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.
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).
