[FrikgFeek]

Angle doesn't matter, proximity doesn't really matter. It's either in range or it isn't.
By default CMs are active for 2 frames after launch and then turn off. Anyone launching a CM activates ALL CMs in the mission for 2 frames. So your fighter spamming CMs also makes enemy CMs active for 2 frames and vice versa.

Within those 2 frames both would do some RNG rolls and decoy missiles in range depending on their tbl power.
CMs still work like this in retail and the vast majority of mods.

[General Battuta]

If your missile is about to hit an enemy, and it launches a countermeasure, you can launch countermeasures to make the enemy countermeasure more effective.

Also countermeasures don't actually 'pull' aspect seekers off target, they just make them go dumbfire. (This is part of why countermeasures are so ineffective versus Trebuchets.)

[Fully]

What happened to the GTA assets in sol after the node collapsed? First fleet had at least one Orion guarding earth. I'm guessing after 50 years and the emergence of the new UEF designs any remaining great war era hardware would be completely obsolete by the time of WiH, but are any of the spaceframes still out there, maybe mothballed in some dusty old depot?

[QuakeIV]

If I remember right the crazy gaian effort guy built his destroyer around parts of an old Orion.  No idea which one it would have been though.

[Colt]

I've tried looking around but can't confirm if this is correct, but my memory is that they took the reactor core of the GTD Washington? Maybe it was mentioned in the dreamscape?

[Darius]

Iain Baker: multiple posts in active threads aren't necessary. It's better off in its own thread, posts have been split.

[Wrecker1985]

I just had to create an account to leave a big shoutout to the makers of Blue Planet. Holy f*cking cow...

This "mod" is just all around crazy good and a piece of art. Considering the limitations that FS always had in regards to capabilities of story-telling it's unbeliveable how you guys managed to deliver such a super-immersive, moving and being in-the-middle cinematic experience. The voice-acting is stellar and never gave me any indiciation that this was a non-commercial sidekick project. Tell the guys who put all this together in their heads like the story,  the post-FS2 lore, the perfect musical composition, pilots and ships having a memorable identity, the awesome cast on the voice actor of Admiral Steele and the outstandingly incredible FREDing work that they are gods at what they do. I just wish for the slight hope that BP3 will ever get finished for a conclusion. It doesn't matter if it takes 5 or 15 years. This one deserves a conclusion.

My hats off to all the people being invloved with the creation of BP. On a side note: A repeat-playthrough while being baked as hell is heavily recommended.

[Iain Baker]

I'm going to say something very unpopular. I hate War in Heaven Tenebra.

I don't much like forced stealth games of any genera, and thus simply never play them. So having three obligate stealth mission in Tenebra was disappointing, especially when there are no checkpoints, meaning if you mess up you then have to go through all the boring stuff all over again.

This is especially true with Everything is Permitted. A checkpoint after you have scanned the stations subsystems and another after you have located which ship it is would make it far more palatable. I just skip past these missions or cheat my way through them now since they are such an unpleasant experience to play. It is admirable that the core game is being pushed so far, but I feel Tenebra is perhaps a push too far, since the FS engine and interface isn't really set up for it. For me, Tenebra had great story telling, but was not actually any fun to play. I found watching a lets play to be more enjoyable for these missions. Hopefully if act 4 etc ever gets released it will return to more traditional core gameplay.

FYI I gave BP 8.5/10 in my review with Coin Drop. If it weren't for Tenebra it would have got a 9/10. Feel free to berate me all you like but I am just being honest.

[The E]

I'm going to say something very unpopular. I hate War in Heaven Tenebra.

I don't much like forced stealth games of any genera, and thus simply never play them. So having three obligate stealth mission in Tenebra was disappointing, especially when there are no checkpoints, meaning if you mess up you then have to go through all the boring stuff all over again.

This is especially true with Everything is Permitted. A checkpoint after you have scanned the stations subsystems and another after you have located which ship it is would make it far more palatable. I just skip past these missions or cheat my way through them now since they are such an unpleasant experience to play. It is admirable that the core game is being pushed so far, but I feel Tenebra is perhaps a push too far, since the FS engine and interface isn't really set up for it. For me, Tenebra had great story telling, but was not actually any fun to play. I found watching a lets play to be more enjoyable for these missions. Hopefully if act 4 etc ever gets released it will return to more traditional core gameplay.

FYI I gave BP 8.5/10 in my review with Coin Drop. If it weren't for Tenebra it would have got a 9/10. Feel free to berate me all you like but I am just being honest.

No, that's entirely fair. In Tenebra, we deliberately chose to experiment with missions that do not play like traditional FreeSpace missions -- the intent was to see just how much we could do with the mission design tools FSO provides, and Laporte being part of a force of posthuman state terrorists gave us a good narrative hook to do unconventional stuff.

That said, the missions we have prototyped and plotted for the rest of the campaign are much more traditional.

[Iain Baker]

I'm going to say something very unpopular. I hate War in Heaven Tenebra.

I don't much like forced stealth games of any genera, and thus simply never play them. So having three obligate stealth mission in Tenebra was disappointing, especially when there are no checkpoints, meaning if you mess up you then have to go through all the boring stuff all over again.

This is especially true with Everything is Permitted. A checkpoint after you have scanned the stations subsystems and another after you have located which ship it is would make it far more palatable. I just skip past these missions or cheat my way through them now since they are such an unpleasant experience to play. It is admirable that the core game is being pushed so far, but I feel Tenebra is perhaps a push too far, since the FS engine and interface isn't really set up for it. For me, Tenebra had great story telling, but was not actually any fun to play. I found watching a lets play to be more enjoyable for these missions. Hopefully if act 4 etc ever gets released it will return to more traditional core gameplay.

FYI I gave BP 8.5/10 in my review with Coin Drop. If it weren't for Tenebra it would have got a 9/10. Feel free to berate me all you like but I am just being honest.

No, that's entirely fair. In Tenebra, we deliberately chose to experiment with missions that do not play like traditional FreeSpace missions -- the intent was to see just how much we could do with the mission design tools FSO provides, and Laporte being part of a force of posthuman state terrorists gave us a good narrative hook to do unconventional stuff.

That said, the missions we have prototyped and plotted for the rest of the campaign are much more traditional.

That's good to hear, I wanna blow $h1t up 

[General Battuta]

There’s only one obligate stealth mission, isn’t there? The others you can go loud without failing.

The big theme in acts 4+5 is having a core set of mechanics that you learn across missions, rather than per-mission gimmicks like in SC2 or Call of Duty.

[Iain Baker]

The first is obligate stealth, so is the one I mentioned and her finest hour is pretty much obligatory if you are not playing it on easy. Based on my experience anyway.

[General Battuta]

No, you can lose stealth plenty in the first one and Her Finest Hour. You won't insta-fail and your stealth will return in a couple seconds if you don't fire. Stealth is more of a dogfight advantage than a 'stay out of LOS or die' disadvantage in Tenebra.

Even in Everything is Permitted, you can get away with being detected without insta-failing, but it will probably lead to a fail state in a couple seconds if you haven't carefully prepped for it.

[TechnoD11]

I'm going to say something very unpopular. I hate War in Heaven Tenebra.

I don't much like forced stealth games of any genera, and thus simply never play them. So having three obligate stealth mission in Tenebra was disappointing, especially when there are no checkpoints, meaning if you mess up you then have to go through all the boring stuff all over again.

This is especially true with Everything is Permitted. A checkpoint after you have scanned the stations subsystems and another after you have located which ship it is would make it far more palatable. I just skip past these missions or cheat my way through them now since they are such an unpleasant experience to play. It is admirable that the core game is being pushed so far, but I feel Tenebra is perhaps a push too far, since the FS engine and interface isn't really set up for it. For me, Tenebra had great story telling, but was not actually any fun to play. I found watching a lets play to be more enjoyable for these missions. Hopefully if act 4 etc ever gets released it will return to more traditional core gameplay.

FYI I gave BP 8.5/10 in my review with Coin Drop. If it weren't for Tenebra it would have got a 9/10. Feel free to berate me all you like but I am just being honest.

I actually really liked the change of pace Tenebra offered. Granted, I understand where you are coming from here and it's certainly not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
And along what The E said, the missions certainly felt like the kinds of operations the Fedayeen would undertake.

[Iain Baker]

No, you can lose stealth plenty in the first one and Her Finest Hour. You won't insta-fail and your stealth will return in a couple seconds if you don't fire. Stealth is more of a dogfight advantage than a 'stay out of LOS or die' disadvantage in Tenebra.

Even in Everything is Permitted, you can get away with being detected without insta-failing, but it will probably lead to a fail state in a couple seconds if you haven't carefully prepped for it.

I'll grant you the first one, which was actually an ok mission once you learn to hang back and let the Gia nutters do the work for you.

With Her Finest Hour, is it possible to complete the mission without getting any of the reinforcement points which you get for scanning stuff and sniping AWACs ships and beam platforms, for which you need to be stealthy. If not then it is as good as being obligate stealth.

In the assassination mission how far away do you need to be for the fighters to lose lock on you? I have had both auroras and normal fighters still knowing exactly where I am from over 4KM away. I have tried turning tail and flying away. I have tried flying away on full afterburner with all my energy diverted to the engines. I have tried gliding at 90 degrees from my last direction, I have tried powering down and they still find me. I have tried doing all of the above in combination and they still know exactly where I am. I have flown well over 10KM from everything and those bloody things still know where I am. If I power down I just get killed since they still know where I am but now I cant change direction or do anything. Is it supposed to be like this or is my game screwing around?

I have noticed several glitches in my game which I haven't seen in lets plays, such as strange white square snow like effects in Ken and the great darkness bit in UT2. My controls went haywire in eye of the storm too after placing the tanks - I don't think it liked the UI changing mid mission, so perhaps my game is just borked in general?

Is it possible to insert checkpoints? Some of the longer mission with distinct sections would really benefit from them. Taking the assassination mission as an example, a checkpoint occurring once you have identified which ship she is on would do much to ease the pain, since you could then experiment with different tactics without having to sit through all the dialogue, which gets a little tedious after you have heard it a few times.

Or introduce quicksaves so people can save-scum their way through things  But I gather the FreeSpace engine does not cater for them?

I'm all for experimentation and seeing how far you can push an engine before it breaks, but perhaps give people the option of skipping missions that diverge significantly from core FS gameplay. CoD MW2 allowed you to skip the 'No Russians' mission entirely with no penalties. Granted, this was due to its graphic content, (plus that game was terrible in every other way) but the principle is the same.

Just something I needed to get off my chest - brought on by that *CENSORED* mission killing me yet again. Grrrr. I'm calm again now 

[General Battuta]

All missions can be skipped if you fail them five times.

You can beat Her Finest Hour without firing a shot (or even moving your ship, I expect). No stealth required.

We have checkpoints in many missions but they’re complicated to implement. It might be possible to add one to Everything is Permitted but the mission has so many possible states (it’s more of a sandbox than a linear progression) it would take some real work.

[QuakeIV]

Everything is Permitted is really fun, once you learn how to play it.  I absolutely detested it the first couple of times around however.

Spoiler:

The way I see it, you single the elder out and then fry them with a mjolnir, all while vigorously trying to avoid being spotted, then jump out totally undetected as the tevs violently freak out over how their own weapons just screwed them over.  Thats freaking awesome.

However my jimmies were quite rustled by the fact that the backdoors you have available were seriously under-stated in the briefing, so it felt unfair that I was expected to figure out I could do some of these things.  "Access to networked weapons" and 'we leave backdoors in assets that are likely to be captured' suggests you have access to the UEF equipment in the area (particularly the stations weapons) which are being made use of by the tevs.  Instead you can actually seize control of tev equipment.  That seems to me like an unlikely and difficult thing to pull off (assumedly the tevs just installed their own stuff for controlling the mjolnirs), and therefore very worthy of mention.  I among other things have serious doubts that both the tevs and UEF use the same standard remote beam cannon packet protocol.

Additionally, mjolnirs are extremely powerful as weapons of assasionation (at least in the specific case of very fragile transports), so whatshisface probably would have felt the need to point out you could potentially use them, since they seemed pretty interested in making sure you succeeded at the mission.

I get that this is a side project for everyone involved, and am not complaining about some percieved slight imperfection, its the fact that this is so extreme that it smells like someone said 'we should let the players creativity decide whether or not they get to do this instead of just telling them, after all this is a video game so to hell with any sense of authenticity'.  It would be fine if that jived with the rules the game had followed up to that point (a serious story about professionals doing everything they can to murder eachother), but that definitely didn't, and seemed like it was deliberately so.

e: Grammar

[General Battuta]

They definitely encourage you pretty hard to poke around Artemis and see what resources you can scrounge.

[QuakeIV]

Sure, but how on earth are you supposed to scrounge up all the information to control an RBC, in a format your ship knows how to use, scrounged from computers that probably wouldn't have that information?  Its highly anomalous that you are able to do that, given what was said in the briefing, I proclaim to you.

I grant you that what I suspect didn't necessarily happen, but I do think the appearance of deliberately omitting information that should have been available and was needed to complete the mission is mainly whats frustrating to people.  The game is cucking them by telling them they should have done something that doesn't make sense given the rules of the game.  The fedayeen seems as if it would have shared the information such that they would know roughly what to do.  To be clear, looking at exact briefing text, "If you access the tevs networked weapons, you may be able to subvert them and use them on the target." the absence of the two italicized words there is what makes it seem like deliberate omission.  The language seems carefully crafted to tip toe around explaining what your actual options are.

Also, as Iain has pointed out its really painful trial and error figuring out what you actually need to do to escape.  I bypassed that via the aforementioned approach, enabling me to not need to figure that out at all.

e: I'd like to emphasize that i think its the appearance of deliberate omission which is getting people rustled.

[General Battuta]

Iirc the training mission runs you through the escape protocol, though I don't remember how well it does it. Maybe something's broke, or it just wasn't adequate. I do think it's a mission that's stressful to replay and doesn't always satisfy my itch for flow.

Man I'm not gonna respond to any discussion about the game 'cucking' you. Cucking? Really? You think words were omitted from the briefing in order to cuck you?