Starport: Galactic Empires

Starport: Galactic Empires
Developer(s)	PlayTechTonics
Publisher(s)	PlayTechTonics
Designer(s)	Aaron Hunter
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	February 3, 2004
Genre(s)	MMORPG Space Simulation
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Starport: Galactic Empires is a free, space-oriented, massively multiplayer online role-playing game which uses a third-person overhead view similar to that used in Asteroids. The game uses realistic 2-dimensional physics for both space and atmospheric travel, affecting both the movement of ships and player-fired weaponry. Characters can conquer and colonize planets with a variety of different terrains depending on the type of planet. The player can harvest resources, generate money, and produce weapons with their colony. Starport shares many core concepts with Tradewars 2002, notably the commodity trading and planet controlling aspects.

Pricing

Starport is notable in the MMORPG genre as being one of the earliest adopters of the free to play business model. Instead of charging players a monthly subscription fee, Starport is instead free to play and allows players to purchase extra resources in the game through a feature called "The Admiral's Club."^[1]

Plot

Although Starport Galactic Empires is an MMORPG, and there is no set story, there is an introduction storyline before any player begins their game:

"You are in the future at the dawn of space exploration. A wealthy space merchant that you meet while on earth decides to give you your chance at a better life. He takes you to Starbase Sol, the largest trading base of the galaxy. Because of his increasing sympathy for you, he donates his Merchant Cruiser spaceship and $10,000 credits to you to start your new life.

Your life in the Starport universe begins near Earth where you will be the captain of a new merchant vessel. By gaining funds through trading and completing odd jobs for people, you can upgrade your ship and your standing.

During your progress, you'll engage in combat with other players, planetary defense platforms, space-anchored gun turrets and other hostiles. From traditional projectile weapons and smart-missiles to exotic energy weapons, you'll have a good selection of firepower from which to choose.

Eventually you can establish or gain control of alien colonies, which can become valuable strongholds.

Control of colonies leads directly to score and your aim is to top the scoreboard as the most successful captain in the galaxy."

Gameplay

Overall Objective

Players compete to establish themselves as either the most feared pirate or the most respected Emperor in the galaxy. This is done by gaining Experience Points and Reputation Points. Experience Points in Starport are quite unlike that of other games. In Starport, Experience doesn't allow you access to new upgrades, new ships, and so on but is rather a form of score-keeping. The higher your experience, the higher your rank among the other players in the galaxy. Reputation points determine whether you play as a Pirate (Below -1,000 reputation points) or an Emperor (Above 1,000 reputation points) which has a large effect on gameplay. Pirates and Emperors have access to different ship and weapon types, as well as access to different starports throughout the universe.

Experience is gained through killing other ships, capturing colonies, trading, taxiing, and escorting. The most effective way of gaining experience is to build an empire of colonies. Each colony provides the player with an hourly experience, reputation, and income bonus. As a colony grows, so do the bonuses that it provides. Experience is lost by being killed by another player, getting caught while robbing a starport (Pirates only), or having colonies invaded by others.

When a player is shot down by another player, the dying player loses 10% of their total experience. The player who secured the kill is awarded this experience, and receives a reputation bonus or hit depending on the dying player's reputation score. If an Emperor were to shoot down a Pirate, for example, the Emperor would gain reputation points. However if an Emperor were to shoot down another Emperor, he/she would take a significant hit to their Reputation score.

Reputation points are gained by killing players and NPCs with negative reputation scores (pirates), and by keeping colonists content. Reputation points are lost by killing people and NPCs with a positive reputation (Emperors, colony builders, and police NPCs), neglecting colonists and allowing them to become unhappy, robbing starports, and attacking new players.

The ultimate quest for all to play is to reach the top of the Experience rankings.

Player Profiles

Before a player registers to join a server, he must first set up his profile for that server. He can choose his profile picture, set his username for that server, and set up his player stats.

Player stats are an important aspect of the game due to the fact they dictate how you can function while playing that servers. Players receive 15 stat points to distribute to their character, with a single stat not able to exceed 10.

Currently, their 3 different character stats: Charisma, Dexterity, and Wisdom.

• Charisma- in order for all of your colonies to function correctly, the colonists must have good morale. Your charisma is a measure of your player's "likeability" in the universe. The higher your charisma, the greater your colonists will respect you, thereby increasing their morale. This stat is especially attractive to builders.

• Dexterity- This stat is used to decide how well your ship will handle. By having a higher dexterity, your ship has a better turn speed, ship speed, acceleration, energy regeneration, etc. This stat is especially attractive to pirates and those who engage in combat more frequently.

• Wisdom- This stat has only 2 functions. On all servers but Blitzkrieg, the amount of wisdom your character has determines the fuel efficiency of any ship you own. While some ships are naturally more fuel efficient than others, combining a fuel efficient ship with a high wisdom score will allow you use a very low amount of warp fuel when you play. On the Blitzkrieg server, wisdom determines the amount of experience your player receives per 5 seconds of being in control of a colony. This is explained in further detail in the Blitzkrieg server section.

Profiles can be changed with 5,000 admiral tokens, the item shop currency. This is often an invaluable advantage when a player decides he wants to change from one career to another.

Servers/Games

Starport has grown from one large galaxy (server) into many large, complex and unique types and forms of galaxies (servers). Currently there are just fewer than 30 different servers. However they all fall under one of two "types" of servers and one of five "forms" of servers.

The two "types" of servers are: Normal (Player vs. Player) and Pax(player vs. environment [no combat between players]).

• Normal servers allow combat between two players. This allows for pirates and builders to really compete against each other. One builds the colonies and tries to defend them while the pirate goes around killing as many people as he can and by invading and taking over other people's colonies. Normal servers are what the original game concept was built upon.

• Pax servers are player vs. environment with no player vs. player combat. Pax games are essentially just competitions with multiple builders to see who can build the largest empire in the fastest amount of time. Since no one is allowed to invade your colonies, there are certain planetary defenses you do not have to worry about buying or building. The one exception to this rule is the Intergalactic Paradise Worlds. Paradise worlds, referred to in-game as IGP worlds, are the rarest form of planet in the universe. They are the best planet type to build and defend and therefore the most fiercely fought after. On pax games, IGP worlds are allowed to be invaded by anyone.

The five "forms" of servers are as follows: Permaverse (never-ending), Rebangs (servers reset after 10–21 days), Extended Rebangs (games reset after 1 month to 1 year), Blitzkrieg (game lasts only 20 minutes), and tournament servers.

• Permaverses are the original server types. These servers are long-term and are rarely deleted or reset. These are the most popular types of servers for most active players. Because they never end, players will never be awarded achievement points or trophies for doing well (unlike the other servers where if you win, you receive medals/trophies and achievement points to show how much you have accomplished in your entire starport gaming career). Although most of the galaxies planets will be built upon after about 6 months or so, normally the universe will start to die down in its popularity. When this happens, it becomes an invaders heaven to invade with relatively little opposition. However, eventually colonies will start to die off, in which case more builders will start to come on and start building again. Finally the galaxy will be fully built again and the cycle will start all over.

• Rebangs are short time servers that have a slightly different objective than a permaverse. In permaverses you battle for fame, money, and glory of being the most powerful person in that server. On a rebang you battle for the most experience points in order to finish as #1 when the server resets. For this reason, they are usually faster-paced. The action is still the same on this server and permaverses, but players must be much quicker while playing a rebang. On a rebang the top 10 receive medals for their efforts when the server resets. While combat still happens often on this type of server, gameplay tends to be more builder-oriented.

• Extended rebangs are one of the newer concepts of the game that were developed for the competitive players that wanted recognition for being the best players of the game. Permaverses are said to be the homes of the best players of the game, but only rebangs will reward you for winning, because rebangs reset while permaverses don’t reset. So the developers came out with the idea of a really long and drawn out rebang, known as an 'extended rebang'. The only difference between these and regular rebangs are the length in time that they reset. A normal rebang is 2 weeks long, while extended rebangs are usually 2–3 months long with one of them being 1 year long. What makes these more attractive to the very reputable and experienced players is that allows you to receive rewards and recognition for being the best. On a permaverse, they are constantly building and invading colonies in order to be the most feared person of the game. However since they never end, some say that they can get old after a while and will quit. Regular rebangs are said to be too short to really prove someone's skill in the game. So an extended rebang gives them the best of both worlds: giving them the advantage of a really long drawn out game of 2 months to a year for them to really build a massive empire and invade to be in the top 10 and prove they are the best, and gives the advantage of resetting (rebanging) at the end of the set time limit (2 months to a year) so as to not let them get bored but also receive rewards for winning the game.

• Blitzkrieg A unique server that hosts short, but fast-paced 20 minute games in which teams try to keep control of 1-3 colonies for as long as possible. At the end of 20 minutes, the team with the most total experience wins and each player on that team is awarded an increase in their Blitzkrieg rating. Likewise, the losing team(s) either have a reduction in rating or a smaller increase in rating, depending on the total number of teams involved in the game. At the end of a season (3 months), the ten players with the highest rating are awarded trophies. This is one of the most popular servers on Starport.

• Tournament games (tourneys) are a special form of rebangs. They are always 21 days long and operate under the same rules and objectives as a normal rebang, with 1 major exception: It requires a payment of 1 tourney point to enter. Tourney points along with other special items are bought with real money via the Admirals Club. Tourney points are account-wide and can be used regardless of which server they were purchased on. Once you pay your tourney point before you join the server, it will be placed in a pool in that server. When the server ends and resets, the pool of tourney points is distributed among the top 10 winners. The #1 gets the most, then #2 and so on with each of the top 10 guaranteed at least one tourney point. There are 2 major advantages to playing this type of server. First of all, you have the chance to win tourney points (which are worth $5 of real money in credit in Starport, and they can be used on any server). Secondly, all tourney games have no admirals club in them. This makes the game more balanced and more dependent on skill, rather than in other games where some people will "buy" their victory.

There are two types of servers that fall into the tourney category. The first is The Ring Nebula which is a standard tourney game. The other is The Starport: Galactic Empires Championship. The championship only happens once a year, played the same way as a standard tourney, except that the players aren't there for the sole purpose of trying to win tourney points, but to earn the title of "Starport Champion" of that particular year. This title is usually displayed on their profile in-game and in the forums.

Corporations

A Corporation is the Starport's version of clans/guilds in other games. Players can choose to join a corporation or found their own. Each server has its own rules on how big a corporation can be, but they tend to range from 1-10 people with some servers allowing 15. The founder and/or current leader of the corporation is known as the CEO. He gets a couple of extra benefits with his position. He is the only person allowed to kick people out, change a corporations password which is required in order to join, and the only person allowed to use the Corporate Flagship, one of the best ships in the game.

Corporations join together to help each other build up colonies, invade enemies' colonies with each other, and share experience gained from each members' colonies. Friendly-fire is disabled for people in the same corporation, so they can't accidentally kill each other. Another privilege they all get is access to a navigator on all of their fellow corporation members' coordinates, so they all know where each other is at all times. The main use of them is to band together to become the largest and most powerful corporation in the galaxy. Because they are only powerful when they have lots of colonies and high exp players, corporations are selective in who they allow in. In permaverses, often the goal for many people is not to be the most powerful player in the universe, but to be a member of the most powerful corporation of the galaxy, which requires a lot of teamwork.

A corporation may also contract individuals to help with colony building and to make short-term allies. These contractors can donate money to the corporation and be under protection from friendly fire from this corporation, but he does not have access to any of the corporation members' coordinates and cannot access any of their colonies except to help donate resources to help build.

Game Balance

With a persistent universe, the action continues even after you log off. In order to keep balance between those who have limited playtime and those who don't, there is a game feature known as Warp Fuel. In order to travel from system to system, or land on planets or dock at starports, you must use some warp fuel. Whenever you start on a new server, you start with 2000 gallons and have a maximum capacity of 5000 gallons. Extra fuel can be purchased with Admiral's Tokens or with Spice, an in-game commodity. Fuel regenerates at a set rate, which varies server by server. Rebangs and tournament servers tend to have higher fuel regeneration rates, while permaverses and pax servers tend to be lower. The average is .5 fuel per minute.

Money

There are two types of money that can be used in the game: Credits and Tokens

• Credits- this is the standard in-game currency used when buying items from starports or starbases, building, selling, and trading.
• Tokens- also known as Admiral Tokens. These are the item shop currency used in Starport:GE and are purchased at a rate of $1=1,000 tokens.

Tokens are commonly traded by players for credits, which exchange rates varying server by server.

The Admirals Club

Starport is well known as being one of the first mmorpgs that used the free to play business model. The game itself is free and has no monthly subscription fee. Instead, players have the option of buying extra items from the Admiral's Club.

The Admirals Club is one of the more unique item malls in the gaming industry. While most item malls allow you to buy much more upgraded items and thus have a powerful advantage over those who don't buy, the Admirals Club strives to avoid "pay2win". While it does give its buyers an edge, it is not an "I win" button, where you can buy your victory.

The buying rate is 1,000 admiral tokens for $1 U.S. dollar, with a minimum purchase of 5,000 admiral tokens per transaction ($5). Users pay using an online transaction via a major credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Users paying through a card will have their transaction processed immediately, while those using PayPal have an average wait time of 1–2 days before they get there transaction processed.

All items purchased in The Admirals Club are purchased via admiral tokens. Some of the items that can be purchased are as follows:

• Warp fuel- As mentioned earlier, in order to balance full-time gamers to part-time players, the developers created warp fuel so as to limit the amount of play time one can play. The item mall rewards its buyers with the chance to buy 1 gallon of fuel for 2 admiral tokens, up to 5000 gallons of warp fuel for 10,000 admiral tokens.
• Intergalacic's Ship- The intergalactics were an ancient alien race that used to dominate the galaxy thousands of years before the humans arrived. They have long since been extinct. Some deep-space explorers have uncovered the blueprints behind some of their technology, including their ship, known simply as the Intergalactic's ship, or IGship. These explorers will sell an exact replica of this ship for you to use, for a fee of 10,000 admirals tokens per ship.
• Artifacts- These items are used to dramatically improve a ships' stats. Early explorers have found artifacts of the old intergalactics that were used by their race to improve their ships. Artifacts can be found all around the galaxy. Any player can take the time to search for them, however they are hard to find and they may not necessarily get the exact artifact they want. The Admirals Club allows players to purchase the exact artifact they want without taking the time to search every planet within every system of the galaxy. Some examples of ships stats they improve are speed, handling, warpfuel efficiency, etc.
• Tourney Points- Tourney points are bought for 1 of 2 reasons: either to enter a tourney game, or to transfer admiral tokens you own on one server to another server you are playing. They are the only item that can be transferred from server to server. They are bought with 5,000 tokens per tourney point. They have a sell rate of 4,000 tokens. So this means that if you decide to move 5,000 tokens to another server, you will end up losing 1,000 tokens in the process.
• Nukes- these are the most powerful ship weapons in the game. They can be bought using in-game credits at certain pirates only starbases (only people that are pirates [-1,000 rep or lower] can enter] that sell nukes, but this leaves people with positive reputation nowhere to buy nukes, so the developers allowed anyone with admiral tokens to buy nukes at a price of 250 per nuke. Nukes can also be created with the use of a Weapon Factory, which is buildable on any colony.

U.N. Space and Offline Activity

Starport is set in a persistent universe, so the action continues even after you've logged off. Players must log off in a safe place, otherwise their ship can be attacked and destroyed costing the player valuable experience, reputation, and resources.

There are two types of space in every galaxy: U.N. controlled and open.

• U.N.- This is a small set of usually 10-30 systems closest to the starting system of Sol. These areas are safe, where no player or npc can attack you. If you log off in this area, you will be charged in-game credits in an amount equal to your experience minus your reputation, every hour. The credits are first taken from your wallet and then from your bank. If you happen to run out of credits your ship is ejected from U.N Space into the open, where it is vulnerable to being attacked.

• Open- This is the type of space that most of the galaxies' systems operate under. You are completely unprotected from attack, so if you log off, your ship will be a sitting duck unmoving and waiting for someone to come attack it.

You may also log off in one of your own colonies. However, if that colony is successfully invaded by another player your ship will be ejected into space.

Reception

Starport: Galactic Empires has received generally decent to great reviews from notable reviewers such as mmorpg.com and Tucows. Most of the points lost on reviews tend to be due to the small staffing, un-updated graphics, and a few in-game critics.

Criticism

While players are encouraged to help out newcomers, some of the veterans tend to just ignore them and will often take advantage of them in various ways. For this reason, newcomers often quit the game after just a few days of playing. Plus, many veteran players already have a complete, economically finished biodome setup, which leads to a huge cash advantage. A lot of players who have money, tend to place a ridiculous amount of turrets and mines everywhere in the universe, making it hard for new players to navigate other galaxies.

History and Longevity

Starport has been available to the public for free play since February 2004. The original concept was conceived in 1995 and continued to develop until its release to the public on February 3, 2004. It was developed by a moderately small team of full-time developers. The game now only has one full-time staff member, Aaron Hunter. He is the original developer and came up with the idea for the game. He is known by the community as "Toonces". The current staff consists of Aaron Hunter and one part-time staff member who helps with coding as well as the maintenance of the "Blitzkrieg" server.

See also

Space combat and trading games

External links

• Official Starport: Galactic Empires Website
• "Starport: Galactic Empires Interview". rpgvault.ign.com. Retrieved 2007-07-26. 

References