Star Control Discussion Board

So, I'm playing through with my kids. I pilot, I point out logistical issues, but they set the navigation, strategic goals, and conversation options.

So far:

We handled Sol system. Left Venus untouched. Learned of the Pkunk and their home cluster from the Ilwrath captain.

Dropped by Sirius, then headed down to Centauri. Mined the furthest ruby world at Alpha Centauri. Grabbed some stuff from nearby Centauri stars, came back without actually visiting the Pkunk. The life we saw was all in awkward planets and we let it be.

Built up all the thrust and turning jets, 2 fuel tanks, 5 cargo bays, an ion bolt gun, a crew pod. Have a cruiser and Fwiffo.

That's where we were before today's session.

They wanted to check out the Shofixti. So we're heading down that way. Lyrae cluster first (ruby world!) then on to Alpha Ptolemae. We're planning on hitting beta, gamma, delta Ptolemae, in that order, before heading on to Gorno. Haven't worked out which Gorno star to do first.

We have had 3 losses while gathering materials - 1 from a lightning strike on a world with a lot of noble gases (perhaps a noble world) and 2 on a planet with a bunch of midget clowns, big slow round tentacle monsters, and moderate earthquakes - the losses were to an earthquake foreshock that was right in front of us. We didn't clear out the bio-data since our lander is not fast enough to catch the midget clowns, they only yield 1 each, and the conditions are not ideal; we can come back for the last two later.

And that's where we are. We don't play regularly (they often want to do other things), but when we do I'll update.

I've been thinking about starting a game with my kids.
But then, I'm thinking even more about waiting a bit more and introduce them to this game once their old enough to play totally alone.

My oldest might catch on, but the other two are still too young.
(The second would like to play, but his attention span is not yet enough to follow the game)

This is going to be fantastic! Your kids will probably beat the game faster than me!

Who fights the battles?

The Troglodyte wrote:Who fights the battles?

I'm the pilot, but they get to pick which ship to send.

We could easily get into territory that would be spoiler for you if we head in a different direction.

Death 999 wrote:We could easily get into territory that would be spoiler for you if we head in a different direction.

Yeah, you're right. I'll follow along for as long as I can, but I'll probably have to bail at some point.

This is an awesome idea for a way to play with someone too young to really grasp all of the intricacies on their own. I'll have to keep it in mind when my son gets a bit older (he currently barely has the attention span to tolerate Mario games, never mind anything more complex).

So, we had another two sessions. The first was short. We took a few mining losses and got a lot of minerals in Alpha Ptolemae.

The second, we figured we had filled up so much we wouldn't need to do the rest of Ptolemae if we wanted to actually locate any Shofixti survivors. So, we went straight down to Alpha Gorno. From alpha, worked our way around ccw to Delta. Took a bunch of mining losses, but the bays are 3/4 full.

Met Tanaka, blew a bunch of fuel trying to be nice but eventually got enough insults through. Saved immediately; the kids plan to talk to him again immediately when we resume.

How old are they, and how long do they keep being interested per session?

(Thinking about blowing our next holiday like this too-enough rainy days behind the dykes...)

7 and 10, and we cut the game short because of computer-game limits before they lose interest.

We did another session over the weekend. They talked with Tanaka again. I took down the notes of what he mentioned (Zeta Sextantis 1 and Beta Brahe). Unfortunately, we were low on fuel by then and had to go home.

Were told about signal from Rigel. Built an extra crew pod and several cargo bays, which may go unused because we didn't get another fuel pod. Got a dynamo, though.

Went to Rigel, talked. Noticed that Tucanae is a rather long way off. There was an argument about what to do. At first they wanted to go to Vulpeculae just because it looked weird. Then they thought we could head through Spathi space to Tucanae after all, and maybe drop by Greenish in the supergiant on the way.

Met a Spathi, had a not-very-fruitful but non-catastrophic conversation.

We have over 200 bio credit and look forward to meeting Greenish.

Also, my son made some fan-art involving several new species which apparently share a ship:

cool. I do look forward to meet the ithrois, gibrois, and urcois. (ur-quan? depending on pronunciation sounds similar)