sega star trek cockpit

Gaming through one world at a time.

Where no man has ever gone before in the arcade – Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator

This was the front page of a four-page flyer given to arcade operators for the game (courtesy of the Arcade Flyer Archive ). The back panel showed both the cockpit and stand-up cabinets while the inside had the marketing spiel on the game and how it would make your arcade super awesome.

On Friday, November 27th, Leonard Nimoy passed away at the age of 83. Many people knew him as his most popular character, Mr. Spock from Star Trek and he was a versatile actor that I also remember from many other films and series such as the original Mission Impossible TV series to being Galvatron in Transformers: The Movie in the 80s. Yet I keep coming back to Spock because that’s who I remember him the most as and whose character led my imagination on through the original series and the films literally taking everyone on to where no one has gone before.

As a very humble tribute to his memory, today I’m taking a look at Star Trek by Sega. Released in 1982, it was a vector-based shooter where players flew the famous Enterprise, destroying Klingon warships, protecting starbases, and eventually confronting the nefarious Nomad in one-on-one battle. Trekkies know Nomad as a probe that had suffered damage in deep space where it was discovered by an alien probe (whose purpose was to sterilize soil samples) that merged with it giving it an unintended new purpose — that of sterilizing new life.

At the time, Sega was owned by Gulf+Western, an American conglomerate, who also happened to own Paramount Picutres who, in turn, owned Star Trek. With Sega in their stable of companies, it seemed like a no-brainer to make an arcade game based on the franchise, especially with Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan which came out in the same year and which apparently gave inspiration to how the game would look based on the tactical computer graphics used in the film during the Kobayashi Maru scene.

It ran on Sega’s G80 Vector Hardware which, according to the arcade archive at System 16 , had a trusty Zilog Z80 CPU as its brain and “various combinations” of sound systems including speech. This was all on one board and it ran a number of other vector-based games such as Eliminator and Space Fury.

The premise was that it was a “Strategic Operations Simulator” used to train command officers as it “vividly recreates actual battle conditions encountered by Federation Starships on patrol”. It was a nice way to make Star Trek, which involved more exploration, as an action game. This could be purchased as a regular stand-up cabinet with a dial control and buttons for important functions. Alternatively, there was also the option to buy it as a sit-down “cockpit”.

The cockpit flyer for Star Trek tried very hard to convince buyers that this monster cabinet was a perfect fit anywhere from groceries to bars.

It was a pretty sophisticated game for its time that tried to translate the feel of space combat at the helm of a complicated starship down to the twitch experience of the arcade and it didn’t do a bad job.  Controls were simple — the Enterprise flew along a plane allowing it only to turn left and right, could fire unlimited phasers, had a limited number of photon torpedoes and warp speed energy, and also had shields to help absorb a few hits from enemy fire.

The screen was divided into three major sections — the bottom half was dedicated to a first-person view and the top half was split between the gauges for three of the Enterprise’s main systems (shields, torpedoes, and warp speed) and a window showing a top down view of the sector the fight was taking place in. Starbases were where players could “dock” by touching them with the Enterprise and replenish a level of shielding, torpedoes, and warp energy. They also had to be defended from the Klingons. If one was destroyed, though, it just meant that you didn’t get a nice point bonus at the end of the round.

The attract mode showed off how the game was played such as this bit showing a Klingon warship shooting a hapless starbase.

Enemies were Klingon warships (for any Trekkies reading this, they looked a lot like the D7 class of battle cruiser) which, uncharacteristically, could be blown up with one phaser blast. Torpedoes acted as area-of-effect weapons with huge explosions that could take out ships close to each other at long range and were handy if you needed to snap off a shot without being accurate. Warp speed allowed you to get out of a tight spot with a burst of speed, but you only had so much of it, too.

If shields were lost, the next hit destroyed the shield gauge…then torpedoes…and then the warp drive. Docking with starbase immediately repairs everything but not to full capacity.

Each successive stage escalated in difficulty adding more and more Klingons. Some Klingons were tasked to attack only starbases. Others, marked in purple, were focused on attacking only you. Later stages added new enemies such as saucers and, eventually, an encounter with the zippy Nomad and its exploding space mines as a sort of boss encounter.

Take that, Klingons! The yellow carats spin as they target the enemy just like from Wrath of Khan.

Nomad lays these giant, anti-matter eggs (mines) everywhere. In the top-down map, he’s the yellow dot that’s zipping around and you have to chase him down while trying not to get blown up.

The game also had synthesized speech in addition to clips of similarly synthesized music, such as the opening fanfare from the TV series’ theme. Speech announced each sector (1.2, 1.3, 2.2, etc..) as you progressed through the game and the neat thing about it was that it sounded a lot like Mr. Spock himself. James Doohan had also loaned his voice to the game. The sound effects were also pretty solid as enemy fire impacted your shields, Klingon ships exploded, and phasers fired, though it was amusing to fly a surprisingly fighter-ship-agile Enterprise around even if it was only along one plane of movement.

It was ported to a wide range of platforms with a number of enhancements along the way such as replacing the vector graphics with colored sprites. It found itself at home on systems like the Apple II, Vic-20, the Commodore 64, the ColecoVision, and the Atari 2600. Unfortunately, it didn’t find a berth in later generations and remained firmly rooted in the 80s as an arcade classic.

Sega had managed to find a way to bring a piece of Star Trek into the arcades and it was a great, action filled shooter that gave players more than just targets to aim for. Staying alive with star bases, protecting them for points, and blasting foes coming after you before meeting Nomad created a varied experience that was fairly unique for the arcades. That and it had some great box art when it came home. Star Trek was a very different animal from Star Wars which could make it tricky to find a way to make games around it in the arcade, but for a brief moment in ’82, and with Mr. Spock and Scotty’s help, Sega managed to do it.

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• 1980's
• Games released in 1982
• Simulation games
• Licensed games
• Atari games

Star Trek Strategic Operations Simulator

• View history
• 4 Differences between versions
• 6 External links

Overview [ ]

Star Trek Strategic Operations Simulator is an arcade game based on the original Star Trek television program and released by Sega in 1982 . It is a vector game, with both two dimensional (the overhead scanner readout) and three dimensional (the combat-viewed area) displays. The player controls the Starship Enterprise, and must defend sectors from invading Klingon ships.

Gameplay [ ]

The player(s) must maneuver the Enterprise through a series of sectors and destroy enemies to advance to the next sector. All enemies are shown on the radar section of the screen (at top right). At the bottom section of the screen is the cockpit view, where players line up enemies in the Enterprise’s crosshairs to fire away and destroy their targets or dock with starbases.

Klingon ships are identified in two ways: those that are in red, which are either in route to or are already attacking a starbase, and those that are purple, which go after the player. Starbases can withstand several hits until they are destroyed; if this happens, the Klingon ship will then turn purple and will start pursuing the Enterprise.

Like a starbase, the Enterprise can also withstand several hits before being destroyed; once that happens, the game is over, as players only have one life. However, they can dock with a starbase once per sector, which will repair some damage (denoted by an icon at the left side of the screen), add some Warp power, and a Photon Torpedo. The player will receive a bigger bonus at the end of clearing a sector if a starbase is left unused.

After a few sectors, Ant-Matter Saucers will also start appearing, which have a unique behavior of only moving when the player thrusts around the sector area; once they apply thrust, the Saucer will move. If the Enterprise is facing away from a Saucer and it is behind the Enterprise, it will move towards the player; if facing away and a player thrusts towards the saucer, it will move away. If a player allows the Saucer to touch the Enterprise, it will start stealing the Enterprise’s warp fuel. A player can just thrust away from the Saucer if it is behind their ship until it is close, stop thrusting, then turn around and destroy the ship.

After every several sectors, a NOMAD boss will appear, moving quickly and laying dangerous mines that will explode in a wide arc and cause damage if the Enterprise is too close to the explosion.

Along with regular firepower, the Enterprise also has a complement of Photon Torpedoes, which will travel a bit of a distance before exploding in a big arc (which will take out several Klingons if they are grouped together). Also, holding down the Warp button will cause the Enterprise to quickly thrust forward in whatever direction the player is facing.

Controls [ ]

• Turn Enterprise–left or right on dial controller
• Thrust button
• Fire button
• Photon Torpedo button
• Warp button–hold down to engage

Differences between versions [ ]

There was an added level to home versions of the game where the player had to dock with as many starbases as possible amidst a swarm of meteors before time ran out. The Enterprise automatically thrusted around the screen during these sectors. The Atari 2600, 5200, and TI-994/a versions had these extra sectors.

• The arcade game had voice synthesis, which featured the voices of Engineer Scott, saying “damaged repaired sir!” when the Enterprise docked with a Starbase, Science Officer Spock welcoming the captain when a game was started, telling people to play Star Trek during the attract mode, announcing each sector number whenever a new one is entered, and congratulating the player on a high score at the end (if attained).
• The game was presented in two styles of cabinets, standard standup and sit-down/semi-enclosed deluxe cabinet with the player's chair modeled after Star Trek Motion Picture's bridge chairs with controls integrated into the chair's arms.
• The Atari 2600 version came with a unique overlay that was included with the game that fit around the base of the controller, with the controller commands printed on the overlay.
• The game was ported to the Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, Atari 8-bit line, Atari 5200, Tandy Color Computer (as Space Wrek), Atari 2600, Commodore VIC-20, ColecoVision, and Apple II home systems.
• The Star Trek game that came out for the Vectrex home system in the same year is not a port of this game (which is called Star Trek the Motion Picture, actually).

External links [ ]

• Wikipedia article
• Title at Moby Games
• Title at Gamefaqs

Needs year, controls, and differences for other versions

• 1 Shadow the Hedgehog
• 2 Sonic the Hedgehog
• 3 Super Sonic

The Arcade Blogger

Arcade cockpits: excess all areas.

Working with limited technical hardware, the arcade manufacturers of the 80’s had to think outside of the box. Constantly delivering commercially successful immersive experiences to a demanding and fickle public was no easy task. Graphics, game play, sounds, artwork, controls and hardware all played an important part in making sure that operators took money in the machines they chose to buy and put out onto the arcade floor. This was not an exact science – if it had been, then every game would have been a huge success. But many fell by the wayside almost as soon as they were released. An “X Factor” brew of these components are what gave the handful of memorable arcade games their all-time “classic” status.

Cabinet design for the most part was about giving operators some purchasing options. A cocktail table suited certain environments like cafes and bars. Cabaret machines gave arcade owners the opportunity to squeeze more cabinets into limited floor spaces. But of course the full upright versions of machines were the ones to play – typically with full on artwork and larger screens, these were the icons of the 70s and 80s arcade world, the ones that we remember so fondly.

But one style of arcade cabinet certainly wasn’t about the operators. It was about the player. Cockpit (or “Environmental”) cabinets were about giving players a supposedly deeper, more immersive experience. Given the limitations of the tech available at the time, delivering this was not an easy thing for manufacturers to do. But this was the 80s, and cracking a nut with a hydraulic piledriver was not uncommon. In short, cockpit machines made a statement; they were bigger, louder and brasher: Outrageous, in-your-face hurrahs designed to amaze players and put them right inside the heart of the action. They screamed “PLAY ME”.

For operators they were deeply impractical, as you can see from the example above. Their footprint, weight and size would be two to three times the size of their standard upright brethren, and would usually come with an appropriate increase in cost to purchase. But with the lure of the enhanced player experience, came the promise of greater earnings, and they were seen as a product worth taking on despite the extra up front investment and increased floorspace requirement in an arcade.

Enclosing the player within a wooden behemoth of wood and metal, and assaulting their senses with a huge screen and sound effects, the point was to remove the outside world – a form of virtual reality without the headset, if you will. Atari really pioneered the concept. These images courtesy of atarigames.com, show the early design stages of a cockpit prototype in development at Atari HQ:

What’s interesting looking back at the finished designs now, is that you realise only certain games were considered for such a gargantuan design effort. You never saw something like a Dig Dug , a Centipede or a Kangaroo in cockpit form. A cockpit release was really only reserved for games that bordered on simulation. Driving games and shoot ’em ups were typically given this treatment – and even then only for a limited selection of titles. And when you take a look at these games, it sort of makes sense that those select titles were chosen. Let’s take a look at a few.

Some of the earliest examples of cockpit machines were made by Atari in the 70s. Night Driver was one of the first, and this adaptation of driving cockpit style cabs continued into the 80s. Here are a couple of rare pictures of a prototype design for what would become Pole Position :

Despite this awesome design, at some point Atari decided to enclose the player fully and came up with a different environmental cabinet. Here, Atari’s Pole Position and Pole Position 2 share the same design:

Vector title Red Baron also shares a very similar shape, albeit with a few subtle changes to accommodate the control panel:

The most desirable of all cockpit machines has to be Atari’s Star Wars . Encasing the player in a futuristic shaped sit down cabinet adds to the experience. Throw into the mix stereo sound and a 25″ Ampliphone vector monitor, and you moved the player from a game to an experience. Playing one of these is a rite of passage for any discerning fan of classic arcade machines:

As a 13-year-old kid in 1983, which would you rather put your coin into?

Continuing with Atari for a moment, let’s move onto 1984’s laser disc game  Firefox . As Atari’s only foray into the world of laser disc games, it included video footage from the film itself, and a voice-over provided by Clint Eastwood, the movie’s star. Firefox was dogged with technical issues which made its release a complete disaster. The games broke down almost as soon as they were sent out from the factory, and only a handful of examples exist today. It was way ahead of its time, and sadly, the laser disc players simply weren’t reliable. I think we can forgive Atari that, given they provided us with a fabulously stylish cockpit for the game:

Discs of Tron was a Midway game based on the film Tron. Game play is so-so, but the cabinet design and accompanying artwork more than made up for that. The game was marked for a cockpit release, and given the moniker EDOT ( Environmental Discs Of Tron ). The cabinet is absolutely stunning:

If you ever see one of these, go play it. In the UK, there are just 5 known examples of this cab left. The lighting, artwork and immersion is something to behold. Examples command a real premium among collectors. John’s Arcade has a great video about this cab on  YouTube  which is worth a watch.

Funai is not a well-known video game company, but their Inter Stellar game was released in impressive cockpit form. I’ve featured this cabinet on the blog before as it was actually conceptualised and designed by Atari:

Williams produced a mean looking cockpit for two titles, Sinistar and Blaster . Looking like something straight out of Mad Max, these cabs are super rare today:

Gameplay of these Williams titles really match that design somehow – tough as nails both of them.

Sega got in on the act over the years with several cockpit releases. 1980’s Space Tactics and Atari-licenced Missile Command shared almost identical designs:

Cool design that. Notice the 2.5″ trackball and huge speaker.

A few years later, Sega’s vector Star Trek was given this unique design:

Notice the lack of a traditional joystick control. If you’ve ever played one of these, you’ll know that the controls are in the arms of the seat. This gave the player the feeling of being sat in the “Captains Chair” controlling the game.

One of the nicer looking cockpits was Midway’s Omega Race . Released in 1981 this vector title takes Asteroids game play and looks, and adapts it to a futuristic shooter:

More than a passing nod there to Atari’s cabinets released at a similar time.

Nintendo’s only cockpit game was Radarscope . The game itself was not well received, and even the immersion provided by the environmental cabinet couldn’t prevent its early demise:

Notice the large viewing screen at the rear of the cab allowing other players to watch the action. A common theme running through most of these cabinets.

Two more from Atari here. RoadBlasters had a bespoke design not shared by any other game:

A low slung cabinet, it used a magnified screen to make the action on-screen seem closer and larger. It works for the most part, albeit in a somewhat primitive way.

And of course, the mighty Missile Command cockpit. I’ve played this cab a few times. it uses a 25″ projected monitor screen and houses a huge bass sub-woofer underneath the seat. It assaults the senses with sound and graphics. It is thought that just 100 of these were released:

Battlezone supposedly had a cockpit design which never made it out of the factory:

Impressive. Would have been interesting to play that!

What these huge cockpit machines highlight, is the space required to house just one of them. With what would have been a 12 month maximum shelf life, what were operators supposed to do with these things once players stopped putting coins in them? This is part of the reason why there are so few examples around today. They were released in small numbers from the factory, and were usually destroyed at the end of their lives.

Very much of their time, cockpit arcade cabinets are a reminder of a time when “bigger” was regarded as the way to make things better. And the handful of these beasts that remain, serve as a testament to 80’s arcade excess, and an industry willing to try anything to make money.

If you get a chance to play a cockpit machine, give it a go.

Thanks for stopping by this week.

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10 Comments Add yours

Hello, just wanted to let you know I found this site through reddit, and these articles and your restorations are so awesome. I’m currently restoring a Space Invaders and a neglected Battlezone myself, but I’m fairly new at all this, so your articles are incredibly helpful. Thanks and keep up the good work!

Like Liked by 1 person

Thanks N – glad you’re enjoying the blog. Plenty more on the way!

It’s amazing that these still show up. This shell of a driving cabinet is listed on eBay near me, with bids starting at A$50. http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=152292215931 – I wonder if someone with the space and expertise will snap it up and restore it.

Cool looking beast that Dan. Wonder what game was in it?

Some great cabs featured this week Tony. Some of which I would love to own (PP), and others I love to play at AC, etc.

However I find the baby brother cabaret cabinets equally alluring in their own way and from a collectors pov, far more house friendly.

Tony, I ran across your excellent blog while researching. I happen to have designed 3 of the cabinets shown. The 25″ overhead missile command, the “low slung” road blasters, the cut down road blaster proto, and the starwars sit down. Here is the original concept sketch for starwars. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mjdezine/3077819094/in/album-72157608388627211/ We had to modify the overhead 25″ monitor in missile command, it was so heavy that it was roughly handled in shipment. The first one arrived with the monitor on the seat! ha The road blaster without a top was a cabinet that could be moved easily. Imagine if you lift up the seat side, it could be rotated up on it’s back and hand trucked like an upright cabinet. That is Barney Huang pictured in the sit down mockup. He was also an industrial designer at Atari. killer page! Mike

Great article Tony on my favourite arcade cabs of all time. Love the Disks of TRON environment and the Sinistar. What other articles do you have on arcade games?

Click on “Articles” at the top of the page!

Firefox. Boy was that a machine. Especially the cockpit. Sadly I don’t have the room, but I do have a fully functional Upright

Just looking to verify a memory of playing a Firefox cockpit, and stumbled on this great read. I had to do some searching for other cockpits I remember, and reminded of Chase HQ’s cockpit (picture here: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9f/87/3e/9f873e531365f9f4728dd636e5c1ba8a.jpg ), but I never saw THIS version: http://flatsixes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Taito-Chase-HQ-Full-simulator.jpg

Hopefully a place like Arcade Club might get hold of some of these at some point…

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Star Trek SOS Cockpit Lower Bezel Overlay

SEGA DEDICATED COCKPIT (CAPTAINS CHAIR)

• This is for the Cockpit cabinet only
• Textured polycarbonate
• Color Matched to NOS piece
• 3M adhesive backed

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