Fwd: Stellar Frontier 0.81 Available!
Antony Shen
¡i«Óô±eÂà¹F "Brad Wardell" <war...@ibm.net> ¦b Thu, 11 Dec 1997
17:42:23 ¼gªº¦W¨¥¡G¡j
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For those of you who are in the Stellar Frontier beta program, version
0.81
is now available.
Gamers who are interested in joining can go to
http://www.stardock.com.
Here's info on the game:
Introduction
Mankind had barely gotten faster than light travel when the Drengin
Empire
and the Torians had arrived in Earth’s solar system. Each race wanted
full
control of our solar system which was merely part of a larger goal for
domination of the galaxy.
They had possessed faster than light travel for centuries and their
weapons
were very powerful. Luckily, the humans had the home field advantage
and
more importantly, the Drengin and Torians were age long enemies.
Enemies
that only had a small foot hold in our solar system.
You start out as a lowly Ensign in the human fleet and take command of
a
small star ship and must rid our solar system of these invaders. Once
you
have done that, you will take your fleets to new star systems and
begin the
process of bringing Earth’s presence to new frontiers. As time goes
on, you
will move up through the ranks until you are an Admiral at which time
you
will be able to decide what types of ships your side builds (until
then, you
’ll have to make due with the help EarthGov gives).
If all goes well, you will liberate the galaxy from the tyranny of the
Dregin and Arceans and bring a long lasting peace to peoples
everywhere.
The Single Player Game…
In Stellar Frontier’s single player mode, you start out commanding a
scout
ship and must help rid the Drengin and Torians from a single star
system
(The Sol system).
Each side will come with a home planet base. In the initial battle,
the
humans will have Earth, the Drengins will control one of the Jovian
moons,
and the Torians are based on Venus. Each side has a single star base
which
serves as a shipyard. Starbases are extremely tough and difficult to
destroy (it would take an entire fleet to destroy one). The speed in
which
a star base is able to create new ships is based on the population of
the
your side which is based on colonies). Colonies also, as a by
product,
release "power ups" that are meant for your star ships to upgrade
themselves
but your enemies can also get ahold of those powerups. The resources
from
your colonies are transferred back to your star base via freighters.
At first, you will not have any control over what your shipyard (star
base)
builds since you’re just a commander of a single star ship. But
eventually
when you make it to Admiral which allows you to be fleet master,
you’ll be
able to tell your shipyard what It should be building.
The types of ships you can build include:
· Scout Class Vessel. A fast but weak ship that is good at harassing
the
enemy and keeping track of their movements. Cost: $20 billion (each
freighter brings back $1 billion and it will wait at a colony for a
length
of period which is based on that colony’s population).
· Defender Class Vessel. A medium sized ship that will move off to
guard
colonies from enemy ships Cost: $50 billion.
· Escort Class Vessel. A medium sized ship that will guard freighters
as
they bring ore to your star base. Cost: $50 billion.
· Cruiser Class Vessel. A large sized star ship that is good at
making
attack runs on enemy ships. Cost: $100 billion.
· Dreadnought Class Vessel. A huge and immensely powerful ship that
can
attack and defend and do pretty much whatever else it wants. Cost:
$200
billion credits.
· Freighter. A huge but largely defenseless ship that will travel to
and
from asteroids mining ore. It brings back an equivalent of 1 ton of
processed ore. (it holds much more than that but lots of rock is
brought
back to get real ore). Cost: $30 billion.
· Colony Ship. A huge ship that travels to moons, asteroids, and
planets to
begin colonies. Colonies generate $1 billion credits per million
colonists
per year. Cost: $30 billion.
Stellar Frontier isn’t a game where you control a bunch of ships. At
first,
you won’t even be able to control what is built and later on you will
be
able to control what they do but the ships will then perform based on
what
type of ship they are. You will be able to order ships to help you in
attacks, however.
To determine what type of ship you build, you simply shift-mouse click
the
space station and choose the types of ships you want to build. It
will
continue to build that type of ship until you change it. You can also
tell
it to build based on what it thinks needs to be built (auto).
Your ship can improve itself by collecting Power-Ups which come from
colonies and destroyed star ships.
The Multi-Player Game…
You can choose to warp to another system which will bring up
Stardock.net.
Stardock.net will display a list of active star systems with how many
other
star ships are already engaged in battle, the name of the star ship,
and the
distance (measured in the new astronomical unit known as "Ping
units"). The
further the distance, the less likely you’ll want to go there.
Systems that
you should look at visiting will be within 500 ping units.
Once you arrive, the game is similar to single player game except that
you
do not necessarily get to be on the human side, you are drafted to be
on the
side that needs you the most. You also do not get to decide what
ships are
built, it is set to auto so team work is crucial.
In multiplayer play, there’s teamwork involved on your side in
protecting
your freighters, colonies, home base, as well as attacking your
enemy’s
freighters, colonies, and bases.
The game is won when all enemy bases and colonies have been totally
eliminated from a star system. At which point in the multi-player
game it
starts over.
What Stellar Frontier Is Like…
The beauty of Stellar Frontier is not just its excellent graphics or
even
its terrific internet performance. It also comes from the fact that
the
unit AI, the computer controlled ships, are extremely intelligent.
You don’
t have to tell them what to do, they do it on their own and they do it
extremely well. This leaves the player the freedom to fly his ship
and take
out enemies. The game feels a lot like a combination of Star Control
2 and
Ultima On-Line because it has the game feel of Star Control but the
much of
the character development and community found in Ultima On-Line.
Because of its combination of great single player play and a rewarding
multiplayer experience, Stellar Frontier is sure to be a hit with all
classes of gamers.
The Arrival
Stellar Frontier will be available in the Spring of 1998 at both
stores and
on-line channels. An early beta version of it is available at
http://www.stardock.com.
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Antony Shen | ¨H¤¤±e
National Chiao Tung University | TeamOS/2 TW Member
Department of Material Science and | Mailto:u861...@cc.nctu.edu.tw
Engineering | FTP://Antony.graddorm.nctu.edu.tw
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