Starfleet
Command was inspired by the board game Star
Fleet Battles from Amarillo
Design Bureau. SFB has
been a popular, long-running franchise since
its beginnings in the "pre-movie"
Star Trek years. Its years of play testing
and playing made it a prime candidate for
conversion to a computer game.
Starfleet
Command uses a great deal of the SFB
material, but has also made some changes and
enhancements; one of the most important of
these is that the game is no longer turn
based, but occurs in real time in a 3D
environment. (Diehard SFB players can take
advantage of the game speed slider to make it
run almost as slowly as a turn based game,
though!).
But you
shouldn't think that we tried to turn it into
a first person shooter, or even a dogfight
simulator. The ships in Starfleet Command are
vast warships, and like ships in the age of
sail a naval engagement between these vessels
is a deliberate and almost stately affair.
Their turning radius, speed, and rate of
recharging all combine to make handling one
of these ships a job for a real captain - one
who knows his ship and its capabilities, and
has a pretty good idea of what his enemy is
working with, too.
The most
successful captains even know what the
enemy is thinking, despite the fact that
they're not members of the same species.
