Star Fury Question, Ask Away

[Instar]

Originally posted by deccan:
1) What is the quality of the 3-d engine? How does it compare to top-of-the-line 3-d games?

2) How much control do you have over individual ships? Do you have multiple turrets per ship? Can you shoot at multiple targets at the same time? Is there damage control and repair like in Starfleet Command?

3) How big are space battles? Can you have allied ships? Can you be part of a fleet action?

1) This obviously is not Doom3 or HL2, as its only one guy doing all the coding. Nothing overly dramatic about the graphics, pretty decent textures, I haven't ever seen anything that looked horrible, but nothing is super extreme outstanding. Of course, the game is to run on a P3 500 or so, so it really cannot hold a candle to Doom3 (I am ever so eagerly waiting for it... but I worry, will my P4 handle it?)

[Suicide Junkie]

2) Each component takes damage separately, and you must prioritize which will be worked on first. Abilities of each component get degraded due to damage, and etc.
You have 4 weapon Groups for mass firing of guns, and the number of turrets completely depends on the layout of the ship. Stock ships have between 2 and 6 firing points, but there is no real limit on how many you can put on your own model. 255 perhaps, or 64k maybe.

3) Man, I just missed taking a screenshot of this beautiful assault... I was hunting pirates with a TCN battlegroup, and as we rounded the Star, a lone pirate destroyer was sitting there... Three capital ships plus me, and 7 fighters just hammered it from all sides. The beams and bolts and missiles and fire and explosions! Quite impressive light show, but the poor pirate didn't Last long and within seconds he was vapor.

Previously, I saw a fairly evenly matched battle going on between a TCN battlegroup and a larger number of Pirate ships (smaller hulls). 3 on 5 plus fighters, IIRC.
I went in to help out with my early-game destroyer, and managed to take down two Pirate fighters and pump a few rounds of DUC into Pirate shields while the big boys slugged it out. Drew some healthy amounts of fire away from the TCN ships, too. Eventually my shields started giving out, and my armor was getting quite thin, so I had to retreat. Got pegged by a pair of Pirate missiles in the back, halfway to safety. Didn't quite make it

You could always mod bigger fleets in though. It would be a lot tougher on the Player, but if you're up to the challenge, it can be done.

[ September 09, 2003, 00:36: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[deccan]

Is there any multiplayer capability in the game?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

wuzza TCN battlegroup

[Rollo]

Originally posted by deccan:
Is there any multiplayer capability in the game?

no

[Rollo]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
wuzza TCN battlegroup

TCN = Terran Confederation Navy

[gregebowman]

What I want to know most about is how is the interface? Will there be a lot of buttons to press just to fly your ship, or some sort of simplified commands? I'm not a big fan of flight simulators, so I don't want to spend my whole time trying to learn to fly the ship.

[Rollo]

The ships are very easy to fly using the mouse and some hotkeys (which you can customize, of course).

Rollo

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by deccan:
2) How much control do you have over individual ships? Do you have multiple turrets per ship? Can you shoot at multiple targets at the same time? Is there damage control and repair like in Starfleet Command?

3) How big are space battles? Can you have allied ships? Can you be part of a fleet action?

2: You control your ship directly, and specify orders for your fighters to follow. You do not have the opportunity to control any other ships. You pretty much have to target one thing at a time, except that point defense will autofire on any inbound missiles or enemy fighters without you targetting them. You get a basic repair ability that improves with experience, and there are repair bays to increase repair rate. There are also single use items you can carry in cargo for emergency repair of shields, armor and hull.

3: As SJ alluded to, one of the things you can do is to look for a friendly fleet beating up on some bad guys and try to slip in for a kill or two for experience. You can also look for the aftermath of battles to scavenge equipment for your own use or to sell. One of the things that I look for when entering a new system is for the light show of a fleet battle off in the distance. Frequently, you can see the weapon effects before you can see the ships themselves. Of course, when you've worked your way up to a battleship, you can cause quite a light show yourself.

[General Woundwort]

How easy is it to "mod" new systems and sectors?