[CP5670]

I don't really agree with having the player central to everything either; while it is important to let the player have some say in the outcome of a mission, one of the big strengths of FS/FS2 was that there was never much emphasis placed on individual pilots (including yourself), greatly increasing the realistic feel of it all.

[Redfang]

Originally posted by CP5670
one of the big strengths of FS/FS2 was that there was never much emphasis placed on individual pilots (including yourself), greatly increasing the realistic feel of it all.

 
I'm not sure if I agree with that. In FS/FS2, I think that you were the one who did most. Really.

[CP5670]

Actually that is true as well, but officially at least the story did not put a lot of emphasis on you as an individual. (i.e. as in Wing Commander)

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by IceFire

A GOOD battle of endor has stumped even Kellan and I largely regard him to be one of the best if not the best mission designer in this community.  It has nothing to do with him working with me on BWO except for the fact that I get to see his genius first hand

A large mission is VERY hard to make fun.  And then when you really try and go for it, FreeSpace 2 puts up a roadblock.  I hope to overcome that a bit when Source stuff gets underway.

I think the trick is to design a mission ala Fs2, then add in background battles.........  i.e. events that don't affect the players objectives and role, but that give the impression of a massive battle taking place all around - capital ships in the distance tearing each other to pieces - but planned so only a few actually are in the mission at one time.

That said, we've done a mission for Reciprocity (DiamondGeezer did the proper work, I just set it up), with about 20 Deimos corvettes, 3/4 destroyers, and a few cruisers.  sounds nuts?  Well, let's just say it's not what you'd expect from a fleet encounter............  

And it doesn't crash or slow down  Yet.

[Nuclear1]

Like aldo said. You could make a few background battle scenes, like from Derelict, where some Vasudan destroyers attack the Narlyathotep and its fleet while you assist the Cypher.

[Raven2001]

One of the most important things in BOE mission is having everything organized... you see, every ship should have a role on the mission like Caps kill caps, bombers help caps to kill the other caps, and fighters protect or destroy bombers... of course, this is said in a very general way, but you catch my drift.

Also, the big slow prob in FS is not the models... its the textures... take starlancer for example... in my old 800 Mhz with an ATI Rage 2, the last mission of Starlancer, wich had a lot of caps and fighters, runed just fine and smoothely... in FS2's mission where the colossus jumps to kill the repulse for example, the game goes slower with my 1500 Mhz with a Geforce 2!!! And that's just two caps!! Interesting, no??? What I say about being slow is: get rid of Lod's (of course... not debris), and make the ships only change textures to less detailed ones when they get far...

[NotDefault]

Originally posted by aldo_14
I think the trick is to design a mission ala Fs2, then add in background battles.........  i.e. events that don't affect the players objectives and role, but that give the impression of a massive battle taking place all around - capital ships in the distance tearing each other to pieces - but planned so only a few actually are in the mission at one time.

I'm working on a mission that has a similar concept in mind, but is hardly on the scale of a true BOE.

[Stryke 9]

Originally posted by NotDefault

However, those missions that did feature that kind of matchup would seem more important than they seem now.  Right now, Destroyer match-ups seem to be more like fighting alongside big cruisers than anything else.



Yes, but it can't get too hard, because the player should at least have a chance against a capship (I mean of living to tell the tale, not of killing it).

Insecurity complexes are best left in the world of Math Blaster anyhow- me, I get bored being the invulnerable Alpha 1.

And in any case, it's possible to live to tell the tale. With some ships, sure, that involves standing back and letting something a little more powerful take over, but there's a wide margin between invincible and losing a HP percentage every shot. I actually find it more fun when there's a time to fight and a time to run like hell and hope that gunship notices your wingman first. Gives it a certain... challenge for one thing. It also doesn't mean you can't win, or even clean up the campaign area, but you'll just have to be smarter about it and learn some new (partially cooperative) tactics.

I mean, seriously- I bought FreeSpace 2, first fighter game I'd ever gotten. Beat it in 4 days, and I only had to restart 3 missions (Killing Ravanna, the SOC one where you take on a wing of Myrms and I made the mistake of running to wait for backup instead of taking them on, and the last one where the supernova caught me in an Ares). That's just not right- campaigns should take you at least a few weeks to beat, and ideally about as much time as they took to be developed. That doesn't mean endless restarts, that just means adding a degree of challenge.