Starfire: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"For an instant, the decades rolled away and it was the time of the Second Interstellar War, when Commander Nikolai Borisovich Antonov, his Operations officer, had learned of the birth of a son on the eve of the Second Battle of Ophiuchi Junction. They'd all had a little more to drink that night than they should have, but Nikolai had survived both the vodka and the battle. And toward the end of the Third Interstellar War, President Anderson had met Vice Admiral Antonov's newly commissioned son . . . who now sat across from Minister of War Production Anderson, tossing back his vodka so much like Nikolasha that for an instant it seemed . . . Too many memories. We are not meant to live so long."''|Howard Anderson, ''In Death Ground''}}

''[[Starfire]]'' is a 1979 hex-map-based wargame, focused on combat between fleets of space ships.

Of particular interest is the fact that [[David Weber]], author of the ''[[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]]'' series of SF novels, became a contributor to the game starting with the ''Starfire III: Empires'' supplement of the 1st Edition. Some of Weber's online comments about the game, and his involvement with it, can be found [http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/series/Starfire/ here] (the black text on that page is an expandable link container). Weber later teamed up with Steve White to write '''novels''' set in the ''Starfire'' universe, of which 6 have been published so far:

<br />Not to be confused with the [[DC Comics]] character. (For thather, see the ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]''.) Also bears no relation to the 1980 coin-op [[Arcade Game]] ''[http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9758 Star Fire]'', or to the rocket-armed [[wikipedia:F-94 Starfire|F-94C]], or to the nuclear fusion process that powers actual stars.

* [[The Battlestar]]: The first expansion published during the 1st Edition years, ''Starfire II'', introduced fighter carriers. Fighters are tiny, fragile, single-seat weapon platforms capable of flying faster and turning more sharply than a normal-sized starship. Their carriers mount their own weapons with which to defend themselves even if all their fighters are deployed. The Terrans, Orions,<ref>[[Catfolk|cat aliens]]</ref>, and Ophiuchi<ref>bird aliens</ref> first encountered them when they ran into the Rigellians.<ref>[[Everything's Worse Withwith Bears|bear aliens]]</ref>.

* [[Beam Spam]]: Take your pick -- laserpick—laser beams, force beams, primary beams, energy beams, needle beams, ''capital'' force beams, capital primary beams, capital energy beams, ''second-generation'' capital force beams, nuclear-pumped X-ray lasers, heterodyne lasers, and don't even get me started on inertial sinks.

** A starship's Ion Drive engines also produce a "Drive Field" around the ship, which no physical object can cross without being vaporized. Thus, nuclear missiles are programmed to detonate just ''before'' they reach their target's drive field -- andfield—and that separation distance at the moment of detonation means the target ship takes far less damage than it would if the missile had come into direct contact with it.

* [[Everything's Worse Withwith Bears]]: The Rigellians. Not only do they look like bears, they believe in the extermination of all other spacefaring species.

* [[Heavyworlder]]: The Gorm home planet has much stronger gravity than any other spacefaring empire's homeworld. Originally, this was the reason given for their ships' ability to mount greater numbers of engines and thus have higher top speeds. When helpful readers pointed out that Ion Drive Engine technology didn't actually generate G forces on the ship or its crew, the reasoning was [[Retcon|retconnedretcon]]ned to be that the Gorm's higher radiation tolerance allowed them to operate more engines at once.

* [[Mobile Suit Human]]: The Vestriian encounter suit is ''supposed'' to be this, but they just can't seem to get the face right. Their suits sometimes make up for this with [[Distracted Byby the Sexy|curvy hips]] and the [[Most Common Superpower]].

* [[Nuke'Em]]: Standard anti-starship missiles are all fitted with nuclear warheads. The only reason a starship can withstand so many hits from these missiles is that their engines' Drive Field prevents physical objects from coming into contact with the ship's hull -- sohull—so the missiles have to be programmed to detonate an instant ''before'' they reach the target's Drive Field.

** The introduction of the [[Space Fighter]] and fighter carrier in ''Starfire II'' was inspired by [[Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)|the original 1970s ''[[Battlestar Galactica Classic|Battlestar Galactica]]'']]. The 1st Edition rules example for a squadron control sheet even used the name "Blue Squadron."

* [[Space Navy]]: The ship weight classes are named after their wet-navy equivalents -- Escortsequivalents—Escorts, Corvettes, Destroyers, Light Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, Battlecruisers, Battleships, Superdreadnoughts, and Monitors, not to mention Cutters and Pinnaces. The Terrans' main military space force is even called the Terran Federation Navy.

* [[Standard Starship Scuffle]]: Distances are realistic -- arealistic—a single hex represents a region of space 150 ''thousand'' kilometers across (reduced to 75 thousand in 3rd Edition Revised) -- but the tactics and feel are still of old naval ships banging away at each other with broadsides.

* [[Subsystem Damage]]: The entire combat system is practically ''defined'' as this. A starship's control sheet is basically a string of system codes, where each code represents a shield, a layer of armor, or an "internal system", like so: SSSSAAAZLIRIII. (Each S is a shield, each A is a layer of armor, and the other letters are various internal systems like lasers and ion engines.) With most weapons, one damage point destroys the first undamaged system on the control sheet -- sosheet—so, after taking 9 points of damage, the same ship's control sheet would look like this: xxxxxxxxxIRIII. In order to destroy a starship, ''all'' of its internal systems must be destroyed. Thus, while a ship is being pounded on, more and more of its systems will go down and the ship can do less and less.

* [[Tech Tree]]: Introduced in 4th Edition to replace -- orreplace—or, rather, enhance -- theenhance—the old system of [[Technology Levels]]. Each empire still has an overall "Science Level", but the development of specific new pieces of technology is based on earlier development in that particular Tree; the Science Level is merely a limiting factor that prevents an empire from going ''too'' far down one Tree at the expense of all the others.

** A variant called the "Presser Beam" also exists, which serves not to draw an enemy unit closer but to [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|push it away]].

* [[Two 2-D Space]]: The game ''is'' played on a flat hexmap, after all.

* [[We Will Spend Credits in Thethe Future]]: Starship hulls, and individual ship systems, are priced in "megacredits."

=== The novel series also provides examples of: ===

* [[Bring News Back]]: In both ''In Death Ground'' and ''The Shiva Option'', deep scouts from the Terran Federation Navy discover closed warp points with ''huge'' strategic implications -- whileimplications—while they're several systems deep in enemy territory and have no way of getting a message home.

* [[Knight Templar]]: The alien civilization in ''Crusade'' thinks of the Terrans as their godlike saviors, and the Khanate of Orion as the devil -- todevil—to such an extent that any Terrans seen aiding the Orions are viewed as "fallen angels" who must be exterminated for the greater good.

* [[Military Science Fiction]]: [[Street Fighter (Filmfilm)|Of course!]]

* [[Unwanted False Faith]]: In the back story for ''Crusade'', a Terran starship crash-landed on an inhabited alien planet during the First Interstellar War, and its captain told the inhabitants there how the Khanate of Orion was the enemy. The aliens take his words as Divine Revelation, painting the Terrans as angels and the Orions as devils. So when, long after hostilities between the Terrans and Orions have ended, an Orion starship happens to poke its nose into their star system, they blast the "devils" to smithereens. To prove to the Orions that we're still friendly and prevent another war, the ''Terrans'' have to attack this alien race -- whorace—who, unwilling to give up their [[Cargo Cult]] beliefs, conclude that these new Terrans are "fallen" Terrans.

[[Category:Science Fiction Tabletop Games{{PAGENAME}}]]

[[Category:StarfireTabletop Games]]

[[Category:Tabletop GameGames of the 1970s]]