Some Questions from a potential player

[masterthief30]

Hey all- I became aware of Evochron Mercenary after seeing it pop up for sale on Steam. I've already decided that if I buy the game I'll get it from the website and host my own server to play with a few friends, but I have some questions I'm hoping someone can answer for me.

First, how is the AI? I'm always concerned in games like this that the AI will be too passive or stupid, making empire expansion a boring affair at best. I have read about pirate guild attacks etc., which sounds like it will add an interesting dynamic, but do the various empires also have relationships with your clan which they act on? Are AI controlled empires actively expanding as well(building stations, etc.), or are they static and just waiting to be conquered? Do the AI controlled empires interact with each other?

The second question I have is about player buildings. Is there more to build than stations? Station defense platforms, mining arrays, ship construction buildings? Or is that mostly rolled into the station, and mining is all done manually?

Finally, I know there is ship design included in the game, but would you consider the base platforms enough to keep things interesting?

I have some other questions, but those are really the major ones I had before trying to put together a group to play. I've played EVE Online and loved it, but even though skills trained persistently I found that to get anything accomplished, and to participate in the aspects of the game I most enjoyed, that I had to be online constantly. That's just not an option for me anymore. This looked like a possible alternative that I could play on a dedicated server with some people minecraft-style.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

[Professor Paul1290]

Are you sure you're looking at the right game?

It sounds like you want some kind of empire building or management game, which Evochron Mercenary is not.

Here's something I posted elsewhere:

Evochron Mercenary isn't at all like X3 or EVE, it's more comparable to Elite or Freelancer.

By that I mean that it is not about the idea of "you, the fleet commander or businessman", Evochron Mercenary is more about the idea of "you, the skilled pilot for hire". It has a stronger focus on combat and piloting skills and doesn't focus too much on economic or strategic skills.
It is much more combat heavy than X3 or EVE, and non-combat tasks usually have something to do with flying your ship.

You'll find that opportunities to trading empires or fleets are extremely limited in Evochron because they are not the main point of the game. You don't get to fly or own large destroyers or carriers either, again this is not that type of game.

What you do do in this game tends to fall under things that answer the question "What sort of tasks would you hire a skilled pilot for?". One of these is obviously combat, which there's plenty of. Some others are transporting passengers, mining, cleaning solar arrays, trading (to some extent), quickly transporting supplies in an emergency, spying on capital ships, rescuing stranded pilots, and so on. Naturally you tend to be restricted to smaller ships that are suitable for such tasks.

Needless to say, there is a lot of manual flying in Evochron, and you won't spend nearly as much time in autopilot as you would in something like X3 or EVE. The game has IDS for easy "airplane" style flight, but combat as well as other tasks requires learning to fly with IDS disabled. With IDS disabled you have to handle the game's Newtonian physics which means that objects in motion tend to stay in motion, being near planets and stars means dealing with gravity, and so on and so forth. You can apply thrust forward, backward, up, down, left and right. In combat you'll have to manage front, rear, left, and right shields as well as manage energy balance between shields and weapons.

I don't want to sound too off-putting, but from what you said it seems like you're asking for a completely different game, at least that's what it sounds like to me.

[Maarschalk]

Hi Masterthief30, welcome to the game and forum...Hope to see you out there some time!...

[masterthief30]

Very helpful Paul- Thank You! I suppose what I'm really looking for is an empire building game with the option to drop into the pilot's seat, and from your assessment it sounds like Evochron is more the latter than the former. Unfortunately all games I've run into seem to be one or the other, or don't have a dedicated server option (Star Ruler, Sins, X3, Miner Wars(not out yet)).

[Letoras]

hmmm, maybe if the players split up teams and grow your empires along the dedicated server, that what i was thinking of as an option, do you think that could happen?

[Edited on 24-1-2012 by Letoras]