[Droid803]

ATTENTION PLEASE
PLEASE USE THE 3.6.10 MEDIAVPS FOR THIS MOD, NOT THE 3.6.12.
IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE THE 3.6.12 MEDIAVPS, NO SUPPORT WILL BE PROVIDED.

THANK YOU.

Though if you want, I've heard rumors that everything works out fine if you just edit the mod.ini to say mediavps_3612 with the new mediavps, but, don't come screaming for help if something doesn't work


Now onto your regularly scheduled programming.


Its still January 1st where I am...phew. Target reached.



Dropbox: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/126554/FS2/TOD-RV.rar
SectorGame: http://sectorgame.com/f2s/downloads.php?action=downloads&id=507 (Thanks, Hunter)
FreeSpaceMods: http://freespacemods.net/download.php?view.456 (Thanks, Swantz)
(~70 MB)

PATCH 1.01: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/126554/FS2/TOD_Patch.rar
(~115 KB)

PATCH 1.02: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/126554/FS2/TOD_Patch2.rar
(~145 KB)

The Sathanas fleet has been trapped in Gamma Draconis and Capella for years, cut off from the rest of the Shivans by the sudden collapse of the nebula node. As a radical anti-terran cult make their move, the exiled Terrans that escaped death and joined the Shivans after fleeing to Gamma Draconis are pulled along into the conflict.

This is one of the two campaigns that I have been working on by myself for the past  months (more like half a year).
What you need to know about this campaign:

- MediaVPs are required. I'm sorry, I couldn't make the new ships (which use MVPs textures) work without them. Use MediaVPs 3.6.10. MV_Complete, preferably.
- By extension of that, FSO 3.6.10 is also required. Any nightly build that supports 3.6.10 MVPs should work.
- You fly Shivan fighters but you are not playing as a Shivan.
- There will be a second chapter most likely, but I haven't started on it yet, so don't expect it anytime soon (sorry!)
- I don't know how much abuse the bandwidth on the current host can take. It'd be appreciated if people mirrored it on FSmods and SectorGame.
- Yes, it has been tested.
- This is my first campaign release. Please don't kill me.

With that done, here are some (old) screenshots. I'm pretty sure most of you have seen them in Celebration of FS already though. Some of the effects have been upgraded.





And here is a gameplay video demonstrating my lack of skill flying a bomber:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqvC8NN9jbs

I would like to thank...everyone in the Readme file. Too long a list to put up here, so its stuck in with the download.
And DO read it...

-----
EDIT 01-18-2009:
Added the patch that fixes the the debug errors with the missing explosion LODs, Plasma Flak, and Shivan EM Cannon. Also fixes the missing weapons references in the ships.tbl.

PATCH 1.01: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/126554/FS2/TOD_Patch.rar
(~115 KB)


-----
EDIT 05-31-2009:
Added the patch that fixes all startup debug errors as of 3.6.10 RC3 in preparation for ToD2. Includes patch one.

PATCH 1.02: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/126554/FS2/TOD_Patch2.rar
(~145 KB)

[dragonsniper]

Looks good. 

[Molybdenum]

It's completely not my idea of how Shivans would act(exiled Terrans joining Shivans?, anti-terran cults?) but sounds interesting I might give it a try.

[ShadowGorrath]

It's a great campaign. Has a unique story and all.

And yes, definetly try. It's really worth it

[GenericCorvette]

Now, I grasp how bad the Seraphim's gunpoints are. They're horrible.

The bomber primaries were nice to have, especially the awesome secret weapon of death.

[smurd]

Is anybody else having problems with game crashes? When I use a debug build with TOD, the game doesn't even start up to the pilot selection screen, and when I use a regular build it segfaults some minutes into a certain mission (the red alert mission after "Slayer Pt. 1").

When using a debug build, the last lines from my log say:

WARNING: "Weapon explosion 'RailgunImpact' does not have an LOD0 anim!" at weapons.cpp:1241
WARNING: "Outer blast radius of weapon Shivan EM Cannon is zero - EMP will not work. Add $Outer Radius to weapon table entry." at weapons.cpp:2616
WARNING:  Weapon 'Plasma Flak' has both LASER and POF render types!  Will only use POF type!
WARNING:  Laser glow specified on non-LASER type weapon (Plasma Flak)!
Int3(): From weapon/weapons.cpp at line 2199

I attached the complete log as well.

EDIT: Tested with SVN 5020 and 5024.

[attachment stolen by Slimey Goober]

[Macfie]

why are you using a debug build?  Did the game crash with a regular build?

[smurd]

As I wrote,

and when I use a regular build it segfaults some minutes into a certain mission (the red alert mission after "Slayer Pt. 1").

[ShadowGorrath]

It didn't crash to me like that at all.

[smurd]

Maybe you could run a debug build as well and post your log file, so I can compare the output?

[Snail]

For a second I thought that was a new Shivan ship, then I saw it was an Orion. I lol'd.

[shiv]

Looks good so far Downloading now.

[Deepstar]

Sure, it's not a good story behind this campaign (it doesn't fit to the shivans ). But it's still interesting.

I think i will give this a try.. sooner or later

[Stilljoe7]

I've played 10 missions. So far so good.

I think the backstory could have used more exposition, and not just in the readme. And the dialogue seems a bit too GTVA - too chatty, maybe. 

But the concept is interesting and (at least to me) original, the game plays well, no technical glitches yet, and bless you Droid for knowing how to spell or for at least using a spellchecker. Not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than most recent releases.

And the download speed was exceptional. I pay for a fast connection, but I don't often see downloads over 900 kBps.

First campaign? 

[General Battuta]

Not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than most recent releases.

What recent releases have you been playing?

[Stilljoe7]

Well, my apologies to those I single out, but most notably: Flames of War (Coming of the Storm); Ghost Revenants (even after the proofreading), What If... not so much spelling but grammar there as I recall.

The recent restored campaigns were fine as I remember, ST:R was fine...

So I should have said "some" recent releases perhaps.

I recognise it may seem I'm picking on people whose first language isn't English. I don't want to go there. I acknowledge and applaud what people are doing in creating and sharing their work - things that I certainly couldn't do. But it was a pleasure to read Droid803's briefings...

[Droid803]

@smurd: I don't know what is the issue here, but those debug errors shouldn't cause any crashes.

About the story: Now upon reflection I guess the backstory isn't completely watertight, but nothing I can do about that now. I wanted to try something "different". I'll try to patch things up with the sequel if it ever takes off.

As for the briefings: thank ShadowGorrath for making me run everything through a spellchecker, and for helping fix my grammar.

The first post has been updated with a download link on SectorGame should dropbox fail to work for any reason.

[achtung]

http://freespacemods.net/download.php?view.456

Here you go, I mirrored it earlier today. 

[Nuclear1]

Alright, I'm mixed here.

Spoiler:

What I liked:
1. Production -- The altered music, new reskins for Terran ships, making the Shivans player-flyable, and the new load screens/main halls were very impressive, so hats off to you there.

2. The basic story concept -- I like the idea of having some Bosch fanatics allying with the Shivans and having adapted to the Shivan war machine as such.

3. Atmosphere -- Creepy, just like an operation with the Shivans should. The backgrounds, music, and swarming Shivans, friendly or not,  made it just genuinely spooky.

What I didn't like:

1. Balance - There were times here that I was just plain overwhelmed. Not necessarily difficult, just too much going on for me to focus on one thing at once. Mostly because of the sheer number of ships on screen at once, too. Which leads to:

2. BoE Syndrome - Some of those battles were just too massive, especially in the Nightmare mission. I felt like I could just let my Shivan wingmen do whatever and I could sit back, trying not to get shot. Of course, BoE Syndrome leads to my third point...

3. BeamzzzzAAAAAHHH - The one thing I hate about user campaigns in beam-era FS is the habit of missions to have just too many damn beams in one mission at once. For me, it's just not exciting to hear beams continually throughout a mission. SEXP'd weapons best solve this, as well as not having 5 or more warships carrying 4 big beams a piece on screen all firing at each other.

4. (Minor) Speed - What sort of hurt the missions for me was the pace of the missions--one ship or wave of ships goes down, a new wave is almost instantly there to replace them. This is acceptable with fighters/bombers sometimes, but when the Lucifer jumped in almost immediately after the Demon was destroyed, I was somewhat irritated. Like I said, minor complaint.

All that said, for a solo/first campaign, this was fantastic. It's comparable to Singh's Desperation series or Noise's ITDOH (which I'm partly basing Rogue 2 off of, so not a bad campaign at all ). Just needed a little bit more fleshing out/balancing before being release.

Because I take balancing seriously, I give it a 7/10. Otherwise good. Sequel/other chapters please!

[eliex]

I can't believe I missed this!
Dl'ing now. Looks really interesting.