Not really, if u have the Goto thing on, u dodge asteroids to a certain degree. the AI for asteroid fields IS there..... and yes, I think it would of been a great idea to be able to buy a capitol ship, and it be just a base..... that you can goto a special 'bridge' area (like the bar and stuff) and you can select a new destination, and it will slowly get there..... while it moves you can get back in your little fighter and wander around a lil bit

would be kool to let others dock there 2, set up a shop....... tbh if you want total open endedness..... would be a must

maybe something for a later update? or you modding people

anyway bout time to get dressed and goto college :/

RaK

Errrmm...RaK, this is Freelancer and not Bridge Commander

What would be nice in the case of capital ships would be if during their flight through an asteroid field they just pounded anything heading for them with guns automatically, I'm sure the rock isn't entirely indestructable...

It would be awesome, but they should be really expensive, and maybe only hold about 300 cargo. Since they are for fighting, not trading. Maybe have a cost upkeep, so you would have to be doing something to make money while you own it. Or have a limited number available to the universe. Have them sold as military surplus that you yourself would have to buy turrets and suff for. Maybe not a battleship like the mizu but one of those small ones?

It would be a lot of work tho, and they prolly wouldnt want to do it.

I have to agree with the original poster on this one.. in an open ended game like this what do you spend your money on after you have the best ship and best weapons (and not many ships to choose from in the grand scheme of things). I too was a little disappointed that capitol ships where not included as pilotable craft.. Ofcourse they would be slow accelerators and turners. and the guns would almost be solely operated from the turret view. But it would really give that open endedness of the game a better open feel. Essentially meaning the sky is the limit..

and combat is not the only reason to have a capitol ship. Larger shipping capacity, a much more formidable defense (no single ship would dare to attack you, well in others games they wouldn't FL AI would probably come barreling at you).

IMO, instead of piloting cap ships, hiring cap/cargo ships (ala Privateer 2). Then there would always be a risk at losing your money if you didn't protect that cargo ship very well. As what it is now, if you get attacked you can just cruise out of there. There is never any risk of losing the cargo.

____________________________
If cats always land on thier feet. What would happen if you strap 2 cats back to back and drop them?
Probably destroy space and time.

Agrees with Greb

Do you agree with the cap ship comment, or the 2 cats strapped together?


____________________________
If cats always land on thier feet. What would happen if you strap 2 cats back to back and drop them?
Probably destroy space and time.

IMHO, it wouldn't be as fun having the ability to fly a cap ship unless you could destroy a planet. Plus, you'd have the individuals using them in multi-play racking up the kills and stats by sitting there.

Granted, the idea of a marauding about the galaxy wrecking as much havoc as humanely possible does give me an evil grin. However it would be a bit of an overkill, save to take out that gd'd Fort Bush or any other space station that's in the way for the sake of taking it out.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance..."

i know its not bridge commander......... but if i was a freelancer..... i wudnt wanna spend my entire life in a little fighter / freighter

id want to have capitol ships...... maybe even my own planet be able to set up your ship shop thing, and equipment shop, and make money off the profits

anyway, i know its not gonna happen, all i mean is, in the end it isnt really THAT open ended....... you are fairly limited...

not complaining im still gonna buy the game and play it

(and im sorry i didnt know they were spoilers they were in the demo after all)

I can see your point about the "open ended" aspect of the game. I wouldn't say that it won't happen. I'm sure after the release, that some clever chap will find a way that allows cap ships to be piloted.

Still seems to powerful though. Perhaps if you were to balance it out, maybe with a Flashpack like device or a weapon that can kill a player controlled cap ship in 4-5 hits.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance..."

They could balance capital ships, as long as they don't go crazy with the "what ifs" like you guys are doing. Not battleships like the Missouri, but large gunships. No crew (there's got to be at least some automation available - look at the robots on the bases), no wings of fighters to launch, no walking around inside the ship*, etc.

To balance out these "gunships" with the normal fighter ships, they wouldn't have shields, they'd have maneuverability that would make the Humpback look like a light fighter, and quite possibly couldn't use trade lanes - only jump gates could hold them. Inter-system trading would take much longer, but also much more profitable because of the extra large cargo holds. There should also be heavy freighters that COULD use trade lanes, just be many times weaker offensively than the gunships.

* Unless you can do something like this: The battleship, from the outside when you're not piloting it, is a base. I think the gas miners move around a little, so bases can move. When you dock with the ship, it'll have a ship dealer with a fighter ship available for $0, and a ship called "Enter Cockpit" for $0. The fighter would be just an average light or heavy fighter - I don't think there's a way to have the base automatically know which ship the player currently owns; for example you can't sell your Anubis to Manhattan and then come around later and see the Anubis in the store. Sorry, no docking your ship in one of these battleships, taking control of it, and then leaving with the same ship. The "Enter Cockpit" ship would be the battleship itself. While using this ship, the player would be in control of the battleship. If I'm right, bases can move, and when a docking ship gets close enough the base opens the docking bay, the docking ship moves inside this space, and disappears, getting stored in the game's memory until they leave. That's why the player sees a cutscene instead of the actual docking procedure. It sounds complicated, but if it works how I think it does from what I've seen, then it's possible.

Edited by - Skaleus on 04-03-2003 18:04:23

Piloting capital ships would be a bit much for Freelancer. The game is focussed on two things mostly, flying around and between systems and dogfighting. If a player had a battleship as opposed to a normal ship from the game, what would you do with one? Battleships can't dock with planets or space stations, and how would it cope with a dogfight? No turning circle and with al your guns firing on one target, you would be a sitting duck. A heavy transport...why would anyone want to transport 400,000 of anything? Even making 3 credits profit on a journey would be a million credits profit, having that much seems just as pointless, as what's left to do at that point.
But say you could pilot the Missouri, so could everybody else. So now we all have a battleship, and dogfights consist of holding your cursor stationary over the other guy who's doing the same thing. Making a second pass if one player was actually *gasp* moving would take about 5 minutes by the time you turned around.
The only thing I would change about the game would be the capacity of the freighters (even 275 isn't that much), the unintelligent docking system that takes ages and the animations that accompany *everything* planetside.

all you need is the all ships demo mod so it adds all that kewl stuff, the humpback, 5 of those kusari molecular blaster things, that weapon in caps that does 1k in hull damage, the shields that have like 10k protection and the thruster that does 130 drain instead of the normal 160.

and there you have a small capital ship