[Lost In Space]

The time trapper is great and all, but the player should suffer some kind of setback/punishment for choosing to go for the extra years. Right now it's a free ticket that removes any tension from the deadline.

My style of playing seems to differ significantly from yours. I fight like hell to survive, and will use almost every trick in the book to maximize my chances and loot. I try to use diplomatic avenue first, but often it's simply too boring, and will often just go against other races early on. I never use the hyperdrive unless I'm absolutely stuck. I practically gave up on the mirror since it's too easy to abuse (move opponents and get the items.) I abuse the Klakar every chance I get, and recently started to call them in battle at the brink of victory, just to magically expand their cargo hold.

I always organize my fleet's formation for every battle, and will hide the weak ships behind the leader for extra support. For the Urluquai, I form a tight triangle, and hope that the leader is facing the right way. Else, I quickly turn the ships at the start and move the leader to the front, and get moving towards an early target.

The Zorg cloaking ships can be dealt with by forming a tight triangle at the bottom of the screen, farthest from the enemy, to maximize preparation time. You then point each ship in a different direction. They usually materialize in your dead angles. Once the small fleet is annihilated the rest is an easy kill.

I never bothered peeking into the game's configuration files, so I took quite a while before figuring the original WW's quirky weapon balance. Even today, I just go according to experience, and by my reading on this forum.

Cloaking is usually an opportunity for rear-ramming opponents, if I can get to them fast enough. The Tan-Ru ships seem to be made of glass.

Laser beams can be used to scan for cloaked Urluquais, or destroying missiles.

Missiles can be manually aimed at small ships. The battle screen target cursor seems to be a few pixels off when I aim at small targets. Could just be me.

The game's AI is so easy to mislead. It will always go after your small ship if you "go fishing" with it. Handy when confronting a Garthan fleet.

The PVC is almighty, of course, but it takes most of the fun out of battles. I'm only truly happy to load it when going against crazy-powerful dudes like Kawangis. I hate the bastards, but I gotta admit they gave me some of the most epic battles I've ever had.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading your AAR.