[Titan]

Just i little idea i had today, looking into a proof of concept.

Basically, it's a mission, with 'sub-missions'. closest  you'll get to a free-roamer.

Say, you start a 'base camp'. this works best in a nebula. There an AWACS (On-the-spot command, gives you the little quests) Some freighters (supplies for the operation) A cruiser or two (defend the spot) And several fighter wings (Guards and emergency response). More friendlies would become available as the mission goes. Support ships would be able to repair 100%, and Alpha wing would be guardianed (so you're not alone).

There's a long end goal, but you would be left to your own devices as to how you reach it. The AWACS would give you 'pointers' (IE, "theres a ship, Alpha, engage at your discretion", and that would trigger a sidequest, which would satisfy one of the requirements for the ending boss battle, with a destroyer or something.... I just beat the Forest temple in Ocarina of time, so sue me) and other stuff. The possibilities are endless.

I know, it's VERY labor intensive, but it looks good on paper...

[Galemp]

It would look good on paper. Could you plot it out, as a flowchart or something? That would be a decent start.

[eliex]

It looks like quite an interesting concept. 
Still, do you think that the engine will be able to handle it though?

[Molybdenum]

I understand that you don't men making everything in one mission file as that would kill the ship limit for sure. 

I think it has already been discussed and my idea would be to make a heavily branching campaign with missions changing during jumps. Say jumping while within a node takes you a mission set next to the other side of the node. The problem would be inter-system jumps. An option to choose your destination would have to be modded in(best way i could think of is using training keys). We'd best start small with a really simple mission with 2 accessible areas to see how it works out. IIRC it might even be possible to FRED in docking with a ship and changing  your loadout a la Aquanox. Even better if 3.6.10 supports variable loadouts then sidequests would give you access to gear.

[kalnaren]

I understand that you don't men making everything in one mission file as that would kill the ship limit for sure. 

I think it has already been discussed and my idea would be to make a heavily branching campaign with missions changing during jumps. Say jumping while within a node takes you a mission set next to the other side of the node. The problem would be inter-system jumps. An option to choose your destination would have to be modded in(best way i could think of is using training keys). We'd best start small with a really simple mission with 2 accessible areas to see how it works out. IIRC it might even be possible to FRED in docking with a ship and changing  your loadout a la Aquanox. Even better if 3.6.10 supports variable loadouts then sidequests would give you access to gear.

I've done inter-system jumps, with 2 completely separate areas to jump between within a single mission. The result was cool and I was going to use it in my campaign, but IMO the amount of FREDing it took to set it up and execute (having to stealth/unstealth/hide/unhide ships in different areas) wasn't really worth it, at least for me.

[karajorma]

I understand that you don't men making everything in one mission file as that would kill the ship limit for sure. 

The ship limit is 400 in 3.6.10 which should be more than enough for this.

[dragonsniper]

400 is a lot of ships. 

[Titan]

and then if you count that waves only count for as many ships that are in the first wave (erm, if theres 4 ships per wave, and theres 20 waves, it's still only 4 ships)

[Black Wolf]

I dunno. It just seems, I dunno, inherently true that free roaming would be better served with campaign persistant variables and branching missions, if only because the task of bughunting a mission that big and complex would be monumental.

[Vidmaster]

remember to impliment some kind of checkpoint system 

[Goober5000]

You know, I think FRED is Turing-complete.

[dragonsniper]

the task of bughunting a mission that big and complex would be monumental.

It is.

[Droid803]

You're trying it?

[dragonsniper]

Yep. 

[Snail]

I won't waste my time wishing you luck.

[dragonsniper]

Thanks

[Snail]

Thanks

Well, not that I'm trying to discourage you, but, well I think it's impossible.

If it does happen and it's good I'll hang myself for ya.

[karajorma]

It's not at all impossible, merely difficult. I'm pretty sure I could do it but I'm far too swamped to try.

[dragonsniper]

Thanks

Well, not that I'm trying to discourage you, but, well I think it's impossible.

If it does happen and it's good I'll hang myself for ya.

Nothing's impossible, but yes, it's not easy. It looks good on paper, but it's not easy at all to accomplish .

[Aquilonius]

This is, of course, just the opinion of a FRED noob that is only just starting out (and I'm sure someone has already covered this idea here), but why couldn't this be done by using several 'jump nodes' leading to different objectives? They could be made conditional, so that you couldn't use certain nodes until others (in or out of order. by the individual player's choice) had been completed.

The base could be, say, a decommed destroyer (a la that Orion in Transcend in the asteroid field, or the Typhon with the docking ring in Derelict) or some such. Docking with it could be your resupply/repair/choose a different ship and loadout point.

I'm sure someone else has already thought of these, of course, but they seemed like ideas worth voicing anyway. I certainly don't envy the sheer amount of SEXP scripting and debugging the designer has to go through for all of that...makes my head hurt just thinking of it.

But it does have a lot of potential. If anyone does come out with a campaign in this vein, I'd be happy to playtest it.