The Nations
There are four nations.  Federation, Klingon, Orion, and Romulan.  Each has different technology and specialties.  The Romulans have Plasma torpedoes that track your ship and explode fiercely.  This is apparently modeled after the weapon the Romulans use in 'Balance of Terror'.  The Orions have phasers that charge a turn faster then everyone else.  The photon torpedoes for each race have different anti-matter yields, different phaser ranges and damage outputs, and different shield efficiencies and regeneration rates.  Each nation also has different warp technologies, different probe types (probes are very slow but heavy yield bombs), and different reactor types.

Click on the ship class names to see detailed statistics and a picture (best guess) of what they look like. 

The Federation Commanding a fleet of Starfleet ships is a dream.  They obey orders and show good tactical sense when fighting autonomously.  There are times when you need a ship to throw its damaged carcass at an enemy ship just long enough to bring heavier guns around, and these are times when you have to explicitly order the AI commanders to do what you need, but once you do, they'll follow your orders.  The Federation has 7 ship types:

Interceptor A fast, light vessel with a small weapons load but great maneuverability.  The Interceptor is ...(more) Destroyer The Destroyer is one of the most dangerous ships in the Federation fleet. (more) Heavy Cruiser This is the Constitution class from the original series.  It has a similar weapons load out to the ...(more) Dreadnought This is a heavy weapons platform that must be used carefully.  With three torpedo launchers, the Dreadnought can ...(more) Tug This unarmed support vehicle is slow, but its heavy duty tractor beam can ... (more) Tanker This ship has little strategic value.  It is slow, lumbering, and turns on a C-note.  The main use for this might be to...(more) Starbase These non-moving platforms are vulnerable to any ship with stand-off weapons (torpedoes, plasma, kxd2 probes, etc), but with 12 phaser banks, any ship that comes within ... (more)

The Klingon Empire Klingons fight very well as a fleet and show good initiative.  Much like Starfleet, the Klingon ships take orders well and use good judgment...  usually.  A Klingon commander is more likely to stick to a fight then a Federation captain, but this can make managing your fleet resources difficult if winning the battle requires that your ships know when to disengage and repair.  This is not to say that, as modeled in this game, a Klingon will kamikaze, but they will bring a phaser to a torpedo fight.  This can be managed by explicitly ordering the damaged ship to disengage, but doing so may cost you turns you cannot afford to spend on fleet discipline.  The Klingon Empire has 5 ship types:

Escort This ship is quick, with a cruising speed of warp ... (more) Frigate The Frigate is similar to a Federation destroyer, but lighter tonnage.  The ubiquitous Klingon 'Bird of Prey' from ... (more) Battle Cruiser This appears to be the D-7, the old Klingon heavy cruiser from the ... (more) Dreadnought Roughly equivalent to the Federation Dreadnought, this ship shares many of the same disadvantages in combat as ... (more) Outpost Though smaller then the Federation Starbase, the ... (more)

The Orion Syndicate All Orion vessels have suicide charges to prevent capture.  These can be triggered by setting a self destruct.  All ships in the game have a self destruct, but the Orion and Romulan ships have an extra bite when they blow.  When commanding a fleet of Orions, be prepared for severe insubordination.  This may manifest itself by having allied ships ignoring your orders and fleeing when you need them to stick their ground.

The Syndicate has 6 ship types: Assassin The Assassin is the fastest ship in the game.  With a cruise of warp factor 11.9 and the ability to sprint to ... (more) Raider A Raider is very similar to an Assassin in abilities.  It has the same weaponry, but more ... (more) Saboteur The Saboteur can cruise at warp 10.0 and has one phaser and one torpedo launcher.  It can serve as a good escort for ... (more) Anarchist This is a heavier and less maneuverable ship then the Saboteur, but it makes up for it with ... (more) Grappler This ship has no equivalent, rough or fine, in the game.  It is a massive ship (weighing in at over 300,000 tons, ... (more) Armadillo The Armadillo is an odd ship.  Unlike its namesake, the Armadillo is unshielded.  It can ... (more)

The Romulan Empire Romulans are, in general, poor decision makers in this game.  If you go up against a Romulan fleet of any size, there's a statistically significant chance that at least one of the commanders will set off his scuttling charges.  This decision often touches others in the fleet as the shockwave of his matter/antimatter bomb might take out three or four other friendly ships.  Once past the opening stages of battle, the remaining ships can be quite dangerous.  Even though their ships are slow in comparison to the other races, the Romulan fleet has two great equalizers:  The cloaking device and the Plasma family of torpedoes.  The advantages of the cloaking device are self evident.  There are two classes of plasma torpedoes, the Plasma and the XPlasma.  Both are homing weapons, and both carry large warheads.  The XPlasma is slightly faster then the Plasma and carries a smaller warhead.

The Romulan Empire has 3 ship types: War Eagle The War Eagle is slow and can be difficult to use, but can be dangerous ... (more) Bird of Prey The Bird of Prey can cruise at warp factor 4.3, faster then the War Eagle but ... (more) Frigate The fastest ship modeled in the Romulan fleet, the Frigate mounts ... (more)

Begin: A Tactical Starship Simulation is (c) 1988 Clockwork Software.  Star Trek properties are copyright Paramount Pictures.
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