Starfleet Commander

I started playing Starfleet Commander by Blue Frog Games more than 2 years ago. I found it on Facebook and started it as something to do while at work. At first I played it very casually, I was at work after all and only wanted something to do for a few minutes at a time every so often. When the second universe came out I devoted more attention to it and have been one of the top ranked players.

The game is designed as a space empire building and war game. Every player has 9 planets that they can build up with mines and factories. With the resources the mines produce, or that they steal from others, you can develop new technologies, build more infrastructure, or build ships. It touched a number of things that appeal to me. It had the building aspect of Civ and RTS style games, and it had combat that didn’t require button mashing. Your worlds persisted in the universe whether you were online or not, and continued to produce resources. Your ships also persisted. To protect your ships and resources when you logged out, you did what was called ‘fleet-resource saving’. That involved sending your ships on a mission that would take as long as you planned to be away from the computer. They were safe while traveling.

Alternatively, the original game had what is called ‘Diplomatic Mode’ where you would be safe from attack in exchange for your mines producing at only 25% of their usual production. There was also ‘Vacation Mode’ which gave you protection in exchange for nothing producing or building while you were away. Dip Mode took 24hrs to go into effect, Vacation was instant but had to last for at least 48hrs.

Combat was all about catching an opponent unaware. This could be accomplished several ways, the most common was when someone went ‘inactive’, ie hadn’t logged into their account for a week. They were marked as easy prey by the game. Or if they got careless and left their ships out for to long and weren’t paying attention. You could also, with careful timing, catch someone with a ‘ninja-defense’, which involved timing a group of ships to arrive to defend a planet a split second before an enemies attack landed. Alternatively, you could do an ‘oracle-lock’, this involved sending an attack at an enemy while they had ships on a return trip. Ships returning couldn’t be stopped or slowed down so that if you timed it right, you would arrive just after the ships and blow them up.

Building up colonies and working with some of the Alliances I joined was a lot of fun. Catching a big fleet in an attack or being sneaky and pulling off a defend were quite a thrill. If you were careful, you really didn’t have to devote that much time to the game. Just send your ships away for 24hrs and check once a day.

It was a strangely addicting game which was why I played it for so long. Building up colonies, researching techs, building fleets, sending raids. All fun elements.  The game company launched a new game called Stardrift Empires, which is basically the same game with a new skin. The new graphics are much nicer and they’ve added a nice tutorial and several elements like achievements and quests.

But the games are hopelessly flawed. It is entirely based on catching people not paying attention. While, that might sound like good warfare, it makes for a horrible game. Get busy or distracted with real life, and months of work can be wiped out. The only targets are people not paying attention or people who have quit out of frustration. Combat is entirely a numbers game. Who ever has more ships wins. And the longer the game goes on, the more the older players have and they become untouchable by others.

The new Stardrift Empires game removes the ‘diplomatic mode’ feature, which on one hand is good. Half the game would be filled with people in dip mode, which made finding targets very hard sometimes. But it also means that if you can’t play for awhile, you have to use vacation mode. Vacation mode requires that you cancel anything you were building. And in the late game, things can take weeks to build. This makes the game even less friendly to casual play.

I’d like a strategy building game that you play slowly over time. Something where you can attack and interact with others. But one that doesn’t penalize you for having a life away from the computer. So I’ve decided to break the addiction and quit SFC. I might play the new game for a short time, just because the first few weeks of the game are the most fun, but probably should cut it off as well.