[emark4]

When the time come for The Schism, some ships like Galahad are likely to become more HTL and PBR.

HTL and PBR? Care to elaborate?

[CT27]

Since resources are an issue, I can understand why Exodus Fleet may not want to put energy into a Treb or Maxim equivalent for all fighters, but how about an energy sniper weapon like the Hypacs from Shadow Genesis?  That could be worth looking into in order for Exodus Fleet to give its fighters the ability to disarm Shivan capships.

[CapellaGoBoom]

Since resources are an issue, I can understand why Exodus Fleet may not want to put energy into a Treb or Maxim equivalent for all fighters, but how about an energy sniper weapon like the Hypacs from Shadow Genesis?  That could be worth looking into in order for Exodus Fleet to give its fighters the ability to disarm Shivan capships.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think there is a sniper-style weapon in BP act2. It was on the custos cruiser in the "One Future" mission. I would love to use something like that in exile 2. But I do not believe we will see the Shivans in Andromeda at all

[Nyctaeus]

When the time come for The Schism, some ships like Galahad are likely to become more HTL and PBR.

HTL and PBR? Care to elaborate?

We will see how much effort we can put into assets.

Since resources are an issue, I can understand why Exodus Fleet may not want to put energy into a Treb or Maxim equivalent for all fighters, but how about an energy sniper weapon like the Hypacs from Shadow Genesis?  That could be worth looking into in order for Exodus Fleet to give its fighters the ability to disarm Shivan capships.

Since resources are an issue, I can understand why Exodus Fleet may not want to put energy into a Treb or Maxim equivalent for all fighters, but how about an energy sniper weapon like the Hypacs from Shadow Genesis?  That could be worth looking into in order for Exodus Fleet to give its fighters the ability to disarm Shivan capships.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think there is a sniper-style weapon in BP act2. It was on the custos cruiser in the "One Future" mission. I would love to use something like that in exile 2. But I do not believe we will see the Shivans in Andromeda at all

Exodus Fleet actually have their their own Treb equivalent [the Javelin] and multiple Maxim equivalents. Act II weapons are even present in current modpack, those are all in WiP stage and probably incomplete, badly ballanced etc. Anyway you can see them in some of actual missions, like Redeemer heavy plasma gattling cannon on turrets in Dirty Job and used by Falchion gunships in Sol Invictus. HyPAcS-like sniper rifle, the Widow is also being used by Guardian gunships in the Day of Reckoning. This one is gonna be totally redone. Amalthea cruisers use ORS' dumbfire on lower launcher and this is another weapon that will be available in The Schism.

Why all those those weapons are not available now? Short supplies, Encantona etc. Lots of weapons in fact have to be reverse-engineered based on actual remaining examples, because blueprints were lost during the exodus. Only the most of elite squadrons remaining on Exodus Fleet ships have access to this remaining equipment.

Also some of weapons are being researched during the Exodus, like Polyhydra plasma flak cannon. More and more weapons influenced by shivan tech will appear the further you are. Even fighterbeams. This one is actually already tabled.

[Nightmare]

Don't know if it's already part of the campaign, but one of the reasons I could think about is that most of the more advanced craft have been spent on the Syndicate/Federate war and now they have trouble recreating them with post disaster resources.

[CT27]

Nyctaeus, thanks for the explanation.  I enjoy reading about the development of Exodus Fleet.


Just to make sure I understand you correctly:  when you say "fighterbeams" is that going to be a beam on fighters just for use against other fighters or would it be helpful against enemy capships too?

[Nyctaeus]

Don't know if it's already part of the campaign, but one of the reasons I could think about is that most of the more advanced craft have been spent on the Syndicate/Federate war and now they have trouble recreating them with post disaster resources.

More or less, correct too. Both factions were exhausted by the Rim Conflict when the Shivans arrived. Majority of remaining forces were destroyed during the Exodus, including numerous fighter corps of both factions. Note that both ORS and EFN forces were much bigger than UEF fleets for example. Syndicate produced almost 250 Vitalius-class frigattes since the Great War, and more than half of them were defending Sol system when Sathanas armada attacked.

I need to find my shiplist. I have all military warships of Exodus Fleet listed somewhere. I guess it would be helpful for players to estimate true size of Exodus Fleet.

Nyctaeus, thanks for the explanation.  I enjoy reading about the development of Exodus Fleet.


Just to make sure I understand you correctly:  when you say "fighterbeams" is that going to be a beam on fighters just for use against other fighters or would it be helpful against enemy capships too?

Think Minbari-style neuton, fighter-grade beams. It will be effective dogfighting weapon, but it shall be effective against subsystems. Mix it with Diaspora-style gliding system to slash along the hull of enemy warship.

[Iain Baker]

Hi Exile team!

Just a quick heads up. I tried playing Exile IDW it a few day Exile IDWs ago via Knossos. It had the weird double HUD bug which I believe may be due to the new 3.8 media VPs. Any chance of a fix?

Many thanks in advance,

Kind regards,

Iain

[Woolie Wool]

I've played a few missions of this (up until the City of the Sun mission) and it's really impressive and ambitious technically, but I don't enjoy this story at all. Everything is ludicrously, preposterously, unnecessarily grimdark all the time, to the point where it's distracting, base, and ugly. The Sol forces apparently have such an unquenchable murder-boner that

Spoiler:

they won't even wait to finish taking the Rim forces into custody before commencing the mass executions

, thereby ruining their own plan by tipping off the ORS! The Shivans aren't given any of the respect as some sort of cosmic force of nature that FreeSpace has always given them, they're "bugs", "insects", objects to shoot at and nothing more. And then the City of the Sun. Hoo boy.

This is a really cool mission technically, evocative cutscene, dramatic visuals, quite good gameplay. But then:

Spoiler:

Somebody blows up something inside the City to force all the hatches open so all the civilians could get out instead of just a select number of rich "valuable to society" people. Hooray! Wait, I have to kill them? I have to MURDER thousands of my own people in cold blood to keep from "overcrowding" the Abraham? I, seeing that the people in the shuttles were probably much more like my character than the high-ranking officer giving the order, stood down, and ordered my wing to do the same. Of course, this failed the mission.

No. I will not accept this. This is not a "desperate measure" required by a "desperate time". This is a contrived situation cooked up to get the player to revel in doing something everybody knows is evil. Worse than being a bad mission, it is a reprehensible mission, one that appears beautiful on its surface but has extremely revolting themes--the only difference between this and "Dealing in Extremes" from Descendants of Sol, on a narrative and thematic level, is a layer of self-righteous rationalization. If this cowardly, selfish, criminal act is humanity's response to the Shivan incursion, it means no one in this universe has learned anything from the Great Wars. It means that humanity are no better than the Ancients were, and, frankly, if that's what it takes to preserve humanity from the Shivans, then extinction is what the people of this verse deserve.

[Nightmare]

I think that it's not unlogical that the mission does not follow the narrative lines of FS1 (or what you'd conclude for that). There's been an extreme bloody civil war going on for several years, which is actually the main pre-strory of the campaign, and in the midst of said civil war a Sathanas armada disturbed the bloodshed. I think it's shown pretty clear in the dialogs between Earth/ORF pilots and in the techroom. It ultimatly resulted in the chaotic execution of the evacuation order, what caused that less lives than possible were safed.

[Woolie Wool]

That's even more rationalization. They've been killing each other, and here comes more killing. It feels sadistic, in the same way 24 and other War on Terror fiction is and Warhammer 40k has become now that it takes itself seriously. HARD MEN making HARD DECISIONS and sacrificing people left and right. Why should I care about a regime that, while presenting itself as the resistance against centralized space fascism, treats its own people desperately trying to escape the Shivans as traitors and butchers them?

Baby killers: the heroes Sol needs.

[FrikgFeek]

I mean, you don't have to kill them. If you have anti-subsystem weaponry you can disable them and let them run out of oxygen instead. It's probably the same fate they'd meet on an overcrowded Abraham anyway.

[Woolie Wool]

So your solution is to give them a slow and lingering death instead of a sudden one? That's even worse!

[FrikgFeek]

I guess the mission could've been changed so that you don't auto-fail if you let the shuttles through. After all, the security forces on the Abraham can just throw them out the airlock on arrival and you can wash your hands of the whole ordeal.

[Woolie Wool]

"Wash my hands?" I'd be more inclined to convert to the Hammer of Light and see how many ORS personnel I could frag before going down.

In fact, where are the mutinies? They're not shooting at enemies, they're shooting at the people they've been taught must be protecting from enemies. Why am I the only one who says "**** this"?

[FrikgFeek]

According to the briefing the Abraham was over capacity when that mission started. By the time all the 'scheduled' ships got in it must've been critically over capacity. If the ship can't support more people it just can't. If you just let them in even more people would die from starvation or lack of oxygen.
So you either kill them quickly, kill them slowly by disabling them, or maybe let the guards kill them on arrival(unfortunately this option wasn't accounted for in the game).

[Woolie Wool]

What about other ships? Medical ships, troop transports, passenger liners, requisition anything that can be used to hold refugees, even privately owned ships.

But you know what? It doesn't matter if I play your plot logic game or not, because it doesn't resolve the central question of why the ORS are worth rooting for when this is what they do to their own people. It's rotten on a conceptual level; the story is pushing a cruel and sadistic point of view. Trying to rationalize that won't make it go away. It won't banish the Eight Deadly Words.

[FrikgFeek]

I mean, none of those were there and they were gunning for a critically overcrowded ship. If they stayed inside the station it's possible another ship could've arrived to pick them up.

But it's also important to remember that at that point almost every ship that wasn't destroyed by the shivans was hiding from them and was extremely unlikely to break out of that hiding spot to come save some station-dwellers.

[Woolie Wool]

More rationalizations! More things that were concocted to justify having you kill babies. The humans of Exileverse are too venal, too cowardly, too self-interested to help each other in the face of the Shivans. Why should I care if they survive? What is left that's worth fighting for? A bunch of MEHTUL BAWKSES covered in turrets but without any of the things, both material and otherwise, that make life worth living?

[mjn.mixael]

I never played this far in Exile for similar reasons as Woolie. However, it doesn't surprise me. I got the sense that the plot was written as a series of events they wanted to take place and the characters are merely objects used to get there.

I'd be surprised if the writers considered the story's settings, event consequences, or themes presented because of those events.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while a mod of this scope is commendable, (the FREDing alone is a lot of work) the actual reason for Woolie's issues is just that they didn't really think about it.