Star-Trek: Online beta

I’ve been swamped with work the last few days; yet I managed to get a few hours in on the Star-Trek: Online beta. I’ve just gotten outside of the tutorial missions, and I’ve got to say the game is interesting.

Comparisons to Eve jump to mind. The combat system is fairly similar in that you have to approach your target and be within range to attack. So far I have not noticed an auto-attack feature, so my fingers got tired really fast. The new feature to combat is the 4 quadrants of shielding. Shields that are fully charged prevent more hull damage than those that are damaged, so it’s in your best interest to rotate around your attackers.

The other main similarity to Eve is pacing. In order to communicate the vastness of space it really takes a long time to get anywhere. Warping will get you into a star system (although I’m not sure it’s randomized like Eve), and then you’ll spend 3-4 minutes navigating through void to reach your destination.

I was taken back by the textures at first. The game looks really good for MMO standards. Then I decided to fly my ship into a large asteroid/small moon to try to land; my ship bounced off and all illusion was broken.

The closest reference point I have for the ground missions is Tabula Rasa. The combat isn’t terribly interesting to me, but the npc ‘away team’ does hold some merit. In the tutorial my crew and I rolled up on some wayward Borg. If I were extremely patient they would have killed all of the enemy for me; however it was far more effective to use them as flanking props. Flanking deals roughly 50% more damage, so I’d get my team engaged, run around the group of enemies then proceed to positively pimp slap those fools.

What I haven’t seen yet is a crafting system and player driven economy. The Star-Trek universe is primed for a merchant class. When I was asked to rescue a cargo freighter ship in an early mission I had hoped I’d get to keep it and begin playing intergalactic markets. Unfortunately that was not the case.

I’m going to spend some more time in the beta this week, hopefully I’ll discover the features that would hook me then. For now, my would-be preorder cash will wait in my Nexus-One fund.