[Goober5000]

And by extension, how long should it take to FRED an entire campaign?

For purposes of comparison, it took the FSPort team six years to release ST:R, and the BWO team is coming up on eight years for their release (excluding the BWO demo).  It took me just one month to FRED Deus Ex Machina at the beginning of junior year in college, but that included very few mods and no voice acting.

Derelict, however, puts everybody to shame.  The entire 45 mission campaign (44 if you discount the credits) was completed in JUST 10 MONTHS.  Or 11.5 months if you start from the initial "Welcome to the Boonies" concept.

[Krelus]

Well, so far I'm averaging one per month, but I can easily bang one out in under a week. Actually, my best mission (in my opinion) only took five days.

It'll prolly pick up once this semester is over.

[Polpolion]

As long as it takes. Really, it varies from FREDder to FREDder and from complexity of the mission to mission.

I seem to recall having a contest where everyone had to FRED a mission in a half hour or less, and pretty much everything had the bare bones and a bit of dialogue added. If I had to guess, if people wanted to do a really rushed job, they could get a mission FREDed in about an hour or hour and a half, and then another hour or two for testing.

I really can't guess for the campaign as a whole, unless we have some sort of "FRED a campaign in two days!" contest.

[Krelus]

As long as it takes. Really, it varies from FREDder to FREDder and from complexity of the mission to mission.

I seem to recall having a contest where everyone had to FRED a mission in a half hour or less, and pretty much everything had the bare bones and a bit of dialogue added. If I had to guess, if people wanted to do a really rushed job, they could get a mission FREDed in about an hour or hour and a half, and then another hour or two for testing.

I really can't guess for the campaign as a whole, unless we have some sort of "FRED a campaign in two days!" contest.

That's the thing, I'm a detail whore and my ultimate goal is to have something that doesn't feel like a mod. Which is insanely frustrating.

[Polpolion]

As long as it takes. Really, it varies from FREDder to FREDder and from complexity of the mission to mission.

I seem to recall having a contest where everyone had to FRED a mission in a half hour or less, and pretty much everything had the bare bones and a bit of dialogue added. If I had to guess, if people wanted to do a really rushed job, they could get a mission FREDed in about an hour or hour and a half, and then another hour or two for testing.

I really can't guess for the campaign as a whole, unless we have some sort of "FRED a campaign in two days!" contest.

That's the thing, I'm a detail whore and my ultimate goal is to have something that doesn't feel like a mod. Which is insanely frustrating.

That's the thing. Detail whores tend to make better missions. I'd probably be hesitant to play a campaign where each mission only took an hour to FRED and they were done with it, mainly because it's probably incomplete and bug-ridden.

[Sololop]

I believe about a week is enough time for almost any basic mission. However, there is always something you could add, something you could change. If you don't just step back and say "Okay, it's done." You could probably work on a single mission for well over a month.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Really depends on how much there is to the mission.  If it's a simple milk run with a couple of waves of fighters not long at all.  If it's a major plot piece with all the bells and whistles it could take awhile. 

Two other factors usually come into play:

1.  Real life.
2.  Code bugs. 

I have missions in the works from retail that aren't finished due to those. 

[Dilmah G]

Well, so far I'm averaging one per month, but I can easily bang one out in under a week. Actually, my best mission (in my opinion) only took five days.

Same for me. My average is a bit less, with the addition of weekends/holidays I can crank 'em out in a week. It took me a week to FRED Exodus minus the testing, which I now refrain from doing publically.

Really depends on how much there is to the mission.  If it's a simple milk run with a couple of waves of fighters not long at all.  If it's a major plot piece with all the bells and whistles it could take awhile. 

Two other factors usually come into play:

1.  Real life.
2.  Code bugs. 

I haven't had many issues with code bugs, but RL does seem to be the main wall. And my lack of scrap paper whenever I get a good idea. I remember having awesome ideas while I was scrubbing the floor of a retirement home on Monday but ceased to remember them in as much detail when I got down to FRED-ing.

I FRED-ed a cutscene in about 30-45 mins including the time I spent googling possible music. Then again the cutscene lasted for 30-60 seconds and less than 5 events.

[Angelus]

Really depends on how much there is to the mission.  If it's a simple milk run with a couple of waves of fighters not long at all.  If it's a major plot piece with all the bells and whistles it could take awhile. 

Two three other factors usually come into play:

1.  Real life.
2.  Code bugs. 
3.  Computer problems ( suicidal Notebook, HD headcrashs <----plural, melting mainboard, powerless PSU     
          resulting in data loss )

I have missions in the works from retail that aren't finished due to those. 

Fixored.

[karajorma]

Birth of a Legend from BtRL took me about six weeks and is one of the most complicated things I've ever FREDded. Anything I built now would probably take me longer cause I have a lot of new toys to fiddle with in FRED.

[Rodo]

really depends on the complexity of the mission itself and this also depends on the experience the Fredder, also the amount of time you got to sit and start fredding, it's not the same to fred a mission in one single strike than starting today stoping and then retaking the same mission a couple of days after that.

[Ransom]

For a mission of average complexity done to a high standard I would say a week, give or take, assuming two to four hours invested every day of that week. This leaves out planning and writing the script, which is generally what slows me down.

A campaign, though? No longer than a year. That's a should, of course, and I've failed to uphold it myself, but I think it's not far from the maximum a campaign of around retail length and quality really demands, ignoring FRED-unrelated things like VA and mods. It happens slower not because of the workload, I think, so much as the fact we're none of us getting paid to do it.

[wistler]

I find fatigue can sometimes put me off finishing a Campaign (like it has so many times) when I've just had enough of FREDding. I also find starting a mission to be the hardest part, when the pieces aren't on the board yet.

[Krelus]

I find fatigue can sometimes put me off finishing a Campaign (like it has so many times) when I've just had enough of FREDding. I also find starting a mission to be the hardest part, when the pieces aren't on the board yet.

QFT, particularly the latter sentiment.

Obviously attack missions tend to be simpler than multi-target escort missions when you can lose SOME of the ships but not all. At least, that's what I found.

[Axem]

How long SHOULD it take? Not long.

How long DOES it take? Too long.

FREDding takes as long as writing a piece of music or painting a picture. You can time yourself and see your average time to FRED, but I don't think there's a standard time to finish a mission. If you're me, it increases exponentially anyway. 

[Krelus]

Part of the problem is there's no real deadline. There's a saying - if you have one day's worth of work and two weeks to do it, it will always take two weeks to finish.

[wistler]

Part of the problem is there's no real deadline. There's a saying - if you have one day's worth of work and two weeks to do it, it will always take two weeks to finish.

HA! That sums up my life 

[Dilmah G]

Arghhh...

Does anyone else get "FRED-ers block"?

When you have an idea, you know how to FRED  it but you just CBF!

[Droid803]

I usually finish building one mission in one sitting (as in, a few hours).

The rest of it is testing and bugfixing (which takes as long as it needs to).

Thing is, once I put it down, the next time I come back to it, I forget where I was up to, and end up redoing the first part because I forget how I intended it to end, so I avoid that at all costs.

[Mobius]

Someone has already mentioned Real Life, code bugs and computer crashes...but I think that complexity is one of the most important things. "Missions" is too generic and doesn't take into account variables, arguments, cutscenes, messages, radical improvements, etc. etc. 

Upgrading someone else's mission may be a lot harder than creating a mission from scratch. FREDding styles and event naming conventions (just to give a couple of examples) can be damn different and "understanding" a mission before upgrading it requires time.

The file dimensions of INFA missions range from 100 kbs to 192 kbs (and growing, nothing is definitive yet). And there are "only" 34 of them. Yet still, they're the equivalent of 60+ average missions. I don't feel like creating simple missions like the classic "Jump in, do this, do that, then jump out" - complexity is important, original and interesting. I'm delaying the release of INFASA, but I do it for the greater good... 

I'd also like to add concept changes, like major plotline edits. They can really influence the amount of time needed to get missions (and, consequently, campaigns) done.