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Download Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates (Windows)

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Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates

Windows - 2001

Description of Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates

If you haven't played Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates or want to try this strategy video game, download it now for free! Published in 2001 by Interplay Entertainment Corp., Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates (aka SFC:OP) was an above-average sci-fi / futuristic title in its time.

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Comments and reviews

nobodytrue 2023-12-04 0 point

SOME CORRUPT IMAGES NEED MAGIC1SO TO MOUNT. DONT KNOW WHY

Orion Paxx 2023-11-03 0 point

SFC configure... change mouse from 1 to 0 and save... if you were able to install the game, game will play now

Nickelcadium 2023-06-23 -1 point

I got this game to work on win 10. This is how: First of all you must be on a win user account that has Administrator privileges(control panel\user account\your account will show you your level of access. If you cant get there, your not an admin.) Get the ISO version with patch and cd key. If you dont have a program to mount iso files to a virtual drive, get WinCDEmu. Mount the ISO, right click, open, setup.exe. Install to a folder OUTSIDE C:\Program Files(for example, c:\MyFolder., create a folder on your c:\ drive named anything you want, then when the wizard gets to "install to", browse and navigate to said folder) I know that info is tedious, but there are beginners. Go to the patch, right click\Compatibility tab\run as administrator\apply, then run patch. Go to your install folder(one you created) right click on StarFleetOP.exe Compatibility tab\run this compat. w\ win98\Me check disable fullscreen optimizations and run as admin. Apply. If you want, right click\create shortcut and drag it to your desktop. Generally, that's it. Other tweaks for my machine that I did that may help are: Went to my Nvidia video panel and set all I could to performance instead of quality and all else I could to application controlled instead of video card control. I opened the SFCOPSetupMFC.exe and selected software from dropdown at the top, the OK. You will still get the Memory access violation crash once in a while, but the game is playable as long as you save often. As far as I can tell, its in the sound. The sound bytes tend to garble, skip and go out of bounds when spamming sound clicks, such as when your in the shipyard and clicking the up and down arrows quickly while scrolling through ships, or spamming the fire button Hot Key while the weapon is energizing. Too many sound bytes to quickly crashes the game.

kuazar 2023-01-03 1 point

does it run on windows 10/11?

MADHatter 2022-11-21 1 point

Crashes just after starting a mission. If anybody can help with this problem, it would be greatly appreciated.

verm 2022-05-22 0 point

it works but crashes soon after game play..any ideas?

Arnman 2021-11-29 0 point

Unfortunately I could only get it to install in XP without a corrupt message. I tried Win7 and Win10 and both failed to install. I suspect some of the install packaging still required some 16bit processes but that is only a guess. The ISO is not corrupt but rather outdated for Win7 and Win10.

Arnman 2021-11-28 0 point

You need to mount the ISO file in a virtual CDrom drive. There are free virtual drives available for download.

T-Rex969 2021-09-05 0 point

ISO files are corrupt. Can not use

We will evolve into salamanders 2021-03-08 2 points

So many memories. I found this at a Schoolastic book fair while my mom was looking for supposedly educational books. I think we all know which was more important.

Lyran spy 2021-03-01 1 point

the file is corrupted, can not be used.. such a shame.

HesNotWrong 2021-01-30 2 points

Two attempts, but say "corrupted" still

talatharani 2020-09-02 2 points

keeps on saying its corrupted

Camboro Pirate 2018-09-17 0 point

Does anyone have a copy of this game's manual in PDF?

Orion Pirate 2018-05-17 6 points

This is one of the best PC games ever, in my not so humble opinion!

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Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates

Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates is the 2001 standalone expansion pack for the 2000 space combat game Star Trek: Starfleet Command II - Empires at War . It does not require the original game to play. It includes a fully-fledged and playable version of the Orion race which was present as a non-controllable enemy race in prior titles, but is split to 8 different cartels, each with its own ship configurations but sharing the same hull designs. It also includes an overhauled campaign which now includes the Orion activity layer as an addition to the standard races' territory possessions.

As of Windows 10, the game crashes in the early game after a few commands are entered, which can be resolved with a single configuration file change .

Availability

Essential improvements, official patches.

• Patch 2.552 is the latest official patch.

Official bonus missions

• A set of official bonus missions has been released, available here .

Game freezes when trying to start a match on Windows 10 and newer

Skip intro video, configuration file(s) location, save game data location.

Localizations

Multiplayer types, connection types, other information, system requirements.

• ↑ 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges ( Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES% , %PROGRAMDATA% , or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA% \VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later ( more details ).
• ↑ GOG.com forums - Potential Windows 10 flickering fix - last accessed on May 2023
• One-time game purchase
• Singleplayer
• Multiplayer
• Third-person
• Top-down view
• Direct control
• Vehicle combat
• Space flight
• Self-hosting

Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates

• View history
• 2.1 Taldren
• 2.2 Interplay/14° East
• 2.3 Interplay Audio
• 2.4 Interplay Video
• 2.5 Interplay Quality Assurance
• 2.6 Mondo Media
• 2.7 Paramount Pictures
• 2.8 ADB, Inc.
• 2.9 Special thanks to
• 2.10 Interplay Europe
• 3 External links

The story of Orion Pirates mainly revolves around the eight cartels for which the game is named. The 8 existing empires do not have a new story line, just a generic campaign in which they fight each other and the 8 cartels. The cartels however, do have a story campaign which delves into relations between the cartels, as well as touching on a few events from Empires at War .

Credits [ ]

Taldren [ ].

• Lead Designer: Joshua Morris
• Original Design: Erik Bethke
• Lead Programmer: Marc Hertough
• Art Directors: Bradley W. Schenck, David T. Potter
• Game Systems Architect: Zachary Drummond
• Graphics Programming: Seam Dumas
• Senior Designer: Joshua Morris
• AI Programming: Michael Todorovic, Zachary Drummond
• Audio Programming: Michael Todorovic, Sean Dumas, Scott Bruno
• Programmers: Scott Burno, Paul Schreiber, Alex Sherman, Ken Yeast, Erik Bethke
• Scripting Engine: Zachary Drummond, Daniel Suleski
• Artists: Bradley W. Schenck, David T. Potter, Ed Lacabanne, Nate Simpson, Jaime Marx
• Guest X-Ship Artists: Richard "pneumonic81" Knox Jr., Don "Cleeve" Woligroski
• Mission Programmers: David Ferrell, Daniel Suleski
• Quality Assurance: Mark Pfeiffer
• Design: Scott Bruno
• Manual Author: David Ferrell
• Editor Game & Manual: Beth Drummond
• Taldren WWW: Bradley W. Schenck
• Audio Production: Sean Dumas
• Voiceover Supervision: Joshua Morris, David Ferrell
• Line Producer: Mark Pfeiffer
• Producer: Joshua Morris
• Executive Producer: Erik Bethke

Interplay/14° East [ ]

• Executive Producer: Rob Nesler
• Senior Producer: Steve Baldoni
• Associate Producer, UK: Scott Burfitt
• Marketing Manager: Allen Rausch
• Associate Marketing Manager: Krista Robinson
• PR Manager: Heather Greer
• Promotions Manager: Gina Cabrera
• Creative Services Manager: Kathy Helgason
• Traffic Manager: Brian Harkins
• Packaging Design: Michael Quintos
• Manual Design & Layout: Schlieker Design
• Website Designer: Sandi McCleary

Interplay Audio [ ]

• Sound Supervision by: Adam Levenson, Stephen Miller
• Sound Design by: Adam Levenson, Tim Walston , Paul Menichini, Charles Deenen
• Sound Effects Assistant: JP Walton
• Music composed and conducted by: Inon Zur
• Additional music by: David Leon
• Music preparation by: Paul Taylor
• Music performed by: Seattle Symphony Ochestra recorded at Studio X Seattle, Washington
• Music mixed by: Dori Amarilio
• Music Editing by: Howard Drossin (Yo Eleven Productions), Ron Valdez
• Voice Talent: Maurice LaMarche , Jennifer Hale , Jim Meskimen , Corey Burton , Heidi Shannon , John Mariano , Jonathan Cook , Frank Welker , Tara Strong
• Voice Casting & Direction: Chris Borders
• Recorded at: Screenmusic Studios
• VO Editing Supervisor: Stephen Miller
• VO Editing by: Scott Purvis, Jeremy Simpson, JP Walton
• Mastering by: Frank Szick
• Sound Librarian: Scott Purvis
• Audio Director: Charles Deenen
• Audio Operations Manager: Gloria Soto
• Mixed at Interplay Entertainment in Dolby Surround

Interplay Video [ ]

• Senior Video Manager: Dan Williams
• Senior Multimedia Producer: Dave Cravens
• Multimedia Producer: Chris Folino

Interplay Quality Assurance [ ]

• Director of QA: Michael Motoda
• Operations Manager: Monica Vallejo
• Project Supervisors: Damien Evans, Edward Hyland
• Senior Tester: Dany Martinez
• Testers: Michael Los, Justin Hamilton, John Boomershine, Tom Philips, Matt Golembiewski, Damien Foletto, Albert Perez, Vince Carino, Chris Fisher
• IS Technicians: Bill Delk, Tom Quast
• Compatibility Supervisor: Derek Gibbs
• Compatibility: Josh Walters, Jack Parker, Dave Parkyn, Tony Piccoli
• Special Thanks: Brian Fargo, Brian Christian, Eric Whelpley, Ron Austin, Steven Pierce and the entire Customer Support team

Mondo Media [ ]

• Director: Mark Giambruno
• Producer: Nancy Fitzgerald
• Production Coordinators: Dana Belben, Matt Pomeroy
• Technical Director/Artist: Eric Chadwick
• Artists: Cody Chancellor, Johnny Haarup, Johannes Huber, Kelly Kleider, Kelley Lamsens, Jeanne Litooy, Mat Smiley

Paramount Pictures [ ]

• Director, Product Development – Interactive & Technology: Harry Lang
• Supervisor, Product Development – Interactive & Technology: Daniel Felts

ADB, Inc. [ ]

• Star Fleet Battles Game Design: Stephen V. Cole, PE
• Star Fleet Battles Executive Developer: Steven P. Petrick
• Lyran Creator: Jim Curtis
• Hydran Creator: Andrew Robinson
• ISC Creator: Josh Spencer

Special thanks to [ ]

• The Inner Circle: Dennis "SFCShadow" Greene (Liaison), Brad "bbarr97" Barr, Dutch "Khoros" Blomenkamp, James E. "Jim" Bruce, James "Remus" Carter, James *TalonClaw" Carter, Nicholas "Korvus" Cioran, E.L. "S'faret" Crisler, Anthony "BK" Daly, Jake "Kirk Jr" Deschaine, Dave "SFCSpoonman" Feiker, Richard K. Glover, Salvatore "0Scotty0" Grasso, Shaun R. Hendricks, Karl "Dark Elf" Hiesterman, Robert "Redwood Elf" Hubby, Jeremy(Jay) "NTDN" Jeffery, Ian "Modavian" Jones, Russ "Tumulorum Fossor" Khater, James E. "MagnumMan-iCoP" King III, Peter "DJSatane" Maliszewski, Rich "YnrohKeeg" Matheson, James D. Pierce, Paul "Heavens Eagle" Schaefer, Matt "Catnip Inc" Smyth, Toby "Viking" Stevenson, Bradley B. Upson II
• The Middle Circle and Outer Circle members for all their testing help.
• Paramount Pictures: Rick Berman , Dave Rossi , Andrea Hein, Terri Helton, Pam Newton, Sylvia Cascallar
• Uses Miles Sound System, Copyright © 1991-2001 by RAD Game Tools, Inc.

Interplay Europe [ ]

• General Manager, Europe: Matt Findley
• Associate Producer, Europe: Scott Burfitt
• Marketing Departmeng Manager, Europe: Harvey Lee
• Senior Product Manager, Europe: Chris East
• Marketing & PR Assistant, Europe: Adrian Arnese
• Marketing Manager (France): Philippe Cota
• Product Manager (France): Sebastien Pensivy
• Marketing Manager (Spain): Javier Rodriguez
• Product Manager (Spain): Eduardo Lopez
• Marketing Manager (Germany): Christina Ettelbrueck
• Product Manager (Germany): Lukas Kugler
• Product Manager (Italy): Lorenzo Ferrari Ardicini
• PR: Doug Johns / 1-UP Media
• Design & Layout: A Creative Experience

External links [ ]

• Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates at TrekCore
• 3 Ancient humanoid

Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates

• Screenshots

• Interplay Entertainment Corp.
• Taldren, Inc.
• #1,720 on Windows

Description

Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates is a stand-alone expansion pack to Star Trek: Starfleet Command Volume II - Empires at War . For the first and only time in the series, the Orion Pirates are a playable race, divided into eight cartels, each with their own ship configurations and weapon arsenals: Orion, Korgath, Prime, TigerHeart, BeastRiders, Syndicate, WyldeFire, and Camboro. Within the updated campaign map, each cartel operates in its own area of space, and the map screen can be configured to mark area possession by standard races or cartel operations in those same areas.

There are 12 new campaigns, 26 skirmish missions and 12 multiplayer missions on hand. It is also possible to create missions using the mission creator. Each of the previously available races are also playable, and get new powerful ships in the new Advanced era.

• Board game translations
• Covermount: Fullgames
• Game feature: Hexagonal map
• Gameplay feature: Recordable replays
• Inspiration: TV series
• Middleware: Bink Video
• Standalone expansions
• Star Trek licensees
• Star Trek: Starfleet Command series

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Credits (Windows version)

146 People (107 developers, 39 thanks) · View all

Average score: 80% (based on 10 ratings)

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 3 ratings with 1 reviews)

Interesting Sci-Fi Strategy concept, but limited only for "newbie" strategists. Not recommended for the serious strategist.

The Good Well, this is the first Starfleet Command Series game I've played (excluding Starfleet: The Battle Begins), so I'm not that familiar with other Starfleet Comand series. And since this is an expansion, but a stand-alone addition, I'll take it from there.

Well, the battle simulation was close to excellent, not much irritating factors, after you grasp and understand the controls. The graphics of the battle simulations were excellent enough, although outside the actual virtual battles need a lot of work.

Unfortunately that it from my perspective. The Bad WHAT? NO STORY LINE? How in the world can you call this a strategy game in THIS advanced era of when there's no story line. Plus the fact there's nothing to manage like in Master of Orion and the like. I expected some kind of "introduction" story for something as popular as Star Fleet just to see who these Orion Pirates are, but nooooo. It seems the more famous the title, the worse they try to achieve or fulfill the gaming interests of its fans. Sad really.

There's to much "unused" graphics in this game, refering to interface buttons and the like. My personal opinion is that Star Fleet I: The Battle Begins is superior in many ways than this game. And that game was more than 15 years ago. I do commend the 3-D battle simulation, but that's the only thing good about the game. You'd probably find these kind of games for play station (although you'd have trouble configuring the buttons), since its primary focus is on the 3-D battle simulation and not much of anything else.

I'd expect a little creativity for the players, since we've got all that technology and no way to find alternative ships that you can design, although I hear that you can download stuff from the net, or create your own stuff using certain softwares, it would be more "easier" if that option were already included in this package. Privateer is much more interesting to play than this game, despite that the battle simulation is inferior to this game.

This game has a totally LOUSY help and tutorial guides. You basically have to learn all the other stuff by yourself. At least it should have been better that TIE FIGHTER and the like. Typically for such an advanced "civilization" you'd have a lot of information available about the ships, the weapons, the races. Yes, the weapons, how do you tell the difference between a F Missile and a G Missile for example? They don't. Not very intelligence as far as the Federation is concerned. Put in mind that not everyone that plays Star Fleet is a Star Trek fan or familiar with the Star Fleet game concept. It helps for those new to this game just to "fill in the gaps".

Good thing I played this at a friends place...

The Bottom Line Here's my rap sheet for this game:

Graphics: B+. Excellent graphics for the 3-D battle simulation, but other than that, a total waste.

Gameplay & Storyline: D- Battle, battle, battle. You get bored after awhile since there's not much creativity you can apply out of the 3-D battle simulation.

History, Help & Manuals: E. It's a disgrace.

Overall: C- Average addiction, until the routine of battles get the best out of you (bored).

Windows · by Indra was here (20756) · 2002

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• MobyGames ID: 4883

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym .

Additional contributors: Plok .

Game added August 28, 2001. Last modified October 11, 2023.

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Starfleet Command 2: Orion Pirates v2.564 (August 2019 Update)

Post Mar 02, 2018 #1 2018-03-02T21:29+00:00

Post Mar 02, 2018 #2 2018-03-02T21:47+00:00

Post Mar 02, 2018 #3 2018-03-02T22:18+00:00

Post Mar 03, 2018 #4 2018-03-03T13:01+00:00

Re: Starfleet Command Orion Pirates 2500-2564 Patch

Post Mar 03, 2018 #5 2018-03-03T13:39+00:00

Post Mar 03, 2018 #6 2018-03-03T14:02+00:00

Post Jul 23, 2019 #7 2019-07-23T13:02+00:00

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Star Trek Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates

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Table of Contents

Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates is a stand-alone expansion for Star Trek Starfleet Command II: Empires at War . It adds eight separate playable pirate cartels based on the Orion Pirates, who had been frequently fought throughout the earlier games. It also opened up a multiplayer Dynaverse for on-line play. Players may also play via the GameSpy Service.

Star Trek Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates/Table of Contents

Governments and cartels [ edit ]

Galactic Governments:

• The United Federation of Planets
• The Klingon Empire
• The Romulan Star Empire
• The Gorn Confederation
• The Hydran Kingdoms
• The Interstellar Concordium
• The Lyran Star Empire
• The Mirak Star League

In addition to these 8 which were in the original Starfleet Command II: Empires at War there are 8 Pirate cartels.

• The Orion Cartel
• The Camboro Cartel
• The Crimson Shadow (The House of Korgath)
• Prime Industries
• The Tiger Heart Cartel
• The Beast Raiders
• The Syndicate
• The Wyldefire Compact

Ships [ edit ]

The Orion Pirate ships are very strange in comparison to the other government ships, Orion ships tend to have all kinds of different technology from all of the major governments. Because they have all the technology this makes them a very formidable enemy, and not an enemy to be taken lightly.

Generally speaking, the pirate ships are manuverable and have average shields. Their ships usually don't have the engine power of other ships- for example, the Orion light cruiser might have 25 or 27 power while Empire races have 31. However, Orion ships usually don't have as many weapons to charge, and they can still be energy efficient and fast.

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• Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Transinium Challenge
• Star Trek: The Rebel Universe
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
• Phaser Strike
• The Motion Picture
• 25th Anniversary
• Judgment Rites
• The Next Generation - A Final Unity
• Deep Space Nine: Harbinger
• Chekov's Lost Missions
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• The Game Show
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Star Trek: Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates

• View history

Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates is a stand-alone expansion for the computer game Star Trek: Starfleet Command II: Empires at War . The game adds eight separate playable pirate cartels based on the Orion Pirates.

• 2 Reception
• 3 References
• 4 External links

Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates does not have a set story for the main galactic powers other than a generic campaign where a player fights against the pirates. Players who elect to play as one of the newly added cartels can choose between a generic campaign or a special pirate story campaign, which features a unique story, as well as missions that touch on events that happened in Empires at War .

Reception [ ]

Template:Video game reviews

The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. [1]

Steve Butts of IGN said, "There are twelve new campaigns here along with 26 skirmish missions. Best of all there's a simple mission creator that lets you set up the engagements you'd like to see. Twelve multiplayer missions and three bonus missions based on the "A Piece of the Action" episode are included as well." Butts said the interface for ship to ship action is "well implemented enough" and "everything is laid out reasonably well", but "there are really far too many buttons on the interface for my tastes." He called the AI "robust" and said damage modeling in the game is "excellent", but said some of the ship's voice acknowledgements are bland. Butts said, "Sadly, there is no z-axis in the game" and said it detracts from the realism. He said, "the folks at Taldren...have tried to expand the promising Dynaverse II engine" but said "the system still has many of the shortcomings that plagued Empires at War ." Butts noted, " Orion Pirates isn't compatible with previous versions of Starfleet Command ." He said, "it seems a lot like just an expansion at first glance, but it's really more of a stand-alone mission pack with a few new features added," and that "the real meat of this game is the tactical combat model." [2]

Giancarlo Varanini of GameSpot said the game "has an impressive amount of content for a stand-alone expansion." Varanini wrote, "Dynaverse II is a semipersistent universe where you can travel through the universe as any one of the races in the game, engage in battles with other players, and work your way up to getting new and more powerful ships," and that the game "includes a fully functional Dynaverse II mode out of the box, and it also contains new skirmishes, a new race, gameplay improvements, and basically all of the features of the original game." He said the single-player modes "are for the most part exactly the same as those in Starfleet Command Volume II, but there have been some changes made," and noted the skirmish mode with premade scenarios such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . He said, "the campaign mode still suffers from a poorly designed interface." He also wrote, "many of the early missions can be incredibly difficult" in the campaign mode, but said the game's best feature was "a working Dynaverse II", and that it adds a great deal of replay value to the game. [3]

References [ ]

• ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named MC
• ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named IGN
• ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named GSpot

External links [ ]

• 1 Star Fleet Universe Timeline
• 2 Biography Instructions

Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates Review

Orion Pirates has an impressive amount of content for a stand-alone expansion, so it's great for new players.

By Giancarlo Varanini on July 5, 2001 at 7:03PM PDT

When Starfleet Command Volume II was originally released late last year, one of its most highly touted features, Dynaverse II, was not functional because of some last-minute changes by the company originally providing the service. Dynaverse II is a semipersistent universe where you can travel through the universe as any one of the races in the game, engage in battles with other players, and work your way up to getting new and more powerful ships. Fortunately, the development team eventually got around to releasing a patch that fixed the Dynaverse II problems, among other things, but the damage was done, and Starfleet Command Volume II's most intriguing feature went largely unnoticed by the gaming public. The new official expansion to Starfleet Command Volume II, Orion Pirates, includes a fully functional Dynaverse II mode out of the box, and it also contains new skirmishes, a new race, gameplay improvements, and basically all of the features of the original game. You don't need the original game to play it, either. Orion Pirates has an impressive amount of content for a stand-alone expansion, so it's great for new players; but ardent fans of Starfleet Command Volume II will merely find more of the same, making it more difficult to justify purchasing.

As the title indicates, several pirate factions have been thrown into the mix along with all of the other races from Starfleet Command Volume II such as the Klingons, the Federation, the Romulans, and others. Unfortunately, these pirate factions are really different from each other in name only since they all have the same interface, the same types of ships, and the same overall objectives as all the rest. The only substantial differences between the pirate factions are the excellent captain voices used to indicate which faction you're a part of and their diplomatic relations with other races. The addition of a rogue group focused solely on economic prosperity is excellent for role-playing in the Dynaverse, but it would've been nice to see a little more variation between the factions.

The single-player modes in Orion Pirates are for the most part exactly the same as those in Starfleet Command Volume II, but there have been some changes made. In the skirmish mode, where you can jump right into a premade scenario, you can now select from numerous missions immediately, including the Wrath of Khan, in which the movie's final battle scene in the nebula is played out within the Starfleet Command setting. The expansion offers a large number of new skirmishes that are genuinely fun even if they may be a little too difficult to play through effectively at first. Since the skirmish mode has received such a significant boost, most of your single-player experiences will probably be spent there since the campaign mode still suffers from a poorly designed interface.

Like in Starfleet Command Volume II, Orion Pirates uses the same color-coded hexagonal layout to represent the galaxy and the factions that are in control of particular areas of the map. On the right side of the interface, there is a list of the factions that you can click on to reveal your current diplomatic status, and on the left side, there are general options for viewing the map, as well as gathering information on events that occur within the galaxy. The major problem with the interface is that all of the information appears within a single screen, so you have to constantly maneuver in between the map screens, the news screen, and the general diplomacy screen to find suitable missions for your ship. The campaign mode also has some general design flaws. When you start a new campaign, your ship is supposed to be placed in an area of space with easy patrols or similar types of missions for gaining some prestige points--used for upgrading ships--early on. But, in fact, many of the early missions can be incredibly difficult, and since you're not given any detailed information on the mission beforehand, retreating becomes an all too familiar practice.

Orion Pirates' best feature, a working Dynaverse II, uses the same interface as the single-player campaign, which is unfortunate, but the difficulties of switching between information screens are somewhat easier to deal with since you receive a constant flow of information from other players within your faction on a small chat window underneath the main screen. Some problems are still prevalent, such as the lack of detailed information before entering a mission, but again, it's not quite as annoying since other players can accompany you on missions. Otherwise, Dynaverse II works surprisingly well, and it's fun to watch factions strategically move across the map and to engage them in battle whenever they overstep their boundaries. The addition of playable pirate factions only makes this mode more diverse and entertaining. If the Dynaverse seems too open-ended, you can always take on opponents in a skirmish-style setting with the GameSpy player-matching program packed in with the game.

As a stand-alone expansion, Orion Pirates has plenty to offer. The game has all of the features of Starfleet Command Volume II--such as the full single-player campaign, skirmish, and tutorial modes--and it adds new skirmishes and playable pirate factions. More importantly, Dynaverse II works fine right out of the box and adds a great amount of replay value to the game. But, if you've played plenty of Starfleet Command Volume II, then you may want to avoid Orion Pirates--the graphical quality is the same; music tracks for the pirate factions have been added, but all others are the same; and the gameplay still relies on micromanagement of various ship systems. As such, while Orion Pirates might not be completely satisfying for fans of Starfleet Command Volume II, it's clearly better overall, and a great opportunity to get into this engaging strategy series for those who passed on the previous installment because of its shortcomings.

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TREKCORE > GAMING > STARFLEET COMMAND ORION PIRATES > FAQ

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. When was Star Trek Starfleet Command Orion Pirates released? 2. What are Star Trek Starfleet Command Orion Pirates' system requirements? 3. Who made this great game? 4. What's the latest version? 5. Is there a demo for Star Trek Starfleet Command Orion Pirates? 6. What did the patch fix? 7. How many playable missions are available? 8. How many races are playable? 9. What are the multiplayer options? 10. Where are the cheat codes? 11. Do you need Starfleet Command Volume II: Empires at War to play Orion Pirates?

GAME QUESTIONS

1. I can't keep up with the pace of the game. Can I slow it down? 2. Am I limited to four weapon group presets? 3. Does the Hull Integrity meter measure how much "life" remains in my ship? 4. If the phaser capacitor control marker is set to the midway point, will it still charge to full power? 5. I can't tell if an enemy ship's plasma weapons are charging, because I can't get close enough without them firing on me. 6. How can I minimize my risk of taking damage? 7. My defensive systems are overwhelmed by the number of missiles inbound for my ship. What can I do? 8. How can I defeat a Weasel? 9. Should I fully counter an ECM or ECCM shift? 10. Is using a Repel beam the only way to defeat a tractor beam?

GENERAL QUESTIONS ANSWER S

GAME QUESTIONS ANSWERS

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Star Trek Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates – Guides and FAQs

Full game guides.

• Guide and Walkthrough (Incomplete) by  DG_Dobrev v.1.0, 23KB, 2002

In-Depth Guides

• ISC Guide by  Roy_mace v.0.92, 46KB, 2010
• Orion Guide by  Roy_mace v.1.2, 39KB, 2010

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You can write and submit your own guide for this game using either our full-featured online editor or our basic text editor . We also accept maps and charts as well.

Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates

Interplay's stand-alone mission pack offers even more tactical goodness in the star trek universe..

For the benefit of those of you who aren't conversant with all things Trek, here's the short version. Orion is a planet within the Federation with a rabid economic expansion policy. The so-called Orion Pirates dabble in trade all throughout the galaxy. While no one's ever actually admitted it, it seems a safe bet that the Orion Pirates are, or at least were, a shady arm of the Orion government.

For the game, the Pirates have been divided into eight cartels, each of which resides in a separate sector of space. Each of the game's races has it's own form of Orion Cartel working, if not in open cooperation, at least alongside it. But since the individual cartels are so far ranging, there's an eclectic mix of weapons and technology to be found on any pirate's ship. If you're not into playing as the pirates, you can assume the captaincy of the ships of any of the other races -- Gorn, Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Interstellar Concordium, Mirak, Hydran, or Lyran.

There are twelve new campaigns here along with 26 skirmish missions. Best of all there's a simple mission creator that lets you set up the engagements you'd like to see. Twelve multiplayer missions and three bonus missions based on the "A Piece of the Action" episode are included as well. For the most part the missions are short in nature -- go kill a single ship sort of affairs -- but some big, multiship missions will exercise your tactical thinking a little more.

Ship to ship action is the focus here. It's really very much like Klingon Academy (or is it the other way around?) where you spend most of your time in charge of a single ship battling a few other ships. As these are huge capital ships it's all very dignified and pompous even in the heat of battle. Ships turn very slowly and the silence of their turning is sporadically punctuated by small bursts of fire. While there's plenty of excitement in it, this is a game of patience and attentiveness.

You're in charge of all the systems on your ship and you give all the orders. The interface for this is well implemented enough that it sort of makes you wonder what all those extra crew were doing on the shows. I mean, if our interfaces are this good now, imagine how much easier it would be for one person to control a whole starship 200 years into the future. While there are a lot of options and readouts here, there are really far too many buttons on the interface for my tastes. During on of the tutorials the game asked me to click the flashing button on the control panel and it took me three minutes just to find it. The good news is that everything is laid out reasonably well and a convenient range of hotkeys gives you instant access to almost everything you need.

And given the robust AI, you'll need almost everything. It's possible to play the game in a dumbed down, move and shoot mode, but the AI will take every advantage it can in terms of system tweaks and tactical maneuvers. Its got a great sense of when to turn and when to keep dead ahead and, with two ships of comparable speed and maneuverability, the human player will find it hard to keep up with the AI. You can get into a few sweet spots now and then but it's rare that the game cuts you any breaks. You're sure to get a real close look at the excellent damage modeling in the game and, if you're really bad, even a front row seat for the breathtaking explosion effects. When the ships get hurt real bad, they start to trail purple anti-freeze. That's when you start regretting that you never thanked your sixth grade civics teacher for instilling in you the value of a really well-trained citizen militia. Music is sufficiently dramatic for such moments but I found a blandness to some of the voice acknowledgements your ship gives you.

Sadly, there is no z-axis in the game. Ships remain on a single plane except when passing over each other. This is a design decision that lots of developers are making. With the success of Homeworld, it's disheartening to see so many games (this one, Dominion Wars, Conquest: Frontier Wars, etc.) adopting a flat approach. I don't mind that limitation when it makes more sense (as in Age of Sail or Fighting Steel) but here it does detract from the realism. On the other hand, it's very much in keeping with the boardgame roots of the title and I can respect that.

While the ship-to-ship action is the main point of the game, the folks at Taldren (which I think used to be the name of Tal's Rolemaster character -- mine was Milkbottom) have tried to expand the promising Dynaverse II engine. In short, this is an open-ended campaign engine that allows you to roam the galaxy in the midst of a vibrant and living interaction among the various races. But while there are still a lot of great things about the engine, the system still has many of the shortcomings that plagued Empires at War.

First off, the interface is unattractive and clumsy. While it communicates information all right, navigating around the map is much more troublesome than it ought to be. When you think of Star Trek, you think of something both efficient and effective -- this falls short of that ideal. A rather boring map does little to get you excited about Gorn incursions into Romulan space.

There's still also a lack of any sense that you're part of a larger empire. Sure, you can enjoy some rest and repair at your race's starbases and planets but, apart from a few meeting engagements, the sense that you're working together with a whole navy isn't as apparent as it should be. The online version of the Dynaverse may be one remedy to that problem but there simply aren't enough players online yet. Add that to the fact that Orion Pirates isn't compatible with previous versions of Starfleet Command and you begin to see the potential drop even further.

So it seems a lot like just an expansion at first glance, but it's really more of a stand-alone mission pack with a few new features added. You don't need anything else to run it (well, a computer) and at $30 it's not at all unreasonable provided that you get a kick out of this sort of thing to begin with. It may seem as if that goes without saying but I really enjoyed this game just as a 3D, real-time version of Starfleet Battles. While the extra stuff in the game has a lot of potential, the real meat of this game is the tactical combat model. Luckily there's enough going on outside of that to give you a sense of continuity. Hopefully future versions of the game will bring that a little farther.

-- Steve Butts

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