To own a starship: that is the dream that has kept you sane since you began working at the mill at the age of fifteen, saving up money little by little to pay for a captain’s license. In the weeks when you were working so deep in the bowels of the factory that you could not even see out the windows from where you sat, you would tell yourself: one day, I will take to the sky, and be free. One day I will leave this planet behind...
You are about to purchase your first ship and set out to make your fortune among the stars. What happens next is up to you. Will you take on the quiet, steady work of a merchant captain? Or join the Navy and fight to keep the galaxy safe? Will you choose the glamorous life of a bounty hunter and fight pirates for a living? Or will you become a pirate yourself? Or will you journey beyond the edge of known space, seeking friends among the strange and powerful aliens that inhabit the other corners of the galaxy?
Starting a New Game
As a new pilot, only a handful of ships are within your price range. Each one is suited to a slightly different personality:
The Shuttle is the cheapest and most versatile option. Nearly as
nimble as a fighter, shuttles can easily escape from slower pirate ships
and even dodge missiles, which is a good thing because they are
otherwise useless in combat. Shuttles are classified as “transports”
because they have relatively small cargo holds, and instead their most
common use is ferrying passengers: a great way for more gregarious
captains to meet interesting people while exploring the galaxy.
The Star Barge is a slow ship, but with ample cargo capacity, enough
to be able to take on multiple simultaneous delivery jobs. Or, a captain
without much hunger for variety can earn a stable living on a Star
Barge just by finding a decent trade route and running it over and over
again. Unfortunately, Star Barges are a favorite target of pirates
because they often carry valuable cargo and are hardly ever able to
outrun their adversaries.
The Sparrow is the cheapest interstellar ship you can buy that is
designed for combat. With enough luck or skill, a Sparrow pilot can earn
income by disabling and boarding small pirate ships... or by turning
pirate and attacking civilians. Once you earn a reputation in combat,
you can find a more steady income as an escort for merchant caravans,
but even so, life at the helm of a Sparrow is risky and uncertain. The
safe way to make money in a Sparrow is by mining asteroids, which is
described later.
Your game is saved automatically every time you take an action while landed. The game also maintains the three most recent previous saves in case you need to revert to one of them (via the “Load / Save...” menu). If you quit the game while landed on a planet, your progress is saved; otherwise, your progress since the last planet you departed from is lost. If you want to be able to return to a specific point in time, perhaps because you are about to make a major decision or undertake a risky mission, you can save a “snapshot” of the current game. These snapshots are never overwritten or deleted unless you choose to delete them. A special snapshot named “autosave” is updated whenever you reach a new milestone in the story line.
You can pause the game and bring up the main menu at any time by pressing the main menu key (escape, by default). The “Preferences” panel lets you view and edit all the key controls.
About Giampaolo Rossi.
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