Retro Arcade Review: Star Fleet One
You begin Star Fleet One (SF1) as a cadet trainee in command of United Galactic Alliance Ship "Republic", an invincible class Heavy Cruiser based on Cygni Epsilon Three. From there, you are dispatched deep into the galaxy on missions against the Krellan and Zaldron fleets. On each mission you are given a certain number to days to destroy a specified number of Krellans with a small number of star bases for support.
As a trainee, your early mission parameters will be rather easy to attain and you have a lot of star bases for support. As you complete missions and advance in rank, the parameters become more difficult.
Your ship has some 13 critical systems and 500 crew including space marines, security, and operations personnel. Two hits at close range will generally penetrate a shield and then you must scramble to reallocate your shield power or turn your ship so that a different shield faces the enemy.
Although SF1 has its roots in the old Star Trek computer games of a few years back, the people at Cygnus have added many features which make this a remarkable game in its own right. For example, you can disable a ship rather than destroy it. If you successfully tow it back to back (using your tractor beam) your mission efficiency increases. You may also move close to a disabled enemy and use your transporter to transport space marines into the other ship. A boarding battle will ensue (with some nice sound effects) and you may or may not capture the enemy ship. If you capture the ship then his energy and any prisoners will be transferred to your ship. Taking prisoners back to a star base really increases your efficiency. Of course, towing ships and transporting prisoners has some hazards of its own. The Krellans may beam a spy aboard your ship or a prisoner might escape. In either case, they run amuck and cause damage until your security crew can capture or kill them.
You can use torpedoes as if they were mines. Laying a few torpedoes in various sectors is a very good tactic to use when Zaldron hunting as the mines are undetectable by Zaldrons or Krellans and the enemy may easily blunder into them. Unexploded mines may be retrieved and used again. By dropping 10 mines in the same sector as the star base, then docking, then leaving and retrieving those 10 mines, it is possible to have 30 torpedoes instead of the usual 20.
The Star Fleet Command format gives you a larger task than just seeing how many Krellans you can kill in a given number of days. The new features, including mine laying, transporters, tractor beams, and ship-to-ship fighting add a needed dimension to the basic battle sequence and gives the player something else to consider when thinking about the final efficiency rating.
The game is well implemented on the IBM-PC and takes advantage of the function keys to initiate game orders. There are some very good character graphic sequences at the beginning of the game and sound is used effectively at various places. The two manuals which come with the game are very well organized. I especially liked the "Training Manual". As stated above, Star Fleet One is a truly remarkable update of the classic Star Trek game.
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