Screen shots

[Alpha Kodiak]

To give you an idea of the chaos of battle, I took some screen shots of my Abbidon Battleship going up against a couple of different Xiati Carrier Groups. I was never able to fully show what was going on, but here are a couple of shots that might give a little of the feel.

BB vs CVBG 1.JPG

Note the two fighters, one damaged, in the upper right corner.

BB vs CVBG 2.JPG

In the second one, I wanted to get close to the fighters that were swarming around me, and when I shifted my right hand to hit the print screen key, I rammed one of them. That would be the fireball in front of me. With my forward shields down and forward armor already damaged, that was not a good idea. I died quickly thereafter.

[Suicide Junkie]

Here's a good one using a Version of my mod slightly altered to provide lots of combat opportunity and 2 million starting cash so you can survive it

Here, a pirate ship sucks down a volley of fire from yours truly, while battleships exchange fire in the background and way off in the distance you can (sort of) see a full scale war going on. At that distance, its mostly just sparkles at firey specks.
Reeling from impacts.gif

[Captain Kwok]

Geez, SJ, looks like you were running your computer hard to get that shot!

*Notes the pixelish ships and distorted background in the screenshot.

[Suicide Junkie]

Yeah, with 500 ships in system, you have to make sacrifices in order to save enough processor time for hit detection, movement, etc

I wanted big fleet battles, and figured the easiest was was to randomly place more and more until they spawned in a state of big fleet combat

Probably would have been better to make two leaders and a formation of 50 ships following each, but that would have taken more time to mod.

[ September 14, 2003, 19:10: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Phoenix-D]

500..yikes! Well, that's a leg up on the game I've been playing- EV Nova only allows for 64 at a time.

[Dante]

I pray that it's a tad bit better balanced than EV:N. 64 ships in the system usually mean "You're dead."

Sorry to hijack this thread, but what can be considered "normal" engagement size in Starfury?

I'm just curious, because EV:N's story missions tend to throw 5:1 odds at you. 25:1 if you're unlucky and they're launching fighters which are approximately as well armed as you are...

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, in my case, there was an even split between Terran and Pirate warships, and as you can see, I had a very beefy flagship. Everybody was distracted already, and I had enough shields and regenerators to take the occasional volley of missiles. (I altered my mod to give 2 million credits at level 1 tech)

In the normal Version of my mod, 1-on-1 battles are somewhat dangerous. If you get into a blind spot, you can possibly avoid armor damage.
Don't even bother trying to attack a battleship in your destroyer. Your only chance would be Hit and Run with a wave motion gun, or luring it into a minefield, perhaps.
Being faster, you can just avoid the conflict.

Depending on your skill and your use of terrain, you can overcome 2-1 or greater odds in a well-funded destroyer designed for combat.

If you're just trying to reach the safety of a starbase or TCN fleet, then you'll be able to survive against greater numbers.

Oh, and as for normal engagements...
The most common thing to see is solo patrols, or 3 ship squadrons.
Carriers tend to launch about 6-8 fighters in my mod, probably less in the stock campaign.
This can be increased easily.

[ September 14, 2003, 23:21: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Alpha Kodiak]

In the stock campaign the engagements vary as the game progresses. In the early game you may only run into a pirate fighter or two. That can give you a little trouble as you don't start out with the tech you need to hit fighters well. Then, you start running into Groups of one to three destroyers or cruisers. Until you've upgraded to a cruiser, you will run into a lot of fights where your best chance is to run, and try to find some friendly local muscle to help (or at least a nice juicy freighter to distract the pirates while you make good your getaway. Once you get a more potent ship you can start taking your revenge.

A lot of the mid-late game fights are you in a battleship or carrier against a carrier group consisting of a carrier, a couple cruisers or even a battleship, and four to six fighters. Those can turn into real furballs. Sometimes you'll wind up engaging one carrier group, and a second one will get involved.

The endgame involves battles that require utmost care almost all the time. The bad guys start using null-space projectors and other nasty toys that can chew you up real fast if you aren't extremely careful.

[Kamog]

Wow, those are beautiful, exciting-looking screen shots!!

[Captain Kwok]

Here is a screenshot I made before when I modified a Fighter to be my starting ship.

Wasp Fighter vs Battleship Tarantula

It turns out that I was more of a renegade attacking my own allies, and let me tell you I did not survive long once those ships came about.