By: Ouroboros, February 9, 2000

In no particular order:

• A bigger Escort list. Pretty much everyone is going to be running FS3 at a resolution of at least 1024, and even at 640, there's enough room for a bigger Escort list. Five slots would be great, and let me monitor all the ships I want to keep an eye on.
• Corvette fighterbays. The Moloch has 'em, so why not the Sorbek and Deimos classes? Adding bays to all corvette-class ships allows for a much more interesting storyline in many cases, since new fighters can be introduced to the mission without having to have them appear out of nowhere (warping in) or dragging a full destroyer into the mix.
• Weaker anti-fighter weapons. As it is, a standard pair of Promethei will chew up a Basilisk or Mara in under a second flat in a steady pair of hands. More importantly, a well-aimed missile salvo spells death for almost anything. But because guns are so powerful, I rarely have cause to use those spiffy missiles. So, if fighter cannon and missiles were weaker, fights would last longer, not to mention that Volition could add a speedy, maneuverable fighter with very limited gunnery capacity but huge anti-fighter missile power.
• More powerful flak cannon! I've only rarely seen these turrets actually do more than look really, really cool.
• More variety in Command Briefing animations. While the FS1 animations were so plentiful and generic that user missions could easily add a bit of splash to their openings, the FS2 images are so few and mission-specific that third-party missions have to make do with a couple of rotation images of Rakshasas and Myrmidons.
• Put the Mission Simulator on the main screen! There's no reason for it to be nestled away in the Tech room, and it's used pretty damn often once the main campaign is finished off.
• Easier testing in FRED3. Let us click a button and very quickly launch into our mission's Command Briefing and go from there, quickly exiting back to FRED3 on command. It'd be a godsend.
• More variety in ships! We still don't have Vasudan or Shivan installations, or civilian traffic at all. Where are the huge cruise liners? The speedy little civvies craft that so love to wander into war zones? And so on.
• Jump Point Defenses! Why, why, why, is every single jump point in the game left completely undefended? There should be dozens of Mjolners and other turrets, not to mention a specialized fort, watching over every side of every node, waiting for Shivans to poke their noses through.
• Built-in standalone missions would be great, not to mention that they'd clue in newbies to the existence of user mission archives on the internet. Just provide a few escorts, defenses, and other missions in the Simulator, and it'll more quickly get people to go hunting for new ones online.
• More campaigns! Why not offer the main story from two points of view? FS1 would have been fantastic if it had just included gameplay from the Vasudan and Terran perspectives. FS2 could have featured a Neo-Terran Front campaign. And so on.
• Go back to smaller ANIs and bigger blocks of text in command briefings; they're about words anyway, and it looks better in the opinion of me and Pastel.
• Make bombing more complex, and add more types of bombs - dropping in a load should be a real skill.
• Capships! I mean, flyable. That kind of shifts the entire field of play, and likely couldn't be slammed into an FS-esque game, so why not FreeSpace: Armada, focusing on flying and commanding capital ships in squadron sizes, commanding fighters and bombers as wings? Action/strategy, perhaps, to add some complexity and gameplay to the game. If you don't think there's enough gameplay in just being a Destroyer or 'Vette, just play Independence War for a while.
• Landings in and taking-offs from fighter bays in big ships. Yes, yes, Volition has many times said they don't like this, but I'd love it, and we'd be able to end a mission with the player and his home base in the same place!
• NO SHIELDED CAPITAL SHIPS. Ignore the fools - capships have their flak cannon and beam turrets already. Shields belong on happy little fighter people.
• I want my turrets! Return turrets to bombers, and let us command them via the Comms menu. It'd be fun as all hell.
• We want Terra! The return to the homeworld had better be impressive. What if Nazis or some similar unpleasant group took over and we had to kick our own asses? Or perhaps Earth is lain ruin by the isolation and lack of imports.
• Make the medal-granting system better. Offer some medals automatically (get credit for nuking a Sethanis, get the You're Obviously Cheating medal; put the smack down on a Ravana for the Good for You! Medal, etc.)
• I want my rank! I've got all but one medal, two or three of most of 'em, and I've got over 300 confirmed kills. So why the hell am I just a Lieutenant JG? Rank should be awarded a little more automatically, for making kills and getting assists.
• As the player advances in rank, he should automatically get the ability to command more fighters and give more orders - at least in the main campaign.
• Let me be Vasudan! I've been using a Vasudan pilot-pic, but I was able to "join" the NTF, not to mention hear the Vasudan pilots go on about how I'm pretty good for a Terran.

Comments? Email them to Ouroboros

Go Back