Star Control Origins

Star Contol: Origins is both the fourth game in the Star Control franchise and a reboot of it. It takes place in a different universe from previous Star Control games in order to provide a fresh story timeline to work with. It is being developed by Stardock Entertainment for the PC Windows platform, with editions for XBox One and Playstation 4 and Switch expected to be released later. The game is currently in development. A public Beta of its combat mode, "Fleet Battles", is currently in beta with the final release of the full game in summer 2018.

Concept

Star Control: Origins is a space role-playing game which puts the player in command of Earth's prototype interstellar ship. The game features both hyperspace and solar system travel, with a third person lander mode for resource collection and exploration of planetary bodies. Combat between aliens is handled via a top down 2D arcade-style combat system dubbed "Fleet Battles" in which each ship has a range of attack powers and abilities. Fleet Battles is available as an external mode as well, with the additional option of allowing the player to design their own ships.

Plot

Star Control: Origins takes place in the year 2088. Humanity is contacted by a species of aliens known as the Tywom, who claim they have been protecting us from a sinister evil empire known as the Scryve, who have domain over this region of the galaxy. As the player explores the immediate stars around earth they meet a wide cast of alien species, learn their histories, characteristics, and ongoing conflicts with their neighbors. The captain's mission is to prevent the Scryve from destroying the Earth through any means necessary.

Setting

Star Control: Origins takes place in an area of space known as "Orion's Spur". The player starts in a subset of this space known as the Scryve Sector which is approximately 120 by 120 light years containing hundreds of stars and thousands of worlds, each of which is unique.

Game Elements

The Captain

You are the captain of Earth's first prototype, interstellar starship with a mission to save the world. Star Control doesn't give you instructions on how to do that other than that it must be accomplished at all costs. Thus, a great deal of the game is focused on how you accomplish your goals. Through various missions, exploration and interactions you can improve your ship, gain new officers, recruit allies and gain access to many powerful abilities.

Solar System Exploration

There are several hundred star systems in the Scryve sector of Orion's Spur. When a player enters a star system they are able to navigate to planets, other ships, starbases and other elements that one would expect to find in a star system. The many alien races can be found throughout the galaxy, but most aliens will be found in their home region.

Screenshot.

Hyperspace Navigation

The Faster-Than-Light (FTL) technology used by Star Control is called Hyperspace. In Hyperspace, the captain can travel to other star systems or intercept other ships traveling through hyperspace. The only known permanent structures within hyperspace are the mysterious Precursor Starbases. Players can upgrade their Hyperspace Drive to allow for more rapid movement throughout the galaxy, and are able to use autopilot for automated travel or jump between the Hypergate network found within the Precursor Starbases.

Screenshot.

Planet Exploration

When the captain visits an alien world, they can review the world by scanning it. Scanning the planet allows the Captain to send down crew to explore the surface to acquire resources, artifacts and make contact with inhabitants. There are over 70 different planet classes and thousands of unique planets. Some contain life while most do not. Planets vary greatly on their conditions such as temperature, toxicity and wind strength. Not all planets are equally hospitable, most planets the player will be able to explore with little risk but some will have conditions that makes exploring dangerous. Examples of hazards include volcanos, methane geysers, fireballs and lightning. Players can upgrade their landing craft with upgrades such as heat resistant plating to allow them to explore inhospitable worlds. If a landing craft is destroyed, the craft and the crew inside of it perish and need to be replaced, but the player can try again with multiple landers.

The main reason for exploring planets is to collect valuable resources with a lander as these can be sold to Star Control headquarters or to starbases. There are many types of resources ranging from chemical compounds to metals, with more rare resources having differing values. Inhospitable planets will often hold the most valuable resources.

Screenshot.

Alien Contact

The captain is the only human traveling outside the home solar system, so every every contact is an alien. Most aliens are not able to communicate with humans (only the Tywom and Arilou have learned our language that we know of). However, through the Tywom universal translator, many aliens will be able to communicate with us in real-time while some may only have their words transcribed while still others are simply impossible to communicate with. Some aliens such as the Scryve and their loyal subjects will attack us on sight, while others may be more friendly and open for potential alliances and trade. Most aliens are sceptical of the young and brash humans, so earning their trust will take some work. Each race of aliens occupy a cluster of stars near their homeworld, where the player must travel to and interact with for discussing important matters such as alliances and completing quests.

Screenshot.

Fleet Battles

Inevitably, battle will occur. When this happens, the player can send in ships to do battle with the opposing fleet in real-time. This particular feature of the game is available to be played as a stand-alone mini-game which has been made available in beta. Throughout the campaign the player can recruit human or alien ships, these are fielded in Fleet battles to fight the enemy ships. Fleet Battles are resolved through a number of one-on-one battles, where the player selects which ship in their fleet to deploy. Each time the player loses their ship, they must pick another until all of the enemy ships are destroyed. Enemy fleets will generally consist of 1-3 ships depending on their potency; a Scryve Dreadnought is about the same power as three Tywom ships.

Each type of ship has unique qualities that make them strong or weak against particular ship types. For example, The Measured have a short range blast that deals damages around them and can't be evaded, which is deadly against close range ships such as the Trandals Tywom.The Measured ships are weak and only have short range weaponry, so they're vulnerable to long range weaponry such as the Earthling Cruiser's Nuclear Missiles. The player is encouraged to recruit a wide arsenal of ship types in order to give them more tactical flexibility when entering a Fleet Battle.

The player's main command ship can also partake in Fleet Battles and is customizable with powerful weaponry and stats, however any damage taken will reduce the player's crew count and if the command ship is destroyed the player loses. Players can choose to either invest in making their command vessel deadly in combat, or rely on a wide compliment of craft in their fleet.

Fleet Battle Objects

• Wormholes

Allows for rapid movement accross the Fleet Battle Arena. Players can enter a wormhole to rapidly transport to the other end of the wormhole.

• Planets

Players can approach a planet to perform a gravitational slingshot off it and rapidly change direction. Useful for rapid manoeuvres but runs the risk of losing some crew.

• Asteroids

Asteroids are most common on the outskirts of the Arena, they impede projectiles and slow the player down upon impact as well as having the chance to damage the crew. Asteroids should be avoided, especially with weak ships.

• Ion Storms

Passing through an Ion Storm drains the battery of a ship, preventing players from firing their weapons and other abilities. Players should avoid Ion Storm.

Ship Upgrades and Customization

Resources earned from exploring planets can be used to upgrade the player's command ship. There are many upgrade types:

• Lander Capacity

Increases the amount of Landers that can be stored on the Command ship. Useful to upgrade if you are landing on hazardous planets.

• Lander Upgrades

Makes the Lander more resistant to certain hazardous conditions. Heat plating, for example, will allow the lander to explore hot planets such as Venus.

• Fuel Capacity

Additional fuel storage allows for longer missions deep into space before needing to return to refuel.

• Engine Upgrades

Increases the acceleration and maximum speed of the ship when travelling around star systems

• Thruster Upgrade

Increases the turn speed, especially useful for Fleet Battles

• Hyperspeed Upgrades

Increases travel speed through Hyperspace

• Weapons

Customizes the weaponry used in Fleet Battles

• Crew Quarters

Increases maximum crew capacity. Crew acts as the command ship's health, if defeated the player loses. Crew can only be replaced in Sol, so increases crew capacity allows for deeper missions into space

• Cargo Pod

Increases maximum storage of resources collected from exploring worlds. Screenshot.

Fleet Battles Standalone

As well as through the campaign, Fleet Battles can be played separately as its own standalone game, either single player vs AI, local play with two controllers or online. In the Fleet Battle standalone, players are given a finite amount of Fleet Points which they can use to assemble a fleet. Every ship has a Fleet Point cost depending on its potency, such as a Scryve Scout costing 7 Fleet Points while a Scryve Dreadnought costs 28, so players can choose to have a small fleet with powerful ships or a vast fleet with weaker ships. Players can also create ships from scratch using the Ship Editor or download them from Steam Workshop and deploy them in Fleet Battles, even in multiplayer.

Fleet Battles can be played on many maps and the amount of Fleet Points and objects can be configured in custom games.

Known Species

These are some of the species you may encounter in Star Control: Origins:

• Arilou
• Drenkend
• Greegrox
• Orz
• The Measured
• Menkmack
• Mowlings
• Mu'Kay
• Syreen
• Overmind
• Phamysht
• Trandals
• Pinthi
• Scryve
• VUX
• Tywom
• Chenjesu
• Norast
• Jonterwock
• Kzanti
• Jeff
• Humans

Historical Timeline

c. 250,000 BCE	The Precursors appear on the galactic scene.
c. 200,000 BCE	The Eternal Wars. Formation of Quasi-Degenerate worlds.
c. 25,000 BCE	Drall Alliance formed with Taalo and Mael-Num
c. 22,500 BCE	Taalo discover Ur-Quan
c. 22,000 BCE	Discovery of the first Origin. Destruction of Drall Alliance. Disappearance of Ur-Quan to unknown space.
c. 20,000 BCE	Rise of the Dnyarri Hegemony
c. 19,000 BCE	Taalo flee known space.
c. 17,000 BCE	Location of first Origin lost, arrival of the Xraki and domination by the Dnyarri.
c. 16,000 BCE	Dnyarri begin breeding Xraki into different castes.
c. 15,000 BCE	Dnyarri Hegemony spreads throughout the Orion Spur.
c. 11,000 BCE	Rise of the Faction of Eight to contest the Dnyarri Hegemony
c. 9,000 BCE	Dnyarri Hegemony falls, exiled to unknown region. Xraki disappear.
c. 8,000 BCE	The Scryve are discovered by the Faction of Eight.
c. 7,500 BCE	The Scryve overthrow the Faction of Eight. Survivors disperse to unknown parts.
c. 6,500 BCE	The Measured discovered by the Scryve. Made wards of the Empire.
c. 4,000 BCE	Discovery of the "contagion" which is engineered into a sentient virus by the Scryve.
c. 3,000 BCE	The "Ancient One" enters this area of space seeking refuge. Scryve leave it alone.
c. 2,500 BCE	Scryve begin discovering Precursor artifacts. An Origin is found allowing them to explore realities above and below their own.
c. 2,450 BCE	Destruction of several major species. Scryve adopt new policies towards ward species, vowing to eliminate future threats before they fully develop.
c. 400 AD	Drenkend discovered by the Scryve. Extensive genetic modifications commenced to forge them into creatures of war.
c. 1500	Tywom discovered by the Scryve. Made wards of the Empire.
1620	Menkmack discovered by Bylaw Enforcement officers of The Measured. Made wards of the Empire.
1825	Phamysht discovered by the Scryve. Made wards of the Empire.
1853	Overmind discovered by the Scryve. Made wards of the Empire.
1901	Precursor receiver on Ceres stops recording data.
1990	The Tywom discover and uplift a species called the Zalence.
1992	Scryve exterminate the Zalence, warn Tywom not to get "too curious" again.
2035	The Tywom pick up radio broadcasts from Earth. Become enthralled by human culture.
2046	Mowlings discovered by Scryve. Made wards of the Empire.
2047	Humans develop strong AI.  The technological singularity.
2048	Jeff enters this area of space.
2055	Race of strong AI beings develop on Earth, become known as the "Lexites".
2061	Scryve pass Act of Youthful Aggression, prohibiting any further addition of ward species to the Empire.
2079	Scryve detect Earthling broadcasts. Begins searching for origin point.
2081	Lexites depart Earth to Mars.
2085	Lexites departure from known space.
2086	Star Control formed to discover fate of the Lexites.
2086	Scryve 7th fleet is destroyed by an unknown force allowing the Tywom to warn Earth.