tachyon? never heard of this one.

and if ur computer is not running how'd you post this thread?

Damn, you've never heard of Tachyon? Sweet mother of Gord! :p

It is a space shooter akin to Privateer about a test pilot named Jake Logan (voiced by the almighty Bruce Campbell) who gets framed for destroying a medical station and banished to the outer systems. It was a very nice game. Very well put together and very fun. You even had a slide command where you switched off your engines and your braking verniers and simply went off in whichever direction you were going. This allowed you to spin around and shoot at someone tailing you or fly past a capitol ship and give it a full gun barrage down its length. It also got you some pretty funny landing animations. ^_^ I loved afterburning towards the hangar and hitting the slide button and orienting my ship at a completely wrong angle to watch the game physics try to right you and slow you down as you entered the hangar to keep you from slamming into the far wall.

I am awesomer than you.

oooh yeah fun times. unfortunately for me, the game doesn't like my new computer or my new joystick

well it was great while it lasted. a tachyon mod wouldn't be too bad an idea

Yeah, there were some pretty cool ships in that game.

Very linear, too. You get minimal leeway, and absolutely no random missons. Also, once you beat the last mission (which you can't avoid), the game ends, and you're forced to either replay the final mission over, and over, and over... or start a new game, and play ALL the SAME missions, over, and over and over... The sheer lack in variety killed this game.

Not entirely the same missions. There were two sides of the story, and if you took side missions with certain people, you wouldn't be able to take others. Sure, it wasn't as open-ended as Freelancer, but each mission was well thought-out and had full voice acting.

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

I posted using a laptop I borrowed from work.
I loved Tachyon. If you haven't even heard of it, you need to enter the Fringe. You can get it (and it's worth every dollar of it) for about 10-15 bucks.

My computer is back up and Freelancing. It's SSSOOOOO much cleaner and faster running.

Edited by - sights0d on 22-04-2003 22:12:03

One of the absolute best control features I have ever seen in a space sim
is the 'Slide' maneuver in Tachyon.

I realize that most space sims are modeled after jet fighter sims for the
very good reason that this is the most intuitive play. Players ignore such
non-realistic physics such as top speeds in vacuum and running engines
constantly or you slow down. Realistic physics of space would be tedious.

However, sometimes it's nice to just say-
'Hey! I'm a spacecraft, not an airplane! I'm just going to shut off my engine,
swing around 180 on maneuvering thrusters, and blow away this guy on my tail!'

Tachyon's Slide allows this transition of arcade to realism smoothly.
While the Slide key is pressed, you coast on your current trajectory but
you can orient the ship in any direction. It allows radical course change,
as when you release the key you get full thrust in your new direction.

When I first saw this in a demo at a game convention, I was totally
blown away and just had to buy the game.

And yes, I know that Freelancer has 'Z - Engine Kill'.
It just don't work the same with a *&^*%$! mouse!

"Got anything for me?" - Trent, A.K.A. 'Mr. Eloquent'