RSI Museum Brings the A Games (May 7, 2017)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
I was recently honored to appear on another episode of RSI Museum, the Cloud Imperium Games’ livestream that talks about the history of games that influenced Star Citizen. This time, we talked about (and took a look at) Wing Comander’s Academy, Armada and Arena. Enjoy!


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Original update published on May 7, 2017
 
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Sounds good but too long to watch now. I love all three games for the possibility to fly Kilrathi ships (even though I always thought most Kilrathi ships were are a serious disadvantage but I rarely played multiplayer).
 
Kilrathi ships in armada were pretty equivalent, I think? The Jrathek in academy was a sexy ship, but the guns were kind of awful.
 
Kilrathi ships in armada were pretty equivalent, I think? The Jrathek in academy was a sexy ship, but the guns were kind of awful.
Almost, but not quite. While the differences for most ships definitely fall into the "pretty equivalent" category, there was a world of difference between the Phantom and the Shok'lar. The difference between the Wraith and the Jrathek was also very significant, even though it came down to armament - leech missiles were tremendously advantageous.
 
Ok, watched most of it and ha! finally I know why the Crossbow in the Academy selection screen looks so different. I always wondered.

Kilrathi ships in armada were pretty equivalent, I think? The Jrathek in academy was a sexy ship, but the guns were kind of awful.

As I wrote, I have maybe played 3 or 4 games of Armada against a human pilot (and most of them in a Jrathek or Shok'lar) but my comparison of the stats show to me that Kilrathi ships are slower, less agile, less well armed and for most part more expensive to build (the last one is especially insulting I think) than their Terran counterparts. They tend to have better armour...but mostly on the sides, wohoo.

Dralthi vs Arrow: The Dralthi is significantly slower, is less agile, has weaker shields, weaker guns and slower shield regeneration. It has better side protection but the Arrow also has better weapon placement.
Shok'lar vs Phantom is no contest, the Shok'lar is that much better.
Jrathek vs Wraith: There's a difference in afterburner speed between the two but I do not remember who has the advantage. The Wraith has heavier guns, significantly more missiles and chaff pods and better protection. The Jrathek has good center guns with optimal placement and is more agile (and looks that much better)
Kor-larh vs Gladius: the Kor-larh is significantly slower, less agile and its guns are extremely short ranged but only a bit more powerful that the Gladius. It also has much less missiles.
Goran vs Banshee: the Goran is slower and less agile. It does have significantly better front protection but also a very puny gun loadout with less firepower than the Jrathek (though better missiles).

I heard from Chris Reid that the Goran really is a beast and mabye it is superior in a 1 on 1 match, I can't tell.
 
The tale of Arena was all too familiar to me. My last company just had to let everyone go, I'm not comfortable going into specifics but it was definitely death by a thousand cuts (and one major artery slash) that we had no control over.
I'm curious, did Gaia industries ever work with EA again? Did the blame fall down to them?
 
I don't believe they survived much beyond the game's release; they had bet on their own XBLA title, Street Trace NYC, which was released around the same time and didn't do very well. (I do think that first wave of XBLA titles was essentially an audition; the studio that did Boom Boom Rocket, the other one, for EA was almost immediately acquired by Activision.)
 
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