Author Topic: [RELEASE] Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign Demo V1.01  (Read 27477 times)

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Offline Droid803

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
FreeSpaceMods is for completed mods/assets.
Use MediaFire or whatever for WiPs.
(´・ω・`)
=============================================================

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
FreeSpaceMods is for completed mods/assets.
Use MediaFire or whatever for WiPs.

It has a demos/teasers section. That's where I sent it.

 

Offline -Norbert-

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
I played a bit with the first two missions (0 and 1) and here are my first thoughts and observations:

-Why are we flying Seraphim wing? I thought that was a JGASF designation, while in this campaign I'm playing a member of the LSF.
-The Kaze is something of an elite fighters. Why is it handed out for a mission which's only purpose (story-wise) is to make sure the pilot knows that the commander is in charge? From a gameplay perspective it's good, since you can get used to the fighter you are given in m1, but maybe put some justification into the command brief. I'd let the commander say something along the lines of "Since you have such high scores, let's see how you can handle the Kaze" and I'd also give the wingmen Rays, especially Firestreak.
-You can cannibalize the other two wings for missiles, while your own wingmen don't have any missiles. If you want to make sure they don't waste missiles on the containers, you should forbid the player from editing the other two wings.
-I couldn't load any missiles into launcher two (only this mission, in m1 it worked again). It's something of an oddity without any real consequence, but I thought I'd still mention it.
-Is it possible to put containers into targeting groups (you can't do it in the F3 window)? That would be very convenient.
-The mission success music is playing during the emergency call. I think it doesn't really fit that you hear happy "I Win! Yay!"-music while you hear about a system-wide invasion and the slaughter of innocents.

Fazit: Not much to tell about the mission. It's mostly there to introduce you to the setting and maybe get to know your fighter a little bit, which it does well. Slap a bit of polish on it and it's fine.

Mission 1:
Here I should mention that I only started the mission twice now, so I'm not yet done with it. I'll test it some more later, but here's the first impressions anyway:
-As I mentioned before, the missile slot2 works fine now.
-Why are we restricted to the one weapon? Not even the other ion particle gun VX-02B is available (the one with the bursts, instead of circling gunpoints).
-After not even a full minute the mission already failed. Is it supposed to fail, or is it "just" very hard to pull off, or am I just having a bad day?
-When you fail to protect any transports you are told that "your wingmen did their job, but you didn't". If non of the innocents survived, how did they do their job? Didn't we all fail together?
-When you get killed (for example from taking the shockwaves of at least six shield breakers point blank in the face) you get the same de-brief as if all the transports had been destroyed. Is it supposed to be that way?

What I can say about the mission so far: It does create an atmosphere of frantic action and shows how you get overwhelmed by the alien invasion, but not completely hopeless yet. More I can't yet say without some further testing.

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
Hey, thanks for the constructive feedback.

Where did you take the mission files from, the OP or the .rar file?

- I never thought about it. I just saw no reason to change it. It was WoD. I would have to come up with some new names, I also don’t know how you change the names, but it’s something to think about. Do you know how to change the names while keeping the Wingmen dots?
- *Goes to read Kaze techroom description* I don’t see anything to suggest it’s an elite fighter. It seems to me like it simply fills the interceptor role in the LSF. I chose the Kaze simply to speed up the player’s progress between the cargo containers. And besides, I don’t want it to be a restricted ship, the number of flyable ships is limited enough as it is, and I’m sure I’ll put the player in the Ray for the bulk of the missions anyway.
- Yes, I didn’t want people unloading missiles into cargo containers. It would just be silly, wouldn’t it? Taxpayers would be pissed off with the LSF wasting missiles on them :)
I’ve never been able to figure out how to grey out the weapon/ship selection, I would just grey it out for this mission. I'd like to know. As for the wings, that was a complete oversight, though I've never looked into how to do that.
- You also for some reason can’t empty out the player’s banks, they have to have at least one bank. That explains the second back, I tried to empty them out and could only empty one.
- I don’t know. I would have liked them to register as hostile. I designated them as hostile, but they stay unselectable with the H button.
- You’ve given me an idea. I’ll let the victory music play, but see if I can get it to cut off when the bad news comes through. I think that would be a good effect.

What does Fazit mean?

- I want the player to stick with standard issue right through. Because you’re a regular unit and only fighting the Nordera and Cordi, so you shouldn’t need anything else, but you do have a point, I could make that weapon available to the player.
- The first mission is a rude awakening, where you find out you’re not going to be coddled at the start and it’s serious business right from the get go. The mission can be won, and my success rate is about 60% I would say. You’ve just got to stick your game face on, burn in there, and hunt those Cordi down. This mission is an example of what I’m aiming for, short (though not as short as that one), intense missions. If you can get a couple of quick kills right out of the gate, you’ll be in a good position to win the level.
- They are usually very good at dealing with the Cordi. In addition, you don’t usually need to kill many Cordi to get the job done, so chances are the failure will be on your end if the mission fails. I also think some people could get caught out “Yeah, first mission, shouldn’t be too hard…”
- It works okay for me. I just tested it again. You do get a different debrief if you die. Unless you died in an explosion which killed the last transport so it might have triggered the debrief for losing the transports first?

Again thanks, very good feedback. I’m looking forward to more.

 

Offline -Norbert-

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
Oh sorry, I thought fazit is international (it does sound a lot like latin), but I seemed to have been wrong there.
It's a concluding summarization with a few final thoughts.

And I was using the one from the .rar archive.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2012, 09:32:37 am by -Norbert- »

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
First time I've heard it. I wondered if it was short for something. Unusual word. I didn't think it was anything bad.

Right. After you've come back with the rest of your thoughts and I've made any changes to the missions, I'll clean things up a bit here, remove the 4 attachments from the OP and the .Rar from the post, attach an updated .Rar to the OP and remove the Mission 3 thread.

I have implemented some changes already. Before you posted your initial thoughts, I found out about how you can use the # key for messages, so I've added some death/ejection dialogue to the combat missions, and made it so a wingman getting taken out early in Lorric 1 won't mess up the mid-mission message chain with Command speaking their lines.

I've also now cut off the music in Lorric 0 like I wanted, and provided the player with the option to put that VX-02B gun in their weapon banks in all missions but Lorric 0.

 

Offline Legate Damar

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
Upload it to mediafire, it won't work for me with attachments,

Also go to editors -> mission specs and click on custom wing names

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
Upload it to mediafire, it won't work for me with attachments,

Also go to editors -> mission specs and click on custom wing names

Hi Damar. Did you take the .Rar file attached to the bottom post on page 3 and that not work either?

Either way, you're in luck. I just checked Freespace Mods, and the demo has now appeared. It is available here:

http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.885

Thanks for the information on Wings. It's something to think about, I've no idea what I would call the player wing though. Might end up going back to Alpha. I don't know. Spoon used names like Wolf and Tiger in Stranded. It's something to think about.

 

Offline Legate Damar

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
Yes, it didn't work. It came out corrupted. I'll try the fsmods link.

 

Offline Flak

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
Umm, what am I supposed to do with the files by the way?

 

Offline -Norbert-

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
You put them into your "Freespace2\Wings of Dawn\data\missions" folder and then you can start them from the techroom.


Let's continue with the testing.
Mission 1:
-I finally managed to save one transport. I think Command is a little too happy about the outcome, saying the evacuation was a complete success, even with 3 out of 4 transports destroyed. Usually a 75% casuality rate isn't something you celebrate as a great victory.
Maybe let them say something a bit more subdued like "you did well saving as many as you could" or "good work considering the circumstance" with the overall evacuation going "very good" or somesuch, but I definately wouldn't use "perfect" or "complete success".

Mission 2a:
-LSF Dirt Warrior :wtf:
-I think the scron went a bit over the top here. I really, really had to fight myself down to not just waste the assholes.... the first time I started the mission anyway... the second time I went for it, which brings me to my next point.
-"Don't fire on friendly targets MKay?" I assume that comes from WoD, but either way it was certainly good for a quick laugh. More to the point, considering how you were treated it's not surprising for the player to snap, maybe you could catch that possibility in-mission and give it some comments from your wings and command.
-Any chance you could tie 2a and 2b together with a subspace effect and auto-starting 2b?

Mission 2b:
-Nothing much to say about this here, all in all a solid mission to get you back on track if you messed up in m1. Maybe a few re-spawns for the bug fighters might be nice though, to keep it from being a pure turkey shoot in the end, with the two destroyed gunships making up the trigger for calling in the Caliburns.
Or maybe give the option of calling the Calis as reinforcements at whatever point you wish, with them giving fitting comments "At least the screwup is smart enough to know he's incapable of anything" if you call them in early for example and command chewing you out if you didn't call them at all "This is not your personal proving ground! We can't afford to accomodate your wish for recognition, we have a war to win! Another stunt like that and you'll be courtmartialed for disobeying a direct order and dereliction of duty!"

Mission 3:
-"Prepare to receive bombs" That like sounded a bit odd to me.
-It also felt a bit odd that command would just leave the ships undefended after you left, even if they are no longer in the alien's sphere of influence. Maybe let them say that another wing is takeing over the escort and you may return to base (like in the very first FS1 mission for example).
-In my tests I blew up the Lotus Flower quite early in the mission, but it still kept talking, but with the messages comming from "Command: Lotus Flower:". Also noone commented about the destruction of any of the freithers. No "damn we lost the <inser shipname>!"
-The debriefing doesn't care for how many freithers survived. It always congratulates you on getting the freithers (note the plural) through, even if just a single one survived. It would be nice if command would comment differently depending on how many ships you got through.

I guess there's not much to say about an escort mission that hasn't been said a hundred times before. A definately good thing is that you don't have to wait for 5 minutes till anything happens.


All in all the missions do raise my interrest in the final campaign. They can do with more work and a bit more finesse in some places (like tying 2a and 2b together), but for a beginner and a point so early in the WIP definately not bad.
I hope in the later missions the player isn't getting too much respect too quickly. If it were up to me, I'd have him gather respect only slowly (except for your wingmen of course.... they are in the same boat as you, which fosters respect and friendship).

 

Offline Legate Damar

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
Finally was able to download and play the missions. In my opinion they were too easy.

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
You put them into your "Freespace2\Wings of Dawn\data\missions" folder and then you can start them from the techroom.


Let's continue with the testing.
Mission 1:
-I finally managed to save one transport. I think Command is a little too happy about the outcome, saying the evacuation was a complete success, even with 3 out of 4 transports destroyed. Usually a 75% casuality rate isn't something you celebrate as a great victory.
Maybe let them say something a bit more subdued like "you did well saving as many as you could" or "good work considering the circumstance" with the overall evacuation going "very good" or somesuch, but I definately wouldn't use "perfect" or "complete success".

Mission 2a:
-LSF Dirt Warrior :wtf:
-I think the scron went a bit over the top here. I really, really had to fight myself down to not just waste the assholes.... the first time I started the mission anyway... the second time I went for it, which brings me to my next point.
-"Don't fire on friendly targets MKay?" I assume that comes from WoD, but either way it was certainly good for a quick laugh. More to the point, considering how you were treated it's not surprising for the player to snap, maybe you could catch that possibility in-mission and give it some comments from your wings and command.
-Any chance you could tie 2a and 2b together with a subspace effect and auto-starting 2b?

Mission 2b:
-Nothing much to say about this here, all in all a solid mission to get you back on track if you messed up in m1. Maybe a few re-spawns for the bug fighters might be nice though, to keep it from being a pure turkey shoot in the end, with the two destroyed gunships making up the trigger for calling in the Caliburns.
Or maybe give the option of calling the Calis as reinforcements at whatever point you wish, with them giving fitting comments "At least the screwup is smart enough to know he's incapable of anything" if you call them in early for example and command chewing you out if you didn't call them at all "This is not your personal proving ground! We can't afford to accomodate your wish for recognition, we have a war to win! Another stunt like that and you'll be courtmartialed for disobeying a direct order and dereliction of duty!"

Mission 3:
-"Prepare to receive bombs" That like sounded a bit odd to me.
-It also felt a bit odd that command would just leave the ships undefended after you left, even if they are no longer in the alien's sphere of influence. Maybe let them say that another wing is takeing over the escort and you may return to base (like in the very first FS1 mission for example).
-In my tests I blew up the Lotus Flower quite early in the mission, but it still kept talking, but with the messages comming from "Command: Lotus Flower:". Also noone commented about the destruction of any of the freithers. No "damn we lost the <inser shipname>!"
-The debriefing doesn't care for how many freithers survived. It always congratulates you on getting the freithers (note the plural) through, even if just a single one survived. It would be nice if command would comment differently depending on how many ships you got through.

I guess there's not much to say about an escort mission that hasn't been said a hundred times before. A definately good thing is that you don't have to wait for 5 minutes till anything happens.


All in all the missions do raise my interrest in the final campaign. They can do with more work and a bit more finesse in some places (like tying 2a and 2b together), but for a beginner and a point so early in the WIP definately not bad.
I hope in the later missions the player isn't getting too much respect too quickly. If it were up to me, I'd have him gather respect only slowly (except for your wingmen of course.... they are in the same boat as you, which fosters respect and friendship).

- Command is referring to the evacuation of the station. Besides, I’m not sure if you even can save more than one. I might have done it once in testing, but I’m not sure. But either way, it’s not something I expect the player to achieve.

2a
- Hey, what’s wrong with that name? I like it. I’m even considering having a wing of fighters calling themselves the Dirt Warriors to go with it.
- Ha ha! It sounds like I did what I was trying to do. I want these guys to get right under the player’s skin. I want them to be exactly that, absolute assholes. I’m going to separate the campaign into a winning and losing path, though victory will be achievable from the losing path. If you go down the winning path, and win mission 1, you’ll never have to deal with these guys. But if you end up on the losing path, then I’m going to jam them down the player’s throat. I’d like to set up a confrontation down the line if possible to allow the player that satisfaction, but if I can’t do it in the context of the campaign, a bonus stage will be created.
- Ha ha, I’ve never seen that either. It must be something Spoon put in :)
I don’t know how I would do that. It’s an interesting idea, but not a priority.
- I wanted to separate these and future such missions like this in order to allow a player to skip such talking in future replays if they want to go straight to the action.

2b
- Sometimes this mission can be surprisingly tricky. But I didn’t want it to be too hard for the start of the campaign. But I did actually have more fighters to begin with, and actually chose to delete some because I thought it was too hard. It was winnable, but I thought it too hard for this early. I don’t want cakewalk missions, but I don’t want brutally hard missions either, especially this early. The mission will turn into a cakewalk if those guys are on station early, so they’ll be staying as they are. They are assholes, but they know how to fly a ship.

3
- I’ve seen that kind of language used before. Like “Prepare to receive arrows” or “Prepare to receive torpedoes”, which is more in line with this.
- The original escort wing (if it is still there) will be staying. You were only brought in as temporary extra cover.
- I thought about this kind of thing early, and decided I don’t want to go fighting fires entirely of the player’s own making like this. They won’t die in the first wave, the fighters are scripted to ignore the freighters and attack the escorts. However, like I said in an earlier post, ejection and death lines have been added to the missions, so the Lotus Flower does have a death line now.
- Perhaps. Unlike mission 1, it is indeed possible to save all three. I have been having trouble trying to figure out how to work such sexps though, and have been working around them in a kind of crude but effective fashion. If I can figure it out though, I’ll make a secondary objective to save all three, complete with praise in the debriefing.

What is WIP? EDIT: Oh yeah, work in progress.

Oh yes. If you end up on the winning path and keep winning, it will all be good. On the losing path, not so much. Of course, like you say, your wingmen will be nice to you all the way through.

Finally was able to download and play the missions. In my opinion they were too easy.

I guess you could try raising the difficulty above Medium and see where it gets you, though opening missions shouldn't be overly hard anyway. Though with your talk of tangling with Aestivals, I imagine dealing with mere Cordi and Nordera will be somewhat trifling for you.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2012, 08:38:34 am by Lorric »

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
The OP and download links have been adjusted.

Hey Norbert, go to the OP and download the new .rar file, if you want to see some of your suggested changes now in effect. Thanks for those :)

 

Offline Legate Damar

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
I mastered the strategies for defeating Cordi and Nordera long ago.... adding enemy Aestivals would help.... say the Hertak captured them or something.

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
I mastered the strategies for defeating Cordi and Nordera long ago.... adding enemy Aestivals would help.... say the Hertak captured them or something.

You can do that in yours if you want. This campaign is set in Alpha Draconis. The only Aestivals around are the two outdated ones on the Guardian Angel, and Crystal and Luna will be keeping those.

 

Offline -Norbert-

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
About mission 2b, I didn't mean to have more fighters in the beginning. I meant that new ones are started by the Mothership, once the old ones are all shot down, but only few of them (maybe a wing of 3 or 4 roughly with a short delay after you wiped the last wave out) so you have to guard the Caliburns, while they demolish the mother ship.

 

Offline Legate Damar

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
In mine you get to fight lots of Aestivals... among many many other enemies.

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
About mission 2b, I didn't mean to have more fighters in the beginning. I meant that new ones are started by the Mothership, once the old ones are all shot down, but only few of them (maybe a wing of 3 or 4 roughly with a short delay after you wiped the last wave out) so you have to guard the Caliburns, while they demolish the mother ship.

Ah. Still, I'd rather the Caliburns got the job done. They're not going to look much like elite if they're asking for help against a few Cordi, are they. As far as I'm concerned the mission is complete as soon as they jump in. All you have to do is not get yourself taken out by the Mothership. I also want the player free to read all that chatter from them.

EDIT: The Mothership only has a few fighters, because it sent them in against the station.

In mine you get to fight lots of Aestivals... among many many other enemies.

Yes, I'm sure. You have a thing about Aestivals, don't you. I bet you got a kick out of the new one.

 

Offline Legate Damar

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Re: Lorric's Teaser - Evacuation of Alpha Draconis Campaign
Well it is nice to have a shield mesh, however the (very limited) autoaim is pretty annoying. It's like I don't know when I can afford to lead my shots or not... I say either have no autoaim or a wide-FoV autoaim. Don't half-ass it.