You'll be able to make your own Star Trek Online content on 9th December when update Season Three arrives.

The Foundry tools are still in beta, but you'll be able to use them to make your own missions and share them with friends.

Season Three also brings the option to replay missions, plus you can now use Borg technology on your spaceship.

Cryptic has even spruced up Sector Space to make it look and feel more realistic.

Cryptic's other MMO, Champions Online, is being turned into a free-to-play game. Star Trek Online will follow depending on how well Champions Online does. At least, that's what Cryptic boss Jack Emmert told Eurogamer recently.

A bumper year for Cryptic Studios – the MMO specialists behind Star Trek Online and Champions Online – has encouraged owner Atari to shift its focus to the online market.

As reported by IndustryGamer, Atari's half year financial report has revealed a worrying slump for the publisher. Revenues are down 60 per cent to €29.6 million compared to €68.5 million over the same period last year.

The only good news was a strong showing for its online division with revenues soaring to €12.9 million from €1.8 million in 2009, largely thanks to Cryptic Studios' efforts.

Duly, Atari has announced it's planning to invest heavily in online gaming to address the decline. It has Asteroids Online, Deer Hunter Online and a new Neverwinter title from Cryptic all lined up, as well as Atari Games Online – a new initiative set up to develop online casual and social games.

A new free-to-play strategy for Champions Online also goes live next year, with similar plans being considered for Star Trek Online.

Among more traditional titles slated for release from Atari over the next 12 months are Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Star Raiders for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and The Witcher 2 for PC.

If you want Star Trek Online to be free-to-play then you had better jolly well say so, Cryptic boss Jack Emmert has told Eurogamer, because right now that decision hangs in the balance.

"I'm sure people are wondering whether we'll do it with Star Trek and the question is really how well it does for Champions," explained Emmert. "Does it work or doesn't it?

"We're not sold one way or the other with Star Trek yet. If people want Star Trek to go free-to-play then get in and play Champions and help make it a great success, because that would send a strong message."

"If we did Turbine's level of success that would certainly merit the discussion!"

But, he added: "There are more people than just I on that decision and I can't begin to say it would be an automatic 'Yes, we'd do it.'"

Champions Online will turn free-to-play next year. Why? Because Turbine made loads of money relaunching Dungeons & Dragons Online as F2P and found success with Lord of the Rings Online, too, which turned free-to-play in Europe this week.

"We hope for a success as big as DDO," Emmert enthused. "That would be great - but I wouldn't say we're betting on it.

"In other words, I'm not going to say we'll do or die if we don't get five times our revenue or whatever the stats were that Turbine did. We're just hoping to open it up and increase the fanbase, and we'll just wait and see - I'd love it if we got their results, but hey, if that doesn't happen it doesn't happen."

Video: Free-to-play too?

Champions Online turning free-to-play means there will be two ways to experience the game: as a Silver member or as a Gold member.

Gold members are existing subscribers who will pay $14.99 a month. Silver members, on the other hand, represent the free-to-play side of the game. Silver members have limitations on character class, costumes, and character slots - "all that kind of stuff". But they can download Champions Online and adventure from zero to superhero without spending a penny or a nickel or a galleon or whatever you use.

Of course there's the option to splash some cash if you so choose, picking content, items and buffs "a la carte" from the in-game C-Store.

Note, however, that if you're a subscriber-turned-Silver member then you'll have to pay to move to a Silver server. "You have to pay to transfer your characters over or you could just start from scratch again," revealed Emmert.

Gold members will have access to some areas that Silver members do not. But apparently the two sets of members can play Champions Online together. "We don't want to disallow that by any stretch."

He reckons the reaction so far to the Champions Online news has been "super great" by the "vast majority", although there have been a "few snarky comments".

"I'm hoping lots of new people would give the game a chance that perhaps didn't even look at it the very first time because it was a subscription MMO," Emmert said. "Naturally I expect a lot more people to come in - we believe strongly that the game was good at launch and even better a year later - and that those people decide to stay around and play in the world. "

Champions Online received 6/10 on Eurogamer at launch last September. But today Emmert reckons it's the best superhero MMO on the market - "very much better game than City of Heroes ever was".

"But hey, that's just my own particular gameplay style. I created City of Heroes so if anything I'm insulting myself! That's no slight against anyone but me," he said.

"Nobody sits down and makes games that aren't popular on purpose. You assume it's going to get 9/10, even though there are mistakes. If you told me that somebody would give Champions 4/10, I would have said to you, 'You're crazy! Who in the world would give Champions 4/10? That's for games that don't even run!' I think WWII Online got better than that.

"But it's a different marketplace," he said. "It's an incredibly demanding space now, and what was acceptable five years ago is not even worth discussing."

Video: Idea for guild name: Spandex's Midnight Runners.

Turning Champions Online free-to-play is one idea Cryptic Studios has had to spruce up its MMO portfolio. The other: user-generated content. This will appear first in Star Trek Online, so will it carry over into Champions Online?

"Ultimately, yeah," said Emmert. "Eventually we would like to do it.

"User-generated content has always been part of our strategic plan for years and years and years. Ultimately I'd like to have it in every game we do in one version or another."

That doesn't mean that Cryptic's developers will simply abandon Star Trek Online and Champions Online to the community though. "No, no," Emmert insisted. "We'll still continue making content. It's just that now you've got more content to choose from. You've got the stuff created by the developers as well as the stuff created by your friends, other people and so forth."

Star Trek Online's user-generated content system is undergoing beta testing now. For existing games - and even for new project Neverwinter - UGC and F2P are on the cards. And Cryptic 3.0, as Emmert called it, has more ideas up its sleeves - several unannounced projects, for starters.

"A lot of our innovation is going to be coming in games that haven't been released yet. There are still things under development that we're working on at Cryptic.

"There's a project that I'm more involved with the design than I have been in a long time than anything," he added. "Something that's close to my heart. And so that's very exciting."

"It is definitely not fantasy-based. I can say that. It is something that's pretty exciting. It's under wraps and hopefully we can talk about it soon."

Cryptic Studios is trying new things to bolster the popularity of MMOs Star Trek Online and Champions Online. Its newest invention? Player-made missions. And Star Trek Online will integrate them first.

Dubbed The Foundry, the toolset allows anyone to make a story, fill it with encounters and play around with the scenery. You can either start a world from scratch or tinker with pre-made templates - Cryptic even allows existing STO areas to be used.

But The Foundry is not a modding tool.

"No. The goal of this toolset is to allow players to put their stories in the Star Trek universe using the same look, feel, and capabilities that Cryptic's own design team utilises," The Foundry FAQ states. "So while there are a lot of features for creating content, players cannot import their own images, 3D models, or audio into the game."

A five-star rating system will be implemented for the Community Authored Episodes. Judging them will be reviewers picked from the game's community, and nothing will be offered to the masses without passing their eyes first.

To begin with, custom rewards for Community Authored Episodes can't be made using The Foundry. But judging by the wording of the FAQ, they may be added at a later stage. What's more, "expanded functionality" such as missions aboard ships, is being "considered".

The Foundry toolset currently needs beta testing. If you have an existing Star Trek Online account you qualify.

City of Heroes - the Cryptic-created MMO that NCsoft ran away with in 2007 - introduced a very similar toolset in 2009 called the Mission Architect. The results "astounded" NCsoft and Paragon Studios.

In an effort to compete with its own genre-leading creation, Cryptic announced yesterday that Champions Online would soon turn free-to-play. Therefore, the chances of Star Trek Online adopting the same business model down the line must be high.

Star Trek Online was released at the beginning of the year but wasn't the genre-shattering launch the licence perhaps deserved. Eurogamer awarded a deflated 6/10. Cryptic Studios admitted it could do better and has promised to support the enterprising MMO even as "several other projects" - including online RPG Neverwinter - are revealed to be in development there.

Video: Star Trek Online has Scotty lot to do.