Starfarer

Website: http://fractalsoftworks.com/

Stafarer is a top-down sandbox space combat game. It is very much rogue like. When you lose your ships they stay destroyed. Right now there is not much to do other than fly around. Create a fleet and wipe everybody off the map. Until they respawn that is.

In the current alpha version you only can fly around in this one system. Once the core of the campaign has been added you will be able to travel to other star systems. This will require fuel though. In-System you do not need fuel but you do need supplies to keep your fleet running. In the current system there are a couple of factions you can poke. The Hegemony, The Tri-Tachyon and the pirates. When you start you only have gotten control over a small frigate. Choosing your targets is very crucial at this point. Simply lashing out at the nearest fleet will get you spaced real fast. Once you found a suitable target and poked it you can do a couple of things. You can either attempt a retreat, setup a defence or go attack.

During combat you take control over a portion of your fleet. The amount of ships you can deploy depends on the unit cap. You can increase this cap by capturing stations on the map if the fleet engagement is big enough. The bigger the fleets the more there is to cap. You can capture satellites and stations that give your fleet a flat bonus depending on the captured static is. You cannot order your units around like a traditional RTS. You have to go orders to intercept or capture a point. At the start of every round you can only give a limited amount of orders. Because of this limitation the AI needs to be very good to pull this off. The devs pulled it off. The AI is very intelligent, coming very close to human behavior in some respects. They can dodge missiles and AAA and actively try to get behind you if you are in a big capital ship. There is more to it but you would have to see it for yourself.



Loot can be acquired from victorious battles. Weapons and supplies are the usual cruft. Don't get too greedy if your cargo hold is overfilled. Accidents could occur that could costs you dearly.
After combat you might be able to board and take over damaged ships. Others will be scrapped for a very little amount of money. The money can be spent on weapons, more supply or marines at starbases. When you are well off you can buy a new ship. Choose carefully. Buying a fighter wing early on just for it to get destroyed is not a good investment. Ships range from agile fighter craft to bulky battleships. The slowest ship in your fleet will set the fleet speed on the campaign map.

Weapons can be put on ships if they have enough points and the slot isn't too small or the weapon too big. The rest of the points can be used for useful upgrades to engines or a bigger cargo hold and the likes. Do not spend everything on equipment as you need to add some points into flux capacitors and vents. To complete these refits you need supplies though. Luckily you do not need to be docked at a station or a shipyard to do this. Anywhere on the map will do as long as you have the time for the refit to complete.



By firing weapons or getting hit will generate flux. Flux works like overheating. Too much and your ship will drop its shield and weapons will become unavailable until the ship can regain control. To make things worse engines that get hit can flare-out and become unresponsive putting you adrift for a small period of time. Crew can also take casualties. It is best to try and keep your crew alive as they gain experience. The experience translates into better repair speed and all that good stuff.

There are some skirmish missions after you dabbled on the campaign map. You get a set amount of ships and are thrown into a battle. These setups can range from medium to impossible difficulty. After every battle you get a score based on how you performed. Destroying enemy ships while avoiding losses will obviously increase your score.

Other features are being developed that are currently not in the alpha build. Such as character development. Your avatar will gain experience and be able to unlock special abilities and passive traits.
You will be able to recruiting officers, explore star systems, trade goods and run an industry. Not only that but you will be able to influence factions. But sadly there shall be multiplayer as it would detract from a good singleplayer experience. Just in case you were wondering.

What I do personally like is the art style of the ships. Every faction has a different design philosophy. The Hegemony uses largely old ships with bulky armour. They can use shields but not as good as their Tri-Tachyon counterparts that use more advanced technology. Pirates do not posses armour or advanced technology but have faster more specialized ships (read: crap).

Not much else to write about but it might be interesting to keep an eye on. Currently only available from their website.

I bought this as well (put Star in the name of anything and there's a good chance I'll get it) and had a good time, combat is pretty good for an alpha, but the game suffers from overall lack of content and Things To Do. Kinda sorta like Mount & Blade in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE. Looking forward to this game's singleplayer campaign in about 2 years.

Why is the genre that Escape Velocity created and conquered so difficult to re-explore?

/offtopic

If you like space games that much I can assume you've played the X series as well? Really looking forward to X-Rebirth

Off-topic but yeah X-Rebirth is on my radar. I do not believe their publisher said anything about X being at E3.

I bought X3... I am not nearly Aspergersy enough to play that game. I put it in the same mental box as Dorf Fortress. Cool, but not for me.

X-Rebirth is supposed to be much more casual friendly, for those that can't sink hour upon hour into it. Completely overhauled from X3 and X3:Terran Conflict. It is not going to be at E3, but it is very near release (month or two as far as I know).

Anyway, back to Starfarer? xD