Video Game / Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is a 1983 arcade game released by Sega, which is based on the Star Trek franchise. In the game, you control the Federation starship Enterprise in a simulation game where you must defend a Federation starbase from attacking Klingon Birds of Prey^note Arguably, the Klingon vessels look more like the D7 battlecruiser from the original series. You are equipped with shields, phasers, photon torpedoes, and warp drive. Your shields can only take a few hits before they go down, then after that all hits will damage your ship until it is destroyed, ending the simulation. By docking with the starbase, you can repair your ship and recharge your shields. In various subsectors you must also navigate through a meteor shower as well as fight against Nomad the android as the sector's boss.

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This video game provides examples of:

• Area of Effect:
  • Your photon torpedoes explode after traveling a certain distance in front of the Enterprise, destroying all Klingons within their blast radius. Pity you only have a limited supply of them.
  • Nomad lays mines, which detonate after a short time, damaging everything nearby — including other mines, which are also set off when damaged. Even with full shields, the Enterprise can be completely destroyed by a mine cascade.
• Asteroid Thicket: The meteor shower that appears in certain subsectors.
• Attract Mode: If you stay on the attract mode screens long enough, you'll hear the digitized voice of Scotty inviting you to "Be the captain of the Starship Enterprise".
• Deflector Shields: You are given shields that can take a few hits before they go down.
• Final Boss: Nomad, whom you must defeat before going on to the next sector. He's immune to photon torpedoes, just like in "The Changeling", but can be destroyed by a single shot from your phasers. Too bad Kirk never thought of shooting phasers at Nomad in the episode.
• Game Over: Or in this case, "simulation complete" when your starship takes its last hit.
• Scoring Points: Besides earning points for shooting Klingons, you also get bonus points for each starbase that survives the subsector you defended that you haven't docked with.
• Shoot 'Em Up
• Synthetic Voice Actor: The arcade game contains a voice synthesis chip that emulates the voices of Spock and Scotty to the best of its ability.
• Time-Limit Boss:
  • If not destroyed within a certain amount of time, Klingon ships turn white, at which point they engage their warp drives and try to ram you.
  • After laying a certain number of mines, Nomad gives up on waiting around for you to kill him and simply leaves.
• Title Theme Drop: The Star Trek theme music plays during the title screen on certain home versions of the game.
• 2-D Space: The Enterprise can turn left, turn right, thrust forward, and move very fast forward via warp; but it cannot move up or down. All objects, friend or foe, are confined to a single flat plane.
• Vector Game: One of the few games of this type developed by Sega.