On the Fence

[PanzersEast]

I’m on the fence on this one..... dynamic campaign is very important to me (replay ability) and I’m not sure if it is here. I like to be able to roam around some and not be too restricted...... so I’m wondering if this is the game for me..... I’m interested, but riding the fence wondering. How large are sectors? Can you roam around and engage enemy targets? Are you restricted so a small area and have to complete the assign objective and in a certain amount of time? Commanding capital ships / fleets is very appealing.... Thanks for the feedback....

[Dragonlead]

There is the ability to roam. If you spend enough time in the single missions (even creating your own) you will gain rank. This allows you to start the very first campaign as an admiral in charge of the carrier. It tends to blow the plot lines a bit, but you can still win the campaign (you just do it your own way). The drawback is that the news reports and some message traffic are a bit off.
As for roaming to engage enemy targets, it is possible with capital ships, just realize that the enemy is a set number of units that DO NOT regenerate. Once you blow the tar out of the enemy carrier, any remaining fighters are presumed to come from a planet.
Some missions are timed, (but not in the campaign to the best of my knowledge). You can go as far as you want in a sector, but the speeds are slow, so if you want to actually travel from one planet to another, be prepared to spend a week of real time with your game at 4X speed.
Hope this helped.

V/R

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Dragonlead

Once you blow the tar out of the enemy carrier, any remaining fighters are presumed to come from a planet.

Even though airfields on planets have been destroyed (assuming there are any), there'll still be enemy fighters buzzing around. And most of said fighters happen to be on player's patrol route! I feel bit cheated by game...

You can go as far as you want in a sector, but the speeds are slow, so if you want to actually travel from one planet to another, be prepared to spend a week of real time with your game at 4X speed.

Is that actually possible? I mean travel conventionally (sublight speed) from one sector to another. Anyways I recommend use of stargates for fighters and quantum (jump) drive for starships.

[edit]
There's already thread regarding subject
tm.asp?m=1276776

[Dragonlead]

Matti,

What you said about the fighters is true. They are scripted that way. Reading the files from the campaign.ace off of the grouper site (thanks Zanthras) has been a real eye-opener. I'm not sure exactly where they are coming from in regards to a remaining base. Obviously, they were put in there to prevent very boring missions if things are done out of sequence, but from a logic perspective, it does kind of make you wonder.

As for the second point, I'm going to design a super fast cube with monster engines and acceleration and see if you really can do it. I know with creating missions it is possible to start off way outside the gridded map. We'll see.

V/R