"SpaceTrek: The New Empire" (shortly: STNE) is an interactive online-game, that can be played in a normal Internet-browser. It is generally free of charge. You decide how much time you are willing to invest: several hours a day or only a few a week.
The special quality of STNE is, that it combines elements of several kinds of games in a well-designed environment in a very entertaining way:
Multiple Levels of Gameplay
1. Firstly STNE is an economical "Building-Up-Simulation" that is about colonizing firstly one and later several planets of the "Delta-Quadrant" in the galaxy and expanding them into blooming colonies. It is your goal to build up a well-running economy with a supply of resources and energy and to please your growing population with food and comfort.
2. You play as a people of colonists and get in roll-playing-like contact with other empires in this galaxy (RPG - Role Play Game). Many of the other peoples originate from the fantasy-world of the "Trekkie"-TV-shows such as "Starship Enterprise", "Seep Space Nine" and "Voyager" - furthermore there are peoples from all kinds of Science-Fiction and Fantasy-Worlds. You represent your people in the role-play using private and public communication channels: you make polotical statements, exchange trading-offers, narrate your own people's adventures or visit clubs and bars.
3. Once your attack protection expires (completely decidable all by yourself) you compete in trade and sometimes also in conflicts. Among the miscellaneous space ship that can be built or bought, there are also some battleships with defensive or/and offensive characteristics. The buildings' administration and even more the ships' controls are very detailed and interactive: Ships have long-range and short-range scanners for every area of space, where you move your ship in sectors, and further more energy-supply, protective shields and varied weapons that can be used against specific targets. Aside you have your own diplomatic bureau in which you can make political contracts with other peoples or debate for joining an alliance of several peoples. Via a system of "external reputation-points", where the reputation is automatically reduced after a destruction, you can easily evaluate your neighbours and make yourself appear in the right way.
4. In research facilities you can expand your technical possibilities for building of producing facilities, ships and defensive facilities. The list of researchable techniques is quite large and guarantees a progressive advancement of the own civilisation, including space stations and subspace telescopes that can scan the entire galaxy in sectors. Economical trade is very important in order to complete plans like this.
STNE is then a simulation, a strategic game as well as a role play game. It is organized in rounds, called "ticks" or "cycles", that take place 5 times a day: 12:00 AM, 3:00 PM, 6:00 PM, 9:00 PM and 11:30 PM - that's the time when the production of resources and energy is recalculated. In battles, however, the actions are handled instantly: the first side makes their decisions and fires their multiple weapons, the opposite side reacts. Then both sides can plan their procedure again before executing it again ("Battle-Ticks"). If you are offline while you are being attacked, your ships and colonies automatically so intelligent reactions.
STNE is not just a simple war-game: there is hardly any continuing plundering ("farming"), raiding or bombing ("bashing"). If there are players with behaviour like this the "public" of the other peoples quickly take actions to protect the concerning people. In general the more than 1.000 players of STNE are very friendly and helpful, there are often more than 100 players online at the same time who can react quite fast. But there are also often some pirates, who would like to feed their own production with other players' resources and have fun in their dangerous life.
Beyond that there are some special players acting as an "NPC (Non-Player Character), that represent known great powers such as the "United Federation of Planets" (assistant for beginners), the trading people of the Ferengi (galaxy-wide trade exchange), the Rhulaner (piates), the Talaxians (ship auctions) - as well as the BORG, the horror of all civilized people: this bio-mechanical collective keeps on terrifying with their tries to "assimilate" other races.
Coming along with the very detailed game, there is a widespread online-guide, an encyclopaedia (the "database"), a public game-help-channel with instant replies, a big forum, several open IRC-channels as well as a quick online-support.
Also remarkable is, that there are many female players in STNE since also peaceful peoples can unfold, even without being part of one of the cooperative alliances. The "Delta-Quadrant" as the game's setting has it's own atmosphere where everyone can contribute to. At the beginning playing STNE isn't very time-consuming, but the more it unfolds, the more possibilities are featured, while you can always regulate your colonies to self-supply if there isn't much time available.
Altogether "SpaceTrek: The New Empire" is a game, which is played by many players partly over a long period of time and on top of that it is constantly being improved and expanded. Every player has the same chances, whereas the community is very active and helpful: ingame, in the forum as well as in the STNE-IRC #stne. The game-administration strongly looks after the game-rules being followed and after a good association with each other.
You can also log in as "guest" in order to discover STNE at your own pace.
Paramount Pictures 1999. TM, & by Paramount Pictures: Star Trek are Trademark of Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved! The use of the term Star Trek and every related term was in no way in purpose of a copyright infringement. Copyrighted material has been used for non-commercial purposes only.
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