Good thinking I like that. But the ships them selfs are not for battle, they are more like a colony ship, they have only light weapons.
That's kinda what I thought. Sort of like the 'Noah' project from 'STARFLIGHT' (an OLD game from the late 80s early 90s I think). It'll make losing one even more painful if you do it right (make the player FEEL that it's his friends and family on board those things). Do this not by telling him in a briefing "remember, it's our family out there" (it's campy, it doesn't work, and it'll get you ridiculed) but introduce various characters throughout various cutscenes and in mission. Make it seem that they interact with the player somehow. Make them memorable, make them identifiable, make them lovable (not in a soap-opera sense either), and above all, MAKE THEM DIE! When the ship they're on buys it, they go away, they're not seen anymore, they'll scream as their ship disintagrates, the player gets those telegrams that thier [insert relation here] has passed on, etc. If you do it right you'll not only upset the protagonist (the player) you'll also piss him off. You'll make him WANT to see every Shivan in the universe hunted down and shot right in between their compund eyes, he'll want to do it himself. If you can make the player feel loss from the destruction of these refugee ships he'll see them less as victory conditions and more as things that MUST be protected (fiddling with the emotions isn't just for novels and those terrible movies your girlfriend drags you to, we can do it too, and possibly to much greater effect since the player has more input into the outcome). It won't be easy to properly instill this into your campaign (too much, not enough, or the wrong approach and you come off sounding like a bad soap-opera), but the overall effect is well worth it.
They do have a battle ship that is the size of a sathna but that is all the bigger they can get with a warship.
ONLY as big as a Shathanas?!? I'm assuming they only have one left (the one our player is on?)...
[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 09-06-2001).]
