New Member

[LeeVincent]

Greetings people,

I used to play Starfleet Command 1, 2, 3 many (10+) years ago in SL, if any remember it, and was reasonably successful. I have since discovered Bridge Commander and the wonderful array of mods avaiilable for it. I will be getting an upgraded system soon so I can play DF9 and other mods, this is fantastic, my thanks to the modding community

I am one of the top modders for Medieval 2 Total War but its sure fun to go 1000 years into the future.

I have one question, I watch all the DS9 episodes, and it seems that no ships have shields, they get torn to pieces by a few photons, I assume this is just artistic license?

My best to all the TRek fans out there  

Cheers,
Lee

[WileyCoyote]

Welcome to the forums! About your question- I heard it was a technical error because the shields took so long to render in battle scenes or it is just to show that the Federation has a new powerful enemy.

[majormagna]

 Originally the Dominion's weapons could simply pass straight through Starfleet vessels shields; I know they mention shields a lot later on, but it would be damn confusing to see so many blue, green and purple flashes around ships you were trying to see get blown up. Wiley has already mentioned another reason the production staff didn't use shield effects.

[Nebula]

hmm I say this is the point where they use skin shields. (also better for fleet formations...)

[LeeVincent]

Yeah I figured it was just a TV thing. Otherwise why produce large capital ships when a Galaxy class has approx the same armament as an Inreprid class (though more phaser arrays), and weights 7x as much??

The weapons in general do seem somewhat underpowered as compared to the TV series, and even online Trek resources - if I hit an unshielded Battlecruiser with 4x200 isoton photons I expect it to explode, not lose 10% hull integrity.

Well lets face it, the tactics in DS9 mostly are about as sophisticated as medieval warfare - 'I smash my forces head-on into yours'.

From playing BC, it seems that the dorsal and ventral shields are rather over-vulnerable given the area they have to cover. It seems always best to reinforce them.

BC seems very much a click-fest as compared to Starfleet command. This isn't a criticism, and is largely influenced by the 3D environment. Maintaining situational awareness seems extremely difficult however. Any tips?

Just observations, not criticisms

[Lionus]

it is a click-fest if you play it that way. But you can also do micro-management especially with Kobayashi Maru. boost shields, weapons, adjust power to this or that, send away team to take over enemy vessel after shields have been obliterated.. or you could be a clever one and catch that speeding dominion bugship with a tractorbeam and give it a full spread of quantums right into the impulse deck..

[LeeVincent]

Thanks buddy I am downloading KM now

Anyway I do think BC combat is in way more realistic than SFC, which is limited to 2D. SFC seems more appropriate to TOS

[deadthunder2_0]

SFC is a good sim, but it is missing the advanced features of BC. It does not have the mod-ability of BC, or the keyboard control that BC has. In BC you can fight in a way that extends ships use from the huge battleships in sfc 1/2 who would fire missiles so much that it could overwhelm any target, while BC can spread damage, evade, and shoot down (a feature in sfc too) a missile/ torpedo

[086gf]

Thanks buddy I am downloading KM now

Make sure you are downloading the 2009 and 2010 betas and not the 1.0 thats from 2007.

[King Class Scout]

and, for pete's sake, I hope you have a good graphics card.  todays mods really eat mem, and BC having a memory leak doesn't help.

note that 02-05's mods are generally small and crude looking, while 6 and up can cause older comps to hiccough.  I suggest you review all the "problem" threads, here (that are available) for the common error eras, noob mistakes, etc.  at the minimum, review the console report abilities threads, and if your any good at debugging, don't be afraid to give people a hand.

[Morgan]

Also check out the BC Wiki (links at the bottom of the main forum page). Clicking "List all pages" will bring up some valuable information that has been compiled over the years.

[LeeVincent]

Thanks guys Actually my main PC is dead, graphics card burned out, so I am playing this on a cheap Compaq laptop until other one fixed. Actually it plays very well! I am used to SFC, but this game is amazing with all the added mods. Looking forward to playing it on a good system  

[King Class Scout]

wait till you check the files, and find out a LOT of older mods are actually ported SFC's

[LeeVincent]

Really?

Well, after playing BC for several days (yes its a long time I know  ), and SFC for years, I think SFC is definitely more skill-intensive, and well-suited to TOS. But, BC is superb, and really captures the spirit of the eras after TOS wonderfully well. The graphics are cinematic and the mods are great. The 3D aspect is a welcome change after SFC also.

I had Klingon Academy for a while, that wasn't bad either.

All I can say is that all races would be better off going back to turret-mounted weapons so as not to need to advance-retreat on attack runs etc.

[King Class Scout]

some of the older models are indeed SFC ports.  the reason everything's not turrets is to prove that Space is NOT an ocean, and that there's up and down in addition to left/right and fore/back.  part of the joy of BC is the 3d manuverability to bring the various arrays, etc into play.  your so used to the flat planes of the other one, that it's throwing you off, I bet.  keyboard input puts me off of self flying (you have to have like 10 hands), but most people have a ball.

[LeeVincent]

Yep taking some time getting used to the 3D, but I am a flight sim junkie so am trying some air combat maneuvering tactics, Split-S, Hi Yo-Yo etc! I wish the game accepted joystick input. Hmm, if the joystick can be programmed to generate keypresses as output, would that work?

[ACES_HIGH]

yeah, infact there's a couple of programs on BCfiles that will let you do just that.

[LeeVincent]

That's great to know thanks! I have been looking for them at BCFiles for while with no luck, any idea of what they might be called? Thanks

EDIT: looks like "Auto Hotkey" may do it.