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There are a couple of cool maneuvers that you can perform in these ships. One is called the slide. The slide brings back memories of the old Asteroids game. It means you can hold down a key and turn the direction you face while changing the direction your moving. There is also a strafe maneuver, but it's only available in multi-play. More on strafing in the next section.
The AI needs work. I found the combat relatively easy. The game defeats you by throwing numbers at you, or forcing you to concentrate on an objective while being attacked by multiple enemies. The difficulty level only determines the number of enemies that can attack you at once and does nothing to make your opponents any better. If you really want the challenge of one-to-one combat, then you should play online.
Your goal in this game is take on jobs (which for the most part are combat missions) and acquire money to buy better ships and better gadgets. The missions range from escorts to deliveries. The story moves along as the Bora battles the Galspan. You win the game by completing the final mission in the game, which for Bora is an all out assault on Galspan, and for Galspan is to defend the all out assault. The story adds a lot to the game, and keeps it rolling along. It is evident that the missions were created to fulfill the story and not the other way around.
Fig. 7. Approaching a Tachyon GateMultiplayerAs a hardcore fan, I was disappointed to find that the game takes control of your ship when in a space station during takeoffs and landings. You can land on external landing pads, but it's computer controlled as well. Just fly close to it and press
to land. The autopilot takes over and lands the ship. To take off, press again and the autopilot lifts the ship from the pad. The game plays very well, but adding this simple feature would have made the flight experience complete. Hardcore fans will be happy to know that joysticks, throttles and rudder pedals are supported, as well as the ever-important keyboard mapping option for those of you who have Masterpilots and keypads like the X-Key.
In Tachyon you can choose to play over LAN/IPX or over at Novaworld. Novaworld is free and offers two types of play, Base Wars and Arena Match. Arena match is a everyone against everyone. You choose any ship and equip it anyway you want and take on the rest of the world. Base Wars groups players into teams. Each team has a base. As you fight, you gain crystals which improve the technology level of the weapons available to you.
There are 10 levels of technology and once the 10th level is reached, the object of the game becomes to destroy the life support systems of the opposing base. I gave both of these a shot although Arena Match is certainly simpler. Just load up and shoot everyone. Practice those skills though. You'll find that human opponents are much deadlier than the game's AI. You better learn to use tactics like sliding and strafing if you with to go up in rank in this game.
Base Wars was a lot of fun as well. Here you team up with players, jumping from gate to gate chasing (or being chased) by your opponents. You have more to do, as you fight and collect crystals, then land on space stations and upgrade your ship. Multiplayer is a lot of fun in this game and as long as there are people at Novaworld playing it, the fun will be ongoing.
