Board Thread:Announcements/@comment-16922870-20170304215241/@comment-30202282-20170307020108

I remember engaging debates on the Fishlabs forums back in the day about whether or not the Nemesis needed a turret slot, or about whether or not anybody actually uses secondary-focussed ships (spoiler alert, people do). There were even some super-weird fringe builds involving mixed weapon ranges and projectile speeds for some initial damge followed by closing in for a finishing kill.

Today I have the same discussions aobut spaceships - but it's not a Galaxy on Fire game I'm talking about. It's Elite: Dangerous. For every super weird weapon type in that game that everyone hates or finds useless, there's a guy who can use it to win fights they're massively outclassed in. There's ships built for specific roles - we have heavy battleships mixed in with swift interceptors and nimble turnfighters. We even have some super weird stuff - a dedicated mining ship that can launch a smaller fighter for some reason, retrofitted from one of the older freighters. Player-run races; Who can rig up the fastest ship? There's a metagame. There's options. There's room for customization and skill.

You know how in real life people praise cars or aircraft on how well they do certain things, but why they're good at those things can't be qualified? How people say something just "feels" nice to them? This ship turns fast, but it's got weak lateral thrusters, so it drifts all over the place. This one's super fast in a straight line, but can't turn for jack. This ship's got two stupidly large weapon mounts, but also an exposed canopy that shatters if you so much as touch it, leaving you to limp home under emergency life support.

This is Elite. It's crowdfunded - they don't even have the support of a major publisher like Fishlabs does. It's got what I wanted out of GOF3, with everything except "be on mobile." I wanted GOF3 to have MORE interest, MORE customization, MORE freedom. Instead it got dumbed down. GOF3 is in all respects a technically very good game, but it's shallow.

Elite has ships with incongruous weapon sizes and locations, forcing a player to improvise to use them well. GOF3 has the same two weapon mounts, in the same places, on every ship.

Elite has drifty ships, fast ships, slow ships, ships that fly like bricks, ships that pitch and roll like a dream but can't yaw. Ships that can stay out of the firing arc of any combatant, but if they're hit they're toast. GOF3 has "slow, medium, and fast."

At least GOF2 had unique maneuverability numbers, with mods that could change it up if you wanted. Ever put a Pulsed Plasma Thrust on a Dace? That was some great fun. You couldn't do anything useful with it, but it was fun. No creativity on the part of the player is even possible in GOF3.

GOF2 has a static economy, with lucrative trade routes for those who go looking. Elite has a dynamic economy that can be influenced by players - a profitable route falls apart when some other player's superfreighter starts using it. GOF3? No economy whatsoever. Trading just doesn't exist.

I could go on, but really it's not some specific thing Fishlabs can add that'll fix GOF3. It needs a complete rewrite. From scratch. Salvage only the environments, writing, and ship models. Give us trading. Give us variation. Give us customization. Give us something that means THIS SHIP IS GOOD AT STUFF OTHERS AREN'T. Something!