When I was in my teens, "Starflight" came out, and I actually snuck into where my buddy was a security gaurd to find computers poweful enough to play this game on two low density floppy disks. At the time, it was the greatest game I ever played and I think to this date it ranks in my top ten.
In many ways, Alien Legacy and Star Control were inspired by (and probably created by some of the same people) this game.
Starflight allowed the player to recruit a crew of five aliens, place them in roles such as Captain, Navigator, Com Officer, and then explore the Galaxy. You gathered ore, fought natives, met aliens, in short-what you do in Galactic Civilization, except you were just in command of one ship.
So I was thinking the other day, what if the map files from Galactic Civilization could be used for a remake of this game?
In addition, using the Drengin/Altarian type races, one could tell a good story with it.
I would certainly pay for a Starflight inspired game using the same combat mechanics. Imagine if you will;
The player commands one large hulled ship, and gets to customize it with the redesign screen using technology available at the base. You can reuse the combat system (Starflight combat was sort of just press the space bar anyway), and the maps. The interface for communicating would be the same except a gradual scale, your comm officers skill would be used to help translate it and ensure better reactions, sort of like a combination "universal translator" "Diplomacy" stat. In starflight though I liked that you could use obesquious (flattery) or be more gruff like Klingons would be/respect.
Instead of just exploring anamolys and getting a single "You found a +1% whatever", the player would then complete a series of multiple choices representing the adventure to actually explore that alien ship. In this process, crew could die, unknown secrets get discovered, whatever.
When landing on a planet, rather than just a "Do you want to cohabitate with the cavemen?" again, a series of questions allowing for a branching storyline would be asked of the player, simulating the reports of his away teams on the surface or planetary leaders, and so you actually DO the relo of the cavemen complete with diplomatic negotations.
You get assigned missions by your Human Council.
If an engine were designed like this so that modding was easy, you could very easily create a game where you play a Drengin Ship Captain etc.
To me, this would be a great product and I would happily lend my help to designing the game.
