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Space sim Squadron 42 is "feature-complete" and gunning for Starfield's lunch with massive new video
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Gaming
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Yeah, it never really clicked for me, and I didn't like the "faux online" aspect either. I bet that it's probably pretty in VR, though.
Ah, okay, I didn't think that that'd be your cup of tea, because while the game does have fighters, it tends to favor large ship combat, and my take is that the dogfighting isn't too elaborate -- like, if you can leverage strafing in X2, the enemy AI isn't all that great at predicting where you'll be. There isn't, I don't know, breaking missile locks or whatever. Though I guess that exploiting dead zones in fields of fire is a thing. And there's a management focus, and the ability to indirectly manage many ships. I hadn't played much of X4 myself, though I did do X3 a fair bit.
Do you enjoy the fleet command aspect of it? There's a game that I recall that felt more like a fleet naval combat simulator in space, not on the first-person dogfighting aspect. Lots of naval warfare-ish jargon, focus on sensor and counter-sensor stuff -- I suspect that people who like something leaning a bit more milsim would like that. It was early access when I played it, but probably enough to have some fun with it. Let me find the name.
googles
Got it. NEBULOUS: Fleet Command.
They flash through a lot of functionality in a few seconds quickly in the demo vids there on steam, but you can see the ship and weapon configuration, fleet and ship commands, system-specific damage control, some of the electronic warfare stuff, things like that.
So, I enjoyed what was there, but I can imagine someone finding the faux-naval jargon a bit opaque. Sort of like operating a naval group, with ships with specialized roles. The graphics are okay, but beauty isn't their goal -- they're trying to do a combat environment in space.
I actually ran across it when looking for a non-space milsim fleet naval combat game, and was pleasantly-surprised.
Yeah, ditto.
I liked it, but then I wanted a Skyrim or Fallout 4 out of it, not a space combat game. Yeah, the space combat there isn't much more than a pretty minigame.
Sorry to bear the bad news, but Elite: Dangerous has abandoned developing any further VR functionality.
To my knowledge VR still works in ship cockpits and is still amazing there, but the last big expansion's big draw added new on foot content that doesn't support VR at all. In VR it displays in headset as a giant 2D screen in front of you, if it chooses to work with the headset at all.
Well to be fair, X4 isn't my favorite of the bunch because of its (lack of) similarity to Wing Commander. It's not really that kind of game. But it is fun and scratches the space economy itch more like a Freelancer or Eve.
I hadn't hard of Nebulous. I see what they're going for graphically (Homeworld style). I'll have to keep an eye on it. But yeah the fleet combat part of X4 never quite got me interested beyond "if I make 100 fighters, I should be able to take out pretty much anything". Controlling large fleets was always a weakness of the game, one of the janky bits. But Building stations, setting up an economy, piracy, and all that stuff is still fun.
Ah, gotcha, fair-enough.
Ah, okay. I was just trying to figure out how it differed from some of the other things you listed, and fleet combat was one. But the economic side is another, and, yeah, I can see the economic side of the X series being appealing if building a big space empire is a goal.
If you're looking for a space economic sim, that's entirely-absent from NEBULOUS, and in fact they even mention that up-front on the product page -- they're going for combat simulation. So it won't fill that slot.
Yeah, probably not my cuppa tea, but I will keep an eye on it. Space ships blowing each other up has potential, even if it's not my favorite style of said activity.
And I bet it releases before Star Citizen for a fraction of the price!