That one was a … hard nut to crack. I have spent the last weeks learning how custom story mission setups work in Mechwarrior 5, and there have been heavy bumps along the road. But finally, there is an outcome! I am proud to present: the first custom handcrafted mission in the vonMissions Mod alongside Solaris 7!
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First Custom vonMission!
One of my favourite missions from Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries was "Liezen - the Comet Run". There is a desert world, thirsty for water, and an ice comet, which is designated to relieve the population there. But things go wrong - as usual - and the ice shipment is interrupted.
As a first project, I have taken inspiration from that classic mission, and built up a custom level of an ice comet's surface floating through space. And things go wrong, again, with a jump ship appearing and forces attacking.
This first mission is now available in Instant Action > Scenarios for a first test run.
There are three Overlord ships towing the Ice Comet through space, there are tower installations to defend and Space VTOLs and Mechs want to keep the desert's planet people thirsty.
Bring a lance of heavies/assaults and save the fate of millions!
When progressed further, there will be a three-mission chain integrated in the career and campaign — for now, the one mission was quite a ride. There have been many things breaking along the way, on and on, and it took many days to discover solutions and workarounds for problems. Tears and sweat!
Having the first custom mission playable feels quite good, and for the future, setups, procedures and know-how for more story missions are in place. Hurray!
Next step: more visual improvements, details, and making the full three-mission chain in December for integrating it in Campaign/Career with objective rewards and contract negotiation. (please see below for December outlook)
Solaris 7 AI Update!
As a second area of improvement, this new version of vonMission also extends Solaris 7 compatibility with the TT Rulez AI Mod.
The AI behaviour of Mechs all shooting the player when put out too much damage per second (DPS) was a big annoyance — and it came directly from vanilla AI. With updating all the mech spawn points in all arenas, this issue should be gone when you also run the famous TT Rulez AI Mod alongside vonMissions.
Moreover, there is news regarding this: TT Rulez AI will receive a bigger updated in the course of this or next month - I heard;) And this upgrade will also integrate a special AI mode for Solaris 7 Arenas! Thanks to Oraeon for the collaboration on this!
New Logos!
I have overhauled and harmonized the logos for vonBiomes, vonHUD and vonMissions, new in all shiny vector graphics for scaleability. Also important, not to neglect. I hope you like them! :)
December outlook
There will be an upgrade to vonBiomes upcoming quite soon - perhaps already next week or the week after. The next vonBiomes version will include a new special allowing you to play Mechwarrior 5 in pixel glory! I have already integrated the vonPixelator 2000™ into Mod Options, and (surprisingly to me, I must admit) it not only works as eye candy, but I can see myself playing at least some missions in this pixel look!
The Pixelator 2000™ comes with customizable pixel size, and brings a retro look to Mechwarrior, which touches something in my heart. :)
The next vonBiomes update will also include first steps for MercTech compatibility. I have already removed one of the roadblocks, and currently I am waiting for the MT team to bring out the updated source pack for including their interface extensions for the mission screen. MercTech and vonBiomes will run well side by side with that, and all MercTech players can enjoy the vonBiomes mission screen design once more.
Further next steps in December will also include diving more into custom mission building to finish out the Comet Run for the first real career/campaign story missions in the Mod, and also doing some more polishing in vonHUD's vonCommander if time allows. Much to do, looking forward to it! ;)
Big thanks for your ongoing support!
All this is only possible because of you and the amazing Patreon community here! If you are not already on the vonBiomes Discord, join here: https://discord.gg/gFwAPJWRck - please let me know you come from Patreon and I can set your special user role for backstage access.
Cheers, and thanks again for all the coffee, beer & pizza! ☕🍺🍕
- Jonathan