Between Star X and Star Y – A true Fanboys Dilemma.

Spaceship Orion from the 60's:
Forgotten entry + hard to match + Low-Res only?

About mixing Space Sagas and their Spaceships
Sure, mixing Space Sagas is no good idea but sometimes it can't be avoided. All those fancy Ships known from movies and tv shows can be called real, at least within a games Mod. So, if you played with thousands of Spaceships in dozens of games, you soon start to realize that one thing might not fit coupled with another. This took years for me to understand. It's a technological and design specific fact that you can't combine for example Stargate with Star Trek, without calling it Steam- or Cyberpunk. If you ever had that feeling, it's a Dilemma! Let me give you another example: Just compare a Warp Drive or Subspace with some generic engines and while we are talking – where are the RCS trusters on most Sci-fi ships at (since most missed to include them)? And that's only talking on the surface of a very deep topic, mainly because for the designers theres a lot of goals when bulding a fictional spaceship. It could be the generic look of the time setting, the technology need or just a current design trend OR as in many cases only a fast solution. Imagine us living in a harsh industrial time. We would see angled minimalistic and sure footed non aesthetic designs. In the other example we would live in a super High-Tech century and our ships would be organic and feature whatever we can dream of. Let's make a note: Different Sci-fi Looks and different time frames produce inconsistency. My favorite way to compare such things is by looking a the cockpit or bridge design or by aerodynamical aspects of the hull. While I often find ugly canopies I also discover many non- or semi-aerodynamic shapes or something I would call "Comic-Look". One thing is for sure, all the stories around the Star Sagas are huge and epic, each as it's own. But what about the specific assets like Spaceships in the matter of the look of the Saga, are they even realistic? And when it comes to gaming, how about mixing them all up togheter?

"Creating a virtual mega Hangar full of different Ships – a long time goal".

Back to reality
Sci-fi is just Sci-fi, but not for us gamers. Lot's of famous Spaceships appear from game to game. Many games offer some simple Unit Management, a Map Editor or some scripting access. This way nerdy folks create fun scenarios containing multiple amounts of different Spaceships. It's just like doing what you ever dreamed of. Once you parked all those fancy Spaceships in one place, which I did over a thousand times, you will be creating a mess, just like me. Different Scalings, window sizes, engine types, hull platings, colours, Sci-fi Technologies and in the end even more important things like different Mesh and Texture detail levels. This was just a little set of things which might not fit. Even in a lone role, when not creating virtual empires, taking a simple ride into space depends on having something to fly with. Running different Sci-fi Mods I had to find a solution to such a complicated question and since it differs from day to day, how to choose my current most liked Sci-fi Universe Spaceship to role play with it? And will it satisfy?

"Help, I know hundreds of Spaceships".

So, what kind of Fanboy am I today?
Most of those Sci-Fi Universes are my favorites. It's a constant change. And there are those days where I don't even want to know a thing about Sci-fi. On such days I feel like a realist avoiding everything that's only theory. When not flying hypothetical stuff I enjoy state of the art ingame vehicles like Ships, U-Boats, Airplanes and almost real Spaceships. Back in time, I would have called myself a Trekkie (I've been playing STO a long time but the recent two movies hindered me from login-in again). Nowadays other Merchandisings play a bigger role to me, like Stargate or BSG (SG is fascinating but I don't really like the look, same with BSG). Andromeda is a too strange and ugly but a interessting story setting. I even was once into Babylon 5 when I was a teenager. Oh and Star Wars was something I called fantasy, even the assets part was nice enough to be liked. Firefly had to little spaceships for me to be recognized with proper attention, same as others (forgotten Sagas). Theres a easy way to determine the issue by simply looking at the fact that Star Trek Federation Ships are too futuristic to be placed near every other Sci-fi. It's sad but it differs entirely.

"Having all of my favorite Spaceships in one place was once very important to me".

No doubt, Steampunk!
Sometimes I can't relate to any of my once beloved Fan Sagas. I'm starting to fan-like independant open source Spaceships, since they offer a lot of the, to me very important "realism" and provide space for my own kind of Storylines. The fun fact is, that one could Mod such ships to however he wanna end-up with, be it a Star Drive or A Wormhole Drive, a cap of coffee on that cockpits texture or whatever. In this case we should have a good base, means a good detail quality (to avoid wasting time with Low-Res sources). Anyway, a Rendevouz Manuever of a BSG Ship with a Star Trek Ship is something fun to watch, in case the beam transporter is offline, which we, for fun, try to expect in such a scenario. This should explain why there are even more things that could play a main role in the confusion:

"Colonial One to Delta Glider NX-425. Wheres your docking port?".
"DG NX-425 to Colonial One. Nope, no such thing, uhm, ..."

Details, details, details:
Lot's of Mods have a great level of detail, others not. Mixing HiRes with Low-Res is always a bad thing to do in the name of immersion. Here comes another tricky problem, should one leave a mighty spaceship alone, even when his Star X/Y fleet is almost complete. Or should he add the Comic-Lookalikes, too? That's another question and the reason I stopped creating overfilled Fps-killing full scale scenarios because things did not even fit. I sure would love to have them all in one place, but all from the same source or with at least a min. on details, most importantly on the mesh and / or texture and besides that on the overall compability (see the Docking Port example above).

"It's like comparing apples and oranges".

A matter of taste OR quality
Well, most would say, why play with Low-Res stuff. I wish I could agree but I learned that many old games offer more assets or gameplay features than state of the art releases. A lot of HiRes Mods come from common games like BF3 and for non-commercial creators it's a matter of time consuming work to create HiRes Mods by themselves. Maybe that's the reason why we don't see them everyday.

"Size also matters a lot - choose your favorite vehicle wisely. Too big means no steering fun. Too small means it wont fit your dreams".

Diving for Pearls
I think a good summary on this complex nerd topic is picking the best and leaving out the rest. Some Sci-fi Spaceships are awesome and some Mods feature those Spaceships. But this topic is not only about spaceships. It's about the best Mods around and good things are like the saying hard to find. So I say no matter what it looks, if it's realistic and full of details it's worth a ride. This way we can create virtual parking lots with things that could be real one day or reflect the future instead of playing with the things we used to like when we were kids and which don't fit our adult needs for authenticity anymore.

"In the end, I only need one personal virtual ultra mega awesome super ride, right?
A Stargate should be enough anyway!".



This topic is not done yet. I will write a bit more on it asap. 

Wing Commander Saga – The LOLCATS strike back! Most epic game ever!

A true Hall of Fame entry:
The LOLCATS strike back! The Most epic game ever: Wing Commander Saga!



Cat's are fun: A Cat on the ISS would be the most ever clicked YouTube video I guess.
I don't know how, but cat's somehow appeared in space, they call themselves Kilrathi now.
And they evolved to be lovely monsters. Yep and we and them became equal so watch it, they fly spaceships. BTW: The cute angry cat on the left actually ain't a Kilrah (those look more like tigers).


Oh yeah, so linear story based gameplay can be big fun, entertaining and thrilling. It's about atmosphere and you can feel it even theres no atmosphere in the vast of space. The storyline is like this: A Squadron, Carriers that house you, lot's of cat's everywhere. They call us furless freaks (maybe because we freaked out on funny cat-vids, yeah no doubt). They have CapShips / BigShips and lot's or medium and catsize support crafts. They fight hard but they don't risk too much. They entirely blame your flight skills (at least till right before you finished all campaign missions) + they hit hard.

The seven lifes thing works for cat's even in space, be it as if you need to restart a certain mission or because they can eject their ship just like you could. You pathetic descendant of monkeys! ...that's one of the more gentle things they said to me. Since they really make you want to find arguments (because of their flight skills or what they say) you can enjoy listening to what your taff wing mates have to counter. Fly in groups of 8 or more or do a recon mission with only one wingman. Play all those "I always wanted to" things. De-stabilize the Kilrathi presence at different sectors of space, get them away from any resources, aim for their Carriers and whatever (try damage it part by part, if they let you).

Having a great time:
Do two atmospheric flights, safe people, safe your Carriers. Encounter a loyal Monarchy of cat's following their Kings / independant leaders and say miaow to many high society cat's. A couple of the interesting stories and sceneries know from the various Wing Commander releases await you behind the ingame part where you have to stand them while you and they play hide and seek. This is no old-to-new: It has been made from A-Z for it's pilots. This also means the storyline introduces you the the world of Wing Commander. It's a tribute to Chris Robert's Wing Commander (which many of you might played before as it was the first top seller PC games, had movies and merchandising decades ago). WC Saga is made by fans for fans. Unlike Battlestar Galactica Diaspora – which also is a very epic game based on the FreeSpace2 Engine – Wing Commander Saga feels a bit more comfortable. I recommend flying only with "Glide Mode ON" (adds fun and simulator charecteristics). Meet famous cat's (you will get to know them). Have a little dogfight, the cat's have awesome ships (absolutely). Now they don't just look frightening sweet – unfortunately they are your target's (oh behave, cute cat's) . You will experience stunning briefing sequences, great music, voice-speech and radio-comms. the AI's will become your friends. Even the graphics are not state of the art the visuals have been all over raised to the maximum possible that the FS2 engine can master! If you haven't played it yet, trust me, everybody is saying this is trully thrilling and totally entertaining.

One or two pictures:

Download it here for free – have some fun:
http://wcsaga.com

Notes:
– Play it or never even think of calling it wack (it's Open Source, it was meant for something)
– This ain't a Multiplayer but they're working on such a thing at the moment
– I can't wait till we can pilot the cat's ships ourselves. They're on it, too!


This entry has been written by Simulator Miaow, meet her, she is here on this blog (on the right side), she wants to play a bit and she is a cute non-monster cat.