help with name of 1990s single-player game of spaceship combat
February 17, 2013 4:21 PM Subscribe
Hello,
I was hoping that someone could name the turn-based space strategy game I played as a demo on my PC back around 1995. I offer these sketchy details:
--it was a turn-based game where you piloted and battled using one or more spaceships
--the game offered the intriguing feature of allowing you to design new spaceships
--I remember learning the word "chassis" from the game, since you could choose what type of chassis you wanted in ship design, among other choices
--the GUI was predominantly a gray-colored menu with text and options that you could interact with using the mouse, along with some more-or-less static images of planets and spaceships
--I don't recall much in the way of storyline or even characters
--I think you didn't see faces of characters much at all, or much of them otherwise.
Thank you for trying to help me penetrate the obscurity.
Could you be talking about Tyrian (or the modern Windows port, Tyrian 2000)? (Or not -- didn't read turn-based. Sorry!)
posted by zer0render at 4:26 PM on February 17, 2013
posted by zer0render at 4:26 PM on February 17, 2013
I thought it might be Masters of Orion too, but the GUI wasn't really like that in that game.
posted by gerryblog at 4:33 PM on February 17, 2013
posted by gerryblog at 4:33 PM on February 17, 2013
Best answer: Sounds a lot like Pax Imperia, actually. It came out for the Mac, but if you played it on an SE/30, the whole thing would have been B&W.
posted by valkyryn at 4:37 PM on February 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by valkyryn at 4:37 PM on February 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Missionforce: Cyberstorm came out for the PC in 1996. It's a turn-based, isometric view mecha strategy game. You accept missions on multiple planets and star systems and customize your mechs extensively, one of the options being "chassis." The mech pilots are generic, genetically engineered "bioderms."
posted by Nomyte at 7:32 PM on February 17, 2013
posted by Nomyte at 7:32 PM on February 17, 2013
I got my first computer in 1993, and bought a scifi-themed game called "When Worlds War" at that time. I don't remember much about it, but I do remember designing spaceships.
This page: http://www.exisle.net/v3test2/mb/index.php?/topic/18493-running-dos-games-in-winxp/ is the only confirmation I can find of its existence in Google.
posted by Hatashran at 9:18 PM on February 17, 2013
This page: http://www.exisle.net/v3test2/mb/index.php?/topic/18493-running-dos-games-in-winxp/ is the only confirmation I can find of its existence in Google.
posted by Hatashran at 9:18 PM on February 17, 2013
I got my first computer in 1993, and bought a scifi-themed game called "When Worlds War" at that time.
Maybe it was When Two Worlds War.
Searching homeoftheundergrounds.net for turn-based starship design games, I found Fleet Starship Tactical Combat Simulator, a 1997 shareware game that you could have played the unregistered version of.
posted by Authorized User at 12:24 AM on February 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Maybe it was When Two Worlds War.
Searching homeoftheundergrounds.net for turn-based starship design games, I found Fleet Starship Tactical Combat Simulator, a 1997 shareware game that you could have played the unregistered version of.
posted by Authorized User at 12:24 AM on February 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Hm, total shot in the dark, but could it be Spaceward Ho!? I played it on my Windows PC in the 90s and you can design spaceships. The menu color would depend on your settings in Windows. I'm not sure the word chassis was used, though.
posted by Skybly at 12:49 AM on February 18, 2013
posted by Skybly at 12:49 AM on February 18, 2013
This sounds like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri although the timing is a little off. It is turn based, set on a different planet and you design your own units.
posted by drugstorefrog at 5:56 AM on February 18, 2013
posted by drugstorefrog at 5:56 AM on February 18, 2013
Maybe it was When Two Worlds War.
So it was. I recognize the box.
posted by Hatashran at 6:50 AM on February 18, 2013
So it was. I recognize the box.
posted by Hatashran at 6:50 AM on February 18, 2013
It could also be sid meier's alpha centauri. IT was turn based, and did include a feature to design your own ships.
posted by nalyd at 7:17 AM on February 18, 2013
posted by nalyd at 7:17 AM on February 18, 2013
I'm with honeyacid, my mind went to Galactic Civilizations the moment you talked about ship building.
posted by Nufkin at 2:39 PM on February 18, 2013
posted by Nufkin at 2:39 PM on February 18, 2013
It is Critical Mass by Sean O'Connor (one of his "windows games"). Turn based, you could design your own ships?
posted by Mattat at 9:48 AM on February 19, 2013
posted by Mattat at 9:48 AM on February 19, 2013
Response by poster: Hey, the answer I was looking for was Pax Imperia, one of the first answers. By the way, this was my first question posted to Metafilter, and I was absolutely amazed at the number of responses. I wasn't sure I'd have any responses yet when I checked this page for the first time since posting.
posted by Perifferol at 4:55 PM on February 20, 2013
posted by Perifferol at 4:55 PM on February 20, 2013
I loved that game.
For what it's worth, I have not seen any game, before or sense, which offered as much customizability in its units, including the sequel. Both the original and the sequel let you put just about any combination of components on hulls of various sizes, but only the original actually let you design the components. That's right, tech levels didn't unlock specific, discrete component types, they just gave you points to spend on designs.
It's been twenty years, so I'm a little fuzzy on the precise details. But as I recall, weapons had two types (lasers and shields), two attributes (damage and accuracy) and five range brackets. Sensors had targeting, ECM, and ECCM capabilities, also at five ranges. Defensive components had two attributes, armor (for missiles) and shields (for lasers). Drives had power generation, tactical movement, and interstellar movement. Every tech level gave you more points to spend on increasing these attributes, but doing so at longer range was more expensive. Further, the more tech points something cost, the more expensive it was to build. But not using all of your points made designs cheaper, so today's impractically-expensive, cutting-edge design is tomorrow's off-the-shelf commodity.
The pre-loaded designs for both ships and tech were more-or-less balanced affairs. Basically, they'd get about 25-30% of a given range bracket before starting on the next one, and increasing the values basically in step. But you totally didn't have to do that. You could allocate those points in any combination of range brackets that you wanted. This endowed the player with enormous flexibility. For example, a single gun that was very effective at short range but increasingly ineffective at longer range, would use a ton of tech points, making it expensive. Instead of doing that, you could max out a single range bracket. Not only did this make the ship more effective at every available range* but it made each individual component cheaper as time went on. You could max out point-blank range pretty quickly, the equivalent of a shotgun, making it dirt cheap only a short way into the game. But you could also max out only the longest range, the equivalent of a sniper rifle, far before the pre-loaded designs were even minimally effective there.
I came up with these fighter-things, consisting of the smallest possible hull with a huge honking engine, a single gun that was maxed out at the longest range, and once I could afford to stick both thrust and power in a single engine, a kick-ass sensor package. They were ridiculously cheap compared to capital ships or even frigates, so you could churn them out by the dozens. But because it took so long for the pre-loaded designs to pose any real threat at maximum range, you could take down a surprising number of capital ships without losing any. Even once the designs caught up, the fighters were so cheap that you could afford to lose a few dozen to take down a single dreadnought. But you'd better be danged sure that they had the firepower to get through the enemy's defenses, or a single well-tanked dreadnought with a pea shooter could wipe out all of 'em.
Even games that do let you design your own units, like the sequel, SMAC, GalCiv, the MOO series, etc., don't generally let you design your components. There's a defined tech tree, with defined technological advances leading to discrete components. Pax Imperia let you build every kind of building (there were only five) right away, and the only discrete inventions were increasingly larger classes of ship hull that became available over time. Other than that, you could basically go nuts.
Oh, and for the record, the single-player can work like an RTS. It's a fundamentally turn-based game, but you can set it so that turns simply advance on a clock. Given that it came out in 1992, this makes it not only one of the first real RTS games, but the only game of which I'm aware which works both as an RTS and turn-based game in the same engine. There are some games that have turn-based strategic modes and RTS tactical modes. This has a strategic mode that does both. Pretty unique, I think.
*For some reason, having one gun (making up numbers here) that did 10 damage at a given range was usually better than having two guns that did 5 at the same range, especially if the big gun was more accurate. So having a single gun that hit big time at one range was more effective at that range than having a pair of guns whose effectiveness was spread over several brackets.
posted by valkyryn at 7:49 AM on February 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
For what it's worth, I have not seen any game, before or sense, which offered as much customizability in its units, including the sequel. Both the original and the sequel let you put just about any combination of components on hulls of various sizes, but only the original actually let you design the components. That's right, tech levels didn't unlock specific, discrete component types, they just gave you points to spend on designs.
It's been twenty years, so I'm a little fuzzy on the precise details. But as I recall, weapons had two types (lasers and shields), two attributes (damage and accuracy) and five range brackets. Sensors had targeting, ECM, and ECCM capabilities, also at five ranges. Defensive components had two attributes, armor (for missiles) and shields (for lasers). Drives had power generation, tactical movement, and interstellar movement. Every tech level gave you more points to spend on increasing these attributes, but doing so at longer range was more expensive. Further, the more tech points something cost, the more expensive it was to build. But not using all of your points made designs cheaper, so today's impractically-expensive, cutting-edge design is tomorrow's off-the-shelf commodity.
The pre-loaded designs for both ships and tech were more-or-less balanced affairs. Basically, they'd get about 25-30% of a given range bracket before starting on the next one, and increasing the values basically in step. But you totally didn't have to do that. You could allocate those points in any combination of range brackets that you wanted. This endowed the player with enormous flexibility. For example, a single gun that was very effective at short range but increasingly ineffective at longer range, would use a ton of tech points, making it expensive. Instead of doing that, you could max out a single range bracket. Not only did this make the ship more effective at every available range* but it made each individual component cheaper as time went on. You could max out point-blank range pretty quickly, the equivalent of a shotgun, making it dirt cheap only a short way into the game. But you could also max out only the longest range, the equivalent of a sniper rifle, far before the pre-loaded designs were even minimally effective there.
I came up with these fighter-things, consisting of the smallest possible hull with a huge honking engine, a single gun that was maxed out at the longest range, and once I could afford to stick both thrust and power in a single engine, a kick-ass sensor package. They were ridiculously cheap compared to capital ships or even frigates, so you could churn them out by the dozens. But because it took so long for the pre-loaded designs to pose any real threat at maximum range, you could take down a surprising number of capital ships without losing any. Even once the designs caught up, the fighters were so cheap that you could afford to lose a few dozen to take down a single dreadnought. But you'd better be danged sure that they had the firepower to get through the enemy's defenses, or a single well-tanked dreadnought with a pea shooter could wipe out all of 'em.
Even games that do let you design your own units, like the sequel, SMAC, GalCiv, the MOO series, etc., don't generally let you design your components. There's a defined tech tree, with defined technological advances leading to discrete components. Pax Imperia let you build every kind of building (there were only five) right away, and the only discrete inventions were increasingly larger classes of ship hull that became available over time. Other than that, you could basically go nuts.
Oh, and for the record, the single-player can work like an RTS. It's a fundamentally turn-based game, but you can set it so that turns simply advance on a clock. Given that it came out in 1992, this makes it not only one of the first real RTS games, but the only game of which I'm aware which works both as an RTS and turn-based game in the same engine. There are some games that have turn-based strategic modes and RTS tactical modes. This has a strategic mode that does both. Pretty unique, I think.
*For some reason, having one gun (making up numbers here) that did 10 damage at a given range was usually better than having two guns that did 5 at the same range, especially if the big gun was more accurate. So having a single gun that hit big time at one range was more effective at that range than having a pair of guns whose effectiveness was spread over several brackets.
posted by valkyryn at 7:49 AM on February 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
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posted by randomnity at 4:26 PM on February 17, 2013