Rules of Engagement

Boxart In 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation fever was gripping the nation, admittedly a geeky minority of the nation, but that minority was well and truly gripped. The bald Captain and the voyages of the new Enterprise were required viewing in my household - as long as I had hold of the remote anyway. Clearly inspired by this Trek revival Rules of Engagement was released in 1991 giving players the oppurtunity to take control of a fleet of starships in a series of combat missions.

If you are familiar with the tv series the first thing that will strike you is just how much this game wears its inspiration on its sleeve. The whole interface of the game from main menu to starship control is based on the LCARS interface used on the console panel's in Star Trek. The second thing that will strike you if you are new to the game is "how the fuck do I play this thing?". To say Rules of Engagement has a steep learning curve would be a serious understatement. The player is pretty much left to themselves to create a fleet commander, a new game and then figure out how to get that game started and once started there are a number of initially bewildering screens to understand. And though well intentioned the 212 page Fleet Operations Manual is an intimidating read at best. But hey, who said commanding a starship was easy - you think Picard or Kirk could fly straight out of there nappies. Though no doubt Kirk could - he'd have seduced his own mum. Stylishly ripped his nappy. Sucked in the paunch. And away.

Back on topic Rules of Engagement has no real story, although there is a backstory presented to give the game context. There is a full range of missions available from the start however your own rank determines the maximum class of starship you can control and so missions that put you at the controls of larger ships are off limits until you've successfully complete missions in smaller ships and gained in rank.

Gameplay wise it can be closely compared to the Starfleet Command computer games and Starfleet Battles tabletop wargame. Although it is certainly grander in scale than Starfleet Command. Gameplay is divided into three main areas: ship management, combat and navigation, and fleet management all of which takes place in realtime. The user interface, although complex looking, is laid out in a fairly logical fashion to allow you to accomplish these tasks. At the top of the screen are five purple buttons. These allow you to access navigation functions, communications, tactical systems, informational systems and the final button allows you to save your game and quit.

The navigation panel allows you to both steer your vessel and obtain a good overview of the solar system you are battling in. You can display various objects on the map including friendly ships, enemy ships, outposts, waypoints, planets, and stars. An automatic course can be plotted to each of these objects or a manual course and speed can be plotted. If you are playing on the intermediate or hard skill levels (rather than the beginner level) then to add to the complication you'll only be able to see enemy ships that are in the range of your ships scanners, the range depending on the sensor system fitted to each vessel.

Having mastered manouvering your own ship and having a decent overview of the battle in front of you the coommunications panel will allow you to send orders to your fleet. This is actually fairly simple. You are given a list of your own ships and a set of orders you can assign to them such as capture an enemy ship, capture an outpost, or proceed to a waypoint. Having picked a ship and an order you may need to select a reference point. For example if you've chosen to ask one of your ships to attack an enemy ship obviously your going to need to tell it which ship to attack. The only real complication to the communication system is that messages are not sent instantaneously. They travel at the speed of light but as your fighting across an entire solar system a message can take some time to get to its target - and then there is the time taken for a response to get back to you. On sending a message you'll be informed how long it will take. Its also worth bearing in mind that your not actually in direct control of the other ships. Each ships Captain will carry out your orders and each of them will have different skills and abilities - some Captains have an unpleasant habit of tucking there tails between there legs and running when the going gets tough occasionally leaving you high and dry. Handily you can read dossiers on your Captain's to give you an idea who is best suited for what.

Space is big and it can take a long time to travel around the solar system. Couple this with the communications lag and it becomes important to plan well ahead as if you get in trouble there'll probably be no cavalary to come to the rescue. This is particularly important where your own ship is concerned - not merely for your own safety but as the fleet commander if you're killed its game over.

Rear Boxart So now you've plotted a course for an enemy ship and given orders to your fleet it won't be long until you're involved in a firefight. Oddly enough you'll want to use the tactical panel right about now. You may also want to don a headcrab and sash and pretend you're Lieutenant Worf. Or not. Its really entirely your choice. If you're familiar with Star Trek, and certainly if you've dressed up like Lieutenant Worf as suggested, a lot of the this will be more than a little familiar to you. At its simplest level options are presented to allow you to acquire targets, fire lasers, fire missiles, raise and lower shields and manouver. While fighting generally you'll concentrate on managing weapons and give the computer broad manouvering instruction such as shadow, escape or evade. When firing your lasers you can choose whether to aim with a wide focus hopefully damaging multiple systems on the enemy ship, a normal focus which will hit a single ships system and cause damage to that system alone, or you can choose to pick a ships system and focus only on that. This can be very useful to disable a ships engines or weapons for example if you have a more pressing goal. Inevitably during combat you'll sustain damage and the game allows you to assign repair crews to prioritise the fixing of systems of your choice. If you've taken drive damage and need to get somewhere in a hurry then you might choose to prioritise on your engines, but if you're weaponless and an enemy ship is closing on you repairing those systems is probably more important.

As well as destroying enemy ships it is possible, and sometimes necessary, to capture them. Normally this would just be a matter of weight of numbers with the boarding action being automatically resolved for you however if the game Breach 2 was also installed then Omnipedia's patented Interlocking Game System would be brought into play, Breach 2 being a turn based tactical level battle simulator. This would allow you to resolve the boarding action using your own skill rather than the roll of the computers dice.

You've probably already gathered from the screenshots the graphics are functional at best. Sound also is quite limited to the occasional whooshhh of phaser or pooonngggg of a torpedo. Sadly there are no cries "of she cannae take no more Captain" as you push your ship to its limits. Don't let this discourage you however as the game provides plenty of atmosphere through its gameplay and of course with modern hardware there's nothing stopping you putting your favourite episode on in the background while you play happily in Dosbox which, incidentally, runs the game fine complete with sound and is how I've been enjoying the game on my Mac.

As well as allowing you to play through battles Rules of Engagement included comprehensive mission building options. Everything from Captains, to starships, to solar systems and mission objectives could be created and edited adding greatly to the lifespan of the game. Of course as a Star Trek geek my usual use of these editing capabilities was to create the most powerful ship I could, call it Enterprise, and then proceed to blast every alien I could out of the sky happily forgetting Star Trek's more peaceful message. Ahhh the joys of youth. Or middle age. I'd be lying if I said I didn't still do that.