Early Impressions of Star Trek: Online (Part 1)
Star Trek Online is the highly-anticipated space MMORPG set in the world of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. Cryptic Studios has been working on the title for several years and released the game in both retail and direct download format through Steam and other online retailers. You can purchase the standard or Delux edition that grants you a custom prefix as well as other small perks. You play a talented officer in Star Fleet given charge of your own ship as the Federation struggles to maintain control in a chaotic time of war.
On first impression, I was immediately reminded of Eve Online. Eve set the standard for a space MMORPG though some of its minor setbacks seem to be non-existent in the Star Trek title. For one, you have direct control of your ship as it zips across the universe. Even though many obstacles that impede your targeting and shooting don’t damage your ship upon impact, it is a fun steering your vessel around asteroids and other space debris. Warping from system to system is done by sending you in to a tactical map where systems are set out in a 3D environment. It may not seem as if you are moving at many times the speed of light. Nothing in this part of the game is to scale, as your ship appears to be roughly the size of a star when warping between systems. Once you arrive at your destination, things go back to normal and you find yourself on impulse speed.
You can focus your ship resources to give you better weapon power, shields, speed and a more balanced preset with a touch of a button on your HUD. Shields are a constant concern as you enter combat and in order to survive you need to quickly become accustomed to monitoring your shield power levels. If your rear shields are taking a significant hit, you can reroute power on the fly from other shields, ask your engineering officer to perform an emergency boost and steal power from other systems to maintain your shield strength. Hull damage is a big problem and one that can disable your craft quickly if you don’t maintain your shield capacity.
Weapons systems on the ship are customizable and very important to your survival in this war-stricken universe. Phasers, photon torpedoes and other various weapons of Star Trek are present here. The U.S.S. Daily PWN is fitted with a front-facing photon torpedo and a disruption beam while the rear sports a classic phaser.
In the next article I’ll go in to more detail about away teams and early missions.
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