For those who liked the Capture Destroyer Mission

M

mustanger

Rear Admiral
I haven't gotten a ton of feedback on the mission, so anyone who wants to comment on it can do so here! Secondly, I am working on another one, which is 75% near completion! So, you might be able to get another fix here shortly :)

If feedback is good, then I will continue, and create a campaign, so let me know. Otherwise, just enjoy them for what they are :)
 
I like the mission. However, if I may make a few suggestions:

-the mission can become very difficult if your wingmen get killed, which happens very often, by the way. Better, guard a few wingmen with ship-guardian-treshhold SEXP.
-disable built-in command messages

To make your life a bit easier, I've compiled a list of hud animations and a selection of wingmen entries from the messages.tbl



Head-CM3 - "Decoding Starship Transmission"
Head-CM4 - "Incoming Long Range Burst Transmission"
Head-CM5 - "Receiving Secondary Comm Channel"

Head-CP1 - Confed Pilot ambient
Head-CP2 - Confed Pilot battle
Head-CP3 - Confed Pilot Death - used for scripted deaths
Head-CP4 - Confed Pilot 2 ambient (currently not used)

Head-CT1 - Male Animation 1
Head-CT2 - Male Animation 2
Head-CT3 - Male Animation 3
Head-CT4 - Female Animation 1
Head-CT5 - Female Animation 2
Head-CT6 - Female Animation 3

Head-KA1 - Kilrathi Ace 1
Head-KA2 - Kilrathi Ace 1
Head-KA3 - Kilrathi Ace Death - used for scripted comms

Head-KC - kilrathi warship - used for ambient comms

Head-KP1 - Kilrathi pilot 1
Head-KP2 - Kilrathi pilot 2
Head-KP3 - Kilrathi death animation - used for scripted death messages

Head-PP1 - pirate head from Wing Commander 4

Head-STA - "Decoding Ship Transmission" fading to static: used for jamming messages and warship deaths



#Personas

;;Assassin
$Persona: Wingman 01

;;Ninja
$Persona: Wingman 02

;;Major Baws
$Persona: Wingman 03

;;Generic Human Pilot Male 1
$Persona: Wingman 04

;;Generic Human Pilot Male 2
$Persona: Wingman 05

;;Kilrathi Generic Death 1
$Persona: Wingman 07

;;Kilrathi Generic Death 2
$Persona: Wingman 08

;;Kilrathi Generic Death 3
$Persona: Wingman 09

;;Kilrathi Generic Death 4
$Persona: Wingman 10
 
Tolwyn said:
I like the mission. However, if I may make a few suggestions:

-the mission can become very difficult if your wingmen get killed, which happens very often, by the way. Better, guard a few wingmen with ship-guardian-treshhold SEXP.
-disable built-in command messages
Click to expand...

1. Yes, you are correct about the wingmen. I hadn't really given them a lot of thought, because I didn't think I could do a whole lot about them :)

I implemented your idea in my next mission, and am fairly happy with the result. However, I do have a couple of questions...

- Is there a way that I can make one wingman stay in formation, unless ordered to break and attack? Wing Commander always had this, and I think it was implemented in your WC3 Autopilot showcase.

-2nd, I put the guardian threshold at 20%, and noticed that the ships would not die, but would become disabled, which is just as bad. Is there a certain percentage it has to be above so that they do not become disabled? Or, is there a way that they can repair themselves if they were to become disabled?

2. I suppose I left the commands available because I figured it would help people who wanted a little more control. It would be easy to fix, however, so I'll take it under advisement.

Thanks for the response, hopefully I can keep making these things better!

Any further input is appreciated!
 
mustanger said:
- Is there a way that I can make one wingman stay in formation, unless ordered to break and attack? Wing Commander always had this, and I think it was implemented in your WC3 Autopilot showcase.
Click to expand...

Well, what I did is fairly straight forward: I gave them stay-near-ship goal. The break & attack order is scripted, but you could as well make it dynamic.

Either by allowing the player to order wingmen around
or by using a couple of sexps including when-key-pressed. The second will allow you to have a voice line played (break&attack order), but it is difficult to implement, so I suggest using the first version.

When the battle is over make clear-goals and add-goal (stay-near-ship)

-2nd, I put the guardian threshold at 20%, and noticed that the ships would not die, but would become disabled, which is just as bad. Is there a certain percentage it has to be above so that they do not become disabled? Or, is there a way that they can repair themselves if they were to become disabled?
Click to expand...

Interesting, I never had this effect. You could guard subsystems as well though: in this case weapons and engines :)

I suppose I left the commands available because I figured it would help people who wanted a little more control. It would be easy to fix, however, so I'll take it under advisement.
Click to expand...

Command messages are something entirely different: this is the FS2 command, which tell you thing such as "no reinforcements are available, pilot". This is a FS2 feature only and should be disabled. (what you mean are player orders in the ships/wings editor)

I hope this does help. :)
 
Ok, a small update here :) Custom mission 2 is about 90% complete, mostly just detail additions, tweaking, and a little more beta testing before it is ready!

In addition, I have modified the "capture destroyer" mission to make it a litte bit easier (and hopefully more fun) using some of the above suggestions.

After the release of this second mission, I will probably have to reformat them into a campaign mode, as opposed to simulator missions. Also, I'm going to try my hand at making some cutscenes to go along with them as well, so it should get pretty interesting :)

I suppose the best way to consider these initial releases are as beta's, because there will likely be more tweaking in the future. Voice acting is one such addition that I simply do not have the resources for at this time, but may make it into later releases. I think that the voice acting is one of the things that makes the prologue release of Saga great, and really add to the feeling of immersivness that the game provides.

Anyway, I hope people are enjoying the mission, and are looking forward to the next installment!
 
Instead of just using ship guardian tresholds maybe consider adding some more confed fighters. As much as i like a challenge the mission itself is hard enough esp trying to keep the destroyer from being vaporized by the kilrathi cruiser let alone being outnumbered 3 to 1 by fighers :)
 
Thunderbolt said:
Instead of just using ship guardian tresholds maybe consider adding some more confed fighters. As much as i like a challenge the mission itself is hard enough esp trying to keep the destroyer from being vaporized by the kilrathi cruiser let alone being outnumbered 3 to 1 by fighers :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response!

I have considered adding more confed fighters and such, but my concern has been trying to avoid remaking the battle of endor :)

I have gotten some feedback from several people who played the mission, and I believe that it is too hard in it's current form. The updated mission will change the balance a bit, and make it easier, and hopefully more fun.

The really hard part about the mission, IMO, is that once the player has fired his torpedo, he is effectively out of the fight regarding the cruiser, because it is so difficult to damage them.

The problem that I had was during beta testing, the wingmen in Thunderbolts usually were scoring hits on the cruiser, and if all the torpedo's were successful, then the cruiser could be destroyed before it launched a single fighter (which would have been kind of boring :) )

Due to this circumstance, I backed the T-bolts up from the cruiser, which unfortunately led to them never landing a torpedo hit. However, during my testing the destroyer was still always prevailing, so I assumed that the mission was ready to go... This is the problem with just testing the mission by yourself though, because obviously many other people got a different, frustrating result.

Truth be told, this was my first mission, so I didn't expect it to be perfect, and it wasn't :) However, the update is coming, it will be fixed, and I hope everbody will give it another go when it comes out!
 
Okay, the Destroyer mission has been updated and sent to the Saga guys, so hopefully they will be able to post it up in the future.

Incidentally, if anybody wants the next version right away, just send me an e-mail, and I'll mail it to you as soon as I can.

lonewolf_c@yahoo.com

Thanks for trying it out, and any new feedback can be posted here as well!
 
Well, it was hard, but not impossible...

The real trick for me was keeping the DD's AMG in the fight and keeping the cats busy...

After that, it was not that hard... I did it on my 3rd try (The bombers took the cat DD on the 2nd :D)
 
Houkiboshi said:
Well, it was hard, but not impossible...

The real trick for me was keeping the DD's AMG in the fight and keeping the cats busy...

After that, it was not that hard... I did it on my 3rd try (The bombers took the cat DD on the 2nd :D)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply :)

Yeah, I actually didn't think it was insanely difficult, but my real problem with it was that the player didn't factor enough in the Dauntless's success in killing the Cruiser. It's frustrating if the Dauntless loses and you have little to no control over it, so that was the big reason for the change.

Also, the wingmen staying alive does help further into the mission :)
 
I really liked this mission, especially about not being able to control EVERYTHING...

I'll be looking forward to getting my hands on more of your missions :D
 
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