Space Combat

We've all known since E3 that we got ships as player housing and bioware themselves have all but said that space combat in some form is due to appear in-game.

Despite that we've had precious little to go on, but it seems more info may be nearer than we think!

I found this article while Twittering and thought it might be of interest....

Starship combat confirmed

Enjoy.

We have to wait until August!
Noooo

Hmmmm, I'm lacking faith in the legitimacy of those claims I'll wait till the mag comes out before I get my hopes up

I reckon its a sure bet (else I wouldn't have put it up here) but what interests me is the actual amount of info they'll have.... I suspect it'll concentrate more on the "Custom" Player ships than actual space combat because, lets be honest... BW aren't exactly forthcoming with info now are they?

This made me laugh though:

rcmodels wrote:

July 24, 2010 at 1:37 am

Please let it basically be Tie Fighter Online.

LOL

Agreed, i hope that we get to know if you can team up with friends and explore space to some extent, or even just launch with a few friends. Loved my old decimator in swg and even my lil' jsf escorting the larger vessels through deep space.

"sigh"

I'd rather have it a Tie Fighter game than a SWG space... and quite honnestly I'll surely spend most time on the ground.

Never played Tie fighter myself

but yeah, 90% of my game will likely be land based even with space combat.

Guild capital ships will probably change that though

I really liked the combat in freelancer.

A new German webzine has just released info on Space Combat. Apparently the system will be very similar to Rebel Assault.

Quote :

Space fight and spaceships

* The space fight resembles that on the first view 1993 published Rebel Aussault. One flies off a pre-defined path and slams opponents off. This play way calls itself tunnel Shooter.
* One preferred this variant to a free play, because one tunnel Shooter as more accessible judged and in a simple manner events could be inserted.
* By the bridge of the spaceship out special Hot spots can be approached, in order to start such space missions. These Hot spots are probably de-energized with the ascent of the character.
* Different weapon systems are available.
* One gets Quests, before loose-gone and in space to be able also Nebenquests are released.
* Spaceship fight is not the core of the play, but a short Snack for occasionally. Players, who have no interest in it, do not have to play it also.
* Combined ground/universe Quest rows however not completely impossible and can be quite in the future present.
* A complexity as in X-Wing or TIE Fighter is missing, the space fight is rather for opportunity players. One ballert oneself a few minutes of through film-ripely produced space battles.
* The missions do not last particularly long, it no missions will give, which 15, 20 or 30 minutes to last.
* It will give many different missions and differs each environment from the other one. It will give for example typical Asteroidenfelder.
* If one starts a new mission, one begins in another environment with other mission goals.
* Scenarios, similarly as a rush by the ditch of the death star, are not to be missing also. Event lot flying through by space does not give it.
* Begleitmissionen are planned, with which one must accompany and opposing bombers protect a ship. Perhaps one must defend or destroy also space stations.
* In the demo the task existed to shoot 20 hunters and destroy the capital ship.
* PvP in the space fight does not seem to give it also yet, one meets only on computer-controlled opponents. In the case of publication it still no PvP in space will give, which could itself still change however at a later time.
* It will give six different spaceship types, which depend on the character class. Jedi classes will have the Vanguard class, while Sith classes will possess the Fury class.

[TRANSLATED SOURCE]

All interesting stuff..... 5 months after this has been discovered we might get an official announce, lol!

Rebel Assualt!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I concur.



That's naff.

Just seen this from Sean D....

Quote :

UPDATE [1]: To clarify, Space Combat is not a Turret Shooter (this is probably obvious after seeing the screenshot but some people were mentioning it in the other thread).

Also there's a screenshot here of what it's going to look like. Personally I think it looks ok and it's clear that it's nothing like Rebel Assault, my guess is that it's more like Jedi Starfighter which was a great game:


There's also a better translation here:

"Space Combat

* Sprace Combat reminds of Rebel Assault


We call this gameplay "tunnel shooter". That means there are especially designed levels which make you follow a certain path. The player has a range of weapon systems to choose from to use against his enemies. You will receive a quest beforehand. If you're in space you will automatically receive side quests.

* Missions are supposed to be a few minutes short and are more of an "action snack".
* There won't be any PvP space combat at launch, but it's a possible feature for a later state of the game.
* PC action played a mission, which included fighters, corvettes and cruisers. There task was to shoot 20 fighters and destroy the enemy's capital ship.
* Missions are well-staged/designed, there won't be any flying around doing nothing.
* Space combat is single-player for now, the hotspots are chosen from you space ship's bridge.
* Escort missions are planned.
* Space combat missions are completely optional for now, if you don't want to do them, you don't have to.
* There are six different types of space ships. Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, Agent and Trooper will have their own type of shop. The two Jedi and the two Sith classes will have to share a type.

Classes

* The Jedi Knight will be able to choose the guardian or warden/sentinel specialization [names might differ]. The guardian is good at taking damages whereas the warden is a more offensive class. Seems like we've got a tank and a DPS class here.
* The Trooper also has to choose between two specializations: "Weapon stage" and "Super Trooper" [names might differ]. Whereas the first specialization focuses on heavy weapons, the "Super Trooper" is supposed to be more flexible and quick carrying an assault rifle.
* Similar details were mentioned earlier and PC Action again confirms that the Jedi Consular may choose between a "control" or "support" specialization.

Companions

* Jedi Knights will have a little T7 droid as their first companion. The little unit will be in for a good fight since it's equipped with blasters and rockets."

Disappointing :'(

Soude wrote:

Disappointing :'(

I think I'm actually going to reserve judgement until I've seen it in action but I've put together a few pros and cons about the space system as I see it:

PROS:

• Graphically (from the screenshot) it looks really nice and It's not in first person view.

• Escort missions sound very interesting, and it's the kind of mission I can see EPOCHians undertaking.

• From what I understand it's akin to the old Nintendo game Starfox (thats speculatation from the community of course), which was truly awesome if you're old enough to remember it! Examples of it can be found here.

CONS:

• No free roaming which completely sucks.

• No PvP or multiplayer whatsoever.

• The 2 seperate Jedi/Sith classes get the same ship - massive cop out if you ask me.

• Space is only a mini-game, lasting a few minutes at best.

PC Gamer Scans here.

Smudge wrote:

PC Gamer Scans here.

Awesome article! Thanks mate.

Yeah when I played Glaxies the space missions i played were pretty horrid the controlls were bad and felt a bit pointless tbh, maybe this will actually be more fun?

I actually found Space in SWG was very good, just play it with a joystick ^^, Now I'll agree to say it was a difficult thing to master space without asking for a bit of help. It was closer to simulation like X-W, X-W vs F/F than a shoot'em up like rebel assault.

There were things I didn't like in it, like the faction restrictions of Starships (looks like no game devs know about black market) and the difficulty as I couldn't go through most of the missions.

PrioryJK wrote:

Yeah when I played Glaxies the space missions i played were pretty horrid the controlls were bad and felt a bit pointless tbh, maybe this will actually be more fun?

Dare I say it after reading that PC Gamer article I think you may be right. It's still a shame that we can't free roam (and the other cons in my previous post) but I honestly think I'm going to enjoy this style of fast paced combat. Also there's a section in the article which confirms PvP and Co-op in the future:

PC Gamer wrote:

Although space combat missions will only be available as single player instances at launch, BioWare will impliment PvP and Co-Op in the future

I'd say thats a pretty sensible move all in all. Give player the space combat they wanted and give them time to get used of it before the mutiplayer aspect becomes a part of the game.

A lot of people seem disappointed, but I don't really understand why - were people expecting a fully-fledged space-sim like EVE or even JTL? From what I remember, apart from being able to fly to a pretty spot in space and then walk around inside your ship, Jump to Lightspeed was really lame.

Well expansions ftw I suppose lol, as long as the main games fun then I'm not too fussed we dont have a fully implemented space comabt system yet, I bet the ground works all laid out already, usually game studios try different methods of a game mechanic and see which one works best, so i'm guessing the system for free roaming is there just was taking too long to implement for game release and wasn't a priority so they moved on with this formet, it wasn't that long ago when they were saying they still wern't sure how to implement it so I bet they'll get some devs which flight sim experience for the first expansion

My my, that was ian impressive video I have to say! Bravo BioWare! Is anyone else getting some heavy Wipeout vibes (in terms of fast-paced action) from it?