An Old School Game Rediscovered

[Xveers]

So I was cleaning my house when I found a nice classic of a game. Conquest frontier wars. Went to watch the opening video on youtube, and now I remember why I enjoy it so. Somehow, it feels so nice and Classic Starfire-y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjKYNkcnbOk

[LordKron]

Ascension had a similar feel, down to warp links between systems.

[Cralis]

A lot of 4x space games had mechanics from Starfire, it has kind of hidden in the main-srream sci fi thinking.

Other games:
Master of Orion 2
Space Empires (even credits Starfire as an inspiration!)
Sword of the Stars (human node travel)

[Xveers]

Space Empires (even credits Starfire as an inspiration!)

It's a pretty close inspiration! Also one of if not the best turn based 4x games ever made in my opinion. I still play it!

[LordKron]

The game I was thinking of was called Ascendancy. Key features from Starfire were the warp links between systems and placing discrete items in ship hulls (shields, weapons, engines etc. You actually inserted items in specific spots in the hull. Beautiful graphics and interface for the day, but horrible AI.

[Cralis]

It's a pretty close inspiration! Also one of if not the best turn based 4x games ever made in my opinion. I still play it!

I'd play SE5 if it wasn't such a flop in the AI department, I'd probably still be playing it. But since my time is so short these days, it's probably a good thing I'm not...

[aramis]

While a lot of old school 4X games used limited jump points and and fixed transit destinations, many used some form of keyhole drive - a drive was/is required to use the jump point. That's not Starfire as inspiration - it's Niven, Pournelle, & Niven's CoDominion setting (Falkenberg series, Mote series)... and the Alderson points.

The following verses are much closer to CoDoVerse than to Starfire:

• Wing Commander
• Bujold's Vorkosiverse
• Space: Above and Beyond
• Doohan's Flight Commander series
• Stargate universe (SG1/SGA/SGU)
• VSCA's Diaspora RPG

Note that Doohan is almost the midpoint - activate the drive at the point to swim through the tunnel to the next junction...

And Webber intentionally distances himself from Starfire in the Honorverse, going back to a keyhole drive (involving the Minovski Sails, etc)... but reading the novels, it's clear he was thinking in terms of Starfire battles at HT4+...

I strongly believe that the Alderson Drive was SVC's inspiration for the Starfire Warp points, but note that the keyhole effect is integral to the I drives even in Strikefighter... but I also doubt SVC would admit it in public.

Either way, the restricted tramline effect is GREAT for wargaming (see the 1974 design of Imperium, released in 1977, but Marc's put the original hand-drawn maps up at various times)...

And so it's been reinvented/copied dozens of times. There are more settings that use variations on both