Protostar: War On The Frontier - Gameplay

Gameplay

As the game begins, the player character is in command a poorly equipped spaceship docked at one of the game's three space stations. Each station provides the player with a variety of services including a:

• Communications Terminal: displays announcements and provides a contact line to the Human Defense Forces,
• Exchange Center: a place to sell various goods such as minerals and lifeforms,
• Biotech Center: disabled crew members may be revived for a fee,
• Frontier Craft: buys and sells spacecraft accessories including engines, weapons, and shields,
• Lounge: a place to converse with non-player characters possessing useful information.

The player's spaceship may be outfitted with a variety of engines, defensive systems, and weapons. Available weapons include wave guns and accel cannons, distinguished by an inverse proportionality in their recharge rate and ability to inflict damage, and pursuit pods (guided torpedoes). Two types of defensive systems are available: dampening fields and energy shields, which provide some protection against wave guns and accel cannons respectively. The spaceship is already equipped with a explorer vessel used for exploring planetary surfaces. It has a particle gun for self-defense.

Both the spaceship and the explorer vessel feature cockpits containing icons through which orders are given to various crew members such as the navigator and biotech officer. Players command both craft in real-time from a first-person perspective by selecting an icon representing the commander's control pad, which translates movement of the mouse into corresponding motions of the spaceship or explorer vessel. During combat the mouse buttons are used to control the selection and firing of the ship's weapons. Some encounters with other spaceships result in peaceful conversations which yield important clues or provide opportunities for the player to befriend one of the region's native alien races. The player's spaceship is capable of hopping between solar systems via hyperpath tunnels, making regional journeys within a solar system, and making short-range maneuvers in circumstances such as spaceship combat. It may enter orbit around any planet in a solar system and perform a scan to gain information on that planet's general characteristics and topography. Using the topographic map generated by a scan, the player can choose a landing site. After doing so, the spaceship's crew transfers to the explorer vessel which undocks from the orbiting spaceship and lands on the planet. The player drives the explorer vessel around on the planet's surface to collect saleable minerals and lifeforms and, on inhabited worlds, to locate alien trading posts at which the player may barter with the alien race to whom the planet belongs.