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Tachyon: The Fringe is a computer game developed and published in 2000 by the company Novalogic. It features the voice acting of Bruce Campbell as main character Jake Logan in a 3-D space simulator.
Gameplay
Flight Controls
Tachyon offers a flight model quite similar to other well-known games of that genre (like Freespace or the X-Wing series). The ship's speed is controlled by the player via a throttle or the keyboard while the joystick (or, alternatively the mouse) is used to control the direction the fighter points to.
As the game uses non-newtonian physics, there is a top speed starships can move at, even at full throttle. There is however the possibility to disengage all engines and "slide" along with constant velocity and heading, while being able to turn the ship around, to fire at following opponents, for example.
Starbases
There are several starbases in the Tachyon universe. They serve as rearm and repair outposts in the vastness of the fringe (which contains, actually, dozens of starbases, despite being considered a "remote and lawless" region). The player can also earn credits by negotiating certain items found during missions with them. The player is warned when a starbase is interested in something carried by the protagonist. The player can either enter in their hangar ports (when available) or dock with their landing platforms
The space stations in Tachyon are designed with an accurate sense of scale, and are, by far, the largest and most heavily armed structures in the game. It is impossible for the player to destroy a starbase. They are only destroyed in specific events triggered during missions.You can destroy powerplants and weapons powerplants on some starbases.
Weapons
There are several different kinds of weaponry available that can be purchased in starbases and equipped to any ships in possession. (The two main groups in the game, the Gallactic Spanning Corporation and the Bora Mining group, both have different weapon systems.)
- Lasers: Bora tend to have a slower rate of fire but with more firepower, when GalSpan tend to have fast firing, weaker lasers.
- Missiles: GalSpan have homing missiles, while Bora have dumb-fire rockets.
- Torpedoes: GalSpan have the greatest range of torpedoes, some can lock on the target, while Bora only have the Helios Rocket.
- Sappers: Bora are the only group to have small missiles/robots that attach them selves to ships, and drain certain energies from the ship.
- Special Weapons: GalSpan only has the Tractor beam, while Bora have Remote Sappers (large charge) and the Rail gun.
Equipment
In the game you have 2 real types of equipment.1 is your starfighters weapons. These very from lasers to tracter beams to missiles. 2 is the hardware on your ship. The hardware is basically upgrades that improve proformance. Examples are Smart Shields and the Booster and the Fog Radar. You can also pick your ships. Some are Bombers some are Multirole fighters. These ensure you almost never have the same game twice.Missions
In story mode the player can pick between The Bora and GalSpan and the choice comes with its own set of missions.The Bora missions are uesualy harder and often pay less but most think picking the Bora is moraly right.GalSpan is a large corperation so they pay well and they have a lot of other piolets so you are almost never alone. In story you are not restricted to only Bora or GalSpan. You can take out contracts with other people. These are only single missions not full time work.Setting
The story of Tachyon: The Fringe is set in the 26th century, where mankind has left Earth to colonize the far reaches of space, and has many characteristics of a space opera. The Sol system is a place of relative peace, which is kept by the police force called Star Patrol and only rarely do fights erupt between rivalling corporations.
There is however the Fringe, which is basically all space outside of the direct jurisdiction of Sol. Star Patrol has as good as no power there, and large corporations, pirates, separationist colonists, mad scientists and the so-called "Asteroid Barons" are constantly struggling for power among themselves.
The Fringe
- Hub Region
- Frontier Region
- Twilight Region
- Ripstar Region
- GalSpan Region
- Bora Region
Tachyon Gates
Interstellar travel and instantaneous inter-system travel is enabled by Hyperspace drives on large spacecraft, while smaller ships use so-called Tachyon Gates. There are always two gates connected to each other, and flying through one gate in the game will trigger a short sequence showing the ship travelling through a blue-white tunnel. Then the player will find himself in the destination system.Larger Tachyon gates, so-called "Mega-gates" enable travel between the regions of space the game universe is divided in. They cannot be accessed by simply flying through them, as they will appear to be closed at all times, but a special "mission" selectable from Starbases will transfer the player to another region.
Both type of Tachyon gates require a material known as Ripstar to power the gate. Ripstars are very small in size, but they have an immense gravitational field that would rip apart any ship that comes too close to it.
One of the newscasts at the end of the game indicates a successful experiment with Tachyon Wave Generators, which might eventually allow ships to travel faster and farther than before. This appears to be the only hint to a possible sequel in the game.
Major characters and factions
- Jake Logan is the main character of Tachyon: The Fringe and controlled by the player throughout the story.
When he is called to uphold a quarantine in the orbital hospital complex near Neptune, however, his life changes drastically. The hospital is destroyed, and Logan convicted of conspiracy and murder. He is sentenced to exile in the Fringe, where he shall stay for the rest of his life.
Slowly, he begins to work on his career as a contract pilot again, branded by his sentence and his reputation, and finds himself in the position to choose from one of two major employees: the Bora and GalSpan.
It is the player's choice which of the factions to side with at one pivotal point in the game. After that, affiliations cannot be changed.
- The Bora are colonists, who left Sol to settle down in the Fringe. Shortly after their arrival it was noticed that the space they claimed for themselves was rich in mineral resources, and companies specialized in mining, most notably GalSpan became interested. GalSpan noticed that the Bora had no official claim to these regions, and claimed them as their own. The Bora, sturdy and strong-willed people from their hard lives in space, refused to make way for the mining company and declared that they would fight to the last man before they would vacate the claim to their new home.
- Bora Characters:
- Susan Bradley - Leader of the Bora. Flies a Warhammer assault fighter.
- Anna Highfall - Logan's connection to Bora. Mission Briefings are received from her. Jake tried to date Anna during the conflict but to no avail since Anna was busy attending Susan Bradley's command.
- The Galactic Spanning Corporation (GalSpan) holds the rights to the regions the Bora had declared their own, and is determined to remove them of the company's property with all means necessary. They are backed by what little power the government has in the lawless Fringe, and have access to a large fleet of warships. The war against the Bora puts a tremendous strain on the finances of Galspan, however, who are soon looking for new methods of mining using advanced materials and technologies, which included massive harvesting the Ripstars, a task which considered hazardous to perform. Spanner is a slang term used by Bora on GalSpan employees.
- GalSpan Characters:
- Director Atkins - director of GalSpan. Motto: "Profit equals worth". Commands the GalSpan carrier Zeus.
- Tricia Bales - employee of GalSpan and Logan's connection to the company. Mission Briefings are received from her. Dated Jake on couple of occasions.
Minor characters and factions
- Wingmen - text about wingmen still to be written
- Star Patrol is the police force that struggles to enforce the law in Sol Sector and the Hub region which is the one far space region connected directly to Sol. They have one large outpost in the Hub, and their forces consist of large Star Cruisers and small interceptors called Enforcers - powerful and extremely fast fighters, which can destroy non-capital ships with ease.
- Commander Alberion Obulo is one Star Patrol officer Logan has to deal with several times. In the Bora campaign, Logan must smuggle an illegally obtained Tachyon coil past him. Later, he assists Logan in capturing the notorious Pirate Lord Redship Rory
- The Asteroid Barons are found in the Frontier Region. They are constantly fighting amongst themselves, and Logan faces all of them - either as temporary allies or as enemies or targets of missions.
- Baron Hajod - Owner of thousands of slaves. Enemy to Baron Malkar. Hajod is known for routinely abusing his slaves with Electrical whip for his own enjoyment.
- Baroness Onrald - Now powerless Baroness Onrald have dealings with Bora. Her son is kidnapped by Jake, should the player choose to play as GalSpan.
- Baron Malkar - A serious art collector who collects Prized Arts, no matter how small or big they are. Malkar has dealings with the Bora and befriends with Susan Bradley.
- Dr. Randall Cassitor - An unethical scientist who were once expelled by the scientist society in Sol. Cassitor resides in Twilight region, surrounded by automated defenses and using Demon Pirates as experiment subjects. Cassitor have an irrational love on robotics and values his machine's "life" much more than human lives. His main base is surrounded by radioactive fog that would damage ships, should they not be equipped with a Radioactive shield.
- Demon Pirates - Once used to be normal Pirates living in the Twilight region of the fringe, they became experiment subjects to Dr. Randall Cassitor's mutation experiment, and the group went mostly insane. The Demons, in order to protect themselves, created a Radar jamming fog that plays hazard on navigation instruments. This hazard can be reduced by using a specially designed Fog Radar.
- Redship Pirates (a.k.a. blood clan) - A gang which was headed by "Redship Rory".
- Redship Rory - A ruthless criminal masterhead, who will attack his prey with no mercy. Once he towed two cassino stations from the New Vegas starbase to his lair in the Frontier region (and these facilities would eventually become his base of operations), and also trapped the GalSpan Cruiser "Persephone" in his claimed region of the Frontier, which is later rescued by Logan, should the player choose to side with GalSpan.
"Tachyon: The Fringe"