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Starfleet Command, being developed by Quicksilver Software Inc & 14 Degrees East and published by Interplay Productions, is a real-time PC space strategy/simulation game based on the popular Starfleet Battles boardgame. The boardgame simulates starship combat in a greatly expanded ST:TOS universe. Starfleet Command will not be an exact copy of Starfleet Battles, but will recreate the depth and quality that Starfleet Battles brings to its players.

This real-time tactical game allows the gamer to play one of several races including the most popular: Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and experience some new races such as the Hydrans and Lyrans. The single player campaign features missions created by the designers of Star Trek®: Judgement Rights™ and Fallout™. The missions players receive will be a direct result of their actions, rank and political state in the galaxy by way of the Dynaverse™ campaign engine.

You start out as a young captain, in charge of a Frigate, and work your way up through the ranks. As you increase in rank, you earn the right to captain larger ships and/or add additional ships to your "fleet". Missions take place in a variety of different sectors, and the type of missions are dependent on your game -- no player should have the exact same game twice! As if that was enough to make for a totally great replay factor, the race you choose to play (Federation, Klingon, Romulan etc..) also have their own ships, weapons and even their own unique special missions!

Of course, multiplayer is supported. From 2 to 6 players can battle it out via direct TCP/IP and IPX LANs. Two players via modem and serial. Besides the deathmatch battles, where each player can take up to three ships for a total of 18 ships in the game, Interplay also plans on creating both cooperative and competitive special multiplayer games.

So, where do you play? Space of course :) As well as battling it out in space, there are also planets, moons, suns, large asteroids, asteroid fields, dust clouds, nebulas and black holes! There are a wide range of weapons in Starfleet Command, which are divided into Direct Fire weapons and Seeking weapons. As you can imagine, Direct Fire weapons fire immediately while Seeking weapons must travel to their target and thus are subject to terrain, damage and degredation on their journey. Starfleet Command features 5 different phasers, ranging from offensive, defensive and starbase variants, photon torpedo's, disruptor's, expanding sphere generator's, plasma torpedo's, fusion cannon's, hellbores and missiles.

Okay, I hear you cry... but you can't squeeze all the content in Starfleet Battles into this game! Well, not all content is.. due to a combination of time constraints and addon packs. Some features that are in Starfleet Command include: (taken from the Interplay Starfleet Command FAQ):

A short, incomplete list: High energy turns, erratic maneuvers, emergency decels, ECM/ECCM, probes, scatterpacks, suicide shuttles, wild weasels, tractor anchors, defensive tractors (and death dragging), marines and hit/run raids, t-bombs and small mines, shield and weapon arcs, breakdowns, phaser types (1, 2, 3, 4 and G), disruptors, photon torpedoes (including proximity), plasma torpedoes (R, S, G, and F), drones (called missiles: type I and IV, slow, medium and fast speeds), ESGs, fusion beams, hellbore cannons, overloaded weapons, batteries, cloaking devices, move cost and turn rates, monsters, damage control and more. Also included are over 300 SSDs. Wherever possible, we try to remain faithful to the boardgame. We are making changes, as necessary, to make it a true computer game -- but without reducing the depth of the boardgame.

This short game information page will not answer all your questions. We highly suggest checking out the Interplay Starfleet Command FAQ which is the most up-to-date and comprehensive guide to Starfleet Command's features.