Alright, this is gonna be my little rant and rave thread, so don't expect it to stop anytime soon. I have a number of complaints about storylines and missionlines, and a few about ships, but, for the sake of conciseness, I'll only list a couple here.
Now, don't get me wrong, Nova is an incredible game. But, the scenario takes litle or no advantage of the engine's capabilities. I think that this kind of a game is very capable of simulating a future reality -- and therefore should. Now, I can't do a plugin myself, as I don't have the time. But I'd love to see plugs come out that include these features.
1: Politics. Why is it that plugs never involve politics? No political assassinations, no chance for the player to become a famous political leader, whose sole vote will change the course of nations, no NOTHING. This is a very bad thing. Politics plays a huge role in real life, and should play a large role in plugs. For example, what if the Fed. President does something that Krane doesn't like? Well, you're her Trusted Lieutenant, as the Evil Overlord Handbook says, so you should be the one to go take care of him. You get to take out his personal ship.
2: Cröns. Use more cröns. You can keep a pilot on a planet for six months, six years, six decades, whatever. Shoot, you could do a full Andromeda scenario, where the ship gets stuck for a few centuries, and is rescued only to find the entire galaxy changed. Have missions where the player gets thrown in prison, has all his money confiscated, and is stuck with a little shuttle again. Like if the assassination attempt on the Fed. President fails. Or have missions that open up new systems, saying that they have just been discovered by exploration teams. The galaxy's a big place, folks, and not even the Polaris know about all of it.
3: Failing Missions. The player is always the messiah, the dude who always wins. In the Fed string, have a random chance that the Rebels win, and vice versa. The player occaisonally needs to be put back in his place: he's not completely the master of his own fate.
4: Northern Systems. There's nothing to see there. They take up space, and lead the player on a wild goose chase into nowhere. Why not have exploration missions where you discover and help to terraform new systems?
5: More ships. The Fed Scout Ship is a fighter, not a Scout Ship. Give us a real scoutship, like a Miranu Courier, or more like this: the thing is practically all engine: top speed of 600, fast jumping, multi-jump, can jump without slowing, probably inertialless, is not affected by deadly spöbs or gravity, ten jumps. Two light cannon/one biorelay laser, thorium/Matter/Antimatter reactor, and a cloak. Forget your shields and armor, they might as well not be there. If somebody's mad at you, your job is to run. Fast. 'Cuz if they catch up, you're gonna have an entry for that Famous Last Words thread.
Feel free to flame me about this, as it's what I'm expecting. Have fun.
Good luck, and God bless,
-- spacecowboy
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Suddenly, the little scoutship disappeared and then reappeared right behind the alien warfleet. The gravitic ship's captain hailed the armada. "You are going to be destroyed, but I will give you a choice as to how you want to spend eternity: big pieces, little pieces, or quarks?"
Dead silence.
"Quarks it is, then."
