[Tachyon: The Fringe Torrent
Hanne Rylaarsdam
The story of Tachyon: The Fringe is set in the 26th century, where mankind has left Earth to colonize the far reaches of space, and has many characteristics of a space opera. The Sol system is a place of relative peace, which is kept by the police force called Star Patrol. Out on the Fringe, where Star Patrol has little presence, megacorporations, pirate clans and colonist groups clash, frequently violently.
The player takes the role of Jake Logan, a mercenary fighter pilot working comfortably in the Sol system. Early in the campaign you are framed for the terrorist bombing of a starbase and are exiled to the Fringe, barred forever from your home. The primary conflict in the Fringe is between the Galactic Spanning (GalSpan) corporation and a group of anti-sol spacer colonists, the Bora - for mining rights, space stations, and territorial control of the Fringe, and they each offer Logan a new start. The Bora want to preserve their independence in the Fringe, particularly their Bora sector, threatening GalSpan's profits in the region.
If the player sides with the Bora, they fight to stymy the "Spanners" attempts to demoralise and displace the Bora, and sabotage GalSpan operations. After many setbacks, Jake overcomes overwhelming odds to destroy the massive new Hephaestus mining station live in front of the Tachyon News Service, humiliating GalSpan and tanking their share price, forcing them to shut down their operations in the fringe and leave the Bora alone.
GalSpan meanwhile offers the chance to work for them, defending GalSpan interests and destroying Bora "terrorists". After many successes GalSpan completes their new Hephaestus station, causing the Bora to launch an all-out assault, which Jake defeats. Jake then escorts the defecting Bora leader to the GalSpan side, who urges the Bora to abandon their homes in the face of the unstoppable GalSpan to resettle further out in the frontier.
Tachyon: The Fringe is a first-person space combat simulator. Among several features, (such as power and shield management), the game implements "sliding", where the player can maintain a constant velocity while having free control over the orientation of their spacecraft. This is intended to provide an ease-of-motion where the player can strafe, fly backwards and otherwise maintain a higher level of control over their spacecraft.
In story mode, the player chooses missions from the Job Board. Some missions are offered by neutral parties and do not drive the main storyline (though they do occasionally affect the TNS News bulletins). Eventually, the story will reach a point where it becomes necessary for the player to ally with either the Bora Colonies or the Galactic Spanning Corporation. The Bora missions are usually higher in difficulty and less rewarding monetarily. GalSpan pays well and often has missions in tandem with other pilots, but is more morally grey. Since the two factions offer different fighters and different weapons, they encourage different play styles, as well as different storylines.
The game received favorable reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.[2] Kevin Rice of NextGen called it "a solid space-simulation game; it just doesn't offer much in the way of anything new."[12] Nash Werner of GamePro said, "Even with a Hollywood name on the box to draw attention, Tachyon is still more like a treat for the hardcore space flight-sim fan. I'm talking about the type of fan that has the need to fly brand new ships every six months. Those people will love Tachyon. Its entertaining multiplayer mode over NovaWorld is reason enough to get fanboys everywhere salivating. However, casual gamers and tourists may not be able to appreciate Tachyon for what it really is: a very entertaining Privateer clone."[14][a]
According to Mark Asher of CNET Gamecenter, the game was a commercial flop, with sales of 20,385 units and revenues of $778,095 in the U.S. by July 2000. He cited this performance as part of a trend of falling sales for space flight simulators and the wider flight simulator genre.[15]
Caught in the middle of a violent conflict on the fringe of the galaxy - your ability to survive will depend on your piloting skills and combat savvy as a mercenary space fighter. But, as you explore the vastly detailed world of Tachyon: The Fringe, you will often find that the most, powerful weapon on your ship, is in your head.
It is the 26th Century. Peace prevails in the Earth's solar system. Tachyon gates allow us to travel tremendous distances in mere seconds. This is the Golden Age of space exploration...
But there is trouble on the fringe of civilized space: Large corporations, desperate for new resources, threaten to overtake distant colonies. The colonists, fearing for their independence, respond with violence...
Life is anything but peaceful in the Fringe.
Tachyon: The Fringe is a Space Flight Simulator made by NovaLogic in the year 2000, developed by Randy Casey (the maker of F-22 Lightning II). It follows the story of a 26th-century expert pilot Jake Logan, who lived a great contractor's career in our Solar System, flying freelance and fighting other people's fights.
That was of course, until something goes horribly wrong. An emergency escort mission goes south as a hospital gets destroyed, and Jake ends up being the fall guy. He is subsequently exiled from Sol (with a very short trial) to a colonized region of space called the Fringe. Eventually, Jake gets a new life together, and the player controlling him has to pick a side, which is either the Galactic Spanning Corporation, or the Bora Mining Guilds, who are in a war of territorial claims. One does it all for the sake of money, the other does it to protect their territorial rights.
Tachyon is unique, not like the other games by NovaLogic, because it takes place in space, does not have a sequel, and is the only game that does not have to do with anything by the United States Military. Not to mention a definitive storyline.
There is a remake of this game in progress, based on the FreeSpace 2 Open Source Project. (Don't get your hopes up; as with most such hobby projects, it's been going on for a while and the implementers don't seem to have any time to spend on it.) Fortunately, unlike a certain other space dog-fighting game, you won't have much trouble installing the real thing anyhow.Tachyon: The Fringe contains examples of the following tropes:
Jake Logan was an ace pilot, living in Sol and holding a steady job flying for Advanced Ganymede Technologies. However somewhere in the middle of a mission it all went wrong and explosions ended up killing several civilian lives. Jake has now been fired from his comfortable job, arrested by Star Patrol and exiled from Sol space. What's left is The Fringe, which consists of unexplored and contested sectors, linked together by gates run by the Tachyon Corporation. Out here, the rule of law is thin... and corporate rivalries take one a whole new deadly meaning. Take for instance a dispute between the Galspan corporation and Bora Mining, a conflict which threatens to overwhelm all allegiances within the Fringe.
Tachyon: The Fringe is a 1st-person space combat game. Players will sign up for missions, which vary from starbase to starbase. The objectives include escort missions, combat, recon, search and destroy, cargo scanning and sector defense. Completion of these missions will increase Jake's credit balance and unlock new equipment and ship types from different corporations. Typical equipment includes laser guns, projectile guns, missiles, scanners, ECM, mines and targeting equipment. Jake can also hire wingmen to help him out for a small initial fee, as well as a percentage of each completed mission in which they participate. There are over 60 different missions, each of which is scripted. There is no free flight ability while not on a mission, though it's usually possible to move between space stations and sectors.
That is what Tachyon is all about, sure it excells on other areas too, but where it really shines is in the gameplay department. Tachyon is yet another one of those "sci-fi" space simulators, where you fly starships that handle in space like F-22s but the game manages to make the whole experience feel fresh with a simple yet functional interface, furious action, and the finest mission design I have ever seen in a game of this type. Unlike other space shooters where every mission can be summed up under "fly to navpoint A and shoot the enemies, then go to B and do the same, etc." Tachyon takes a unique aproach and delivers a different and completely original experience with each mission, a feat which is accomplished via the premise of the game as well as it's design. The story casts you as a Han Solo-like mercenary pilot who gets framed for murder by the company he's working for and gets exiled to the fringe of known space where law almost has no reach, and where a different set of factions make the rules. Fighting for control of the region are the Bora and Galspan factions, or the typical "Rebel colonist" and "Corporate giant" sides. These two factions provide the main game plot, as you may join one of them and restore your reputation through one of the two possible endings as well as earn cash by completing their missions and acquiring better equipment in a light version of Privateer.
However aside from the main plot a whole set of organizations populate the fringe and they include everything from pirate groups to casino giants, research outposts and a trio of "barons" who hold a mafia-like grip on each of their sectors. All of these groups provide their own set of missions on different bases and they all contribute to make the whole gaming world a much richer environment (as well as enabling you to get extra cash and get that nice new ship you have your eye on). You can be called upon to kidnap the son of an influential baroness in a certain mission, or how about journeying to an unexplored nebula in order to find a unique mineral for an eccentric art collector??
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