Strategy Gaming Online - Previews : Star Trek: Starfleet Command

Back in the misty recesses of television history, a little-watched and short-lived show explored the boundaries of dramatic possibility with a relatively daring set of writers, a risk-seeking director, and a pack of unknown actors. The show died after 78 measly episodes, while more notable successes like "Bonanza" and "Big Valley" were renewed for season after season. *

As they say, the rest is history. As I say: "When's the last time you saw Hoss's fat butt on the big screen?"


a hydran ship (Ranger? Lancer?)	A Klingon Frigate takes it in the shorts...

Star Trek was a singular phenomena. It's resilience in syndication and the dedication of its cult following (and the subsequent cult followers that never even SAW the original shows!) has inspired what, 6 movies with the original stars (Which Starbase has the rest home, Captain...)? More recently, and with actors largely a full generation younger than the original crew, the Star Trek franchise has extended into 3 full series (at least one of which was far, far more successful than the original) and a couple of movies based thereon.

The attentions of the fans that wanted to actually fight the big ships against each other therefore were first addressed by the board game market. Fortunately the Amarillo Design Bureau (Amarillo, TX) saw the potential early on and developed a surprisingly flexible and resilient system for what was then a novel simultaneous-impulse boardgame called "Star Fleet Battles."

Like the show, SFB had a pretty understated beginning. Starting with a single 16 page plastic-bagged mini rulebook, some cheap hex maps and counters they covered the Fed, Gorn, Romulan and Klingon races. But it caught on. Soon they presented Expansions 1, 2 and 3 in a similar format before hitting the big time with their boxed set. From that point on - they were in the money. Commander's rulebooks, SSD books, campaign games all followed, keeping the ever-growing demand sated (barely).

But the cry always was - "Where's the BEEF?!" (Remember, this was the 80's.) We were all happily plunking away on our Apple II+'s and wondering - when will we get a computer version of SFB?


I think this is a Klingon C-series....	Looks Lyran to me!

Star Trek *has* figured prominently in the evolution of the internet, and specifically the entertainment aspects of online play. Arguably, Nettrek was one of the first (if not THE first) net-based computer game. But the latter day Star Trek titles - the adventure games, the combat simulators, etc - have almost uniformly sucked. Needless to say, this has been a rather large disappointment for the audience, which - compared to almost any other group of "fans" of anything - are very technically literate and disproportionately own computers.

Well, my friends - the wait is almost over. I had the privilege of taking a look at an early beta of the latest project from Quicksilver Software and Interplay: Star Trek:Starfleet Command (ST:SFC), and this has the potential to be the next big thing for Trek fans.

When you start it up, it's already got your attention. Previous Star-Trek licensed games pretty muchnarrowed your options down to Feds (Good Guys) or Klingons (bad guys). In SFC you can play any of six races (Fed, Klingon, Romulan, Gorn, Lyran, or Hydran). Hydran? Hydran!? Be still my beating heart!

(One note here to the uninitiated - the ADB, despite it's nominal status as a licensee of the Star Trek franchise, pretty much went it's own way as far as defining the future of the Star Trek universe. Don't ask me how - I suppose nobody was making much off of Star Trek in syndication yet, and it would be years before Shatner would pour himself into a corset for ST:The Movie. So I think nobody paid much attention to the guys in Amarillo. The end result was that the "media" Star Trek universe and the "game" Star Trek universe are two almost entirely different places. Since SFC has used graphics from the new ST series, and has the official blessing from the now-much-more-attentive-powers-that-be, this may signal that these may start to grow together again. I'm not sure how they're going to manage that, but here's a brief rundown of the current (up to the last time I bought an SFB expansion, which is far past what SFC currently covers so


Considering it's a Fed base, and a Fed CC, I think the little Klingon Frigate is screwed.	one of the weird aliens you'll have to investigate in the campaign

whatever I've missed recently probably won't matter anyway, right?) GAME universe:

The Feds are the central power, and are the source of all that's good and holy. Viewing from above the galactic plane, see the Fed space as a circle. To the right, at about 2 o'clock, are our friendly allied dinosaurs, the plasma-torpedoing Gorn. Adjacent to the Gorn, and southward (at about 5 o'clock) are their hereditary enemies the sneaky similarly-armed pseudo-Roman Romulans. Straight south of Fed space are the much-avoided Tholians with their web-mines. Northwest of the Fed's are the mighty Kzin (yes, theft directly from Larry Niven) and their waves of drones (missiles). South of the Kzin are the Klingons, well known from stage and screen. On the far side of the Klingons from the Feds are the Lyrans, and tucked down there somewhere are also the Hydrans. These are debateably the major races. And then there's the Orions, WYN, Andromedans - don't even get me started on the ISC.) By the way, it looks like (from the map in the draft manual) that the Kzin will NEVER make it into Star Trek canon - which is understandable given the hairy copyright issues, but a sore and serious loss for the SFB game universe. I would strongly, strongly recommend that they invent someone to fill this slot! Not having a race with drones as a primary weapon takes away a huge segment of pleasurable gameplay, not to mention obviating the whole POINT of the Lyran ESG. You guys must to SOMETHING to replace the Kzin.

To get back to the tale I tell, you can play any of the six races, and a full complement of ships are present for each race (for example, the Fed DD has 13 variations, and the Frigate has 11). Each race has a unique font/color/look that gives you a distinctly different sense of who you are playing. You can immediately jump into a skirmish for immediate gratification, or you can play the campaign where you start as a lowly frigate captain in an interior (quiet) sector. As you succeed at various missions, your prestige climbs and you can use these points to buy better officers or even better ships. I presume your current crew's skill also improves over time.

The ships are beautifully rendered (the game takes advantage of you have a 3d accelerated system) and the backgrounds and weapon effects are similarly impressive. Sound effects support what you see well, and most importantly, the command system works great. They seem to have also spent a lot of effort ergonomically grouping tasks and systems in what is essentially a very complex system (the ship). It's pretty confusing at first. Once you learn the iconography however, it starts to come naturally. I wasn't able to really evaluate the ability to command other ships - which will be critical for online or multiplayer, since multi-ship actions are the heart of the system.

I hope they intend to allow coop as well as competitive multiplay - having 6 guys each commanding their own vessel fighting with 8 guys each in THIER own vessels - well, that would put me in Star Fleet heaven.


Lyran startup screen	actually, I think this is another Lyran. Hey man, all I ever saw were the SSD's!

The actual tactical play was great. The few SFB grognards I discussed this with looked askance at me when I told them it had been converted to real-time. But it works, in my opinion. They've worked hard to hold onto the SFB "feel" and the conversion to real-time only improves the game by eliminating the "end of turn fire everything" tactics. Gameplay IS in 2d (as in the boardgame) - something that might surprise some given the ability of a computer to handle the mathematical chores. However, the SFB system is complex enough to be entertaining without this additional difficult "chrome". Anyone who played the boardgame probably tried some kludgy house rule to play in the 3rd dimension, and more frequently than not, it ended with people getting bored without any real addition to gameplay. (For that matter, in the media they really only remembered the Z-axis once anyway in the Wrath of Khan. So it's no big loss!)

The screenshots show the amount of detail that is presented - and a huge amount of info is onscreen where the player needs to have it - while still being very esthetically pleasing.

And lest you think that they've whored the game for graphics - I'd point out that even with this early beta, I was able to hammer the shields of an an enemy, distract his fire with a couple of Wild Weasel shuttles, drop mines that finally knocked his shields down as he chased me, and beam over troops to capture HIS ship! That's no mean feat. Of course I couldn't beam back, but hey, it IS a beta. And I want to see them trying that to me...that's the sign of a killer AI.

It really does feel like playing SFB - something I've missed having no opponents nearby and no time, either! I'm looking forward to seeing this one on store shelves.

Anyway, slobber for a while over the pics. I'm going to get down on my knees here and beg Heather for a later beta that has working Hydran ships. And if you're ever cruising the net in your D7, and you see a lowly Hydran Uhlan - run, because I will OWN you. (If they implement fighters, which it *seems* they may, from the draft manual).....Heather? Please?

* I fully expect to get a barrage of e-mails arguing minute of Star Trek trivial factoids that I've misstated or missed entirely above. Don't bother - you're right, I'm wrong. I love Star Trek in most of its incarnations, but I haven't spent a single moment at a convention and have never owned a single pair of Vulcan ears.