This is just my two cents, but I think it needs to be remembered that no matter how much we want it Darkstar One is NOT Freelancer 2 . It is its own game, and personally feel that the developers have done an excellent job here. As for graphics being 'arcadey' or 'comical', I feel that this is mostly not the case. Keep in mind it is a computer game, and will look rendered, and who knows... maybe in the future technology will progress to the point to allow ship design (like airplane design today) to become as much of an art as an excercise in practicality. The characters are very well rendered.

As for the voice acting, I must respectfully disagree with the aforementioned opinions. The reason it comes across as odd is that all of the dialogue was originally written in German, and even with the best of translators, things don't come across perfectly. Many of the names of places and people (such as Kayron, for example) were meant to be said with the European or German pronunciation, which didn't all make it into the English version (i.e. the pronunciation shifted from "Kyron" (german) to "Kayron" (english... erm "American" pronunciation)). Like a user pointed out above, this is a game primarily made for the German market. Having played both the English and German versions of the demo, I can honestly say that the German voice acting is done very well.

DSO is very promising from my point of view, and its certaintly not appropriate to pass judgement on it before giving plenty of time to the full version of the game.

Hi Erazor,

Any chance of Starlancer like Torpedo's being included, or a bomber class ship?

---
"Fate it seems is not without a sence of irony" ~ Morpheus

Torpedos we have in the sense of "Big Bang" missiles. These are large explosive warheads that cause massive damage to Cruisers or large freighters. They are slow moving missiles so actually hitting a fighter makes it hard.

AI controlled ships do have bomber class vessels (loaded with torpedoes) so those are included in a sense as well.

Fantastic, Cap ship Busting here i come!

Any chance you can steal the torp sound from Starlancer and use that


---
"Fate it seems is not without a sence of irony" ~ Morpheus

Looks like a good game. I'll have to pick it up. Some questions / suggestions.

1. Are there any interior docking cinematics in the full version?
2. It would have been nice to have a "narrated slideshow" for the news updates (a-la Tachyon).
3. Are you required to upgrade your ship to a certain point in order to be able to finish the game?
4. Will there be further optimizations to improve FPS for people w/ 128MB video cards (50% of players)?
5. What is it specifically that causes the Pirates to get tougher? I ask because the first time I played through the Demo, I had a lively fight with the Pirate gang hiding out in the asteroid field(Elsu gang or some such), but put them down without too much of a problem at medium difficulty. After downloading the MOD that lets you upgrade all 3 sections of your ship to Lvl 4 and after purchasing all possible upgrades, I tried them again (still at medium difficulty). Well, lets just say that they wiped the floor with me 5 times out of 5 tries. They seem to have gotten MUCH tougher than I have.
6. Is there any way to increase your speed or agility other than by upgrading your ships wings/Engine?
7. As with a previous poster, I just wanted to let you know that I have no problem with there being no MP game. I only play SP games. You can always add a MP component if the game sells well enough for an add-on. Though I would suggest as much support of the Modding community as possible.

Keep up the great work!

Edited by - Cleric on 7/25/2006 11:39:53 AM

i cant wait until its out, good work to all staff of DS1.

Edited by - BlasterUK on 7/25/2006 12:22:24 PM

@Cleric

5: Those saves, dispite what their creator may say, have been edited to make the missions MUCH harder. Even if you manage to get the best equipment available, they'll still kill you pretty easily. While I agree it's pretty cool to have that powerful ship, it would be better if the guy hadn't made the NPCs so much harder.

7: Agree. Some people don't like playing online, some do. Unfortunately, the ones who do like playing online are all too frequently the loudest, most insufferable morons you'll ever meet online.

(This site is best viewed with your eyes open)

Just my two cents. I've spent a few hours with the Darkstar One demo and it's not as great as Freelancer-- but good enough to make me want to buy the full game.

Combat is a lot like FL, and missiles are fun to shoot (Hellfires almost never miss), but in the demo you are limited to carrying ten and they are expensive. The swarm missile is like a shotgun blast, unguided but useful in close quarters. Shields don't work the same as n FL, so it's possible to take out some of the weaker ships with one Hellfire. The variety of weapons is not as much as we are used to, but there will be more in the full game. One thing I like is having controls to roll left and right as well as strafe in a dogfight.

You go through the entire game with one ship, but it can be equipped with lots of different items. The innovative part is how the Darkstar One can expand itself to create more weapon and equipment slots. One especially useful upgrade allows you to mount turrets that fire automatically at hostile targets, e.g. ships on your tail (wish FL had that).

The side missions are different but can be repetitive after a while, like in FL. You can sign on as a freighter escort to earn money, that was something missing from the original FL. Also, there are occasional distress calls to answer and invitations to join in combat missions. The first part of the story is not as interesting as the FL demo. At the end of it, Kayron has a co-pilot named Eona. Sometimes she can be useful, such as reminding you that another ship is on your tail.

Inter-system travel is by hyperspace drive. You can leave a system from anywhere that's not too close to a solid object. Systems are entered through a single hyper gate. Inside a system, there is no cruise engine but you have an afterburner that can be upgraded to get more out of it. Also there is a time dilation effect to speed up routine movement inside a system. There is no autopilot (at least in the demo) and formation flying is manual too.

Landing on stations is actually quicker than FL once you buy a landing computer (affordable very early in the game). Taxis go from trading stations down to the planet, but in the demo at least you can't go to the surface of planets. Actually each system has only one place where you can land, and inside the station everything is handled in one room (but there is a "panorama" or viewing port to see outside).

The trade system, at least in the demo, isn't very interesting. The dynamic pricing that people said they wanted in FL has been implemented but that just means you have no idea whether a trade run will make money. And cargo is carried in unwieldy containers that get towed behind your ship. You have to drop the container to fight off pirates and then pick it up again.

If you like to see fireworks, DSO delivers. The Big Bang torp will do a job on capital ships and pirate asteroids, making a fiery shockwave that spreads across the sky. You can even get paid by the rebels for blowing up ships, but the police are much tougher than FL and I haven't been able to escape them to enjoy the money. There is a reputation system that's rudimentary compared to FL, and so far it doesn't look like crime pays.

From the demo and what I've heard about the full game, exploration is not a big part of DSO. The systems are very simple with few places to go. Planets are pretty and they rotate, but although the game tells you billions of people live on them you can't visit the surface of any planet.

Edited by - rmwarnick on 7/25/2006 9:49:28 PM

Edited by - rmwarnick on 7/25/2006 11:00:02 PM

Sorry for not reading everything but 10 pages is quite a journey .
Freelancer was my first online space sim and now it's something I always look forward to in a game.
So here are a few straight forward questions.

There are many ships in the game, did I read correctly that out of all this we get to fly only one? I'm asking because I'm a ship person first.

I went to the main website and red that there is no plans for MP, is this so?

I'm not a modder but when you write about mods being possible or considered, did you mean for SP only or MP?

Thanks



Edited by - Poojah Nazol on 7/25/2006 10:07:29 PM

Finally. Some company that recognizes the need for a Freelancer type of game. I am going to buy this one as soon as it is available in The Netherlands if only it was to support this type of game. But after reading all posts and possible information about this game I just know I am going to like it. Hopefully my PC can manage to run this game smoothly with low settings (P4 2.4/512MB/Radeon 9800 128M

"fun, quickly accessible, console compatible, easy to learn, hard to master, fast and easy to understand and interesting for the general public"

This more or less what I expect from a game. Leave the expansionpacks etc. for specific needs after the game has proven succesfull.

For the critics here, I just would like to emphasize that even if this game does not appeal to your liking, you may still want to invest in it just to support the genre and future investments in a game that will come closer to your demands. I have been waiting for this type of game for too long now, lets send of a signal that this genre is here to stay!

www.tweakers.net/gallery/69457/sys.

Poojah, there's only one ship you can fly, and no plans for MP at this points (tho that might be considered if they sell well I suppose).

(This site is best viewed with your eyes open)

This won't be much of a spoiler unless you haven't completed the demo.

Question for guys: Juni or Eona?

Question for girls: Trent or Kayron?

I would like to see more dockable bases in the systems, i.e. the mysterious 'research stations' or even the asteroids being mined. One of my biggest gripes about FL was the "Access Denied" message that came in that whiny voice from an object that didn't have a computer for a ten klick radius (i.e. jumpholes). If its a base (or planet), I'd like to see it dockable, though with the scope of the DSO universe, I can see how it'd be unreasonable to make this happen.

I have a bit of a technical question. I have played the DSO Demo and loved it (had to slide that in). My question is this. My HP/Compaq nc6000 laptop played it with some chop. HP says it is only capable of the 32 mb video that it contains. I have 512 ram now. Can I upgrade the ram to, say 2 gb and eliminate the chop or will I need to look elsewhere for something with more video ram? I'd hate to have to upgrade the whole thing if I don't have to.

As a Paramedic, I said to our coroner, "I'm headed out to save a life." To which he responded "If that doesn't work out for ya, give me a call."