Yay, finally done with Space Rangers 2 in the year 3330. The only way to defeat the Dominators once and for all is to eliminate the three bosses: Keller, Blazer and Terron. The main way to do that seems to be researching them by gathering parts from destroyed Dominator ships and handing them in to a scientific base. The more materials you hand in, the faster the research rate will be. The other way is to confront the bosses directly and defeat them in combat. As you’d expect, this is pretty hard as each of them has a ton of hit points, and the Dominator-controlled planets nearby will spawn an infinite stream of Dominators to protect the bosses.

As seen from the screenshot above, I’d managed to climb to the top of the rangers rating chart by 3324 after concentrating heavily on hunting and destroying Dominators, also becoming the most Distinguished Fighter in the process. It was also at around this time that the Coalition forces managed to whittle down the area controlled by the Dominators to just the three systems occupied by each of the bosses. I made a conscious decision to target the Keller boss first. This was because while the other bosses could only launch attacks against systems adjacent to their own, Keller has the ability to attack systems through black holes, allowing its forces to strike behind the Coalition’s lines, so to speak. This made it very annoying to have to constantly travel away from the front lines against Blazer and Terron to rescue a system attacked by Keller.

Continue reading Space Rangers 2 AAR Part 4 →

Lots of combat in my ongoing Space Rangers 2 game from 3307 to 3312. I’d finally managed to join a proper military operation to liberate a system in the game, but while it was success, taught me to pay attention to which system is actually being liberated. You see, these operations start by docking with the military base organizing the expedition. When you agree to join in, you’re placed in suspended animation until the date and time of the attack, and then the entire base warps into the target system held by the Dominators. Then everyone undocks from the station and proceeds to kick Dominator ass.

The battle itself went well enough, as by that point I’d upgraded to a great combat ship with max weapons slots and a special +15 to shields, which means any incoming damage is reduced by a further 15% in addition to the base defense of my shield generator. I did need to redock with the station for repairs once, but overall, destroying all of the Dominators garrisoning the system was fairly easy, and I happily hopped over to one of populated planets to be properly congratulated and feted.

Continue reading Space Rangers 2 AAR Part 3 →

Just a quick update on my Space Rangers 2 game from the year 3303 to 3306. As I noted in my previous post, I’ve been meaning to get more involved in combat, and this I did. Combat in this game isn’t terribly involved. Each ship has a limited number of weapons slots, from 1 to 6, and basically the more weapons you mount, the more firepower your ship can muster. Your accuracy and mobility skills make a big difference of course, and your defensive options including armour which blocks a fixed amount of damage and shields which block a percentage of all damage, but in actual play, it’s a simple matter of choosing a target and shooting it until either one of you dies or someone runs away.

This process is prolonged by the fact than any combatants can always dock at a friendly planet or base to make repairs. This means that very often, actually destroying an enemy can involve chasing it down, shooting it until it’s smoking at which point it’ll run to get repaired and you’ll need to wait until it takes off again. Repeat until you destroy the enemy or it runs out of money for repairs.

Continue reading Space Rangers 2 AAR Part 2 →

I’ve been mucking around with the copy of Space Rangers 2 Complete that I bought at the beginning of the year when it went on sale on the Impulse platform for a measly US$3.99. This was a game that I’d briefly tried when it first came out, and though I really wanted to like it and loved the very idea of it, I was put off by its opacity and how unforgiving it can be. The chorus of acclaim for the game on QT3 convinced me that persevering with it would be worth my while, and since I’ve never written a After Action Report (AAR) on any game before, I thought it would be fun to keep a sort of diary as I make my way through the Space Rangers 2 world.

You start off by creating your character, a freelance Ranger tasked with defending the galaxy against the incursion of the robotic aliens known as the Dominators. The game takes place in a galaxy that’s dynamically generated every time you start a new game and you’re free to either take the fight to the Dominators as you’re supposed to, or do your own thing. It’s as open a sandbox as anyone can imagine. For me, since this is my first playthrough, I’ve decided to play my usual goody two-shoes with the intention of building up my character and ship until I’m strong enough to take the fight to the Dominators.

Continue reading Space Rangers 2 AAR Part 1 →