Sectorgame

Ok, if you look at the format of standard FS2 missions, there are moderately few capships in-game at any one point, and when there are a good few ships in-game, they are positioned in such a way as to only have one capship visible (such as the Clash of the Titans).

With the increase in polycounts for models, to accomodate the HTL side of the Source Code, I personally see things staying like this, since fleets of GE's Fenris' or Bobb's Deimos' and several squadrons of the HiPoly Herc would slow most systems down to a crawl.

Do you see Freespace continuing along it's 'Skirmish' type path?

I'm working towards a concept of level individuality, myself - i.e. building geometry for levels.

I find with everything turned on (features), the original FS limits are just about right. Anymore and my pC starts to struggle.

P4 2.somnethin'
G4MX
1Gz SDRam for the record

Large battles between groups of cruisers/corvettes and fighter swarms are more fun. Absolute freaking mayhem, wading into the middle of it, especially with EVERYTHING going on around you.

(points to HFH mission 3)

Oh wait, no one has any HFH missions or mods yet. My mistake...

yeah I love avoiding beams as they head for other targets

Flipside wrote:Do you see Freespace continuing along it's 'Skirmish' type path?

I tend to prefer things that way. The more ships you put into a mission the harder it is to make sure that the player is influencing the battle.

On top of that FS2 still isn't suited to making big missions. The limit of 100 ships is still there for a start.

I find large scale battles tiresome and boring even to watch after a few rounds. When you first try it out "Woah..!", the second is "Aahh", and by the time you get to six it's "Zzz".

I think it's because the player plays only a small role - Perhaps the only way around that is a bombing mission, but it's all rather bland eventually. Story is everything.

Hunter wrote:I find large scale battles tiresome and boring even to watch after a few rounds. When you first try it out "Woah..!", the second is "Aahh", and by the time you get to six it's "Zzz".

Used sparingly, they can add a lot of OOMPH to a campaign, and can really get your pulse pounding.

A campaign of nothing but Battle Of Endor clones, tho, would be very tiring, as you said. (points to 2nd Great War Pt2, and a good chunk of UA)

ya, a couple of (well done) huge battle missions can do wonders. if theyre done well, you dont have time to complain about not making much difference.

It's also more challenging, and there's more to do, if the ships in the large battle are smaller, and less durable (e.g. most or all cruisers).

Not only that, it tends to make the battle shorter and not drawn-out.

High Noon (Colossus vs. Sathanas and 4 Basilisks) took freaking FOREVER, but Derelict mission 2-1 (a sizable merc force attacks the convoy and installation) was fun, and not too short or too long.

Smaller ships are the way to go for more fun and fluid battles, IMO, but that's just me.

Mad Bomber wrote:(Colossus vs. Sathanas and 4 Basilisks)

That's what sucked about High noon - both vessels should have been spewing bombers and fighters, especially the Sath. Even in Vanillas limitations, a few wings of Nephilims and Seraphims with escort would have been appropriate.

Mad Bomber wrote: Smaller ships are the way to go for more fun and fluid battles, IMO, but that's just me.

You'll find a lot to like in TI then

And who honestly believes that the GTVA would send all of it's destroyers to battle? Every big battle was performed by Corvettes and Cruisers. I'd imagine a destroyer to be too valuable. Think about the severe loss of the Galatea. Or if that was 'too long ago' think about the loss of the Psamtik, and it's effect on the rest of the war.

It's effect on the rest of the war was the realization that the enemy had multiple superships and that for all intents and purposes we're screwed.

I meant more along the lines of logistics. How much less firepower did the gtva have after it died?

Raa wrote:I meant more along the lines of logistics. How much less firepower did the gtva have after it died?

You can't really say, because you don;t know how many other ships the GTVa had in the first place, and also which were destroyed.

But the end brief does describe the fleet as decimated, which - based on what the player sees - indicates there weren't that many destroyers around.