One thing about Albion. I always wondered why sci-fi sims/shooters have to model future weapons so badly. Rapid fire, plasma thingers that go pew pew pew. In quite a few sci-fi game I’ve played the future weapons lack substance…grittyness.
Look at some modern FPS shooters, how they make our contemporary weapons look kinda good, and gives them a nice feel.
Instead we get some rapid fire stuff that peck away at the enemy, It’s just not cool how you instead of getting a solid hit, you have to keep firing and firing on the enemy to kill em.
We need a space sim thread. I thought that was going to be this thread until the discussion turned to a bunch of games and genres I didn’t care much about just because they also happened to be set in space. Sheesh. :)
Janster: I think what space sims needed the most was some imagination. In most space sims, like Wing Commander, X-wing games, Freespace, etc., all you do is go to some place and kill waves of enemies. Then you go somewhere else and kill more enemies. Or you do an escort mission and protect something. X-wing and Freespace games were nice in that they added scanning of cargo containers and such things. But really, the most imaginative space sim I’ve played was Independence War, which had a lot of varied and interesting scenarios.
The Newtonian Physics really allowed them to have a wide variety of scenarios that were not in your typical space sim. Like the very first main mission called Gatekeeper, which teaches you how tactical positioning makes a huge difference (space ships are move vulnerable from behind), and how things coming into a system from a single lagrange point leads to some interesting scenarios. There’s missions later in the game that involve not being detected by keeping your heat signature down to zero by not using your thrusters. There’s other missions in which you have to remote pilot things and just so many other variations that they come up with to keep things varied and interesting.
Another thing I thought was lacking overall in most standard space sims was imagination in terms of ship designs and abilities. Look at Star Control 1, 2, and even 3. SC3 was unbalanced, but even that team came up with some really interesting abilities for ships. Each ship has it’s own unique handling, main weapon and special weapon. Each race has unique ships that have their own strengths and weaknesses. Contrast that with your standard space sims where all the ships have armor and shields and the only real variation is bombers and fighters, and everything else is pretty similar. I liked X-wing Alliance a lot just because they mixed things up by having you fly a big ship with lots of automatic turrets that shot down your enemies for you while you took care of the flying.
I was really curious to see what would happen with Star Control 4 (or StarCon, as it was known) which had a preview in PC Gamer. Activision was finally going 3D, so it would be like a normal space sim, but with lots of interesting variation in ship designs and technology. Could the imagination showed in ship designs and varied gameplay in the 2D Star Control games be translated well to 3D space combat? I wanted to know. It’s a shame that game was cancelled and no one ever stepped into those shoes and really showed imaginative space ship design in space sims except for Independence War.
Can I steer it towards space sims on consoles? Why am I stuck with Darkstar One as the only option? Large screens, two-stick controllers, a wider audience. It all seems like a natural fit for a space sim developer. Brian, I don’t get it.
Space sims on consoles…hahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahhaha…riiiiiight. ;) Seriously, most of the serious space sims are on the computer, and that’s my base of knowledge. Besides the Colony Wars games and maybe Wing Commander IV and DarkStar One, there don’t seem to be many sims on the consoles. There are spacey games, sure, but sims seem quite rare. Likely because space sims require a bit more depth and dedication that, I’m thinking, the typical console gamer is willing to invest in a game. ;)
In case it wasn’t clear, I was being serious. Console gamers have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to play deep games if given the chance. RPGs have had success and I think the biggest limiting factor for some of the “deep” PC strategy games making it to the consoles has been the control scheme. Space Sims wouldn’t have to deal with that limitation in its entirety (I realize that there would still be some compromise with a console controller when compared with a flight stick). And consoles would offer up a much larger customer base. Space sims (on PC) are few and far between primarily because there isn’t a large market for them. My opinion is that eventually, a developer/publisher will take a chance on one on a console, it will be wildly successful and invigorate the genre (on pc too). It’s just a matter of when.
Yeah, we might see some on a console, but likely most of 'em will remain on the PC. Regardless, I’m guessing developers have to face a small enough audience for space sims on the PC as it is, and it’s likely much smaller in the console realm, which is why we likely rarely see space sims on consoles. Space shooters and RPG-type games make a lot more sense.
The way I write that off, Janster? Space fighters have a limited amount of space to put a power generator in there, and that generator needs to power the engines, control thrusters, oxygen supply, cockpit instrumentation and shields, if it has them. That leaves a certain amount of power left over for weapons, so those weapons only have a certain amount of power to do a certain amount of damage, and given how small most of these fighters are, it’s unsurprising that most weapons are of the pew pew variety.
Therefore, the only ships that can have really MEATY weapons, usually, are capital ships. Freespace 2 is an excellent example of this.
Freespace had meaty weapons, no issue there, my main problem was games like X series and a few others. They are way to pew pew’ish. Seriously, todays weapons take out anything in almost 1 hit, this should not really be any different in the future. However one could have countermeasures , point defense lasers etc…
I think poor imagination coupled with some kind of idea of ‘how it should look’ is holding this genre back a lot.
Big guns, lots of power, make a single hit hurt like hell…and you’d have a combat situation I’d love.
This is similar to how fun it was flying the basic TIE fighter, the feeling of fragility made it 100 times more fun to play than say the Defender which in the end was just boring.
Oh, that makes sense. What little of the X games I’ve played, it did seemed like the weapons were a bit…tinny.
I dunno if lack of imagination is holding the genre back rather than a lack of…patience in learning the complex systems of space fighter combat, plus the small audience, sadly.
Well, my referral to the lack of imagination was what I thought was holding the genre back in its heyday. Back in the time of Wing Commander and X-wing’s popularity, when Freespace 1 came out, etc. The genre was getting kind of stale, and except for Independence War, it kind of stayed stale until its death (marked by the release and failure of Freespace 2).
This is what I really find sad. Freespace 2 really added some great innovation to the turn-and-burn games, and games like Independence War and Klingon Academy showed that more complex starships could also be modeled, but sadly it didn’t help the genre as a whole.
Freelancer is proof that things can get dumbed down regardless of the platform. Though I admit to liking it up until the point where I realized there was nothing to it…and then I hated it.
I completely agree. A bunch of shots to take out the shields, then a bunch of shots to take out the hull, it’s all very underwhelming. I’d much prefer the evasion and counter measures approach than the simple war of attrition.
That works well in 2D, and is why SubSpace was so great.
But in 3D…err, not as so much.
Mostly because, unless you’re RL ace fighter pilot, it’s very hard to translate orientation of your foes’ position to where you want to be to not get hit by them or how to out-maneuver them to get on top of them.
Strike Commander was fun in that perspective. X-COM: Interceptor demanded it as requirement in highest difficulty level if you were to survive and progress.
The only thing I liked about Freelancer is that, by some magic no other flight sim apparently managed to figure out, they actually managed to make it so you can successfully pilot and dogfight with the mouse!
Or perhaps the enemy AI was just that dumb.
They are way to pew pew’ish. Seriously, todays weapons take out anything in almost 1 hit, this should not really be any different in the future. However one could have countermeasures , point defense lasers etc…
Starshatter was like this. One missile hit or a good blast of guns took a fighter out. Cap ships were bad news and not the meat on the table found in X-W/T-F. Almost more of a flight-sim zeitgeist than a space sim, actually. Too bad Milo, the developer, totally flaked out and abandoned the game.
So I see that Starshatter: The Gathering Storm has been kicked to the community as open source. The feature list certainly pushes my buttons. Was it generally incomplete or bug-addled, or is it worth a go?
