[Mobius]

I don't think he's the only one making decisions. From the FS mainhall we see that operative placed like a normal communications officer.

I think he "relays" the will of highly ranked officers.

[Snail]

You're taking it too literally man. I just meant people are always rabbiting on about how mission control or whatever you want to call them are always making mistakes - While actually we should consider that they have to make important choices all the time.

[Mongoose]

The reason I found this so impressive was because of how Ransom took such a simple concept and used it to drive home such a powerful message.  It's incredibly easy to complain about a commander's decisions from the limited view of a fighter cockpit...but it's something else entirely when you're the one with that tactical screen in front of you, having to pull strings and decide who lives and who dies.  I know I could replay the campaign and change my decisions, or else just open up the missions in FRED and see how making different choices would have affected the outcome, but I honestly don't have the heart to at the moment.

[Commander Zane]

It's incredibly easy to complain about a commander's decisions from the limited view of a fighter cockpit...but it's something else entirely when you're the one with that tactical screen in front of your mom...

LOL!!!

Holy ****...that was more mindrape than Transcend in concept...
It wasn't the same type of creepy, it was worse.
My mind is really spinning out of control.

[Dilmah G]

Ooh, people are getting creeped out by this.  I need to get in on the fun.

My thoughts exactly

Ransom, you've given me a brilliant reason to upgrade my internet and get to grips with things like these that little bit faster

[Dilmah G]

Woah, just woah

Really makes you think doesn't it.....

Oh and seriously Goober, WTF is up with the custom title.

If I ever become a mod I'll make March 31st a living nightmare.....justtt you wait! 

[Aardwolf]

It was kind of a "wait, wtf?" moment when

Spoiler:

In the last mission, the teams switched and my force of 3 leviathans exploded my own base

[Snail]

It was kind of a "wait, wtf?" moment when

Spoiler:

In the last mission, the teams switched and my force of 3 leviathans exploded my own base

Spoiler:

I was doing so well at the beginning that I had to try complete the mission with Installation 02 (now my base) at 16% and the other at 100%. Eventually I lost, but not before getting Installation 01 (formerly my base now "their" base) to ~30%.

Then I got mind****ed by Epsilon 3.

[asyikarea51]

Somehow I feel thankful I never called Command stupid. I doubt I'll finish all four missions though... normally I'd blame laziness, but for this, definitely not.

Clever hard-hitting play on human emotion. Nowhere near as creepy as Sync or Transcend, yet it's just as bad as those two.

Damn.

Spoiler:

And I got stuck at the training part where you have the 2 cruisers aiming your corvette and the simulator tells you to press Q... I didn't know WHAT was happening, still totally blur even as the simulator went on, so I just selected one target and randomly pressed Q to the instructions (effect: cruiser died), and then selected the 2nd cruiser and kept hammering down Q (did stop for a few seconds as I waited for something to happen) but didn't see anything happen at all... the cruisers just stood there and did nothing

(PS: Props to the 80's-like art style. Neat cover for a beta work.)

[Ashrak]

Somehow I feel thankful I never called Command stupid. I doubt I'll finish all four missions though... normally I'd blame laziness, but for this, definitely not.

Clever hard-hitting play on human emotion. Nowhere near as creepy as Sync or Transcend, yet it's just as bad as those two.

Damn.

Spoiler:

And I got stuck at the training part where you have the 2 cruisers aiming your corvette and the simulator tells you to press Q... I didn't know WHAT was happening, still totally blur even as the simulator went on, so I just selected one target and randomly pressed Q to the instructions (effect: cruiser died), and then selected the 2nd cruiser and kept hammering down Q (did stop for a few seconds as I waited for something to happen) but didn't see anything happen at all... the cruisers just stood there and did nothing

(PS: Props to the 80's-like art style. Neat cover for a beta work.)

you need to pick your own ship.

[asyikarea51]

I pressed the abort command and tried the defense mission after that. XD

maybe i just need to get used to it.

[Mongoose]

Spoiler:

I was doing so well at the beginning that I had to try complete the mission with Installation 02 (now my base) at 16% and the other at 100%. Eventually I lost, but not before getting Installation 01 (formerly my base now "their" base) to ~30%.

Then I got mind****ed by Epsilon 3.

Spoiler:

I think it was because I had my difficulty set to Easy instead of Medium, but both of the stations were well above 70% when the switch occurred for me.  And the mission time elapsed was over half an hour by the time I was finally able to destroy the other station.

[Goober5000]

Ehh... count me among those who didn't find it much fun.

Spoiler:

It was an interesting exercise, but the SIMULATION guy preaching at you started to wear on me after a while.  It's like he's trying to discourage you from working for the GTVA (if in fact that's who's providing the simulation).  And I'm not particularly a fan of RTS games.

The switch from "simulation" to "real life" in mission 2 was interesting, and unexpected, but it didn't grab me emotionally like it did for some other people in this thread.  Maybe it's because I didn't feel immersed in the simulation.

The last mission was rather frustrating.  Considering how badly I did at the first three missions, I was very pleased to actually be in a winning position after several rounds, with the enemy installation down to 50% and my own somewhere around 80 or 90.  And then all the IFFs changed over, and I had absolutely no chance to recover, and ended up losing.

There were also some bugs in the last mission; by the end of the game there were three enemy and one friendly wings that were just sitting there, refusing to attack anything.  None of the orders I gave the friendly wing worked.  Also, according to the mission file, it looks like there were supposed to be a lot of messages that triggered after the escaping transport appeared, but none of them showed up.  I was just dumped out of the mission with no debriefing.

I wanted to go back and play the last mission a second time, to see if I could do any better (keeping in mind the IFF change), but Ransom forgot to add the Tech Room to his custom main hall, and I didn't feel like playing through the entire campaign again.

So, for me, the fun factor was only maybe 2 stars out of 5.  The technical achievement factor, however, was an easy 5 out of 5 -- I was very impressed with the idea, the fact that Ransom was able to kludge an RTS interface out of an FPS interface, and the sheer amount of stuff that he attempted in the campaign.  And based on the number of questions he asked me over IM, I'm surprised there weren't more bugs than there were.

As a FREDder myself, I think that this a pretty amazing achievement.   As a proof of concept, it's very thought provoking, and definitely pushes the limits of what you can do in a campaign.

[Mongoose]

Just to pick one thing out of Goober's post...

Spoiler:

It was an interesting exercise, but the SIMULATION guy preaching at you started to wear on me after a while.  It's like he's trying to discourage you from working for the GTVA (if in fact that's who's providing the simulation).

Spoiler:

I kind of feel like that was the purpose of the simulation...or to be more specific, that it was designed as a means of weeding out officer candidates who wouldn't be able to deal with the vagaries and uncertainties of a command situation.  I'd imagine that modern military schools have exercises that achieve the same purpose, even if they're not executed in a remotely similar fashion.  Most of the issues that Ransom raised are those that one might expect to undergo in an actual command situation, particularly one with as strongly-veiled upper echelons as the GTVA seems to exhibit.  Dealing with shifting situations, having to prioritize between original mission objectives and new circumstances, questioning exactly what one is really achieving...if one can't deal with those questions hanging over one's head, then one probably shouldn't be assigned to a command role.  And tying the whole experience in with the "player's" own past at the end was a nice little masterstroke, at least in my opinion.

Oh, and if you really were dumped out of the final mission just when that transport showed up, you wound up missing what for me was by far the most potent psychological punch of the whole thing, which is a damn shame.  I also had that bug where one of my bomber wings stopped responding to orders, but that resolved itself nicely once the sides switched.

[Commander Zane]

Ransom forgot to add the Tech Room to his custom main hall, and I didn't feel like playing through the entire campaign again.

I'm gonna tell you a little secret that will make your jaw drop.
In the main menu, hit the "T" key. 

[tinfoil]

Wow, Ransom.


Mind****

[Snail]

Ransom forgot to add the Tech Room to his custom main hall, and I didn't feel like playing through the entire campaign again.

I'm gonna tell you a little secret that will make your jaw drop.
In the main menu, hit the "T" key. 

Damn you beat me to it.

[Knight Templar]

Windmills? Alpha 1 of La Mancha?

[General Battuta]

Wow. That was a demonstration of genius.

And yes, I did find the gameplay fun.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Unholy ****...  Damn...  This is...  SO Ransom...  Which is a good thing...

* FSF  wakes up

And yeah, Don Command de La Mancha, I guess.