LORD ROCKET'S THREAD OF KPOP, JARPUGS, AND DANMAKU SHMUPS

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Update #1: FUCK
Update #2: First batch of characters
Update #3: 54 KINDS OF PERSONAL SCALE WEAPONS OH GOD IT'S HEAVAN
Update #4: Maiden Voyage
Update #4.5: Witty line here
Update #5: Still can't think of any amusing titles for the updates, sorry. This time around we fight some guys in spaceships
Update #5.5: Ia m dumb
Update #6.1: Codex Expeditionary Farce (Part One)
Update #6.2: Anything but Star Command
Update #6.3: The Return

Useful Resource: Full Equipment List @pastebin



OK pukeballs, this is Star Command. I know precisely two obscure games and this is one of them, so we're gonna play it. When I say we, I mean me. You're gonna watch.
As you can see it's an old game, with shitty graphics and to be honest it doesn't get much better than the title screen:



Scuse the tiny image size. If anyone knows how to make DOSBox take scaled screenshots then let me know. Without using scrot or some other external sshot taker, I mean. I could do that of course but ha ha fuck you if you think I'm going to edit images for your benefit.

Anyway we'll be playing the DOS version (the Amy version gets a nicer title screen and 1988 vintage 3d rendered graphics for the space stations) because I don't feel like installing E-UAE, kay? Good.
Here's a history lesson off the top of my head: SC is a game by either SSI or SSG. It's based on a boardgame by Avalon Hill called either Star Command or potentially Alpha Something? When I first played this game I scoured the net for information on it but fuck all turned up, and as you can see I've forgotten most of what I did learn.
Anyway, SC is fully sick and surprisingly elegant, given it's era. It has cool (2d) space combat and tactical personal scale combat, each with few but significant variables. We also get Traveller-esque character generation, fun quests, and even some exploration. I first played it in 2k8 and I was delighted with it, although I got stuck after sinking several hours into the game. We'll discuss that later though.

If you didn't skip those last couple paragraphs you're an idiot, though - we're here to play this beast not read the half-remembered ramblings of some bearded fuckwit. Slam the keyboard a couple times and this is what we get:



Press '2'.



Cool beans. As you can see I already generated a 'P' Character. This is the Pilot, named after my good self. More on that a little later.
Basically, in Star Command, you've got a small, triangular section of civilised space, which used to be part of an interstellar empire of humanity if I recall right, controlled by a bunch of guys who are called the space patrol or star command or something. Probably the latter. Right now we're on one of the three space stations that hold the borders of this one bastion of goodness - these, naturally, form our bases of operation.
Outside this area space is 'ruled' by the pirates, who are sort of a loose confederation of dickholes who raid the shit out of everything. The set up is similar to Star Viking by H Beam Piper if any of you have read that. Anyway, our party are agents of the galaxy's civilising influence crusading forth to bring light to the darkest corners of the Milky Way.
To do this, we have a 'P'ilot (pregenerated), a 'C'o-pilot, and a six man hit squad. A character looks like this (we can check up on them, and various other things, by using the Inspect command):






This is all vaguely self explanatory I think. Attributes, Skills, Modifiers, and Equipment screens.
Attributes and skills should be easy to decipher, with the following exceptions: Esper is the psionic attribute/skill, and Esper's gain various powers that duplicate skills/equipment. As you would expect, really. Scout/Recon is sort of like Outdoorsman in Fallout in that it lets you choose to avoid encounters (or not). Hand Weapons means swords and shit, not pistols (as I admit I orginally thought. As a WFRP veteran I should know better though) which fall under Light Weapons. Code Breaking is actually the communication skill - the Co-Pilot can use it in space or one of the hit squad can use it in personal combat. I don't know much about it other than that as I didn't sink a single point into when I first played. Astro Gunner is ship scale weapon usage and is actually more useful in the hands of the hit squad since they're the ones who do the shootin'.

There are a couple of other skills to be aware of. First is Officer School. This raises your rank, which in turn means more money, honey. This game's economy is unusual in that you can't make money while you're on a quest, but when you are, you're earning a sum per game month, per character, which you'll receive on completeion of your mish. You can also grind for cash but resource collecting and capturing enemy ships - if you're indulging in this sort of thing while on a mission then you'll be paid out on completion of your quest, by the way. The no-money while you're on a mission thing prevents you from tooling around too much as well as ammo etc. can put a real drain on your resources. Plus when you complete a mission you get to beef your characters a little.
Then there's survival school and special forces training. These raise attributes - STR and WILL, and SPD and ACC, respectively.

Now - here's what I want. Brave Codexers to fight the good fight against the pirates! We'll need seven volunteers to start with - including at least one Pilot for the Co-Pilot position.
Character generation goes like this:

• 1) Attributes. They're random, and for starting characters they generally hover around 40-60. If you want to play an Esper for some reason (I didn't use 'em at all when I first played, by the way) I think you need a ESP att of at least 50.
  For volunteers, tell me which stats you want above 60 and I'll randomise until I get 'em for you.
  
  2) Class. Pick one from the list below, under
  
  3) Skills. Each class may advance these skills in chargen (as per the manual):

Marine
Medical
Scouting/Recon
Survival School
Hand Weaponry
Light Arms
Heavy Arms
Officer's School
Special Forces

Pilot
Pilot
Astro Gunner
Code Breaking
Officer's School
Light Arms
Medical
Ship Repair

Soldier
Survival School
Medical
Hand Weaponry
Light Arms
Heavy Arms
Explosives
Officer's School
Special Forces
Chemical Weaponry

Esper
Astro Gunner
Hand Weaponry
Light Arms
Esper
Medical

• You get 8 attempts to improve a skill, so pick 8 in the order you want to try and advance them (don't all pick Chemical Weaponry, by the way). There is a chance you won't get the skill you were after, by the way - common consolation skills in this case includes Light Weapons, Medical, and Desk Duty (ie. fuck all) although this seems to be class based.
  The Co-Pilot and Pilot only really need Pilot and Code-Breaking, by the way, although in my case I took a level in Astro Gunner because why not, a couple in Officer Training and got Med twice by accident.
  Two more things about skills: there seems to be a limit to starting skills, so if they get maxed out and you've picked that skill again I'll choose something for you instead (prolly Off. Training or one of the stat boosters). Secondly, a reminder that Astro Gunner and Code Breaking are useful for hit squad members too, so don't restrict yourself to Soldiers and Marines.
  
  4) A name. There's an eight character limit. If your chosen name is 9 or more characters long, you're outta my squad, maggot!

I'll be outfitting the team myself because otherwise we'll be here forever, so we'll discuss equipment (including my previous SC attempt, and failure) when we're all charactered up.



My finger's hovering over that A key people, so step to it.

I don't know the game but Pilot Astro Gunner specialist sounds awesome (rest are don't cares). I take it.

Edit: Name's Torsten

I'm not saying I totally understand this, but

Yeesh is a soldier

Accuracy most
Speed/Strength second tier
How about some Courage
Everything else is meh.

Light Arms
Heavy Arms X2
Explosives x2
Special Forces x2
Officer School

I can't tell if these guys are meant to be fighting or brofisting.

Oscar the Pilot. Speed and Accuracy most important then uh Willpower and Intelligence (though I'll leave it to you if Will and Int are useless for me).

3x Pilot
2x Code Breaking
2x Ship Repair
1x Astro Gunner (can never have enough Astro Gunners I'm guessing)

Space Marine with above 60 Strength, Speed, Accuracy and maybe Willpower.

Heavy Arms 3
Hand Weaponry 3
Medical 2

1) Stats above 60:
Speed
Accuracy
Courage
Willpower

2) Class:
Marine

3) Skills:
Scouting *2
Survival school *2
Hand weaponry *2
Special forces *2

4) Name:
Maggot

IMPORTANT NOTE: This post is entirely theoretical. I lost all the characters I made due to a save game issue, now solved thanks to the interweb (if you've downloaded the game at HotU it's a cracked copy and you need to enter all 'a's at the copy protection screen, which you will encounter when you try to save the game. HotU does mention this but it's tucked away in a corner there and I missed it). However I wrote all this shit out so damned if I'm not going to post it. Seeing chargen in detail may be of interest to some of you anyway.

Write it up like the others and I'll make a guy for you.

Well you did it right despite how vague I was so good for you. I'll go through Yeesh-gen in detail so everyone can see what it's like.

First, attributes. 60+ scores are not as common as I might like unfortunately, so based on your description I applied the following standards: 60+ acc, 50+ str & spd and 45+ cou. After much interplay between the A and N keys we get:



Who is honestly a bit of an ubermenschen. Perseverence pays off.



Press C...



D for Light Arms...



Well FUCK YOU then. Fortunately having lots of weapon skills isn't really that important, and we'll probably get a consolation point later anyway. Moving on.

Heavy Arms twice now...




And fuck you twice. Geez, you get sick atts and then the game blows you off.

We are now Med lvl 1 and Light Arms lvl 2. Note that if you're lucky, you might get a two point skill boost.
Hopefully we'll have better luck with our bombs as believe me, this sort of thing is very useful indeed.




Excellent! Our starting skill is now maxed out at level 3 and it seems Yeesh is going to be our bombs dude. With a SPD and ACC like that he should be good and dangerous in close combat.

Now for Special Forces and Officer School. We get into SF twice and end up with:



Which is pretty decent really. Officer School:



Sick. One last thing:



And that's Yeesh!

Well no it isn't actually. Anyway I need to go sit outside for a while since this whole experience was very irritating so I'll make up your guys later. Anyone who wants to modify their builds based on the information in this post, please do so (especially you Pussycat).

One more thing: according to the manual, only one Esper is allowed.

Ok, more seriously this time.

I would spontaneously aim for a high intelligence score, accuracy and speed. Then courage and willpower, I guess. Do I have any use for strength or esper as a pilot?

As for skills:
Pilot x2
Astro Gunner x3
Officer's School x2 (although I may shift if money isn't too important)
Ship Repair

I don't think you can do it in DOSBox itself, the only way I know of is setting the DOSBox scaler to 2x and screencapping with Fraps or something else. You could just use the batch conversion in IrfanView to convert everything into 640x400 at once, with no resampling so that the original pixels are preserved.

Even though I have no recollection of ever playing this game, this character generation process now seems awfully familiar to me, particularly failing to get your desired assignments, and particularly desk duty. Does this mean I DID play this game, or is a similar system in place in some other game? Megatraveler? Twilight 2000?

Let me tweak Yeesh:

Soldier

60+ acc, 50+ str & spd and 45+ cou is still awesome, or a little less than those numbers if it needs to be.

Heavy Arms X3
Explosives x2
Special Forces x2
Officer School (+ any leftover tours in the event of fantastic luck)

Alright I'm back now. I very much enjoyed my little jaunt, I wandered up a hill, and ate some sushi and read some trashy fantasy while I was up there (specifically). WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THAT THOUGH, let's gen some chars (although not in great detail this time). General chatter is down the bottom of the post, by the way.

First of all, LRocket the pilot (I gave him some more field skills - just in case, like - compared to my last try since I got promoted without entering Officer School. That happens sometimes; not very often, but it's nice when it does):





I've left off the equipment screen since frankly we don't need it just now.

Now Yeesh the soldier (I don't think this version came out as well as the last one):





Bee the esper (NB. the minimum ESP att for an esper is 51, not 50 as I previously thought. Also, the ESP att is weighted to roll low a lot of the time so genning Bee took quite a while. As per usual, however, not compromising gave us good results):





Mindshock is the generic esper attack power, by the way. You get additional powers every couple of Esper skill levels.

Oscar the pilot (I'm going to put him in the Co-Pilot position, so I compromised a little with Accuracy since it's not so useful for non-com personnel. Note Oscar also got a free rank):





Orgasm (presumably) is primed for violence (sorry dude, I compromised a little on the stats since shit was taking so long. I also made you a soldier so I could provide you with Chemical Weapons skill if the opportunity arose to do so. It didn't):





Maggot the hand to hand specialist (hey cool story: I chucked away some off lamb last week and then promptly forgot to put the bins out for the rubbish trucks. Guess what my wheelie bin was full of when I opened it this Tuesday? Anyway yeah, I downgraded your stat requirements to 55 in each of the listed stats to spare my A and N keys and then let a 54 go through anyway. So much for my hardline NO COMPROMISE stance eh? I'm also a bit worried about your lack of ability with guns but we shall see):





Anyway I want to ask a few questions before I proceed. First of all, Pussycat, Torsten is going in the hit squad but he has no applicable field skills. You may want to chuck a couple of levels of Light Arms and Code Breaking in there so you can shoot and/or talk at your enemies (I'd sacrifice a level of Pilot, which is only really useful for those in the P & C positions, and Officer's School to get them). Your choice, though.

Secondly, even with Pussycat's help, we're short a man. Come on Codexers, I know this isn't graphics whore paradise but there's a universe to save and it can't be done without you. Even if you don't get in straight off the bat, we're going to need volunteers to replace the fallen heroes we're inevitably going to create. This game is 1988 vintage, you know it's not going to take it easy on us, and naturally we'll be playing semi-ironman (reload on TPK ONLY. Bronzeman maybe?).
(PS a soldier with good explosives/chemical weapons ability would be just delightful).

Lastly, I'm asking for permission to engage in a bit of metagaming. When you select the Headquarters option to get your next mission, it just gives you the mission without asking if you really want it first. Because taking a mish prevents grinding for cash this can be frustrating if you're underprepared. So, do we:

1) Play as intended; or
2) Cheat by scoping out the mission and quitting DOSBox then reloading if we don't like it?

I have made a poll, by the way, so feel free to use that.

And, now, after the jump:



(olololololololol)

Questions answered!

ESP is only good for espers. In my last attempt, I never once ran into a psionic enemy type (although they may appear later on, I guess) when I first played so as far as I know the ESP att doesn't even have a defensive function for non-espers.
As for STR: you do, since you're in the hit squad. It determines carrying capacity which you will find very useful once you can afford the better armour and weapons, especially if you want to be able to reload the damn things (hint: you definitely want to be able to reload your guns). It isn't really necessary for guys in the P or C positions though.

I use Linux, but a little research reveals that Imagemagick, which coincidentally I already had installed, also has this function. Later updates (ie. with actual gameplay) will have more reasonably sized images, but in the meantime, people with massive monitors and ridiculous resolutions can suck it.

This game, quite frankly, is a massive, massive ripoff of the pen and paper RPG Traveller which was made by GDW (in a later post, when I discuss the mechanics a little more, I'll note a few of the similarities), who, coincidentally, also did Megatraveller (which I believe included desk duty for it's characters) and Twilight 2000. However, Space on the Apple // is roughly the most cumbersome thing I have ever played and Megatraveller has an absolutely unplayable combat system, so this is the best 'Traveller' video game available by a significant margin. Sadly no-one has ever heard of it, but fixing that is the point of this thread.
So to answer your question, you may have played this but on the other hand you may not have. Stay tuned and see if anything reminds you of anything, anyway.

Destroid

Marine

Stats (in order of priority)
Speed
Accuracy/Intelligence
Willpower/Courange

Skills
Heavyx2
Lightx2
Scouting/Recon
Medic

I'm guessing it's the survival school and special forces training that upped Maggot's stats, seeing as I can't spot the 54 anywhere?

'nother vote for Woman Out. Same argumentation as Bee's.

Sounds good. I might as well scratch Pilot and Ship Repairs entirely since you and Oscar seem to have that covered (or is it possible for us to work on one task together to boost the skill level?). Also -1 Officer's School. Invest 2 ranks into Code Breaking and Light Arms respectively. You could also scratch Officer's School completely and add it to Code Breaking if you think it's more feasible.
As for attributes, either switch Strength with willpower or intelligence (again whatever you think is best/necessary).

Alright, in this update: our last couple characters (reminder: more volunteers welcomed) and SHOPPING! Be warned that this entry is basically just me masturbating over the equipment list.
Next update: some actual gameplay and more reasonably sized screenshots! (I'm keeping them small since all this shit is just boring text)

First of all, Torsten (I think Torsten came out fairly well. ACC was a little low but everything else was good enough that I decided to let it pass this time. I admit I'm keen to get things moving a little quicker):





Then, Destroid (pretty much the same thing. Fortunately in Destroid's case we were able to boost ACC via training although you'll note that it's still on the average side. NB 2+2+1+1 does not equal 8. I gave you one sesh each in Survival School and Special Forces to get your stats up):





Now we need to get loaded up.
Star Command has a fairly hefty equipment list - as will become clear, managing your squad's funds properly is the key to this game. There are fifty-four kinds of personal scale weapons (not including hand to hand weaponry) with a myriad of factors to consider, including weight, damage, rate of fire, reload cost, and even a couple which aren't discussed in the manual (example: Intimidation Factor. This presumably contributes to your enemies doing the bolt, which they sometimes will). Then there's 25 ship scale weapons, a variety of defensive items on both scales, and even more utility items, pretty much all of which are likely to come in handy at some point. The best thing is that nearly all of them have evocative names - you can, for example, load out your guys with Biphase Carbide Armour, 10g Rotary Mag Shotguns, and Frequency Agile Sniping Lasers (and, naturally, 1500 Microton Nuclear grenades), while sending them off to battle in your Katana class Escort which in turn is ready to roll with it's Singularity Warhead missiles and Resonant Cavity EMP cannons - not to mention an Enhanced ECM Pod and a Surface Effect Stasis Field for when the going gets tough.

Unfortunately we can't really afford most of that stuff yet so, er, yeah. First order of business is acquiring a ship. We have 90,000 credits to spend so we can only afford one of the scoutships, which statwise look like this:

Code:

                         DROP   INITIAL   MAX   STARSHIP  INITIAL DEFENSE MAX  ARMOR   ARMOR     MAX
NAME                     SHIPS   TONS    TONS     PRICE    ARMOR   BONUS  MOVE COST/PT. TONS/PT.  FUEL

Wasp class Scoutship        1      40      52      70800       0     30     7     5      .005     100
Hornet class Scoutship      1      42      52      57600       0     30     7     5      .005     100

Drop Ships are what you use to land on planets etc. and so are good to have if you want to do anything, really (the Co-Pilot flies them). The difference between initial tons and max tons determines, surprise surprise, how much stuff you can fit in your ship - you can exceed this if you like but your ship will lose speed rapidly the more weight you add on. Armour is essentially ship HP, and as you can see both cost money and take up weight, meaning there's something of a compromise between weaponry and defence, although shields and defensive items can redress this balance. You will be surprised to learn that fuel determines your maximum range, and it also powers any laser weapons you might have (one unit = one shot). Reloads for other weapons cost money. just like they do for personal class stuff. Defensive bonus is the penalty applied to your enemy's chance to hit you - you'll note it's fairly significant in this case. From experience, a skilled Pilot (each level of Pilot skill grants a 5% penalty to the bad guys as well) in a scoutship is well-nigh impossible to hit.

ANYWAY. I'm going to get the Hornet class in order to save money - we'll be upgrading ships as soon as possible, since ship related shenanigans were what boned me in my first try at this (details in the spoiler box), so expandability is not so important to us at this stage.

Next, we need some weaponry, which we will buy with the 37,400 creds we have left over. Not accounting for tonnage, each ship can have six weapons, one for each hitsquad member. As you can see from the diagram here, each of our intrepid adventurers is in charge of a certain firing arc, depending on their position in the squad:



The starship combat in the original P&P game was obviously hex based. Anyway, I'm going to concentrate out firepower to the rear and right - sorry, starboard - basically so we can fire on anyone we feel the need to hoof it from. So, we'll move Bee and Torsten to positions 4 and 3, respectively, in the squad. We'll also give Yeesh a gun since he has the best To-Hit bonus



Now we'll get a few of the shittiest weapons - HyperVelocity Rockets for Torsten (since he's our primary gunner he gets the best weapon), and Gauss Cannons for Bee and Yeesh. Said guns have the following stats:

Code:

                                            MAX    WEIGHT   RELOAD  RELOAD   HIT    WEAPON
NAME                          DAMAGE   ROF  AMMO  (1000 KG) WEIGHT   COST   BONUS    COST
Hypervelocity Rocket             75     6    24      0.5       .4      60      5     1200
Gauss Cannon                     50     5   inf      0.8      n/a     n/a      0     2940  

The Gauss Cannon gets infinite ammo but otherwise sucks shit. Hypervelocity rockets aren't bad, though, they have a good ROF and will happily chew through poorly armoured targets. For reference, the nastiest weapon has a DAM of 500 while shields are available with a protection rating of 150 (this is subtracted from the damage done, by the way. According to the manual, actual damage is likely to be 70% of the listed value, which is the maximum for the weapon in question).

So:



6 reloads for the rocket launcher and 28940 creds left to spend. We'd better armour up and grab some shields as well.



150 points worth should do it.



Shields likewise have defensive arcs. We'll plonk a Reaction Damping Field (protection 45) at the back - position 2 - since that's what we're going to be presenting to our foes and Anti-Inertial Screens (protection 30) forward (1), port (4) and starboard (3).





That leaves us with 14060 creds for personal equipment (sorry for the lack of screenshots to break up the text in this next section, by the way, but uploadering them is a pain).



First of all, let's get Maggot and Orgasm Hand Weapons. These are unusual in that they can't be sold and cost nothing, although the game won't let you just select the best one (Light Sword) for some reason. I get them Marine Assault Axes (damage 20) instead.

Next up - heavy weapons for Yeesh, Orgasm and Destroid. Orgasm gets a 10mm Rocket Rifle and 5 reloads, which leaves 8 of his 22kg allowance for armour and miscellaneous stuff. Yeesh gets a .600 Nitro Express double barrelled elephant gun, 10 reloads, and a half dozen frags, leaving him 8 kgs for armour etc. Destroid gets a 25mm Flamethrower and 3 reloads, which gives him 8 kgs weight left.
Everyone else gets a light weapon. Maggot gets a 9mm MAC-10 (yes I know) which, despite his poor marksmanship, will hopefully still allow him to do some damage given it's high ROF. Torsten gets an 11mm Automag, which is reasonably high damage, since he'll probably be able to hit something with it. Bee gets a 5.56mm AR since she (?) has good skills and a tasty to-hit bonus. Everyone gets 5 reloads.

Now - armour and miscellany, for 6764 creds. Everyone gets Antithixotropic Plastic Armour which offers 6 points of protection and only weighs 3.5 kgs. We're left with 4100 creds for other things, so first of all we'll grab some sights for our guns.
Yeesh probably doesn't want to miss with that double barrelled monstrosity of his so we'll grab him a Self Calibrating 4x Optical Sight, which offers a 15-point bonus. Orgasm, Destroid and Bee get a Laser Targeter, for ten points each. We now have 2300 creds so we'd better get Bee and Orgasm first aid kits in case of emergency, since they actually have points in Medical, which leaves us with 1460 creds. We'll sock that in the kitty though since I'm ready to START PLAYING THE FUCKING GAME. You guys probably feel the same.

EDIT: Nearly forgot, applicable weapon stats (and there's a pastebin of the full list here):

Code:

                                          MAX   WEIGHT        DAMAGE RELOAD RELOAD HIT  WEAPON INTIM. WEAPON
NAME                        DAMAGE   ROF  AMMO   (KG)   RANGE  TYPE  WEIGHT COST  BONUS  COST  FACTOR TYPE

11mm 'Automag'                 15     2     8     1.5     75     1      .3     7     0    516     2     2
9mm MAC-10 SMG                 11     5    30     3.5     90     1      .9    10     0    898     3     2
5.56mm Assault Rifle           13     4    30     5.5    205     1     1.5    16     0   1218     6     2

.600 Nitro Express             20     2     2     6.0    210     1      .5     3     5   1149     4     1
25mm Flame Thrower             25     1    10     6.5     30     6     3.0    35    30   1571     6     1
10 mm Rocket Rifle             19     2    10     5.8    180     7     1.5    18    10   1276     7     1

Fragmentation Grenade          25     1     1      .4     60     9      .4    40    10     40     1     4

Last order of business: we need a name for our ship. I favour the ISS BLOBERT, myself, but suggestions are welcomed. There's a 15 character limit this time.

Really the last order of business: when I come back tomorrow to update this bitch, the poll result will stand, so vote now if you're gonna.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, it was in Speed so that got boosted by Special Forces.

One problem with this game is that you can't split your forces and that attacks are targetted randomly within a group, so there's no such thing as a 'back row attacker.' This also means it's pants-shitting time if you spot an enemy with a rocket launcher or flamethrower (those weapons can hit more than one target when they attack. same deal with chemical weapons and explosives but as far as I recall your enemies don't use those. Flamethrowers are bad enough anyway).
If it were up to me I'd split the squad into two - Maggot and Orgasm in one group and everyone else into another. M & Or would charge while the rest of you would let rip with whatever you had to hand. Never mind though.

Sorry about the INT by the way, but because of the purely random chargen it took quite a while just to get a character with 50+ scores anyway.

If I recall correctly multiple characters can have a go at something, so sort of. Besides, it's good to have backups though in case of someone getting iced, which is quite frequent in the early game. I can't for the life of me recall if the Pilot and Co-Pilot are in any real danger though - they don't engage in personal combat of course, and I'm not sure if the game implemented crew damage in space combat (the manual doesn't mention it and I honestly can't remember. I would've reloaded a save game if it happened to me, to tell you the truth). It'd be bad if we lost the flyboys and couldn't get back to a space station but if that happens, lesson learned and reload a game I guess.

ISS Consequence

Ghostdog

STR, WILL, SPD and ACC above 60

Soldier

Survival School
Medical
Hand Weaponry
Heavy Arms

Welcome aboard, Ghostdog. I assume you want two each of the listed skills?

OK guys I've played through the first mission and will write up the team's experiences to be posted tomorrow. This also means you guys get your first training session. If you are a character in this LP then could you please select an attribute AND a skill you would like improved (your current abilities are listed in updates 2 and 3, check the screens)? That will speed things along nicely.

Ta.

Well I have no idea what a Co-Pilot actually needs so I'll let you pick between improving speed/intelligence and code breaking/light arms/piloting.

I think I'll take Accuracy + Astro Gunner.

STR medic? big guns? nfi areally

Strength and Hand weaponry.
Should Maggot live long enough for it to be reasonable to pick another set of boosts, then go for Speed and Scout/Recon