My thoughts on Starflight – TLC

[rcaldwell]

Alright, so this is the first time that I have played Starflight – The
Lost Colonies, through all the training mission with all three
classes. So here we go!

Fuel Cost vs Money Earned.
Like the person before me, I also agree that with the class 1 engines
fuel consumption is very fast. An example is on quest #6. This is the
first quest where to take you ship out to the planet Islay (just past
the star for the home system). When I got there, I had less then half
my fuel left and by the time I got back to the spaceport, I was out of
fuel. I was able to continue flying around without fuel, but I could
not land on any planets without at least 100 (units?) of fuel.
Basically, I had to spend all of the money earned from quests to
purchase additional Endurium. I do understand that the class 1 engine
are not very fuel efficient, but it was very difficult to save money
to buy additional upgrades. There is one way that I did find that
helped to alleviate this problem. On mission #7, you are tasked with
collecting 5 units of Antimony. Each time I played though this
mission, I tried to collect every deposit of ore on Senlabor, or scan
them at least. One play through (the science class) I found a couple
deposits of Endurium. This helped a lot, but I believe the ore
deposits on the planets are randomly distributed. Maybe there might be
a way to specifically have Senlabor always carry a few deposits of
Endurium?

Mission Log Not Accessible Here?
On my very first play through with the freelance class and from
mission #6 and on, I was always trying to open, or find a way to
access the mission log while in space or on a planets surface. This
works when you are in space, but you cannot access the mission log
while on a planets surface or while orbiting a planet. Yeah this is
just a minor complaint, but it would have been nice to have while in
the field, trying to save the universe! Just to throw some ideas out
there, maybe a mission log button could be added to the pause screen?
Or maybe add a mission log button directly to the user interface while
on a planet. Something like below the Land and Launch buttons.

Your Ship Has Been Destroyed!!
Okay, to be honest this may just be me, on this one. But I still have
not won in an enemy encounter. Up to this point, I have found the
combat to be pretty difficult. You should have seen the first
encounter I had. No weapons, no shield, no armor and only a class 1
engine. Needless to say, I was quickly obliterated. However, even
using the military class, class 4 engines, shields, armor and class 6
lasers and missiles (yes I used the credit cheat!) I still haven't
won, even against just 3 pirate ships. So far I have played though,
about 8 to 10 encounters and I almost won my last one. But I would
think that being so early in the game, level 6 lasers and missiles
would kill the enemy in one to two hits. I know that I am new to this
game and I expect some things to be difficult, but should the combat
be this difficult for someone new to the game?

The User Interface
Honestly, when I first started playing, I was a little confused by the
controls. How do I orbit a planet? How do I scan a planet? How do I
get back to the spaceport?? Thankfully, there is a quick description
of what a button does while piloting a ship. Still some of it was
trial and error. Once I got used to the controls though, I really
started getting into the game. I was not longer thinking, “Where was
that button again”, to just going to the correct button without
thinking much about it.

The Story and Mission Structure
I have not gotten very far past the training missions. Right now I
just started the military class quests, currently quest #28. So far
the story and the missions have been entertaining, especially the
missions. The mission dialog is well written and is easily
understandable, even with a little bit of humor thrown in. The
training missions flow together fairly well, which allows the player
to get used to how to navigate the spaceport areas and how to navigate
your ship in space. Most of the training mission can be completed
pretty quickly, except for one. Quest #7, where you need to collect 5
units of Antimony, can take quite a while complete, sometimes. When I
played through the training missions with the military class, I have
to land, launch and re-land a couple of times in order to collect all
the Antimony for this quest. This is not a bad thing, it mainly just
made the quest seem longer than the rest.

There was one quest that I played through, that was a heck of a lot of
fun. It believe it was quest #27 and I had to investigate a pirate
hideout. I was given coordinates for their hideout on an asteroid.
Once on the surface, I needed to follow the coordinates given in the
mission. This is where I first noticed the coordinate system while
exploring a planet. Once there and I scanned their hideout, I was
given more coordinates for unnamed planets. I needed to explore and
investigate the other sites. This is why I found this mission fun.

Overall
Regardless of the few minor complaints, I am having fun playing this
game. I haven't gotten very far into the game yet, so I am looking
forward to see how the story unfolds. I have enjoyed exploring new
planets and collecting the ore deposits, not only just the useful ore
like aluminum and silica, but even the stuff I can just sell. It is a
good way to make some extra credits beyond what you make through
completing quests. Plus there are a few surprises along the way, such
as some of the life forms on a planet are worth quite a bit of
credits. I have been trying to strike a good balance between ore that
I can use, but still have enough cargo space to collect credit
generating material. Kind of like a mini-game inside the game. I look
forward to continuing my journey across the galaxy!

[Jonathan Harbour]

Thanks for the detailed feedback, Robert. I agree with all of your comments. We should add them into Issues so they can be addressed one by one. The early gameplay is crucial, otherwise people will just quit playing. Thankfully, all of these are minor gameplay settings that can all be changed without digging much into the code.

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[Starflight - The Lost Colony = http://groups.google.com/group/starflighttlc]

[Donald Hill Sr.]

Just had a fight with the pirates, and the ship has all of the highest equipment i could purchase.
 
didn't hit 1 pirate and ship was destroyed.
 
Couldn't get laser to fire, missles were working fine, just couldn't hit anything with them.
 
shields lasted about 1 minute, and went out. tried to repair and they came back up for 2 seconds.
 
Then ship destroyed
 
bar-zhon quest was an issue, I was able to return the cube, but the log says incomplete. Went back to speak with them again, says they love us, and communcated, but log still says incomplete on quest.
 
That is all i have right now. Will try the Bar-Zhon quest again, and see if i can get a complete.
 
Then try fighting the pirates again.
 
-Don
 

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Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 10:25:49 -0700
Subject: Re: [starflighttlc:909] My thoughts on Starflight – TLC
From: jsha...@gmail.com
To: starfl...@googlegroups.com