[General Battuta]

Well, except the Anuket was not specifically designed for nebulae (although the Zephyrus apparently was.)

Nonetheless it is a bit of a convoluted piece of wank. Were I a campaign designer, though, I'd ignore that argon business as fast as I could every chance I got.

[Snail]

I have a new one.

People creating their own destroyer names, (or even worse) creating new destroyers for each mission. Granted, this was a problem in FS2, where a lot of Orions appeared and all with different names.

Keep in mind that every time you give a ship a new name, you are effectively making a new one. There is absolutely no reason why you have to create the GTD xyz when you could just as easily use the Messana, Carthage or Aeneas. This is actually quite immersive I find, and people get attachments to these ships, which makes it much better when you blow them up. What's even better is that if you're setting your campaign before FS2 you can use ships that get destroyed later on like the Delacroix, Psamtik or any NTF destroyer.

Nods to the continuity are always good IMO.

[Scotty]

I'll add a partial second to the Snail's.  Only partial, because sometime using a new vessel allows the designer to make up whatever the hell kind of backstory they want, and aren't limited by what is in canon.  Granted, this is rather minor, but I prefer to have my campaigns continue regardless of how badly the mission went (compared to a perfect one), so using a canon destroyer that could be destroyed and the campaign still completed doesn't fit well.  Maybe it's just me though.

I also dislike it when campaigns remold canon instead of wrapping around it and filling in the holes.

[Droid803]

Well, if its a whole new ship class you have the opposite problem, namely, recycling names...
Having ships of different classes with the same name is damn confusing, especially if its in a (semi-)major role, and it just looks really damn lazy. Even worse is naming stuff after existing ship classes. "Oh hurr, I can't think of a name for this Hatshepsut so let's just call it the Isis. Just like the transport! HURR HURR."

[Nuclear1]

Ditto. Never liked the character in the first place. I'd like to shove a duct tape down his throat, then maybe he would finally SHUT UP.

How can anyone hate Mackie?

Well, Trashman kinda hates Derelict as a whole, if that helps you understand.

[Droid803]

Derelict was boring as **** until Nyarly wakes up, and a few missions after that...and the whole SOC loop was borung too.
The only thing really good about it was the finale which is so epic it makes all of the build up worth it... on second thought no not really. The SOC loop was still worthless, and there was randomly no closure in it at all.

[Nuclear1]

Well, to be fair, the Nyarlathotep shows up fairly early anyway, and there's still a couple memorable moments before then.  Yeah, I hated the second SOC loop too, but the last 8 missions or so made the whole campaign pretty much worth it.  

Derelict also gets awesome status for being essentially the grandfather of FS2 campaigns.  It basically set a standard.  I guess it's just when everyone's getting sick of seeing the same story copy-pasted into other campaigns and Mackie rip-offs running around everywhere, the original campaign tends to take a lot of flak.  It wasn't Derelict's fault--it's other people's lack of creativity that made Derelict trite.

[Akalabeth Angel]

So I'll modify your statement:

You can say whatever you want about the sources but the canon reality in Freespace is that the Prometheus S was not possible without access to the new gas miners or Earth.

That's all we can say canonically.

Well if the intent is unclear I'll grab another part of the table:

; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; Prometheus (only available after nebula missions begin)
;

Straight from the horses mouth.
Prometheus S = result of Nebula

Therefore no Prometheus S without:
A) Earth
B) Nebula


---------------------------------------------------
EDIT - another pet hate:


Ships getting reduced to ****ty percentages and repaired in a mission or two.
Most commonly found in so-called "Character Driven Campaigns" wherein the ship is often a starring character.

So unrealistic.
Some times, I let it slide, but other times it bugs the piss out of me,


Oh pet Peeve #3 (And this is a BIG ONE!)

The Lucifer gaining shadow-style organic regenerative abilities.

Derelict did this.
Blue Planet did this.

It's dumb.

It's not Freespace in my opinion, the Shivans have never been demonstrated to have organic ships.
Leave Babylon 5 in the Babylon 5 Mod and stick to Freespace. Shivan ships are inorganic pieces of metal that can be blown apart just like any other ship.

[General Battuta]

Erm, no, it just says the Prometheus isn't available until after the nebula missions begin.

Which isn't to say they weren't pulling argon from the nebula to make the Prom S; that's by far the most parsimonious explanation given what we're shown. However, nothing here rules out other possible sources so long as they're just considerably less attractive than the nebula.

Interestingly, it's apparently true that the GTVA has access to other nebulae to harvest gas from.

What we can say is no Prometheus S without argon, but it's not entirely clear what the holdup on the argon was, and to what degree it was an infrastructure problem and to what degree a source problem.

[Nuclear1]

Yeah, I always found this part of FS2 canon to be just plain ridiculous.  Argon isn't as rare as FS2 makes it out to be, yet the loss of one system (albeit Sol) somehow makes production of a weapon that requires Argon somehow impossible?  And somehow the only other possible source is in the nebula.

It's one of the few times I'm ever willing to bend canon a little bit.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Erm, no, it just says the Prometheus isn't available until after the nebula missions begin.

Which isn't to say they weren't pulling argon from the nebula to make the Prom S; that's by far the most parsimonious explanation given what we're shown. However, nothing here rules out other possible sources so long as they're just considerably less attractive than the nebula.

If people want to ignore canon or designer intent that's fine just accept the fact you're ignoring it.

Oh and edited my previous post to add some more pet peeves.

[General Battuta]

Erm, no, it just says the Prometheus isn't available until after the nebula missions begin.

Which isn't to say they weren't pulling argon from the nebula to make the Prom S; that's by far the most parsimonious explanation given what we're shown. However, nothing here rules out other possible sources so long as they're just considerably less attractive than the nebula.

If people want to ignore canon or designer intent that's fine just accept the fact you're ignoring it.

Oh and edited my post to add some more pet peeves.

Well, there's nothing in my post quoted there that actually contradicts canon. We have no evidence that the Prometheus S requires access to Earth or the Nebula, merely that they supplied argon for the Prometheus S production process and that the fall of Earth led to a situation whereby argon was unavailable - perhaps due to simple lack of access to argon (your theory), perhaps because they lacked the infrastructure and it only became available about when the nebula did.

I don't particularly favor either theory; I think a campaign could pull either one.

I do agree that ship hull regeneration generally needs a good rationale (though self-repair mechanisms on a warship seem pretty elementary...even a metal ship isn't difficult to heal.)

Given that the FSVerse can apparently regenerate fighter subsystems near-instantaneously, there's at least a good grounding for rapid ship regeneration.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Well, there's nothing in my post quoted there that actually contradicts canon. We have no evidence that the Prometheus S requires access to Earth or the Nebula, merely that they supplied argon for the Prometheus S production process and that the fall of Earth led to a situation whereby argon was unavailable - perhaps due to simple lack of access to argon (your theory), perhaps because they lacked the infrastructure and it only became available about when the nebula did.

I don't particularly favor either theory; I think a campaign could pull either one.

Occam's Razor.
Prometheus S is introduced as a result of access to the nebula, nothing more. If people want to construct some elaborate work around for their campaign kudos to them, it's better I suppose than simply ignoring the fact all together.

I do agree that ship hull regeneration generally needs a good rationale (though self-repair mechanisms on a warship seem pretty elementary...even a metal ship isn't difficult to heal.)

Given that the FSVerse can apparently regenerate fighter subsystems near-instantaneously, there's at least a good grounding for rapid ship regeneration.

If people want to take it that route in a post-capella environment that's their prerogative but to me it stretches credibility and has little basis in canon. It's no mistake that nearly every ship in FS2 appears only once with just a few exceptions. If a ship takes heavy damage it's probably out of the fight for weeks or months.

Essentially this is a game and all canon with in the game is to support that game. So yes fighters systems regenerate as long as they are not destroyed and yes ships engines can be swapped out or repaired in minutes by some small repair craft but there's little precedence for a heavily damaged ship being back in action a mission or two later. In fact I believe the mission where the Aquitane takes damage is the same mission where the player gets transferred to the Psamtik though I could be mistaken.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Ooooh double post but another Pet Hate:


Missions should be winnable the first time around.

In some missions for example, a ship jumps in and wipes out an Escort ship. The player should not HAVE TO KNOW that it's coming in order to prevent it destroying the allied ship. For example, Blue Planet is fine when the Ravana jumps in during that one mission because the player is given forewarning. But other missions, I forget what campaign but one mission a Deimos jumps in and scrags a cruiser and the first time it did I was miles away. Next time I went to intercept it and I still lost. Took me a few tries even KNOWING it was coming. This should not happen.


Essentially a mission's success should not depend upon the player's advanced or prior knowledge of the mission. This of course doesn't mean that a mission can't be hard, but it should be winnable the first time around. (and not by blind luck)

So if a ship jumps in, threatening to unleash some beam destroying power, either give the player forewarning of its arrival, OR, give the ship a reasonable delay before it can fire.

[SF-Junky]

I have a new one.

People creating their own destroyer names, (or even worse) creating new destroyers for each mission. Granted, this was a problem in FS2, where a lot of Orions appeared and all with different names.

Keep in mind that every time you give a ship a new name, you are effectively making a new one. There is absolutely no reason why you have to create the GTD xyz when you could just as easily use the Messana, Carthage or Aeneas. This is actually quite immersive I find, and people get attachments to these ships, which makes it much better when you blow them up. What's even better is that if you're setting your campaign before FS2 you can use ships that get destroyed later on like the Delacroix, Psamtik or any NTF destroyer.

Nods to the continuity are always good IMO.

I generally agree with you. I always find it nice to see known ships in a fan-made campaign and I also often used ships in my own campaigns that we already knew from the FS2 main campaign. But when a campaign takes place far away from the systems we visited in FS2, it doesn't make much sense in my eyes to let canon ships show up.

A campaign that takes place in let's say Dubhe or Aldebaran or Antares won't have much of an opportunity to show ships used in their campaigns.

Did you get my pm, btw?

Ooooh double post but another Pet Hate:


Missions should be winnable the first time around.

In some missions for example, a ship jumps in and wipes out an Escort ship. The player should not HAVE TO KNOW that it's coming in order to prevent it destroying the allied ship. For example, Blue Planet is fine when the Ravana jumps in during that one mission because the player is given forewarning. But other missions, I forget what campaign but one mission a Deimos jumps in and scrags a cruiser and the first time it did I was miles away. Next time I went to intercept it and I still lost. Took me a few tries even KNOWING it was coming. This should not happen.


Essentially a mission's success should not depend upon the player's advanced or prior knowledge of the mission. This of course doesn't mean that a mission can't be hard, but it should be winnable the first time around. (and not by blind luck)

So if a ship jumps in, threatening to unleash some beam destroying power, either give the player forewarning of its arrival, OR, give the ship a reasonable delay before it can fire.

Yes and no. Having to replay some missions is part of the game, in my eyes; as it belongs to an ego-shooter that you sometimes die and have to reload. But when you have to re-play every second mission it gets annoying, yes.

[TrashMan]

How can anyone hate Mackie?

Well, Trashman kinda hates Derelict as a whole, if that helps you understand.

I don't hate Derilict. I just hate annoying cardboat-cutout characters. Mackie is a one-trick pony. Really, do you remember anything about him other than the duct tape?
Derilict was good, but probably not as good as many people remeber it.

That said, let's not turn this into a discussion about a singel campaign, k?

[TrashMan]

Missions should be winnable the first time around.

In some missions for example, a ship jumps in and wipes out an Escort ship. The player should not HAVE TO KNOW that it's coming in order to prevent it destroying the allied ship. For example, Blue Planet is fine when the Ravana jumps in during that one mission because the player is given forewarning. But other missions, I forget what campaign but one mission a Deimos jumps in and scrags a cruiser and the first time it did I was miles away. Next time I went to intercept it and I still lost. Took me a few tries even KNOWING it was coming. This should not happen.


Essentially a mission's success should not depend upon the player's advanced or prior knowledge of the mission. This of course doesn't mean that a mission can't be hard, but it should be winnable the first time around. (and not by blind luck)

So if a ship jumps in, threatening to unleash some beam destroying power, either give the player forewarning of its arrival, OR, give the ship a reasonable delay before it can fire.

Agreed for Primary Objectives. Secondary or bonus objectives - not so much.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Yes and no. Having to replay some missions is part of the game, in my eyes; as it belongs to an ego-shooter that you sometimes die and have to reload. But when you have to re-play every second mission it gets annoying, yes.

I don't mind replaying missions, but my point is that a player should not have to rely on knowledge they shouldn't know in order to win the mission. If the only way a player can complete a mission is by knowing something about its structure from a past attempt at the mission then it's faulty. It suggests that the mission designer is structuring the mission from his perspective (the perspective of someone who knows everything about teh mission) rather than as a first time player.

Agreed for Primary Objectives. Secondary or bonus objectives - not so much.

Yeah I'll agree with that.
As a player I don't honestly care about bonus objectives, maybe a little about secondary but not bonus. That's probably why none of my missions even have secondary or bonus objectives. Another one of my failings no doubt.

[MatthTheGeek]

Given that there are gas miners heading on over to the Colossus very shortly after the nebula itself is opened ('Into the Maelstrom,' which occurs shortly after the destruction of the Ravana), and that the design was clearly not fabricated in the span between the discovery of the Knossos and 'Into the Maelstrom', I'd say we have canonical evidence that the gas miners were intended to work anywhere but the nebula.

I'm not saying 'you're wrong, I'm right' - after all, the gas miners gather stuff other than argon, and argon may be only found in the nebula - but as with many things in FS, I think there's plenty of wiggle room.

So, yes, you could argue that argon only comes from the nebula or from Earth. You could also argue that they didn't have effective gas mining equipment online yet, that the miners were deployed directly to the nebula once available because it was a motherlode, and that - with the nebula gone - they will now just send their newly available miners to other sources.

You catch me wrong. I didn't mean that the gas miners weren't used before the nebula, I meant that it's them collecting in the nebula that clearly and canonically enabled mass production of the Promy S. There are other gases the miners could collect elsewhere before entering the nebula - I remember it's said somewhere that they're supposed to collect deuterium for reactors. And so a campaign taking place in a post-Capella era should give a good enough explanation of why they still use Promy S.

[Aardwolf]

The Lucifer gaining shadow-style organic regenerative abilities.

Derelict did this.
Blue Planet did this.

It's dumb.

It's not Freespace in my opinion, the Shivans have never been demonstrated to have organic ships.
Leave Babylon 5 in the Babylon 5 Mod and stick to Freespace. Shivan ships are inorganic pieces of metal that can be blown apart just like any other ship.

Wait, what? I don't remember this... at least not in BP