Wow those graphics do look good and it does look like this is well planned. I am loving this game! Keep up the good work Delnar!

I'm back! The trip was great, my only problem is the apartment we were staying in was a bit too small.
Contrary to my expectations, our schedule was very tight, so I barely had the time to slip a few lines of code here and there.

Anyways, here is the progress news:
Other than more optimizing (I just realized how bad of a programmer I was about 3 months ago %) ), I got the routine implemented which calculates buying and selling prices compared to your merchant skill (It is: Planet Price*Merchant Skill/10 for selling stuff, Planet Price*(2-Merchant Skill/10) for buying).

Realizing attack speed would be nigh impossible with the engine I have planned, I have removed it from the game, resulting in again some major changes in my planned work. Skills will now do the following:

• Piloting: Affects the chances for you to escape, the chances for your opponent to escape, and the chances for your opponent to miss with his weapons. Useful for all playing types.
• Gunnery: Affects the chances for you to hit with your weapons. Useful for Pirates and Bounty Hunters.
• Merchant: Affects the prices of goods on planets and the amount of credits needed to bribe a police officer. Useful for Merchants and Smugglers.
• Engineering: Affects how much damage your opponent does, how much damage you do. Useful for all playing types.

Besides those effects, each skill will boost its respective item's effectiveness.

With the removal of attack speed, weapons have been reorganized. D is for Damage, A is for Accuracy, all values are on a scale of 1-3 (from worst to best):

• Pulse Laser: The default laser. D:1, A:2
• Beam Laser: An upgrade to the pulse laser. D:2, A:2
• Uzi Laser: A powerful, though somewhat inaccurate laser. D:3, A:1
• Homing Missile: A missile which homes in on its target. Unlike before, the Homing Missile does not bypass shielding. D:1, A:3
• Military Laser: A powerful upgrade to the Beam Laser. D:3, A:2
• Assault Laser: A pinpoint accurate laser. D:2, A:3

There is also one more powerful weapon which will be described more in the item section.

Items have had the most overhaul of all. Each item (except the Escape Pod, Cloaking Device, and Navigation System) will have a special ability usable only in combat and only on special occasions. The items and their effects are:

• Targeting System: Boosts Gunnery. When activated, there is a chance that one of the enemies' lasers will be destroyed.
• Navigation System: Boosts Piloting. Also enables you to travel to some systems you weren't able to before.
• Repair Drones: Boosts Engineering. When enabled, you lose some shielding but your hull gets healed by a small amount.
• Multi-channel Radio: Boosts Merchant. When enabled, there is a chance that the enemy will stop fleeing and surrender instead.
• Escape Pod: If you lose a battle, you will end up on a random system with a scout rather than having to restart the game.
• Cloaking Device: Severely reduces chances to get an encounter. If you get one, then there still is a chance that you will be go undetected. The chance is based off of your engineering versus your opponent's engineering (your warp signature hiding skill vs your opponent's warp signature detecting skill). Even if you are detected, you are still harder to hit and it is easier for your to flee the battle. This is the most costly device, and it takes up two item spaces instead of one.
• The "Secret" Weapon: There is a weapon that can only be gained by completing a side quest. The quest gives you the choice between two weapons, a "good" one and an "evil" one. Both take up two item spaces, take 5 turns to recharge, are the only weapons that are able to bypass shielding, and are extremely effective against highly shielded foes but are worse than pulse lasers against foes with no shielding. Hint: the "good" weapon focuses on replenishing, while the "evil" weapon focuses on destruction. Oh, and this weapon is a tribute to the strongest weapon in the original Space Trader for the Palm OS (which was also only accessible via quest).

As you can see, item choices will be even harder now that the secret weapon has been added to the arsenal. Because of this, I have decided to add one more item space for each ship, with Battlecruisers having 6 spaces, Corvettes having 5, Frigates having 4, Fighters having 3, and Scouts having 2.

OK, being the lazy bum I am at some times, progress for this project is somewhat stalled at the moment because of some specific reasons *cough*Elder Scrolls Oblivion*cough*.

But I still do some programming while my little brother is using my laptop. Today, I decided to redo my splash screen because, iirc, there was a lot of negative feedback.

The old:


The new:


I can even try doing a grayscale one if I get around to finally learning assembly.

So what are your opinions?

Cool. *Xphoenix likes new title screen.

It's like the original one now.

The 2nd one is definetly better!!!! Your spriting skills are amazing. You did that all by hand with no image manipulation software?

definitely go w/ the gs one.  it looks much better though the b/w one is not bad, it's just the ship doesn't look as nice as the planets

Optimized even more from my programs today. Also, because my internet connection was behaving weirdly, I started playing the Windows version of the original Space Trader. All I have to say about it is its pretty true to its cousin on the Palm Pilot, only it has some extra added features (some I might be considering adding in) such as customizing your ship even further on really hi-tech planets and a weapon that is kind of weak but has a chance to disable its targets instead of killing them. All I have to say about it is its pretty addicting even with the very simple user interface and a size of about 1.4 MB. %)

Well, if you scroll down to the middle of the download page, you will get a link to the Windows version.