A free Star Trek game mod in Second Life - by Loki Eliot

What is Loki Eliot doing if he doesn't work on SL Goonies adventures on his sim Escapades, when he isn't developing his Bashables system and NPC fights, when he isn't developing mini games (or working on his virtual fashion line)? Well he is probably putting together a Star Trek game mod - because he isn't busy enough and because he can.

Picture by Loki Eliot

Loki Eliot has released a first freebie demo pack with two ships and a medical base to regain energy. He explains that the aim of the game is to outfox your opponents and blast them into submission. As you get damaged your ship will emit smoke until finally you will drift in a spin for 30 seconds before regaining control and health. You can get full health back by clicking the Medical Space Stations, but be quick as there is a 60 second wait before the option to click the station returns. Each ship has their advantages and disadvantages.

The starship game is one of moving your ship into position and then firing then moving out the way, not quite pew pew galactic whizzing. There is the added element that the klingon ship has shorter range, lower shields, yet faster and has two canons compared to the federation ship. Also you can regain health from the little floating space station included with the pack. I say little, but the ships are between 30 and 40 meters long, perhaps not healthy for a sim to hold a galactic space battle. Lokieliot.com

Inara Pey highlighted the fascinating materials textures that Loki used for modelling the ships:

The result was a flyable Starship Enterprise, which utilised a model he found on a Star Trek fan site and imported into SL before scripting it to fly and adding local lighting and materials. Following this, Loki imported a number of additional Star Trek models, including one of the USS Reliant (“KHHHHHAaaaaaannn!!”) and a Klingon Bird of Prey, both of which he decided to put together into a little freebie boxed starship combat game.  

Switch to a materials-capable viewer, and [...] it certainly adds a credible amount of depth to the model. As well as the lighting and materials elements, Loki has also scripted the ships as flying “sit” objects and added a range of Trek sound effects. For those wishing to try them as intended – in combat – they both fly well, and can be comfortably manoeuvred in a single region. Modemworld

I have tried out the ships myself and they are such a joy to fly with. When gliding in a starship over my home sim, it made me experience the region from a whole new perspective . One of the ships seems to have a little bug with the camera angle when clicking the wrong part of the ship when trying to sit. You need to make sure to click the blue jet and select "sit here" if you experience any problems. 

In order to rez the ships and to fire the laser cannons, you need to be on a sim that has "building enabled". Go to a sandbox if you can't find one easily. You can pick up the boxed game on a shelf at Loki's inworld store.

By the way, Natascha Randt has made a great video with the two available ships - it looks great even if the materials textures are not enabled in the viewer she used.