So You Wanna be a Space Smuggler?…

James Woods: Space Smuggler.

Almost two decades before GTA 3, there was an open ended game that allowed you to do just about anything you wanted within an entire galaxy meticulously constructed for endless hours of exploration.  Long before The Sims there was a game that not only required you to eat and sleep within a specific time scale, there was one that allowed you to drink yourself to death in some sleazy space cantina whilst slanging attribute enhancing drugs and pissing away the proceeds on one armed bandits.  That game was SunDog.

It was 1984.  The height of the Reagan years.  And Sundog fit right in to the whole scene with its shoot ‘em up sci-fi wild-west free-market entrepreneurism and its limited space government.  In this galaxy the only authority The Man can scrounge up to bring you down is a parking ticket.  Certain drugs, guns, and ship’s parts are unavailable on certain planets, so you can surmise that each solar system has it’s own little nanny state rules about particular contraband…but that just gives a dodgy fuck like you a way to make some serious credits.

Kiss our space-ass Millenium Falcon!

So you’ve been slaving your pitiful life away in the glass mines, when some Rithan lawyer pops by and drops a bombshell on you.  Seems a long lost uncle of yours just croaked and you’ve inherited a spaceship called the SunDog, as well as some contractual obligations he had with a group of religious nutbags known as the Society of the New Faith.  Apparently, you’re supposed be their intergalactic grocery boy or something, fetching cryogenically frozen cultists they have stashed from here to KalManDaa and delivering them Banville (their Jonestown-esque colony in the middle of bumfuck nowhere).

Take my advice, screw those douchewads.  You’ll end up dead and/or broke long before the Society manages to build their little utopia.  First and foremost, the grocery boy gig pays shit.  Even if you manage to survive the latest space pirate attack (because you had to haul stock embryos or some such squat from halfway across the galaxy), after ships repairs and fuel costs you’ll maybe get 20% of your investment back from them.  If you’re the honest type who wants to see this thing through, it’s still better to do it when you’re rich and your ship’s been pimped out with every available advanced ships part you can hustle.

You wanna get rich? You wanna have fun? You wanna take out some pent up anger on street scum who are trying to jack your wad?  Then listen to me:  Your uncle left you money in every bank in every star system in the galaxy.  Take the money and run.  Believe me, no one will follow you.

Bars are where you’ll offload most of your contraband…just don’t drink so much you pass out, or else some horny Rithan might rob you of more than your money.

You’ll start out on Jondd. It’s starport, Drahew, is sort of like the New York City of this galaxy: It’s very big, fairly dangerous, has tons of tons of stores, hotels, and bars…and there’s also a big fat bank account with your name on it.  The SunDog’s pretty banged up, but don’t go spending your new found inheritance on parts quite yet.  Instead, get whatever parts you need for your pilotage, sub-c engines, and warp drives from the force shields and the ships guns (you won’t be using them any time soon).  Then get your hull repaired, fuel your ship, and fill your spacepod’s cargo holds with extra fuel.

Finally, you want to go to the bank and withdraw at least 20,000 credits.  Pack your stinger, wear multiple shields, and avoid making contact with anybody while you do this.  There are gangs on Jondd just waiting for some doe-eyed space-hick with a pocket full of credits to come bumbling into their midst.  Just get back to your ship and blast the fuck off.

Your first destination (in the Atari ST version) should be the Woremed system.  I know what you’re thinking: why the hell would I want to go to that piss-hot ghetto shithole, with its seething masses of hive grown replicants all jacked up on dextboost waiting to mug me for my moon boots?  Why?  Scatterguns.  You can buy them over the counter there.  You want to spend every credit you can spare and fill up every available space on your ship and pod with these guns. If you’re playing the Apple II version- hit Enlie first, they’ve got the cheapest scatterguns and you can quadruple your money.

Then refuel the Sundog with whatever you have left and head towards the Glory system.  This may mean a lay over in another system since Glory is way the fuck out there, but it’s worth it, just catch some Z’s while you’re waiting.  Once you land, fill your pod up with scatterguns, hit the nearest bar, buy some grub, let the bartender know you’ve got a line on some primo artillery (bribe him with few hundred credits if you have to), take a seat in a booth and watch the money rain down from heaven.  Scatterguns are illegal on Glory, so you can double if not triple your credits on one trip.

Now you can head back to Woremed to make another run or you can spend some of your loot on some of the blackmarket goodies they’ve got there.  Sheshco is fucking dangerous… Make sure you’ve always got a few shields and your own scattergun when you’re in da hood, especially when you’re carrying cash.  Hit the bar to the northwest of where your ship is docked. You can avoid a parking ticket by parking in “the grass” and it’s still only a few yards to the bar’s door so you’re less likely to get jacked.  Butter up to the bartender, and ask for some custom space parts.  Don’t worry that it’s illegal, it’s a dumb law anyway, and if nothing else you’ve GOT to get your hands on a ground scanner.  These useful little numbers plug into your navigation system and allow you to land the SunDog in any city on a planet’s surface.  With a ground scanner, you won’t have to use the tube stations to get around or drive your space pod through the wilderness and risk starving to death anymore.

Once those Peptabs hit, things can get a little psychedelic…

Once you’ve made a small fortune and you’ve tricked out your ship, you should head back to Drahew.  Not only can you get any regular ship’s part for a moderate price there, it also makes a good all-around base of operations.  You can even find the colony and do what you’re actually supposed to if you feel like it.

But for those with the live fast die young gene there’s more fun to be had.  I call it “Death Wish 3?.  Put almost all of your cash in the bank, then grab 3 shields and a scatter gun.  Walk around until someone tries to mug you.  Tell them to fuck off and open up on them with the scattergun.  A calm and practiced hand can take out a gang of 5 or 6 dudes.  Then take their money instead.  Sometimes you can also find drugs and guns on them that you can then turn around and sell.

This little racket can get you killed fast.  Keep a good supply of rapidheal needles in your ship and pod.  Even if you live, it might not pay off.  Sometimes you get shot to shit, lose three shields and scattergun wasting a bunch of tooled up dexheads and get fuck all for your trouble.  But damn if it isn’t fun.

My flyin’ saucer’s busted up ag’in…

You can run the same sort of racket against space pirates.  Buy some cheap cargo, wait for them to attack, blast them into a million pieces and use your tractor beam to suck up any cargo they had.  This will shorten your life expectancy even more, but it sure beats the fuck out of being a slave in the glass mines.

The graphics of the game range from dot to stick figure, so you may have to dust off that imagination of yours that you’ve ignored ever since games started doing everything for you.  But there’s still no game like SunDog.  25 years later it still rules.  And it’s been crying out for decades for someone in the industry to wise up, buy the rights, and give it a serious GTA treatment graphics and physics-wise.  Instead there is the SunDog Resurrection Project, creator Bruce Webster’s open source communitarian answer to revamping the game.  While letting the programmers of the world work together pro bono on the new version is nifty and fitting in an aesthetic way for a game as classic as SunDog, I have little faith in their ability to actually complete the work any time before our own Sun implodes…until then get yourself an Atari ST or Apple II emulator and download the 25 year old sensation for yourself.

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