Originally posted by pendell
* This is the only game I've ever played where the Random Encounters were the HARDEST part of the game. Why? Because one of the ways the engine makes it harder is it keeps track of the number of ships at a jump point, and if it ever falls below a certain number (about 8 or so on the higher difficulty levels) it randomly generates more ships of one faction or another until the number is back up to the expected constant.
This is a real pain at jump points with a significant pirate presence -- you keep killing pirates and the game keeps dumping more on you, turning every damn jump point into a grueling endurance run. Kill kill kill more pirates, kill kill kill more pirates, kill kill kill 2 pirates and a neutral, who won't defend himself but I must protect him or that'll be one less ship at the jump point and give the game more excuses to throw pirates at me, kill kill kill 3 pirates jump in, kill kill kill 1 pirate and 2 military ships jump in, kill the pirate who kills the military and MORE pirates jump in, rinse and repeat until finally you have enough military and neutral ships at the jump point that the engine won't generate more ships and you can jump -- to the NEXT jump point, and do it all over again.
I felt like I was playing "Space Invaders" or "Galaga" from the 80s -- wave after infinite wave of enemy fighters, who just keep coming and coming till you are dead. It got to that I looked FORWARD to the actual missions, which I found immeasurably easier because if they fought hard at least they didn't have near-infinite reinforcements!
* And, of course, the difficulty increases by an order of MAGNITUDE if you accidentally shoot a military ship! Those trigger-happy thugs have no patience or understanding and all of a sudden you have the grueling endurance job of clearing a nav point of BOTH military AND pirate ships -- no easy feat!! Especially when the military sends in a Destroyer.
Respectfully,
Brian P.