How do you recruit wingmen?
I got the initial one in the tutorial… but since then, everytime I ask someone to join my wing they say they outrank me. Did you actually go up in ranger rank? I have about 15 kills under my belt, and I’m only just about to go up my first rank.
You’re farther than me, but do you have enough Leadership to recruit more than one?
In planetary battles, how do you capture the actual enemy factory? I captured all his resource buildings, but there was no circle to stand on at the main factory itself.
You click on the “capture” command button, then click on the building itself that has the little trapdoor thingy on it. It’s confusing, as you always click on the circle pad on normal bases.
And yes, I have enough leadership to have two guys following me around. Yet, whenever I ask anyone to join me, they say they outrank me. The only place I’ve found to do this is in space, hailing a passing vessel.
Is there some other method of getting wingmen that I don’t know about?
You can go up in rank, but it’s not so “RPG transparrent”. Scoring kills isn’t significant compared to doing things that would actually benefit the empire, ie- prevent epidemics, get alien technology, etc. Since I’m a trader, I would find out about resource problems on various planets (Earth had a massive famine in my game as one example) and deal with it by selling them the appropriate resource (at a heafty profit, of cource. I’m a Ranger, not some do gooder.) The Ranger base place in the “Sun” system seemed to acknodledge this. I beleive the ranger screen thing tells you how you’re doing on getting promotions, but I’m not at home so I can’t fire it up to verify this.
If your leadership is 0 you will only be able to get that tutorial guy. My starting stats were +1 Trade, +1 Leadership and my wingman is a hired mercenary. I got that tutorial guy killed holding off pirates while I ran to Earth (and passed a good week on the surface while the pirates got bored. They wanted 2000 cred and all my cargo!)
Chris Woods
Hey, how does gogamer work? I ordered it last night, and in the order details it says:
Order Process : Not started
Payment Process : Not started
Shipping Process : Not started
wtf? I ordered it last night. This just their way of saying that they haven’t got it in stock?
Yeah, that happened to me too. I called, and they told me it was out of stock. Then I checked on the website, and they had changed the release date of the game (From available now to preorder), to reflect when they would have it in stock again.
Well, the item in their web site still says “usually ships within 24 hours”…
Blah. I’ll probably be on vacation out of town by the time it’s delivered. :)
You mean you never bought Standing Stones?
Nobody knows who they were…or wot they were doin.
You mean you never bought Standing Stones?
[/quote]
That cover looks REALLY familiar, but I don’t remember the name and can’t find it on Mobygames. Did the game have an alternate title?
Nope, only one title. Great early 80’s EA cRPG, very Wizardry-like. Almost totally forgotten today.
Yeah it was a Wizardry-style first person RPG, and anyway you could go to these Oases (rest areas I guess) and bet on roach races. Not that I ever did that, but it was one of the features shown on the back of the box.
I raced many a roach. The Oasis was a random rest stop you could stumble across deep in the dungeon–it moved around between a number of levels. It offered more than just roach racing, too–you could heal, buy/sell (I think), etc. It’s been 20 years since I played Standing Stones, so I’m sketchy on the details. Still, it was one of the first titles to offer what we now call “mini games.”
Back on topic: THIS GAME ROCKS. It’s like Pirates! in space with a little more complexity and a lot more depth. Or, as that combination is more commonly known, Starflight. It has what I really wish Pirates! had more of–a dynamic world that feels… well, less two-dimensional. You really get the sense that there’s this whole living, breathing galaxy going about its business all around you. Here’s an example:
In my game, I was tooling around the Betelguese system, looking for salvage with this guy Orion that I met in training (he’s also a Ranger) who was impressed by my combat skills and asked if he could follow me around for a while, when the Dominators invaded. I discovered this while heading to Astron to land and sell some minerals; the planet was surrounded by all these weird ships that were shooting at everything in sight. We took some hits landing, I sold my stuff and fixed my ship, and then went to the government office to see what was going on. The guy there was like “What are you DOING here? We’re under attack from the Dominators! Please help us fight them off!”
Now, my ship is not really a combat ship. I’m a merchant, and my starting ship has a decent-sized hold and a fast engine but only a single laser and not a lot of armor. But I figured I was going to have to run the Dominator blockade anyway to get out of there, so I might as well see if I could take some out on my way. I used some of my earnings to buy a second, better weapon (which sort of sucks, because it takes up half of my available space, which I really need for cargo), fuel up, and take off. Orion is already out there, dodging fire, so I radio him and let him know that we’re going to take these guys on. He says “okay.”
The Dominators then proceed to OBLITERATE us, in the space of about three turns. Whoops. Here’s an interesting aside: there’s a type of space station in the game called a Business Center. It’s cool for traders, because you can pay them to do various types of market analysis for you, which basically evaluates the current price of various trading commodities on known worlds and the capabilities of your current ship, and then they give you tips on trade routes that would be profitable for you, taking into account things like fuel costs and travel time and how much hold space you have (if you have a small hold, they’ll focus on commodities that take up less space, etc.). But, among that and other things, they also sell life insurance policies. In the event of your death, the money goes to either your next of kin or, if you have none, into a fund set up to provide assistance to new Space Rangers. I wonder… if you die and start a new game, does your new Ranger get a grant from this fund if your last Ranger had a policy? Because that would be cool. I’ll bet that’s how it works, because that’s exactly the sort of neat detail that this game has in spades.
Fortunately I saved on the planet, so I didn’t need to test that theory (not that I have a policy anyway… they are expensive). So I reloaded and decided that this time I would just blow through the Dominator armada, try to outrun them (I have a pretty fast engine–one of my two pieces of special starting equipment), and hyperjump back to Earth. Half the armada peeled off to pursue me and Orion, and we took quite a beating (though I discovered that I could target their incoming torpedoes with my laser, and was thus able to hold off some of the serious damage). I killed two of them on the way out, and spun around to grab some salvage, including some Dominator technology (which you can sell on the Sol Research Station, which is trying to develop ways to fight the Dominator threat) and some Nodes (energy… um, nanotechnology, er… thingies… (I wasn’t really paying attention in that briefing) which you can take to the Ranger Station and turn them into upgrade modules for your ship’s equipment). Then more Dominator ships started homing in on me, so I jumped out of there and back to the Sol system.
On my way to Earth, the news feed reported that the Betelguese system had ceased sending radio messages. Their last recorded message was an SOS. So now I feel bad, but I really don’t think I could have helped them. So I do the rounds, deliver my cargo to where it needs to go, and then notice a bunch of big combat ships convoying out towards Saturn. I hail one and ask them what’s going on, and they say that they are preparing to launch a coordinated attack to liberate Betelguese, and tell me that I’m welcome to tag along if I want to. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but I feel sort of bad for bailing during that invasion, so I decide to go with them. I figure that at the very least, I’ll have a better chance of surviving a battle with the Dominators if I’m part of a big attack fleet. They tell me to meet them at the Betelguese jump point on November 11, which gave just over a week to prepare. So I went to Earth and made some modifications to my ship, and then took off and headed for the jump point…
…and then noticed that back in the real world, it was 3:00am. So I saved and quit. Holy hell, this game is fun. Do yourself a favor and GET THIS GAME.
- You do have stats. This wasn’t obvious to me until I played because no one directly mentioned it. There are 6 stats, you gain experience, and spend it upping them. They are Comabt (+dmg), piloting (-enemy dmg), Leadership (num of ships you can control), Charisma (affects dialog I beleive), Trade (sell modifier), and, uh…, I forgot the 6th.
Repair. Or Engineering. Something like that.
- You can customize all the components on your ship. Components are Diablo-ish in that there are base classes (“Hydro Feul Cells”) that have varying statistics (Space, Size, Fuel amount, etc.) They don’t have Diablo names, though (no “Godly Hydro Cells of the Whale!”) which is good in my opinion. There are 18 “slots” for ship components.
This actually varies based on the type of hull that you have. Some hulls have more slots than others. Combat hulls have more weapons slots but fewer hold spaces. Cargo ships have large holds but less room for weapons. All ships also have a size, which determines both your hit points and how much stuff you can carry. So a ship with lots of equipment slots but a small size might have trouble filling those slots (you’d need compact components, which generally have a higher tech level and are more expensive).
- You can research to improve your ship components. Consider it analagous to enchanting them.
Yeah, I have a module that will upgrade either my engine speed or my radar range. I’m saving it for when I have enough to buy a better engine, rather than burning it on my starting engine, though.
At the Sol Research station, you can also pay to have your ship systems overhauled by skilled mechanics (or, if you’re short on cash, unpaid interns). This improves their stats, but may cause them to require more frequent maintenance (especially if you go with the interns).
- In turn-based combat, you pre-plot each days movement and can scan enemy ships to see what their plotted movement is. This makes it very tactical without bogging down.
The game’s turn-based movement is really pretty neat–it’s a bit like Laser Squad Nemesis. You plot your actions and hit the end turn button, and then everyone in the whole galaxy moves simultaneously. In combat, you might want to advance one turn at a time, but outside of combat you can just double-click on a destination and the game will just run until you get there (at which point it pauses again), so you get the benefits of real-time movement when you need them. You can also hit the end turn button again during this auto-movement to stop and change your orders.
The game has a great interface. That little info bar is a clever tool for keeping track of game information.
I’ll chime in with my initial impressions as well ( I got this game specifically because of the hype here and at OO). I only played for about an hour last night, but I can see the potential.
The opening movie is hilarious, poorly dubbed, and something only Eastern Europe/Russia could come up with. A guy is drinking a Guiness-like drink, crushing his cans and throwing them into a disintegrator trash can. Then he tells the computer in his cockpit “let’s put on our favorite music” (in a super thick accent) and some bad Eurotrash techno/rock starts pounding out. Show me that in a US game! (Aside from the opening movie, the translation has been flawless so far … you’d never be able to tell this came out of Russia… Britian maybe).
What a neat little game! Everywhere you go, everything you do, the universe has neat little touches and teams with life. There are so many neat little features, I’ll just give brief glimpses:
Every object in the sector/star system you are in moves. The planets, the space stations, the other ships, the asteroids. But because it’s turn based (simultaneous, like LSN, as previously mentioned), you can scan/check out other ships and asteroids and see where their trajectory will take them. While you can’t crash into planets, you CAN crash into asteroids, which makes navigating really fun and interesting. More than once I noticed an asteriod and saw its flight path would take it near me, but ignored it only to be smacked by it. Sounds irritating, but really adds to the “this place is full of stuff” feel.
There is a “flight path log” feature where you can rewind the game and check out what everyone was doing (if you could see them via scanners/sensors I assume) during the last 30 or so turns (you can increase/decrease this in options). So, for instance, I rewinded to the very first turn and just watched where I went, from planet to planet, looked at fights and analyzed them, watched other ships get into fights in the sector, watch asteroids smash into the atmosphere of planets, etc. Relly neat little feature.
You can land on any planet in the game, even ones where there is no civilization, and explore them. Keep in mind everything besides combat is done via really nicely drawn screens, but there is no “get out of the ship and move around” as in Universal Combat (but who are we kidding, this is probably a good thing). You simply check out the planet with sensors (which I have yet to do… I am yet poor). Same goes for space stations, trading centers, etc … but they do all have their own background images.
You can target multiple hostiles with multiple weapons during combat, hail people for help, you receive breaking news updates and messages (for instance you can pick up police scanner messages about the discovery of a new pirate base in a sector), look at the news on planets and “bookmark” all these to your log, get hailed by people in trouble or offering you work, etc. The world REALLY feels alive, even though it’s a fairly simple 2D world (though I think the ships and such are 3D models). If they had this much life in X2: The Threat, it’d be the best game ever made.
That’s all for now. Really digging this game so far.
One caveat … Starforce haters beware, the game uses Starforce protection.
Ask any question, I’ll answer what I can … or explore the game to find out more.
Also, the Search Engine (found on planets with the news feed) will let you lookup the price of any commodity in the galaxy at any planet. ie- if you search for “Earth” you can see all the current buy and sell prices for everything on Earth. I generally keep notes about planets that seem to pay a lot for certain goods, then when I stumble across a place that is selling, say, luxuries really cheap I’ll buy them and serach up all my “good luxury planets” to see who’s offering the most, fly there and sell em off.
Chris Woods
You can tell my boss is out sick today (has been for a while). Lots of time to post in forums.
I didn’t notice the search function. I’ll try that later. What I did notice is the variety of news tidbits … from food shortages to pirate actions to announcements of who the best pilot is in the ranger corps. And I bet unlike many games, these are tied to real events in the universe.
The universe map threw me the first time I looked at it. Looks like that old game show where they have a background image which is a word puzzle, revealed by the players … but in reverse.
All the text-based adventure style missions are really cool, too. So far I’ve been elected planetary president (and then misued my power to appoint my own, corrupt replacement for major bucks), smuggled cargo in trucks past Mad-Max style road warriors, trained a team of bureaucrats to win the Clerk Olympics, engaged in “diplomacy” with a homicidal Maloq leader and his ever-so-lovely wife, hunted down a known criminal planetside after blowing up his base of operations, etc etc.
Awesome game. I’ve restarted a couple times to try different things, but my current (third) game is up to the 40 hour mark and still going strong. Love everything about it, even the sometimes goofy translations.
So is the original Space Rangers game which is included in the GoGamer combo pack worth looking at? Is all the hype in this thread applicable to Space Rangers 2 only?
Just curious - I might get this on the weekend and I’m wondering if playing Space Rangers 1 first is an option.
Yeah, my copy arrived on Friday, and I haven’t been to bed before 3.30(!) since. This game is stupidly addictive.
Repair. Or Engineering. Something like that.
This determines how many probes you’re allowed to own (not manage, own - the science stations won’t sell you any more than you’re entitled to). At the lowest skill level, you can own two probes.
This actually varies based on the type of hull that you have. Some hulls have more slots than others.
I love the random ship/item system. I’ve been going around buying up the smallest components that I can find for my ship, to maximise the trading space. Got some really nice, small stuff at the moment, and I’ve got about 60k in cash, so I’m about to buy a good combat hull and go pirate-hunting. Pirates often have very cool, pre-customised components on their ships if you bother to scan them. It helps that I’ve already got a 28 weight-unit scanner that will scan anything with less than 20% shields.
The game has a great interface. That little info bar is a clever tool for keeping track of game information.
The info bar combined with the in game ‘google’ for planet price lists makes trading very, very convenient. Much moreso than the lazy man’s option of buying the business centre’s reports. They can still be useful, however - I recommend getting both local and distant reports and making your own trade route from the info contained in both. You can often find a commodity to buy at a great price on one list, and then sell at a location given on the other list.