Topic: SFC3 Ship customization vs SFC2 mega-variants?

[Whiplash]

Anyone want to continue this debate in the new forum?

We were getting a lot of good opinions after the holy wars died down a bit.

Seems to be about evenly split between SFC2 and 3, seemingly along the lines of whether you prefer the game over the other one.

To me that says that customization may work no better than the many-variants approach, as implemented. At least, it doesn't seem to be a big reason to love or hate the game.

W.
   

[Hertston]

Both are perfectly valid approaches.   SFC3 gives more actual combinations, while SFC2 has a lot more variety in playing style.  

Both are also appropriate for the games themselves  The "Star Fleet" based SFC 2 needed more races , more ships, and more race-specific weapons (just a shame Taldren couldn't finish the job with GaW before being TNGed).   SFC3  is unavoidably stuck with "Star Trek", so the customisation route was possible the best one to give variety from the number of races involved.  Some would say to that, "why not include the Cardassians and Dominion for more races then ?" - the more cynical would reply "so what's left for the stand-alone (ahem) expansion then ?"

As to the "better game", SFC 2 without a doubt.  I suspect much support for SFC3 comes from those with the lower post counts (i.e who never actually played SFC 2).   That said though, having had SFC3 a short while now, I'm  glad  it's different, and not a straight TNG port of SFC2.   It's feel , skills and tactics are very different, it is nice to play in the TNG universe for a change, and this way there are two games I will be playing, not just the one.    

[ActiveX]

SFC3's vessel customization or SFC:OP's purs numbers variety:
SFC3 and its customization
SFC:OP and its pure numbers variety

 

[Aenigma]

Can't we have both? Customization of many ships
Oh, and where did the Griffin-class go? And the Steamrunner? And the Nova-class? And the Shadow-class? And so on........Iwo Jima-class anyone? They would make nice additions to the fleets.

I know, I'm probably asking too much.

Aenigma
Romulus will prevail!  

[Firestorm]

I don't think it really matters the total number of varients.

Most people will come up with one ship that best fits their playing style for a particular BPV and stick with that ship.  

The advantage with SFC3 customization would be, you can tweek a varient to exactly what you want(within the refit rules, of course).

With SFC2, you had to find a varient that best fit your styles and refine your tactics to best fit that ship.

Both are valid, just different, but total number of varients doesn't matter since most people will stick with only a couple of ships they really like.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Quote:
SFC3's vessel customization or SFC:OP's purs numbers variety

There should have been a third choice....

"SFC2: EAW and its highly dedicated player base."

And I dont mean to say that SFC3 players arent dedicated.....just that the players who still play SFC2 are the cream of the crop....and that is a major factor in the decision to continue play it.

There ARE more to these games than ships and numbers.

Let me put it this way......During Attack of the Kitties...I didnt have to wonder if my opponent would Alt-f4 out of the game if the battle turned against them...or if they would warp off the map when a shield turned red.....as a matter of fact.....almost EVERY battle was a pure fight...and usually to the death(mine;))

[FatherTed]

Quote:

Quote:
SFC3's vessel customization or SFC:OP's purs numbers variety

There should have been a third choice....

"SFC2: EAW and its highly dedicated player base."

And I dont mean to say that SFC3 players arent dedicated.....just that the players who still play SFC2 are the cream of the crop....and that is a major factor in the decision to continue play it.

There ARE more to these games than ships and numbers.

Let me put it this way......During Attack of the Kitties...I didnt have to wonder if my opponent would Alt-f4 out of the game if the battle turned against them...or if they would warp off the map when a shield turned red.....as a matter of fact.....almost EVERY battle was a pure fight...and usually to the death(mine;))  

Amen to that. IDSL was, IMHO, the ultimate campaign. When you fight for several weeks, yet the outcome isn't decided until the last few hours(I collapsed from exhaustion about 2 hours before it ended), that's serious fun. I can't wait for RDSL.    

[Tulmahk]

Quote:
  Some would say to that, "why not include the Cardassians and Dominion for more races then ?" - the more cynical would reply "so what's left for the stand-alone (ahem) expansion then ?"

As to the "better game", SFC 2 without a doubt.  I suspect much support for SFC3 comes from those with the lower post counts (i.e who never actually played SFC 2).   That said though, having had SFC3 a short while now, I'm  glad  it's different, and not a straight TNG port of SFC2.   It's feel , skills and tactics are very different, it is nice to play in the TNG universe for a change, and this way there are two games I will be playing, not just the one.    

Well, I played SFC2 from the day it came out.  And behold my post count (not that post counts mean anything at all; not that the SFB Old Guard will ever realise that).  And oh yeah, I played SFC1 from the day it came out, too.  AND I played SFB back in the '80s.

IMHO, we won't see a stand-alone 'expansion' for SFC3, due to the fact that Taldren tried that with the ill-fated Orion Pirates.  Orion Pirates, from what I've heard (I was one of the vast majority who didn't buy it), was just too similar to SFC2 for the price that was initially charged for it ($30-$50 IIRC), despite the variety of new things that were included with it.

Again IMHO, Taldren will make an expansion for SFC3 that will work with the current game.  And if they price it right, it will be in the $15-$20 range.

SFC2 had the better overall ship variety, due to the fact that they had many more ship models.  For whatever reason, the Romulans and Klingons were cheated in SFC3, each having only a fraction of the number of hulls available that the Feds have (Borg's lack of ship variety is simply a racial triat.  They just don't use that great a variety of ships).  So SFC2 wins this catagory.

However, when it comes to variants-per-race, SFC3 wins with one of its best features:  ship customisability.  The reason SFC2 failed here was due to the fact that only a handful of ships were ever used (compared to the number of variants available).  This problem was at its worst in D2 play, where you had Feds actually preferring the lowly missle over their supposed favorite the photon torpedo.  When all you see form your opponent is drone boats, what does that say about a game's alleged variety of tactics?  In the most recent months of D2, most encounters were down to using the same handful of proven tactics, as dictated by the uber-weapon of that game, the heavy fast missle.  One word:  boring.  

To sum up, I actually think it's a push.  Both games had their strong and weak points when it comes to ship variety.  

[FatherTed]

I would beg to differ with you a bit. Nearly all regular Feds dislike flying drone boats. AOTK was an exception, in that we were kind of forced into them just to keep pace with the Coalition. Given our drothers, we'd fly photon chuckers every day of the week and twice on Sunday. But I do agree that a lot of the ships in the EAW inventory collect dust.

Feds, like the rest, have a natural progression. To begin in early era, we are usually stuck in the DD, a deathtrap. As soon as possible, we trade in for either a FFG,  or if we have the prestige, a CC+. But sometimes, when the situation is really desperate, we sometimes take a long look at that CL sitting in the yard(if that's not desperate, I don't know what is ),  CA's and CC's are slightly better than the DD when it comes to fighting a live opponent. As we move into late early, early middle era(i.e. 2268), you'll begin to see a lot of Feds flying around in a light cruiser. Why? The NCL has come out. This is the best ship, next to the CC+, that we have in the inventory. Fast forward to about 2272 and the NCL+ is out. Now we're starting to have fun. Also around this time, the CVA, CVS, and DN+ come out. At this point, only RM's and a few others can afford, or are allowed, to fly the heavies, and the CVS has it's own problems(no power). Let's skip ahead to 2275-76 and then you'll begin to see the ships that most Feds will trade in for: the CB and CLC come out. A few others are released as well, but they're seldom used. Move forward another couple of years, and it's Fed heaven. The BCG and BCF are released. Most of us will finally get our hands on one of these, and we'll stay there for the rest of the campaign. Why? Because they are fun ships to fly.

There a few others that are popular with some of the regular pilots, like the GSC+, NVS, and a couple of others, but the ships I mentioned above are flown by about 90% of the Feds on a regular basis. Photons can be infuriating when they miss, but there's nothing like batting 4 for 4 with OL's.  

[Mr. Hypergol]

 

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The reason SFC2 failed here was due to the fact that only a handful of ships were ever used (compared to the number of variants available). This problem was at its worst in D2 play, where you had Feds actually preferring the lowly missle over their supposed favorite the photon torpedo. When all you see form your opponent is drone boats, what does that say about a game's alleged variety of tactics? In the most recent months of D2, most encounters were down to using the same handful of proven tactics, as dictated by the uber-weapon of that game, the heavy fast missle. One word: boring.  

This was my biggest pet pieve with the previous SFC's.  In SFB, special varients like the F-CAD, R-Sph-J, or Z-DF for example were ment to be very limited in number.  SFC did not impose these limits so of course you saw a million of these in combat.  Taldren dropped the ball here in my opinion.  There should have been a way to control how many of these special varients were available to the players in each game.

I do not think that this is a reason to say SFC2 was worse than SFC3 though.  I still prefer SFC2 and I want my GAW.  

[Cleaven]

There is/was a way to control availability. It's just that the shipyard settings don't work in a reasonable way to allow you to do this. You can't escape from the concept of the D2 being a hasty add-on to the game. The variables are there, but either don't do anything that you want to happen or are too limited in function to be of reasonable use.  

[EE]

Hey Tulmahk, Nice to see another Inland Empire player.

[CptSavage]

It's activisions fault All of this is activisions fault. They came upon Taldren after purchasing all the gaming licenses and said "You are going to make this based on your previous hits and remove some features to make it more 'Action.' With that done, release it. Now we will control it, thank you and GET OUT." Thats basically my theory.  

[Hertston]

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IMHO, we won't see a stand-alone 'expansion' for SFC3, due to the fact that Taldren tried that with the ill-fated Orion Pirates.  Orion Pirates, from what I've heard (I was one of the vast majority who didn't buy it), was just too similar to SFC2 for the price that was initially charged for it ($30-$50 IIRC), despite the variety of new things that were included with it.

Again IMHO, Taldren will make an expansion for SFC3 that will work with the current game.  And if they price it right, it will be in the $15-$20 range.

Hmmm... accounting for currency translation (I'm in th UK), I've never seen any expansion for anything at that price.   I just can't see a "box" release making any profit at that price .

No offence on the "post count" thing, m8 - obviously number of posts here has no connection with experience (or time spent) in playing the games - including SFB.  That said, there are a lot of new folks here (that's a GOOD thing, BTW) who have come to the series with SFC3 , who tend to "back" the game they are playing at the expense of one they havn't - "3" must be better than "2".  Especially if you don't have "2"      Human nature.  

[Tulmahk]

Quote:
I would beg to differ with you a bit. Nearly all regular Feds dislike flying drone boats. AOTK was an exception, in that we were kind of forced into them just to keep pace with the Coalition. Given our drothers, we'd fly photon chuckers every day of the week and twice on Sunday. But I do agree that a lot of the ships in the EAW inventory collect dust...
 

FatherTed, all your points are very well taken.  It was a peculiarity of lack of ship customisation that doomed most variants to AI captains alone.  The real irony here was that many of those ships would've gotten played if only the player was allowed to customise 1 or 2 things about it (on Fed ships, warp power all the way).

Of course in SFC3, with the missle not even an option, Feds are 'forced' back into their photon/quantum boats.  And that's as it should be.  May the missle never see the light of day again!  

We stand in agreement.  

[Tulmahk]

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I do not think that this is a reason to say SFC2 was worse than SFC3 though.  I still prefer SFC2 and I want my GAW.  

You make very good points, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

My dirty little secret is that I want you to have your GaW, too.  I just don't want it coming at the expense of my purely Star Trek based SFC3.  There is room, I think, for both.  GaW can and should be its own product line.  IMHO, there isn't nearly the audience for it that purely Trek game have (how many gamers have ever heard of SFB?  Not that many compared to the number of people playing computer games).  However, that being said, it does deserve a chance.  And who knows?  It could end up being the favorite.  Anything is possible.

I say:  GaW  and  SFC  

[Tulmahk]

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Hey Tulmahk, Nice to see another Inland Empire player.  

Hell has frozen over.  Someone is actually glad to see me on these fora!  

Nice to see another SoCaler for me, too EE.  I guess Taldren only sold 2 copies in this area?    

[Tulmahk]

Quote:
It's activisions fault All of this is activisions fault. They came upon Taldren after purchasing all the gaming licenses and said "You are going to make this based on your previous hits and remove some features to make it more 'Action.' With that done, release it. Now we will control it, thank you and GET OUT." Thats basically my theory.  

Well, if Activision practiced that much control there would be zombies in the game.

Activision just loves zombies...  

[FatherTed]

The customization thing is what bugs me about SFC3. When you're in the Army, you are issued an M16. The caliber is 5.56mm. You cannot customize it to 7.62mm. Nor can you add a rear torpedo tube to your 688 SSN. Likewise, rear-firing Sidewinders are out for the F-15. In any regular military, you are given standard issue equipment, and you use it. Customization should be limited to Orions, who scavenge weapons where they can get them. Part of the fun of EAW is making do with a ship that's not everything you want it to be.  

[SghnDubh]

   No disrespect intended, FatherTed, but "standard issue" is the starting point, not the ending point. Even GI's of WWII "customized" their equipment -- welding plows onto tanks to take down hedgerows, as an example.

We will soon see the "average" soldier be able to quickly adapt his/her equipment to a variety of tactical situations, given lightweight alloys, increased use of electronics, and good old fashion human ingenuity.

It shouldn't be any different in the simulated 24th century. Loadouts add interest and a strategic element.