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Captain Impostor is the third game in the Captain Forever series and focuses more on piloting skills than building ships.

Rather than constructing a ship out of nothing, the player's ship, the Narcissus, clones other ships. The primary challenge of the game is adapting to the booster and weapon abilities of the cloned ship, as well as careful piloting, to ensure victory. According to Farbs, the creator of the series, Impostor is "a twitchy frag-fest."[1]

Impostor was released on March 3rd, 2010 as a free title for all Supporters and is part of the Captain Forever Trilogy.

Cptimp1

The Narcissus prepares to take on a fresh sector of jackers.

Gameplay Mechanics[]

Unlike the Nemesis (Captain Forever) or the Eris (Captain Successor), the Narcissus does not does not have weaponry integrated into its Command Module. Instead, the Narcissus is equipped with a device known as the Clone Drive.

Clone Drive[]

The Clone Drive is a snake-like tail which autonomously seeks out enemy ships. Once it attaches to the enemy ship, the Narcissus can completely copy that enemy ship's configuration, including its parts and their orientation. The tier of the parts is not cloned; rather, the tier of the player's copy is determined by the amount of Clone Power that the Clone Drive has stored at the time.

Pressing SHIFT engages (Narcissus alone) or disengages (Narcissus with parts attached) the Clone Drive.

Clone Power[]

As enemy ships are destroyed, the Clone Drive absorbs resources from the resulting explosion. The more Clone Power you have stored, the higher the tier of copied parts. The amount a ship provides upon destruction doubles for each tier.

Clone power is measured in Binary (that is, in 1's and 0's); thus the succession of power granted reads as 1, 10, 100, 1000, and so on.

When using the Clone Drive, the highest bit of power will be lost each time the player clones an enemy ship, unless they have less than 100 Clone Power. This means the player must be extremely selective of the ships they clone.

For example:

  • Narcissus is at Clone Power 110.
    • Narcissus clones a Charlie-tier ship at Bravo-tier, putting it to Clone Power 10
    • The Narcissus kills it, putting it back at 110, and then destroys a second Charlie-tier ship nearby.
    • Narcissus is now at Clone Power 1010 and can now clone at Charlie tier, however doing so would reduce it back to Clone Power 110.

Similar to previous games' Law system, the current tier of clone power also determines the enemies encountered. Enemies will spawn at up to two tiers above what the ship can currently clone.

Comparison to Other Titles[]

The parts and enemy ship types are the same set used in Captain Successor. Unlike Successor however, ships in Captain Impostor can be of any Enemy Type at any tier. There are four major differences between Impostor and all other games in the series:

  • All weapons deal double damage. For instance, a single shot from an Alpha Laser destroys a Bravo Laser.
  • Enemy ships do not inflict damage to each other. They can still damage themselves, however. This prevents gaining Clone Power too easily, and helps keep ships intact for cloning. Ramming Spikes, including Blix's, will discharge but do no damage.
  • Enemy ships enter the screen at very high speeds regardless of their actual propulsion, flying close to the player before slowing down.
  • Enemy ships not fired upon for a while will disengage and attempt to fly away, even if they were aggressive before.

Captain Blix[]

Main article: Captain Blix

Captain Blix will appear after the Narcissus's Clone Power has reached Juliet capabilities. Their parts areKilo-tier, with the exception of the four Delta Lasers inside the ship. The ship is armed with a wedge of 9 ramming spikes supported by repair modules and seven Bubble Shield protected Mk. II Boosters. Blix's ship is one of the most powerful enemies the player can encounter in the entire series, and it is recommended that the ship is cloned immediately. Due to of the Narcissuss' cloning behavior however attempting to fire ones weapons will result in the destruction of the ship, due to the Delta Lasers pointing at the main Girders coming out from the Command Module being cloned at Juliet-tier.

Captain-Blix

Captain Blix's ship.

Once Captain Blix has appeared, he will remain on the offensive until his ship is destroyed.

References[]

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