Trivia
In many ways, the look and gameplay of WinTrek is similar to EGATrek.
Contributed by
WildKard (11891) on Aug 07, 2005.
WinTrek offers six difficulty levels, ordered from most difficulty to easiest one: Admiral, Captain, First Officer, Officer, Yeoman and Expandable Crewman.
Expandable Crewman is alluding to the "Red Shirt" from Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS). While "Red Shirt" can be used for any crewman wearing red, including engineering (i.e. Scotty), it is actually meant to describe the ships security unit.
In TOS, to both show action, but also the danger of deep space, some people were required, which don't survive the episode. And that was the function the security unit had. They are beaming down with Kirk and co., but they were shot, vaporized, stabbed, stroke, strangled, stepped onto a mine or were even beamed out into space. Expandable personal.
And since the fact that someone from the security unit will die on the next planet, it is understandable that the average security (wo)man is just a crewman - the Expandable Crewman. (In fact, I can only remember one single episode, The Devil in the Dark, where you could see a security officer.)
Contributed by
Xoleras (66998) on Aug 05, 2005.
While originally being Shareware, the author Joseph Jaworski has released the game a few years ago (2003 or earlier) for free. The game can be downloaded from its official website (see Link section).
Along with the game itself, the author also released the manual, which was initially only available in printed form for those that bought the full version, for free too as a PDF file.
Finally, the entire C source code was also made available, which resulted in the open-source project WinTrek Enhanced, a remake of this game, which is designed for Windows 95 and newer.
Contributed by
Xoleras (66998) on Aug 05, 2005.
Some discrepancies between WinTrek and the Star Trek universe:
Sectors:
- WinTrek: the smallest area you use; you drive with impulse (sub-light-speed)
- Star Trek: the smallest area too, but due to its size (20x20x20 ly), you drive with warp (faster then the speed of light) instead of impulse, otherwise it would literally take ages to cross a sector (min 20 years with the speed of light)
Quadrants:
- WinTrek: a quadrant consists of sectors; the quadrant grid is practically identical with the sector grid, therefore quadrants are part of a bigger system; you drive with warp from one quadrant to another.
- Star Trek: a quadrant consists of sectors too, but there are only four quadrants in the galaxy (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta - all four containing one fourth of the galaxy; for example, we are on the border of the Alpha and Beta quadrants). You do also drive with warp from one quadrant to another, but the required speed is astronomical. (Note: there are also stellar objects that have the quadrant as part of there proper name, but those aren't countable, as there is no cartographic system behind it.)
Conclusion: WinTrek's quadrant is a Star Trek sector, whereby WinTrek's sector has no counterpart in Star Trek, and Star Trek's quadrant isn't used here.
Dilithium:
- WinTrek: dilithium is the fuel used for all things on-board the Enterprise (warp, impulse, shield strength and power of the phaser beam).
- Star Trek: dilithium is just used for one thing and it is not even a "fuel". It is used inside the warp core to regulate the warp reaction. If you are out of dilithium, you basically are dead in the water, even when all the other ship system still running. If you are out of dilithium here, a sector will become a quadrant, as you can only drive with impulse.
(Note: I've omitted the obvious discrepancy that WinTrek is 2D, while the Star Trek universe is 3D ;))
Contributed by
Xoleras (66998) on Aug 05, 2005.
