Tactics and Downloading my purchase

[Maulkye]

I played the demo Last night. I loved it. It reminded me just a little of one of my favorite games: Hardwar. I have a question or two though.

1) This guys says, go sell some stuff and then come back for a mission. So I do. Then he sends me in to defend a freighter from FOUR PIRATE CRUISERS for a *long* time! I replayed this mission every which way but Sunday. I can take out two cruisers if I' execute my moves well, but never win. Is this supposed to happen, or should I just ignore the old fart and get back to him after I have a Mark III Cruiser myself? Am I missing some tactical information here? I usually load up two of the best anti-proton cannons I can get, 40kT shields front and back, and 20k shields aft and port, with one cargo bay, and offenseive and defensive sensors. Is this a poor strategy? I hate to just have missles and PD cannons. They can be so easily countered.


2) I just order my copy of the full game. Of course, I won't have it for the 3day weekend, because there doesn't appear to be anywhere to download it?!?!?!? Am I right about this, or can I go get it somewhere? What a waste of three days off if I can't download it! How unexpected of an indie shop.

[Phoenix-D]

You're missing the tactical information that you can fail that mission and still move on. Give it up.

You can go out and make some money then come back later, but you don't have to.

[Maulkye]

Hehehe..... Yeah, I finally stopped reloading and just settled with bLasting and salvaging one of the cruisers. I just wondered if you're supposed to lose that one?

Does anyone know what the confines of the demo are? I see that there is only one campaign, but how else is it limited?

Also, I wanted to try and do some mod testing on it, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to write up the QuadrantMap.txt. What's the model for it, and is there a smaple in the demo anywhere?

[Phoenix-D]

You can't mod the demo very much; aside from the single campaign that's it's only limitation. The only model for the quadrent map is the file itself. Its pretty simple actually..

The top paragraph creates the key at the bottom of the quadrant map screen. The rest of the file creates the actual map..

System ID := 1
-this is just the system's number. Each one must have a different number

System Name := Terran
-pretty obvious, the name of the system. This is the name that shows when the player accesses the quadrent map; you can have the name be different when he enters the system via a warp point for example

System Type := Blue
-the color of the system on the map. And that's it.

System Xloc := 10
System Yloc := 7
-x and y (horizontal and vertical) cordinates. they from 1 as the smallest to I think around 30 as the largest. 1,1 is top left, 30,30 is bottom right

Is Visible := TRUE
-whether this shows on the map at the start of the game

Number Of Links := 1
-number of lines shown on the quadrant map in game. DOES NOT affect the actual warp points or route the player can take

Link 1 System ID := 3
-the System ID number of the system you want to link to

Link 1 Type := Blue
-the color of the line made

Number Of Text Lines := 0
Number Of Icons := 0
-these two are both useless. They do nothing.

[SamZaWild]

I dont think you can win that stage.I have guarded that ship and kept it alive till the needed time expired.And it was infront of me moving in this circular pattern (across the system) when a message told me that i have falied.Altough it was safe but it still told me.I guess you cant win or it is a bug.I went and done the mercenary mission.

[Gateway103]

Originally posted by SamZaWild:
I dont think you can win that stage.I have guarded that ship and kept it alive till the needed time expired.And it was infront of me moving in this circular pattern (across the system) when a message told me that i have falied.Altough it was safe but it still told me.I guess you cant win or it is a bug.I went and done the mercenary mission.

In "protecting ship" missions, you actually have to destroy the attackers in the alloted time to complete the mission, in addition to keeping the protected ship alive. This also means, if you destroy the attackers in time, the missions is accomplished and you got your $, so you don't have to worry about the protectee running into an asteroid/missile any more ^_^

-Gateway103

[Phoenix-D]

Escort missions don't work the same in the full Version..specificlly in the 1.11 patch:

Fixed - Changed the event requirements for escort missions. Just before the time for the job expires, the map is checked to see if the escort ship is still alive, if it is then the job is a success. This replaces the requirement of being near the escort ship.

The 1.13 patch corrected that somewhat but didn't change how it works.