Author Topic: Exile - Discussion  (Read 58920 times)

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Offline DefCynodont119

  • 210
  • Ascended GTSC-Faustus Artist
    • Steam
NOTE: Someone needs to convince Darius to remix the entire Freespace (1 & 2) soundtrack.  :lol:

Slightly OT, but I heartily agree with this. :yes: :nod: :yes:

It's not off topic because that was the most important part of my post.   :D

Really tho, Darius is incredible.

That sounds more like an insult to the team actually...

*DefCynodont119 fully appreciates and acknowledges all the hard work that goes into making mods and projects*

*No insult was intended*

*Please excuse DefCynodont119's obsession with music remixes of things he likes*

My gift from Freespace to Cities Skylines:  http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=639891299

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
Just finished this, I'm not good at writing reviews for things so I'll keep it short:

Narrative/Writing: ehh, to be 100% honest, it didn't feel natural- the pilots seemed overly jock-ish in situations where any other person would either maintain professionalism and/or be silently terrified.  Overuse of F word. (Protip: swears lose meaning the more they are used both IRL and in writing.) Some of command's early decisions seemed over-the-top. Also I could barely stop myself from shooting down Nelson.   :beamz:

I second this. Exile's writing doesn't feel natural to me either, but then as I understand it, Exile's writers learned English as a second language and it shows. (Which makes sense, because IIRC Nyctaeus and many of Exile's designers are from Poland.) After I got back to HLP a few months ago, I offered my editing services to Nyctaeus to edit Exile's story and dialogue so that it reading it doesn't seem so choppy or forced, as well as to get rid of the (more) nonsensical technobabble such as the stuff about Object 419's "biometal" or "biocrystalline" core components. And don't even get me started about Doctor Banner observing Object 419 "emitting gamma waves" while still being in the same room with it without radiation protection. Seriously, gamma wave exposure is DEADLY. I changed all references to Object 419's gamma waves to "quantum pulses" instead. It evokes ETAK without directly mentioning ETAK. Which reminds me, I also deleted (and will delete if I find more) any in-game mentions of ETAK because that's a huge plot hole for Exile: How could the Terrans fleeing Sol know anything about ETAK if they were trapped in the Sol system while Bosch was running around using ETAK in the Shivan nebula?

It's stuff like that that really irritates me about poorly written Freespace mods.

But I have good news. I'm just about done editing the species table file, which contains the bulk of Exile's backstory found in the techroom. Holy crap, the history entries in Exile's techroom really needed the edits I made in order to make sense of them because I couldn't sense of Exile's backstory with all the misspellings and mixed metaphors. But I (like to think that I) edited them well enough that the text should be a lot more coherent now. Once I polish it up after a bit of clarification from Nyctaeus on one or two last minute issues, I'll send him the final corrections of the species tbl file.

Of course, the species table file is just the start of my work: I still have to edit the ship descriptions in the ships table, the weapon descriptions in the weapons table, the messages table (to make sure they're grammatically correct) and finally the fiction text files. (I've already done some piecemeal editing in these files.) And once all that is done, I'll have to edit the in-mission dialogue. I expect I'll need FRED to do that but hopefully it won't take too long; I'm just editing in-mission messages, not reprogramming the missions themselves. I can't use FRED worth a damn.

I expect that I'll be working on this for a few more months but I expect to get it done before Exile's next update (whenever that might be).

The work continues.

EDIT: I've only played the first 2 or 3 missions in Exile and I haven't read anything of these discussion posts, because (believe it or not) I'm trying to avoid spoilers, as strange as that sounds. For the purposes of my editing, I have to remain unaware of Exile's overall story so that spoilers/details of Exile's story I already know about don't throw me off from a "first-time reader's" perspective. If I know too much about Exile's story as I edit it, then I might miss a plot hole or other error that won't make sense to a first-time reader/player who won't have the background knowledge to resolve that plot hole.

Yeah, it's kinda like the guy editing a screenplay who has to tell the test screen audience, "NO SPOILERS!" Weird, but that's the kinda stuff that happens when you edit a story several years after it was released. :p
« Last Edit: March 24, 2020, 11:12:30 pm by Su-tehp »
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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And don't even get me started about Doctor Banner observing Object 419 "emitting gamma waves" while still being in the same room with it without radiation protection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_wave

Also even if it was gamma radiation, nobody mentions its strength (residual vs boil-an-egg) and I've said that like a thousand times already in different places and I will do it again, gamma radiation is actually the least dangerous out of all the types of nuclear radiation (mostly depending on criteria for "dangerous" and the intensity of the source) as actual radiation sickness and burns or stuff are being usually caused by alpha and beta particles and/or ingesting/inhaling the atoms producing them.
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
And don't even get me started about Doctor Banner observing Object 419 "emitting gamma waves" while still being in the same room with it without radiation protection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_wave

Also even if it was gamma radiation, nobody mentions its strength (residual vs boil-an-egg) and I've said that like a thousand times already in different places and I will do it again, gamma radiation is actually the least dangerous out of all the types of nuclear radiation (mostly depending on criteria for "dangerous" and the intensity of the source) as actual radiation sickness and burns or stuff are being usually caused by alpha and beta particles and/or ingesting/inhaling the atoms producing them.

Huh, there's a distinction between gamma waves and gamma radiation. That's interesting, as I think I conflated the two because gamma radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum has a high wavelength.

And if gamma waves really are a pattern of neural oscillation, a.k.a. brain waves, then the use of the term in Exile was actually correct (and I was talking out my ass to Nyctaeus about gamma radiation and mistaking it for gamma waves). :shaking:

(Well, it wasn't the first time I talked out of my ass and it likely and sadly won't be the last.) :o :sigh:

Good catch on this, MitoPL. I'll have to adjust my edits accordingly.
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
Been more than a month, so's I just wanted to post here to let everyone know that my editing work on Exile is still continuing (though I did need to take a 2 week break to get rid of some coronavirus-related stress).

Current progress so far: 1) The Messages.tbl and Species.tbl files are both almost completed. I just have to double-check a few entries in each of those two files and I'll send them off to Nyctaeus for implementation/ Exile's next update.

2) I've started both the Ships.tbl file and the Weapons.tbl files; I'm guesstimating that both files are each somewhere around 1/4 done. The Weapons.tbl file in particular is going to be problematic because a few of its entries need tech descriptions written from scratch as they're completely blank. Which means that I'm gonna be doing some close examination of the weapons.tbl files of both FS1 and FS2 so's I can come up with some plausible (read: not obviously outlandish) technobabble for these weapons. And since I've steadily soured on technobabble over my years of watching Star Trek, I'm making every effort to at least keep the technobabble to a minimum.

3) I'm close to halfway done with Exile's Fiction entries. I have to admit, the more I read of Exile's story, the more intrigued I am. Reading ahead seems like giving myself spoilers, but as an editor, it can't be helped. :P :D

4) Once all the above is done, then I'll have to use FRED2 to edit all the in-mission dialogue. The good news is, if the first mission is any indication, the mission dialogue of all 27 missions might not need that much correcting/editing. (Of course, now that I've said/typed that out loud, I have effectively Tempted Fate and will undoubtedly find editing the mission dialogue to be longest and most grueling part of editing Exile.  :mad: :banghead: :banghead: )

/End Progress Report 4-26-20
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

 
Nice, want to replay once you're done. :)

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
I’m just wondering if there is any way we could get voice acting once I finish editing everything. But getting a voice synthesizer to work with this is above my pay grade (which is zero).  :p
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

 
You could PM Darius for advice, he made synth voices for Solaris all by himself.

 

Offline Nyctaeus

  • The Slavic Engineer
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  • My "FS Ships" folder is 582gb.
    • Minecraft
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Sorry guys, it's not likely to happen.
Exile | Shadow Genesis | Inferno | Series Resurrecta  | DA Profile | P3D Profile

Proud owner of NyctiShipyards. Remember - Nyx will fix it!

All of my assets including models, textures, skyboxes, effects may be used under standard CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

 
The fiction file ones would require some work to set up, but Solaris is pretty dialog heavy too. And that ofc only if Su-thep volunteers. :p

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
 :nervous:
The fiction file ones would require some work to set up, but Solaris is pretty dialog heavy too. And that ofc only if Su-thep volunteers. :p

Oy.... :nervous:

One step at a time, Nightmare. :P
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

 
I certainly wouldn't mind if somebody would do it~ :D

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
Remember how I posted above that I was likely Tempting Fate by saying that the in-mission dialogue would hopefully not need all that much editing?

Well, Fate is a fickle b!tch.  :mad: :banghead: :banghead:

I just played through the first mission of Exile again to examine the dialogue and realized that there is still quite a substantial amount of editing to do in both the event messages as well as the briefings and command briefings. And not just for this one mission but likely ALL missions.

Well, I knew what I was getting myself in for when I volunteered. :P

/End Progress Update 5-3-20
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

 

Offline Mobius

  • Back where he started
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I finally got the chance to resume my Exile playthrough.  :)

I was wondering - I see many threads on this board which are devoted single tech intel entries, and I believe they could eventually be grouped into a single thread, entirely devoted to lore plus any related questions, and get every single entry ordered in a complete and exhaustive list. Right now, I don't know where to start my read.  :nervous:
The Lightblue Ribbon

Inferno: Nostos - Alliance
Series Resurrecta: {{FS Wiki Portal}} -  Gehenna's Gate - The Spirit of Ptah - Serendipity (WIP) - <REDACTED> (WIP)
FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project
A tribute to FreeSpace in my book: Riflessioni dall'Infinito
My interviews: [ 1 ] - [ 2 ] - [ 3 ]

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
For the backstory, start with ORS TECH ENTRY #34 Post Great War Solar System. I added a link at the end of every entry to the next part of the story so you can read it all in chronological order. Just a word of warning: I haven’t written the last entry detailing the Shivan invasion just before the start of the campaign; a few weeks pass between the opening of the Beta Volantis node and Exile’s first mission. Things have been busy lately what with the election, work and replacing my laptop battery. :p
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

  

Offline Mobius

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Sure, I'll do that. Let me finish the main campaign first.  :drevil:
The Lightblue Ribbon

Inferno: Nostos - Alliance
Series Resurrecta: {{FS Wiki Portal}} -  Gehenna's Gate - The Spirit of Ptah - Serendipity (WIP) - <REDACTED> (WIP)
FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project
A tribute to FreeSpace in my book: Riflessioni dall'Infinito
My interviews: [ 1 ] - [ 2 ] - [ 3 ]

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
Go right ahead and finish replaying the Exile campaign. Just remember that you’ll have to replay it again once I finish the edits and get them implemented in Exile’s next update.  :P (But that’s likely not going to be for a long while yet.)  :D
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

 
Go right ahead and finish replaying the Exile campaign. Just remember that you’ll have to replay it again once I finish the edits and get them implemented in Exile’s next update.  :P (But that’s likely not going to be for a long while yet.)  :D

He'll have forgotten the ending he has yet to reach by the time you finish the update~ ;) ;)

 

Offline Mobius

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Alright, so here's my personal review, worth a couple of cents at most.  ;)

This campaign deserves much more recognition and popularity than what it seems to get, judging from the feedback I see on this board. While there's room for improvement for sure, and we've been told this is already in progress, Exile: Into the Dark Waters does however deserve its own corner in the Nirvana of FreeSpace campaigns, IMHO. I'm definitely looking forward to its sequel, though I'm not sure it will ever come out (I hope it will). There's a lot of potential here and I do recognize it.

Gameplay-wise, I'm unsure with respect to the way Shivan tactics have been employed during the campaign. The generic, reported trend shows Shivan assets as near-sitting ducks most of the time, and their bomber wings falling wave after wave. While this is required to some extent because the player's faction is meant to survive, not fall to enemy attacks, I think the Shivans should have been depicted as more efficient and fearsome in terms of tactics. Different warship entry points and/or maneuvers, as well as more fighters providing cover to Shivan bombers, would have all significantly changed my impression.
The Lightblue Ribbon

Inferno: Nostos - Alliance
Series Resurrecta: {{FS Wiki Portal}} -  Gehenna's Gate - The Spirit of Ptah - Serendipity (WIP) - <REDACTED> (WIP)
FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project
A tribute to FreeSpace in my book: Riflessioni dall'Infinito
My interviews: [ 1 ] - [ 2 ] - [ 3 ]

 

Offline Su-tehp

  • Devil in the Deep Blue
  • 210
Alright, so here's my personal review, worth a couple of cents at most.  ;)

This campaign deserves much more recognition and popularity than what it seems to get, judging from the feedback I see on this board. While there's room for improvement for sure, and we've been told this is already in progress, Exile: Into the Dark Waters does however deserve its own corner in the Nirvana of FreeSpace campaigns, IMHO. I'm definitely looking forward to its sequel, though I'm not sure it will ever come out (I hope it will). There's a lot of potential here and I do recognize it.

Yeah, I recognized this potential when I played the first mission of Exile. That's why I volunteered to edit this campaign: so that it could realize its potential to be a high quality post-Capella Freespace campaign.

Gameplay-wise, I'm unsure with respect to the way Shivan tactics have been employed during the campaign. The generic, reported trend shows Shivan assets as near-sitting ducks most of the time, and their bomber wings falling wave after wave. While this is required to some extent because the player's faction is meant to survive, not fall to enemy attacks, I think the Shivans should have been depicted as more efficient and fearsome in terms of tactics. Different warship entry points and/or maneuvers, as well as more fighters providing cover to Shivan bombers, would have all significantly changed my impression.

Eesh, gameplay is outside my area of expertise and way above my pay grade (which is zero, of course). :p
REPUBLICANO FACTIO DELENDA EST

Creator of the Devil and the Deep Blue campaign - Current Story Editor of the Exile campaign

"Let my people handle this, we're trained professionals. Well, we're semi-trained, quasi-professionals, at any rate." --Roy Greenhilt,
The Order of the Stick

"Let´s face it, we Freespace players may not be the most sophisticated of gaming freaks, but we do know enough to recognize a heap of steaming crap when it´s right in front of us."
--Su-tehp, while posting on the DatDB internal forum

"The meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed."
--The Catch 42 Expression, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast