Star Voyage

Guide

Mission

You are the last hope of the Floundering League of Planets (aka FLOP - instills a great feeling of confidence eh? Who would use such a name??), so the Starlight Corporation has hired you out of retirement. You, the nearly brave captain of an almost formidable starship, will be cruising the ragtag galaxy of star systems to explore strange new worlds, laying down your mediocre life for the FLOP's starbases, and most of all, finding and destroying every last Klaxon ship like your life depends on it (which it does)! Clearing the galaxy of hostile forces will require strategy, skill, and a bit of luck. Maybe a lot of luck. Fear not, intrepid explorer, for whether or not you succeed (and you probably won't, at least not until maybe, oh, the 100th attempt), you may always try again, as each time you do, the galaxy will be miraculously created anew (in each new run, all star systems and enemies are spawned randomly)!

Saving

Game autosaves when upgrading or repairing your ship at a Starbase (simply docking won't save the game). Game state is maintained when returning to the main menu, so Resume Game will then return you to exactly where you left off. However, if you quit or reload the app, Resume Game will load the last saved state (the last time you upgraded or repaired your ship).

All saved data is local to the browser in which the game is played. If you switch to a different browser or different device, you'll be playing with the saved data (if any) in the new browser. There is currently no way to play the same saved game across different browsers/devices.

If playing in a browser and you clear your browser's cache/cookies/local storage or if playing a native version and you uninstall, your saved game will be lost. Starting a new game and using the Clear saved data button in Options will also delete your saved game. Clear saved data will also clear all high scores and achievements. This is not reversible!

Your ship

Your first starship, the Starlight Express, is no garbage heap. It's no prizefighter either, but hey, money doesn't grow on trees. At least not on your planet. The ship has state-of-the-art quantum-ion-repulsing thrusters, hypo-spectrum-detracting energy shields, repulsing-ion-quantum lasers (for both offense and defense!), lightning fast Streaker missiles, EM-field seeking Electromagnetic Ordinances (EMOs for short), and one massive, jaw-dropping, soul-sucking Neutron bomb/missile/thingy. Oh, and we throw in an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) for good measure!

The ship is powered by Energy produced by a one-of-a-kind quantum-inducing hyper-crystal Reactor. Energy can be assigned to your ship's Engines and/or Weapons. Meanwhile, your mildly devoted Crew can be assigned to increase the energy produced by the Reactor and/or to Repair the ship's shields, hull, and engines (repairing the hull is kinda important by the way - without a hull, you'd just be floating out in space with your pet bunny. Which will be dead. Like you).

While the Express is your starting ship, there are others you can unlock using Hyper-crystals, the magical, metaphysical energy producing resource of the galaxy that you can acquire by mining planets. No doubt each planet's citizens will be thrilled by your visit. Every ship has a unique look and various bonuses. Gotta collect 'em all!

HUD: This panel provides notifications from your first officer and real time updates of your ship's status. Energy is needed for the reactor and weapons. Shields protect the hull and crew from attacks. Once the shields are down, the hull will take damage, and there's a chance the engines can be damaged and some of the crew could die. Damaged engines reduces the max speed of your ship, and loss of crew affects the speed of repairs and energy generation. So keep those shields up! Your crew will be grateful, even if they don't express it.

Radar Colors:
White: You!
Blue: Starbase
Red: Enemy
Green: Planet

Controls

Movement: WASD/arrows/numeric keypad or virtual thumbstick (touch screen)

Targeting: Select enemy by tapping/clicking on it. A reticle appears around it, and the object's shield (blue) and hull (green) levels are displayed.

Crew/Power Allocation: Drag the sliders to allocate energy/crew more to one system or the other.

Weapons: (buttons left to right, top to bottom)

Countermeasures: automatically fires lasers at incoming missiles (slowly drains energy while firing, requires cooldown)

Lasers: automatically fires lasers at selected target (slowly drains energy while firing, requires cooldown); strong against shields, weak against hull

EMP: knocks out movement and all defensive and offensive systems of any object in range for short time (uses significant energy)

Streakers: fast, unguided, low damage missiles

EMOs: medium speed, guided, medium damage missiles

Neutron: slow, unguided, high damage to large area missile (careful, don't kill yourself with this!)

Note: all missiles will detonate either on contact with any object or after a certain period of time (different for each missile).

Long Range Scanner: Tapping/Clicking this button (next to the radar) opens the long range scanner, where you can see all the star systems in the galaxy, with the current information on each one. You won't know how many enemies are in a system until you go there. The current system is outlined in red. Simply select a star system to travel there. Hyperspace travel however requires a lot of energy, and it takes a few seconds for the engines to power up. Maybe not the best move to make while under attack. On the other hand, if you're in a tight spot...

Starbases

Each star system has 1 or 2 starbases. Approach a starbase, and a Dock button will appear. Docking allows you to repair and replenish your ship's energy, shields, hull, engines, and missiles (except the Neutron - most starbases are too scared to carry one of those things!) and to make upgrades to your ship! However, each starbase can only make repairs and upgrades once.

Enemy ships will attack starbases if you're not around to defend them. While starbases do have shields, they have no offensive capabilities, so get hustling if your first officer notifies you one is under attack! Rumor has it the enemy may have a starbase of their own...

Planets

Each star system may have some planets. Or not. Approach a planet, and an Orbit button will appear. While orbiting, you will be able to make contact with the intelligent species of the planet (intelligent being subjective). Planets are able to provide you with new crew members if you've been unfortunate enough to lose some and Hyper-crystals for unlocking new ships between runs. Not all species will be so happy to see you, but they may still be able to help... Fortunately, the Klaxons don't seem to be interested in any of the planets. Maybe they know something you don't...

Enemies

The Klaxons have five classes of ships: Scouts, Cruisers, Rangers, Stingers, and Destroyers. As your ship gets more powerful, the enemy will throw more canon fodder at you. And that fodder will get bigger. There's no shame in firing off that EMP or Neutron missile and hightailing it out of there! There's at least one good piece of news: intelligence reports the enemy doesn't have Neutron capabilities. Of course, it's been said that intelligence is subjective...

Scouts are fast but not very powerful.

Cruisers are the workhorses of the fleet.

Rangers specialize in attacking from a distance.

Stingers are almost as powerful as Destroyers, but they prioritize starbases over you.

Destroyers are big, slow, powerful tanks.

Credits

Game design and development by LCD Dreams. Music by Baser Instinct. Audio effect assets used under CC0 license. AI used for some visual assets.
Play Star Voyage for free in your browser!

Help us, Only-One Captain, you're our only hope!

Sorry for pulling you out of retirement, but alarms are going off in every star system in the galaxy that the Klaxon are invading! And being loud and boisterous in the process! All of our other captains are napping, and their ships are sitting in the garage, out of juice, so... Yeah, it's up to you. But hey, if you can find us some Hyper-crystals, we can power up those other ships for ya and give you a bit of a fighting chance!

Select your ship Captain

All ship bonuses are compared to the Starlight Express

Hyper-crystals:

Starlight Express

This is the best we can get you for your first ship. Has everything you need, but nothing you want.

Comes with a skeleton crew - no bones about it, death waits with open arms aboard this ship! Ha, we kid. But seriously, good luck...

Starlight Trekker

More energy and a lot more crew than the Express. And a bit more chance of surviving.
Energy +25%
Engines +10%
Crew +50%

Starlight Hunter

+1 Shield, +1 Sword...ohhh wrong game. But your shields and missiles ARE better, and Countermeasures are added!
Shields +20%
Hull +20%
Energy +10%
Crew +10%
Streaker damage +20%
Adds Countermeasures

Starlight Voyager

More for traveling than fighting, so you can turn tail and hopefully make your way back home...
Shields +10%
Hull +10%
Energy +30%
Engines +20%
Crew +20%
Adds EMP

Starlight Cartographer

Explore to your heart's content!
Shields +20%
Hull +20%
Energy +40%
Engines +40%
Crew +50%
Adds EMP

Starlight Challenger

Now this is a ship to be reckoned!
Shields +33%
Hull +66%
Energy +50%
Engines +33%
Crew +100%
Adds Countermeasures and EMP

Starlight Medusa

Any enemy seeing this baby is going to be like a deer in headlights.
Shields +100%
Hull +33%
Energy +100%
Engines +33%
Crew +100%
Streaker and EMO damage +40%
Adds Countermeasures and Neutron

Starlight Titan

Ok, this is just unfair...to the Klaxon! Ha ha ha!
Shields +100%
Hull +100%
Energy +100%
Engines +100%
Crew +200%
Streaker and EMO damage +20%
EMP default range +50%
Neutron quantity/max quantity +100%
Adds Countermeasures, EMP, and Neutron

Score