Starflight Resource Pages

Planet Chart

FUEL USAGE

Most training levels determine how efficiently the ship will function when confronted by various tasks.

Science Officer:  Efficiency is the % chance that each field on the analysis field will be filled in.  It also determines the accuracy of sensor readings.  For example, if your science officer has a 200 skill level, there's an 80% chance that each field will have the right information.  If the 20% chance occurs, you will see the reading "Not Certain"

When your science officer has a skill between 150-250, you will see "Movement detected" messages in hyperspace and in a system.

Navigator:  Efficiency determines your weapon's accuracy on your ship and your terrain vehicle.  Your navigator's skill also determines how quickly you find yourself after traveling through a continuum flux.  There is a measure of randomness however.  If your navigator has 250 skill, or 100% efficiency, he/she will always find the ship's position 100% of the time at hour 0.  If your navigator's efficiency is only 60% however (150 skill), then you have a 60% chance of finding your ship's position in the first hour, then a 60% chance of finding your ship's position in the second hour (if you are still lost), and the same the third hour, etc.

When your navigator has a skill between 150-250, you will see all continuum fluxes in hyperspace.  If your skill level is below 150, you will need a ring device to see them.  Ring devices are useless to an already skilled navigator.

If your navigator's skill is less then 200, then you have a chance of getting lost on a planet's surface in any storm.

Engineer: Reduces the repair time to repair damage to the ship

Communications Officer:  Training and efficiency determine the % of translated material you get in an alien conversation.  200 training means 80% efficiency or 20% untranslatable material.

Whining Orbs translate spemin dialog without the need of any communications skill. A whining orb is useless to an already fully trained communications officer.

If a member of your crew is the same race as the race you are communicating, you get a +25 bonus to your communications skill

If your communications officer is the same race as the race you are communicating, you get a +50 bonus to your communications skill.

Doctor: Reduces the healing time for crew members who are being treated.

• All flare activity is based on the X axis of the system. For example, the star at 180,8 will flare at the exact same time as the star at 180,124.

• Flare activity takes 4 days to travel from one sector to the next. The star at 199,181 flares at 1-5-4620, so under the same system, all stars at 200,x (if there were any) would have flared at 1-1-4620.

• Stars become "slightly unstable" 100 parsecs away from the current flaring star, or 400 days away from their own critical flare.

• The stellar scanner will tell you within 60 days precisely when a critical flare will take place. Until then, it will remain "slightly unstable"

• A star will flare exactly on the first hour on the exact day it is scheduled to flare.  If you are anywhere in the system when that counter turns to 00, your ship will be incinerated.  If you are outside the system and enter the system on that exact time and not a second before, you will be safe in a "post flare" system.
  
  STAR IN SYSTEM [XX, YY]
  FLARED ON STARDATE
  [DD-MM-YY]
  THE ISS [VESSEL NAME]
  AND CREW WERE INCINERATED.
  
  GAME OVER

• All bio life on all planets in a post-flare system are wiped out.

• 204,144 is stable (post flare) at the beginning of the game. According to the messages on Earth (215,86), the Sol system flared at 2-28-3480, or 1140 years ago. This means that the flares apparently "stop" in a region of space for a thousand years or so, when the crystal planet is either rebuilding it's energy or flaring stars in another sector of space. 

• Commander McConnell detonated a bomb at the control nexus of the crystal planet on or after 8-8-3382.  Earth's sun flared on 2-28-3480, almost a hundred years later.  If flaring stars followed the same pattern 1100 years ago as they do in "present time", then either Earth scientists are much more advanced at detecting pending flare activity then Arth scientists today are, or else the bomb caused the crystal planet to pause it's activities for up to a hundred years or so.  It's far less clear why it paused for over a thousand years at the 200 X-coordinate.

• According to the Elowan, the star of Arth (125,100) will flare on the "final week of your ten-month".  In reality, you have exactly one year to complete your mission, as the start of Arth will flare exactly on 01-01-4621.

• All "Arth Months" are 30 days long.  There are 10 "Arth Months" in a "Arth Year."

• Assuming that the crystal planet does not take another thousand year rest, the last two stars, at 2,34 and 2,206 will flare on 07-13-4622.