[Ghostavo]

This is what I got so far...

Mission 1 - NTR (Neo Terran Remnant) have been raiding cargo depots in the Polaris system. Intel has pinpointed several likely future targets, and has rotating shifts watching them. Your squadron (luckily enough) happens to be there when the NTF make their move.

Alpha wing arrives to releave another wing of guard duty (Gamma, Kappa, etc...).

Alpha is atracted deeper into the cargo depot (so it has to fly around, in case the pilot just wants to sit around waiting for the enemy to appear) by some routine cargo or freighter scan (I'm still thinking how this can be done without making it boring).

There are a number of freighters working around and when the player has succeded in being lured into the cargo depot a freighter will arrive (Triton so it can resist a few punchs or maybe a Poseidon if I can make it survive a few seconds) and soon after a wing of Lokis will arrive with the objective of blowing the before mentioned freighter up. Alpha is lured to an oposite side of the field and when the menace is almost defeated in the other side of the field appears 2 wings of Lokis and 2 Poseidon freighters trying to steal two specific cargo containers. Alpha must finish off the first menace completly (if he hasn't done it already) and try to stop the freighters from stealing any cargo. I'll try to think of something to make sure Alpha's job doesn't become just blow the freighters up as quick as possible so he doesn't just focus on the freighters but also in the two wings of Lokis flying around (possibly stopping the lokis from destroying something else also).

As soon as this is done the mission should end unless one pulls something like in the FS1 scan cargo container mission where an enemy Elysium (unknown until the debriefring) steals another cargo container. It may look a bit careless by Allied Command so I'm not sure about this part.

I'm having a bit dificulties making a diverse, yet suficiently large, yet believable cargo depot. The best I've done so far is this:

EDIT: changed to lvlshot as requested


Yet is doesn't look very diverse in terms of diferent cargo containers

I'll try to improve what I got so far...

[Axem]

1.) Use lvlshot tags for huge images. Not everyone has 1280x1024 res (although I do, and it still streches the screen).

2.) It looks to me like more of a junk yard than a cargo depot. Try to organize them into rows by container type.

[Ghostavo]

I tried to do with the same look (only bigger) as the only supply depot in FS2 available to look at...

[Goober5000]

Why not upload the FS2 file so we can check it out in FRED?

[Ghostavo]

Here it is.

Use "save as" and then change from .doc to .fs2

[Black Wolf]

This is what I had for the extended version.

Mission 1 – NTR (Neo Terran Remnant) have been raiding cargo depots in the Polaris system. Intel has pinpointed several likely future targets, and has rotating shifts watching them. Your squadron (luckily enough) happens to be there when the NTF make their move.

OK. The Remnant should operate pretty much like the old NTF for continuity purposes. This mission should be the simples of the campaign, which, in some ways, is going to make it the hardest. It’s always a challenge making exciting missions where capships can’t be used for story missions. Essentially, this mission will be a dogfight, which, while that’s OK in some missions, isn’t going to cut it if we’re supposed to be teaching you to FRED. So we’re going to spice it up a bit.

First off, supplement your fighters with Freighters. It makes logical sense that if the NTR are raiding the place they’re going to need to capture cargo. Have the freighters warp in, dock to some cargo and warp out. Keep in mind that the Remnant also wants to disrupt the GTVA, which means attacking the cargo containers they don’t want. If the player loses too many cargo containers, either to freighters or to being destroyed through fighters, he fails. NOTE – the easiest way to do this is with variables. Every time a cargo container is destroyed or has departed (ie. been stolen) add one to your variable. When the if the variable gets too high, the mission is failed. This can be adjusted depending on difficulty (ie, easy, medium, hard etc.) through valid and invalid objectives and the is-difficulty-at-least sexp. Moreover, you can use the method to send the player a message when he’s coming close to failing. (Make sure your variable has nos paces in its name or it’ll screw things up)

Balancing this mission might be difficult. The action sections (which can be broken up by sections of relative calm) have to stay intense to ensure it’s not too easy, but it’d be easy to step over the line and have too many fighters. Keep in mind that there are lots of ways to affect mission balance other than increasing and decreasing the number of hostile fighters, eg. Enemy and Ally AI, available weapons/fighter pool, AI orders (It’s harder to concentrate on destroying freighters if an entire wing of hostile fighters is ordered to attack Alpha 1) etc. etc.

And on that note, remember to keep updating the orders of the friendly AI as well. The AI aren’t particularly clever, but they can be given a higher apparent intelligence if you tell them what they’re supposed to be doing at all times. A single initial order at the start of the mission often wont cut it in missions like this.


Looks like we've been thinking along similar lines though

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
Here it is.

Use "save as" and then change from .doc to .fs2

Can you zip the mission files in the future? I don't know why but I can never open FS2 mission files that are sent to me as text. I think Mozilla is saving them in the wrong format or the text encoding on the server you're using is different from the one FRED expects.

[Ghostavo]

Can anyone post a image or mission link to a "medium sized" cargo depot? I kinda agree with Axem that my depot looks too unorganized, but the thing is if I follow his advice (not to offend you or anything) the depot will look too simple and not taking any volume.

And how many wings of lokis I have available to battle Alpha? I'm thinking of using 3 or 4.

[karajorma]

Stack the boxes on the Y axis as well as the X and Z ones. That would help solve the volume problem.

Make sure you leave quite a big gap between the containers though.

Make sure you leave some spaces open as well while you're at it. I've never liked seeing cargo depots with all the boxes in a 5x5x5 grid. Just seems too neat to be real to me.

[magatsu1]

if you're feeling really sly you could just load up the second retail mission (forgot the name, something about chariots).

Nice cargo depot there.

[Ghostavo]

Look at the third post in this thread...

I've already made a cargo depot... If it isn't good too bad I'm here to learn and so far the only thing I can't do is cargo depots

[Akalabeth Angel]

You could always throw some sentry guns around a perimetre for fun too. Even the AI should have no problem taking them out.

[Ghostavo]

Here is what I got so far. Still needs lots of things (debrief, more messages, warning, etc., more freighters jumping around, etc, etc, etc...) but this is just to show more or less how the mission will progress.

[TopAce]

I officially begin my first job for the FRED Academy. Testing latest version ...

Results:
The mission in its current state is uncompletable because it is not balanced. I was outnumbered at least 10 by 3 and in addition, I stood no chance to protect any of the freighters. Make your missions rather easy, first. If you want to make a tougher mission, only place more enemy ships AFTER you have tested that all the debriefings and messages work properly. Some other notes:

• NTR? Not NTF?
• The words: 'We'll have to' is repeated twice in one of the brieifng stages.
• 'Such a numerous ...' I am not sure it is grammatically correct.
• Background is completely missing
• All the containers are without any cargo.
• 'Mission is a failure' is repeated twice in the same message.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TopAce
NTR? Not NTF?

Neo Terran Reminent. As in the leftovers from the Front

[Akalabeth Angel]

I think Karajorma told us to not put any background in because they were going to do it all to make it consistent. (I was looking for some background I could just thief from the main FS2 campaign or from FS1 but _none_ of the missions seemed to take place in Polaris)

[Singh]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
I think Karajorma told us to not put any background in because they were going to do it all to make it consistent. (I was looking for some background I could just thief from the main FS2 campaign or from FS1 but _none_ of the missions seemed to take place in Polaris)

Errrr......
*forgot Karajoma asked him to create some nice BGs...

Lets see what I can cook up with the retail stuff

[magatsu1]

don't forget Sandwich's sig has all the retail b/ground files set up and ready to go. I think karajorma was refering to your work using (I presume) Lightspeed's art (SCP anyway).

[Singh]

hmm...yeah!
Less work for me then

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
I think Karajorma told us to not put any background in because they were going to do it all to make it consistent. (I was looking for some background I could just thief from the main FS2 campaign or from FS1 but _none_ of the missions seemed to take place in Polaris)

Feel free to fiddle about with the background editor and put a place holder background in. I'd rather you spent 3-4 mins getting to grips with the background editor even if the background you put in is only temporary.

As for the retail campaign backgrounds it's up to the team if they want to use the official backgrounds or come up with some new ones.