Freespace 2 (now with fan-made mod manager Knossos!)

[LarryTyphoid]

Is it better to play these kinds of games with those flight joysticks? Those always looked pretty cool to me, and this'd be a decent excuse to get one.

 

[J_C]

Is it better to play these kinds of games with those flight joysticks? Those always looked pretty cool to me, and this'd be a decent excuse to get one.

They are infinitely better with joystick, but a game like Freespace doesn't need some high end HOTAS. Just an average joystick will do.

 

[Naraya]

Is it better to play these kinds of games with those flight joysticks? Those always looked pretty cool to me, and this'd be a decent excuse to get one.

I played FS2 around its release with a normal PC analogue joystick, I think it was called Scorpion? Was quite fun.
Nowadays I play strictly using KBM and I'm having a blast. I bought a Thrustmaster HOTAS a few years ago but it is gathering dust, I just can't get used to it.
IMO you definitely DON'T NEED a joy to have a great time with FS2.

 

[jebsmoker]

does anyone experience a weird graphical glitch on the hud if you play the freespace open source port with knossos

these weird black or transparent 'bars' appear on UI elements for a split second or so once in a while, mostly while the game is loading new assets

 

[jebsmoker]

i've beaten 1, and i'm nearly done with 2.

holy fuck what a ride

anyone got recommendations for good community-made campaigns? i have derelict in mind

 

[Quatlo]

i've beaten 1, and i'm nearly done with 2.

holy fuck what a ride

anyone got recommendations for good community-made campaigns? i have derelict in mind

Derelict is great. Blue Planet is a must play but the "story" sections can get a little campy and i dont know if you can skip them with cheats because it sometimes forks for the campaign i think, or at least they do a good job pretending to have some choice and consequence. Diaspora is amazing if you like Battlestar Galactica but really, really short. Destiny of Peace is pretty interesting. The Scroll of Athakakakahasomtehgin is good if you want more Vasudan action (If you hate prometheus and subach then youll be at home)
Inferno is also okay but really fucking old and buggy, so YMMV

 

[DesolationStone]

After playing the Kilrathi trilogy of Wing Commander, I decided to get a real joystick and am now finishing Freespace 1 on the FS2Open engine. It has aged very well as a game

 

[DesolationStone]

I finished Silent Threat Reborn (original dlc highly modified by the community) and it's probably even better than the original two games. I've appreciate the amount of plot twist that also influence the gameplay, and also the plot was more dark and mature than the classic "ancient evil alien specie who wants to destroy the universe" topos. It's a shame that this series has been so forgotten from the mainstream audience, because it had a lot of potential. Anyway, now I'm seeing the remake series of Battlestar and so I want to try "Diaspora" the mod for Freespace 2 Open that take place in the same universe.

 

[Matador]

I'm playing Freespace: The great war, campaign with the Jaded´s mod pack in knossos. What a great mission design and beautiful visuals!

I also bought REWASD to powerful mapping to the controller. The Joystick controls were clunky, and dragging the mouse with M&K controls is a chore.

Great handling using the DS4 gamepad doing some customization in REWASD.

 

[Melcar]

So I'm finally trying out this Knossos mod manager - launcher thing. Running it from Wine because I can't be asked to compile this shit and there are no binaries available for my distro. Runs well and I like the interface. Much better than that old java launcher that you can't even download anymore. Only thing I'm missing is that I can't seem to find a section or option to change the graphical settings available from the MVP mods. The old java based launcher had this crude section that let you toggle various graphical settings. With Knossos you can only change the resolution. I definitely remember the game with the MVP upgrade looking much nicer and with more fancy effects than it looks now.

 

[DesolationStone]

I'm replaying Freespace 2 with the Jaded mod pack, this time with thruster + joystick.
The mission "the sixth wonder" still amazes me, it's one of my favourite space sim missions of all time and with this set of hardware it's such a pleasure to play.

Manage the energy to reach the enemy corvette, turn around to destroy the first wings of bombers, send your wing to destroy the corvette, defend the station from the last bombers and the new enemy destroyer, and then you are rewarded with the vista of the Colossus blowing up in 2 seconds a ship that previously required minutes and minutes of intense bombardment. All in just 6 minutes of gameplay and an incredible adrenaline rush.

 

[DesolationStone]

I ended up in Vassago's Dirge, and believe me, it's probably one of the most breathless and exciting space sim experiences ever created. This mod introduces some incredible ideas to the Freespace 2 script engine and has some of the most intricate and well done missions I've ever seen for a space game.
Fortunately, this mod, which has been around for over 10 years, has recently been remastered with new graphics and a reworked voice over.
Here is some gameplay from this new version

 

[deama]

Are there any good ones with voice acting? I tried playing one that seemed decent, but the pilot dialogue didn't have any voice acting, so you're fighting in the middle and have you read voice lines? Really?

If not, I was wondering how easy it'd be to use some of these AI voice synthesisers to add in some, maybe I'll ask in their forums, if I can't find any.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Are there any good ones with voice acting?

I haven't played it yet, but Wing Commander Saga has come highly recommended before, and I do believe it has voice acting.

 

[Optimist]

Are there any good ones with voice acting? I tried playing one that seemed decent, but the pilot dialogue didn't have any voice acting, so you're fighting in the middle and have you read voice lines? Really?

If not, I was wondering how easy it'd be to use some of these AI voice synthesisers to add in some, maybe I'll ask in their forums, if I can't find any.

There are some.

The campaign list over here
https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Campaign_List
lists which have VO and which do not.

Off the top of my head, I could recommend Derelict and Blue Planet as two solid mods with full VO.

 

[thesecret1]

Damn this is good. I remember Silent Threat being rather dull and shitty, so I got the overhaul mod (Silent Threat Reborn) for it, and it's some of the best space action I've played. Interesting, varied missions full of story beats and interesting stuff. Wish there was an overhaul like this for Operation Templar too, since the original is just pure garbage.

 

[fuzz]

So I'm finally trying out this Knossos mod manager - launcher thing. Running it from Wine because I can't be asked to compile this shit and there are no binaries available for my distro. Runs well and I like the interface. Much better than that old java launcher that you can't even download anymore. Only thing I'm missing is that I can't seem to find a section or option to change the graphical settings available from the MVP mods. The old java based launcher had this crude section that let you toggle various graphical settings. With Knossos you can only change the resolution. I definitely remember the game with the MVP upgrade looking much nicer and with more fancy effects than it looks now.

I've noticed that by default some of the packages of MediaVPs are not selected for download. Check using the Details -> Options -> Modify in Knossos what was actually installed.

(...)

MV_Advanced1​

For users with higher end machines, this package contains many significantly more demanding textures and effects that may cause poor performance on low end machines.
(...)

sauce: https://fsnebula.org/mod/MVPS#expert_content

 

[Naraya]

Bit of trivia from Wikipedia:

Despite glowing reviews, FreeSpace 2 was a commercial disappointment. In the United States, it totaled sales of 26,983 copies by the end of 1999, according to PC Data. Writing for Daily Radar, Andrew S. Bub remarked that the game "horrifically" underperformed and was one of the most unfairly overlooked titles of the year. FreeSpace 2 was a runner-up for GameSpot's 1999 "Best Game No One Played" award, which ultimately went to Disciples: Sacred Lands.​

26983 copies sold. Just wow.

 

[Optimist]

Bit of trivia from Wikipedia:

Despite glowing reviews, FreeSpace 2 was a commercial disappointment. In the United States, it totaled sales of 26,983 copies by the end of 1999, according to PC Data. Writing for Daily Radar, Andrew S. Bub remarked that the game "horrifically" underperformed and was one of the most unfairly overlooked titles of the year. FreeSpace 2 was a runner-up for GameSpot's 1999 "Best Game No One Played" award, which ultimately went to Disciples: Sacred Lands.​

26983 copies sold. Just wow.

A game so overlooked it was even overlooked for "the most overlooked game" title. Checks out.

 

[Quatlo]

Bit of trivia from Wikipedia:

Despite glowing reviews, FreeSpace 2 was a commercial disappointment. In the United States, it totaled sales of 26,983 copies by the end of 1999, according to PC Data. Writing for Daily Radar, Andrew S. Bub remarked that the game "horrifically" underperformed and was one of the most unfairly overlooked titles of the year. FreeSpace 2 was a runner-up for GameSpot's 1999 "Best Game No One Played" award, which ultimately went to Disciples: Sacred Lands.​

26983 copies sold. Just wow.

A game so overlooked it was even overlooked for "the most overlooked game" title. Checks out.

And yet, it had full Polish dub made by famous russian pirate crew responsible for amazing stuff like Red Alert 2, Unreal Tournament dubs. Unknown are the ways of marketing.

 

[wwsd]

- Blue Planet -
- War in Heaven pt I -

Spoiler

this is pretty much the creme de la crop. To explain what I love about it I'd probably need to go a bit deeper into the spoiler territory, but suffice it to say - these are some of the greatest Freespace 2 missions ever made.
So, at the end of AoA, turns out that the whole expedition was actually a coverup for GTVA attempting to conquer, rather than reconnect with Earth (...but why?). With their developed beam and AWACs technologies they probably hoped for a quick win, but the Solarians worked hard in the meantime, to get ready for another Shivan invasion. Their developments were mostly in kinetics/ missile areas; while this still leaves them hopelessly outgunned against most of the GTVA fleet, this gives them a fighting chance (...at least they figured shields out). You play one of the pilots on the Sol side, trying their damnest to survive and possibly help the war effort. Features some interpersonal drama, some politics which are rather reasonable (if you accept the premises), and huge, amazing battles where you actually are encouraged to follow orders and can make a difference. 10/10, a must-play if you're a Freespace fan and don't mind the occasional trips into the science-fantasy territory.

Just finished this. I started it once before a couple of years ago, after having finished AoA, but life got in the way and I forgot about it. But this is really awesome. Pure space opera dramatics. Macross or Gundam comes to mind, especially with the way the story progresses. You start in an uphill battle, but there's still a bit of that Top Gun bravado. But shit gets progressively darker and more hopeless. It took a while for this banger to start playing in some of the briefing screens, but it still conveys the same thing as in the original game: "If you thought things were bad now, shit's about to get a lot worse". Amazingly, the writers also managed to pull off a cast full of the much parodied "strong women", as in female characters with actually strong but divergent personalities.

Although the original FS1 and 2 had some battles against human opponents, I think this story does much more to convey the emotional impact of killing your fellow man instead of some bug aliens. I didn't really care much for the psych/fantasy part of the story, but maybe it will be brought to a more satisfactory conclusion in part 2. Will try part 2 over the weekend. Hopefully they've improved it a bit over the past 2 years, considering some of OP's disappointments with it.

I see there is now also a new campaign called Chanticleer, set after part 2, but from the POV of a GTVA pilot. So there's plenty more to enjoy here. Pretty incredible what levels of storytelling you can accomplish in a mod of a game where you're just looking at spacecraft 99% of the time and all human interaction is conveyed through comms and briefings.

 

[Optimist]

[Snip]

Do let me know how does the pt2 fare now.

I admit I might have gotten a bit burned out by the time I approached it. I am not sure whether my main concerns (overly complex mission structure, and story that went back to Blue Planet level of space opera) could be easily remediated, but hey, maybe approaching it with a fresh mind could make it more enjoyable.

Also, it could be my demolished dopamine receptors speaking, but the lack of voiceover made it much more difficult for me to enjoy it's milsim story. Still, different strokes for different folks, I wish you bunch of fun with pt2.

Did you manage to try any other mods? Any recommendations?

 

[deama]

How can you even play these without voice over? Trying to read the text in the middle of a dog fight is rediculious.

 

[wwsd]

[Snip]

Do let me know how does the pt2 fare now.

I admit I might have gotten a bit burned out by the time I approached it. I am not sure whether my main concerns (overly complex mission structure, and story that went back to Blue Planet level of space opera) could be easily remediated, but hey, maybe approaching it with a fresh mind could make it more enjoyable.

Also, it could be my demolished dopamine receptors speaking, but the lack of voiceover made it much more difficult for me to enjoy it's milsim story. Still, different strokes for different folks, I wish you bunch of fun with pt2.

Did you manage to try any other mods? Any recommendations?

Not yet. I only played AoA after I last posted here in 2021, now finished War in Heaven Pt1.

I tend to get burnt out on playing the same game for a long time, but I'll definitely try to play War in Heaven Pt2 and Chanticleer from the Blue Planet series, and then maybe Derelict or Silent Threat Reborn.

 

[wwsd]

[Snip]

Do let me know how does the pt2 fare now.

I admit I might have gotten a bit burned out by the time I approached it. I am not sure whether my main concerns (overly complex mission structure, and story that went back to Blue Planet level of space opera) could be easily remediated, but hey, maybe approaching it with a fresh mind could make it more enjoyable.

Also, it could be my demolished dopamine receptors speaking, but the lack of voiceover made it much more difficult for me to enjoy it's milsim story. Still, different strokes for different folks, I wish you bunch of fun with pt2.

Did you manage to try any other mods? Any recommendations?

Finished Pt2, which I wanted to do before commenting on it. My honest review:

I was hoping that perhaps Pt2 would have had voiceover by now, but unfortunately not.

Spoiler

Except for Samuel Bei, who makes a return at the end.

Could be manageable in some scenarios, but Pt2 in particular is very verbose, including in missions. For reasons explained below, every briefing is also 10-15 screens with lots of text, so it's quite a chore to read through and grasp what you're supposed to do.

I can kind of see why Pt2 hit different than Pt1. Pt1 was the orthodox Freespace 2 battles. but with a lot more drama and a bit of psych and fantasy thrown in. Now in Pt2 you're part of an elite stealth unit that's linked to a neural network, and you perform special missions where other forms of firepower have failed. Real wet work that sometimes involves killing all witnesses, innocents, or craft from your own side to maintain opsec, like Silent Threat or the SOC loop from FS2. Which is a cool concept, but then every mission revolves around a specific skill or gimmick:

- Infiltration behind enemy lines (just as frustrating as a similar mission in FS1 until you figure out how to avoid enemy patrols and AWACS).
- Hacking enemy craft by scanning subsystems.
- Commanding and piloting a cruiser (with your wingmen manning the turrets).
- Commanding a whole fleet in a massive capital ship battle, including artillery. Using your skills accumulated so far to whittle down the enemy fleet, thus earning "points" to call in more strike wings to take down an enemy destroyer.
- A kind of tower defence game with different sorts of turrets on platforms (pretty fun, but then just when you're winning, stealth fighters warp in that will shred the transport that you were supposed to protect within seconds).

In between missions, you fly around in a "dreamscape" where you're neurolinked to your fellow elite squad mates to reflect on what happened and learn what's going on. And you do trainings in the dreamscape to learn the next skill/gimmick for the next mission.

All of these are pretty fun by themselves, but it does mean that most missions are basically puzzles revolving around their central idea or gimmick. There are basically no dogfighting or bombing skills involved. Just lots of frustration if you misplace a piece of the puzzle somewhere. According to the Mrs, I was talking in my sleep last night about being frustrated with these missions.

Spoiler

Then the last mission is another psych horror mindfuck like in Age of Aquarius where you're "flying" in your own mind, trying to interrogate your imaginary friend Ken, who is actually the Shivan side of the Vishnan-Shivan battle over the mind of Nagari-sensitive people. You have to uncover your purpose and the reason for the war in the grand cosmic scheme of things. All the while, Samuel Bei is trying to run interference on behalf of the Vishnans. You have to get out of it without losing your sanity. Which is fine, except the mission takes 45 minutes and you can fuck up and go insane at one point and then you have to do the mission all over again. There are no checkpoints or other ways to skip the revelations you've already seen. At the end, it's revealed that your wing leader/lesbian crush from Pt1 is still alive, so you can choose to either pull back from the brink of insanity, or you can deliberately let your mind be destroyed out of fear for the consequences of having people running around being controlled by alien entities.

Before the credits roll, it's implied that act 4/pt3 will have you involved in squadron fighting again. The Federation needs a legendary ace, a Ghost of Kiev, but real. So I guess we'll just have to wait for that. Although it seems the dev team follows the Tamriel Rebuilt principle of perfectionism, and the George R.R. Martin school of transparency on timelines. So maybe best to leave it alone and come back 5-10 years later and see where they'll be at by that time. Hope the voice actors from Pt1 will make a return. The acting is a bit uneven, but the main characters are all amazingly voiced.