A campaign is a sequence of missions with continuity. Where a mission is one
evening, a campaign is the arc across several, and the thing that makes it a campaign
rather than a list is that state carries forward.
Where campaigns stand
Read this before you build one. Hydra's Campaign editor authors and
saves a campaign, and the server loads it with its module, but the server does not yet
play one. Nothing in the lobby or on the Game Master console starts a campaign. Campaign
variables are not added to a session's variables, so a mission can neither read nor write
them. The Campaign: Set Step and Campaign: End actions
are offered in the event editor, but they do nothing, because no campaign is ever
running.
So a campaign today is the plan of an arc, and its missions are run one session at a
time. The continuity the game does carry between sessions is a ship. During a mission,
the Game Master can select a player vessel and choose SAVE VESSEL, which
keeps its fit and, if you ask, its state as well: damage, ammunition, cargo and crew. In a
later session's pre‑flight, the Game Master can give that saved vessel to a player's
slot, as it was saved or factory‑fresh with the same fit.
The sections
| Group | Section | What it is |
|---|
| Core | General | Identity and description. |
| Media | Icon, image and banner art for presentation. |
| Prologue | A prologue type. The campaign has no prologue of its own: each step's comes from that step's mission. |
| Epilogue | An epilogue type: None, Standard or Pause. As with the prologue, each step's epilogue comes from its mission. |
| Content | Steps | The missions, in order, and the branching between them. |
| Events | Campaign‑level logic, spanning missions. |
| Variables | State meant to survive from one mission to the next. |
Steps
Steps are the spine. Each names a mission and the conditions for moving on. A linear
campaign is a list of steps; a branching one uses variables to decide which step comes
next.
Variables are the whole point
Campaign variables are meant to be what a mission writes and a later mission reads.
That is what will let the third session know the crew let the freighter captain live in
the first. The server does not connect them to a running mission yet (see above), but
the advice holds for planning the arc.
Two pieces of advice, both learned the hard way by anyone who has built one:
- Decide your variables before you write the missions. Retrofitting
continuity means editing every mission you have already finished.
- Name them for what they record, not what they cause.
FreighterCaptainAlive survives a change of plan; SkipToStep4
does not.
Campaign events
Events at campaign level see across missions, which is where you put the
consequences that are not any one mission's business — a faction's attitude
hardening, a resource depleting over the arc.
Practical advice
- Make each mission stand alone first. A mission that only works as
step four is a mission you cannot test.
- Write the epilogue early. Knowing how it ends is what tells you
which variables you need.
- Expect the crew to lose one. A campaign that assumes victory at
every step has no room for the interesting sessions.
