Author Topic: Who wrote FS1?  (Read 4170 times)

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Offline rubixcube

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The other thing the cutscenes emphasize, almost more than anything else, was the hubris the ancients had (which is probably why it took them so long to learn anything about the Shivans).

That's true, in the final cutscene it is stated the Terrans "learned how to survive" in their war with the Vasudans.
The Ancients likely never faced a species equal in strength, therefore never learned how to adapt to or fight an enemy who could meaningfully resist.

A huge part of why FS2 works is because of the expectations set by the Lucifer in 1.

We're expecting to see the crutch again and are pleasantly surprised when we don't.
Instead of cheating by giving the big bad ship an invulnerability flag, effort was put in to make the ship threatening on its own merit.

Yeah the shield stuff is wonky (that said it has an order of magnitude more HP than anything else in FS1 and having the only beam canons in a battle makes a lot of stuff not matter)

I suspect the developer conversation when something like this:

Dev1: How do we make the Lucifer invincible?
Dev2: Give it a crazy strong shielding system!
Dev1: How strong?
Dev2: Like 800,000 shield HP!
Dev1: Cool, unfortunately we don't have time to make a cap-ship shield mesh.
Dev2: Uhh, then just give it 800,000 hull HP!
Dev1: Sure, but that still means players can take out its main cannons, also the big damage flag doesn't work.
Dev2: Fine whatever, just give it an invulnerability flag.

The primary advantage shields give the Lucifer is immunity to anti-subsystem strikes, without them, it can still be de-fanged.
This also raises the question of why we don't see cap-ship shielding in FS2; even with beams, they provide valuable protection from bombers, we'd have to attack the Saths beams in subspace!
I hypothesis Volition intended to give all ships (from fighters to Destroyers) a shielding system, but had to drop it due to technical issues.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2018, 07:35:43 am by rubixcube »
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Offline Firesteel

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I would guess technical issues and game balancing were probably the main reason. Also I don't think the FS1 engine even had a huge flag (but I could be wrong)

The other thing is that beam cannons likely ignore shields regardless of strength (the AA beams in FS2 don't care about shields). I could also imagine the energy drain between beams and generating a shield that large wouldn't go well together and you'd end up in the Lucifer situation again but worse since you'd be under gunned in a world of shield piercing beam cannons and still having the big fat reactor targets.
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Offline rubixcube

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The other thing is that beam cannons likely ignore shields regardless of strength (the AA beams in FS2 don't care about shields). I could also imagine the energy drain between beams and generating a shield that large wouldn't go well together and you'd end up in the Lucifer situation again but worse since you'd be under gunned in a world of shield piercing beam cannons and still having the big fat reactor targets.

I will partially concede this point; the beam cannon thing is the only semi-reasonable explanation we have.
However the reactors are not easy to hit if your beams don't target subsystems, so you're basically relying on luck that you'll take them out.
We also have no information on the power requirements of shields vs beam cannons, e.g. do the Lucy's shields require more or less power than an extra LRED? The square cube law should mean its easier to shield a larger vessel.

Ironically I don't think it was Volition's intention to have Beams pierces shields. I remember Goober saying it was a bug Volition didn't have time to fix, so they just rolled with it. If this bug had been rectified, our only rational explanation would be irrelevant.

I might try Curse of Prescience but give the Lucifer her shields back along with her stock FS1 armament. That would make her reactors impossible to take out, but also allow the arbiters to hammer away on her flank, also she wouldn't be able to jump out.
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IIRC Volition stated that the Ancients were slightly ahead of Terrans and Vasudans from FS1, aside subspace tech.

  

Offline Firesteel

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I will partially concede this point; the beam cannon thing is the only semi-reasonable explanation we have.
However the reactors are not easy to hit if your beams don't target subsystems, so you're basically relying on luck that you'll take them out.
We also have no information on the power requirements of shields vs beam cannons, e.g. do the Lucy's shields require more or less power than an extra LRED? The square cube law should mean its easier to shield a larger vessel.

(Whether or not the slashes are good) The Terrans and Vasudans created slashing beams specifically for the purpose of hitting as many subsystems as possible.

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Ironically I don't think it was Volition's intention to have Beams pierces shields. I remember Goober saying it was a bug Volition didn't have time to fix, so they just rolled with it. If this bug had been rectified, our only rational explanation would be irrelevant.

I might try Curse of Prescience but give the Lucifer her shields back along with her stock FS1 armament. That would make her reactors impossible to take out, but also allow the arbiters to hammer away on her flank, also she wouldn't be able to jump out.

That doesn't surprise me that the shield piercing started as a bug, having done programming on that type of thing before. After all, beams were the only raycast weapons in the game.
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Offline rubixcube

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(Whether or not the slashes are good) The Terrans and Vasudans created slashing beams specifically for the purpose of hitting as many subsystems as possible.

Really? I thought it was just to look cool.

At some point I should test that in FRED; see how long it takes for a few Deimos corvettes to take the Lucy's reactors out.
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