To Boldly Go - a Star Trek: Infinite AAR

[VILenin]

Hello and welcome! I'm going to be playing as the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek: Infinite. If you haven't seen, Infinite is a game built off the Stellaris engine and so has a lot of obvious similarities to that game. There are some interesting differences, however, that I'll try and touch on as they come up. This will be a gameplay/strategy AAR focusing on not just the events of the playthrough but also an explanation and my thoughts on the game's mechanics when relevant. This is also my first AAR in quite a long time, so hopefully I still remember how to do this . Updates will probably be slow, but I'm aiming on at least once a week.

I'm playing on Commodore difficulty with x2.0 crisis strength, all the other settings left on default. I played a test run prior to this for about eight hours so I'm not going in blindly, but I'm also a pretty average Stellaris player, so the difficulty should hopefully be an appropriate challange while still leaving me room to fail for your entertainment.

With that said, let's jump in and introduce you to the game.

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So the first major difference between ST:I and Stellaris is the playable races. Stellaris comes with a number of pre-generated civilizations to play as but also lets you create your own, and will randomly generate alien civs to populate your galaxy each time you start a new game. Set in the Star Trek universe, Infinite restricts you to playing as one of four civs from Star Trek canon: the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Cardassians. These four playable races are the Major Powers of the game; they're the movers and shakers of the galaxy and come with their own unique features. As I mentioned at the start, I'm going to be playing as the United Federation of Planets, aka the Good Guys.

The Federation is the protagonist of all the Star Trek shows, making them the "default" race in some respects. As you can read in the description, the Federation is built on the principles of peace, progress, and cooperation, and this is reflected in their starting traits and civics.

The first two, Cosmologist and Pioneer, are the traits of my starting leader, President T'Pragh (who the game insists is human despite her looking decidedly Vulcan). Your starting leader is always the same, but as your leader changes over the course of the game they'll bring different traits with them. The next two traits, High Education and Diplomatic Expertise, are the Federation's civics, which are also always the same, however we have the option to add them. More on that later. Federated Democracy, the last trait, is our government type. I think these bonuses are pretty true to the Federation's strengths in Star Trek and encourage you to play in a way similar to how they act in the shows. Which isn't to say that you're entirely railroaded. There are some options to diverge from canon, and I plan to do so a little bit down the road.

Overall, however, the Federation's strengths map pretty well to how I like to play Stellaris, which is the other reason I chose to play as them. In general, I like to mind my own business while I expand as much as possible and then tech up like crazy. Military conflict tends to be a last resort, and ideally postponed until I have technological and economic superiority over my enemies. We'll see if the other Major Powers in the game will accommodate me.

This is how our corner of space looks at the start of the game. You can see that all four Majors start in close proximity to each other, as well as all starting with about a dozen controlled systems and four colonized planets. This is another important difference from Stellaris, where you usually have more room between you and your closest neighbors. Each Major Power here has a direction to expand in away from their rivals, but you're in contact with each other right from the jump. I think this kind of faster start will be great for multiplayer, although I haven't had the chance to try that yet.

There are a few other things on the map worth pointing out. One, you can see that the four Majors aren't the only civilizations in the galaxy: we also have the Betazoids and the Bajorans, our first two examples of Minor Powers. Minor powers aren't as active or dynamic as the Major Powers, but they can still build fleets, research, negotiate, and expand. They also each have a unique civic of their own. If you incorporate a minor power into your empire, you add their civic to your own, meaning you can accumulate quite a nice list of bonuses. Incorporating minors is also one of the ways you can win the game. One of the victory conditions is having 10 civics, which means incorporating 8 minor powers. This is the victory condition I'm going to be shooting for.

At the top of the screen are the resources, which will be mostly familiar to Stellaris players but with a few changes. Consumer goods, for instance, has been swapped out for Deuterium, a resource that goes into ship maintenance. Science resources have been consolidated from three (physics, society, and engineering) down into just one. There are four rare resources - dilithium, tachyons, gravitons, and nanites - which are used in higher tier buildings. Finally, there's a brand new resource, Officers, which is represented by the naval hat icon (currently at 0 +8). Each ship has an officer capacity, representing the manpower requirement to operate the ship. When your ships take damage, there's a chance for officers to be killed, which in turn lowers the ship's combat and repair efficiency. Officers will replenish outside of combat, provided you have enough in your pool.

So the two main resources you need when building ships are alloys (represented by the stack of tubes in this game) and officers. I start with no stockpile of either and low incomes for both (+10 and +8 a month respectively). Until we get the economy built up, ship-building is going to be limited. For now, the starting fleet of five Miranda-class corvettes is going to have to do.

Speaking of which, one of the first things I do is go into the ship designer and redesign the rather silly auto-generated corvette the game gave me.

Here we have another change from Stellaris. Instead of three hp types (hull, armor, and shields) and weapons that specialize against each, Infinite drops armor in favor of just hull and shields. Broadly speaking, weapons come in two varieties: energy weapons and torpedoes. Energy weapons are the anti-shield and torpedoes are the anti-hull. The default design for the Miranda-class had it equipped with four plasma charges (the entry torpedo weapon) and no shields whatsoever. I've added both phasers and shields to my design for a more rounded, and hopefully more effective, layout. I plan on refitting my starting fleet when I have the alloys for it, but I'm not expecting any conflict right away so it's not a top priority.

The next thing I do before unpausing is set my starting research.

You get three randomly selected techs to choose from in each science category and these are the ones I pick. Not too bad, all things considered. The mineral bonus is nice for early game expansion, since that's what most orbital stations and planetary buildings cost.

Next time I'll go over what my goals for the early game are as well as my overall strategy, then I'll unpause the game and we'll see how long that plan survives contact with the enemy!

 

[Wraith11B]

Interesting! Glad to be first... Subbed!

 

[Chac1]

Going to be watching this with interest. Due to bugs and OS issues, can't get my version to work yet, but waiting for fixes. Happy to read your AAR in the meantime. Good luck!

 

[Rensslaer]

@VILenin Aha! Awesome to see you starting this!

I have to admit that I'm jealous and already wanting to start a game of this. But since I have 2 AARs running and barely have time for those, I'll have to live vicariously through you.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Two quibbles (not tribbles) I might have with the setup
1. Why are they assuming a "starter navy" while assuming a mature "empire" size? Seems odd. Seems like you'd need a decent sized navy to expand to the point of contact, like in Stellaris. But oh well. I suppose they didn't want to start you off with a mature fleet, even though that might seem logical to do so.
2. Are they suggesting phasers can't stab through a saucer section like butter? I'm not sure I'm keen on that. We've seen it on film plenty. Seems like an add breach of canon for balance sake, but I'm not sure it's a good balance.

Watching for the next update!

Rensslaer

 

[VILenin]

Interesting! Glad to be first... Subbed!

Welcome aboard, glad to have you!

Going to be watching this with interest. Due to bugs and OS issues, can't get my version to work yet, but waiting for fixes. Happy to read your AAR in the meantime. Good luck!

Thank you! I've seen that people have been having some technical issues, but fortunately I haven't run into any bugs like that so far (fingers crossed). Hopefully I can keep you partially entertained in the meantime.

@VILenin Aha! Awesome to see you starting this!

I have to admit that I'm jealous and already wanting to start a game of this. But since I have 2 AARs running and barely have time for those, I'll have to live vicariously through you.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Two quibbles (not tribbles) I might have with the setup
1. Why are they assuming a "starter navy" while assuming a mature "empire" size? Seems odd. Seems like you'd need a decent sized navy to expand to the point of contact, like in Stellaris. But oh well. I suppose they didn't want to start you off with a mature fleet, even though that might seem logical to do so.
2. Are they suggesting phasers can't stab through a saucer section like butter? I'm not sure I'm keen on that. We've seen it on film plenty. Seems like an add breach of canon for balance sake, but I'm not sure it's a good balance.

Watching for the next update!

Rensslaer

Thank you! Reading more AARs lately had really given me the itch to start something of my own, and Infinite coming out solidified the urge into a specific idea, so I went with it. Plus, you starting a second AAR shamed me into action.

To answer both of your quibbles, yes, I'd say they're contrivances for gameplay and balance purposes. For instance, the start year of game is 2346, at which point the Federation (and the Romulans and Klingons too, probably) should be quite a fair bit larger. A Federation that only includes the four founding member worlds would be more appropriate for the late 22nd century than the mid-24th. The game's set in the TNG era, however, and I assume they didn't want to start you out in what would be the mid-to-late game in Stellairs.

Overall fleet sizes in Star Trek have always been nebulous, so I'm a little more forgiving on that point. For example, in TOS the Enterprise was apparently one of only a dozen Constitution-class ships, and we rarely saw multiple ships in one place at a time, giving the impression that Starfleet was rather small and/or spread quite thin. In TNG we likewise see ships mostly operating on their own. Starfleet scrambles "every available ship" for the Battle of Wolf 359, which amounts to 40 vessels of all variety, which seems small to protect Earth. The fleet Picard puts together to blockade the Klingon-Romulan border during the Klingon Civil War is similarly only a few dozen ships, which seems absurdly small given the size of interstellar space. Then we get to DS9 and all of a sudden we start hearing about hundreds of ships, which seems much more appropriate to the sense of scale of the setting but is somewhat incongruous with what we've seen before. Which I suppose is a long, rambly way of saying that Star Trek has always had some trouble with numbers and scope (there's a trope called "scifi writers have no sense of scale" for a reason), so I'm more willing to let canon slide in favor of gameplay on this since the canon itself is a bit confused.

The phasers/torpedos thing is a total contrivance. The most I can say in defense of it is that it's not the first Star Trek game I've seen go with the concept of phasers vs shields, torpedoes vs hull, even though that's not what we see on screen. There are a few areas in the game, as you'll see, where you have to adopt a measure of willing suspension of disbelief and just go with it. I try and channel the MST3K mantra when I find myself getting too annoyed by these sorts of things. The alternative would be to learn how to mod the game to make it more true to lore, and I'm too lazy for that!

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Thank you to everyone who's read so far! I apologize for the first update being a bit short; I don't have a ton of time during the week, but I was chomping at the bit to get started and let my enthusiasm get the better of me. The next update will be over the weekend and will be a longer one, so stay tuned!

 

[El Pip]

I'm not wildly into Stellaris, but I do like Star Trek and the TNG-era. Hopefully those two things balance out.

In any event, this all looks very interesting and I'll be following along as the Federation expands out into the galaxy.

 

[VILenin]

I'm not wildly into Stellaris, but I do like Star Trek and the TNG-era. Hopefully those two things balance out.

In any event, this all looks very interesting and I'll be following along as the Federation expands out into the galaxy.

Thanks for joining, El Pip! I'd say the game is more Stellaris than Star Trek at the moment, but I'm enjoying the Trek flavor that's there already, and I'm hopeful we'll see more of that as the game grows.

 

[VILenin]

We're almost ready to start boldly going, but there's a couple more things to do before we unpause. First, we should look at our mission tree.

Mission trees aren't in Stellaris but will look familiar to EU4 players. Missions give out rewards when you've met certain criteria and either encourage you to play a certain way or aim to replicate events from Star Trek. Our first mission, Where No One Has Gone Before, wants us to go out and explore the galaxy and will reward us with a bonus to anomalies for ten years for our trouble. A very easy mission, since we're going to be doing a lot of surveying anyway.

The rewards in the mission tree are a mix of temporary and permanent bonuses and likewise range from underwhelming to significant. You can see the Enterprise related missions branching out on the right. We'll need to stockpile 3500 alloys to Build the Enterprise, which is a bit expensive early game but is well worth it. Not only is the Enterprise herself worth having, but the missions that open up from it (each of which is related to a different senior officer) give some very nice bonuses indeed, so we're going to prioritize trying to complete those as soon as possible.

With that goal in mind, it's time to put our science vessel to work.

I send it to survey the three neutral systems between us, the Romulans, and the Klingons. In my test game there were two M-class planets in this sector, and I want to grab any colonizable worlds before my rivals have a chance to. While I'm planning on a mostly peaceful strategy, I'm going to expand aggressively into unclaimed space as much as possible. Inhabitable planets are the most valuable resource on the map, made all the more valuable by virtue of being finite. Like Mark Twain said, "Buy land, they're not making it anymore."

Our science ship readies for warp, our construction ship starts building resource stations in our space, and the fleet sits in spacedock, ready for refits. That leaves just one more ship to give orders to: our Governor.

Like in Stellaris, governors are a type of leader you can recruit. Unlike in Stellaris, where you assign governors to sectors to administer, in Star Trek: Infinite governors come with their own ship and can move around the map as an agent. I think this is an interesting idea, although I would have called them something other than governors. "Ambassadors" or "cultural attaches" feels more appropriate for what they do in this game. And speaking of what they do...

Governors perform actions that target worlds you control and can buff them in different ways. Improving worker or specialist production increases the job output for the respective pop class. You can also improve stability, reduce crime, or brainwash the masses, which is what I'm choosing to do. Instead of ethics like materialist, militarist, etc., pops in ST:I are either loyal, undecided, or unloyal, reflecting their overall commitment to your state's ideology. I'm still figuring out all of what loyalty affects, but unloyal pops, for instance, have a chance to migrate away each month to another power. This is obviously undesirable, especially right now when we need all the workers we can get.

Alright, setup is finally done and we can start the clock. I quickly receive communications from two of our neighbors.

Embassies will raise our trust cap and improve relations over time, so I happily accept both. The Betazoids are going to be my first target for bringing into the Federation, and I'd like to keep relations with Klingons at least peaceful. The Klingons were allies of the Federation by the time of TNG, so I'd like to be friends with them if possible, and I'm going to have other fish to fry in the near future. I assign both of my avaible envoys to improving relations with the Klingons and Betazoids to lay the groundwork for future diplomatic efforts.

Not long after, the first story event of the game fires.

Star Trek fans may recall that Worf's parents were killed in the Khitomer Massacre, leaving him to be adopted and raised by humans. The incident set the tone for subsequent decades of Klingon-Romulan antagonism that would define the latter-half of the 24th century. We'll have to see if the two powers become enemies in this timeline or not.

As a side note, you may have noticed in one of the screenshots above that Khitomer is a Romulan controlled system on the galaxy map, despite it clearly being a Klingon colony in both the event text and the lore. Strange.

We have a decision to make here as well, which will set first contact protocols to either proactive or cautious. I choose the former, since I want to make contact with new species as quickly and as often as possible.

I further solidify our relations with the Betazoids by signing commercial and research pacts with them. This costs influence, which we need to claim new systems, but provides economic benefits as well as the opinion boost, and as mentioned I want to incorporate the Betazoids as quickly as possible. Influence is going to be the biggest limiting factor on our rate of expansion, however. You generate a fixed 3 influence a month, with each diplomatic treaty costing an upkeep in influence.

After my opening round of diplomacy, I'm already down almost -1 influence a month, and it's only going to get worse as I meet more minor powers. The Federation has some bonuses to make this upkeep less costly than it is for other powers, but we're also going to be doing way more diplomacy than them anyway, so it only partially balances out. I have a plan to mitigate this down the road, but the influence shortage is going to be an issue for a while.

I quickly see that I'm not the only one making diplomatic moves, however.

Bajor starts the game as a vassal of the Cardassian Union (also a little strange, since in canon this should be the middle of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor). By supporting their independence, the Romulans will join in on Bajor's side if the Bajorans declare an independence war against their Cardassian overlords. I would very much like to get the Bajorans out from under the Cardassians, so I promptly issue my own declaration of support, and the Klingons follow suit not long after. This means the Cardassians could find themselves fighting all the the other major powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants if the Bajorans decide to demand their independence. A bleak situation for them, but one that rests on a big "if." The Bajorans need to be the ones to start the war, and as far as I can tell there's no further way to influence them into taking that plunge. Left to the whims of the AI, there's no telling what they'll do. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope that Bajor isn't run by Quislings and I don't miss a golden opportunity to cut the legs out from the Cardassians.

That's not the only move the Romulans are making. They propose we establish mutual embassies, and then follow that up with a request for a non-aggression pact. I'm surprised that the xenophobic Romulans are interested in making nice with me, but I accept. Due to the layout of the map, the Romulans are always going to be the power that I have the shortest border with. That could mean that a formal NA treaty is unnecessary and I could save the influence upkeep, but I also have no interest in pushing "north" into their core space and I like the reassurance. Additionally, the Bajoran flashpoint, as I'm now calling it, has got me thinking of trying to put together some sort of anti-Cardassian coalition. That failing, I'd like to set up a series of cascading conflicts that maintain the overall balance of power while leaving me free to expand peacefully. The Klingons fighting the Romulans, the Romulans fighting the Cardassians, with me occasionally applying pressure on the Cardassians to make sure the Romulans don't buckle trying to fight on two fronts. Admittedly a bit too realpolitik for the Federation but hey, that's why this is a gameplay AAR and not a roleplay one.

We get another event, this one not tied to a specific story beat but letting us decide our policy towards other species living in our empire.

I go with the first option, which grants all pops full citizenship in the Federation, as opposed to the the second which gives non-member species limited citizenship as the default. The Federation happily accepts the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, regardless of what species they are or what planet they're from.

The game agrees, and gives us another event where we can choose either unity or energy as a reward.

I take the unity. I'll be taking unity wherever and whenever I can for a while to make some rapid progress through our Traditions. Speaking of which, that event gives us enough unity to pick our first one.

On the left is the unique Federation tradition, which is what I'm taking first. You can see that just for taking it we get nice bonus of unity and research every time we finish a society tech. Since I'm planning on teching as much as possible, that bonus should feed back into itself fairly nicely. The stability and officer bonus for finishing the tradition is alright, but there some other good bonuses inside the group itself.

The traditions on the right are the universal traditions that everyone can take, grouped into mutually exclusive pairs. You can take Defense OR Conquest, but not both in a given playthrough. Within each tradition group are some traditions unique to your empire for a little dash of extra variety. I'll point these out as we get to them, but they seem to make for a fairly minor difference.

While I do miss the greater range of options that Stellaris has, I'm also one of those players who picks the same traditions in the same order 90% of my games anyway, so the narrower selection of choices doesn't bother me as much as I'm sure it will some people, and I do appreciate each playable civ having their own tradition group.

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That's it for now! Next time: First Contact

 

[Chac1]

Thanks for this.
At this point, this is serving as both a game-play AAR and a guide. And it is better than any of the videos I have seen posted on YouTube in that regard, especially for someone with no Stellaris background.
Thanks for making this easy to read and understandable too.
Looking forward to how your game takes off.
(Hoping to have time in the coming weeks to reinstall and try the game with the new patches for myself, but will still be interested in your experiences, no doubt.)

 

[Wraith11B]

Interesting, certainly someone who's very familiar with the lore put the game together, but--much like the writers of the ST universe--they're more than willing to just make some shit up.

 

[El Pip]

Where No One Has Gone Before, wants us to go out and explore the galaxy and will reward us with a bonus to anomalies

Exploring anomalies is the 3rd most TNG thing I can think of, so good this is included.

For reference the 2nd is "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" and the 1st is a long discussion in the meeting room about the Prime Directive.

While I do miss the greater range of options that Stellaris has

As this is a Paradox game there will doubtless be at least a dozen DLCs to fill out those options.


I do like the way you are explaining the game, it's almost tempting me to get it which will please our AARland masters and might even convince them to give the game it's own area.

In any event good luck on bolding going towards first contact.

 

[Rensslaer]

@VILenin great work!

To @Chac1's point, I think this qualifies as a "Strategy AAR" and I think you should add this to the Strategy Guide / Tutorial AAR Megathread.

Interesting dynamics. In TNG there was still quite a bit of friction with the Klingons, despite the alliance, so I wonder if any of that is modeled. Good to see that the Romulans seem to have their hands full with the Cardassians on the one hand and the Klingons (due to Khitomer) on the other hand. Have you seen any diplomatic / strategic ramifications from the Massacre? If not that's too bad.

Rensslaer

 

[VILenin]

Thanks for this.
At this point, this is serving as both a game-play AAR and a guide. And it is better than any of the videos I have seen posted on YouTube in that regard, especially for someone with no Stellaris background.
Thanks for making this easy to read and understandable too.
Looking forward to how your game takes off.
(Hoping to have time in the coming weeks to reinstall and try the game with the new patches for myself, but will still be interested in your experiences, no doubt.)

You're welcome! I'm glad you're finding it easy to read. I'm certainly no expert at the game, but I hope you'll continue to find some useful and interesting bits of information. I also hope the patch straightens out your technical issues, at least so you can get into the game and try it for yourself. I'd love to hear your take and how your game goes if you do.

Interesting, certainly someone who's very familiar with the lore put the game together, but--much like the writers of the ST universe--they're more than willing to just make some shit up.

Ironically, there are some points where I wish the game hewed closer to the shows, then there are other areas where I think the game works a little too hard to stay true to the source material. I do think it's obvious that the team are Star Trek fans, though, even if I don't always agree in the direction they've chosen.

Exploring anomalies is the 3rd most TNG thing I can think of, so good this is included.

For reference the 2nd is "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" and the 1st is a long discussion in the meeting room about the Prime Directive.


As this is a Paradox game there will doubtless be at least a dozen DLCs to fill out those options.


I do like the way you are explaining the game, it's almost tempting me to get it which will please our AARland masters and might even convince them to give the game it's own area.

In any event good luck on bolding going towards first contact.

Welcome, El Pip! A pleasure to have you aboard.

Ah yes, the classic sit-down-and-debate-ethics meeting. I blame Star Trek for setting an unrealistic expectation for how intelligent and productive workplace meetings would be.

You can already see lots of areas that appear primed for future DLC to fill them in and, while I have somewhat mixed feelings about the never ending stream of content releases that is the Paradox model now, I do hope this game is in it for the long haul.

Glad I could tempt you. If the powers that be do decide to add an AAR section for the game, my hope would be that they add it as a sub-forum under Stellaris (like how AoD and DH were nestled under HOI) here in AARland and not on its own over in the ST:I section.

@VILenin great work!

To @Chac1's point, I think this qualifies as a "Strategy AAR" and I think you should add this to the Strategy Guide / Tutorial AAR Megathread.

Interesting dynamics. In TNG there was still quite a bit of friction with the Klingons, despite the alliance, so I wonder if any of that is modeled. Good to see that the Romulans seem to have their hands full with the Cardassians on the one hand and the Klingons (due to Khitomer) on the other hand. Have you seen any diplomatic / strategic ramifications from the Massacre? If not that's too bad.

Rensslaer

Thank you! I've not yet played as either the Klingons or Romulans, so I don't know what in-game effects they get from the Khitomer event, although I do know there's a at least one choice for the Klingons where they can opt to blame the House of Mogh or not. As for the ramifications in this playthrough, we shall see.

I think I can say that the Romulans do indeed have a busy future ahead of them. They might end up regretting their decision to meddle in their neighbors affairs.

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I may get a chance to write the next update tomorrow. If not, then it'll be on Sunday. Stay tuned!

 

[VILenin]

"To seek out new life, and new civilizations" is one of Starfleet's core missions, and despite us starting in already somewhat established galaxy of the mid-24th century, there's still plenty of exploration to do. Upon arriving in the Wolf 359 system, our science ship detects an unknown vessel.

Preliminary scans indicate that the alien vessel appears to also be engaged in surveying operations, although there's little we can tell about them other than that. Their identity, origins, and intentions are all, for the moment, a mystery. Fortunately, Starfleet has protocols for these situations.

The First Contact event gives us our choice of research or energy and kicks off a project to open communications with the new civilization. This requires assigning one of your envoys to decipher their language and establish relations. The game makes a series of dice rolls behind the scenes at regular intervals to determine your progress. As you complete first contacts, you build up institutional experience which makes future first contacts progress faster. Not much of a difference here from Stellaris.

While our experts get to work making contact, our science vessel finishes surveying Wolf 359 and discovers a small M-class world ripe for colonization. I send my construction ship to build an outpost and claim the system, although it'll be a number of months before I have enough influence to actually claim it and start construction. Meanwhile, our science ship, the USS Eliel, moves on and makes a new discovery. The neighboring system is mostly empty - a black hole having devoured any local planetary bodies - but does have some rare space-time distortions.

Warp highways are space lanes that connect distant star systems and allow for rapid travel between them. A neat edition, and there are certainly plenty of stellar phenomenon in Star Trek that move ships great distances, but I'm not overly fond of the name. I would've called them subspace corridors or transwarp conduits, or possibly just made them wormholes, but that's just my 2 cents. Anyway, now that we've discovered a highway node, we can see the warp lanes leading off into unknown systems.

One goes into the galactic north-east beyond the Romulan and Klingon empires, while the other goes to the galactic west to the far side of the Cardassian Union. You can't claim Highway Nodes, meaning that they're always available for anyone to transit through. We'll be taking advantage of this to explore the space on the other side of the Klingons and Romulans later on without having to travel through their borders. For now, though, the USS Eliel moves on to the Ka'Tula system to finish charting this sector.

While one of our envoys is working on first contact with the aliens we encountered in Wolf 359, our other envoy has been steadily improving our relations with the Betazoids. By 2347, we've made enough progress to invite them into the Federation.

Integration also requires assigning an envoy to the process, and can take some time. In this case, it's going to take a decade to fully incorporate the Betazoids. That's a long time to have an envoy tied, but it's worth it. Fortunately, at this stage in the game, there isn't a lot we need to be doing with our envoys. Future integrations will go faster as our technology improves.

In 2348 we've stockpiled enough alloys to both upgrade the fleet and construct a second science vessel, which we need to complete our first mission. We also make progress on our first contact.

This event gives us Unity or Energy; we take the former. This a standard event to the first contact process, so it'll be firing a lot. I don't have a problem with how first contacts work, although I'd like to see more variety in the intermediate events to make it more worth paying attention to. As it is, the rewards are useful but boring since it always goes the same way.

Speaking of rewards, there are a lot of little events like this, some random, some not. One of the things I learned from my test game was that these make up an important supplementary income for things like Unity, Research, and Influence. This event gives us enough Unity to take another tradition. I choose Pioneers for the bonuses to expansion.

Until I can improve our Influence generation, I need to be selective with where and when I expand the Federation's borders. A lot of star systems or of minor strategic or economic importance and are going to be left empty for now. My first priority is establishing a border that protects as much unexplored space as possible from rival powers so that I can expand into later at my leisure. With that goal in mind, I send my two science ships in opposite directions.

I plan on cutting off the Cardassians and Klingons from the galactic south to both preserve future territory for myself and (hopefully) force them to expand north towards the Romulans instead and foster more conflict between them. Of course, this could backfire on me. By expanding aggressively along their borders, I could end up antagonizing both powers and focusing their ire on me instead. I'm going to try and mitigate the border tension I get with the Klingons from expansion by keeping an envoy improving relations with them as much as possible. With the Cardassians, on the other hand, I'm just going to risk it. Part of me would actually welcome a conflict with them. As the Federation, I can only claim systems in defensive wars, so getting the Cardassians to attack me would be the best way to weaken them. I'm going to end up at war with them sooner or later to liberate Bajor, but if I can also grab some territory off them in the process, so much the better.

In 2350, Starfleet Intelligence finally finishes its investigation of the Khitomer Massacre, a mere six years after it happened.

I share our findings with the Klingons, improving our relations. Sorry, Worf, but your family will go down as traitors to the Empire. On the plus side, you'll always have a home in Starfleet. This event also allows us to start using spies, who I'll consistently under-utilize and mismanage throughout the game.

Something quickly distracts me from the Khitomer Report - the USS Eliel has been attacked!

An unknown ship has attacked and badly damaged our science ship while it was exploring along the border of Klingon space. Could the Klingons be responsible? The Federation and the Klingon Empire have a... complicated history and spend most of the 23rd century as enemies. Despite our recent sharing of intelligence, it's possible that old animosity may still linger. Or maybe the Klingon Defense Force is sensitive to perceived encroachments on their territory after the destruction of a Klingon colony. It's also possible the Klingons weren't involved at all, despite the proximity to their space. Whatever the case, a strong response is necessary, so the fleet is mobilized and dispatched to the Chil'Ko system to secure the area.

 

[Chac1]

Great to see the game moving now. Like the balance between guide and game experience. Thanks for maintaining that feel for those of us still on the sidelines. (No time right now to start up a new game. Missed my window!)

In 2350, Starfleet Intelligence finally finishes its investigation of the Khitomer Massacre, a mere six years after it happened.

Of course, this is going to take time as the Federation doesn't control that part of space. Also, it seems the more complex events are, the longer it takes. Time seems to lengthen for such investigations rather than speed up. Think of events from the mid-20th Century compared to now. Yes, technology speeds things up but some investigations languish for years. Sometimes having too much information slows the process. We wish that modernization would speed up the process of finding out the truth, but it could actually slow that down to a crawl. Interesting concept to think about, especially in a science fiction setting.

Looking forward to seeing what your fleet uncovers.

 

[El Pip]

First Officer looks a lot like Commander Shelby, so I hope for a forceful response to this first contact.

In this case, it's going to take a decade to fully incorporate the Betazoids.

Got to teach them to stop being such horrific sexists for starters.

Still lots of nice touches and familiar names/places so far. I wonder if the fast travel name is just a placeholder until the Borg DLC pack?

Anyway, mysterious and exciting events in Chil'Ko so good luck to the Task Force. I suspect one of the lessons learnt will be "Shooting your personal phaser inside your own ship is very little use if an enemy ship is shooting at your ship", but we shall to see.

 

[Rensslaer]

So... collecting thoughts as I read

The difference between First Contact "Open Hailing Frequencies" and "Make a Show of Hospitality" seem silly (I know that in-game it's a difference between energy or research). Seems like you'd have to open hailing frequencies to "make a show of hospitality", unless you're expected to put on a laser light show or something.

Yeah, those "warp highways" sure seem like wormholes. And since wormholes are canon, why call them something different"? I hate to nitpick (the game, not you), but gosh -- the game offers so many opportunities! Wish I'd been on the beta, and I would have raised various issues.

So there are no hyperlanes between systems to limit travel here, as there are in Stellaris? Naturally that makes sense for a Star Trek game, since warp takes you pretty much anywhere (in Trek lore that's ANYWHERE/WHEN!!!).

A wise expansion strategy. And, yes, it could backfire. But ultimately if you're doing what you should be doing you'll prevail and it'll be all the better in the end.

Interested to see what the Eliel ran into...

Great work!

Rensslaer

 

[The Kingmaker]

@VILenin: Lovely to see that you're back writing AARs! I do hope they give ST:I its own AAR-subforum eventually. I had been considering writing a ST:I AAR myself, but the game doesn't quite feel... balanced yet.

You've highlighted several of the minor idiosyncrasies in the game, from details like T'Pragh's race being human to Khitomer being a Romulan colony, there's lots of random little things like that which make the game feel inauthentic in its depiction of the Star Trek universe.

That being said, you're doing a wonderful job of sharing the game with those who have not yet had a chance to try it.

Consider me subscribed!

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

This is how our corner of space looks at the start of the game.

Looks like just after The Undiscovered Country. Or thereabouts. Klingon neutral zone is basically done away with, romulans are hidden beyond theirs, and the cardassians have just entered the scene by Occupying bajor.

we also have the Betazoids and the Bajorans

Hmm. Makes sense for the bajorans to be on the map due to lore reasons. Can only assume betazeds are there to be eaten by the Federation in the first few years, and encourage rhe AI to act accordingly like the feds to do it.

Betazed being indepednant places this firmly in between TOS movies and TNG start. By the time Picard started at the academy, the Headmaster was a betazoid.

Say...30 to 40 years prior to TNG?

One of the victory conditions is having 10 civics, which means incorporating 8 minor powers. This is the victory condition I'm going to be shooting for.

Will be interesting to see who has been put in as minor powers and how they've stopped the feds from easily winning by this method, given almost all minor powers and species we know of are surrounded by or neighbouring federation space, not the other major powers (because the other major powers don't suffer minors).

Infinite drops armor in favor of just hull and shields.

Makes sense. By TNG, ship hulls are THICK even in the federation, and everyone else has armour for hulls as standard because they either use disruptors or fighting against powers that do.

Energy weapons are the anti-shield and torpedoes are the anti-hull.

Mmm. Technically correct. Torpedoes in Star Trek are ungodly powerful things that tend to destroy or heavily damage anything unshielded nearby its explosion. The Enterprise D specifically could not fire one of its own torpedoes to explode too close to itself, even with shields on full, without Reg Barclay boosting their power by 100s of percent.

So them being anti-hull makes sense. Really, they're anti everything.

Phasers are more precision tools fully capable of taking down shields and ships by themsevles (pretty much everyone uses these and disruptors in most battles and situations rather than torpedoes).

Them not splitting phasers and disrupters out Makes some sense but makes the factions a bit samey. One of the big differences between powers was whether or not they used disruptors (generally more powerful and destructive than phasers, but less precision). The klingons used almost nothing but disutpors, the romulans liked them but also had phasers, and the feds don't use disruptors except on their war ships (which they don't typically build).

1. Why are they assuming a "starter navy" while assuming a mature "empire" size? Seems odd. Seems like you'd need a decent sized navy to expand to the point of contact, like in Stellaris. But oh well. I suppose they didn't want to start you off with a mature fleet, even though that might seem logical to do so.

It appears to be in the cooling period after the huge cold War between the feds and klingons, so both sides should be larger in power than everyone else, which naturally is a bit of a problem for balance.

But then again, lore wise, this is the begining of the slow decline of klingon power and romulan ascendancy, until that gets flipped by that supernova disaster.

2. Are they suggesting phasers can't stab through a saucer section like butter? I'm not sure I'm keen on that. We've seen it on film plenty. Seems like an add breach of canon for balance sake, but I'm not sure it's a good balance.

They're not AS good against hulls as they are against shields, to be fair.

For instance, the start year of game is 2346, at which point the Federation (and the Romulans and Klingons too, probably) should be quite a fair bit larger.

True, but lore wise, the federation is much larger than the other major factions, hinted at during TOS but definitely by this period. Its only going to get more unbalanced as we go through TNG, to the point where the federation can lose fleets to the dominion and the borg and still be stronger than the other factions.

Klingons look about right, actually, and the romulans too. If anything, the cardassians are too big, but this is before the federation cardassian war which knocks them back A peg or two.

Overall fleet sizes in Star Trek have always been nebulous,

Not really, just limited by models. In-universe, warp drive is not fast enough to rally ships from across the federation in the days or weeks of warning they had before the first borg attack.

And it especially makes sense for the early TNG era federation who were comfortably top dog and knew it, and so insufferably assured of their superiority that they disliked starfleet being much in the way of a military.

When the feds actually have to fight a proper war however, they can really put out a heck of a lot of ships, not only because they seem to last for decades (those excelsior class ships are everywhere 80 years after they were built) but also because they really do have a lot of ships push comes to shove.

Infinite governors come with their own ship and can move around the map as an agent. I think this is an interesting idea, although I would have called them something other than governors. "Ambassadors" or "cultural attaches" feels more appropriate for what they do in this game

Admirals always had an excelsior or constellation class starship as their ride, so this makes sense.

The Betazoids are going to be my first target for bringing into the Federation

Again, makes sense.

The Klingons were allies of the Federation by the time of TNG, so I'd like to be friends with them if possible, and I'm going to have other fish to fry in the near future.

Yup. You want them Allies or friendly for most of the game, and have them in a very hostile or at war with the romulans as often as you can.

Star Trek fans may recall that Worf's parents were killed in the Khitomer Massacre, leaving him to be adopted and raised by humans. The incident set the tone for subsequent decades of Klingon-Romulan antagonism that would define the latter-half of the 24th century. We'll have to see if the two powers become enemies in this timeline or not.

They weren't fans beforehand, so I would imagine they'll be fighting before long.

So this is the Enterprise C era, to begin with.

Bajor starts the game as a vassal of the Cardassian Union (also a little strange, since in canon this should be the middle of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor). By supporting their independence, the Romulans will join in on Bajor's side if the Bajorans declare an independence war against their Cardassian overlords. I would very much like to get the Bajorans out from under the Cardassians, so I promptly issue my own declaration of support, and the Klingons follow suit not long after. This means the Cardassians could find themselves fighting all the the other major powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants if the Bajorans decide to demand their independence.

Very nice. Also pretty understandable. Pretty much no one in the alpha quadrant likes the cardassians.

That's not the only move the Romulans are making. They propose we establish mutual embassies, and then follow that up with a request for a non-aggression pact. I'm surprised that the xenophobic Romulans are interested in making nice with me, but I accept.

It's exactly what the romulans would do when they aren't in an isolationist phase. Especially at this point in time when border tension with the klingons is so high.

Additionally, the Bajoran flashpoint, as I'm now calling it, has got me thinking of trying to put together some sort of anti-Cardassian coalition.

Basically already exists. Eating the union between you and the romulans would be pretty good though.

Upon arriving in the Wolf 359 system, our science ship detects an unknown vessel.

Auspicious.

I would've called them subspace corridors or transwarp conduits, or possibly just made them wormholes,

Subspace doesn't make much sense for things the size of ships. Transwarp conduits have to be built, and only the borg are really in that tech range during this eta. And wormholes are, at least in the main Canon, so unstable and dangerous that a stable and reliable one was notable enough to base an entire series around.

Anyway, now that we've discovered a highway node, we can see the warp lanes leading off into unknown systems.

Hmm. That does sound like a wormhole. Guess they just found another stable one...

 

[VILenin]

@Chac1 Thanks, glad you like the style! You make a fair point about intel. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much about the performance of my intelligence service, since I'm ultimately the one in charge of it.

@El Pip Starfleet must bring our peaceful ways to all the galaxy - by force! I wouldn't be surprised if there are a number of placeholders that are awaiting future DLC. In fact, that would make a good amount of sense based on the role warp highways play later in the game.

@Rensslaer The differences between the choices in some of the events do seem a bit arbitrary. There are indeed no warp lanes - warp travel from pre-2.0 Stellaris is back in all its glory. So far, I haven't noticed any AI-related issues with it. I don't know if they've changed or improved the AI from Stellaris to make it better able to handle warp travel, or if the issues with it weren't quite that bad to begin with.

I share your wish for a beta testing phase. While I like the game, I think it definitely could have benefited from an Early Access period or more rigorous beta testing.

@The Kingmaker Thank you! It's good to be back. I agree, the game currently feels like it needs a bit more time in the oven. I hope you'll keep it in mind, however, as I do think it'll get there. If you do decide to give it a try, though, I'd love to see your AAR for it.

@TheButterflyComposer Thanks for joining! I apologize for not responding to all of your comment, but I appreciate hearing your take on everything. Have you picked up the game yourself or just looking for now?

Update on the way!