[Iido]

Hello there! Haven't posted on the forums much at all, so this is also kind of a hello to everyone. XD

But yeah, pretty much what the topic says. What are some good in-progress campaigns that I should be keeping my eye on, or really, what is currently in progress in general? I've got my eyes on The Scroll of Atankharzim. I believe a sequel to Shadow Genesis is in progress (?), and I'm not sure if Blue Planet is still being worked on.

Can you guys also recommend some lengthy, and high-quality campaigns as well? I've played The Aftermath: Reboot, Shadow Genesis, and Blue Planet, Derelict, Wings of Dawn (as well as the reboot episodes; Episode 2 was amazing) and...some more, I am sure. I feel like I've already played most of 'em, but maybe I missed or overlooked something. Also played a load of short to medium campaigns (3-10 missions or somewhere around in that range) that were pretty good.

Basically, what's the best of the best in you guys' opinion?

[General Battuta]

Play The Antagonist, Windmills, and Trimurti for an experimental trifecta. But first play Vassago’s Dirge and Between the Ashes as obvious holes in the ‘big campaign’ lineup.

Also play Just Another Day, it is Axem’s madhouse.

[wookieejedi]

But yeah, pretty much what the topic says. What are some good in-progress campaigns that I should be keeping my eye on, or really, what is currently in progress in general?

Welcome! I would agree with everything General Battuta stated. If you are also looking for "what is currently in progress in general" and you are looking for more then FS2 universes content I should also mention the total conversion, standalone Fate of the Galaxy We have made a lot of progress the past year and there will hopefully be a release in the near future 

[Colt]

I think Bem Cavalgar is a pretty cool one. Managing a limited number of ships and weapons, tackling different missions of your choice. The weapons feel really under-powered though, but beating a mission feels soooooo good. Transcend is also a good one to play late at night. Eyebleach is a great mini-campaign that inspired me to make Walls Closing, so check them out if you haven't.

In-progress wise, Inferno looks like it'll be receiving an update of new ship textures, so definitely keep an eye out for that. Freespace Conversion is kind of like Freespace Blue but for FS1, with some new missions added.

[Nightmare]

Shadow Genesis 2 is most likely not going to happen (although it hasn't been officially cancelled), the core team members released Exile instead. It has very high production standards and I'd recommend it, but in case you play it, please keep in mind...
-1. The overall athmosphere might not be everyones taste.
-2. The missions tend to be significantly longer than the average campaign mission - can be good or bad depending on your liking.
-3. The best part of the campaign starts after the intro missions are over - quite many people stopped playing after "City of the Sun", although the best part of the campaign only starts a couple missions afterwards.

[Strygon]

Well, for starters there's Trimurti for a good Shivan-perspective campaign, Eyebleach for a small but good "Prelude" to the FS2 main campaign.
For some good TC campaigns, I'd totally recommend The Unification War (takes place before the Terran-Vasudan War) and Dimensional Eclipse (WoD but less elves and more loli.) Although DE is in the process of getting the placeholder art replaced with unique drawings, so there's the option of waiting for that to be finished so you can get an even better experience with it.

That's all the good stuff I know off the top of my head.

[CT27]

I'm hopeful Exile 2 will happen so be sure to give Nyctaeus support for that.

"The Aftermath 2:  The Blue Guardian" may come out this year.

From the sound of it, "Inferno:  Nostos" is still going on.


As for other campaigns to keep watch on:
-War In Heaven isn't dead but it's been said it will probably be years at least before the next act is released.

-In the archived thread, Raven has said BWO is dead for now but that it's not impossible he might work on it again at some point.

[HLD_Prophecy]

I will permit myself to shill for Scroll (realy tho it's epic)  But be aware that development is also a bit slow.

[Mito [PL]]

I think it's a rather good decision to check out the "Explore" tab in Knossos. There are just, you know, so many mods to explore!

[neoterran]

You should play Inferno Nostos for sure. Sol A History. Neo Terra victorious.

[Iido]

Thank you very much for the suggestions, everyone! Some of these I have played, others I have not. I'll check 'em out! ^^

[Galemp]

What, is Silent Threat: Reborn old hat now?

[Nightmare]

What, is Silent Threat: Reborn old hat now?

Mods age exponentially y' know? So ST:R would be like 100 years old by now.

[0rph3u5]

What, is Silent Threat: Reborn old hat now?

Yes.

What are some good in-progress campaigns that I should be keeping my eye on, or really, what is currently in progress in general?

Not sure about good - the ammount of times I tried to push it across the finish line and only to not leave development limbo might be a testament against a positive qualification - but, have you perhaps heard of The Lost Generation - Ashcroft? (if such blatant self-promotion is permitted)

[CT27]

Wing Commander Saga is worth a look too.

[Nyctaeus]

-3. The best part of the campaign starts after the intro missions are over - quite many people stopped playing after "City of the Sun", although the best part of the campaign only starts a couple missions afterwards.

Don's listen to him! Just play it! You can kill innocent civilians!

(Exile is extremely dark story, but you won't regret it :] .)

[Nightmare]

-3. The best part of the campaign starts after the intro missions are over - quite many people stopped playing after "City of the Sun", although the best part of the campaign only starts a couple missions afterwards.

Don's listen to him! Just play it! You can kill innocent civilians!

(Exile is extremely dark story, but you won't regret it :] .)

Well I was told Exile II is going to be the best campaign ever!

[Iido]

What, is Silent Threat: Reborn old hat now?

Heh, Silent Threat: Reborn was awesome. It was one of the first mods I played back when I got into FSO, and was a tremendous improvement over the original in every way.

-3. The best part of the campaign starts after the intro missions are over - quite many people stopped playing after "City of the Sun", although the best part of the campaign only starts a couple missions afterwards.

Don's listen to him! Just play it! You can kill innocent civilians!

(Exile is extremely dark story, but you won't regret it :] .)

Well I was told Exile II is going to be the best campaign ever!

I checked Exile out and it looks interesting. I'll download it and give it a spin sometime soon.

Wing Commander Saga is worth a look too.

I actually had Wing Commander Saga installed on my old PC, I got very far into it, I think I was only a few missions from the end, but I was never able to beat one mission, even on easier settings. It made me ragequit and I didn't go back to it, which...sounds sad, I know. I don't remember anything about the mission, but it was probably a protection/escort mission...always the worst. xD I'll give it another try one 'o these days.

In other news, I just downloaded Knossos a bit ago and this thing is AWESOME! I heard people mention the Knossos a couple times, but up until now I've been content with using the the YAL launcher (Yes, I know I just said "Yet Another Launcher launcher").

Not only is it many magnitudes better, it also seems to have mods I've never even been able to download and play properly. Til now I've acquired mods either through the mods that are auto-installed using the FSO Installer (that Java one) or hunting for release threads and download links...which are dead 90% of the time.

Though I am a bit confused on how it works. Is it running off my FS2 install on Steam? It detected the Steam install and asked for a confirmation, I clicked yes. Did it download and install its own FSO copy? Or is it running off the version I already have installed in my FS2 folder on Steam? Also, it seems to have interfered with the YAL launcher (which is in the FS2 folder on Steam) as all my pilots are gone when I launch through YAL now...and it seems to have overwritten my YAL custom options (resolution, dev tools, etc) as well. I'm guessing it's a conflict between the two launchers, and YAL is basically reading from Knossos's directory now or something. I'm not sure where pilot data is stored, but eh, a fresh start ain't bad at all.

Though I am curious, is it possible to somehow launch Knossos through Steam as Freespace 2, like you can with the YAL launcher, or is it its own thing? I have over 500 hours played on FS2 thanks to FSO and mods, and I'd like for that number to keep going up as I play campaigns, but if not, it's no big deal really.

[Nightmare]

If you liked WCS, Admiral Nelson released an slightly improved version that works with the regular FSO builts (available on Knossos).

[Mito [PL]]

What Knossos does is look for installed FS2 versions, and then it just copies the necessary FS2 data into the mod storage directory.

Also, the Yet Another Launcher seems outdated for like... 10 years? o_O The funnier fact is that modern FSO builds should not be able to run on this launcher for like over a year now. So I guess you were trying to download also very outdated mods and run them on a very outdated FSO build. This would explain some things - I'm pretty sure FSO switched to a different directory for storing pilot files, logs and screenshots a while ago, so everything is probably still somewhere on your drive. Also note how, if you really want to perform manual mod installation (suggesting wxLauncher), all of the Knossos mod files can be downloaded directly from Nebula, they only need fabricating a simple mod.ini (or using a -mod custom commandline).

As for launching Knossos from Steam, I think you can just insert Knossos.exe into your library just as if it was a game. Not sure about FSO, because new engine executables are released every couple of days and you would have to mark every one that you might somehow launch through Knossos as Freespace, and I'm not sure if it would even work.

Edit: FSO also features Discord integration - it means that in your Discord game activity others will be able to see which campaign and mission you're currently playing, how long into the mission are you and how many kills have you got.