[Akalabeth Angel]

1) Five ships in Beta Wing. Even FRED doesn't like this one. Although it's possible to have wings of up to 6 ships that doesn't mean you should. If you need more than four bombers to make the mission playable what you could do is this. (I'm making it so that there are 6 bombers in Beta wing rather than 5 cause I'd rather make the mission a little easier).

    I gotcha. I wanted 5 in Beta because only have 4 sucked even more.

2) You might want to add some more vasudans to Gamma wing. Having only 1 ship present in the loadout screen looks odd.

     Gamma Wing is 4 Serapis fighters. I'm not sure why it'd show up as only one.

3) Beta Wing has no primaries by default. What are they supposed to use? Harsh language? Seriously though, this is cause the Artemis can't actually carry the Akheton SDG they've been assigned.

   Artemis can't carry Akhetons? What kind of bomber is it?? Geesh. Well I'll probably give it Subachs or something instead.

[Blitzerland]

Beat it at 24% on medium mode

Who da' man?

*Cats applaud

Really solid mission. A few quirks here and there, but no real problems.

Kudos to you for the excellent grammar+spelling!

Nothing takes you out of the vibe like seeing, "Demon 3 ismaking a run , for the jum node!11!"

I've been FREDing for 4 years, and this is a pretty good mission by my standards. Keep at it!

EDIT: Bombers are meant for destruction, not disabling. Send a fighter if you want to disable something, but leave the bombers at home.

[Black Wolf]

not too shabby, not too shabby at all. There are sa few minor errors (spelling, a few background gaffs (your planets light sides are misaligned) but those are far from major issues. I would reccomend putting an akheton as the default loadout for the player, just for convenence sake, especially since Beta wing tends to die so easily and it's almost guaranteed you'll end up targetting the Alexander. Also, the hostile fighters seem somewhat ineffectual - not much you can do about this of course, but it might be an idea to take into account the fact that they're not going to last very long and set up Alpha's AI to accomodate that (maybe set them targetting flak turrets on the Alexander?

Overall though, it's a more than passable mission. Run the de/breifing and messages through Word's spell checker and it'll be even better.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Here's the latest mission:

Retail Mission 3

Fixed:
-Beta Wing @ 4 fighters with 2 wave / 2 thresh + Subach-HL7s
-Planets aligned to sun
-All text run through Word for grammar and spelling (only some minor grammar problems persists in the in-flight speech, which is expected because people don't speak perfect sentences)
-Alpha given disarm command after fighters destroyed
-Alpha given Akheton/Prometheus loadout

Kudos to you for the excellent grammar+spelling!

Nothing takes you out of the vibe like seeing, "Demon 3 ismaking a run , for the jum node!11!"

I've been FREDing for 4 years, and this is a pretty good mission by my standards. Keep at it!

EDIT: Bombers are meant for destruction, not disabling. Send a fighter if you want to disable something, but leave the bombers at home.

      Thanks for the compliments, I have an honours degree in English so my grammar + spelling better damn well be good (though it is admittedly not perfect, and I still have a few problem words which I always screw up (ie personnel)). I think the campaign specified that Beta Wing was bombers, but perhaps not. Either way, they suffice as they can carry a lot of Stillettos (not that it takes more than three anyway).

Also, the hostile fighters seem somewhat ineffectual - not much you can do about this of course, but it might be an idea to take into account the fact that they're not going to last very long and set up Alpha's AI to accomodate that (maybe set them targetting flak turrets on the Alexander?

       I know, the AI is pretty crappy. Which is why I was surprised when Singh asked me to turn down their rating (I deleted some fighters for him on easy instead). Just so you know, here are the levels of difficulty:

Medium - everything's a go
Easy - Kappa + Gemini Wing (Ulysses guarding Damocles) do not enter mission
Very Easy - Beams remained locked on Alexander during second battle


Also note, that I am Canadian. Therefore I spell the following words in the following manner:

Honour
Centre
Manoeuvring (that one's a b**** to remember).

If someone wants to bring it down a notch in quality to american spelling    they can feel free to do so. Heheheh.

Anyway, if there are anymore problemos let me know.
Oh, and I'm not sure communique is appropriate for what I'm using it for, but it sounds cool anyway (nothing wrong with a dash of le francais)

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel

Also note, that I am Canadian. Therefore I spell the following words in the following manner:
 

What...correctly? *Points at location*

[karajorma]

Also points at location. You'll get no complaints from me about that either.

I'll check this again in a little bit

[TopAce]

Testing the most recent version ...
I am going to post feedback as soon as I finish.

[Singh]

ill test this again, this time with kick-ass mode on

[TopAce]

Test results

• Mission difficulty. It is already discussed that this mission still needs a lot of work in balancing. More words about this are redundant.
• Any particular reason you used neutral(light blue) color in the brieifng on the Alexander and some other vessel names?
• Brieifng icon ship class for the ship which is on screen in the first stage is wrong, the icon ship class shows and Aten and there is no Aten in the mission. I don't know which ship that was.
• Beta and Gamma wing's armaments might be changed for better mission balance. For instance, Gamma wing has Hornets. Also give some Tornadoes for the Artemis bombers.
• Yes, player orders. It is a typical mistake. In all Derelict missions you could give orders to transports and cruiser, thereby srewing up the mission. Don't think that if the Derelict FREDers could afford to ignore player orders you can do it as well. Turn player orders for all non-friendly fighters off.
• I received no directives after the Democles arrived. It is obvious you will have to defend the Vasudan cruiser, but some people might be 'paniced' without standing directives. It is a general hint for all FREDers: Try to avoid any situations the player does not have directives to do.
• Gemini wing remained out of the battle: They entered 8 clicks away and they moved nowhere.
• Here come the most major issue: The Vasudan cruiser did not leave, it only kept rotating around and did nothing.

[TopAce]

I wrote a couple of hints in the Wiki how to balance missions.

[Akalabeth Angel]

# Any particular reason you used neutral(light blue) color in the brieifng on the Alexander and some other vessel names?
# Brieifng icon ship class for the ship which is on screen in the first stage is wrong, the icon ship class shows and Aten and there is no Aten in the mission. I don't know which ship that was.
# Beta and Gamma wing's armaments might be changed for better mission balance. For instance, Gamma wing has Hornets. Also give some Tornadoes for the Artemis bombers.

       The blue was used because I couldn't remember what was usually used. The GVC Khem is an Aten (or was, more accurately). The Fulligan used to be an Aten, but I changed it to a Mentu because I needed something stronger. I wasn't aware that a person could differeniate. All I get is the Mentu-cruiser icon.

# Yes, player orders. It is a typical mistake. In all Derelict missions you could give orders to transports and cruiser, thereby srewing up the mission. Don't think that if the Derelict FREDers could afford to ignore player orders you can do it as well. Turn player orders for all non-friendly fighters off.

       Uh, well I turned off the orders for Kappa/Lambda. I wouldn't have thought the others would be a problem as they're all enemy to begin with though I didn't investigate it myself.

# I received no directives after the Democles arrived. It is obvious you will have to defend the Vasudan cruiser, but some people might be 'paniced' without standing directives. It is a general hint for all FREDers: Try to avoid any situations the player does not have directives to do.

        Well, the "Destroy NTT Omega" comes up later. I suppose I could throw in a "protect yadda yadda" and a new "disable this guy"

# Gemini wing remained out of the battle: They entered 8 clicks away and they moved nowhere.
# Here come the most major issue: The Vasudan cruiser did not leave, it only kept rotating around and did nothing.

     These two are both kind of odd. Gemini is supposed to guard the NTT so they should follow it in. The Mentu jumps out after the primary goal is complete. I've also just now made it jump out when the two failures happen as well.

[Fergus]

Also, Cancer wing (Herc II's) and the wing of Ulysses (the ones escorting Damocles) continue to arrive after the everyone else has departed (bit annoying activating jump drives only to be munched by Herc that just arrived).
It was also slightly weird that when Damocles said the Alexander was of now use there was a considerable gap to when the Damocles fired the rear beam.

[TopAce]

The NTT Omega was destroyed, so Gemini only started patrolling the area. They were 7 or 8 clicks away when this happened so they detected no enemy in immediate vicinity.
Reading the departure conditions for the Mentu, all I can take as a conclusion is that it did not depart because the Alexander didn't depart as well since its engines have been disabled.
Check if the mission counts with the possibility that your initially fail to destroy the NTT and the engines got partially repaired.
As for repairs: It was quite strange that the engines were repaired after the transport had been destroyed. You can say that enough engineers managed to get on board to repair the engines before the NTT had been destroyed.
I can see the reason why the Alexander was repaired after the NTT had been gone: The Repair Team and the Check NTT Status events were linked with the delay of 30 seconds. This is as much as saying is-event-true / Repair Team / 30, so not this is the problem: The > / hits-left / 0 / NTT Omega SEXPing is not recommended. Use not / is-destroyed-delay / 0 / NTT Omega instead.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Also, Cancer wing (Herc II's) and the wing of Ulysses (the ones escorting Damocles) continue to arrive after the everyone else has departed (bit annoying activating jump drives only to be munched by Herc that just arrived).
It was also slightly weird that when Damocles said the Alexander was of now use there was a considerable gap to when the Damocles fired the rear beam.

       I checked out the Cancer wing data, it has the same arrival/departure cues as the other wings so I'm not sure why it would stay while the others have gone. For the Damocles firing, hmmn, the ship should try to fire either the side or aft beam cannon. In my mission it has been the side that was fired. Either way, two blasts should hopefully kill it but maybe not???

Reading the departure conditions for the Mentu, all I can take as a conclusion is that it did not depart because the Alexander didn't depart as well since its engines have been disabled.
Check if the mission counts with the possibility that your initially fail to destroy the NTT and the engines got partially repaired.
As for repairs: It was quite strange that the engines were repaired after the transport had been destroyed. You can say that enough engineers managed to get on board to repair the engines before the NTT had been destroyed.
I can see the reason why the Alexander was repaired after the NTT had been gone: The Repair Team and the Check NTT Status events were linked with the delay of 30 seconds. This is as much as saying is-event-true / Repair Team / 30, so not this is the problem: The > / hits-left / 0 / NTT Omega SEXPing is not recommended. Use not / is-destroyed-delay / 0 / NTT Omega instead.

Okay, for Gamma I added a chase-any after NTT Omega is destroyed
For the Mentu, it departs in three cases:
-primary goal is true (checks if, victorious event is true, which checks if Alex is destroyed, Damocles has left . . .)
-Alexander Escapes (failure)
-Alexander Escapes being disabled. (initial failure)

It _should_ work. Not sure what happened, but I added a slight delay to the and-in-sequence for the "no survivors" event (I think that's the one)

As for the transport, you hit the nail on the head. The transport isn't doing the repairs, the people onboard + the supplies are. If they have time to get off, it doesn't matter if the transport gets wasted, because it'll be empty. If the transport is docked long enough for the necessary guys/equipment to disembark the engines will get repaired no matter what. (seems to make more sense to me)

EDIT - I uploaded a new zip with the few fixes. There may be something more wrong but it's after midnight and my brain no-worky right now.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
As for the transport, you hit the nail on the head. The transport isn't doing the repairs, the people onboard + the supplies are. If they have time to get off, it doesn't matter if the transport gets wasted, because it'll be empty. If the transport is docked long enough for the necessary guys/equipment to disembark the engines will get repaired no matter what. (seems to make more sense to me)

I agree. I've used the same logic in a few of my missions

Lets see if I can get enough free time to properly check this mission out tonight

[Fergus]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel


For the Damocles firing, hmmn, the ship should try to fire either the side or aft beam cannon. In my mission it has been the side that was fired. Either way, two blasts should hopefully kill it but maybe not???
 

I think I may have brocken the mission, because the first thing I do when Damocles arrives is I destroy the beam facing the GVC, Maybe to stop this you could not let Alpha get hold of any Stilleto's.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense
I forgot about people doing things they shouldn't like destroying beams and stuff!

Unfortunately I think its impossible to stop Alpha from getting Stillettos because Beta Wing starts with 'em.  So the player could always move 'em over. Unless there's some way I can make it so that Beta Wing's loadout can't be changed by the player. Or I could always cheat and repair the beam prior to it being fired, I dunno. That might tick off the player though.

Or maybe I could do something like if beam is destroyed, send in some Bombers instead. But then I have to rely on some stupid bomber AI to get the job finished against an Aeolus of all things.

[Fergus]

I would get the Perilous to jump in and kill the Alexander if the Damocles cant shoot.  A way of telling Alpha 1 not to break the mission in future.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Okay, so I changed a few things in the mission:

-added a waypoint where the Damocles will turn to if its side beam is inoperative (to expose the rear beam)
-added the Perilous incase both are destoyed to come in, mop up + leave
-Gave Beta some Tornadoes
-Gave Gamma post-NTT destruction orders
-cleared player orders for all enemy wings
-added protect fulligan directive, and destroy Omega directive


    BUT NOW, the event triggered by the death of the NTT omega  no longer works. I don't get the messages from the Alexander and the Damocles. And I didn't go anywhere near those damned events.

    That's one thing that pisses me off big time about FRED. I've seen it in some of my other missions. For instance in one event I had it setup one way, then I changed it, and then changed it back. And instead of going with the original, it assumed the event was true and sent messages at the start of the mission instead of when it was supposed to. It seems that if you screw around too much, FRED gets stupid and just ignores previous stuff for no damn reason whatsoever.  And it is _really_ aggravating.  

[TopAce]

Can I get the mission? I may be able to detect the error.