[CP5670]

Yes, and as we all know, FS2 is based on a real life story ...I'm not there to be a part of a whole with the AI that gets torn in 20 seconds, I'm there to be the best, and actually do something thats more important than nuke a sitting Orion...

Thing is, it needs to make some degree of logical sense, and thus become believable. The world does not revolve around a single person; it is the other way around. (what would the rest of the GTVA be thinking? people hear on the news, "the great Alpha 1 single-handedly took down two more Shivan destroyers yesterday, raising his kill count to 5325;" that would sound ridiculous ) Although actually, FS2 is pretty much based on real life, as almost every game is; it is a depiction of what humans might be doing in the future, and is quite consistent with the science and politics of today. One GTVA pilot becoming that good and smashing entire fleets is like, say, the GTVA suddenly falling apart into independent factions for no reason; it simply doesn't make sense. The AI issue is more of a technical thing, but the enemy does not send waves upon waves of fighters and cruisers just to hopefully put a scratch in the almighty Alpha 1. (it sometimes does turn out like that due to the crappy AI, but ideally it should not be)

Yeah Silent Threat had poor but moreover pointless missions. The thing in FS2 with the mystery doesn't rock my socks, no matter how many sub-stories there are. Sure it's all nice and getting you into the story, but I was more excited (read: still am) when I see that animation where a couple of terrans get devoured by the big nasty shivans, than all of the ani's put together in fs2. The "where did Bosch go" and "oh NTF, and oh ETAK" etc. doesn't really compensate for, let's say, the missions that are horridly wasting my time. Comparing to the capture of Alexandar McCarthy, that mission was much more worth, fun and thrilling than the 100 missions trying to capture Bosch, but then he somehow escapes in the end, and oh wait, I JUST WAISTED ABOUT 3 HOURS!!! I'm not saying that the story of fs2 sucks...it was really good...just not THAT good...also fs1 went on a much larger scale...fs2 just kept to capella and gamma draconis, and some binary node where the main thing went on...the NTF parts were just choking some insignificant rebellion, which I knew will be beaten during the middle (or at the end) since I began playing the game for the first time...

I thought the FS2 missions were actually much better thought out; a lot more missions were distinctly memorable. Some filler missions are probably necessary to give the storyline a sense of plausibility but even there it is a good idea to put in some minor twist or something. Are you talking about missions for which your side loses? There were a lot of those in FS1 too; the Ramses mission, the shivan cargo depot ambush, the HOL outpost attack, the Galatea death mission, and the shivan cargo capture mission to name a few. Besides, that makes sense anyway; how can you expect to win every mission you partake in? The scale of the entire war was actually about the same, but your pilot stayed in only a couple of systems along with the rest of the fleet. As for the last part, you would know that in any game in existence, no matter how powerful the enemy is, your side will always somehow win, or there would be little point in playing through the game, so that doesn't mean much.

Keeps you on your toes, not to stop too much, and they do hit you sometimes...even I can't evade the fast ones all the time if I'm doing something else (well maybe if I were paying FULL attention, then I'd evade em). Whats the point with fighter beams? They are gonna hit you, you know it, the beam knows it, you can't escape other than going blindly for the turret thinking "will it shread me, how much will it shread me?"

The turrets? You mean the laser blob things, right? It seems that the slowest ships can dodge those without any problems at all on the highest difficulties. And for most of the capital ships, this is all the weaponry they had. Actually, I think that this was by far the biggest problem with FS1 - capital ships really could not fight back at all - and even if you were a little recon fighter or something, it was still possible to still crush destroyers by the numbers given enough time. If things work out this way, there is no point in building anything except just huge swarms of fighters, and have Alpha 1 train everyone. I remember that the first thing I did when I started modding FS1 was to give all of the destroyers different colored versions of Shivan Super Laser-like things along with making the turret shots move and fire four or five times faster, so that the capital ships would actually have some point to being in the game. You are right about the last part, and that raises the game intensity significantly when going larger enemy ships, whereas in FS1 you knew you would never be hit by the destroyer itself, but only by its fighter wings.

Check your E-mail and ICQ sometimes...I send you an e-mail not so long ago...

hmm...which address did you send it to? For a while I was changing mine every few weeks, so I think I have went through five or six of them in the last few months. My current one is [email protected] . Anyway, I will be coming to the SSC forums more often soon.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by BD


Yes and I come here and play games because I just want to be another ant in the colony. Usually my real life is filled with adventures that include saving the Earth/Universe, so I need to come here and relieve the stress by being put just a bit above the average .

Besides, it took 4 wings to get those reactors, not only myself (although that's doable if you play on very easy......). There wasn't anything superhuman about that...

That was one of the few non-superhuman missions! The Lucifer had an achillies heel and that was a mission where you exploited it. I had no problem with that mission. I had a problem with all the other missions where alpha 1 does all the work. I don`t feel the need to play a superhuman character. I prefer to play an ordinary solider who manages to win some important victories. FS2 stikes the balance well between the stupidity of missions where everything counts on one fighter dispite there being 20 others present and the pointlessness of missions where the player can have no effect on the outcome of the mission.
 FS1 leans more towards the "Evereything counts on you Alpha 1 - The rest of your wings are just cannon fodder"

Originally posted by BD
Yeah it's so much better to lose how much...millions upon millions of people and not being able to win in the end? The only releif I had was to stay behind and have myself killed too with the others, just because it was the best option to take. I only left Capella once just to see what the briefing gave afterwards, each and every time I would just shut my engines and look at the sun getting bigger... at least in FS1 you survive and get the bad guys...

I didn`t say that I wanted the shivans to win. I`m just saying that the indestrutable ship having an achillies heel is an old concept and certainly not original.
 The end of FS2 wasn`t a complete loss for the GTVA. They were planning to seal off Capella anyway but the shivans suprised them by doing it themselves.

Originally posted by BD
a) Bosch pretty much explains that question
b) Petrarch told you (in a suptle way) a reason why they blew up Capella

Nope. Bosch did NOT tell us why he wanted an alliance with the shivans. He only told us that humanity needed it. You can see he believed that the Terrans had no future with the vasudans but he never explained why.
 I don`t know. Maybe you`ve got the teachers guide edition which explains why
 As for the destruction of Capella even if you agree with Petrach's  explaination (and he only raises it as a possibility himself!) That still doesn`t explain why they didn`t wipe out the GTVA first. In FS1 the Shivans were trying to wipe out the GTVA a very simple goal. Even if the shivans were trying to return home that still means that FS2 had more depth than FS1. The fact that the shivans goal wasn`t what we thought it was is far more suprising than anything in the FS1 plotline.

Originally posted by BD
Not to mention that it wasn't useless at all. It was a nice way of showing how priorities change, what's expendable and what isn't. When Taranis jumped in it suddenly became more important to the intelligence and the Vasudans were worthless - "Alpha, DO NOT engage the Taranis", so they let it go to capture it later, tow it to Tombaugh, etc. etc.

So why not allow alpha 1 to disarm the taranis? That would make it possible to capture both ships.

Originally posted by BD
I'll give you that, the SOC missions and the Exchange Programme were the original things in the mission. It's just that after playing the 20 missions in the Vasudan outfit, 12 of them are boring garbage, makes me wanna quit the game for awhile because I can't stand it anymore. SOC missions were cool...no real objections on them...they were one of the only ones that were actually good...in fact "into the lions den" was the best mission in fs2 for me...but a hefty amount of missions were "copied" from fs1...re-runs...werther it had a reason or not (past repeats itself, stuff like that), I don't care, it was BORING.

I found the officer exchange missions no more boring than many similar missions in FS1. If you`re complaining that they were boring cause you`d already played missions similar to them in FS1 that is a poor arguement. You can`t say that is a reason FS1 is better cause if you had played FS2 first and then gone back to FS1 you would have found them boring in FS1 instead.

Originally posted by BD
Fighter beams at least...the cap beams I can understand, Lucy used them in FS1, there needs to be a counter on Terran/Vasudan part...but fighter beams...Lucy how advanced it was, didn't have fighter beams...flak i can understand, but fighter beams are just added annoyance to extend the mission for about 3 seconds each time it hits you...

Of course you don`t like fighter beams. They prevent you from being Super-Uber-Pilot. Able to destroy shivan juggernauts singlehanded!
  I don`t think that a single fighter should be able to take out capships without a good deal of personal risk. If fighters can take out caps with ease why would the GTVA waste time building the damn things? Why not just build fighters and destroyers to carry them?
  In sci-fi it is generally taken as a given that a single fighter can`t destroy bigger, more powerful ships than him unless he comes up with a clever trick, achilles heel or has some kind of superpower. What you're saying is that FS1 is correct to stand that convention on its head and say that there is no good reason that a fighter (often armed with weapons that have trouble destroying ships its own size) shouldn't be able to destroy ships 100 times its own size.

I like FS2 for that reason. If you`re in a bomber you CAN destroy ships bigger than you but you'd better employ a stratagy other than fly straight at it and firing your guns cause you`ll be swatted down like a fly which is exactly the way I feel it should be.

[Stunaep]

Originally posted by karajorma


So why not allow alpha 1 to disarm the taranis? That would make it possible to capture both ships.

Funny thing is, I actually did that in the mission. And then wondered, why the hell there was no Return to base order. Stupid mission.

[Stunaep]

And what exactly do they (nebulae add, except them being the core for the FS2 story The useless tag missions? Lack of sensors? Escort missions that somehow manage to repeat themselves over and over? (not counting the copies of fs1 missions)

Lack of sensors. True. Very different.
Lack of visibility. Ships are much harder to hit in the nebula.
EM storms, even though the real EM was only in one mission.
And even without the EM storms, the lightning made seeing things a lot harder in the nebula.

[Killfrenzy]

Nebulas cause havok for sensors and visibility - they were another obstacle to overcome - I loved the nebby missions!

Also, when it comes to beams, they're actually more realistic than any of the other weapons, as they're basically HUGE lasers! And a laser is a BEAM not a pulse!

The FS2 'lasers' are FAR TOO SLOW to be lasers.

[QuantumDelta]

Nebbys....heh
I might point out that being in a nebula doesn't effect my performance in the slightest, in the SOC Rescue mission i spent almost my whole time (every time) under emp effect, i don't need my sensors.... most people who complain about nebulae, are those who can't play, OR, those with poor comps (like bds...sorta) who lag in nebs.. but neb motion can also give motion sickness and stuff, hehe, there are other problems... anyway

FS2 is dull, because you still CAN be invulnerable mr. i could save the universe -- you can still take out everything but stupid hard to kill caps......

 i mean, my wingmen are even more of a liability in every mission then FS1.
You still have to do EVERYTHING yourself, only the escort missions at the end really require help from your wingmates (like luci did in fs1....)

In FS2, I don't know how many of you play FS2 multi, but BD and I can take out a full fleet probably on our own with 10 respawns if we're sleeping. (Breaking the seal, on our own, with wingmen yeah....but just us two and 6bombers, the whole shivan armada from FS1 in one mission (equiv fire power in my estimation). the only reason we ever fail is our Corvy dies...

The main complaint i have is fighters prims inability to destroy most caps... in fs1 it was good to see that you could do that....

hhmm.....
Generally...FS2 seemed fake, because you could be the greatest pilot in the universe, and have the skill to do anything....but you're limited by the games designs....blah!!!!!
taking out 100fighters and losing 10% hull then not being able to do anything against the ship it came outta so the game just sits there for ages being boooorrrrrrriiiiiinnnnnnngggggg........

yup FS2's great!:rolleyes:

[BlackDove]

Just for the record, I can fight in the nebula just the same as I can fight in open space, it's just a stupid add on in my opinion, which doesn't really serve a purpose other than telling a tale how a star exploded

EMP nebula? I don't fly anything that needs aspect lock so it doesn't bother me...

[Stryke 9]

The nebula's there because it looks cool, and makes things hard to see. It's not ****ing Faust here, why should there be any better reason than that it's pretty?

[BlackDove]

Werther it's pretty or not doesn't (read: shouldn't) have much baring on werther the game is good or not...you can have a million nebulas but if the missions are as bad and repetitive as they are in most cases in fs2, then it doesn't really help you does it?

[Solatar]

Nebulas are kind of cool sometimes when you turn down the brightness, and all you see are your sensors. Its kind of cool to be fighting, and having to rely on you lead indicator and HUD gauges. Makes for a change.

A few of those nebulas are so dang bright! The one in the fs2 demo is so bright it freis my retina...well....almost.....maybe......okay...it doesn't..

[Su-tehp]

I like Fs2 better than FS1 because the command briefings were more detailed, you were transferred from squadron to squadron depending on the type of mission you had to fly, the nebula missions (while I dislike anything that hampers my visibility) looked incredible, and had well-scripted and believable characters in the story.

Take Bosch for instance. Most people will respond immediately that he's basically another Hitler. But we see in his monologues that he really isn't. He's a tortured soul who really believes that he's acting in humanity's ultimate interest. He hates the NTF that he created (he even calls them "an army of stupid cattle!") but is uterly convinced that if didn't make every effort (including creating the NTF, which Bosch viewed as a necessary evil) to ally with the Shivans, then humanity would become extinct in only a few years. Bosch is DEFINITELY not a one-dimensional bad guy; he has real motivation and defies easy stereotypes.

I think Snipes as a character was so well-scripted and interesting, I don't even need to explain why. He is anything but your run-of-the-mill cookie cutter soldier stereotype...and if you don't believe me, you need to play ALL of the SOC missions again.

As for feeling like a cog in the machine in FS2, that's realistic. Any video game involving a military, whether an army on the ground or a starfleet, shouldn't really, at least IMO, allow the player to be an uber-soldier unless he has some sort of superpower or is exploiting a weakness, just like karajorma said. Wars very rarely, if at all, hinge on the accomplishments of a single soldier. One man CAN make a difference, but that should only happen in rare circumstances, not throughout an entire game.

Fs2 is geared more than FS1 to the old military maxim: "Amateurs study tactics, but experts study logistics." FS2 had a lot more support ships (freighters, hospital ships, AWACS, etc.) and protecting these ships is what winning a space war is all about. You can have the best fleet in the Universe with the nastiest fighters, but if your supply lines get cut, you wont be able to feed, arm or heal your fleet. War isn't just about fighting; it's also about protecting your military infrastructure (command and control centers so your generals have a place to plan future missions; hospitals to heal your wounded; scouts and spies to gather intelligence on the enemy; supply lines to make sure your fleet stays well-equiped and well-repaired). FS2 seemed more geared to this than FS1 did, so it seemed a lot more realistic.

I remember reading a review of FS2 just after it came out (I think it was in CGW, but I need to check) that said while FS1 had "a more epic feel," FS2 was a better game in every other respect, and I agree.

[QuantumDelta]

Yeah, they even have the good old "lets build a really big fort that CANT possibly get killed!!! it'll just draw ALL The firepower from the enemy!!"

Logistical deployment is for those who do not care about anything but their military resources.
Tactical and Logistical deployment works occasionally, but modern 'tactics' have this stupid tendancy of having stuff like the collosus... sheesh...
baka....

[CP5670]

Logistical deployment is for those who do not care about anything but their military resources.

uh...so, what else is there to care about in a war?

[Su-tehp]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
Yeah, they even have the good old "lets build a really big fort that CANT possibly get killed!!! it'll just draw ALL The firepower from the enemy!!"

I call this the "Titanic Syndrome." As in: "This ship is so big, it can't possibly sink! God Himself could not sink this ship!"

Maybe it's my jadedness talking, but I get leery of claims of what God can't do. Let's see, God created the Universe, but can't shove a hundreds-of-tons-of-iron ship underwater? God doesn't need to sink the Titanic, He'll just get gravity and the negation of buoyancy from compartment flooding to do it for Him! DUH!

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
Logistical deployment is for those who do not care about anything but their military resources.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, QD. When you're trying to win a war, it's all about preserving your military resources, or rather, preserving as much of them as possible, then deploying the least amount of military resources necessary in order to get the greatest return for the risk involved in deploying them. Sure, you need to preserve military resources as much as possible, but you'll eventually have to spend some of it to fight the enemy and there will be losses as a result.

Preservation of military resources is a means, not an end.

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
Tactical and Logistical deployment works occasionally, but modern 'tactics' have this stupid tendancy of having stuff like the collosus... sheesh...
baka....

Having a powerful weapon like the Colossus isn't necessarily a bad thing. Remember, it was essential in helping to end the NTF Rebellion; we saw that when it took out the NTD Repulse and rear Admiral Koth.

You also need to remember that the Colossus was designed to repel Lucifer superdestroyers; when the Colossus was designed, no one knew about the Sathanas juggernauts.

Just think how useful a Colossus would be in hit-and-run raids on lone Sathanas juggernauts. Have the Colossus jump in behind a juggernaut, beam it to death from behind (where the juggernaut's main beams can't fire back) and jump out before reinforcements arrive. This is certainly a good tactic for deploying the Colossus when you have to contend with a juggernaut fleet.

No doubt some of you are thinking: guerilla tactics with a Colossus? Is that even feasible? Hey, anything is possible. The Iceni was only a rinky-dink command frigate that would have had trouble giving a Deimos a run for its money. But with Bosch (with his tactical and strategic brilliance) on board, the Iceni was the equivalent of a whole fleet! Think of the possibilities of intelligently deploying a ship like the Colossus....

The reason the Colossus was lost was because its captain refused to jump out when it was been beamed to death by a Sathanas. The Colossus' captain sacrificed himself and his ship and crew to buy the GTD Bastion more time to seal the Epsilon Pegasi node. The fact that he only bought a few more seconds (rather than run away to fight again later) is what made his tactic a failed one. Just think how much better the evacuation of Capella would have proceeded if the Colossus had jumped out and helped to secure the Vega node before the supernova occured. Thousands more refugees might have made it out before Capella blew had the Colossus been there.

I see people designing their campaigns saying that the Colossus had a "design flaw" and that was what was responsible for its destruction. I disagree. The Colossus was sufficiently designed, it's just that its captain sacrificed it to help save the GTVA. Arguably, he made a tactical error in doing so, but it was the captain's decision, not any "design flaw" as such, that resulted in the death of the Colossus.

[Killfrenzy]

But what about the Colossus' reactor and the weapon capacitors?

HOW MANY times did she nearly burn out the weapons? Or something went wrong?

[Su-tehp]

Originally posted by Killfrenzy
But what about the Colossus' reactor and the weapon capacitors?

HOW MANY times did she nearly burn out the weapons? Or something went wrong?

IIRC, only twice did "things go wrong" onboard the Colossus.

1) The first time was when the Colossus nearly burned out her heat sinks when she fought the first Sathanas juggernaut in capella, true, but as I said, the Colossus wasn't designed to go against Sathanas juggernauts. That's not a design flaw, per se; it just means that the Colossus designers only anticipated that she would be fighting Lucifers in the assumption that the Lucy was the shivans' most powerful ship. No one knew at the time the Colossus was designed and built that Sathanas juggernauts even existed. Technically, that's not a design flaw; it's an after-the-fact oversight that could not have been prevented.

Just because you build a big ship that winds up getting destroyed by a bigger ship doesn't mean your ship had a design flaw.

2) The second time "something went wrong" onboard the Colossus was when her weapons refused to fire on the Iceni as it was fleeing through the Knossos portal. But that was due directly to sabotage from NTF spies already onboard posing as GTVA crewmen. And again, sabotage is not equivalent to an inherent design flaw.

If there is any evidence that the Colossus suffered from a design flaw in the main campaign, I haven't seen it yet.

[Stunaep]

well, the only time the big C burnt out its heat sinks were in the battle with the first Sathanas. When the Iceni escaped into the nebula, the Colossus had its weapons systems shut down by a spy onboard. And I can understand why they pushed the limit when fightning the only ship capable of destroying the Colossus with ease.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Killfrenzy
But what about the Colossus' reactor and the weapon capacitors?

HOW MANY times did she nearly burn out the weapons? Or something went wrong?

It nearly burned them out once when it was overheating them deliberately in an attempt to kill the sathanas. If you try to drive your car at 70mph in first gear you can`t blame it on techical failure when the engine burns out.

The colossus was then sabotaged to allow the Iceni to get past.

Originally posted by Su-tehp
The reason the Colossus was lost was because its captain refused to jump out when it was been beamed to death by a Sathanas. The Colossus' captain sacrificed himself and his ship and crew to buy the GTD Bastion more time to seal the Epsilon Pegasi node. The fact that he only bought a few more seconds (rather than run away to fight again later) is what made his tactic a failed one. Just think how much better the evacuation of Capella would have proceeded if the Colossus had jumped out and helped to secure the Vega node before the supernova occured. Thousands more refugees might have made it out before Capella blew had the Colossus been there.

Actually the Captain of the Colossus was a chancer who wanted history to record him and his crew as heroes. He tells command that he and his men will fight valiantly to buy some extra time at the node. History records him and his crew as heroes (well for 10-20 years until the historians get at him).
 Far better to be recorded that way then as unlucky and unable to jump out  SINCE HIS ENGINES WERE DISABLED!

Play that mission again and note the status of the colossus. It's engines were disabled. It couldn`t have leaped out if it had wanted to In those circumstances why not be remembered as a hero?

[Su-tehp]

Lol, in less than five minutes, me, Stunaep and Karajorma all said the same thing.

[BlackDove]

You know, the only thing is that...a leviathan/deimos can destroy a Sathanas if deployed/maneouvered correctly... the orion class destroyers were fitted well enough to demolish any kind of a "lucy" from their broad side...and then you can have a hecate jump in and turn on its 2 forward beam cannons making sure the lucy goes down...or a deimos for that matter...

20 years in the making for nothing...wow rear admiral koth bought it from the colossus, thats really something to spend 20 years on...instead they could have refitted everything with BFGreens and remove anything hostile on sight...hell, the hatshepsuts were probably enough to take a lucy head on...

Or...what about the GTD Hades? Why not make another one (or another 50, as it seemed the thing was built fairly quickly), it seems to be much MUCH more better than any colossus if fitted with BFGreens...

but no, the game needed a big big ship for the people who bought the game to gaze at...

but then again thats just my opinion...

...and facing it, the colossus wasn't the main or only one wrong thing about fs2, it was just another one in the series of mistakes...