Endless Sky and EV Nova

[Cruallassar]

Alright, so Escape Velocity Nova was one of the greats of my childhood. I conquered most of the known galaxy in my Pirate Carrier and my Raven, I struck fear into the hearts of every Pirate in space, I made the secret Sigma Shipyards mission to Kont and back with ease, (after I got the hang of it...) you name it, I did it.

So you can imagine how absolutely overjoyed I was when I saw this.

Now, I was a little skeptical at first...I mean, the screenshots and the little "inspired by Escape Velocity" in the description was great, but you know how things can be disappointing if you get your hopes up. But my fears were unfounded. I am now flitting around space in my little light freighter making money.

However, for all its amazing similarity to Escape Velocity, and its improvements in some very key points, there ARE some differences.
First of all this is that in EV Nova, the absolute best way in the game to make money was the New Ireland to Earth trade route. Right off the bat at the very beginning of the game, that was the way to get a rapid-start straight into profit and riches, allowing you to hurry the hell up and get that IDA Frigate or Enterprise so you could start safely going into Pirate hunting or one of the six great storylines. Buy low, sell high, trade and profit was the key to success. However here in Endless Sky, I have looked around...I found a trade route that seemed pretty similar, Sol to Car Caroli, however I find that when combined with my mortgage fees, this actually results in me slowly losing money...not gaining it. Rather, the best way to make money fast here is to do as many rush deliveries as you can...grab a delivery or three, then along the way get more of them for the same destinations, then just keep circling the galaxy aimlessly doing odd jobs. Now, in EV Nova, this was a very slow and painful thing to keep doing...profits were low, you could barely keep your ship running, and it was barely worth it when you had a ship with more than fifty tons of cargo space. Sigma Shipyards and UN Shipping deliveries were better, but even they were never as lucrative as that New Ireland/Earth route, and others like it.

Now, I haven't played Endless Sky all that much yet, and am very much looking forward to more it has to offer...but I'm also looking for more differences, both good and bad, between this game and EV. (Aside from that I can't Caps-lock and accelerate time 2X...dang that was great.) So I ask the community...what other differences and bits can an old-time EV player expect? What parallels should I look for, and what can be misleading?

[GodMark2]

The best way to make cash at the start in EV:Nova was the missions just like Endless Sky. Once you had enough cargo space (about 75), switching to simple bulk runs was better. I find that endless sky has that crossover point a bit higher, but it does become quite profitable to trade eventually. There are some very lucrative trade routes, but they tend not to be in the well-traveled paradise worlds or near-Earth sectors. Of course, just like EV:Nova, the trading game is really just a way to get the mission game started...

As for differences: Currently, bigger is always better, there isn't enough tradeoff to worry. Turrets are far more powerful than the originals (or perhaps the direct guns are simply wimpy by comparison). You don't have to move away from the system center to jump, and there is a drive that allows you to jump without a full stop (like the telepaths). There are very few unexplored systems, but just like the original, they often have juicy rewards for fully exploring. There is currently only one full story-path, tying in to the terrorist destruction of the navy's largest shipyard. The latest patches have added several sidequests and random missions.

Also, keep an eye out for a prototype ship that you may recognize. I hear the author is flying one, and you might be able to earn the right to have one as well...

[Cruallassar]

Hmm...
Yeah, I noticed the lack of needing to be away from the system center bit. Rather happy with that from a feature point of view. The biggest difference I see with the early game trading here is that in EV Nova, while for the first two minutes of the game the missions were better, as soon as you make 70K and buy a used Terrapin and start on the trade runs, you were sitting pretty, and (here is the real point) as long as you were doing it right, you couldn't actually lose money. I mean, do something stupid and you can of course...and be careful with your escorts...but here, I start off the game with this mortgage to pay off, and it means I'm losing more than I can make with any trade routes I've found near Earth.

But I can't wait to see more storyline stuff...maybe I can try to make some of my own...


And please tell me that ship is a Kestral. Or a Starbridge.

[joefitts63]

Originally posted by Cruallassar:

And please tell me that ship is a Kestral. Or a Starbridge.

Yes, it is.

[jackg4]

Two big differences that stand out to me, both of which I consider a plus. First: in original EV, you could have only 1 ship with hired escorts. I feared losing money with escorts so didn't use them much. In Endless Sky, you can capture or buy ships to add to your fleet -- totally cool. You have to be careful with crew costs but it's managable when you figure out making money. Second: making modifications to the game are much, much easier in ES. Michael, the dev, made ES with that in mind for the player. I've made half a dozen mods for myself since the game was released. Hope you and other new players enjoy the game as much as I do. There is a lot to look forward to as the game gets fleshed out in the future.

[Star Sage]

Never played EV sadly, but yeah, this game is very interestingly designed. I'd compare it to Drox Operative, another indie game, and both are quite good, if different. This is more of a set tale, with a lot of small challenges and pieces that come together in interesting ways, whereas that is a randomly generated thing. The big difference between this and other games like it though is the addition of fleets, as you can continue to add more and more ships to your fleet, with the understanding that the more ships you have, the more you have to be making per day to pay your crew. The stories told so far are pretty good too.

[Pompano]

Where can I find Escape Velocity?

[Cruallassar]

Originally posted by jackg4:

Two big differences that stand out to me, both of which I consider a plus. First: in original EV, you could have only 1 ship with hired escorts. I feared losing money with escorts so didn't use them much. In Endless Sky, you can capture or buy ships to add to your fleet -- totally cool. You have to be careful with crew costs but it's managable when you figure out making money. Second: making modifications to the game are much, much easier in ES. Michael, the dev, made ES with that in mind for the player. I've made half a dozen mods for myself since the game was released. Hope you and other new players enjoy the game as much as I do. There is a lot to look forward to as the game gets fleshed out in the future.

I don't know which EV you're talking about, but I do know that in Nova, you could capture ships and hire escorts. Where as here, you can't hire escorts, which I'm finding slightly annoying...but the major thing I'm now wondering is, how do I get escorts without capturing them?

Also, where are the files I can mod with the universe editor?

[Cruallassar]

Originally posted by PompanoZombie:

Where can I find Escape Velocity?

Here you go.
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/ev/
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

[ThaWitchKing]

you can buy hundards of escorts. just go and buy another ship and it becames your escort

[Pompano]

Originally posted by Cruallassar:

Originally posted by PompanoZombie:

Where can I find Escape Velocity?

Here you go.
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/ev/
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

Aw man I didn't realize it wasn't free. Well shoot. Thanks anyways

[Cruallassar]

Originally posted by PompanoZombie:

Originally posted by Cruallassar:

Here you go.
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/ev/
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

Aw man I didn't realize it wasn't free. Well shoot. Thanks anyways

Oh, didn't I mention that? Yeah, it isn't free. And when one compares thirty dollars worth of that to this...well, that is still better, but it is getting pretty close.

[jackg4]

Guide for creating mods here:
https://github.com/endless-sky/endless-sky/wiki

[Star Sage]

So, you can field fleets in Nova like you can here?

[Cruallassar]

Originally posted by Star Sage:

So, you can field fleets in Nova like you can here?

Kinda. You can have a fleet of ships you either hire or capture, however there is a limit of six. Then you can also have hanger bays full of fighters an your ships, or those of your fleet, and that further increases its size. Only real limit to those is how many bays you can fit and how much money you have to spend on it.

[VPJoeBiden420]

I do wish there were a "rent ship" option, since in EVN you could expand your fleet quickly by not outright owning escorts, but by hiring independent captains. In ES you own every ship in your fleet, either by purchase or by conquest, and you have to pay sufficient crew to fly them. (If a ship is under-crewed, it suffers performance lag. Very realistic.)

Some other neat differences:
--When capturing a ship, you need enough crew to kill the crew of the other ship AND still have enough to fly both.

--If you lose crew during a boarding party, you have to pay "death benefits" to their families. This can be a big chunk of money, but rarely so much that you can't profit. For example, boarding an Argosy will often cost you ~2million in death benefits, but the ship itself might sell for ~3-4million.

--You can park ships. YOU CAN PARK SHIPS. No longer do you have to ask the question of "Do I want my flagship to have a bunch of fighter bays and turrets, or do I want it to have a bunch of guns and rockets?" because you can just buy two, or three, or fifty, and park the ones you don't want to fly/escort you in systems with private hangers.

--You can detect nearby systems, even if there isn't a hyperspace link.

--There are very important parts of the map that you can only access once beating the campaign (or another workaround I won't post for the sake of spoilers.) Needless to say, not all roads lead to Sol.

--You can have infinity ships.

--Defensive fleets scale realistically. No need to worry about six hundred ships pouring out of a pirate system at the edge of space. You can claim your first tribute world with a fleet worth 100million or less.

--You no longer need to rely solely on the capital-on-hand. You can borrow money for faster upgrades, which EVN did not support.

--You can plunder a ship's outfits instead of just its cargo/ammo

--Plundering outfits stores them in your cargo, which means, if there's a component that you can't buy, you can scrape it off of a bunch of other ships and then equip them to your fleet.

--You can mod every part of your ship. That Star Barge is too slow? Buy a bigger prograde thruster. That Berserker turns too slowly? Switch out your Plasma Steering for Atomic Steering.

--Whereas EVN had "fuel" and "shields," ES has fuel, shields, heat, and energy. Different weapons attack each of these differently, and different outfits can improve performance for each of these differently. Sometimes you can buy hybrid outfits, e.g. a reactor that also has batteries in it, and save some space.