Star Trek: Bridge Commander

Star Trek: Bridge Commander is a space combat simulation set in the Next Generation universe and puts you in command of your own Starfleet starship and crew. It was published by Activision and developed Totally Games in 2002.

The Story revolves around a newly promoted captain who is assigned to investigate an explosion of a star in the Maelstrom. Throughout the mystery, the player will often encounter characters from the Star Trek universe, including Captain Picard and Commander Data. The captain and his crew take command of the Galaxy-class USS Dauntless, as well as the USS Sovereign, to combat a new threat to the Federation.

Where can I get it?
After a series of lawsuits, started in 2003, between Activision and Viacom, Paramount Pictures' parent company, Activison dropped the license to produce games based on the Star Trek universe. If you believe rumours, they only released 5000 copies of the game. That is why your only option is to buy the game on ebay or other sources.

Multiplayer after 2014?
Since the shutdown of all the Gamespy servers, it's no longer possible to play the multiplayer mode without some help. Thankfully, Bridge Commander supports LAN mode you can play it via a VPN-Client like Radmin or ZeroTier, alternativ if you know the IP adress of the host, by connecting direct to the adress.

How to improve the ingame performance?
Get a little bit more out of the game, run your STBC.exe in compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 3) and with disabled fullscreen optimizations.

Can I play the unmodded game in Widescreen?
In your BC folder you can find a file called config.cfg, which you edit to the following values:

[Graphics Options] Texture Detail|2 Number of Lights|8 MipMaps|1 Display Depth|16 Display Height|1080 LOD Skip|0 Visible Damage|3 Display Device=Direct3D T&L HAL on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 6GB Display Width|1920 Fullscreen Mode|1 Effect Detail|3 Save it and go to your scripts/tactical/interface folder. There you open the WeaponsDisplay.py file and add this:

dTORP_X_BIAS      = { 640:   1,                   800:   1,                   1024:   2,                   1280:   3,                   1366:   3,                   1600:   3,                   1920:   3                  } dTORP_Y_BIAS      = { 640:   -7,                   800:   -7,                   1024:   -7,                   1280:   -7,                   1366:   -7,                   1600:   -7,                   1920:   -7                  } dPHASER_X_BIAS      = { 640:   1,                   800:   1,                   1024:   2,                   1280:   3,                   1366:   3,                   1600:   3,                   1920:   3                  } dPHASER_Y_BIAS      = { 640:   -8,                   800:   -8,                   1024:   -8,                   1280:   -8,                   1366:   -8,                   1600:   -8,                   1920:   -8                   } Save that and next go to your scripts/icons folder, open their the LCARS_640.py and edit the following lines:

Screen_Pixel_Width =  xxxx to SCREEN_PIXEL_WIDTH      = 1920.0 Screen_Pixel_height = xxxx to SCREEN_PIXEL_HEIGHT      =  1080.0

Power_Gauge_Width = xxxx to POWER_GAUGE_WIDTH = 53.0 / 1920.0 Power_Gauge_Height = xxxx to POWER_GAUGE_HEIGHT = 125.0 / 1080.0

Save a final time and try to run Bridge Commander in Widescreen :)

What is the best mod?
Koayashi Maru is in the BC community considered to be the best mod available on the internet. It includes features like new ships, systems, scripts, weapons most of them are usable in Multiplayer. The mod also makes it possible to play with bots in Multiplayer.

Trivia
If you often talk to Brex, he will respond with "Damn it Jim, I'm an engineer, not a conversationalist!" a innuendo to Dr. Leonard McCoy.

The first time the Sovereign leaves the Starbase Commander Larsen says: "One-quarter impulse power" a reference to Captain Kirk, who will get a reprehend from Valeris,

Links

 * GameFront: a mod database
 * Khan Noonian Singh's Database: a big historical clan database
 * Kobayashi Maru
 * Patch 1.1
 * Radmin VPN/Zerotier two different VPN clients, future testing will show which is better