[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by Knight Templar


shut the fuck up already. Everyone knows australia is the backward country, so stop being an idiot.

That advice also referred to the British, who are backward but don't know it.

EDIT: To prevent any flamewars, I would like you to know that I am not being serious at all and I don't actually mean this stuff. Except maybe the part about the British not realizing how backwards they are

[Solatar]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool


That advice also referred to the British, who are backward but don't know it.

EDIT: To prevent any flamewars, I would like you to know that I am not being serious at all and I don't actually mean this stuff. Except maybe the part about the British not realizing how backwards they are

I even used the lvlshot tags...

[pyro-manic]

Well said.

Back on-topic, the most annoying bit is trying to find where your overly-complex series of events goes tits-up (usually about 10 minutes into the mission), then changing one tiny but significant thing and testing it again, just to find something else has stopped working....

[Woolie Wool]

THAT is what makes event editing such a *****. Something always goes wrong with some event that's triggered way into the mission and it takes forever to find and fix the problem.

[diamondgeezer]

Looks like I'll be adding another line to my list o' ****-ups

[Woolie Wool]

I think this whole thread has turned into a fück-up of colossal proportions.

[diamondgeezer]

I wonder who's to blame

[phreak]

briefing/debrief by far.

i actually like doing backgrounds as you will see in SA

[an0n]

Testing and Bug Fixing is fun. You get to see the whole mission collapse around your ears.

I made this stand-alone mission where there'd been a second Lucifer incursion and for the past 3 years the GTVA had been trying to destroy it. You join the story just after the 5th fleet has been massacred while trying as a last hope to directly assault the Lucifer and it's fleets. The Lucifer and its fleets move on, but the damage caused by the 5th fleet has left it stranded out in open space with no comms, nav or engines and you've gotta escort a wing of Elysiums with Kamikaze orders to the Lucifer.

I set the special explosion parameters up into the millions, placed a few Cains and fighter wings and ran the mission.

7 seconds into the mission, the first Cain warps in, smashed into the side of Omega 2, annihilates it, fires its beam cannon at Omega 1, annihilates it, leaving only Omega 3. You get an awesome visual, but that's not what I'd planned on having happen. So Omega 1 and 2 go up, trigger 2 of the most powerful explosions in the FS universe since Capella exploded, they shoot out at about 1000m/s, annihilate everything and kill you. So the last thing you see as your ship explodes in the little cinema-esq window is about 3 Cains, 20 Shivan fighters, all your wingmen, and the Lucifer errupting in massive plumes of fire as the shockwave hits 'em.

Cool, if not completey ****ed up.

[SadisticSid]

The penultimate mission of Inferno has 94 SEXPs in it - so many that the later chained events didn't always execute. Try testing THAT dozens of times (the mission lasts ~17 action-filled minutes).

I'd say a good average-length mission has about 30-40 SEXPs. Most missions in Inferno I consider average, a few below and a few above.

Briefing is the most fun for me; you get to lay out the initial battlefield and start making things happen from there.

Sid.

[Woolie Wool]

How long is an "average mission"? My mission (the first in my campaign) is around 7 minutes long and has 16 events, many of which have multiple sexps, and there are also other sexps for debriefings and arrival/departure cues. Basically it's like this:

You fly out of the Moloch's hangar bay and are greeted by six Anubises, one of whom taunts you. You blow them up.

An Anuket gas miner and three wings of three escort fighters warp in. You are ordered to destroy the Anuket and the fighters. The escort wings respawn three times. Then Sigma wing, composed of Dragons, warps in and relieves you of your watch (they're on your side so don't shoot them!). Mission accomplished.

Available loadout:
Ships: GTF Apollo, GTF Valkyrie, GVF Seth
Primaries: PLS-10 plasma cannon, Subach HL-7, VLL-9 Vasudan Light Laser, Disruptor, A-Disruptor, Akheton SDG, Prometheus R
Secondaries: MX-50, Rockeye, Fury, Fang, Tempest, Interceptor, Harpoon, Phoenix V, Hornet
Recommended loadout: GTF Apollo with a PLS-10 and a Subach, with two banks of Harpoons

[TopAce]

Originally posted by an0n
....I set the special explosion parameters up into the millions, placed a few Cains and fighter wings and ran the mission.

7 seconds into the mission, the first Cain warps in, smashed into the side of Omega 2, annihilates it, fires its beam cannon at Omega 1, annihilates it, leaving only Omega 3. You get an awesome visual, but that's not what I'd planned on having happen. So Omega 1 and 2 go up, trigger 2 of the most powerful explosions in the FS universe since Capella exploded, they shoot out at about 1000m/s, annihilate everything and kill you. So the last thing you see as your ship explodes in the little cinema-esq window is about 3 Cains, 20 Shivan fighters, all your wingmen, and the Lucifer errupting in massive plumes of fire as the shockwave hits 'em.

Cool, if not completey ****ed up.

Well, I had this problem on the another way: I wanted to use a Meson bomb, which is placed next to a Ravana, and I wanted the bomb to kill the Ravana. Everything is proceeding fine, but the bomb explodes, catches me at about five kilometers away from the centre of the explosion, but the Ravana stayed alive. But I have set the damage to max. The condition for the Meson bomb to be carried in is to disarm the Ravana, well, if I watch the hull of the Ravana(I don't use Helios at every turrets to disarm ) , then I might have done insufficent damage, so the Meson could destroy it. The second part is when FRED automatically disables the fine-tuned special explosion, and uses the default explosion set in the TBL. blah ...

[TopAce]

Setting really many events is fun, and looks fine as they cannot be displayed on one page, you have to scroll. I think about 20-25 events is enough to make a good mission(good-secondary, and beam-free-all is always required).

[phreak]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
How long is an "average mission"? My mission (the first in my campaign) is around 7 minutes long and has 16 events, many of which have multiple sexps, and there are also other sexps for debriefings and arrival/departure cues. Basically it's like this:

i try to shoot for 10 minutes.
a few missions in SA go for about 20

[TopAce]

The real challenge for me in FREDing is to make a mission long. My top-point mission in length was one of the missions in my own campaign. That was 12 minutes long in average, and 9 minutes long if you play nice, and blow everybody up quickly.

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by TopAce
Setting really many events is fun, and looks fine as they cannot be displayed on one page, you have to scroll. I think about 20-25 events is enough to make a good mission(good-secondary, and beam-free-all is always required).

Hmmm, the Moloch corvette in my mission has no working turrets (it's a "center of gravity" that serves as the focal point of the mission and keeps all the ships from dispersing), so there's no need for a beam-free-all event (nobody has any beams). I'll see what good. What is good-secondary, though?

[TopAce]

It tells the Ai to prefer a secondary weapon against a target.
So if the Ai has a Bakha bomber, with 4 Helios and 10 Trebuchet, you can tell him to use the Trebuchet on a Fenris. Or even this is useful if the player would give only Trebs to the Ai. This event ensures the user that his wingman would use the Trebuchet. The same is at the case of the Stilleto II.

It looks somehow like this:

Trebuchet use
 - has-time-elapsed
    2
 - good-secondary-time
   Friendly
   100
   Trebuchet
   GTC Ophanes

It tells all friendly ships to use at most 100 Trebuchet against the GTC Ophanes, which is the Fenris I have been talking about.

[TrashMan]

I had a great mission (maby I still have it...)

It's set after the Jumpgate was destroyed and the Sath jumped in.
The fleet is pereparing to blockade the node, and you are on a special ops mission to recon the other side of the portal, to see if other ships are coming. Needles to say, your destroyer waits on the other side, but it can't wait long, for it has to re-joi the main battle group. as you fly trough the nebula (in pegasus fighters) you detect a debris field... Terran and Shivan debris...
You find the GTD Independence floating around. Nebula prevents a full scan, so yu have to scan it section by section (system). once the comm system is scanned you hear from the suvivors. Command orders you to hold and sends a recovery team. The Shivans jump in sevral fighter and bombers and a cruiser - the fighting stats. A wing of SOC fighters, a Vasudan cruiser, Vasudan wing and the repair ship arrive. The independence turrets are back on line. And a Demon jumps in. While Gamma tries to disarm it you tag it and after a while it's destroyed...
It's engines are back on-line and it sets course for the jump node
Now lot's of bombers start jumping in, and right infront of the node, another cruiser...

the mission lasted about 20-25 minutes.... It was great...have to find it again...

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by SadisticSid
The penultimate mission of Inferno has 94 SEXPs in it - so many that the later chained events didn't always execute. Try testing THAT dozens of times (the mission lasts ~17 action-filled minutes).

94? I break that in about 50% of my missions .

And I like doing BGs, though more with customs than the V ones

[karajorma]

Number of SEXPs isn't exactly a measure of the quality of a mission or even the quality of the FREDding involved.
I tend to end up with missions with around 60 or so. Does that mean that my missions are less detailed or simply that I'm more efficient with my SEXP use? Hard to tell until we've all released these missions and compared