Starfleet Command was inspired by the board game Star Fleet Battles from Amarillo Design Bureau. SFB has been a popular, long-running franchise since its beginnings in the “pre-movie” Star Trek years. Its years of play testing and playing made it a prime candidate for conversion to a computer game.
Starfleet Command uses a great deal of the SFB material, but has also made some changes and enhancements; one of the most important of these is that the game is no longer turn based, but occurs in real time in a 3D environment. (Diehard SFB players can take advantage of the game speed slider to make it run almost as slowly as a turn based game, though!). But you shouldn’t think that we tried to turn it into a first person shooter, or even a dogfight simulator. The ships in Starfleet Command are vast warships, and like ships in the age of sail a naval engagement between these vessels is a deliberate and almost stately affair. Their turning radius, speed, and rate of recharging all combine to make handling one of these ships a job for a real captain – one who knows his ship and its capabilities, and has a pretty good idea of what his enemy is working with, too.
Star Trek: Starfleet Command at a Glance