#63: SFA was good, but doesn’t touch KA, a far more refined take on Starship Simulation

#62: What more do you expect from a bunch of gaming Trekkers? Sometimes the stereotypes are true; I’m a glorious nerd, and proud of it. The gameplay matters a great deal to me too. It concerns me just as much as the style of the game does. That’s why I ranted about the physics of the ship movement and navigation. Those are, to me, integral gameplay elements that need to be handled correctly.

However, whether the gameplay is good or bad, unless I see some glimmer of hope for this to be more than a second rate MMO with a skin-deep Star Trek licence, I don’t see myself spending money on it.

Apologies for egotistically thinking all of you were talking to me, but you must be, I am seriously awesome.

I enjoyed SFA, but KA (It’s sequel) was far superior. SFA was arcadey, Ships moved like fighters.

KA featured the heftiest, vastest feeling ships in a Trek game to date. That combined with deeper micro-management abilities, fleet orders and better graphics make it the better game if you ask me.

To me, the real test will be in the actual game play itself. If the controls are awkward and clunky with a high degree of learning curve that takes you out of the game play, will be the biggest letdown for me.

So I can’t wait to get my hands on my own ship, and take her out “that-a-way!”

Have you noticed that the ship that drops out of warp in the pre-rendered cinematic (which is how the game should look) at the beginning is a TMP-refit JJprise? What do you suppose is the rationale for that design showing up in the Prime universe’s 24th century? It doesn’t appear to be the Constitution-alike they showed before.

It’s an indie sci-fi game which stunningly realises many of the features I’ve mentioned, most spectacularly, planetary landings and realistic scale.

=“Let me point my ship in any direction and engage warp drive at whatever speed I want…” — This is frankly more than I expect, but would break new ground in the Sci-Fi RPG genre.=
– Actually, you could effectively do that in A Final Unity – a game released in 1995, and to a more limited, 2D extent in Klingon Academy (1999).

Granted, there were cuts and loading screens respectively in both of those examples, but with modern streaming techniques and good memory management, it’s very possible. I’m sure there’s a recently-released game or two with examples of that kind of scale.

In AFU, if you crossed the neutral zone, a patrol of warbirds had a chance of intercepting you. There was no part of the story that I recall requiring you to cross the zone, but it was there to be explored. There were literally thousands of star systems to explore, you could meet all sorts of ships and races in the back waters. There’s even a persistent rumor that there’s a one-in-a-million chance of encountering the Borg.

In the early, buggy demos of KA, you could initiate an in-star-system warp, then cut power to your nacelles. Your warp field would collapse, but you’d maintain light-speed. You could coast right into the next sector that way if you left it long enough and cut power to all engine systems. I did this a few tmes. Now THAT was immersive. Not 100% canon, but it showed the level of consistency in navigation.

The free program Celestia supports planetary-surface-level detail, from which you can seemlessly zoom out to Galactic scales. I know it’s not a game, but the techniques required are relevant.

My point is, if they could make me feel physically placed within that universe ten and fifteen years ago, it should be very possible to take that to the next level nowadays.