Piece of junk. Don't bother. It's not that it's old, it's just that it isn't thought out. All the issues other mentioned, typos, dead UI buttons, repetitive combat, a half finished manual with missing or incomplete or wrong information... It seems honestly like you're playing an early alpha of a game that's ten years old. Combat is junk. It starts as this neat card trading game, but there's no way to manage your deck. You gain skills every level, but there are a lot of skills that will never be used, or that become obsolete and those will be the ones that you keep drawing while you wait for the one skill in 20 you actually want to show up. And then have it fail as it does ~60% of the time The combat is always the same. There are *4 guns* and *4 missiles*, of which you choose *one each* for each ship *class*. Not type. Class. So every ship you see, regardless of faction has pretty much the same equipment. Capturing a capital ship is worth ~2million dollars. The largest cargo hold in the game is about 1000 units. Profit margins are usually in the neighborhood of $20/unit. Unless you're going to transport between systems, which is really only worth it during special events that end at any moment, leaving you with a hold full of junk. And even then, the profit rarely exceeds $700 a unit. There's no balance, the only way to play the endgame is with tons of boring combat. Pirates can 'plunder planets' - but only if they're already a known, wanted criminal. I found myself capturing multiple capital ships in a row, and 'eluding detection'. Pirates can also create an empire. Not by conquering a planet, but by bribing a governor with millions of dollars, and then 'visiting' him. This has about a 5% chance of success, and you need to wait several days between each attempt. Stay away. It has so much promise that you'll sink hours, only to feel like a sucker at the end.
Spoilers 1st round is easy enough. On the rack, two twists is an instakill, person in the chair can provoke. Axe takes *two* chops provoke draws an axechop. You can confess, lie or get shot at in Russian Roulette and is an instakill if your number comes up. Third level was completely straightforward. Just don't inject Burden to test the vaccine, nothing happens and the work is wasted. That's a shitty surprise. 4th round is the demo, but RAMPED in difficulty. Hunting seemed to generally bring in 2-4 food, at any rate, it takes about 3 hours, on average, using spears or dogs, including failures, to provide the calories your team needs for one day. Dont forget morale though! Assuming you can push the engineer to work on the last night, you can theoretically squeeze six hours (or 30%) out of him on the last day. Marvin has no morale, and doesn't have to be fed every night. haven't tried starving him completely. For a game where juggling multiple demands is the whole point, devoting an entire day to one problem, and not seeing it resolved by the end means the numbers just aren't right. People are right, the designers of this game are artists first and game designers second. The torture level is really legitimately wrenching to play through. It's an awesome experience, but play on easy. The challenge is artificial, the point is to see the plot unfold.
