SFC had the potential to be one of the great games of all time, and fell short because of 1) abysmal AI (for your wingmen as well as the enemy), and 2) a campaign that, while claiming to be dynamic, was infact only random, and 3) no cooperative campaign play. What it DID have going for it was a great tactical combat engine that faithfully recreated the tactical depth of the original board game (Star Fleet Battles), while relieving the players of the tedium of interpreting SFB's horrendously convoluted rules system and record keeping.
SFC II is showing some promise to redress these shortcomings. Greatly improved control of AI controlled wingmen is in the wind, though most of the tweaking of the AI algorythms themselves is proported to be minor. The biggest potential improvement is the Megaverse on-line play. There will be a detailed and rich galactic map with a persistant galaxy to romp in with fellow players. This essentially acts as a scenario generator for group on-line play, where your actions affect how the overall galactic war progresses. Unfortunatly, the size of any single ingagement is still limited to a maximum of six players (three per side), each controlling up to three vessels. So the math works out to a maximum of 18 vessels in any single battle on-line.
The campaigns, both on and off line, will be much more varied and interesting, and your actions are supposed to -- according to the write-ups I've seen -- have a more obvious impact on the course of the campaign.
All in all, SFC II sounds like it will take the best of SFC and add most of what everyone has been clamoring for. I am tentatively optimistic, and eagerly await it's release this Christmas.
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Sabre, a.k.a. Rojo
(S-2, The Buccaneers)
