"Through the woodland, through the valley comes a horseman wild and free. Tilting at the windmills passing, who can the brave, young horseman be." And with that, I will now attempt to hopefully bring together the various factions that have developed within the Star Trek SFC gaming community.
When SFC 1 hit the shelves there was finally a game which all (SFB'ers and non SFB'ers) could enjoy. Then SFC 2 came along with some better weapons, some more races, and most importantly Dynaverse. Then Orion Pirates storms into the fray and offers us some more things for us to play with. Then SFC 3 hits the scene and all hell breaks lose. A large rift developed between the old guard and the new guard. Both parading their points of view and thinking that one game(s) are vastly superior to the others.
Distingushed members of the Star Trek gaming community, it is time to cast aside these differences and band together and design a game which could satisfy both SFB'ers and Non-SFB'ers alike. For those wondering what camp I fall into, I belong to the community as a whole, who played SFB and who owns such games as SFA, KA, BC, SFC 1 thru 3, OP, Dominion Wars, Armada, and the list goes on.
With the advent of computers, companies were able to design Star Trek games for those of us who wanted for a few hours to escape and pretend what it would be like to destroy a Klingon D7 with a photon torpedeo, or a Federation Constitution class heavy cruiser with a full bank of disruptors, or being able to sneak up on an opponet and decloak and destroy their ship before they realize what happened.
The only concern that I have is to ensure that the dream envisioned by Gene Roddenberry (may he rest in peace) that we have embraced in our respective ways, never dies and the games that have been produced now and hopefully in the future will never fade away.
Why?
We the members of the Star Trek gaming community must unite and begin to offer suggestions to companies to have a game produced for all of us to enjoy. A unitied community will get more results then a divided community.
How?
Simple. Take a good look at the SFC series (SFC 1 thru 3 and Orion Pirates) and deciede what works, what doesn't and incorporate into a game for us to enjoy.
I have broken down the games into these four sections for discussion:
1. Interface - how the game looks and feels on your computer
2. Races - the good, the bad, and the ugly
3. Devices - Sensors, Cloaking Device, Power management, etc....
4. Weapons
INTERFACE Here I must submit that SFC 1 leads the way with the others falling behind in some way or another. With SFC 1 you started your game and depending on the race you swore alliagence to, everything was done to give you the feeling that you belonged to that empire.
For SFC 2 and OP they continued to hold true to that formula with improvements for modding weapons for races who didn't normally have them. ie. modding a Hydran ship with missiles and they have their own control panel, instead of someone else's as was the case in SFC 1. But SFC 2 and OP did use generic interfaces for start up screens and some other stuff and it did take away some of the flavour and feeling that was established by SFC 1.
SFC 3 uses a generic display for all races. While easier, it does take away from the flavour of the game, in that the panel for your ship is the same for all races.
So if I were to design a game, I would use the formula that were used by SFC 1.
RACES Well, its nice to have both good guys and bad guys and alliances between them all. And all games I feel offer a good selection to choose from. But I do feel SFC 3 could have gone a bit farther be including the Dominion and Cardasians into their basic game instead of have members of the community like KoraH modding them into their respective servers. BTW cudos to KoraH and the TNZ crew
However, the new game should encompass elements from all the SFC series but I do feel in my opinion that the following races should be standard for a new game:
Federation, Klingon, and Romulan - canon races established by TOS
Hydran, Lyran, and Mirak - established by SFB and offer a wide range of weapons, ships and tactics for players to enjoy
Cardasian, Borg and Dominion - established by TNG/DS9 with the Borg and the Dominion being the supreme in bad
As for other races such as the Tholians, Telerites, Andorians, ISC, and an host of others, members of the community such as Brezzgone, Knox, Makie, Chris Jones, and a host of others could continue to do the outstanding and excellent work
that they have always done for the community in the past.
DEVICES/SYSTEMS This would incorporate the following:
Sensor (EW), Energy management, Officers, Repairs, Helm, Security, Communications,etc...
Sensors (Electronic Warfare)
Well, I feel that SFC 1, 2 and OP and SFC3 are basically tied. The reason being, is that SFC 1,2, and OP use ECM and ECCM to counter the effects of the various weapons while SFC 3 uses angular velocity. Both produce the same effect IMO. But the ECM/ECCM established in SFC 1,2, and OP is probally the best system to use.
Energy Management
No contest here. SFC 1, 2, and OP allow a starship commander to fine tune where they want their power to go and what systems have priority. This is a must have for any future SFC game. Sorry to SFC 3 but energy management is lacking I'm afraid.
Officers
Here both SFC 1 and 3 lead the pack here. The ability to further advance your officers and recruite and dismiss officers in single player and particularly SFC3 on Dynaverse is an excellent feature. So I would incorporate SFC 3's officer feature/ability into the game. Overall, SFC 3's ability for officers to play a crutial role in your starships performance is a feature that must be incorporated into any future games.
Repairs
Here, I feel SFC 3 got the right idea. They use the Engineering Officers ability to deciede how many repairs can be preformed on your ship. As your Engineer gains experience so do the number of "orders" and speed which repairs can be completed. Currently in the D2 campaigns, there have been debates on "how many spare parts should a ship carry", "how many can be used in a mission", etc... . I believe that SFC 3's formula is probally the best to be used.
Security, Communications and Science
All SFC series of games are fairly standard here so no change.
Helm
Here I would combine the elments from all SFC series games. While SFC 3 does have the ability to match your opponets speed, it does lack the types of HET's that can be performed by you helmsman from the other series.
Shields
Well, I have always felt that in SFC 1,2 and OP the 6 shield faces represented, Fore, Aft, Starboard, Port, Ventral and Dorsal shields. SFC 3 simplified things by only going with four shield facings. To be honest I would incorporate the shield system from SFC 1, 2, and OP.
Fleet Control
SFC 3 handles this through the Comms button, while the rest have a seperate control. The best fleet control is to be found in SFC 2 and OP and should be incorported into any future games.
Tactial Map
I do prefer SFC 3 way of doing the tactical map. Primarily due to the fact it shows up in a seperate area of your screen and is always visible, unlike in SFC 1,2, and OP which has to be toggled on and off as you need it. I much prefer having the big picture at your disposal at all times.
Cloaking Device
Ahh, here we go. With the advent of the OP patch this statement appeared:
Quote:
it has been implemented to the closest of SFB specs as possible without changing the inner engine involved.
to which I asked:
Quote:
I'm curious how it will behave in the game.
Will it be similar to the cloak used in SFA, KA, and SFC 3?
To which the response was:
Quote:
No.
Straightforward but I have to admit SFC 3's management of the cloaking device is very similar to the way it was used in SFA and KA. And the use of the beta patch took out the following bug so now when a ship cloaks you can't track it unless you've got a good tactical officer and a good ships computer. I have always felt, that while SFB used various modifiers, etc..., to simulate the cloak in a board game, the cloak that was utilizied by SFC 1, 2, and OP was lacking when introduced as you could maintain a lock on a cloaked ship, beam marines over to a cloaked ship, and fire upon it. So I would use SFC 3 cloaking engine for any future games.
Weapons
SFB did introduce some excellent concepts for weaponary. By far, OP has the best selection to make any ships captain drool. . This must be incorporated and maintained in any future games.
But SFC 3 did return to the Roddenberry concept of weapons. In that weapons were energy based and each race had specific weapons, Federation Phasers, Klingon Disruptors, Romulan Disruptors, Borg Cutting Beams, etc... .
However, energy weapons do get a bit stale, and I feel that will SFB's weaponary for races should be incorporated fully.
The only change would be to the primary weapons. While I agree that Federation and Hydran races for example have phaser technology, Klingon and Romulan ships for example should carry disruptors in lieu of phasers as their primary weapons.
CONCLUSION
Believe me this post is fairly lengthy but I have only scratched the surface. There are plenty of other things to discuss but the bottom line here is:
1. Do all the games have advantages? YES
2. Do all the games have disadvantages? YES
3. Can the advantages from all games be incorporated into a game for all to enjoy? YES
4. Can we satisfy everyone? NOPE
But unless we get together as a community and drop our prejudices, games such as SFC 4 and beyond may never get developed.
Regards to all
Topic: HELPING TO DESIGN A BETTER MOUSE TRAP (Read 33049 times)