Game Introduction

*Space Commander: War and Trade* is an inexpensive space trading and combat game available on a wide range of computer, mobile, and console platforms.

### Welcome to the Solar System

It's the 22nd century, and commerce has reached every corner of the Solar System. Corporations and governments run mining and refining bases and orbiting factories on nearly every suitable planet, moon, asteroid, and gravity well from Mercury to Neptune. Transportation and security companies provide their essential services. Aside from occasional ambushes by pirate hoodlums and some more-sophisticated operations by the organized crime Syndicate, the Solar System is a surprisingly peaceful place.

You've just been recruited by the Delta security company for a hush-hush project (the main campaign), and your cousin has generously loaned you a Cobra fighter. The peace of the Solar System is about to be broken, and you're going to find yourself smack in the middle of the action.

In the meantime, with corporations and governments doing all of their buying and selling among themselves, pilots who're determined to chart their own destinies will find slim pickings. If you want to make a living, you need to "work for The Man" by taking corporate contracts (side quests). Representatives at Delta security, at the Motus transportation company, and at the organized crime Syndicate will be sending contract offers your way. Less-exclusive contract offers are advertised on the Independent Job Board mailing list.

### Unusual aspects

*Space Commander: War and Trade* takes a fresh approach to this popular genre.

#### Combat vs. trading, and side quest aspects

* Combat and trading are separate activities that only rarely overlap. Combat ships can't carry cargo (other than a single passenger or prisoner), and cargo transports are almost helpless in combat.
* Within the main campaign, combat mostly provides experience points (XP), while trading mostly provides credits (money).
* The main campaign randomly generates side quests that are presented in the form of contract offers in an inbox. You'll usually have a few to choose from. These contract offers continue to be generated after all of the campaign's missions are complete.
* Besides the main campaign, two other campaign choices are available. Those campaigns consist of assigned combat missions with no trading or side quests.

#### Combat aspects

* Combat is encountered as campaign missions and (in the main campaign) by combat contract offers (side quests) that appear in your inbox. Wandering about randomly will almost never turn up any combat opportunities.
* In the main campaign, combat tends to be costly rather than lucrative. Missions that are part of the main campaign often pay little or nothing at all. You should expect to do a fair amount of trading to cover the costs of combat.
* You'll have multiple spaceships in your fleet, and you can take any and all of them on any trip. You can switch between them during combat, and you can provide some very basic rules of engagement to the ships you're not controlling.
* Combat takes place in 3D, but ship controls are restricted such that rolls and loops cannot be performed. Lower-level enemies aren't very powerful but come in waves. That gives an arcade-game feel to combat.
* Combat can occur in a planet's (or moon's) atmosphere as well as in space. This is mainly a visual difference, but energy shields are disabled in atmosphere, which makes even occasional hits by the enemy a much bigger concern.
* After you've completed the main campaign's missions, war mercenary contracts become available where you can choose to engage in large-scale battles against numerous capital ships and dozens of enemy fighting craft.

#### Trading aspects

* The best trading results come from supply contract offers (side quests) that appear in your inbox. Wandering about randomly, picking up stuff at a discount in the hopes of finding a buyer, will produce significantly lower profits than supply contracts do. The contracts offer a much better price and usually are for a much larger quantity than you could normally sell at a profit.
* Stations have standing needs for some products and regular production of other products based on the industries at that station. Those industries don't change, so product availability, demand, and pricing are relatively stable between visits. On the other hand, pricing can change with each unit bought or sold during a single transaction.

#### Outlaw aspects

* You can't get on the wrong side of the law. There are no illegal or even questionable cargo items, and piracy isn't an option aside from doing contract work for the Syndicate. "Smuggling" is simply a supply contract for everyday items to be delivered to a Syndicate ship. Doing work for the Syndicate won't lower your reputation with anyone, with the sole exception that releasing a prisoner you were transporting will seriously hurt your reputation with Delta.

#### World (setting) aspects

* The game is set in the Solar System. If you need to buy some oxygen or water, you know where to find it.
* The Solar System has already been fully explored by the start of the game. Exploration isn't part of any of the campaigns.
* After you've completed the main campaign's missions, interstellar travel becomes available. The star map is astronomically correct, showing the 53 known star systems (besides the Sun) located within five parsecs (about 16.3 light years) from Earth, in their correct positions (right ascension and declination). However, the makeup of those other star systems is fanciful and definitely not intended to be astronomically correct.

#### Production business aspects

* You can choose to go into the peaceful business of producing goods by mining, refining, and manufacturing. That requires quite a bit of capital, effort, and time before it becomes financially worthwhile.
* Running a production business has its own challenges. Aside from determining which station(s) to buy and what to produce, you need to locate likely suppliers and customers, and you need to deal with the logistics of obtaining supplies and shipping your products.
* When the other 53 star systems become available (after the main campaign is completed), each can have its own production business. That means that even though you have only one game save, you can build up 54 separate businesses. The business situations presented by the star systems vary widely, from the fairly easy Alpha Centauri system to the quite challenging Sirius system.

### Campaigns

*Space Commander: War and Trade* comes with three campaigns. The Main Campaign is a fairly lengthy series of missions, presented in a fixed order with a single outcome, but the game doesn't end when the missions are finished. The other two campaign options are arcade-like pure combat with points being scored for each enemy killed (combos are recognized). The Conquest of Tau Ceti campaign (which logically occurs after the main campaign) has a few missions, starting easy and building up. The Captains' Challenge campaign is presented as a combat simulator with no missions, where you simply score as many points as possible within the time limit.

Except on Switch, the Campaigns Editor lets you download campaigns created by other players, create your own campaigns, and upload your best campaigns for others to play.

### Free and paid versions of the game

On most platforms *Space Commander: War and Trade* uses a "freemium" model, where the game is free but seven ships are locked unless you pay to unlock them. The locked ships are strictly goodies; they're definitely *not* needed to play and win. On mobile platforms, the game also includes some advertising which you can pay to remove. The Nintendo Switch platform doesn't allow in-app purchases, so you have to buy the game and it comes with everything already unlocked and no advertising. The Switch version is unable to offer the option of buying in-game money (credits) with real money. The mobile versions also offer the option to get in-game money (credits) by watching additional ads.

### Related Pages

* Tutorial Walkthrough
* Combat
* Trading
* Contracts
* Production
* Premium Ships
* Campaigns Editor