Evochron Mercenary

So, I did a search and I couldn't find a thread for anything but the previous game Evochron Legends. If there's another thread out there I'm not seeing it. It's been out for a while, (over a year I think,) and I'm sure it's been mentioned in the Space Sim thread but I think this game needs some love, so here we go.
IMAGE(http://www.diygamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Evo_Mercenary_Released.jpg)
Anyways, I picked this up on a decent sale over at Gamersgate the other week, and just had a chance actually sit down and play Sunday night. While I did not actually do anything constructive, (unless you count accidentally starting a jump right into an asteroid, or ending a jump in the gravity well of a space station,) I did get a handle on the gameplay for the most part, and got a control scheme fleshed out on my flight stick. Customizing controls was not as intuitive as I would have hoped, but seeing as it's coming from a studio of one guy, I can't complain too much.

So what the hell is Evochron Mercenary?
Open world Space Sim Space trading and combat. Think X3:Reunion/TC/ect. with a little bit more emphasis on the combat stuff, and less on empire building (at least as far as I've gone. Which is not super far.)
Basically you start as a mercenary space pilot, and you can decide to do whatever you like to make money in order to upgrade your ship, so you can make more money, so you can upgrade your ship, maybe buy a second one, so you can make more money, etc.
I found the easiest way to earn cash right off the bat was to upgrade your cargo hold and buy a miner/tractor beam, then head over to the nearby asteroid field, start mining, then walk away for 10-15 min. repeat a couple times, and you should have enough to upgrade shields, weapons, engines, whatever, and get to some actual fun stuff.
Just remember to point your ship away from the asteroid once you're done mining and want to jump back to the station and sell your rocks. Learned the hard way that when you initiate a jump, you accelerate forward a bit and run into whatever you are in front of, no matter that your destination is actually behind you.

Why Should I play this as opposed to X3?
Well, I like X3 a lot. Like, a really lot. Calling in sick to manage my empire a lot. And in the little bit I've played of Mercenary, it's definitely scratching that itch. There are a few key differences though.
The combat and systems management is a lot more in depth for one. Not only do you have an energy reserve for your weapons and shields, but you can divert power from on to the other. Want to go in guns blazing, and throw as many lasers around as possible? Divert power to weapons and hope to hell you don't take too may hits. Need to make a getaway? Divert power to shields and haul ass. Better yet, divert power to rear shields and haul ass. Very X-Wing sort of thing. Did I also mention you have a fuel tank that needs to be filled up periodically? Yeah, keep an eye on that.
Ship customization. The ship builder is pretty fun. You can scale and place different components on you ship to create a unique look. That will probably only keep you entertained so long though doing the aesthetic stuff. Really, picking which parts to put on in order to customize what your ship can do is where it gets interesting. Since each hull only has a limited amount of build space available, you may have the money for all the swish gear, but you can't fit all of it on one hull, so you have to pick whether you want an extra weapon hardpoint, or room for a passenger? Do you want big powerful fast engines, or a bigger cargo hold? Stealth Generator or Shield Booster? Gotta pick and balance.
No jump Gates. No flying through gates to get from sector to sector. There is Jumping, but you basically fire up your Fulcrum Drive, it takes you a good distance toward you goal, you come out, wait for the drive to power up again, then jump a little closer, and continue in that fashion. Whether that's a good thing or bad, I leave up to you, but it's pretty cool to pick a direction and jump it.
I will be honest. The actual look of the ships and stations is somewhat clunky, but truth be told, it didn't bother me that much, since I'm not super close to the ships I'm flying next to, or fighting against. The planets and astral bodies however look fantastic.
Oh, Did I forget to mention it's Online?
Yeah, I think I did. I really came here to see if anyone wanted to jump on a server some time and play, but got side tracked by the depth of stuff you can do. Then I got all verbose up in this hizzy. I hopped online with a friend the other day, and while we didn't do anything constructive, it was fun to fly around with a friend. Anyone want to meet up and go hunt pirates? Anyone want to meet up and be pirates, Yarr?

Online as Rob_Anybody. I don't have a particular server I'm attached to.

Oh good. This was long overdue. Good going Rob_Anybody.

I have played this one off and on pretty much since it came out and was happy to see it arrive at Steam. I love how you play the same pilot on both offline and online play, so it doesn't matter what server you play on, unless you start to get into clan stuff where you try to gain control over a sector (or is it quadrant? I haven't played for a while having been bitten by X3 and BF3 lately)

Anyway, I'd recommend looking at the game forums http://www.starwraith.com/forum for help and info. Evochron is a big place too, just like in X3.

Vice (the guy that created and maintains the game) has indicated he is working on an expansion and improvements for the navigation screen among other things. Plus there are cockpit mods, graphic mods and other tweaks you can use to make the game look better as Rob is right, the graphics aren't the best looking but are serviceable.

My biggest issue is that I really suck at combat so I run into a wall trying to follow the IGN missions that are the only real "story" in the game. Of course, the other missions that are combat focused also pay better and so you see my issue. Then info you fly into an aea where your reputation isn't good, everyone wants to kill you. This is where the clan part of online helps, as without it, each quadrant is static in multiplayer compared to single player. In other words, you might have gotten your reputation to good in a quadrant in single player, but when you get to multiplayer, even though its the same pilot, the reputation there is as if you are in a brand new game and any changes you accomplish while online disappear as soon as you disconnect or go to a different quadrant.

Don't let that turn you off though. The flight system is true Newtonian physics, in that you can accelerate, cut the engines and your speed will not change. You have to apply thrust in the opposite direction to stop, unless you turn on the assisted flight mode (which isn't any big deal, everyone uses it except the good combat folks say to not use it in combat). All in all, its a game I like to dabble I from time to time and the community itself is still small enough to be a good place to be. The influx of players when Steam launched was interesting to see, but I bet its settled down now. When I'd started playing online, there were only 2-3 servers; now I think there are usually a dozen or more.

I wouldn't mind jumping in some night to play with folks. One thing you can do is use the pilot manager screen to make a copy of your pilot (if you don't want to start a new one) and name it with the tag [GWJ]NAME which is all you do for the clan control aspect to kick in. So for example, my pilot name is "[GWJ]Cymbrogi". With the clan tag like that, we will appear green to each other when in the same quadrant (and I think on the player list too, not sure).

Anyway, its a good Indie game that deserves the love for filling that space sim need.

Is mouse/keyboard play at all feasible?

In the trailer, there is something that looks suspiciously like a jump about the 2:00 minute mark, is that something else?

absurddoctor wrote:

Is mouse/keyboard play at all feasible?

In the trailer, there is something that looks suspiciously like a jump about the 2:00 minute mark, is that something else?

I play with mouse/keyboard only in the game. Its a lot like the Freelancer controls if yublike, but there are actually 3 mouse "modes" in the game. The one I use is mouse-follow, in which if you move to the right, you will continue to spin to the right until you recenter you cursor. I don't remember enough of the other 2 to accurately describe them, but I think one is mouse-click style as well.

Yes, there are "jumps" in the game. As upgrade your engine, you can jump farther in one hop. However, you can also use it to hop around within the same quadrant, which you'll want to do as you do various missions. There isn't any time compression type mode like in X3.

Cymbrogi wrote:

There isn't any time compression type mode like in X3.

You can still fly at almost unlimited speeds (in space) in this game. I found the game a lot harder than X3 . The enemies have lots of missiles and those are close to one shot kill in this game and I don't think you can shoot them down like in X3.

The ship's controls in this game are fairly realistic so you have to control your inertia which is a lot more difficult than X3.

I got it on impulse for some ridiculously low price (5-10$) due to their pricing error . After they found out about it they disabled the ability to buy the game. I'm not even sure I got impulse installed on my new PC . I've transferred my spaz to steam and I think all my other games are transferable. I haven't checked their store in a few month (everyone hates Gamestop and it sticks).

Can you rent servers or are they all provided by someone? I'm not much into PvP but would love to stomp around in our own PvE server.

Tigerbill wrote:

Can you rent servers or are they all provided by someone? I'm not much into PvP but would love to stomp around in our own PvE server.

It's a DIY method for servers. I think the executable is on the website for download, perhaps via the forums, and I don't think you need to own a copy of the game to run a server, but it does strike me a silly that a person would run a server without owning the game themselves.

However, every server I've been on lately (which hasn't been for about a month now) has the unwritten and sometimes written rule of no PvP without consent of both parties first. Honestly, don't worry about it - just get in there Tigerbill!

Ever since this game came out on Steam, I've had my finger on the buy button. I think you all just made me finally click it.

If people really want a GWJ server I'll volunteer to set one up. I'd imagine it would be pretty empty other than scheduled events though.

There are some really nice graphic mods for this. I'll try to link some of them later. I've got a much nicer HUD and cockpit going. Oh, this also supports TrackIR.

LiquidMantis wrote:

If people really want a GWJ server I'll volunteer to set one up. I'd imagine it would be pretty empty other than scheduled events though.

There are some really nice graphic mods for this. I'll try to link some of them later. I've got a much nicer HUD and cockpit going. Oh, this also supports TrackIR.

I would throw money at this and I won't even have time to play it for a few weeks. Seriously, I will give money to someone to run a private server; just make sure there are plenty of asteroids to mine, for when I do get around to playing.

Cymbrogi wrote:
absurddoctor wrote:

Is mouse/keyboard play at all feasible?

In the trailer, there is something that looks suspiciously like a jump about the 2:00 minute mark, is that something else?

I play with mouse/keyboard only in the game. Its a lot like the Freelancer controls if yublike, but there are actually 3 mouse "modes" in the game. The one I use is mouse-follow, in which if you move to the right, you will continue to spin to the right until you recenter you cursor. I don't remember enough of the other 2 to accurately describe them, but I think one is mouse-click style as well.

Yes, there are "jumps" in the game. As upgrade your engine, you can jump farther in one hop. However, you can also use it to hop around within the same quadrant, which you'll want to do as you do various missions. There isn't any time compression type mode like in X3.

Yay for usable mouse controls!

I made a typo, I meant to say 'jump-gate'. At any rate, there was a giant circular object all filled with a 'portal-like' substance, which looked like a stereo-typical sci-fi method of travel.

Looking around further, it appears that there are indeed jump gates, but they are not necessarily required, and it is feasible to travel everywhere without them.

absurddoctor wrote:

Looking around further, it appears that there are indeed jump gates, but they are not necessarily required, and it is feasible to travel everywhere without them.

That is correct. Your ship will start out with a jump drive to get you places, or you could spend hours flying in one direction to get somewhere.

Also, the jump gates are for convenience, they don't break up the world, it's seamless.

Edit: Tannhauder'd!

absurddoctor wrote:

Looking around further, it appears that there are indeed jump gates, but they are not necessarily required, and it is feasible to travel everywhere without them.

You apparently can travel without jumping at all. Transitions are all seamless so it's not like sectors are in a bounding box. Jumpgates are handy because your jump drive (upgradeable) has limited range. However you can set a nav point, engage autopilot, and the autopilot will make multiple jumps to get there.

Great idea for a thread, reminds me I should play more of this.

If anyone has a Saitek x52 pro, I wrote a little mod back for Evochron Legends (the game before this one) that dumped in-flight statistics to the MFD on the throttle. I'd be happy to revisit it if there was interest.

I bought this on Impulse a while back when it went on sale there, before they became Gamestop and before it was available on Steam.

I find the controls and UI to be very primitive. Elite being my first game addiction, I have a very strong tilt towards economy-style space sims, but I don't know if I have the patience to come to terms with this game's rough interface.

To improve the look of the interface at least, you can play with the font settings. Create a text file in your install directory named "setfont.txt". This is what I use running at 1680x1050. While there are some areas where a LONG string will run outside the box, for the most part this to me is quite readable and pleasing along with fitting into the "tech" look of the game.

Candara
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Here's the thread on the Starwraith forum where you can see a screenshot of my game, along with the different hud I use also.

http://www.starwraith.com/forum/view...

And for all kinds of mods to change/improve the look of your game, go here:
http://www.starwraith.com/forum/foru...

However, I will agree the functionality of the interface is a little lacking, but once you get used to the keyboard commands, it's easier.

Niseg wrote:

The enemies have lots of missiles and those are close to one shot kill in this game and I don't think you can shoot them down like in X3.

That is what the Countermeasures are for, if you have them installed on your ship. I haven't had cause to deploy them yet, so I can't speak for how well they work. But on that note, the way I understand it, you have to mount whatever missiles you want to use at the station. It doesn't reload them for you out in space, even if you have some in cargo, correct?

LiquidMantis wrote:

Oh, this also supports TrackIR.

Yes. And it works very well. So nice to have the improved situational awareness that head tracking provides. Since I got my TrackIR I've really notice it in games that don't support it.

TheHipGamer wrote:

If anyone has a Saitek x52 pro, I wrote a little mod back for Evochron Legends (the game before this one) that dumped in-flight statistics to the MFD on the throttle. I'd be happy to revisit it if there was interest.

Will it still work on a non-Pro X52? I'm still rockin' the old X45, but I have a friend with an X52 that might be interested in just such a script.

Very nice write up Rob_Anybody, I was never able to get over the initial learning hump of X3 but I've found this game to be more palatable.

One newbie tip that could have saved me 30 mins of frustration, use the function key to jump. The keyboard mouse setup activates the mouse pointer when you hit control (iirc) and control + jump equals "jump as far as my engine will take me", meaning whatever nav point you set is far overshot. Nasty bit of ui and control interaction there.

Rob_Anybody wrote:
Niseg wrote:

The enemies have lots of missiles and those are close to one shot kill in this game and I don't think you can shoot them down like in X3.

That is what the Countermeasures are for, if you have them installed on your ship. I haven't had cause to deploy them yet, so I can't speak for how well they work. But on that note, the way I understand it, you have to mount whatever missiles you want to use at the station. It doesn't reload them for you out in space, even if you have some in cargo, correct?

LiquidMantis wrote:

Oh, this also supports TrackIR.

Yes. And it works very well. So nice to have the improved situational awareness that head tracking provides. Since I got my TrackIR I've really notice it in games that don't support it.

TheHipGamer wrote:

If anyone has a Saitek x52 pro, I wrote a little mod back for Evochron Legends (the game before this one) that dumped in-flight statistics to the MFD on the throttle. I'd be happy to revisit it if there was interest.

Will it still work on a non-Pro X52? I'm still rockin' the old X45, but I have a friend with an X52 that might be interested in just such a script.

Nope. MFD text support and the API is specific to the Pro.

Heads up on a 50% off Steam Midweek sale.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/71...

Nice! Highly recommended then. If you can't get $12.50's enjoyment out of this you obviously hate fun (and/or space sims).

LiquidMantis wrote:

...you obviously hate fun (and/or space sims).

And if either of these are true, don't talk to me.

Seriously, EM is a fun time, totally worth the money they're asking and hell, more even.

Need to carve out some time to play this some more. I finally figured out how to set up space stations and whatnot.

Let's see if we can get this thread out of the hangar and back into flight.

How many IMG missions are there?

I've gotten to Cerulean and done the first one there, a patrol with 12 hostiles. I'm curious as to how far into the quest I am, and how much crazier things are going to get (given that the previous mission only required me to take out 4 enemies).

Dunno, never really played much of the storyline missions. I'm typically happy taking missions from stations (yay cleaning!).

The weird thing is that I've found asteroid mining more lucrative than anything else. Especially since I found a platinum-specific mining beam just lying on the ground on a planet in Olympus sector.

Combat missions are a lot more exciting, but don't pay nearly as well.

I have to revisit this game. I didn't give it a fair shake before moving onto new shinies.

Convince me to play this game. Do it now. I have it installed.