The Freespace experience

[zolobolo]

Whenever playing a Space 4X, I always feel the itch to relive the feeling when I was playing Freespace

- The grand scale of an old struggle between space empires until a third party pups up an wrecks both
- The intense fighting of fighter waves mixed with cruiser, frigates and battleships shooting lasers so large that they are not suitable against the tiny fighters and bombers swirling around them
- The pressure of losing system after system as we are pushed back while the player struggles to ensure evac of colonists, and ensuring safety of trade routes
- Grand strategy unfolding before our eyes as the opposing forces position fleets in strategic locations and skirmishing all around
- After countless battles, and losses, the remaining raged, damaged and depleted forces mustered to make a final push against a vital strategic location/target which will turn the tide of the battle

Never came I so close to the above as with SiS
Keep up the good work!

[username]

You must be playing a very different SIS than I am...I can't recall any of these events occurring in a game.

- The grand scale of an old struggle between space empires until a third party pups up an wrecks both

I've never seen this happen. Although I might possibly have been the third party, I've never actually had an old struggle against someone interrupted by the arrival of a third party hostile to both. Or the arrival of a third party hostile to me. Or the arrival of a third party at all.

- The intense fighting of fighter waves mixed with cruiser, frigates and battleships shooting lasers so large that they are not suitable against the tiny fighters and bombers swirling around them

I have...never seen a fighter wave. Or really, any large battles. The AI is exceptionally poor at massing his forces, and exceptionally cowardly, and I have an aversion to trying to goad the AI into pitched battles, preferring instead to engage piecemeal and take his ships from him one by one.

- The pressure of losing system after system as we are pushed back while the player struggles to ensure evac of colonists, and ensuring safety of trade routes

I've never lost a system to the AI...he's not very good at attacking, telegraphs his intent too far in advance, and then arrives piecemeal, so his ships become my ships.

- After countless battles, and losses, the remaining raged, damaged and depleted forces mustered to make a final push against a vital strategic location/target which will turn the tide of the battle

I win of all my battles, otherwise I don't fight them. Given that you can see everything about your foes from the moment they appear on long-range sensors, well, if you know your enemy and know yourself, then you don't fear the outcome of a thousand battles.

The game has its warts, and a decidedly unfinished feeling, but the Freespace feeling it is not. Stardrive 2 was far more Freespacey in that you are shortly inundated by a swarm of bad guys from Hell very early on in the game and locked in a struggle for survival from the very outset. This game is more about you turning into an unstoppable steamroller should you survive first contact with the first guys you meet, who, if they are Yorals, declare that my military is pathetic and immediately attack me every single time, only to have their opinion radically shift to "Your military might is most impressive" after I jack their ships with my colonist transports...but still don't want to offer peace, or anything, resulting in a war to the death.

[zolobolo]

You must be playing a very different SIS than I am...I can't recall any of these events occurring in a game.

You have to work for it that is true, that is why I say I never came closer to this.
It is not there yet, but I can see the end of the tunnel and can feel the fresh air:)

Here is what I needed to do:
- Medium map with 7 races and normal distances, playing Imperials
- Play on Hard difficulty - change the config file to give the AI a nice starting bonus and reduce the tech advantage so they have the economy, but not sprint ahead technologically
- Do NOT pay off Marauders and Pirates. The AI does not seem to be doing it, and this thus give an unfair advantage to the player. This makes early game much more difficult

Now with the above, I had good experience thus far. The AI is still too friendly as a lot of diplomatic penalty options are needed (oh what I would give for a diplomacy penalty if two races have colonized planets within the same system - this would keep the war-truck trucking ), so the player needs to declare wars.

Lets see how it fares with the above:
The grand scale of an old struggle
Progression is slow enough to allow for a lot of battles as the game is turn based, and especially with Stargates early on, the fleet saw a LOT of action against Marauders, pirates and neighboring enemy AI. Do NOT attack anyone else after the first war. Both the nemesis and third party naturally arise in the above circumstances. They will be economically powerful, technologically matched and have a bunch of ships (around 150 last time). Now it is up to the player to declare war on the first one. It will be a pitched battle, while the 3rd party builds further up It will eventually go to war once the player is starting to win and the nemesis is weakened. This is when you need to declare war against the 3rd party and watch their ships pouring in

The intense fighting of fighter waves mixed with cruiser, frigates and battleships
The difficulty, starting resources and above scenario enables the AI to build large fleets.
The AI does not use a good chunk of ship models, but what it produced it will produce en-MASSű
The game mechanics are perfect for such battles. You can already use different sized and purposed hulls and control fighters and bombers on squadron level! Could it be better? Some balancing of the weapons is due and the tactical AI can be slightly improved but is already for a typical Freespace engagement with 2 destroyers, 4-5 squadrons of fighters + 1 Cruiser + Space station/Battleship I regularly found myself dispatching 4 destroyers and a Frigate to combat wings of enemy destroyers and the occasional capital ship

The pressure of losing system after system as we are pushed back while the player struggles to ensure evac of colonists
First nemesis will give a good fight, and the 3rd party even more so, as it will rule around half of the map and have like 150 turns to build up. When I declared war on them, they were sending over Super Dreds and fleets with 4-5 Fleet carriers + 30-40 Assault Ships
The only reason I won against the Nemesis was due to the fact that the AI did not build anything between destroyers and battleships. It had 2X more planets 2X pop, 3X more ships and more advanced tech, it just sent over destroyers in 12-20 groups...

After countless battles, and losses, the remaining raged, damaged and depleted forces mustered to make a final push against a vital strategic location/target
Imperials enable the player to wage wars wit ha much smaller fleet then the enemy. IT also enables attacks against core worlds

The game has its warts, and a decidedly unfinished feeling, but the Freespace feeling it is not. Stardrive 2 was far more Freespacey in that you are shortly inundated by a swarm of bad guys from Hell very early on in the game and locked in a struggle for survival from the very outset.

Agreed. There is much that can be done, but it is in a good place already in my opinion.
Haven't tried Stardrive, but have played all the other big names in the last decade, and they just do not have this feeling. Most only have fighters and bombers to tick a checkbox (in one case, the community needed to beg them out of the DEvs so they are implemented). Mostly though the tactical combat simply does not exist or is implemented in a way that the player has little to no agency in it. This is definitively not the case here.

[username]

- Do NOT pay off Marauders and Pirates. The AI does not seem to be doing it, and this thus give an unfair advantage to the player. This makes early game much more difficult

You PAY marauders and pirates? I've never even given serious consideration to this, I just confiscate their ships and steal their Grem-tech. Sometimes they have the sense to offer to pay ME instead. I'm really not sure how depriving myself of a source of free ships is going to make things difficult...those Gremak battleships are pretty nice!

[zolobolo]

- Do NOT pay off Marauders and Pirates. The AI does not seem to be doing it, and this thus give an unfair advantage to the player. This makes early game much more difficult

You PAY marauders and pirates? I've never even given serious consideration to this, I just confiscate their ships and steal their Grem-tech. Sometimes they have the sense to offer to pay ME instead. I'm really not sure how depriving myself of a source of free ships is going to make things difficult...those Gremak battleships are pretty nice!

Sure, there is always a case during the expansion phase that such a fleet gets to the fresh colony faster then the fleet, or in case of Pirates, the fleet is not up to the stuff yet.

Letting them bribe the player is also a neat feature, but again not sure if the AI males use of that

It would be best, if such tributes are always visible on the diplomacy screen of the faction, so the players can see who is paying them off and whom they are paying tribute to - this (just like any other report) would make it easier to monitor what is actually happening, and if the AI is doing its stuff

The new release plan mentioned advanced interaction with such factions, so here is hoping that it will include the above reports as well