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Stark wrote:I found Cataclysm far more difficult than HW1, though. I've never been very far into it.

Maybe it's your style of play. I rarely had any problem with it. The only truly difficult mission that I remember is the one where you have to go through the nebulae without being detected. The one right after is difficult only if you're a bleeding heart who wants to save as many people as possible, otherwise you can just save a couple of transports and call it a day.

All the other ones are not that hard. Also, there's a difficulty setting option. You could have always set it on an easier level.

Cata was easy, since at the end of every mission you could just harvest all the resources and build up, then put the clock at 8x and walk away from the computer for awhile.

Pu-239 wrote:Cata was easy, since at the end of every mission you could just harvest all the resources and build up, then put the clock at 8x and walk away from the computer for awhile.

Just like in HW2, except not as much 'enemy army gets larger as yours does' game balancing.

Maybe I played skirmishes more than campaign: I don't remember any of the events of the story, and I always suck at rush-based games.

Cataclysm had the best ships. Flak frigates? Gimme a break. I'd rather tag fightercraft with the multibeam frigate any day of the week. Mimics were incredibly awesome, as were leeches. And the destroyer? The big hunk of metal with ion cannons and energy cannons? Badass. None of the fancy broadside stuff, just charge straight at the enemy! And sentinels. So useful.

And of course, the legendary acolyte. Group 50 of those, fire all the missiles, and watch the enemy burn!

I loved the characters in Cataclysm, especially Fleet Command. Especially that mission where you go up against the Bentusi, and Command threatens to ram the Kuun-Lan into a bentusi ship. That's one of my fondest "badass sci-fi characters" moments.

Cataclysm is the least sterile and most fun of the series. Even if HW1 and 2 had dramatic, epic settings, Cataclysm had a hard, grittier 'let's rumble' feel. Your ships also were more flexible, while not being retarded PDS style 'every ship has 50 guns' gameplay.

Oh. And Multibeam frigate wall squadrons were hilarious.

At least for HW3, I hope that they'd move away from the silly "classes" of ships. If fighters really are a threat, I'd expect the big battlewagons to have heaps of point-defense guns on them.

Hawkwings wrote:I loved the characters in Cataclysm, especially Fleet Command. Especially that mission where you go up against the Bentusi, and Command threatens to ram the Kuun-Lan into a bentusi ship. That's one of my fondest "badass sci-fi characters" moments.

In my opinion when the Captain says "One monster is just as good as another!" is more badass. You get to see the Bentusi, the ancient, powerful, knowledgeable beyond imagining, and mysterious Bentusi, suddenly hesitate.

The Bentusi themselves are also pretty dammed badass in Cata. Those ion-cannon armed Acolytes of theirs are pure ass-whooping in a can. And of course there's, "We... will... NOT be BOUND!" *BOOM*

phongn wrote:At least for HW3, I hope that they'd move away from the silly "classes" of ships. If fighters really are a threat, I'd expect the big battlewagons to have heaps of point-defense guns on them.

Or you can take a page out of the Somtaaw playbook and give them multi-purpose missiles. Nothing like a Dreadnought opening up with all its missile ports to slaughter a fighter wave.

I actually thought PDS 5.8 or so was a good mix to have (along with the updated Higgy DD from 6.0). Plenty of guns, firepower, dogfights, but no virtually invincible fighter hordes and other weirdness.

I live in a national park, killing touron raiders brings meaning to my life....

of course it could be fun to play them in multi-play, ye be a pirate.

phongn wrote:I actually thought PDS 5.8 or so was a good mix to have (along with the updated Higgy DD from 6.0). Plenty of guns, firepower, dogfights, but no virtually invincible fighter hordes and other weirdness.

Yeah, for awhile PDS was going in the right direction and it was really fun to play... then it veered off into insanity and buzzwords.

Uraniun235 wrote:Yeah, for awhile PDS was going in the right direction and it was really fun to play... then it veered off into insanity and buzzwords.

Ugh, buzzwords. NETWORK-CENTRIC WARFARE WOOO!

Hm, now, I wasn't such a fan of the Cata ships, MBF and Acos not withstanding. I think the pinnacle of ship design in the games was the Kushan Destroyer. Fast, manoeuvrable, deadly and tough, it's the best of all worlds. And no broadsiding, either.

As for the next game, I've reconsidered. So long as the Magic Engines™ idea is thrown in the bin and burned, than I'll be happy.

Magic engines?

The hyperspace cores. Or the holy grails. The keys to the kingdom.

The Triforce of Hyperspace

One core for the Bentusi, wisest and most golden of all beings.
One core for the Hiigarans in their mothership halls
And One core for Makaan, who above all desired to be like that dead Taiidani guy with the noseplugs.

Core wraiths for the win....

Adrian Laguna wrote: In my opinion when the Captain says "One monster is just as good as another!" is more badass. You get to see the Bentusi, the ancient, powerful, knowledgeable beyond imagining, and mysterious Bentusi, suddenly hesitate.

Personally, I like it best when Command begins the last mission with "This is the Kiith Somtaaw WARSHIP the Kuun-Lan!"

It really made me feel badass and go "Oh yeah, motherfuckers! Bring it on! Let's ROLL!"

Although it was lame how the Bentusi just showed up and gave you the Deus Ex Machina. And then promptly fled, instead of, you know, trying to help.

Adrian Laguna wrote:

phongn wrote:At least for HW3, I hope that they'd move away from the silly "classes" of ships. If fighters really are a threat, I'd expect the big battlewagons to have heaps of point-defense guns on them.

Or you can take a page out of the Somtaaw playbook and give them multi-purpose missiles. Nothing like a Dreadnought opening up with all its missile ports to slaughter a fighter wave.

Ehh, I think space battleships should have lots and lots of guns.

I never much cared for the Somtaaw dreadnought.

Best is when the battleship itself is the gun, like a spherical vessel whose diameter is the virtual barrel that can fire in any direction against multiple targets from any point on the ship surface.

Somtaaw dreadnaught was underpowered IMO. I mean, the destroyer has 4 ion beams but the dread only has 2? And they're on dorsal and ventral turrets? Al least put some big honkin railguns in the front! But noo...

HW2 dreadnaught was even worse...

The lack of 'oh shit my guns are gone, better turn to use other turrets' AI didn't help either.

I still think the HW2 mothership upgrade thing was piss-poor. I was looking forward to actual customisation, and not just 'build factories' and 'build sensors'. Allow the player to turn their ship into a battleship, or a carrier, or a support ship? Impossible, just do them all really badly, that's the best way.

At least it could have improved the current system by letting us build, say 3 fighter factories on a carrier, so that carrier could pump out fighters 3 times faster. Or put gun turrets on instead of factories.

Speaking of which, did PDS let you build gun turret modules?

Yeah, but I think it was in special 'gun' slots. I'd much rather see overall stuff, like 'instead of upgrading the mothership's armour right now I want way more point defence guns' or 'instead of going for cap factories I want to expand the engines and install heavy weapons on my mothership' etc. Let players do with it what they will, not 'build the four factories and the two upgrades'

The factories could have been cool, since they're different sizes. Oh well.

Hawkwings wrote:Somtaaw dreadnaught was underpowered IMO. I mean, the destroyer has 4 ion beams but the dread only has 2? And they're on dorsal and ventral turrets? Al least put some big honkin railguns in the front! But noo...

The Deacon and Archangel both had two ion cannons and four turreted energy cannons. Dreadnoughts have just over 3 times the number of missiles that Destroyers have, and their primary weapons are not only positioned to have better coverage, they deal considerably more damage. Plus the truly massive armour makes it a very tough nut to crack. In terms of cost, an Archangel is worth two Deacons and a corvette, but a single Archangel can take-on its own weight in other ships and win. The only reason one would pick a Destroyer over a Dread involves a preference of flexibility (two ships can be in two places at once) over staying power.