The mission's success requires diplomacy to acquire allies and the elimination of races that may be potentially hostile to humanity.

The player may also deem it necessary to destroy a friendly race in order to secure enough resources to successfully complete the objectives.

The player-controllable vehicles consist of the main Trailblazer-class cruiser (top left screenshot on box back) and small spacecraft chassis that can be quickly reconfigured for three different roles (that of a space superiority fighter, a powerful self-guided kamikaze missile with poor maneuverability or a weak homing missile with excellent maneuverability).

In addition, the Trailblazer is also equipped with a fast moving turret with which to shoot down lightly armored fighter craft.

The shield component, along with certain weapon turrets, can be targeted by precision fire - a revolutionary feature for the time.

One can also engage in practice ship-to-ship combat from the main menu, or can elect to view a 3D gallery of some the ships in the game.

The game featured groundbreaking polygonal 3D graphics for its time, running at 320x200 256-color VGA resolution and quality if played on capable hardware.

[2] In 1996 the magazine ranked Lightspeed as the 46th worst game of all time, calling it "more repetitive than 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' with no payoff.