[DrewDawg]

I am using the walkthrough for FreeSpace Port (Freespace 1) to see what events in a missions have consequences later.  So, I am pretty sure I have all of the campaign carry over consequences, but what about your wingmen? 

Is there any consequence to losing wingmen?  After a couple missions with larger losses I have noticed that the next mission does not have the full compliment of 4 fighters per wing.  Coincidence or penalty for losing too many the previous mission?  If there are consequences, how do they work?

Also, I have seen reference to "red-alert" mission.  What does this mean?  In act 2 Mission 5 the walkthrough says to be careful because it is a red alert mission and watch wingmen and your hull.

Thanks

[Strygon]

Normally it's just how the mission is designed, I think. There's not that many missions where losing a wingman in a previous mission causes them to be missing, unless it is a Red Alert mission.

Red Alert missions are missions where the whole briefing is just a single panel of text with a red blinking "INCOMING TRANSMISSION" at the top. That's cause there's no landing on the Galatea/Bastion in between those missions. This also means your health and weapon reserves carry over too.

[DrewDawg]

Thanks for the reply.  Makes sense.  So the next mission "shell game" is the actual red alert mission, and there is no prep.

One related question, is there any reason not to call in available reenforcements when the mission allows it?

[Strygon]

I believe it may cause a minor score penalty but that's it really. If you don't care about scores and ranks, there's virtually no reason not to call them in.

[SilverAngelX]

If I'm not mistaken, there are also occasions where not calling a reinforcement can lead to a medal being granted, but I'm not 100% sure about this one.

[Goober5000]

If I'm not mistaken, there are also occasions where not calling a reinforcement can lead to a medal being granted, but I'm not 100% sure about this one.

True.  This is the case in Enter the Dragon, Exodus, and Reaching the Zenith.

[Mobius]

Many recommendation texts actually incite the player to retry the same mission and get the very same results without calling any reinforcements. They even provide a logistical reason behind said recommendations.

They made perfect sense, yet I don't recall any similar circumstances in FS2 where reinforcements as a whole were not as common as they were in FS1.

[Mito [PL]]

I think that in retail campaigns there are a couple places where your performance in previous missions will affect some of the next ones, but it's not necessarily linked to Red Alert. I recall that there was some occasion where you could get some weapon or ship unlocked earlier than normally for good results (IIRC that was related to SOC loops in FS2?) and some other moment where you could get some capital ship's support (Macross in Exodus?) if you protected it well enough in some previous mission.

Also remember, mods can (and often do) employ some sort of consequences between missions. It's up to you to find out which ones do!

[Trivial Psychic]

If you don't complete the objective to scan the Lilith cruisers, in "Playing Judas", then an additional cruiser will support the Eva during "Evangelist".

[Goober5000]

The FS1 campaign is full of links like that.  If any of the Iota transports are destroyed in Aftermath, the GTC Ravage will not appear in the next mission, The Big Bang.  This makes it impossible to get the medal in that mission since you need to save both the Ravage and the Asimov.  Furthermore, the absence of the Ravage means the Galatea will start the following mission, La Ruota della Fortuna, with 27% less hull.

[SL1]

The FS1 campaign is full of links like that.  If any of the Iota transports are destroyed in Aftermath, the GTC Ravage will not appear in the next mission, The Big Bang.  This makes it impossible to get the medal in that mission since you need to save both the Ravage and the Asimov.  Furthermore, the absence of the Ravage means the Galatea will start the following mission, La Ruota della Fortuna, with 27% less hull.

I really like that kind of thing, but at the same time, I'm not sure it's a great idea to do too much of it in a Freespace campaign, due to the lack of a manual saving feature. It would be really annoying to have to replay an entire campaign from the beginning because you discovered that a screwup in mission 8 made mission 12 a major pain in the ass to finish. Has anyone ever tried to create some kind of manual save system, or is that just not feasible?

[Goober5000]

Axem has created a mission hub system for Just Another Day 2.x that allows you to go back and replay past missions.  This could be used to go back and revert your campaign progress.  However, the campaign would have to be specifically built with that system.

FreeSpace was designed so that, even if a mission was harder due to previous campaign events, the negative effects eventually faded away after a few missions and it was always possible to continue.  Wing Commander was built with a campaign branching system that's even more stark than FreeSpace.  Different campaign branches would have entirely different missions, not just different details, and it was possible to put yourself on an unavoidable path to losing.