[Space Combat Sim] Darkstar One

Anyone heard much about it? Sounds promising.

darkstar-one.com/

Cenuries have passed since the great galactic war. Since then, the numerous races within the universe have attempted to live peacefully next to each other. The Great Council is watching over the peace and the powers of the empires. However, recently, a small and reclusive race from the edge of the universe called "Thul" has begun to repeatedly violate the peace.

The galactic peace has been in grave danger ever-since as the races grew increasingly suspicious and began to blame each other for these attacks. The Great Council seems to be on the verge of falling apart. A new war seems inevitable.

In all this turmoil, the hero of the game - the young escort pilot Kayron Jarvis - discovers clues about a secret that his murdered father was apparently hiding. An unknown technology that is hidden within the Darkstar One appears to be the key - but then an unforeseen twist changes the course of events dramatically ...

The Most Important Features:
Elaborate story, related by more than fifty minutes of video sequences

Upgradeable space ship "Darkstar One": The player decides which type of spacecraft he prefers - a fast attack ship with many light weapons or a near-invincible cruiser with heavy weaponry

Over two hundred different weapons, shields and equipment items

Rockets, torpedoes and mines feature special tactical uses: mines can tactically fire at opponents or distract approaching missiles

The "Spell Weapon": the player will have a special weapon at his disposal that will have an area of effect similar to certain spells in role-playing games. This weapon will become increasingly versatile throughout the game and it will increase the tactical potential considerably.

A vast, simulated universe with numerous, completely different races, space ships and battle tactics.

Each race features distinctive weapon types with different functions that require different battle tactics. The player will be able to acquire these weapons in order to mount them on the "Darkstar One".

Special missions, for example in canyons, on the surface of planets or inside of planets

Freedom of choice: the player may earn his credits in many ways, i.e. fighting, piracy, assignments, smuggling, trading, escorting, transporting, rewards ...

Follow your own path, be it "good" or "bad", and take advantage of political disputes.

Compatible with mouse, joystick and gamepad.

Screenies

Demo's gonna be up very soon on GameSpot; Friday, June 30 at 9:00 a.m. PT

Please let this be the start of the space-flight-sim revival...

 

I just got an email from Gamespot about it. Never heard of it before but sounds intriguing. I'll probably download that demo.

 

That looks pretty badass. If it is as good as it says then I shall certainly purchase the actual game and a kickin new joystick.

 

Interesting...I'll be downloading the demo when it comes out.

Edit: I lol'd at the races on the website, though. Lucas is gonna sue somebody about the Oc'to.

 

Sounds like abit of a linear X#-clone to me. I might give it a go.

 

Has anyone noticed that all of the species are very colorful?

 

Know about it?

I got the full game downloaded from Metaboli - exclusive! (www.gamesonradar.com)

The game plays very similar to freelancer, or elite, but with much more playability.

I guess if anyone has qs, ask me.

 

Demo's up, though at nearly a gig I think I'll wait to read some comments before DLing.

So, anyone got any comments?

 

7 gigs? I want to see more corpulence in comic characters, but not that big. Any game over 4 gigs just isn't worth it.

 

JP, I'll download it today and burn you a disc.

 

Just yesterday I was cursing Interplay for ruining the Descent and Freespace series. I'll give this demo a try.

 

For some reason when I choose the UK or US sites for unregistered download they cause the windows standard download window to start the file download, and it only comes through at like 20-30k per sec, but the German one started DAP and it cruising in at a cool 240k per sec, so if anyone else has a similar slow downlad, try the german site... just hope the demo is in english

 

Raptor Military ship;[image=http://darkstarone.ascaron.com/gb/gb_darkstarone/gameinfo/ships_big/raptor_military.jpg]

Can anyone say StarGate Atlantis Wraith Dart?

 

Looks cool. I would get it but I don't think my computer can run it.

 

2minutes left, I'll have a game and let ya know what it's like in an hour or so.

 

I like it! Mouse is a bit confusing to begin with with space combat flying, but get the hang of it. Hyperspace jumps to missions have to be done through the Navmap, "N" then choose where to go (edit = and don't bother choosing the 'jump gate' after pressing "T" cause it doesn't matter how far or close you are to it to jump into hyperspace I flew right into it thinking you had to, and yea... you don't) - but you can only make short jumps so you might have to go to a system and leapfrog to the system your mission's in.

I just got blown up by some police cause my mission was to take some photos of a trade center for a calander, and the police got antsy and said they were pictures of classified stuff and told me to delete the pictures, so I didn't and tried to shoot them down, got 1 but the other two blew me up

Did a few training missions and got revenge for the murder or my father and then got killed just after I saved the game so that was nice,

Generally, good feel to it. Nice missions, seems to have a good background story and you can choose what path you take. Bounty Hunter / Trade etc.

I like.

Oh, after a few missions you automatically get upgraded to be able to buy a missile launcher, I got a bit frustrated because I made money to buy missiles, but it said i had to buy the launcher first... which I couldn't work out how to do. So if you're in my shoes, just wait and do another mission. You don't need missiles for the first ones anyway.

 

Keep us posted, ForceLord. Are the missions linear? How open and accessible is the playfield? Are you more administrator than action playing?

 

Ok, first, just call me SFL like everyone else

Are the missions linear?
I'm guessing yes, though I haven't played enough yet to really know.

How open and accessible is the playfield?
Think of X-Wing Alliance etc... that big. You can fly in any direction for as long as you like. It's not like Empire at War, that's for sure! Oh, and there's "time speed up" so you don't really have to sit for long minutes just flying. (Spacebar allows mouse control while flying (so it disingauges the flight control) and you can click options (ie: hyperspace / time distortion / options / logbook etc). Time delay is cool and speeds things up a bit, you can't play with it though, it's only for flying straight towards a trade station or enemy if they're a long way away. Good feature.

Are you more administrator than action playing?

You are a young chap who's just completed his training and Robert (commander or trade station in the central system (P-something). He gives you a ship, which is completely upgradable over time, he wants you to get familiar with it and do a few training missions. When you go out for the first time to another system (second training mission) you're "wingman friend" tells you to meet him in another system because he wanted to tell you without anyone listening in. So you go and meet him and he tells you this ship can use natural elements to actually change the ship. So these elements are within asteroids (which you can fly into, as it seemed there was a mining operation on the one I did) and if you get close enough the ship detects the element and absorbs it, allowing you to change your ship. Apparently there are about 100 different 'elements' scattered throughout the galaxy and (magically) no one else can use them, so they're yours to find .

You have a chart that shows you your 'reputation' and it can swing towards a number of character types "pirate" "bounty hunter" etc, so you do the missions and take options that steer you towards the type of person you want to be I guess. ie: as i said earlier, I decided I didn't want to delete the photographs I had taken, and the police thought I was a spy, so they blew me up. Obviously if I'd deleted them the police would have been fine and I'd return without the mission being completed.

You can buy upgrades for the ship, one being a bit of technology that operates when police scan you and then they can't see your contribane (in some systems droids or different tradeable goods are banned; so this equipment will help you smuggle, obviously).

So, along the way I'm sure you can upgrade your hull, wings, engines and purcahse different missiles and equipment and choose different missions as you wish.

There seems to be "News" items that occur while you play, and you can read about them from any terminal (on trade stations etc) and I'm guessing these things will influence you later on, if you want to get invloved or what not (though, that's a guess).

So, yea... fun fun fun. Similar controls to X-Wing.

W = BOOST
S = REVERSE THRUSTERS
A = STRAFE (cool, strafe for a space ship. I know!)
D = STRAFE
Z = ROLL
C = ROLL
X = TILTS YOU "UPRIGHT"
E = TARGETS THE SHIP IN YOUR SIGHTS
R = TARGETS CLOSEST ENEMY
T = TARGET LOG (Enemy / Friendly / Neutral with a complete list from which you can click and it will target, so you can find them)
N = Navmap for hyperspace jumps
M = Matches target's speed
MOUSE 1 = Fire
Mouse 2 = Missiles
Mouse 3 = Missiles
Roll mouse = speed up/down

Firing at enemy is good in that you aim for a small "target box" which is leading the ship.

I've found in a dogfight "M" to match speed, or roll mouse back so you slow right down, turn to get them in view, then "M" to match speed - means they stay within your sights better, if they're flying directly away, roll mouse forward to speed up on them, if they deviate, slow down and you'll track them better!

If enemy fly right at you, hold a strafe and a roll (ie: D C and try hold the mouse on their target box and fire), you dodge their fire and give them so

 

I have the full game.

 

Unless you eat liver for breakfast, or snails and frog's legs for dinner; Stop talking rubbish.

From the official forum; FAQ thread:
When will Darkstar One be released?

Germany - Now Available!
UK and ALL English Markets - 11th August 2006
Benelux - August 2006
US - 14th August 2006
France - 30th June 2006
Russia - tba
Spain - tba
more to follow....

 

Maybe he has the German version?

Game sounds like Freelancer maybe I should give it a shot.

 

That's what this; Unless you eat liver for breakfast was referring to.

 

I am not talking rubbish

http://gamesonradar.metaboli.co.uk/ - Note the "Play full game before anyone else"

http://gamesonradar.metaboli.co.uk/MetaGame/productdetail.jsp?product_id=4307 - Darkstar One individual page

Game, Set and Match.

 

Well, I would have got out my sweatbands if I'd known we were playing tennis
[image=http://us.inmagine.com/168nwm/image100/10048/10048045.jpg]

So, if you have the game instead of just stating you have the game, how about some insight?