Thursday 21 May 2020

Star Trek ships arrive in Crypto Space Commander

Star Trek Picard is coming to the world of Crypto Space Commander, a newish massively-multiplayer-online-game developed by Lucid Sight. The game will introduce several ships from Picard, and Star Trek at large, alongside a new Borg-focused story in the game. More on that below...


But first, what is CSC? Currently in an "Early Alpha" state, the game is available to play via Stream. Set around the activities of the Sol system based Galactic Federation, the game lets players go explore the galaxy and obtain resources. What really seems to set it apart though is the focus on crafting of unique assets in the game, and a blockchain based economic model that encourages trade, and rewards the creation and obtaining of unique items. Here's how Lucid Sight summarise it:
Get ready to embark on an adventure through the cosmos! CSC (Crypto Space Commander) is a sandbox space MMO that operates a player-owned economy. Players can travel to different star systems, mine stellar bodies for resources, craft items and ships to sell, battle pirates and other players while commanding their very own starship. CSC utilizes the Ethereum blockchain to secure game assets, enforce P2P contract actions, and run the game economy.

CSC is designed to facilitate all facets of Play-To-Own gaming. Are you a traditional gamer looking for a deeper, more immersive experience? Or gaming entrepreneur looking to grow and develop next-generation economies? All players can profit on their skill and wit with CSC’s player-owned asset design.

Asset management is enforced on the Ethereum blockchain, allowing for complex actions and trustless cooperation between players. By giving players free rein to influence nearly every aspect of gameplay, the universe truly becomes their own.
Using the unique identifier of the blockchain, resources from the game can be sold in-game, or outside of play, and as you'll see below, it seems to have a frankly ludicrous active market already, even with the game only being in a testing phase.

So what happens when Star Trek enters the game? Well the Picard event has a backstory that, via a rift to an alternate dimension - the Star Trek universe - a Borg Cube had found its way into the CSC universe. Upon being detected it caused massive devastation before being destroyed, with the help of several other ships pulled in from the Star Trek universe: La Sirena, a captain’s yacht, the USS Enterprise-E, Romulan warbird IRW Zhazara, and Borg Tactical Cube 138! With the original Cube and a hub it created destroyed, the CSC universe sits braced for further unexpected rifts to delivery more Borg... You can read the full backstory on the CSC website, and see a trailer here:



From the start of June the Borg will start reappearing through rifts, and once defeated, they leave behind "shards", which can be traded in for loot, including Star Trek crates, which are also available to purchase directly. These in turn reward players with Star Trek technology and starships (versions of the four ships mentioned above). There are three levels of crate, which give you a better chance of getting a better ship the more you spend (you get one ship per crate):

  • Common crates, of which there are 50,000 units, and cost $15
    • Captain’s Yacht — 73%
    • Kaplan F17 Speed Freighter — 22.8%
    • Sovereign Class — 3%
    • Romulan Warbird — 1%
    • Borg Tactical Cube — 0.2%
  • Rare crates, of which there are 1,000 units and cost $100:
    • Kaplan F17 Speed Freighter — 50%
    • Sovereign Class — 30%
    • Romulan Warbird — 15%
    • Borg Tactical Cube — 5%
  • Epic crates, which there are 500 of, and will cost $300:
    • Sovereign Class — ~ 60%
    • Romulan Warbird — ~ 30%
    • Borg Tactical Cube — ~ 10%

In addition to this, one unique version of each of those ships (except for the overly abundant captain's yacht), is being auctioned. These will have a unique name, look and abilities.


The Kaplan F17 Speed Freighter, as standard will be a "silver Star Fleet color", while the one-off La Sirena will feature the familiar red paint-job. La Sirena will also come with a special ability La Sirena Phaser Bank, while the standard Kaplan F17 Speed Freighter Kaplan Phaser Bank instead.







The regular Sovereign class is also going to be the "standard silver Star Fleet color", although I'm not sure what the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E version will look like in comparison. The Enterprise-E will also have special ability Phaser Array and Enterprise-E Quantum Torpedo, while the regular version gets a Sovereign Class Quantum Torpedo.







The IRW. Khazara will be a distinctive "Metallic Blue-Gray Tal Shiar" colour, rather than the "standard green Romulan color" of the regular Romulan Warbird model. Both versions of the ship feature a Romulan Cloaking Device.







Tactical Cube 138 will be the largest ship in the game, shown at full scale, while the regular Borg Tactical Cubes will be 50% of this size (supposedly made from salvages components to explain the discrepancy). Both ships feature a Borg Disruptor Beam and Borg Transwarp Device.





The Captain’s Yacht does not have a unique version in the auction, and also won't have any extra abilities. Just a nice ship to fly about in.

All the ships in the auction have First Fleet designation, which gives them unlimited destruction insurance in the game. Presumably that means the regulars versions are vulnerable to being blown up! Each ship in the auction will be offered on the CSC store page for just over a week, with one ship at a time at auction, starting from the 28th of May. You can read more about them on CSC dev blog.


This is actually the second Star Trek event in the game, starting back last August, they had the Star Trek: Divergence Alpha Event, run on basically the same basis, but with six different ships offered that time: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Enterprise-D, IKS Rotarran, USS Rio Grande, USS Defiant, and USS Voyager. The reason I described the market in this game earlier as ludicrous, is because the unique version of the Enterprise-D sold for a mind-boggling $30,807.45, or 170ish Ether (the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain).

The promo images for the previous event included a nice size chart showing how the Star Trek ships fit in with the native CSC ships:


Here's a quick rundown of the ships from Divergence Alpha:

The runabout USS Rio Grande is the small and common ship of the bunch, with no extra abilities. 9,000 of them were available through crates, plus a further 25 via other in game events, and 25 more held by  Lucid Sight, plus the one-off auctioned version.



The USS Defiant included a cloaking device. 275 were available via crates, plus another 5 in events, 25 held by Lucid Sight, and the unique auction version.



The IKS Rotarran also included a cloaking device. 275 were available via crates, plus another 5 in events, 25 held by Lucid Sight, and the unique auction version.



The USS Voyager included ablative armor, which in the game is an actual visible layer on top of the ship model. 275 were available via crates, plus another 5 in events, 25 held by Lucid Sight, and the unique auction version.



The USS Enterprise-D came with a phaser array. This was rarer, just 115 were available via crates, plus another 5 in events, 25 held by Lucid Sight, and the unique auction version.



Finally, the USS Enterprise, which came with a phaser bank. This was the prize, with only 60 available via crates, plus another 5 in events, 25 held by Lucid Sight, and the unique auction version, which nicely had the blockchain number 1701.



Each supply crate in Divergence Alpha also included four Star Trek themed modules, ready to be built into your ships. A wide range of Trekish tech included various weapons (including a tricobalt device, disruptor cannon, and photonic cannon), shields, engines (warp and impulse), cloaking devices, and tractors beams.

Finally here's the promo art from the earlier event, which does a good job showing the Trek ships in the CSC universe:









If you fancy playing, you can find out all about the game on the Crypto Space Commander website. The Picard event starts on the 29th of May.



1 comment:

Dwight Williams said...

The Rotarran is tagged as "IKC-62127"?

Since the Klingons signed onto the Khitomer Accords, I suppose they eventually signed onto whatever interstellar conventions govern starship registrations as well. But I wonder how they arrived at "IKC" as the prefix and how the Rotarran comes in at that number in particular.

Find Star Trek comics, toys, statues, and collectibles at TFAW.com!