Full Standoff Mission Tree

Heh. I guess I need to update my profile. I lived in Boston for 10 years, but I live in California now. Still, it's always good to meet a friendly ship! :) I hope the snow hasn't been too crazy for you this year (my family and friends all still live back there, so I know how rough a winter it's been).

It was an interesting winter. We've had a heatwave recently so most of the snow is gone.

As far as the missions go, I haven't been able to fire up my Standoff in a while (I'm working on this in 5 minute snatches to make the time between diapers pass and my wife is not tolerant of obvious video game playing right now...and that probably rules out #wingnut for now as well), so I can't help much in the short term beyond my memory...but the only ones in particular I remember a difference between the flight history and the mission objectives was for Rescue Run, Too Much Company, and *maybe* one of the Backlash's and Charge of the Leathernecks... But I"m not sure of the last two...

I guess there are some versions of Rescue Run/Search and Rescue and Too Much Company that I've never played...so I can't vouch for their consistency either...

Hmmmm when it comes to Rescue Run/S&R I wonder if the name depends on where the wingman was lost. Rescue Run if at the last nav and S&R if at one of the others?

Pete should be able to provide some insight on that (that's his mission).
 
See what you can do about dropping into #wingnut some time. I'd love another set of eyes to help doublecheck for bugs.

I'm going to put some time this week (Wooo Spring Break...hmm it's not as fun on the other side...) to entering the mission name bugs.
 
(Sorry the quality is a little low...the hi-res version exceeds the upload allowable on the message board...)

Feel free to mail the next/final draft to news@wcnews.com for full quality posting. We are looking at tweaking the attachment file size and format limits, but the existing caps do help keep things under control. I was amazed recently to see that there's Crius users with dozens and dozens of megs of picture attachments. One person has over a hundred megs here. :)
 
OK, I think I have it just about done. I just e-mailed high res versions to news@wcnews.com as Chris suggested, so hopefully they will get posted soon.

I made two versions because I couldn't decide which would be more useful. One is a large, hi res version of the tree, with (very abridged) notes on the "back" (page 2, but the back if you print double-sided) as to what controls the branching. It's essentially a "Quick Reference Guide". The other is a full document, a "Branching Guide", that explains the branching in more detail, but has a much lower-res version of the tree (because it had to fit into 8.5 x 11 to be printable with the text).

In the document guide version, I used some of the Standoff graphics to dress it up and make it look prettier. I wanted to get the Standoff team's permission distributing it, as a result. I of course included acknowledgments and a copyright and IP ownership clause (mainly copied off the Standoff website). If you have any issues with this or want me to change anything, let me know.

If you want me to change anything, or if anyone catches any additional errors, let me know on these forums and I can update it. But barring that, it's pretty much done. I hope it's useful to the community! Thanks again to the Standoff team for the great mod. This is probably the most fun I've had playing a video game in years!

Incidentally, I've checked a few missions and the only one that I can confirm that the name in-flight doesn't match the flight history is "Too Much Company" (which shows up as "Fresh Company" in the flight history terminal). The Flight History terminal itself seems to ahve some issues...the order in which it lists missions is random, and changes as you access it and fly different missions, making looking for a specific mission to play-test a bit of an adventure. However, I haven't had a chance to do too much checking...I get dirty looks from my wife every time I fire up the game instead of helping with the baby, so my testing in the last couple of weeks has been necessarily limited to when both she and the baby are asleep, but I am not.

I did confirm that "Rescue Run" and "Search and Rescue" are two different missions, and which you get is determined by where you wingmen eject (if any of the pilots eject on the patrol prior to the jump point battle in "Rearguard Duties" you get "Search and Rescue", but if all the ejections happen at the jump point you get "Rescue Run". Incidentally, getting Rapier pilots to eject to confirm this, when they're only facing a few Kilrathi on patrol is an adventure in and of itself...I ultimately had to, very carefully (to avoid being branded a traitor), "help" the Kilrathi along to get one of them to eject.

Trying to play-test these branches led to a number of interesting and extra-hard mission challenges like this. For example, trying to *not* kill the Ralatha in, I think, "Making Way" to confirm that that lead to the Ep 4 losing path was fun...I eventually treated it like a fleet defense mission where I would park near it and try to shoot down my wingmen's torpedoes. This ultimately worked. However, trying to fleet defend a hostile capship when I couldn't shoot at the bombers and while there are scores of enemy fighters, and very good pilots in those bombers...let's say it was...interesting. It led me to believe that, by far the easiest way to get to the Ep 4 winning path was to take the Ep 3 losing path...way easier than saving the Verdun and the Clydesdales/Sao Paulo. Anyway, a lot of fun times like that.
 
...the order in which it lists missions is random, and changes as you access it and fly different missions, making looking for a specific mission to play-test a bit of an adventure.
In Prophecy, the mission history list seems to be in (mission) chronological order. Unfortunately, in Secret Ops, the list seems to be in whatever order the underlying Windows file system seems to put them in. I've noticed - for Secret Ops, at least, not sure about Standoff - that if I delete the files in the history directory, then manually 'restore' them one-by-one in file name order, then the missions are listed in chronological order in-game.
 
This is awesome! I'm going to have to pressure you into letting it be used for the Standoff guide (whenever I get to it....)

I Bugzilla'd those mission names and few other things the other day.

It's great to hear someone enjoying the branching so much.
 
This is awesome! I'm going to have to pressure you into letting it be used for the Standoff guide (whenever I get to it....)

Certainly, feel free to use this in the Standoff Guide (whenever that appears). I made it so people could enjoy the game more.
 
I don't know where they're linked off the main site, but I can still find the finished versions by searching the old news archives. But here are the direct links of the hi res versions that CIC hosts:

PDF of the high res flowchart: http://download.wcnews.com/files/mods/standoff_mission_tree.pdf

The document with the (slightly) more descriptive descriptions of the branching criteria: http://download.wcnews.com/files/mods/standoff_mission_branching.pdf

Interestingly, my mission tree doesn't quite agree with the Guide in all respects. Most notably, I'm pretty sure this mission does not exist... :)

https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Episode_2_-_Mission_4B_-_Ralatha_Strike
 
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Much of the guide is still based on Dundradal's playtester's notes which were created (I assume) as each episode took form. I suspect, even if it doesn't exist now, it did once. The only parts of the Guide which I definitely rate as reliable based on the final part of the game are the Episode 5 bits which I've written up.

And yes, I do intend to finish it, eventually, but I keep being distracted by other things, like making videos and, I suspect very soon, Saga.
 
Interestingly, my mission tree doesn't quite agree with the Guide in all respects. Most notably, I'm pretty sure this mission does not exist... :)

https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Episode_2_-_Mission_4B_-_Ralatha_Strike

That is correct. When I was writing the guide I used the old Episode outlines as a base. That mission was cut later on, and I never got around to removing it from the list.


Those trees should be linked onto the WCPedia Standoff guide page. That way users can find them a bit easier. I still need to put a big link for the Fan Content Area of WCPedia onto its main page.
 
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You don't even want to know the hours I spent trying to get to that mythical mission to verify the criteria for getting it. The mission before it, with the two Kamekhs, is simply IMPOSSIBLE to lose (and not die). Seriously, I challenge anyone who thinks they're good at Standoff to try to lose that mission (i.e. to not die and still leave a Kamekh in tact). It's like it's scripted to be unlosable...
 
In the episode 4 Losing Path mission "Backlash", they mention the possibility of taking out a convoy after striking at the Fralthra (and the two Ralatha). I've taken out the capships, but I can't seem to select the Nav Point for the Convoy? Is there a specific requirement that I'm not meeting in order to go after that convoy? I'm still in pretty good shape; although I don't know if both my wingmen make it...
 
In the episode 4 Losing Path mission "Backlash", they mention the possibility of taking out a convoy after striking at the Fralthra (and the two Ralatha). I've taken out the capships, but I can't seem to select the Nav Point for the Convoy? Is there a specific requirement that I'm not meeting in order to go after that convoy? I'm still in pretty good shape; although I don't know if both my wingmen make it...
Not as far as I can see, you just select the Convoy NAV on the map and go for it. There are no health-based conditions as far as I can remember.
 
Not as far as I can see, you just select the Convoy NAV on the map and go for it. There are no health-based conditions as far as I can remember.

I'm not sure why it wasn't working before, but as soon as I read your post, went back and tried it again, and no problems! So, thank you!
 
As this is mission tree thread, I decided it's best place to ask. So, lately I've been replayng standoff, and I decided to go for ep3 loosing path. now, I did everthing I should - destroyed all cats in first mission, than got Fralthi when I was supposed, than got the ralatha - and I end up in Ep4 loosing. now I did loose al there was to loose: Drake, all but three gladii and one engine on the firekka - so is it meant to be like that? or is it a bug?
 
Well, I'd have to look through the documentation to really be sure, and frankly I can't be bothered - but yes, I believe that's how it was supposed to work. It's the engines that matter in this case - if you take damage, the Firekka runs slower, can't join the battle fleet in time and ends up getting stuck behind the lines.
 
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