SE:V, I'll be honest

[Xrati]

Fyron, I actually purchased SEIV after the release of some of the first patches. I am happy to wait for the same in SEV. I'm not in a hurry! I'm still playing SEIV and I am getting ready to play test AT's STMod1942. I finally finished DL'ing all the new files.

You cannot compare SFB to SE series. SFB is a complex board game that attracts 'rules lawyers' as the rules tend to be vague in areas or interpreted incorrectly.

I have no doubt that SEV will be brought to a very playable state. The only question is how long will it take and will the true SEIV player finally accept the NEW game for what it is, "change."

[Barnacle Bill]

Xrati said:
You cannot compare SFB to SE series. SFB is a complex board game that attracts 'rules lawyers' as the rules tend to be vague in areas or interpreted incorrectly.

Another issue that goes away in a computer implimentation, since the "rules" are the program code and can't be lawyered.

[Kana]

Well there is a computerized version of SFB, its called Star Fleet Command. It is bascially an RTS tactical engine, on top of a hex-based strategic engine. Sound familiar? It was programmed with a majority of the SFB rules, except that instead of turns, they used time. Again sound familiar? While I enjoyed it, especially if you slowed down the timer (again familiar), it still in the end wasnt the SFB you play on a table top.

As for RTS 'tactical' games I like, the Combat Mission series, is by far the best. You basically have paused real time turns. You give orders to your troops, and then you press end turn, computer or other player puts in their orders, then they end turn. At that point the turn runs for 1 min. During that minute all you can do is watch what happens in shear terror, hoping all goes your way. Rinse, wash, repeat. Again this sounds vaguely familar. The problem that now lies with SEV for me, is that with the scope of the number of ships, and units available in 'tactical' combat, plus with bascially a poor interface, makes an unenjoyable 'tactical' experience. I for the most part will be playin simo games anyway, because of PBW, or PBC, and in single player, because it tends to be more fair to the computer and vice versa...

So basically the graphical combat engine is just an over glorified 3d movie of combat results.

[Captain Kwok]

I don't see how it is over-glorified. Aside from the fact it does serve a functional purpose, it just uses 3d models of ships rather than 2d renders or 2d sprites - which by the way are just as time consuming to make as 3d models or to set up effects with...

[Kana]

Well I started with SE3, and loved it. Got SE4, hated it initially, but grew to love it. I dont hate SE5 all that much, and the UI complaints are really minor, it didn't take me long to figure out many of the little tricks on my own, without any beta tester help.

Certainly most of my complaints with SE5, have to do with gameplay issues more than anything else, and I'm sure they will be either corrected, or modified in the future. Or I will just come to except them. Like I did for SEIV.

[Caduceus]

I agree with Kana. I too started with SE3, got SE4 and hated the changes initially. I am growing to like SE5.

[Thermodyne]

Well after quite a few hours of playing, I still have some doubts. I have yet to complete a game with out a memory error crash, so my observations are all from less than 50 turns in.

I find that the more eye candy I turn off, the less cluttered the UI feels. Big displays with 1400 settings helps too.
I also find that this game seems to want to be driven from the key board, way to many extra clicks in the mouse controls. It would be nice if the mouse’ing was cleaned up.
The way the game reports events is a disaster, nuff said. I really hope they fix this. I really do. Before they release the game. Seriously this needs to be fixed.
And while I have yet to get far enough along to have a large empire and fleet, I suspect that it will be somewhat more difficult to manage it.

Early on, most of the changes I have experienced are eye candy and FPS stuff. I can’t really say that I have found many improvements to the strategy part of the game. The UI seems to go out of its way to be less than useful. And there seem to be windows that are redundant, asking questions that could be answered in the next window. I also find that many of the windows are too much candy and too little information. I have yet to encounter an AI anywhere near as smart as a TDM-AI. And some are back to SE4 demodumbness. IIRC the SE4demo AI’s would also send ships through the warp points one at a time even after they knew the WP was defended by a fleet.

I have done some runs on several different systems, and so far all work equally well up to a point. (Same Memory exception on all three) I’ll give it a run on Vista next, and the perhaps XP64.

All in all the game is playable and being new, it holds my interest. Let’s hope for a demo patch in the near future.

[Suicide Junkie]

Se5 tactical is paused real time turns if you want it to be...

[Barnacle Bill]

Kana said:
Well there is a computerized version of SFB, its called Star Fleet Command. It is bascially an RTS tactical engine, on top of a hex-based strategic engine. Sound familiar? It was programmed with a majority of the SFB rules, except that instead of turns, they used time. Again sound familiar? While I enjoyed it, especially if you slowed down the timer (again familiar), it still in the end wasnt the SFB you play on a table top.

I played it, too. You are right - it wasn't really a computer SFB but a computer game based on SFB material - because of the RTS combat. It kind of illustrates the point I'm trying to make, though. A clever TBS implimentation of SFB on the computer could have eliminated much of the tedium & speeded game play without changing it into an entirely different game. Similarly the issues with SEIV combat could have been resolved without going RTS - via a clever implimentation of a SFB-like proportional movement system and the ability to order formations to procede to a designated location (vs a click-fest of moving it individual hex by individual hex).

[Xrati]

Ah, Yes! I think they used to call it Strategy?