Vega Strike
Encyclopedia
Vega Strike is a first-person
space trading and combat simulator, developed for Microsoft Windows
, POSIX
Unix-like operating systems such as Linux
, and Mac OS X
systems. Many of the core game mechanics of Vega Strike are indirectly inspired by Elite. The successors to Elite, namely Wing Commander: Privateer
, were particularly strong influences.
Vega Strike is programmed in C
/C++
over the OpenGL
3D graphics API and performs internal scripting written in Python
and XML
. Released under the GNU General Public License
, Vega Strike is free and open source software
.
with diverse factions of varying disposition to the player and to each other, and an economy model where trade, combat and exploration are all profitable. Financial gains allow the player to buy upgrades and/or better vehicles, thus enabling him/her to advance into more dangerous and profitable missions. The player can have varying levels of relations with factions. Negative relations can form if the player kills some of a given faction’s ships. Positive relations can be formed if the player destroys ships that are part of an enemy to a given faction. Players can either buy and sell cargo, or accept missions from the Mission Computer, as well as talking to people in the local bar at the space station
/planet
. In the tradition of some precursor games, individuals of significant plot importance are often found in bar
s.
The existence of a universal currency
, open market
s, trading items of value to all or most groups, and widespread technologies allows the player to do business practically everywhere and buy from anyone.
There is also a campaign in the game which assigns certain missions for the player, following various paths within a story-graph. The player can continue playing the game after the campaign is finished.
speed
of the player’s spacecraft, causing the ship to reach high speeds, allowing the player to quickly travel to different locations in a solar system
. However, the number of times it multiplies the engine speed is limited by gravity: The closer the player’s ship is to a planet/space station, the less the speed is multiplied. After the player waits, and gets farther away from the gravity of the planet/station, the SPEC drive will “ramp up”, and the player’s ship will stretch and star streaks will appear, until the player’s spacecraft slows down due to gravity, or the player deactivates the SPEC drive.
To travel to different star systems, the player needs to go to weak points in space known as jump points, as well as buying a jump drive in advance. Once the player equips his/her ship with a jump drive, the player needs to go to a jump point. Once the player’s ship is close enough to the jump point, the player can activate the jump drive, and "jump" to another solar system in a few seconds. In typical solar systems, there is an assortment of jump points, each point leading to another system. The player may have to go through multiple systems/jump points to get to the destination system. For missions that span across multiple systems, the instructions for which jump points to go to are displayed on the HUD, but if the player wants to reach an area regardless of any missions, he/she can use the navigation computer to plot the correct course.
, he/she can use it to buy upgrades to improve the spacecraft
’s performance. Upgrades include repair, repair systems such as the Repair Droids, Reactors for your spaceship (Better reactors allow the spacecraft to use better weapons and also fly longer distances in your ship with the SPEC system engaged), energy shields and hull upgrades (to make the spacecraft stronger against attack), weapons such as laser
s and missile
s, maneuverability enhancers (like mult jet
turn enhancers which increase the ship’s turning rate), and miscellaneous upgrades such as adding extra cargo space, fuel
, cloaking devices (which make the ship invisible visually and undetectable by radar/sensors) and ECM
systems (anti-missile countermeasures). Every spacecraft can only carry a limited amount of upgrades, as they all have a maximum upgrade capacity.
Vega Strike contains a wide array of spacecraft that are sold by each race, and by various factions within each race. Vessels vary in purpose from multipurpose civilian
craft such as the Plowshare medium-size cargo shuttle to high-performance fighter/assault craft such as the Ariston. Cargo haulers, bombers, and even capital ships are at the player’s disposal.
The player starts with the Llama class light cargo shuttle, along with some basic upgrades. As the player progresses into the game, he/she has a choice of buying multiple ships.
Far from all of the spacecraft in the game are available for the player to buy by default; however, some players edit certain resource files manually to enable other spacecraft to be bought and piloted. Such spacecraft are not (yet) tuned for player usage, and may lead to unbalanced gameplay.
General characters that appear outside of the campaign are Merchants that hang around bars that give the player cargo missions, Confed officers that assign patrol/clean sweep missions, Pirates and ISO members that give cargo/bounty missions, as well as bounty hunters that give bounty missions.
First person (video games)
In video games, first person refers to a graphical perspective rendered from the viewpoint of the player character. In many cases, this may be the viewpoint from the cockpit of a vehicle. Many different genres have made use of first-person perspectives, ranging from adventure games to flight...
space trading and combat simulator, developed for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
Unix-like operating systems such as Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
systems. Many of the core game mechanics of Vega Strike are indirectly inspired by Elite. The successors to Elite, namely Wing Commander: Privateer
Wing Commander: Privateer
Wing Commander: Privateer is an adventure space flight simulation computer game released by Origin Systems in 1993. Privateer and its storyline is part of the Wing Commander series...
, were particularly strong influences.
Vega Strike is programmed in C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
/C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
over the OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
3D graphics API and performs internal scripting written in Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
and XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
. Released under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, Vega Strike is free and open source software
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
.
Gameplay
Vega Strike aims to insert players into a large, dynamic universeUniverse
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
with diverse factions of varying disposition to the player and to each other, and an economy model where trade, combat and exploration are all profitable. Financial gains allow the player to buy upgrades and/or better vehicles, thus enabling him/her to advance into more dangerous and profitable missions. The player can have varying levels of relations with factions. Negative relations can form if the player kills some of a given faction’s ships. Positive relations can be formed if the player destroys ships that are part of an enemy to a given faction. Players can either buy and sell cargo, or accept missions from the Mission Computer, as well as talking to people in the local bar at the space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
/planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
. In the tradition of some precursor games, individuals of significant plot importance are often found in bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
s.
The existence of a universal currency
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
, open market
Open market
The term open market is used generally to refer to a situation close to free trade and in a more specific technical sense to interbank trade in securities.-Use of the term in economic theory:...
s, trading items of value to all or most groups, and widespread technologies allows the player to do business practically everywhere and buy from anyone.
There is also a campaign in the game which assigns certain missions for the player, following various paths within a story-graph. The player can continue playing the game after the campaign is finished.
Transportation
To travel quickly to and from different planets/space stations in the same system, the SPEC system is used. It multiplies the engineEngine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert energy into useful mechanical motion. Heat engines, including internal combustion engines and external combustion engines burn a fuel to create heat which is then used to create motion...
speed
Speed
In kinematics, the speed of an object is the magnitude of its velocity ; it is thus a scalar quantity. The average speed of an object in an interval of time is the distance traveled by the object divided by the duration of the interval; the instantaneous speed is the limit of the average speed as...
of the player’s spacecraft, causing the ship to reach high speeds, allowing the player to quickly travel to different locations in a solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
. However, the number of times it multiplies the engine speed is limited by gravity: The closer the player’s ship is to a planet/space station, the less the speed is multiplied. After the player waits, and gets farther away from the gravity of the planet/station, the SPEC drive will “ramp up”, and the player’s ship will stretch and star streaks will appear, until the player’s spacecraft slows down due to gravity, or the player deactivates the SPEC drive.
To travel to different star systems, the player needs to go to weak points in space known as jump points, as well as buying a jump drive in advance. Once the player equips his/her ship with a jump drive, the player needs to go to a jump point. Once the player’s ship is close enough to the jump point, the player can activate the jump drive, and "jump" to another solar system in a few seconds. In typical solar systems, there is an assortment of jump points, each point leading to another system. The player may have to go through multiple systems/jump points to get to the destination system. For missions that span across multiple systems, the instructions for which jump points to go to are displayed on the HUD, but if the player wants to reach an area regardless of any missions, he/she can use the navigation computer to plot the correct course.
Mission types
- Cargo: TransportTransportTransport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
ation of items of the most diverse kinds, ranging from foodstuffs to political prisonerPolitical prisonerAccording to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s—a dangerous trade, as authorities will detect illegal cargo and pirates will attempt to pry it off unsuspecting haulers. - Bounty: Players are advised to be careful in their choice of targets, as every faction has their own friends and enemies.
- Patrol: A number of targets within a system must be scanned in detail by visiting each in turn.
- Clean Sweep: Similar to patrol, but any hostiles encountered on the way must be eliminated.
- Defense: A target in the system is being attacked by enemy forces. The player must eliminate the attacking forces and keep the target from being destroyed. The target can range from a small merchantMerchantA merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
ship being attacked by some light forces, to a space station being destroyed by a large, well planned attack force. - Rescue: A player must rescue a downed pilotAviatorAn aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
, and he/she will be rewarded with credits. The player must proceed to a location, tractor the pilot’s escape pod in and carry him to a destination planet. However, the escape pod is usually in a battle zone, and the player is warned to exercise caution in these missions.
Upgrades
Vega Strike includes a variety of upgrades for the player’s ship. As the player makes more moneyMoney
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
, he/she can use it to buy upgrades to improve the spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
’s performance. Upgrades include repair, repair systems such as the Repair Droids, Reactors for your spaceship (Better reactors allow the spacecraft to use better weapons and also fly longer distances in your ship with the SPEC system engaged), energy shields and hull upgrades (to make the spacecraft stronger against attack), weapons such as laser
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...
s and missile
Missile
Though a missile may be any thrown or launched object, it colloquially almost always refers to a self-propelled guided weapon system.-Etymology:The word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning "to send"...
s, maneuverability enhancers (like mult jet
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...
turn enhancers which increase the ship’s turning rate), and miscellaneous upgrades such as adding extra cargo space, fuel
Fuel
Fuel is any material that stores energy that can later be extracted to perform mechanical work in a controlled manner. Most fuels used by humans undergo combustion, a redox reaction in which a combustible substance releases energy after it ignites and reacts with the oxygen in the air...
, cloaking devices (which make the ship invisible visually and undetectable by radar/sensors) and ECM
Electronic countermeasures
An electronic countermeasure is an electrical or electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, sonar or other detection systems, like infrared or lasers. It may be used both offensively and defensively to deny targeting information to an enemy...
systems (anti-missile countermeasures). Every spacecraft can only carry a limited amount of upgrades, as they all have a maximum upgrade capacity.
Spacecraft
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
craft such as the Plowshare medium-size cargo shuttle to high-performance fighter/assault craft such as the Ariston. Cargo haulers, bombers, and even capital ships are at the player’s disposal.
The player starts with the Llama class light cargo shuttle, along with some basic upgrades. As the player progresses into the game, he/she has a choice of buying multiple ships.
Far from all of the spacecraft in the game are available for the player to buy by default; however, some players edit certain resource files manually to enable other spacecraft to be bought and piloted. Such spacecraft are not (yet) tuned for player usage, and may lead to unbalanced gameplay.
The Vega Strike universe
Vega Strike takes place in our known universe, as the Solar System and many known names from actual stellar cartography are represented. Sol is not the departing point for players, as the main character, Deucalion, was not raised by humans. The player starts out on an Oceanic planet in the Cephid 17 solar system, unemployed and still reeling from the financial and emotional trauma surrounding the death of his brother-in-law, the previous owner of the vessel he now commands.Characters
One of the first people the player will meet is Jenek, whose hauler has broken down. He needs the player to deliver a shipment for him. If the player accepts the mission, it will lead into the campaign of the story, where the player will meet more characters.General characters that appear outside of the campaign are Merchants that hang around bars that give the player cargo missions, Confed officers that assign patrol/clean sweep missions, Pirates and ISO members that give cargo/bounty missions, as well as bounty hunters that give bounty missions.
Species
- Humans: One of the three larger powers in the Vega Strike universe, human factions includes the Andolians, Purists, Shapers, League of Independent Human Worlds, Merchant’s Guild, Unadorned, High-Born, Mechanists, ISO, Interstellar Church of TrueForm’s Return (Luddites), the Forsaken, and assorted pirate groups. The primary genesis of factional divisions among humans can be traced back to the formation of meme-groups on pre-interstellar Earth, and the general pattern of single meme-groups being dominant, if not exclusive, in the first several waves of sub-light colonization. Many of the current human factions have poor, sometimes violent, relations with each other. In general, humans are at war with the Aera.
- Rlaan: The Rlaan are methane breathing aliens and another of the three larger powers. They are firm trading partners with humanity, though by no means allies. Their war with the Aera has calmed over the preceding eight years into a cease-fire, though it has never been formally diplomatically resolved, and minor hostilities still flare up on occasion. While the Rlaan have no love for the Aera, they will not directly assist humanity against them unless there appears to be imminent danger of collapse, as it is to their competitive advantage for the human economy to be bogged down with soaring military expenditures.
- Aera: The third and final of the major powers, the Aera are a short-lived, aggressive and vaguely paranoid species that, failing diplomatic negotiations for rights of passage for colony vessels, have attempted a military solution to the interposition of Human and Rlaan space between Aera space and the rest of the jump network. In the game, they are generally unfriendly and they will attack the player. In Human and Rlaan space, there are generally many bounties on Aera spacecraft. They also possess very powerful spacecraft and weapons, and often are part of invasions of other species' solar systems.
- Uln: A minor power and one of only four known extant groups to have achieved interstellar travel on their own, the Uln are of primary interest because their homeworld is the best preserved site known for the study of ancient artifacts. The Uln are ostensibly neutral in external dealings with the major powers, but this is due more to lack of political will and military might to enforce their own opinions than any preference for power-brokering. The Uln are relatively safe from the major powers because access to artifact research sites is perceived as far more of a benefit than any risk posed by the Uln to the major powers themselves.
- Klk'k: The fifth known extant group to achieve space-flight (though they had not reached much beyond their own moons at the time of their discovery). The Klk'k are heavily integrated with human interests, and are members of the Andolian Protectorate.
- Shmrn: The smallest independent power, these are the descendants of a slave species employed by the now defunct Light-Bearer faction of humanity, freed to pursue their own interests at the end of the first Fraternal War. They are descended from the same root stock as the Dgn.
- Other: The Dgn, Mishtali, and Purth are client species of human factions, the Lmpl, Nuhln, and Saahasayaay are client species of the Rlaan, and the Bzbr are a client species of the Aera. There are also life forms such as “Hoffman’s Blobs”, non-extant groups such as the “Ancients” and minimally evidenced groups, such as “TWHON” that do not play significant roles in the day to day affairs of the known extant species.