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intruder alerts.. help


Styles
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Heya,

I just downloaded the now-freeware battlecruiser millenium. The learning curve didn't seem as bad as some reviews painted it. So far, I like it a lot. However, there's one little recurring issue- intruders.

Example

Playing Terran Commercial ship (armed transport) starting at Genesis star port in Earth area. Before I get started let me say that yes- the marines were all prepped for combat. After first launching, I even turned right around and re-entered the star station to give the marines time to prep. Anyway, less than 10 minutes after getting started I have an intruder alert. 4 intruders. They kill 2 marines and injure the rest of the marines so severely they'll be out of action for what is probably a few real-time days worth of game-time. System engineers are likewise as hurt as are half the flight officers and a couple of command officers. It's essentially a disaster before even getting out of the starting gate. I obviously can't run back into the star station when intruders appear as I'll suffer EXP and financial penalties if I do. Though, I would guess that experience doesn't mean much to the scientist or commercial castes themselves.

Happens almost every time I play some ship that has marines. Doesn't seem to matter what race/caste it is (though I've mostly been trying scientist and commercial types).

What I'm looking for-

I'd like to play the game sort of like the trader, yet with a ship that's a little more than those unarmed transports. Something with ground vehicles to putter around in while the mining drones are working, etc. Marine troops that you can keep out of medibay long enough to exparament with.

I love BCM. Everything in it seems so.. perfect. Except for that darn system of handling intruders. Especially when playing a less-than-military type ship.

Here is my only real point of contention -- "Assigning marines to search detail"

Why are we doing it the old World War 2 type way? I can see where the intuders are at all times (using Perscan), why can't my AE just tell the Combat Officer where the intuders are so he can send all available marines there, all at once, to overwhelm the intruders? Why even take the chance that someone will get hurt? The BCM manual admits marines tend to die like heros. I'm sorry, but that's wrong. The #1 priority of any military type is to survive the engagement. The #1 way to survive is to overwhelm your enemy by force or by arms. Those 3-5 intruders should be facing all 10 marines trying to overwhelm them.. not just some lone marine who stumbled into the room and started shooting. The very picture of that is wrong. Even in our current car-and-airplane type age, military types are far more organized and careful than this. Heck, even police in your hometown won't go into a dangerous situation alone- they call for backup before going in. They even tend to call for backup when simply pulling over a drunk diver. Never take chances. SOP. Should be extremely dangerous for ANY intuder to try and board your ship.

I'm not flaming, basting, trolling or anything like that. I really like BCM. It's perfect for what I'm looking for in a.. well.. "space game". I know of nothing else quite like it. Haven't liked a space adventure game this much since Starflight. It's just that darn intruder system is keeping me down. Tired of having marines (and other crew) wiped out by an intruder force of half their size. Tired of it happening right when I get started. What can I do?

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Take into account that you know where the intruders are by the report of the marines or other crew member to the Combat Officer, or if some system is damaged or manipulated without authorization.

Be sure that as the men in your crew grow in experience, your marines will all converge on the intruders all at once.

Now you have some green recruits and a just-out-of-the-academy Combat Officer....and he's Resnig.... you know.

Stumbling upon a group of well armed, experienced and well detemined raiders will end up hurting pretty bad some of your marines.... the fact is that you have so few in a transport.

I never noticed something so wrong with that....

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I didn't come here to get into a debate. I'm sorry if I came across as flaming or blasting the game, because I'm not. The entire concept behind BCM is one of the best I've seen. I say that with honest sincerity.

The only reason why I act like it doesn't make sense is this..

From what I understand, the commander does not know where the intruders are by way of crew reports or if noticing systems are damaged. One knows where intruders are by way of security systems. The manual says something about that. I see this reflected in-game by way of Perscan computer. The manual says your ships security systems identify hostile forces on your ship in section 9.2. I think of how police always get backup before going in. They know that right out of training. I was thinking that a marine squad would do even better. I found it odd that we were forgeting all this high-technology and maybe military training and, instead, we split up and search and make each individual marine vulnerable. A lone marine would not just jump into a room with 3-5 enemies, no matter how green they are. Heck, the more green they are the less likely, I'd think. First few times into combat and you're scared, not courageous. Certainly not enough to take those kind of odds. I'd be running out of the room, calling my buddies on my uniform's comlink. Probably do that if I were experiened too, since it's what kept me alive the first few times lol. Chicken? Ok, I'm chicken. You first, Rambo. :)

Jokes aside.. you see.. no matter how much sense or how little sense you make of it (probably just depends on the individual).. the bottom line is this game experience is getting ruined. My crew is getting wiped out 10-20 minutes after starting by something I can't seem to prevent.

Or... can I prevent it? That's all I want to know. What's the workaround? How do I keep these marines alive and out of medibay so they can become experienced? If you want to say it's sensible, then I'll take your word for it. I'm just some old geek who's been playing games since the 80s. I just want to know how to take out these intruders without the bad experience.

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Well... right now i'm acting as merc and (i recommend you so) in order to trade, what i do is to...

1. Land my ship on any empty region of any planet.

2. Deploy mi shuttle and start trading with it.

Advantages.

1. Since shuttles are faster, you can make great amounts of profit in a short time (i got 120 millions in 23 hours).

2. With your ship docked you earn...

a. No radine nor pluto spent

b. The fact that your marines will increase their experience safely. Just by keeping them alive.

So, when you reach about 4 or 5 days (dont forget to resupply your ship with nutripacks and to let them rest from time to time) you will have lotsa money and experience to fight whoever goes in your path.

That's the only way to prevent it buddy...

P.D. There is also a useful bug on it... f.e. Lets see you have a trading route between Polaris and Earth. You go from galcom with your shuttle and loads of weapons to Polaris space station. Now, after selling them all fall back to Polaris 2 (the planet). When in planet (shift 9 to planetfall) just "select" your own ship in priority list and "dock" into it.

You will apear in your ship and not in polaris but in earth. Saved half of the time, useful don't you think so?

And finally... does somebody know how to planetfall into specific locations of a determined planet? I mean, it's quite boring to wait until my cruisser reaches 12000 km from one point to another...

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I didn't come here to get into a debate. I'm sorry if I came across as flaming or blasting the game, because I'm not. The entire concept behind BCM is one of the best I've seen. I say that with honest sincerity.

No flames don't worry, we're just discussiong the point.

If this was a flame the post would have been deleted on sight probably.... by me possibly.

However, IIRC, you don't have all details about the intruders as soon as they are detected are you?

This is becouse you detect some intruders aboard but you don't have immediate position and status of them.

And finally... does somebody know how to planetfall into specific locations of a determined planet? I mean, it's quite boring to wait until my cruisser reaches 12000 km from one point to another...

Place a waypoint there before planetfalling. It's in the manual.

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Styles you can also try playing as a cruiser oR Carrier. That way you wont die so fast. They have plenty of marines and only a few of them die at a time to intruders.

And intruders get in your ship if there are other ships in the area, from blue and red ships.

So basically just dock and wait a few days to marines to xp and same with your officers. Especially your combat officer.

If you buy a manual especially from UCCE you;ll see the benefits.

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However, IIRC, you don't have all details about the intruders as soon as they are detected are you?

This is becouse you detect some intruders aboard but you don't have immediate position and status of them.

I beg to differ. You keep saying this, but as I've been saying, facts apparently say otherwise. That Perscan computer. The manual leads one to believe it's an actual computer system on the ship itself, not just some background thing placed there for the player's convenience. Yes, it shows where the location of the intruders are at all times and what their status is. Gives me status on their life signs, how fatigued they are, etc. Right out of Star Trek. I know whether they're in the library, galley, fitness center, engineering, etc. So, if we know where they are. Why the search thing?

You see, if technology is good enough to detect ships and details of said ships, deep within the sector of space you're in.. why should it not be able to detect details and location of unauthorized personel within the confines of your own command craft? Why are we doing the Scooby-doo-search-for-clues routine? Send all available marines to the intruders' location, en-masse, and wipe them out! When they've got enough experience, then maybe you can use them for something more serious like ground deployment. THAT makes sense. Policing the ship should be easy, but attacking an enemy city should be more difficult. That may not be 100% realistic, but still has a lot of realism to it. After all, intruders aren't going to know a ship quite like the security force that protects it. I'll say it again... should be extremely dangerous for any intruder to board your ship.. no matter how new the marines are. Especially if they really ARE marines. Intruders should be the warm-up, not the wipe-out.

Haven't you been looking at the replies from other people? Bladelord and canshow, yeah, i haven't ignored you guys. They suggest sitting around for days until your marines are even worthy of the chellenges ahead. That right there should tell you something's wrong. I don't want to sit around for ages and ages until my in-game characters are finally able to simply answer the game's challenges. What successful RPG, simulation or strategy game has EVER been released that made you do that? I've got things to do in life, got a job, etc. I want to get going now. I'm easily patient enough to handle the repair times and all, but one has to draw the line somewhere with all the waiting. I'm not 100% against the others suggestions. I kind of like BladeLord's idea of setting down on a planet then running around in a shuttle while they get experience from.. well, sitting on their duffs. You keep arguing for the sake of realism, denny. How realistic is that?

Besides, you're avoiding my primary statement/question. You've been doing so all along. Realistic or not.. how good is it in GAMEPLAY terms if an intruder force of half the size of your marines can wipe out said marines and a lot of the crew before going down? Then, yet another intruder alert happens like 3 minutes later? There's no reward for bringing in prisoners that you've sacrificed troops, crew and ship to capture. Yet, there's severe penalies for using the star station to simply escape an impossible situation. -250 exp and -5000 to your finances? It's like.. eh? I almost wonder if some designer got angry and stuck in something nasty for whatever reason. Maybe to punish poeple who didn't play the game the way he liked. Kind of defeats the purpose of freeform.

So, denny, if you give any straight answer, give me just one. Answer the following scenario. You're flying a super cruiser or armed transport. Got 10 marines (amount is the same on both ships). Your marines just got their butts handed to them by some intruders. 8 marines have like 30-50 fatigue, the rest are injured in medibay. 3 minutes later.. intruder alert! You know that you'll either be wiped out by the new intruders or take heavy losses. Of course, we all know there's more intruder alerts in the near future. What do you do? Or, would you have already taken the un-realistic course that the others suggest? Dock at a Star Station, go off and watch TV or something while marines become supermen from standing around in the Operations room?

If you do answer the scenario, you'll either give me the answer I'm looking for or simply prove me right. Maybe both. Either way, I'm probably going to do BladeLord's suggestion. At least that's some way to DO something while I wait for the marines to become marines. I'm just irritated by the fact that intruder alerts just keep happening every 3 minutes in some games. That and the fact that your "marines" can barely handle even one situation.

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I beg to differ. You keep saying this, but as I've been saying, facts apparently say otherwise. That Perscan computer. The manual leads one to believe it's an actual computer system on the ship itself, not just some background thing placed there for the player's convenience. Yes, it shows where the location of the intruders are at all times and what their status is. Gives me status on their life signs, how fatigued they are, etc. Right out of Star Trek. I know whether they're in the library, galley, fitness center, engineering, etc. So, if we know where they are. Why the search thing?

If you don't STOP frigging arguing with people who obviously KNOW MORE about the frigging game than YOU, two things will happen quite suddenly.

Fact 1. You have no frigging clue what you're talking about.

Fact 2. The reason the status of intruders is not displayed is because they are not part of the crew and thus do NOT HAVE implants which track their vital stats.

Fact 3. This is not Star Trek. And the last time I checked, in ST personnel didn't even have the ability to track the life signs of intruders let alone guests who are NOT in sickbay.

Fact4. You have no frigging clue HOW the game works, yet you want to argue mechanics?

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