Vega Strike

Infobox VG
title = Vega Strike


caption = An Ancestor-class fighter cruising around a bio-diverse planet.
developer = [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/Vegastrike:Credits The Vega Strike Team]
publisher =
distributor =
designer =
license = GNU General Public License
series =
engine = Vega Strike Engine
version = 0.5.0
released = 0.5.0: release date and age|2008|04|24
genre = Space simulation
modes = Singleplayer, Multiplayer(v0.5.0 or greater)
ratings = ESRB: Not Rated (NR)
platforms = Cross-platform
media = Internet download
requirements =
input = Keyboard, Mouse, Joystick, Controller

"Vega Strike" is a first-person space trading and combat simulator, developed for Microsoft Windows, POSIX Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, and Mac OS X systems. Many of the core game mechanics of "Vega Strike" are indirectly inspired by "Elite". The successors to "Elite", namely "", were particularly strong influences.

"Vega Strike" is programmed in C/C++ over the OpenGL 3D graphics API and performs internal scripting written in Python and XML. Released under the GNU General Public License, "Vega Strike" is free and open source software.

Gameplay

"Vega Strike" aims to insert players into a large, dynamic universe with diverse factions of varying disposition to the player and to each other, and an economy model where trade, combat and exploration are all profitable. Financial gains allow the player to buy upgrades and/or better vehicles, thus enabling him/her to advance into more dangerous and profitable missions. The player can have varying levels of relations with factions. Negative relations can form if the player kills some of a given faction’s ships. Positive relations can be formed if the player destroys ships that are part of an enemy to a given faction. Players can either buy and sell cargo, or accept missions from the Mission Computer, as well as talking to people in the local bar at the space station/planet. In the tradition of some precursor games, individuals of significant plot importance are often found in bars.

The existence of a universal currency, open markets, trading items of value to all or most groups, and widespread technologies allows the player to do business practically everywhere and buy from anyone.

There is also a campaign in the game which assigns certain missions for the player, following various paths within a story-graph. The player can continue playing the game after the campaign is finished.

Transportation

To travel quickly to and from different planets/space stations in the same system, the SPEC system is used. It multiplies the engine speed of the player’s spacecraft, causing the ship to reach high speeds, allowing the player to quickly travel to different locations in a solar system. However, the number of times it multiplies the engine speed is limited by gravity: The closer the player’s ship is to a planet/space station, the less the speed is multiplied. After the player waits, and gets farther away from the gravity of the planet/station, the SPEC drive will “ramp up”, and the player’s ship will stretch and star streaks will appear, until the player’s spacecraft slows down due to gravity, or the player deactivates the SPEC drive.

To travel to different star systems, the player needs to go to weak points in space known as "Jump Points", as well as buying a jump drive in advance. Once the player equips his/her ship with a jump drive, the player needs to go to a Jump Point. Once the player’s ship is close enough to the jump point, the player can activate the jump drive, and in a few seconds he/she will have “jumped” to another solar system. In typical solar systems, there is an assortment of jump points, each point leading to another system. The player may have to go through multiple systems/jump points to get to the destination system. For missions that span across multiple systems, the instructions for which jump points to go to are displayed on the HUD, but if the player wants to reach an area regardless of any missions, he/she can use the navigation computer to plot the correct course.

Mission types

* Cargo: Transportation of items of the most diverse kinds, ranging from foodstuffs to political prisoners—a dangerous trade, as authorities will detect illegal cargo and pirates will attempt to pry it off unsuspecting haulers.
* Bounty: Players are advised to be careful in their choice of enemies, as these missions can be dangerous.
* Patrol: A number of targets within a system must be scanned in detail by visiting each in turn.
* Clean Sweep: Similar to patrol, but any hostiles encountered on the way must be eliminated.
* Defense : A target in the system is being attacked by enemy forces. The player must eliminate the attacking forces and keep the target from being destroyed. The target can range from a small merchant ship being attacked by some light forces, to a space station being destroyed by a large, well planned attack force.
* Rescue : A player must rescue a downed pilot, and he/she will be rewarded with credits. The player must proceed to a location, tractor the pilot’s escape pod in and carry him to a destination planet. However, the escape pod is usually in a battle zone, and the player is warned to exercise caution in these missions.

Upgrades

"Vega Strike" includes a variety of upgrades for the player’s ship. As the player makes more money, he/she can use it to buy upgrades to improve the spacecraft’s performance. Upgrades include repair, repair systems such as the Repair Droids, Reactors for your spaceship (Better reactors allow the spacecraft to use better weapons and also fly longer distances in your ship with the SPEC system engaged), energy shields and hull upgrades (to make the spacecraft stronger against attack), weapons such as lasers and missiles, maneuverability enhancers (like mult jet turn enhancers which increase the ship’s turning rate), and miscellaneous upgrades such as adding extra cargo space, fuel, cloaking devices (which make the ship invisible visually and undetectable by radar/sensors) and ECM systems (anti-missile countermeasures). Every spacecraft can only carry a limited amount of upgrades, as they all have a maximum upgrade capacity.

Spacecraft

"Vega Strike" contains a wide array of spacecraft that are sold by each race, and by various factions within each race. Vessels vary in purpose from multipurpose civilian craft such as the Plowshare medium-size cargo shuttle to high-performance fighter/assault craft such as the Ariston. Cargo haulers, bombers, and even capital ships are at the player’s disposal.

The player starts with the Llama class light cargo shuttle, along with some basic upgrades. As the player progresses into the game, he/she has a choice of buying multiple ships.

Far from all of the spacecraft in the game are available for the player to buy by default; however, some players edit certain resource files manually to enable other spacecraft to be bought and piloted. Such spacecraft are not (yet) tuned for player usage, and may lead to unbalanced gameplay.

The "Vega Strike" universe

"Vega Strike" takes place in our known universe, as the Solar System and many known names from actual stellar cartography are represented. Sol is not the departing point for players, as the main character, Deucalion, was not raised by humans. The player starts out on an Oceanic planet in the Cephid 17 solar system, unemployed and still reeling from the financial and emotional trauma surrounding the death of his brother-in-law, the previous owner of the vessel he now commands.

Characters

One of the first people the player will meet is Jenek, whose hauler has broken down. He needs the player to deliver a shipment for him. If the player accepts the mission, it will lead into the campaign of the story, where the player will meet more characters.

General characters that appear outside of the campaign are Merchants that hang around bars that give the player cargo missions, Confed officers that assign patrol/clean sweep missions, Pirates and ISO members that give cargo/bounty missions, as well as bounty hunters that give bounty missions.

Species

* Humans: One of the three larger powers in the Vega Strike universe, human factions includes the Andolians, Purists, Shapers, League of Independent Human Worlds, Merchant’s Guild, Unadorned, High-Born, Mechanists, ISO, Interstellar Church of TrueForm’s Return (Luddites), the Forsaken, and assorted pirate groups. The primary genesis of factional divisions among humans can be traced back to the formation of meme-groups on pre-interstellar Earth, and the general pattern of single meme-groups being dominant, if not exclusive, in the first several waves of sub-light colonization. Many of the current human factions have poor, sometimes violent, relations with each other. In general, humans are at war with the Aera.
* Rlaan: The Rlaan are methane breathing aliens and another of the three larger powers. They are firm trading partners with humanity, though by no means allies. Their war with the Aera has calmed over the preceding eight years into a cease-fire, though it has never been formally diplomatically resolved, and minor hostilities still flare on occasion. While the Rlaan have no love for the Aera, they will not directly assist humanity against them unless there appears to be imminent danger of collapse, as it is to their competitive advantage for the human economy to be bogged down with soaring military expenditures.
* Aera: The third and final of the major powers, the Aera are a short-lived, aggressive and vaguely paranoid species that, failing diplomatic negotiations for rights of passage for colony vessels, have attempted a military solution to the interposition of Human and Rlaan space between Aera space and the rest of the jump network. In the game, they are generally unfriendly and they will attack the player. In Human and Rlaan space, there are generally many bounties on Aera spacecraft. They also possess very powerful spacecraft and weapons, and often are part of invasions of other species' solar systems.
* Uln: A minor power and one of only four known extant groups to have achieved interstellar travel on their own, the Uln are of primary interest because their homeworld is the best preserved site known for the study of ancient artifacts. The Uln are ostensibly neutral in external dealings with the major powers, but this is due more to lack of political will and military might to enforce their own opinions than any preference for power-brokering. The Uln are relatively safe from the major powers because access to artifact research sites is perceived as far more of a benefit than any risk posed by the Uln to the major powers themselves.
* Klk'k: The fifth known extant group to achieve space-flight (though they had not reached much beyond their own moons at the time of their discovery). The Klk'k are heavily integrated with human interests, and are members of the Andolian Protectorate.
* Shmrn: The smallest independent power, these are the descendants of a slave species employed by the now defunct Light-Bearer faction of humanity, freed to pursue their own interests at the end of the first Fraternal War. They are descended from the same root stock as the Dgn.
* Other: The Dgn, Mishtali, and Purth are client species of human factions, the Lmpl, Nuhln, and Saahasayaay are client species of the Rlaan, and the Bzbr are a client species of the Aera. There are also life forms such as “Hoffman’s Blobs”, non-extant groups such as the “Ancients” and minimally evidenced groups, such as “TWHON” that do not play significant roles in the day to day affairs of the known extant species.

Factions

There are a large number of hierarchically organized factions in the "VS" universe, too many to list here in detail. The following is an abbreviated list of some notable factions.

* Aeran Ascendancy:
** Bzbr

* Confederation of Inhabited Worlds: This faction includes a subset of the human factions, along with other allied/controlled factions from other species:
** Confederation Joint Fleet
** Andolian Protectorate:
*** Andolians: "The true pulse of an Andolian is not the gentle beating of her heart, but the raging datastream of her mind" (in-game text of the 'neural interface' cargo). Andolians are connected to a neural interface at birth, and unless they are exposed to the datastream at an early age there is a good chance of being driven mad by the torrent of unaccustomed information. Andolians are known to suffer from withdrawal symptoms if isolated from a net for extended periods of time, and are thus nicknamed 'net junkies'. Andolian populated systems are heavily developed, and produce some of the more formidable craft seen in the "Upon The Coldest Sea" time period, including the Tesla class cruiser and Goddard class Bomber.
*** Purth
*** Klk’k
*** Space Born
** High-Born
** Homeland Security
** LIHW (League Of Independent Human Worlds)
** Mechanists (Mandate for Corporeal Perfection via the Abandonment of Flesh): The Mechanists have replaced their bodies with machines/heavily modified them with mechanical parts.
** Interstellar Shipping and Mercantile Guild: The Merchant faction, rather than drawing support from a particular meme-group, grew to power through the successive consumption of smaller cartels by larger ones at the end of the Diamond Dust era.
** Purists: The Purists aim to maintain their particular notions of humanity in the face of technological progress that allows any definition of human to be bent and broken. They avoid the incorporation of technology into their society which would fundamentally alter the physical or mental meaning of being human. Thus they prefer corrective surgery or cultured transplant to cybernetic replacement, are entirely against custom gene-tinkering, and avoid direct neural interfacing.
** Shapers: The Shapers, in contrast to the Mechanists, use genetic engineering to modify their bodies, generation by generation:
*** Dgn
** Unadorned:
*** Mishtali

* Forsaken (The Union of Dispossessed Settlers)

* Hunters: A bounty-hunter’s guild, operating primarily out of human space, both in the Confederation and in Forsaken areas.

* ISO (Interstellar Socialist Organization): This is a human faction with the goal of overthrowing the Confed government and economy and putting a worker oriented socialist economy and government in place. They pose a minor threat to Confed interests, and, despite dissent from some factions as to the methodology, if not the goals, the Confed has cracked down on their membership within its borders in draconian fashion.

* Interstellar Church of True Form’s Return (Luddites): Originating as an extremist branch of the Purists, instead of merely avoiding alterations to humanity, they act as a terrorist group, attempting to eliminate those groups and technologies which act as agents for what they perceive to be “evil” changes in that they “corrupt what was previously constructed in the image of perfection.”

* Human Pirate Groups: During the end of the Diamond Dust era, numerous groups arose to take advantage of the newfound interstellar trade routes. However, absent any central policing authorities, the legality of the manner in which advantage was taken was an entirely relative affair. With the rise of the Confederation, disreputable groups have tended to lose their seats of power, moving from the realm of kleptocracies to mere pirates.

* Rlaan Assembly:
** Rlaan-Briin
** Lmpl
** Nuhln
** Saahasayaay

* Shmrn

* Uln (Sul-Gatwa Celestial Domain)

Mods, add-ons & enhancements

"Privateer Remake"

The "Privateer Remake" is a remake of "" using the "Vega Strike" engine. It contains both graphics from the original game and new 3D models made by fans. The remake is complete at version 1.0, and was featured on Slashdot. [ [http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/03/07/1154252.shtml?tid=202&tid=156&tid=10 Slashdot | Privateer Remake Complete ] ] The "Wing Commander Universe" mod is a continuation of the "Privateer Remake", allowing its developers greater freedom to draw and extrapolate from the entire "Wing Commander" series. There is yet another mod, "Gemini Gold", that focuses on a remake as close to the original "Privateer" as possible, whereas the "Privateer Remake" includes ships and features were not present or not accessible in the original game. Currently all three mods, "Privateer Remake", "Gemini Gold", and "Wing Commander Universe" share resources, making them less three separate games than three separate forks of the same game. "Privateer Remake" currently stands at version 1.2, and there exists a further modification called "Parallel Universe" which may be accessed from the website linked to below.

"Vega Trek"

"Vega Trek" is a "Vega Strike" mod based on the "Star Trek" universe. The project currently consists of a playable "demo", based on an older version of the "Vega Strike" engine, containing numerous fan-made models of many of the vessels including the Starship Enterprise and Klingon Bird-of-prey. it is hoped to eventually become active as a multiplayer game. [ [http://wcuniverse.sourceforge.net/vegatrek/features.html Posting on official website] . ]

"Elite Strike"

"Elite Strike" is a fledgling mod project that aims to re-create the gameplay of the classic "Elite" series, bringing "Vega Strike" back to its roots, full circle. The mod has a growing library of content which, as of April 2006, includes many models of ships from the original "Elite" games, music, and a few models from the later "Frontier" games. No standalone releases have yet been made, but a "pre-release" patch for "Privateer Remake" is available.

References

See also

* List of open source games

External links

* [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net The official "Vega Strike" website]
* [http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/Vegastrike Official wiki]
* [http://wcuniverse.sourceforge.net/ "Privateer Remake" website]
* [http://wcu.solsector.net/ "Wing Commander Universe" website]
* [http://priv.solsector.net/ "Privateer Gemini Gold" website]
* [http://wcuniverse.sourceforge.net/vegatrek/ "Vega Trek" website]
* [http://eliot.bambi.net/elitestrike/ "Elite Strike" website]
* [http://pu.wcjunction.com/ "Parallel Universe" ("Privateer Remake Expansion Pack") website]