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While you wander the starry sea, remember, remember me: Let's play Starflight
chiasaur11
Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered User regular
Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered User regular
Ah, Starflight.
Let's start with a history lesson. 1986. EA releases a game called Starflight for computers. It's a success, by the standards of the era. And it deserves to be. Wide open galaxy. Planet after planet to explore. Your own crew of aliens to train and name.
Fun times.
Eventually, it gets ported to a number of systems, influencing designers and inspiring games like Mass Effect and Star Control 2, legends in their own right. Then, as all games do, it fades into oblivion.
Cut forward a few years. A stupid kid is at a rummage sale, looking for books, when he finds a box. In it is a manual and a game on floppies. A code wheel. And it all should play on his family's crappy old computer.
The kid spends hour after hour with the game, never making real progress, but loving it all the same. Eventually, the computer and the game go the way of all flesh. Gone, but not forgotten.
The kid gets older and a bit less dumb, remembering the game for years. Eventually, he finds out the game is called "Starflight".
Cut to a little later, and it shows up on Good Old Games.
Cheap.
Well, that brings us here. I play. In exchange, you make a crew. And maybe watch, if you don't have anything better to do.
We need six crewmen, from one of five species. And we need a name for the ship.
So, the positions are:
Captain: In charge. Nicest chair. Makes out with green skinned space babes and punches godlike entities.
Science Officer: The guy who has to explain why the captain shouldn't be punching godlike entities. In between those incidents, he (or she) will study enemy shields, figure out if planets are worth colonizing, and suffer the agony and fear of being the one person who knows how screwed this whole plan is.
Navigation: Figuring out where to go, and how not to die getting there? This poor sap's job. On the other hand, it's also his (or its) finger on the trigger when things get to fighting, so there's somewhere to vent.
Engineering: If someone is lying about the laws of physics or how long repairs will take, it's this guy. In charge of all repairs to tech. Legally obligated to drink on the job.
Communications: Smooth talking, lying like a rug, and begging for mercy are all necessary for a good spaceship crew, and the comms officer has to do it in every language under the sun. Not an easy job. UNLESS you know the guy on the other end. Comms officers of the right species talk a lot easier to anyone else of their species.
Doctor: In charge of staring at huge, gaping wounds from space knives and going "Walk it off, champ."
As for species?
You have good old bog standard Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Good at everything, fast learners, and masters of science, Humans are basically solid.
You have the Thrynn. Space dinosaurs. They don't learn as fast as humans, and they're awful doctors, but if you need someone to lie to your face and get away with it, a Thrynn is your man. Other than that, they're solid crewmen.
Then there's the Velox. Cockroaches that just spit in the face of the square cube law. They're good engineers and navigators, but they aren't good at being social, and their bedside manner is shit. Also, few manage to earn their GEDs.
Elowan are plant people. Brilliant learners. Excellent doctors. Fine comm officers. And fragile as twigs. Look at them funny, and they die in agony.
And finally, we have robots. Tough as nails. Excellent navigators and good engineers. Awful at everything else, and they will never get any better no matter how much you spend.
So, get cracking.
Oh, a warning. Old game means awful save system. If anyone dies, they die. If the ship explodes, it's exploded. Abort retry fail time. So, don't get too attached to anyone.
chiasaur11 on
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Steam
Yup.
Looking at their stats, they're not that great. But they are space dinosaurs. So, that's cool.
Why I fear the ocean.
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
Wii Friend Code: 0072 4984 2399 2126
PSN ID : Theidar
Facebook
Behold the annhilation of the extraterrestrial and the rise of the machines.
Hail Satan!
WISHLIST
We still need the com officer. Unless Melding called it for a dinosaur.
Why I fear the ocean.
Space cockroach 4 lyfe. Hope you enjoy ships with tiny unlit corridors.
Steam
That's EMPRESS to you
Why I fear the ocean.
I am a plant
Thanks to the refreshing taste of Sprite(tm)
My votes would have been for a Thrynn Captain and a Robot Doctor, for the hilarity.
Crush heads and mechanical conundrums with rusty metal hands
Half the time i don't even need it. Dino Yelling.
Martin Backett in the chair.
Uh... how am I supposed to start this?
I never actually took command school.
Hey, If they tell you "You're a Captain now", you take the ship. I don't know what they'd do if you didn't. Probably something horrible. I mean, I'm a temporal mechanics grad student. Top of my class in theoretical time travel.
Somehow, that got me shanghai'd into... this. I have a ship, a crew, and a budget. All of them are really bad.
Look at my evaluation form. That does not say "Captain". That says "Grad student." At best.
Everybody else is even less qualified than I am.
The engineer? I'm pretty sure he's on someone's "Most Wanted" list. He's also perpetually drunk. So that's nice.
The navigator is... alright. Android. They say they're 100% reliable. I guess it's true. Still, the promises that "No harm would befall the obsolete flesh creatures" was... disconcerting.
The Linguistics expert seems to be plotting some kind of coup d'etat.
Doctor's one of those weird plant things. I mean, I know they're good medics, but it seems to be perpetually on class six relaxants. Maybe that's normal for the species.
Then there's the chief "scientist."
Who holds a "theoretical degree in physics".
Oh, and to cap it off? The entire night shift is Thrynn. Scared shitless seems a mild term for my current mood. We depart on the Odysseus at 800 tomorrow.
We are all going to die.
Why I fear the ocean.
The Captain falsified those records, he's out to get you! We have to team up to overthrow him!
truly we were born for the stars
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
You know me well, captain.
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
Alright. Found out why they hired me. Which they very much didn't want me to know.
Things keep getting better and better.
A ship of fairly similar make to the Odysseus turned up in system a week ago. The crew was missing or dead. The Captain was severely injured and ranting like a madman. Currently in a maximum security loony hatch.
The interesting thing? The ship was never launched. The logs were from a few months ahead. And the maps go far away from the usual routes.
So they send someone who at least knows how to prevent a paradox that could destroy all of reality.
Which sounds like an exciting way to spend life. It really isn't.
Events so far:
Gave codes to docking bay. Launched.
Left good old Arth. Listened to the medical officer asking if I had "Really seen my hand. No, I mean really."
After a swift plotting of our course by the Nav officer, we arrived at one of the other planets in system. Simple job, scan the planet for minerals and if it's suitable for life.
Lots of valuable minerals. And nothing breathing. So, in system is a bust.
Of course, the science officer had to ask "what is life, anyway? I mean, really." Then it tried to report this lifeless rock for colonization.
I can't believe that's our science officer. I could do a better job. Even on class sixes.
Sold the minerals back at base to get some light upgrades to the ship. And now?
We are out of system.
Less than 100 people have been out here. It's amazing. Of course, the Comm officer is finding where to hide fleets, the engineer is spending more time drinking than doing anything productive, and everyone except me is wondering what the hell the point of a few more chunks of rock is. Life is not terribly kind some days.
I wish I volunteered. At least then I could blame myself.
Why I fear the ocean.
You don't have plant eyes like me, man.
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
Whelp. We're boned.
It started out fine. Exploring space, ect, ect.
Only, on our way back from an ordinary landing, on a planet the science officer assured us all was "safe"...
We ran into an electrical storm. A huge one. One I found predicted on the sensor readings.
We barely got back to the ship alive, and the lander was lost.
THE 10,000 CREDIT LANDER.
We're pretty much broke. No money, no fuel.
No fuel, no starflight.
No starflight, no finding another planet to colonize, meaning when core decay sets in on Arth, humanity is probably extinct.
A few decades, at the outside.
So, that's great. JUST SWELL.
I'd try to drink or something to dull the pain, but I'm deep in debt. So, this is all going to be fun.
I hate my science officer.
Why I fear the ocean.
Sold the ship's lasers. Sold half the fuel. Tried to sell the crew, but even slavers have standards, so that's out the window.
Managed to stay flying. And in spite of everything, I'm glad we did.
First stop out of system, we found a planet.
Wildly varying temperatures depending on region. Low gravity. The science officer said that it gave "Bad vibes, man."
I shoved the idiot out of the chair and took an actual reading.
It's fit for colonization.
In five years, maybe ten, this hunk of rock will have our people on it. I bought us time. Thousands of years. Maybe millions.
So, yes. I named it after me. When someone else saves humanity from extinction, maybe then I'd consider letting him live in glory for eternity.
Oh, sure. The crew "Helped". In much the same way a four year old "helps" his mommy with her taxes. Or the teachers at the academy "helped" with my paper on temporal physics.
Kiss my ass, Griswald. Let's hear you say "Very nice writing, but the assignment was about post-colonial social theory. You'll have to write it again" now!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
...Or maybe the gloating can wait. We're lost in an unknown region of space right now, and low on fuel.
Also, we're getting... odd hails.
Comm officer Sato is saying they're robots or something. I said to just broadcast "We come in peace" on loop. See how it goes.
....SHIT
No, we do not want to say "WE ARE YOUR NEW GODS, PATHETIC MACHINES!" Look, that was a joke, and you know how the stupid robot navigator took it!
No, you aren't an idiot. I mean...
Dammit.
END RECORDING!
Why I fear the ocean.
GoFund The Portland Trans Pride March, or Show It To People, or Else!
I'm enjoying it
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
It's not my fault. Never my fault. I was just being reasonable. Maybe ambitious, but with success so far...
The robots loved us. No idea why. They said we were the "Old Empire" and we nodded along.
They asked if we served Layton, and Sato had to yell "WE ARE NO-ONE'S SERVANTS! BOW, DOGS!"
This actually worked. They gave coordinates for a planet prepared for human colonization. A really nice planet.
Somehow, we got back to Arth. Reported in.
We even found a shortcut. Despite everything, I was proving myself the greatest captain in history.
Barely had any fuel in the tank, but being the discoverer of the first habitable planet in centuries, well, it comes with perks.
Free fill-ups? One of them.
So, we all went back into deep space.
Found a few more (worthless) planets.
Oh, interesting thing. Some trips take less time than it seems. The whole relativity spacelike faster than light time travel thingy. Not much of an effect normally, but it's weird.
Not important now. But a burst that expends the entire fuel tank could be interesting.
But the bad news is we're getting another hail. Same Comm officer. This will not go well.
...What the hell?
Why I fear the ocean.
gonna read all of this
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
The shields are gone, not down, but gone, and so are the engineers. We're dying...
We're dead. They're all dead and damned and I'm next. Detonating the engines might....
Might get me out of here. Might end this.
I don't know! I did everything right. This is not my fault!
Detonating the engines. Taking them with me.
Not my fault.
Not my fault.
[The proceeding logs were recovered from a heavily damaged ship in low Arth orbit. On discovery of the ship, Ensign Martin Beckett was assigned a crew all rated "expendable" or lower and sent to investigate. The file is officially closed pending further investigation.]
And that's it. Starflight, everybody:
Normally, it doesn't end like this!
Why I fear the ocean.