[IPAndrews]

There are people out there who know how to use FRED to create missions and campaigns.  Some people are very good at it. The trouble is that those people don't always have the creative brains that come up with fantastic campaign ideas. So this is a thread for you to share your own campaign idea, of mission idea, or multiplayer mission idea. So that hopefully some some bored mission designer (maybe me or karajorma?) will pick it up and run with it.

You might want to post an overview of your campaign and then spoiler tag the details for people who want to know more. Flesh your ideas out as much as possible. Lists of missions complete with names and a script of what should occur in the mission will maximise the chance of your mission being made. I would imagine.

Try to remember the usual rules of campaign design. People and factions need to have motivations for doing things. A and B have a big f**k off war for no apparent reason does not make a good campaign. On the other hand keep missions simple like Drums of War. Don't over script like Raider Wars. Those are my tips. If you've got your own tips feel free to share those here too.

Now let's see some ideas.

[akenbosch]

you play as a young centauri recruit fighting the narn

you are alpha 1, in a JAD style campaing (human: gakakar? wak gar? g'kar: G'KAR!)

you fight for the shadows, fighting the orlons and all the young races.

you are a vorlon pilot fighting against the shadows (buggy VF fighter may hold this back, and the lack of a VF lightning#player)

you are in charge of a whitestar, and go on various assault misions

the earth minbari war, except from the minbari perspective

any war from the opposite perspective

[0rph3u5]

the earth minbari war, except from the minbari perspective

I've got that one my to-do-list (I've to concept a lot around at this 'cause there is little cannon info on the Minbari Warrior Caste)
rule that out


now a short list of my campaigns for TBP (so no one takes my ideas  ):
WIP = work-in-progress
CIP = concept-in-progress

Awakening of the Beast
(WIP - status 50% - there had been seetbacks recently)
Basicly I brough the story of Homeworld: Cataclysm to TBP -- but with a lot of changes and tweaks

Drums of War 3
(WIP - status 10% - done a lot of .tbl tweaking, got to test that before starting further FREDing)
Conclusion of the "Drums of War"-triliogy 

The Black Hand Episodes 2-10
(CIP - status 100%)
The story of the PSI Corps between 2253 and 2261/62 told by two PSI Cops

The Vorlon Heritage
(CIP - status 90% - some factions are currently "just there")
An EFNI (EA intelligence) team is send to the former territory of the Vorlons after the Drakh had unleashed the plague upon Earth...

Chronicles of the Phantom Warriors
(CIP - status 10% - lacking conclusive evidence of Minbari Warrior Caste)
Story of a single Minbari Warrior Clan - a Minbari road through important events of the B5 universe, starting with the Dilgar War and ending with the war against the Drakh

Sooo you see I've got Plans^(tm)... and I'll accomplish them -- please don't ask questions on these story-lines now or I'm forced to  after answering - be assured that I'm doing my best to make these cool campaigns (apart from voice-acting)
Help is always welcome

[maje]

Well, a campaign idea that I have been playing around with is that you are a pilot assigned to the EAS Lewis & Clark, an Explorer-class vessel assigned to helping Earth find a cure for the Drakh plague.  Of course, this is simply the start, and I do plan to touch on a few issues that were present in the unfilmed Crusade scripts as well as a few missions with the Excaliber and Titans.

For a more detailed outline, read below (contains SPOILERS):

In actuality, the campaign begins just slightly prior to the massive battle against the Drakh-controlled Shadow planet-killer.  Stationed aboard the EAS Lewis & Clark, you assist in the construction of new jumpgates and their maintenance near the Rim of Known Space.  The first mission will probably be something simple such as clearing away a debris field so repairs can be made to a damaged gate, and another mission might involve a training exercise or two (hey, this is a ship suited for deep space exploration, not combat).  The last intro mission should end with an emergency signal calling for reinforcements as Earth is under attack from a major alien fleet.

By the end of the 'intro' missions, you receive a command briefing giving you the heads up that Earth has had an incursion made into EA space by an alien race called the 'Drakh'.  Currently, your vessel is enroute to Earth along with all other long range probe and deep space ships.  This mission will probably be a hyperspace-based mission where you must ensure that the Lewis & Clark make it to Earth as there are reports of various Drakh vessels fleeing the battle.

New command briefing from EA command briefs you on the overall situation regarding the plague.  Your task as well as that of other vessels including the IAS Excaliber and EAS Cortez, is to scour the galaxy in search of a cure.  The first mission is to head to where it is speculated the Shadow cloud was found to gather any clues as to where the virus was manufactured.  Unfortunately, this leads to the remnants of a world designated K0643, a former archaeological survey under the Centauri Republic.  As relations with the Centauri since the war of 2262 have soured, the EA must sneak in-system to find as much information as possible.

The next mission will deals with a mission in where you must intercept a merchant ship whose crew may know the whereabouts of a cure or may have other useful information.  This ship must be protected from Raiders at all costs.  Following up on that mission, you must pursue Raider forces and track them to their base of operations.  Information is needed badly about who the Raiders are working for.

as for summarizing some of the other story ideas of this campaign, the motive for the Raiders of course is money, however they've been commissioned as "bounty hunters", or more accurately, as assassins for hire to find and eliminate sources attempting to sell off information regarding the Drakh Plague.  After a few missions have been flown gathering info about these Raiders, their employers have them terminated because the EAS Lewis & Clark are getting too close to certain truths.

Having the trail with the raiders gone cold, your ship follows up on another lead, this time a rendezvous with an Alpha-class (Midwinter variant) Heavy Cruiser.  The investigation of an abandoned League base turns up some new information regarding the Drakh plague.  While retrieving the information, the Drakh mount an attack that destroys the Heavy Cruiser and severely damages several subsystems including communications.  The only hope is to make it into ISA-held space.  The chase will end with the Drakh being confronted by the Rangers' White Star fleet and subsequently neutralized.  Down and out for repairs, you are temporarily transferred over to a small task force consisting of several EA ships headed back to secure the abandoned League base.  Having located several key Drakh vessels at the facility, you are ordered to disable whatever Drakh vessels you can to gain more information about them.  Enroute to a secret Drakh supply depot, you have a dream that you are in Earth orbit, and are fighting Omega-X Destroyers (this is to hint at the EA Black OPs experiments with the Shadow hybrid and such).  When you arrive at the supply site, you've secured the area of remote sentry guns, a Warlock-class Destroyer comes in and by executive order is to seize the cargo.  Though there is some dispute over the matter, the cargo is transferred......which leads to the Warlock going berserk.  Acting with a mind of its own, the ship begins shooting at allied ships.  Unable to stop the crazed vessel, the captain grabs charges and detonates the ship, with its cargo onboard. (It should be later noted that the reason the ship went berserk is because it's computer systems have hidden Shadow programming and once coming into close proximity of other Shadow technology, the ship becomes "alive" and goes nuts *This was inferenced in one of JMS's short stories that dealt with Ivanova's ship, the Titans.

Following this incident, all Warlocks are recalled to be "debugged" and will not be in active service until a remedy has been made to counter the Shadow tech.

. 

More to follow later on. 

[karajorma]

Currently in "brainstorming" and "learning how to fred" stage. If sb who already posses fredding skills wants to help ( pppplllllzzzzzzzz , Fred gives me the creeps ), contact me.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,28122.0.html

Check Campaign 5. I'm still more than willing to take people on. But only sign up if you're serious about actually learning. FRED isn't that hard to learn but I do expect a commitment to try to learn rather than a promise to do a mission and then never being heard from again.

So that hopefully some some bored mission designer (maybe me or karajorma?) will pick it up and run with it.

If anyone posts an idea for a multiplayer Coop or TvT mission I like there's a very good chance I'll give it a try.

[akenbosch]

Raider wars coop 

[NGTM-1R]

Not so much an idea, as a point; to date very few of the campaigns released for TBP have had a really "military" feel. This is excuseable for some; The Black Hand comes to mind, PsiCorps isn't going to feel military. But Raider Wars could have done with a bit more "You're in the EarthForce now." touches.

Specific ideas?

Enlightenment; EA vs. Shadows, challenging to balance but would make for a good campaign, particularly as you can play the Shadows for cinematic effect rather than them needing to make some kind of tactical or strategic sense.

[maje]

Well, TBH, Earthforce really has only been involved with what, the Dilgar War, Earth-Minbari War, Earth Civil War, and the Drakh War.

I'm not sure if they were actively engaged in the ISA-Centauri War asides from that one Centauri cruiser that tried to blow the Epsilon 3 jumpgate, and as far as I know, Earth was left alone by the Shadows and Vorlons during thier conflict, and sat on the sidelines with everyone else while the Narn and Centauri blasted themselves.

If doing a proper 'military' campaign, it's going to have to be during a war since people can only take so much of shooting Raiders or the occasional rogue space ship.  With the Dilgar War, you're hampering yourself because there are like TWO Dilgar ships, a cruiser and a fighter.  EM War has been done, and Earth Civil War is a little boring (for me anyways).  With the Drakh it's hard, because they launched a massive attack, and then just kind of disappeared an were only seen for two episodes of Crusade.

If you play as the Centauri, you could probably make just about anyone your enemy save the Shadows, and Minbari (I would consider that judging by the wreckage of ships in orbit of Centauri Prime during Into the Fire, they tried to fend of the Vorlon planet killer).

[hip63]

Mercenaries for Hire,  works the highest bidder, if business is a little slow, work the other side, you get to fight everybody at one point or another. 

hip63

[0rph3u5]

aside from that thing with the arrival cues, I think I got it.

what is worng with the arrival cues?

[Vidmaster]

got those working now and first mission is completly scripted and is exicting, yeah.
Just those directives are totally messed up. Because this seems to get offtopic, would you mind if I post my questions in the fredac forum although I am not working on a academy campaign ?

[akenbosch]

a campaing where you played as the drakh or shadows would be impossible to balance...shadows are too manueverable, and the drakh ships hardly manuever.

[karajorma]

Because this seems to get offtopic, would you mind if I post my questions in the fredac forum although I am not working on a academy campaign ?

The FRED Academy sub-forum is limited to questions about FA missions. The FRED Forum is for anyone with a question about FREDding.

[IPAndrews]

Somebody give Kara some good single mission ideas. I have broadband now and want to play online. 

[0rph3u5]

maybe he can make something from this one...
it is a single mission I've started ages ago but never finished (debriefing is missing and since I put the dilgar fighters in it is territibly unbalanced)

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Vidmaster]

why dont you hop into two shadow fighters and try if you can destroy a whole EA armada with only 3 respawns ?
I mean a HUGE armada, no complex events, just mayhem with 5 EA destroyers and some cruisers very close to one another, launching swarms of furies 

[karajorma]

maybe he can make something from this one...
it is a single mission I've started ages ago but never finished (debriefing is missing and since I put the dilgar fighters in it is territibly unbalanced)

I'll take a look at it.

[Vidmaster]

for karajorma:

Multiplayer (dont know if that ideas are fredable)
- deathmatch in a small fleet of EA Omegas. To add a twist to it, lets say the omegas have only X-Rays an fire their beams on any fighter, but the beams dont make damage, just push you around. No missiles !

- Fortress Defense: On the moon landscape, one team has to defend the raider base for 5 minutes, the second has to destroy it. The attacking team has more (unlimited ?) respawns

- we have got a (vertical) square of GODs in the middle of the map and on a straight line (90 degrees) through the middle of that square two EA cruisers, one on each side of the square, with more hitpoints then normal. Both teams have unlimited respawns and start always near their cruiser. Your goal is to conquer the GODs, which then start to fire on the enemy cruiser. To conquer a GOD, you have to fire a shot at one when no enemy fighter is in a range of for example 1500.

- again, the "YOU ARE A SMALL WING OF  SHADOW FIGHTERS AND TRY TO DESTORY HUGE ARMADA" cooperative multi mission. NO RESPAWNS !

like any of these, karajorma ? 

[karajorma]

The one with the GOD satellites sounds interesting. Unfortunately it's completely unFREDdable at the moment as there is no way to determine who has damaged a ship. I've got some plans on how to change that though.


What I'm really looking for at the moment though is something with more plot and less of a gimmick. TvT or Coop (I can do deathmatch standing on my head).

[0rph3u5]

Another idea for multi-mission (both based on never realized mission ideas):
Siege of Orion 7 (TvT)
Background: The colony of Orion 7 sectioned from the Earth Alliance after the bombing of Mars colonies.
Team 1 are the Clarck's forces who have to stop all ships leaving Orion 7 Station and/or the colonies orbit for the jump gate.
Team 2 are the colony's defense forces which have to drive of Clarck's forces and allow ships to escape

Prison Break (Coop)
Background: Narn/League prisoners are fleeing from a Centauri prison (Mercanos Station).
Those in fighters have to guard those in shuttles so they will get away through the local Jump Gate.