Escape Velocity Nova

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Escape Velocity Nova Escape Velocity Nova
A Federation fleet battles in EV Nova.
Developer(s) Ambrosia Software and ATMOS
Publisher(s) Ambrosia Software
Latest version 1.0.10 on July 11, 2006 (Mac and Windows)
Release date(s) March 2002
Genre(s) RPG
Mode(s) single player
Platform(s) Mac OS, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows

Escape Velocity Nova (EV Nova or EVN) is a computer game by Ambrosia Software, in collaboration with ATMOS. It is the third game in the Escape Velocity series.

Contents

[edit] Overview

[edit] Genre

Escape Velocity is a third-person space-adventure and role-playing game set in the future. While EV Nova is a role-playing game, it is much less open-ended than the previous games in the series: EV Nova has confined storylines with clearly defined endings.

[edit] Background

EV Nova takes place in the future, when humanity has colonized the galaxy via 'hypergates' which allow instant travel between star systems. However, terrorists destroyed the hypergate system, severing nearly all communication and transportation between star systems in the galaxy. The galaxy thus fell into a dark age, and during this era multiple sub-races of humans evolved on their own, until finally 'hyperdrive' technology (faster-than-light spaceships) allow humanity to rediscover the galaxy—a galaxy now consisting of almost-alien evolved humans, space pirates, and strife.

[edit] Main goals

The player starts as a freelance space pilot in a shuttlecraft, out to make a penny in the vast and unforgiving galaxy. The first thing to realize is that there are many ways to play Escape Velocity Nova; this is one of the big appeals of the game. For example, a starting player seeking funds can become a trader or courier, delivering cargo between worlds; become a pirate or bounty hunter, attacking and disabling ships to steal their money, cargo, or the ships themselves; become involved in one of the main story-lines; or even conquer the galaxy by subjugating worlds.

[edit] Missions, Storylines, and Plot

The game has six major story-lines that the player can participate in, one for each of the major factions: Federation, Rebellion, Auroran, Polaris, Vell-os, and Pirate.

These story-lines are the bulk of the game. Each storyline is a long and involved set of plot-filled missions which are like 'playing' a short story written in second person. By virtue of being a grand adventure, story-lines force pilots to align themselves with a particular faction, restricting a player's freedom but giving him access to more powerful ships and technology. A single story-line can take anywhere from an hour to several days to play to completion, depending on the player's level of experience and preferred pace. There also exist a few shorter minor stories and missions, which are difficult to find but have great rewards, such as the ability to use the old hypergate system.

Some major and minor story-lines branch into others so that, for example, a player in the midst of the Federation story-line can, along the way, choose to join the Rebellion instead. EV Nova has only a small fraction of the freelance missions that were common in the previous games in the Escape Velocity series.

Only a single major storyline can be played per pilot, as opposed to previous games in the Escape Velocity series where one could play most all missions as one pilot while gathering ever more powerful ships and weapons. Through the use of a plug-in workaround called "Multiple Strings", a player can, however, fulfill all mission strings using one pilot while keeping technology and ships from other storylines. This can cause problems with the storylines, however.

There are two minor storylines however, both of which help the player into the major storylines. These include the Bounty Hunter and Wild Geese storylines. The Bounty Hunter storyline can lead to either the Federation, Rebellion, or Auroran storylines. The Wild Geese storyline can lead to either the Auroran, Pirate, or Rebel storyline.

[edit] Ships and technology

Starting with a simple shuttlecraft, the player obtains new ships, weapons, and other technology, such as cloaking devices, beam weapons, and fighter bays, by purchase or as the result of completing certain missions. Throughout the course of the game, the player could choose to pilot bigger and better ships and can also obtain controllable escort ships, ultimately leading to powerful capital ships with alien technology. Completing 2/3 of a plot adds much more powerful military ships to the ones you can buy.

[edit] Extensibility (Plug-ins)

Like the other games in the Escape Velocity series, Nova allows registered users to create their own plug-ins which can be used to slightly or drastically change stories and technology, or even completely replace the universe. There is a large community at the official Ambrosia forums where players can trade tips, get help, and swap favorite plugins and pilots.

Of particular note are two official plug-ins available to registered users which replace EV Nova's scenario with those of the first two games, allowing the original Escape Velocity and its sequel Escape Velocity Override to be played natively on both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

This extendability has been taken up by an active community of Mac and Windows PC developers, including Peter "Pace" Craddock who created Arpia and is about to release its sequel, ARPIA2, featuring graphics by ATMOS among others. Other total conversions include Polycon and Starfleet Adventures

[edit] Gameplay

Escape Velocity Nova takes place in a universe with hundreds of star systems, many of which have planets or space stations that the player can land on. Each star system is either controlled by a faction and has an evaluation of the player's crimes or contributions to that star system and its faction, or is uninhabited and controlled by no one. The player's ship usually travels between star systems by "hyperjumping" by fixed, and to the user instantaneous, paths to surrounding systems. The player can also use rare wormholes which transport the player's ship to a fairly random star system, or can use a "hypergate" system to move between certain systems after a certain mission string has been completed.

In space, which in the game is limited to two dimensions, the player controls his spaceship to land on planets, jump into another star system, or engage in combat and board ships. The player can also communicate with other ships, obtaining information about supply and demand of commodities on different planets, and can also get missions in this way.

On inhabited planets, the player can refuel his ship, find and accept missions, trade commodities, buy ships or ship upgrades, and hire escorts. Each planet, "spaceport bar", and ship or ship upgrade has associate images and descriptions.

[edit] Setting and plot

The game takes place in a large galaxy of several civilizations that were long ago united but whose cultures and abilities have since diverged. There are three main factions: Federation, Auroran, and Polaris, and several smaller ones. Back-story and other roleplaying information can be gathered from several "preambles" that come as documentation with the game.

[edit] Federation

[edit] History

At the start of the game, the Federation is the latest in a line of Earth based governments. The first explorers from Earth to go faster than the speed of light used devices known as hypergates, developed by Omata Kane. Humans settled other habitable planets and quickly formed an organization known as the Colonial Council. The Council made first contact with the Vell-os, a group of telepathic humans who had left Earth centuries before and benefited from their advanced technology. Eventually a breakaway group of humans left the Colonial Council and settled planets beyond the star Polaris, taking that name for their people. When the Council recontacted the Polaris, it became clear that they would not tolerate any interference from the Council. When the Council sent a diplomatic delegation, it was never heard from again, prompting the Council to declare war on the Polaris. The Vell-os opposed this war, and destroyed the Council's invasion fleet before it reached Polaris space. A fifty year long war then broke out between the Council and the Vell-os. The Vell-os, being peaceful in nature, eventually surrendered to avoid further bloodshed and were enslaved by mainstream humanity. It should be noted that until they decided to sue for peace the Vell-os were undefeated.

After the war ended, many of the colonies to the south seceded from the Council and formed a loose confederation known as the Auroran Empire. Once again the Council was thrust into war, this time to regain the lost colonies. Although they did not defeat all of the groups which made up the Aurorans, one group known as Armetis eventually turned to terrorism. One former council member, who was disenchanted with the Colonial Council gave Armetis the codes to the hypergate system. Armetis destroyed Earth's hypergate, which sent shock waves throughout the system, enough to isolate many of the former Council worlds.

It took two hundred years before Earth based ships were capable of exceeding the speed of light. They recontacted many of the former worlds, which formed an alliance with Earth. Earth forces attempted to invade the Aurorans, with little success. As a result they decided to pool their resources and form the Federation.

The Federation created an investigative body known as the Bureau of Internal Investigation. The Bureau, as it is known, was created to investigate and remove subversive influence in the Federation, but also pursues the goal of reunifying humanity under the Federation. The Bureau uses illegal and unconstitutional means to accomplish its goals. They also use the help of Vell-os slaves. Based in the Wolf 359 system, the Bureau is so pervasive that some Federation citizens charge that it runs the government. Many of the Federation's leading citizens have started a rebellion against the Bureau.

[edit] Population

Population-wise, the Federation lies somewhere between the Polaris and the Aurorans. Few references to the populations of Federation worlds are ever given. Yet Snowmelt in the Fomalhaut system, with 10 billion people, is described as being the most populous planet in Federation space after Earth, if Earth's artificial ring of spaceports and shipyards, the Kane Band, is included in that figure. It can therefore be assumed that the Federation population is somewhere in the high billions.

[edit] Rebellion

The Rebellion is in the middle of a war against the Federation, particularly the Bureau. The Rebellion claims that the Bureau has committed heinous crimes, and controls the Federation itself and that the Bureau should be removed from power. The Rebellion hates killing the puppets of the Bureau, but knows that there is no way of fighting the Bureau without destroying Federation ships. The Rebellion is vital in all of the major storylines, and the outcomes of all of them affect the Rebellion, and their war against the Bureau in one way or another.

The Rebellion is more of an ideological faction than a political one; as such it only has control of two systems, Evlei and Koria, to the Galactic north of the Federation. Merrol in the Aldebaran system is the only Federal planet that is in open rebellion, but it is under permanent blockade by the Bureau.

By and large, the Rebellion is made up of older pilots and a great deal of their funding comes from the Association of Free Traders. Although they have managed to acquire some Polaron technology and steal a few of the less powerful Federation warships, their sparse numbers prevent them from fighting anything other than minor battles. As a result, the majority of the war between the Rebel and the Bureau is fought as a "spy-war".

[edit] Auroran

The Auroran Empire is one of the main political blocs in the game. They are the most populous of the blocs, but, since they remain largely uninterested in technology, one of the least technologically advanced.

The Auroran population is approximately 100 trillion, according to ATMOS - most planets have at least one arcology that can house tens of millions of people, and the "homeworlds" of the six different Auroran factions each average a population of around 175 billion. As a result, many Auroran worlds suffer from severe pollution and overcrowding problems, and the colonization of new systems to relieve the burden of overpopulation is a major factor in their political agenda.

The Auroran Empire consists of five "Families" or "Houses" (Moash, Heraan, Tekel, Dani and Vella). Each of the five families fight with each other constantly. Additionally, there are systems governed by the "Auroran Empire". These systems do not belong to any family. They are governed by the central Auroran government. Their warriors love to tattoo themselves and engage in "honorable" combat, and their ships have very heavy armor. The Auroran weapons are very heavy but they deal a lot of damage. The player can help the Aurorans by either passing through the Bounty Hunter storyline, or having a high combat rating and going into any bar within Federation or non Heran-family Auroran space.

As the player progresses along the Auroran and Polaris storylines, he encounters the Thurokiir, the Obsidian Heart or Spiritual Master of House Heraan, Techerakh the Bloody Hammer. If following the Auroran storyline, Techerakh renames your character KarHallarn, or the Wolf. Both titles, one as Thundokiir, and one as a fleet master (KarHallarn of the Pack) symbolize the Aurorans' deep respect for clan-warfare and battle honor. Similar to Eastern Asian countries of earth from the Dark Ages to mid 1960's, the Aurorans build their society around "face" and "shame." To flee from battle or surrender to the enemy is an atrocity against one's empire, house, and self. Thus the Aurorans provide one of the most complex factions in EV Nova, due to the intricacies of their warrior society.

[edit] Polaris

[edit] History

The Polaris are a race of technologically, and in some cases telepathically, advanced humans who broke away from the Colonial Council in 480 NC. The first expedition that ventured in the direction of the North Star was arranged by Kerrell Polaris, who unfortunately died 3 days before it was started. Over the next century, the Polaris encountered the Wraith, a space dwelling race of creatures that can utilize hyperspace. Nearly all encounters the Polaris had with the Wraith ended in bloodshed, which is what initially fostered the Polaris' isolationist ideology.

The isolationism of the Polaris, in turn, caused problems when the Colonial Council attempted to re-establish contact with them by sending in a diplomatic fleet. The Polaris misinterpreted this as an act of war, and destroyed the fleet. Outraged, the Colonial Council sent out an invasion fleet, which was stopped by the Vell-os — a cousin race of humanity with advanced telepathic abilities, who have always supported the Polaris. This sparked the Vell-os/Colonial Council war, which did not affect the Polaris.

After the destruction of the Council hypergate system, the Polaris hypergates were still operational, allowing the Polaris to advance technologically. Just over 500 years later, the Federation (successor to the Colonial Council) sent a military task force into Polaris space, which the Polaris destroyed quickly.

[edit] Technology

In the 500 years after the hypergate system's destruction, the Polaris advanced towards more organic technology. Much of their biotechnological knowledge was gained by reverse engineering the Wraith. Polaris scientists discovered how to utilize polarons (a type of high-energy particle) to create practically massless torpedoes which cause great damage. They have also harnessed nuclear fusion and antimatter annihilation as reliable, high yield power sources. Polaris ships are nearly impossible to defeat in-game, as their shields and armor are much more powerful than anything else. Their weapons are also extremely powerful.

[edit] Society

The Polaris have six separate castes, set up so that the skills of an individual can be best utilized by the caste he or she becomes a member of. The six castes are as follows:

  • Nil'kemorya — The warrior caste. Members of the Nil'kemorya consider their lives to be already forfeit, and await the day they will fall in combat protecting their society.
  • Mu'hari — The multi-purpose caste. They must assist any member of any other caste when asked. All Polaris judges and espionage personnel are members of the Mu'hari. Although they are the most versatile of all the castes, they consider themselves to be the lowest, since a person becomes a Mu'hari when it becomes clear that he/she cannot become a member of another caste.
  • Kel'ar'iy — The leadership caste. All members must be at least 100 years old, and may come from any other caste.
  • Tre'pira — The worker caste. Members of this caste are considered the purest of all the castes.
  • P'aedt — The scientist caste. Members of this caste research to improve current and develop new technology.
  • Ver'ash — The healer/engineer caste. At one time the healers and engineers belonged to separate castes, but the distinction between the two shrank as the Polaris became increasingly bio-technologically oriented, until there was no need to separate them.

[edit] Population

Despite being spread over 30 systems (including two giant ringworlds), the Polaris are few in number. In the Polaris Preamble included in the EV Nova documentation, the former Nil'kemorya leader Iusia expresses his regret for having to fight a civil war to end a conflict between the castes. That war resulted in the deaths of three million Polarans, or slightly less than one percent of the Polaran population. Going by those numbers, it can be assumed that the Polaris population is a little more than 300 million, whereas the populations of other governments number in the billions. The low Polaris population compared to the Aurorans or the Federation is more than made up for by their far advanced technology.

[edit] Vell-os

The Vell-os are a telepathic race. They were led out to space, united by their telepathic powers by the Indian prince Vell-os in around A.D. 980. The Vell-os don't exactly have "ships". What they fly are simply psychic projections made by the Vell-os inside. They classify humans and Vell-os who have telepathic abilities into six ranks, or "T"s. The lowest rank possible is T6 (all normal humans are at this level with no actual telepathic ability), and starting with actual telepathic powers at T5, continues downward until T0, the highest rank a telepath can ever achieve. No Vell-os in recorded history has reached the rank of T0. The Vell-os were originally part of the Colonial Council (which preceded the Federation) but seceded when they protested the Colonial fleet trying to invade the Polaris for crimes they hadn't committed. Following a devastating war with the Colonial Council, they were enslaved by the Bureau of Internal Investigation, a shadowy group which effectively runs the Federation.

The Federation later evacuated the enslaved Vell-os to Federation space and proceeded to raze every inhabited Vell-os world via intense orbital bombardment, leaving dead planets with dangerously high radiation that will endure for millennia. The leaders of the Vell-os ruling council, the Krypt-tokh, escaped enslavement by fusing their bodies with their nanite-producing organs, becoming immense, immortal, telepathic space-roaming beings which ply the ruins of Vell-os space. The Krypt await the liberation of the Vell-os race as foretold in the so-called "Korell Prophecy."

Reduced to a life of slavery, if the player plays the Polaris or Auroran storyline they get to free the Vell-os, or they can play part of this race, eventually freeing the Vell-os from the wicked enslavement of Commander Krane, the head of the Bureau.

[edit] Outfits

The Vell-os cannot buy any 'normal' armaments (apart from Marine Platoons). They do, however, have natural senses that make up for this. They have a hostility sense (analogous to an IFF decoder), a physical size sense (gravimetric sensors), an ability to distract sensors (missile jamming), an ability to divide minds (able to create Darts as fighters), the Vell-os Area Map (gives the player information about the surrounding systems) and four psionic "weaves" that are powerful weapons, as described below.

[edit] Ships

Vell-os 'ships' are not ships in the common sense. The psionic power of the Vell-os pilot forms the shell of the vessel. The ship is also powered by the pilot's mind, and all defenses come from the pilot. In essence, the ship is literally an extension of the pilot within. While the actual ship does not have very powerful shields or armor, their weapons are the most powerful in the game. A single Vell-Os Javelin can destroy two Federation destroyers and a carrier with ease.

[edit] Pirates

Pirates represent the criminal side of the universe. There are many different branches of the common Pirates that mercilessly plunder and kill ships. In the game, they can actually disable and steal your goods and money, and leave you stranded in open space.

There are the common and normal Pirates, who are strong and dangerous raiders who either wish to kill traders, or to disable them and steal their money and goods. They are most prominent in the north of Federation space, as this space is policed little.

[edit] Marauders

The Marauders are small raiders and pirates who plunder in a small scale, and are usually nothing to worry about to well armed merchants. Their ships are usually normal civilian ships, slightly upgraded, although sometimes a Starbridge or Valkyrie joins in the fleet. The Marauders are independent raiders who have no real leader or government, and therefore make very easy foes, though they should not be underestimated. The Marauders are weaker than the 'normal' Pirates, though they attack within Federation space. They are also universally despised, even by other Pirate factions, so they will be attacked by any warship or interceptor of any faction in a system.

[edit] Association of Free Traders

The Association of Free Traders is a proud but dwindling organisation, and they are not usually classified as Pirates. They are actually guardians of Federation space, and their main enemy is the Guild of Free Traders. They have created their own class of ships, which are civilian ships that have been thoroughly upgraded and tweaked, and fitted with a vast array of weaponry and Pirate technology. The once-proud Association met its decline in power after a very strong Bureau fleet helped by the Guild of Free Traders attacked the Association. The Bureau invited the Association leader, Morgan, to a peace-treaty, which turned out to be an ambush, helped by the Guild of Free Traders. The main ship of the Association, the Unrelenting (a very powerful Pirate Carrier) was destroyed along with other capital ships. Morgan, his crew and his wife met their death there, and the leadership of the Association has been replaced by Olaf Greyshoulders. The Association has ever since been an enemy of the Bureau of Internal Investigation, though they are not in open war with the Federation. Joining them grants the Unrelenting later in the game.

[edit] Guild of Free Traders

The Guild of Free Traders are the most worrisome and dangerous group of Pirates. They have their own government, and their current leader is McGowan. They are far more organized, and frequently smuggle illegal drugs and other goods. They have many secret bases scattered in Federation space, and commonly do strikes and raids among traders and merchants. They do not use civilian ships, and instead they use Association ships that are heavily upgraded. The Guild of Free Traders, though enemies of the Federation, have ties with the Bureau of Internal Investigation.

[edit] Houseless Warriors

The other Pirate branch consists of the Auroran Houseless warriors. They are equivalent to the common Pirates in the Federation, and have the somewhat the same strength and methods. Their fleet consists of Auroran civilian ships, gun ships and fighters. They normally attack in the center of Auroran space, and have their own base hidden inside an asteroid field.

[edit] Gameplay criticisms and comparisons

[edit] Criticisms of EV Nova

EV Nova, despite being a popular and acclaimed game, has been criticized for many things:

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
  • Being "too forceful" with storylines: for example, for the first half of the Vell-os storyline, the player is a slave, preventing them from changing ships or doing sub-missions.
  • Forcing vision upon a player: EV Nova storylines attempt to "tell a story" (via mission text) about the player's character which may not agree with the player's vision. For instance, the player is given very little choice when it comes to questions of morality, such as when to use lethal force, when to defend or abandon planets, or whether or not to cause large-scale destruction. Similarly, the personality of the player's character is determined by the storyline- in the Aurorian storyline, the character is portrayed as belonging to a stereotypical warrior culture, frequently picking fights while exhorting honor, wheres in the Polaris storyline, the character is a vaguely Asian messiah figure. Additionally, the mission text often tells the player what their character is thinking or feeling, which is considered bad form in a role-playing game, and sometimes conflicts the actual events of the game.
  • Forcing storylines upon a player: The player usually has no idea what sort of plotline they're "signing up for," since each plotline's first mission has no warning, and quickly locks the player out of the other mission strings. A player might, for example, dislike the concept of becoming a being with god-like psychic powers, but there is no way of knowing beforehand which mission might lock the player into a storyline with that ending.
  • Not being 'balanced': Certain strategies, such as using a large fleet of Polaris Cambrian Freighters in the Sol system, can give the player access to almost unlimited resources and armament after a few minutes of trading. While such strategies are not obvious, once discovered, they can make the game too easy.
  • Most players will find it necessary to reload their saved games countless times as the result of frequent deaths. It is possible to avoid dying by purchasing an escape pod, however, use of the escape pod also causes all missions to be lost (even if they do not involve cargo). If the player is playing in "strict mode," this can cause all of the game's major storylines to become permanently inaccessible.

[edit] EV Nova vs. EV and EV: Override

Additionally, EV Nova has been criticized for falling behind with respect to its predecessors, EV and EV: Override:

  • Lack of challenging missions: The vast majority of storyline missions simply consist of travelling across the galaxy and landing on a distant planet, or destroying ship or small fleet. There are occasionally more complex objectives, such as disabling a transport and boarding it, but those are extremely rare (1 or 2 small missions per storyline; one such good example is having to disable a pack of Auroran fighters without killing any, while they're all ganged up on you). Since the entire data of all Escape Velocity games is easily readable using resource editors and the like, it is measurable fact (by hacking game data) that there were many more non-trivial missions in the older EV games (at least 5x-20x more, depending on one's definition of 'trivial'). This is not to say that EV Nova has no strategy, but previous games exploited the game mechanics better than EV Nova. Nevertheless, like in EV and EV: Override, EV Nova's plug-in system allows players to import missions (and ships/outfits/planets) made by other players; thus, challenging missions can be artificially added to the game to make it more pleasing for some.
  • Odd NPC behavior: in previous games, attacking a ship of one faction (e.g. a Federation ship), would make all ships of the same faction in the system turn hostile. In EV Nova, one is able to blow up a Federation cruiser and often no other Federation ships will mind.
  • Bugs: In some cases, there are a few bugs which make the game unplayable (the player cannot proceed further); fixing these bugs requires downloading unpublicized 'patch' plug-ins from Ambrosia Software's website.
Spoilers end here.

[edit] New features

While there have been some problems with EV Nova, there are also numerous improvements:

  • 'Intuition': many things do what you expect; for example, if a player boards a disabled escort or fighter, the player automatically repairs the damaged escort, or recaptures the fighter.
  • Graphics: EV Nova 're-skinned' the user interface to be more aesthetically pleasing; for example, the buttons and windows are different, and the sidebar theme changes depending on the ship you're in. The sprites for ships and weapons and stellar bodies were also greatly improved (for example, one can see the Starbridge fire different thrusters when it turns different directions, and also most ships have a '3D' feel to them since the sprites are not rendered from directly overhead but from an isometric position).

The planetary graphics for the entire Escape Velocity series were done mostly in Bryce.

[edit] Similar games

[edit] Miscellaneous facts

  • ATMOS designed the scenario for EV Nova, which was originally intended to be a plug-in for EV Override; Matt Burch returned to upgrade his game engine to suit when the project was taken on by Ambrosia.
  • One of the default player names given when starting a new game in EV Nova is "Dash Riprock," referencing the satirical depiction of Rock Hudson on The Beverly Hillbillies.
  • During the long development, there was a picture of the day which showed a ship or planet picture from the game, partially obscured to avoid revealing too much (except in the case of the earliest pictures). The last and final picture was a quote by Hector, Ambrosia's parrot mascot.

[edit] External links

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