[Mobius]

I never post missions for help or demo releases,but this time I need help.
This mission is the third of my campaign.I made it a some time ago,but three or four days ago I reopened it and added many things.
Before attack the Shivans in Betelgeuse,Allied forces must resupply at the Station.I made this mission for this purpose,trying to represent a Station in full activity.First there where only a few warships and messages,but then I added many other features,like the background and the ganymede. I played it but crashed(during the Shivan attack)today I fixed a tiny problem regarding the Hygeia suited for warship repairing(they dock with a ship and move it at an high speed),but didn't added the Elysium to replace them.I had an idea,so I put many deactivated fighters and bombers and the Hygeias working to repair them.I was going to put 3 Zephyrus returning back from gas mining operations,but I had this problem...

Ehm these problemS

"Ship Alpha 1 in wing should be called Delta 3" or similar
"Wing damaged bombers doesn't appear in objects editor" or something similar...

It already happened to me a month or two ago with another mission,but it worked.Now,seems that two entire wings(Damaged fighters and damaged bombers)are vanished!
I think this is important,ha hem there were more than 114 objects...

Do not play the missions without opening it with FRED and find thhe bug,if it crashes I'm not directly responsable...
What should I do to solve the problem?Either create another STHCRS_01_03 or eliminate,for example,some cargo units?


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[karajorma]

Going over 100 ships is a major mistake. FRED doesn't tend to handle that sort of thing too well.

The result is that a whole bunch of objects haven't been saved. I've trimmed off Delta and the damaged fighter/bomber wings so you should be able to open it in FRED again (with lots of errors) but basically you've tried to have too many ships in a mission and the result is that you've lost a whole bunch of them.

Now since this mission should have manifested itself with a crash as soon as you saved the mission the .bak file should still contain the last working copy of the mission.


Anyway here's a (slightly) fixed copy.

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[Mobius]

How'd I use the bak to fix this problem?
If I delete some cargo units,setting the number of objects down 100,the mission will work or the same errors will appear?

[karajorma]

If you remove objects until you have under 100 you'll be able to add more until you go over 100 again.

As for the .bak the only difference between a .bak and a .fs2 is the extention. Simply rename it. (as a matter of fact the same goes for all those backup.00x files that FRED autosaves.)

[Mobius]

But the bak could return the original mission3,without all the features I added....
However,is the mission good(=Am I a good FREDder?)

[karajorma]

I didn't look at the mission much in FRED let alone attempt to play it.

As for the .bak save it under a different name and see which one is worth saving.

[Mobius]

I fixed it,now all the messages are where they are supposed to be.
You deleted Alpha wing and Delta.Delta is needed for the next three missions.
Why you don't play it now and telle me how is it?It sin't complete(warships start moving with the transports still docked with them...)but it should work properly.

Uhm,there's this mission too,but this one needs only grammar checking....

Ha hem,about the first mission,I need another tester-grammarchecker....

This mission too needs grammarchecking(and fixing with the ai controlled player event...)

I'm going to post my entire campaign,but at least try to do something.

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[karajorma]

Sadly I had to make the decision a long time ago that I only playtest for the FRED Academy. Now's an especially bad time as two projects I've very involved with (FS2_Open 3.6.9 and BSG : Beyond the Red Line) are both getting very close to a release so all my time has to be spent on them.


I deleted delta wing because all objects beyond number 100 had already been deleted (or rather that they simply weren't saved). As a result you had a mission which had the stats for Delta wing but no ships to make it. Once you've reduced the number of objects in your mission you can add Delta wing back.

[Mobius]

Once you've reduced the number of objects in your mission you can add Delta wing back.

Done.The mission works.

You promise me that if I post these missions in the FRED academy you'll try to help me out?
However most of the mission except the 8th need only grammar checking.
Please download only the 8 and try to solve the problem with the AI controlled player event,I'll post the other missions in the main Ms and campaign forum...

[karajorma]

I promise I will help if you actually put your campaign aside for a few days and do one of the missions from the Academy.

[Mobius]

I promise I will help if you actually put your campaign aside for a few days and do one of the missions from the Academy.

But I'm not a FRED noob,I've been creating missions every day since this april-march!
Do you have at least enough time to PLAY them?

[karajorma]

Sadly no. I've got a list as long as my arm of campaigns I want to play and don't have the time for.

And the Academy isn't just for newbies. We can all stand to improve our FREDding and trying something new stretches you.

I've probably learned more about FRED in the past month than I have in the year before that because I've been working on multiplayer for BSG (An area of FREDding I've largely ignored till now). As such I'm forced to try new things. It's good to do that because when working on a campaign you often have large areas you never have to touch. Maybe you never have to make a subspace mission, or have a campaign with no Shivans etc. The skills you learn to deal with new challenges don't go away. You'll be surprised how often something you never needed before becomes something you use in every mission.

See the thing with the FRED Academy missions is that you can make them as simple or complex as you wish. The mission discriptions are simple but that doesn't mean the mission has to be. Even a simple mission can be made into a challenging FREDding experience and if you want a challenge I'm sure I could think of a few things you could try adding that would push you hard in terms of your FREDding ability even if you have been FREDding for a while. I know cause even with 5 years experience I push myself.

Now I'm not trying to be condescending or anything but I can tell that you still have a few areas of FRED that you probably don't grasp yet. For instance I can see that you're not using the when-argument or every-time-argument conditionals in your missions and are barely touching variables let alone string variables. (I can tell next to no one uses them cause I haven't yet heard anyone say that they're broken ). Now I can't say to you go use them in your own campaign and learn how they work cause you'll say "how" and not knowing your campaign I'll have no answer.

But I know the plot of the FRED Academy missions and I can say stuff like "Make the traitor in mission x a random member of Beta wing." and give you a problem that you can't solve easily, have to go away and think about and maybe even ask for help.  But when you do solve that problem and implement it in FRED you'll be a much better FREDder than you were before you started.

[Mobius]

When-argument and every-time-agrument are SEXPs i find not extremely useful.
About beta wing traitor etc . I think that generating a random number 1,2,3,4 and then put 4 events with is rand equal to 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 then chenge iff of beta1 or beta 2 etc. is enough...(maybe I didn't understand well...).

String variables?I don't know what a FREDder can do with string variables.
I use often variables, what have you seen are just 4 of almost 70 missions. You can't say what areas of FRED I do not "grasp".

Okay now I'm moving to the FRED Academy.That's a great hit for my Honour,however...
I thought I'll become a good FREDder all by myself,anyway...

[karajorma]

There's no reason you can't. I'm certainly not saying that you need to join or that you can't be a good FREDder without it. I'm simply saying that maybe doing an Academy mission would force you to try a few new things and get you some feedback on your missions. There are other ways you can learn the same skills. I simply wanted to show you that there are skills you can still learn and that you could learn them in Academy even though you aren't new to FRED.

Of course you could just check my FAQ's FRED2_Open and Cookbook sections. That would teach you how the stuff I mentioned works. I also used the same example of a random traitor and I think you'll find that my solution is somewhat more elegant than yours

[Mobius]

If you don't know it,I'm here thanks to your FAQ. I viewed it from school many months before I logged in.On the 10th May I set the mobile phone connection I'm using,and I entered HLP(that was also Sherman's birthday!!!).When I arrived here you helped me out every time(other members, like G********0 started kidding with me instead of give me a hand,despite from their role here).

My solution for the random traitor was Ok?

I'm working hard on Steadfast at this moment,if I find time I promise I'll visit the Academy.

[karajorma]

Before the when-argument SEXP came along I would have done something very similar.

Nowadays there's no way in hell I'd copy and paste the same event 4 times just to change the name of the ship affected unless I absolutely had to as the -argument SEXPs give me a much quicker and more easily maintained option.

[Goober5000]

(other members, like G********0 started kidding with me instead of give me a hand,despite from their role here)

You kept on making the same mistakes and didn't provide the information I asked for.  I got annoyed.

Karajorma simply has more patience than I.

[Mobius]

I'm not refering to my mistakes with FRED or how I installed MODs,but your behaviour in other situations....

Having patience?When you are an Administrator or Moderator your primary objective is to help noobs(ex-noobs in this case...).
Thanks to K. I made those interesting missions(they're not the best ones I ever made,they simply need grammar check... and one or two events fixed...).

[Goober5000]

I'm not refering to my mistakes with FRED or how I installed MODs,but your behaviour in other situations....

You'll have to provide a quote or a link to the thread then.  The only instance I can think of is when you first tried installing the SCP.

Having patience?When you are an Administrator or Moderator your primary objective is to help noobs(ex-noobs in this case...).

I'm happy to help newbies.  Except when they act immature.

[Mobius]

Immature?I...I....

I can't believe find some grammar checkers among the moderators was too difficult...