cardboard cutout of Earth! Surely the Shivans will be fooled by that...
But alas! Exposure to vacuum has deformed the cardboard cutout so much that the shivans see right through this cunning deception, and go looking for the real Earth...
(http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/uu320/FabianW/screen0013.jpg)
Read here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,62163.0.html
I also haven't read ever message here, so apologies if this issue was already resolved.
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Think it also may have to do with the fov-setting for cutscenes.
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FS Wiki recommends an fov of 0.39.
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Believe the cutscene is now using a skybox anyway, so.
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Yeah, I believe it's a fov-related issue, since the planet texture only uses 1 divx and divy. But, as GB said, skybox, so. :P
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe using a skybox will do anything to the fov issues :P
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I think you're wrong. The distortion should be far less noticeable (if present at all?)
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:wtf: It's still rendered as a flat image against the sky. Setting the FOV for the cutscenes will invariably make everything (especially stuff toward the edges of the screen) look distorted, though it is necessary to make the cutscenes look correct (save going back and repositioning all the cameras with a lower FOV, but who wants to do that :P).
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The thing is that the Earth skybox is just so huge it's not particularly noticeable compared to this one.
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to tack onto Ckid's idea for that CS having dialog, I don't remember exactly when the Sanctuary was lauched so if this was implemented, why not have a reference to the Sanctuary as well?
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I'm not absolutely sure, but wasn't the sanctuary build and launched in some secret GTI base in what is GTVA terretory in the other universe?
If I have the backstory correctly in my head it was originally planed as a "superorion" and only rebuild into a sleepership after the fall of earth.
But if the Orion in orbit around Earth told command to start an evacuation would be nice I think. Even though most ships would be destroyed by the shivans, like it happened after the bombardment of Vasuda, only this time there is even less fighercover for the evacuationships.
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I'm not absolutely sure, but wasn't the sanctuary build and launched in some secret GTI base in what is GTVA terretory in the other universe?
If I have the backstory correctly in my head it was originally planed as a "superorion" and only rebuild into a sleepership after the fall of earth.
But if the Orion in orbit around Earth told command to start an evacuation would be nice I think. Even though most ships would be destroyed by the shivans, like it happened after the bombardment of Vasuda, only this time there is even less fighercover for the evacuationships.
I don't think there should be ANY dialogue about evacuation transports because it fundamentally alters the flow of the story.
Until you see those two patch-work fighters in the singularity system, you don't know that anyone is alive. And all evidence points to the contrary (ie the GTD Minnow). Having dialogue about people escaping tells you that there probably were survivors which would change the player's outlook and the mood of the story.
Dialogue can also quite frankly cheapen a situation.
Let the music carry the moment. The problem with many movies today is that people don't shut up. There's very few moments where there's a lot of silence. It's like Hollywood has ADD or something. But look at a movie like Conan, which has very little dialogue. Or look at the first Alien movie, where the mechanic is looking for his cat. Sometimes silence can be more powerful than words because the visual spectical conveys the emotion and the player can think up the dialogue for themselves.
I say leave the cutscene AS IS.
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We could leave the cutscene as is and give it even better music.
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Agreed with AA. A wordless cutscene will convey more feeling.
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Agreed with AA. A wordless cutscene will convey more feeling.
That,,,,.......
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It seems like there is a broken skybox in my version of the game. It's the otherwise incredible nebula seen in First Contact II and Preserving the balance:
Every other nebula in SCP works just fine for me, this is the only one I notice it on.
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That is indeed a skybox issue. Also, for future reference, use IMG or LVLSHOT tags to post images. Spoilering them is unnecessary.
Like this:
(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6798/screen0000a.jpg)
(http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/7828/screen0002a.jpg)
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Pay no attention to the omnipotent being behind the space-curtain!
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Yalp. The skybox was pretty grainy/low-res, too. Now, if you can bribe Herra...
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It's already been replaced.
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Glad to hear it! :yes:
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Any chance you could get the shiny new textures for the ancients/vishnans from the people of the ancient-shivan war mod for the re-release?
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It's already done, we will also most likely have HTL Vishnan fighters.
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That's good news :) Can't wait to "become" one of those gorgous ships.
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Well hang on a sec Dragon, give me time to ask them permission first.
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Argh. . So i'll have to download BP again when this is finished if I just want the voice pack? (I can understand downloading the missions again obviously)
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Well, yes. There are many, many behind-the-scenes changes to let AoA serve as a base for WiH. Not to mention several texture upgrades etc.
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Can't you offer a seperate voicepack addon for AOA scp?
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Don't think so. You'd have to download the new missions as well. I'm not confident they'd work precisely with an old version.
You'll be getting some new in-game cutscenes (mostly spruced up versions of old ones.) There's even a skip button for the big one on Universal Truth!
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We could, in theory, do that. However, by the time WiH comes out, you're going to HAVE to download the new and improved AoA anyway, since WiH depends on the tables from AoA.
Also, the less variants are out there, the better.
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Can you just burn it to dvd or something and mail it to- freepost Colonol Dekker
Army
England?
I'm out in leicester square and there's an Amy with my name all over her so i'm signing off til next year :D
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Seriously? :wtf: You're worse off than our Australian staffers.
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There's no comparison; he's British. :p
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Seriously? :wtf: You're worse off than our Australian staffers.
Was your post censored by the PCP or something? I swear it said something awesome after that.
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There's even a skip button for the big one on Universal Truth!
Now that is quite a surprise, and a good one at that. I will certainly want to hear the argument at least once, but with my luck I'm going to fly into a beam or bomb shockwave and have to restart the mission. And then I'll be very happy and thankfull for that skip button :yes:
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Seriously? :wtf: You're worse off than our Australian staffers.
In what way?
I just started early. .
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There's even a skip button for the big one on Universal Truth!
Now that is quite a surprise, and a good one at that. I will certainly want to hear the argument at least once, but with my luck I'm going to fly into a beam or bomb shockwave and have to restart the mission. And then I'll be very happy and thankfull for that skip button :yes:
You won't have to worry about flying into anything during cutscene, because you will be invurnable during it. (at least I think you will be, I'm going to play VAed AoA when it's finished).
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Yeah, the player is always invulnerable during cutscenes.
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You won't have to worry about flying into anything during cutscene, because you will be invurnable during it. (at least I think you will be, I'm going to play VAed AoA when it's finished).
I know. I meant that those things I described almost always happen to me later in a mission that starts with a long cutscene. Or in missions that starts with flying through a number of navpoints that are very far from each other....
The rule of thumb is, the more tedious it is to restart a mission, the more likely it is, that I have to restart it....
Besides in Blue Planet AoA there are only cutscenes before the battle starts, in between fights or after the fighting stops, with the exception of the cutscene in which the Temarair and company blow up the Demon that threatened the runaway cruiser (Duke or Bretonia, not sure which one) if I remember correctly.
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Duke
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You won't have to worry about flying into anything during cutscene, because you will be invurnable during it. (at least I think you will be, I'm going to play VAed AoA when it's finished).
I know. I meant that those things I described almost always happen to me later in a mission that starts with a long cutscene. Or in missions that starts with flying through a number of navpoints that are very far from each other....
The rule of thumb is, the more tedious it is to restart a mission, the more likely it is, that I have to restart it....
Murphy's Law is a *****, ain't it? :p
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I'm glad to hear about a skip button for long cutscenes. Along with missions that get to the meat after minutes of nothing/talk, unskippable long cutscenes top my list of peeves against missions.
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I found something else that bothered me a little bit.
In at least one mission there is a shivan fighterwing called Vishnu.
Usually that wouldn't be a problem, but considering that there are vishnans in BP, who are enemies of the shivans it is rather odd.
Unfortunately I can't remember which mission it was in, but I think it was one were I was flying a vishnan fighter, which made it even more odd.
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Second last I think... terran mission.
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If it's before the Vishnans are discovered, then it's probably okay. After all, wing names are just designations that humans assign.
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Just had a little look through the missions and there seem to be quite a lot of Vishnu wings - in every mission with shivan fighters in it.
As blowfish said it doesn't matter in the missions before the first contact with the Vishnans and the memory of Eriannas death (with first contact I mean command seeing them too, not just the player).
And while someone might argue that command is unwilling to change their naming scheme, it is really, really odd to fly under vishnan command, as a vishnan fighter against a shivan wing called vishnu.
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We're not going to change it. Just roll with it.
We're working on the assumption that the Vishnans use the Wing designation system they have taken from Sam for his convenience. It's not like they actually care what us humans call them, after all.
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I didn't think of that. That does make sense...