Author Topic: Maintaining situational awareness  (Read 1679 times)

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Offline Iain Baker

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Maintaining situational awareness

Am I the only one who often looses track of what is going on when caught in a furball?

There have been times a bloody huge cap ship arrives, does stuff and then departs without me realising. When you have multiple events happening on top of one another it can get even more confusing, especially if there are lots of ships in the area and command only refers to them by name so you are not sure which of the *insert number* ships is the *insert name*.  :confused:

What tricks of the trade do you fine people use to maintain situational awareness?
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Re: Maintaining situational awareness
Cutscenes comes to my mind (on the dev side). Besides that, I'm constantly running into the same thing.

 

Offline Axem

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Re: Maintaining situational awareness
There's a few things you can do. Cutscenes can be one solution, but they take quite a bit of effort to do and interrupt the player in whatever they were doing. Messages are another thing, but the player may not be paying attention to those if there's no voice acting. The best thing you can probably do is design your mission in such a way that you get little rest points that the player can catch their breath and be more attentive for what you (the FREDder) would like to tell them.

So don't do things like pile up lots of wings to keep coming at the player, or do things that are strictly based on mission time. Sure it may be more "realistic" but it is not very "gameplay friendly".

The best thing I tend to do is break up my mission into small stages. When one stage ends, I give around 30-60 seconds of quiet time, send some messages (and have a great good spot to add checkpoints), then proceed to the next action sequence.

Play some of your favorite missions and see if you can spot how they get your attention.

 

Offline Colt

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Re: Maintaining situational awareness
One thing I learned while playing some campaigns is the use of audio cues such as a radio sound when a message is triggered. It's nice not having to divert attention to the far corner of a screen to see if a new message has come in.

On that topic; having the dialog box near the center of the screen. I need to try again in getting that to work.  :P

The best thing I tend to do is break up my mission into small stages. When one stage ends, I give around 30-60 seconds of quiet time, send some messages (and have a great good spot to add checkpoints), then proceed to the next action sequence.
:yes: :yes: :yes:

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: Maintaining situational awareness
It's all covered in Fred docs isn't it?
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
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Re: Maintaining situational awareness
Not the retail ones.

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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Re: Maintaining situational awareness
The best thing I tend to do is break up my mission into small stages. When one stage ends, I give around 30-60 seconds of quiet time, send some messages (and have a great good spot to add checkpoints), then proceed to the next action sequence.

Plus one for Stages.

Another trick I have learned "recently" is take more control of where enemies are warping in, in order to define clear lines of sight. However you really need an improvement over the retail AI for that to be effective, as swarm type enemies often times just don't allow for breaks in the fighting like that.

See the prototype below at 2:40+, 4:15+ & 6:10+. Note that for display purposes I didn't actually "play the mission" as much as you are supposed to - FREDer's priviledge :D
« Last Edit: July 25, 2019, 04:06:03 am by 0rph3u5 »
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

 

Offline deathspeed

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Re: Maintaining situational awareness
There are some great tips here regarding mission design, but I am never going to FRED a mission.  :)  I am interested in hearing more strategies for maintaining situational awareness while playing.
Maybe someday God will give you a little pink toaster of your own.

 
Re: Maintaining situational awareness
I'd guess that was Iain was also asking for, but it's something I can't help with. :(

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

  • HLP is my mistress
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    • My old squad sub-domain
Re: Maintaining situational awareness
Assign controls to POV control and look around while flying.   I still use keyboard default controls so all I need to do is hold keypad insert.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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  • Oceans rise. Empires fall.
Re: Maintaining situational awareness


Target groups are your friend - you can assign them yourself under F4 (?).

And yes, going into thrid person mode sometimes helps a lot - esspecially when bombing capital ships.

Additionally, on a more personal note: Hack the tables to give you a HUD that does not scale with the resolution, like in the screenshot above. I find it helps clearning away information you may not need in every situation.
(It's of course not the best move in terms of accessibility -- but that's why it is a personal preference thing.)



re: Devs vs Players:

Well, most FREDers instincly weave their strategies into their mission design after a while, e.g. in Hellgate: Ikeya and Light of Antares I made my target group assignments standard.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2019, 10:36:32 am by 0rph3u5 »
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

  
Re: Maintaining situational awareness
Target groups are your friend - you can assign them yourself under F4 (?).

BTW there's some new add-remove-hotkey SEXP in town to aid you