Jed
Cipher
Starshatter: Any space-trader/sim fans (ahem, Saint) heard of this one? Just saw the site today and am wondering if anyone's heard anything good about it...
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Starshatter?
- Thread starter Jed
- Start date
Jed
Cipher
Too bad. It looks purty.
Spazmo
Erudite
I tried the demo, too. I didn't like it much. It's kinda fugly and generally sort of bland. Stick to Freespace.
Jed
Cipher
Think I'll wait for Star Wolves.
FrankHorrigan
Liturgist
I bought it myself through matrix game's buy & download system of delivery. I really really wanted to like it, its been so long since theirs been a good space combat sim, im still playing x2 occasionaly atm, but even with the 1.4 update the combat is still pathetic.
Anyway, Starshatter focus 100% on combat, their is no trading, exploration etc etc, its a space combat simulator. General presentation wise, the interface is clean and functional, but very spartan, think windows2k interface and your not far off. The big promise of the game is 4 fully dynamic campaigns set of the 4 different stages of a war between 2 human space civlizations. The story and background history, while actualy quite above par compared to most space games(cough x2) never really figure enough in the actualy missions, so while they make great reading, it never feels your fighting for a cause etc. Again this harkens back to the spartan interface.. the whole game fells very sterile. Their are no cutscene's, cgi or ingame, the progress of the war is told through "emails" the player recieves as the campaign progress's.
The pilot starts of at ensign rank assigned to fighter combat missions. Figher class combat feels more like an advanced modern flight sims combat,say Falcon 4, than like most other space combat sims. Targets are generaly very far away with the opportunity to use missles, chaffs etc. Their are 2 flight models to chose from, a simple and advanced. The advance using a yaw/pitch flight sim system while the simple using your standard system ala every other space combat game. Theirs about 8 different type of fighter class missions, ranging from sweep, patrol, escort, destroy, bomber and even surface missions as you do get to visit planet surface''s. It sounds like a nice selection, but every patrol missions feels the same, every bomber missions feels the same, their is very little varaiation in the missions. As you complete objectives sucessfully, you get points, points lead to prizes! well actualy, they lead to promotions, eventualy after enough promotions you are offered a command post. Here you get to pilot capital class ships and issue orders to the rest of the fleet. This is the part i enjoyed the most, but it takes along time to get their. Its vaguely reminiscent of homeworld, the actualy in game first person combat engine switches to a homeworld-esque rotating, zooming camera and you can isse your orders from here. Its a very nice touch to the game, but again it sufferes greatly from sterile, generic feel.
As i said, the big selling point for me was the dynamic campaigns. As a fighter pilot you wont notice *much* of a difference. If you do really well, things can go slightly better for you. For the entire first campaign i was a fighter pilot, i was playing shit, failing most missions but we still "won" the campaign. As a command officer its a totaly different story. Their is no resource collecting, you start a campaign with X amount of forces and your expected to complete it with them. You only have a handful of capital class ships, and if you lose one, you can be in big trouble. Likewise, if you take out one of the enemies Carrier Class ships, their gonna feel the pain and you will find yourself not only fighting one less carrier, but also less fighter class ships. So the dynamic campaign on the Fleet level is what kept me playing.
Selection of ships is very limited, theirs only pilotable 3 fighter class ships,* roughly* equivlent to an interceptor, fighter and bomber. You can customise loadouts before a missions, but theirs an extremely limited weapon selection for fighters, Laser, Air to surface missle, air to air, medium range space missle, short range space missle & anti cap ship missle. The dog fighting is pretty good but in most missions, even in 4x time mode, your going to be spending 10 minutes sitting at your computer waiting for you to reach a hotzone. Very annoying and worse than the travel time in x2 by far. Capital ship wise, theirs 5 pilotable, though their *maybe* another 1 i havent seen yet. Each of the cap class's provide a distinct funtion, carrier, cruiser, destroyer, frigate etc. Their generaly slow, vulnerable to attacks by mass fighters but carry very powerful ant cap lasers etc. I suppose its simular to the cap ship combat in x2.
Overall i did get more enjoyment out of it than frustration, but i do consider myself a hardcore fan of the space sim genre and probably can only recommended it to the likeminded. Bearing it mind 80% of the work on the game was done by 1 person, its an incredible achievement. With that fact in mind, compared to other indie space game efforts, its got great production values however, compared to other commerical space sim games, it just doesnt cut the mustard in the production values department. To repeat the flaws, it feels to generic, the story is not woven into the game enough, limited selection of fighters, repetative missions and on the plus side At command level its got a pretty good dynamic campaign, tactics are more important than any kind of "tank rush", its very very long, the graphics are good for such a low budget game, its incredibly stable and mod friendly. Try the demo, it doesnt give any sampling of the dynamic campaigns but it does give a rough feel for fighter and cap ship combat.
Anyway, Starshatter focus 100% on combat, their is no trading, exploration etc etc, its a space combat simulator. General presentation wise, the interface is clean and functional, but very spartan, think windows2k interface and your not far off. The big promise of the game is 4 fully dynamic campaigns set of the 4 different stages of a war between 2 human space civlizations. The story and background history, while actualy quite above par compared to most space games(cough x2) never really figure enough in the actualy missions, so while they make great reading, it never feels your fighting for a cause etc. Again this harkens back to the spartan interface.. the whole game fells very sterile. Their are no cutscene's, cgi or ingame, the progress of the war is told through "emails" the player recieves as the campaign progress's.
The pilot starts of at ensign rank assigned to fighter combat missions. Figher class combat feels more like an advanced modern flight sims combat,say Falcon 4, than like most other space combat sims. Targets are generaly very far away with the opportunity to use missles, chaffs etc. Their are 2 flight models to chose from, a simple and advanced. The advance using a yaw/pitch flight sim system while the simple using your standard system ala every other space combat game. Theirs about 8 different type of fighter class missions, ranging from sweep, patrol, escort, destroy, bomber and even surface missions as you do get to visit planet surface''s. It sounds like a nice selection, but every patrol missions feels the same, every bomber missions feels the same, their is very little varaiation in the missions. As you complete objectives sucessfully, you get points, points lead to prizes! well actualy, they lead to promotions, eventualy after enough promotions you are offered a command post. Here you get to pilot capital class ships and issue orders to the rest of the fleet. This is the part i enjoyed the most, but it takes along time to get their. Its vaguely reminiscent of homeworld, the actualy in game first person combat engine switches to a homeworld-esque rotating, zooming camera and you can isse your orders from here. Its a very nice touch to the game, but again it sufferes greatly from sterile, generic feel.
As i said, the big selling point for me was the dynamic campaigns. As a fighter pilot you wont notice *much* of a difference. If you do really well, things can go slightly better for you. For the entire first campaign i was a fighter pilot, i was playing shit, failing most missions but we still "won" the campaign. As a command officer its a totaly different story. Their is no resource collecting, you start a campaign with X amount of forces and your expected to complete it with them. You only have a handful of capital class ships, and if you lose one, you can be in big trouble. Likewise, if you take out one of the enemies Carrier Class ships, their gonna feel the pain and you will find yourself not only fighting one less carrier, but also less fighter class ships. So the dynamic campaign on the Fleet level is what kept me playing.
Selection of ships is very limited, theirs only pilotable 3 fighter class ships,* roughly* equivlent to an interceptor, fighter and bomber. You can customise loadouts before a missions, but theirs an extremely limited weapon selection for fighters, Laser, Air to surface missle, air to air, medium range space missle, short range space missle & anti cap ship missle. The dog fighting is pretty good but in most missions, even in 4x time mode, your going to be spending 10 minutes sitting at your computer waiting for you to reach a hotzone. Very annoying and worse than the travel time in x2 by far. Capital ship wise, theirs 5 pilotable, though their *maybe* another 1 i havent seen yet. Each of the cap class's provide a distinct funtion, carrier, cruiser, destroyer, frigate etc. Their generaly slow, vulnerable to attacks by mass fighters but carry very powerful ant cap lasers etc. I suppose its simular to the cap ship combat in x2.
Overall i did get more enjoyment out of it than frustration, but i do consider myself a hardcore fan of the space sim genre and probably can only recommended it to the likeminded. Bearing it mind 80% of the work on the game was done by 1 person, its an incredible achievement. With that fact in mind, compared to other indie space game efforts, its got great production values however, compared to other commerical space sim games, it just doesnt cut the mustard in the production values department. To repeat the flaws, it feels to generic, the story is not woven into the game enough, limited selection of fighters, repetative missions and on the plus side At command level its got a pretty good dynamic campaign, tactics are more important than any kind of "tank rush", its very very long, the graphics are good for such a low budget game, its incredibly stable and mod friendly. Try the demo, it doesnt give any sampling of the dynamic campaigns but it does give a rough feel for fighter and cap ship combat.
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