You are right. Fights there were quite easy. It got better on hard with trying best possible outcome but still they were usually obstacle when you were trying to accomplish the true objective.
What I found hardest was protecting own motherships against torpedos. The bombers always spawned on the other side of "battlefield" then I was, I had to race back burning all fuel and still some of them slipped through or when I already got most of them, I run straight into the last one in attempt to quickly stop it. :-)
Fighters got defeated eventually by your squaddies even if you were totaly incompetent but torpedos and bombers were only up to player to destroy.

Bah, I never played that one but when I saw it in mags it always looked so cool.
I don't need Starlancer but this I would really like to appear here.

What about Kurt Steiner and his German squadron? Did they speak normal german?

Haha, yeah, I added that in an edit to my previous post. IIRC even he talked in a somewhat funny manner, not regular modern German. I'm not completely sure, though, it's been a while.

Edit: Also it seems his name was actually Klaus Steiner. ^^

Ah, I see. I went backwards and quoted it first so I missed it.

I was close enough. :-)
I am still content with myself since it's been manyyears since I played it last.
I saved his ass back then so he has no right complaining about me messing his name. I bet he doesn't remember mine either. :-)

Yeah, I on the other hand had not only forgotten his name, I was actually convinced all the Germans were also bad guys in this game. Well, it HAS been a long time ago. ^^

Ah Starlancer, great game.
And is the very first game I bothered to play internet multiplayer.
Helluva fun I had back then on the 56kbps connection.

I also had fun with Freelancer though not as much as Starlancer.

Ahh, yes Starlancer. Kept me entertained during the post Descent Freespace time :P

love that game, there was a certain feel of being part of the war and how your squadron and other heroes are progressing through the war, freelancer was great too but i think the actual trailer story would have been better then what they created later on

I have the CD in my binder, purchased for $3 or so at Microcenter years ago, but never got around to installing it...

I got it "accidentally" when buying a German game collection called Gold Games 6. I bought this particular one mainly for Gothic and Motocross Madness 2 but I also checked out all the other ones and Starlancer turned out to be possibly the best game in the whole bundle.

If you're wondering how that's a reply to your post - uhm, well, I also got it just because it was cheap/included with something else and I also often don't get around to check out such games. But I highly recommend you dig it up and give it a try, assuming that no unsolvable technical problems are gonna keep you from playing it.

Starlancer is GREAT game. Still have CD somewhere around. Plot, ship desing, missions, vocie acting, setting. LOVED IT!

Okay, see, the thing is : I don't like lasers and energy beams that much. Okay they are fine and cheesy, and their multicoloured lights scream nicely space opera, but they never give an impression of impact. Their effects are always arbitrary, on spaceships and people. They get "hit", and, they go "ah" and fall, or get "tagged" and burn after a certain amount of times, I don't know.

Two space games give me an actual feel of dogfighting and physical brutality. Amiga's version of Elite, and Starlancer. Both felt like your spaceships were armed with actual machine gun, firing physical projectiles onto the hull of the opponents. No "wizz", the actual "thump thump thump" of material contact. And I loved that. And I miss that.

So yeah. I was fond of Starlancer. It had a quite unique, gritty, material feel. I wish more space sims would feel like that one.

Has anyone already provided the wishlist link ? http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/starlancer

Both Starlancer and Crimson Skies existed in this strange transitionary period after people realised that live action FMV WASN'T the best thing to ever happen to video games but before modern, animated cut scenes became the norm so Crimson Skies ended up like a radio play with the odd visual cue now and again and Starlancer, I can't even remember how Starlancer did it - you had to read the newspaper or something?
I kind of missed Mark Hamill and Biff off of Back to the Future hamming it up though...

Was a nice little gem. Have it still somewhere around here.

Can't say that I was ever under the impression that Crimson Skies nor Starlancer were results of a short weird phase after the death of live action FMVs. I mean, there was quite a few games before and after Crimson Skies that have decent voice acting accompanying static images or slideshows, I think Crimson Skies just stood out of the crowd with the quality of these recordings and the fact that there was photographs of actors/models representing the characters (and you said it, it did have the characteristics of a radio play but that one fit perfectly to Crimson Skies' specific scenario). And true, Starlancer was a step back from the live action stuff of the Wing Commander games but IIRC they went down to generic pre-rendered animations that were reused per briefing and mission, nothing uncommon before or after (for instance StarCraft did a similar thing, they also played the same animations over and over, during briefings and missions).

But you know, it's still an interesting thought/observation. Haven't paid that much attention to how big budget games made that transition, I mainly observed how teams with smaller budgets tried to imitate the big ones.

I think the Starlancer / Wing Commander comparisons are unavoidable though not only because of setting and genre but because Chris Roberts - it was basically the next Wind Commander game only called something different because it was a different company
Like this is the next Flatout in all but name:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/228380/

(I believe Demolition Racer was basically Destruction Derby 3 IIRC too...)