I'd like to add that after trying the EV:Nova demo recently (thanks St. Patrik), I am impressed with the Tutorial where an old Captain guided you in the ways of the 'trade'. It never crossed my mind until I had to restart my Starfury game after a fresh install recently since I forgot to backup the savegames...
Starfury didn't have that. Infact the starting was just some officer telling me (First Campaign) to get 50,000 credits through Merchant missions in some other system
. And there are some really interesting random (methinks) batles that play out without you causing it plus the sight of the fleets clashing was really cool in EV:Nova.
On the downside I have trouble with the inertia controls for EV:Nova, and there are no pilot Stats/Levels. I think the Pilot name you create at the start of the game is only for savegame naming purposes. Pretty much all of the roleplaying happens in the text whereas Starfury has actual character stats and levels. Starfury also has better ship modifications I think and you can customize the ships better. I preffer the combat in Starfury but I don't like the auto-difficulty thing (where when you get better ships, so do the enemies
).
Also the trading seems more a little more normal versus Starfury's Mechant missions (although I understand Aaron's reasons; not having to create mini economy for each outPosts saves a lot effort/attention that can be diverted elsewhere). I think that EV:Nova has some form of either dynamic economy or random effects that look like dynamic economy; where prices change depending on quantity of goods. At least I've had events that say certain prices change due to over supply of certain goods.
Also the navigation system rocks. Simply activating the map, and then click on the system to jump and hitting a button for the jump is wonderfully painless. In Starfury, I haven't been able to select anything in the map mode so I have to manually align the ship and simply wait out the travel (with time accell of course).
A few other niggles here and there but the Starfury has the graphics hands down; and EV:Nova feels odd with the 'standard window popups' at the title screen during saving and loading compared to the nice title screen. It sure feels ported thats for sure. I'm guessing that it was handled differently on the Mac since it was kinda jarring.
#Okay. I think that was long enough for complaining...
I guess I'll play both but at the start of the games
. I think that EV:Nova is more approachable whereas Starfury requires players to put more effort initially. Also the EV:Nova includes the manual with the demo/shareware and that helps incredibly.
[ November 29, 2003, 12:45: Message edited by: Din Ahmed ]