Escape Velocity Nova

[Blaine]

Currently running a Pirate Valkyrie Class IV with:

• two 150mm railguns, four 100mm railguns, two turreted 100mm railguns
• 3x carbon fiber; pirate jammer, Polaris jammer, civilian IR jammer, civilian radar jammer
• all relevant Sigma re-tunings plus port 'n' polish
  
• 3x sensor boosts (Fed standard, pirate improved, Polaris)
  
• 2x fusion reactors, 3x batteries
• 190°/sec turning, 442 acceleration, 668 max speed, 9 jumps (1 fuel per 4 frames from reactors, plus Sigma bonus)
• cloaking organ
  
• 10 cargo

Only way this could be more absurd would be with Vell-Os powers.

 

[Jaedar]

Only way this could be more absurd would be with Vell-Os powers.

You don't even have an emp.

What do jammers and sensor boosts even do?

 

[Blaine]

Only way this could be more absurd would be with Vell-Os powers.

You don't even have an emp.

What do jammers and sensor boosts even do?

I took out three Federation carriers and their entire fighter complement with this superboat. The point of railguns (versus a superior force) is to be a gay homosexual faggot and execute the Monty Python Maneuver, blasting enemies from offscreen as you drift backward. EMP torps would just be dead weight when railgun sniping, as well as a lot of wasted torpedoes that end up hitting asteroids, Vipers, Anacondas, etc. During mundane battles against anything smaller than capital ships, EMP torps would be a waste.

I'm in the Polaris storyline anyway, so 1.) I never had access to them, and 2.) I wouldn't be able to obtain more torpedoes easily, if at all.

Sensor boosts reduce "murk" in nebulae or dark sectors, and the different types all stack. It's an effect you may not remember that envelops ships and asteroids in a darkness effect as they move further away from your ship. With no boosts, ships have to be damned close before you can see them; with several, the effect is basically eliminated. They weigh 0 anyway, so no reason not to stock up.

Jammers yield a percentage chance for IR and radar missiles (the majority of what Fed, pirates, and Aurorans use) to stop tracking you and possibly even veer off-course, and they too stack. I should probably scrap the civilian versions and add an afterburner to my Valkyrie.

 

[Jaedar]

EMP torps would be a waste.

EMP torps suck, good emp is the beam weapon. Although since you are going for some agile sniper instead of a manly rearguard tormentor I guess it's not helpful for you either.

 

[Blaine]

EMP torps would be a waste.

EMP torps suck, good emp is the beam weapon. Although since you are going for some agile sniper instead of a manly rearguard tormentor I guess it's not helpful for you either.

Oh, you mean ion cannons? Yeah, well, I may swap out rails for full-on ion cannons if I ever decide to go on a capturing spree. Ions are great, but aside from missiles (which cost credits, can be jammed, and are finite), rails are basically the only way for a lone warship/medium vessel to defeat a sizable mixed force.

Thanks for reminding me though, I need to re-check which Qaanol's beam fixes I'm using to make sure I have the setup I want. There's a bug with the vanilla patched game that basically renders additional beam weapons past the first useless, and that includes that Manticore.

 

[Jaedar]

Oh, you mean ion cannons? Yeah, well, I may swap out rails for full-on ion cannons if I ever decide to go on a capturing spree. Ions are great, but aside from missiles (which cost credits, can be jammed, and are finite), rails are basically the only way for a lone warship/medium vessel to defeat a sizable mixed force.

I disagree!

I mostly ran with the "klingon" weapon (fires red starshaped things at close range), and some blaster turrets iirc, does really good work up close (which is where you can truly abuse the low turn rate of the bigger ships). The vell-os storyline also pretty much forces you to play this way.

 

[Blaine]

I mostly ran with the "klingon" weapon (fires red starshaped things at close range), and some blaster turrets iirc, does really good work up close (which is where you can truly abuse the low turn rate of the bigger ships). The vell-os storyline also pretty much forces you to play this way.

Fusion Pulse Cannon? Yeah, they're breddy gud.

Up close can work fine solo unless you have a bunch of escorts and shit on multiple sides. Taking advantage of a ship's blind spots doesn't do any good if you're being outflanked. With rails, you can keep the entire pack in front of you but without getting hammered by short- and medium-ranged weaponry.

Vell-os ships are a whole different animal because they're very fast and maneuverable, inertialess, and have fantastic shielding and regen. Polaris beam ships are good at close-in brawling, too.

 

[Blaine]

I was wondering when the rest of the good Polaris tech (Tunneling Organ, Multi-Jump Organ, etc.) would show up, and finally checked the Walkthrough, since sometimes you have to go to one specific planet and get lucky to progress side mission-type deals.

Turns out you get one or the other, depending entirely on a hidden coin flip: Track A gets you the improved Cloaking Organ; Track B gets you the regular Cloaking Organ plus the Tunneling Organ, Multi-jump Organ, and Fire-while-Cloaked Organ.

Welp. It's probably for the best, since those organs are great for travel and could spoil you on future playthroughs.

It does highlight one thing a lot of people didn't like even when the game was released, which is that you kind of stumble into the various storylines and get locked into them. I actually don't mind that, since it's sort of how life goes, but trouble can arise when there are issues such as the Vell-os (and not far behind, Polaris) storylines being far easier to stumble into than the others by doing a seemingly innocuous transport mission to the beginning area of the game.

 

[Blaine]

Captured a pirate ship, made it mine, and it doesn't even have enough fuel for one jump. Literally nothing I can do, since civilians will never come through that sector.

I think I'm done. Yeah, I'd forgotten some of the stupid oversights and annoyances of this game, as fun as it was/is.

Oh yeah, also other retarded bullshit like the post-Polaris Bureau remnants pop-ups where if you choose to pursue them, all eight RAGE gunboats are already turned toward the spaceport and instantly ambush you from all sides. No escape. You MIGHT survive if you're in a maxed-out Raven and have a lot of powerful escorts, but mostly it's just an utterly retarded and pointless trap.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I downloaded the "Community Edition R2". Hopefully it's not still copy-protected, and my spaceship doesn't turn into a flapping scarlet macaw in space in the heat of battle or something. I was always intrigued by this game because it was so slick and professionally done, in the vein of the space battles from Starflight and Star Control. A mod I found called SuperNOVA-Graphical-Overhaul 1.8.0 Great Texturing-6-1-8-0-1708208182 gives it sharper models and much more of zoomed in viewport on my 4K display at 1280 x 720. I like it like that. Is this game still worth playing in 2024? Or should I get out my Thrustmaster T16000M Hall-sensor stick for a first play-through of Freespace Open Source?

 

[Blaine]

Is this game still worth playing in 2024?

If it is was worth playing back then (it was), then it's definitely worth playing now.

Do you live in a universe where computer games are getting better as time goes on? Where can I find this magical place?