SHIP MANAGEMENT

Ship configuration is the base of all tactics and as such one of the most important elements of the game. Here the player decides what the purpose of each ship will be. Will it be a shield breaker? A recon ship? A stealth ship with a cloaking device? Maybe a device attacker with tons of heavy lasers which can punch through any shield?

What equipment works best with which ship also has to be taken into consideration. For example lasers are best used on faster ships, which can maneuver better.

SHIPS

The player controls huge spaceships. We categorize them according to their purposes:

• Support ship

• Corvette

• Frigate

• Destroyer

• Cruiser

• Heavy Cruiser

• Battleship

• Freighter

• Squadrons (Fighter, Bomber, Gunboat, these are carried by the above ships)

At any given point in the game, the story dictates how much and what kind of ships the player can have. Most of the ships stay with the player throughout the game (some will join only for a mission or 2).

With the exception of the flagship, Angelwing, all the ships can be lost temporarily. In this case the player gets a replacement ship at the next friendly base. The new ship will be manned by the lost ship's rescued crew, and – for the easier narration – the ship is going to have the same name that its predecessor had, it’ll only have a identifier behind its name (for example “Sparta” -> “Sparta – B&#8221.

There is a possibility, that the player has to complete a mission without a replacement ship – this might happen if according to the story there is no way to go to a friendly base between two missions.

In the vast majority of the cases though the ship configuration screen is available:

SHIP CONFIGURATION

The player can refit and repair his ships between missions. Sometimes this might not be an option (no space station/support ship nearby or a subsequent mission occurs very soon after the other) for dramatic reasons, but this will be rare.

As the game progresses, more and more new equipment become available. Mostly these are upgrades for existing devices, but there will be plenty of new ones too. These can be fitted to the ships on the ship equipment screen.

RESOURCE POINTS

The replacement or purchase of equipment cost resource points. Every device has a predefined number of resource points needed to install it on the ship.

The amount of resource points available depends on the actual situation such as how many ships are at the base, whether there are higher ranked officers, or how much time there is to do repairs or modifications. If however we have priority at the given base with tons of time, then there will be plenty of resource points. Basically it depends on the story. The above explanation also means, that the resource points can’t be “collected” and used later.

The player can influence the amount of resource points by raising the ship’s Repair skill. It is important to note that every ship has separate resource point pool.

EQUIPMENT

Each ship can be equipped with dozens of weapons, shields, engines and other devices. The number of available devices and equipment is limited though; all the bases have predefined stocks to choose from. The player has to think carefully which ship will get which upgrade.

Some devices cannot be changed, because they are mission critical equipment or integral parts of the ship/ship class.

The installable equipments of a ship depend on:

• What kind of repair capacity the station has (e.g. on a little station the player can only replace the weapons, but not the engines, and the generators)

• What can be put on the ship (eg. one cannot put a Siege laser on a Destroyer)

• Whether the player is authorized to buy the specific equipment (we may show some unavailable devices beforehand, to give some imperative to play more)

• Does the player have enough resource points to buy the equipment.

The equipment can be put into the following groups:

• Weapons

• Shields

• Sensors

• Defense systems

• Generators

• Boats (Fighter, Bomber, Gunship, Commando)

• Other

SQUADRON CUSTOMIZATION

A new feature is the customization of squadrons. The armament of fighters, bombers and gunboats can be changed on a new GUI panel. The player can choose from different lasers, bombs, torpedoes and flaks, but every change costs resource points as well.

REPAIR

Repairing a damaged ship is free (or takes only very few resource points), as we don’t want to additionally punish the player (he probably had bad tactics/equipment, we don’t want him to burn his resource points on repairs instead of changing the necessary weapons/devices). The rearming of weapons which use finite ammo is also free; this includes the Fighters missing from squadrons and the dead Commandos too (but only if their shuttle is intact).

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Thanks again for all the mails, we've tried to answer all of them & one of the more common questions we've been asked is about the new features in Nexus 2 & about the ships and their crew. We've drawn up an overview for you and in this update we'll give you a little more insight into the Ship's Crew. In the next Update we'll post info about Ship Management & Configuration.

SHIP CREW

Every ship has a separate crew. They are the ones who fulfill the orders the player gives them. The crew collects experience points in every mission, according what they do. When they collect enough experience, they advance a level. The experienced crew gets bonuses for many actions so it is worthwhile to increase their skill levels as quickly as possible.

When a ship is destroyed the crew can also lose experience, even though they will try to reach the next ship in escape pods, not everyone make it (the enemy fighters and flaks are ruthless. As you can actually see this in the game, you can influence it too, by sending ships into the area to draw fire from the escape pods.). The lost crew members will be replaced by Rookies, who will lower the average experience level of the rest of the crew (we might soften this and make them lose only the experience collected above their current rank, so a Veteran crew never becomes Regular again).

The crew has four experience levels:

• Rookie

• Regular

• Veteran

• Elite

SKILLS

The crew and the heroes (see below) have three skills.

• Military: better aim, damage bonus

• Science: scanning bonus, detect and identify ships-devices faster, collect Secrets faster

• Engineering: faster repairing, generator output bonus

A Rookie crew has a value of 1 of all of the skills. At every level all of the skills grow with 1, and the player gets 1 point that he can allocate to any of the skills. So the maximum skill value is 7 – only heroes can have higher values.

HEROES

We have 2 type of heroes is Nexus 2.

CAPTAINS

They are the captains of the ships. Their dialogs help to develop the story, so they are invulnerable. Even if their ship blows up, they will always reach the next ship in an escape pod (except if the story says otherwise). They always do service on the same ship, they can’t be moved around to other ships.

They have 3 skills, which give additional bonuses to the ship (Military, Science and Repair). They gain experience with the crew and can increase these skills. It is well worth it to increase these skills, as a captain with a high skill can make a big difference in a battle.

If one of the skills of the captain on board is higher than the crew’s value, than the ship gets the bonus of that skill. E.g. a well known scientist’s science skill is 10, therefore the unit gets this bonus at every intelligence and scanning operation.

PSIS

Another type of hero is the Psi. They are also integral part of the story, so they can’t die either. They have only 1 special skill, with a very limited use (so they won’t become overpowered). Some of these skills are:

• Micro Jump: this power allows the ship to jump to its move target immediately. It works similarly as the micro jump drive the “White” race has used in the 6/1 mission of Nexus.

• Regeneration: this power can immediately “heal” the ship’s hull.

• Psi-blast: all enemy ships within a certain radius around the NPC’s ship get a random but serious device malfunction. The Mechanoid ships within this same radius all die.

• Battle Meditation: Greatly boosts the skills of the given crew for a short time, skills can exceed the maximum levels.

• Mind Control: Takes over certain functions of the enemy ships for a short period.

• Psychic Clone: Makes a ghost-like copy of the selected ship. It is weak, but the enemy units tend to concentrate fire on it.

• Shield Drain: Drains the shield of the target ship and enforces the shields of the ship of the Psi. They can be placed on any ship.

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Nickiepoo said:

For those of you interested but not in the know this is a good example of the gameplay.

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SalsaShark said:

I already have a Nexus 7 no thx

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Pylon_Trooper said:

Incredible game. The worthiest of your clams. A sequel would fill the void left by the non-existent Homeworld 3, albeit on a more tactical, technical level.

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zoku88 said:

Didn't they try some other crowdfunding thing and fail?

Well, I didn't know about it at the time, so hopefully I'm not alone in the 'I would have given money if I had known' camp.

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fizzelopeguss said:

Not really.

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Pylon_Trooper said:

We require a new Homeworld.

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samjaza said:

Eternity is already taking a fair chunk of my money, but this is a game I've been waiting for so long.
This game was awesome and I have given all that I can spare I really hope it makes it.

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Vhalyar said:

Pledged some money. Story sounds kind of dumb, but if it's as cheesy as the first one then I'm all for it.

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Lime said:

I still don't like their ship designs, but as a space RTS fan I'll certainly back this.

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Perkel said:

Nexus had amazing tactical gameplay and missions were cool with optional choices.

It felt like real space opera game.

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glaurung said:

Some of my friends played the original Nexus swore by it.

I personally remember Hegemonia more fondly than Nexus. Both were attempts at recapturing the lost essence of Homeworld.

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Pylon_Trooper said:

Haegemonia was a weird one, especially originally being Imperium Galactica III. I loved it and the expansion, but it always felt like it occupied a strange strategic limbo space - not quite a 4X game, not quite a Homeworld/Nexus-esque RTS. Maybe closer to Conquest: Frontier Wars than anything else for me.

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Nickiepoo said:

Wasn't Nexus originally meant to be Imperium Galactica 3? I mean, I know for cirtain that it was at one point, but Haegemonia too? Crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QgaT5GM-WQ

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Professor Wikipedia said:

A similar game also from Digital Reality, Haegemonia: Legions of Iron, is regarded by some as being a spiritual successor. A third sequel, known as Imperium Galactica 3: Genesis was in the works, but was later renamed Galaxy Andromeda and again to what is now known as Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. It has little to do with the Imperium Galactica franchise, and is actually a completely different type of game as well - what Mithis calls it a "Tactical Fleet Simulator". After GT Interactive's bankruptcy, the name Imperium Galactica was lost by Digital Reality and another Hungarian development studio called Philos Laboratories, responsible for Theocracy borrowed the title. This was Imperium Galactica 3. Later Philos Laboratories lost the title when the lease expired and renamed the development to Galaxy Andromeda. When the studio went bankrupt its successor, Mithis Entertainment, responsible for Battlestations: Midway continued the development and renamed the project to Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Although it's considered not to do anything with original franchise, the game tells the story that happened before the original Imperium Galactica title as was planned from the beginning.

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bigboss370 said:

holy shit someone actually pledged $10,000.

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