FreeSpace Port ReCharged Dev log 09 - Fleet Actions
- Iain 'Sessile_Nomad' Baker
- Jan 14
- 4 min read
Welcome back, friends. In the last post, we saw how FreeSpace Port ReCharged radically overhauled vanilla FreeSpace's One's warship-on-warship combat.
Now we will see what happens when a whole bunch of warships go against each other at once, AKA - Fleet Actions.
Battle of Endor
Such missions have often been derided among the FreeSpace modding community and are disparagingly called ‘BoE missions’. BoE stands for ‘Battle of Endor’ - the large-scale fleet vs fleet battle above the moon of Endor at the end of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
Freespace 2 - Large Battle
Video by shivanSpS
A problem with such missions is that the player can often feel both overwhelmed and insignificant. What can a little fighter do when 2KM+ titans are duking it out?
Ever the contrarian, I contend that smaller BoE missions can be fantastic - if they are made with proper forethought, care and attention. One key to this is to use the 2KM+ titans sparingly, which also preserves their narrative significance.
The Homeworld Influence
In vanilla FS1, there isn’t much separating the different warships - some were slower and had more hit points, others were nimble but fragile, but that was about it. I suspected that improving upon this would be key to creating satisfying BoE missions, so I started looking for inspiration.
In the last post, I mentioned Homeworld 2. The Homeworld franchise has been my other favourite sci-fi space combat franchise of the last 25 or so years. Homeworld is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game, where the disembodied player commands whole fleets of ships, so playing it gives you quite a different perspective (literally). However, the weapons, ship classes, technology, etc., are fairly similar, which makes taking inspiration from it that much easier.
Homeworld Remastered Massive Fleet Battle
video by Fillian Plays
Homeworld 2 was infamous for using a Rock, Paper, Scissors philosophy in matchups, with each ship class having a distinct role. Success was often determined by having the right balance of strikecraft and warships in one’s fleet. Neglecting an aspect could leave you dangerously vulnerable. Conversely, stripping a specific element of the enemy's force structure could leave it vulnerable to exploitation and attack.
This worked quite well in most scenarios, so it seemed wise to emulate its good points while addressing its weaknesses, while remaining cognisant of the fact that FS is a Space Combat Sim, not an RTS.
The Right Tool for the Right Job
I wanted each class of fighter, bomber and warship to have distinct roles, and so I set about configuring FreeSpace One's roster of strike craft and warships to fit them. They are as follows:
Fighters / Interceptors:
Role - Space superiority. Strong against bombers, weak against light warships, ineffective against heavy warships and capital ships.
Light bombers:
Role - Surgical strike on warships. Weak against fighters, strong against light warships, effective at disarming larger warships.
Fighter-bomber:
Role - ‘Jack of most trades’ strike craft. A cross between a fighter and a light bomber. Performs the roles of both, although not as well as either.
Heavy bomber:
Role - Destroying capital ships. Weak against fighters, interceptors and fighter bombers. Strong against capital ships.
Light warship:
Role - fighter and bomber suppression. Long-range anti-strikecraft chin turret and swarm VLS. Lots of PDCs. Fast and agile, weak armour. Strong against strikecraft and civilian vessels. Weak against heavy warships and Capital ships.
Heavy warship:
Role - Anti-light warship. VLS and heavy anti-warship artillery. Fewer PDCs. Slower and less agile, but more heavily armoured. Strong against light warships, weak against capital ships.
Capitalships:
Role - Anti-capital ship and Fleet Carrier. Turreted heavy artillery and/or capital-grade VLS missiles. Few PDCs. Slowest and least agile. Only class capable of carrying strikecraft. Strategic asset. Strong against light and heavy warships and capital ships. Weak against bombers due to sparse PDC coverage.
'Gordian Knot'
This worked surprisingly well. Fleet actions became dynamic battles where the player needs to carefully prioritise targets and use the right tool for the right job.
Creating Combined arms formations made for effective fleets, since the weakness of one class was compensated for by the strengths of the others. This created a 'Gordian Knot' that the player would need to unravel carefully to defeat an enemy fleet.
But unravelling this knot would require the player to have more tools at their disposal than vanilla FS provided. How I went about expanding the player’s toolkit is the topic of the next post. See you all there.
Previous dev log posts
Iain is a 40+ author and gamer from England, who started his gaming journey on the Atari 2600 36(ish) years ago. His specialities include obscure cult classics, retro games, mods and fan remakes. He hates all sports games and is allergic to online multiplayer. Since he is British, his body is about 60% tea. He can be reached via email at nomadsreviews@gmail.com
Nomad’s Reviews now has a YouTube Channel - Nomad's Reviews Plays.
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