[General Battuta]

The Blue Planet team is proud to present FreeSpace Blue, a gently remastered rebuild of FreeSpace 2!

TAG missiles work, and oh man are they good. Dialog you've never heard before has been unlocked.

Slaying Ravana doesn't suck (as much). High Noon is a knock-down slugging match between titans, and you get to play spotter for the Colossus' full beam armament. Their Finest Hour makes some kind of sense. A Game of TAG is a little less frustrating. Your Vasudan wingmen stopped showing up with Akhetons.

The Morningstar and Circe are viable weapons, and the Lamprey, well, it might be...

If you want an excuse to replay FreeSpace 2, you've got it.


Play it right now! Included in Blue Planet.


We're actively looking for more suggestions, ideas, and things to fix! This is a beginning, not an end. You've got sixteen years of experience with this game. Speak up!

[Phantom Hoover]

Make the PromR useful? (I know you have a nice fluff explanation for BP but as a design element in FS2 it sucks.) For that matter, make the Akheton worthwhile (a la the Scalpel?)

[Luis Dias]

"Included in Blue Planet"?


INCLU

[Luis Dias]

I'm definitely playing it.

Like... ahhh... next month?!?

[General Battuta]

Make the PromR useful? (I know you have a nice fluff explanation for BP but as a design element in FS2 it sucks.) For that matter, make the Akheton worthwhile (a la the Scalpel?)

Buffing the Prom R would buff the NTF against new pilots, which is dangerous. An Akheton buff could work!

[Phantom Hoover]

Give the NTF the PromR#****ty, then. Loading the PromR is a really easy and obvious thing to try and it takes way too long to realise that it's worse than the Subach in every single way.

[Goober5000]

Ooh.  I am intrigued.

If you want an excuse to replay FreeSpace 2, you've got it.

Or an excuse to procrastinate.

[TwoCables]

I'm very busy with Freelancer right now (single-player mode) and so I wish to remain focused on it for the time being. When I'm done though, I will definitely be playing this! I have played the original FreeSpace 2 single-player campaign so many times that I am sure to notice all of the differences - at least for the way I play it and for the weapons I prefer. I'm especially looking forward to the unlocked dialog.

[Klaustrophobia]

Ya know, over the years while playing I've had many, MANY thoughts of "why didn't they just....", but for the life of me I can't recall a single one of them now.  Will post if any come back to me.


Oh, one just struck me.  Capital ships being invulnerable to fighter weapons.  Uhg.  I get the idea, and a reduction factor would certainly be appropriate, but I think it would be better to still have the ability to kill things given enough time with primaries.  For example the Moloch in the nebula mission where you have to protect the Aquitaine as it is repaired (I really suck at remembering mission names).

[Snarks]

Do something about the Maxim and Trebuchet? Those weapons always felt just a little too effective against capital ships. In return, make the new GTA bombers actually more agile to represent their fluff.

Maybe it's asking too much, but I would like to see the FS2 era ships actually feel superior to the FS1 era ships. It always bothered me that the new GTVA gear wasn't actually that much better (arguably worst in some cases) than the old buckets of junk the NTF are flying, despite all the dialogue claiming otherwise. Obviously this would make the gameplay a lot easier, so I'm not crossing fingers. At the very least, make the Serapis better because that thing is held together by duct tape.

[General Battuta]

The Maxim now has an ammo cap to make it slightly less degenerate. We could look at further nerfs.

I think the Treb is fine since it has counter plays by the late BP2 era.

[FrikgFeek]

You're thinking of Argonautica. I think that fighters being unable to destroy corvettes and higher is completely fine, their primaries can only damage the hull surface, they can't penetrate deep enough to destroy the whole ship.

The new and working TAGs will give you an easier time destroying that Moloch as they will cause a massive beam barrage from friendly warships.

[General Battuta]

I'd be up to buff the Boanerges as long as the buffs fit its role - an attack bomber with no turret. Speed and maneuverability would be top picks, as would shield/HP. Burner sustain is a great way to buff a ship without overly changing its dogfight behavior.

I don't want to touch the Piranha because so many warships use it.

[Spoon]

I know its a bit more work, but why not make the capships use some kind of piranha#cap version instead thats the same as the current useless one is right now.

The Piranha desperately needs some kind of buff or functionality rework.

[Lorric]

I don't know if you could do anything about it or if it would be too radical, but something of a disappointment for me in Freespace 2 are the missions where by far the most effective strategy is to just sit there pumping trebs at things. It's effective but it isn't any fun. I've also never liked the feel of that myself. If Trebs are so effective, why bother with anything else? You'd think capships would just launch trebs at things. Especially with the presence of the maxim in the game.

[General Battuta]

I know its a bit more work, but why not make the capships use some kind of piranha#cap version instead thats the same as the current useless one is right now.

The Piranha desperately needs some kind of buff or functionality rework.

I guess the question is whether a Piranha#bomber or Piranha#turret is less work. Probably the bomber edition.

It would need a rerole as a defensive weapon, and I'm not sure instantly how to do that without turning it into the Slammer. Salt the spawn with a few harder-hitting, more agile submunitions?

[FrikgFeek]

Launching trebs is a FOO strategy. Killing a whole wing of heavy bombers that take 4 trebs to kill can be done with only trebs but it's almost always faster to take an interceptor, max out your engines and wreck them close-range with primaries and tempests.
Trebs are rarely the 'best' strategy, but it's very easy and effective enough in most cases, especially on lower difficulties.

[jr2]

Ya know, over the years while playing I've had many, MANY thoughts of "why didn't they just....", but for the life of me I can't recall a single one of them now.  Will post if any come back to me.


Oh, one just struck me.  Capital ships being invulnerable to fighter weapons.  Uhg.  I get the idea, and a reduction factor would certainly be appropriate, but I think it would be better to still have the ability to kill things given enough time with primaries.  For example the Moloch in the nebula mission where you have to protect the Aquitaine as it is repaired (I really suck at remembering mission names).

How about kicking in the reduction rate at 5% hull strength or so?  Basically you can reduce the larger ship to floating scrap, but actually penetrating to do critical damage will take a really long time with fighter weapons.

[Spoon]

Please align all the briefing grids. It bugs me tremendously how sloppy  has been with this 

Edit: Can you fix this mission so this doesnt happen?

[Aesaar]

Oh, one just struck me.  Capital ships being invulnerable to fighter weapons.  Uhg.  I get the idea, and a reduction factor would certainly be appropriate, but I think it would be better to still have the ability to kill things given enough time with primaries.  For example the Moloch in the nebula mission where you have to protect the Aquitaine as it is repaired (I really suck at remembering mission names).

I completely disagree with this.  The idea that a lone fighter could kill a 2-3km destroyer (or even an 800m corvette) with nothing but the FS2 equivalent to 20mm guns is just dumb.   Hell, I advocated giving all destroyers the supercap flag and only giving that flag to bombs and other dedicated antiship weapons.