[WMCoolmon]

Used by who?

The Freespace wiki, among other things.

...

Dave Baranec is human just like the rest of us. Just because he coded for the engine does not make him God; what he says is not automatically universal truths. If he wants to offer his opinion as a professional game developer, he's more than welcome to do so.

Those canon failures are due to ensuring forced mission outcomes and advancing the rails of the story.

No, they aren't. Both missions could've addressed the questions without altering the outcome.

I'm pointing out deficiencies in your analytical style and argumentation skills, rather than an ad hominem

"I'm borrowing it for an indefinite period of time rather than stealing it", eh?

that you are an objectionable or ill-tempered person who takes personal slights too easily and thus can't make a correct argument.  You were the one who made a questionable argument about circumstantial evidence, which as any lawyer will tell you is a valid method of analytical reasoning.

Well, I don't think my temper is quite notable enough to make it into the wiki. As for lawyers, I'm not trying to demonstrate any particular method of reasoning; assuming that one thing happens because of another just because they happen at around the same time is wrong.

Good design would include (a) managing the defending forces so that neither side is overwhelmend and (b) creating plausible scenarios where both sides have reinforcements enroute, but waiting risks the other side having the overwhelming force.

Good design also recognizes that if you always come at things with the same set of design techniques, you'll always get similar things. If you are a monk in a Chinese monastery practicing martial arts, repeating things over and over may be the correct thing to do to master those techniques. If you're producing entertainment for a large audience, you can do the same things over and over, but you have to have obvious variation or the audience will get bored. Having groups of four ships jump in at a time in every campaign vastly stretches the realism of it all, no matter what you say.

Now YOU are making the ad hominem attack, by directly arguing that my argument is wrong because I'm advocating it...and well, I'm a bad person so anything I support can't be endorsed by the wiki.

You wouldn't have to summarize my argument if you weren't twisting it around like that. I didn't say you're a bad person. Your argument doesn't fall under the wiki's definition of canon, so it's not up for automatic inclusion. Your claims aren't objective facts that we can prove or disprove, although it's related to Freespace, so it doesn't merit inclusion on that basis, either. As such the only thing we can say is that it's either your opinion or the opinion of others - so it mostly falls under the same category as the "Veteran comments" in the wiki.

This set of guidelines has been established through discussion on this board over the last year or two.

While you might be a competent programmer, perhaps I should reveal that I'm a more than competent lawyer and debater.  Q.E.D.

Actually, that's kind of flattering. I would've expected a professional lawyer to have me soundly beaten by now, whether I was right or not. It's good to know that I can fare so well against someone who prides themselves on their debating skills.

[WMCoolmon]

Battle of Endor Mission
"Battle of Endor Mission" refers to a mission set in Freespace that uses a large number of ships or capital ships. The exact number of ships required for a mission to be classified as a "Battle of Endor mission" is vague. The term may occasionally be used to refer to missions with as few as two capital ships - this is usually limited to missions where the scope of the battle may be beyond the player's ability to influence, such as High Noon. More commonly, the term is used to refer to missions involving upwards of four capital ships at the same time. A mission involving upwards of sixteen fighters per side may also be referred to as a Battle of Endor mission.

As the term implies, the ships must be involved in some sort of conflict.

The term "Battle of Endor" itself comes from the fleet battle near the end of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, which involved dozens of capital ships and hundreds of fighters.

Criticism
Because of their size and scope, Battle of Endor missions tend to be relatively unforgiving of errors in design and may require significantly more care when compared to other types of missions. Certain missions may fall prone to becoming "spectator" missions, where the player is incapable of influencing the battle in any significant fashion.

Battle of Endor Syndrome
The bulk of criticism for Battle of Endor missions stems from an article (link) written on VolitionWatch during the early days of Freespace mission design. This article goes into great detail as to common problems of Battle of Endor missions of the time.

Technical Issues
Though more recent improvements have greatly improved the FS2_Open's ability to handle a large volume of ships, hardcoded limits on the number of ships in a mission still limit the number of ships in a mission. Performance considerations, such as a large number of high-resolution textures, may also limit the number of ships that can be placed in a Battle of Endor mission.

It is especially important for a FREDder to consider their audience and test their mission on low-end computers, or else significant numbers of players may be unable to play the mission without severe lag and be unable to complete the mission successfully. This is especially critical if the mission is a necessary part of a larger campaign.

Other difficulties may include the unpredictable nature of the Freespace AI, and the tendency for capital ships to concentrate on small threats, such as bombers and bombs. Missions may require an extensive amount of scripting to work around these difficulties, which can lead to missions becoming overly complex and difficult to test fully.

Support for BoE missions
Despite the additional difficulties inherent to designing a successful BoE mission, there remain a number of instances where Battle of Endor missions may be necessary or preferred. Large fleet actions may require a Battle of Endor mission to demonstrate this element of the plot. The deployment of a small number of ships may seem unrealistic against a grave threat, as when Command sends a relatively small number of fighters against the Sathanas in "Bearbaiting".

Other reasons may include spectacle, or replayability. Some FREDders and players believe that Battle of Endor missions give an epic feel which cannot easily be reproduced with other types of missions. Battle of Endor missions also offer a unique option for replayability, depending on how much freedom the player is allowed, as there are many choices of where he can direct his attention.

Noteworthy Examples
Freespace 1
Though a large number of capital ships appear in "Enter the Dragon", this mission is not considered a BoE mission as none of the capital ships are involved in combat. As such it does not suffer from the unpredictable nature of the Freespace AI, or slowdown due to a high degree of weapons fire. As such it is considered more of a scouting or stealth mission.

Freespace 2
The "Battle of Deneb" depicted in the Freespace 2 opening is one example of a Battle of Endor conflict. "High Noon" and "Their Finest Hour" are commonly referenced as canon BoE examples. "Bearbaiting", "The King's Gambit", and other node blockade missions may also be considered Battle of Endor missions due to the number of ships involved, but are not as commonly referenced as the mission style is significantly different from capital ship vs. capital ship style combat.

Derelict
The Derelict campaign features a number of Battle of Endor missions. Most notable is the penultimate mission that ends with the destruction of the SD Nyarlathotep. Although this mission involves seven critical capital ships, the player is able to play a large role in the conflict by disabling the beam cannons mounted on the Nyarlathotep and two Lilith-class cruisers. The entire mission hinges on the player's successful completion of these objectives.

Second Great War Part II
Among other things, SGWP2 uses a number of Battle of Endor missions. These missions often serve little benefit to the plot and stretch realism due to the multitude of Sathanas and Colossus class vessels.

The Babylon Project
Many of the latter missions of the original Babylon Project demo may be considered "Battle of Endor" missions, due to the sheer size and number of the capital ships involved.

FREDder recommendations
Stuff goes here.

[Zarathud]

Simply because if the resources are out there, and we know they are, why weren't they being used?

The insistence on big battles suggests a RTS approach to combat, where each side brings all of their ships into the same theatre.  Perhaps it is merely a coincedence that Alpha 1 "just happens" to be in these major engagements without the rest of the fleet.  

As noted above, it is implict in almost every mission in FS2 that you are not alone, and that there are other ships out there fighting as well, simply not on the same field as you. The Aquitaine is flagship of a whole fleet; the Psamtik flagship of a battlegroup. It's quite rare to see a capital vessel more than once, yet we do not change theaters of combat nearly as often as once a mission. Several times it is in fact stated that there were other ships in the area but that were not fighting in your battle.

Which doesn't preclude those ships engaging in other battles that are not part of the campaign, or unavailable to fight due to logistics or other tactical situations.  
 

There are other people, other fighter wings and other capital ships out there. If you want to try and say otherwise, that argument both directly assaults the canon and defies logical assumptions from it. It is by any possible standards invalid.

A discussion of the canon storyline digresses from the design used to create missions in FRED and begins to make a large number of assumptions about the order of battle in the FreeSpace universe.  If anything, the FreeSpace canon is limited engagements rather than massive ones where the entire fleet was deployed.

As for 's design philosophy, I care not a wit.

But 's design philosophy would be "canon" using WMCoolmon's definition.

Simplicity in what should be a serious engagement looks silly. Decisive actions are not single ship vs. single ship. Tsushima Straights, Midway, Leyte Gulf, the Nile, Trafalgar, these are decisive battles. FS1 successfully justified the nature of its campaign and ending with the unique and uniquely powerful Lucifer. Silent Threat tried, and failed, to follow this formula with the Hades. FS2 didn't even bother. Yet the mission design did not fully evolve to support this.

Interesting to use pre-modern naval engagements as the metric for decisive battles of futuristic space combat.  Is your argument that :V:'s general design in FS2 was silly?  We can debate the design of specific missions (as you clearly would prefer), but why would they necessarily be "better" or more "decisive" if more ships were involved.  IMO it would only compound any design flaws, rather than fix these issues.  I know BoE missions are used to apply to missions where the player is a spectator, but I think that in itself can be a separate design issue -- commonly appearing in BoE missions, but not its hallmark.

Why is it not better design to give yourself more options, if you make intelligent use of them? I've yet to see you explain that.

My question is whether it's an intelligent use to add so many ships just to make it "decisive" or to satisfy a personal desire for a "serious engagement."  Why couldn't the storyline or set up establish these plot elements?   Why is it intelligent use of FRED to fall within the trap of thinking bigger is better?

[Zarathud]

WMCoolmon - Whatever I may have said about your argumentation, that's a decent edit to the wiki entry.

I would suggest moving the Battle of Endor Syndrome section before the Criticisms and changing the "Support of BoE Missions" heading to "Support".  Other recommended changes in italics after the Battle of Endor Syndrome move:

Battle of Endor Syndrome
Criticism for Battle of Endor missions goes as far back as this article (link) written on VolitionWatch during the early days of Freespace mission design. This article goes into great detail as to common problems of Battle of Endor missions of the time.

Criticism
Because of their size and scope, Battle of Endor missions tend to be relatively unforgiving of errors in design and usually require significantly more care when compared to other types of missions. Certain missions may fall prone to becoming "spectator" missions, where the player is incapable of influencing the battle in any significant fashion.

Other common design criticisms of BoE missions include balancing issues, difficulties from unanticipated player and/or AI actions, control of the action being ceded to the AI, and inability to focus the player on in-game storytelling elements and events.  Some mission designers (including those at Volition) argue that BoE missions violate the principle that simpler design leads to better missions. 

Technical Issues
Volition programmers justified imposing hard coded limits on the engine and internal mission designers to address these quality control and playability issues, as well as potential technical issues.  Though more recent improvements have greatly improved the FS2_Open's ability to handle a large volume of ships, hardcoded limits on the number of ships in a mission still restrict the number of ships in a mission. Performance considerations, such as a large number of high-resolution textures, may also limit the number of ships that can be placed in a Battle of Endor mission.

It is especially important for a FREDder to consider their audience and test their mission on low-end computers, or else significant numbers of players may be unable to play the mission without severe lag and be unable to complete the mission successfully. This is especially critical if the mission is a necessary part of a larger campaign.

Other difficulties may include the unpredictable nature of the Freespace AI, and the tendency for capital ships to concentrate on small threats, such as bombers and bombs. Missions may require an extensive amount of scripting to work around these difficulties, which can lead to missions becoming overly complex and difficult to test fully.

Anticipating that the last sentence in Criticism and the first sentence in Design may be criticized as "unsupported opinions," the former merely acknowledges the fact of criticisms expressed over 10 years since the release of FS1 and the latter is factual.  In any event, it's no worse than the acknowledgment of the opinions in the supporting section.  I could live with this wiki entry.

Edit:  Crappy cut-pasting, so I edited a bit more since 10:05.

[WMCoolmon]

Even though it's minor and repetitive, I believe "limit" is a better term than "restrict". The ship limits are commonly referred to as such, and at present they're used because of technical limitations rather than an active attempt to restrict FREDders from having a certain number of ships there. "hardcoded limits on the number of ships in a mission still restrict the number of ships in a mission." => "hardcoded limits on the number of ships in a mission still exist."

"Volition programmers justified imposing hard coded limits on the engine and internal mission designers to address these quality control and playability issues, as well as potential technical issues. "

First of all, this doesn't belong in the technical issues category as it's really just a not-so-underhanded attempt to use the technical issues to support criticism of the theory. As such it belongs in the subjective "Criticism" category rather than the objective technical limitations category.

Second of all, it's a false statement. There are limits in the executable that have nothing to do with mission design quality.

Thirdly, it's an unsourced comment. If you have a memo to give context to this statement, then we'll talk.

"Some mission designers (including those at Volition) argue that BoE missions violate the principle that simpler design leads to better missions.  "

First, unsourced comment.

Second, it's unclear what this statement means. Do they "violate" the principle by disproving it, or do they "violate" the principle because the principle says that they shouldn't be good missions?

Battle of Endor syndrome belongs where it was because it's referring to an article which is part of the criticism of Battle of Endor missions.

"Other common design criticisms of BoE missions include balancing issues, difficulties from unanticipated player and/or AI actions, control of the action being ceded to the AI, and inability to focus the player on in-game storytelling elements and events."

Reword this so that it's written from an objective third-person view like the rest of the article and you're set.

[WMCoolmon]

Thought I would add in some good examples I came up with since my last post.

Bad: "Volition programmers justified imposing hard coded limits on the engine and internal mission designers to address these quality control and playability issues, as well as potential technical issues."
Good: "On a 1999 tour of the Volition officers, Dave Baranec (Lead programmer for Freespace 2) justified many of the hardcoded limits in the engine, saying that they addressed quality control, playability, and potential technical issues."

Bad: "Some mission designers (including those at Volition) argue that BoE missions violate the principle that simpler design leads to better missions.  "
Good: (adding on to the previous statement) "He also supported the principle that simpler design leads to better missions, a belief that many mission designers also subscribe to. Proponents of this philosophy believe that Battle of Endor missions can be simplified without removing critical storytelling elements."

Both of these changes would not only be much clearer, but also make your case much more strongly than the originals, at least if I were reading the article. I don't know if 1999 is right, so that needs to be fixed if it's wrong.

"Other common design criticisms of many BoE missions include balancing issues, difficulties from unanticipated player and/or AI actions, control of the action being ceded to the AI, and inability to focus the player on in-game storytelling elements and events."

This one I'm willing to buy with that many in there. Originally I thought this was meant to be a blanket statement and so was not correct, since we can point to BoE missions contradict this belief. The many in there makes this clear.

[Zarathud]

"Volition programmers justified imposing hard coded limits on the engine and internal mission designers to address these quality control and playability issues, as well as potential technical issues. "

First of all, this doesn't belong in the technical issues category as it's really just a not-so-underhanded attempt to use the technical issues to support criticism of the theory.

It's a transition, but I'm not going to argue when it's easier to move it to the earlier section.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that some limits in the FS engine remained due to these design concerns -- see this 1998 chat summary.  The intent to add flexibility and scalability didn't happen, and the explanation on my tour of Volition was that they were useful to keep the internal mission designers in check.  This wasn't intended to be an absolute statement, and my revision avoids the (overreaching) conclusion that it's false because some limits in the executable have nothing to do with mission design quality.  The proposed revision waters down things so they're meaningless and without the above context (as good as sourcing).

About the sourcing objections.  The attribution the editorial made to Jason Hoffoss was sufficient for wikipedia on the design issue, so what's the complaint?  Unfortunately, it's been almost 10 years since that tour of Volition's offices, the FreeSpace Developer's List is down and my personal archives don't go quite back that far (although I do still have e-mails with my submissions to the FS2 Mission Contest).  To make as specific an attribution as you are asking would be irresponsible so many years later.  Insisting on this as "good" or "necessary" is simply unrealistic, or at worst an underhanded attempt to reject additional content you disagree with by imposing a double standard.  What's above should be sufficient and it's more than what appears in the rest of the wiki section revisions.

A coding "limit" acts to restrict as well as limit, and I hate the redundancy.  By referring to a "limit" as the code itself, references to the "restriction" are the action resulting from the limit.  For the same reason, I'm changing the improvement's "improvement" to an increase in FS_Open's ability.  That ability is in handling a large ship "size" (rather than volume), and I'm removing the redundancy about number/number of ships.  If you're referring to number of ships, then it was even more redundant.

My revisions:

Criticism
Criticism for Battle of Endor missions goes as far back as this VolitionWatch article (link) written on the “Battle of Endor Syndrome” during the early days of Freespace mission design. This article goes into great detail as to common problems of Battle of Endor missions of the time.

Because of their size and scope, Battle of Endor missions tend to be relatively unforgiving of errors in design and usually require significantly more care when compared to other types of missions. Certain missions may fall prone to becoming "spectator" missions, where the player is incapable of influencing the battle in any significant fashion.

Other common design criticisms of BoE missions include balancing issues, difficulties from unanticipated player and/or AI actions, control of the action being ceded to the AI, and inability to focus the player on in-game storytelling elements and events.  Many mission designers criticize such missions as contrary to Volition’s Jason Hoffoss (FS1 Programmer, Mission Editor) explanation on the FreeSpace Developer’s List that the key to successful mission design was the zen principle that simpler design leads to better missions.

Despite initial plans to “relax” hard coded limits on the engine, Volition at the time justified leaving those limits to address quality control and playability issues of large missions, as well as potential technical issues.

Technical Issues
Though more recent improvements have greatly increased the FS2_Open's ability to handle large ship sizes, hard coded limits still restrict the number of ships in a mission.  Performance considerations, such as having many high-resolution textures, may also limit the number of ships that can be placed in a Battle of Endor mission.

It is especially important for a FREDder to consider their audience and test their mission on low-end computers, or else significant numbers of players may be unable to play the mission without severe lag or to complete the mission successfully. This is especially critical if the mission is a necessary part of a larger campaign.

Other difficulties may include the unpredictable nature of the Freespace AI, and the tendency for capital ships to concentrate on small threats, such as bombers and bombs.  Missions may require an extensive amount of scripting to work around these difficulties, which can lead to missions becoming overly complex and difficult to test fully.

[WMCoolmon]

I'll buy it.

My point with the revisions was not to simply water it down, my point with wiki stuff is to get it to a point that the statements in the wiki are true regardless of the comment. EG "Jason Hoffoss says blahblahblah" is always going to be true, regardless of what your opinion is, as long as Jason Hoffoss actually said that. It's also enough information that someone can actually go back and check with him and see what he said, or see if he made other statements on the topic of mission design that would help clarify his opinion in this instance. That means a lot more to me than "Some programmers at Volition", because for all I know you're just talking about two guys who got fired for being lazy. I can't check the source and there's no way that I can see if they made any more comments about mission design. Even if they were well-respected members of the team who made great contributions, I can't look that up because I don't know there names.

Same goes for other statements. "Some mission designers say..." is always gonna be true. You can argue relevancy but generally the wiki has so little information in it that unless the different sides are lopsided already in terms of their support/criticism, it's not going to tip the view that the wiki gives either way.

Many of your original edits are things that I would disregard on reading the article because they're not written like that, they push the opinion way more than they should, and I automatically filter that out to get to the point. If I want to, after reading the article, then I'll go back and try to extract the fact from fiction. But if they're ambiguous enough that I'm misreading them here, when I'm looking it over to find flaws whilst still trying to come up with an argument that's interpreting the statement correctly, they're probably just generally unclear.

Anyway, like I said, I'll support that last revision. Anybody else have any additions before it goes in the wiki?

[NGTM-1R]

I was tempted to observe this before, Zarathud, but frankly, you've no real interest in changing your mind, and demonstrate a slightly more sophisicated version of TrashMan's total ignoring of any good points...so I'm not really going to bother anymore.

Regarding the current revision.

I've said it before, but you don't see anti-capital beams going after bombers and bombs, so I'm not sure what that last statement is talking about. Also Kara's mentioned in this very thread the SCP's efforts to give turret prioritization a workover. Explain why it's still worthy of inclusion in a beam-armed world please.

Frankly, my computer is not top-of-the-line but I've found it very possible to run FSO and something hideously resource intensive like EVE Online or (god help us) Supreme Commander with FSO running in the background as well, without noticible slowdown. It has also been a very, very long time since I've heard someone complain their computer could not handle a mission. In fact...never. The MediaVPs, sure, people have had difficulties getting those to run, but missions? Since when? Show me an example where someone couldn't make a mission work and that will be worthwhile of inclusion, as it stands it's outright lies as far as I know. Low-end computers have come a long way and FS is at its core a pretty old program.

Also as already cited Kara's "Grizzly Bearbaiting" shows that such "hardcoded ship limits" either can be worked around, or they're high enough that no sane person is going to run into them. There were well over 150 ships in that mission.

Changing it to size makes it ambigous, perhaps more notably ambigous in your favor by making it unclear about numbers vs. volume. Cheap trick, smells like bias. Change it back.

[Zarathud]

My point with the revisions was not to simply water it down, my point with wiki stuff is to get it to a point that the statements in the wiki are true regardless of the comment.

I respect your goal of factual restriction, and would say that my intent was to find a generally acceptable observation to avoid nitpicking over details.  I think beating each other up a bit made for a better entry, so I'm happy with the result.  I tend to argue rough in the sandbox, so no hard feelings.   

I haven't been pushing the envelope of FS_Open's technical capabilities lately, so use whatever is more correct between the references to size/volume.

Zarathud, but frankly, you've no real interest in changing your mind

Argument is part of my job, and I bring that strong advocacy for positions with me into forums.  Even if I don't have an interest in changing my mind, I'll concede points I think have merit.  Throughout, I've made the concession that BoE missions can be "fun" even if they don't fit my definition of "good" design (which is not based on technical or story limitations).  I'm stubborn and argumentative, but not blind.

My interest in this topic is definitely driven by the fact that the BoE mission editorial directly led to some interesting things in the FreeSpace community.  It built on and focused community discussions about what is "good" mission design on the FDL, increased contributions to Peter Drake's walkthroughs of "how to" make missions in FRED, promoted making missions centrally available at Xanadu's Mission Archives, focused attention on the need to test missions, and generated community reviews of missions (pioneered by Pastel and myself) that became integrated into the Mission Archives before all getting ported into Volition Watch.  I don't claim responsibility or credit for all of those things, but that article is part of the genesis of events over 3 months leading to the seeds that eventually flourished here and elsewhere.  Whatever you feel about particular misisons or theories or whatever, discussion of BoE mission design is critical to the history of the FreeSpace community.  That there was a possibility it would be removed from the wiki shocked me.

By the way, I would love to see a 10 year retrospective on the history of the FreeSpace community similar to that article.  If there is one already, it should be part of the wiki.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Throughout, I've made the concession that BoE missions can be "fun" even if they don't fit my definition of "good" design (which is not based on technical or story limitations).  I'm stubborn and argumentative, but not blind.

    I think this whole idea is kind of missing the point to a degree.
    People should be mindful that the whole point of FREDding is to tell a story. It's to bring a player into a story line and have them play through the major events of that story. If a FRED mission is well executed, but is boring as all hell, is it a good design? Other FREDders can perhaps realise the achievements of that mission, and say "wow, that was a good use of SEXPs" or "I really liked this and that" but I mean the average player, doesn't give a damn. They'll just be bored . . . but instead they want to be entertained. They want to be moved, to be immersed or to just blast some Shivans, etcetera. Unless that mission was intended to be boring, in which case it's something else entirely.

    In the comparison between good design, and enjoyability the latter should have far more weight. Any mission which achieves its goal within the story, is at the desired level of balance and is reliable as a playable mission is reasonably good I think. 

    Opinions may vary, but in some ways I disagree with Karajoma's idea of the unlosable mission being bad. A mission isn't bad if the player can fly away, grab a coffee and still win the mission. But a mission is bad, if it PROMPTS the player to fly away, grab a coffee and watch the mission. If the story is essentially a cinematic, with a certain ending, but it still draws the player into the mission to play it, I think it's achieved its goal. The idea isn't to make the player involved and important, but to make them feel that way. Of course, usually the best way to make them feel involved is to do just that, but clever storytellers might be able to pull it off without the requirement. I don't think I'm one of them.
      But in a BoE scenario, if the player stops and thinks "I'm not doing anything here, it's a just a big orgy of beams with some random targets to shoot at. This is boring" then it's bad design and a crap mission.

[karajorma]

    Opinions may vary, but in some ways I disagree with Karajoma's idea of the unlosable mission being bad. A mission isn't bad if the player can fly away, grab a coffee and still win the mission. But a mission is bad, if it PROMPTS the player to fly away, grab a coffee and watch the mission. If the story is essentially a cinematic, with a certain ending, but it still draws the player into the mission to play it, I think it's achieved its goal. The idea isn't to make the player involved and important, but to make them feel that way. Of course, usually the best way to make them feel involved is to do just that, but clever storytellers might be able to pull it off without the requirement. I don't think I'm one of them.
      But in a BoE scenario, if the player stops and thinks "I'm not doing anything here, it's a just a big orgy of beams with some random targets to shoot at. This is boring" then it's bad design and a crap mission.

People should be mindful that the whole point of FREDding is to tell a story.

I'm taking the above slightly out of context but to my mind the whole point of FREDding isn't to tell a story but to make a game the player will enjoy playing. If the player can do nothing and still win the mission then I tend to feel you haven't done a good enough job of balancing the mission and on replay a lot of the enjoyment of the mission is lost. As players notice that it doesn't matter what they do a lot of the drive to play hard is lost.

And to me a good mission should be replayable.

[Zarathud]

I think missions have various aspects, and design is only one aspect.  A "good" mission has to succeed on several levels.  The Descent Chronicles/Volition Watch reviews of missions and campaigns rated 5 elements:

Storyline
Does the mission create an enjoyable scenario for the player that tells a complete story?
Is there some compelling reason that encourages the pilot to complete their mission?
Does the mission have some "soul" that is created using a certain tone or mood?
Is the mission or the story original or unique in some way?
Does the mission accomplish what it sets out to accomplish?
Is the mission internally consistent and understandable from the briefings?
Is the mission believable and consistent with the FreeSpace Universe?
Are the mission briefings and debriefings informative?
 
Balance
What are the ship and weapon selections?
Are the ship and weapon selections appropriate for this type of mission?
How difficult is the mission on medium setting?
Are there too many or too few hostiles and friendlies?
Are the ships selected too strong or too weak for their assigned roles in the mission?
Do the reinforcements and secondary waves arrive too early, too late, or not at all?
 
Design
Is the mission design technically correct using FRED?
Are there any performance issues caused on lower-end machines?
Does the mission accomplish what it sets out to accomplish?
Does the mission designer effectively use all of the FRED Editors (Ships, Wings, Shields, Waypoints, Asteroids, and Briefing/Debriefings) and create events?
Are there mission objectives and do they work properly? Do they cover all of the goals of the mission?
Are the ships named?  Are the ships set to the proper IFF (hostile, neutral, or friendly)?  Are critical ships set to "escort" status to show their hull status in the HUD?
How are the ships placed in FRED? Is there enough distance between Alpha wing and the first hostile?  Are all three planes used (X, Y, & Z) to distance the ships?
Do the ships and wings arrive at appropriate times or do the waves arrive too obviously and without any delay, as if everything in the mission was staged? Will they leave when there is no need for them anymore or hang around doing nothing?
What are the default AI commands for ships in the mission? Do they act and react believably?
Does the mission include events which change the outcome of the mission and do those events work properly?  Are directives and objectives tied into these events?
Are there in-flight messages tied to the events to highlight the progress of the mission?  Do the sounds and personalities match these messages?
Is the briefing correctly done? Does the debriefing change based on your actions in the mission?
Does the mission include any unique or inventive event sexp-coding?
Are there any suggestions on how to improve on the design of the mission?
Are there any other relevant comments about the mission or its design?
 
Gameplay
Does the mission create an enjoyable flight experience in the Mission Simulator?
Do you feel involved in the mission as an important part of the events, or are you merely a spectator?
Does the mission react to your actions in the mission?  Or is the ending inevitable?
How difficult is the mission to win or lose?  Is it too difficult or easy to enjoy?
Is the mission memorable in any way, perhaps including an appropriate suprise?
Can you replay the mission and still be entertained?
Would you recommend this mission to the FreeSpace community as fun?
 
Overall Rating
What is the bottom line that summarizes the review?
What are the high points of the mission?
What are the low points of the mission?
What is the overall rating of the mission? 

The ratings were on a scale from 0 to 5 stars in 1/2 star increments:

0.0 Horrible. Indicates a lack of effort, knowledge and/or fatal bugs.
1.0 Flawed. Serious design flaws that require some work to be acceptable.
2.0 Rough. Some large design flaws, but roughly acceptable to those who don't demand high quality.
3.0 Good. A decent job that is generally effective and does what is necessary. Definitely playable, as the highs outweigh the lows.
4.0 Polished. An excellent job with extra work done to make playing extremely enjoyable.
5.0 Exceptional. Indicates an instant classic - a preferred mission with precise crafting and thorough testing. Meets or exceeds Volition-quality.

Since numbers don't always tell the whole story, each mission review concluded with a sentence or two as the "bottom line," with brief comments on the "highs" and "lows."

There was a general description of the mission, and a brief category for the mission type (or two as sometimes a mission would overlap):

Dogfight Player's main objective is to destroy all enemy fighters in the mission. There must be more than the usual amount of fighters in the mission, and there will usually be no enemy capital ships.
Escort Player must guard an unarmed or very lightly armed vessel (a transport or science vessel or light capital ship) from one point to another. The guarded ship could easily be in grave danger if left alone while the player engages the enemy.
Defense Player must protect armed ships (destroyers or cruisers) or objects that cannot move under their own power (cargo containers and Installations). The guarded ship can be safely left alone to defend itself for a while as the player engages the enemy.
Attack Player must destroy an unarmed or very lightly armed vessel (a transport or science vessel or light capital ship) which requires an escort for defense.
Assault The the player is required to eliminate a base of some sort with defenses in place, such as a cargo depot or Arcadia with a fighter defense. Or the player has to kill a large ship (a cruiser or destroyer) capable of being dangerous that also has an escort.
Recon Player must scan something, either a ship or cargo container, as a major objective. These missions are fundamentally about intelligence gathering.
Strike Player must rush in to complete an objective, and then immediately retreat. The key is speed.  The player is not at all expected to engage any enemy fighters for a length of time unless it is vitally necessary to success. Similar to the "Pandora's Box" mission in the main FreeSpace campaign.
Capture This means that the player must disarm and/or disable a ship so that a friendly ship can fly in and tow it away.  This usually means that there are no other major attacks on other capital ships.
Campaign

I don't think that page is located in the wiki.  My thanks to anyone who can assemble it into the wiki.  If anyone thinks it would be useful, I can pull out an e-mail with a proposed review of Episode 1 in the campaign Black Horizon that could be used as an example.

We debated long and hard internally to work through those criteria, and tweaked things as controversies erupted and missions evolved.  We even re-reviewed a number of missions when the standards had changed or the missions underwent major revisions based on comments in the reviews.

[WMCoolmon]

I've said it before, but you don't see anti-capital beams going after bombers and bombs, so I'm not sure what that last statement is talking about. Also Kara's mentioned in this very thread the SCP's efforts to give turret prioritization a workover. Explain why it's still worthy of inclusion in a beam-armed world please.

I remember a bug report in mantis that capital ships would commonly target bombs, which not only affected the capital ship's battle with other capital ships, but would also vaporize the bombers as they were hit by an BGreen or similar. The end decision was to leave the "bug" in, because tactics for beating a couple of user-made missions relied upon using bombs as decoys for capital ships to prevent them from doing additional damage to other ships.

Turret reprioritization is entirely optional at this point, AFAIK. Unless something's been changed about that prior paragraph I just wrote.

Frankly, my computer is not top-of-the-line but I've found it very possible to run FSO and something hideously resource intensive like EVE Online or (god help us) Supreme Commander with FSO running in the background as well, without noticible slowdown. It has also been a very, very long time since I've heard someone complain their computer could not handle a mission. In fact...never. The MediaVPs, sure, people have had difficulties getting those to run, but missions? Since when? Show me an example where someone couldn't make a mission work and that will be worthwhile of inclusion, as it stands it's outright lies as far as I know. Low-end computers have come a long way and FS is at its core a pretty old program.

Many people do play FS2_Open with the MediaVPs and, IMHO the wiki should err on the side of assuming that people do have them installed. If a lot of people have to downgrade their graphics to 1998 levels to play missions with a large number of ships, that is important information for a FREDder to be aware of.

I do know that my computer (Athlon 64 3000+, 7600GT, 1GB RAM) has trouble with any asteroid field. There were many missions in Derelict that were essentially unplayable if you were facing one way because there were so many asteroids on screen. I have no idea if this holds true with a truly large number of ships.

Also as already cited Kara's "Grizzly Bearbaiting" shows that such "hardcoded ship limits" either can be worked around, or they're high enough that no sane person is going to run into them. There were well over 150 ships in that mission.

Changing it to size makes it ambigous, perhaps more notably ambigous in your favor by making it unclear about numbers vs. volume. Cheap trick, smells like bias. Change it back.

MAX_SHIPS is currently at 400, MAX_WEAPONS is currently at 350, and MAX_OBJECTS is currently at 1000. Hitting any of these maximums is a (Really) Bad Idea in terms of engine stability, and obviously you can't have all of the ships shooting since there can't be as many weapon objects present as ships. Remember that firing a bank of four Subachs makes four weapon objects, and a ship with 27 turrets is liable to make at least as many weapon objects.

Will stay neutral on the wording but I think Karajorma's Grizzly Bearbaiting would be worth a mention in the article. This isn't the first time it's been mentioned.

[karajorma]

I really should re-work that mission if it's going to be mentioned as it was really only a 10 minute proof of concept hack.

[Lukeskywalkie]

Hehe, and here I am to prove your point, Karajorma - I just went out and found that very mission because if the wiki article!

Now that you've lowered my expectations, it should be fun!