The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Conclusion

Ok, I've sent some time reviewing the past and how today's Enterprise is but a pale shadow of the original.

The question now is why did it turn out the way it did?

Not the easiest of questions, and I believe it would be difficult to answer even if I did in-depth interviews with every decision maker behind every product. Frankly, I've talked with enough designers and writers to know that often they don't understand why they do things. I doubt this area is any different. But trends can be spotted and those can telling. Given that I'm not a mind reader, I may wrong- but that's not going to prevent me from trying.

There are two areas here, the first is Game and the other TV/Movies. I feel that the nature of each drove the nerfing of the Enterprise with only a little overlap.


Gaming:

• Ablative game design is frankly the market driver. It's the core (with HP) behind D&D and similar games as well as all the most successful MMORPGs.

It's easy for the designer, and easy to grasp for the player. Being easy, it has the deceptive appearance of being easy to balance. They are very popular indeed.

I don't like Ablative systems, and I've written about that before. The simple truth is that few things in life or even in TV/movies are really ablative. Once selected, simulation suffers. Further, once selected it very difficult to keep anything exceptional- it's now just a number of hit points (or boxes in Star Fleet Battles) to be reduced.

Lastly, once a type of game starts down the ablative path- it almost always dooms any following games. WotC hasn't tried to replace HP in D&D, it's an expected element of that genre. Who would risk something different when it has been prove ablative works?

• The Hobby's need for expansions in order to maintain sales drives expansion of setting and technology.

There is a strong pressure to keep a game line selling, and that's difficult to do if your first book out the door defines 'the best of the best'. What sexy reason does the buyer have to get the lastest expansion? It has to have new stuff, and sooner or later that new stuff is going to break the old.

• The desires of designers to 'fix' the original.

Designers often think they have wonderful ideas. They may not be part of the original, but dang it they are so wonderful they have to be in there anyway. The designers of Star Fleet Battles loved historical navy simulations- and names and concepts from historical navy simulations found their way into a Star Trek game.

TV/Movies:

• First and debatably the most important influence- Star Wars.

The impact of Star Wars was huge and has altered the public's view of what sci-fi should look like ever since. Star Trek avoided the fighters for a while, but in the end gave in (at least in part) during the run of DS9.

However Star Wars' version of hyperlight is now the default image for FTL travel. It's blasters now the default of 'ray guns'. The makers of TV and movies love default images, and have a difficult time breaking away from them. In short, the original Enterprise was too... original.

I feel that this influence drove a lot of the changes we've seen. From how warp drive and phasers now work to the numbers of shuttles carried.

• Cultural Change.

The original was a product of the 60s, when American Exceptionalism (while under attack) was still the norm. The Enterprise and crew was the United States written into the future: bold, individual, powerful. When on a equal footing- it would crush its Klingon (Elaan of Troyius, Errand of Mercy) or Romulan (Balance of Terror) foe.

Dramatic tension was added to its battles by other means like sabotage (Elaan of Troyius), unknown foes (Balance of Terror), or outside influences (The Tholian Web).


TNG and later were created when Hollywood (and sadly much of America itself) had decided that traditional America was flawed and without value. Socialism replaced the original's Capitalism. Force wasn't the heroic defense of virtue any more- but the resort of those who have failed to understand what they were doing. Kirk claimed to be a soldier, in TNG Star Fleet was no longer a military arm.

The Captain of the Enterprise was French, and the model of the Federation became the EU.

With such a mind shift, there was no place for a powerful 'best of the best' Enterprise. It could no longer be exceptional. Thus any one-one-one battle with the Klingons or Romulans was now at best a toss up.

In a way it made for easy writing, just about everything was a threat. And the only path to victory was either technobabble, or by talking out the differences.


So IMO that's the current state of affairs.

We won't see anything like the original Enterprise with the current mindset in Hollywood, or the current state of the art in game design. And so, we left with memories of the good old days.

I did love those old days*.


Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII

*Like all memories, these are somewhat selective. To be honest, many TOS episodes were less than stellar. Really, Spock's Brian anyone?

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part VII

The run of the reborn Star Trek TV series and movies would continue until 2005. Then the franchise ended for a time, heavily weathered and no longer well thought of in most circles.

During that period, Star Fleet Battles continued to be published, becoming a better model of ship combat in that revised setting than it ever was on its original release.

On the role-playing side, there was Prime Directive (193), Star Trek RPG (1998), and the Star Trek Roleplaying Game (2002). Given the Next Gen focus for these games, I didn't pay them much mind and can't really review them. I assume that they would at least attempt to mirror the changes found in TNG and later and thus would fail completely to model original Star Trek. If anyone wants to leave their insights in the comments below- please feel free.


2009 saw the release of a new big screen Star Trek under different hands. It was to include the original characters, and offered the hope of regaining the original ship (and adventure) style.

As I noted at the time, I rather liked the movie. However my hopes for a return to the Enterprise of old in all its glory were dashed.

This version was much larger (over twice the length, and thus 8x the size). It came with enough shuttles to service its entire crew in a single flight. That's fine, but other changes weren't so innocent.

The DVD notes that phasers are sublight weapons, carrying over TNG techology limits back to the original era. Sigh.

Worse, the Enterprise's Warp Drive was nerfed even more than it ever has been. Now it was completely a Star Wars style light speed drive. The ship becomes blind to the real world under warp- not seeing the wreckage of the fleet it nearly crashes into upon reaching Vulcan (in fact the scene is almost a direct copy from Star Wars and the arrival of the Falcon at Alderaan- complete with the fact that the rubble was in both caused by a planet killing weapon). This from a ship that used to be able to scan objects light years away.

At this point, very little of the original is left from a technology or usage PoV. Nor do I ever expect it to return in either game, TV, or movies.

Next, the conculsion where I ponder how this could happened.

Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, Conclusion

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part VI

There would be four Star Trek Movies with the original cast before the arrival in 1987 of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). These had very little to say about how the Enterprise operated. While they produced some fun moments, I remember them mostly for their deconstruction of Kirk's character, the elevation of Spock's, and the practical if not real absence of the others including McCoy.

Things would change greatly in 1987 however.

Where the original show was a style combining Old West and Age of Sail, TNG and the following series (DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise) were idealized socialism and political correctness. Kirk would tell the Organians that he was a solider and not a diplomat. TNG would deny that Star Fleet was even a military organization and the first officer of the Enterprise-D would call wargames a waste of time for explorers.

Kirk would push his crew to reach 100% in drills, I don't think Picard ever held a drill. The Enterpise-D didn't seem to know such things existed when Jellico took over command for a bit.

Kirk would claim that 'one God is enough', TNG would claim that any religion held a culture back. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" would replace the Capitalism on display in the original.

Rather than adventures being decided by fists, phasers or wits- talking and technobabble resolved the storylines. Real villians nearly disappeared, replaced by various degrees of misunderstandings.

In short, Roddenberry (and those who took over from him) brought their own press of Star Trek as a perfect future and attempted to make TNG (and on) match. Whatever the merits of that vision (I consider it to be foolish wishful thinking), it makes for boring TV. How that mindset keep things going for four series over 18 years is beyond me. Except perhaps for the fact that geeks will accept just about anything that is sc-fi no matter how bad it is.

I attempted watching each series and give up each time. So maybe they had better moments, however I must judge each of them on the whole of their first year or two.

From the techology point of view, the changes were just as drastic.

Gone was the Warp Speed warship. According to the new series bible, phasers were now light speed weapons unusable under warp. The photon torpedos would work- sort of. They moved at the speed of the ship + .98c as I recall. Think about that for a moment and try to map it out- basically such a weapon could only be used in a chase, mostly against the one doing the chasing. I think that says a lot about how TNG viewed the Enterprise's combat capability.

The ship now carried the families of its crew, which has to be the dumbest idea ever. It was made even dumber as communication was now instant and the ship commonly ran back to the home worlds without worrying travel time.

The multiple facing shields were replaced with one uni-shield. The cubic warp scale was replaced by a new more complex method that labeled Warp 10 as the max (it was infinite speed) for who knows what reason.

The impact on the Enterpise was noted. Perhaps the best example was in the very opening pilot of TNG when Picard decides to show Q what a Galaxy class starshp could do- by running away.

Winning battles was a rarity. I started thinking that Worf and the Enterpise would get their backsides kicked by K-Mart Shoppers running to a blue light special.

Sigh, how the mighty had fallen.

Later, DS9 would show runabouts fighting alongside a Galaxy class ship (and unlike the Galaxy, living). Actual Fighters would be introduced. I imagine the only reason we didn't see Carriers was because they knew that people would finally notice that they were copying other movies at that point.

And even more sadly, these changes weren't bad game design. They were real decisions by the people in charge. All we can do is note them, while remembering better days.

So to grade these changes:

1. Revoked: It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
2. Unknown: Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
3. Revoked: Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
4. Revoked: Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
5. Revoked: The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
6. Limited: Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
7. Revoked: Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
8. Revoked: It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only.
9. Limited: The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet

I note #2 as unknown because I don't know. My impression is that they operated very like they were ablative. I should count it as a failure, but if I don't know- it wasn't important.

I note #6 as 'limited' because it never seemed to matter. But I guess they did at least attempt it. Half point.

I note #9 as 'limited' because I think while the Enterprise-D (and later E) was the best the Federation had (depressing as the thought is) it had dropped markly compared to the best of the other powers. It never seemed a match for much of anything it encountered. Half point.

Simulation Quality: 1 of 9

Which is much lower than any of the simulation games before it. And this would become the new benchmark for Star Trek ship simulation in gaming.

Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VII, Conclusion

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part V

1979 also saw the release of the first Star Trek movie. The franchise had came alive, although it was in this case more as a zombie than a Lazarus. The movie was boring, the costumes dull, and the acting even duller. It wouldn't be until the Wrath of Khan in 1982 that it would pull a foot out of the grave.

The Enterprise herself however got a great facelift. In technology and use she seemed little changed from the original, just updated. But she didn't have a chance to show her stuff outside withstanding an attack that could one-shot the Klingons.

This would the be trend for the 'original' cast movies. The ship was often little more than a set in the movie, and while she would see combat- it would always be under very special conditions making it difficult to grasp what her real capabilities may have been.

On the game side of things, 1982 saw the release of FASA's Star Trek: The Role-Playing game.

It was a somewhat interesting if not completely effective rpg. It did have some of the better setting support and a few nice adventures.

On the ship side of things, it attempted to stay much closer to the original series (and original cast movies). No Dreadnaught to be found here, nor fighter craft. And the Enterprise stood proudly at that top of the mountain in ship design.

However...

It attempted to define away the cubic warp speed, saying that in order to fight ships had to match warp speeds. The original series showed things directly counter to this, so it was a pure game construction to avoid the issue. I reject the handwave here, it's not a warp driven warship unless you show it as a warp driven warship. I'm going to be harsh on this point with the scoring below as IMO a difference that makes no different is no difference.

The Shields (like Star Fleet Battles before it) were ablative although they'd pop back up the next turn ready to absorb what they could again. This too matched nothing in the series.

And again we see ships firing every weapon they can power and bring to bear, in this case because of the free damage bonuses given them if they were powered with at least a single point.

Lastly, the game just wasn't that much fun. Its attempt to split the bridge stations between players were a failure, and the 'up/down/back up' ablative nature of the Shields crippled the design from a play point of view IMO.

To score it:

1. Failure: It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
2. Failure: Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
3. Success: Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
4. Failure: Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
5. Failure: The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
6. Success: Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
7. Failure: Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
8. Failure: It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only.
9. Success: The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet

Simulation Quality: 3 of 9
Game Quality: 2 of 5
Nerf Score: 3 of 5

Part: I, II, III, IV, VI, VII, Conclusion

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part IV

1979 saw the release of Star Fleet Battles as 'pocket edition'. The rest they say is history. The game is perhaps the single most popular and important sci-fi ship to ship game in the history of the hobby.

I used to play it all the time, often through multi-player 'campaigns' and consider myself to be something of a SFB master. It saw many supplements and editions over the years and is still in production today. Although the editions had slight differences, the game has actually seen little change in its core rules and concepts- something even D&D can't claim.

It has a well-founded rep for complexity and detail and many consider it a 'hard-core' game although IMO the basic rules aren't that bad. However when one is playing with everything, combat is often more determined by who remembers what obscure rule than by tactics.

I like the game. Really do. One of my favorites.

However, as a original Star Trek simulation it sucks.

It does have power allocation, and all the proper names. However like the Star Fleet Battle Manual before it, it took the Star Fleet Technical Manual as its model. So Dreadnaughts are in there and that opened a wedge that drove it truly where no man had gone before.

The shields are completely ablative. Hit a ship with 50 point shields with 50 1 point attacks, and that shield is no more.

It uses FTL combat with a segmented movement that HERO System would later in a way (perhaps not intended) copy. But speeds were limited to just a tad over Warp 3. Also it didn't use Warp Factors, just movement points where 1 MP = 1x light speed.

Weapons were cheap to power and fire, and you fired as many as you could at the same time (or nearly the same time).

Shuttles were FTL, and have a combat role never seen in the TV series- original or not. Indeed, I'd almost claim their use is key to any victory.

The expansions would bring in Star Fighters and carriers. Space Control Ships and Super Battleships that made the Dreadnaught look like a cutter. Missiles, Anti-Missiles and Cruise Missiles and Multi-warhead missiles. Mines. Nothing was off limits and the game became a kitchen sink of whatever its designers wanted.

And the designers wanted carrier battles in space, even going so far as to name and model fighters and weapons systems after planes and systems in the US Navy.

Sadly it quickly became a game design better suited for Star Wars than Star Trek. And on top of that it's point value system designed to produced balanced battles was a joke.

It all started off well, but the designer fell for a common enough temptation. The desire to expand and add on to a system to make more money. And to remake something according to one's own desire.

There result was a great game. But horrid Star Trek and the Enterprise become nothing more than a support ship for far sexier vessels fielded in the game.

To score it

1. Success: It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
2. Failure: Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
3. Success: Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
4. Success: Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
5. Failure: The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
6. Success: Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
7. Failure: Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
8. Failure: It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only.
9. Failure: The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet

Simulation Quality: 4 of 9
Game Quality: 4 of 5
Nerf Score: 5 out 5.

Part: I, II, III, V, VI, VII, Conclusion

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part III

The first Star Trek starship game that I'm aware off (other than simple non-simulation board games) was the text base Star Trek computer game from 1971. And really, it wasn't much of a simulation either as anyone who played it could tell you.

A number of other computer-based games followed. I've played many of them, if only for a limited time as it was easy to get bored with the early computer games (heck, I get bored with much of today's). One I didn't play but only heard about was a early multi-computer (using TSR-80s) network that allowed each individual to play one of the bridge officers in a multi-player 'simulation'. I knew a guy who had the code, but between everyone we knew- there was all of one TSR-80. Computers just weren't all that common back in the day.

Reviewing any of these in details would be a waste. In the first place, they were simple games and not real attempts at simulation. And perhaps more importantly- without the code it's difficult to tell what is going on in a computer game.

So I'll pass and turn towards what I consider to be the first significant Star Trek game that wasn't computer based. That was The Star Fleet Battle Manual published in 1977.

The game wasn't really table-top. It's was instead played on the floor, i.e. you needed clear floor space 3 meters or more on the side to play. That's because you moved your ships in terms of mm, and warp 8 (at 512x light speed) was a tad over a half-metter move.

The author was friends with Franz Joseph (covered in part II of this series) and took much of his lead from The Star Fleet Technical Manual. And thus the game failed some of the requirements I've previously stated out of the gate. For example, Dreadnoughts are part of the game making the Enterprise second tier.

Well, sort of. It's hard to judge in a way. You see firing at other ships used a rather interesting mechanic. You looked at the layout on the floor and then guessed at how many degrees off of true you should fire your weapons. Then you drag out your protractor and string and see if your guess was right. If it was, you hit. Otherwise better luck next time.

This method gave smaller ships a huge advantage as your would need to be spot on with your guess if the target was at any range. As a result many thought the tiny Tholian ship to be the best in game for good reason. The Dreadnought could be powerful, if its player had an uncanny ability to judge firing angles.

The weapon systems were odd too. Photons for example opened up holes in the shields allowing for following torpedos (if any) to ignore the shields. Nothing like that was indicated in the TV show or other sources. It also allowed (and indeed, tactically required) powering and firing multiple weapon mounts.

In short, the game was a mixed bag. It did warp speed correctly, had power allocation, shield arcs, and other goodness. And it had stuff pulled out of the backside of flying monkeys (who in turn were pulled out of another backside).

It was also done without the agreement of Paramount. The game was pulled it took until 1982 for the game to be republished after terms were worked out.

Most people don't remember it, however it started the trend of using the information found in the Star Fleet Technical Manual. And it started the trend of making stuff up.

Reviewing my previous requirements, here's how the Star Fleet Battle Manual scores:

1. Success: It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
2. Failure: Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
3. Success: Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
4. Success: Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
5. Failure: The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
6. Success: Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
7. Success: Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
8. Failure: It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only. The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet

So out of 9 possible points, it scores 6. A rather good score. Indeed, it was the only game of the ones I'm going to talk about in this series that got the ship speeds correct.

From a play point of view, the 'guess your angle of fire' and the requirement for a huge amount of clear playing space are seriously bad, wrecking what could otherwise be an interesting simulation.

In terms of nerfing the Enterprise, the targeting method was a serious hit, as was weapons that could bypass shields, small but horribly difficult to hit foes, and the inclusion of more powerful Federation ships.

Simulation Quality: 6 of 9
Game Quality: 2 of 5
Nerf Score: 4 out 5.

Part: I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, Conclusion

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part II

As a quick review of Part I, here's the short and quick list of what I consider the key elements in simulating the original Star Trek's USS Enterprise.

1. It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
2. Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
3. Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
4. Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
5. The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
6. Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
7. Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
8. It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only.
9. The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet

I'll use the above as I examine how the Ship was treated in gaming and fiction after the end of the original series.

In 1975 perhaps the single most important Star Trek related gaming publication was released. It wasn't however a game. Rather it was the Star Fleet Technical Manual (SFTM) written by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt. Written 6 years after the series ended, this one work would determine in many ways the future of Star Trek.

Schnaubelt wasn't a member of the original development team, but a fan who took to drawing and detailing things Star Trek as he saw them. He struck an agreement with Roddenberry (who thought the franchise dead) and was allowed to publish a book containing his work. The sales were impressive, and this was perhaps a deciding factor in bringing Star Trek to the big screen. It was certainly a landmark in Star Trek gaming.

It was also the beginning of the nerfing of the Starship Enterprise.

In it's defense, much of this wasn't its fault. The SFTM didn't going into operation details for the most part. It was a set of drawings, names, and background information. Not a tactical or operational work. Even so, there were two bits of information that would have a massive impact on gaming.

• The inclusion of ship classes other than the Enterprise.

Here Schnaublet decided that Starfleet fielded other types of ships in addition to its Heavy Cruisers like the Enterprise. This made sense from hints dropped during the series and its writer's bible but they never really appeared on screen due to expense.

Thus Starfleet also had destroyers, scouts and tugs. And... it had dreadnaughts.

In the original writer's bible, it was stated that the Enterprise was a dreadnaught or battleship- but that the Federation used the term Heavy Cruiser as it was a better fit for a ship that had exploration duties as its primary role during peace time. Schnaublet missed that memo, and reduced the Enterprise to the second most powerful Star Fleet ship type.

Schnaublet in a way tried to contain the damage, saying that the Dreadnaughts were kept at a home Starbase unless the Federation went to war, at which point they would set out to heap death upon their foes. But normally they were too expensive to operate. Thus, the Enterprise was still the best the Federation had in daily operation.

That such a concept wouldn't work didn't seem to occur to him. Just consider it. Who would crew it? Would you pull experienced crews off a Heavy Cruiser and toss them under war conditions onto a ship they've never operated before? Would you maintain a 'hanger' crew who did nothing but train on simulators and thus send green crews out manning your best ships?

Has any Navy operated effectively like this? No. Did anything like this appear on any TV or movie screen before or after? No.

But it's here, and as we'll see it became an important part of the gaming world of Star Trek.

• The SFTM defined how many and in what locations the Enterprise's weapon mounts were. For the phasers, it claimed there were three pairs. One was on the bottom of the saucer facing foward. The other top on were on the top with one facing port and the other Starboard. The twin torpedo launchers faced forward.

Now the original show used a lot of stock footage (cost was a issue), and never showed anything but the main forward phasers or photons firing. However they did say on screen that there were others. So adding them to the drawing was worthwhile

However, does that type of mounting make sense to anyone? It doesn't to me. If the ship could always turn towards a foe, you'd only need two weapon mounts- a primary and a backup. If it couldn't be counted on to make that turn (far more likely IMO for tactical reasons if no others), it should have weapons pointed everywhere.

You could sort of get away with it. After all, the Enterprise would only fire one of those mounts at a time. And if it rotated along it's axis (i.e. banked or even turned 'upside down') it could bring a weapon to bear in any direction but directly astern. Maybe that was a blind spot you couldn't fire through anyway? This never happened on screen. But one could excuse that.

That works. Well, there's a problem. If you listen to the backgroud chatter on the original show as the Enterprise goes to Red Alert, you'll hear something interesting. A report of "Aft Phasers Ready".

Years later, the blueprints for the movie Enterprise would show 18 phasers (14 in paired banks, 4 independently mount) pointing in all directions. The Enterpise TV episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" would show the aft phasers firing on an original Constitution class cruiser.

So the SFTM is wrong.

Thus the SFTM gives us two problems, but only one is a nerf. The reduction of the Enterprise to second tier breaks item #9 above. The weapon mountings are an incorrect detail that could be easily forgotten. But we'll see how that error bites us going forward.

Edit: Almost forgot something. All the ships in the SFTM have the same warp speeds. Highly unlikely, and this breaks requirement #8 above.

Next we starting examing game designs.

Part: I, III, IV, V, VI, VII, Conclusion

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part I

I downloaded and tried out the Star Trek Online MMORPG yesterday. This despite my hate for all things Next-Gen or later (it's set 30 years ahead of the last Next-Gen movie).

As I was playing it, I couldn't help but do some reverse-engineering on their Starship Combat system (which to my mind isn't very star trek like except for sights and sounds- but seems fun so far). And that started me thinking about the whole subject of what such combat in Star Trek was and has become. A subject that touches TV, Movies, computer games, war games and table-top rpgs.

Star Trek got around you see. It was in fact the first game design that I ever did, a ship to ship simulation that was used for a rpg campaign.

And it seems to me this may be an interesting subject for the blog. I'm not really sure what one can learn from it, but there might be something. So here we go, the start of a rambling series of posts that will cover far more on the subject than anyone would want.

When I design a game, I pick what I consider the core mechanic section and those parts of the source material that cover it. The idea is to make them match, i.e. simulation at its purest.

For a Star Trek style game, ship combat and modeling would be a major subsystem. So I began there.

The original show Enterprise was a marked departure from sci-fi ships before and after it. It was also interesting in its influences. Unlike most sc-fi (the Honor Harrington series is a good example) it didn't use just one historical influence, but a number of them.

It's length was picked to be about that of the supercarrier USS Enterprise. The number of the ships built of it's class was 13, and that's close to the number of carriers the US maintains in operation (I think it's currently 11, but it was 12 and even 13 some time back as I recall). I doubt those numbers were picked at random. The ship was to invoke the power and prestige of the modern supercarrier set in the 23rd century.

It wasn't a carrier however. Strategically and operationally it was more like an Age of Sail Frigate, say the USS Consitution. It's crew of 430 nearly matches that ship's crew of 450. Like those ships, it would 'sail' beyond an effective chain of command and due to the limits of subspace radio- could be weeks away from direct communication. Indeed, in some cases it could out-run long range subspace radio for that matter and arrive before the signal.

Thus its Captain was given vast decision making powers- including the decision to go to war.

Along that same line of thought, the ship itself was the power projection, not it's shuttles. Perhaps this was due to budget, or perhaps it was due to keeping the focus on the bridge crew. Whatever the reason the Enterprise herself projected the Federation's power- not a fleet of starfighters she carried.


That sets the background. As to details, in pure sc-fi terms the Enterprise had other marked differences from ships before and after that would need to be mechanically reflected. Let's define those in the following bullet points:

• She was a warp speed warship. That is the original Enterprise fought at faster than light speeds. Indeed, engagement at sublight was said by her engineer to be akin to "wallowing like a garbage scow against a warp-driven starship."

In contrast almost all other sci-fi ships used jump drives, i.e. you 'leaped' from point A to B without really crossing the space inbetween. Combat was restricted to only subspace speeds. This is true of Traveller ships, The Mote in God's Eye, Star Wars, etc. The list is nearly endless.

The Enterprise on the other hand actually crossed that space at a faster than light speed. She could scan things in it, attack in it and defend in it. And she was almost alone in the sci-fi world in this ability.

Recently a new series of books provide another ship capable of this although the A.S.S. (yes tht's correct, and the humans are less than amused at that but it wasn't their choice) Vorpal Blade can't run it's sensors or fire weapons at such speeds. Even so, it gains vast advantage against foes who only have jump drives in its battles.

• The Enterprise Deflector shields were impressive. In some ways they were the classic force field. They were however quite powerful, able to protect the ship (at least for a time) against weapons that carved up planets into bite sized bits.

One important point about them, is that they all but ignored incoming fire below a certain power level. In other words, just any hit didn't reduce them ("shields holding firm Captain"). Rather it required either an attack of enough power or of a special nature to reduce them. In this they worked much as WWII battleship belt armor did. It could ignore 5" shells forever, and only had to worry about much larger weapons.

• The Enterprise had two weapons systems- phasers and photon torpedos in a number of mounts. What's interesting however is that even when one 'diverted all power to the weapons'- only one of these mounts fired at a time. Further its weapons (both the phasers and the torpedos) worked at faster than light speeds.

In power levels they granted the ship the ability to destroy planets although to what degree was never stated. Perhaps it was just boiling off the surface instead of reducing it to rubble, but whatever the case they weren't cap guns.

Normally sc-fi ships are like WWII battleships, dozens of guns going off. The Enterprise was quite the contrast to this- able to put much of the ships power into a single weapons bank for a single vastly powerful attack.

• This last feature meant that the Enterprise fought off it's power plant ("Scotty, I need more power!"). Thus power allocation would seem key to any simulation. It would have to pick between max effort for shields, drive, or weapons- it couldn't do them all but could do a solid mix and divert that to individual subsystems.

• Warp Factors were a cubic times the speed of light (likely multipled by a constant afterwards). Thus Warp 1 was the speed of light, and Warp 8 was 512 times the speed of light. The ship had engagements at both sublight and hyperlight speeds. This would require an interesting approach in game mechanics to represent.

• Given that the Enterprise wanted to fight at Warp Speed (and considered it a serious disadvantage not to), it is clear that the system should reflect this.

• Warp Drive was a function of the drive and the power plant behind it. The Enterprise was the larget Starfleet ship, and it was the fastest. No smaller ships had the power needed to outrun it, and shuttle sized ships were sublight.

• The Shields covered at least 4 arcs, each were independent both in damage and in how they could be reinforced with more power.
  

All in all, it was very impressive even in Sc-Fi terms. Converting it to a gaming system would a challenge. Note that I can provide excellent support for all the above claims (but haven't to save room), although I must admit that consistency failed sometimes on the original show. The first time phasers fired on screen for example they used the special effects of the photon torpedos...

As this blog series continues we will look at early attempts to design Star Trek space combat systems, and how they ended up nerfing the ship along the way both in games and in the following TV/movies.

Part: II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, Conclusion

More on the Star Trek Movie

As I said in my last post, I really enjoyed the movie. They got the characters and action/adventure tone of the original series right- and anything else is nitpicking.

But let's pick the nits anyway- and how they would impact an Star Trek rpg...

1. They turned the Enterprise Warp Drive into a Star Wars hyperdrive.

In the original show, the Enterprise was a combat capable FTL warship. That is, it considered fighting at sublight speeds to be crippling, it would be akin to a modern warship fighting while using habor tugs to push it around. The episode Elaan of Troyius showed that very clearly although the concept appears throughout the original series.


"Maneuver? Aye.We can wallow like a garbage scow against a warp-driven starship", Scotty- Elaan of Troyius


Star Trek TNG and latter undermined that concept, and the new movie completely removes it giving the Enterprise a Star Wars style hyperdrive where they can't even see what's front of them until they basically hit it.

I myself like the original much better, and it was a special hallmark of original Star Trek as FTL combat is very rare in Sci-Fi.

From a rpg PoV, it greatly alters things allowing the GM to rule that the player's ship flies into rocks or wreckage, and generally makes them blind as bats to what they're sailing into. It also means that one should be able to quickly disengage from battle (like the Jellyfish did in the movie)- and there's no indication as to what can be done about it. The Narada was chasing, but other than ramming it was unclear as to what it could do.

Unless you like players running away when the going gets tough, you'll need a method to deal with it. I suggest reverting to the original show's method. The old ways are sometimes the best ways.


2. Too much problem solving by Transporter

The original writers guide as I recall pointed out this danger. The transporter ideally should be used to get you into an adventure, not out of one. It's way too easy to make the transporter the 'save our a#$ button', and they did that in spades in this movie. Oh, and transwarp transporting is just beyond the pale- now you don't even need ships to move between planets.

For a RPG, control this better. Play up the "must stay still" and the long time period needed. Unlike the movie, remember that you can't use the transporter through shields. How in the world did they forget that little issue...

You're almost forced to say they were never able to get Transwarp Transporting working without serious chances of horrid things happening after that one time. Do something, or you'll find that your players will wake up and realize that they don't even need to take a ship to your adventures...

3. Jumping someone six grades in rank and giving them the best ship in the fleet.

What can I say? I suppose if one doesn't care about suspension of disbelief- go for it. Silly games are fun sometimes.


4. Mining Ships armed with massive weapons systems

Generally in an rpg, again for suspension of disbelief reasons- you want ships to have capabilities suited to their role and use. This saves your players from WTF moments.

Note: It turns out that there is some backstory to the Narada. It salvaged advanced technology (that allowed self-repair and grew the ship in size) and weapons from a disabled Borg ship. Yes that's lame, but it at least explains things.

5. Use the original "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

Because being PC is being boring, both in english and in fact.


To any of you running a Star Trek campaign, good luck. Wish I was there.

The New Star Trek Movie

I've long been a Star Trek 'fan', well sort of. The first couple of seasons of the original show has long been my favorite TV series due to the characters, the humor and the adventure. However after that the third season was often poorly written, and everything that came after was worse with each step- hampered by more poor writing, far more boring characters, overwhelming political correctness, and a self-importance that attempted (and failed IMO) to make it more sci-fi than action/adventure at times.

Still, given my fondness for those first two seasons it was obvious that I'd try a Star Trek rpg campaign some day and so I did. I created my own ship combat system, used HERO System for the characters and the original FASA rpg for support material (we did try their rules for a game or two before ditching them). In total across a span of years we did two campaigns in that setting.

Success was mixed. We certainly had fun, but there are three major problems that IMO makes Star Trek the most difficult rpg campaign to run.

• The resources of a Starship are immense. This is why so often the series (and the new movie) cuts the characters off from those resourse. Sadly this gets old adventure after adventure
• Some players have problems with a formal chain of command, even if they otherwise in practical terms follow an informal one in any other campaign.
• One ship- many players. I have yet to encounter a Starship combat system that can handle this with a degree of fun equal to the normal one character per player ratio. FASA tried and failed IMO, and most games don't even try.

Still I wanted to give it another go because when it works, it works well indeed. But I was outvoted and Morrow Project will be our campaign for a while now. Sniff.

Oh, the movie. Went to see it last night.

Lots of fun, with most of the characters and actors dead on. The Enterprise looked fantastic, and makes me forget about all those horrid A, B, C, D, E and NX ripoffs that were forced upon us.

I could point out many issues with the plot, and otherwise nitpick. But I'll pass, such detaild don't really matter. This is the best Star Trek since 1969.


Ok, one nitpick. Can't resist.

The engineering areas of the Enterprise is a beer factory*? Really? Am I the only one who thinks that looked stupid? Wouldn't have patterning it to look like, oh I don't know- a ship's engineering room had been a better choice

On the other hand, maybe it will help, the secondary hull looked cut off too much IMO towards the aft bottom. A good solid brew should be able to add some weight and fill that out...


*Actually when seeing the movie, the first thing I thought of when seeing the Kevin's engineering/hanger sections was that it was filmed in someone's factory (true) and that the Enterprise engineering/hanger sections was a milk processing plant. But it was beer plant instead.