SPL: Skilled Pilots Live

SPL: Skilled Pilots Live is a single-player space game built around short, replayable runs, ship combat and loot. You pilot a fast, agile ship through three chapters, each ending in a challenging boss fight and taking approximately 30 minutes. You can bring on a boss sooner by choosing tougher fights, and take breaks from combat with non-combat activities.

Story

The Mind Eater draws sentient life toward itself. It devoured the ancient Natives and has now become aware of humanity. Your resistance to its call, however brief, offers a glimmer of hope.

Fly and fight

You can dash, barrel roll in any direction, strafe and fly backwards without changing your ship’s orientation. The warp reactor lets you accelerate in six directions, while the jump drive provides a rapid burst of speed and lets you choose your flight path. A jump ends automatically if you reach an obstacle, and you can use it to outrun your own bullets or escape a fight, heal and return later. There is no speed limit in space: after accelerating, you keep your speed until you decelerate or hit an object.

Combat depends on positioning and timing rather than placing the reticle precisely. Your ship’s main guns have unlimited ammunition, but firing raises reactor heat. Enemies can defend themselves, and you can defeat them by flanking, timing your attacks or unleashing a barrage. The game’s aim-assist system is shared by you and the AI.

Survive combat

Your ship has three status bars: heat, armour and structure. Many actions generate heat; overheating shuts down the reactor for a few seconds. Armour regenerates when the reactor is cool, at 0% heat. Structure is living metal in your ship and enemy hulls. Direct hits eject liquid structure that you can collect to repair your ship, and enemies can recover structure in the same way.

A passive, indestructible shield covers the front of your ship and lowers when you take an action. Deflections raise reactor heat, which can eventually cause an overheat shutdown. You can dodge bullets with dashes and barrel rolls, or counter incoming projectiles by overloading your shield; mistiming a counter can also cause overheating. Hunkering down raises a full 360-degree shield that makes you impervious to damage while slowly heating the reactor. Raising this full shield can also release a kinetic blast that knocks enemies back.

High damage can provide substantial healing, including healing beyond your normal limit, through life-stealing abilities on ships. Staggered enemies can be finished with glory kills for more overhealing and momentum. These mechanics give you ways to recover from mistakes, though combat can be punishing.

Collect and equip loot

Enemies drop items with random tiers and modifiers. Weaker enemies are more likely to drop Damaged equipment, while bosses can drop Legendaries; higher-tier equipment has more bonuses. More powerful enemies drop higher-level loot: weapons at higher levels deal more damage, while ship upgrades provide more damage resistance.

You can equip up to four weapons and three ship upgrades at a time. There are seven weapon variants and nine weapon types, creating 63 weapon combinations, each with random modifiers. Equipment is destroyed when you die, but you can expand your subspace stash to save loot. A fabricator lets you dismantle or combine excess items.

You can also use your loot to spawn wingmen; better items make them more powerful.

Chapters and tutorials

The game has three chapters, each ending in a boss fight and taking approximately 30 minutes. Four tutorial missions introduce its mechanics.