Originally posted by Ford Prefect
1. GET RID OF ENGINE GLOW! There is no air resistence in space, thus a ship only needs to fire its engines when it's accelerating. Every space game in the world makes this mistake.
Independence War or I-War 2 behave this way, similarly B5: IFH does too.
The thing is, they're all newtonian space sims. Not arcade space sims like FreeSpace or Wing Commander.
2. Travel in the Freespace games is too fast. When the action heats up, Command always has a destroyer up its sleeve that it can send from one place to another in a few minutes. It makes the universe seem way too small. Space travel should be a matter of days, at least. On a similar note, orders should come more often from the fleet's flag officers, rather than from Command. Communication with HQ shouldn't be that easy.
That's a design issue. Travel is that way because in-system subspace is practically instantaneous. (between systems can take hours, days, or even weeks)
"Command" is effectively a communications officer for your fleet feeding you the info from the fleet brass, etc. (an FS2 mission where you defend your fleet headquarters when evacuating really shows this)
Now I do agree with you on "combat escallation" happening a bit too much. The Shivans have a capship, we send in one, they send in some more, we send in bombers, etc.
Having capships doing their own missions, occasionally helping you and then you occasionally being given orders to leave your current area to help them would work the best. Something to help add to the feeling of a war machine in the system.
3. More of an inclusion of planetary warfare in the story's framework. I don't mean making it a part of the actual game experience, but just making the occurence of ground battles an important part of the picture. It would make the setting feel more complete. I definitely would not have made the Shivans a purely spaceborne species.
I do agree that planetary warfare should play a bigger role in the story when dealing with Terrans or Vasudans. FS2 has some mention of it in the first mission and in a multiplayer mission, those really make you feel like you're a cog in a larger operation when you hear about the ground assaults, etc.
The Shivans not caring about planets is something that adds to their mystery. However that doesn't remove the idea of incorporating things like disabling beam cannons that are bombarding cities, etc.
4. Fewer new ships. It seems logical that these big, ponderous, expensive warships would be designed to last a long time, undergoing periodic refits rather than getting fired every ten years.
FS is actually pretty good at this. You see lots of 30+ year old vessels being used in FS2 as well as some of the new ships, which are anywhere from brand new to 10 years old.
Fan mods though like going a little gung-ho on new ship designs though.
