Star Trek: Infinity Announcement

[Darius_Trent]

New Star Trek game was just announced. From all appearences it looks like an official Star Trek version of Stellaris. We'll have to wait and find out more on the 16th.

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
Wow, that is interesting! Indeed is too early to make good speculations, because it could be an Stellaris, or a Sins, but I like it!

 

[Darius_Trent]

Hello:
Wow, that is interesting! Indeed is too early to make good speculations, because it could be an Stellaris, or a Sins, but I like it!

I'm leaning towards it being something like Stellaris for two reasons:
1. There is a Stellaris-style Galaxy map shown in the trailer
2. Paradox is well renowned for their Grand Strategy titles.
That being said, it could still be any type of Strategy-themed game at this point, so we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Chiletrek]

Then let's keep our fingers crossed for them then!

 

[Darius_Trent]

New gameplay trailer just dropped. It’s pretty much Stellaris but Star Trek but only the TNG era and potentially beyond. There are what appear to be focus trees as well. It’ll apparently be ready in the Fall, and will launch on Steam.

 

[Terra_Inc]

This could be so good....

 

[Blake00]

Pretty pumped as this will probably be the closest thing to a Birth of the Federation 2 we'll ever get!!!

Years ago I told a long blog story of that night in 1999 when I finally got my hands on the last day 1 copy of Star Trek Birth of the Federation in my city and absolutely fell in love with it (as expected being a huge Master of Orion & Star Trek fan), playing it again and again for years and dreaming of a sequel that sadly never came due to Microprose’s demise. In that same blog post I also did a tour of each of the major BOTF2 fan projects that are quite playable theses days and continue to be worked on and that without them and the BOTF modding community we would have had nothing over the years.

Yeah as others have said it appears to be inspired by the Star Trek mod for Stellaris, I guess Paradox thought “lets make that a real thing” lol, grabbed the Trek licence and enlisted the help of Nimble Giant Entertainment who created the gorgeous looking (but flawed) big budget Master of Orion reboot a few years back. The same people behind a Master of Orion game making a Star Trek 4X game? Hmm that sounds familiar. While I’ve not played the Star Trek mod for Stellaris myself I’ve heard many times over the years from it’s players that it often reminded them of BOTF so it will be very interesting to see just how similar this new game will be. Judging by the steam screenshots there will be story/quest elements much like with Stellaris too. Will be interesting to see if the Borg make a nasty appearance (judging by the teaser vid they will just like in BOTF), how much control we'll have over battle sequences, and if the game does well enough to have more playable races added via DLC addons (eg Dominion).

 

[Blake00]

Oh and it's got a steam page up now with lots of very lovely looking pictures. Have wishlisted!

 

[Terra_Inc]

 

[Blake00]

Looks like we've got a new 'Game features' trailer and some news on preorder bonuses...

Steam :: Star Trek: Infinite :: Gameplay Features Trailer & Pre-Purchase Bonus Announcement

Today is a great day for anyone who has been hungry for news about Star Trek: Infinite because we bring you our gameplay features trailer and pre-order bonuses!

steamcommunity.com

Their first dev diary is here too.. they even mention BOTF as inspiration and recreating that experience which is great. I'm loving all their TNG/DS9/VOY era artwork (presumably used in the game's many events and story trees).

Steam :: Star Trek: Infinite :: Developer Log #1: The Genesis

In today's log, I wanted to talk a bit about why we wanted to make this game. A passion project like none other, and now finally everyone can learn about it.

steamcommunity.com

And lastly IGN got a copy and have done a nice preview on it too...

Star Trek: Infinite Preview: Spreadsheets, the Final Frontier

Engage (with some menus).

za.ign.com

 

[Majestic]

Never was a fan of Stellaris, too many menus, not really knowing what I was doing, reason I must prefer Sins. Hopefully they'll have a dumb down difficulty version where an AI help can run the more complicated stuff leaving the fun stuff like ship design, missions and combat to the player.

 

[Blake00]

I don't mind heavily 'spreadsheety' 4X TBS games.. which is why it's a bit embarrassing that I still haven't played Stellaris yet haha.

Dev diary 2 and 3 have arrived.. The third one is on the very thing I've been impressive with the most so far.. that lovely nostalgic TNG art style of their's.. There's something about it that reminds me of STTNG Final Unity's art style in that it was quite realistic but retained a bit of a artistic painted look. They also appear to reveal the full faction lineup of ships and starbases. Not many ships sadly and similar to BOTF back in the day it appears to be pure 24th century TNG onwards with no TOS content (unless it appeared in TNG). Also a bit sad to see the minimalist GUI features almost no LCARS whatsoever, as the LCARS in BOTF really upped the immersion and uniqueness between the races.

Dev diary 2:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/3718340776827509100




Dev diary 3:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/3716089610951474244

 

[Walshicus]

Just an FYI but if you already own Stellaris then you can always play the mod I've been making - Star Trek New Civilisations:

Steam Workshop::Star Trek: New Civilisations

steamcommunity.com

 

[Blake00]

Cool 'first day' gameplay trailer..

Release story trailer...

Interesting that story wise they appear to be basing it around the yesterdays enterprise alternate universe but presumably before the Feds start losing the war to the Klingons and you get to 'set a new path'..
Reminds me of a great Civ4 Star Trek mod scenario set in that timeline as well where you gotta try and turn the war around for the Feds. I show it around the 9:30 mark of this video..

The whole release has been a bit rocky but I never play day 1 releases anymore and from what I'm seeing this one is no exception and it's definitely gonna be a long time before I get to it, so all good lol. Anyway it looks like they've put some more dev diaries out around the release period..

Dev 4 is stuff on story..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/3716090245658444628



Dev diary 5 talks about bug fixing and hints as to whats being added next (Ferengi buildings & Dyson sphere)..
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/6479049341162309645



Dev diary 6 is now out too talking about how the day 1 release was a bit of a disaster lol.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/3720595112955731803

 

[Walshicus]

Well, the car-crash launch at least gave my STNC a big bump in subscribers.

Dunno, I like Paradox a lot, but players keep telling me that Infinite's empty and lacks content compared to my mod. Which is sorta true. I mean I have more Starfleet ships than Infinite has ships in total... but it feels like the focused scope of the game could have been communicated better to avoid those expectations.

 

[Majestic]

Well, the car-crash launch at least gave my STNC a big bump in subscribers.

Dunno, I like Paradox a lot, but players keep telling me that Infinite's empty and lacks content compared to my mod. Which is sorta true. I mean I have more Starfleet ships than Infinite has ships in total... but it feels like the focused scope of the game could have been communicated better to avoid those expectations.

Mods are usually always better than official releases. Mods are usually a labour of love, official releases are usually a labour for money. Unfortunately long gone are the days where a game was made for the passion of telling a good story and a passion of the creation to entertain people. Now it's about how little work they can do for the greatest amount of profit. I haven't play an new games in years, newest game would be Sins of a Solar Empire as most don't appeal to me anymore. Not a Stellaris type fan unfortunately even though I bought it and tried it. Just way too involved for me.

 

[Blake00]

I haven't play an new games in years, newest game would be Sins of a Solar Empire as most don't appeal to me anymore. Not a Stellaris type fan unfortunately even though I bought it and tried it. Just way too involved for me.

hah I'm exactly the same.. never play new games anymore, and the newest one I've probably played is Sins due to the Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Halo mods.

 

[Majestic]

Yeah same, well not Halo but the Star Wars mods instead. The way gaming has gone has totally pushed me away as a paying customer haha.

 

[Blake00]

Yeah same, well not Halo but the Star Wars mods instead. The way gaming has gone has totally pushed me away as a paying customer haha.

Ah yes I've tried the Star Wars one a couple of times too and thought it was cool, and the Stargate SG1 mod too now that I think of it. You should try the Halo one (called Sins of the Prophets), it's really good! My mates and I have never played any of the Halo FPS games before, but we saw that the Halo mod was one of the most popular Sins mods and figured we'd give it a shot, and found out pretty quickly why as it vastly changes what you're used to in Sins and feels like a different game. Most of the interface is changed and is filled with beautiful artwork and while there's only 2 playable factions they're so vastly different to each other and they have different leaders to chose from (unlocking different techs, ships and abilities) that it makes the game very fun and replayable. Humans have little ships with no shields which is a bit of a shock while the aliens have massive ships with huge shields.. so when you first play you pretty much go for aliens unless you like dying a lot lol, but as you get better at it and learn all the advantages and disadvantages you can eventually master the humans and kick the aliens butts! Did a video on the mod a while back...

 

[Majestic]

I tried the Halo mod a few times but it really didn't take my fancy I think it was too lore focus for my liking and less gameplay focused. My stepson and I normally play Armada 3, Age of the Federation or Star Wars Interregnum. We used to play Ascendancy a bit but to be honest it's very incomplete and doesn't get much attention and the game play of Interregnum is vastly superior.

 

[Sqweloookle]

I love how it says create your own Star Trek story when in fact it is simply playing out canon lore which you have no control over.
Romulan players watch out you will lose Romulus.

 

[Walshicus]

I love how it says create your own Star Trek story when in fact it is simply playing out canon lore which you have no control over.
Romulan players watch out you will lose Romulus.

Tbh that's literally the only reason I've not done the Supernova in New Civilisations yet. Need to figure out a good way to give player agency.

 

[Terra_Inc]

I love how it says create your own Star Trek story when in fact it is simply playing out canon lore which you have no control over.
Romulan players watch out you will lose Romulus.

Aww, that's a shame. I was hoping for something more like a TNG sandbox, making it possible to deviate from the established canon in whatever ways you like. I think the big PDX games mostly moved away from railroading the player along actual history towards more sandboxy approaches. Unfortunate that this one apparently doesn't follow that trend.

 

[Sqweloookle]

Tbh that's literally the only reason I've not done the Supernova in New Civilisations yet. Need to figure out a good way to give player agency.

You get a choice for or against the supernova in STNC? I've not been able to get very far in the game without being surrounded or invaded. lol

Aww, that's a shame. I was hoping for something more like a TNG sandbox, making it possible to deviate from the established canon in whatever ways you like. I think the big PDX games mostly moved away from railroading the player along actual history towards more sandboxy approaches. Unfortunate that this one apparently doesn't follow that trend.

It may be possible that they could patch it that canon lore events could be disabled or maybe when the modders decide to attack the game could assist with giving us that player agency. I wish I had the confidence to call the developers out on their obvious lie about 'create your own star trek story' crap but they'd probably not listen.

 

[Walshicus]

You get a choice for or against the supernova in STNC? I've not been able to get very far in the game without being surrounded or invaded. lol

No, I've not added it at all, though one of the mod contributors has been suggesting it for years.

I kind of have a bias against stuff that's supposed to completely wreck a country. Like even in the Xindi chain, I made it so you can continue as the Human Remnant if they blow up Earth.

Dunno. Maybe I'll add it as an AI only thing, or perhaps something that's easy to prevent as the player but that the AI will sometimes fail.

 

[Terra_Inc]

It may be possible that they could patch it that canon lore events could be disabled or maybe when the modders decide to attack the game could assist with giving us that player agency.

I think I agree with this, yeah. Paradox being Paradox, the option of the game getting a patch or a DLC for more sandboxy gameplay - or any post-release attention at all - is hugely dependent on the game selling successfully. I can see them go in this direction as long as the game sells well and a lot of people ask for that kind of thing. I can also totally see them release a patch to fix major bugs and then drop the game completely.
As for the modders, I think if making Trek themed mods for this game is more convenient or easier than just doing it in Stellaris, we'll see it get some attention. Otherwise, well, there's Stellaris.

I wish I had the confidence to call the developers out on their obvious lie about 'create your own star trek story' crap but they'd probably not listen.

On one hand, it's pretty scummy to make that kind of advertisement and then deliver a game that just railroads you along canonical events.
.... On the other hand, I think it's pretty much par for the course as far as Marketing departments are concerned.

 

[Majestic]

On one hand, it's pretty scummy to make that kind of advertisement and then deliver a game that just railroads you along canonical events.
.... On the other hand, I think it's pretty much par for the course as far as Marketing departments are concerned.

That's a pretty poor tactic get people excited then not deliver. My I prefer mods to official games. Modders have a passion, developers (at least those in charge of it) don't.

 

[Blake00]

Wow.. I didn't realise they put a forced romulan supernova story event in.. that's rough. Speaking of modders doing a better job, dev diary 8 has some good stuff.

Dev diary 7 is out talking about planned fixes and feature additions such as more ship choices per race, better UI scaling, and playable minor races.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/3729602945692961794

And dev diary 8 is out too showcasing some of the best user made mods out there adding new planets, buildings, missions, and more lore friendly or sandbox galaxy maps.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/3814046073262704893

 

[Blake00]

Haven't looked for a while and sure enough more dev logs have arrived in orbit...

Dev diary 9:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/3827557510052041272

Dev diary 10:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/7166977361333884838

Dev diary 11:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1622900/announcements/detail/3897364481863157752

 

[Blake00]

sigh.. sure enough the rumours of layoffs and end of support (ie no more patches fixing all the remaining bugs) after they went silent on the frequent dev diary updates are true.. Paradox have pulled the plug.. yet another case of a publisher forcing a small dev team to rush out a game on a small budget and then pull the plug before they can put out all the resulting fires.. such a shame..

I wonder if fans will stick around to mod it into something better or if most will go back to the original Star Trek mod for Stellaris...

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ite-dev-log-13-what-you-leave-behind.1629503/