Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD - Blue's News Comments

Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

[Nov 08, 2012, 11:44 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

A new Space Colony HD Website is online, heralding the promised release of this updated version of Space Colony, Firefly's sci-fi strategy simulation. Here's the deal:

Space Colony HD has players construct military and civilian bases on different planets throughout the galaxy, defending it from hostile alien threats while also keeping their ragtag crew of colonists alive and content. Your colourful crew includes the amicable Venus Jones, Scandinavian biker Stig Svensson, cybernetics expert Mr. Zhang and even former chicken farmer Billy-Bob Perkins. Each character has a unique personality with specific skills and needs, as well as different interactions. While keeping the crew happy is important, players must also keep them alive, maintaining oxygen levels, work productivity and defending against hostile alien threats.

The game features a wealth of different structures, weapons, aliens and real-time strategy mechanics befitting of a base builder. Establishing mining operations, colonist facilities and perimeter defences is up to the player, as is deciding which planets to colonise. As a throwback to the Stronghold games, players can choose to take a “Military” or “Civilian” path through the game, battling indigenous life or building intergalactic golf courses instead.

Space Colony HD updates the original strategy sim with high definition graphics and a greater field of view, often allowing players to see attacks on their base and points of interest at a glance, without the need to scroll around the map. The game has been remastered to support resolutions up to 2560x1600, up from the previous cap of 1280x1024. A new trailer and HD screenshots can be found at www.spacecolonyhd.com.

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15.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 12, 2012, 01:14

Optional Nickname!

Thanks for your efforts Dev, while indeed you have found a few games that run in some form or another without Steam, I think we can agree that Steam is required in some form or another for even the ones you listed....supporting my initial assertion. You might not agree with me that Steam is a nuisance, but requiring it to run in offline mode for the vast majority of game installations is a nuisance to me.

14.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 9, 2012, 18:50

Dev

Optional Nickname! wrote on Nov 9, 2012, 16:20: Please post those game names here, that require Steam to run, but run without Steam being active, offline or not. I'll check back to this thread. If it is a great number, just post the more popular ones. I'm genuinely curious as to which games those are, as I've encountered or heard of, none! They don't require steam to run, don't require steam to be active or anything. Basically its entirely up to the devs how deep of an integration they want to use. Most of them use steam to to check that you have the rights to run it, but a few don't bother and basically use it as a download platform instead of an authentication platform. I don't have a list, just some people who claimed it could be done to a bunch of games, so I ran down my list of installed titles, tested a some, to see which ones worked and didn't. It was mostly indie titles and it wasn't a bunch. Some which worked, complained about it (they tended to be using steam more as a social/highscore medium than any authentication. I wrote it up in a previous reply, lemme see if I can find it. Edit: Eh, I didn't find it offhand so I'll run a few games. Many games will just go ahead and start steam if its not there. Again it just depends on what the devs did. Aiwar works (note that they use their own custom serial and authentication scheme separate from steam). Alien shooter 2 conscription works (I didn't have the other alien shooter games installed) Alien swarm (free game from valve) runs, but on the main screen it just says NO STEAM. In other words, valve in their usual haphazard testing manner, didn't bother to do much testing on running the game that way, or they'd have it automatically run steam first. All zombies must die seems to work. Bastion seems to work (although it prompts to start a new game, it probably stores saves on the cloud). And it doesn't even put up an error message. If you want me to do the rest, you are going to have to pay me to test them Out of the A's in my currently installed list, 3 out of 19 work (not counting bastion) This comment was edited on Nov 9, 2012, 19:40.

13.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 9, 2012, 16:20

Optional Nickname!

Dev wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 17:27: McSterls wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 15:02: PHJF wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 11:21: I don't put stock in any game featuring "HD" in the title. As if this were 2002. I thought it was an iOS game with HD in there. That may well be why they are doing that. Modern ipads have higher resolution, and perhaps they want to port it to other platforms and cash in on apple stuff. Optional Nickname! wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 16:00: GOG +1 Sale. If only Steam didn't start itself before every game, even in offline mode, I'd support it. Until then, GOG gets the loot. N.B. No Steam employees, family members, or affiliates are allowed to reply to this message without disclosing their affiliation. Incorrect. It doesn't have to before EVERY game. There are some steam games you can run directly from the install folder and the exe and they don't start steam or require it to be started. They are few and far between, but it only takes 1 to disprove an "every" statement. Please post those game names here, that require Steam to run, but run without Steam being active, offline or not. I'll check back to this thread. If it is a great number, just post the more popular ones. I'm genuinely curious as to which games those are, as I've encountered or heard of, none!

12.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 23:48

Prez

HD or not, I'll be glad to have a digital version that runs on a modern PC. I lost my disc ages ago. It will make it to Steam eventually - I'll buy it then. I'm a "all-his-eggs-in-one-basket" kinda guy.




Prez on Soundclick http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=604888

11.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 17:27

Dev

McSterls wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 15:02: PHJF wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 11:21: I don't put stock in any game featuring "HD" in the title. As if this were 2002. I thought it was an iOS game with HD in there. That may well be why they are doing that. Modern ipads have higher resolution, and perhaps they want to port it to other platforms and cash in on apple stuff. Optional Nickname! wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 16:00: GOG +1 Sale. If only Steam didn't start itself before every game, even in offline mode, I'd support it. Until then, GOG gets the loot. N.B. No Steam employees, family members, or affiliates are allowed to reply to this message without disclosing their affiliation. Incorrect. It doesn't have to before EVERY game. There are some steam games you can run directly from the install folder and the exe and they don't start steam or require it to be started. They are few and far between, but it only takes 1 to disprove an "every" statement.

10.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 16:00

Optional Nickname!

GOG +1 Sale. If only Steam didn't start itself before every game, even in offline mode, I'd support it. Until then, GOG gets the loot. N.B. No Steam employees, family members, or affiliates are allowed to reply to this message without disclosing their affiliation.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 15:05

Will W

I bought it.....My boss is off tomorrow so worst case I have a time waster. :-)

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 15:02

McSterls

Quboid wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 14:24: PHJF wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 11:21: I don't put stock in any game featuring "HD" in the title. As if this were 2002. I thought it was an iOS game with HD in there.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 14:24

Quboid

PHJF wrote on Nov 8, 2012, 11:21:
I don't put stock in any game featuring "HD" in the title. As if this were 2002.

Scratch that, PCs have had better than "HD" resolution for a lot longer than that.

It doesn't really stand up to scrutiny but I think it's fair enough if, like this is, the game is a redirect remake changed only to run on modern hardware and to have higher detail graphics. If it's a reboot (a remake with design/plot changes) or a whole new game, then I agree, it's silly.




- Quboid

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 14:17

Dev

I quite enjoyed this game back in the day. If it was on steam, I'd probably pick it up. If you liked this game, Startopia was another one in a similar vein that I really enjoyed. I miss companies like bullfrog and muckyfoot.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 11:54

Ray Ban

I played this a lot back in 2003. While the combat part could've been better, the management of your crew and the base was pretty fun and required some thought.

I was hoping for a sequel, but I'll probably pick this up anyway.




"The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!"

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 11:50

eRe4s3r

Tower Defense and time management is really all it degenerates into in the later levels. This is one of these games where a dynamic procedural open world sandbox would really kick-ass.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 11:44

Karin

The game is originally from 2003 (hence being sold on GOG.com), so yeah, the game does well represent games from that era. I played the original (Mac version) a lot, and the game has surprising depth to it. It's like the Sims, but it's also like a tower defence game, and a god-game, and an action-adventure. Anyway if you want to know more, check out spacecolonyfans.net for a fansite, or the Kickstarter for Maia, which seems to look awfully similar to this game but with new graphics and gameplay.

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 11:21

PHJF

I don't put stock in any game featuring "HD" in the title. As if this were 2002.

Scratch that, PCs have had better than "HD" resolution for a lot longer than that.




Steam + PSN: PHJF

Re: Ships Ahoy - Space Colony HD

Nov 8, 2012, 11:18

Will W

Has anyone checked this out yet? I was a fan of Sierra's "Outpost" back in the day, and really want this to be like what Outpost was supposed to be. Looks like it's $7.99 on GOG, a price I'm willing to take a risk at.

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