[Anti]

I'm getting the distinct impression that a 'campaign' is just a series of standalone single missions, with only the briefing to create the impression of a story.

Is there any persistent information passed along to successive missions? Eg. If I destroy a named cruiser or freighter in an early mission, can that affect what happens in a later mission (ie. it makes the enemy weaker in strength)?

What about my squad members - if I lose the rest of my squad in one mission, does it make any difference in following missions?

Also, I've noticed that once a 'mission result' is accepted, there doesn't seem to be a way to go back and play the missions as singles. Is there a way of doing that?

Cheers.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

That all depends on how the campaign was made.  Most are linear or only have a couple small branches.  They can be made as dynamic as the FREDder wants to make them.  Information can be passed from mission to mission using campaign persistent variables. 

[Qent]

Also, I've noticed that once a 'mission result' is accepted, there doesn't seem to be a way to go back and play the missions as singles. Is there a way of doing that?

Yes, go to the tech room mission simulator and select campaign missions. Only missions that you've won will appear (unless you cheat).

[headdie]

I'm getting the distinct impression that a 'campaign' is just a series of standalone single missions, with only the briefing to create the impression of a story.

campaigns are constructed from single missions, the campaign editor can be set so that different mission follow on depending on the outcome.  a simple campaign is a strait line of missions 1-2-3 and that is what is most often seen because a branching campaign tree is very tedious, time consuming to set up and balance properly.  If you look at the retail campaigns they are linear with a small number of variations that head back to trunk after 1 or 2 missions (not including SOC loops in that last statement).

Is there any persistent information passed along to successive missions? Eg. If I destroy a named cruiser or freighter in an early mission, can that affect what happens in a later mission (ie. it makes the enemy weaker in strength)?

What about my squad members - if I lose the rest of my squad in one mission, does it make any difference in following missions?

Using campaign persistent variables, mission branching, red alert and carry flags you can create the scenario you describe above

Also, I've noticed that once a 'mission result' is accepted, there doesn't seem to be a way to go back and play the missions as singles. Is there a way of doing that?

Go to the tech room, missions option in the top left,  at the bottom left of the new screen is an option to flick between completed campaign missions and single missions, note this route has no effect on how the campaign progresses

[NGTM-1R]

I'm getting the distinct impression that a 'campaign' is just a series of standalone single missions, with only the briefing to create the impression of a story.

You're playing bad campaigns.

[Anti]

Thanks for all the great info.

RE: the tech room... DOH!

[Woolie Wool]

Most campaigns are mostly or wholly linear because as you add more branches or possible outcomes, it becomes exponentially more complicated, time-consuming, and difficult to design, FRED, test, fix, and keep track of all the various elements of the campaign. Remember that most campaigns don't have a large team, none of them have a truly professional team (unless you're working several hours a day, five days a week, and getting paid, you aren't really professional), and they generally don't have the resources to make a long, fully dynamic, multi-branched campaign.

[Mongoose]

Also, the more you branch a campaign, the greater the odds are that a decent portion of your audience will never even stumble across several of those branches, meaning that some of your work is essentially wasted.  Not everyone has the patience or desire to keep replaying a campaign in order to ferret out every single possible outcome.  From everything we've heard, BWO seems to have largely solved this problem by providing a sort of "branching point" that the user can return to after completing one branch, but that only really works if you have two or three single branches from the same point like its campaign apparently has.

[-Norbert-]

There are two campaigns formost in my mind on that topic, both for The Babylon Project. But since both campaigns have nothing to do with official Babylon 5 storyline, they are suited for people who don't know anything about B5 too.

Number one Babylonian History X is (or was) a fully dynamic campaign being worked on by madaboutgames. As far as I gathered it's currently on ice due to madaboutgames being busy with reallife, though it did have a playable internal version, but with showstopper bugs.

Secend is the Earth Brakiri War. With the exception of the first and last mission there are always two missions for each "level". Your success on the previous levels determins which of the two missions you will play.
Originally it was planned to have a dynamic end too, but that was changed to accomodate the (not yet released) continuation of the story.

[Spoon]

To do a bit of shameless selfpromoting, my own campaign (wings of dawn, still a WiP) has several dynamic elements to it. For example failing the primary objective in mission 5 and you can still finish the mission but the ship you failed to protect will not show up in mission 7. Destroying a reactor subsystem on a capship in mission 13 and you'll get a different mission 15 etc.
I personally just never liked the idea of having bonus and secondary objectives in missions that will do absolutely nothing but give some extra score. Hench my own devotion to make almost every objective count and making a campaign being as dynamic as possible. (Could also be that its because I grew up with wingcommander 3 and its mission tree style story)

[TrashMan]

Yeah. It's the same concept I'm gunning for in DOTA. A lot of work tough.

[headdie]

in retail some of the medals you are issued are dependent on mission performance across several missions

[Pred the Penguin]

Medals don't effect other missions though...

[JCDNWarrior]

Ironically, un-edited missions themselves are the most dynamic; any outcome can occur, which is fun to play with, too, just impossible to control. You can work around that though in various ways, FRED and story-wise. It just means you're unable to be very specific.

The dynamicness of a campaign as such, is in the way it's written, explained, and justified. For multi-branching situations it gets harder to keep track as a developer.

[Klaustrophobia]

Making a game based on a series of individual missions dynamic is difficult, because the story still needs to get told.  the overall outcome has to be pretty much set.

[Anti]

Thanks for all the answers.

I don't know why, but I just expected more of a 'war game'. ie. starting with a set number of vessels, and losing the war if too many were lost. Or perhaps capturing weaponry that could help you later, as opposed to not capturing it and having a harder time later. My assumption must have been the way the game was described in reviews and a good deal of wishful thinking on my part!

[headdie]

its all hinted at in the briefings but i think was deliberately vague with how many ships are involved outside of a played mission

[Sushi]

Thanks for all the answers.

I don't know why, but I just expected more of a 'war game'. ie. starting with a set number of vessels, and losing the war if too many were lost. Or perhaps capturing weaponry that could help you later, as opposed to not capturing it and having a harder time later. My assumption must have been the way the game was described in reviews and a good deal of wishful thinking on my part!

That sort of thing isn't really intended for the engine. You could make it happen, but it would take a LOT of work. If you're looking for more of a complete war simulator set in space, I recommend checking out Starshatter.

Freespace is more focused on telling scripted stories than simulating a war, but as I'm sure you are discovering, it does that very well.

[Jeff Vader]

I don't know why, but I just expected more of a 'war game'. ie. starting with a set number of vessels, and losing the war if too many were lost. Or perhaps capturing weaponry that could help you later, as opposed to not capturing it and having a harder time later. My assumption must have been the way the game was described in reviews and a good deal of wishful thinking on my part!

FreeSpaces were meant to be enjoyable, arcadey spaceship shooting games with somewhat cliché-ish but captivating story, not war simulators.

You can think that the GTA, PVN in FS1 and GTVA in FS2 have a set number of ships (though they do probably at least try to produce more). If you lose an important enough ship, of course it has an effect: you fail. The GT(V)A fails. The war will be lost. And you'll have to retry and win this time so that you can continue.

And capturing enemy weaponry happens: in FS1 you make raids against the Shivans to steal their shield technology and even a Dragon. It's just that all the resulting reverse-engineering happens in the background and according to the plot. Once they should be ready, they are ready.

FS1 had some actual dynamics. For example,

If you were unable to engage the Vasudan Ace, then the freighters will jump out at 2:00 and 4:00 into the mission instead of 5:00 and 8:00. For each freighter that escapes, expect another wing of Anubis fighters. Also, in the unlikely event that you let a Vasudan Anubis escape in the previous mission, the Orff will arrive with its hull knocked down to 65%.

Eliminating the Lorkonius will make the next mission a little easier. If you fail to do so, there will be another Dragon on patrol in Playing Judas, although it will be flying "below" the jump node and you're unlikely to come near it.

If you didn't disarm or destroy the Zenith, it will be present in the middle of the jump node when the mission starts and will be a thorn thoughout the game to get both transports into the jump node.

If only one Omega transport survived the last mission, then only one Omega transport will be in this mission.♦

If the Bastion was damaged to below 35% in the previous mission, then the Bastion will start out with 35% in this mission.

[Snail]

It is very possible to make a fully dynamic branching storyline but as a few people have said already it'd be pretty hard to do properly.