Found something very cool (Star Trek Enhanced Space Combat)

posted on August 20th, 2009, 4:39 am

There is this rather obscure game I've never heard called Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. It's a space tactical combat game and whatnot. But, there is this current mod called Star Trek Enhanced Space Combat which looks very impressive. Anyone try this out? I'm about to, we will see how it is!

Some information links:
Nexus: The Jupiter Incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Star Trek Enhanced Space Combat mod for Nexus: The Jupiter Incident - Mod DB
YouTube - Star Trek Enhanced Space Combat Nexus: The Jupiter Incident mod

posted on August 20th, 2009, 6:09 am

i actually played that game for a bit and it was kind of fun........think i still have it somewhere.  gonna have to check that mod out.  thanks for the post.

posted on August 20th, 2009, 11:31 am

Wow... That is quite possibly one of the most awesome things I've ever seen... The ships didn't quite maneuver enough (no doubt a limitation of the game's engine) for my taste, but other than that it simply looked great... I'll probably get Nexus: The Jupiter Incident after this...

posted on August 20th, 2009, 1:35 pm

I have Nexus and tried this mod but while it does look pretty (especially considering the age of the game), it does have it's flaws. This is mostly in the way the game plays itself. Ships move much more slowly and carry a lot of inertia as they move around, which is realistic in the context of how unmodded Nexus plays but not so canon with how Star Trek is portrayed.

More critically, the way you control ships is much more indirect. You only give general orders like "attack at long range", "defend x" and so on. Ships cannot be directly commanded to move to an exact location or anything like that. As a result, the game plays much better with 1 on 1 fights but can be frustrating when commanding fleets of ships as it can feel like you're disconnected from the action. You can give movement orders like "follow", "go to object x" but curiously nothing to allow a ship to travel to a piece of empty space (even more frustrating considering this game is in 3D).

It's slightly easier to see what's going on when you zoom out to see what's going on a bit but it's still tedious having to babysit each ship to stop them doing something stupid. In addition, this particular mod is not that forgiving to newcomers, as ships can be destroyed in a matter of seconds, which doesn't give you a lot of scope for doing something about it, especially, when it takes about 6-7 seconds for a ship to process and implement your orders (especially, general movement orders).


Nexus, plays very well, when unmodded but somehow the Star Trek mod dropped the ball a bit.

posted on August 20th, 2009, 1:53 pm

Graphics look pretty for the most part... but I'm a bit confused by the way the ships moves, the ranges, and some of the effects (guess those weren't all modded sadly).

posted on August 20th, 2009, 4:04 pm

I haven't played Nexus in years.  Looks like I'll have to try this out.

posted on August 20th, 2009, 4:14 pm

alright guys, you got me ) I'm the developer of that mod I've tried to recreate it as best as I could, using the Nexus black sun engine.

More critically, the way you control ships is much more indirect. You only give general orders like "attack at long range", "defend x" and so on. Ships cannot be directly commanded to move to an exact location or anything like that. As a result, the game plays much better with 1 on 1 fights but can be frustrating when commanding fleets of ships as it can feel like you're disconnected from the action. You can give movement orders like "follow", "go to object x" but curiously nothing to allow a ship to travel to a piece of empty space.

That's a limitation of nexus and not the mod itself. However, formation battles are very cool to watch and coordinate. I've added a special command called "attack pattern delta". This allows a ship to bring it's forward weapons array against an enemy.

In addition, this particular mod is not that forgiving to newcomers, as ships can be destroyed in a matter of seconds, which doesn't give you a lot of scope for doing something about it, especially, when it takes about 6-7 seconds for a ship to process and implement your orders (especially, general movement orders)

No longer true in the 1.3 version. Balance is much improoved and battles last a lot longer

posted on August 20th, 2009, 4:59 pm

Haha! I figured one of the devs of ESC would turn up. I'm trying to get into this, but not entirely sure what to do. Any reference sites to look at, maybe?

posted on August 20th, 2009, 8:23 pm

well, if you wanna help out I'd need someone to work well with lightwave 3d, some of the ships lack proper hardpointing atm

posted on August 21st, 2009, 11:16 pm

I totally would, but I have no experience with Lightwave 3D or anything like that really. Sorry. But good luck to your project!

posted on August 22nd, 2009, 5:52 am

Thanks, there's still a lot of work to be done as this is a long term project

posted on August 22nd, 2009, 11:58 am

alright guys, you got me ) I'm the developer of that mod I've tried to recreate it as best as I could, using the Nexus black sun engine.

That's a limitation of nexus and not the mod itself. However, formation battles are very cool to watch and coordinate. I've added a special command called "attack pattern delta". This allows a ship to bring it's forward weapons array against an enemy.

No longer true in the 1.3 version. Balance is much improoved and battles last a lot longer

Cool, in that case I may have to re-download for round two . I figured the movement issues were a hardcoded limitation but it's nice to see you've worked around it a bit with that special command

posted on August 22nd, 2009, 2:42 pm

Trust me, the 1.3 is much better than any of the previous versions, and work on 1.4 is well under way. For now it's only sligh balance issues but I hope I can get done more, like more icons for the ships that lack them or a better behaviour of the AI.

posted on August 23rd, 2009, 1:36 am

Excellent work Firewarrior--hope to try it out sometime
Glad to hear your project is working well 

posted on August 23rd, 2009, 7:38 am

Thanks, I'm glad you guys like it