Nexus - The Jupiter Incident

[TonyG2]

OK just a quick visit today.

New game that might appeal to Homeworlders.

[http://www.nexusthegame.com//url]

From a Hungarian games developer and marketed via Sierra.

Described as a tactical Starship Simulator, you have command at first over one cruiser sized ship and a few on board fighters.

You never get a huge fleet as in Homeworld and there is no resource collecting or ship building.

The focus is on tactical actions. Thing of it like this - being able to commend a Qwaar Jet, one squadron of fighters and a pair of frigates. But, you can issue multiple orders - such as short range guns engage fighters, medium hit the frigates and fire a full torpedoe spread at the enemy carriers etc.

You can select targets (as in HW2) so aim to disable the engine and then board and take the ship.

Game comes with a full set of modding tools and a 3D ship viewer.

Haven't played it. One of my colleagues was playing on the train up from London this morning (and at his appraisal next year we will be discussing his playing games while the boss is still working.... ;D)

From what I saw on his laptop, the grpahics are incredible. The ships look B5 inspired and use what look like realistic physics ie they fire breaking rockets to slow, and other engines for direction changes.

Actually they look quite like the designs from the Etranger website....

Planning on buying it myself although its anyones guess when I'll get a chance to play it...

I gather its not getting a US release for a while as Real Time Tactics/Strategy are selling poorly compared to first person shooter/flight sims

Image below is from a pair of freighters. More on the website....

[TheGlove]

sounds good, but the pic looks like a pair of missles :

[TonyG2]

Yeah they do a bit!

Wanted to post an image of the Cruiser (the Stilleto) that you command in the opening missions but cn't find a link anywhere.

[TheGlove]

well, I was looking at their site and...





it have some pretty good graphics uhn ?

and the best of all: dun need a killer system

[Cherel]

It has amazing graphics. If gameplay is that good... It's going to be one of the best games I would have seen.

[TonyG2]

actually managed to get a day of today so went and bought this.

Only played a couple of missions on one level so far but its looking good.

At the early level you have only one ship plus three embarked fighters to command.

Controls are somewhat similar to HW but not as inituitive.

Basically, having received order to intercept a freighter that may be smuggling contraband, you select the other ship using either a point and right click on the main screen or by clicking its entry in the taget list on the right side of the screen.

your ship powers up and moves towards the enemy. You can select your ship and pan the camera around, zoom in and out just as with HW.

A nice touch is that when chaning course, smaller thrusters fire correcting bursts etc.

You can set the ship on one of a number of stances ie aggresive, defensive, stealth and "focused" ie it focuses on the mission.

You can select specific ships weapons (categories include lower strength weapons to taget fighterrs and ship systems, or higher power that damage the hull etc), launch and direct fighters.

As there is no building or harvesting, you need to keep your small fleet intact. And it is a small fleet. I don't think you ever get more than say a dozen capital ships.

The trick lies in managing the tactics and not relying only on your ships AI (I gather from the review on IGN that to do so later in the game means you get dead. Very quickly!).

There is no pre-game tutorial - which sucks. be prepared to play the intro two missions a few times.

So far I haven't found an equivalent to HWs movement screen. You have to - as said above - click on a destination point or select a target from the target list.

From what I read there should be a way to move via a series of set waypoints but if so I haven't found the means to do it yet.

The manual with the game is also pretty sucky as well. There is no written background to the game, no ships database to see what craft might be available. On that basis, the HW series (and Tachyon - if I dare even bring up that subject again....) have the edge.

So far ship design strongly reminds me of both B5 and of the ships on the Etranger website. Lots of reliance on rotating sections for gravity...

I gather the story is pretty good - maybe why there is no written background in the manual.

Open CGI movies are very well done (in particular the sequence of an X33 Venture Star being shot down by an orbital defence platform...)

No idea when I'll get the chance to really give the game a workout. It won't run on my laptop so I'm not able to try it out when I'm travelling. Oh well, that just leaves me with HW, Cata and Independance War to wind down with when I'm away on business.

[TheGlove]

lemme see if I got it : its kinda of a mix between HW and Starfleet Commander ?

[TonyG2]

Never played the later so I could't say.

[TheGlove]

well, in SFC u have ur small fleet of bought ships (3 ships max) and u micro every system of the ship in combat ...

pretty cool game acctually, Riesstiu, support plz

[Riesstiu IV.]

Hm? Oh, yeah, cool game. Neat gameplay. You're commanding a ship from 3rd person perspective, got a lot of micro options, etc. Not the best of graphics, but very enjoyable.

And about the above screenshots...
WOW.

[Elukka]

That game looks great!
Hey, you know what I thought when you said that the game is like commanding a Qwaar-Jet with some fighters and frigs?
Homeworld mod! Yep, when the game's out, somebody must do a Homeworld mod for it. ;D

[TonyG2]

Game comes with a full set of modding tools.

Have bought it and started playing but not really enough time to get into it. Looks good so far though.

[TheGlove]

well, our last mod attemp was desastrous in a 2mb game

[Nerath]

*slaps forehead* Wow, I'm sorry, I should have appeared to say hello Well, the forums aren't too active, so tell lots of people to come here and help us out! We need lots of active members!

[TheGlove]

its kinda awakening by now