the demo for Star Trek: Bridge Commander was just released. It's a pretty neat game, but i'm irked by something. The Galaxy class has 4 forward and 2 aft torpedo tubes, and does not have full phaser coverage. Basically, the saucer phasers are the only ones that fire. They can fire aft, somewhat, but if an opponent is directly behind you you can only fire your 2 really slow to reload torpedo tubes. i wonder why they truncated the design. the old game A Final Unity represented the ships accurately otherwise, combat seems pretty good. the galaxy class and the warbirds are suitably slow, but heavily shielded, and the birds of prey are nimble, but light on armament and shields. those are the only classes of ships you can play as in the demo. combat is all at short range (100 km to point blank, usually) but i was expecting this. anyone have any thoughts?
--jacob
p.s. the tactical officer really sucks. you end up having to take manual control of the ship in order to be effective. the game has gone gold, so i doubt this will change for the release, but i hope a patch comes out that fixes the AI a bit.
[ February 15, 2002, 20:32: Message edited by: EdipisReks ]
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on February 15, 2002 01:01 PM:
I was just playing that, too. You can get more ships by renaming certain files in your computer, I've played around with the Sovie and the Akira so far.
The BoP is overly shielded, especially on the forward arc, where it's just as well shielded as a Galaxy. The problems I have with the weapons are the same you've expressed.
Otherwise, a very good game indeed.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on February 15, 2002 01:53 PM:
jeez, the demo's been out how long and your already finding small flaws only die-hard trekkies could know. You people REALLY need to get out more.
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on February 15, 2002 02:18 PM:
how did you rename files in order to get the akira and sovy? these aren't small flaws, by the way. for all the detail the game has, it's weird that they didn't look at the TNG:TM. as i said, A Final Unity had the correct specs. i enjoyed the demo fine, though i found the tutorial by Picard a little heavy handed. it's not a difficult interface to figure out. and i think i would bitch slap the first officer, in real life .
--jacob
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on February 15, 2002 03:33 PM:
Go to the scripts/bridge and script/ships folders. Take whatever ship.pyc file you want (not all works) and rename it to the galaxybridge.pyc and galaxy.pyc. Better back up the original Galaxy files, though. And there's always the chance that it'll screw up the program. *shrugs* I also don't recommand you running the single player campaign with modified ship files.
You want diehard neatpick Da_Bong? The lights at the bottom of the main view screen aren't blinking, and the helmsperson's wearing yellow instead of the proper red.
Posted by Kosa (Member # 650) on February 15, 2002 04:17 PM:
I left my computer on last night to get through the 7 and half-hours it took to download. I have been waiting for this beauty since it first appeared at E3 a few years ago. I enjoyed the demo much. A question I have is, Is voice recognition active in the demo? If it is, how do you get it working?
I’m off now to edit the game files to get the extra ships mentioned. Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on February 16, 2002 12:58 AM:
i absolutely RAPED the warbird with the sovereign class. the battle took about 7 minutes, and i suffered NO damage. i'm not sure if it is realistic, but boy was that fun!
--jacob
p.s. with DSL it took me 25 minutes to download the file. i feel bad for anyone who doesn't have broadband.
[ February 16, 2002, 08:59: Message edited by: EdipisReks ]
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on February 16, 2002 02:14 AM:
Yes, well, some of us aren't as priviledged to have broadband. Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on February 16, 2002 05:00 AM:
Wow.. I've tried out all the ships using the file switching trick, and it looks like this is going to be one fun game. Oddly, the "old" Ambassador is the only one with decent aft phaser coverage... And it more than makes up for it with lousy forward arcs.
Mark
[ February 16, 2002, 13:04: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on February 16, 2002 06:04 AM:
Say, where can you download the demo from and how big is the file?
And (assuming that I get the demo), what do you rename the galaxy file to in order to make it a sovie or a neb?
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on February 16, 2002 06:07 AM:
Ah! Just found the link to the demo in another discussion
Ah! 7.5 hours! My ISP only lets me stay on for 2 at a time before disconnecting me. I can't download it in that time nor would I stay on the Net for that long! Anyone know of another way of getting it?
[ February 16, 2002, 15:23: Message edited by: akb1979 ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on February 16, 2002 07:25 AM:
I suspect various gaming magazines will include it on their demo discs, but that could be months away.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on February 16, 2002 08:12 AM:
Anyone wanna back me up, see if we can get some improvement on the weapons?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on February 16, 2002 10:03 AM:
I had to dig a bit to find your post, David. Well, one of them, anyway, I suppose there could be more.
I am not at all convinced that the Galaxy needs to work exactly the same way it does in the show to make for a good game. I never did get A Final Unity working 100%, and so did not often play it, but I can't recall doing anything significantly different in that game than I did in the BC demo. The difference between a Farpoint-like spread of torpedos and just four seems essentially cosmetic to me.
Some people at those forums mention game balance, and that seems like a valid explanation to me. Of course, I don't think the demo goes nearly far enough to show whether the game is truly balanced or not, so I'd be unwilling to say this was a perfect good idea until seeing the full game.
Anyway, A Final Unity struck me as being only about half to 75% as good as Star Trek 25th Anniversary or Judgement Rites. And those had rather simplistic combat models.
Personal gripe: What the heck was with that battle near the end of...25th Anniversary, I think, with the Romulan/mad scientist co-development of that Constitution clone with the phasers and Romulan plasma torpedo. How in the world were you supposed to defeat that thing?
Posted by Ace (Member # 389) on February 16, 2002 10:13 AM:
Practice...lots of practice. Once you can defeat the USS Republic with ease in the mock battle in mission 1, you'll have a better chance with the end mission.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on February 16, 2002 10:22 AM:
Practice? Bah!
Though I wouldn't mind playing that one again...
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on February 16, 2002 11:01 AM:
Well, I'm getting better at the game... But still, I think I should not have to put that much effort into beating a single BoP. I should be able to sit still and just vape the damn thing.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on February 16, 2002 06:18 PM:
This is what happens if you 'accidentally' bump into derelict ships .
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on February 16, 2002 10:09 PM:
Mmm, was the crew of the other ship hungry? Looks like someone took a bite out of that poor Nebbie. OUCH!
Gaming mags - D'oh! I knew that! HEHE! Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on February 17, 2002 01:19 AM:
I think I'm going to like this game .
The game is perhaps a bit simple here and there (the Engineering officer is almost useless for example, apart from the power-switches). I'd love to see what the campaigns are like, and if you get to do some more than just the standard "Go on a simple mission - Oh boy the evil aliens unexpectedly showed up - attack them!" situations from Armada.
Modpacks for this game would be awesome.. Imagine seanr doing the bridges
Modpack wishlist (yeah, already ) - TOS ships! - The Miranda - NX-01 - Excelsior
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on February 17, 2002 01:23 AM:
Link. Me. To. The. Demo. Now.
Please.
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on February 17, 2002 01:38 AM:
just go to www.bridgecommander.com and scroll down until you see "demo available". nothing too complicated .
--jacob
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on February 17, 2002 11:56 AM:
The damage modeling is a bit too sensitive. Any sorta of damage to the saucer can take out an entire phaser arc. As you can see in Harry's picture, the chunk taken out of his ship is relatively small and far from the upper (thus even further from the lower) phaser array, yet it has managed to take out his entire forward phaser arc.
[ February 17, 2002, 19:57: Message edited by: David Templar ]
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on February 18, 2002 03:59 AM:
Seriously though.. BoP are WAY to powerful! I should be able to take one out with at most two torps! And what is the reason for the Galaxy not having quantum torps? Surely they're not deemed out-of-date by Starfleet.
Oh yeah, and the Galaxy has terrible phaser coverage.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on February 18, 2002 07:26 AM:
Is it me or is that BOP a little on the dead side?
Well, I'll have to wait for the demo of Bridge Commander to be released via a magazine. Got a demo of Star Trek Armada II - that is now a definate on my list (when it gets below �15).
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on February 18, 2002 09:13 AM:
Tried telling people that the BoP was too powerful, and they told me that game balance was better than cannoncy.
Evidentally they haven't considered that cannoncy and balance were not mutually exclusive.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on February 18, 2002 09:46 AM:
Remember that these are the folks who brought us the X-Wing series, after all. TIE Fighters last an average of, what, 0.5 seconds? They stretched *that* out a bit...
Mark
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on February 19, 2002 03:00 AM:
I remember that cloakable doohickey. Annoying as all heck. I THINK I had to kill the pirate ships first, but I don't quite remember...
Posted by Kosa (Member # 650) on February 19, 2002 04:25 PM:
quote:Ah! 7.5 hours! My ISP only lets me stay on for 2 at a time before disconnecting me. I can't download it in that time nor would I stay on the Net for that long! Anyone know of another way of getting it?
I have 5 hour period limits, so it took my two connections. To make the time quicker I left my computer on over night and left my download program to shut my computer down when it was finished.
quote: I suspect various gaming magazines will include it on their demo discs, but that could be months away.
I really couldn’t wait. My regular mag hasn’t got it this month and probably not next month either.
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on February 22, 2002 06:24 AM:
after playing this game a lot for a few days, i have to say that it is fun. i wish that the torpedoes were correct and that the BOP weren't uber invincible from the front.
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7.5 hours! My ISP only lets me stay on for 2 at a time before disconnecting me. I can't download it in that time ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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