Hi there, fellow Stargunners! :)

Is it just me or is this game ridiculously difficult?

I played games like Tyrian and Raptor: Call Of The Shadows, with the latter one being way harder than Tyrian, but playable, but Stargunner seems to be way too difficult. Even on the easiest skill level I make it hardly through the first level. I mean, its almost like sudden death mode, one hit and you're gone, you have to play nearly perfect to make it through.

I also tried the cheats to buy the best weapons and extra lifes, but even then it's way too hard, especially the bosses - anyone who ever managed to complete this game without cheating?

Or is this game known for being nearly unplayable?

Or years, as it was in my case. :(

I have this game since 1997, and only just recently managed to finish it. The final bosses were always the biggest trouble. Well, them and the "rocket ships" in the Terran Assault mission.

I'm slowly working my way through it on Admiral level. (I've finished the scout mission, and was a little disappointed that all the goodies didn't carry on through to the next mission.)

It really helps to play around with the attachments. Try one loadout, give it a go, then try a different combination if it doesn't work. For example, I had to get rid of the Credit Drone quite early on but then re-use it for stages with plenty of credits but low on enemies.

You have to tinker a bit, but I like that part of figuring out what works and what doesn't.

Yeah, its a hard game.

Too hard
even for me

Agreed that this game is damned hard, and I've only finished the first Scout mission after several months. Here's a few tips that might help some players:

1. The game is a bit weird in that in between each stage, you keep the same number of lives you had left from finishing the last one. This might mean that "beating" a stage with only one life left isn't worth it, because you'll have an incredibly hard time beating the next stage. On the other hand, playing the game and never losing a life isn't realistic, so you have to balance the desire to move on with the knowledge that you don't want a "victory" that's worse than defeat.

2. A second oddity (but a great one) is that you can save at any time, even in the middle of a mission. It's not always easy to get to F2 in the middle of a combat op, but doing so definitely saves time if you've had a run of good luck. Always save right before a boss battle, for example.

3. I really like those 1,000 credit drones (I think they're called) that circle around your ship. They're nice because they don't take up weapon slots, you can have two at a time, they'll destroy some starfighters right before they crash into you, and they can be used to take out some fixed emplacements even if you don't have the right angle to shoot them. I never seem to have the cash to buy expensive weapons (or engines), so I can't offer much advice on the best way to outfit the ship otherwise.

4. The boss at the end of the Scout mission is just insanely difficult. The first time I got to that stage, I only had two lives left. I got pretty good at that stage, but got instantly massacred as soon as the boss appeared. This went on for several weeks, and many times I considered dropping the game. Even when I figured out to save right before the boss (which is harder on a Mac than on a PC), two guys just weren't enough. I ended up starting the game all the way from the beginning, and this time being very careful to conserve lives so that by the time I got back to the big boss again, I had several lives to play with.

As for the boss itself, here's the best strategy I could come up with.

1. As soon as the multi-armed tentacled eye appears (coming from left to right), head to the very top of the screen. Stay there until the eye attaches to the rest of the boss and flips around, because a single hit from a tentacle will destroy you.

2. Stay at the top, move from right to left and fire constantly, so you can destroy the pulse-cannon at the very top of the beast. You'll probably lose a life doing this, as there's a lot of flak in the air from multiple sources. Also, a single hit from the pulse-cannon will destroy you. (sensing a trend?) Once you destroy the cannon, SAVE!

3. After this, get fairly close to the gatling gun (the second weapon from the top) and focus on destroying it; the hard part is dodging the eye's scatter-blasts. There's a fair chance you'll lose another life. SAVE!

4. I then moved on to focus on the bottom gun. There's two ways to go about this. If you can plan ahead, buy the gun that shoots straight down. You can fly to the top right of the screen and fire straight down, and then all you have to worry about is the periodic eye blasts. The alternative is to fly close to the bottom of the screen, in between the tubes that the tentacle arms come out of. SAVE!

5. As for the eye itself, you've got to dart in and out (moving diagonally down to the right, and then diagonally back up to the left) to fire at the eye right when it opens, but getting enough distance to dodge its blasts. And you have to avoid the tentacle arms from the bottom of the screen. This is actually one of the easier parts, just because there's less happening on the screen at this point! You also don't need to worry about conserving any more lives, because you don't get to keep any lives (or equipment, or credits) when you win and move on to the next mission (outer space).

By the way, if anyone has figured out how to use Nukes on the Mac, please let me know--I need all the help I can get with this game!

Spare a thought for those of us without a joystick or joypad. Just played the game for the first time (it really is awesome) and had to use the keyboard. I am absolutely sweating and may have just developed arthritis all of a sudden :P

I found that the game runs seriously too fast with the 25k cycles that gog set for dosbox. Slow down to 8k cycles and it seems to be just right. Strange thig is, your ship always moves at the same speed, but the enemies are faster with more cycles.