History VideoGame / Starfighter

'''[=StarFighter=]''' -- unofficially called ''SC-78503'' to distinguish it from the F-104 and ''Film/TheLastStarfighter'' -- was a UsefulNotes/TRS80 game written by Larry Allen "Sparky" Starks (b.1951 – d.2011) and published in 1980 by Creator/AdventureInternational. To many TRS-80 afficonados, it was the best game ever put out for that platform.

->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 [[UsefulNotes/Atari8BitComputers Atari 400/800]] as ''Destiny: The Cruiser'' (I had sold rights to the name [=StarFighter=] to Lorimar to make a movie: ''Film/TheLastStarfighter'', and [=StarCruiser=] proved to be already owned).

* {{Feelies}}: If you managed to get promoted ''beyond'' the rank of Star Lord, the game would give you a secret password that you could mail into Adventure International. Adventure International would then send you a certificate granting you a chair on the (fictional) S.G.A. board of directors. Note that even getting ''to'' Star Lord rank took a lot of playing time, and ''exceeding'' it was almost impossible to do without cheating.

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). Killing friendly craft, even by accident, makes you lose military grade.

** The smallest enemy craft, nicknamed the Gnat, was the PRC Exxonnerator. The name was a shout-out to Exxon (appropriate, since PRC stood for Petro Resource Conglomerate). The shape of the craft was clearly an homage to the Tie Fighters from ''StarWars''.

'''[=StarFighter=]''' -- unofficially called ''SC-78503'' to distinguish it from the F-104 and Film/TheLastStarfighter -- was a UsefulNotes/TRS80 game written by Larry Allen "Sparky" Starks (b.1951 – d.2011) and published in 1980 by Creator/AdventureInternational. To many TRS-80 afficonados, it was the best game ever put out for that platform.

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

->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 [[UsefulNotes/Atari8BitComputers Atari 400/800]] as ''Destiny: The Cruiser'' (I had sold rights to the name [=StarFighter=] to Lorimar to make a movie: ''TheLastStarfighter'', 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 Atari 400/800]] as ''Destiny: The Cruiser'' (I had sold rights to the name [=StarFighter=] to Lorimar to make a movie: ''TheLastStarfighter'', and [=StarCruiser=] proved to be already owned).

'''[=StarFighter=]''' -- 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 Creator/AdventureInternational. To many TRS-80 afficonados, it was the best game ever put out for that platform.

* MoneySink: Every time you fired weapons, used hyperdrive, or got hit, you lost hypercharge from your drive field. Recharging your drive field cost sovereigns. It also cost sovereigns for maneuvering fuel, tow tickets (for when you were stranded without enough hypercharge to fly anywhere), and repairs[[hottip:*:Although thanks to a bug, repairs were actually free -- but you still needed to have at least 2000 sovereigns sitting in your bank to make them]]. And, worse, as you got promotions to higher military rank, you earned ''less'' bounty for the same kills. Evidently, the IMRC (who pays the bounty) figured that since your spacecraft could store an extra layer of hypercharge shielding, you therefore must have had an easier time killing their enemies -- but the reality is that the wear-and-tear on your spacecraft caused by pursuing any given kill was just as expensive to remedy for a single-hypercharge-layer New Pilot as it was for a quintuple-hypercharge-layer Star Lord. It's a wonder you can make a profit as a mercenary at all.

'''[=StarFighter=]''' -- 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.

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

* 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 32, turning around, and accelerating back up to speed 32 again cost you 64 fuel units, but keeping your speed at 32 and turning around cost you no fuel at all.

->Nope, I've never written anything (yet) except softward documentation but I have been considering writing one of two things: either a near-future novel about an Internet special interest group overwhelming traditional ideas about things like unions, elections, etc with widely published straw polls, or a novella sized essay arguing that we are within 10 years of being (literally) servants of computers. Its not certain, but reason suggests that computers will soon be self-aware, un-unpluggable, and likely to wish to protect us 'for our own good' (scariest thought I've every had...). Who knows.

->STARFIGHTER, GOOD HUNTING ... D TO DRIVE ... D TO DRIVE

* Feelies: If you managed to get promoted ''beyond'' the rank of Star Lord, the game would give you a secret password that you could mail into Adventure International, whereupon they'd send you a certificate granting you a chair on the S.G.A. board of directors. (This was not easy to do without cheating.)

* ProudMerchantRace: The Independent Merchant’s Resource Corporation (IMRC) paid your kill bounties and pretty much owned all the friendly Star Merchant spacecraft you ran into from time to time. Officially, their corporate charter is with the SGA, but there's no guarantee they aren't also trading with the PRC.

* MoneySink: Every time you fired weapons, used hyperdrive, or got hit, you lost hypercharge from your drive field. Recharging your drive field cost sovereigns. It also cost sovereigns for maneuvering fuel, tow tickets (for when you were stranded without enough hypercharge to fly anywhere), and repairs[[hottip:*:Although thanks to a bug, repairs are actually free -- but you still need to have at least 2000 sovereigns sitting in your bank to make them]]. And, worse, as you get promotions to higher military rank, you earn ''less'' bounty for the same kills (the guys paying the bounty evidently figure that, since your spacecraft can store an extra layer of hypercharge shielding, you therefore must have an easier time of killing your enemies.) It's a wonder you can make a profit as a mercenary at all.

* MoneySink: Every time you fired weapons, used hyperdrive, or got hit, you lost hypercharge from your drive field. Recharging your drive field cost sovereigns. It also cost sovereigns for maneuvering fuel, tow tickets (for when you were stranded without enough hypercharge to fly anywhere), and repairs[[hottip:*:Although thanks to a bug, repairs are actually free -- but you still need to have at least 2000 sovereigns sitting in your bank to make them]]. Its a wonder you can make a profit as a mercenary at all.

** While the PRC could be seen as a dig against oil companies, it could also have been a reference to the People's Replublic of China.

** 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, as Sparky Starks confirmed in a late-2000s message board post: