Ambrosia ev nova1/29/2024 ![]() But even some of the simple looking segments often had to be restarted over and over because missions, ships, or outfits that I needed were randomly not available, or the randomly placed ships in a system screwed me over, or I just messed up my piloting. Obviously, the defeating pirates with my shuttle and the battles at the end took a lot of tries. This run uses a lot of luck manipulation. Hauling cargo is for chumps, so I'm going to go to the most dangerous system in the Federation, steal money from vastly more powerful ships and then kill them for combat rating. ![]() This means I need about a million credits. I would have to board it first, succeed at capturing it with my 1-crew shuttle, then escape from whatever disabled it in a badly damaged ship. First, one would have to spawn at the same time as a pirate that can defeat it, but wants to board it before killing it. Ideally, I would capture one, but this is insanely improbable. It has max jump speed (150% of normal), very nice speed, acceleration, and turning, decent shields, and adequate cargo space, upgrade space, and energy capacity. By far, the best available ship for speedrunning is the Mod Starbridge. I have two objectives for the early part of the game: get a fast ship and get 300 combat rating, which is required for the first Pirate storyline mission. Just realize I would need four hands to play perfectly. So you may occasionally see a brief pause as I hunt for the right one. There are dozens of different controls and shortcuts scattered all over the keyboard, though. I use the keyboard almost exclusively, because with practice it's faster than clicking on buttons with the mouse. I only use the map if I don't have time to select the right system before I drift too close to the center of the system and become unable to jump. If I do this before the ship finishes its 180 degree turn, it doesn't slow me down at all. (This brings up the minimap in the top right of the gameplay window.) When I jump into a system, I hold down the reverse key, while selecting the system for the next jump, then start the jump. Instead, I use the hyper select key to cycle through the adjacent systems and choose the destination for each jump. However, the rest of the game is paused while the map is open, so I use it as little as possible. Then you can just hold the jump key until you arrive. The easiest way to choose the system you jump to is to bring up the map screen and lock in a route to your final destination. Top speed and acceleration affect how quickly you travel between planets and the hyper limit. So there are two main stats that affect jumping time: jump speed and turn rate. When you initiate a hyper jump, your ship first turns to face opposite to its direction of travel, then turns to face the direction of the destination system, then begins the actual jump. You can only jump if you're at least 1000 pixels from the center of the system (unless the system is empty). (This is why there's a 2X icon in the top left.) I keep this on at all times, of course. The caps lock key still causes gameplay to be twice as fast though. Unlike previous EV games, there is no speed slider in the settings in Nova. If you're only interested in explanation of what I did, along with a humorous, but mostly accurate summary of the plot, just skip ahead to the segment by segment. However, with lots to see and do, dozens of ships, and multiple stories and plots to follow, it marks itself as a worthy successor to the 1992 classic, if only in spirit.First I'm going to talk about the game mechanics and the strategies I used to play as fast as possible. The combat is often entirely too one-sided. The writing, while not technically bad, is pretty dry. The controls are a little too arcane for their own good. Some of the mystery and wonder of exploration is lost, but it handily eliminates the inherent frustration. Where SC2 was content to let you often aimlessly wander for the next clue, you’re rarely without a clear objective in Nova. Nova actually improves upon the classic by being a much tighter, controlled experience. It even looks and plays similarly, featuring and isometric view similar to SC2’s top-down one. You’ll upgrade and buy new ships, and eventually get caught up in the game’s galaxy-spanning plotlines. From there you must make your way how you see fit: Take on odd jobs, haul cargo, maybe ransack a few ships. They both feature similar premises: You, a lone captain, are dumped into a large, foreboding, unknown galaxy. It’s a comparison not made without merit either. A shame too, since it’s probably the closest PC gamers have ever come to getting a real sequel to Star Control 2. Small wonder that when Nova got a PC port in 2003, anyone who possibly cared about it already had it. It was the third game in a long-time Mac-only series by a Mac-only developer, back before Apple was hip and with-it. It isn’t too hard to deduce why Escape Velocity: Nova is obscure.
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