![]() The player doesn't just start with basic ship like the Tarsus of Privateer, he/she needs to pay off the loan they took to obtain that starting ship in the first place. Speaking of exploration, one thing that nearly screwed me over at the start was the financial aspect. Of course, that's the incentive to explore - I understand alien technology is not only more powerful than human tech, but is also more space efficient. There's plenty of customisation options, but the outfit space constraint often limits what you can do. General outfits include engine cooling, shield generators, energy generation and storage (for guns), etc. A given ship will have a limit on how much outfit space it can accommodate and within that general space there are also limitations specifically for engines (both thrust and steering) as well as specifically for weapons (guns and missiles). Endless Sky takes a slightly different approach with upgrades (or 'outfits' as it calls them) taking a set amount of tonnage or outfit space. In Privateer, ship upgrades fit directly into various slots/hard-points on a one-to-one basis. Unlike the Wing Commander universe, humanity is at the bottom of the technology tree. Like in Wing Commander, I understand the player has a role in shaping the outcome of that conflict, with reconciliation being at least one of the options. There's no major galactic conflict like the Terran-Kilrathi War going on, but the biggest - and so far, only - story campaign seems to be a civil war between the Free Worlds and Human Republic, similar to the Border Worlds crisis of WC4. And of course, there's the ubiquitous threat of pirate attack. The Human Republic is analogous to the Terran Confederation and the self-declared Free Worlds are analogous to the Border Worlds, but there is also the self-governing Syndicate corporation that runs a number of systems in association with but separate from the Republic. I believe there are more alien territories (multiple races/factions) with at least some locked behind story walls (I haven't ventured out that far yet). There are various factions - to begin with the player is pretty much limited to mostly human space although there is limited alien contact at the boundaries of human territory. It might be pretty hard to organise and run a fleet in 3D, although I suppose escort ships could just be programmed as allies that fly with you (with formations like in Freelancer). One aspect where 2D simplicity helps is with the player being able to capture and fly a whole fleet of ships rather than just an individual craft as with Privateers 1 and 2. While I think this kind of thing might be fantastic to play in 3D, the simplicity of the mechanics also means it's relatively easy to develop and expand (I believe it started as a one-man project). The immediate and most obvious difference is that it's 'only' a 2D game. It bills itself as inspired by the Escape Velocity series (which I'm not familiar with), but as with any space exploration and trading game it's easy to draw comparisons with our beloved Privateer. It's available directly from GitHub, Steam, and also commonly included in Linux distributions (albeit perhaps not kept up-to-date). A search through the forums didn't seem to show anyone else has mentioned it before, so I'm making a note of it here. It's a cross-platform FOSS game that apparently has been around since late 2015, so I wish I had found it sooner. Strip any good outfits, keep any ships you like, and sell the rest.Over the last week and a half I've been having a lot of fun playing Endless Sky. Once you have a good group you can take your whole fleet to a planet with a shipyard and an outfitter. Every once in a while I’ll land to park the ships I’ve captured. After I have a few ships captured I’ll move away from the group, select the surrounding ships, and send them off to a corner of the screen where they’re less likely to get targeted by hostiles. ![]() The only reason I use the Bactrian is because it has such a large crew. The fleet does all of the work while I just mop up the endless supply of disabled sparrows, hawks, furies, headhunters, and quicksilvers. I take off and immediately tell my fleet to hold position. I pick a dominated pirate world as a target and land. My current capture fleet consists of 1 Bactrian and 12 Beetles all fully armed with heavy lasers. ![]() After you build up a decent fleet you can somewhat automate your process. Outfit your ship and others in your group with lasers and it’ll be easier to stop your attack before you blow up the target. If you take missions to track down pirates (or marauders, but they’re usually tougher) the other ships around will help you disable the target but they won’t destroy it. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |