Star Traders: FrontiersPretty much another awesome game by the Trese Brothers (who have the whole Star Traders series on mobile games and otherwise that give fleshed out and contentful make, also female and male choices for soldiers and crew--this is a turn-based space RPG/Strategy sandbox-ish game! But it has a campaign in comparison to the mobile ones!). In this game, you get to customize nearly everything, from each individual crew member of your ship (which has at least 12 crew on the tiniest scout ship), to equipment and modules of your ship. Currently, some parts are static on a level progression scale (more expensive = more power = more demand for skilled crew to man them well), but the developers note that they're going to make it more flexible later on.
I count this as an own even if it's pretty much LUCKY RNG ALL THE WAY, as there's a steam achievement that has around 0.0% in the global achievements; 'conscripting 20 crew before the end of year 2, on HARD mode'. In comparison to the mobile games, this one has a very unknown system of ship-to-ship combat, in which you have 5 different 'ranges' with weapons usually only being able to hit at a certain range, and only being able to board at a range of 3. There are only 4 ways to win a battle:
> You escape and live
> You blow up the other ship
> You blow up their engines or piloting systems (or kill the enemy captain via boarding), or finish off all their crew with your 4-man boarding team. Being victorious in boarding combat allows you to instill fear in the enemy crew (costing them vital 'action points' [or reactor points], and sabotage a module in their ship.
And with space being space, what kind of ship you meet can come from the tiniest scout ship, to large dragoon cruisers bustling with weapons and armor, and with different captain occupations, from the military officer, to the zealot, to the spy, and the merchant. There are also over 5 different factions, and ships of a faction react accordingly if you have reputation with them or not.
Getting both an intact enemy ship alive, while not suffering enough damage on your own ship, is one of the hardest things to succeed in, especially early game where most of your crew is level 1 (and only has one ability each). During your captain creation, you have 5 'tiers' of ranking what starting abilities/ship&moneys/experience/attributes/skills, and contacts you have, from tier A to tier E.
So I went A rank ship, followed by skills and attributes, going as a Spy focused in Evasion with 10 points in it (the maximum allocated), [and 1 blade, for the offhand], with the rest in Pistol. Attributes were focused into Quickness and Wisdom, for initiative in crew combat. Experience was at D, and Contacts was at E because I was aiming for the achievement and had no time whatsoever to do any contracts for big money. This means I had to scavenge and live on the edge--you have to balance your money here as ship repairs are very expensive, crew payments are by the month (so 4 weeks at least, as the game times you per day), and every visit to the repair area or the doctor to heal up your crew [they get damaged ALA Star Trek Ship Damage = Crew Damage/Death] costs ~2 weeks.
In its current state, it is 'Early Release', however it is already at a very fleshed out version. However, it is ROGUELIKE/IRONMAN DIFFICULTY, as in you cannot manually save. And while there is a 'custom difficulty' (to adjust the parameters to your liking), it is currently not yet implemented.
I got lucky in the first year, having experience'd up my crew, surrendering to hostile military officers and stoopid pirates when able, as they will only search your cargo (if no cargo/passengers/prisoners, you're free, unless their faction hates you, upon which you get either executed, or judged on trial for your 'crimes'; you get a chance to not get judged because of the slow judiciary process...IN SPACE, so there's even an RNG for everything).
My first plan was to cut off a few electronics/"crew dogs", making around 7 bunk spaces (you can only conscript crewmen if you have available crew space), and there is no way to eject crew other than making landfall on a planet because nobody is heartless enough to throw people out the airlock. Alongside replacing my autocannon armaments for plasma cannons to better focus on range 4 to 3 (for boarding tactic pushes). Cue several spy missions, and I wrangled up a tiny ship. I luckily blew out its engines (this was around the 10th ship I've encountered, getting me an in-game award for survival; sadly unlike the Star Traders mobile series, achievements do not give bonuses now [probably later on in further versions?]). The next one was at the 26th week after the 1nd year, wherein a boarding attempt luckily found me facing the enemy captain, and with my captain always heading the attack (alongside one of the luckily picked officers, being a swordsman
in space), we won that while giving the enemy a fatal wound. I was counting 13 crewmen at this point, being conscripted [I can let them down easy without paying them by dropping them off on the planet I'm spying on anyway]. After a lot of lucky hits, and leveling my crew to the Military Officer/Smuggler/Pirate line, to get that awesome loot from Smuggler ship enemies (Power Generator cargo gives around 90k cash, in bulk), I luckily happened on another ship. This was the 8th one after blowing up 7 others unluckily, and with a combination of barrage guns to get the enemy ship accuracy off, combined with piloting 'Guided Fire' for accuracy, the RNG hit the enemy ship engines off and I had JUST enough space to conscript the next 7 crew, giving me enough for the achievement. And on the 49th week too.
This game is very hard.
But it is very fun.
And my wording is very messy.
Fun note, sword-type weapons do the most damage, followed by the LMG. Sniper/Pistols are on the lower damage range, but better accuracy.
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Topic: How did you last *own*? (Read 1331538 times)