Over a decade ago, I played one of those bargain bin pc games called nexus the jupiter incident.
It was after the homeworld series came out, but it was different. Less focus on real time strategy with space ships, more focus on real time fleet command. It was a freaking masterpiece.
The best way I can think to describe it was a series of missions, where you had ships that were sort of like characters in a baldurs gate 2 rpg. They had slots for different armaments and shields, and could fulfill different roles. And the choices were vast.
-hull damage weapons (weak against shields but devastating to hulls)
-shield damaging weapons (zero damage to hulls but cuts down shields)
-laser weapons that pierced shields (low hull damage, but can pierce shields and target specific ship subsystems to knock them out)
-missile weapons
-eccm (electronic counter counter measures to make you missiles harder to take down)
defenses?
-shields
-hull strength
-ecm (electronic countermeasures for missiles)
And more specialized abilities.
You could shift more power to weapons for faster recharge and rate of fire, more power to shields for faster shield recharge, more power to engines for faster travel time or engagement. So much depth, each battle was less about a raw swarm of units, and it was far more tactical. You could not build more ships, each mission you carried over the ships that survived, so being efficient with your fleet was an important part of the game. The graphics and explosion are STILL to this day top notch, especially the explosions, way ahead of their time. Visually the game holds up. I mentioned it sort of being like baldurs gate 2, and part of that was you could pause the game and look at the situation and queue up commands so it was not some giant cluster#$%.
But it never took off. No one, and I mean NO ONE played that title. It's one of those hidden gems that gets looked over while good but lesser games like homeworld get bid on and desired.
Well I still don't know whether borderlands/gearbox is going to do anything other than release remakes with the homeworld franchise. The next title is a ground based game, but we need to head back to the stars !!!!!!
And you know who is kind of into the stars ??? STARDOCK !!!!!!!
Admit it guys. And here is the thing, the creators of the original nexus tried to do a kickstarter, but it failed. Why? No footage of a new game, just an old tech demo that aged a bit, and most importantly, no one knows how AMAZING that game was.
Enter the white knight. Stardock. You all are the ONLY company with the means and potential desire to raise this rotting carcass of a genre from the ash heap of history, pull it from the depths of a black hole and restore it to modern times.
Using some advanced version of the oxide engine, dx12 to the max, but made to look better than ever. This along with a sins 2 would be like twin efforts to get stardock back where it was always meant to be, the stars. (with something more real time).
Brad Wardell, someone, anyone with the ability to contact the master of the universe, I beseech you to contact the guys who made the original nexus, fund them, bring them into the fold, and allow a new nexus to be brought into the modern age.
Had that game come out after steam was a platform, it would have been a hit. And it still can be. Don't let this genre die, the tactical space combat fleet sim was one of the most engaging types of space based sims EVER MADE, but since most of you have never played it, you do not know what you missed.
Who is with me? ??!?
Please tell me more than crickets will follow my call.
