Federation is Unerpowered

posted on December 24th, 2010, 6:50 pm

'rFactor 2'? Never heard of it, a racing game?

posted on December 24th, 2010, 6:53 pm

It's X-Factor's lesser-known older brother......

posted on December 24th, 2010, 6:56 pm

You might be fine playing online in a combat game, but I prefer racing.  And the longer the race, the better. 

  But you did understand the point Mal was trying to make, right?

  You admit to only having played a handful of games online.  Those of us who've played for quite a while now can very confidently tell you that the Feds have always been the dominant race until this patch - when a Federation player must be smart and skilled in order to win.

  You do get that, right?  You get why we don't agree with you when you say "Fed this and Fed that is underpowered - all Fed ships should be 50% cheaper / 30% stronger / 20% faster" and so on ... you get why we oppose that, right?

You've seen the multitude of replays of people online STEAMROLLING other players (sometimes multiple players) as Feds ...


 RIGHT ??  ??  ??

posted on December 24th, 2010, 7:22 pm

rFactor is a racing simulator.  Not just a game.  It has no relation to this "X-Factor."

I've seen whatever replays weren't in a jumbled order or mixed into the order of a completely separate Fleet-Ops game.  I've given up on watching those videos on youtube because they're not in very much of an order to be worth watching.  The ones I have seen, the Federation always looses.

posted on December 24th, 2010, 8:56 pm

I think we could possibly assume that once people hit the point where they can replicate anything they need and power isn't a huge problem (with matter-antimatter annihilation and whatever) they can have a bit more empty space on their ships.  We don't really see how much empty space other races have, anyway, so it's hard to compare them.

TCR, even if you haven't seen replays where the feds win, would you be willing to consider the fact that they are not, on fact, underpowered, when so many people have told you they aren't?  After all, several dozen experienced online FO players can't be wrong, right?

rFactor looks like a racing game to me.  It looks to me like it has several features normally not included in racing games, such as mirror adjustment, so it's a bit more complex.  But in the end it's hard to tell the difference between a racing game and a racing simulator when they're both just computer games.

posted on December 24th, 2010, 9:48 pm

Maybe, but even if they are not underpowered, they are still very hard to win with.

Trust me, rFactor is a simulator.  The most realistic simulator ever to be built.  In fact, it can be used to get used to plan your car setup before you even get to the track. Plus it's the only racing simulator in existence to actually support 3rd-party plugins.  Plus, you can build tracks and vehicles for it easily to expand it.  rFactor Central has about 200 some tracks, cars, and around 100 some utilities and plugins.  Plus dozens of other mods that are not listed.

Time for another topic split.

posted on December 24th, 2010, 9:58 pm

A 'Simulation game' is still a game. Search rFactor in google and the descriptionof the same site you linked to calls it 'world's largest site for rFactor racing simulation PC game by ISI, Image Space Incorporated'.

Bridge Commander is also a simulator, but no-one denies that is also a game.

posted on December 24th, 2010, 10:25 pm

You're probably not aware that in the simulator community, games and simulators are in two separate categories and are almost never called "games."  It's the simulation part that separate them from games.  Even though technically, it is a game, it's never called a game within the sim racing community because the term "game" is not an accurate descriptor on what the program does.

I am not familiar with Bridge Commander.

posted on December 24th, 2010, 10:32 pm

'Simulation' and 'game' are not mutually exclusive, what they call it is personal preference. You're just splitting hairs.

Simulation game is an existing type of program: Simulation game

posted on December 24th, 2010, 11:43 pm

I've seen whatever replays weren't in a jumbled order or mixed into the order of a completely separate Fleet-Ops game.  I've given up on watching those videos on youtube because they're not in very much of an order to be worth watching.  The ones I have seen, the Federation always looses.

I'll do some legwork for you.  This is THE list of all replays done up until October 2010 (I believe).  They are organized based on player size and whether or not they were commentated.

  Beginning of the Replay Thread

  Please note that when you click on one you will go there, but that commentator's most recent replays will show up in the side-bar.  You're a modder so I have no doubt that you know how to copy-and-paste the name of the replay title in order to find the others .  Many are very exciting.

Additionally, these are the links to the 4 people currently doing Flops replays:

Yandonman
Mal
Ray320
Halfala

I don't have Myles', but I know he does some replays here and there as well.  Little escapes the watchful gaze of officer Myles so I'm sure he'll pop in here to help out with a link to his replays as well.

  Here is a good example of Feds Rolling the Borg:  Fedroll on Borg
  Here is a Fedroll on the Klingons: Part 1 Part 2

  So there ya go, TCR!  I just did you a favor and gave you links to all the replays that have been made for the last year spanning like 6 patches.  Since you make such a point of saying the Feds are underpowered, the least you could do is check out some of the 1 v 1's and 2 v 2's (the best for determining race balance) and see how the Feds come out.  Even weaker players are able to flatten multiple players without much trouble.


  I hope also that you'll take a more moderate approach to assessing the balance of a game we all play and all have opinions on.  You tend to suggest sweeping changes based on personal like or dislike - a tough thing to swallow for many of us who base it on LOTS of gameplay and lots of subtle numbers.

  Merry Christmas

posted on December 25th, 2010, 12:04 am

Thanks for the links.

posted on December 25th, 2010, 1:39 am

I don't have Myles', but I know he does some replays here and there as well.  Little escapes the watchful gaze of officer Myles so I'm sure he'll pop in here to help out with a link to his replays as well.

hey saw my name.

all my replays can be found in the awesome replays thread, and i think boggz already linked you to doms index, which should contain mine too. last replay i made was in the semis of hals tourney. hopefully will make more over the holiday period. its tought to find free time to play fleetops recently due to loadsa crappy stuff to do.

on that point i had my first 3.1.4 game today. i gotta say roms seem to rank well when fighting alongside other races. maybe its cos they have a lot of beam spam (the ships i used had mostly beams. poor shrikes died cos i was a tad rusty lol)

aldovh cloak rules

posted on December 25th, 2010, 1:48 am

Guys why do we encourage TCR, I'm sorry but this is getting ridiculous

posted on December 25th, 2010, 4:10 am

TCR, the description you give is that you want the same space management as a fast attack submarine.  As a US Navy veteran who served on one of those things, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that it's a bad idea.

The close quarters, limited supplies, and isolation from everything except work drives stress upwards at a phenomenal rate.  So much so that the subs need to surface frequently to let people go above decks, and need to port frequently to let people out.  Not for some kind of traditional shore leave, but because if you don't, people will literally begin going insane.

Now, picture a ship that goes out for 5 years at a time instead of 6 months.

You need rec facilities, open space, private rooms, and anything else you can do to keep your crew from either murdering each other, or taking the ship rogue and murdering other shiploads of people.

The Feds aren't wasting space.  They're saving lives.

posted on December 25th, 2010, 10:17 am

I really dont see any issue here, the only real change the feds need is to have a few ships have weapons changed up, but in such a way that the balance remains the same, to match the aesthetics of the ships known capabilities, IE: replace the quantum pulse on Sabres with photons of the same refire/damage, things of that vein.