Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: January 10, 2016

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LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE

by Hazed

Ok, it’s going to be a while until you can actually rumble, but the plans are advancing well for ship fighting to come back into the game.

So how will it work? Well, it takes the way ship fighting used to work as a starting point, and adds a few new bells and whistles.

Here’s a rundown of some of the things that will be different.

The weapons you install in your ship will, as before, be lasers and missiles – but to go with the single and twin lasers, there’s a new quad laser.

You will be able to designate one of your single lasers as a defence against missiles, so long as you have a powerful enough computer.

Jammers and sensors, which you have been able to install into your ship right from the start of this version of the game, will finally have a use. Sensors will provide extra targeting for your computer, which means your weapon fire will be more accurate, and they will also give you a defence boost against missiles by making your defence laser more accurate. Jammers will mess up your opponent’s targeting, making it harder for her to hit you.

The biggest difference is that there will be two modes of fighting: standoff and close range. At standoff range you fire missiles at your opponent from a distance. You don’t want to be too close, because when a missile hits a ship it explodes which could damage the firing ship.

To use your lasers you have to get up close and that means moving to close range. Whoever decides to close on the other ship will suffer a few seconds during which she can’t use her weapons, so the opponent will get a few free shots in before the ships become too close to use missiles.

If you want to break off the close encounter and go back to standoff range, that’ll also give your opponent a few shots of the laser while you move away.

I’ll give you some more details in next week’s Star. Meanwhile, I have to warn you that the plans may change when Alan does the coding – nothing is set in stone.

Right now I can’t give you even a vague hint about how long it’s going to be until ship fighting is put into the game, because there’s something else that’s needed before Alan can start the coding. That’s a new version of FedTerm…

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