Starwolf

George · Post by **George** » Sun May 29, 2005 1:35 am

Anyone else tried it? I've been playing it most of this evening and it seems pretty fun.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Sun May 29, 2005 2:10 am

Link?

George · Post by **George** » Sun May 29, 2005 2:27 am

http://www.excalibur-publishing.com/starw.htm

It's kind of like the bastard child of Homeworld, Privateer, and Silent Storm. Its a third-person squad-level space combat game, so it plays kind of like Homeworld or Allegiance. However there's no RTS aspect; instead you complete missions for pay to buy new fighters and equipment. And your pilots earn experience to buy abilities from skill trees.

I'd never heard of it until it showed up in the place I usually get my games. For a Russian developer, the spoken dialog is surprisingly fluent compared to the written dialog. Maybe they only hired illiterate voice actors so there wasn't anyone to proof read the text.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Sun May 29, 2005 5:02 am

I played the demo and I like it. Where can I get the game?

George · Post by **George** » Sun May 29, 2005 12:20 pm

Damn, that turned out to be a good question. I tried their "Where to buy" links and the only places that actually carried it were amazon.co.uk (9.99 pounds) and play.com (17.99 pounds), both based in the UK. Excalibur's own online ordering webpage is really screwed up; it doesn't even list prices.

Ah, after looking at review pages, it looks like it has been released only in Europe. I couldn't find a US release date more precise that "TBA 2005".

George · Post by **George** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:19 pm

I'm still playing (and still having fun) after several days.

A couple of warnings for anyone else who plays. There is a two-part mission where you have to deliver food to a blockaded system. After the first couple minutes of the first mission, every save game I made was corrupted. So, if you take that mission, don't save over existing saves and be prepared to have to restart the mission if none of your saves work. Saving has worked fine ever since I finished the mission.

Also, you may want to choose missiles or piloting as your main character's focus. I chose guns and it turned out that two of the first four other characters also specialize in guns, one specializes in systems, and I didn't get the fourth character. Now my hold is full of missiles that none of my pilots can use effectively.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:27 pm

Is that the mission with Astra? Or a different mission?

Did you ever get ships / add-ons that let you use berserker weapon? I got two small gun, lazer in the demo from berserker but I can't use them

George · Post by **George** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 11:12 pm

Yes, it is the mission where you meet Astrid. After you jump through the portal to the second half of the mission everything works fine again.

One of the characters has a skill that will let you use Berzerk technology in their systems tree. I am only a couple points away from acquiring it. Berzerk small lasers are really common on some missions. I'm sure I've acquired at least two dozen, and since they're worth a lot of money, I sold all but a couple. I'm not sure yet how effective they'll be compared to my current small gun of choise, the Mace. I haven't yet seen any other Berzerk technology, although I have fought several new ship types.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 5:48 pm

George wrote:and I didn't get the fourth character.

You turn him in for cash didn't you? Did you still got the mission to reclaim the stolen ship from the intro movie? If not who did you get instead of Heretic? I think Red is pretty good just for the solvo attack, otherwise capital ships are a pain in the butt.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 6:00 pm

Grouping seems to be pretty useless until your character has tactic skill. Most of the wingman just follow the leader around and is not attacking as much. Astra's evil eye and luck skill seems somewhat unbalancing...

George · Post by **George** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:05 pm

Yeah, I sold Red Corsair and bought a bunch of really expensive weapons that are now mostly obsolete. I was trying to go the "legal" route (I skipped one "illegal" mission), but I'm not sure anymore that it makes a difference. I did get Heretic.

I've found that the defense option in the group is useful. I haven't figured out quite what it does, but it seems like the defender sits at the outside of the dogfight and chases down ships that attack the leader. Ships tend to turn away when they're under fire, so I think the net effect is to reduce the amount of time the enemies spend shooting at your leader. I also use Astra's repair option (I bought the second-level ranged repair system off the black market) a lot. Missile defense seems useless; if the ECM doesn't divert a missile, it always makes it throught the AMS.

If Red Corsair is a missile character, then I really regret not picking him up. I got hammered repeatedly last night trying to take down a second-level Berzerk capital ship escorted by a first-level Berzerk capital ship and something like 15 Berzerk fighters. Right now, my squad of four fighters has a total of two missile slots between them.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:21 pm

I actually find AMS to be kind of useful. I can skip EMC and just have one person with AMS, I just need to remember to turn on missile defense. The support has to be near the targetted ship to work though. And Astra's repair does help a lot. Do you know if the repair bots effect stacks? It would be helpfule if mothership can repair faster since I use it as tank most of the time.

I might have to play with the defense option some more.

George · Post by **George** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:36 pm

The shield boosters stack, but I don't know about the repairs. It's hard to tell how fast the repairs are happening because I'm usually getting hit and pausing while the repairs are going on.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:57 am

Looks like repair bot does stack, even the ranged ones.

Also illegal missions definitely pays. I took the mission to hit USS transporter and I found a hidden uranium stash that I sold for 12k. I also killed all the USS patrol for the hell of it and netted two thunderbolts. With Ace's sniper shot + two thunderbolts I am kicking asses left and right. Now I have to think about if I want to attack InGo's transporter.

This game is too awesome ... need to goto sleep ...

George · Post by **George** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:02 pm

Yep, I kept sitting down to play "for an hour" after work, and the next time I'd look at the clock it would be 9:30.

George · Post by **George** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:06 am

Hehe, if you can't beat a capital ship head on, try running away. I let this monster Berzerk ship chase my main characters fighter across the entire map, while the rest of my characters chased the ship. Self-repair and a fast unit kept my one fighter alive; the limited firing arcs of the ship's guns kept my others alive. My mothership flew to the opposite corner of the map to keep it out of trouble.

Oh, and four berzerk lasers on one fighter is pretty sweet. Now, if only Astra could aim.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:31 am

Peijen wrote:Looks like repair bot does stack, even the ranged ones.

I take that back, I don't think the ranged repair stacks. It was the patrol that was healing as well.

I used similar tactic to bring down capital ship. Distract it with my main character and two healer, while Ace hit it with 4 berzerk lasers and Heretic with two thurderbolts. Even with Corsair's salvo it still took me a few try to clean up three capital ship.

Also having three raptors is fun. 12 lazer shots across the screen!!

I must say I like EL's concept, have a self aware virus as a wingman is pretty awesome. Too bad I can only have 6 people team. (think about spamming her summon skill with 12 copies of her

)

I wonder if there is a downside of doing the pirate missions.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:34 am

George wrote:Oh, and four berzerk lasers on one fighter is pretty sweet. Now, if only Astra could aim.

Haha, so true, with Astra you seen four lazer shots going all over the place. With Ace you see one shot (stacked) hitting the enemy.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 6:04 am

going to have to say missiles are useless outside of taking down capital ships.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 6:04 am

So is this a demo that you're playing so much? Or did you manage to find a way to buy it?