Now You Can Play Starshatter for Free!
Edit: Starshatter Mods seems to be down, so if y’all find this story and still wanna download the game, you can over on SpaceSimCentral. Thanks for visiting!
I know I’m behind on posting news, but I’ve no idea how I missed this, and thanks to the folks on Quarter to Three for pointing it out to me. Apparently the excellent and unique military space sim, Starshatter: The Gathering Storm, has gone open source thanks to its original developer releasing the source code. This unique space sim — which has a flight-simesque dynamic campaign and allows command of both fighters and capital ships — has been up until now very hard and expensive to obtain. According to the story on StarshatterMods:
14 DEC, 2011 – STARSHATTER:THE GATHERING STORM – Open Source Version 5.0.5. This download Includes the cumulative Starshatter-TGS game up to version 5.0.5 (No CD Required). It is available for download from our “Lagacy Official File” section.
If you’d like to try this excellent sim, head over to StarshatterMods, register an account, then head to the Downloads to download the entire game. Enjoy!
Ah finally I get to try this..thanks.
Heh, no problem, it's no MOO2, but it's a great game. ;)
Downloading it now :)
Awesome! Have you played SS before?
Nope, i tried it for the first time today and I just didn't get the hang of those controls. Eventually I closed it but I'll probably give it another go in a few days.
Yeah, it's one of the more hard-core space sims, more akin to a detailed flight combat sim than a traditional space sim. It's worth sinking your teeth into, as it's one of the only space sims of its type with such a level of flexibility — thanks to being able to fly different craft, from fighters to bombers to carriers — and replayability, thanks to its amazing dynamic campaign, which is very rare in space sims. Good luck!
I agree. Starshatter is a rather hard-core space simulation and not for the casual player. It will take some time and skill to become a competent Starhstatter commander. This is as it should be for such a simulation. Oh, no cheat codes are available either. One will have to earn ones command rank.
Well said, William. Good to see you here, by the way. Love your site, and thanks for helping keep SS alive all these years after it was seemingly and unabashedly abandoned so long ago. :) Now that it's Open Source, I'm hoping it can see the same life that Freespace 2 still does. :)
Thanks for the heads-up, Brian! I'd heard about this game years and years ago, but never checked it out. Will do so now. :)
You're quite welcome, and enjoy! Just note, it's fairly on the hart-core side, so don't get disheartened if you die a lot at first. :)
For what little it may be worth, I wrote a noob's review of Starshatter and how to obtain, install, and roughly how to configure it here: https://drfrog.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/starshatt…
Ohhhh, nice! I'll put this in my next round of snippets! Thanks!
Has anyone here heard from Wdboyd at all? Starshattermods has been down for over a week now, and I am unable to contack Wdboyd. If anyone has any info and can pass it along, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Welcome to the site Brad! Sadly I don’t know the Wdboyd at all, sadly, but maybe someone here does?
Hi Brad
Haven’t been able to contact Wdboyd either.
Do you have CaptainX contact info?
HI Toshiro,
No I do not have contact info for captainX. Do you happend to know how to get ahold of him. I’m starting to get a little worried about William. I hope nothing happened to him.
Sorry Brad, his only working email address was through starshattermods.com. perhaps you should comm with me directly. saint2007@shaw.ca
Toshiro
Yeah, can’t see it up here either. If necessary, I can put up some zero-effort Mediafire hosting for the base game and required mods. Just say the word.
It’s on Space Sim Central, so that should be okay for now.