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                              by

                         Eric Allman
                   University of California
                           Berkeley






      

Well, the federation is once again at war with the Klingon empire. It is up to you, as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, to wipe out the invasion fleet and save the Federation.

For the purposes of the game the galaxy is divided into 64 quadrants on an eight by eight grid, with quadrant 0,0 in the upper left hand corner. Each quadrant is divided into 100 sectors on a ten by ten grid. Each sector contains one object (e.g., the Enterprise, a Klingon, or a star).

Navigation is handled in degrees, with zero being straight up and ninety being to the right. Distances are measured in quadrants. One tenth quadrant is one sector.

The galaxy contains starbases, at which you can dock to refuel, repair damages, etc. The galaxy also contains stars. Stars usually have a knack for getting in your way, but they can be triggered into going nova by shooting a photon torpedo at one, thereby (hopefully) destroying any adjacent Klingons. This is not a good practice however, because you are penalized for destroying stars. Also, a star will sometimes go supernova, which obliterates an entire quadrant. You must never stop in a supernova quadrant, although you may "jump over" one.

Some starsystems have inhabited planets. Klingons can attack inhabited planets and enslave the populace, which they then put to work building more Klingon battle cruisers.

To request the game, issue the command

               /usr/games/trek
      

from the shell. If a filename is supplied, a log of the game is written onto that file. (Otherwise, no file is written.) If the "−a" flag is stated before the filename, the log of the game is appended to the file.

The game will ask you what length game you would like. Valid responses are "short", "medium", and "long". You may also type "restart", which restarts a previously saved game. Ideally, the length of the game does not affect the difficulty, but currently the shorter games tend to be harder than the longer ones.

You will then be prompted for the skill, to which you must respond "novice", "fair", "good", "expert", "commodore", or "impossible". You should start out with a novice and work up, but if you really want to see how fast you can be slaughtered, start out with an impossible game.

In general, throughout the game, if you forget what is appropriate the game will tell you what it expects if you just type in a question mark.

If the game expects you to enter a command, it will say "Command: " and wait for your response. Most commands can be abbreviated.

At almost any time you can type more than one thing on a line. For example, to move straight up one quadrant, you can type

          move 0 1
        

or you could just type

            move
    

and the game would prompt you with

            Course:
    

to which you could type

            0 1
    

The "1" is the distance, which could be put on still another line. Also, the "move" command could have been abbreviated "mov", "mo", or just "m".

If you are partway through a command and you change your mind, you can usually type "‐1" to cancel the command.

Klingons generally cannot hit you if you don’t consume anything (e.g., time or energy), so some commands are considered "free". As soon as you consume anything though ‐‐ POW!

The short range scan gives you a picture of the quadrant you are in, and (if you say "yes") a status report which tells you a whole bunch of interesting stuff. You can get a status report alone by using the status command. An example follows:

The cast of characters is as follows:

The name of the starsystem is listed underneath the short range scan. The word "distressed", if present, means that the starsystem is under attack.

Short range scans are absolutely free. They use no time, no energy, and they don’t give the Klingons another chance to hit you.

This command gives you information about the current status of the game and your ship, as follows:

Status information is absolutely free.

Long range scan gives you information about the eight quadrants that surround the quadrant you’re in. A sample long range scan follows:

The three digit numbers tell the number of objects in the quadrants. The units digit tells the number of stars, the tens digit the number of starbases, and the hundreds digit is the number of Klingons. "*" indicates the negative energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy, which you cannot enter. "///" means that that is a supernova quadrant and must not be entered.

A damage report tells you what devices are damaged and how long it will take to repair them. Repairs proceed faster when you are docked at a starbase.

The warp factor tells the speed of your starship when you move under warp power (with the move command). The higher the warp factor, the faster you go, and the more energy you use.

The minimum warp factor is 1.0 and the maximum is 10.0. At speeds above warp 6 there is danger of the warp engines being damaged. The probability of this increases at higher warp speeds. Above warp 9.0 there is a chance of entering a time warp.

This is the usual way of moving. The course is in degrees and the distance is in quadrants. To move one sector specify a distance of 0.1.

Time is consumed proportionately to the inverse of the warp factor squared, and directly to the distance. Energy is consumed as the warp factor cubed, and directly to the distance. If you move with your shields up it doubles the amount of energy consumed.

When you move in a quadrant containing Klingons, they get a chance to attack you.

The computer detects navigation errors. If the computer is out, you run the risk of running into things.

The course is determined by the Space Inertial Navigation System [SINS]. As described in Star Fleet Technical Order TO:02:06:12, the SINS is calibrated, after which it becomes the base for navigation. If damaged, navigation becomes inaccurate. When it is fixed, Spock recalibrates it, however, it cannot be calibrated extremely accurately until you dock at starbase.

The impulse engines give you a chance to maneuver when your warp engines are damaged; however, they are incredibly slow (0.095 quadrants/stardate). They require 20 units of energy to engage, and ten units per sector to move.

The same comments about the computer and the SINS apply as above.

There is no penalty to move under impulse power with shields up.

Shields protect you from Klingon attack and nearby novas. As they protect you, they weaken. A shield which is 78% effective will absorb 78% of a hit and let 22% in to hurt you.

The Klingons have a chance to attack you every time you raise or lower shields. Shields do not rise and lower instantaneously, so the hit you receive will be computed with the shields at an intermediate effectiveness.

It takes energy to raise shields, but not to drop them.

When you are cloaked, Klingons cannot see you, and hence they do not fire at you. They are useful for entering a quadrant and selecting a good position, however, weapons cannot be fired through the cloak due to the huge energy drain that it requires.

The cloak up command only starts the cloaking process; Klingons will continue to fire at you until you do something which consumes time.

Phasers are energy weapons; the energy comes from your ship’s reserves ("total energy" on a srscan). It takes about 250 units of hits to kill a Klingon. Hits are cumulative as long as you stay in the quadrant.

Phasers become less effective the further from a Klingon you are. Adjacent Klingons receive about 90% of what you fire, at five sectors about 60%, and at ten sectors about 35%. They have no effect outside of the quadrant.

Phasers cannot be fired while shields are up; to do so would fry you. They have no effect on starbases or stars.

In automatic mode the computer decides how to divide up the energy among the Klingons present; in manual mode you do that yourself.

In manual mode firing you specify a direction, amount (number of units to fire) and spread (0 ‐> 1.0) for each of the six phaser banks. A zero amount terminates the manual input.

Torpedoes are projectile weapons ‐‐ there are no partial hits. You either hit your target or you don’t. A hit on a Klingon destroys him. A hit on a starbase destroys that starbase (woops!). Hitting a star usually causes it to go nova, and occasionally supernova.

Photon torpedoes cannot be aimed precisely. They can be fired with shields up, but they get even more random as they pass through the shields.

Torpedoes may be fired in bursts of three. If this is desired, the burst_angle is the angle between the three shots, which may vary from one to fifteen. The word "no" says that a burst is not wanted; the word "yes" (which may be omitted if stated on the same line as the course) says that a burst is wanted.

Photon torpedoes have no effect outside the quadrant.

The computer command gives you access to the facilities of the onboard computer, which allows you to do all sorts of fascinating stuff. Computer requests are:

More than one request may be stated on a line by separating them with semicolons.

You may dock at a starbase when you are in one of the eight adjacent sectors.

When you dock you are resupplied with energy, photon torpedoes, and life support reserves. Repairs are also done faster at starbase. Any prisoners you have taken are unloaded. You do not receive points for taking prisoners until this time.

Starbases have their own deflector shields, so you are safe from attack while docked.

This just allows you to leave starbase so that you may proceed on your way.

This command allows you to rest to repair damages. It is not advisable to rest while under attack.

You may call starbase for help via your subspace radio. Starbase has long range transporter beams to get you. Problem is, they can’t always rematerialize you.

You should avoid using this command unless absolutely necessary, for the above reason and because it counts heavily against you in the scoring.

You may request that a Klingon surrender to you. If he accepts, you get to take captives (but only as many as your brig can hold). It is good if you do this, because you get points for captives. Also, if you ever get captured, you want to be sure that the Federation has prisoners to exchange for you.

You must go to a starbase to turn over your prisoners to Federation authorities.

When your short range scanners are out, you can still see what is out "there" by doing a visual scan. Unfortunately, you can only see three sectors at one time, and it takes 0.005 stardates to perform.

The three sectors in the general direction of the course specified are examined and displayed.

The officers escape the Enterprise in the shuttlecraft. If the transporter is working and there is an inhabitable starsystem in the area, the crew beams down, otherwise you leave them to die. You are given an old but still usable ship, the Faire Queene.

This command is identical to "move", except that the computer doesn’t stop you from making navigation errors.

You get very nearly slaughtered if you ram anything.

Your starship is self‐destructed. Chances are you will destroy any Klingons (and stars, and starbases) left in your quadrant.

Cancels the current game. No score is computed. If you answer yes, a new game will be started, otherwise trek exits.

Temporarily escapes to the shell. When you exit the shell you will return to the game.

The scoring algorithm is rather complicated. Basically, you get points for each Klingon you kill, for your Klingon per stardate kill rate, and a bonus if you win the game. You lose points for the number of Klingons left in the galaxy at the end of the game, for getting killed, for each star, starbase, or inhabited starsystem you destroy, for calling for help, and for each casualty you incur.

You will be promoted if you play very well. You will never get a promotion if you call for help, abandon the Enterprise, get killed, destroy a starbase or inhabited starsystem, or destroy too many stars.