Shadowstar

One of my favorite old space strategy games is Rules of Engagement 2. It has a Star Trek feel to it, but more militaristic. It's a good capital ship sim for its time (1995 i think). It's not 3d, but it does what it tries to do very well. The best part about it though is that you can combine it with Breach 2 and Breach 3 (squad sims) and create and play campaigns that work off the combined games. For instance, you can board a ship in ROE2 and play through the boarding operation as a mission in Breach 3. Works for planets and outposts too. Considering that these games are 10+ years old, there is a suprising level of gameplay variety there. In the years since, I haven't seen any game do the same quite as well. The only franchise with potential going in that direction today is the BC series. Since thier release, the developer and publisher (both small indy companies) have gone under, and so quickly that they seem to have dissapeared off the face of the planet. You can get the games from Home of the Underdogs, as they are now abandonware: http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=932 I recommend downloading the version with all 3 games linked. None of the included campaigns use Breach 3, however one of them uses Breach 2, and you can make your own linked campaigns pretty easily.

Yeah those intruders have sticky fingers. I once found one of my shuttles littered with illegal artwork and wine. I had some interesting ideas about where those intruders came from.

I actually sell off all my spare parts and use the space for cargo. Cargo space is invaluable for a raider, cuz you always prioritize plunder above everything else. I just make sure I capture a nice station nearby and base myself out of there. If my ship gets critically disabled, as long as I survive with a shuttle or two, I can get the parts I need to repair it. Also, if you remove the drone and vehicle from the shuttles, you can use them as extra cargo storage. Really nice when your ship's belly is full of fat merchant plunder. Hehehe... A pirate's life for me!

I always like to play as a Terran Raider from Idan, with a Questar Cruiser. Sure it's not a big ship, but its one of the few capital ships you can fly like a fighter. As for taking out stations with it, once you figure out thier blind spots, it's a matter of waiting for someone else to attack (to draw the station's attention), then jump in and get to the blind spot quickly (and pray a little), then just unleash everything you've got, with a little discretion when the station gets close to SOS, so you don't blow it up. I captured Genesis that way, though apparently some AI beat me to Galcom HQ, as when I arrived it was a burned out husk. I've now built a nice little pirate base at the moon (without worrying about Galcom attacking from Earth) in my ROAM game, and that's a nice region to pick off transports in, plus the single jumpgate makes for a nice chokepoint, so it's defensible even. I like my ship, even though it has no fighters. One advantage to having a smaller ship is that it takes less time to walk around it, I believe. The transporter room is just a short jog from the bridge, so I can go on away missions at a whim. There's more to selecting a ship than its size and weapons. The position of turrets, blind spots, and layout are all different.

I haven't seen anyone interested in being Police. If I don't decide to be a trader, then definately Police. Something is just so charming about riding around on the surface of a planet as a Police officer in a Humvee. Not to mention, Police also get super cruisers to choose from, or can be fighter pilots. Lots of options to consider there. Also, a note about raiders: they can have non-raider allies. Some assassins and mercenaries are friendly to them. Not all, obviously, but a few are. Mercs, assassins and raiders all tend to have random affiliations to each other. Some are friendly, some neutral, some hostile. You never really know with those types.

Personally, in GCO I'm planning on being an arms merchant. Maybe also sell medkits on the side. The two would seem to work out pretty well together. Sell em the weapons to bloody each other up then sell em the medkits to heal themselves. Sell em weapons again, and well it's just one big profit making cycle...

The way I see it is that trading will be alot like in Elite. You're a loner. You go from station to station buying low and selling high, and using your wits to keep out of trouble. Your goal is to amass enough wealth to someday retire in luxury, while having a bit of an adventure in the process. It would probably be possible to make special deals with other players on the spot, but these deals wouldn't be worked out ahead of time with contracts and negotiations and all that corporate crap. If you want to mess around with contracts and negotiations and power, I'd suggest you choose the commercial caste.

I don't know how many of you may remember me, but I was once a tiny part of this forum... I'm hoping to get back into it soon if I can (with the release of the BCM beta I've managed to re-immerse myself in the BC universe), but it's really more a matter of if I will have the time. In any case, I'll be watching to see how things have changed in the years I've been gone... ------------------ Cap'n Shadowstar UCV Jolly Roger, Arenis Starstation [This message has been edited by Shadowstar (edited 01-10-2001).]

This happened once to me after I had already installed the game and played it for a while with no problems. I came back to play it again and it gave me this error. The problem is caused by a missing or corrupted file which is most often the result of some sort of damage to the disk. I would suggest running scandisk and defrag on the drive just to be sure and then copy your saved games to another dir on your drive or another drive (if you have any), uninstall or delete the BC3000AD dir and reinstall. Then, repatch if neccessary and copy your saved games back into the proper directory. Disk damage can cause anything from a bad install to a game going corrupt for no reason. If this doesn't work, you should check your cd. Check it for scratches and make sure it's clean and not dusty.

I am using version 2.08 I heard about a 2.09 version but I haven't seen it on the download page when I last looked. I didn't think it was worth mentioning since I will probably just find it later anyway. As for the fluxfields, I decided to manually pilot a shuttle through the fluxfield in question and ended up in places I didn't want to be so I'll just ignore them from now on. The reason I was interested in it is because I saw a fleet of heavily damaged galcom ships emerge from it on thier way to the starstation in the region. I thought that it would be worth investigating further, but just got lost in the end. So unless I have any specific reason to, I'm not going to be bothering with them again.

I have found that the game has a very high learning curve. Things that seem to act like a bug are really just characteristics of the engine. I'll agree it's not really intuitive, but it works once you learn the quirks of the game. I'm sure in future BC30##AD's, they'll design a more user friendly interface, but until then you'll have to work with what you have. I've done fairly well with it so I think other people can too... Stormcrow, about the mining drones vs. ATV's; the reason mining drones deploy so much easier is that they can actually be dropped onto the planet from an airborne shuttle (They can also be recovered from any location in the planet). When the shuttle enters the atmosphere and reaches it's waypoint, it simply drops the mining drone which falls to the surface (with no damage). ATV's cannot be placed unless the shuttle has landed (at least I think so), so unless the shuttle actually lands first, the ATV won't be placed. [This message has been edited by Shadowstar (edited 12-31-1999).]

I've looked through the readmes and the manual and the online documentation but I can't find anything specific to this problem I have been having for quite a while: Every time I launch a probe, or sometimes when I give a support ship orders to jump at a fluxfield (what i would normally use a probe for), or even in some rare random occurances, the game suddenly drops to an alarmingly slow framerate. It becomes so slow, the mouse only moves every 3 seconds. Normally, the game runs just fine but when it slows like that, I have to go back to a saved game and avoid doing whatever it was i did to cause it to slow like that (if possible) or spend the night with a turtle machine. I've gone over it and even fiddled with some of the properties of the file to fix it but that doesn't seem to work, so I've just gone back to using the default settings. I've already considered that it might be my system configuration even though i have more than the minimum requirements (P-233, 96mb ram, Voodoo2). If anyone has any ideas that might help, please let me know. Other than this minor annoyance I haven't had any problems.

Looks like alot's been going on here... err well maybe it just looks that way because I was gone for so long... I'm going to have to make another post and cover some of this time that's gone by... I'll do that when I have more time on my hands. Gotta sleep now By the way Ben, you sound a little Star Trekkish there

{RP} The GCV Starflight was coming around to it's last patrol run in the Earth region, and it was about time to move on to Mars... Cap'n Shadowstar was watching Tacops absent-mindedly. The past few hours had been uneventful. He figured if nothing else, the Mars region would provide a scenery change. "Ok, let's go." He said, rather suddenly. The ship angled for the jump gate and approached slowly.... It eventually reached the gate and flashed out of the region, arriving the same instant in the Mars region. Two MRT's were travelling together near the gate where the Starflight had arrived. One was a Terran Colonist and the other a well known Empirian Journalist. Cap'n Shadowstar tediously set up the patrol run for the Mars system and decided to hang around for another day or so... The Journalist pulled close to the Starflight, but not dangerously close. It was apparent that the journalist intended to get a story about the Starflight "back in action", typical... At least he knew enough not to bother a military vessel with frivolous communication and seemed content to film the ship... Several hours into the patrol run, the journalist finally broke off and jumped back to Earth. Another thirty minutes later a damaged Terran diplomat transport jumped into the region, bound for the Earth jump gate. Shortly after, a Gammulan assassin in an X22 Aurora jumped in following the diplomat. This caught Shadowstar's attention. He watched the fighter close on the transport from the Tacops display and smirked. "Max, you up for some trash take out?" He spoke into the comm-link. The pilot responded from the flight deck, breaking away from a chit-chat with a young nurse, "Sure, what kind of trash we talking about?" "X22 Aurora. Gammulan assassin is picking on one of our diplomats." Shadowstar replied. "Hmmm... Sounds tasty." Max grinned as he strapped into the interceptor and prepared for launch. "The diplomat's ship is looking a little worse for wear. Better hurry on out there." said the Cap'n over the comm-link. "Gotcha." The pilot donned his trademark shades and soon the interceptor was space-bound. His nurse friend watched as the ship left. In only a matter of seconds, Max's interceptor was roaring toward the harried Diplomat and the Assassin at hyperspeed. The interceptor arrived just behind the Gammulan, and Max chuckled as he stormed the unprepared fighter. The X-22 broke off quickly and attempted to dogfight his attacker, but was outmatched and outgunned by the skilled Interceptor pilot. After a short, but intense battle, the X-22 was destroyed, with only a tiny escape pod to mark it's position. Max did a flyby of the pod, nearly smashing it with the wing of the interceptor as a finishing touch to scare the occupant. The pod fled for the jump point it had come through. Max set up RTB and engaged the interceptor's autopilot. He relaxed and monitored the comm frequency on his way back to the Starflight. As the Gammulan pilot fled the system, the diplomat onboard the transport contacted the Starflight himself to express his extreme gratitude. Cap'n Shadowstar cooly responded, "Just doing our job." With that the two ship captains saluted each other and shut off the transmission. The transport laboriously made it to the earth jump gate and vanished in a quick flash. Moments later, the interceptor docked. After disembarking, Max sought out his female friend to continue thier chit-chat. Meanwhile, Shadowstar sighed and relaxed back into the command chair. "That was the most exciting thing that has happened to me so far..." he thought, and prepared for another long wait as the ship ponderously completed it's patrol runs around Mars. Another day, another dollar... {RP off} [This message has been edited by Shadowstar (edited 05-22-99).]

This is a pretty interesting start for Parias... Judging from his past actions, I wouldn't be overly surprised if he somehow ended up in Sol again... The thought of the two newbie RP'ers (Shadowstar and Parias) on opposite sides of the law meeting up does present a very interesting RP situation, but, it could quite literally mean the end of Parias's career, if he is caught being bold agian. I'm not pushing for such an encounter, but a newbie vs. newbie situation occuring the midst of all else that is happenening around the universe right now might just be that spice that Parias is looking for, then again, we should probably save it for later. We don't want Parias alienating himself from both Galcom AND the Insurgents. He'd have to become a pirate or something and lay low - REAL low... I think either way, Parias has some BIG decisions to make and must be VERY careful about what he does with his future. I get the feeling that he's on pretty thin ice with the Insurgents and well, Galcom probably hates his guts with a vengeance. If he does show in Sol, I should think my character would jump at the chance to snag a promotion for nailing this guy. I'm going to have to post something in the other forum about the kind of reaction Cap'n Shadowstar will have at the news of this... Also, I LOVE the Mr. Mordan bit - it's perfect, considering where I left my last RP off in the other forum. [This message has been edited by Shadowstar (edited 05-17-99).]

I suppose I'll need something, since basically right now I'm just stuck making patrol runs around Sol...

{RP} "Cap'n Shadowstar", as he liked to be called, was less than pleased after touring his ship. He had somehow expected that his ship would look exactly the way it had when he left command so many years ago, but now he could see he was wrong. While on the outside it looked the same, the inside bore the marks of sophistication and modern technology. It was almost as if Galcom had scrapped the interior of the ship and built a new battlecruiser inside the hull of his old ship. His frustration over being deprived of a walk down memory lane clouded his realization that the ship had been refitted for a purpose. While he and nearly the entire crew believed that the ship was just being sent around the Sol system for frivolous reasons, Galcom had something else in mind for it. The weapons systems were modernized, the sensors upgraded, the engines were faster, and so many other aspects of the ship had been tinkered with that it was now a ship comparable to the other Battlecruisers out there, but carried an old name and an old commander. He eventually gave up and went to his quarters. He decided a nice nap might help him to relax. The bridge crew chatted absent-mindedly while following a routine path around the Earth region on patrol. They would move into the Mars region in 10 hours and then resume the patrol pattern there, and so on and so forth until they had moved throughout the system. As the Starflight slowly moved past Galcom HQ, waiting to hop to the Moon jump-point, a pair of dark eyes watched the ship through a window from the station. A shady grin appeared beneath them and if anyone had been walking past that dark room at the moment, they might have heard a faint chuckle... {/RP} There you go, short and sweet... I think I'm gonna throw in some evil politics here - maybe an Insurgent plot of some kind. All evil politics have a dark guy snickering out a window in them, don't they?

Dont tell me this thread is dead! I'd post another installment, but I don't want to be carrying the whole thing myself... C'mon people, let's get this adventure going again!

You sound just like a politician, Antti.

Ok - here goes... {RP} Sergeant James McDuff ambled into the GCV Starflight's medibay with a pained grin on his face. "Hello, Doc." He said. Doctor Katie Burch shook her head at him with a grin. "Rec room again, Sarge?" she asked "Yeah, busted up my dang ankle again." "How many times have I told you to take it easy in there? Especially since your ankle hasn't had enough time to heal from the last time you were in here." "Sometimes you gotta lose to win, Doc." "Well you stay off that ankle until it heals or you'll be losing a lot more than winning -- Doctor's orders." she said as she fixed up the burly marine's swollen ankle. "Sure thing, Doc." he said, grinning like he really didn't mean it. Nearby, two medics were talking while going over some medical records. "I am so excited about serving on this ship! I read all about it in the Academy history archives." said the first medic, a young girl who was fresh out of Galcom Academy. The medic next to her was almost as young but looked like the arrogant type who knows too much for his own good, "Don't kid yourself. Everyone knows this ship isn't a weapon anymore. Why do you think Galcom pulled a decades old ship out of retirement and put a historical icon in command? We got orders to go romp around the Sol system acting like we're on patrol... This ship is a showpiece, a political trophy. Every civilized race in the known universe knows that this ship and this commander held off an entire Insurgent invasion alone, Nevermind how uncoordinated the attack was! History seems to forget things like that... Galcom just wants to flaunt the fact that the ship is still running in top condition and it's commander isn't lying in a tomb somewhere. They're using it to back up some political agenda. Why do you think there are so many journalist ships in the system recently? Galcom is making a big issue over this. I tell ya, these days it's all politics. We're on a milkrun. If we fight anything, it'll probably be a rogue asteroid or something." "Commander Beckwith is a great man! If it weren't for him, you might never have been born! He saved Galcom HQ!" The arrogant medic laughed, "Yeah, right. Galcom HQ wasn't in any real danger. It could have held off the entire attack with only half of the resources it had on board during that battle. You might as well say if it wasn't for George Washington I might never have been born!" he continued laughing. Sergeant McDuff chuckled as he watched the two medics move on to another area of the medibay. "Kids... They think they know everything huh?" Doctor Burch smiled, "Yeah, but they learn. They have to make thier mistakes and learn that not everything they may have thought is really true. I guess you're right, Sarge. Sometimes you gotta lose to win..." {RP off} Well there it is... Not too complex for now, just a little dialogue to get things started. Just wanted to establish some history, character development, and throw in a little standing philosophy for the time being. "Sometimes you gotta lose to win" may come up in the future, it's one of those multi-purpose philosophical quips that sounds good when used correctly.

This has got to be the first time an RP newbie has started the next thread in this epic tale... Anyway, this is a continuation of "The Turning of a Wraith"... Anyone wanna post a summary of the old thread here before we continue the RP?

Well I guess I could start the new thread, eh? Everyone over to "The saga continues..." Ooh, gotta make it official: To Be Continued.... [This message has been edited by Shadowstar (edited 04-29-99).]

Sounds pretty good, just a bit of advice... It makes it alot easier to read your post if you seperate it a bit more... Try using paragraphs with a space in between, for one. (Sorta like I did here) Good luck, looks like a great idea!

It was the least I could do for ya, Rattler. You were the one that helped me out when I was just a v1.0 user and convinced me to get v2.0 Plus, I wanted to find a way to merge my other story on the thread into this one without destroying any previously established in the storyline. Anyway, I've been rather busy lately so I don't think I'll be posting any new installments to my RP for several days, but I'll be watching

I thought the plot development there was amazing... It's pretty cool how a bunch of RP'ers can create an involved storyline on the fly like that. Anyway, here goes... {RP on} Darkness... The warm, comfortable sort of darkness that came with sleep. Punctuated with dreams and random thoughts, this sort of mental dance was always welcome after a long day. Unfortunately, a rude beam of light was soon to destroy the peace. His eyes flicked open immediately, but felt as if they were being pulled shut again by some unknown force. A wide ray of sunlight was splashed across his face as the sun had just come up and was shining through the window. Robert cursed for staying up too late the previous night, even though he knew he had to be up early the following morning to catch his flight. He had been in retirement for a long time now, after having successfully completed a career as a Battlecruiser commander and was still enjoying the benefits of favors from the high command at Galcom HQ. Most of those guys were convinced that they owed thier lives to him after he and his old crew saved the station from an Insurgent attack, despite the conclusion that the attack was completely uncoordinated and poorly executed. Robert hoped they didn't have any more plans for him to go up against the Insurgents. The old days were different, those were the days when the Insurgency was nothing more than a collection of misfits without any real goals or organization. Now that they had new leadership, thier entire effort had been moulded into something nearly as strong and powerful as Galcom. He thought it was impressive how one man could reshape an entire movement into a force to be reckoned with. He looked at the clock, pulling himself away from his thoughts and got dressed. He didn't have much time to get to the starport. It was a nice, sunny day on Earth. The clouds were fluffy and white, the birds were singing, and the air smelled sweet and pure. It was all so perfect - perfectly annoying... Being spaceborn, he was accustomed to the vast blackness of space and only felt secure there. The blue "beauty" of Earth was alien to him and had only chosen to retire there because it was so highly recommended to him. He smiled at the thought of being in space again. He finally reached the spaceport and boarded the shuttle that would take him to his final destination. Upon boarding the shuttle, an officer handed him a datapad and he looked over it as the shuttle made for orbit. A few days ago, Galcom HQ had decided to recomission his old ship, the Starflight, with a new crew to perform a series of small missions around the Sol system. They had contacted him out of respect and asked him if he would be interested in seeing his old ship again and if he would like to take command once again for the short series of missions, for old time's sake. Eager to get off this rock and take a break from his early retirement, he accepted. He knew he wouldn't really be doing anything up there. It was patrol. All he had to do was tell the crew to patrol the system and they could handle it while he toured the decks of his old ship and enjoyed the memories of his old command. He figured it would just be a chance to reminisque and a refreshing return to space, no real command duties to speak of. He doubted there would be any combat, after all, the last attack on the Sol system was years ago. Sure, raiders and pirates still attacked transports every so often but these were certainly no threat to a Battlecruiser, even one with a green crew. Then, his eyes fell upon something out of the shuttle window and he gazed in awe. The GCV Starflight glittered in the distance, it's enormous bulk speckled with the thousands of tiny lights along the hull. The ship had been restored to perfect condition and looked better than ever. The shuttle approached the great Battlecruiser slowly and his eyes remained fixed on the ship as the shuttle passed underneath it, heading toward the docking bay. He smiled as the docking procedure completed and the shuttle came to a rest within the belly of the great ship. Upon stepping out onto the deck of his ship, he felt a surge of energy as if new life was breathed into him. He suddenly recognized all of the slight vibrations and physical variations that only existed onboard a large spaceship. It made him feel like he was home again. Indeed he was. Then he remembered that he would be leaving in probably a few days or maybe a week at the most, and his heart sank at the thought of it. Travelling through his ship to the bridge was like a walk down memory lane. He saw all of the old corridors, rooms, and places that he was familiar with from so long ago, but there were new faces everywhere. Even the uniforms were slightly different. He hadn't been given his own uniform just yet and was still dressed in civilian clothing, but people all over the ship recognized him. Some knew him from the media stories decades ago, while others knew him simply because they were now assigned to his command, and Galcom had made sure the crew knew who thier new commander would be. His uniform was waiting for him in his quarters, but he didn't want to go there for some time. Upon arriving on the bridge, the crew saluted him and the officer accompanying him went through the formalities. When all was said and done, he seated himself at the command chair and felt the surge of memories coming back to him. The crew was somewhat off guard as thier Commander was dressed in civilian attire, but were wise not to mention it. While it wasn't exactly in keeping with regulations, there are always some things that can be allowed at least for a little while. After pondering through memories for a moment or two, Commander Robert Beckwith put out a broadcast through the entire ship - "Greetings. I know you are a new crew fresh from training and you may all have your doubts about your new Commander. You are now serving aboard a prestigious vessel that is respected among the Galcom fleet. She may be old, but she is still a Galactan, and that represents the finest in Battlecruisers. There is no ship in the universe that can equal or surpass the strength of this ship. I want you all to know that. But a ship is only as good as it's crew, and you are among the best. I know we aren't going to be flying off to the ends of the universe to fight the Gammulans or the Insurgents, but your skill and determination will be important to the function of this ship. We are charged with protecting the Sol system, namely Earth, which is a task of greater honor than conquering the enemy, for we are defending our home and the home of the entire Human race. I know you can do it, and do it well. And one last thing - while I am in command of this ship, you will address me as my old crew did - 'Captain Shadowstar'. Don't ask - it's a long story." He grinned and knew that he would soon have nearly half the ship asking him to tell the story of his old name within the next two days. The fact was, he himself didn't even know where he got the old name. He figured it must have been related to something during his youth that he had long forgotten by now. Oh well, it was good to be back... {RP off} Well there it is. I hope I didn't inadvertently run over some previously established plot points or anything. (I don't think I did anyway) [This message has been edited by Shadowstar (edited 04-20-99).] [This message has been edited by Shadowstar (edited 04-20-99).]