Starship: Invasion

This game’s author, all of whose games deal in some fashion with space
exploration, felt a certain systemic turn-based pause for reflection to be to
the detriment of the wide array of starship captain simulators out there in
the early ’80s. To help convey the stress and prompt the snap decisions needed
in an emergency situation, Starship: Invasion was devised as a realtime
simulator, of the Excalibur-class starship the H.I.M.S. Stinger.

The typical, limited, options remain the same as in its mainframe-derived
BASIC predecessors: firing photon torpedos or phasers, going to warp speed,
raising and lowering shields. The display options similarly hold true to their
classic roots, largely based on divining your sector neighbors and ship status
by decoding numerical displays and interpreting coloured alerts. The player’s
ship can still recharge (“Trillom” energy reserves) at six friendly StarDocks,
which remain targets for an invading force that comes piloting six different
varieties of marauding enemy starships. .. just now you get a little less time
to plot your next course of action.