[Mad Bomber]

Heroes For Hire has been scrapped in favor of Eagle Takes Flight. (Now you know what that Side Project is that I kept mentioning. )

ETF will have 27 missions and 8 ingame cutscenes -- hence, Open will be required. (The build must include multidocking and ANIless loadouts.)

Here's the teaser, originally posted at Sectorgame:

The date is June 24, 2336. Despite the successful retaking of the Capella and Vega systems, the GTA is starting to unravel amidst worries that it can no longer protect its citizens adequately. Prominent voices are beginning to demand increased autonomy, if not outright independence, and the shady Regulus Syndicate has already effectively bribed its way out of the GTA.

Even the central system of Antares is troubled by piracy and the ever-present shadow of the Hammer of Light. It's the perfect time and place for mercenaries to show their skill.

You are William Vargas, recently discharged from the GTA League of Defence due to budget cuts. With your friend Rocky Mankato, you have just enough money to start Eagle Security Services -- with only a converted drone, modified ML-16s, three sentry guns, and a rickety transport to your name.

Do you have the skill and the courage to build ESS up from nothing, and help save the Antares sector from destruction and chaos?


I still need two models to bring the campaign to fruition, but that aside, it seems to be coming along nicely -- I can get 2/3 of the campaign done without either of them. (One of them is pretty important to the plot, tho, so I will need em eventually.)

3 missions are done and a few more are already in progress. However, any help you want to give -- playtesting, balancing, modeling, or FREDing -- is more than welcome, so PM me if you're interested.

[Taristin]

You'd better use that damned Peneus I made for you!

[Solatar]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber


You are William Vargas, recently discharged from the GTA League of Defence due to budget cuts. With your friend Rocky Mankato, you have just enough money to start Eagle Security Services -- with only a converted drone, modified ML-16s, three sentry guns, and a rickety transport to your name.

Do you have the skill and the courage to build ESS up from nothing, and help save the Antares sector from destruction and chaos?[/i]

 

I could almost swear I've played this (I think it was for fs1 though)

[Blitzerland]

Fs1...eh...

Was it titled "Destiny of Peace?"

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by Blitzerland
Fs1...eh...

Was it titled "Destiny of Peace?"

No, "Destiny of Peace" was the campaign included in Silent Threat where you start off as a traffic cop. (Incredibly cool campaign, by the way. ) I think Mad Bomber mentioned that he used a seven-mission campaign from FS1 as inspiration, but his campaign is going to expand a great deal on it.

[Solatar]

As long as he's expanding.

[Taristin]

...Rocky Mankato?  My Uncle's family are Moncato...   Freaky.

[aldo_14]

Destiny of Peace ended with a full on war with the Vasudans, didn't it?  I remember the 2nd last mission being screwed up scripting-wise, though - I took out 2 Orions single-handedly only for them to reappear on my side next mission round.......

[Blitzerland]

Those Orions needed protect-ship or something.

That's the sucky thing about Freespace 1. Huge capital ships are defenseless. Those plasma blobs are useless.

[NGTM-1R]

Where's that HFH stuff you used to have? Don't trash it, 'twas a good campaign idea...I shouldn't have deleted my copies...

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Destiny of Peace ended with a full on war with the Vasudans, didn't it?  I remember the 2nd last mission being screwed up scripting-wise, though - I took out 2 Orions single-handedly only for them to reappear on my side next mission round.......

Yeah, in the last mission, you end up fighting two Typhons who are attempting to colonize Manda Prime.  That mission ranks up there as one of my favorites. As for the scripting, I never noticed any errors with it; then again, I never tried taking out any Orions in the second-to-last mission, and I don't think you're really expected to do it.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
Where's that HFH stuff you used to have? Don't trash it, 'twas a good campaign idea...I shouldn't have deleted my copies...

I felt it wasn't as good a plotline as ETF. In particular I like the feel of the Reconstruction period better, rather than continue with another "post-Capella piracy is rampant" storyline.

However, I'm a packrat and all the files are safe -- backstory, MODs, everything. You can carry it on if you want to.

I could almost swear I've played this (I think it was for fs1 though)

You're right. The Eagle mini-campaign (4 missions) for FS1 was the main inspiration for this -- it was the first campaign  (IIRC) to have custom ANIs, and this was before ANIbuilder. Twas one of the things that got me into MODing.

The first three missions of my ETF are taken near-verbatim from the old one -- but there are a few changes (spelling fixes, a few tweaks, etc.)

After then, the rest of the campaign will be quite different, though much of this is because I have the advantage of hindsight that the original author did not, and I want to take it in a much different direction.

Expect a little bit of humor, too.

You'd better use that damned Peneus I made for you!

Of course. It will appear as the GTC Antaeus class. It's one of the reasons the campaign's going to require multidocking.

I had to do subobject fixes (turret barrels) to it after you gave it to me, by the way.

[Nuclear1]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Of course. It will appear as the GTC Antaeus class. It's one of the reasons the campaign's going to require multidocking.

I had to do subobject fixes (turret barrels) to it after you gave it to me, by the way.

Thank God you changed the name. Only one or two spelling errors and...

[Mad Bomber]

It's an inside joke. The original name was Peleus -- you've seen the bland original. Raa redid it, so it looks quite good now.

Unfortunately, it's still a bit phallic, so...

[NGTM-1R]

Eh...e-mail me the files again, if you can. I think I've hammered out the FRED problems...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Mongoose
As for the scripting, I never noticed any errors with it; then again, I never tried taking out any Orions in the second-to-last mission, and I don't think you're really expected to do it.

I didn't blow up the radar dish or something because I couldn't remember what I was doing.... IIRC you had to blow the dish, then blow up something else that made the bad guy do a runner in an escape pod.  Except I did it in the wrong oder, and I wasn't sure what to do next, so I decided to blow up the 2 destroyers.

Anyways, that's the number 1 problem with missions, isn't it?  People only design them to be played in the one way.......

[karajorma]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Anyways, that's the number 1 problem with missions, isn't it?  People only design them to be played in the one way.......

Not me! I tend to put in all kinds of easter eggs, bonuses and the like.

In general though it is true. People don't (or often can't) think of all the stupid things someone might decide to do in their missions. Making a mission complicated like I do actually means that there are more ways to break one of my missions. It's just that they should hopefully be harder to find cause I hope I've anticipated the major ones and made them into other ways to play the same mission

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Anyways, that's the number 1 problem with missions, isn't it?  People only design them to be played in the one way.......

I'm no FREDer myself, but I'd say that, as for myself, I'd work with the general assumption that the player will, or at least should, do as they are told.  Using that mission as an example, if you're told to destroy a certain radar dish, I would expect the player to do so, not to attempt to take out an Orion. I don't think a FREDer should be responsible for covering every single possible permutation of events within the mission.  Obviously, if it's something that could occur during the normal course of the mission, it should be addressed, but if there is an error resulting from the player doing something out of the ordinary or different from what they are ordered to do, I'd say that's the player's problem, not the mission designer's.  At least in my opinion, most normal missions really should be played in only one way, simply due to the fact that you're a fighter pilot who's supposed to follow orders.  Command won't be too happy if you try to play the hero.

[karajorma]

Speaking as someone who is a FREDder I'd feel intensly embarrased if one of my missions broke from something so easily forseeable.

It's very easy to miss a message while playing (especially without voice acting) and it smacks of poor mission design to me to have a mission breakable because the player didn't know what he was supposed to be doing.

If you're saying that a player is supposed to follow orders then doesn't it seem likely that command would start screaming at him the second he started disobeying them?

Anyway we're getting somewhat off topic so if people still want to discuss this I'll split the mission design part off into another thread.

[Mongoose]

I'll agree with you about missing one message, but that particular objective was outlined in the mission briefing, I believe.  Anyways, I'll follow suit and stop spamming up this thread.