How does this compare with EV:Nova?

[st.patrik]

I have recently stumbled upon Starfury on Shrapnel's website and it sounds very similar to another game I enjoyed playing (or rather another series of games) - Escape Velocity: Nova by Ambrosia Software.

Has anyone here played both? If so could you tell me what's different between the two? Is Starfury better in certain ways? Worse in certain ways? Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks

st.patrik

[Phoenix-D]

Starfury has much better combat, and better in general ship design. It also has a normal registration system (EV:N requires you to re-approve your registration code with Ambrosia if you reinstall after a certain length of time), and no cheating humor ships running around.

If you're running Windows, Starfury is moddable, EV:N is not, though that may change soon. EV:N lets you capture ships and have escorts, Starfury doesn't.

EV:N has a better trading system, the missions are equal- though EV:N has no difficult levels and the missions are MUCH harder.

I get better performance out of Starfury, though your milage may vary there. EV:N for windows has a few port-related problems with the text being small and sometimes cut off.

Overall I'd say the win goes to Starfury, mainly because MM tends to add things in patches (cloaking is planned), and EV:N has a couple of features that REALLY annoy me.

[Antra]

Apples and oranges. I've been playing Escape Velocity since it came out in what, 96? 97? Starfury is a good game, the EV series is made up of good games. Download the demo and judge for yourself :-).

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Starfury has much better combat, and better in general ship design. It also has a normal registration system (EV:N requires you to re-approve your registration code with Ambrosia if you reinstall after a certain length of time), and no cheating humor ships running around.

If you're running Windows, Starfury is moddable, EV:N is not, though that may change soon. EV:N lets you capture ships and have escorts, Starfury doesn't.

EV:N has a better trading system, the missions are equal- though EV:N has no difficult levels and the missions are MUCH harder.

I get better performance out of Starfury, though your milage may vary there. EV:N for windows has a few port-related problems with the text being small and sometimes cut off.

Overall I'd say the win goes to Starfury, mainly because MM tends to add things in patches (cloaking is planned), and EV:N has a couple of features that REALLY annoy me.

do the games play much the same? It sounds like this might be the case, since the differences you mentioned are more detail-oriented.

Why do you say Starfury has better combat and ship design? How is it different from EV Nova?

Thanks for the replies so far

[Wardad]

I play Starfury. It plays like a first person shooter (or piloted shooter).

I saw my son play EV Nova. You have a birds eye view and move your ship around like your playing Asteroids.

[PvK]

I'd agree that they're both good games. Similar in some ways, but different in others.

Combat is quite different. Escape Velocity combat is pretty clearly Asteroids-esque (though quite deluxe Asteroids-esque) action-oriented, with some tactics necessary, and varied play from different ship and equipment types, but definitely a "reflexes required" affair. Starfury is also pretty arcade-like, but less so - more of a "thinking man's action game" (the old Epyx Last gasp slogan). In Starfury there is a rather detailed damage model. There is also no inertia in the movement, and no manual aiming of weapons, so the skills required are interface skills and some thinking rather than EV's piloting skills and some thinking. Also in EV, although you can accidentally fly into a barrage of weapon fire, it thankfully doesn't let you accidentally crash into planets or other ships. In Starfury, not only can you crash into everything, but the 3D view makes it relatively easy to do while looking the wrong direction, or just from not noticing a satellite while zoomed out. Which is better (or not) is a matter of personal taste, but they are quite different in the gameplay of piloting and fighting.

Ship design in Starfury has the potential to be more detailed and interesting than in EV, because of more details of hit location/direction, energy system, and probably modding (to be fair though, I haven't tried any EV mods, nor do I know what can be modded in EV). However I think EV has some of its own advantages in that department, perhaps thanks to EV having a long development history. In EV the ship systems abilities are I think much more refined in terms of balance and interesting trade-offs, than unmodded Starfury. Not to mention more interesting and well-developed racial technologies in EV. SF modders have (or at least Suicide Junkie has AFAIK) already made large improvements in the balance and interestingness department, though.

I think that similarly, EV's campaign scenarios and universe background seem a lot more detailed and well-crafted than in Starfury. The trading system is also currently better in EV, but Starfury is just getting off the ground, and Malfador and the modders will probably catch up a lot (EV:Nova has a huge head start).

Although I've only played a few games of EV:Nova (quitting and starting over when I died, so not entire run-throughs), my impression was that the game universe mechanics were more sophisticated (again, SF may grow into something more sophisticated over time). Specifically, in EV, the non-player ships really seem to be doing things that make sense - coming and going to ports, warring and pirating and so on - more convincingly than in SF. And, in EV, world events seem to go on without you, and independent of what your equipment and wealth are like. SF bases difficulty and enemy equipment on your own equipment to achieve balance (though maybe EV does too and I just didn't realize it).

Anyway, as usual, try both demos and see how they fit your own tastes.

PvK

[Phoenix-D]

Originally posted by st.patrik:
do the games play much the same? It sounds like this might be the case, since the differences you mentioned are more detail-oriented.

Why do you say Starfury has better combat and ship design? How is it different from EV Nova?

Thanks for the replies so far

They play similarly enough, but the differences are pretty big. My biggest beef with EV:N's combat, is you can fire off the screen but can't target off-screen without scrolling through everything on the map.

The ship design in EV:N consists of "You have X tonnage, Y weapon points and Z turrets. Fill as you will" with upgrades tossed in. Starfury's is quite a bit more detailed, and where you place components actually matters for internal damage (EV:N has no internal damage- you get to 10% HP and are disabled, end of story)

EV:N does have pirates that act like pirates, though. They disable you, then loot you and leave you.

[Din Ahmed]

I'd like to add that after trying the EV:Nova demo recently (thanks St. Patrik), I am impressed with the Tutorial where an old Captain guided you in the ways of the 'trade'. It never crossed my mind until I had to restart my Starfury game after a fresh install recently since I forgot to backup the savegames...

Starfury didn't have that. Infact the starting was just some officer telling me (First Campaign) to get 50,000 credits through Merchant missions in some other system . And there are some really interesting random (methinks) batles that play out without you causing it plus the sight of the fleets clashing was really cool in EV:Nova.

On the downside I have trouble with the inertia controls for EV:Nova, and there are no pilot Stats/Levels. I think the Pilot name you create at the start of the game is only for savegame naming purposes. Pretty much all of the roleplaying happens in the text whereas Starfury has actual character stats and levels. Starfury also has better ship modifications I think and you can customize the ships better. I preffer the combat in Starfury but I don't like the auto-difficulty thing (where when you get better ships, so do the enemies ).

Also the trading seems more a little more normal versus Starfury's Mechant missions (although I understand Aaron's reasons; not having to create mini economy for each outPosts saves a lot effort/attention that can be diverted elsewhere). I think that EV:Nova has some form of either dynamic economy or random effects that look like dynamic economy; where prices change depending on quantity of goods. At least I've had events that say certain prices change due to over supply of certain goods.

Also the navigation system rocks. Simply activating the map, and then click on the system to jump and hitting a button for the jump is wonderfully painless. In Starfury, I haven't been able to select anything in the map mode so I have to manually align the ship and simply wait out the travel (with time accell of course).

A few other niggles here and there but the Starfury has the graphics hands down; and EV:Nova feels odd with the 'standard window popups' at the title screen during saving and loading compared to the nice title screen. It sure feels ported thats for sure. I'm guessing that it was handled differently on the Mac since it was kinda jarring.

#Okay. I think that was long enough for complaining... I guess I'll play both but at the start of the games . I think that EV:Nova is more approachable whereas Starfury requires players to put more effort initially. Also the EV:Nova includes the manual with the demo/shareware and that helps incredibly.

[ November 29, 2003, 12:45: Message edited by: Din Ahmed ]

[Krsqk]

Pretty much all of the roleplaying happens in the text

This, to me, sums it all up. The quality of the RP experience in EVN is all-dependent on the language skills of the author. The stock storylines (I did enjoy having six major storylines to choose from/encounter plus eight or ten minor ones) are well-written--you teeter on the edge of insanity with Ory'hara or struggle with betraying the Rebels as a Vell-os. (To be fair, the Pirate storyline was a little harder to get into for me--possibly because I hadn't read the Pirate preamble section yet.) It's more like reading a story--more interactive than the "choose-your-own-adventure" types, since both your choices and how well you act them out affect the story. Most of the mods I've seen, including the highly rated Unity mods, were lacking--I couldn't become immersed in them, so I modded a super Version of the Polaron Multi-torp (100 submunitions @ 360 degrees ) and went around taking my frustrations out on the Feds.

Modding is the second area where I was frustrated, even with a perpetually open copy of the modding guide. The resources are incredibly interconnected, but connected resources aren't stored in any predictable manner. It took me ages to remember that outfit and weapon definitions were in Data 4.rez, while their descriptions were in Data 3.rez and their pictures were in Graphics 1.rez. All of these had to be opened to mod any given outfit--either for direct replacement or simply to consult the original settings before making my changes to a plugin, which was loaded in the fourth loaded instance of EVNEW. :roll: I thought SF files were a pain; these were a dozen times worse.

Both games are enjoyable, but they appeal to a different side. If I want to forge my own path, I play SF. If I want to become an actor in someone else's drama, I fire up EVN. IMO, both are worth the money.

[Din Ahmed]

I second that. The writting in EV:Nova is one of the best (probabily the best in this type of games...)

But I can't stand the combat. I keep dying and intertia controlls take a lot of practice... to get competent. Saving & loading is a nuisance.

I wish there was a way of combining the writting from EV:Nova with the Combat/Customisation from Starfury... Also, I preffer the tradding in EV:Nova but the story is why I play it...

I'm not a modder so I don't really understand the benefits of either system though quick search reveals a gazilion on plugins (mods?) for EV:Nova. This could probably due to it deing out longer especially on the Mac.

And I'm having problems getting mods to work on Starfury too. I downloaded the mod for adding a Startrek ship (forgot name) but It doesn't seem to show...

I'm downloading the Battlestar Gallactica mod since my first Campaign is stuck. (I just created another post about it).