The Tai-Corva Campaign (Custom addon missions)

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The Tai-Corva Campaign (Custom addon missions)

jmarso
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Post by jmarso » Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:23 pm

Mediafire Link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/n94mf3xhx ... gn.7z/file

Excerpts from readme file:
This is a pack of twelve missions that make up “Battle 8” of X-Wing Alliance, a couple years after the Battle of Endor at about the same time as Mike Stackpole’s novel “The Bacta War”, although this story is unrelated. You’ll fly the Otana in four of the missions, and pilot an X-wing as a squadron commander in the remainder. This is a re-do and expansion of a similar campaign I released years ago, but it bears little similarity to the original other than in name.

The Tai-Corva Campaign is a continuation of Ace Azzameen’s adventures following Endor, as the New Republic continues the difficult task of taking back various sectors of the galaxy from the Imperial Remnant. It is a story-driven campaign, with several hundred custom voice files included. In a departure from the norm, Ace’s character is ‘voiced’ in these missions, primarily for story purposes and sometimes to hint to the player what they should be doing next. Each mission includes a full briefing, win de-briefing, and mission hints for a failed attempt. The ‘commander’s briefings’ at the start of each mission use custom audio files.

In addition to the regular cast, you’ll also meet Ace Azzameen’s trusty astromech unit, “Gizmo”, and other recurring characters.
Mission List / Summary

1. Tai-Corva Reconnaissance: Posing as a civil merchant, conduct a thorough, covert reconnaissance of the Tai-Corva shipyards and catalog all Imperial Forces present.

2. The Tocano Gambit: New Republic forces target a large fueling facility in order to cut off supplies to the Imperials at Tai-Corva.

3. Cain’s Counterstrike: Nomad Group and its escorts must cross the Tocano Badlands to rendezvous with the flagship on the outer edge of the system.

4. Fighter Sweep: The opening move of the campaign to take Tai-Corva is a deliberate fighter sweep by New Republic squadrons, paired with a strike at local Imperial fuel supplies.

5. Dejarik Moves: New Republic pilots must scramble to react to the Imperial interdictor cruiser trapping their force in place and jamming long range communications.

6. Dance of the Dreadnoughts: Conduct an operation to disable and capture Moff Cain's salvaged dreadnoughts, which are powered up and attempting to escape.

7. Aggressive Negotiations: Escort New Republic Ambassadors to Lake City Starport and defeat remaining Imperial Forces planetside at Tai-Corva 3.

8. Patrolling the Perlemian: L/CRS Freedom and her crew have left Tai-Corva and are searching the Perlemian trade route, where convoys bound for Tai-Corva have been going missing.

9. Mega is Missing! Ace, Aeron, and the droids take the Otana to search for Elexa Mega, who is now long overdue and listed as missing by New Republic intelligence.

10. Black Sun Serenade: Ace, Aeron, and the droids continue following the trail in search of missing agent Elexa Mega.

11. Prison Ship Takedown: Stage an ambush at Thyferra to rescue Elexa Mega from Black Sun and the Empire!

12. The Battle of Jomark: The deciding battle for control of the Tai-Corva Sector is about to begin.
Last edited by jmarso on Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

jmarso
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Post by jmarso » Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:25 pm

Couple of screenies:

The Rylos Shipyards at Tai-Corva 3:
Screenshot (57).png
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eddyfurax
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Post by eddyfurax » Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:26 pm

:applaus: :2thumbs: Great news a new campaign with a sequel fo Ace Azzameen ; ) . Impatient to test that ! Thank you for share with the community.

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Post by jmarso » Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:29 pm

Approaching Nar Shaddaa:
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Post by jmarso » Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:31 pm

The Vertical City:
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Post by jmarso » Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:36 pm

Mod Requirements: This mod was designed to run with the XWA Upgrade Project’s 2020 MEGAPATCH. Without the various hooks and super backdrops included in the megapatch, this mod will not run correctly. Although not strictly necessary, this mod will work easiest and best when placed into a fresh install of the game with the 2020 MEGAPATCH added on.

This mod does not require the alteration of your .exe file. It does not use an installer, nor will you need to use tools like MXvTED to install new craft. The mod uses stock game assets with hooks to substitute .opt files when needed.

The missions in this mod utilize large numbers of flight groups, taking advantage of the more powerful computers available today. In some missions, entire squadrons are employed at once where successive waves were used in the past. This may tax the ability of lower-end machines to run the missions.

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Post by Michal » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:53 am

Great to see new campaign!
Thank you for you work.
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Post by batuta » Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:13 am

heyyyyyy thank you very much, my contribution to this project is a random campaign generator that i am working on, in a couple of months ill be finished.
will generate thousands of missions, all different they are random.

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Post by marcop000 » Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:59 am

Have you used TTS (text to speech) for voice wav files ? .. seem a real voice.

jmarso
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Post by jmarso » Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:41 pm

marcop000 wrote:
Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:59 am
Have you used TTS (text to speech) for voice wav files ? .. seem a real voice.
I use Wideo TTS for the custom voices. It's a mixed bag; some of the voices sound more robotic than others, but you get a wide variety of 'actors' and 'accents.' I then further edit them with Audacity, which is also my MP3 --> WAV conversion go-to. By using the effects changing tempo, pitch, and inserting (or deleting) pauses, I can get the voices sounding more real than they do from the straight wideo app. Also, sometimes when I'm pasting the text into the converter window I have to get creative with the phonetics so that the voices pronounce certain words the way they are supposed to, and I sometimes use question marks when they aren't called for to get a rising inflection at the end of a sentence.

It sounds complicated, but given the short length of messages in XWA I can bang out an amazing number of decent-sounding audio messages in a short time using Wideo and Audacity together. I've also used soundboards to get some Hutt-speech, astromech, and the odd sound effect into the mission messages. Since I don't have a stable of mutli-lingual voice actors at my disposal, the wideo app is awesome. I use the free 'demo' version which limits me to 2000 characters per day, but it's usually more than sufficient. I've also gotten pretty creative at sifting the game's existing messages and using those as well when they work, particularly for the 'Family' missions and Emkay.
Last edited by jmarso on Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by jmarso » Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:48 pm

On an unrelated note, I am interested in feedback from folks who play the campaign, particularly as it relates to difficulty. I always make sure I can beat a mission a couple of times before I consider it finalized, in order to ensure that it IS beatable. However, I know skill levels vary greatly. I rarely put options into missions to account for difficulty level, although I've done it a couple of times.

The other problem is that as the mission creator, I generally have a built-in idea on how to best a mission. It's hard to know how that translates sometimes to players without any prior clues going in other than the briefings. I want to make sure the experience is fun and immersive, challenging, but not one of those frustrating scenarios where you have to spend an entire week's worth of free time to get past that ONE effing impossible mission...

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Post by jmarso » Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:53 pm

Coming soon to a download near you: Battle 9: Pirates of the Cron Drift.

A sequel to the Tai-Corva campaign, furthering the adventures of Ace Azzameen, Gizmo, Mega, Kary, and the rest of the gang. In this battle, Ace commands a 'composite' group, "Azzameen's Archers", so you'll get to fly more than just the Otana and an X-wing, and the Tai-Corva sector will finally see the arrival of some B-wings, which were noticably absent from the previous campaign. ;)

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Post by marcop000 » Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:35 pm

If you have the possibility to save in flac, wav, ogg is better ... mp3 is not the best format.

jmarso
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Post by jmarso » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:04 pm

marcop000 wrote:
Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:35 pm
If you have the possibility to save in flac, wav, ogg is better ... mp3 is not the best format.
The wideo app outputs MP3 files, and XWA uses WAV. I'm finding that the quality I'm getting here works fine for the game, as long as I amplify the output of the clips in Audacity. With Audacity I can export to WAV or OGG, but it needs to be WAV for XWA. When I edit sound files for DCS I convert to OGG, which that game uses.

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Jaeven
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Post by Jaeven » Sat Feb 20, 2021 1:50 am

Been incredibly busy as of late, but I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on this campaign and give it a go.

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Post by Metathrom » Mon Feb 22, 2021 1:09 am

A fan sequel to XWA? Sounds amazing! Can't wait to try it out.

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Post by jmarso » Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:49 am

Pirates of the Cron Drift is coming along nicely.

It'll get its own thread when it's done. 5 missions in so far, not sure how many it will top out yet but not more than 10. So far I'd say the missions are marginally easier than The Tai-Corva Campaign, although there are a couple challenging ones so far. Very story driven like the last one, with tons of custom audio files. This will be the last 'Ace Azzameen' adventure for now; I've got a few other old gems to dust off and refurbish, mostly in the 'Rebels' era. and DTM has given us a LOT of good stuff to work with from there in terms of his craft pack, and the show itself was an inspiration. Loved the whole McQuarrie feel of it!

For those who remember the 70's era Marvel Comics written by Archie Goodwin, Pirates will have a vesion of The Wheel in it that I created years ago. It's flight group and resource intensive by old standards, but new computers should deal with it no problem. Looking forward to seeing how it works out. It'll definitely get a screenshot in the release thread.

For those interested in Legends references to the Tion Cluster and the Cron Drift, I highly recommend the Han Solo adventures written by Brian Daley back in the late 70's early 80's. Han Solo at Star's End, Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, and Han Solo's Revenge. (I got the order wrong there) There is already an appearance by the Corporate Sector Authority in the Tai-Corva campaign, since in the Legends canon the Corporate Sector lies at the rimward edge of the Perlemian Trade Spine. In one of the Pirates missions, Ace gives his wingmen a little historical background on Xim the Despot. Daley fans will get the reference immediately.

The interesting thing is that the 'galaxy map' is an awesome resource, especially when referencing old Legends material. Tai-Corva Sector is my own creation, of course, but if you are looking at the map you can imagine it bumping up against the Tion Cluster on its coreward side. Yavin, Junction, and the Gordian Reach aren't far away, either, and those are the locations of some of the best written early comic adventures in the Star Wars milieu- a gold mine of background material for the Adventures of Ace Azzameen. I'm just sayin'. ;)

Anyway, I've been enjoying this immensely, and I hope fans of the game will play and enjoy the addons. I know it always feels sort of tentative and sketchy loading up someone else's version of their 'head canon', because everyone has their own idea of how that should go. That's why I like to include material and references that everyone can relate to- at least us older farts. In any case I think you won't be disappointed. Ace deserves further adventures, friends, trials, tribulations, and love triangles. I got 'em all. Last but not least, it's a way to keep the game alive and honor the hard work of everyone who has contributed to the upgrade project or done .opt or planetary shipset work like DTM for the sheer love of the genre. It's all freeware, and I love how we can all contribute and showcase, utilize, and enjoy each others' talents. :D

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Post by Metathrom » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:49 am

I played a little bit of it before my old reliable 15-year old game controller decided to die out on me. Mid combat and my X-wing is stuck flying down. D:

I gotta say the storyline script is solid. i love the little chit-chat between the pilots. Some of the voices do sound a little robotic, yeah, but I figure they could be redone later on by proper voice actors if you wanted to? Anyhow, the script is nice. The third mission had a spike in difficulty with the T/As and the surprise on the third zone, but overall I was able to complete it before my joystick totally died out.

Overall it's a solid project with nice roots in older SW expanded universe. I will definitely play more of it when I get a new controller.

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Post by jmarso » Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:07 am

Finished M10 of Pirates before hitting the road for work this week, Get home SAT and will begin the final playthroough-edit, then release. Realized I left one thread go unresolved- the bounty on Ace. That may result in short Battle 10 to resolve that..

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Post by jmarso » Thu Mar 25, 2021 2:59 pm

It's been about a month now since I put this out, and it's been downloaded just shy of 50 times. Just curious if anyone has played all the way through, and whether they liked it or not. Too hard? Too easy? Too taxing on the computer system? Feedback is always helpful for future efforts.

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Post by aceazzameen87 » Thu Apr 01, 2021 11:22 pm

I've played about half way---so far it's tons of fun. With professional voice acting, it would be indistinguishable from professionally made stuff.

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Post by Haakan » Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:08 pm

I really like this initiative. I havent played yet but I read the post and saw the SS and I can see the effort placed on it. This is exactly what we all love about XWA. Much appreciated, will download, play and recommend. Lookng forward to more material!
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Post by batuta » Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:05 pm

I played and enjoyed so much thank you for your hard work, waiting next hahaha.

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the_stag
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Post by the_stag » Fri Apr 09, 2021 4:33 pm

This is great! I've only played the first 3 missions so far and look forward to finishing it. It's obvious that a lot of work and testing went into this project and I look forward to more of these. Thank you for spending the time and sharing it with the community.

I want to nitpick a couple of items that I've noticed:
On mission 1 I experienced a strange day to night conversion while flying on the planet. I'm not sure if that was due to elevation or angle or what, but it was strange and took me out of the moment. I'm not sure if that's something that can even be changed, but I wanted to let you know.

I've noticed a lot of idle time during missions. There's long periods where your flying from point A to point B and there's nothing going on around you. I do like how the down time is filled with pilot chatter, but when you lose a mission it's painful to have to spend 5 minutes flying to the hyper buoy and listen to that same conversation again (and again and again). It would be nice to have the buoys closer and the action happening more rapidly. Maybe this is different in later missions, or maybe I'm the only one who notices this.

As far as difficulty goes, I feel that it's spot on. I played the first mission on easy and it felt easy. I went back to play it on hard and it felt hard (although it's hard to be "hard" when you can rely on turrets). I played the second mission on medium and it was a good challenge, not too easy and not too hard. In the third mission I got downed by the T/A's pretty quickly, but then I just hung back a bit so they could kill my wing mate(s) while I killed the T/A's. The third area of mission 3 had a good amount of fighters, but the problem I ran into was that the enemy torpedoes didn't really have a chance to hit the cruiser before they got shot down. So I never really felt the cruiser was in danger, but since I had to deal with 3 enemy ships that was ok.

Again, I'm very happy with this and if you don't change anything I already look forward to playing it again.

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Post by the_stag » Tue May 25, 2021 10:14 pm

So I finally got a chance to finish the campaign. My first comment is that the rest of the missions had a lot less "down" time than the first 3, so that was real nice.

I played the campaign on easy so that I would have something to look forward to later when I play it on hard (also my video card is pretty old and the game lags a lot when all those shipyards are on screen). I felt that easy was a little too easy. There were situations where I wasn't able to do anything because my teammates were doing it all for me. Maybe some of that will chance on medium and hard. I know the difficulty is supposed to scale, but it's not perfect.

I was really pleased with the story, the mission structure and little details that made me feel immersed in that campaign. Flying through Nar Shadda was very cool and well done. I look forward to playing this campaign again when the prices of video cards comes down.

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