[JCDNWarrior]

Hey everyone, hoping this is the right section for it, as it involves discussions about missions and campaigns. I've been working on making quite a big Battle of Endor styled mission for quite a few months now, and I know that not everyone would enjoy to see them or play them due to the vast chance the non-linearity and difficulty makes it impossible to play; so I wanted to show you the battle and ask for your advice, ideas, comments, suggestions, etc.

You can find the video over Here.

Hope you'll enjoy and I'm definitely interested to hear your ideas.

- JC

EDIT: Ah, not to forget, I must thank the creator of the Blue Planet mod for the ability to use his amazing nebulaes and planet textures for the background, as well as having more than just the standard FS2 ships involved in this battle due to the addition of the GTC Hyperion and the GTD Titan (Not seen in vid). It goes without saying that I have no problem removing the BP dependancy when asked.

[colecampbell666]

It's a bit cluttered and hard to understand what's going on. If a person decided to bring, say, Stilettos and stuff they could easily take out beams and save ships that weren't supposed to be saved. If the player wins every time then what's the point of the mission?

[Dilmah G]

That's a fairly cynical view of BoEs . A good one with no real purpose is fun every now and again, but how does your computer not lag with that many ships!?

[Rodo]

I'm actually surprised about the duration of the hattie.. it was there, taking a pounding from the ravana's fleet and it was still there at the end, or where the destroyers aiming on the Cv's?

[JCDNWarrior]

Alright, time for the first round of answers

After learning from the BoE page (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Battle_of_Endor_Syndrome) I've set out to dare to make a real BoE mission, guided by text from the various ships in the map (When an important friendly or enemy ship goes down, the player will be informed that way), as well as putting the player into the first 'arena' at first, far enough from the full battle to ensure he'll stick to the first, smaller one. After the Shivans are cleaned up, the pilots are ordered to join the main battle.

The purpose of the distance and the need to fly there works for two reasons: First, to give a nice view of the ongoing battle, and second, adding adrenaline as the urgency grows, as you mentally prepare to jump into the next battle.

To ensure the most important ships stay around longer, I used the Special Hits Sexp in the Edit Ships menu. Took a long time to balance their hitpoints to not make them invincible, but let them last longer. Important enemy ships such as the destroyers have more hitpoints as well. In most of my tests the Hatsepsuts and Typhon went down, and, if my scripting would work, the remaining Shivan Destroyers would jump to Vasuda.

Basically, I want to create a real sense of urgency and a real war going on in real-time, and a perfect stress relief, while hopefully getting the players interested to continue.

Due to the fact there's still much to work on to ensure the non-linearity won't push the mission too far in the wrong direction while keeping the battles intense, fun and durable, I need more than just my two eyes; thus my request here.

Rodo; the Corvettes are mostly targetted by the Molochs and cruisers, while the capships deal with eachother. All important ships have more hitpoints, but none are invincible, and i'll keep in mind as many possible outcomes and fates of these ships.

Thanks for your comments so far, everyone. Hope to hear more ideas, suggestions, and more.


Oh, and Dilmah G; I have built myself quite a powerful PC that allows me a lot of room to create what I wish. Here's the specs:

Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 chipset motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3 GHZ, no overclock
3 GB RAM, 667 MHZ (Will upgrade to 4 GB 800 MHZ soon I hope)
ATI Radeon HD4870x2, no overclock
Western Digital 500 GB 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache HDD.

Hope that gives you an idea of the raw power it potentially gives to power FS2 and how come I managed to pull this off without too many noticable framedrops.

- JC

[Dilmah G]

Ah makes sense with those specs

[JCDNWarrior]

Ah makes sense with those specs

You do bring up a valid point though; to make this playable and enjoyable for others there's definitely the need to tone things done some way. I think I'll be able to definitely make it quite a bit lighter (and will have to apparently due to 'random' crashes that can occur) by letting ships jump in later, and with intervals, as well as letting other ships jump out that would take too long to make it to their destinations.

Anyhow, I hope that with the tips, suggestions, and help all of you can give me, I could definitely improve this little project a lot and hopefully get it finished for public release. =)

- JC

[General Battuta]

The Blue Planet ships are originally from StratComm's fleetpack, and while Darius did some work on them, they're free for anyone to use. So no need to thank us, though it's appreciated!

[Narvi]

What's up with the lack of shields?

[JCDNWarrior]

What's up with the lack of shields?

Side effect of giving Alpha 1 extra hull points; It should have shields, but it doesn't show. Hoping to fix that some way. You can imagine why the player would need more hitpoints, with all those death rays all around.

Thanks for your comments, Narvi, Battuta. ^^

- JC

[wistler]

I'd love to play this but my laptop would reduce it to a slide show 

[JCDNWarrior]

I'd love to play this but my laptop would reduce it to a slide show 

I am definitely considering making a much much lighter version of this mission, while trying to continue to have the hectic and huge battles I intent to try. Thanks for your comment though mate, glad to hear you enjoyed watching.

Still very open for any comments, as well as ideas and tips!

- JC

[Dilmah G]

My only advice is that I don't think there is enough for the player to do. You really do have to make sure the player has a job in this mission, apart from chasing down bombs, or at least make the threat very real. If the player doesn't do his job and it actually fails the mission, you've done your job. The issue with chasing down bombs is that if you have Capships in a large formation, their gun coverage will basically rape any incoming threats, leaving the player as a spectator, and with that many ships in formation, any player role is basically negated in that respect.

My advice is to give the offensive side some good strategy, such as having a diversionary force approaching from the middle to engage the enemy battle group, and then having cruisers or corvettes jump in on the flanks and catch them in a Good 'ol crossfire. From what I saw of yours I don't think such a move is possible, but be creative .

[Galemp]

Holy crap, that wasn't a background bitmap. Thank goodness for LODs...