This entry partly exists as an answer to Mr. @jazz's end of the year blog entry, partly because I wanted to write some dumb stuff about Space Sims, specifically Freespace 2.

So Freespace 2 is an interesting thing, lauded by a few people for its interesting story, somewhat referenced in Saints Row IV - by stating that Freespace 3 is probably not going to be a thing and thanks to the Source Code project and some dedicated work still able to hold up today in terms of visual presentation and mission design.

Now I think it is safe to say that either Freespace 1 or 2 introduced the “Shitty escort mission” meme and to be honest some of the missions in Freespace 2 are bad. A few years back Space Sims supposedly had a small comeback and with Star Citizen and Squadron 42 it might have another comeback again, but when I played some of those “comeback” games, the missions felt so uninspiring, yet hobbyists using a 10+ year old engine are able crank out some interesting missions that make you pause for a moment ask why nobody had that idea years ago.

Part of this might be that the Freespace 2 community played the “standard Freespace 2” missions to death and started looking to push the boundaries of what can be done with the engine and mission design for Freespace and maybe for this type of game in general.

Enjoy certain elements of SHMUPs? Incorporate bosses, boss meters and weak points on bosses into your campaign.

How about a showdown between you, some big evil bent on destruction, your pal Gordon Ramsay and a fleet of ships named after various types of cheese. Did I mention the several tons of tacos you purchased a mission before and are now ramming down your opponent's throat? What about visual novel style intermissions used to drive the plot forward instead of a text reader?

I honestly wonder once the shininess of Squadron 42’s engine and Mark “I am not Christopher Blair in this” Hamill wears off, what will be left over? Escort Missions and Bombers that handle like a brick and are armed with ~8 second lockon time single projectile torpedos or something more interesting. I guess we’ll see.

One of the mods I enjoyed playing the most is the Blue Planet series, starting with Age of Aquarius. Called by some a “well made maybe even the best “standard” Freespace 2 experience you can have”. A few years later War in Heaven started to get released in piecemeals, culminating with a Director’s Cut release this Winter, adding Voice-overs to Act 1 and 2, as well rebalancing all 3 currently release Acts.

War in Heaven takes place a few years after the events of Freespace 2. The GTVA managed to reverse engineer the Knossos Portal and sends an expedition fleet through towards the Sol system. Blue Planet - Age of Aquarius details this journey to its conclusion in Sol, where the GTVA declares the local Sol government, the United Earth Federation, illegitimate and demands reunification under the GTVA banner, which the UEF refuses. Civil War erupts as a result of this. War in Heaven picks up a few months into the conflict on the side of the UEF, following the path of a young pilot.

In Act 3 you fly for the Fedayeen, the UEF’s BlackOps unit. These BlackOps offer some of the most interesting missions I have played in Freespace 2 in terms of design and mechanics.

Initially on release I felt that Act 3 was more of an experimental mod pack trying out different ideas instead of introducing one new mechanic and then permuting on it, today I am not so sure about this assessment. Nowadays I’d say they wanted to achieve two things: Move away from the outdated ways Freespace is presenting its plot and put player agency first and foremost. These two imperatives are present throughout Act 3.

I wish to avoid giving away too much in terms of plot and mission design so I picked the first combat mission of Act 3 to showcase why I adore this mod so much, a Convoy Assault.

Now Convoy Assault can be rather boring, as in fly a bomber wing, have an escort of fighters and just unload ordinance and call it a day or you are piloting one of the fighter escorts, turning it back into an escort mission.

Not so here, here a set of systems is presented to you, a deadline is set and you are left alone to resolve the mission. Manage your assets, deliver the payload and engage in space shotgunning.

I like this approach to mission design, due to the puzzle nature and the perceived freedom the designer gives you. However I had a few issues with this approach mainly that on occasion it forces you to abandon the simplicity of just dogfighting and ties you down with managing your assets and “play the objective” and make no mistake I had playthroughs where me getting distracted with dogfighting meant mission fail.

Before we come to the video part of this, showcasing “Nothing is true” a few words of our sponsors and the shiny products they offer the aspiring operator.

Ainsarii

Stealth-fighter, rather fragile, good maneuvering though, can glide, emphasis a hit-and-run playstyle where you Alpha-strike a target then run away to reset and pick your next target. Reminds me a bit MOBA style Assassins.

Sidhe

The space version of a Videogame Shotgun. Feeds good into the Ansarii’s potential Assassin playstyle. Disgusting amount of damage if all pellets hit. Sounds good too, no Fae though.

UX Accelerator

Burst weapon dealing a lot of damage.

I’m torn which of these two runs is the better one, so have both of em. Note that run 2 lacks a bit of coherence in terms of the dialog as I turned on displaying the messages sent by the convoy and that I stay for the aftermath of Falcata Wing’s handiwork in both runs.

Nothing is true

Alternate take

A few Helpful links:

Getting started, the beginning:

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Getting_started

A java application serving as a download manager for your needs - download mods, FSO binaries and the MediaVPs:

http://www.fsoinstaller.com/

Now for mods.. it is a long list, here is a write up that helped me out a bit:

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80688.0

note that certain older campaigns might require a specific version of the Media VPs or FSO executables, check the respective release threads for information.

if you like video try out these two courtesy of Axem, he has his hands in a lot of pies: