[Marcov]

As I'm really not that good of a FREDder, but not also a noob, I thought of designing my own custom campaign (which requires the Inferno R1 modpack). Not sure if I should bring it up for download, but is there any chance this can be a good one? As I'm asking, I need extra ideas from experienced FREDders.

However, the plot is quite rare. You play as a Shivan pilot.

The Shivan navy was brutally wounded at the Capella incident (90 juggernauts destroyed, however why did they do such a suicide?!   ), and is continously being bombarded by the GTVA. The GTVA's new flagship is the TSJ Canis, which wiped out most of Great Shiva, the planet in which Shivans reside in. The Shivans have rallied their most powerful vessel, the SSJ Overlord, but were still outnumbered and started evacuating to Zorubia Minor, in which they plan to make a new home of.

However, later on, the Shivans and GTVA are forced to ally with each other since the Ancients have taken their vengeance upon the Shivans, and captured the Canis, renamed it "Reprisal" (the basis of my campaign).

This is the trailer info:

Campaign - Freespace: Reprisal

Set in 2370. After the incident in Capella, the Shivans were greatly bruised. They were down, but not out.

The Shivan Empire was all but devastated. All forces in their colonies had decided to push back to Great Shiva,

their homeland.

However, this is all but unfinished. An Alliance exploration fleet, codename "Final Repulse", has been sent to

terminate all Shivan survivors. This disrespect for fellow race has not been tolerated. With a gigantic 18

kilometer superjuggernaut, the TSJ Canis, headed towards Great Shiva, the Shivans have organized all remaining

ships, including their flagship, the SSJ Overlord. The Overlord itself was but a minor threat to the Final Repulse

armada, which had a hundred Paladin-class superdestroyers, twenty-five Oranos-class juggernauts, five hundred

corvettes, two thousand cruisers, five hundred destroyers, and a hundred thousand fighters and bombers, and the TSJ

Canis itself - which all comprise 102,126 vessels, against the Shivans, who posses their flagship, the SSJ

Overlord, about thirty-five Diablo-class superdestroyes, two hundred Iblis and Kismat destroyers, three hundred

corvettes, eight hundred cruisers, and forty-seven thousand fighters and bombers - comprising 48,336. It's 102,126

vs 48,336.

The Shivan navy was wiped out. The surviovrs and remaining vessels have started a new exodus - to reveal outer

space, where no one has gone before, and to seek a new homeland which all of us can call "Home".

Unfortunately, the GTVA has sent a new fleet to demolish us, once again. It is now the year 2,400 and the GTVA are

attacking us...once more. This fleet, designation, "Revealation", is another threat to our race, and comprises both

Terrans and Vasudans. The Shivans have grown hopeless, and organize a crusade against the GTVA. The Shivans do not

exactly know what vessel is leading this fleet, but they have already encountered a massive one, the GVSD Ramses, a

Het-Ka superdestroyer.

The Shivans re-organize an armada for their crusade, and a flagship, the SJ Melkor. It heads hundreds of vessels in

Operation Jihad, a strategy to overthrow the GTVA once and for all.

One of the greatest subfleets of Operation Jihad is the Sith armada, lead by the Bogus, a Diablo-class

superdestroyer. The Sith won battle after battle against mostly Vasudan forces. Finally, the Sith moved in to

engage the centre of the Vasudan astronavy - the Ramses armada, lead by the GVSD Ramses, a Het-Ka vessel.

The GVSD Ramses, along with tens of destroyers, corvettes, and cruisers, engaged the Sith in the Hostillion jump

node. Meanwhile, a group of 12 Shivan destroyers were assigned to hold off the attacks until the Bogus jumps in.

Only two were left after a while, the SD Barabas and SD Garuda. Shivan Command called in several wings of fighters

and bombers to defend the destroyers.

After suffering an attack of 2 cruisers, a corvette, 3 destroyers, the Barabas and Garuda finally engages the

Ramses itself. The Barabas was already destroyed, and the Ramses jumps in and shreds the Garuda to pieces.

The SSD Bogus was late, but it did successfully victor against its enemy counterpart. The Ramses, center of the

Vasudans, was crushed.

A great victory party followed. The Revelation fleet was badly hit. Operation Jihad was becoming successful, so

far.............

[Black Wolf]

Wow. Erm... OK. Firstly, please don't double space your posts. It makes it harder to read. Just put the returns between the paragraphs.

is there any chance this can be a good one?

This... is going to sound harsh, but the answer here is kinda... no, not really. For one thing, where did all those ships come from if it's just 3 years after capella? It took 20 years to build the Collosus. Also, how do you play as something so totally alien as a shivan? How do you do your briefings or your in mission directives or messages in a way that's alien and playable? Plus, I think the whole idea of the Juggernauts was to demonstrate just how much bigger and more powerful the shivans were than the GTVA - we had one ship that took two decades to construct, they had 80 that were even more powerful. To go from that the the Shivans somehow being nearly destroyed just doesn't make sense.

But I think the big problem you'd have is how you'd get something on such a massive scale condensed down into something you can experience from a cockpit. When you think about campaigns, it's easy, especially when you're new, to just think bigger is better.More ships, more powerful weapons, huge armadas of juggernauts clashing against each other is exciting in theory, but in practice just doesn;t work in a fighter based simulator game. Believe me, a lot of people come up with something outlandish like this early on, but the best campaigns - from Volitions ones to the Fan made ones - are focussed around much smaller conflicts - ship vs ship, small fleet vs. small fleet. Even a conflict in FS1 that took over the entire (known) galaxy) you probably only dealt with, what, a dozen or so destroyers from all sides combined? Maybe 15-20 at the absolute most, over the course of the entire campaign, and yet that had an awesome storyline.

Maybe try focussing on something a bit smaller to start with. If you want ideas, I'm sure the guys on the HLP IRC channel would be willing to help. We were just talking about this thread actually. There's a link at the top of the forums, or you can go to http://www.esper.net and click the chat now link, then typpe #hard-light as the room name.

[The E]

Hmmm. Okay, first impression: Big is not always better. This forum is littered with the remnants of great big campaigns. I mean, you are planning a campaign with several thousand vessels in it; I might suggest starting a bit on the lower end first.
Take the most successful campaigns released to date, all of which concentrate on delivering a good experience on that scale.

(which requires the Inferno R1 modpack).

Oh, please no. Those models are old and, by comparison to other sips, just ugly.

The Shivan navy was brutally wounded at the Capella incident (90 juggernauts destroyed, however why did they do such a suicide?!   ),

Except that most of them were seen jumping away before the Nova fired.

Campaign - Freespace: Reprisal

Set in 2370. After the incident in Capella, the Shivans were greatly bruised. They were down, but not out.

Errm. I might have missed something here, but I was under the impression that the Shivans won the Capella incident without appreciable losses....

However, this is all but unfinished. An Alliance exploration fleet, codename "Final Repulse", has been sent to terminate all Shivan survivors. This disrespect for fellow race has not been tolerated. With a gigantic 18 kilometer superjuggernaut, the TSJ Canis, headed towards Great Shiva, the Shivans have organized all remaining ships, including their flagship, the SSJ Overlord. The Overlord itself was but a minor threat to the Final Repulse armada, which had a hundred Paladin-class superdestroyers, twenty-five Oranos-class juggernauts, five hundred corvettes, two thousand cruisers, five hundred destroyers, and a hundred thousand fighters and bombers, and the TSJ
Canis itself - which all comprise 102,126 vessels, against the Shivans, who posses their flagship, the SSJ Overlord, about thirty-five Diablo-class superdestroyes, two hundred Iblis and Kismat destroyers, three hundred corvettes, eight hundred cruisers, and forty-seven thousand fighters and bombers - comprising 48,336. It's 102,126 vs 48,336.

Okay, if this is set in 2370, where the hell did the GTVA get all the resources to build this? And why wasn't it used in FS2?

<snip>

It really sounds like being faaaar too big for a first project. And I don't really see the story here. What exactly is the player going to do against it? What impact can one Shivan have on all this?

[General Battuta]

Any campaign predicated on the idea that the Shivans just blew themselves up in Capella is...well, it seems fundamentally silly.

[Dragon]

is there any chance this can be a good one?

As long as you write it well, make good missions and ensure that the player will have an impact on what's happening, it's possible that the campaign will be good in spite it's rather uninteresting story. IIRC somebody said someday (gen. Batutta?), that "good wirting can rescue poor story, but there's no way good story can rescue bad writing" (correct me if I'm mistaken). Also, it's possible (though really difficult to achieve) that missions themselves will be so good, that people will play it regardless of it's backstory, just for the challenge presented by missions, though it's unlikely to happen in first campaign. Also, Shivan campaign on INFR1 modpack is something that hasn't been done before, so it it will always be something new. Ah, and one advice. Let those huge BOEs that you write about happen off screen and make the player do smaller tasks instead. I think interesting example will be a ship that jumped out of a battle, heavily damaged, so player has to escort it until it can fix it's drives for a long range jump to repair facility. You can even try to have the battle it jumped off happen in the backgound, using fleet background bitmaps (provided that somebody will make INFR1 ones for you) and SEXPed explosion effects.

[RedBaron]

I dont like the idea, that shivans are this weak.

They have 100ts of Juggernauts and dont even care if some of them get killed by a supernova... so why do you think that the GTVA could EVER defeat them?
The biggest GTVA ship dont have any chance to fight a sathanas and you think about killing shivans.

Another question is why do the GTVA has still contact to shivan space?
And why are the ancients still livin? They were killed 5000 years ago by shivans.

Think about it, shivans had the ability to travel through subspace over 5000 years ago!! We will never pose a threat to them.

[stuart133]

I personally don't like this idea very much, but it has given me an idea.
The FreeSpace RTS mod has been sitting inactive for some time has it not? Well how about resurrecting it? This large scale battle force seems good for that sort of game play. I have already said that I don't like the story very much but each to their own.