Starflight 2: Trade Routes of The Cloud Nebula - Gameplay

Gameplay

The player begins the game in a space station called Starport Outpost 1 with a meager allotment of funds for outfitting a spaceship and training crew members in the skills needed to operate it. Crew members are chosen from one of five races, each of which possesses certain strengths and weaknesses, and are assigned to the positions of captain, science officer, navigator, engineer, communications officer, and doctor. Aside from the captain, specialized training is available for each position at a cost that increases in proportion to the amount of training received. Training raises the proficiency at which crew members perform their duties and reduces the number of errors they make. Spacecraft engines, lasers, missiles, shields and armor are available for purchase at levels ranging from one through five, each successive level representing an increase in the power and the cost of the item. Also available for purchase are cargo pods that expand the spaceship's storage capacity, jump pods (single-use devices capable of almost instantaneously transporting the spaceship to any point within the region), and blasto pods (single-use torpedoes with considerable destructive power). Additional training and spaceship accessories may be purchased at any time throughout the game. Before the player may leave Starport and explore the surrounding universe, the spaceship's "navigation system must be calibrated", a procedure serving as the game's copy protection scheme in which stars must be counted within a specified part of the paper star map included in the game's packaging.

The player controls the ship from a navigation screen displaying multiple panels:

• Main View Screen: provides an overhead view of the spaceship in relation to its immediate surroundings,
• Auxiliary View Screen: displays information about the spaceship's status including a fuel gauge and the state of the weapons and defensive systems,
• Control Panel: provides a menu driven user interface from which the player selects commands to issue to crew members,
• Text Window: displays text messages.

Two modes of space travel are featured in the game: interstellar and interplanetary. Interstellar travel involves the player maneuvering the spaceship from one star to another, sometimes with the aid of continuum fluxes or jump pods, both of which provide a quick shortcut between two distant points in space. When the player maneuvers the spaceship towards a star, the interplanetary travel mode begins. A schematic showing the relative positions of the planets in that solar system appears in the auxiliary view screen, all of which may be orbited by the player's spaceship and scanned to reveal basic information including the planet's gravitational strength. Large planets with strong gravity, such as gas giants, will destroy the ship if a landing is attempted, but the ship may successfully land on many worlds. When the player is ready to land, the auxiliary view screen displays a planetary topographic map with a cursor allowing a specific location to be selected. Following a successful landing, the crew boards a terrain vehicle which the player is able to move about the planet to explore ruins for plot clues, harvest minerals and alien lifeforms, and travel to trading posts at which the player may buy or sell items through bartering. The main view screen shows the terrain vehicle in relation to its immediate surroundings. Potential hazards on planetary excursions include running out of fuel, dangerous weather conditions, and hostile alien lifeforms. The locations of uninhabited earth-like planets may be logged for recommendation to Interstel as potential colony worlds in return for a substantial monetary reward.

The player occasionally encounters other spacecraft during interstellar and interplanetary travel. When an encounter begins, the main view screen shows a tactical overhead map depicting the player's spaceship in relation to the nearby alien vessels. The player may either attack, attempt to communicate, try to flee the encounter by running away, or scan the alien vessels to determine their capabilities. Conversing with friendly alien species is an important means by which the player obtains clues to advance the game's plot. Some encounters result in the outbreak of hostilities in which the player must either attempt to destroy the attacking vessels or flee. The spaceship computer automatically takes care of targeting and firing lasers and missiles, except for blasto pods which are manually triggered, while the player maneuvers the spaceship around the scene of battle in real-time. Both the spaceship's shields and armor protect it from damage by hostile fire, but only shields are able to regenerate. The encounter ends when the player has moved sufficiently far from the other vessels and normal space travel resumes.