Achievements

I’ve had a moan about one aspect of the new Pirate Galaxy release, so time to talk about something that I like.

Each pilot now has an ‘Achievements’ tab, which tracks how you’re doing against pre-set targets. These targets are split into categories such as PVP (player versus player), PVE (player versus enemy), Economy or Clan. The game keeps track of how you’re doing and updates your progress. For example if you kill 4 Parasites on Commerce Central then your Commerce Central Parasite Slayer entry goes up by a count of 4. Get 250 and you’re a slayer. Completing an achievement gives you a score, measured in what looks like gold coins but are probably medals. These range from 10 to 25. This score helps you move up the Hall of Fame, another new feature.

When you start the game, many of the achievements are locked out so you can’t even see what they are. There are still plenty to keep you occupied, and make you wonder how the hell you’re going to collect 10,000 crystals, let alone 100,000. When I first logged on after this feature had been introduced I had 30 achievement points. 10 for Vega story complete, 10 for the Antares story and 10 for collecting all of the blueprints in Vega. Although I had long ago gained access to the Antares and Gemini Stargates those explorer achievements didn’t show up. As soon as I visited these Stargates then they were awarded.

There have been a few other bugs. My crystals were not being tracked in the economy Achievements for example but that has been fixed along with others.

Achievements suit my style of play perfectly and I think they’re a good addition to the game. I like to finish all of the white missions and have a full compliment of Blueprints. Now I get a little badge as a reward for being so anal. If you have no interest in ticking every box or killing a certain number of Avengers on Terasa then you can just ignore Achievements. I can’t see an argument as to how they are detrimental.

There’s another good thing about Achievements. It shows that Split Screen sees what its players like and is prepared to carry out significant game changes in response. V1-Hyper came up with the True System Finaliser which is the ancestor of Achievements. Now Split Screen has built it into the game. All credit to them and V1-Hyper, the creator of the excellent The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Pirate Galaxy.

If you're interested in filling out your achievement tab then you can adjust your game to suit. If you need to grind for crystal in the Gemini system then you may as well go to Technatoria and kill Rocketeers. While doing this you're progressing towards 'No Longer Poor' and 'Rich Pirate', 'Technatoria Rocketeer Slayer', and you may of course find a Rare Blue Print which would help towards several of the Ship achievements.

The wiki is building a page on these so click here to have a look. It wasn't complete at the time of posting but I'm sure those sterling chaps and chapesses will complete it soon.