Star Trek: Klingon Academy - Gameplay

Gameplay

Klingon Academy is a 3D space flight simulator, allowing players to command Klingon starships in the single-player campaign. Starships and facilities of all featured races are available for quick battles and multiplayer matches. Even the lightest escort classes are much tougher and slower to maneuver than the fighters and bombers commonly featured in space simulator games. Larger starships are even slower, stronger and less agile, emphasizing their massive frames and impressive firepower. Ships are controlled through keyboard shortcut commands, with the mouse as an option for directional control. A joystick may also be configured.

The ultimate objectives of most missions are to warp to a target system, destroy or capture enemy starships or installations, and return to a home base. Elements of stealth, espionage and survival or guile against overwhelming forces are sometimes featured. As one plays through the game, progressively larger and more powerful starships are awarded to the player, with enemy forces to match. Many missions offer the player escort ships of equal or lesser class to their own, which must be managed through the HUD interface.

Gameplay is entirely tactical in nature, as one's list of mission-related star systems are given at the start of each mission, or changed during the mission. All starships have shields and a variety of combat systems, including weapons, tractor beams and ECM. Shields are divided into six faces, one for each fore, aft, port, starboard, dorsal and ventral side of the ship, and must be battered down before significant damage can be inflicted to the ship's hull or subsystems.

Once a shield currently facing the player's starship is dropped, a boarding attempt may be made. Marines are beamed to the opposing ship, and can either attempt to destroy various internal systems or attempt to capture the ship. A captured ship in single-player is immediately converted to friendly status and becomes an escort, while multiplayer ships are immediately destroyed and double points are awarded to the player.