[Snail]

Meh, I was expecting it to happen.

[Colonol Dekker]

Yeah i was a bit "NOOOOOOO!" but not as miffed as the start of WC2 when the tigers claw was taken out. Or in WC3 when the Behemoth (at the time humanities last ditch chance to survive) went down. FreeSpace is good but i like wing commander more for different reasons.

[terran_emperor]

Colony wars trilogy (well 1&2) and FreeSpace are my favourite Space sims...Now whether they are the best, i dont know. Its reletive. In terms of characterization, FS is pretty poor. In terms of Longevity, the simple fact that this forum existd for us to have this debate proves it's the best in that field. YAY FRED! <-Toast song reference

there are others i enjoy like star wars starfighter and Jedi starfighter...Hey, ive never owned a Nintendo system beyond a gameboy color or Gameboy Advanced, so i never played any of the X-Wing series

Even though ithey're not Space sims I also love Dropship: United Peace Force and Battle Engine Aquila. Like FS, they are great but little known games

--
The toast song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TahLg-KMrm4

[Colonol Dekker]

Dropship UPF that was fun. But too short. . A good first for the ps2. I'm a big fan of the x-wing series. Tie-Fighter and alliance especially. . But as stated for other games, because of the immersion. Sorry to keep of about this one factor, FreeSpace does have some, just not as much as others out there from years gone by.

[Rian]

I just want to add that all the complaints about the weakness of the Shivans (regarding the favorable odds for a single wing of GTVA craft against two or three wings of Shivans) can be addressed by playing on Insane.

It's really painful.

I know that all the veterans know this, of course.

[Colonol Dekker]

Far too well.

[terran_emperor]

Same here, I'm only still alive after stealing all the Spice on Arakis and gazing into the eye of harmony to gain a 13-incarnation life cycle

[Rodo]

I just want to add that all the complaints about the weakness of the Shivans (regarding the favorable odds for a single wing of GTVA craft against two or three wings of Shivans) can be addressed by playing on Insane.

It's really painful.

I know that all the veterans know this, of course.

yeah but the problem is that cap ships tend to destroy your fighter in a sec on that difficulty level (which is great) , and in most missions you are supposed to interact some way or another with this vessels so... mission pritty much ends at that point :S, well unleast for me, not that good piloting im afraid to say..

[Droid803]

I just want to add that all the complaints about the weakness of the Shivans (regarding the favorable odds for a single wing of GTVA craft against two or three wings of Shivans) can be addressed by playing on Insane.

It's really painful.

I know that all the veterans know this, of course.

Well, the AI cheats on insane. They have the player permanently locked in their targeting, so they never miss... :S

[colecampbell666]

Not if you swerve fast enough.

[Droid803]

Well, I don't want to go so spastic I snap joystick off or something... So I stay on easier difficulties.

[colecampbell666]

I mainly play on medium-hard.

[Rodo]

wasn't possible to modify the difficulty levelof individual models from the tables?? I read about that in some tutorial.. that should prove more effective than playing on insane, Sorry if that seems too basic, Im not that into modding yet.

[colecampbell666]

Change the AI class in FRED.

[Hades]

- Canon inconsistencies, mostly related with FS1. I refer to jump nodes that disappear in FS2 and such things.

Those jump nodes dissapeared in Freespace 1 IIRC.

[Jeff Vader]

- Canon inconsistencies, mostly related with FS1. I refer to jump nodes that disappear in FS2 and such things.

Those jump nodes dissapeared in Freespace 1 IIRC.

It was implied in FS1 that all the nodes to and from Sol were nullified (or destabilized) by the destruction of the Lucifer. And there were several of them, at least three. But in FS2, all they do is talk about the node leading to and from Sol. Specifically being located between Sol and Delta Serpentis. Just one. No more.

-> Inconsistency.

[Mobius]

It was implied in FS1 that all the nodes to and from Sol were nullified (or destabilized) by the destruction of the Lucifer. And there were several of them, at least three. But in FS2, all they do is talk about the node leading to and from Sol. Specifically being located between Sol and Delta Serpentis. Just one. No more.

-> Inconsistency.

That's not the only one. Check the Wiki, you can find MANY jump node inconsistencies.

To be honest FS is the first series with inconsistencies I've ever played.

I just want to add that all the complaints about the weakness of the Shivans (regarding the favorable odds for a single wing of GTVA craft against two or three wings of Shivans) can be addressed by playing on Insane.

It's really painful.

I know that all the veterans know this, of course.

Everything is hard at Insane and, more importantly, not overyone plays FS at that difficulty level. As result most people think of the Shivans as easy targets.

The Shivans use GTVA secondaries, that's another big problem. I had to wait for Inferno to see something reasonable.

Colony wars trilogy (well 1&2) and FreeSpace are my favourite Space sims...Now whether they are the best, i dont know. Its reletive. In terms of characterization, FS is pretty poor. In terms of Longevity, the simple fact that this forum existd for us to have this debate proves it's the best in that field. YAY FRED!

What do you mean by longevity? FS still has a florid community thanks to its moddability, not because people have been simply playing the main FS campaigns for years.

[terran_emperor]

Longevity = Well, Even after 10 years Since FS1 came out, people are still playing it or the port. and It is still attacting new players...I myself didnt start playing till 3 years ago.

The other stuff

Well, would we really be here if FRED hadnt been included with the game?

I mean you can only play through the main campaign of the game so many times before it gets boring...

If both FS1 + 2 had been just the mission that were designed by then they probally would have died after about a year  - think colony wars trilogy.

But including the mission editor that the guys at used to make the game added years on to it as we are not limited to just the core missions - we can design and make whole stories ourselfs

Also adding to the longevity factor is the reletive easiness of being able to edit or change the existing ships/music/weapon/etc

and finally the release of the Source Code to the FS community and the resulting SCP has added years to the game now that we can do at least 100 more things when making missions than we could before

[Mobius]

That's "Game" longevity, not "Missions" longevity.

There are many games that give players the possibility of creating stuff but these games oftentimes die like the others, it depends on the communities...in FS' case it was the community to achieve important objectives. The game helped but the community is the true responsible.

[terran_emperor]

Not the ones i played. Untill recently, i was limited to consols - you cant edit Colony Wars Trilogy, Battle Engine Aquilla, Dropship UPF or 90%of the rest of the games i own. The only 2 games that i own that were anythinh near editable were Worms and Worms Armageddon

That's "Game" longevity, not "Missions" longevity.

I never said mission longevity.