Thanks for posting this getter77. I haven't heard of this game until this post and those videos look really good and the concept is solid. Might contact the team and see if they want to come over and do some chatting about their game. I will add this game to the game list in the next update.

Update: Sent an email to the developer so we'll see if they will pop in and chat.

The features remind me of Starflight (which I love) while the graphics remind me of Gratuitous Space Battles (which I adore). If all this comes together as promised, it'll be a win-win. 🙂

Awesome, my first useful fullblown newsbit contributed to this fine place! 😆

Great to see the developer up and about, beyond other things I will say for now: Thanks for the excellent price point---it should go a long ways towards growing a community in the tight times most folk are in.

The art work you are using for the ships is great. Have a few questions on gameplay itself:

- From watching the videos you get the feeling that smaller ships/fighters seem over powered to there larger cousins. Can a small group of 8 fighters take out a larger corvette/cruiser style ship?

- How do you control your ship and units that move with you?

- Can you target subsystems on all the ships? Can the larger ships have jamming/hacking of ship systems?

- Are there plans to use planet or moon gravity against you, nebulas being used for hiding or for damage, asteroids as obstacles?

- Will there be any use of fuel, food or oxygen on your ships?

Well, at first sight,this game kicks a$$ ! Really really cool !

Was wondering how you were controlling all of those ships 🙂 I think it is better to use that style of control so the user only has to worry about their ship and the rest just follow orders like good soldiers should 😉

Now on to some questions on that are in reference to your game description...

* Unique character development system – advance your story, your way

What does that really en-tale? Do you as a character have a passive/active skill tree?

* Impact the inter-stellar economy with your decisions – decide the fate of entire planetary systems

Can you be ruthless if you wanted and take out whole sectors of aliens/factions/colonists? Besides the loss of trade in that sector you would loose whatever resources they were providing to everyone. How do account for bad/good deeds (ie: karma system)?

There is a mention of hundreds of sectors are these randomly populated at the start of each game? And can you ignore story and just play in the game world without being limited?

Like in GSB (Gratuitous Space Battles) will you be able to zoom out to see the sector and zoom in to see the small animations like guns recoiling, weapon trails, sparks, fire and all the eye candy stuff? 🙂

alexm your ideas and concepts of gameplay for Starfarer are great and you can have a real gem on your hands. Can't wait to see some more videos and a beta eventually.

Actually prefer more passive skills to active. This way you can make them experience style achievements. Meaning, that lets say your favor weapon type is a certain rail type weapon. After so many kills with that weapon time your efficiency with that weapon raises and the same with most other skills.

Does your fleet assets gain any type of rank or build skills as they survive engagements with you or does your passive skill enhancement trickle down to the AI controlled units?

I like it 🙂 In your example could this actually have implications on the main story line or is that separate from this game decisions? And is there some sort of news service to keep users apprised of goings on in the sector?

Will that be a closed event or will anyone that pre-orders be able to play in the alpha/beta builds of the game? Can't wait to see some more progress on Starfarer and thanks again Alexm for answering some of these questions I'm sure it will perk some peoples interest in the game.

Alexm

Will the pre-order price stay like this until the Alpha is released? I would like to see the alpha build before dropping a few dollars to pick up the game.

I wanna support this game, but I don't wanna spend what little money I have until there's something "tangible", even in digital form. Therefore, please let us know when the alpha is available and I'll happily buy it then. 🙂

Hey, I just registered mainly to express my support for this (even though I will probably stick around)!

I'll preorder the game soon, based on three things that earn the developer great plus points in advance:

1. Mount&Blade-style "Preorder for discount and early versions" business model. I have made good experiences in the past with preordering the aforementioned game and find this approach absolutely worthy of my support in a world where full price games are all too often actually beta versions that are soon abandoned by their developers.

2. The declared goal of letting the player have an impact on the universe. This is one thing many Elite-clones are missing. I, being a strategy and RPG player, don't want to develop my character just to see numbers rise and my bank account fill - I want to use that to change the galaxy! One thing I adored about the Rangers-games was that you had a sort-of dynamic campaign where you saw systems fall to the enemy, but could do something about it as the war went on. Of course, my dream is still to have sort-of a military career mode in a game like this, Starshatter-style, but I am going off-track here. All in all - if I can buy a space station, outfit a fleet and carve my own little empire out of the galaxy, I am pretty happy already.

3. A developer who actually communicates? Hey, even among indie developers, that's not something you see every day. Just to the dev being on this forum, I tip my hat.

As for the gameplay material I have seen so far, it looks really, REALLY solid. Presentation is sleek, combat looks fun and I am looking forward to seeing the concept unfold on a larger scale.

I've been reading up on the Starfarer homepage, and I have to wholeheartedly agree with monsterfurby.

I will pre-order this game after finishing this post. You guys are combining a couple of my favorite game genres into one, and you are doing so AND making it look good at the same time. (I only hope the big flashes that white out the screen when something big blows up can be turned down a notch) I really like the combination of the 4X-ish style with an open, evolving universe where what you do actually has an impact on said universe.

I am very curious to see how the character progression pans out and what the options are for customizing your character to fit your playstyle...

another thing I'm wondering about, how MODdable are you guys making this game?

Sweet!

A podcast interview was posted on the Starfarer website a couple of days ago. It's an interview that Immortal Machines did with project leader Alex.

Long story short, it made me very happy. Alex mentions allot of games that inspired him, and I must say I love all of them. He also goes into detail about some of the concepts of the game, and talks about the moddability of the game.

One thing to note is how he is planning to handle control of your empire and assets. The following sentence he said just strikes me as right: "The larger your empire is, the less direct control you have." (or something like that).

It's quite a long interview, and to be completely honest, a bit boring at bits, but an interesting one nevertheless. If you are interested in this game, and have some time to spare then I suggest you listen to it.

EDIT: yay! 100th post 😀

Nice vid, posted a comment on yer website.

For the screen capture software, there are a few possibilities that I know of:

[*:2yvaegw6]

FRAPS: Easy to use, makes VERY VERY VERY big files (think a couple of GB for 30 mins of video) and has an annoying watermark unless you buy it. Quality is excellent though.

[*:2yvaegw6]XFire: I'm not all to familiar with this one but I've read on a couple of fora that it's better then FRAPS.

[*:2yvaegw6]VHScrCap & Procaster combination: This is a real b*tch to set up, but after that the quality is excellent, video size is good and it has no watermarks. Oh, and it's free.

For that I know of only one free one:

Ligntworks: This is a very professional (recently open sourced) video editing program, but this might be like trying to shoot a fly with the Death Star.

This program was used to edit some major movies including The King's speech, shutter island, the phantom of the opera, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, 28 days later, Mrs. doubtfire, braveheart, and mission impossible.

I'm not quite sure what the learning curve on this is though, but this will show off your game in 1080p glory...

Excellent! I have kept an eye on this title, and hope all goes well with that alpha! Ill give the manual a perusal in the mean time.