Good day, guys. I am a long time lover of blogs on StopGame. You never know what you’ll stumble upon in this seedy place. It just so happened that I came across Space Rangers 3.
Forgive me for my small byte, but apparently few people know about this project. As far as I understand, StarSim is being developed by one person – his name is Viktor Martynovsky. The game is the spiritual successor to Space Rangers and takes most of the mechanics from there. The player needs to control a spaceship and, unlike the Rangers, a team. Tasks such as deliver cargo, destroy a pirate or protect a merchant “until November 3002” on the spot. Text quests are also present. Space trading, go-stop and turn-based battles are also included. Literally everything screams about the same gameplay of the “Space Rangers” that I so dearly love. But let’s take it in order.
Forge of Heroes..
StarSim starts with the character creation screen. We have 4 races at our disposal. Brelyens are large-headed, purple humanoids distinguished by their mental abilities and thirst for high technology. A sort of cross between the Faeans and the Gaalians. Huzards are green-skinned lizard-like humanoids whose hallmarks are cunning and deception. Pelengs… I fucking hate Pelengs… Stroks are strong red-skins, and kind of horned, humanoids who respect strength and power. Local Maloki. In general, there is not much to say about them at the moment, due to their unavailability in the alpha demo version. But people are available – a balanced race of influential diplomats who advocate the unification of other races. Unlike most modern AAA projects, there are only 2 genders – man and woman
You can’t choose a class, but you can choose a subclass… Essentially a class, but not like that. What causes this – I don’t know. There are 8 subclasses to choose from, here they are from left to right. The Ranger is a versatile adventurer. Soldiers – defenders of native systems and lovers of special operations. The pirate is a fan of gop-stop and a redneck by nature (as the author: 3). A merchant is a coin lover who transports goods from places where they are cheap to places where they are expensive. These subclasses are available in the demo version, but besides them there are also these guys. The captain is a space bomber who transports people for money. Diplomat – master of negotiations and building relationships between factions. A miner is a hard worker, mainly engaged in the extraction of minerals. Well, a spy is a special agent of a faction whose goal is to hunt for other people’s secrets and protect their own. Each race has 2 factions. Due to the availability of only one race, I can tell you about two human factions. House Ascolat, which had great influence on diplomatic relations of all races and factions, and the GoldenEye Syndicate, known for its wealth and charitable activities.
In place and setting up the character “doll”. Hair, beards, tattoos and color settings for each item – everything is the same as in an adult game, except for the design, but more on that later.
Gameplay…
So, we’ve sorted out the introductory. Let’s https://gamexch567casino.co.uk/ go into space. The demo is limited to the initial sector of the galaxy and one year of life, so you won’t be able to fully experience all the local mechanics even after several attempts. The game greets us with a painfully familiar interface with a date display, wallet, available weight and a bunch of buttons, including diplomacy, a star map, search, ship and crew inventory, a “reference” and a captain’s log, which displays available tasks. While on a planet or station, a submenu appears with a hangar, shops and negotiations with local representatives. Everything is quite easy to learn and even familiar if you are an “experienced ranger”.
Directly in space, a familiar mini-map of the system is announced with the radar range, the trajectories of the planets, the star in the center. Chewie, we’re home! A quick guide to celestial bodies when hovering in place. But once you start moving, you realize that there is no step-by-step system here. There is an active pause, but there is no limitation of 1 day, during which it was necessary to decide what to do and distribute the ship’s resources in different directions. Not usual – yes. But it doesn’t cause any rejection. Click on the planet, possible actions pop up, the same works with spaceships. There really is a nuance here; in “Space Rangers” you could choose battle tactics based on your equipment. For example, armed with rocket launchers and a fast engine, keep your distance and shoot groups of enemies. In StarSim there is only one command – the attack command. That is, you lie on the tail of an enemy ship and shoot, which is quite primitive, but do not forget, this is an alpha demo version developed by one person.
You can change the equipment of the ship, and the ship itself. They differ in capacity, load capacity and body structure. Somewhere there are more guns, somewhere there is less equipment. I also couldn’t help but notice a new thing – some modular rooms of the ship. All sorts of prisons for transporting prisoners, arsenals, wardrooms and stuff like that. This all gives rise to certain thoughts, but unfortunately, in the demo their potential is not revealed at all. All equipment has weight and characteristics, and is subject to modernization at the research station. The scope for playing with balance is huge, as is the possibility of making a mistake.
On planets you can accept various tasks for protection, elimination or delivery. You won’t be able to complete many of these tasks in a year of demo, but, like in Rangers, they can complete themselves. Eliminating pirates is generally “easy” money, since absolutely everyone considers pirates hostile and as soon as such a poor fellow takes off from the planet, everyone who was nearby rushes after him. Protecting the system from attacks or the merchant’s ship is more difficult. Any damage, even non-fatal, will result in mission failure. So completing defense tasks seemed impossible to me in the current version of the game.
As I mentioned earlier, we have a team, and even more so, we seem to be free to change their uniforms. This is made for turn-based battles like “wall to wall”, but I never saw this in the demo. We are satisfied with the footage from the trailer. You can’t call it a replacement for the planetary battles from “Space Rangers,” but it’ll do as a more budget-friendly alternative. Again, it’s hard to draw conclusions based on the trailer.
I’ve played the demo several times. A year is just enough to complete all story missions (including 4vs4 boarding battle and text quest). The main thing is to immediately improve the engine at the research station and buy a search probe in advance (knowing that it will be useful later).
maniak1986 a.k.a. Developer
But what I was able to try out in the demo was a text quest to find a stolen artifact. You can’t compare Rangers with graphomania, although the mechanics are similar. The text is replete with errors, both spelling and logical. Forks lead either to death or to success. There is no third option. Choice without choice – this is how I would describe the quest I got acquainted with. There’s clearly some work to be done here.
Audio/Visual
Well… if the StarSim gameplay template looks tolerable and can be adjusted, then the project has big problems with the visual design. I consider the main repulsive factor to be the attempt to combine a 3D environment with 2D characters. It’s right on the surface. Not many people are able to use such a technique, and even fewer are able to do it organically. Of the recent examples, only Hades or Darkest Dungeon come to mind, and then with reservations. The characters look like an inept paint drawing. The planets, stars and backgrounds aren’t particularly attractive either, and menu windows such as the ship’s inventory or the planetary store are noticeably lacking in detail. Pictures from text quests, which can’t be called anything other than rough drafts for ninth grade students. Something clearly needs to be done with the graphic design. To begin with, at least bring everything to a single style. I understand that one person does not always combine both an artist and a programmer, and that is why games are mostly developed by entire teams, where everyone is responsible for their own aspect of the game. As a last resort, there are always freelancers. Yes, you’ll have to spend money, but passable gameplay deserves passable visuals.
As for the musical component, there is a sense of plainness here. During the game, more than one musical composition remained in my memory. But as soon as you start the game and get to the main menu… Cheeeeeel… I have already cut this composition out of my recording and transferred it to my mobile phone, with the goal of waking up with a buzz to this track every morning. It’s like if the Space Rangers soundtrack made passionate love with the music from Rimworld and they had a beautiful baby. I’ve heard country in space-themed projects and respect such a choice, but to create futuristic country – I don’t remember this. Whoever created this composition, my bow and gratitude to him or her. If the entire soundtrack is stylized as something similar for the release, then I’m even ready to fork out for an expanded edition with art and the official soundtrack.
So, before voicing my opinion on StarSim, I would like to record one point. This is an alpha demo version of the game being developed by one person. Judging by the developer’s latest vlogs, he is on the verge of losing motivation to work on the project. And with this article I aim to draw the attention of as many gamers as possible to this game. In my humble opinion we have uncut blank of a promising project. I am convinced that if the part of the Space Rangers fandom that is busy developing mods and patches switched their attention to StarSim, then we could play in the near future, although not a full-fledged third part, but in a worthy successor to the Rangers series. I don’t know if I managed to convey the essence of the project in my short essay on the topic, but what I am sure of is the potential of StarSim. The demo is free and anyone can view it. If you feel something stir in your chest when you mention the phrase "Space Ranger Corps", then I ask you to add the project to your wish list on Steam, write a review to the developer and, if possible, support the project. I’m not sure about the money, since I didn’t find such information, but sometimes words have much more tangible power. I will continue to monitor StarSim updates and hope for the release.
Thank you all for reading this material, please like/dislike and write comments. That’s all I have for today. Thanks everyone, bye everyone. : *