Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Iido on March 14, 2019, 12:01:38 pm
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Hello there! Haven't posted on the forums much at all, so this is also kind of a hello to everyone. XD
But yeah, pretty much what the topic says. What are some good in-progress campaigns that I should be keeping my eye on, or really, what is currently in progress in general? I've got my eyes on The Scroll of Atankharzim. I believe a sequel to Shadow Genesis is in progress (?), and I'm not sure if Blue Planet is still being worked on.
Can you guys also recommend some lengthy, and high-quality campaigns as well? I've played The Aftermath: Reboot, Shadow Genesis, and Blue Planet, Derelict, Wings of Dawn (as well as the reboot episodes; Episode 2 was amazing) and...some more, I am sure. I feel like I've already played most of 'em, but maybe I missed or overlooked something. Also played a load of short to medium campaigns (3-10 missions or somewhere around in that range) that were pretty good.
Basically, what's the best of the best in you guys' opinion?
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Play The Antagonist, Windmills, and Trimurti for an experimental trifecta. But first play Vassago’s Dirge and Between the Ashes as obvious holes in the ‘big campaign’ lineup.
Also play Just Another Day, it is Axem’s madhouse.
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But yeah, pretty much what the topic says. What are some good in-progress campaigns that I should be keeping my eye on, or really, what is currently in progress in general?
Welcome! I would agree with everything General Battuta stated. If you are also looking for "what is currently in progress in general" and you are looking for more then FS2 universes content I should also mention the total conversion, standalone Fate of the Galaxy :) We have made a lot of progress the past year and there will hopefully be a release in the near future :)
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I think Bem Cavalgar is a pretty cool one. Managing a limited number of ships and weapons, tackling different missions of your choice. The weapons feel really under-powered though, but beating a mission feels soooooo good. Transcend is also a good one to play late at night. Eyebleach is a great mini-campaign that inspired me to make Walls Closing, so check them out if you haven't. :yes:
In-progress wise, Inferno looks like it'll be receiving an update of new ship textures, so definitely keep an eye out for that. Freespace Conversion is kind of like Freespace Blue but for FS1, with some new missions added.
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Shadow Genesis 2 is most likely not going to happen (although it hasn't been officially cancelled), the core team members released Exile instead. It has very high production standards and I'd recommend it, but in case you play it, please keep in mind...
-1. The overall athmosphere might not be everyones taste.
-2. The missions tend to be significantly longer than the average campaign mission - can be good or bad depending on your liking.
-3. The best part of the campaign starts after the intro missions are over - quite many people stopped playing after "City of the Sun", although the best part of the campaign only starts a couple missions afterwards.
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Well, for starters there's Trimurti for a good Shivan-perspective campaign, Eyebleach for a small but good "Prelude" to the FS2 main campaign.
For some good TC campaigns, I'd totally recommend The Unification War (takes place before the Terran-Vasudan War) and Dimensional Eclipse (WoD but less elves and more loli.) Although DE is in the process of getting the placeholder art replaced with unique drawings, so there's the option of waiting for that to be finished so you can get an even better experience with it.
That's all the good stuff I know off the top of my head.
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I'm hopeful Exile 2 will happen so be sure to give Nyctaeus support for that.
"The Aftermath 2: The Blue Guardian" may come out this year.
From the sound of it, "Inferno: Nostos" is still going on.
As for other campaigns to keep watch on:
-War In Heaven isn't dead but it's been said it will probably be years at least before the next act is released.
-In the archived thread, Raven has said BWO is dead for now but that it's not impossible he might work on it again at some point.
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I will permit myself to shill for Scroll (realy tho it's epic) :D But be aware that development is also a bit slow.
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I think it's a rather good decision to check out the "Explore" tab in Knossos. There are just, you know, so many mods to explore!
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You should play Inferno Nostos for sure. Sol A History. Neo Terra victorious.
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Thank you very much for the suggestions, everyone! Some of these I have played, others I have not. I'll check 'em out! ^^
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What, is Silent Threat: Reborn old hat now?
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What, is Silent Threat: Reborn old hat now?
Mods age exponentially y' know? So ST:R would be like 100 years old by now. ;)
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What, is Silent Threat: Reborn old hat now?
Yes. ;)
What are some good in-progress campaigns that I should be keeping my eye on, or really, what is currently in progress in general?
Not sure about good - the ammount of times I tried to push it across the finish line and only to not leave development limbo might be a testament against a positive qualification - but, have you perhaps heard of The Lost Generation - Ashcroft (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92732.msg1833203#msg1833203)? (if such blatant self-promotion is permitted)
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Wing Commander Saga is worth a look too.
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-3. The best part of the campaign starts after the intro missions are over - quite many people stopped playing after "City of the Sun", although the best part of the campaign only starts a couple missions afterwards.
Don's listen to him! Just play it! You can kill innocent civilians!
(Exile is extremely dark story, but you won't regret it :] .)
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-3. The best part of the campaign starts after the intro missions are over - quite many people stopped playing after "City of the Sun", although the best part of the campaign only starts a couple missions afterwards.
Don's listen to him! Just play it! You can kill innocent civilians!
(Exile is extremely dark story, but you won't regret it :] .)
Well I was told Exile II is going to be the best campaign ever! ;7 :nervous:
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What, is Silent Threat: Reborn old hat now?
Heh, Silent Threat: Reborn was awesome. It was one of the first mods I played back when I got into FSO, and was a tremendous improvement over the original in every way.
-3. The best part of the campaign starts after the intro missions are over - quite many people stopped playing after "City of the Sun", although the best part of the campaign only starts a couple missions afterwards.
Don's listen to him! Just play it! You can kill innocent civilians!
(Exile is extremely dark story, but you won't regret it :] .)
Well I was told Exile II is going to be the best campaign ever! ;7 :nervous:
I checked Exile out and it looks interesting. I'll download it and give it a spin sometime soon.
Wing Commander Saga is worth a look too.
I actually had Wing Commander Saga installed on my old PC, I got very far into it, I think I was only a few missions from the end, but I was never able to beat one mission, even on easier settings. It made me ragequit and I didn't go back to it, which...sounds sad, I know. I don't remember anything about the mission, but it was probably a protection/escort mission...always the worst. xD I'll give it another try one 'o these days.
In other news, I just downloaded Knossos a bit ago and this thing is AWESOME! I heard people mention the Knossos a couple times, but up until now I've been content with using the the YAL launcher (Yes, I know I just said "Yet Another Launcher launcher").
Not only is it many magnitudes better, it also seems to have mods I've never even been able to download and play properly. Til now I've acquired mods either through the mods that are auto-installed using the FSO Installer (that Java one) or hunting for release threads and download links...which are dead 90% of the time.
Though I am a bit confused on how it works. Is it running off my FS2 install on Steam? It detected the Steam install and asked for a confirmation, I clicked yes. Did it download and install its own FSO copy? Or is it running off the version I already have installed in my FS2 folder on Steam? Also, it seems to have interfered with the YAL launcher (which is in the FS2 folder on Steam) as all my pilots are gone when I launch through YAL now...and it seems to have overwritten my YAL custom options (resolution, dev tools, etc) as well. I'm guessing it's a conflict between the two launchers, and YAL is basically reading from Knossos's directory now or something. I'm not sure where pilot data is stored, but eh, a fresh start ain't bad at all.
Though I am curious, is it possible to somehow launch Knossos through Steam as Freespace 2, like you can with the YAL launcher, or is it its own thing? I have over 500 hours played on FS2 thanks to FSO and mods, and I'd like for that number to keep going up as I play campaigns, but if not, it's no big deal really. :P
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If you liked WCS, Admiral Nelson released an slightly improved version that works with the regular FSO builts (available on Knossos).
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What Knossos does is look for installed FS2 versions, and then it just copies the necessary FS2 data into the mod storage directory.
Also, the Yet Another Launcher seems outdated for like... 10 years? o_O The funnier fact is that modern FSO builds should not be able to run on this launcher for like over a year now. So I guess you were trying to download also very outdated mods and run them on a very outdated FSO build. This would explain some things - I'm pretty sure FSO switched to a different directory for storing pilot files, logs and screenshots a while ago, so everything is probably still somewhere on your drive. Also note how, if you really want to perform manual mod installation (suggesting wxLauncher), all of the Knossos mod files can be downloaded directly from Nebula (https://fsnebula.org/), they only need fabricating a simple mod.ini (or using a -mod custom commandline).
As for launching Knossos from Steam, I think you can just insert Knossos.exe into your library just as if it was a game. Not sure about FSO, because new engine executables are released every couple of days and you would have to mark every one that you might somehow launch through Knossos as Freespace, and I'm not sure if it would even work.
Edit: FSO also features Discord integration - it means that in your Discord game activity others will be able to see which campaign and mission you're currently playing, how long into the mission are you and how many kills have you got.
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I'm pretty sure FSO switched to a different directory for storing pilot files, logs and screenshots a while ago
Knossos did, FSO did not. FSO uses a different format for the pilot files for a year now, but they are still stored in the same folders.
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I've been running FSO 3.8.0 for a while now, so I don't think my build is terribly outdated? I had no idea YAL was that outdated, though. O_o The reason I was using it was because I recall having some issue with Wxlauncher, but I don't recall what it was. I seem to recall reading it was supposed to come with FSO, but it didn't with mine, so I tried downloading it by itself and installing it, though I may have installed it wrong...I really don't remember what the issue was. It it supposed to install to its own directory outside of the FS2 folder? Because mine did, and I think I had difficulty setting the paths to it or something...
So I poked around and found YAL, dropped it in FS2 folder and found it worked like a charm! :P
Thanks for the tip about Discord, btw! How exactly do I integrate it?
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You don't need to do anything yourself - you just need to have "Display currently running game as a status message" setting turned on in Discord, and then just add FSO to the list (you can just choose it from a list of currently working programs). The pain here is that you need to repeat the adding proccess every time you run a different FSO build.
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I can't figure out how to get it to work right...I feel dumb. Whenever FSO is running and I am playing a campaign, the program is always labeled as simply "Freespace 2", and displays as such on Discord, both on the "add game" selection list and as what I'm currently playing afterwords.
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It's visible if you click on your avatar in any conversation or in the server member list.
You can rename the game you're playing in "Added games" list (just click on the title), i.e. Freespace 2 to Freespace Open.
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Just completed the prologue on Exile. For a moment, I was sure I'd finished the campaign, but then I remembered I hadn't actually passed the prologue yet. Now on Act 1: Into the Dark Waters! Really enjoying it so far, is definitely one of those big, high production value campaigns I'm always hoping to see more of! If this is just part 1, then I'm already looking forward to what part 2 is gonna bring to the table.
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I had that same experience as well on my first play through. Lotta fun and def worth the time!
And yeah it's only the first act. I think there are 4 planned?
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Act II called The Schism is frozen for now. Our team switched to different projects and real-life matters, but it may be revived one day depending on many factors. I'm glad you like it.
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Act II called The Schism is frozen for now. Our team switched to different projects and real-life matters, but it may be revived one day depending on many factors. I'm glad you like it.
Aside the RL matters, mind detailing that a bit further? Is there some new mystery project in the works or is it like with SG - "Here's Act 1 of 4, Act 2 is coming... soonish..."?
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Act II called The Schism is frozen for now. Our team switched to different projects and real-life matters, but it may be revived one day depending on many factors. I'm glad you like it.
Aside the RL matters, mind detailing that a bit further? Is there some new mystery project in the works or is it like with SG - "Here's Act 1 of 4, Act 2 is coming... soonish..."?
Ye
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Act II called The Schism is frozen for now. Our team switched to different projects and real-life matters, but it may be revived one day depending on many factors. I'm glad you like it.
Aside the RL matters, mind detailing that a bit further? Is there some new mystery project in the works or is it like with SG - "Here's Act 1 of 4, Act 2 is coming... soonish..."?
Ye
(http://i.chzbgr.com/full/5139666432/h3E952648)
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Act II called The Schism is frozen for now. Our team switched to different projects and real-life matters, but it may be revived one day depending on many factors. I'm glad you like it.
Aside the RL matters, mind detailing that a bit further? Is there some new mystery project in the works or is it like with SG - "Here's Act 1 of 4, Act 2 is coming... soonish..."?
Ye
(http://i.chzbgr.com/full/5139666432/h3E952648)
(https://shannongrahamsaxophone.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/someday.jpg)
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In case said project isn't SG2 :hopping: ;), could there be some sort of Exile 2-4 Oracle then someday?
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Nightmare, Nyctaeus told me about the future of SG in a PM to me, but revealing specific contents about PM conversations without permission is improper IMO so I'd suggest you PMing him about it.
Or Nyctaeus, would you like me to say what you told me about SG?
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Act II called The Schism is frozen for now. Our team switched to different projects and real-life matters, but it may be revived one day depending on many factors. I'm glad you like it.
Hey, real life matters come first, so it's okay, you guys take your time with it. We can all wait!
Nightmare, Nyctaeus told me about the future of SG in a PM to me, but revealing specific contents about PM conversations without permission is improper IMO so I'd suggest you PMing him about it.
Or Nyctaeus, would you like me to say what you told me about SG?
I'm really curious too. I won't ask for big details, but can you at least confirm whether or not SG2 is still coming or not? I really enjoyed the first one, it's one of my favorite campaigns, and I'd love to see that story continue.
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Act II called The Schism is frozen for now. Our team switched to different projects and real-life matters, but it may be revived one day depending on many factors. I'm glad you like it.
Hey, real life matters come first, so it's okay, you guys take your time with it. We can all wait!
I. CANT. :shaking:
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I was a Gamma tester for Exile Act 1. If you want there to be more of a chance of seeing Exile 2 and 3 someday, volunteer to be a tester for Exile. I'm sure Nyctaeus would appreciate the help.
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Gamma tester
What's that?
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Gamma tester
What's that?
I don't know if it's an official term, it's just what Nyctaeus called it. Basically what he gave me to test he felt was ready to release as is...but he just wanted someone to take one last look at it.
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I would call such version a Release candidate :D
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I would call such version a Release candidate :D
No that's only for Delta testers. :p
That being said, I'm afraid testing alone won't help Exile 2 come into existence. :(
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Exile was Alpha-tested by team, than Beta-tested by selected community members... Than Gamma-tested by additional team again, after some serious reworks.
As for SG, it won't be continued. I'm not interested in this project anymore. I PMed CT27 about certain details about SG plot. I guess I may find and redact this PM to reveal rest of the story... Wait. Nope. I'm lazy. CT27? If you have this PM somewhere, go ahead and post it in SG release thread.
If I ever release any more FS project, it's likely to be Exile 2. There are couple of reasons why I'm not working on continuation, but mostly it's lack of team and willpower to conduct such massive endeavour. I have 75% ready design doc, couple of assets and of course - overambitious plans. At least I'm Nyx. If I release a thing, it must be big and shiny.
In fact I was always the face of Exile and SG, while rest of the team was always remaining in shadows because they just wanted to. Excluding main Freder and co-leader - Macielos, who was active from time to time. Currently every member of former Exile team is commited to other, even bigger project... But this project is not a mod. And it's not FS related.
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Since he gave permission to say what was said in the PM:
There were four planned chapters of SG. However, forget about it. Nyctaeus isn't interested in that anymore. It's dead.
In contrast, it may not be active right now but at least there's hope someday for Exile 2/3.
Honestly, that may be for the best. I'd rather have him focus on one project (Exile) and get it done eventually rather than divide attention between Exile and SG and get neither done.
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So the SG/Exile team is making non-FS games now (guessing from not-Mod, not-FS)?
But are they willing to work on Exile in the future? I mean, making something like Exile takes years, the missions alone, and with just 2 people it seems almost impossible. BTW, has anything been done yet aside a semi-complete design doc, and are Acts 2-4 of the same length as Act I?
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Script for the Schism is 25-mission long. I have few incomplete assets like mass-produced Sabre variant that replaced the Encantona in Exodus Fleet but nothing besides that.
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Are there many new ships needed for Exile 2?
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And there we go, act 1 done. Was an amazing campaign, thanks for all you guys' hard work you put into it! I got 11/19 achievements.
So SG won't be continued? Eh, tbh, I got to thinking last night, both of these projects seem so massive, especially if SG was also planned for 4 acts, and it takes so much time and effort to create just one campaign. I actually thought it'd be better if you guys focused on just one instead of trying to tackle two Sathanas-sized projects at once. And after finishing act 1 I am MUCH more interested in seeing Exile continue than I ever was SG, so no complaints here.
Have you guys thought about recruiting more team members? I've got no experience in designing campaigns so I can't do anything to help, but I'm sure there'd be many willing to pitch in and held to make Exile 2 a reality!
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BTW, here's the SG farewell discussion: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=83942.msg1882661#msg1882661
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Have you guys thought about recruiting more team members? I've got no experience in designing campaigns so I can't do anything to help, but I'm sure there'd be many willing to pitch in and held to make Exile 2 a reality!
You really would be surprised how many similar questions I received since the release :P
The truth is more complicated. ItDW was possible due to specific conditions inside da team. Exile was made by people who know eachother from countless years. We're coders, digital artists, FREDers, modellers, texture artists, writers... We know ourselves, we know our skills, our visions and our capabilities. We're friends in real life and we all have real life. Also we all want to move on. I want to make Exile II, but I also want to move on... And rest of the team want to move on more than make Exile II. With overwhelming amount of work a mod of this size requires, so far we decided to use our skills to make projects with wider future.
I don't say no. I say "not today and not tomorrow". Proper Exile II would be possible only in original team composition, sharing the fate with Blue Planet... And FreeSpace 3.
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Did the Exile team move on to other games (as hinted earlier) or something else?
Probably you should've made SG and Exile just standalone projects instead of chapter based things. :p
Are there many new ships needed for Exile 2?
So the SG/Exile team is making non-FS games now (guessing from not-Mod, not-FS)?
But are they willing to work on Exile in the future? I mean, making something like Exile takes years, the missions alone, and with just 2 people it seems almost impossible. BTW, has anything been done yet aside a semi-complete design doc, and are Acts 2-4 of the same length as Act I?
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Did the Exile team move on to other games (as hinted earlier) or something else?
So the SG/Exile team is making non-FS games now (guessing from not-Mod, not-FS)?
Yes, we're working on a standalone game. I don't want to reveal any details yet, so let's just say it's gonna be huge and overambitious like our previous projects, with lots of assets and rich, multi-layer storyline. It will take some inspirations from both Freespace and our mods, but as it will go commercial, we will try to be more mature and less controversial in narration ;).
Probably you should've made SG and Exile just standalone projects instead of chapter based things.
Probably true, but when we invent a storyline, in the end it's always far too long to fit in a single campaign :P.
On the other hand both SG1 and Exile 1 can be stand alone campaigns. just with open endings ;).
But are they willing to work on Exile in the future? I mean, making something like Exile takes years, the missions alone, and with just 2 people it seems almost impossible. BTW, has anything been done yet aside a semi-complete design doc, and are Acts 2-4 of the same length as Act I?
Well, the problem with Freespace mods is that you have to put lots of effort working on obsolete and... a bit rough tools like Fred and non-trivial game mechanics requires making hacks to make it work because Fred was simply not designed for them. Checkpoints, dialog systems, achievements... A good example can be Dirty Job mission that required tons of copy-pasted sexps managing interactions between each drone and each asteroid (so 10*20=200 sexps). Sexps that I had to modify in notepad many times when I fixed something in drones' behaviour. Of course if I did this mission from scratch today, I'd use LUA, but still... Now I'm working in Unity on our own game and there's so much more possibilities that it'd be hard to return to modding Freespace. And last but not least - own game can be commercialized, and a mod can't.
Nothing serious was done for Exile 2. Nyx already told you about some assets he did, he also made bases for 2-3 missions, but nothing more.
Act 2 was planned to have 25 missions. Acts 3 and 4 were not planned in details, but probably they'd be of similar length too.
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Good luck to the Exile team and that game project then! :) :yes:
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A good example can be Dirty Job mission that required tons of copy-pasted sexps managing interactions between each drone and each asteroid (so 10*20=200 sexps). Sexps that I had to modify in notepad many times when I fixed something in drones' behaviour.
Something like that might get much easier in the future (I think).