How to Succeed in FRED Design

by: Dynamo - February 03, 1999 for Freespace Watch

After releasing such missions as Awakenings, The Sands of Normandy, and FreeSpace Megasite Frenzy and getting a job offer from Volition Inc. to work as a Mission Designer for FreeSpace 2, I started to think, "Hey, I know a thing or two about FRED Design". As a reviewer for the FreeSpace Review, I know that there is a shortage of excellent missions out there. Then I got to thinking, "So how ‘bout if I gave young, aspiring mission designers my tips?" So, now you’ve got this document here. All my advice on designing FreeSpace missions is right here, so read on!

• Tip #1: Know what you are doing. Although you can just get in FRED and start placing ships really easily, it is very hard to make that work into a good mission in a short amount of time. If you have a plan on what you want your mission to do, you can save a lot of time trying to fix different things inside your FSM. When doing a campaign, I always like to make a timeline of what happens during the campaign before I’m actually doing it in FRED. Planning your mission is the difference between 5 star recommended missions and 3.0 star average missions.
• Tip #2: Know FRED like the palm of your hand. This one should seem obvious too, but there are so many features in FRED that it takes a while to master them. If you are just starting to design missions, go in and throw some ships in and try to learn it on your own.
• Tip #3: Never publish your first attempt at FRED on the Internet. Not only does it get slammed in reviews, but it will also make other FS players shy away from your missions. When you finally come up with a good mission, post it to test the water and make sure you use the feedback (if any) when planning other missions.
• Tip #4: The FRED Help documents are your friends. Never, ever hesitate to take a look at the Descent Chronicles FRED Help page. There’s a lot of information there and you just can’t pass it up. Also, if it’s your first attempt at a mission, read through Peter Drake’s FRED Tutorial. Some authors, like Sewer Urchin and myself, based missions on how Drake did it in his tutorial. Also, don’t forget to print out a copy of my FRED Reference Card. You’ll find it invaluable when designing your missions.
• Tip #5: Go easy on the Capital Ships. Nothing turns off a player more than a mission that suffers from the Battle of Endor Syndrome. As a rule of thumb never include more than 3 major ships (ie Arcadias, Orions, Typhons, and Demons). Cruisers, like the Aten, Fenris, Leviathan, and Cain, count as half of a major ship. So a mission with two Fenrises fighting it out with two Atens near an Arcadia is OK, but having four Orions assaulting 5 Levaithans and 3 Arcadias is not.
• Tip #6: Place the enemy ships last. This is something I always like to do, especially with planned missions. Place all the friendly and essential (like if you have to board a Shivan Cruiser) ships first. Then, set up whatever events are needed to make your mission run, like if it is a recovery mission, have your Docking/Undocking Sexps set first. Make sure you do a dry run of just friendly and essential ships to see if your Sexps work properly.
• Tip #7: There is no such thing as too many events. Ok, well maybe there is, but use Sexps wherever possible. Set up lots of messages to make sure the player knows what’s going on, set up directives to show how many enemy ships are still out there, and most importantly, set up Sexps to manage your mission objectives!
• Tip #8: Make good use of all three briefing screens. I can’t begin to tell you how important Briefings are to your mission as they are the first and last things to be seen by the player when he or she fires up your mission. Good Command and Mission Briefing screens will give the player an overall feeling for how good of a game your mission is going to be. If you run across a bad briefing, then you are already set in that the mission is going to be bad, and if you get a good briefing, then you know that when you click Commit, you’re going to have a hell of a time. Make sure to check, double check, and then triple check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Watch out for briefing icons not displaying the proper ship when checked. Make sure that Jump Node icons show up as Jump Nodes and not Nav Buoys. Make sure that you don’t type in a bad path for your CB ANI’s and have errors in your debrief sexps. Always have recommendations for the player if he fails his mission, and make sure they don’t insult the player, make them inspire them to do better.
• Tip #9: Test. Test. Test. Ok, this is the most important part of doing FRED missions. You must test to see if what you have works in FreeSpace. I’ve done dozens of FreeSpace missions and I still can’t tell how a mission is going to run just by looking at it in FRED. After you get done testing it, send it to other players to see if it runs well before you post it to Xanadu’s or Get Noticed. Can’t find testers? Get on the FDL, FUDL, or the FS Forum. If you still can’t find anybody to help test, tell me. I’ll find someone for you.
• Tip #10: Make a good description. So, by now, you should have a mission worth playing. What’s going to make people download it at Xanadu’s? A poorly written description, or an elegant summary of what your mission is about? I’m guessing the latter.
• Tip #11: Hype it up! Hyping a mission is a good way to get people to notice it. But, before you even think about hyping a mission, make sure that you’ve got something to hype. When you think you have a good mission, send one message (not two, eight, or ninety) to the FDL, the FUDL, the FS Forum, and the DC Review Staff. If you get a good review, the DC Staffer who reviewed it is very likely to announce the mission on the main news page. Make sure that the advertisement is well worded with out using lots of loaded language. Don’t say "This mission is the best ever! It kicks everyone’s ass! If you don’t play it, you suck". Just be really casual about it. Say something like "I just wanted to inform you all that I have released a new mission called . I’d like for you guys to just take a look at it and tell me what you think. Thanks."

Although I can’t guarantee total success with using this formula, this is how it worked for me. I can say if you do follow my lead, you’ll do fine and be very popular with the FS community. (Well at least me anyway)