[NGTM-1R]

You're right, it's not explicitly stated in the text.

So then why are you calling it strong? It's not. Indeed, thinking on the clues, they're all also strong only in the sense they're strongly ambiguous. It would tie the story together thematically very well if your ideas were true, but they really don't have to be true. The ambiguity means that both interpretations are equally valid. Welcome to criticism.

Or I suppose we could go for the idea the Shivan Comm Nodes were actually really important since they centerpieced one of the more fondly remembered missions involving the game so obviously they must have special significance, but that's not provable either.

[AdmiralRalwood]

We don't know that the Shivans used the Sathanas class to cause the nebula supernova, or for that matter that the Ancients whose messages were left behind in Altair would have any knowledge of what happened to the system in the first place.

[Phantom Hoover]

So then why are you calling it strong? It's not. Indeed, thinking on the clues, they're all also strong only in the sense they're strongly ambiguous. It would tie the story together thematically very well if your ideas were true, but they really don't have to be true. The ambiguity means that both interpretations are equally valid. Welcome to criticism.

if you go back and read the actual context you'll note that i was replying to someone asking for textual evidence that the ancients would have met a sathanas

[manwiththemachinegun]

It's strongly implied that the nebula in FS2 was an Ancient system that met with the same fate as Capella.

By the fans.

In terms of the actual game there's no time or space to connect the two events because it kind of ends.

It's implied simply because you're told the nebula was created via supernova, and it happens to contain an ancient subspace gate as well.

2 + 2 /= 5

Freespace 2 is like Dark Souls in that you have to put the pieces together, because there isn't terribly a lot of time due to how bad the situation is.

[General Battuta]

The game screams at you that the nebula was created by the Shivans.

At 1540 hours, the GTD Aquitaine entered the subspace portal in Gamma Draconis and jumped to our current position. We have entered a nebula, a vast and dense ionized field, and possibly the remnant of a supernova. We have travelled farther than any Terrans in the history of subspace travel.

First briefing you get when you're through the portal. It's a supernova remnant, the game climaxes in a supernova, the text is yelling.

[manwiththemachinegun]

To weigh in on the cap ship debate, I think leaving things as is in the game is fine. There's nothing to be said that the music, special effects, and IMPACT of capital ship lasers couldn't be upgraded.

There are only two capship fights in FS1 anyway between an Orion and a Shivan vessel. It's not a big deal.

[CT27]

Since people have said the in-game text lies to you about the Avenger vs. Prometheus, I think if there's ever a 're-do' of FS1 like this, Prometheus stats (shield damage, maybe range, etc.) should be buffed so it actually is better than the Avenger.

It's not that it says the Prometheus has better shield damage it's that it says it does more damage in general, both shield and hull, and the banshee claims to do more than the Prometheus.

Frankly, it would be kind of dull if each new weapon was straight up better than the last as the descriptors for each suggest.

People in this forum though have said the Avenger is actually better than the Prometheus and there's virtually no reason to take the Prometheus.  Shouldn't the Prometheus have at least one advantage over the Avenger?

[Goober5000]

If you fire only a single shot, the Prometheus is better.  There's almost no situation in FS where that would be helpful though.

[FrikgFeek]

Against shields the difference is laughable. A single Prometheus shot will do 0.4 extra damage compared to a single Avenger shot so it doesn't even make for a good alpha weapon against highly shielded Shivans.  And even then it's not strictly better as it still has less range and slower shots that are easier to dodge.

[Spoon]

But the avenger has a ****ty weapon sound

[AtomicClucker]

Hands down, make the Avenger sound a little more iconic.

I sadly remember it for sounding more like a silenced weed whacker than a gun.

Other things? Hard to say, as FS1 is in a vastly different era than FS2. Though I'd like to see a slightly higher RoF from the capships, in the FS1, nearly everything sucked in one way or another 'cept the Herc, a pile of Interceptors, and our ever so smart AI wingmen to die to a misplaced missile XP

[CT27]

What should be changed about the Prometheus to make it better?

[General Battuta]

Make it work like the Prom S.

[Trivial Psychic]

You want to change-up cap-ship weapons?  Make some salvo-fire variants of the traditional weapons.

[General Battuta]

You want to change-up cap-ship weapons?  Make some salvo-fire variants of the traditional weapons.

That would own.

[Phantom Hoover]

Yeah, I think the best thing for FS1 capship weapons is just to have bigger, harder-hitting laser bolts firing from all those massive turrets.

[Kestrellius]

Honestly: FS1 probably needs the ST:R treatment. New voice acting, primarily, but also lots and lots of gameplay and mission changes.

On the topic of the Avenger/Prometheus: the Avenger is a projectile weapon, right? Probably a railgun (it makes more sense, since it drains energy, and it would be easier to fit into a fighter because you don't need to carry propellant). The existing effects feel all wrong for that to me -- they're just small blob rounds with a weak sound. I'd take the kinetic weapon idea and run with it -- give the thing an ammo count, and very little shield damage, but a medium amount of shield-piercing damage. For effects, I'd go with cylindrical glowing bolts, rounded on the ends. (A lot like Prom-S bolts, but a bit narrower and with parallel edges instead of being oblong.) Then, a brief, tense metallic effect for the sound -- something a bit similar to the blob turret firing sound, actually. Maybe even make it fire in bursts?

The idea is that this is an early, hacked-together anti-Shivan weapon that's fairly crap, but gives you something to fight them with, and it's immediately replaced with the more reliable, easier-to-use Prom when that rolls around. Although admittedly, that's a bit at odds with the Avenger's backstory as a weapon developed for the V-T War and modified for anti-shield work at the last minute.

[Trivial Psychic]

If you're gonna make the Avenger look more like a projectile weapon, how about having tracer rounds included in the stream?  I believe there's a flag for that.

[General Battuta]

Isn't the stream already 100% tracer?

[Kestrellius]

What exactly does "stream" mean? The stream of bolts?