ZanyOnePip on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/zanyonepip/art/NC-17-San-Reviews-Smugglers-5-543183733ZanyOnePip

Deviation Actions

NC-17 San Reviews Smugglers 5

Published: Jun 30, 2015

1.1K Views

guide indie nc17 review rpg san screenshots ships space spoiler spoilers trade trading walkthrough smugglersv smugglers5 independent sci_fi

Description

COPYRIGHT ACT ALLOWS THIS MATERIAL : "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use, in addition DMCA claims are made under penalty of perjury in addition to being eligible to collect damages under §512(f) over material being taken down and lawsuits involving DMCA abuse exist.

Due to some computer troubles NC-17 San is experiencing she is forced to review games on another computer. These games do not require the same processing power that paid download games with huge requirements like, for example, the recent COD games and Wolfenstein The New Order require.

Smugglers 5 (or Smugglers 5 Secession) is a turn-based space game that is a bit lacking on graphics, and only costs $10 dollars but has over 50,000 words of text. Anyone reminded of the Geneforge, and Avernum series, which are made by Spiderweb Software; and uses thousands of words of text in each of the games they make?

Smugglers 5 Secession has 4 factions in the game Federation, Outer Rim Alliance, Coalition, and Syndicate. There are 6 professions that determine skill trees, and starter ship. In the instance of Fleet Trader and Fleet Officer you start off with a corvette but are older. Starting faction also determines starting ship, Each faction and pirate ships also has thier own unique artwork for icons and in-game sprite with faction based coloring. You can even earn your own planet with enough hard work.

The Fleet Trader is a lot like the Free Trader but part of the military. In 2 out of 4 factions, the Free Trader starts up with a ship with a larger cargo hold, but weaker weapons, called the Orion II. Free Traders can get skills that allow them to buy more goods in one system, hold more goods in thier ship, know the prices of goods across the galaxy, eventually they can buy thier own farms and factories.

The Bounty Hunter, another profession, tends to start with a ship that has more powerful weapons, and shields, but less cargo space. Bounty Hunters can eventually raid pirate hideouts, and even command fleets, and capture systems for his nation. Bounty hunting is also a very good way of earning money in this game; hunting pirates that use cruisers grants over a million credits in the game (if you accepet the bounty hunting job). The Bounty hunter recieves a skill that help him find the pirates with the bounties. Bounty Hunters can also get a possible combat ability called Ace of Aces which increases the damage you deal dramatically, and makes your guns more accurate, but uses up 2 skills.

The Smuggler gets and can get a lot of passive skills, like avoiding being flagged as a criminal after commiting a crime, have a good chance of landing on a planet while flagged as a criminal (and another skill they can get increases this chance), can hide at a pirate hideout until your criminal flag wears off, know the locations of all pirate hideouts, can find certain spots to get secret data with the Spy skill (spy sensors required to download it though). They also can get skills that allow them to find contraband cheap in one location, sell it in a location where it's more expensive, can even hold more contraband in their cargo hold (putting tons of weed in your cargo hold in the modern world will likely get your container ship seized), and even ask a governor for amnesty (who you presumably bribed to your side with money from illegal activity). This would cause a massive scandal if you do it in the real world so don't actually do it.

The Pirate also knows about all the pirate bases in The Galaxy, they can eventually board ships, get a skill that tells them if a treasure ship is in thier system, can take control of a pirate hideout, start thier own pirate empire, and even plunder planets. Pirates also start with 2 unique ships (The Black Widow and the Orca) that can't be purchased in The Galaxy.

There are 4 classes of ships that can be purchased: fighter, corvette, destroyer, and cruiser. The ships can purchase equipment different than thier standard equipment, some restricted to use on only 1 ship class. The Experimental Combat Engine, for example, provide a 10% chance to evade attacks, but can only be put on a fighter. Another possible piece of equipment is a Photon Missle, which costs one less action point to use, quicker impact time, and has ECM (Electronic Counter-Measures) resistance. For fighter, and corvette class ships, there is particle cannons, which are more accurate, and do more damage. It is also possible to board a battleship eventually and take it for yourself, only certain classes can do this, but battleships have thier own unique swag and equipment and boy is it powerful. For some reason it mentions that the fighter and corvettes default ship missles have nuclear warheads. Wouldn't that destroy the enemy ship and your ship with indifference?

There is a variety of ships, The Avalanche is a cruiser class ship that has increased speed and firepower in exchange for missles (put Superfusion guns on it for massive damage to your enemies ships). The Thug with 400 shield points can take a bit of a beating, and has a hidden cargo bay that reduces risk for being caught smuggling contraband items.

If you manage to board and seize a Battleship class ship; you can get a lot of powerful upgrades. For example, the Plasma Net ECM offers 100% chance for interception (Though In my experience playing the game, it can be decreased if the missile has ECM resistance), It also can damage your own shields as well. Another battleship exclusive item is the Anti-Matter Missile, it can do massive damage that can destroy everything you send it at, and has ECM resistance to boot. The Stonewall battleship deserves special mention as it starts off with 6 action points and has a special ability that, when activated, allows you to fire your weapons for only one action point (which is awesome when paired with the high destruction that's caused by Quantum cannons).

There are 24 star systems to visit in the game. 4 of them can be visited in the demo as you start in 4 different ones depending on starting faction, there is: Sol for the Federation, Hyraxan VII for the Outer Rim Alliance, New France for the Coalition, and New Moscow for the Syndicate.

There is a variety of trade goods in the game, including: engines, delicacies, rare pets, weapons, and anti-matter. You can also go to a pirate base to buy illegal goods, like Rum (they still have spaceport bars though, but for some reason rum is illegal), tobacco, dreamdisc (whatever that is, presumably LSD), literature, and religious stuff. To put this into prespective, apparently The Bible; and works like the autobiographies of various US presidents is illegal but for some reason; you can fill your ship to the brim with highly explosive anti-matter, and the authorities wouldn't complain. For some reason, marijuana, is glaringly absent. Treasure can also be uncovered that grants credits to your ship and artifacts can be found that can be either given to the governor for fame or sold on the black market for credits.

When exploring a planet, or pirate base, or space station, they are a variety of weird adventures one can have. For example, getting drunk. Strange time and dimension stuff on XF-45 (a planet in Sirius, not part of the demo). Have your ship melt the ice on Howling Wind (in the Lands End system). Encounter a setup on Glenshire (in the Glenshire system) where pirates take cargo, that has been bugged with tracking devices, and find out a pirate hideout (which is really a set of repressurized old cargo containers, but functions normally in game).

Other encounters include small Teddy bear robots (At least it's not Freddy Fazbear) on Manchester II (in the New Manchester system), spoiler alert, The Teddy bear robots run amuck and do damage, in the end the person who made them is awarded a military contract and you get money.

One pirate base encounter, has a pirate send you near the sun to salvage a container on a derelict ship, which you bring back to the pirate, he gives you a book called "Hamlet" (by Shakespeare) and you get to add a new skill.

It is also possible to have your ship checked up on in one encounter (but it turns out, you feel you have been had, the message does mention it runs smoother and dents are bashed out).

One encounter on the watery World of Tir has you basically turning into a fish, after picking up a weird trident.

The spaceport bar also has odd encounters. Drunk pirates can give you the location of pirate bases, and drunkards can reveal stashes of secret data. You can even get amnesia and redistribute skill points; after taking some questionable drugs you bought in a bar.

The game could use some updates and improvements, Like destroying a pirate base provides a massive popularity bonus with the governor. As well as an expanded market system that allows you to buy ship engines for larger ships that take up multiple cargo space for just one engine, cost a lot to procure, and can be sold for even more money in some places.

If you like this review, be sure to subscribe and share.

Image size

2086x976px 1.99 MB

Comments0

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In