[Woolie Wool]

Beta testing is CLOSED as the demo has now been released. Check the release thread here for the download. A big thank you to everyone who beta tested and helped me polish the demo for release!

The four-mission demo to my Twist of Fate campaign is essentially finished, but I need some testers to try the demo out and check for bugs and make sure the missions are balanced enough. I'll send the download link to the demo beta to you if you PM me offering to test. You'll need the following to run the demo:

Relatively recent stable branch or HEAD build. Summer 2007 or later should be good.
The new 3_6_10 mediavps (if you don't have them, they're on the FreeSpace Upgrade forum). Twist of Fate will not work properly with the 3_6_8 Zeta mediavps
FSPort 3.0.4 with h-res, music, glow, and shine vps (all available here. Basically download all the optional enhancements if you want to be safe. Make sure your FSPort mod directory is named "fsport".

What is Twist of Fate?
Twist of Fate is based on a sort of alternate history for the FS universe. In this history, the Ancients defeated the SD Lucifer 8,000 years ago, and, ultimately, defeated the Shivans themselves. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're not an Ancient, because these guys were Bad News), the Knossos portal was heavily damaged during the war, cutting them off completely from what is now Terran-Vasudan space. Rather than build another Knossos, the Ancients chose to expand their empire elsewhere.

Now it is spring 2335, and the Terran-Vasudan War shows no signs of stopping. There are no Shivans to bring them together. and it seems that the war will continue to its gruesome conclusion. You are a pilot on the GTD Powell, an old Hestia-class destroyer dating to the 2290. The Powell has been deployed to Beta Aquilae after the Vasudans drove the GTA out of Antares. It's going to be a long war, pilot. A very long war.

Included in this demo
All the Terran and Vasudan technology from early to mid 2335, including many ships and weapons not seen in FS1, such as the Thor heavy assault fighter and Cobra aspect-seeking missile.
Full use of SCP features, above and beyond that of FSPort.
Four intense missions
More Zods than you can shake an ML-16 at
No shields (muahahahahahahahaha)

Current testers
Marduk
Koth
Tinman
andicirk

Credits
The FSPort team for creating FSPort
The TVWP team for models, textures, sounds, effects, and minor HUD elements
The Babylon Project team for effects, sounds, and missile models
Woomeister for models, sounds, and textures
Galemp for HTL Apollo
Herra Tohtori for GTF Valkyrie textures
Turambar for textures and effects
Aldo_14 for models and textures
TrashMan for models and textures
Sesquipedalian for the PVCa Udjat model
Nuke for interface art and effects
Lightspeed for really old mediavps thruster effects
StratComm for model conversion of GTB Diana

Screenshots

[Koth]

Well, the general story idea sure sounds interesting and as I'm on holiday this week I have all the time of the world to thouroughly beta test it.
Sign me up please!

[Woolie Wool]

Well, the general story idea sure sounds interesting and as I'm on holiday this week I have all the time of the world to thouroughly beta test it.
Sign me up please!

PM sent. Thanks.

[Tinman]

First mission done. Very nice.

Spoiler:

I kind of Wing Commander style mission design.   

Where is discussion about the demo planned? PM? 

[Woolie Wool]

The thread.

[Marduk]

Played mission 1 a couple times through (and more than a few times half way through...) so:

Spoiler:

I reaaaally hate autopilot, but since that seems to be a personal problem, I wont complain about it any further, except to ask if you can prevent the friendly AI from calling in support ships while in autopilot, since its going to cause someone to have a seizure.

Anyway, my thoughts/things you might want to fix from start to finish:

A couple wordsrunningtogether in the CB.

The vasudan fighters at each nav are target-able from the previous point... even though they're 70+ km away, same for the cruiser at the end.

the 'vasudan fighters detected' message near nav 1 plays for me before autopilot time compression disengages, so it flickers by really quickly. Maybe move the fighters a km further away?

And the phalanx doesn't drain energy reserves, and I didn't see a ballistic counter for it either. (plus the hit sound is a little grating)

At nav 2, two of the vasudan fighters don't move until fired upon. was this intentional?

Also: the cargo at nav 2 has nothing in it when scanned. Though i can't say I made sure that I scanned them all.

Is it intentional that the player can order the Thors and Apollos to come with? because for a rookie on his first mission, that doesnt make much sense to me. And bringing them makes the mission very easy.

And a final personal preference: the path from nav 2 to 3 goes towards the sun, glare and all. Not a problem, I just hate how, for all the technology of the future, they haven't figured out how to make really good tinted windows for space ships.

All in all, a lot of fun, and a lot harder than I was expecting (played on medium), but not frustratingly hard. A little too hard for a first mission, however, in my opinion.

Mission 2 and on will have to wait until my wife finishes her homework, since my laptop cant take all the polys once the fighting gets started.

[Woolie Wool]

And the phalanx doesn't drain energy reserves, and I didn't see a ballistic counter for it either. (plus the hit sound is a little grating)

The Phalanx drains energy reserves really slowly, like the ML-16. It doesn't use ammo, but neither does the Maxim or Avenger.

At nav 2, two of the vasudan fighters don't move until fired upon. was this intentional?

They power up and attack when you close to within 800 meters, I think.

Is it intentional that the player can order the Thors and Apollos to come with? because for a rookie on his first mission, that doesnt make much sense to me. And bringing them makes the mission very easy.

Uh, I should check player orders for them. They're supposed to escort the Powell and not obey you.

OK, I'm going to have to suggest that you use a recent stable branch build instead of 3.6.9. I forgot that 3.6.9 doesn't support autopilot cinematics, which can do weird things with the mission as it wasn't meant to be played with time compression. The enemies should not be targetable until you autopilot to the nav points as radar-set-max-range limits your sensor range to around 20 klicks.

Well, that's a couple bugs caught already. Thanks, guys.

[Marduk]

They power up and attack when you close to within 800 meters, I think.

so they do. I had been hitting them with missiles so I hadn't noticed exactly.

OK, I'm going to have to suggest that you use a recent stable branch build instead of 3.6.9. I forgot that 3.6.9 doesn't support autopilot cinematics, which can do weird things with the mission as it wasn't meant to be played with time compression. The enemies should not be targetable until you autopilot to the nav points as radar-set-max-range limits your sensor range to around 20 klicks.

fixed on both counts.

mission 2:
maybe spread out the arrival of alpha wing 20 meters or so, since I was hit every time at the start of the mission by my wing men.

Also, the gunship seems to jump in in range no matter what, so I couldn't complete all secondary objectives no matter what I tried. And the bombers take way too long to come in, so I had to knock out the gun myself.

And speaking of the bombers... wouldn't Atlas' be a bit overkill? Athena's or Peregrines would be a lot better suited to the asteroid field, in my opinion. And less vulnerable to the fighters.

Plus, there's a whole lot of Seth's here. Not too many to fight, but a few too many for what they're attacking, imo.

Miss 3:

-Objective 1 completed on arrival.

-when the thoths arrive, Command says something like "never seen anything like them..." shouldnt that be the cruiser/ a pilot?

-also, using the Thor makes it pretty impossible to reach the cruiser.

and not jumping out as directed after the mission 'fails' but staying and killing the vasudans goes into the red-alert scenario. Was that supposed to happen?

Mission 4:

Apart from being painfully difficult, mission 4 is a lot of fun. Only thing I noticed was that the pilot heads displayed were that of command/ship captain, not a fighter pilot for the first couple dialogs.

Great stuff all in all. Cant wait for more.

[Woolie Wool]

Also, the gunship seems to jump in in range no matter what, so I couldn't complete all secondary objectives no matter what I tried. And the bombers take way too long to come in, so I had to knock out the gun myself.

I have beaten it with all secondary objectives complete before on multiple occasions. Keep in mind that they are secondary objectives and you can pass without them.

And speaking of the bombers... wouldn't Atlas' be a bit overkill? Athena's or Peregrines would be a lot better suited to the asteroid field, in my opinion. And less vulnerable to the fighters.

Well, I had reasoned that the GTA was expecting anything, and would have the big bombers ready to go. Although Persephones or Dianas would probably have an easier time.

Plus, there's a whole lot of Seth's here. Not too many to fight, but a few too many for what they're attacking, imo.

Does your version have two friendly wings? I thought it was insane with only Alpha wing, so I added another wing of Apollos.

-also, using the Thor makes it pretty impossible to reach the cruiser.

Solution, stick close to the cruiser and lure Zeta wing over to it until the trial is up.

and not jumping out as directed after the mission 'fails' but staying and killing the vasudans goes into the red-alert scenario. Was that supposed to happen?

No, a SEXP should check against that. I'll check FRED and see. I just fixed the instant-completing objective. It used the wrong logic (checking against a wing not being present) so I changed it.

Mission 4:

Apart from being painfully difficult, mission 4 is a lot of fun. Only thing I noticed was that the pilot heads displayed were that of command/ship captain, not a fighter pilot for the first couple dialogs.

It's not that hard. Order your wingmen to cover you once the

Spoiler:

Poindexter jumps out

and keep moving. Don't bother to make attack runs on the caps; you'll just get wasted by the turrets or swarmed by fighters. Also, there's a secret ending to mission 4. It requires a little imagination and you'll probably have to play mission 3 a certain way because it will be extremely difficult to do what is required to get the secret ending otherwise.

EDIT: The ship captain anis are for messages being sent by the GTC Scipio, not a fighter.

Great stuff all in all. Cant wait for more.

Thanks!

[Marduk]

as to the ship captain ani's, I could have sworn it said Alpha2/3 next to them. I'll see when I play through it next.

as to your solution to mission 3, I kind of feel thats cheating. Since the I wouldnt know when that strong of an attack was coming as the pilot. But it's easy enough to get through by switching for a valk or apollo in the loadout screen.

Does your version have two friendly wings? I thought it was insane with only Alpha wing, so I added another wing of Apollos.

They seemed to be getting taken down pretty quickly most of the time, since they like jousting with the seths if they're far enough away when the zods jump in.

also, in your screens above, I see you have cobras, but they werent in the loadout for me prior to any of the missions. Bug, or a different version?

[captain-custard]

ive got some free time , so if u need any one else to test id be happy to .....;. 

[Koth]

I have found two minor cosmetic errors namely the GTB Persephone and GTB Thor are missing some textures but I don't know if that might be a problem on my end. I think you should reduce the amount of enemy fighters in misson 2 a bit and change the arrival cue for Delta wing. As it is now most of the time they jump in when the is gunboat already destroyed. Ohh and something strange happend in mission 4. The Galatea just stopped firing its rail guns after a few salvos and was slowely worn down by the Udjat. I had to destroy her mayself to finish trhe mission.     

[Woolie Wool]

I have found two minor cosmetic errors namely the GTB Persephone and GTF Thor are missing some textures.     

Really? Which textures are missing? I see all the LOD textures in the data directory on my end.

The Galatea just stopped firing its rail guns after a few salvos and was slowely worn down by the Udjat. I had to destroy her mayself to finish trhe mission.     

That's incredibly weird. Could you try it again? It's possible this is just some weird freak thing. Also, did you give orders to all ships to ignore the Udjat carrier while the Galatea was in system? Maybe this is the same bug that causes the Colossus to stop firing when you give such an order in High Noon.

[Marduk]

I noticed the missing textures too but figured it was just me. anyway, the back center of the thor is missing (like a strip down from cockpit to engines) and the entire middle of the persephone is missing for me. All I see is cockpit and engines.

[Woolie Wool]

That's ****ed up.

Even when referencing nothing but the mediavps, they look fine to me.

EDIT: Found the missing textures, copied them over from the Twist of Fate full version dev directory. Why it references that directory even when I even when I replace it with my stock FSPort directory (FSPort2) in the mod.ini is beyond me. But that should be fixed for release.

[Tinman]

mission 1:

nothing new, everything already found by the other testers, but I cannot back up my wingman... i tried everything but he never survives at nav2 
the Vasudans attack him like hell and more or less ignore me

mission 2:

at the beginning almost every time my wingmates crash into my fighter or vice versa
i cannot command Alpha wing, is this ok?
the bombers are always to late, i have to destroy the gunboat myself (or the miner is down)

IMHO a "save zone" is larger then 10.000 meters, i suggest to put the nav 100.000 klicks out, cos the Powell jumps in 5000 klicks
out of the battlefield. That is a 6000 klicks jump. then the Vasudans retreat.
That is not logical to me. If the Powell and reinforcements are only minutes away from the Vasudans before the jump.   

[Woolie Wool]

nothing new, everything already found by the other testers, but I cannot back up my wingman... i tried everything but he never survives at nav2 
the Vasudans attack him like hell and more or less ignore me

I'm trying to come up with a solution for this that doesn't involve making him completely invulnerable, but ship-guardian seems really bujggy in recent builds.

i cannot command Alpha wing, is this ok?

You do not have command authority in mission 2, as you are not Alpha 1.

the bombers are always to late, i have to destroy the gunboat myself (or the miner is down)

Command tells you to kill the railgun turret. Your ship is equipped with disruptors by default. If you fail the mission, the recommendations tell you to shoot out the turret with your disruptors. Just knock the turret out and go back to chasing fighters.

IMHO a "save zone" is larger then 10.000 meters, i suggest to put the nav 100.000 klicks out, cos the Powell jumps in 5000 klicks
out of the battlefield. That is a 6000 klicks jump. then the Vasudans retreat.
That is not logical to me. If the Powell and reinforcements are only minutes away from the Vasudans before the jump.

Note that the Powell is nowhere to be seen at the beginning of the mission. The player jumped away from the Powell, which is probably millions of kilometers away at the start of the mission. A destroyer can't drop what it's doing to go help Alpha wing escort a small convoy. If the place wasn't swarming with Vasudans, the Powell would have never shown up and you would have to jump back to base.

[Tinman]

i cannot command Alpha wing, is this ok?

You do not have command authority in mission 2, as you are not Alpha 1.

But i have command authority over Beta wing?

the bombers are always to late, i have to destroy the gunboat myself (or the miner is down)

Command tells you to kill the railgun turret. Your ship is equipped with disruptors by default. If you fail the mission, the recommendations tell you to shoot out the turret with your disruptors. Just knock the turret out and go back to chasing fighters.

But if I'm on the way to the little ship - i bring it to the end 

IMHO a "save zone" is larger then 10.000 meters, i suggest to put the nav 100.000 klicks out, cos the Powell jumps in 5000 klicks
out of the battlefield. That is a 6000 klicks jump. then the Vasudans retreat.
That is not logical to me. If the Powell and reinforcements are only minutes away from the Vasudans before the jump.

Note that the Powell is nowhere to be seen at the beginning of the mission. The player jumped away from the Powell, which is probably millions of kilometers away at the start of the mission. A destroyer can't drop what it's doing to go help Alpha wing escort a small convoy. If the place wasn't swarming with Vasudans, the Powell would have never shown up and you would have to jump back to base.

Sure, but it is not clear for the player. Maybe think about to change the mission to
- player takes off at the Powell
- Autopilot to rendezvous with the mining group
- travel to the asteroid field
- ...



mission 3 and 4 - found nothing else at the first few test than the other testers

I like the mission design with autopilot cinematics.
In mission 4 there are a little to many hostile fighters in space for my taste. But the mission is a lot of fun.

Cant wait until the campaign is released and highlighted on HLP     

[Woolie Wool]

But i have command authority over Beta wing?

Whoops! *goes into FRED*

Sure, but it is not clear for the player. Maybe think about to change the mission to
- player takes off at the Powell
- Autopilot to rendezvous with the mining group
- travel to the asteroid field
- ...

The Powell would have to be so far away that you'd start outside the desertion radius and die.

In mission 4 there are a little to many hostile fighters in space for my taste. But the mission is a lot of fun.

Well, I kind of meant it to be a climactic mission to end the demo with a bang, so a pitched battle with tons of fighters seemed appropriate. It's not supposed to be easy, but I don't find it punishingly hard. And there certainly are fewer fighters than in, say, Apocalypse from FS2 or Last Hope from FS1.

Cant wait until the campaign is released and highlighted on HLP     

Thanks for the compliment!

[NGTM-1R]

If you need another tester, and don't mind the possiblity of a BFRed critique...