Going to check out Planetside 2 with my youngest son, we both like Sci-Fi, he's more into FPS than I am these days, but with the DX11 update want to see what its about. I tried it years ago, but FPS titles just haven't been my go-to for a long time. Though we start talking Sci-Fi and FPS, and he goes to Titanfall 2, which is a great title I've been meaning to play through again.
But at the end of the day, when I have gaming time for myself I'm still playing Void Destroyer 2. Did some more missions, had an epic battle between an unknown and relatively unstoppable force known as the Outsiders and a combined initiative between all other known factions that were all to meet to bid/purchase some outsider technology. It was going to end badly no matter what as many factions either don't get along, or are just flat out against each other due to laws, beliefs, background, etc.
I barely escaped in my massive Ronin destroyer with 10 hopped up Cobra fighters (they sadly, did not make it...). My Ronin is not a fast ship, even with the added afterburner boost the Outsider fleet was hot on my heels. I have a lot of shield and armor, but their beams are chewing through said shields and armor far faster than I'd anticipated. Essentially I had a window while they were attacking the other factions to get away...I chose to stay and fight before deciding to get the hell outta there when the Outsiders turned to focus on me.
Next thing I know I have a dozen high powered beams trying to tear away the very life of my destroyer. Knowing my Ronin not only creates and deploys fighters but also has some very powerful (and upgraded before this battle) canons, I set the flight assist mode to off, accelerated as much as I could before taking on too much damage...turned around and started firing back while moving 500+ m/s in the direction I was originally going (semi-newtonian physics are present in this game... YES!
). Much to my surprise the weapon upgrade seemed to make the difference...prior battles I knew to run more because I wasn't able to inflict enough damage.
The million credit upgrade to my weapons really helped me take on the smaller flagships that were still faster than me, the larger ships were falling behind and were now out of weapons range. Between my deployed fighters and big guns, I was able to destroy enough Outsiders to achieve the 10K distance between the nearest enemy to enter Overworld mode and get the hell outta there (think of this as the low wake in Elite Dangerous...but it becomes a strategy/RTS layer instead.).
I was able to get back to one of my owned bases, repair and rebuild my fleet. Luckily all of my protected trade, mining and shuttle fleets were all still chipping away at their tasks, keeping my balance somewhere near 300 million credits at this point. I spent 100 of that building my fleet further as I noticed after this mission, there is much more of an Outsider presence in the game's system/universe, and while my protection fleets were doing their job I feel its only a matter of time before they're overwhelmed.
I haven't gone to do the next mission, but the description is taking a medium fleet (destroyer, gunships and some fighters) to take on a specific Outsider presence, I have heard things get pretty crazy. So I'm taking my time before approaching it. Enjoying the sandbox elements of the game. I also parked the Ronin and set my fleet lead ship to my spec'd up Eagle gunship, which is still probably my favorite ship in the game due to the amount of damage it can dish out in combat for its size and class. So fun to take into battle. The Ronin has power, but it is a slow, lumbering beast that requires more time to plan an attack to line it up and land it...granted in this game that really isn't THAT long or big of a deal.
The fact I was able to accomplish most of this in a half hour gaming session is one of the reasons I keep coming back for more!