Space sims question

[BLOBERT]

BROS SPEAKING OF THIS SHIT NOT REALLY ON THE SAME TOPIC BUIYT SORTOF I DOWLOADED THE MASTERS OF URQUAN STAR CONTROL TWO REMAKE DEAL AND ALSO THE INDIE STARFLIGHT THING

I STARTED THE STARFLIGHT THING BUIT I BROKE THE GAME PARTWAY THROUGH THE GFAGGY TUTORIAL WHICH WAS FAGGY

I BET THE STARY CONTROL TWO THING IS BETTER I MIGHT OPKLAY THAT WHEN I GET TIRED OF DAMAGE OR THE FAG TONY THING I PLAY ON THE FAGBOX

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I enjoyed WC4. It had cinematic gameplay one right. And it had pretty good actors.

 

[MetalCraze]

Did anyone play Tachyon: The Fringe? I had it way back when I was little, but my computer wasn't good enough to play it except on basic graphics and I don't remember it much at all, just that it had a kind of between-mission interface where you could buy more guns or different ships.

It's ok. Also Bruce Campbell. Give it a spin if you like arcade space shooters. Of course it has nothing on the true king which is FS2

 

[DraQ]

FE2/FFE isn't exactly obscure, unless you are the kind of 'tard who think Fallout series started with FO3, but then you shouldn't be talked at, but dragged out and shot for everyone's, including your own, good.

Well, you're kinda contradicting yourself here.

Not really, Elite, while not obscure was also not Newtonian or otherwise realistic which makes it irrelevant to the topic.

FE2 and FFE are pretty much actual space-sims unlike the majority of the genre, including their esteemed prequel, where you fly around in a black box with a WW1 biplane disguised as spaceship.

This is what I was playing on the Acorn before FE2 was around, it really was ahead of it's time, even more than it's sequels.

I would disagree. Frontier not only was ahead of its time, but remains ahead even today, with virtually no games apart form its sequel successfully replicating or expanding its awesomeness, despite being the best selling game of 1993.
17 years and counting.
Elite, on the other hand, while definitely glorious and ahead of its time, has quickly been cloned by about every open spacesim since. How quickly? Even famous Privateer was published in 1993 - that's mere 5 years after Elite.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

I haven't played Wing Commander, but I find standard Dogfighting in Freespace/Tie Fighter to be pretty simple. When I was young and had the time to spend doing stupid shit for no reason I would kill Star Destroyers with unshielded ships in Tie Fighter.

Its the fucking missions where you rely on AI that you have to watch out for. Completely unscripted fights that depend upon skill rather then number crunching can always end up in a clusterfuck in AI vs AI. If you have an 8v8 and either side (completely due to AI stupidity) loses 1 or 2 fighters at the beginning then the outcome shifts dramatically. Freespace seemed to be the worst offender here, Tie Fighter was at least semi-predictable. That said, if you play perfectly and know exactly where to be to do the best at any given moment, I'm sure you can beat even the hardest missions the majority of the time.


Recommend which Wing Commander game I should play first. I dunno if I could handle sprite graphics, will I be missing much if I play the later ones first?

 

[Satori (original)]

Wing Commander: Privateer, skip the second one.

 

[Zomg]

If you want to play one of the sprite Wing Commanders (1,2 and expansions), it actually works fine for stuff the size of fighters. It's the same system as Doom with the 8-way sprites (except since you have another degree of freedom in WC every ship is actually 26 sprites). With capital ships it sucks because they're so big that 26 sprites is pretty insufficient, the ships skip between them stupidly and it's a big mess when you get close to them so no FS2 snipe-the-turrets action is possible. However, in WC1 capital ships are completely trivial to kill in the smallest, weakest fighter, so it doesn't take that much away from the game.

 

[Drakron]

WC2 is the toughest for bombers with AOE flack guns and only thing that can damage cap ships (and bases) being torps.

WC3 and WC4 are not hard as any weapon can damage cap ships and you can destroy their turrets if you really want to as they are run-of-the-mill turrets, not flak guns, only WC4 throws a bit of a surprise with missile turrets on ground missions.

Also its not the clusterfucks that are in Freespace as it usually keeps engagements nice and simple even if you are in a disadvantage, usually 3v1 but you only have 1 or 2 wingman anyway so its not that much of a disadvantage (especially in WC3 were Kilrathi fighters are made of paper) and you can complete the objective on your own, instead of babysitting bombers as they go around NOT doing their job.

You might also look at Privatter, cap ships still have the "sprite issue" but you usually dont fight them, it still have the WC2 flak guns but you can beat the crap out of them with "normal" weapons.

 

[Morkar Left]

K, lets start from the roots : what do you mean by "get good at" ? Getting perfect ratings ? Not getting hit ?

I'd say it would be like turning things I'd consider very bad odds at the "I know all the controls" post-newb stage (like defending X capital ship from Y bombers) into something routine if I'm concentrating and I consider some tactical concepts (like e.g. shoot the bombers first, shoot the torpedoes first, shoot the escort, whatever) and maybe build up a little muscle memory for the interface? As it is I never feel like there's any noticeable increase in performance past the knowing-the-controls stage.

Try I-War. First step is learning the controls. Next step is learning the flight physics. After that you have to learn flight tactics (defensive manouvers, weak points of a ship, shield direction, avoid getting engaged from two or more ships at the same time bacause your shield is only effective against 1 ship etc). Than you have to learn to use all bridge stations properly (weapons and navigation are the most important). If you know that all, the fun begins with the more demanding missions where you have to use all of it plus some special missions which put you in different conditions. Lots of fun but can get very frustrating if you make mistakes. And joystick only...

 

[Silellak]

I myself was never able to get into WC1 & 2 because space sims and 2D sprites just don't mix and gameplay was just too messed up because of this (like you target the ship then fire only to see that it immediately did some huge turn because the sprite switched and you miss). Same goes for Privateer.

I never had this problem with "sprite-based" space sims.

 

[Zomg]

It does happen in the sprite WCs and they kinda exacerbate it by having separate front/side/read armor and front/rear shields, so you can be shooting at the bow of a ship and it's nearly destroyed and it suddenly switches to the next sprite arc and now you're shooting at a totally fresh armor section. I'm sure it sucks bad in WC2 with the torpedo system, but it WC1 it doesn't matter since caps are armored only slightly better than a heavy fighter and they can barely maneuver.

 

[Drakron]

I'm sure it sucks bad in WC2 with the torpedo system, but it WC1 it doesn't matter since caps are armored only slightly better than a heavy fighter and they can barely maneuver.

Well not really a issue as one torpedo is enough for any cap ship, the only thing that have to take more that one is the main Kilrathi base at the end were THAT became a problem (its even symmetric so you can end up launching a torpedo to the undamaged section).

What sucks on WC2 is having to distract the flak guns from the torpedo until it hits the target and have to take damage in the process as its a AoE damage system so it will ALWAYS hit you and wear down your shields and armor, also torpedo take about 20 seconds to achieve a lock-on so you are taking damage even before you launched the damn thing.

Its only as bad on Privateer as you see the occasional cap ship as those are heavily shielded and armored compared to fighters but then again, so are you and its unlikely they are going to fire on you as ConFed leaves you alone unless they scan you and find things on your cargo hold they dont like (and yes, getting a ConFed Destroyer Group going hostile is BAD) and the Kilrathi rarely show up as they stick to the Clarke Quadrant unless its mission related (and their cap ship is a corvette, not half as scary as ConFed destroyer).

Drayman are pretty much were the limit rears its ugly head as they are common enough and a nice target for piracy in Privateer.

 

[RaXz]

FE2/FFE isn't exactly obscure, unless you are the kind of 'tard who think Fallout series started with FO3, but then you shouldn't be talked at, but dragged out and shot for everyone's, including your own, good.

Well, you're kinda contradicting yourself here.

Not really, Elite, while not obscure was also not Newtonian or otherwise realistic which makes it irrelevant to the topic.

FE2 and FFE are pretty much actual space-sims unlike the majority of the genre, including their esteemed prequel, where you fly around in a black box with a WW1 biplane disguised as spaceship.

But still, the series started with Elite, even though it wasn't really living up to it's potentional.

I would disagree. Frontier not only was ahead of its time, but remains ahead even today, with virtually no games apart form its sequel successfully replicating or expanding its awesomeness, despite being the best selling game of 1993.
17 years and counting.
Elite, on the other hand, while definitely glorious and ahead of its time, has quickly been cloned by about every open spacesim since. How quickly? Even famous Privateer was published in 1993 - that's mere 5 years after Elite.

That's true, but that doesn't mean that Elite wasn't, sure it isn't as much of an classic as Frontier. It laid the foundation of the genre, Frontier expanded it by leaps, and I agree that it's still unsurpassed. Pretty sad if you think about it, with all the technology and all. But then again, we're quite used to that on the codex.

 

[DraQ]

But still, the series started with Elite, even though it wasn't really living up to it's potentional.

But Elite, in spite of not being obscure is not a valid counterargument to "some obscure indie space sim with pure Newtonian mechanics" due to not being Newtonian at all.

That's true, but that doesn't mean that Elite wasn't, sure it isn't as much of an classic as Frontier.

I'd say it's even more of a classic, but it wasn't nearly as much ahead of its time. Even these days I still play Frontier sometimes - not due to nostalgia, but simply because there barely are any alternatives.

 

[Trash]

The only thing Frontier lacked was more and more varied mission types. How's that high resolution fanpatch doing btw?