The Classic Super Star Trek Game

The Classic Super Star Trek Game(almy.us)

57 points by ingler 11 years ago | 18 comments

> In December 2013 I added three new commands -- CLOAK to cloak the Enterprise...

A true Star Trek fan would know this violates the Treaty of Algeron: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Algeron

legohead 11 years ago | |

it mentions it in the game :)

under "help cloak"

> The Treaty of Algeron with the Romulans in Stardate 2311 prohibits the use of cloaking devices. If a Romulan ship observes you cloaking or uncloaking after this point in time you will be in violation, which will hurt your final score.

JoeAltmaier 11 years ago |

Upon seeing this game, Tom Nelson and a friend wrote Begin, a tactical Star Trek simulation. It's been in C for over a decade, and still has a following. You can find it on Abandonia and other places. Even has a Wikipedia page. Though as far as I know it ISNT based on the Star Trek Battles paper game as suggested there. I'll ask Tom tomorrow.

jarcane 11 years ago | |

The Begin series is fantastic!

There's actually a third game now, for Windows, you can find it here: http://www.starfleetproject.com/

aceperry 11 years ago |

Wow, this is one of the first computer games that I played. It was running on an HP minicomputer connected to a teletype device with a paper printout.

dnm 11 years ago | |

Same for me, but our Teletype Model 33 had to use a 300 baud acoustic coupler to connect to the HP.

DavidPlumpton 11 years ago |

I learned programming by reading the source code of this game in the fantastic book by David Ahl. I still remember an array called K which contained the X,Y coordinates and shield strength of each Klingon warship.

hudibras 11 years ago | |

Oh, wow, that takes me back. I haven't thought about that book in over 25 years...

http://www.amazon.com/BASIC-Computer-Games-Microcomputer-Dav...

ourmandave 11 years ago |

I remember playing Star Trek on HP teletypes connected to the Peoria mainframe in the high school math lab. Jeez we burned through a lot of paper.

A friend modded a version to automatically fire photon torpedoes when you entered a sector with Klingons. It calc'd the trajectory so it never missed.

Of course the downside was the blow back if you shot one right next to you. Or if there was a star in the way. Or there were >3 Klingons that would hammer you while the computer is cycling through the auto firing sequence.

mecodedumb 11 years ago | |

Illinois?

jes 11 years ago |

I remember playing this game as well, many, many years ago.

If memory serves, I was playing it on thermal printer that eventually became the TI "Silent 700" series.

I believe the program was written in what was called "Super Fortran" at the time.

It was a great deal of fun.

[1] http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/ti-tymshare-100/...

kernelcurry 11 years ago |

Watch! if you don't want to play it !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XWl9x13PU

madengr 11 years ago |

Great game. I played it recently in CPM on my Altair clone.

gcb0 11 years ago | |

ok, i just tried it again. Still have no clue how to move or fire. That version is too simplistic (just fire a torpedo at X Y and you destroy the klingon) and the bsdgame original is completely arcane. this is what the man page says about movement and targeting:

""" 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. """

looking at the source it validates course as 0 to 360.. so looks like angle. yet 0 goes up. 90 goes up...

gcb0 11 years ago |

meh. this game was painful to be played after the 80s.

here is the usual session https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XWl9x13PU

every time i started that game because people around me said it was fun, it reminded me of the "typical novice's session with ed" after a while.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?EdIsTheStandardTextEditor

     Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:


  golem> ed

  ?
  help
  ?
  ?
  ?
  quit
  ?
  exit
  ?
  bye
  ?
  hello? 
  ?
  eat flaming death
  ?
  ^C
  ?
  ^C
  ?
  ^D
  ?

If you still want to play it, you distro probably have a package called bsdgames on the main package repo.

irascible 11 years ago |

Emscripten .js port Plz.

0xxon 11 years ago | |

Here you go - http://z-machine.appspot.com/game/ztrek/play/

(It is actually not emscripten -- it uses a z-machine emulator I adapted to js a long time ago to run the z-machine version of star trek. But - should be good enough :) )

irascible 11 years ago | | |

Thank you!! :D

Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed: golem> ed ? help ? ? ? quit ? exit ? bye ? hello? ? eat flaming death ? ^C ? ^C ? ^D ?