[SF-Junky]

What If was cool , but still not enough to be decent Great War remake. I'd like to see Shivans with beams, and terrans and vasudans with pre-GW ships and railguns/gauss guns/plasma cannons/whatever, and also with WiH-style tactics.

There is, in fact, a new version of AGW which indeed includes older Terran and Vasudan ships and railguns and new capship weaponry for the Vasudans, though you don't see that much of the new stuff. Also, this has not been released yet.

[Nyctaeus]

I saw Orion with UEF's Gauss Cannons in his three-barreled turrets. Looks interesting , when are You going to release it?

[Zero Serenity]

I'm worried giving Shivan cruisers beam weapons would completely break the game. With the anti-fighter flavor pretty much wrecking anything at 1500 meters, no Maxim gun and the Stiletto being a bomber only weapon (until the Phoenix 5, which is at least comperable) I have the feeling I'll be staring down a lot of fustrated players. Granted, Cruiser-to-Cruiser the GTA and PVE just don't really stand much of a chance anyway, even without beam weapons mixed in. I just feel giving them beam cannons would ramp the challenge up too much.

Lucifer excluded.

But maybe I should test this. FRED a mission putting a Demon next to an Orion and have them sort it out by themselves. If the Demon wins, I really do not think giving them beams is a good idea.

[MatthTheGeek]

Another Great War proved that this can be overcomed by good mission design.

[Zero Serenity]

I gave the board a search and don't see Another Great War. Can you point it out to me?

[MatthTheGeek]

Reminds me furiously What If - Another Great War

I'll be veeeeeery interested to play something like this 

From this very thread.

[Zero Serenity]

 
It keeps being called What If so I guess I lost it somewhere.
Feel free:
 

[Lorric]

It works surprisingly well in the What If campaign. It gets balanced out by the GTVA getting flak guns on their ships for improved anti fighter capability. Well, maybe it doesn't, since the Shivans get anti-fighter beams too. But it's not just the Shivans which get an upgrade.

Remember, you nearly always only see Cains or Liliths, which only have one beam weapon. If you can take it out, it's back to normal again.

[Zero Serenity]

I played the first three missions of What If before the game glitched and died.

But already I can tell that what it does I do not want to do. It seems to me that the mod was designed for FreeSpace veterans, not the necessarily in the spirit of the original campaign. I found it very difficult on normal (and not because I'm used to having shields) and completely off the wall with weapon selections. One of the things the original campaign does is introduce you to very limited weapons and then ramp up selections as you go. Weapon (and ship for that matter) seemed completely random and not following any sort of coherency. The chatter of your wingmen is okay but rather silly and in dire need of voice acting, but it disturbed me that pilots were allowed to chatter that long.

But my greatest complaint is what happens to the story. Starting with the Avenger cannon completely removes the "We're ****ed!" moment when the Shivans do arrive. Otherwise, I highly doubt the GTA could keep a secret about the Shivans when the Admiral Wolf won't shut up about them. I won't say it ruined (as in rewriting it too much) the story so much as it makes about as much sense as a dog playing poker.

So, I didn't have fun is what I'm saying and I didn't get any great ideas other than "don't do this."

[Lorric]

I played the first three missions of What If before the game glitched and died.

But already I can tell that what it does I do not want to do. It seems to me that the mod was designed for FreeSpace veterans, not the necessarily in the spirit of the original campaign. I found it very difficult on normal (and not because I'm used to having shields) and completely off the wall with weapon selections. One of the things the original campaign does is introduce you to very limited weapons and then ramp up selections as you go. Weapon (and ship for that matter) seemed completely random and not following any sort of coherency. The chatter of your wingmen is okay but rather silly and in dire need of voice acting, but it disturbed me that pilots were allowed to chatter that long.

But my greatest complaint is what happens to the story. Starting with the Avenger cannon completely removes the "We're ****ed!" moment when the Shivans do arrive. Otherwise, I highly doubt the GTA could keep a secret about the Shivans when the Admiral Wolf won't shut up about them. I won't say it ruined (as in rewriting it too much) the story so much as it makes about as much sense as a dog playing poker.

So, I didn't have fun is what I'm saying and I didn't get any great ideas other than "don't do this."

What the... that doesn't sound right at all. Hang on a sec...

As I thought. Are you sure you've got that set up properly? The first 3 missions you only have the ML16 laser, the disruptor, A railgun which only does hull damage, and two weapons which do less damage than the ML16 laser, including a machine gun. I have been playing on Easy, I always do that with a new campaign, but have had little trouble.

Wingman chatter is kind of a problem in a sense I had to keep stopping to hit F4 so I could read. I wouldn't do anything like that either. Save it for the briefings/debriefings if at all. Also, I'm confident English is not the creator's first language.

If it glitched and died you mustn't have it set up right. Did you follow the instructions and download Stormfront? And have you got the Fsport running?

[Zero Serenity]

FSPort (with media VPS) works beautifully. But yeah. The second mission is a bombing run (with the Athena), plus all the ammo weapons I couldn't quite decide if they were useful or not.

[Lorric]

FSPort (with media VPS) works beautifully. But yeah. The second mission is a bombing run (with the Athena), plus all the ammo weapons I couldn't quite decide if they were useful or not.

Oh speaking of media vps, I had to change the info in the mod file for media vps as it was out of date. I still have 13 errors when I start up, but have ran into no problems. Well, except a glitch on the mission where you have to steal the Shivan Dragon  where the capture ship won't dock with it.

[SF-Junky]

I saw Orion with UEF's Gauss Cannons in his three-barreled turrets. Looks interesting , when are You going to release it?

Soon, I hope.

I'm worried giving Shivan cruisers beam weapons would completely break the game. With the anti-fighter flavor pretty much wrecking anything at 1500 meters, no Maxim gun and the Stiletto being a bomber only weapon (until the Phoenix 5, which is at least comperable) I have the feeling I'll be staring down a lot of fustrated players. Granted, Cruiser-to-Cruiser the GTA and PVE just don't really stand much of a chance anyway, even without beam weapons mixed in. I just feel giving them beam cannons would ramp the challenge up too much.

Well, the Shivans were supposed to be one hell of an uber enemy when they first showed up. But to be honest, in the FS1 ingame gameplay they were not any tougher than Terrans or Vasudans as soon as you have shields. I think giving them beam cannons just makes them what they are supposed to be: A superior enemy with superior technology which can, in the end, just be defeated by tactics.

Now, let me make a more general statement on What If: Another Great War. The campaign was, from the beginning, more like a dalliance. I just wanted to play around a bit to see by myself how Shivans with beams and T/V with flak guns would feel fighting each other. The intention was to show the Great War from the perspective of the Storm Front timeline which does, in certain details, differ from the official FS timeline. Shivans always had beam cannons, Terrans always had flak cannons and railguns, Vasudans never used flak cannons but very powerful energy guns.

Then I started to think about the technological improvements Terrans and Vasudans newly introduce throughout the campaign. At the beginning, the Terrans only have the Apollo fighter and the ML-16 Laser. And then, within three months, they introduce about half a dozen newly developed ships and weapons? Sorry, but that didn't feel very credible to me. This is why there are machine guns, Stilettos, Phoenix V, Athenas and Medusas right from the beginning.The latest version of the campaign will also include the Falcon, Shrike, Mustang Alpha and Atlas as older craft that have been removed from active service, but are still there. There will also be a couple of older Vasudan fighters.
The Avenger is indeed there from the beginning as well. But it is not very widely used, because it is very expensive. It's an experimental weapon that is just not worthwile to produce it in great numbers, so the GTA just issues them for special occasions. This changes when the Shivans show up with shield technology that make ballistic weaponry useless.

I hope I could make clear a bit why I did WhatIf, what my intention was and what the campaign was supposed to show. I do, of course, not suggest that I am the only one who has the right to remake the FS1 main campaign. Also I do not claim to have shown the "real" Great War. I showed my perspective of the Great War, how I would have made it from today's point of view. Anyone may feel free to go ahead and show his or her view.

Oh, and yes, I am not a native English speaker. Though I have improved since AGW. I hope.

[Zero Serenity]

I apreciate your sincerity. I was hoping to not nessisarily expand the story too much with my retel. I would like to fix a few "wha?" moments in it, such as cutscenes and briefings not completely matching where ships are and a some things in missions that make little sense.

Actually, as I'm writing more about this, I am reminded that in Avenging Angels the like "We are leaving system with Omega" doesn't make much sense.

If I add, I won't add much. 30 missions is already a rather good sized campaign, 40 is pushing it and 50 could just be ludicrus. Sofar I have slated to add at least three missions, a warm-up patrol mission with no working title, one titled "Operation Thresher" which is a mission that goes bad and a Convoy strike (Hinted at the debriefing of Eve of Destruction) that gets aborted as well. The Convoy strike will also introduce you to the GTF Angel, with a few reservations.

Sofar there's a lot to work out for the beginning in terms of additions. I'm considering adding some dialog to the "credits" mission to make the destruction of the Lucifer feel more organic than a bunch of heros flying aimlessly.