## Description
Simulating the struggle between the nations of the Star Trek universe, _Begin:
A Tactical Starship Simulation_ puts you in charge of a fleet or a single ship
against adversaries of your choosing. Four nations are available for the
player to choose from; Federation, Romulan, Klingon, and Orion. After
selecting who you will play and who the computer will play as you will then
need to select the ships involved. This step allows the player to adjust the
difficulty of the game to their choosing. If you’d like you can have a one-on-
one battle or if you’d rather have an all out war between nine ships on each
side. It’s also possible to have a battle where the odds are stacked in your
favour or on theirs with completely adjustable numbers up to nine on each
side. After the number has been decided upon you will have to select just
which specific ships are engaged. The choice is yours from hulking freighters
to agile birds of prey. Once all the variable have been decided on it is time
to do battle.
Concentrating more on the various surprises of battle _Begin: A Tactical
Starship Simulation_ does not allow players to place their ships wherever they
like. Your ships and your enemies’ ships are placed at random places as shown
on a small thumbnail and specified through written coordinates on the main
play/command window. From this point on the strategies are all up to you. You
may choose which weapons to fire with, where to move, and even choose to self
destruct. Moves are made by typing out what you’d like to do, for example;
“TORPEDO” or “TOR” for short (the game understands three letter summary
commands). At this point you will be prompted which bays to fire from or what
spread to use (for PHASERS) etc. After this the game will perform the
commanded move and the turn will be over. A summary of events and outcomes of
the turn will be listed and a read-out of ship status will be updated. Random
events such as weapon malfunction are possible and you may get reports from
other parts of your ship by typing in the right command. Reports available
include; Casualties, Engine Temperatures, and lots more.
Battles continue until one entire fleet is destroyed and a report is given at
the end as to how you have performed.
Begin: A Tactical Starship Simulation