Author Topic: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace  (Read 9928 times)

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Offline Kie99

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
It was either the first or second game I ever played on PC, it came with the first PC I got.

I was only about 7 or 8 so there was an incredible amount of trial and error and I didn't have a clue what was going on.  Spent ages in the main hall not knowing what to do but being suitably impressed by the futuristic animations that I persevered.  When I pressed "Del." I thought it was a completely different ship and had no idea what was going on, but was very happy to be able to fire rockets.  I didn't realise you could actually fly the ship forwards rather than spinning in place for ages, naturally me and my younger brother - who controlled the weapons - had skipped the training because it was boring.

Playing Judas was very difficult, but Clash of the Titans must have taken us months and dozens of tries to complete when we got that far.  I saw the Demon jump in so naturally I ordered everyone to destroy my target.  I had no idea that you had to target bombers until the relevant training mission in Freespace 2.  I still remember when, as if by a miracle, the Bastion survived that mission, it was down to 1%.
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Good lord this makes me feel old. So many memories though, so many memories...
Gruuuuuuuuuuug!

 

Offline Grug

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Good lord this makes me feel old. So many memories though, so many memories...
Gruuuuuuuuuuug!
Mongooooooooooose! :D
I'm trying to remember to swing by here more. :)

 

Offline Snarks

  • 27
Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
I was in 1st/2nd grade (so I guess 7-8) when I first played Freespace. At the time, I only had Darkness Rising, and it would taunt me with the promise of more missions. Every couple of years, I would go back to the game. It wasn't until I was in high school that I finally had access to a debit card, and I used it to buy both Freespace 1 and 2 off E-Bay. Easily one of the best purchases I ever made in my life.

P.S. Young me under a different account name here (that I have completely forgotten the info for) even posted up those same trailers that are on the OP at one point.

 
Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Ok, we all love this game...please tell me what mission was your all time favorite for both Freespace and Freespace 2 series. Mine was the end game last mission in Freespace against that Shivian Destroyer. In Freespace 2, going up against the Santhanas with three other bomber ships to destroy the 4 main lasers.

Yours?
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Offline Novachen

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
My favorite missions in the game:

"Clash of the Titans" from FreeSpace: The Great War, even i prefer the fanmade FS2 version of that, which uses stronger hulls and beam weapons more.
"The Manhattan Project" from FreeSpace: Silent Threat (well, it is only one of the Single Missions, but IMO the best designed mission on the whole Mission Disk as i played through all them a few months ago)
"The Great Hunt" from FreeSpace 2 because of its nebula and because it is the best nebula mission next to "As Lightning Falls" IMO (even the latter only because of its depressing atmosphere and not for its mission design). Without nebula it would be "Apokalypse" for obvious reasons :D
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Offline Snarks

  • 27
Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Freespace 1: "First Strike"

So this is probably biased because I played through Act 1 so many times, but I just adored First Strike. You get to hit back at the Shivans, and oh boy, do you get to do it in style with 4 wings all while flying the wonderful Athena.

Freespace 2: SOC Missions

Hard to pick, but I just loved any of the SOC missions. There's so much variety to them, and it makes the loop so memorable.

 

Offline ShivanSpS

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Oh the Athena, i liked that ship A LOT, i petty much did half the the original FS1 with it. Killing fighters? -> Athena, Killing Bombers? -> Athena, Killing Fresighters? -> Athena, Disarming target -> Athena!

The Zeus is just a bad reeplacement.

 

Offline Novachen

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Well, the Zeus is able to do the same without any problems... AND... Killing Destroyers? -> Zeus :D

Unfotunately the Zeus is ugly as heck.
Female FreeSpace 2 pilot since 1999.
Former Global moderator in the German FreeSpace Galaxy Forum.
Developer of NTP - A Multi-Language Translation Library Interface, which allows to play FreeSpace in YOUR Language.

Is one of my releases broken or not working? Please send a PM here, on Discord at @novachen or on Twitter @NovachenFS2, a public tweet or write a reply in my own release threads here on HLP, because these are the only threads i am still participating in.

 

Offline ShivanSpS

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Well, the Zeus is able to do the same without any problems... AND... Killing Destroyers? -> Zeus :D

Unfotunately the Zeus is ugly as heck.

The Zeus is WEAK(or at least it feels Weak, i never checked this actually) and a larger target profile, there is a reason of why V crippled the Athena to only the Avenger as a damaging weapon when even the Apollo can load up the Prometheus.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
The Avenger is actually a better primary than the Prometheus, though.
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Offline ShivanSpS

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
The Avenger is actually a better primary than the Prometheus, though.

Really? and 20 years later i keep finding new stuff.

 

Offline Snarks

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
DPS-wise, yeah the Avenger is better. That said, I never liked the Prometheus myself, preferring the Banshee for its high shield damage.

 

Offline ShivanSpS

  • 210
Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
And DPS is great for the Athena since you just CANT MISS, you will be always hitting with all 4 guns.

BTW in all these years we where able to figure out the Sol nodes discrepancy? Because i remember to be sure that SOL having 3 nodes was something that was changed later on when they realised that the Lucifer will be at Deneb!!!
I still remember the mission that said that command will be moving the Galatea to the Beta Alquilae system in case the Shivans decide to attack Vasuda Prime trought there... i was "wut?".
« Last Edit: April 01, 2018, 04:41:58 pm by ShivanSpS »

 

Offline NeonShivan

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
BTW in all these years we where able to figure out the Sol nodes discrepancy? Because i remember to be sure that SOL having 3 nodes was something that was changed later on when they realised that the Lucifer will be at Deneb!!!
I still remember the mission that said that command will be moving the Galatea to the Beta Alquilae system in case the Shivans decide to attack Vasuda Prime trought there... i was "wut?".

Did they change writers between the two games? If so then that could explain the discrepancy. Or maybe they decided "**** it, one node to rule them all" when Silent Threat came around lol
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Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Compare freespace to wing commander and freespace graphics win every time.  They're better than standoff too without open adding to the quality.
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Offline ShivanSpS

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
BTW in all these years we where able to figure out the Sol nodes discrepancy? Because i remember to be sure that SOL having 3 nodes was something that was changed later on when they realised that the Lucifer will be at Deneb!!!
I still remember the mission that said that command will be moving the Galatea to the Beta Alquilae system in case the Shivans decide to attack Vasuda Prime trought there... i was "wut?".

Did they change writers between the two games? If so then that could explain the discrepancy. Or maybe they decided "**** it, one node to rule them all" when Silent Threat came around lol

In my opinion they changed the nodes in the middle of FS1 development when they realised it makes no sence that all 3 would collapse and they would have the Lucifer at Deneb, and they would loose control of Deneb shortly after, and was is petty much at Sol doopstep at the middle of the game, and probably naver had the time to re-do the animations and some voices.

This whole thing of moving the Galatea to Beta Aquilae to defend Vasuda Prime never did make sence to me either, sounds to me originally there were a node from Beta Aquilae to Deneb (maybe instead of Sol?). But the truth is FS1 is full of node discrepancies WAY too many to be normal. Something happened halfway trought development here, its like they designed the universe map for a diferent plot.

 

Offline Torchwood

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Compare freespace to wing commander and freespace graphics win every time.  They're better than standoff too without open adding to the quality.

Also, you can have proper ship-to-ship combat in the Freespace engine, with or without beams. Because of the way the VISION engine implements capital ships, i.e. multiple critical subsystems, no hull HP, everything involving the big ships needs to be heavily scripted. I remember one particularly awkward mission in Standoff where one destroyer launches a large volley of torpedoes that according to fluff shold kill the opposing ship twice over but doesn't because the torpedoes can't hit the engine sections and as long at least one critical subsystem is intact a capital ship isn't dead.

 

Offline NeonShivan

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Compare freespace to wing commander and freespace graphics win every time.  They're better than standoff too without open adding to the quality.

Also, you can have proper ship-to-ship combat in the Freespace engine, with or without beams. Because of the way the VISION engine implements capital ships, i.e. multiple critical subsystems, no hull HP, everything involving the big ships needs to be heavily scripted. I remember one particularly awkward mission in Standoff where one destroyer launches a large volley of torpedoes that according to fluff shold kill the opposing ship twice over but doesn't because the torpedoes can't hit the engine sections and as long at least one critical subsystem is intact a capital ship isn't dead.

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(•_•)
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( •_•)
\(  (>
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(•_•)
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 /  \  Oh Oh Oh

Author of Dusk Wars - A modification for Freespace 2.

 

Offline Firesteel

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Re: 20th Anniversary of Descent: FreeSpace
Compare freespace to wing commander and freespace graphics win every time.  They're better than standoff too without open adding to the quality.

Also, you can have proper ship-to-ship combat in the Freespace engine, with or without beams. Because of the way the VISION engine implements capital ships, i.e. multiple critical subsystems, no hull HP, everything involving the big ships needs to be heavily scripted. I remember one particularly awkward mission in Standoff where one destroyer launches a large volley of torpedoes that according to fluff shold kill the opposing ship twice over but doesn't because the torpedoes can't hit the engine sections and as long at least one critical subsystem is intact a capital ship isn't dead.

Who thought that was a good design decision? Like I get wanting destroying subsystems to be a valuable thing but that's the weirdest version of that I've seen. Hell Strike Suit Zero just made them do bonus damage to ships (outside of killing turrets) and that worked well.
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