I'm new here, you probably gathered that. And yes I bet you're sick to death of these noob threads aren't you? Sorry! Search didn’t' appear to be working too well. Hell, I even logged in and it kicked me off once. Anyways… questions about Startshatter! Any answers much appreciated.
1. I read it's using "real" physics… are we talking Elite 2 here? Or are we talking FreeSpace?
2. From the looks of things this is looking like a "combat only" game, no trading. Yes?
3. I'm also gathering you can fly capital class ships. Will you be flying them (Like X2) or telling them what to do? (Like Eve)
4. Weaponry, any details? More importantly, do we have beam lasers, ala FreeSpace 2?
5. Same for missiles, are they in it?
6. How many ships are we talking about in terms of A) Being able to fly and B) being able to kill?
7. Single player, multi-player or both?
8. I also read customisable keyboard layouts… is this FULLY customisable (FreeSpace 2) almost fully (FreeLancer) or virtually not at all? (X2)
9. When's it out in shops? (UK here!)
10. How much?
Thanks for the reply guys! I will hopefully see you…. Out there…
I'm new here, you probably gathered that. And yes I bet you're sick to death of these noob threads aren't you? Sorry! Search didn’t' appear to be working too well. Hell, I even logged in and it kicked me off once. Anyways… questions about Startshatter! Any answers much appreciated.
1. I read it's using "real" physics… are we talking Elite 2 here? Or are we talking FreeSpace?
Real as in newtonian physics, objects in motion stay in motion until acted upon by another force. And actually there are three flight physics models. The previouse, one like Elite and one like Freespace. Everyone has there choice..
2. From the looks of things this is looking like a "combat only" game, no trading. Yes?
correct. no trading/mining/gathering.
3. I'm also gathering you can fly capital class ships. Will you be flying them (Like X2) or telling them what to do? (Like Eve)
both
4. Weaponry, any details? More importantly, do we have beam lasers, ala FreeSpace 2?
There are lasers but not like the lasers in freespace that cut thru a ship.
5. Same for missiles, are they in it?
Fighters carry all sorts of missiles. Cap. ships carry torpedos.
6. How many ships are we talking about in terms of A) Being able to fly and B) being able to kill?
a) Alot, b)if its there u can kill it.
7. Single player, multi-player or both?
Both
8. I also read customisable keyboard layouts… is this FULLY customisable (FreeSpace 2) almost fully (FreeLancer) or virtually not at all? (X2)
fully. Every function can be changed.
9. When's it out in shops? (UK here!)
Unknown (soon thought). Ss just went gold in the US.
10. How much?
unknown.
Thanks for the reply guys! I will hopefully see you…. Out there…
"Real as in newtonian physics, objects in motion stay in motion until acted upon by another force. And actually there are three flight physics models. The previouse, one like Elite and one like Freespace. Everyone has there choice.. "
Hang on, the one you described IS the Elite 2 model. Elite 1 and FreeSpace are actually the same model. I don’t' see a third? So we have inertia then? I hope it's been done REALLY well then, cos Elite 2, which this sounds like, was appaling for space combat.
"There are lasers but not like the lasers in freespace that cut thru a ship."
Well, that only happened everynow and then anyway.
"Fighters carry all sorts of missiles. Cap. ships carry torpedos. "
Super.
"fully. Every function can be changed. "
Finally! Developers who don't assume that their layout is the best!
"By the way, welcome to Ss. "
Cheers. 8)
I just really hope that the physics aren't hard to play with. There's nothing more annoying than a space combat turning into a jousting session.
ORIGINAL: Lutz
"Real as in newtonian physics, objects in motion stay in motion until acted upon by another force. And actually there are three flight physics models. The previouse, one like Elite and one like Freespace. Everyone has there choice.. "
Hang on, the one you described IS the Elite 2 model. Elite 1 and FreeSpace are actually the same model. I don’t' see a third? So we have inertia then? I hope it's been done REALLY well then, cos Elite 2, which this sounds like, was appaling for space combat.
There are three different flight models in the game, ranging from realistic physics to Wing Commander-style flight. You can fly everywhere manually or auto-nav with cut scenes between points when not in combat. The realism, time commitment per mission and learning curve are really quite scalable in this title.
Ah! So there's all three in game?
VERY interesting indeed!
I've just clicked there is indeed 3 flight models used by games, although 1 is very rarely used.
TBH I've posted in the hope that it's something akin to FreeSpace 2. FreeLancer fell well short of that mark...
Okay. I'm a newbie too, but I've played the full version which I got at Origens 2 days ago and I'll try to answer your questions with my experience.
1. As far as real physics goes, there's two ways to "fly" your spacecraft, arcade and the more accurate physics mode. So far I've been playing on the arcade mode and it's exactly like the Wing Commander series. (I don't use a joystick, been doing my flying with the mouse and it's pretty much okay.)
2. Trading no, this isn't priveteer. The focus of this game is you are a member of the military and it's your journey up the ranks. The fun of the game is in the missions selection. You literially are playing in "game real time" and the missions you fly affects the course of the campain. If you choose certain ones that are flying at certain times, when you return the selection of missions will be totally different. You can't upgrade your fighter or anything because you're flying military issue stuff. Where that changes is when you get high enough to command capital ships and get to create and select missions for the pilots underneath you! (Really neat concept and fun to get into. You can select various weapon loadouts per what action you think the pilots are going to encounter, and because it's against a darn good AI you'd better plan well or your guys will come back shot up.) So you can customize that way.
3. Flying the capital ships is totally different from the fighters. I've only done a few missions where I was in command of capital ships, but they are modeled well. You feel you're in something big by their response to movements. They also have different options available to them that the fighters don't have. You can put your guns on auto, take command as needed, etc. This is the first space sim I've played where you get what I would call "smart options", where the choices make sense and are easy to get into and remember. Capital ship playing is a game within the game.
4,5. Weapontry... hmm. With the fighters you have lots of choices so far. You have certain long range missiles you can lock and fire off and forget, two versions of them so far. One that gets you a certain kill each time too, but you don't get many of them. Also sometimes you get dumbfire missles. Long as you press the right mouse button they fire off in mass. Cool taking out frieghters with a spread of those missles! As far as guns go, you get an energy laser, but it's not a continuous beam, more like a pulse laser. And you have to be smart about using them! You can bleed away your weapon energy fast if you're not careful, but it does come back and recharge fairly fast. Sometimes though, you can lose weapons in battle. You take too many hits and your guns will go offline, missles be shot away, etc.
6. Numbers of ships...Well, in the fighters missions you fly one of course, but I've had flights of 4 wingmen on occasion. Which do listen to your commands and act inteligently if you get jumped. On one occasion there were 5 of us mixing it up with about 6 enemy fighters, a destroyer captial ship and in the immediate vicinity were about 4 or more other vessels. Playing this on a p4 3 G machine with a radeon 9600SE card and 1 g of ram and it was still very smooth. No lag at all. You can even see the sunlight reflecting off of the sides of the ships, illuminating them. It's a very pretty game and firefights really are neat. Streams of pulse laser shots streaming off the capital ships, firing off missile decoys as missiles streak in at you as you're trying to work you way into gun range to take down the fighters... [&o] very cool.
7. Been playing only the single player, don't know about the multiplayer. It does have multiplayer capacity where you can start or join a multiplayer scenario if you wish.
8. You can change anything in this game, customize the controls to your hearts content. [:)]
9. Don't know but I bought mine from the Matrix guys at the Origens show, so I know it's available. Version 4.0 and it cost $40 there.
Impressions --- Very good game, lots of fun and replayablity so far. Bad points-- MANUAL is on the CD. And you will need to read it. For $40 it would have been so nice to at least have had a keyboard reference chart, but it is on the disk for those who want to print it out. (You can see it in the game too by going to options to check it out.) Another bad point which could be a good point is that this game is not a forgiving game so to speak. The AI is smart and they shoot straight. It is galling to take down 4 fighters, and then a frieghter with guns and on the way back to the carrier get involved in ANOTHER furball and die. [:@] Last bad point is sometimes I've had a few bugs crop up, not many, but this has a couple of rough edges yet. (honestly though, not a big problem, no game stoppers.) If anyone at matrix is reading this YOU NEED AN AUTOPILOT TO LAND ON PLANETS. It's much to easy to crash and that's simply not fun. Might be realistic, but frankly you can keep your realistic, it's fustrating too much to crash this much.
Good points -- Wow, you will be amazed at the graphics, best I've seen in a long time. Freelancer and X2 have nothing on this game. Involving game, gets you into it fast. So many games in this game. You can do the fighter thing, fly the stragetic approach with doing capital ships, there's atmosphere combat and even surface bombardments where you have to learn to fly again in atmosphere! I've played space games since Elite came out and this is going to be a classic. Every game has some rough spots, but this one has so many good things I can say about it that I think anyone playing it would enjoy it. (Hehe, and no, I don't work for matrix, this is a players review)
OK, so the flight physics sound OK. However I never played Wing Commander! Is that like X-Wing/Tie Fighter/FreeSpace? Although I'm a mouse man myself. Capital ships sounds really good though. From what I can gather in X2 there's no point. The damage engine also is sounding good. As for beams I've seen a few that looked like they were firing from capital ships… ?
That doesn't sound like a lot of ships in sector at once, but still, looking good. I'm on a P4 2.8 with a 9800pro and a gig of 400mhz ram, so I don't think slow down will be an issue here.
I'm not that fussed about trading TBH. I get enough of that in X2!
Graphics wise it's looking a good couple of steps below Freelancer and a LOT below X2 though…
Still, I'm more optomistic.
ORIGINAL: Bcasner
has a couple of rough edges yet. (honestly though, not a big problem, no game stoppers.) If anyone at matrix is reading this YOU NEED AN AUTOPILOT TO LAND ON PLANETS. It's much to easy to crash and that's simply not fun. Might be realistic, but frankly you can keep your realistic, it's fustrating too much to crash this much.
Noted, thanks for that feedback.
Good points -- Wow, you will be amazed at the graphics, best I've seen in a long time. Freelancer and X2 have nothing on this game. Involving game, gets you into it fast. So many games in this game. You can do the fighter thing, fly the stragetic approach with doing capital ships, there's atmosphere combat and even surface bombardments where you have to learn to fly again in atmosphere! I've played space games since Elite came out and this is going to be a classic. Every game has some rough spots, but this one has so many good things I can say about it that I think anyone playing it would enjoy it. (Hehe, and no, I don't work for matrix, this is a players review)
Really glad to hear you're having a good time with it. Thanks for your purchase and recommendation!
Seriously though, in many ways the concept of "fighters" and especially "dog-fighting" arn't actually all that well suited to realistic physics, and if you try to combine the two you tend to get the "boom and zoom" tactic being the only thing that'll work. By introducing the concept of a "speed beyond which your engines work far less efficiently", you limit the effectiveness of that tactic, and encourage people to actually dogfight. In truely realistic physics what matters are acceleration and time - If I can out accelerate you, I can catch you, though it make take me too long before you've achieved your goal. If the accelerations are too high (to deal with the distances involved), then I'm not going to be able to dogfight - not because the ships can't necessarily, but because I can't react fast enough to keep myself orbiting around the opponent, so it turns into boom and zoom "jousting".
Personally I'm much more caught up on the principle of cap-ship fights, where you don't really "dog-fight" - many consider it to be more akin to sea-combat, though in 3d rather than 2. We shall see (I will when it comes out here in the uk).
--
"I've never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like.."
ORIGINAL: Lutz
OK, so the flight physics sound OK. However I never played Wing Commander! Is that like X-Wing/Tie Fighter/FreeSpace? Although I'm a mouse man myself. Capital ships sounds really good though. From what I can gather in X2 there's no point. The damage engine also is sounding good. As for beams I've seen a few that looked like they were firing from capital ships… ?
It's probably fair to think X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter as far as that part of the flight model.
That doesn't sound like a lot of ships in sector at once, but still, looking good. I'm on a P4 2.8 with a 9800pro and a gig of 400mhz ram, so I don't think slow down will be an issue here.
Wow, it doesn't need nearly that much horsepower - no need to worry about any performance hiccups with that kind of setup.
Graphics wise it's looking a good couple of steps below Freelancer and a LOT below X2 though…
Still, I'm more optomistic.
When you're in there, the graphics are very sweet and they run on older machines (even with software rendering for folks who really have an old rig) - the effects, motion and other specials are very nice eye candy wise. Also, make sure to look at Damocles' B5 ships for an example of what else the engine can do. [8D]
Darn! I never played X-Wing vs Tie Fighter either! Heh, no worries guys, it sounds like it's good. I'll find out tonight (Maybe Wednesday) when I D/L the demo.
Yeah, I got that set-up for X2. Friggin system hog that game is.
Gotta agree with you on that score. If you take out the bumpmapping on X2 I'd say FreeSpace 2 looked better, and that's a game of a similar spec requirement.
I just really hope that the physics aren't hard to play with. There's nothing more annoying than a space combat turning into a jousting session.
There is maximum limit for velocity, so you are not going 100 000 kilometers per second like in Frontier (Elite 2). Fighters and starships can be controlled much like Descent's combat craft. Fighters and missiles are oversized so seeing and hitting is easier.
If you want know more, download demo and play
ORIGINAL: Bcasner
As far as guns go, you get an energy laser, but it's not a continuous beam, more like a pulse laser.
There is no Frontier style pulse laser. Only starships have laser cannons and they are continuous beam lasers. Fighters have bolt type weapons. Probably some super heated fuel.
ORIGINAL: Bcasner
Well, in the fighters missions you fly one of course, but I've had flights of 4 wingmen on occasion.
Did you say 4 wingmen? In demo there is player with just 3 wingmen max. Or did you count yourself as wingman?
ORIGINAL: Bcasner
You can even see the sunlight reflecting off of the sides of the ships, illuminating them.
I believe this was in as early game as Frontier.
ORIGINAL: Bcasner
disk
Disk = 1,4 megabyte data storage device.
CD = Compact Disc
ORIGINAL: Lutz
However I never played Wing Commander! Is that like X-Wing/Tie Fighter/FreeSpace?
Yes. Flight physics are very similar or identical.
ORIGINAL: Lutz
That doesn't sound like a lot of ships in sector at once
There are many sectors in starsystem. Don't expect every starship to be in 1 sector only. This isn't about mighty empires with hundreds of starsystems and unlimited resources anyway.
ORIGINAL: Lutz
I'm on a P4 2.8 with a 9800pro and a gig of 400mhz ram, so I don't think slow down will be an issue here.
I envy you! I have K6-2 400 MHz with 64 MB RAM! Game is still playable (3.9) in fighter duels. During missile runs against destroyer group it gets jumpy, but I can still keep control.
You know what they say, don't you? About how us MechWarriors are the modern knights, how warfare has become civilized now that we have to abide by conventions and rules of war. Don't believe it.
Excellent, the flight engine is the most important thing here I think.
I d/l'ed the demo last night (Along with Far Cry) so I'll give it a playing through tonight.
This is the best newtonic implementation Ive fought in so far. Im not a big fan of newtonic physics as they suck for dogfighting but the job is done well here. You have a velocity limmit where your accelleration is less then below it. The limit is the velocity of the engine "jet stream". So basicly your engines get less and less effective the faster you go. To this there is the ability to have your manouvering thrusters compensating your stickmovement. You accel to say 800m/s cut throttle and ofcourse you keep going but if you have the manouvering thrusters on then as you turn your ship they will adjust your vector. This option is possible to turn off by pressing the "M" key.
Anyways this game gives for fantastic combat. You have the feeling of flying a space ship since you reach high speeds but still you can dogfight very well and do really nice circle-, barrell roll and other manouvers.
Only thing bringing it down is that if your aim is decent you can dog fight at quite large distances so you rarely get into "in your face" situations. This isnt bad for realism but its bad for adrenaline pumpin.
Still Jumpgate has the best physics engine for adrenaline pumpin space combat action.
But Starshatter has the best realistic physics engine.
But Starshatter has the best realistic physics engine.
You probably say that only becouse you don't know any better. There are better and I can name Frontier, First Encounters and Warhead. Not sure about I-War and I've Found Her becouse I haven't played those.
You know what they say, don't you? About how us MechWarriors are the modern knights, how warfare has become civilized now that we have to abide by conventions and rules of war. Don't believe it.
You probably say that only becouse you don't know any better. There are better and I can name Frontier, First Encounters and Warhead. Not sure about I-War and I've Found Her becouse I haven't played those.
Ah, snobbery. [:'(]
@TheDeadlyShoe> Unless, say, you could make black holes at will.
@Razeam> I can do that but I don't want to.
But Starshatter has the best realistic physics engine.
You probably say that only becouse you don't know any better. There are better and I can name Frontier, First Encounters and Warhead. Not sure about I-War and I've Found Her becouse I haven't played those.
Hey man seriously.
Your arrogance is starting to piss me off. I dont mind if you agree or not with me but dont lecture me about "knowing better".
I dont agree that Frontier has a better physics engine for combat. The other two I have not played so I cant say.
I-War2 has a fantastic engine but I still actually like this one better as the ships feel lighter. I like light and nimble ships. Also I-War2 isnt as realistic physics wise, but as I said I do love it.
I found her goes in the same category as frontier does. Newtonic physics arnt very well suited for combat. Actually newton makes combat suck. You need some kind of velocity restriction (that isnt a speed clipp). This is in my opinion what SS does so well.
I respect that you have other opinions but if you have so say what they are and why. In the meantime while you try to figure that out you can take your arrogance and shove it.
Ya know what makes this game beautiful, it's got a different flight model for each and every one of our likes and or dislikes whatever the case may be. I really enjoyed Freelancer, Tachyon the Fringe, X2 The Threat as well as Wing Commander. It's got it all and that is what makes it such a universally accessible game.
Ya know what makes this game beautiful, it's got a different flight model for each and every one of our likes and or dislikes whatever the case may be. I really enjoyed Freelancer, Tachyon the Fringe, X2 The Threat as well as Wing Commander. It's got it all and that is what makes it such a universally accessible game.
Is that like X-Wing/Tie Fighter/FreeSpace? Although I'm a mouse man myself. Capital ships sounds really good though. From what I can gather in X2 there's no point. The damage engine also is sounding good. As for beams I've seen a few that looked like they were firing from capital ships… ?