1: the news gives news about what is happening in other solar systems
not planets in your current system. to get to other systems you need to use
wormholes. To use a wormhole, you just click it like traveling to any other
location, then when you get there either double click again or use the
"travel to this location" option at the bottom of the screen, however you'll
need a corvet class ship to do this, and you can't get a corvet in the demo
so are limited to just the starting system.
2: nope. whether the full or demo version, smugglers doesn't remember any
saved options from game to game at all, that also goes for smugglers 4, you
just need to turn it on before you load a game, not a real problem but
something that you need to get used to (I still forget myself occasionally).
3: piracy is a big part of the game, and what the pirate profession
obviously does. you basically fly around looking on your sensors for
merchant ships with cargo, then attack them, and later on board them to
steal their cargo. You have a risk if it's your own faction of being
flagged criminal where by you get attacked a lot by hostile ships and can't
land on planets, but pirates get skills to avoid this and can also go to
pirate outposts to hide out for a while or hier pirate crew members.
Save the game try attacking one of your own side's ships and you'll see what
criminal does.
I've not tried it yet myself, but according to the manual, if you go to a
system's capital and talk to the governer, and use the "talk to governer"
option enough, you can gain influence and persuade the governer to rebelle
against current faction and join you.
You can then control the system setting taxes and commanding fleets and
the like, and start to invade other systems to form your own empire. It
sounds fun, but quite involved, sinse obviously the four factions will all
be trying to invade your systems.
4:when you get promoted a rank, you can buy a new ability from the skill
tree. to look at the tree, hit personal information and then personal
skills. The tree is a little tricky navigation wise, and it's not clear at
the moment what higher skills in the tree lead to lower ones, but right
clicking on skills to read info about them helps, and more access will
hopefully be coming soon. it's still quite possible at the moment though.
5: smugglers 3 was the game that started this all, sinse ot of the box it
was accessible. smugglers 4 then came, with a utterly redone (and sadly very
graphical), interface, but niels added the compatibility mode same as in s5.
from what I can gather s1, which was a standard windows program looks to be
moderately accessible, but I've not played it very much yet, just had a
miner look. S2 is the problem, sinse though all the game text is readable,
the images for ship equipment are unfortunately utterly unlabled last time
I checked. So certainly 2, likely 3, and very possibly 4 out of the four
previous games are accessible.
The more serious question is similarity. in a lot of ways s5 plays like a
very expanded s4, heck even the music and interface are the same, and I
don't think there is anything in s4 that is actually missing from s5, other
than s4 having slightly less well defigned professions, easier combat and
easier ship boarding.
indeed in some ways s4 is like an easier s5.
S3 on the other hand was completely different with a very diofferent combat
system you bcould only carry one missile for instance and had to equip
multiple guns for multiple shots, as well as having long, medium and short
range. Piracy in s3 also seemed a lot harder, and there were some fun
additions such as attacking a planet on your own.
Some elements of s3 such as mines and the ability to get married have
actually come back in 5.
So, it's up to you. I'd personally say for the price it's likely worth it,
even if only s3 and s1 will be new and accessible, ---- heck it's only about
3 dollars! and niels does need the financial support.
Hope this answers all your questions.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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