Welcome aboard, Captain. This tutorial covers everything you need to command the U.S.S. Enterprise and clear the galaxy of Klingon warships.
Launch the game from the Tronsoft Games library. Choose a difficulty, doctrine and bridge officer in Mission Briefing to generate an 8×8 galaxy seeded with Klingon warships, a handful of
starbases, and stars. Your goal appears in the Captain's Log at the bottom of
the screen — destroy every Klingon warship before the stardate clock runs
out or your energy is gone. Press New Mission at any time to start over.
On desktop, ship information stays left, the game stays in the center and bridge commands stay right. On narrow screens these areas stack. Sidebars can scroll independently.
Both maps have +/− zoom (100–250%), Reset view and Pan mode. Enable Pan mode to drag the map with mouse or touch; focus the viewport and use arrows to pan by keyboard. Turn Pan mode off before choosing a sector or quadrant. Viewing changes never use a turn or energy.
Tab to map cells, use arrow keys to choose a cell and Enter or Space to activate it. Arrow navigation stops at each map edge. Screen shortcuts move keyboard focus to the destination map or tab. Cells announce their coordinates and detected contacts. Command dialogs keep keyboard focus until dismissed; gameplay shortcuts are disabled inside dialogs. Escape cancels a command.
Arm Torpedo always opens Short Range for targeting. Failed save loads leave your current mission intact.
Enter fullscreen is in the controls sidebar; Escape exits. Embedded portal views may need fullscreen permission. Motion effects follow your system’s reduced-motion setting. Save/resume and career data retain the existing browser-local format.
The bundled original PDF manual is historical. This tutorial and README describe the current interface.
The console has three viewscreens, selected by the tabs (or keys 1,
2, 3):
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ◆ | Your ship, the Enterprise |
| ✖ | Klingon warship |
| ⬣ | Starbase (dock here to resupply) |
| ✦ | Star (blocks movement and torpedoes) |
On the Long Range screen each scanned quadrant shows three digits — Klingons, Bases, Stars — and the energy cost to warp there.
Impulse (within a quadrant): on the Short Range screen, click any empty sector to fly there. Distance costs energy.
Warp (between quadrants): on the Long Range screen, click any quadrant to
jump to it, or use Set Course (Warp) to type coordinates. Warp costs
more energy over longer distances and when your warp engines are damaged.
Auto-navigation: Nearest Enemy (LRS) and
Nearest Base & Dock (LRS) automatically warp across quadrants to the
nearest target your long-range sensors have revealed, then close in. Run a
Long Range Scan first so the sensors know where things are.
The game is turn-based. Each action you take — moving, firing, scanning, repairing — counts as your turn, after which every Klingon in your quadrant returns fire. Docking at a starbase makes you safe from attack.
Phasers (P): enter an energy amount to fire. Damage is split
across all Klingons in the quadrant and falls off with distance.
Photon torpedoes (T): arm a torpedo, then click near an enemy.
The torpedo locks onto the nearest Klingon and homes in — but a star in its
path will absorb it, so mind your firing lines.
Shields (S): transfer energy into your shields to absorb hits.
Raise them before a fight; note that they must be down to beam a boarding
party.
Boarding parties (B): with shields down and a Klingon within
transporter range, beam an assault team aboard the enemy ship. Softening the
Klingon with phasers first improves your odds. Success captures the vessel and
salvages energy (and sometimes a torpedo); failure costs crew.
Enemy fire can knock out any of eight subsystems (warp engines, sensors, phasers, torpedo tubes, shields, transporter, computer). On the Damage Control screen you can:
R) — wait several
stardates while the crew works (free, but time passes and enemies keep firing).Move adjacent to a starbase (⬣) on the Short Range screen and press
D, or use Nearest Base & Dock. Docking restores energy,
torpedoes, crew, and all systems to full.
Destroy every Klingon warship in the galaxy. The mission-complete screen shows your final stardate and remaining energy.
You lose if the stardate clock runs out with Klingons remaining, if your energy and shields both reach zero (dead in space), or if your crew is wiped out by failed boarding actions and enemy fire.
This release does not save progress between sessions; each mission is a fresh
game. Press New Mission (or the button on the end-of-game screen) to
generate a new galaxy at any time.