Star Control 3 - Some Comments

Last updated early, 1996

I bought this game shortly after it was released and I finished it about three weeks later. I liked this game, it was well put together, not especially hard but not brain dead either. The starship combat is fun and has replay value, though the main game does not. Some of the aliens were lots of fun to interact with, the Spathi and the K'Tang were the two best alien races, followed closely by the Owa and the Vux. Not that these were "good" for the purpose of wining the game, they were just the most fun to talk to.

Downsides: Although this was a good game, it was not perfect.

• Building ships: you can build a lot of ships to very little point in this game. By the end of the game I must have had more than 40 "spare" ships in addition to my main fleet of 24 ships. The designers missed several opportunities to have some good battles (especially with the Kohr-Ah). I ended up fighting the Kohr-Ah ships whenever I didn't have anything better to do. I was concerned that they might all band together and cause me problems but it never happened.
• The ships weren't very well balanced. Some ships were total wastes of time (see below) while other ships were devastatingly powerful. The designers could have done a better job of making each ship have weaknesses that could be exploited by one ship but not another.
• The user interface could have been better. It was not at all clear how to control the colony (the problem was centered on confusion as to what was being built vs. where the workers were assigned). Also, it was not clear when fuel was transferred (I finally figured out that a that a small sound when your ships reached a friendly planet indicated a fuel transfer had occurred). On a minor point, the icons for fuel vs. resources were confusing. None of these were major problems.

The Ships of Star Control 3

I shall now describe the ships that you get to control in the game. Note that ship combat is always one-on-one, and the winner must fight the next ship in whatever condition it survived the previous encounter. This way it is possible to grind down some of the powerful ships over successive combats.

Doog ship

This ship is the most powerful ship in the game. Why? First, it has an self-targeting weapon, all you have to do is fire, and it will aim as best as it can against the closest enemy target. The "shots" may not be powerful, but they are accurate and do a fair bit of damage. Second, the Doog ship can repair itself. This repair function is fast and effective. With careful tactics you can end each battle just as strong as you started it. I destroyed most of the final Herald fleet with just a few of these ships. The only problem with these ships is that it takes quite a while before you can get any of these ships to fight for you.

Chmmr Avatar

This is a great ship, it gains a lot from three small mini-ships that always orbit right next to the Chmmr ship. These mini-ships can destroy most weapons that are fired at the Chmmr ship. The weakness of the Chmmr ship is the short range of its main gun. The Chmmr ship can also use a tractor beam to drag other ships around the screen. This can be a lot of fun, especially when you can drag an enemy ship into the central planet (there is almost always a planet at the center of the combat area). The big downside to these ships is that you loose all Chmmr ships for most of the game (I lost them from day 450 to day ~1100).

Ur-Quan Dreadnought

A very powerful ship, at least for attacking the enemy ship. It doesn't have much in the way of defenses (no shields, auto-repair or point defense weapons) so it can be worn down rapidly in combat. It fires missiles that you must aim so its not as good as the computer aimed weapons, but the missiles are both powerful and fast to reload. It can also launch "fighters" which reduce its strength even further but the "fighters" do cause a fair bit of damage to the enemy. The major downside to these ships is that you only get one world producing these ships so you never have very many of them.

Utwing Jugger

This great ship can fire constantly so it can be hard to damage it (since most missiles heading towards it are destroyed on the flight over). It is limited by a poor turn speed and poor speed in general. Still, it is one of the most powerful ships in the game and able to kill nearly any other enemy ship. Although the Utwing colonies stop working at full capacity for much of the game, at least they are still working and so you should always have some of these ships around.

Mycon Podship

Although this ship has an auto-targeting weapon and can regenerate over time, it is not a great ship because it takes so long to fire its weapon and it takes even longer to self-repair. That combined with its poor turning speed makes this just an OK ship. Still you can kill the many "Dak" ships that you meet with this ship.

Orz Nemesis

A decent ship, its main gun is nearly useless but its space marines are very effective. The marines, once they land on an enemy ship, seem to live for a random amount of time so you can get lucky and kill off an enemy ship with just one or two marines. As I said, the Orz main gun is nearly useless because it is so hard to aim properly, also, the space marines reduce the strength of the ship so the Orz ship losses strength rapidly. Finally, the Orz stop fighting for you towards the middle or later part of the game.

Human Cruiser

An OK ship. It fires a powerful homing missile (which is not very fast and can miss). The Cruiser is quite weak in comparison to the other ships but it can do some damage, on occasion.

Spathi Eluder

Actually this is a decent ship but the Spathi stop working for you shortly after the game begins so for most of the game, it is irrelevant. The Spathi ship has a good missile that can be fired at following ships.

PKunk Fury

A total waste of resources. Although it is the fastest ship in the game, its weapon is very weak, it doesn't fire much, and it is very hard to aim. P'Kunk worlds are better off producing resources than ships.

Syreen ship

A near total waste of resources. Syreen worlds are better used producing resources than ships (so you can buy the Doog worlds!).

Vux Intruder

Actually this ship can often win its first battle because it starts its first battle right next to the enemy ship. However, after it wins one battle, it is doomed by its very slow speed and poor turn times. Also, you lose the Vux for most of the game.

Clairconctlar Pinnacle

This is the most powerful of the enemy ships. Under computer control, this ship can lay waste to much of your fleet (only the Utwing and more powerful ships have a fighting chance against this ship). Watch out for its teleport ability and its willingness to charge in against a weakened opponent.

"Dak" ship

You fight more of these ships than any other ship in the game. Utwing and Mycon have no problems with these ships. Not very powerful.

Exquivan Enigma

Basically a completely defensive ship. It is very hard for this ship to win in combat but it can take a long time to hunt this ship down and kill it.

Harika-Yorn ship

Not a very powerful ship, can even be defeated by the Human cruiser.

Herald ship

A fairly tough ship. Fortunately, by the time you run into this ship (in the end game) you should have a good fleet with a bunch of Doog ships that can destroy 5 of these Herald ships for every Doog ship that is lost.

K'Tang Crippler

A very weak ship, just kill it fast before it has a chance to lay many mines. I love attacking the K'Tang because of their great dialog.

LK ship

Quite weak, I don't think you ever run into these ships in combat (at least I never did).

Owa Voyager

This is a fairly good ship. It has guided missiles which are good but its second weapon is a waste. Not hard to beat this ship.

Vyro-Ingo ship

A waste of time. The "space whirlpools" it creates are nice "mine-like" things but you can't win with space mines.

Xchagger ship

A very weak ship, it is really hurt by it's glacial pace of turning speed.

Arilou skiff

I never fought this ship during the game, but it is so weak that it is not worth the bother to describe.

Kohr-Ah Marauder

A good enemy ship, like their cousins, the Ur-Quan, this ship is all offense and little defense. Still it is capable of inflicting massive damage to enemy ships.

Command and Conquer. A "real-time" game, also quite popular.