History VideoGame / Starfighter

'''Star Fighter''' -- unofficially called ''SC-78503'' to distinguish it from the F-104 and TheLastStarfighter -- was a TRS80 game written by Larry Allen "Sparky" Starks (b.1951 – d.2011) and published in 1980 by Adventure International. To many TRS-80 afficonados, it was the best game ever put out for that platform.

* ShownTheirWork: The user's manual went into ''exhaustive'' detail about the political entities, hypercharge physics (including Alsinger's Klien/Kline Cone Imaginary Matter model), etc..

** The second-smallest enemy craft was nicknamed the "Cluster Chuck," which officially was a trio of Khomendier Class C Raiders acting in concert. "Khomendier" was a reference to Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran.

** The second-smallest enemy craft was a trio nicknamed the "Cluster Chuck," which officially was three Khomendier Class C Raiders acting in concert. "Khomendier" was a reference to Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran.

* ShownTheirWork: The user's manual went into ''exhaustive'' detail about the political entities, hypercharge physics (including the deaded Kline Cone Imaginary Matter Model), etc..

->Starfighter was originally intended to introduce a world of 'all bad guys', depending on your perspective. PRC represented power as acquired by indiscriminate use of resources. SGA represented power as acquired by indiscriminate use of untested technology, and IMRC represented power as acquired by pragmatic prioritization of profit above all else. [=StarMerchant=] was planned as a sequel to [=StarFighter=], to be followed by Marauder, with each perspective so being represented. But.. (smile) the computer industry moved forward faster than anyone anticipated, and before I could get out two more TRS-80 products, I was busy rewriting [=StarFighter=] for [[Atari8BitComputers Atari 400/800]] as ''Destiny: The Cruiser'' (I had sold rights to the name [=StarFighter=] to Lorimar to make a movie: The Last Starfighter, and [=StarCruiser=] proved to be already owned).

->Starfighter was originally intended to introduce a world of 'all bad guys', depending on your perspective. PRC represented power as acquired by indiscriminate use of resources. SGA represented power as acquired by indiscriminate use of untested technology, and IMRC represented power as acquired by pragmatic prioritization of profit above all else. [=StarMerchant=] was planned as a sequel to [=StarFighter=], to be followed by Marauder, with each perspective so being represented. But.. (smile) the computer industry moved forward faster than anyone anticipated, and before I could get out two more TRS-80 products, I was busy rewriting [=StarFighter=] for [[Atari8BitComputers 400/800]] as ''Destiny: The Cruiser'' (I had sold rights to the name [=StarFighter=] to Lorimar to make a movie: The Last Starfighter, and [=StarCruiser=] proved to be already owned).

->Starfighter was originally intended to introduce a world of 'all bad guys', depending on your perspective. PRC represented power as acquired by indiscriminate use of resources. SGA represented power as acquired by indiscriminate use of untested technology, and IMRC represented power as acquired by pragmatic prioritization of profit above all else. [=StarMerchant=] was planned as a sequel to [=StarFighter=], to be followed by Marauder, with each perspective so being represented. But.. (smile) the computer industry moved forward faster than anyone anticipated, and before I could get out two more TRS-80 products, I was busy rewriting [=StarFighter=]for [[Atari8BitComputers 400/800]] as Destiny: The Cruiser (I had sold rights to the name [=StarFighter=] to Lorimar to make a movie: The Last Starfighter, and [=StarCruiser=] proved to be already owned).

->Starfighter was originally intended to introduce a world of'all bad guys', depending on your perspective. PRC represented power as acquired by indiscriminate use of resources. SGA represented power as acquired by indiscriminate use of untested technology, and IMRC represented power as acquired by pragmatic prioritization of profit above all else. [=StarMerchant=] was planned as a sequel to [=StarFighter=], to be followed by Marauder, with each perspective so being represented. But.. (smile) the computer industry moved forward faster than anyone anticipated, and before I could get out two more TRS-80 products, I was busy rewriting [=StarFighter=]for [[Atari8BitComputers 400/800]] as Destiny: The Cruiser (I had sold rights to the name [=StarFighter=] to Lorimar to make a movie: The Last Starfighter, and [=StarCruiser=] proved to be already owned).

'''Star Fighter''' -- unofficially called ''SC-78503'' to distinguish it from the F-104 and TheLastStarfighter -- was a TRS80 game written by Larry Allen "Sparky" Starks (1951-2011) and published in 1980 by Adventure International. To many TRS-80 afficonados, it was the best game ever put out for that platform.

Set in a far future, when "hypercharge" technology has completely reshaped interstellar civilization, and the Solar Galactic Authority is at war with the Petro Resource Conglomerate. You, the player, are a mercenary hired out by the S.G.A. and given your own SC-78503 ''Starfighter'' spacecraft with which to vanquish the ships of the P.R.C..

The opening screen proclaimed that the game was "Future space combat simulation number one." Numbers two and three were planned, but never written, as by that time the age of the single-author computer game was coming to an end. The two sequels were going to be "Star Merchant", which was from the perspective of one of the interstellar traders you occasionally ran across as a Starfighter pilot; and "Marauder", which was from the perspective of the P.R.C.. Starfighter was eventually ported to the [[Atari8BitComputers Atari 800]] under the name "Destiny: The Cruiser", but only 50 EPROM copies were ever released.

'''Star Fighter''' -- unofficially called ''SC-78503'' to distinguish it from the F-104 and TheLastStarfighter -- was a TRS80 game written by Sparky Starks and published in 1980 by Adventure International. To many TRS-80 afficonados, it was the best game ever put out for that platform.

* OldSchoolDogfighting: Your Starfighter always followed its nose. If you were moving forward, and you turned, you'd actually chance course. Accelerating or decelerating cost fuel, but turning didn't -- so braking to a stop at speed 60, turning around, and accelerating back up to speed 60 again cost you 120 fuel units, but keeping your speed at 60 and turning around cost you no fuel at all.

Your mission consists of locating other spacecraft flying between the stars, flying in to intercept them, determining whether they are friend or foe, and then either attacking them or flying away. A hypercharge field surrounds your craft, which allows for FTLTravel and acts as both DeflectorShields and weaponry. Taking hits, firing your weapons, or flying through hyperspace drains hypercharge. A successful kill goes on your record and can be redeemed either for (A) bounty money, which you need to keep your craft fuelled, repaired, and charged; or (B) rank grade points within the military. Earn enough military grade and you get a [[LevelUp promotion]], which entitles you to install an entire extra layer of hypercharge field on your spacecraft (which you still have to pay for with bounty money).

* TimeTravel: FTLTravel, as any good student of UsefulNotes/{{Relativity}} will tell you, implies time travel. Frustratingly, it was possible to kill an enemy spacecraft, then warp to Landbase Central to earn military rank for it, only to learn that you'd arrived before you actually made the kill! (For some reason, the Landbases that paid out bounties always knew about your kills, even if travelling to them put you in the past; perhaps Landbase Central just had a more entrenched bureaucracy.)

Your mission consists of locating other spacecraft flying between the stars, flying in to intercept them, determining whether they are friend or foe, and then either attacking them or flying away. A hypercharge field surrounds your craft, which allows for FTLTravel and acts as both DeflectorShields and weaponry. Taking hits, firing your weapons, or flying through hyperspace drains hypercharge. A successful kill goes on your record and can be redeemed either for (A) bounty money, which you need to keep your craft fuelled, repaired, and charged; or (B) rank points within the military. Earn enough rank and you get a [[LevelUp promotion]], which entitles you to install an entire extra layer of hypercharge field on your spacecraft (which you still have to pay for with bounty money).

* GoodBadBug:
** Repairing your craft supposedly cost 2000 sovereigns, and in fact if your bank balance was below 2000 sovereigns you couldn't get repairs. However, if your bank balance was above 2000 sovereigns, you'd get repaired but the 2000 sovereigns wouldn't actually be deducted from your account. Which meant that repairs were free.
** Your Beam Weapon did damage in inverse proportion to your distance to the target. At range 0, its damage was infinite.
** Speeds were supposed to be limited to multiples of 2 -- 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128, depending on which key (0-7) you pressed. However, you could hold down 2 number keys at the same time, and their speeds would be added together; holding down all keys from 0 through 7 at the same time would theoretically give you a maximum speed of 255.

'''Star Fighter''' -- unofficially called ''SC-78503'' to distinguish it from the F-104 and TheLastStarfighter -- was a TRS80 game published in 1980 by Adventure International. To many TRS-80 afficonados, it was the best game ever put out for that platform.

* OneHitPointWonder: If any enemy shot you while you had no field in place, even if the shot was extremely weak, your spacecraft was instantly destroyed.

* WeWillUseCreditsInTheFuture: Averted. The unit of currency is the "sovereign."

[[caption-width-right:302:tic tic tic tic tic tic tic ...]]

** Repairing your craft supposedly cost 2000 credits, and in fact if your bank balance was below 2000 credits you couldn't get repairs. However, if your bank balance was above 2000 credits, you'd get repaired but the 2000 credits wouldn't actually be deducted from your account. Which meant that repairs were free.

** The second-smallest enemy craft was the "Cluster Chuck," whose alternate name was a reference to Iran.

The opening screen proclaimed that the game was "Future space combat simulation number one." Numbers two and three were planned, but never written, as by that time the age of the single-author computer game was coming to an end.

'''Star Fighter''' -- unofficially called ''SC-78503'' to distinguish it from the F-104 and Film/TheLastStarfighter -- was a TRS80 game published in 1980 by Adventure International. To many TRS-80 afficonados, it was the best game ever put out for that platform.