[procdrone]

To avoid confusion, you might wanna consider giving your campaign a different name before release. TopAce released a post-Capella campaign just a couple years back called Luyten Civil War, so a title that makes yours stand out a bit more might be a good call.

Yes, I was thinking a lot about the whole thing, and it's similarity to the Luyten Civil War. Firstly I called it somehow strangely, and changed it to this way. Why?
Becouse the campaign name is: Laramis Civil War, it's an prelude to another campaign I will be working on after I'm done with this one. Mod and mission will have all the other names in the end.

The finished mod will be called "Venece Mirror".

For now to backbone the whole thing, I'll give out a pieces of history about my whole mod. HIGLY UNPOLISHED, HIGLY UNFINISHED
English could be bad in there, very bad.

Following contains spoilers about the whole storyline:

Code: [Select]

"In 2358, 5 years after the end of the Second Shivan Incursion, the economic downturn still rampaged the distant GTVA worlds, on which too much pressure was put on the building Delta-Serpentis Jump gate, border systems like Adhara or Laramis faces a economic collapse and poverty to its citizens, plagues spread and small militias raised in revocation of BETAC of said systems. From now on, they are called independent.

With GTVA still too much occupied in its core systems and Jump gate building project there were never been able to accordingly respond to those uprisings, any real funding on still loyal border worlds was non-existent, and they which found themselves alone in the midst of their new problems, Adharian Confederacy and Laramis Supreme Reign.

GTVA still underestimated there civil unrest, believing that those will collapse themselves, diplomatic ties has been established only 6 months later, after the official forming of those new system-states.

Failed diplomacy and still neglected border systems of GTVA faced a total economic breakdown and anarchy, they could not sustain itself without outer help, help which GTVA still didn't handed.

After 4 months, those who finally realized that GTVA won't help them any way, they turned their looks on the two minor factions, the Adhara and Laramis, which economic state was growing up after secession from GTVA, in one year, many of border systems joined first or second faction, forming two formidable powers to be reckoned with, in time, they formed a strong military presence to backbone their independence ambitions.

GTVA could not ignore that, again, next 2 months of failed diplomacy sparkled a conflict between Laramis Supreme Reign and GTVA, still devastated military of the Alliance Terran part could not hold its territories, until Vasudan Armada finally joined the fight in 2351, beating the Supreme Reign and driving their fleet back to their home system.

This could become a start to and end of the Laramis uprising, if not Adharians, still untouched by any conflict, came to aid the Laramis people, after a bloody war that endured for 4 years, the new forged allies, were able to stop GTVA advance.

Both parties understood that they can't hold their independence by their very own, 2 years later, in 2357, they formed a one, and unified front to fight with the still hostile GTVA, any contact has been cut down, and new war started."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"At the end of 2357, culminating the end of the most bloody civil war known, Adharian Confederacy and Laramis Supreme Reign faced a problem, while their military crippled and beaten, a still hostile GTVA endured. Most likely that in next year, the existence of said factions would come to and violent end at the tip of Alliance's gunpoint's. The leaders of said minor powers in border worlds met in Wolf system, signing a truce, an pact that brought a new, independent and strong faction to power, the 'Wolf's Allied Convention' formed Star Alliance, which officially came to life in 2359, when a capital was chosen in Adhara system. The known two faction became one, with a strong anti-alliance propaganda they managed to rally everyone on their controlled territories. A new, unified front evolve to ensure safety from GTVA. For the next 10 years, the Alliance was uncontested by GTVA, diplomatic channels were opened as of 2362 and a cease-fire was enacted. The back down economy was finally to recover on the much suffered border worlds."
EDIT: It seems that the enemy forces deployment is bad in second mission, I will overdo it with backbone of your advices.

[swashmebuckle]

Cool, I think it's good that your overall mod release will have a different name.  Sometimes it's hard enough to keep campaigns straight as it is

In English they're called Venetian Mirrors, assuming you're talking about the actual objects rather than a code name or something that happens to combine the words Venice and Mirror.

[procdrone]

I know there has been a bit of silence from me for a while, but never fear, I'm still working on this.
I took on all of your advices and reworking the combat part of the mission from the scratch, I have the nice plan for it, so I hope this one will be more to your likings

[procdrone]

Here it is, Brand new, flashy and fabulous (just kidding) mission is again complete.
I hope it's even better then previous one...
File attached, overwrite the previous one.

I hope I didn't overlooked on anything this time, and it's all set and ready to go.

Feedback welcome and needed!

[Rodo]

I could not beat the mission, yet I'm not the best player out there so it's ok.

Didn't notice any flaw in the mission design or fred-wise, so good work on those fronts, now I'd focus on mission gameplay and minor polishing like checking the distance the player has to travel between targets, the amount of enemies he must face simultaneously, and adding chatter or smalltalk wherever necessary.

I'd recommend you use the hotkeys for every wing/ship you put in the directives list, just like you did with the bomber wing.

[Luis Dias]

I also could not beat the mission, always seemed to be caught in the multiple Fenris' AAA beams. Otherwise it's a fine mission (except the part where the battleships are constantly hitting each other).

[procdrone]

Well, I know. (The Aff of the both cruisers are a bit mess and gave me troubles when testing it too, well after the 3rd time I managed to beat them, yet the Vaspado was already dead...) Making the right difficulty is a tricky thing, one would say it's easy (like you said the last time), one could say it's really hard. (and this part is meant to be hard, something for those "seasoned FS2O players" that was talking earlier about the difficulty). Yes, it's a tricky one... but as always, your suggestions are well appreciated. (Try to give it a few more spins, maybe after next time you will beat those pesky Fenrises!)

And about capships running into themselves, well, i don't use the in game coordinates to navigate them to best firing positions, but instead, I use the Attack order and let the AI solve this for me, it can be messy too.

I think i could change this.

[Luis Dias]

I wasn't complaining! I do prefer hard missions to easy ones and I do think I'm always being a little of an idiot in the missions, I have this urge to kill the Fenris' front beam turrets and then I easily get into trouble. Never felt that the mission was impossible, only demanded a little bit less cowboyish of a fightplan .

[procdrone]

I looked on the issue with fred, and found the problem with so hard fenrises.

My SEXP about setting the beam turret armour to lowest possible is not there, no clue how it got delated...
I've set them in place now, and on the next upload, it should be better.

[Lepanto]

Alright, this iteration was definitely much more fun; by now, you've got a grasp on how to split up missions into sub-tasks. Between the multiple enemy wings, the suicidal Zod transport, and the comm traffic, the enemy deployments feel more like "we're launching a disorganized response to an unexpectedly successful enemy attack" than "we're sending wave after wave of fighters to get killed."

Still, though, it was annoying to get killed by the two cruisers, forcing me to replay the rest of the mission up until that point. Might I recommend using this checkpoint script to allow the player to reload from mid-mission checkpoints?

Also, the dialogue and directive which tell you to help disable the station's subsystems popped up while I was busy fighting the cruisers pounding on the Vaspado. Maybe consider chaining the "Omega docked" event to the "cruisers are dead" event, to keep the mission progression flowing smoothly?

Something else you might not have considered: the Steadfast can accidentally get disabled, so it can't warp out, and is therefore destroyed. It's a minor point, but maybe you could also add a message displaying when the Steadfast is destroyed, or guardian its engines if you want it to show up later?

[procdrone]

There will be a message to it. Steadfast is not a campaign valuable asset.

[procdrone]

Go ahead and give it a spin now.
No checkpoint however, I'm yet to learn about them.
Mission in attachment, as always, replace the previous one.

EDIT: Sorry for mistake, I've uploaded the wrong version, up to date is here now.
NEW EDIT: After some playtests i changed the way that cruisers attacks, those AAf are really annoying.

[Lepanto]

It's still too hard to intercept Aries bombers, then de-beam the Bulwark and Jeropodos before they can kill the Vaspado. Maybe cut that section down to one enemy cruiser?

The hull integrity repair from the support ships is quite helpful, though.

BTW, if you didn't know, you should use the AAAh beam cannon on enemy ships, in place of the AAAf. AAAhs fire faster on higher difficulties, and vice versa for the AAAf.

[procdrone]

Yes, and with events done in there as they are, I'm unable to repair most things, that's why all events go right of the scratch, now clear and easy to bugfix (again rebuilding the mission).
Also, I'm giving it an extensive testing so there won't be throwing you unfinished scraps and waiting what to correct.

Vaspado got stronger hull, while the Gallant arrives faster, bomber wing will be down to 3 bombers, and escorts down to 2 fighters. (But did not play-tested it), player is given an beam-protect state just as his mission is to disarm the cruisers, so it should not be too hard now, but remember this protection goes right off after the beams are down!

Patience, when I have a moment I'll tend to the mission.

[procdrone]

And here it is, I was able to pass it 2 times without problems (the final version).

2 times because I was only playing the final version 2 times

File attached.

[attachment deleted by an evil time traveler]

[Lepanto]

Okay, this version is beatable. Your FREDding has certainly improved; if you remember what you've learned here, you should be able to make solid missions. Nice touch, tying in the Vaspado's beam shot to the capture and availability of Capella-era ships in future missions (can I have Kaysers and Tornados plz  )

A couple things I'll mention, though:

Weakening subsystems by setting their strength to lower percentages looks odd in-mission (like those subsystems were damaged, even on fresh ships.) The best way to weaken or strengthen individual ship subsystems is by using armor types provided in your mod's Armor.tbl, though table-editing goes beyond the scope of mere FREDding.

Taking out the Naeros's subsystems is still a bit tedious (especially if you've lost all your wingmen already.) Maybe have a wing of allied bombers with Stiletto IIs jump in to disable the station's subsystems, and you have to defend the bombers from one last wave of enemy fighters while they do their job?

BTW, why is the player flying for the anti-GTVA rebel faction?

[procdrone]

Ok, I'm going to give answers bit by bit.

Okay, this version is beatable. Your FREDding has certainly improved; if you remember what you've learned here, you should be able to make solid missions. Nice touch, tying in the Vaspado's beam shot to the capture and availability of Capella-era ships in future missions (can I have Kaysers and Tornados plz  )

Thank you, Well, when i get hard enough to the things they seems to work our
'bout the kaysers, they will be available when campaign progresses. No spoilers!

Weakening subsystems by setting their strength to lower percentages looks odd in-mission (like those subsystems were damaged, even on fresh ships.) The best way to weaken or strengthen individual ship subsystems is by using armor types provided in your mod's Armor.tbl, though table-editing goes beyond the scope of mere FREDding.

Explanation under way! There are few reasons:

1) Ross 128 is another of the non-core systems, and not every ship must be in fresh-off-the-shipyard-maintenance state, sol gate costs GTVA almost everything it can spare. (That's the poorer explain, so why the beam is only damaged!?), notice GTVA was taken off guard, when Halabard wrecked the corvette and jammed all their comms, gaining the node, making the security council panic, and in 15 minutes later, they attack on the military installation, they are off guard as hell, sending in anything close enough to try to reinforce the positions. If the boarding operation would be prolonged or placed about 30 minutes later, Laramis Supreme Reign would be facing the GTD Maveric along with corvette and cruiser screen, rendering the blitz impossible to them.

2) Making the turrets low armor at the FRED is not giving enough for me, they would be hard to disarm again, I would need to write a specified armor type for this, or "borrow" it from some other mod. BUT I want this campaign as clear of additional files as it is possible.
Maybe when I get to release it as single VP's file (finished), I'll change it to "nice and cool", polish everything I can.

Taking out the Naeros's subsystems is still a bit tedious (especially if you've lost all your wingmen already.) Maybe have a wing of allied bombers with Stiletto IIs jump in to disable the station's subsystems, and you have to defend the bombers from one last wave of enemy fighters while they do their job?

Could do it, but it would be sharp-risky to the "senseless fighter attack" problem... I will think about it though.

BTW, why is the player flying for the anti-GTVA rebel faction?

The campaign goal is to tell one of the periods of my story line, how the GTVA haters: Laramis Supreme Reign attacks the GTVA systems gaining some ground at first, but later on, getting pushed back and almost defeated at hands of the Vasudans that finally joins the fight.

My idea to show events from the LSR side was a sort of experiment, there are loads of campaigns that side's with GTVA, but it's not a rule, isn't it?
Also, it's far more foreseen then you may think.

After the events of this campaign, there is new faction formed, Star Alliance (can bring more on the topic if you are interested), and the next campaign I will be making, will tell the story how the GTVA takes another fight with the Star Alliance, and THEN player will be fighting on the side of GTVA. (will fancy new ship models, new weapons, capship and fighter alike, creating new storyline and new alien race! I have the files for all of this already set and ready, just mission making is left!)

Contrast, trying to create something new.


Ohhh.... and btw. I'm on the verge of competing the next mission, I will post it when it's ready

[starlord]

actually, your story seems to show compatibilities with the end telling of the luyten civil war, as such, would you not be tempted to try and link both in one continuity, like STR and echo gate?

[procdrone]

actually, your story seems to show compatibilities with the end telling of the luyten civil war, as such, would you not be tempted to try and link both in one continuity, like STR and echo gate?

Well, sir.

I can't find any similarities between the two, and as Luyten system will be a battlefield in some point, it don't relates to the Luyten Civil War.
When the whole campaign will be end, you'll see this as much.

As for the continuing the Luyten Civil War, I played it, and liked it's plot that's for sure, but making the next one? I don't know if there is much to do there atm. Story's over.

But, if people would insist, I COULD think of something for this

[starlord]

No worries! this was mostly a suggestion.

we have nothing to demand from you.

this was a thought mainly due to one of the antagonists of the luyten civil war making an escape to laramis where it's implied he stirred up a second rebellion.