Wrong. The parameters of the game were still the masters of my fate, and fate deemed it necessary that I complete the tutorial, which still wasn’t finished. In hindsight, I know that this was a tutorial, and I suspected it was at the time, but the game never actually made that clear until said tutorial was finished. So there was a little bit of confusion on the part of Alpha Pwn at the time.
But my irritations were assuaged when Kur’P Ud Wakk finally got the opportunity to command the Bile Hurk personally. And to mark this momentous occasion, I was tasked with scanning asteroids. Actually I was told to scan some asteroids, and I, unfamiliar with the peculiarities of piloting starships, lurched forward uncontrollably at full impulse. My new first officer, anticipating my novice blunder, stopped the Bile Hurk before it collided catastrophically with the asteroids, then berated me for my idiotic flying.
Even without the tutorial’s onscreen guidance, I deduced that in order to start scanning, I should push “A”. But, no mystery material lay within this batch, which was the game’s clever way of telling me I needed to practice flying a little more, else my first officer fail to save me again, or simply kill me and take command himself.
The problem, is that the navigation commands have a limited set of customization, so after a lengthy experimentation phase, I had to settle on a set of controls that were only slightly more intuitive. Still, I had some more practice under my belt now, and I felt confident I could navigate a ship through space–something inherently almost devoid of obstructions under normal conditions. How hard could it be?
I demonstrated this newfound confidence by orienting the Bile Hurk towards the next set of asteroids, and slightly increasing impulse velocity. But, the impulse drive responds exponentially, and in short order I was once again on a kamikaze run at full impulse. My first officer again stopped the ship, and again told me to stop trying to crash the ship. I think he threatened me that time, too.
But, there’s one thing that I could do well, and that’s push “A”. I scanned those asteroids and found that mystery element. Crappy flying notwithstanding, I had still managed to advance the tutorial. There was dialog, and I skipped it with the magical button “A”. Why? Because I was losing interest and really didn’t care anymore. But then, for reasons unknown because I had skipped the dialogue, there was space battle! And I almost wished that I had paid attention as to why.
No matter. This ship was going down! I closed distance, sighted my enemy, and…targeted him by pushing “A”…or was it the right trigger? Can’t remember. Apparently my crew was firing the disruptors. That made sense, seeing as the Bile Hurk looked like a Bird of Prey. I mean, it has an entire crew, and logic would only follow that they served a purpose beyond providing dialogue which I needed to skip without reading. Still, I had to perform the maneuvers myself, allocate resource priority, and…that’s it, really. And I couldn’t figure out the resource thing. And I sure wish I knew how to launch photon torpedoes. But, this being the first space battle of the tutorial, the ship was defeated as quickly as the Bile Hurk’s former captain. Huzzah!
Then, two more ships arrived. There was some more dialog, but as a Klingon, the only options I was given were to destroy them, taunt them and destroy them, or really give them a good taunting and destroy them. I defaulted to the first answer, as this only involved me pushing “A”, and for some reason I just didn’t feel it necessary to be a complete asshole to every NPC immediately. The battle proceeded as before, except this time I figured out that ship orientation mattered because the more powerful forward disruptors could only hit things directly towards the front (so aptly named). Maneuvering, therefore, was more important than originally perceived. Also I noticed that shields had sections, so it was important to change orientations as I took fire, while at the same time trying to repeatedly concentrate all my fire on one section of the enemies’ shields. Truth be told, I was finally having fun. But still, I couldn’t figure out how to fire photon torpedoes. And no, it wasn’t “A”. That was the targeting button. Or was it the right trigger? Hrm.
Battle concluded, a large Federation ship warped into the vicinity. I think at this point another Klingon vessel had arrived too–something story-related that would have had more context had I actually read the dialogue. But by this point I had become a chronic “A” button masher.
Anyway, this Federation ship wanted something. I was given variations of the three options as before–increasing levels of taunting. The Federation ship taunted back, which I found highly uncharacteristic of those Federation goody-goodies. Then again, this might have been earlier in the timeline, before The Next Generation turned humanity into a band of socially-progressive niceguys, courtesy of 1980s feminism. But the ship appeared to be a Galaxy-class, which wouldn’t fit the earlier timeline. This made me really wonder when exactly in the canon this game fit. Maybe it was an Excelsior-class ship instead? That would have made more sense. In any case, battle ensued, the ship was way stronger than the Bile Hurk, but two more Bird of Prey warped in and together we vanquished the large Federation ship for reasons unknown, because as I’ve mentioned before I wasn’t really paying attention to the story. Oh, and I still didn’t know how to fire photon torpedoes. There was a cloaking device though, rendered of limited use because game-balance prevents using it while in battle, so after I was required to use it to advance the tutorial, haven’t touched it since.
But, admittedly this is where the game shines. Space battles. Now, Kur’P Ud Wakk is a seasoned captain, and he managed it despite driving into two asteroid clouds, and all made possible with the mashing of button “A”.
–Simon