Post
by PegasusJF31 » Tue, 27. Jan 04, 05:21
I apologize in advance for the length of this.
The core:
I give this my hearty support, because other than kicking ass. Cap ships serve no purpose that cannot already be easily be done with a number of corvettes and M3s.
Corvettes and M3 escorts can cover a sector against pirates/khaak and in some sectors Xenon (I've seen corvettes take on Khaak cluster single handedly, even before the bullet speed mod).
Assuming that you decide to attack a race, few non-xenon sectors have Cap ships, and those that do typically have only 1.
Now the tangents begin on how this could be accomplished:
My suggestion (in addition to Baddies) is to offer, either through scripting or the source code, is to offer the possibility of inter-species combat. We have to see the species using their fleet in order to see them other than just sector sentinels, have suggestions of fleet building, and even reconstruction of battle loses (like destroyed stations being replaced by TLs and destroyed capships being rebuilt at a shipyard(like in BCM, you see a skeleton of a station after it's wasted, we could see a skeleton of a ship docked at a shipyard)
I feel, that if Egosoft brought in a atmosphere of CONCENTRATED efforts of attack and defense (not sporatic clusters appearing and the few pirate ships attacking a startion which they will never even dent the shields) But hordes of Khaak, several clusters (at least when the player is advanced) Hordes of pirates (it has been done before, but limited to pirate stationed sectors) that not only devastated shipping but actually succeed in destroying stations. Hordes of Xenon (like in Thuks Abyss), that do more than pass through and predominately attack shipping, but seek to wreak havoc on the stations.
To counteract these hordes every station in the sector sending out ships to counteract an attack and even get reinforcements (even capships) from surrounding sectors. Have even ships belonging to your stations bringing reinforcements (have others defend you based on your noteriety and perhaps what you provide)
In X2 combat, especially with Capships, each sector has the feeling that they are in it's own little world and there is little notion of unified defense in each races' territory.
The key here is to give the illusion, outside scripted missions, that there is always conflict, destruction and rebuilding. Have the Split attempt to wipe out the boron home worlds, have them take out Teladi Gain and Ceo's Buckzoid in order to get access, have them try to invade the boron sectors beyond that. have the boron rush forces to Menelaus' Frontier to meet the threat, have the argon seek to help, and after the ashes settle, have the victor rebuild the sector to the victors desires and take control of the vanquished remaining factories (So it would be possible for Split owned Boron Factories). After that, have the boron and argon seek to either liberate their losses and/or seek revenge. If the boron lose, perhaps they could rebuilt in Argon space. Also as the player gets more advanced, have the races ask him for assistance, so he can use his strength and take an active role in shaping of the universe. Perhaps even create other NPC fleets to lend their strength to an empire.
One way to determine victory would perhaps an important base (like a trading post) would to whom a contested sector belongs to. If a base was to be the core objective. It would be best to make sure it's heavily defense not only by independent laser towers but even it's own weapons and heavily shielded to where it would take significant effort to destroy, and perhaps, to weaken it, it could be blockaded by destroying the traffic the station requires to operate it's defenses)
This all may require more ships to be in stations on both sides, perhaps even a station might come free with fighters when bought. And perhaps, one main flaw is the more ships would mean more load on the already overworked CPU. Well, things may be able to be scale things where a little can accomplish a lot by adjusting shield strength/recharge, weapon power etc.
I realize that this probably would require no small feat of programming to execute completely. But if this game could accomplish that, it will be miles ahead of what any other freelance/epic space game has acoomplished, not even Elite, Elite: FFE, Freelancer or the BattleCruiser series has accomplished this.
Well, my 2 cents
PegasusJF
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