Topic: Advice on SFC2 mods

[kephren]

This is a very basic question.  My friends and I played SFC3 Dom Wars for two years.  Now we're looking at SFC2/OP as an alternative. I was wondering if, other than OP, is there a "package" mod like Dom Wars that gives you lots of extra ships and different configs?  SFC3FILES.COM has lots of ship models and I'm sure I could figure out how to add them in, but it would be great if there's something that could just be executed to provide richer environment.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[kephren]

Here's what I had to say to my pals to convince them to try SFC2 again:

Guys,

I think we should give SFC2/OP a try. Here's why.  SFC3 is a "slugfest" simulation.  You just try to stay alive, hit hard, warp out, repair, warp back, etc.  Because it's so fluid and fast there isn't much strategy involved during the actual battle, which is why a big part of the fun is customizing the ships.

SFC2 is a very different game.  Because you can't warp all over the place, you have to stay put and take a pounding if you don't plan things out clearly.  Also, the very large variety of weaponry (particularly the different types of shuttles and missiles) makes for some "Balance of Terror" like moments.  It's very disconcerting when you can see 12 missiles coming at you -- which won't hit for 30 seconds -- and deciding what to do. (Turn on tractors, set phasers to point defense, turn to an advantageous sheild, use your last transportable mine to block, etc.)

SFC would work well in the environment we're playing. When we all sit together, it's really like we're in a fleet.  We can talk to each other and make plans and decide what to do under different circumstances that might occur.  That's something that we really haven't had so far.

For example, suppose we're all in Klingon Birds of Prey taking on a big Federation ship played by the computer.  (And the computer plays pretty smart in SF2, BTW.) In SFC3, it's pretty much just hammer and hope.  But in SFC2, we could actually come up with a fairly detailed plan, like decide to use all our weaponry to constantly pound at the left front shield, thereby opening a hole for a capture attempt.  Or we could simultaneously fire missiles from different angles in the hopes that one hits.  Or we could each create a wild weasel shuttle and use them successively to frustrate the enemy's attack.  Or we could use transport mines to build a wall around the enemy. 

All sorts of strategic options that aren't possible in SFC3. For example, in SFC2 you can transfer spare parts between ships -- and even capture spare parts from enemy ships.  So if I'm hammered by the enemy and Dodge is intact, I could ask him to give me some spare parts -- or we could decide as a team to sacrifice my ship -- and just transport my marines off for future usage from another ship (I think that's possible too) and have me self-destruct next to an enemy.

There's a lot of depth in the weaponry, both offense and defense in SFC2.  Wild weasel shuttles pretty much frustrate everything -- and can cause an enemy to waste a dozen missiles.  If you tractor a missile, you can ram it into an enemy and it will explode.  There's lots of interesting stuff that you can do with sheild reinforcement and power management.  If SFC3 is checkers, SFC2 is chess, which is why more people play SFC2 and why it has a VERY active modding community. (I could get us some VERY sexy ships to play.)

I realize that we pounded SFC3 into the ground and probably played it a little too much, but for our purposes, I think SFC2 would be fun and a quite different experience.  As a bonus, we could play multiple matches in an evening.  Also, it's quite stable compared to SFC3.  And it will run easily on all our machines.

Just a thought.

[Rod ONeal]

Suggestions;
You need to patch the game (of course) and I'd go for OP+ 4.0. It's available with or without models. SFC2 is based off of Starfleet Battles. OP+ adds virtually all of the ships from SFB that SFC2 is able to run. OP+ is, more or less, considered the "standard" shiplist for OP on the D2.
A bit more of a stretch is, but an excellent mod as well is SFB_OP. That adds more to the game but takes it beyond where it was designed to go and has some quirks that you need to be aware of while playing.
I'd also ad  the SFC_OP mod chooser. This will allow you to switch between multiple mods. IIRC you can run the Stock setup plus 4 seperate mods that you can keep installed all of the time.

All of these are available here or Battleclinic. If you can't find something give a shout.

[kephren]

All the different "OP" are confusing me.  Am I correct in assuming that I start with "Starfleet Command Volume II: Empires at War" CD then upgrade using teh "Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates" CD?  Are there additional patches?  And are the "OP"s you're talking about different.

Or (as is probably the case) am I completely confused?

[Rod ONeal]

There are 2 SFC2 games, Empires at War and Orion Pirates. They are separate games. Orion Pirates is the newer of the 2. Nothing I posted was for Empires at War.

OP+ 4.0 is a Mod for Orion Pirates. It's become the Unofficial standard shiplist for online play. It adds a whole lot of ships and has been extensively playtested in PvP on the Dynaverse.

SFB_OP is another mod. It adds more features and races (it's been a while since I've played it. I honestly don't recall all of the details about it.) and uses TOS ships as opposed to the TMP style of OP+.

SFB_OP stretches the game beyond it's original design though. Until you have a fuller understanding of how OP works I would recommend starting with OP+. OP+ adds a whole bunch of ships (hundreds), models, etc...

There's also additional scripts, singleplayer campaigns, etc.. for OP, but Get OP installed, patched, ans OP+ running before you take it any further, would be my recommendation.

[kephren]

Thanks for the clarification.  I always thought that OP was a mod of EaW or something like that.  I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Geoffrey