Version 9.0.0

Happy Birthday, MTrek.com!

It’s been 30 years since the original MTrek was written by clp, almost 5 years since the launch of this mtrek.com server, and just over 2 years since the last score wipe.

Version 9

To mark this passing of time, the game has been updated to a “Classic” 1990’s version of the game… but with a few twists and easter eggs. For those of you who have gotten addicted to the ultra-powerful ships, worry not. Over time, unlocks and discoveries will be made to add depth to the game. Expansions will be released. If it seems like these hidden features need it, I’ll “help” the process along. There will also be challenges or special events with in-game rewards like we’ve seen a few years ago.

So please don’t be discouraged by the vanilla appearance on the surface of the game. Rather, take this opportunity to enjoy the “original” as it was when most of us started playing. Soon enough, the more contemporary ships and features will rise to the surface again. For the Banana Slugs out there, obviously yours was an even earlier incarnation. I settled on the 1997-ish version because it was arguably the most balanced, and 1997 was about the peak of mtrek’s popularity in terms of how many active players we had. Choosing that period also allows us to expand both forward and backwards.

Score Wipe

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve already noticed that all the ships are gone! Those hours spent building fleets and earning gold haven’t been wasted. The final scores have been preserved, and players’ ranks / cumulative scores will continue to be tracked on individual player pages (that’s where you click a player’ name on http://mtrek.com/scoreboard/stats). For whatever it’s worth, filling up a new scoreboard is one of the most entertaining parts of the game and we have quite a few powerhouse players who will be competing for that #1 spot. Game on 🙂

In Thanks

Finally, I’d like to thank all of the players who continue to play, making this all worthwhile. A Special Thanks goes out to Jay Ashworth and Joe Hopkinson, who wrote the JavaTrek game engine powering mtrek.com. I also have to thank Tim Wisseman for coming up with some of the earliest concepts for the game, and of course Chuck L. Peterson, who Created and maintained our favorite game for years. RIP clp

ToS Update

Please take a moment to read our updated Terms of Use:

http://mtrek.com/guides/rules/

Thank you
obit

Beta 6.0 Pre-release

Just an update for anyone wondering what’s going on with the beta:

It looks like February is still a go. I’ve been tidying up some loose ends, and I’m just about ready to push the button. Once I’m satisfied that everything is running as intended offline, I’ll make an announcement about 24 hours before we go live.

A few sneak previews:

• There’s an all-new Vulcan ship class. (Not the SV-1 from mtrek.pro)
• Delta quadrant is being set aside for now, and will be re-tooled for an expansion later this year.
• The list of torp-regenerating classes has been expanded to include some of those expensive high-capacity vessels. *cough cough galaxy* *cough cough Keldon*
• The rules of aquisition will begin to pay dividends for the Ferengi alliance
• The Orion pirate scum will spread fear throughout the quadrant
• We’ll see the return of a classic mtrek ship that hasn’t been seen since 1989

WARNINGS & DISCLAIMERS:

Any ships you currently have in your fleets should be flown carefully during the beta. I personally recommend setting any important ones aside until you get a feel for the new game balance. There have been adjustments to practically every ship class; some of them are more noticeable than others, but I assure you, they’re there. If you don’t want to mess up your fleet stats while testing beta ships, feel free to create another fleet to mess around in.

If you decide to fly a 5.x ship during the beta or after the final release, please note that your “Delta” ships will have been moved into Alpha quadrant. Most will end up at the corresponding base # to where it was last saved in Delta.

Also note that some ship class adjustments will be automatically applied to the 5.x ships when they enter the 6.0 environment, and others won’t. That means unfortunately, that there exists the possibility of 5.x-era ships ultimately being slightly weaker than their 6.0 counterparts, but in the case of glaring misbalances, I might be able to make manual adjustments. In the end I would generally view a slightly different specification as a “novelty”, and I doubt any of the differences will be game-breaking.

-obit