[Mobius]

About three years ago I used to add more than one AWOL debriefing to my missions for pure variety purposes, and I've recently realized that IMO it's not a bad idea, afterall. Each AWOL debriefing is to be used should the player escape from the battlefield at a given moment of the mission.


AWOL 1:

- Immediate jump as soon as the mission starts;
- More in general, jump before important event X of the mission (which is significant);

AWOL 2:

- Escape after the first important event, but before the "definitive" RTB directiveM

AWOL 3:

- For a possible third situation.


Imagine, for example, that the player's destroyer is taken out during the mission (important event 1) and the player is supposed to jump to/land on another destroyer (important event 2). AWOL debriefings may be different, with a decreasing level of gravitas. As I stated above, there could even be a third situation (important event 3), like the decimation of the new destroyer's group and/or the destruction of the new destroyer itself. This is, of course, an example.

I was wondering if other FREDders do anything like that. Also, I'd like to know if the whole idea sounds good.

[karajorma]

Do I really need to say that I do?

Take a look at this thread from a while back

[Dilmah G]

I'd have to say from experience that the extra-effort is a bit off-putting, driving home the laziness aspect on my part. I suppose if you do it just before release it'd be a bit easier because you weren't just sitting there for hours toying with FRED, but yeah it's a good idea. I suppose depending on the complexity of the mission you may find instances in which to use 5+ alternate debriefings, which is a real pain in the ass if FRED-ing for extended periods puts you in a real lazy/tired/sh*t mood. For any projects hiring n00b FRED-ers openly it's a good thing to "wean" them onto to give them some experience with the whole debriefing mechanic. But ultimately I'd say the real one preventing all FRED-ers from actively doing this already is laziness.

[Mobius]

All you need to set up multiple AWOL debriefings is "and" and 2-3 events linked to it.

Adding those debriefing stages is not any harder than adding a normal debriefing stage. Having more than 5 debriefing stages isn't a problem, either - I can use more than twice that number without any issues.

The only real issue comes with Voice Acting, when you'd have a various number of alternate debriefings in dire need of acting. In that case, the situation is not as favorable as it would be with a standard AWOL voice file (used in all the campaign).

[Dilmah G]

Yeah, I'll put it into practice sometime or another.