Hardwar: Difference between revisions

{{quote|The Future is Greedy}}

 

 

The game takes place in a city complex built among the craters of Titan. Misplaced Optimism is a [[Dystopia|dystopian]] slum, earning the label "Misplaced" following the abandonment of the formerly lucrative mining city by the company that ran it, leaving all the workers behind with no means of escape. MO is being fought over by two rival faction, Klamp-G and the Lazarus Family; with various smaller groups thriving in the cracks. The preferred mode of transportation around MO are Moths: solar-powered speeder/aircraft crossovers available in a variety of models. It's this dynamic that makes the game interesting: During the day, Moths generally have no problem staying aloft and engaging in combat, but once night ticks around, energy starts to drain rapidly from the Moths' cells, leaving them stranded in conveniently placed Lightwells while better equipped combatants tear them apart.

 

Notably, after the developing company went out of business, the game's original dev team started making game mods for ''their own game'', specifically the 'UIM' unofficial patch series, which sought to fix the issues they weren't able to before going under, and actually did a fairly good job of it.

* [[An Economy Is You]]: Nope, not really. Generally speaking, while NPC aviators are happy lugging cheap, low-return goods around Misplaced Optimism, you have to make all the big hauls in order to get anything good. And hope that no one else buys that Largest Pod that you've been influencing a manufacturer to make for you.

* [[An Entrepreneur Is You]]: You could own hangars from the start, but only the later patches made it possible to turn a hangar into a capital-generating entity. Buy the proper equipment, install it, and you have a factory ready to make you rich.

** They never use advanced countermeasures such as the afterburner or holograms.

** They take ages to enter hangars, having to position themselves properly and then slowly advance until they're in. They're highly vulnerable during this time, and if you interrupt their docking sequence (by, say, bumping them) when they're already in the airlock they can get stuck inside and eventually get blasted apart by the hangar's guns.

* [[BFG]]: The Devastator missile, which kills an enemy Moth in a single shot.

* [[Big Bulky Bomb]]: At a certain point in the plot, it becomes necessary to blow up a thick tunnel-blocking wall. A nuclear missile is fitted to the player's moth, but it's so big it can't fit in the standard hardpoints so it just hangs off the side of the cockpit. When {{spoiler|that fails}}, an ''even bigger'' one is fitted.

* [[Dummied Out]]: there was to be an additional tunnel linking Downtown to Reservoir, which got removed before the final release. The tunnel still existed in the game world, but all AI pathing through it had been disabled and the openings blocked, so it was completely unreachable until one of the latest fan-made patches reopened it.

* [[Earthshattering Kaboom]]: {{spoiler|By the end of the game, Saturn has one less moon to brag about.}}

* [[Easy Logistics]]: Oh so averted. Everything must be built, or stocks run out. In order to build something, a suitable hangar must have the resources, which in turn must be delivered by hand from the hangar that produces them, which in turn... Basically, the game's stock of Largest (Cargo) Pods will run out within minutes of starting the game, and more have to be manufactured. And aside from stumbling across an unowned Swallow Moth in a hangar, the only way to get one is to feed a Moth manufacturing plant with just the right combination of materials.

* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: Near the end of the game, {{spoiler|plot events cause ''every AI player in the game'', no matter how far they are from you, to head straight for you with single-minded purpose.}}

* [[Obvious Beta]]: One of the later patches - unofficial, but created from official content - had a lot of experimental content that Software Refinery were working on before they folded. This included a complete overhaul of the economy, intended to make it more realistic and dynamic. Sadly, the bugs hadn't yet been worked out, so applying this patch creates an economy that freezes solid after a few days of game time. Oh, and savegames are corrupted at random.

* [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything]]: Obviously averted, as pirates can be seen attacking innocent traders and/or scavengers for their valuable cargo, as well as having the fortitude to attack transport moths from the major factions for the same reasons. You, too, can fall victim to pirate attacks for whatever cargo you have in your hold even if you only carry as much as about 10 bits of scrap metal. Then again, you also can be a pirate, though you will suffer the same consequences as they have doing so (i.e. being wanted by the police, the factions, etc.). Eventually, someone's going to have to tip the balance of life in Titan...

* [[Point Defenseless]]: The faction buildings have laser turrets that should, presumably, protect them, but they are of no threat at all to even the lightest Moth in the game.

* [[Police Are Useless]]: Played with. They can actually handle petty crooks like pirates and smugglers rather well, but are so horribly outmatched by the big factions that they pretty much just stand idly by and let them do whatever they want.

[[Category:Science Fiction Video Games]]

[[Category:Simulation Game]]