[ShadowsOfLight]

Hey everybody at HLP! I've been a wanderer roaming the helpful HLP forums as a Guest for some time now. This is a great place to come to for everything Freespace, and I've finally decided to join.

I've had campaign ideas flying around in my head for some time now, and just recently made an outline of a fairly big campaign (yes, another one). It's working/tentative title is "The Future of the Past". It would include (hopefully) 3 new destroyers, 3 new juggernauts, 2 new dreadnaughts (bigger than juggernauts, but not tooo big), 1 new installation (huge) and a hybrid Shivan ship mixing a current and a new capship. Because of a certain event in the campaign many fighters/bombers will be improved upon, causing many Adv. versions of fighters/bombers, and not so many totally new ones. I think I may want to try using the Inferno Ancients (since they aren't being used in Inferno anymore) as well.

Anyways, before I go into a huge in-depth analysis of my campaign (which I probably shouldn't, don't wanna give too much away) I need to ask for help with the campaign. I don't have a modelling program at all, and my FREDding skills are still very novice. Needless to say, I will try my best to develop my own mini-campaign (currently 5 missions), as a prologue to this one, first.

In any case, sorry for the long post, and thanks for your consideration.

[Knight Templar]

Right off the bat, you'll probably want to give a good description of the plot, if not a nice teaser, to get help from anyone save the most charitible people. Not a reprimand, just a fact.

Secondly, you're obviously new (welcome. ) so it's anyone's guess as to how much modding you've done in the past, but around these parts, we gets lots of the new folks commin' in with grand new ideas of large campaigns and large ships on a regular basis. Not to discourage any creativity or activity within the community on your part, but it might be a wiser idea to take something such as fredding, and release a mini-campaign without mods on your own first, to show people what you're made of, or just for fun to get used to everything. Alternatively, you could take up a modding / fredding skill and join an existing campaign and help them out, making some friends in the process, then move on to your ideas.

Again, I'm not trying to discourage any creativity, but there simply isn't enough modders to go around to every new guy that comes in here with an idea we have no knowledge of. That's why establishing yourself, either by getting familiar with the community, or really intriguing us, is a good idea. Don't get discouraged though, if it's really great, you'll get at it sooner or later. Good luck.

[ShadowsOfLight]

Alright, seeing as I have nothing to do for the next few minutes...I'll take some advice and post somewhat of a teaser...although KT is right, I should probably feel my way around before jumping into anything this ambitious

Okay, the first part of the campaign (my 5 mission mini-campaign which I will attempt myself in order to expand my skills) is just a little exploration by a little exploration crew somewhere inside the Ross 128 system...a new jump node is found (not sure exactly where yet, currently Epsilon Scorpii). In the ensuing (spl.) chapter a Hecate is sent in and observations are underway on a Knossos discovered in the system. This one, however, is inactive, and a strange subspace signature is emitting from where it is...of course, a là Freespace tradition, a radical group of hostile protesters has formed (the Post-Capella Revolutionists) and, in Chapter 1 at least, are posing most of the threats to the fleet in the system. The Knossos is finally activated, and brave scouts go to the other side...only to find the last aid left by the Ancients, and a startling revelation that will shock the GTVA for years to come...

[karajorma]

It's a nice enough idea but I'll have to agree with KT on this one.

A lot of newbies come to the forum with great ideas, work on them for a few months, get bored and wander off to the next game without releasing anything.

I'm not saying you'd do this but the danger that you would means that a lot of people will be shy to join up with you until you've proved you're serious.

The idea of releasing a 5 mission campaign is a good one though. Prove your skills with that (use the inferno ships as a stop-gap for now if you have to have huge ships in the prologue). That way the only thing you need to do is FRED. Prove that you can do that well and you'll get people to sign up.

[kv1at3485]

If you need somebody to tear your missions apart... I mean, play test them, I can do that.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to help you actually FRED missions.

[magatsu1]

If you wanna try modeling get something like truespace 3.4 or GMAX (both free) and play around with 'em. Also, get the descent model and VP tools from the front page and have a look. You can always edit an exisiting model if you want something unique.

[Black Wolf]

Or DL premade ships. There's lots around.