Star Trek: Starfleet Command II: Empires at War
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Star Trek Starfleet Command II: Empires at War is the sequel to Star Trek: Starfleet Command.
As February of 2000 was drawing to a close, Interplay Entertainment announced that their division of 14 Degree's East would license out a multi game contract to a relatively new games developer, Taldren Inc.
The first of these games would be the sequel to one of Interplay's best known Star Trek PC games: Starfleet Command.
Still using the basic game engine by Quicksilver who, along with 14 Degree's East members (some of whom would later go on to form Taldren), made the original Starfleet Command game, Taldren decided to give the 2nd outing of the Starfleet Command series a major overhaul. With new graphics, new weapons systems, a completely updated music background, coupled with George Takei (Mr Sulu from The Original Series) reprising his role as captain of the USS Excelsior it proved to be a very well received, and at the same time a very much criticised new game from Interplay.
The biggest visible difference of Starfleet Command 2 was the graphics. Luminosity mapping, damage texturing and shading was added to the graphical engine making Starfleet Command 2 one of the first games released which made the ships look as real as was possible back in 2001. New races in the form of the Interstellar Concordium and the Mirak Star League was also added to the existing 6 races of Federation, Romulan, Klingon, Gorn, Lyran and Hydran.
The story line of the game revolves around the mysterious Organians who were also a part of the original Starfleet Command game. The Organians return with the Interstellar Concordium in tow to "save the galaxy from itself" by subjugating all other races into an enforced peace. The game was to be followed up with a Starfleet Command volume III which would have told the story of the invasion by the Andromedans, but due to changing fortunes at Interplay, that was not to be.
In 2001 a small development group lead by fans of the game assumed responsibility for maintenance. KhoroMag, which is the combination of screen names for two fans of the game, Khoros and MagnumMan, received source code for the game after signing a contract with Taldren. This effort resulted in two official patches addressing over 150 bugs in the game, many of which were known, and some of which were discovered by code review. This was a great success, allowing Taldren more developer time to focus on their next release of Starfleet Command II: Orion Pirates.
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[edit] Notable Features
- The game included a similar combat engine to its predecessor, but with improved stability and better graphics.
- The hex-based 'virtual universe' was introduced in this game, and was also adopted by Starfleet Command III.
- Some editions of the game shipped with a special bonus CD containing conceptual artwork for the game along with special MP3 files of the in-game music. One of the extra bonus MP3s, entitled 'The End of the Federation', is virtually identical to a piece of music called "Duel of the Fates" from the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The music file is not given a composer or artist name, and is not accessible from the HTML index on the CD. (ex Taldren employee note: It is "Duel of the Fates" which was put on the sound programmers computer as a joke. When it came time to supply files for the bonus disc, the files were 'grabbed' from this programmers machine, including the joke file.)
- Several Canon Movie-Era ships were included with the game, all with Phaser-1s, (usually) a pair of Phaser-3s, (usually) rear-firing photons (a rarity in the game), more power systems, and marginally improved shielding. The ships tend to play badly against many of the more advanced ships in the game.
[edit] Gameplay and mechanics
There are several differences in gameplay between this game and its predecessor.
One difference is the inclusion of fighters for almost all races. This has a marked effect on gameplay, as it provides a new offensive weapon. This differ from Star Trek itself, which never featured fighters. However, it matches Star Fleet Battles, which implemented fighters for almost all races.
The player interface is almost identical to the previous game.
[edit] Major Problems
- Persistent problems with the online universe meant that online dynaverse play wasn't available at launch. Although subsequent patching tried to rectify these problems, dwindling player numbers(coupled with Taldren’s folding) suggests problems with the dynaverse will most likely not be resolved.
- Single player campaigns were, by player and fan-base standards alike, considered to be very poor and lacked much of the depth of the original. Many in the SFC community were left feeling as though the story was an afterthought or rushed into the final product to give the player some direction.
- Although many argued that the very nature of the new dynaverse and the freedom of movement within ran contrary to the idea of having a linear storyline and would have benefited as a whole from having several storylines or "campaigns" depending on the region or race the player chose.
- Players also noted that there was a discernible lack of balance between starships with plasma armed ships being much more heavily armed compared with drone armed ships of the same price. Also, plasma torpedoes were much harder to defend against since only beam weapons could target them and they were able absorb repeated phaser hits (compared to drones and fighters which were much easier to target and destroy since neither had any defensive bonus for being small targets, a factor that made them much more competitive in the Starfleet Battles boardgame). Also, Photon torpedoes and Hellbore cannons also had a high chance of missing the intended targets unless at almost point-blank ranges where attacking ships would be exposed to collateral damage from the "splash" effect of these weapons.
- The cloaking device was not altered from the first game and many felt that a cloaking device that only rendered the ship model's image to almost invisible as useless. Long cloak/de-cloak times, being able to still see and track the "cloaked" unit as well as being able to attack it, not to mention to most minimal shielding made the cloaking device a liability rather than an asset in the minds of its users.
[edit] External links
- Dynaverse.Net - the Offical SFC Site
- The Dynaverse Gaming Association - The non-profit organization that runs the SFC Directory services
- Starfleet Command II - Empires at War at the Star Trek Gaming Wiki
- Star Trek Gamer's review and downloads for SFC 2
- KhoroMag Game Maintenance - Developer Kits, Tables, References for SFC2
- Star Trek Starfleet Command II: Empires at War at MobyGames
