Tolya wrote:
Are you serious dude? Nexus follows the same antics that existed since X-Wing - with space ships having max speed and fighting at 100 meters from each other. And because they can rotate around all axes and have fancy exhausts on all sides, they respect Newtonian physics?
You likely won't believe me, but I still have a boxed copy of X-Wing (the CD-ROM version), as well as X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. I still remember how the manual of the former mentioned "following these tactics may help to keep your behind from being laser-roasted" and how the manual of the latter had screenshots that had (un)intentionally captured the text messages of the playtesters who talked about "All they are good at is running! And killing nav buoys!".
Perhaps I should have been more specific about Newtonian mechanics in
Nexus earlier.
Nexus is the first space-based fleet command game title to my knowledge that featured Newtonian mechanics built right into the spaceship/starship/fighter designs from the very start. I'm still a fan of Star Wars, but there comes a point after learning about Newtonian mechanics when I came to ask myself things like "Where are the maneuvering thrusters on the Nebulon-B medical frigate? Or on the
Home One Mon Calamari Cruiser? Or on the
Executor Super Star Destroyer?" This design aesthetic, coupled with its true 3D combat, is part of what made
Nexus unique to me. Furthermore, as I said earlier, virtually every other space-based fleet command game is played on an invisible flat plane or restricts the number of orientations ships can assume (try doing a loop-the-loop for capital ships in
Homeworld, or even in
Star Trek Online).
Nexus' break from this is another unique (and praise-worthy) feature to me.
Also, the "max speed" problem in
Nexus is something I explained already as something you can interpret as the "maximum combat velocity" for which ships of a given mass can decelerate and/or change vector in a timely fashion (it does no good to be going so fast you can't stop or move in the opposite direction in time, drag or not). The fact that starships/spaceships in
Nexus visibly emit thrust even when reaching maximum combat speed is really just the game devs throwing our terrestrial minds a bone--our Earth-bound eyes can't tell, in the absence of acceleration we can feel, that we're moving unless we see a background visibly moving, which the visibly continued thrust even at max velocity is supposed to substitute for. If this visual cue is enough of a problem, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult for the devs to include a "disable main engine thrust when maximum combat velocity is reached" checkbox in the options menu.
Tolya wrote:
Newtonian physics is bad news for quick-paced space shooters. Thats why no one uses them. I-War tried, with bad results. By the way, Nexus' combat system reminds me of dogfighting whales.
Nexus was never a quick-paced space shooter to begin with. And as for dogfighting whales, didn't "dogfighting" for aircraft get its name given how it resembled dogs trying to chase each other's tails? The ships in Nexus were never restricted to fixed axis weaponry or weaponry that could only fire forwards (virtually all the weaponry in
Nexus is mounted on turrets with a lot of traverse), so perhaps "whales in a strange dance" would have been more appropriate. I take it you don't like slower-paced space battles as whole either, like the one in "Resurrection Ship Part 2" in nBSG, then.
Tolya wrote:
Nexus 1 was a mess to control. There was no easy way of setting waypoints, and once you were in a dogfight, all that mattered was how much firepower could your ships pump out, or what special/heavy weapons you had. Formations? Pfft. Surprise element?
The Steam version had an electronic manual that outlined how to manually set your waypoints (you can pause the game when you were doing so, so no time pressure there) or how to make your ships move to a location not already set in the game. As for relying on superior firepower, most of the time your own ships were outnumbered and/or had less weaponry to bear than the opposition, so simply trying to shoot your way out without simultaneously tending your own ships' power levels/devices and/or good tactics would result in a "mission failed" message in short order. As for formations, they're not of much use when both you and the enemy can move freely around in space (as opposed to flat land or an ocean's surface) and bypass units trying to block line-of-sight to another (admittedly this was partly because ships weren't programmed to try to block enemy line-of-sight from ships they were tasked to defend, but even this would have been ineffective against small craft like fighters/gunships/bombers and missiles). And the element of surprise became much easier to use once your ship(s) got access to cloaking devices.
Tolya wrote:
But I guess everything that lets you point your guns at enemies manually is "tactical" for nerds. And that's the target audience for Nexus 2, which will still be a mediocre space game.
I played the first Counter-Strike for a while, and despite being designed as a tactical shooter, you wouldn't know that from the way the vast majority of players conduct themselves in the game now, what with all the grenade spam, bunny-hopping, and blindly rushing the opposition. It isn't just the tactics that the majority end up using, it's the number and manner of viable tactics the game makes possible that define it as tactical. Perhaps if you're having trouble with the unmodded campaign I could offer you some advice via private messaging.
Still, Nexus 2 currently remains the best platform for mods or licensed fleet command games focussing on space-based sci-fi franchises like nBSG or Warhammer 40k: Battlefleet Gothic. I for one would greatly appreciate the opportunity to see a "What if?" nBSG game that lets players command the Battlestar Pegasus and have it survive beyond the battle for New Caprica, or a tactical fleet command game that lets me command Battlefleet Gothic ships in true 3D that the tabletop game can't.
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