Badly scripted single player missions?

There are 5 replies in this Thread. The last Post () by SWAT_OP-R8R.

  • So I startzed to play Crossfire 1.9 in single player mode. After I finished the main campaign, I went on to play the additional SP content. Great content, wonderful story, but I'm not here to give it its deserved praise. I'm here to whine about technical problems.


    First mission (fly to New Berlin) has waypoint issues. All waypoints are fixed and essential, with scripted events in key locations. The mission waypoints also override player waypoints. They actually remove the ability to make player waypoiunts. Also, a waypoint is only visible as long as you stay in the same system.


    Here's why that's bad. I originally planned to take a different route to New Berlin, picking up a few wrecks along the way. Impossible due to the disabled player waypoint system. For a little stress test, I used the other branch in the path to New Berlin, which led to the discovery that following the waypoints exactly in sequence is an essential part of the mission, which definitely should not be the case. None of the waypoints in the original campaign are rigid and unforgiving like that.


    And that's just the first mission! I believe that the SP campaign needs some playtesting and troubleshooting.

  • The Crossfire story campaign works exactly as intended and within the technical possibilities of the game.


    There is not a single original singleplayer mission where you are able to set custom waypoints or leave the scripted path.
    There is no "attack tekagis base and oh we could take a short trip to new tokyo first".
    As long a mission is active the normal waypoint system is deactivated... in the original campaign and in the new campaign.
    Something else is technically not even possible. The game engine would not allow it.


    And yes the waypoints only show in the system that you are actually supposed to be. If you dont follow the mission instructions then you do that by own risk (even risking that the storyline does not continue).



    You also might ask then "why is there no free time between the crossfire missions, where the player waypoint mode is active".
    The answer to that is also "because it is not possible". FL uses very limited resources for the story missions... when the story mode gets deactivated after mission 13 (for a free time purpose) it can not be activated anymore. That is hardcoded into the game engine and as long we dont have the freelancer souce code we can not change it.



    As for mission testing.
    Each of the new missions was tested by me during the creation process more than 50 times (mission creation is very time consuming). After that the missions went through a beta testing and after the mod release a few ten thousand people played the campaign.
    If that is not enough testing then i dont know.

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


    This is ten percent luck,
    Twenty percent skill,
    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
    Five percent pleasure,
    Fifty percent pain,
    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

  • Hello elShoggotho,


    I think you will need live with 'bad scripts' if you want to go through whole CF 1.9 campaign :) . Is possible that scripting can be done different way, but maybe is better (wiser) check first how big effort was put into 1.9 development ;).


    ... not count small detail that try first offer your own help (if you have coding skills) or suggest changes is much better and more 'diplomatic' as to whine like you did ;)

  • I just checked the main mission scripts. There should be no problem to adapt the main missions' waypoint handling with simple copy and paste operations - at least in theory. I'll have to look into it. Maybe that gives a bit more dynamic options to waypoint handling. Main campaign only specifies the target entity and calculates the rest on the fly, it seems. The path also goes through multiple systems. No need to artificially restrict everything, I imagine. Oh, and I can still set player waypoints when in a single player campaign mission. I checked. This might actually inspire me to learn single player campaign scripting, just to fix stuff I personally don't like.

  • the scripting can not be done better actually
    the game has limits and the mod operates pretty much at the edge of those


    there is a reason why none of the other mods has a story campaign and most of the other mods do not even support the vanilla campaign

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


    This is ten percent luck,
    Twenty percent skill,
    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
    Five percent pleasure,
    Fifty percent pain,
    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

  • I just checked the main mission scripts. There should be no problem to adapt the main missions' waypoint handling with simple copy and paste operations - at least in theory. I'll have to look into it. Maybe that gives a bit more dynamic options to waypoint handling. Main campaign only specifies the target entity and calculates the rest on the fly, it seems. The path also goes through multiple systems. No need to artificially restrict everything, I imagine. Oh, and I can still set player waypoints when in a single player campaign mission. I checked. This might actually inspire me to learn single player campaign scripting, just to fix stuff I personally don't like.



    no, that is incorrect
    the main campaign works just the way how we did it in CF
    there is no difference
    and it is incorrect that you can set a waypoint when there is an active mission in vanilla FL
    the mission system does not allow such stuff

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


    This is ten percent luck,
    Twenty percent skill,
    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
    Five percent pleasure,
    Fifty percent pain,
    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!