This board game of "Exploration and Encounter in Deep Space" is based on Kanterman's (FGU) 1977 Starships & Spacemen scifi rpg. At least they share the same elements of technology, enemy and similar universe.
Players take the roles of ship captains, fleet service battle cruisers, and travel in search of resources and encounters with alien life. Crew counters roughly correspond to S&S character classes and are used to customize the capabilities of ships and their landing parties. The race known as Zangid also makes the jump from S&S to be the major bad guys in Star Explorer. Pirates and space hazards, like asteroids and radiation storms, round out the challenges to mission completion.
Planets are laid out randomly on a small hex sheet with the player(s) starbase at the center. Easily enough Star Explorer can be played solo, a single captain with the same goal, to explore, encounter and return to base. Victory is determined by the accumulation of victory points (oddly named as they are) which are awarded or lost for the types of encounters, outcomes and challenges faced by each captain. Solo players are compared to a point table that rates their end game total from: "reassigned to garbage scow" to "you are recommended for promotion".
A basic ship design is provided, but players are encouraged to modify it or create their own. The ships themselves are rated in energy points by their critical systems, vaguely similar to the S&S rules. Crews are then rated by the number of teams of a given type. Different teams have varied affects on actions and encounters. The key is to use your crew appropriately to max out on victory points. Movement is accomplished by expending energy points which are used up each turn, so just like S&S a captain may find himself out of luck if he uses all of his points before a turns actions are all played out.
Encounters are generated randomly and results determined based on a ship's systems, energy points expended, teams assigned, and/or quantity of teams. The result is enjoyable enough, not too random, not too predetermined. Space ship combat is aided by a tactical combat display that reduces movement to an easily manageable range between targets. This simplification does a lot to make the game playable and really doesn't destroy the imagination of such ship to ship combat.
Game components are simple, 16 pages of rules, pad of ship record sheets, 2 d6 for random tables and a display map split into a hex grid, tactical combat display and a planetary encounter display (oh, and chits as markers). As with S&S, everything looks, smells and tastes vaguely Star Trek. Most fans of the show will be on familiar ground as will any scifi gamers (rpg or tabletop). I can't say it is worth anything more than its original cover price, but if you have time to game alone, you can do no better than Star Explorers.
This review will appear in Alarums & Excursions #319 (see review archive) and appears here with permission.
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