[LeGuille]

I -can- see where a mission with a bunch of random explosions and stuff seems really neat, and all -- but to be honest, unless it's a cinematic where the player is AI locked  to do waypoints, The number of ships have to be coordinated all together, and the more ships you have the more co-ordination.

Combat missions usually involve sparse fights, and a realistic armada would not be clashing heads with a huge fleet. If you are doing a mission with a massive train of ships (i.e. Battlestar Galactica and the many ships that are about) would be better to do a Hi-res rendition of the armada majority, and make it a part of the background. Or if you actually did it, you'd have to make sure all the ships are constanttly acting independently to make sure they don't collide.

[Admiral Edivad]

Yes. But that doesn't mean you should do that. If you're over 400 ships in a single mission you've probably gone way past the point of having a good working mission.

I know... at the beginning I was severely affected by the BoE syndrome... than with all the graphics improvements and my laptop getting old I calmed down a bit...

you'd have to make sure all the ships are constanttly acting independently to make sure they don't collide.

 
and that becomes terribly chaotic.
but the effect in a cutscene (or even in the game) is way better than that of a static background.

[LeGuille]

Yes. but did do this to save on memory, when they had the Shivan 'march on Capella' thing happen. You kept seeing more and more and more and more every mission. Now, I will admit that seeing them during a cutscene is cool, but to pull it off the best way, you need some really neato choreography.

[Excalibur]

Well, the Shivans weren't going to be stopped, so it didn't matter about the background, however, perhaps another armarda could be stopped, in which case, it might need to be in the mission for better effect.

Do we have animated backgrounds yet? (So you could have an ani of the armarda fighting in the background)

[dragonsniper]

Do we have animated backgrounds yet? (So you could have an ani of the armarda fighting in the background)

I wish (But honestly, that would be pretty cool.)