The newest frontier!
What happens when the entertainment value of a game is no longer there, if you have spent time and money on it, it can be disconcerting. I am a shameless fan of Star Trek, I was hooked at a young age watching the reruns of the original series and later even more when Star Trek the next generation arrived on TV. I own and played most of the videogame based on the franchise, so when the free to play game Star Fleet Command was advertise, I jump on the opportunity and started my progression.
Yes I fell for the bait, of course the game was easy at first and you could not yet get attacked by other players as your level was too low, but that soon changed. There are many Pay to Win games out there, but honestly Star Trek Fleet Command is a Pay to Survive game. Let me explain, there are theme based events, during those events you get rewards for completing the daily task/challenge, and if you get enough point you are awarded a prize, but that’s not all, if you also purchased the Monthly Battle Pass, you also get the second tier reward, which is of course better than the regular rewards, because why would you buy something of a lesser value. But remember no one is forcing to buy anything. Because your base is stronger with the modules that it has, it is important to build and upgrade your modules, and you need to do some research to be even better, and it is fair every player gets a building and research queue, you can get a second research queue for only 26.99$ or a second builder queue for 6.49$.
As stated at first the progression is easy, you can get the resources that you need to build you crew, your ships and expand you base, until you attain a certain level, where you become fair game for other players that have put more time and money in this game, lot more than you, yes you can protect you base from attack by placing a peace shield on it, and you do get a 24hr shield if you complete your daily task, if you do not, no worries you can also buy one of those. but that will not protect you when you leave that shielded base of yours, to go and mine some resources required for you to progress.
Because you will get attacked, more often then not by players that have put a large amount of money into this game and believe now that they are the rightful owner of that frontier and they will jump a defenseless mining ship with their over powerful ship, destroy it take the resources that you worked for, without even taking a scratch. But do not call them out on that as they will threaten to ” send you back to your base in a shuttle, every time they see your ship” but will even push the bullying further by sending a message to the admiral of your Alliance, and threat them that all members of your Alliance are now on their KOS (kill on sight) list.
For Scopely, are they doing anything about this, no, there is not even a channel where this can be reported and why would they banish player that are spending a small fortune just to rule a part of this virtual universe. The Gene Roddenberry vision of Star Trek is definitely tarnish with the profit oriented venture using the looks and name from the franchise with none of the morality in contained.
Star Trek Fleet Command is an Absolute Zero in the dead of space. Yes the game is free to play, but can be very expensive just to keep enjoying it. The game is available on Apple Appstore, Google playstore for portable devices and is also available on PC.