[Lone Knight]

Hey everyone, you know how in FRED missions you can only have a certain amount of ships until the mission goes haywire?

I think it's 64 ships total(?). Anyway, anyone here know if anyone has ever changed it so that you could have MASSIVE space battle with perhaps hundreds of fighters?

Just wanted to know.....if not, can it be done?

[Singh]

Ah, the old Battle Of Endor syndrome.



In a nutshell: no.


Several reasons are present for this:

1.      BoE missions are generally heavily system-dependant, and seeing over 10 capships in a single go slows things to a crawl. Add to this the hi-poly models and other stuff currently being used, and you have a recipe for a CTD.

2.     After a certain subsystem limit, the game stops calculating collisions; hence weapons will stop firing and will tend to go through ships while doing no damage.

3.     The engine is simply not built for such a large number of craft. It will tend to CTD above a certain limit, depending on one's system.

4.     BoE games rarely are fun. Although there are a few that get the combination right, few usually do.

[Lone Knight]

*sigh

[Dark RevenantX]

I made a test BoE mission 15vs15+1 capship thing.  I had every single detail up, and my computer was rendering every single poly.  Add that with AA and AF, and it was STILL running well!  You seriously underestimate the power of Freespace.

Also, the best way to do a BoE mission is have a bunch of capships, and assign a few waves for the cruisers and corvettes so that the action is prolonged without the loss of performance.  Also, only 6 fighter wings would be needed.  Since you would usually be around those fighters, 24 fighters around you is enough.  Besides, you could just set the wave count to be high, and have the fighters get launched from near their destroyers, without a warp-in effect.  When done right, you have great performance in a very large battle.  Setting a high inaccuracy rate for the powerful weapons of the capships is a great way to prolong battles, too.  To make the users go into dogfights without dying every time, wingmen with a powerful AI and a lowish wave count, versus enemy fighters with a crappy AI and a high wave count is a fun way to keep the player alive and busy.

I'l shut up now.

[Lone Knight]

I still think that there'd be laggage....

I'm gonna try what you did.  Okay, quick questions.  How do you set the guns on cap ships to be very inaccurate?

[WMCoolmon]

I have never, ever, ever seen a BoE mission in Freespace 2. I'm convinced that there were 1 or 2 infamous examples in the very beginning of the FS community (maybe in FS1), that scared everybody else away from them.

In fact, I'd love to see someone give a shot at making a well-designed one if for no other reason than to add variety to the rather-cliche`d set of mission types. (Yay, another escort mission)

Also, you can actually give the player stuff to do that'll turn the tide of such a battle. (SEXP in some effects of blowing up capship subsystems, and decrease the damage of cap-killa weapons to keep things going on longer)

[Dark RevenantX]

Edit the tables.  It has been forever since I had done it, so don't come to me for a tutorial.  If you get to the right table, most of it should be self-explanatory.

[Unknown Target]

Practically the whole point of spaceship fights are the BoE missions. The community could indeed benefit from a few well-made ones, imho.

[NGTM-1R]

*coughhackcough*

Somewhat modest for the title of BoE, but oh well...

[Mongoose]

Considering the Battle of Endor was my favorite sci-fi space battle of all time, I'm always curious as to why its name is used as an insult. If the Star Wars mod could pull off the actual Battle of Endor, I think it would go over amazingly well.

[Goober5000]

Battle of Endor Syndrome

Keep in mind that this was written over 6 years ago and geared toward FS1 missions.  Some stuff has changed since then... e.g. FS2 has beams and modern computers can handle more ships.  Some stuff has not... e.g. balance and design.

A good BOE mission is not impossible, just very difficult.

[Jonathan_S47]

Would it be possible to create a “fake” BoE mission through background images?

Basically what I am thinking of is a mission that has the “feel” of being a massive battle but only a few ships are really in the mission the rest are just background images. Would this work or, would this look bad/ cause problems?

[Goober5000]

It would work, but it kind of bypasses the original point.

[Lone Knight]

Okay, then, guys. I'll try to make a BOE Freespace 2 mission as best I can....as a matter of fact, I'll make it kick a$$ with audio voices, briefings, plot, the whole nine yards.  For everything to look awesome and work smoothly, it'll take me some time, but when I finish I'll submit it here!

How 'bout that!?

[Setekh]

Well, it certainly can't hurt to try. Just be ready to put in a lot of hard work to balance it well and make it an enjoyable mission to play.

[Lone Knight]

Hmm...well, you guys have really got me thinkin'!  I've decided not only to make a single mission but a whole (small) campaign that will place you as a fighter pilot stationed in Capella during the whole crisis.  Your missions will include the evacuation of the Capella planet(s).  Anyone know how many colonized planets there are in Capella at this time?

It will be a series of missions, and I hope to have at least two BOE stlye missions that work.

I'd like to have actual audio voices for it, so if anyone knows someone who does that, or who wants to help me with the voices, feel free to leave a post here or to email me at

[email protected]

if you know anyone who does voices, etc inform them of this.

[Ghost]

I'm sure you can taste the spam already.

[freespace2pilot]

i made a lucy vs 75 bones on my old, now deceased comp - no lag at all

[Dark RevenantX]

How about a battle taking place inside the cage of one of the Sathani?  Another Sathanas could be pointed at your battle, shooting at anyone that leaves the saftey of the cage.  The only thing holding you back from death is the fact that the Sathanas doesn't want to miss in its beam attack, therefore hitting the other Sathanas.  I bet you could stick a couple corvettes, a few cruisers, and about 5 fighter wings in that Sathanas cage.

[RED DIAMOND]

I have always loved BOE missions since back in the 90's with the first X-Wing. Computers know can handle quite large battles ala Infryno mission 14?

I actually have set one up in a mission I made to test my new ships and weapons in Infryno for the Sons of Nubia mod. WOWIE! SO MUCH more fun than ever before. Yes balance can be an issue, but that just mission design.

Actually I remember an old X-wing mission where a big battle is going on about 5 clicks from where you jump in and you have to chase down some TIE Bombers before they get to kill the involved corvette.

Missions that have lots of ships can still have player specific goals
that make it more than just kill everyone and then jump out.

A friend of mine made an old mini campaign a while back that was about as realistic as they come(He is military). One of the things I liked was you were stationed on one cap ship and you ran operations that led to these BOE type missions with attainable goals. Most battles ended in the loser retreating realistically and not just getting killed every time.

After playing the campaign a few times I realized he set it up so that the players and ai would have a certain amount of time to complete their mission, if they did not do it in that varied time limit, the next mission would branch according to the results. When I finally looked at the campaign file in fred I was suprised he had branches for just about every mission. It was the coolest. To bad that HD fried and I lost touch with him