Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Mars on October 16, 2011, 01:59:06 pm
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I love Freespace 2, I really do. I was hooked from the moment I played the FS2 Demo; nay, from when I played the FS1 demo. This game has been more a part of my life than I anticipated any game ever being, and I don't regret it.
That said, there are some things about the second game that I really, really hate ten years on.
- Nebula missions:
In the main campaign, these make up just over a third of the total missions in the game, yet somehow every single time I play through the campaign, they seem to account for most of them. I actually enjoy nebula missions to a certain extent; Finding Sanctuary is a fine mission, one of the finest in a fine campaign. Often in Freespace 2 however, it feels like an excuse for the poor models of the past to remain under wraps - would anyone have known what a Hecate class destroyer looked like if it hadn't been for third party missions1? There are significant tactical differences between a 'space' and 'nebula' mission, which can be quite entertaining; but often, nebula missions in the campagin are exactly the same as standard missions, without the ability to see ****. - The Vasudan missions:
Vasudans are awesome. They're the semi-unknowable enemies from the first campaign, they have vastly different technology, and different fighters - from the swarms of Anubis craft they were able to field, to the Seth class fighters that could nearly take on the player one on one! Then there's Freespace 2. Although some of the best and most properly challenging missions take place in the Vasudan Acts (Bearbaiting, The Fog of War) the majority of them showcase the failure of the Vasudan species, especially for anyone who plays Hard or Insane. Vasudan craft are incapable of taking any AAA fire whatsoever, without either spontaneously exploding (Serapis) or sustaining critical subsystem damage (Seth) the only fighter the Vasudans use that doesn't suffer from this is the Tauret, which has the unique problem of being able to run out of primary energy without destroying a single bomber (at 80% accuracy, Prometheus S equipped). I could live with Vasudan fighters, I really could, if the missions were designed around those failures. - If It Was Supposed to be Awesome, the Mission Wasn't Debugged:
A Game of Tag is mostly a dialogue mission (which is fine,) it does have the mildly entertaining addition of TAG missiles as well, and you get to fly the venerable Ulysses class fighter, a favorite from my childhood (if only they'd let you fly a Valkyrie), the problem I've had since I had a i486 COMPAQ - the dialogue gets out of order as soon as the lone Kappa fighter arrives.
It's much worse in Their Finest Hour; when I first played it at the ripe age of . . . (eleven?) I actually had no idea what the plot line was supposed to be until the second time I played through. First Command demands ~"Let the warships do their job" which (on Insane) results in their destruction (as they are not properly weapon freed), and then there is the whole Collossus debacle, which one must be paying attention to in order for it to make the slightest sense.
Take this not as an insult to FS2, but rather the complaints of someone who has been in a long marriage.
1: A Hecate is visible outside the nebula in Bearbaiting, it's just that no one ever looks at it in what is probably the most intense mission of the entire campaign
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What? There was no Hecate in Their Finest Hour... there was a Hecate in Bearbaiting (the Phoenicia), and it appeared in several cbanims, though...
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Well, when I was little, I did pepper the Aquitaine with guns, because I thought I was going for the Moloch. I've realized what I was shooting at when I targeted the thing. It looked very weird to me back then (and I was used to FS1-style boxy shapes) and the nebula only made it worse.
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What? There was no Hecate in Their Finest Hour... there was a Hecate in Bearbaiting (the Phoenicia), and it appeared in several cbanims, though...
Totally right, I meant Bearbaiting. Corrected in original post
EDIT:
Well, when I was little, I did pepper the Aquitaine with guns, because I thought I was going for the Moloch. I've realized what I was shooting at when I targeted the thing. It looked very weird to me back then (and I was used to FS1-style boxy shapes) and the nebula only made it worse.
Kind of what I meant. The central point was that, although the nebula was excellent at adding a layer of tactical soup on everything, it was overdone, to the point where many other tactical features of FS2 (including several ship classes) were easy to overlook.
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Yeah, it seemed weird to have SOOO much nebula... I mean, I like it, it's pretty, BUT SO WERE THE original space missions... you kinda missed them after a while, they were rather scarce. :ick: Homesick for space, who woulda thought. :rolleyes:
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Y'all are looking at this through jade-colored glasses. The Nebula was a celebrated feature of the original game; it was a cool game mechanic that also had an effective story reason for existing. Hiding the low-poly models had nothing to do with it. In fact, by the standards of the day, the models were particularly well-made. Both FS1 and FS2 were commended for their good graphics when they were released.
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Honestly, I disagree with all points the OP makes except for the Vasudans sucking.
Zods suck.
The nebula works very well as an "alien" environment, with the sensors blindness and everything.
A Game of TAG is not. Ulysses is ****, can't hit taurvis with both gun banks if you're not "aligned" right rotation wise. Forced Prom-R's are ****. TAG-As are useless **** made especially useless being shot from missile points super far apart. The Lucidity is made of wet toilet paper. Friendly ULTRA-AAA fire sucks and kills me more often than the Shivans. All that **** happens after several minutes of dialogue. Definition of **** mission with artificial difficulty. I'm not fighting the Shivans, I'm fighting the goddamn game mechanics. **** sucks.
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I got to agree with the OP here, the Nebula sucked. I hate flying around in soup, and I totally felt homesick for Space.
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Hiding the low-poly models had nothing to do with it.
He didn't say low-poly, he said poor. Bad art design and bad game design are both highly sustainable charges about the Hectate. Sticking them in the Nebula so you couldn't see enough of the hull to fly around it well merely aggravates the problem.
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The nebula made the shivans more imposing. Loved every second of it, especially missions like As Lightning Falls and Mystery of the Trinity.
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I'm not much of a fan of the nebula. I like seeing things. Story reasons for it were fine though. I also hated the TAG mission. You can do way more damage with an ordinary loadout than when you manage to tag something. I used to love the Uly and fly it every chance I got, but I eventually grew out of it. When I was younger and played FS1 it was my fighter of choice because of its maneuverability. Now super-maneuverable fighters irritate the hell out of me because they're so damn twitchy. I don't know if I was better at flying them before, or if I just didn't notice. When I fly the Seraphis I have to put sensitivity almost all the way down to hit anything.
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Only thing I agree with from the first post is the game of tag. That was a dumb mission which I didn't much care for. Shoot guys so someone else can kill them, right. How is this fun for me?
The nebula was great. I first got interested in FS2 by flying around the nebula blasting away at Manticores or some such in the demo. The one mission with the EM interference is kind of annoying, but . . . . . at the time it gave the proper atmosphere, that being stuck in the middle of no where with no support, no radar, no nothing.
And I love playing as the Vasudans. I don't care about ship stats. They look cool. And their capital ships are the best among the allies. Sobek's sweeet.
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Even if you don't like Vasudan fighters, You gotta love their bombers. Next time you play Bearbaiting, think about how fast you're going in that Sekhmet carrying Helios bombs.
Max speeds:
Ursa - 45
Boanerges - 55
Sekhmet - 60
And please tell me we have some Seth fans somewhere. That's a fun ship to fly, especially if you use primaries over secondaries.
But yeah, I really dislike Nebulas. I don't like the way they look. They feel very artificial to me.
But for dialogue stuff, I usually just press F4 if I miss something.
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Even if you don't like Vasudan fighters, You gotta love their bombers. Next time you play Bearbaiting, think about how fast you're going in that Sekhmet carrying Helios bombs.
Max speeds:
Ursa - 45
Boanerges - 55
Sekhmet - 60
And please tell me we have some Seth fans somewhere. That's a fun ship to fly, especially if you use primaries over secondaries.
But yeah, I really dislike Nebulas. I don't like the way they look. They feel very artificial to me.
But for dialogue stuff, I usually just press F4 if I miss something.
My goal is to clarify rather than argue.
Didn't say a thing about Zod bombers, Bearbaiting is one of the best missions in the game.
What I don't like about the Seth is thus: it's great until it takes AAA, which always, always seems to destroy the sensor subsystem in the nose.
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Even if you don't like Vasudan fighters, You gotta love their bombers. Next time you play Bearbaiting, think about how fast you're going in that Sekhmet carrying Helios bombs.
You mean Bakha.
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Even if you don't like Vasudan fighters, You gotta love their bombers. Next time you play Bearbaiting, think about how fast you're going in that Sekhmet carrying Helios bombs.
You mean Bakha.
... which is meh by comparison. :(
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You mean Bakha.
... which is meh by comparison. :(
:sigh: Sad day.....
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I'd have taken an Artemis, but they can't carry Helios torpedoes. So in actuality, the Bakha is the second best bomber for that mission.
I was amused at how effectively a Boaner does the job in AoA however.
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I think it was the King's Gambit, but I never really liked the Artemis. Not that it's flimsy, but it just doesn't feel as solid as the heavier bombers. It could be that I'm just bad at bombing runs.
EDIT: Just looked up the hitpoints, and its shields are fine at 700, but it's hull is at 275.
EDIT2: I never noticed until now, but the Zeus has 200 hitpoints and 450 shield points...
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The Zeus is flying joke. It's larger, slower, less agile and less resistant than an Herc.
The Artemis is good at what it's supposed to be : a cheap, dispensable Cyclops delivery system. The survival of the pilot and the craft is secondary to the successful delivery of the warheads. Something the Zeus is far too vulnerable to accomplish.
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I swear I must be the only person around here who never had any trouble beating A Game of TAG. :p
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I think it was the King's Gambit, but I never really liked the Artemis. Not that it's flimsy, but it just doesn't feel as solid as the heavier bombers. It could be that I'm just bad at bombing runs.
EDIT: Just looked up the hitpoints, and its shields are fine at 700, but it's hull is at 275.
EDIT2: I never noticed until now, but the Zeus has 200 hitpoints and 450 shield points...
I find the higher the difficulty the more speed and maneuverability matters, even with bombers. The Ursa can take a lot of damage, but it also takes forever to get out of AAA range. I like the Arty because, though it's not as solid as it could be, it can get the **** out of there when it needs to. The Rhea in BP2 is even more like that, but perhaps too flimsy. The Zeus is excellent for taking out cargo containers. (It really wasn't that bad in FS1, but AAA beams changed the whole armor dynamic.)
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The Zeus is flying joke. It's larger, slower, less agile and less resistant than an Herc.
Which is a damn shame because I personally love how it looks. :(
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I swear I must be the only person around here who never had any trouble beating A Game of TAG. :p
I don't have trouble beating it I have trouble enjoying it
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I swear I must be the only person around here who never had any trouble beating A Game of TAG. :p
I don't have trouble beating it I have trouble enjoying it
MY KILLS! MINE! *Pewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpew . . . (30 seconds later)
pew. . . pew *kaboom**
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I liked the nebula missions (except Game of Tag -- excellent concept ruined by flawed execution). Then again, I think the Hecate looks good, so take any of my opinions with a grain of salt. :p
I also enjoyed the Vasudan missions, although that might have been a different story without the Tauret.
Oh, and As Lightning Fall is my favorite retail mission. *ducks*
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i also think the hecate looks good. i just wish it was worth a damn in combat. those collossal spinal guns should rip through destroyers, not spit flak at little fighters.
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i also think the hecate looks good. i just wish it was worth a damn in combat. those collossal spinal guns should rip through destroyers, not spit flak at little fighters.
The Hecate's briefing icon looks nocer than the actual ship. The ship itself looks ridiculous up close and is a pain to escort. Speaking of ridicuous... anyone notice those silly engines on the Deimos and the Aeolus? The ones blocked by stuff?
Clearly, Terran Command's presence still lingers in the engineering department... :shaking:
They still look lovely though.
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Anyone play Archimedean Dynasty? ;)
(If you have, you can most likely guess why I'm asking in a thread about nebulas heh.)
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I've played it. Although, I haven't completed a play through yet. The fog's pretty heavy in that game. Still, I'd rather have Freespace's nebulas because of the visual patterns in the poofs.
If you haven't played it, it's an underwater combat simulator pretty similar to Freespace, except that there's terrain everywhere. You can get it for free on Abandonia. I'm pretty sure it requires DosBox to play.
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- If It Was Supposed to be Awesome, the Mission Wasn't Debugged:
A Game of Tag is mostly a dialogue mission (which is fine,) it does have the mildly entertaining addition of TAG missiles as well, and you get to fly the venerable Ulysses class fighter, a favorite from my childhood (if only they'd let you fly a Valkyrie), the problem I've had since I had a i486 COMPAQ - the dialogue gets out of order as soon as the lone Kappa fighter arrives.
A Game of Tag was really a dumb mission in general when you think about it. A test of a highly experimental weapon, in Shivan controlled space. The corvette's weapons are tied into the TAG system and apparently has no failsafe, while the fighters carrying said weapons are outdated and poorly armed with Prom Rs when, at this point, you have access to the Prom S.
My issue with it isn't so much in that it was testing in uncontrolled space, but so much that they didn't put a failsafe into the corvette's weapon systems in case the fighters died, and said fighters being largely outdated craft. It was also mostly a filler mission, aside from the bit with Kappa 3.
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I got to agree with the OP here, the Nebula sucked. I hate flying around in soup, and I totally felt homesick for Space.
Seconded.
Nebula missions don't actually suck for me per se, but spaceship fighting is designed for space, for ****'s sake. It was also kind of a glare for me, with all pink around and seeing your opponent's red brackets but not the ship was awkward, to say the least.
You mean Bakha.
... which is meh by comparison. :(
:sigh: Sad day.....
Sad day indeed. I always love the Sekhmet as some kind of fighter-bomber, with a proper amount of guns (4 IIRC) while being able to carry quite a lot of secondaries. Ursas are too big and slow, and the turret usually gets maimed out anyway, Medusas are fine as pure bombers, Artemises are also good fighter-bombers, though not as good as the Sekhmet (can't remember why), but the Boanerges. It SUCKS. It's the most ****ty plane I've ever rode. Two guns, no turrets, and awfully sluggish movement? What the ****! I don't know of any reason why Command even sent THOSE bombers on a special mission against an enemy target of high priority.
Sorry to say this truth, Boanerges-lovers (if you even exist).
Now, being ontopic...
- Nebula missions:
...Often in Freespace 2 however, it feels like an excuse for the poor models of the past to remain under wraps - would anyone have known what a Hecate class destroyer looked like if it hadn't been for third party missions1? There are significant tactical differences between a 'space' and 'nebula' mission, which can be quite entertaining; but often, nebula missions in the campagin are exactly the same as standard missions, without the ability to see ****.
Personally, I don't see the Hecate as a poor model. Though it's kind of a setback for old-timer FS1 fans due to its betrayal of the now-cliched "boxy" style for an FS ship, overall, it's intimidating enough. I think that they reasonably did it this way to make a more "modern"-esque warship. (when it's not; huge, Ursa-sized turrets firing flak?! 33% of the Orion's beampower?!)
- The Vasudan missions:
...Although some of the best and most properly challenging missions take place in the Vasudan Acts (Bearbaiting, The Fog of War) the majority of them showcase the failure of the Vasudan species, especially for anyone who plays Hard or Insane. Vasudan craft are incapable of taking any AAA fire whatsoever, without either spontaneously exploding (Serapis) or sustaining critical subsystem damage (Seth) the only fighter the Vasudans use that doesn't suffer from this is the Tauret, which has the unique problem of being able to run out of primary energy without destroying a single bomber (at 80% accuracy, Prometheus S equipped). I could live with Vasudan fighters, I really could, if the missions were designed around those failures.
I never actually noticed that Zod fighters were that frail to AAA beams. But I can say that I never liked the Tauret for said reason.
- If It Was Supposed to be Awesome, the Mission Wasn't Debugged:
It's much worse in Their Finest Hour; when I first played it at the ripe age of . . . (eleven?) I actually had no idea what the plot line was supposed to be until the second time I played through. First Command demands ~"Let the warships do their job" which (on Insane) results in their destruction (as they are not properly weapon freed), and then there is the whole Collossus debacle, which one must be paying attention to in order for it to make the slightest sense.
I think that mission was really to make the player witness the quick death of the massivest, grandest piece of steel the player has ever seen in the campaign. Like Game of Tag, it's designed not for enjoyment, but as a plot tool mission (Kappa 3's involvement).
Just a side note; like many other FS players, I find "A Game of Tag" not only irritating, but almost completely an irrelevant mission to the story. Prometheus R is one of the suckier FS2 canon primaries that exist, but the Ulysses was more or less fine.
That, and I find the wing of Mara fighters firing endlessly at an invulnerable target one of the funniest moments in the game.
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- If It Was Supposed to be Awesome, the Mission Wasn't Debugged:
A Game of Tag is mostly a dialogue mission (which is fine,) it does have the mildly entertaining addition of TAG missiles as well, and you get to fly the venerable Ulysses class fighter, a favorite from my childhood (if only they'd let you fly a Valkyrie), the problem I've had since I had a i486 COMPAQ - the dialogue gets out of order as soon as the lone Kappa fighter arrives.
A Game of Tag was really a dumb mission in general when you think about it. A test of a highly experimental weapon, in Shivan controlled space. The corvette's weapons are tied into the TAG system and apparently has no failsafe, while the fighters carrying said weapons are outdated and poorly armed with Prom Rs when, at this point, you have access to the Prom S.
My issue with it isn't so much in that it was testing in uncontrolled space, but so much that they didn't put a failsafe into the corvette's weapon systems in case the fighters died, and said fighters being largely outdated craft. It was also mostly a filler mission, aside from the bit with Kappa 3.
It's been a while since I replayed the campaign but as I recall the corvette's flak cannons and pirahnas were free. They also did have a wing of fighters on standby for backup if things went wrong. Besides, they knew they wouldnt need a fail safe, they had Alpha 1. :)
I swear I must be the only person around here who never had any trouble beating A Game of TAG.
I never had trouble either, the Ultra's can usually shoot down the Maras pretty quick.
i also think the hecate looks good. i just wish it was worth a damn in combat. those collossal spinal guns should rip through destroyers, not spit flak at little fighters.
Even so they are too poorly placed to be of much good. But such awesome weapons would distract from it's role as a carrier but it should not have been left alone the way it was because of that. The problem is the Deimos just didnt have the firepower to take down warships that quickly.
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i also think the hecate looks good. i just wish it was worth a damn in combat. those collossal spinal guns should rip through destroyers, not spit flak at little fighters.
Even so they are too poorly placed to be of much good. But such awesome weapons would distract from it's role as a carrier but it should not have been left alone the way it was because of that. The problem is the Deimos just didnt have the firepower to take down warships that quickly.
Is there anything in FS2 fluff to suggest that the Hecate was intended primarily as a carrier? As far as I know, "Hecate=carrier; Orion=frontline warship" is a fan-created rationalization for why the GTVA would build Hecates at all (despite the techroom rather clearly suggesting that the Hecate is superior all around).
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Nope, but it totally fits. But why even have front-line destroyers when you could deploy corvettes instead? :wtf:
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Did you forget about heavy fighter/bomber attacks? Despite flak and AAA, capital ships are still very vulnerable to fightercraft, and given that intersystem drives for fighters are still extremely expensive at the time of FS2, the fightercraft you need to counter the enemy's need to get to the right system somehow. Enter the destroyer.
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Indeed the though the Hecate lacks front line punch it makes up for it with greater tactical flexibility and fits in better with the GTVA's fighter orientated approach to battle.
another way of looking at it is to look at the development of fleet compositions from the first world war to now.
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I really hate the way the comms menu works. It's pretty cumbersome.
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I dunno... C-3-1 is the only way I could ever beat an FS2 mission in retail FS.
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I really hate the way the comms menu works. It's pretty cumbersome.
How would you go about improving it?
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I'd have to agree, as comm menus go, it's pretty easy to operate, and the shortcuts easy to memorize.
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I'd have to agree, as comm menus go, it's pretty easy to operate, and the shortcuts easy to memorize.
Indeed this.
You can tap C-3-1 or C-3-9 within a second. I don't see how you could make the comms menu 'less cumbersome' without doing a dragon age 2 'streamline' on it.
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Did you forget about heavy fighter/bomber attacks? Despite flak and AAA, capital ships are still very vulnerable to fightercraft, and given that intersystem drives for fighters are still extremely expensive at the time of FS2, the fightercraft you need to counter the enemy's need to get to the right system somehow. Enter the destroyer.
I didn't, but I don't know how expensive "extremely" is. I might still rather risk several intersystem drives than a destroyer. If the destroyer jumps in, then it probably won't get to jump again. Even if it does, it definitely won't get to jump a third time before getting attacked by bombers from the enemy destroyer. It could launch more fighters, but on the other hand it would be a giant target. So the destroyer could only enter the system at the end of the offensive, fire everything, and secure the node.
But, uh, that's all speculation right now. :nervous:
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Did you forget about heavy fighter/bomber attacks? Despite flak and AAA, capital ships are still very vulnerable to fightercraft, and given that intersystem drives for fighters are still extremely expensive at the time of FS2, the fightercraft you need to counter the enemy's need to get to the right system somehow. Enter the destroyer.
I didn't, but I don't know how expensive "extremely" is. I might still rather risk several intersystem drives than a destroyer. If the destroyer jumps in, then it probably won't get to jump again. Even if it does, it definitely won't get to jump a third time before getting attacked by bombers from the enemy destroyer. It could launch more fighters, but on the other hand it would be a giant target. So the destroyer could only enter the system at the end of the offensive, fire everything, and secure the node.
But, uh, that's all speculation right now. :nervous:
Destroyers provide more than just a fighter launch pad. they are also:
mobile repair and resupply centres for fighters,
provide tactical mission support with the resupply ships,
having a destroyer in system shortens turn around time for fighters by making jumps shorter and removing the lengthy inter system jump stage between missions,
in system command and control for friendly activities means faster command response to changing situations.
large area target location and tracking, even in hostile territory.
In FS fighters and bombers are best used as force multipliers rather than the backbone of your efforts, they are short term force projection. If you want to hold territory you need a capship and we know how vulnerable they are without fighter support.
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But that's why all your efforts would be building up to getting a destroyer into the system. The only difference is whether or not to let the destroyer duke it out with other warships.
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I really hate the way the comms menu works. It's pretty cumbersome.
How would you go about improving it?
I don't know, maybe some sort of radial menu or something. I find a lot of times that I want to assign individual fighters to individual duties, but the way it's currently arranged is pretty awkward for doing that - I have to go through like three or four layers of number menus before getting to the fighter I want. It'd be nice if there were some shortcuts or something. One thing I've always missed is being able to tell one wing to attack another wing, and I'd like to have some way of either the comm menu or (preferably) the wing health display icons to display which craft are fighters and which are bombers; I always worry that I'm telling bombers to attack a wing of fighters. Basically for anything except ordering all fighters to do something at once, I've found the menu to be awkward to use.
On another note, it'd be cool if "depart" was actually useful; like for instance if you tell a damaged fighter to depart, it'll come back in some X amount of time repaired and ready to go. I know it can be done with SEXPs but it'd be nice if it was an automatic thing through all missions, IMO.
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On another note, it'd be cool if "depart" was actually useful; like for instance if you tell a damaged fighter to depart, it'll come back in some X amount of time repaired and ready to go. I know it can be done with SEXPs but it'd be nice if it was an automatic thing through all missions, IMO.
I like this idea.
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On another note, it'd be cool if "depart" was actually useful; like for instance if you tell a damaged fighter to depart, it'll come back in some X amount of time repaired and ready to go. I know it can be done with SEXPs but it'd be nice if it was an automatic thing through all missions, IMO.
Perhaps settable on a mission-by-mission basis. There could be a variety of things that would happen to a craft that's departed, and a canny FREDder could come up with a lot of ideas.
Off-screen repair is one idea.
Off the top of my head, you could also have a campaign with a limited number of allied pilots- telling damaged ships to retreat saves manpower for future missions. In a similar vein, you might have a campaign with a limited number of total assignable strikecraft; sending beat-up ships home would preserve them for later.
There'd be a lot of things you could do, but I don't think any new features would be needed to take advantage of the idea. It'd just be limited by one's creativity, and while it would be tedious to set it mission-by-mission, the specificity of this demi-feature is such that it should stay tedious, IMO. I don't think there's gonna be a rush of campaigns featuring pilot and craft reserve management any time soon.
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Be nice if there was some sort of script to take care of the tedium for you..