I first played K240 when I was 15, and I loved it. It was one of the best strategy games I'd ever played. It's all about an asteroid mining operation which you have to defend and manage to keep it safe from several different hostile alien races. You can't do research yourself, instead having to buy blueprints from a company, which is probably more realistic. You have to expand your mining operation to cover more asteroids so you can earn more money.
Naturally it's the war that is the most fun.
I first played K240 when I was 15, and I loved it. It was one of the best strategy games I'd ever played. It's all about an asteroid mining operation which you have to defend and manage to keep it safe from several different hostile alien races. You can't do research yourself, instead having to buy blueprints from a company, which is probably more realistic. You have to expand your mining operation to cover more asteroids so you can earn more money.
Naturally it's the war that is the most fun. You have two main tools of war at your disposal. These are ships and missiles. I always found it best to use missiles to soften them up, then send in the fleet while they are reeling from
that.
But budding empire builders don't miss out by any means. You can build all sorts of useful structures and improve your mining equipment to make more money. The new technologies available are incredibly powerful, such as the asteroid engines which enable you to move your asteroid around, even letting you crash it into another one in a kamikaze attack if you really want to get rid of a troublesome enemy outpost. I also like the fleet battleships, which are extremely powerful warships. Your ships have a number of hardpoints and you can decide when you build them what weapons and shields etc to put with them which allows a considerable degree of customisation to make them more effective. There are a fantastic selection of exotic missiles, ranging from explosives, through to nukes which take out everything on the asteroid, stasis missiles which freeze it in time, and mega missiles which rip the entire asteroid apart. But the more exotic buildings and missiles need rarer minerals which are harder to extract, needing specialist mines, and are worth much more when sold so using them is best avoided if possible.
I have only one real complaint about K-240. It is a bit too short. The missions are quite quick to win. I would prefer to have had a long campaign where you got more powerful over time, as did the enemy. That way, you'd be able to build up a huge fleet and try all the more obscure technologies. But, not everyone will agree with me on this point. If it was a long campaign like this, you'd probably never come up for air!
