WC asteroids

D

Drizzt Do Urden

Spaceman
Why is it that in the first two WC games the roids were a very serious and deadly thing for pilots to deal with; and after that they pretty much became just became back ground scenery?
 
I think that in the end, I prefer the gameplay style of asteroids in WC1 and 2. I think asteroids should be a threat, depending on the speed of the starship and the nature of the engagement.

I am curious as to why they played a different role in WC3,4,etc.
 
It all depends on the individual field. Vega and Enigma are just rockier than the other sectors, I suppose.
 
I think asteroids should be a threat, depending on the speed of the starship and the nature of the engagement.
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I think the same.. This should be another hard thing to deal with (just like the talk with Maniac - "at least you'll have something to hide behind :D ) It was a real fun to fight in asteroids in Wing 1,2 and Privateer.. damn tough but, you could actually use them to your advantage.. I've never liked the minefields tough..
 
Personally I _hated_ WC1 and 2's style of asteroid and minefield, which is funny because for the most part those are my favorites from the series. They just feel so tedious in half the missions- afterburn through a minefield (unless I'm low on fuel, in which case I hope I don't hit too many) or just poke my way through asteroids. Asteroids were entertaining and suspenseful during dogfights- but when they just obstructed you on your way to another nav point, it pissed me off.
 
asteroids felt neat to me on the way to a battle, but they always drove me nuts on the way back.. there I am venting plasma from a half a dozen holes in my ship and I run into a little rock.

then I got to do it over again.
 
I think it was said here that WC1/2 asteroids were removed because they were considered too difficult for players.

I certainly do miss them.
 
I miss collisions in general. WCP/SO does away with traditional ramming damage. Instead you just bounce off targets. Although, colliding with asteroids will damage/destroy you and the enemy. The fields tend to be sparse so even then collisions are fairly rare.
 
Personally, I thought asteroids were there to test impatience. Afterburn, and you're likely dead and reflying the mission. WC2 taught me that you need to use standard speed when going thru asteroids. Of course, my video recordings used up quite some space so it was important for me to do the best I can for each mission. Replays could eat up precious gigabytes of space I may not have to spare.

P.S. - Asteroids still can kill. Look at my journal for WC4. I can't remember which mission, but an enemy Hellcat bought it when he ran into an asteroid.
 

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NinjaLA said:
asteroids felt neat to me on the way to a battle, but they always drove me nuts on the way back.. there I am venting plasma from a half a dozen holes in my ship and I run into a little rock.

then I got to do it over again.
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Privateer did that the best. You're limping away from a tough fight and then have to navigate an asteroid field with a ship that can only turn right and a little bit up.
 
Vinman said:
It all depends on the individual field. Vega and Enigma are just rockier than the other sectors, I suppose.
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Wing Commander 3 and 4 take place mostly in the Vega and Enigma Sectors. Prophecy and Secret Ops partially as well.
 
I documented the asteroid collision mission. It was during the Weapons Depot mission in Speradon. That mission had two suicide runs by Hellcat fighters. One took out Tex, and the other tried to do a Buckaroo Banzai trick against an asteroid. Of course, he did not have that fancy device to let him phase thru the rock into the eighth dimension. :D
 
Vinman said:
It all depends on the individual field. Vega and Enigma are just rockier than the other sectors, I suppose.
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... and Gemini! (which, oddly enough, actually proves what you're saying - with one quadrant having a heck of a lot more rocks than the other three).

Wing Commander Armada's Proving Grounds addon had some excellent asteroids - some enormous ones which appeared on radar (which you could hide behind) and then all sorts of small dangerous ones.

I think asteroid (and cockpit and takeoff scene) removal was a sad symptom of gaming's evolution... if something is too hard or too familiar it should be cut to streamline the game.

... and then it comes back and bites you, because everyone then sees space combat games as being first person shooters in giant empty rooms. We should have been putting effort into building *more* impressive asteroid fields, nebulae, quasars, atmospheric insertions and so forth.
 
I think, practically speaking, that asteroids (in WC3 and 4) were probably a technical obstacle. Rendering all those rocks on-screen at the necessary rate would have been a little much for hardware to handle at the time. Lord knows, they didn't run all that smoothly for me as they were.
 
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