We did ret-con that at one point with some story background info that made its way onto a PC game magazine cover disc. (No I can't remember which one). I'll have to see if I've still got the files somewhere.

The idea was that the Rome only had a skeleton crew aboard as it was heading to/from a refit.
They spotted the indie tug and gave chase, as they thought they could easily take it on, even with a reduced crew complement.

The real reason is that it's just a plot-hole, as happens from time to time. Even big budget Hollywood films are notorious for them :)

Wow a chance to ask a designer of one of my favorite game series? Where do I start?

Why was It decided to make EOC into a more arcade style game rather than simulation?

Where did the idea behind the LDS drive and the Capsule jump come from, or to be more specific: The in technology behind them? Is it based on real science, inspired by other SCI-FI media, or is it just technobabble?

Was the Puffin originally suposed to have Missle launchers? the design of the wing-pylons always gave me that idea.

Why do you never get the Storm Petrel back during the campaign? Or a replacement one?

It was partly to make the game more accessible to a wider audience, partly because the originals UI was fairly complex (though of course it was meant to be a simulation of a space-ship UI), and also because originally I-War 2 was going to have a Dreamcast version, so the UI was designed also to be usable on a gamepad and TV screen.

I wasn't involved in the original design process, so I can't say for certain. Most of the future technology in the game is inspired by Sci-Fi and science, but is also designed for specific gameplay purposes. Lagrange points serve as choke points where combat can be made to happen. The LDS drive makes interplanetary travel times bearable, and acts as an escape mechanism, but for gameplay can also be disabled.

I don't know, to be honest. I would have thought it's more likely they're for maneuvering thrusters, as tugs need to be able to maneuver quickly and accurately at slow speeds, but I'm not sure we added visible thrusters for those locations. It doesn't make sense that the puffin would be armed with missiles, though it's likely they would be retrofitted in a war situation. Probably the main reason for the pylons is the normal art reason - it looks cooler, and it's keeps with the design aesthetic of the other ships.

I'm not sure. Possibly it was considered too powerful. I wasn't involved with that part of the story design.

Hi Hot4Darmat,
I just finished "the Meeting" and "Out in the Cold." I thought they were terrific. They're fun reads on their own, but they also really add something to my play through of the games.
Maybe as a fan of the games I might be predisposed to like the stories, but I think "The Meeting" was good enough that I would have been happy to have paid for it on Amazon. It kept me turning pages into the wee hours.

Thanks!

-edit- this post didn't go where I thought it was going to go. I apologize.

Thanks! Those were very fun amateur projects but they got me really excited about writing. I still have a number of bound hard copies for any true die hard fans out there who want one for the shelf. For any of you who also liked "Uncertain Freight" remember: I wrote that BEFORE Firefly! Thanks again for the kind words. You just made my day.

I have an I-War question that hopefully you guys can answer. It seems that half the time when I designate a waypoint and press F6, my ship turns around and approaches the previous target. (example I've targeted a ship, then I change the target type to waypoints and I select the L4 point, hoping to travel there for the next part of the mission. But when I hit F6, I still approach the ship). What am I doing wrong?

p.s. I absolutely love this game!

In I-War 1 you have to designate the waypoint as a target using the / key before pressing F6.

Aha! That seems to do the trick. Many thanks sir!

LOD typical isn't referencing to models but to textures. The LOD determines which texture level should be applied to the 3d wireframe model. Depending on many factors using the highest texture resolution for objects in mid-far position could result in ugly graphics. :)
Sometimes it improves graphics to tune the LOD level a bit toward the higher resolution one, but thats a matter of taste.
However this is just about the term "LOD" which is mostly used when talking about the textures and as far as I understand you are talking about the detail level of the wireframe models. In the flux.ini is an entry for that (global_detail_scale) which ends at 0.7 if you set the slider to the rightmost position. Setting this to 1.0 should do he trick. Two other settings are cull_detail and box_detail which improve by lowering(!) the values (esp. cull_detail). I didn't experiment a lot with those settings. Setting cull_detail to 0.001 should work and maybe you can even disable culling by setting it to 0.

I'll try ithis out and get back to you with the results. Thanks a lot, anyway!!!

Ravager i gotta ask - was the Dreadnought inspired by this Ron Cobb design?

http://mlfun.org.ua/jpgs/5/jpgs/spaceship.jpg

Wow! I've never seen that before, and I've seen a lot of Ron Cobb's concept art over the years. When was that painted and what was it for?

I think it's probably a coincidence, but you'd have to ask Mike and Glyn who designed the Dreadnaught class ship to get their view.

It was one of the many many early conceps for the Nostromo (Alien).

Interesting. It doesn't appear in the 'Book Of Alien' or any of the other materials I've seen on the making of Alien.

As someone who has been a pretty big fan of Alien for many years it's amazing I've never seen that picture before.

After years of hanging on to my beloved boxed I-War version I finally decided to give it another spin. I absolutely loved the game when I tried it years ago, but I never figured out how to make it work for me and never managed to repair the FTL relay.

For some reason it popped back into my mind a few days ago, I bought the gog version and am extremely happy that I kept it in the back of my head for years and tried it out again when the mood struck me - it is a fantastic game! And once I saw a veteran on youtube the gameplay finally clicked with me as well.

Thanks for helping to create this masterful game! I am only a few missions in and much much more excited about it than about any other current "AAA" game. I don't need kill counters, numbers popping out of peoples heads, and meaningless "achievements" when I can play this game and I can tell after each successful mission that I just got a little bit better. I have no idea where the game is going to take me and can't wait to find out!

I actually also had some question, but I forgot.. still posting this, since it needs to be said :)

..ah, but now I remember: is there any way to check how many missiles I have left in my front & back launchers? It seems weird that the dedicated weapons console doesn't show this information.. or am I just blind?