Video Game / Star Trek: New Worlds

Where War and Exploring go hand in hand.

Conflict is inevitable.

Tagline.

Star Trek: New Worlds is a Real-Time-Strategy game published by Interplay Entertainment in 2000, where you take control of either the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire or the Romulan Star Empire in missions to explore and control numerous unknown planets which spilled into the universe after a weapon's test went awry, while battling off competing factions, before getting embroiled in a full-scale interstellar war against ancient races...

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Examples

• Absolute Xenophobe: The Metar are this to all other factions, except for the Taubat. Justified as the Taubat were created by the Metar themselves.
• Adaptive Ability: This is a unique ability used by the Metar in the later missions of the game, where you will encounter larger and more powerful variations of most of their units. This is lampshaded in one of the Federation missions where the Hubrin reveal the Metar have this ability to specialize at will, genetically modifying their body forms over a single generation.
• Another Side, Another Story: The game offers three factions to play as, being the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire. Each faction offers their unique missions, while also having 'joint' missions, where you face the other two factions on the same planet with the same opposition, albeit with each faction having their own objectives to complete.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: On a basic mission, the total amount of structures and vehicles your faction can have is 50, but this cap can be extended up to a maximum of 90 by either upgrading your Sickbay and/or building a Colonial House and a Livestock Farm (Klingons)/Hydroponics Farm (Federation)/Biology Facility (Romulans). The Colony Limit is already increased if a mission already has either a Colonial House and/or a farm or two present right from the start.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Some mission objectives can only be completed by using a specific vehicle (like using a Science Vehicle to scan specific structures or an APC to capture buildings, which are usually pointed out during the mission briefing).
• Artificial Stupidity: In many missions where you encounter colonies of the other playable factions, whenever a structure present from the start gets destroyed, the AI does not rebuild them, nor do they place defenses in specific chokepoints which leaves their bases exposed to enemy fire. In some missions they may not place any additional buildings next to the ones they start with and in other missions they do not move any of their specialized vehicles such as Scouts and Advanced tanks about, leaving those units sitting duck at their rally points which makes them easy targets for any other hostile factions. Whenever the AI colonies have vehicles that do move out, they don't actively pursue any of their own actual mission objectives in the joint missions, instead only moving to strike at any other faction present on the field as well as the player's faction. AI Ground Scouts and Science Vehicles, whenever they do move out on the battlefield, are somehow programmed to act similar to a regular tank. Hilarity Ensues when they relentlessly pursue one of the other hostile units on the move or move back and forth in front of a defense turret in vain attempts to retaliate when attacked or move around any structure like a mining facility to attack it, their attempts only ending when the unit itself is destroyed.
• Auto-Save: A rather poor example; while you can't save the game in-mission, completed missions will be listed when you select the faction you want to play, so you can choose to play them again if you wish.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Klingon Cloaked Disruptor Tank. By the time you've built up your base enough to access it from the build list, you'll also have the Klingon Disruptor Battery at your disposal. On top of that, you'll never see a Klingon base with Cloaked Tanks at their rally points from the start of a mission.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: All three playable factions have APCs as an option, mainly used to capture enemy structures as part of a mission objective. The Romulans also have a cloaked version of the APC which can be used to sneak by fortified bases virtually undetected.
• Bag of Spilling: Whatever resources you manage to mine and process in one mission is not carried over to the next one.
• Beam Spam: All races can invoke this with enough Phaser/Disruptor Tanks, but the Romulan Cloaked APC takes it to where buildings can collapse within seconds after repeated fire in sufficient numbers. The Metar Advanced Yat can invoke this with just two of them and the starships can also invoke this when assisting their ground forces in the levels they appear in.
• Book Ends: The Romulan Shiva Weapon's Test brought all the Anomaly Worlds into the universe. You can play as the Romulans to use a similar device to send all those Worlds back to where they came from...
• Color-Coded Armies: This represents the factions present within the missions on your Tricorder Minimap: Orange for the Klingons, Blue for the Federation and Green for the Romulans, as well as Yellow for the Orion, Taubat and Metar and Purple for the Hubrin and Rival units. Each structure or vehicle(s) on the tricorder minimap will flash white when selected and flash red when under attack. The tricorder minimap background also has a specific color for the faction you're currently playing as. This is also seen on the regular map itself: Klingons have brown buildings with green vehicles, the Federation's units and buildings have the same gray coloring on the hulls like their starships, the Romulans have blue-tinted vehicles with overall beige colored structures, the Hubrin possess only a single purple colored fortress with one type of tank in beige/gold and red, the Taubat vehicles are beige with buildings that are dark gray with green and red-patterend areas and the Metar units are white and red colored, with their structures being a dark gray with blue and magenta-tinted areas.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The mineral fields present in each mission are shown in a specific color on your tricorder minimap, which indicate an abundance of a specific mineral.
• Command & Conquer Economy: All structures and units you wish to build or upgrade require a certain amount of resources to be used to build them.
• Construct Additional Pylons: Every mission you start grants you in any case a Colony Hub and Storage Facility, requiring you to build a Construction Yard to access the buildings and upgrades available on the first stage, and then upgrade the Hub and Construction Yard again to access more options. Some missions are a bit more generous by having some structures and defenses already pre-built for you, at which you only have to build those facilities which are left or necessary to gain access to all the upgrades and vehicles available. Some missions (not counting tutorial missions) go even a step further by requiring you to build specific structures as part of a mission objective, with some structures/defenses becoming only available if a different building or upgrade is finished.
• Critical Annoyance: The famous Star Trek Red Alert horn blares whenever your units are under attack.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Metar are doing this to the Federation, Klingons and Romulans shortly after awakening (regardless of the player's actions during the mission where they first emerge). Most notably being the destruction of the Klingon Third Fleet (which consisted out of some 37 warships) in orbit of the planet Bursai IV, where one of the Klingon missions takes place, as well as a mission on the planet Al-Fadir, where the main outposts of all three factions were obliterated by the Metar, save for a few structures...
• Deployable Cover: The Federation is capable of manufacturing Mobile Shield Generators, which can be used to protect Federation attack forces en route, remote Mining Stations, or even the colony itself if necessary, until the colony has been developed enough to where static shield generators become available to build. Although mobile shields can only be built if the colony has been developed enough (like having at least a Level 3 Vehicle Yard, a Science Station with an Energy Lab upgrade and a Photon Turret present), the later missions give you at least three of these right from the start.
• Difficulty Levels: The game offers three factions to play, with the difficulty being related to mission objectives and the technology available to you:
  • Novice = The Klingon Empire, relying mostly on (heavy) guns and brute force using their Disruptor Tanks and Batteries, with most objectives revolving around destroying enemy targets.
  • Average = The United Federation of Planets, which have a more scientific set of objectives (scanning structures and research) and can rely on Mobile Shield Generators to protect both assault teams as well as remote mining facilities, while also having more powerful Advanced Photon Artilleries.
  • Expert = The Romulan Star Empire, their missions revolve more on deception which involves mostly capturing specific structures and can avoid most heavy combat by using their Cloaked Tanks and APCs to pass by fortified bases. The Romulans also have two officers which give you a briefing on the mission at hand, with the second temporarily usupring the first officer in order to pursue his own objectives.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Admiral Narok appears to be a strict yet ingenious commander, planning strategies that involve gathering resources, capturing specific buildings and taking a Metar Leader hostage, only to use this against the Klingons in order to exact vengeance for the Romulans' humiliating defeat by the hands of the Klingons in the Briar Patch before. Later on it is revealed that the use of Metar technology can be used to defeat the Metar themselves rather than the Klingons.
• Easy Level Trick: It is possible in any mission to destroy hostile outposts of any faction to prevent them from sending more units after your base. While most Klingon missions follow this concept as a mission objective to a degree, it can also be done when playing as the Federation and the Romulans if you wish to have any freedom in exploring the area, protect remote mining stations or allied bases or to ensure you won't be bothered by any more enemy units. Alternatively it is also possible to capture the Vehicle Yards of any opposing faction, which prevents them from producing any more units until either the APC or the captured Vehicle Yard are destroyed.
• Enemy Mine:
  • While the Hubrin, one of the ancient races that inhabit the Anomaly System planets, appear hostile against either of the three playable factions, they eventually request an end to hostilities and propose an alliance to fight against the Metar together.
  • One Federation mission deals with fending off attacks from both the Hubrin AND the Metar while trying to recover a science team with a captive dormant Metar Ras. Fortunately, the Romulans are also present with a small outpost and will supply the Federation with some additional equipment to aid them...
  • It is possible to have units of other factions join your battle group whenever you want to engage an enemy base. This only works best if the units you wish to have to join your team are your allies (that is, they do NOT attack you) and they share your enemies regarding other factions present. The only time this can be dangerous if a specific unit is part of a mission objective, so you must be cautious they do not get destroyed in case you go on the offensive with them.
• Energy Weapon: Your defenses and vehicles mainly use Disruptors, Phasers or Photon Torpedos to attack. The defenses will not work if your colony does not have enough power available to operate them.
• Equipment Upgrade: Specific buildings within your colony can be upgraded which unlocks more building options or allows specific vehicles to be manufactured. This is something that has to be done again and again with each new mission.
• Escort Mission: Only a very few missions are these, usually relating to protecting a specific weapon or vehicle, of which its destruction by enemy forces leads to an immediate mission failure.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Your faction's vehicles are named with simple/obvious names related to their purpose, from Science Vehicle to the Phaser/Disruptor Tank etc. This also goes for the buildings and defenses. Strangely subverted with the Metar units, whom have more alien names such as Bur, Dea, Yat, Nak and Ras. Played straight with the Metar Sniper.
• Fragile Speedster: The Romulan Cloaked APC is this. It can be easily destroyed by most enemy units, but in turn it is quite fast (second only to the Ground scout), has a high rate of fire on its disruptor and its ability to cloak allow it to bypass defenses safely (provided the 'move without attacking' option is selected when issuing orders).
• Friendly Fire Proof: All weapons fired by your troops or defenses will not harm anyone of your units who are in the line of fire. They will also not attack any other faction if the Ally status is set to 'Friendly' or 'Neutral', although structures and units of allied/neutral factions can still take damage when in the line of fire.
• Game-Breaking Bug: A few missions can become unbeatable if certain objectives or AI factions are wiped out. While the mission objective itself can technically be completed at any point in time, there is no indication of how fast it must be done, nor is there an in-mission prompt of that you are too late with completing said objective or if a specific structure is destroyed, forcing you to quit back to the main menu in order to 'end' the mission. Even though it does allow for free-roaming and destroy every other hostile faction present on the field and mine all the resources available, it is cumbersome as there is simply no other way to complete the main mission. Fortunately, the mission briefings hint at what needs to be done, even if it is in a hurry, so this problem can be avoided if the player pays attention to it and only does what is necessary to complete the mission asap. A minor but equally annoying bug is whenever something invisible somehow blocks the path of a unit having to pass through a passageway to reach a remote area, especially if said area contains a location vital to a mission objective.
• Gotta Kill Them All: Most of the early Klingon Missions fall into this category, but one mission in particular requires you to find and kill every single Taubat and Metar unit and destroy any of their structures and turrets present once the main objective of retaking captured buildings is done. The hidden Klingon Bonus Mission is a similar scenario where you have to wipe out the Taubat base as well as a Romulan settlement.
• Gunship Rescue: A Klingon Bird of Prey and a Romulan Warbird respectively will assist their forces in a few missions, either by moving in a fixed patrol around their base and the main battlefield or move in to aid their ground units during an assault on the main enemy. One mission has even the Metar being aided with a starship of their own.
• Hive Caste System: The Metar.
• Ignored Enemy: Two to three Romulan missions technically count as this, as the focus lies more of the commanding officer's feud with The Klingons rather than the more lethal Metar, even though the player can choose in any of these missions to attack the Metar regardless.
• Interface Screw: One of the alien units you encounter late in the game will cause disruptions in your Tricorder minimap, making it hard to figure out where friendly or enemies are nearby in that area and what portion of your units or colony is under attack until that particular unit is destroyed.
• Invisibility Cloak: The Romulans can build Cloaked Tanks and Cloaked APCs. Later missions even gives the Romulans a certain amount of Cloaked Tanks and APCs to use. Additionally, one hidden bonus mission features a Romulan Warbird which can cloak and the Klingons can optionally build Cloaked Tanks of their own.
• It's Up to You: Some missions require you to send your units to capture specific buildings or retrieve a specific unit and escort them safely to your colony.
• Justified Tutorial: The game also offers a tutorial mission which you can play, which offers either a small campaign where the various aspects of the game are explained, as well as a standalone tutorial mission with in-mission instructions about the features of the game.
• Living Ship: The Metar Starship qualifies as this with the inside walls pulsating and what appear to be tendrils moving around as seen in the ending cutscene.
• Magnificent Bastard: Admiral Narok is this, overlapping with The Chessmaster to a degree. First he usurps the role as your CO claiming that the previous one is 'indisposed', later on claiming that his agents have 'located' him and 'free him' very soon for example, making sure that he has your compliance in regards to the missions he has set out for you.
• Mighty Glacier: The Klingon Disruptor Battery. Slow and cumbersome, but are devastating in numbers. The Federation Advanced Photon Artillery counts as this as well.
• Multi-Mook Melee: The hidden Federation Bonus mission counts as this, as the only objective is to defend your colony against waves of incoming Orion Pirates.
• Mysterious Past: The Player Character if any of the in-game briefings and on-screen messages from early missions are of any indication:
  • The Klingon Player is of a well-respected/noble House and has been selected by the High Council to kickstart their colonial program.
  Onscreen Message: Welcome to Taal. It is an honor to serve with your House.
  • The Federation Player is a character whom did rather well in the infamous Kobayashi Maru test, saving the freighter and bagging two Klingon cruisers before their ship was destroyed.
  • The Romulan Player is a character whose brother was killed in the original weapon's test and as such has been selected to lead the Romulan Colony Program. Said player also has a rivalry with Admiral Narok ever since the battle of the Briar Patch/Klach D'Kel Brakt which went disastrous for the Romulans.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer of the game mixes gameplay with scenes from the introduction movie, as if implying there is actual crew keeping in contact with ground forces and whatnot, but a more egrogious example is a brief scene of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey shelling a small Federation outpost with its weapons, destroying the Sickbay in the process, something that isn't seen in the game proper. The layout of the mission used in that scene is present in the game in the form of a hidden bonus mission, where you actually play as the Klingons with the colony coming under siege from a Romulan Warbird.
• Not Playing Fair With Resources: Regardless of what faction you play, the AI factions can build units, buildings and defenses without upgrading them or without having to build mines to gather resources. Downplayed as vehicle manufacturing is usually limited to specific tanks and artillery, and only very rarely utilize their advanced vehicles. They also don't seem to be in a hurry with adding additional structures, nor do they ever attempt to rebuild any of their structures/defenses which were present from the start of the mission after those get destroyed.
• Ominous Floating Castle: Downplayed example in the Hubrin Fortress, yet it can one-shot most units in a single strike from any of its three firing points when in range.
• Optional Stealth: When playing as the Klingons or Romulans, you can choose to build Cloaked Disruptor Tanks to strike enemy bases from a poorly defended position or bypass fortified outposts to reach a remote area, using the 'Move Without Attacking' option from the playbook. Pluspoints for the Romulan Cloaked Assault Vehicles for having a high rate of fire AND being able to capture buildings without being detected.
• Planar Shockwave: Downplayed as they don't appear in space or cause damage overall, but these are present whether any vehicle or structure gets destroyed during gameplay.
• Protection Mission: A very few missions have these, where you must ensure a specific building or vehicle survives, with its destruction resulting in an immediate mission failure. A few of the early Federation missions center around the protection of a Taubat colony; the destruction of enough structures will result in a mission failure.
• Regenerating Health: Most of the buildings, defenses and vehicles have shields that regenerate over time after taking damage.
• Remixed Level: The hidden Romulan Bonus Mission uses the same layout as the very first Federation mission, with the Romulan Base located on the spot where the Klingon Colony is located in the latter, and the area where the Federation base was in that mission is now an outpost occupied by Taubat and Orion forces. Similarily, one Federation mission uses the same layout as the Tutorial missions, with some changes made in available colony space as well as the enemies/factions and available minerals present. The Tutorial missions also do this, as the standalone tutorial mission has a different starting position and more factions/buildings present compared to the main tutorial campaign. The final four gameplay missions do this as well, but this is justified in regards to their mission objectives as observed in the mission briefing, with the second Containment Field mission giving you just an altered starting line-up of structures and units, while the true final mission also gives all factions a different starting position with just a basic colony to use.
• Resource-Gathering Mission: Both the second Federation and Romulan missions are these, but the big one is 'The Jaws of Death', where the Federation, Klingons and Romulans each must mine and process specific amount of Dilithium and Kelbonite in order to build the new Anomaly Device. A few tutorial missions also cater to mining resources to complete cetain objectives.
• Servant Race: The Taubat, being created by the Metar to maintain their stasis fields during dormancy.
• Sitting Duck: Happens with all units when at their rally point, including assisting starships unless scripted to move in. Advanced units from the other playable factions also do this when not controlled by the player.
• Starting Units: The later missions gives you advanced vehicles (like the Disruptor Battery, Mobile Shield, Advanced Photon Artillery or Cloaked APC) while your colony itself only has the basic facilities present, requiring you to build/upgrade the facilities needed to produce more of them.
• Superweapon: Both the Bad Guy Device created by Admiral Narok as well as the Anomaly Device.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity: While the first initial missions grant you just the Colony Hub and a Storage Facility, later missions give you control over larger amounts of resources and a pre-built set of structures from Power and Shield Generators to Defense Turrets as well as a number of standard assault and advanced vehicles like Mobile Shields, Advanced Artillery, Cloaked Tanks and Disruptor Batteries. One mission even gives you a LOT of resources from which you can quickly set up your base at first in order to proceed with your mission objective while other missions grant you an increased number of Construction, Work and Cargo Bees right from the start to quickly work on construction and upgrades, even though you can quickly add more yourself if needed once a Vehicle Yard is present.
• Time Trial: More of a Time Attack variety; the hidden Romulan Bonus Mission requires you to complete your objectives before the Federation and the Klingons arrive on the planet you're on. While there is no actual time visible, the dialogue box of the commanding officer will let you know.
• Top-Down View: The main sight of the game on two different altitudes, but it is possible to go in a sort-of-first person view, as the camera there will let you circle around a selected structure or vehicle.
• Worker Unit: Cargo Bees for Resource Transportation, Work Bees for Resource Extraction and Construction Bees for constructing buildings and defenses. There is also an Unarmed Personnel Carrier which is rarely used.
• You Require More Vespene Gas:
  • Every building in the colony requires a certain amount of processed minerals to be built (except for the Storage Facility). Gaining more of these minerals requires a Resource Processing station and a Mining Station to extract and process these minerals from wherever possible.
  • The colonies of all playable factions also requires enough power for all systems to run smoothly. If efficiency of all buildings drop to 40%, messages will continue to pop up informing the player that the colony power is insufficient, thus requiring more power generators. A basic colony can run off one or more basic power generators, but the more buildings that come, including shield generators and defense turrets, the more power is demanded, at which only the Advanced Power Generators can help in meeting such demands. Some missions that grant you a more developed colony from the start is likely to have one or more of these power generators right off the bat, allowing you to focus on building those structures necessary to get to the mission objective quickly.
• Zerg Rush: This can be done by pretty much every faction in the game if you build enough tanks, but you can take it up to eleven with Romulan Cloaked Assault Vehicles, due to their ability to cloak and having a high rate of fire on their disruptors. It can also lead to a Curb-Stomp Battle when using Klingon Disruptor Batteries.

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