Time to check in with the two big Star Trek computer games, Star Trek Online and the upcoming browser-game Star Trek: Infinite Space. Cryptic has added the Oberth class to STO, check out a video below. Plus there are new comments from the producer of Star Trek: Infinite Space promising an authentic Deep Space Nine experience.
ST Online: Oberth Class Added + new STOked
Cryptic added another classic ship to their lineup with the Oberth Class (for 800 Atari Tokens). The Starfleet science vessel was first seen in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock as the USS Grissom, with additional appearances in three other films and a number of episodes of TNG and DS9. The ship was phased out of service, but the new STO version includes "improvements in modular ship construction and shield design." More details at the C-Store. Here is a video promo.
This weeks STOked podcast pours over the Cryptic’s April Engineering Report and takes a look at building a Foundry mission and more.
ST Infinite Space – Producer promises authentic DS9 experience
Star Trek Infinite Space is the free-to-play browser game being developed by Gameforge is due this Summer. In an interview with MMORPG.com, Executive Producer Ralf Adam discusses the game including how it stays true to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine universe, here is an excerpt:
MMORPG.com: What measures are being taken to ensure that fans of the series will walk away from the experience feeling like they received an authentic and true representation of the ST: DS9 universe?
Ralf Adam: Right from the start of production we had two main goals for the project:
* To create a game in the Star Trek Universe that stays true to the franchise and gives all fans a fantastic Star Trek experience, while also attracting new players with its accessibility and the fact that it doesn’t require any downloads or other technical hurdles.
* To deliver quality gameplay and audio-visual production values never seen before in a browser-based game.To achieve these goals we are working closely together with Denise and Michael Okuda on the ships and the overall visual design. They’ve both served as technical consultants and art supervisors on various Star Trek series such as The Next Generation, and written many Star Trek encyclopedias. We also brought the producer and screenwriter for The Next Generation, Lee Sheldon, on board to help us with the story and mission design. Of course, we’re also collaborating very closely with CBS Studios since they are the Star Trek experts.
…more on ST: IS at MMORPG.com
Finally a reminder that Gameforge will have a booth at Fedcon, Europe’s biggest Star Trek convention, being held next weekend (April 28th – May 1st) at the Maritim Hotel in Düsseldorf, Germany. You can try the latest build of the game yourself and talk ot the producers and developers.
Infinite Space promises to be true to DS9 (with help from Okudas)
I always loved the design of that ship for some reason. Too bad Capt. J.T. Esteban was a bit slow raising the shields…
@1: I hear you. I’d love a model USS Grissom (hint, hint, Polar Lights…)
Can’t wait for Infinite Space. Hopefully they’ll make more games if this one does well.
1.
…
I don’t believe the Grissom had shields, but I could be wrong. Definitely didn’t have any weapons.
That to me was the dumbest part of “The Search For Spock”. The Genesis planet was deemed to be strategically important to the Federation and yet they send out just a single unarmed Oberth class science ship!
I think it’s safe to assume that the Oberth Class would posses at least basic shield and weapon systems, though only simple science vessels they are still going out into the unknown and conducting potentially dangerous missions like observing stellar ignitions, surveying hazardous anomalies and other situations where you’d possibly need to raise shields or fire a photon torpedo.
But of course it’s all just a sci-fi franchise… =P
@4
I had a quick look for you and the Grissom did have defensive sheilds as well as Phasers, but no Torpedoes.
I also can’t wait until Infinite Space is released, give me something to do in work during break times :-)
Wixi
I often wondered how one moves between the primary and secondary hulls on that ship. Does the turbolift move down through the warp nacelle support pylons or does the crew use some sort of site-to-site transport process?
Great that they added the Oberth. Now it would be even better if Cryptic would finally announce the winner of the “Design the Next Enterprise” contest before the contestants start snapping like overcaffeinated postal workers. No offense to postal workers.
#8
I’ve always figured that the secondary hull isn’t actually an inhabited area. After all there are no windows, and as you pointed out there really is no good way to go down the pylons, as it seems like literally passing through a warp nacelle would be an unpleasant experience, and beaming to and from the module would be a waste of power and possibly quite dangerous during combat.
Seems to me it might make more sense if it were something else entirely, perhaps a tank to include extra fuel and water to allow the ship to go on extended missions which a larger starship wouldn’t have the supplies to do so. Another possibility is that it’s some kind of extremely powerful sensor array which puts out too much radiation during normal operation to have it incorporated into the habitable area of the ship. For all we know the Oberth Class could actually just refer to the saucer and the nacelles, with the secondary hull being a series of interchangeable modules added to the ship as its mission dictates.
Of course we all know it’s pure conjecture on a design that perhaps wasn’t really thought out that well, but it’s fun theorizing all the same.
Oh…Yes…an Oberth blowing up an Cardassian Galor. Sure…
Acording those Infinite Space screenshots: Unfortunately the ships scale seems totally off to me. Too bad that they can’t create realistic ship scales in most Trek games.
5.
…
Nice name!
7.
…
Thanks for the info! Though if I were Starfleet, I’d have sent the Excelsior out to protect the Grissom and the Genesis planet, although that would have denied us the exciting “Kirk steals the Enterprise” scene. Oh well.
Great movie, nonetheless.
8.& 9.
……..
I’ve wondered about that too. I’ve really never understood the design of the Oberth class ships. The pylons look to thin for a turbolift, plus you’d have the matter/antimatter conduits located there, connecting the nacelles to the warp core.
oops,
I meant
8.& 10.
DAMN TYPOS!!
I thought the Grissom and the Tsiolkovsky were both science vessels. Why is it that when Trek writers or gamers get lazy, suddenly every ship is as powerful as the flagship? This is as bad as when Chakotay crippled Voyager in a frakkin’ one-man shuttle because he “knew where to hit” them. Dumb.
Nice ship, though. I have one, somewhere done my MicroMachines.
Will it come with pink colored chairs?
Has there ever been a reason why ship designs from 100 years ago are still used by the Star Fleet?
A real world equivalent would be equipping the Navy the WW I Dreadnoughts.
#16 that’s always driven me crazy. The series had newer models they could have used (Ambassador class, for example, was almost never seen).
Instead they trotted out the same tired models for the movies, as well as most of TNG and DS9.
#9
I like your design for the Enterprise contest, Jason. Very innovative!
Here’s a link to my submission:
http://www.startrekonline.com/enterp…lery?share=854
Best of luck to you with the winning results… if Cryptic ever announces them. Any word on when that will happen? Sometimes this decade, I hope….
Correction: SOMETIME this decade.
Really??? Here’s another reason I will not be paying $50.00 per month for this crap. The dumbest starship in the fleet and they add it thinking it will draw players.Come on, get real. Gives us a starship that has balls. Something big, sleek and bad. Not the joke of the federation.
#9
Oops. The link I provided was bad. Here’s the correct one:
http://www.startrekonline.com/enterprise/gallery?share=854
#17 – It’s because models cost money. So they reused what they had, over and over again.
What was even stupider was while Starfleet had several different configurations the Cardassians and Romulans and numerous other species only had ONE ship and maybe a scout/shuttlecraft. It wasn’t until TNG’s 4th season that they paid for the Klingon Attack Cruiser (Vor’cha class).
#5 & #7 – While the Grissom may have been lightly armed, by the TNG era they were used in combat with the Borg: you can see an Oberth buy it in “The Emissary” (DS9’s pilot) and one firing on the Borg cube during the opening shot of the space battle in STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (a reuse of a Grissom shot from ST III with an added phaser element).
Wow……..another Oberth class ship……….how boring.
16 17. Right on!
Desstruxion, there hasn’t been an Oberth-class in the game yet. This was necessary, as both Cruiser and Escort captains got a buyable Tier 1 ship from the store, and Science captains were left using the lame starter ship. Please tell me another lower-tier Science-focused ship that they should have used.
I don’t play the game 25. I was speaking in general terms. It’s the same with models and collectibles. They trot out the 1701D, Bird of Prey, Reliant, Oberth, etc., repeatedly. Never a B, C, Defiant (DS9 version) Akira, Steamrunner, etc. I’ve scratchbuilt many a model in the shapes I like but an official collectible, once in a while, of a not so common design would be nice. I do like a few of the ships I’ve seen on the game site though. Why couldn’t they have designed a whole new science vessel instead?
I’d like to tell anybody considering buying the game this:
1) Its sub-par and overpriced (especially the C-Store)
2) Cheap, seedy marketing is constant
3) The service is quite poor and almost Gestapo like towards forum posters
The Oberth Class in STO is a Level 1-11 Ship, realistically no-one would be fighting Cardies with it unless they really wanted to or it was a Foundry mission. They would be mostly fighting Klingons, Orions or Gorn.
for clarification:
the Oberth is in the same Tier as the TOS Constitution (Pre Order Bonus), the NX-01 (C-Store item) and the Miranda Class (default free option).
Why this ship was made you ask?
It was only made because WE, THE PLAYERS, ASKED FOR IT!
-> http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=157662
The only one left to make on that wishlist is the Ambassador Class and the “Enterprise J” got turned into this “Enterprise F” contest.
and btw. there is more use for this ship then flying it yourself, as Klingon you can shoot PvE enemies that look like it, in the Foundry Players can creat missions and can now use this Ship as NPC or whatever they want.
I won’t buy the ship, i allready got the NX-01 and the TOS Connie (more then enough for the first 10 levels). But i do appriciate the Art Asset finally beeing inside the game.
#27 you seem to care about all the wrong things, there is much fun to be had in STO… and the service is pretty good actually, we get constantly patches (never enough, never fast enough, doesnt matter what MMO) and have good communication in both directions with the DEV’s, of course, but if you come flaming and spamming to the forums or just breaking the rules, you will be handled accodringly (probably after other players reported you)… Gestapo pfff… sure, whatever.
Me : Ya’ gotta love the fandom
Fandom : We want this & we want that in STO
Fan #3465 : Why is this ship even in STO ?
Cryptic / Atari : So we can keep this thing going, it costs lots of money to do this stuff you know, servers, that sort of thing, we have families too
Fan #5643 : I’m not gonna pay for this, it’s frivolous at best
Me : Yet hundreds of fans are pouring real money into STO all the time, so who’s to blame Cryptic / Atari for following the money ?
@21
I like your design Vultan
#31
Thanks! I appreciate it.
#29
I got an infraction for pointing out the game started out very poorly. And I even used very nice language.
Gestapo.
The game has improved a lot but that ain’t saying much considering where it started from.
The service is Terrible, the game is sub par, but I guess everything has its fanboys that can not see anything negative about their fave game