The combat space sim: Finally dead?

Games
41

Because of it, at least in part. I mean, there are other aspects of the game that are also impressive (like the big dynamic galaxy), but I rather liked the controls.

It’s a lot less like a rail shooter than it might seem from the descriptions. You can guide your ship manually whenever you want, using the mouse. It works as well as a joystick. But much of the time you’ll want to use one of the many autopilot modes, which allow you to follow ships in a few different ways, go to specified locations, and so forth. In combat you can set the autopilot to follow the ship that you are fighting, then focus on shooting (you can move the targeting cursor independent of your heading, within limits). I guess that’s a bit like a rail shooter, although it doesn’t really feel like one, since you can take control of the thrusters if you want to. It definitely takes the emphasis off manuevering, but given that manuevering in most space sims boils down to ships taking high speed passes at each other until one dies, I really didn’t miss it.

42

Freelancer, though the hardcore space-simmers will instantly deride it for the control scheme, probably stands the best chance of revitalizing the genre. Because of the control scheme.

Let’s face it, Joe Average doesn’t have a joystick, he doesn’t want to manage a four-way hat and sixteen buttons, etc. Freelancer’s mouse control scheme stands the best chance of breaking out of the Space Sim Grognard market.

I played it, and found it surprisingly fun. It was the first space sim I played in a long time that was still pretty action packed, but where I didn’t feel like I was criss-crossing or spinning in circles in empty space. It also became immediately apparent that aiming with a joystick in a space sim is like aiming with a joystick in an FPS - the mouse is just infinitely more precise and intuitive.

I had a lot more fun actually playing Freelancer at E3 than I thought it would be. I really hope people give the control scheme a chance.

Now the rest of the game may be a broken mess…I don’t know. E3 isn’t exactly the place to judge the meta-game. =)

43

No, I have no problem with using the mouse to steer a space ship. My joystick recently conked out on me, so I’ve been playing Starshatter with mouse and keyboard for weeks, and I find it to be just as much fun, if not as realistic, as playing with a HOTAS. Mouse control seems to work better with arcade style physics, but is still playable even in Newtonian mode.

The thing I don’t “get” about Freelancer is the neuronet autopilot system. Aside from “follow that car” and “run away!” what else can you do with it? What happens when you and the target decide to follow each other? When I steer the ship myself, I don’t think in terms of discrete maneuvers. I think about where I want to be in relation to the target/threat and then I just go there. Pushing a button to do the following sounds restrictive and artificial.

But since you have tried it and I haven’t, I will take your word for the fact that it turns out to be fun anyway. :)

It was the first space sim I played in a long time that was still pretty action packed, but where I didn’t feel like I was criss-crossing or spinning in circles in empty space.

Space sims have always had a hard time conveying the sense of a 3D world. (I think this may be a bigger obstacle for new players even than not having a joystick.) There is no terrain and no walls to act as reference points. The ships themselves are often so far separated as to appear nothing more than dimensionless dots on the HUD. The game tends to look and feel two-dimensional, and I think that causes inexperienced players a) to become disoriented and b) to use 2D movement strategies.

One way to help solve this problem is to use 3D motion trails. Whether they are drawn on the HUD, or generated by the ships’ drive plumes, they provide a visual cue to give the player a sense of movement and relative distance.

–milo

44

Trails help, but the biggest problem with space sims is that they DO take place in empty space. Manuevering, in any sim, boils down to getting the enemy into a firing position. But in most sims there are challenges that make the process tricky. In flight sims you have to deal with physics, and gravity, and the ground. You have to worry about maintaining energy, so you seek an altitude advantage. The enemy can’t move in every possible direction (you can be fairly certain that most aircraft won’t break off into a 90-degree climb, for instance), so you try to out-think his defensive manuevers. In physics-heavy sims you have even more to deal with–your aircraft manuevers differently at different velocities, so you have to manage speed to match your combat strategy.

In space sims you just have the physics, and in most space sims you don’t even have that (I appreciate the ones that do, however, such as I-War and Starshatter and Terminus). Maneuvering is reduced to turning to face your opponent, in pretty much any way you can. It’s often not even a turning battle, because the ships in most sims can corner on a dime. It’s more like a joust; you pass and fire, and then turn around and do it again. Adding Newtonian Physics helps; adding avionics that offer more options than “turn” and “fire” and “divert energy to shields” also helps. I’d like to see a space sim take it a lot farther and postulate what real, semi-near future space combat might be like, based on modern air combat. It would probably take place at considerable range, and involve a great degree of stealth and energy management (since velocity is not limited by air friction in space), a cat and mouse game that’s one part finding the enemy and one part getting into a favorable firing position. The weapons involved probably wouldn’t be guns and lasers, with a few Stinger-like missiles thrown in the mix. Think about it–you are surrounded by millions of miles of empty vacuum. Why not pack a rack of tactical nuclear missiles? Like sub warfare, one good shot can end a fight… you just have to get that one good shot.

The thing I don’t “get” about Freelancer is the neuronet autopilot system. Aside from “follow that car” and “run away!” what else can you do with it?

There are a few different flavors of “follow that car,” and you can tweak your flight path without breaking out of autopilot. But like I said, it’s mostly not about the manuevering.

45

In space sims you just have the physics, and in most space sims you don’t even have that (I appreciate the ones that do, however, such as I-War and Starshatter and Terminus). Maneuvering is reduced to turning to face your opponent, in pretty much any way you can. It’s often not even a turning battle, because the ships in most sims can corner on a dime. It’s more like a joust; you pass and fire, and then turn around and do it again.

Newtonian physics are not the answer to this problem. Realistic physics make dogfighting in space practically impossible. Any sim that tries to use realistic physics and still have dogfighting will be forced to cheat the physics at some point.

One way to assert the primacy of maneuver in space is to get rid of shields on fighters. Give fighters armor that can withstand perhaps a dozen solid gun hits and one near miss with a homing missile. Give the fighters active countermeasures to spoof the missiles.

Result - you can no longer safely joust: head to head gun passes are mutually assured destruction, and even then only if you are as good a shot as the computer. In order to succeed you must maneuver into a position where you can take a shot at your enemy and none of your enemies can take a shot at you. You can no longer concentrate on a gun shot when your missile threat receiver starts screaming at you - you must drop a decoy and break turn. Likewise you can use your own missiles to pressure your enemy into breaking off an attack on something you are protecting - your wingman or the carrier for instance. Or even yourself.

It is very difficult to defend against a coordinated attack from two separate fighters at once. This means that you and your wingman need to work together, picking off enemy units one at a time, while simultaneously watching for a counterattack. It also means that if you lose your wingman you are in deep trouble, and so the stakes are raised and the emotional involvement of the player is raised.

(IWar did some of these same kind of things, but they did it by using limited shield coverage instead of decoys.)

The downside is that combat becomes kind of hard, especially if you are used to the style of Wing Commander…

–milo

46

“One way to assert the primacy of maneuver in space is to get rid of shields on fighters.”

Yeah, for some reason “shields” have become something that is taken for granted in cheap sci-fi films, games, and stories since Star Trek. Seems strange since they are an entirely fictional creation.

Babylon 5 did that aspect of space combat right; no shields, and a lot of spaceship design attention paid to how gravity is generated in outer space.

47

Shields are taken for granted because any weapon damaging enough to look cool will blow up an unshielded object in seconds. Playing a instadeath game isn’t too fun. :(

48

One thing I do like about I-War 2 is the sense of how vast “space” is. The combat model IMO is just right.

One thing which I don’t like about I-War 2 is the difficulty of the missions. It’s not as bad as the original I-War though.

I am still stuck on the Haven mission in the 2nd Chapter of I-War 2. As usual you have to be able to manage about 50 things at once. :roll:

49

One way to assert the primacy of maneuver in space is to get rid of shields on fighters. Give fighters armor that can withstand perhaps a dozen solid gun hits and one near miss with a homing missile. Give the fighters active countermeasures to spoof the missiles.

Well, this is one of the reasons why TIE Fighter was such a blast (pun intended) to play. The ideology of the unshielded ship made for a much more intense experience.

Cap ships seem much more vulnerable in space without shields. Sure they’ve got mass going for them, but that’s a double edged sword as you lose most of the manueverability. Still, pilots need a place to keep all of their stuff…

  • Alan
50

Tell that to jet combat flight simmers. One near miss with a missile can do you in - “Archer Inbound!” The drama comes from the electronics battle and maintaining situational awareness which probably isn’t quite as viscerally thrilling as a Star Wars dogfight but has a charm of its own.

I think I agree with Ben in that I tend to enjoy the average flight sim more than the average space sim because physics adds flavor to maneuvering. Whether I’m pulling blinding g’s in a screaming, wild, turn as I try to burn off excess speed in my Viper while praying for tone on the bandit on my 3-9 line or I’m just struggling to drag the nose up, one more goddamn foot, in a bullet riddled Spad VII and stalling just, precisely, right so that I can rudder into a passing Fokker as he soars past - there’s always an opponent out there that adds drama and it isn’t an aircraft. And like Ben I tend to appreciate those space sims that at least make a nod to physics for similiar reasons.

51

Well, Babylon 5 had the WhiteStars, which were not shielded, but did have some sort of inertia dampening armor that allowed them to take hits, as long as they weren’t straight on. Something like that could be implemented, depending on the weapon types in a given game. As for the physics problem, unless you are flying too close to black holes or in an atmosphere, not much can be done to add that to a space sim.

52

This is true but one way a space sim can compensate is through creative use of thrusters and an attempt to simulate a frictionless environment. We talked a bit about HUDs before and a good implimentation can make positional, relative, maneuvering much easier. Knowing which thrusters to hit, for how long, and when to stop can add a bit of drama to an otherwise never ending, circling, duel. It’s a bit like playing a musical instrument. I’m not asking for exacting Newtonian physics but something that captures the feel of space combat. Again, Terminus did a good job with that as did I-War. Then again, I’m open to other ideas. Maybe the Freelancer system of simplicity will be well implimented. Just have to wait and see.

53

Shields are taken for granted because any weapon damaging enough to look cool will blow up an unshielded object in seconds. Playing a instadeath game isn’t too fun.

I seem to remember having a lot more fun in TIE Fighter when I was flying the weaker craft without shields (TIE Fighters, Interceptors, and Bombers). Once every mission involved flying the TIE Advanced, Defender, or Missle Boat, your craft was so overpowered that you didn’t really have to worry about being destroyed.

54

Well, instadeath can be fun, but it requires a completely different style of game. I’d imagine it also isn’t as popular.

55

A selectable option to restart right where you died might make it acceptable to the masses.

56

Yep, or in-mission saves. That was what made unshielded craft in Tie Fighter so frustrating.

57

You just replayed TIE Fighter didn’t you McCullough? Did it stand up? I imagine it did. My first experience with it was the CD-ROM collection and I remember getting a real kick out of that mission where you’re Darth Vader’s wingman.

58

>You just replayed TIE Fighter didn’t you McCullough? Did it stand up?

The version that shipped with the Xwing Collector’s Edition definitely stands up. It was completely redone using the 3D accelerated graphics engine that was added in a patch to Xwing vs. TIE fighter (prior to the Balance of Power expansion).

59

I agree with Desslock: it’s just as good today as it was then (the XvT engine rerelease, that is).

I’m playing off and on, so I’ve only got to mission 10 or so. I’m trying to get every secondary and bonus goal on the hard difficulty level and write up how to do it.

There’s two ways: you need to either be an inhuman fighter pilot, or exploit scripting oversights like no one’s business.

Fun fun fun, though, but I still get really angry when my T/F gets blown up by a stray shot a half-hour into the mission. So far, the hardest mission is B2M5, the Lusla; here’s my bit from the not-finished strategy guide:

B2M5
This is the hardest mission in the game, but here’s the cheeseball way
to do it. Make sure the CRL takes hits and fires back at the T/Bs
before you move within firing range of it. Clear off all 4 of Z-95
Killiam while you wait, but make sure the CRL doesn’t light you up.
Once Killiam is gone, the CRL will be so intent on blowing up the T/Bs
that it’ll happily ignore you as you fly in, park, and blow off all its
weapons. Don’t attack any Z-95s at all until all the Y-Wings are dead,
as the destruction of the Z-95s triggers more Y-Wings. Clear off the
Y-Wings as they arrive, but make sure to help take out the M/CRV at some
point. The hard part is blowing up the M/FRG; it’s hard to get a decoy
for it. Just ignore the E/Ss and focus on the M/FRG, as it’ll flee once
the E/Ss take serious damage. Make sure and inspect/destroy SHU Omlaut
when you get a chance, too.

Boilerplate descriptions around a cheesy trick. Surprisingly, B5M1, where you need to take out like 8 T/As, a minefield, and a bunch of rebel fighters by yourself in a T/I, wasn’t bad at all:

B5M1
This mission isn’t as hard as it looks. Here’s what you do:

  1. Destroy the T/Is.
  2. Destroy all the mines but one. If you really want to, you can blow
    up the last mine and then take out the T/As, but it’s easier to wait
    and do it with backup. I wasn’t able to destroy more than half of
    them this way without dying, and T/A Delta launches early this way
    for some reason (this “feature” isn’t the mission editor code, so
    go figure.)
  3. Inspect and destroy the CNT/Ds.
  4. Inspect and destroy SHU Lambda. I headed directly for the Protector
    once the Osprey arrived to get it quickly.
  5. Destroy the T/Bs. Make sure you don’t run into them, they’re slow.
  6. Destroy the X-Wings.
  7. Destroy the Y-Wings.
  8. Destroy the T/As. Occasionally fly back towards the Osprey; you
    don’t want to be too close to the Protector.

The Osprey will show up as soon as you finish destroying the CNT/Ds, and
bring 3 shielded T/Is to help. While you’re shooting things you’ll need
to keep an eye out for damaged ships fleeing back to the hangar, as
you’ll need to get every one of them for the bonus objectives. The
only hard parts are making sure you don’t miss any ships, and the tedium
of clearing out the mines,; I only took two mines out on each pass to
ensure I didn’t get hit. The shielded T/Is do an excellent job on the
T/As.

B9M2 requires getting lucky, though.

60

These kinds of scripting exploits don’t strike me as “fun”. I appreciate the desire to be a completist and a masochist as well as the next guy, but… isn’t this exactly the kind of stuff we’re supposed to complain about in today’s games? Puzzle missions? Arbitrary mission scripting? Ridiculous AI? Exploits?

Doing it in your free time, for the sheer enjoyment of it all… is a little scary.