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I was in a mode for some good space sim and I wanted to play the good old StarLancer. I was so sad when I found out that my game cds were not working. So I went on a game hunt and while I was looking for it I really started to remeber the good times with it and how much I miss it. So at last I found it and started playing it again.

 

StarLancer

Is a space sim game. Made by Microsoft Games some 6-7 years ago I think.

The game plays out in a future Sol. There are two sides the Allinace and the Coalition[they are the cold war US and Rusia]. The game starts with a hidden attack on a peace talk and all out war breaks out the alliance takes havey loses and all people with flight know how are to come in and join the fight. Here is were you come in you take a place of a fighter pilot and are set for a great advanture.

What makes this game so good. Well after all this time the graphics wont sell it to you but they are still very very good. What will sell it to you is the great war story and maybe the best war feal in all missions that any game of this type will offer. Every mission has the element of suprise things going wrong and the need to think on your feet.

I think that you can still find it out there and it is very very cheap so if you like to play a good space sim and have a great overall time give it a go. The game wont let you down. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
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I tried this game and gave up after the 'warp gate attack' by one of the capital ships. If I took too long, my home ship would get torpedoed and if I was too aggressive in taking down the ship I'd usually die in the process. Even on Easy mode, this particular mission was too frustrating for me. I may try it again if somebody can provide a good strategy to get by the mission. :D

Edited by DaveO
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The mission when the Krasnaja attacks the Relentless and you have to destroy the torpedoes before the ship gets blown to pisses.

First of all if you said it was to hard even on easy mod I will have to ask you what ship you are using.

I use the US ships because they have blind fire. What this means is that you can shoot things more easy.

As for the mission I think that as soon as the battle starts you are given the orders to fight the enemy fighters then you are ordered to take care of incoming torpedoes. So my advice follow the orders to the letter never move away to far from the mother ship so when you see incoming torpedoes you can take them out. Once that is finished and you are given the orders to take out the ship get fast with afterburners to the Krasnaja and use screamers to take out its engines.

One more thing the game is to good and if you cant pass it this way PM and I will send you my save files and you can jump pass that mission in no time. You are at the first half of the game there is a lot more cool things ahead. the fun stuff is only beginning. :mad:

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I appreciate the tips. I've tried several ships including the Blind Fire ones, and have yet to pass the mission. I've been able to disable the shield generators and take out the engines. It's what usually happens after that is where I lose the carrier. I use Screamers to take out the shield generator, so perhaps I should try that on the engines too. It's difficult to be quick here, which seems to be the ONLY way to get thru the mission without either losing your carrier or letting the Krasnaja escape.

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wasn't this game followed by Freelancer a few years afterwards:) I have that and still play that from time to time.. I tried my hand at starlancer too.. but I was so used to the controls of Freelancer I never got into the game :P Freelancer is pretty cool btw

Edited by DreDBanGeR
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Yes FreeLancer came after it but I have to say that the story and most of all the way you feal when you play the missons and how there is a turn of events while in active game play is an matched.

Allsaw after all my hard work in StarLancer the FreLancer intro starts and the war is lost :tongue:

Allsaw the very fact that they lost all the tech. and they are discovering it again in free lancer well it is... :P

Not to bad mouth it so much I have to say it I loved them bouth. The difernce that you are talking about is in mouse use for pointing your canon. I like bouth styles StarLnacers World War 2 style of point and fire has a romantic apleal to me more that it placed in a Space Sim. :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

I tried the mission again, and failed it due to a cloaked torpedo bomber. This always seems to happen, so I must be taking too much time. I had the Blind Fire, 80 Screamer missiles, and two extra fuel pods. I felt I took out the defenses and engines fairly quickly. I just DON'T know what it takes to pass this mission. I guess I need some elite piloting skills. :D

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I found a way to bypass that troublesome mission. I'd like to think that I'm fairly good at these space flight sim games, but obviously I needed some assistance. Sheesh! To me it's quite annoying that I need some really good flying and combat skills to get thru that mission.

 

P.S. - I did find a very useful way to survive capital ship attack runs by putting all my power to my shields. :D

Edited by DaveO
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  • 6 months later...

Well, after a LONG break from the hard Krasnaya mission. I decided to restart from the beginning, and I managed to get access to the Tempest fighter. It was a HUGE difference, and with the firepower of the ship and 80 screamer missiles plus two Jackhammers I finally destroyed the carrier. Setting all power to shields during my attack on the carrier ensured my survival, so I'd recommend that for any capital ship attacks.

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Now that I passed that tough mission, I've been doing pretty well on the follow-ups. Took out the asteroid base and the supercarrier. Again, the firepower of the Tempest fighter won the day for me. The attack rate of the guns is truly superior even though there is no Blind Fire to help me compensate for shots. I'm not that impressed with the Patriot fighter. Not enough hard points for missiles and those very necessary fuel pods.

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Hi :D

 

 

I have played and enjoyed both games Freelancer and Starlancer. For my gaming style I liked Freelancer better - especially with the numerous mods available. (like TNG or Aurora for example)

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Now that I passed that tough mission, I've been doing pretty well on the follow-ups. Took out the asteroid base and the supercarrier. Again, the firepower of the Tempest fighter won the day for me. The attack rate of the guns is truly superior even though there is no Blind Fire to help me compensate for shots. I'm not that impressed with the Patriot fighter. Not enough hard points for missiles and those very necessary fuel pods.

 

I used the Patriot since it is the best ship with blind fire on it.

For total fire power I like the Wolverine. As for the tempest it has blind fire on some of its weapons not all of them if you switch between them you will find the blind fire on them. The blind fire is related to the weapons type not the ship so many ships have blind fire based on the canons they use.

 

Csas I have to go with StarLancer as a better game since the missions in it a more grand and you are in a war setting. As for the freelancer it is more of a Sacred type game. Explore by stuff for the ship game. Plus I hatted the fact that in free lancer they went back with the tech. level. If you remember they where creating Cloking ships in it again. But dont get me wrong I love them both. :D

If anyone is up for a game or two in multiplayer we can find a server to play. Plus I think the game is free where now. :D

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Hi :D

 

Hehe personal preferances are simply personal preferances... where were we? Ah yes! Yes you are right Freelancer is much better!

 

Lol :D

 

Ok :) So try to play freelancer with mods: The Lancer's Reactor

 

Lancers seems a bit abandoned atm but normally there are a ton of mods downloadable.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Congrats. :bow: But you forgot to say how it ended. I mean your last mission and the campaign did you get all medals? :crazy:

Hehe same here about the cloak fighter couldnt pass the final mission with out it. Ran it a million times over and over at one point all I could hear was "The Ion Canon is targeting us get out of its range!" :)

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Last mission is in the 20s or so. I've not gone up that high yet. There have been two missions thus far with ion cannons, so I expect the third one to be the mission you are referring to.

 

From my many completed missions, I've not really found much use for missiles on most of the missions. There are a few where certain missile types are recommended, but for the most part I've used Screamers far more than any other missile type. Raptors aren't bad missiles, but I usually wipe out fighters with my guns. While the Wolverine fighter seems to have the best firepower, I like the Reaper the best since it has the best fire rate(very important against fighters) and Blind Fire to compensate if I switch to just one set of guns.

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While waiting on today's server reset, I've uploaded a video of the first Starlancer mission. I wish I could find a really good codec for video quality purposes, but so far I've not had much luck. Regardless of the video quality, I hope it is a good way to bring more people to try this title.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

It took me some time but I finally got to watch the video Dave. Great one. And you even took out the black guard fighter at the start of the mission. :unsure: By the way at what difficulty was the game when you played the mission since that black guard fighter when down real fast?

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While waiting on today's server reset, I've uploaded a video of the first Starlancer mission. I wish I could find a really good codec for video quality purposes, but so far I've not had much luck. Regardless of the video quality, I hope it is a good way to bring more people to try this title.

 

 

Star Lancer is a good game..as well as Freelancer...Chris Roberts though seems to prefer making movies now..and Digital Anvil defunct. Another good space sim that is underated and overlooked Tachyon: The Fringe

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYcYTtiOZI4&NR=1

 

If you like more the space opera style like the original Elite..then X3 Reunion (the latest installment in that series)

 

http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/info_en.php

 

and funny review :unsure:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi8n6uN091E...feature=related

 

an MMO titles to look out for that is now in open beta sign ups. Jumpgate Evolution

 

http://www.jumpgateevolution.com/

Edited by Cygnus
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  • 3 weeks later...

After many attempts, I finally got thru the final mission. Overall, an enjoyable if somewhat buggy experience in Windows XP. I got 5 out of 6 major medals and 4 of the small ones with a #1 position on the killboard. I lost Klaus Steiner in the final mission, but I did take out Petrov before he was killed. Looked like one of Petrov's buddies iced Steiner and I used over half of my missiles in this mission. I had 5 Solomons and 14 Screamers left when I landed. As Kat observed the Ion Cannon line will be in my head for a while. I may try the game on Medium difficulty but I definitely need a small break before trying again. On my next visit I'll likely try the other early fighters to choose a good favorite. Obviously gun attack speed will be a premium on the next go thru.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Since I could not do Kami restart on this round, I went ahead and restarted on Medium difficulty. I used the Naginata fighter(fast refire rate with little energy loss on guns) on the first three missions and then was forced to use the Predator on the next two missions due to escorts. I did ice the Basilisk on the first mission with guns, and have been using my Screamer missiles much more often. I've also been damaged more often in my fighter, with the most recent mission having me getting critical damage a few times but surviving the mission. I don't care how banged up my ship is if I survive and complete my mission objectives. :lol:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I found a really important key to Mission 8(Krasnaya warp gate attack). Missile loadout is crucial in this mission so I'd recommend two Jackhammers for the engines and the rest of the loadout to be Screamers. Also try flying to the side of the Krasnaya carrier since your carrier is shooting flak cannon shots which have a chance to hit you and take you out(meaning a mission restart). You have seven hardpoints if picking the Coyote fighter and there's not really a need for a fuel pod on this mission since you have only a single jump point to defend. So you should have a total of 100 Screamers and 2 Jackhammers. With that kind of missile offensive capability, the Krasnaya shield generator should go down fairly quickly.

 

I've gotten past the midway point on the missions, and just finished eliminating McGann and Viper. I've only had one mission crash much earlier, so it looks like it's a little more stable on the second trek(though I've not changed anything). It's nice to try out the other fighters I've bypassed the first time like the Naginata and the Mirage, but nothing can convince me to fly the Grendel. Despite it's hardpoints and firepower, it's lack of agility makes it a poor fighter and nearly useless for torpedo defense.

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