[TopAce]

A FreeSpace 2 minicampaign

General
Rogues! tells a credible but intense storyline, told over the course of 8 missions (and two cutscenes). The missions are small scale, so there's no Battle of Endor, no Colossus, and no Shivans! This minicampaign is meant to follow the "simplicity is good" itinerary; both mission design and narration style reflect this.

The story takes place some time after the "domino effect" that elevated Bosch's rebellion into a considerable force.

The campaign is about three underworld figures: Jack, an assassin (the player character); Nicholas, an ex-special agent; and Alex, a thief. The campaign starts when Nicholas sneaks on board an NTF destroyer, but is discovered, and has to rely on Jack and Alex to bail him out. Nicholas returns with intelligence that promises a lot of wealth.

The story is retrospectively narrated by Jack, to an unidentified listener. The three types of briefing (Command, mission, debriefing) are his reflections, but the missions will be played through Jack's eyes, "as it happened."

Miscellaneous

• Remember to play Rogues! with a new pilot file
• The missions are deliberately short and difficult. There are two missions that are longer than the rest, but they are also easier.
• MediaVPs 3.6.12 are recommended
• Most tested difficulty settings: Easy and Medium
• Recent nightly builds are recommended
• AAAs in Rogues! don't penetrate shields, but have their damage increased

Known bugs

• The last mission used to generate the "black hole of doom" bug. It looks fixed now, but there's no harm in placing a warning here.
  
• The debug build compains that two .anis don't have LODs. Since I'm not an animator or an artist, I cannot fix this. This error has no impact on gameplay.
• Two people so far have reported a quotation mark-related typo in the first Command Briefing. Since the quotation marks are displayed right on my end, there is nothing I can do about it.

Acknowledgments
Acknowledgment goes to bigchunk1, who playtested and proofread the campaign.

DOWNLOAD
Fixed mission 2 - In case you have the HTL Arcadia.

[Lucika]

Ah, it is finally released! DL'ing now (I am not sure if I am going to be able to play it soon, I am FREDding Syrk)

I might do a playthrough of it though

[General Battuta]

I can't think of any other campaigns that do use universal translators, cloning or genetic engineering. 

Did up a highlight, post me a cool image if you have one.

[TopAce]

The player had a universal translator in Unreal. Cloning and genetic engineering were featured in ITHOV to some extent.

Thanks for the highlight, by the way.

[EDIT]Okay, I edited the first post per Battuta's implied request.

[Commander Zane]

Awesome recreated Black Hole!
Nevermind.
Pretty sweet minicampaign.

[Rodo]

Played through, though the story is kinda odd the gameplay is ok and it kept me on the seat till the end.

Thanks for the play.

Some stuff to check:

Spoiler:

On CB of mission one you got "Shadowuote instead of "Shadow"
On the final mission the Transport was already docked with the installation when I got there, kinda odd the guy talking to us... he could have just walked his way to the installation, but something unmentioned was keeping him from doing that?

[Snail]

Awesome. Downloaded, will play soon.

[achtung]

http://freespacemods.net/download.php?view.725

Mirrored.

[FSW]

Spoiler alert! I just played through the campaign. Here are my thoughts.

The gameplay is very easy (I didn't die once on Hard) and not very inventive, but I imagine that the main goal of this campaign is to tell the story.

The mission where you have to scan a bunch of transports seems unnecessary; it isn't atmospheric, and nothing interesting happens. The kidnap could have just been alluded to in the briefing, without the player having to go through the motions; alternatively, there could have been more interesting stuff happening in the background to flesh out the story.

The story is interesting; I like the idea of playing as a bunch of unaffiliated outlaws, caught between the warring factions. I'd have liked the story to have developed a bit more; the final mission was anticlimactic; I never really hated the villain (the protagonists seem have a history of trust with him that the player never experiences), and it seemed too easy to catch him. I also feel that many events were skipped over between the final mission and the ending. In summary, I think the story would be better if it were extended or made more dense.

The writing is a little clumsy in the first command briefing, with inconsistent usage of tenses. Also, Shadow's page says 'Shadowuote'.

[bigchunk1]

The writing is a little clumsy in the first command briefing, with inconsistent usage of tenses. Also, Shadow's page says 'Shadowuote'.

That's my bad. I should have been more careful with wording.

[Nuclear1]

I enjoyed it.  Not particularly lengthy (but I guess it is only eight missions after all), but still enjoyable.

Nice work.

Spoiler alert!

[ spoiler ] and [ / spoiler ]

[TopAce]

FSW:

Spoiler:

Mission 2 needed to be as long as it is so that the characters can reveal their thoughts about abducting Commander Ybl's daughter. Also it wouldn't be credible if the first transport they scan happened to have her on board, would it?

I checked this typo thing, but it's not present on my end. The quotation marks are displayed correctly to me.

[bigchunk1]

I checked this typo thing, but it's not present on my end. The quotation marks are displayed correctly to me.

I went back and checked it too, I didn't see it eather. Made me wonder If I had a different version. It's strange since both Rodo and FSW pointed it out. The raw text file for me reads $quoteShadow$quote.

I enjoyed it.  Not particularly lengthy (but I guess it is only eight missions after all), but still enjoyable.

Nice work.

One thing I like about this campaign is that you can play it in one sitting. Something fun to do if you've got an hour or so to kill.

[TopAce]

I extracted the mission from the released VP and checked it. Then the one I have in the un-VPed folder. They match and both work fine.

I wonder if deleting the $quote and updating the released file would be a good idea. If more people report seeing it, then I'd do just that.

[EDIT]I'll download the campaign from here and see if the typo is there. I'm suspecting a corrupted download or a faulty 7z archive.

[EDIT2]Downloaded and tested. Still the same.

[claytonskywalker]

Just downloaded Rogues! this morning and will have a chance to look through it when my spring break begins. 

[GruntMinion]

The campaign was short, simple, and still very good. Well done, will be curious if there's a sequal to this.

[CommanderDJ]

Quite a solid campaign. Some of the dialogue was a bit off, but I felt that the overall plot was quite strong, and that's what kept me playing till the end. The gameplay was nicely based around the premise of each of the missions. This campaign was short, sharp and shiny. It gets my thumbs up!

[Spoon]

• AAAs in Rogues! don't penetrate shields, but have their damage increased

Spoon approves of this

Known bugs

• The debug build compains that two .anis don't have LODs. Since I'm not an animator or an artist, I cannot fix this. This error has no impact on gameplay.

You dont have to be an artist or animator to fix a table 
This warning can be fixed by adding a
$name: Avenger_impact.ani
$LOD: 1
entry in weapon_expl.tbl
But its pretty much insignificant.


Played up till the mission 'The defenders', which I failed for unknown reasons. Got a "no debriefing for mission"m04a_rogues.fs2" screen. I'm guessing nick or alex got shot down, but that's a ****ty reason to fail me. That's completely out of my control :/
That aside I'm finding the missions to be incredibly easy so far, I have yet to take any hull damage.
And I must say that I found the first mission to be anything but credible...

[TopAce]

The campaign was short, simple, and still very good. Well done, will be curious if there's a sequal to this.

I don't plan a sequel. I may come up with a similar smaller-scale campaign in the future, but at the moment, I'm trying to finish the plot outline for my next campaign, which will be a pure military campaign. I've had enough for character-driven campaigns for a while.

Out of curiosity: Has any of you received the quotation mark oddity in the first mission?

Also, there shouldn't be any debriefing for m4a. The Toggle debrief (On/off) is checked, so it's an SCP bug.

[Spoon]

Test the mission, kill one of your team mates, watch it fade into an end mission event that leads to a no debriefing screen. It's not a bug, its logic:
Because the game needs to tell the player that he failed and that he cannot progress in the campaign unless he completes the mission.