Evochron Mercenary - Differences From Previous Games

[Vice]

There has been some requests for a list of changes in Evochron Mercenary compared to previous games in the series. So this post provides a list of some of the minor and major changes found in the new game. I'll also try to keep the list current up to the release date for anything else the testers think should be included or any last minute changes/features that are implemented.


Important Changes/Differences in Evochron Mercenary

Be ready for a different game. While Legends was primarily a sequel to Renegades with many controls and options retaining their core functionality, Evochron Mercenary changes a number of things. The core gameplay remains true to the Evochron concept, but there are some significant changes compared to Legends and Renegades.

The list here focuses on only the differences between the two games in terms of functionality and gameplay. For a list and description of new features and options in Evochron Mercenary, visit this link: http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/faq.htm#1

Here is a review of some of the changes:

- The default keyboard control scheme is now WASD with roll and strafe control bundled close together. W and S are used for throttle, A and D for left/right strafe thrusters, Z and X for up/down strafe thrusters, and Q and E for left/right roll. This is to accommodate player requests for such a layout and to implement one of the key control changes I've wanted to make for a long time.

- Because the Q key is now used for a flight control, the exit key option has been moved to F9 (escape also still works).

- Players asked for a way to control both particle weapons and beam weapons individually without having to set the firing mode. So you can now do that in the new game using the default F5 and F6 keys and of course, you can remap them to different keys or buttons just like the other controls.

- Beam weapon energy consumption has been significantly reduced (by about 70%), allowing them to be much more useful in combat. Beam weapon range is now also tied to the particle cannon you install. The two weapons share the same targeting and power system, so installing a longer range particle cannon can extend the range of your beam weapon as well.

- The physics system has been significantly changed. Engine classes now have a greater range of impact on the acceleration and top speed performance of your ship. Main engines are also realistically more powerful than lateral and vertical thrusters, so you can accelerate and decelerate faster by pointing your ship at angles where the engines are the primary thrust factor. There is no longer a hard speed limit around 4K, instead the physics system uses acceleration curves, so you can generally continue to accelerate as long as you have fuel. Indicated speed limits have been calibrated with relative coordinate units. So 1000DM/S indicated speed now lines up with 100 units (1000 DM) per second of movement. Other improvements include a unified global mass value structure for drift acceleration curve calculations, rotational effects on lateral/vertical/foward/reverse speed calculations now calibrated for better accuracy, and improved impact effects for collisions and weapons (including the new kinetic particle cannons).

- The jump drive system has been updated to provide better arrival points for contracts. The system will now place your arrival point at a farther distance from a waypoint to give you more time to prepare for battle or evade an object. Your speed now also drops to around double cruise speed when you arrive. The jump drive system also now disables IDS control of the ship's main engine when activated. This helps save fuel if you leave the IDS on while using the jump drive. The IDS will resume main engine control once your velocity reaches high cruise speed.

- This game is very GPU dependent. A lot more is sent to the GPU in this game as opposed to the previous games that were heavily CPU and memory performance dependent. So for some of you, this may mean an overall decrease in performance if your system has an old or slow video card. For others with more powerful 3D cards, this will likely mean a performance increase, even if you have a weak/slow CPU. For many players so far, the game runs significantly faster for them than Legends, even with the improved graphics and more advanced effects at full detail settings.

- The new graphics engine is heavily shader based, which has fundamentally changed how the custom file system works. Many objects now have up to 4 layers of texture data needed, base/diffuse map, normal map, specular map, and emissive map. For such custom objects, all or most of these textures will be needed. A revised customizing kit is planned for the game which will detail these changes. It is recommended that you have at least a basic understanding of working with shaders for these effects if you want to import custom models.

- The server-based online multiplayer universe system now supports dynamic station placement, letting you or any other player construct stations at new locations in the game's universe while you are online. The server program tracks and saves these changes and updates new players as needed. This feature is not supported with the in-game hosting option, which uses a 'per session' system that will manage new stations during the session only. You will need to use the server program if you want to save new custom player stations. The data is saved to a file named 'universemulti.txt' in the server folder and the server operator can even edit the data in this file if they want to manually change or add new station data (including adding custom names). The server operator will need to disconnect, exit, and restart after manually making changes to this file to update the server program for the latest information. Player built stations are kept with the server when constructed in multiplayer, so they will not appear offline in single player mode or on other servers, so be sure to select when and where you decide to build stations carefully. Player built stations are kept with the current pilot profile when constructed in single player.

- By player request, the small ship collision system now uses a softer shield repelling effect rather than the previous crash/bounce effect. This means that if/when you collide with another small ship, your shields will collide and flare, causing you to to push each other back and slide around each other rather than the sudden loss/reversal of speed and momentum. You can still have significant speed loss from the impact, but there is now a more 'sliding' collision effect more representative of two spherical shields colliding with each other.

- Particle cannons now operate significantly different than before. Each shot now travels roughly twice as fast as before, letting you engage a target at far greater speeds. High speed passes using guns are now much more feasible. Cannons now also have different ranges, giving certain models advantages or disadvantages in addition to yield and cycle rate. The new specification is displayed next to the yield and cycle rate in the inventory console. Some particle cannons are also optimized for kinetic effects, shield damage, or energy depletion.

- Stealth generators use much less power and can now last for up to around 5 minutes. Activating either the jump drive or the afterburner will disengage the generator.

- Cities can now be in much more diverse locations, both latitude and longitude. Also, to obtain exact city locations on a planet, you will generally need to be in the same sector as a planet to pick up exact city locations on the nav map.

- The game now loads/builds objects in a more 'procedural' way while the game is running. This lets it provide a much higher level of detail without requiring long delays or loading times while moving around in the game's universe. One effect of this is that there may be occasional hesitations or stuttering on slower/older systems that may not be able to keep up with the performance needs of the game. However, this can usually be reduced or eliminated by reducing detail settings, particularly 'Planet Detail' which requires a powerful system with a lot of memory to operate efficiently at either the 'High' or 'Ultra' setting.

- The new reputation system uses a simplified 'absolute' value structure. Tier adjustments are much smaller (generally within 20 points between transitions) and individual faction reputation values now scale with the overall global reputation levels. This helps make the reputation levels much easier to understand at a glance and keeps the faction values more in line with the global values.

- Capital ships engaged in battles now use anti-shield torpedoes that can deplete the shield arrays of an opposing capital ship. They also now carry flak cannons which can inflict damage to your ship if you remain within range for very long.

- Carriers now have their own dedicated inventory systems. They also now frequently provide secondary weapons you currently have mounted on your ship (allowing you to reload with the same secondary weapons after a combat mission in a war zone).

- Constructor stations in more technologically advanced economies can now build weapons from metal ore and electronics.

- The available ship frame list is now much longer and includes 10 new Federation frames in addition to twice as many military frames. For civilian ships, the Federation frames are on the lower half of the list beginning with the Arrow. Some frames will be unavailable from both the Alliance set and the Federation set, depending on your location.

- You are no longer limited to a static configuration of crew member slots, equipment slots, countermeasures, and secondary weapon hardpoints. When designing a civilian frame, you can now adjust these capacities using a common resource pool.

- The inventory list is now scrollable, so many more items can be offered at each city and station location. Hold the mouse pointer over the list and use the mouse wheel to scroll through the list, or use the slider bar button. The equipment list is also now scrollable for frames designed with more than 5 equipment slots.

- Probes and the new sensor stations now update the nav map in real time (no need to continually press the 'Ping' button). The 'Ping' button now broadcasts your location to other players in the same sector by displaying a green box on their nav maps.

- Military ships in war zones will now often follow your orders while on a mission, if your rank is high enough.

- Missions completed in war zones now provide additional rank credit for more waypoints. So a contract with 3 waypoints now gives 3 rank points if completed successfully.

- The new starting role selection system lets you select which initial role you want your ship to be optimized for. The role you select also establishes your starting location, what ship you get, and how many credits you're initially given.

- The beacon objective system has been replaced by a new 'quest' system that features multiple objectives spanning many solar systems throughout the game's universe. The quest will further train you for the game, teach you details on the history of the game's universe, and guide you through systems useful for upgrading your ship. Completing quest objectives also provides information on secret locations and hidden benefits in the game. The requested feature of being able to recall the last message has also been added (available in the News Console).

- You are no longer required to remain in your ship to buy/sell at a station, city, or carrier. The new lobby mode gives you access to full chat controls (voice and text), inventory management, the shipyard, and storage hangars. Once inside a station, city, or carrier, you are safe from attack.

[Edited on 8-22-2010 by Vice]

[Maarschalk]

Wow, that is a lot of great Changes, very cool Vice. I have one question though: When do you sleep?.....

[Knight Rider]

Wow..I can't wait. I love all the changes, especially the stealth generator.

[tk7223]

as if I wasn't drooling enough before....

[Marvin]

There is no longer a hard speed limit around 4K, instead the physics system uses acceleration curves, so you can generally continue to accelerate as long as you have fuel.

Cool. I wonder how long it will take before somebody continues to accelerate on afterburner ... past the point where he doesn't have enough fuel to stop ... and asks for help. Especially since the only probable solution is to shoot him down.

[Earl]

Even though space is huge I imagine they'd have to hit something or suicide. You'd have to accellerate with as much fuel to catch up to shoot them.

Combat is going to be great at higher speeds. I'm thinking back to terminus though... In that game you ended up making long straight line runs to gain speed.. I hope it won't be that extreme.

Here's a thought though - In a real newtonion battle situation, there could be the chance that as all bodies (ships) are zooming around each other, they're are drifting with a similar accelleration relative to the universe. Moving fights anyone? That used to happen a little in PvP with EL, would love to see more of it.

[Marvin]

With guys zipping past you, their objective being your brand new space station ... you better believe there will be moving fights.

[ryuu]

Originally posted by Earl
Combat is going to be great at higher speeds. I'm thinking back to terminus though... In that game you ended up making long straight line runs to gain speed.. I hope it won't be that extreme.

unfortunately all the cruising speeds have been slowed slightly, so a build that once hit 1.2k with ease will barely reach 0.8k. (not sure of the exact numbers)

oh and i tried the afterburner bit ad because the speed curve starts to get really steep at about 6k it's quite easy to reach a speed a few hundred below them with a fraction of the fuel, oh and there are other tricks to reach high speed with little fuel

[Vice]

unfortunately all the cruising speeds have been slowed slightly, so a build that once hit 1.2k with ease will barely reach 0.8k. (not sure of the exact numbers)

Actually, most of the difference you see is just in the gauge readout (#5 on the list above). Some ships are actually faster than they were in Legends, some just a bit slower (the range is greater between engine classes). It's the displayed value that results in the 'indicated' difference (now calibrated for accurate movement relative to the sector coordinates). But ships are actually just as fast, even faster in some cases, as they were in Legends.

[Marvin]

It could be worse (relatively speaking) ... minimum (not maximum) range for a jump drive could be a full sector. Meaning, all movement within a sector would be via standard propulsion and afterburner.

I wonder how long it takes to travel from one jumpgate to another using nothing but afterburner ....

[warsign]

Unbeatable specs...

[Chicki]

Gimme, gimme, gimme. Pant, pant.

[tk7223]

Now....we just need bombing runs planet side...Muhahaha

[Maarschalk]

Can we build planet Stations as well?.......Would be great for bombing runs.......LOL.......:P:P:P:P

[tk7223]

...Activating Planetary Shields....standby on Ion Cannon control.....

[Marvin]

Originally posted by Maarschalk

Can we build planet Stations as well?.......Would be great for bombing runs.......LOL.......:P:P:P:P

In Legends, you can mod the "universedata" file to put a construct station on a planet's surface. Soooo, maybe.

[Wolfox]

So many great changes... but my favorite one is:

Originally posted by Vice
- You are no longer required to remain in your ship to buy/sell at a station, city, or carrier. The new lobby mode gives you access to full chat controls (voice and text), inventory management, the shipyard, and storage hangars. Once inside a station, city, or carrier, you are safe from attack.

Now I can't wait for Mercenary. When is the release date anyway?

[49rTbird]

Originally posted by Wolfox
So many great changes... but my favorite one is:

Originally posted by Vice
- You are no longer required to remain in your ship to buy/sell at a station, city, or carrier. The new lobby mode gives you access to full chat controls (voice and text), inventory management, the shipyard, and storage hangars. Once inside a station, city, or carrier, you are safe from attack.

Now I can't wait for Mercenary. When is the release date anyway?

Good to see posts from returning patrons Wolfox. Hope to see you out there.

[Knight Rider]

Psssst. Anyone have a clue as to the release date? Sorry for whispering.:P:P

[Maarschalk]

LOL.....September has 31 days........can be relatively long to the countdown depending on the excact day, hour, minute and seconds........:P:P:P:P

[Maarschalk]

LOL........:P:P:P:P

[Marvin]

Originally posted by Maarschalk

LOL.....September has 31 days........

Hopefully, the release date isn't the 31st ... since that's a long, long way away. About a billion years.

[ryuu]

to steal a certain person's phrase
relatively, yes

[Marvin]

Originally posted by Eclipse

So, the 30th is that much closer?? lol

Eternally closer than the 31st.

[ryuu]

a whole 24 hours closer