Game 92: Starflight II: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula (1989)

The Thrynn are looking a bit thinner since last time.

     

Starflight II: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula

United States

Binary Systems (developer); Electronic Arts (publisher)

Released 1989 for DOS, 1991 for Amiga and Macintosh

Date Started: 4 March 2013

      

In Starflight, the Spemin were the spineless jellyfish of the galaxy. Literally. When you encountered them, you saw immediately that they were a bunch of blowhards who turned into groveling cowards at the slightest threat. One of their ships offered me the location of their secret homeworld just to avoid being destroyed themselves, encouraging me to "go there and destroy other Spemin, but spare us!"

The Spemin being Spemin-y in Starflight.

The little slimes had no sense of loyalty, either. When the Old Empire--the human civilization centered on Earth before it was destroyed--encountered them, they were in a pre-technological state. After the Old Empire helped boost their technology levels, a fascist Secret Society for Spemin Superiority gained power and attacked the Old Empire with its own weapons. But when the Numlox and Phlegmak attacked the Spemin, they came running to the Old Empire for protection--only to turn on the humans again when the war was over and they were safe. If they weren't such pathetic little slugs, I would have used one of the black egg bombs on their home planet in the last game.

So something was clearly amiss when, in the year 4638, nineteen years after the events of Starflight, the Spemin suddenly announced that they would be destroying the human world of Arth forthwith, "with considerable malice and forethought" and that they were giving the inhabitants of Arth "a final opportunity to grovel before us," in which case we would be allowed to "serve them as slaves and servants."

I'm just going to intersperse these startup screens with my recount of the backstory. Here's the main outpost.

Arth, as you may recall from the back story of Starflight, became the last refuge of humanity after Earth was destroyed by a host of malicious aliens fleeing the destruction of their worlds by a mysterious crystal planet--a planet which ultimately wiped out life on Earth, too. Earth had sent a number of colony ships into space, but only one--Noah 2, which landed on Arth--survived. Starflight had begun a few decades after humans on Arth rediscovered faster-than-light travel, and a ship of hardy adventurers began exploring the galaxy just in time to stop the crystal planet from destroying Arth.

Here I am creating my crew. I'll talk about this below.

The crystal planet turned out to be the home world of the Ancients, a crystalline life form that everyone thought had disappeared from the galaxy. It turned out they hadn't disappeared--in fact, they were all around us, in the form of "Endurium." Because of the Ancients' extremely slow metabolic state, none of the other races knew they were sentient, and they had been happily burning Endurium for fuel for faster-than-light travel. This remains the best plot twist of my CRPG-playing experience so far. (Here's my original posting on that revelation.)

Assigning the crew members to their stations.

I was happily surprised to find that humans didn't just shrug off this revelation: they banned the use of Endurium, which greatly curtailed our efforts to explore space. Unfortunately, this also affects our military strength, and as absurd as it seems, we're actually vulnerable to the Spemin, who have been mysteriously displaying far more advanced weaponry and shields than they had before, as well as a seemingly unlimited fuel supply called "Shyneum."

A little intelligence gathering determined that the Spemin's new technology originates from a previously-unexplored area of space, accessible via a "continuum flux" (this game's idea of a wormhole). The new area has a couple of dozen species, some of them hostile. Interstel has tasked my crew with finding the source of the Spemin's new technology and fuel and has started us off on an outpost in the new territory.

Outfitting and christening the ship.

So begins Starflight II, which was released only three years after Starflight but seems a lot longer. Starflight remains one of the best finds of my gaming project--I had never even heard of it before I started playing--and I'm delighted to be back in this addictive universe again.

The look and feel of Starflight II is close enough to its predecessor that it feels comfortable, though the manual promises some interesting additions to the first game's basic approach and gameplay. You begin the game in an outpost near the unexplored area of the galaxy, with a slightly different interface to the first game but the same main options: the outpost (get messages), bank, personnel (creation and training), crew assignment, trade depot, ship configuration, and docking bay.

Starting the game involves stepping through these various options:

• Messages include the main quests and any other announcements that will affect gameplay. The game's sense of whimsy (which I think is rather goofy; I'd rather the game were a little more serious) comes through in the messages.

"Anything we can do for you...short of lowering the prices in starport, or excessively inconveniencing ourselves..." I guess I have to give this game credit for explicitly stating what so many RPGs simply hint at.

• In personnel, you create a bunch of crewmembers from five races: humans, Velox (insectoid), Thrynn (reptilian), Elowan (plant-based), and Android. Each of the races has various strengths; for instance, Elowans excel at medicine and Thrynns at communication. You also spend money to train personnel in skills in this area. Androids can't be trained, but they start with relatively high skills.

• In crew assignment, you assign the created crewmembers to their roles on the ship. I went with a human captain and science officer, a Velox navigator and engineer, a Thrynn communicator, and an Elowan doctor. The game has removed the restriction from Starflight in which a Thrynn and an Elowan couldn't serve on the same crew. I guess those races learned to get along.

• Bypassing the trade depot because I had nothing to sell, I went to ship configuration and designated the ISS Laivas while purchasing some missile weapons and upgrading her engines. That took the money I hadn't spend on a little crew training.

 

I was extremely eager to get out into the galaxy and start mining minerals and trading with the locals (currency is in "Shyneum Pieces"), so I blasted out of starport. It took me a while to re-accustom myself with the controls and conventions of the game, but once I did, gameplay was almost immediately fun.

You may recall from the first game that commands are organized under the headings of the crewmembers in charge of them, so under the "Captain" menu, you get a list of ships commands like landing, disembarking, and logging planets for colonization. The "Science Officer" scans and analyzes planets; the "Navigator" flies the ship and fights combats; the "Engineer" assesses damage and makes repairs; and the "Doctor" examines and treats patients. Together, these various roles come together to perform the common functions of the game:

• Scanning, analyzing, and landing on various planets
• Driving an ATV around the planets looking for artifacts, life forms, and minerals
• Communicating with alien races
• Trading goods with alien races
• Fighting combats against hostile aliens

The skill at which these different crewmembers perform their duties is tied to their training levels. I soon realized the importance of getting more training for the science officer. When I visited some planets near starport, he wasn't able to tell me much about them.

What do you mean "not certain"? You need to get certain, Mister!

The consequences were that I landed on one planet with gravity so high that it crushed my ship and killed everyone. On another planet with five times Earth gravity, most of my crew was okay (though I wasted lot of fuel taking off), but my Elowan couldn't take it and was killed. I had to replace him back at starport.

I guess you should have assessed the gravity level before we landed, Mr. Mokslininkas.

But I was successful in general. I remembered how much fun it was to explore planets and find minerals. In Starflight, I got a tingle every time I saw that little mining symbol, even when I already had plenty of money.

Exploring and mining on my ATV.

On several planets, I mined platinum, tungsten, titanium, iron, gold, cobalt, and some other minerals. I also found a planet whose atmosphere, hydrosphere, and gravity made it suitable for colonization, and I logged it for a cash reward.

When I returned to starport, I was surprised to find that the trade depot wasn't interested in any of the minerals I'd picked up. I guess I have to find trading centers among the stars for that. But when I checked the outpost, I'd received so much cash for recommending the planet for colonization, I was able to train both the science officer and navigator up to their maximums for their primary skills.

This seemed to be too easy.

After this first, brief expedition, I decided to just mess around a bit. I found that combat hasn't really changed much since the first game, which is unfortunate, as it was the aspect of Starflight that I liked least. I encountered some aliens, but either they're loco, or I need to train my communications officer a bit better:

An alien Alka-Seltzer ad.

I got tossed round a bit by some continuum fluxes (wormholes) near the starport and had a devil of a time getting back.

I assume the area to my upper-right is the "cloud nebula."

Other innovations from Starflight include a greater variety of aliens (including non-spacefaring "stone age" cultures), and the ability of the science officer to scan for "culture" as well as sensory readings on planets. If the planet is inhabited, the scan tells you a bit about the civilization and how best to address them.

The game comes with a large galaxy map that marks locations of star systems and "trade buoys" as reported by the Humna Humna, a profiteering and trading race that has been helping humanity navigate this new system.

What do you bet there's something in the center there?

Now that I have my bearings, I look forward to getting started for "real." I don't have a bead on the main quest yet, so I'm going to explore some of these planets that have trade beacons, see if I can offload some of my cargo, find more planets to colonize, and make enough money to train my crew better and outfit my ship. I'm sure that along the way, I'll encounter aliens and start seeing starport notices that give hints on the quest.

From what I've found so far, the creators of Starflight II kept what was good about the original and didn't mess with the engine or basic approach to gameplay. There are times when I criticize this (e.g., when Wizardry V offered the same experience as the first game seven years prior), but there are other times that I praise companies for knowing when to stick with a good thing, as with the Gold Box and Infinity Engine games. It's too bad that combat doesn't look improved--although I still have to experiment more--but I'm otherwise glad that Binary Systems didn't rush to fix what wasn't broken. Let's hope the story holds up as well as the first game as well.