FreeSpace Wiki - User contributions [en]

General hints (FRED)

2008-06-21T12:44:01Z

KS07: Typo.

*Use the Y-axis and rotate most of your ships on one or more of the axes to give a more realistic feeling 
*Use the Selection Lock if you have selected all the ships you want to rotate/move. This will make it sure you do not select an unwanted craft by chance. 
*If you want a directive to appear only after a specified thing happens, you can use the event chaining in the following way: 
**Put all the conditionals to one event. Chain the next event(which is the actual directive) to the previous event with a delay of at least 1 second. 
**This will make it sure the event will not appear sooner then desired. This is especially useful if you want Command to order the desctruction/capture/inspection of a ship/subsystem. 
*Use the designer's notes field to note down changes you want to do later. 
*Learning and using Keyboard shortcuts makes your life easier. 
*If you do not want a ship to open fire, simply use the turret-lock-all SEXP instead of disarming all the turrets manually. 
*If you want to use a special, non-docking support ship, you have to make changes in the tables. You cannot simply place a Support ship and disallow all player orders. 
*Always remove player orders for ship classes other than fighters or bombers. By default, the player can give orders to transports, freighers, cruisers etc. which can often deteriorate the mission. If you give the 'Attack my ship' order to a transport that is supposed to board and capture an other ship, it will not follow its default orders until the player-given orders are accomplished. 
*If you do not want a ship destroyed, but you want to make its subsystems destroyable, use the ship-guardian SEXP!
*Increasing/decreasing the skill level of single turrets also affect the rate of fire. It is advised to increase the level of sentry guns by at least one rank 
*Pressing TAB while having multiple ships selected changes the central point of rotation. If you start rotating, that ship will be the center of the circle your ships will be rotated around. The same is true for moving, the selected 'central' ship will be moving with the cursor. 
*If you get lost on the grid, press SHIFT-Z. Or, zoom on any of the ships by selecting the fighter in the Selection Menu(H) and pressing ALT-Z 
*Use the Selection Mode to make sure you will not make any changes in rotation/moves of ships unintentionally. 
*Diversify the orders of wingmen by using the add-goal SEXP 
*Diversify the mission by using variables. [[Variables]] can be used for randomising. 
*Placing a waypoint into the centre of a jump node enables you to measure distances between any ships and the jump node. Have the waypoint and the jump node have the same co-ordinates for best precision. Technically, the engine measures the distance between the assigned ship(s) and the waypoint, but since the centre of the node and the waypoint are at the same position, practically, you can measure distance between ships and the jump node. 
*Coloured text can be used in the Command briefing, but cannot be used in the Debriefing. 
*An ideal mission length ranges between five and eleven minutes. It is not advised to make a mission longer, FreeSpace players are generally not used to flying for more than ten minutes.
*For better performance, use the wireframe view mode. The textured view mode eats up more memory and makes the mission editor run slower.
*If you want a ship just to suddenly appear, use the No Warp Effect feature in the arrival cue section of the Ship Editor. If the departure cue has the No Warp Effect set, then the ship will suddenly disappear. This is useful for nebula missions.
*Believe it or not, the EMP effect also works on AI-controlled ships. Heed this in mind while setting the nebula settings.
*Players usually start by increasing the throttle to maximum. Spare them from this and set the player's craft's speed 100% by default in the Initial Status options.
*In case one or more ships in a wing depart without the departure cue becoming true, the wing will not be considered departed. This means if you order one (or all) ships from Beta wing to leave the area and there is an event which becomes true if Beta wing has departed, the event will become incomplete until you restart the mission.
*The 'Neutral' IFF is hostile to the player under any circumstance. If you want The 'Hostile', 'Neutral' and 'Friendly' sides to attack each other, set the All teams at War Option in the Mission Specs Editor.
*You can manually set the player traitor but using the change-iff SEXP on the player's ship to make the player 'Neutral'. This way, both Friendly and Hostile sides will attack the player, but maintain hostility to each other, too. This does not really work when there is also a Neutral side.
*Never completely rely on the Protect Ship option in the Misc options in the Ship Editor. The AI may still attack those ships. Rather make that ship invulnerable. It looks daft, but this is the best solution to make the AI not lose the mission for the player by destroying any ships which are supposed captured or not destroyed. You can also use the change-iff to make the ship Friendly. It is a disadvantange that Hostiles will still attack that ship, so make it sure their initial orders engage them so much that they will not turn on the ship to be captured.
== Using Fred with mods ==
*Note that FRED2 Open uses the same mod usage as FS2 Open, that is,
-mod mod1,mod2,mediavps
where <mod1> is the name of the mod being played, <mod2> is the name of the mod that the mod being played depends on, and <mediavps> is where the Media VP files are put. See the wiki instructions Getting Started >
Installing mods for fs2_open >
Alternative method / more info
for complete details. Also, I've heard (and FRED2 Open says) that you should run with the -fredhtl option.
So, say you were creating a mod for the FreeSpace Port (for a mission during the Great War)
You'd use something like the following, depending on where you installed FSPort and the Media VPs: (note the quotes)
"\<whatever dir Fred is in>\FRED2_build_date_whatever.exe" -mod fsport,mediavps -fredhtl
This would allow you to use FS1 weapons, ships, etc. Note you might not need mediavps if you use the mod.ini options mentioned in the installing mods wiki mentioned above, or if you weren't creating a mission for FS Open.

==See also==
[[Typical mistakes]]

[[Category:FRED Tips]]

Very simple missions

2008-06-21T11:59:01Z

KS07: /* Which missions are considered simple? */ Typo fixed.

==Which missions are considered simple?==
A mission being simple is not an official naming for a mission which needs some requirements, it's a general description.

Simple missions normally have only a needed amount of messages, debriefing stages and a limited number of ships and even fewer ending possibilities.

If you are making a campaign and have some missions which play little part in the plot, it is not advised you make them overly complicated. For these missions, you are advised to make them simple. This way, you get more time to work on more important missions.

==Hints==
*Make only a limited number of messages. Do so by making sure none will overlap one another. The more messages you make the higher the possibility that they will overlap. The following messages are a must to every FreeSpace 2 mission:
**Notification about mission failure and success
**Notidication about permission to return to base
**Report about big friendly or hostile ships destroyed or, when the goal is such, disarmed or disabled
**Arrival and departure message for mission critical ships
*A further note on messages is that they should not be overly complex nor should you display plot messages in the middle of a combat engagment.
*Limited number of ships: Do not place so many larger ships than a cruiser or corvette. Placing a destroyer demands that fighters should be launched from it. Destroying the destroyer sooner or later badly affects the number of fighters present in the mission unless there is only one wing to arrive from the destroyer
*Stages: Say that the mission consists of three parts. Each part is triggered by the arrival of a hostile or friendly ship. You have to set the arrival cues of these ships so that they only arrive after a previous stage was completed, often by the destruction of a hostile ship or the departure of a friendly one. This makes it sure that the three stages won't intertwine, saving the FREDder from a lot of time to test each possibility in case the stages overlapped.
*You still need to test the difficulty of the mission and optimize it for game balance. The simplest way to do this is to keep the number of fighters and bombers low.
*Avoid the use of random numeric variables. The fact of randomization is rarely apparent and to make it so requires additional testing time.

==Example mission==
Through this mission example, you will see how a simpler mission looks like in theory. In practice, there is no guarantee it can be done exactly as it is described below.
See [[#Notes about Example|Notes]]

===Mission description===
A Leviathan cruiser ran the GTVA blockade and is to be hunted down. Command sorties a Deimos corvette and some fighters. The corvette arrives six clicks away from the Leviathan, but since the Deimos is faster, they have a chance to catch up with it and destroy it with their beam cannons. In the meanwhile, the NTF attempts to disarm the forward beam cannons to give chance for their cruiser to survive. In the first part, the player must destroy some bombers which come from the front and attempt to take down the beam cannons. The second part is about the battle between the Leviathan and the Deimos. In the third part, the Deimos is to be escorted back to the node until it makes the jump to subspace.

===This mission has===
*Three to eight friendly fighters
*The two warships: A Deimos and a Leviathan
*Enemy bombers and fighters, as many as makes the mission acceptably difficult.
*A jump node, where the Deimos comes from
*Two waypoints
*At least the following events (not mentioning message-only events)
**Destroy Leviathan cruiser directive
**Defend friendly Deimos directive
**Destroy enemy fighters (one event for each attacking wing)
**An event which summerizes the requirements to grant the player authorization to return to base.
**(Chained to the previous event), an event which displays the "Return to base" directive.
**Good-secondary-time, which tells the fighters to use their Trebuchet warheads in case they have some, or the player has the possibility to arm his wingmen with them.
**Events which order warships to use their beams (Retail FreeSpace 2 and ancient FreeSpace Open versions)
*Additional events which are only made to send messages
**Enemy cruiser escaped (Mission failure message)
**Friendly corvette escaped (Mission successful message)
**Friendly corvette destroyed (Enemy destroyed corvette message)
**Additional enemy bombers jumped in (Part 3)
**(Optional) Events which display messages which report the hull/subsystem status on either or both warships
**(Optional) An event which checks how far the friendly corvette is from the jump node and display a message in which the corvette makes report about it ("We are reaching the node in three minutes, pilots.")

===In the mission happens===
*The Leviathan follows a waypoint. When it reaches it, it jumps out and fails the mission
*The Deimos has the order to attack the Leviathan, when it is down, it changes orders and starts moving towards a waypoint, which is placed inside the jump node. When the Deimos is inside the node after the Leviathan is destroyed or departed, it jumps out
*Ten-thirty seconds after start, enemy bombers start jumping in from the front with the orders to attack the front beam cannons. When both cannons are down, the bombers depart and stop arriving. (The Deimos still stands a chance with its rear beam cannons, so the mission is still not lost).
*After the Leviathan has been destroyed or has departed, new wings of hostile targets start jumping in and attack the Deimos. They cease their attacks when the Deimos has been destroyed or departed.

===Misc additions===
*Ediitng the Mission specs editor
**Giving a name to the mission
**Setting All ships beam-freed by Default (In FreeSpace Open, if set, the events which enable warships to use their beams are redundant)
**Support ship settings
***Allowed/disallowed
***Will it repair hull?
**Advised for testing No traitor flag
*Alligning the Team Loadout options
*Warships added to Escort list
*The Attack my target order removed from the issuable orders for the friendly corvette
*Initial orders for all ships
*Advised Some sort of background, preferably with nebulae and planets and multiple, coloured suns

===Notes about Example===
This mission has not been made by the author of the article. It is not guaranteed that mission balance can be kept using the numbers above or the mission in this shape could be too short. It is a main rule in making a balanced mission to not stick to the mission's preliminary description. If the mission is too easy, have a hostile cruiser or corvette jump in to attack the friendly Deimos. If the mission is too hard, give the player reinforcements and/or make the Deimos have cruiser escort.

[[Category:FRED]]