Star Trek Online will be go free to play in the new year on January 17. Massively mention that Cryptic are planning to move the current test build to live servers in the first week of December in preparation for the full switch over, and they're starting the monthly in-game currency wage early for gold members.

In the free to play version of Star Trek Online, subscribers will get 400 Cryptic points a month. Even though STO will go free to play in January, subscribers will get some bonus credit in December. "We are starting the Gold member stipend early as a way to thank our loyal customers during this transition period prior to the launch of Free-to-Play," say Cryptic on the Path to F2P blog.

The move to free to play will divide Star Trek Online's player base into two tiers. There's free players, who will have access to every level and zone, but don't get the Foundry mission creation tools. If you become a gold member, you'll get extra inventory slots and unlimited access to in-game chat and mail. For a full run down of how free accounts will differ from paid ones in Star Trek Online, plug yourself into the Free to Play Features Matrix.

We mentioned last week that Star Trek Online will be free to play before the year is out. Cryptic have just released more information about exactly what free players will and won't have access to.

All missions, levels and zones will be available to free players, including daily quests and missions created by paying members using the Star Trek Online Foundry creation tools. The Foundry will be off limits unless you upgrade to gold membership by paying a monthly subscription of $14.99, this will also give you access to more bridge officer slots, the ability to join a guild, unlimited use of in-game chat and email features, and a monthly wage of 400 Promotional Points to spend in the item store.

The full list of features that will be available to non-paying players and subscribers can be found on the new free to play section of the Star Trek Online site.

Star Trek Online has plenty to recommend it. You get to pilot your own starship, for a start, fight enormous space battles and then transport down to planets with your away team to phaser aliens in the face in the name of peace, diplomacy, and the will of the Federation.

My overriding memory, though, involves Tribbles. An icon on the taskbar will let you pet them at any time, even in the middle of a fire fight, whereupon they make an initially adorable noise that quickly becomes the most annoying sound in the universe after about five seconds. If you leave them in your inventory, they eat any food in there and multiply, so there are plenty spare to go around. After a while the entire away team would habitually stop in between fights to stroke their pets, giving rise to a chorus of wibbly "woooo!" noises that would alert every enemy in the vicinity.

Cryptic's Tribble-breeding sim is set to go free to play some time later this year, though there's no precise date yet.

Atari's yearly financial report shows that they are parting ways with Cryptic, the studio behind Star Trek Online, Champions Online and the upcoming Neverwinter MMO. The official reasons given for the split include Atari's intentions to release "fewer but more profitable" titles and expand into "casual online and mobile games," but it more likely has something to do with the reported $25 million Cryptic have lost Atari in the last couple of years.

Gamespot pulled the details from the Atari's financial report, in which Cryptic appeared near the bottom, under a heading marked "discontinued operations." The report listed a loss of $7.5 million for Cryptic in the last year. That's a significant improvement over the $17.8 million loss the previous year, when Cryptic released Star Trek Online and Champions Online.

It's unclear how this will affect the future Cryptic's current MMOs and development on Neverwinter, but for now, it's business as usual at Cryptic. Gamasutra report that Atari will continue to fund Cryptic's MMOs until a buyer can be found.

A community representative posted on the Star Trek Online forums to say that "support for Champions Online and Star Trek Online will be continuing as normal, our staff is working hard on their projects and there are no planned changes to the way any of our games and projects will operate."

Champions Online went free to play earlier this year. How did it go? Find out in our Champions Online re-review.

Like most players, I’ve had moments in MMOs when I thought that I could write a better quest than the developers did. “The story was wrong—there should’ve been a fight against dwarves instead of rats at the end of the mission, and the pacing sucked!” Cryptic has responded to Star Trek Online players with a software-based “Oh yeah?” by launching The Foundry, which turned everyone into a mission scripter after it hit live servers earlier this month.

We constructed this guide for the magazine back when The Foundry was still in beta on the “Tribble” test server. It was already full-featured and there should be very little variation in the process you'll go through on live servers, but let us know if you encounter any troubles. Used wisely, the Foundry will let you create missions pretty close to the quality of those built by the developers themselves.

Here’s all the wisdom you’ll need. Before we get started, you’ll need to log into Tribble and make a character by pushing the “Create Content” button in the top left. Only this magical avatar has the power to create new missions.

I’ve used custom costumes here to create characters for Captain Decker and Commander Lahti, and a custom map for the space portion of the mission, but there are dozens of NPCs and pre-made maps to choose from, so you can use generic ones to save some time if you want to get right into the mission creation.

Difficulty: Easy
Time: 2-3 hours
Official forums: http://bit.ly/hqLtzc
Starbase USG, a great source for tutorials and reviews of player-created missions: http://starbaseugc.com
STOwiki's Foundry Guide: http://bit.ly/fcXH5g

 
1. Space, the final frontier...

Let’s make a space map where the mighty USS PC Gamer is under attack by the Borg. First, we need to create a slice of space for the action to take place in. Go to the Map tab and click on the “Create Map” button. Choose “Custom Map” and add a few items from the tabs to the right. A planet here, an asteroid field there, a sprinkle of debris and you’ve got space for your quest to live in.

 
2. To boldly go...

But it’s just an empty set—our Star Trek adventure needs action! To get the story underway, go to the Story tab and drag a “Talk to Contact Event” into the mission storyline box. Pop back over to your map and place the contact somewhere in space, and a Map Transition event will be added. Fill in the Map Transition to send players from their location in the game world to the map that you just created.

 
3. Shields up!

Now your players are in position, so it’s time to try to kill them. Drag a “Kill Enemies” event into the storyline, and add an encounter to give them some enemies to fight. Since the USS PC Gamer is under attack from the Borg, choose Borg as your enemy type. Then choose “Borg Squadron – Weak” as the encounter type. Pop over to the map and drag Encounter #1 onto the map, preferably near the spawn point.

 
4. Open hailing frequencies

Once you’ve defeated the Borg, we want the player to talk to Captain Decker, the fearless leader of the PC Gamer. Add another “Talk to Contact” event. By filling in a text box, you can have the player’s science officer inform them that the PC Gamer is hailing, and then add a “PopUp Dialog” and have Captain Decker tell players (via another text box) to defend his ship.

 
5. Evil cubes

The battle rages on. Drag two more “Kill Enemies” events into the storyline. Make sure that each event has one encounter in it (they should appear as Encounters 2 and 3, unless you’ve defied orders and added more—you rebel you). Back on the map box, drag those encounters in, and make them each a Borg Battleship. (Because if Voyager taught us anything, it’s that single Borg ships are easily defeated.)

 
6. Long-range scan

Select each encounter separately, and at the bottom of the screen you’ll see their behaviors, which you can modify. Set all of them to “Ambient with Combat” to have them fight. For Encounters 2 and 3, set the idle animation to “Warp In – Borg.” Setting up the two separate “Kill Enemies” events will warp in one Borg Cube as soon as a player finishes talking to Captain Decker, and another once they defeat the first Cube.

Steps 7 - 12 continue on the next page.


7. One to beam up

Let’s bring the battle inside to help Captain Decker repel the Borg invaders. Create an interior map for the USS PC Gamer—but this time, use a pre-made interior map: Great Bloom. Populate the map by using the pull-down menus to narrow down the type of details (props) that you want to use to give the PC Gamer an assimilated feel. Make sure to test often as you go.

 
8. Borg bonanza

Pull more “Kill Enemies” events into your storyline, and place those enemies on the new map you’ve created. Select each encounter (you can click on each “actor” in a squad separately, or you can treat them as a group) and turn on “Wander.” You can tweak the distance they’ll move, patrol points and how quickly they move from point to point. Now the Borg are assimilating the ship!

 
9. He’s (almost) dead, Jim

In our story, Commander Lahti’s position is being assaulted by Borg drones, and he needs help to mount a defense. Add a “Talk to Contact” dialog to the storyline, and add Commander Lahti to the map. Let’s use a “Reach Marker” event to trigger a Borg boarding party to beam in when the player reaches a certain location, setting off another battle.

 
10. Resistance is futile

To use a “Reach Marker” event, you first need to add it to the storyline and then place it on the map. Add a “Kill Enemies” event, and set the idle animation for the Borg to “Beam in – Borg.” When players round the corner of that hallway, they’ll see the Borg beam in suddenly. It’s a trap! Have Commander Lahti send the players to the shuttle bay after the fight using a “PopUp Dialog.”

 
11. Assimilate this!

For our final epic battle, let’s have two separate groups of Borg attack our players as they approach the shuttle bay. Add another “Reach Marker” event to the storyline and to the map, and then include a “Kill Enemies” event. Add another encounter to the “Kill enemies” event, set the idle animations to “Beam in – Borg” and place the encounters close to the door to ambush players.

 
12. Live long and prosper

Add Captain Decker to the map, and add a “Talk to Contact” event. Then it’s time to test, test and test some more. Make sure that each task flows into the next, and that you’ve filled in each of the text boxes, or else you’ll end up with NPCs who have nothing to say. If you’re able to successfully complete all the objectives, you’re done, and you can share your mission for others to play!

Like most players, I’ve had moments in MMOs when I thought that I could write a better quest than the developers did. “The story was wrong—there should’ve been a fight against dwarves instead of rats at the end of the mission, and the pacing sucked!” Cryptic has responded to Star Trek Online players with a software-based “Oh yeah?” by launching The Foundry, which turned everyone into a mission scripter after it hit live servers earlier this month.

We constructed this guide for the magazine back when The Foundry was still in beta on the “Tribble” test server. It was already full-featured and there should be very little variation in the process you'll go through on live servers, but let us know if you encounter any troubles. Used wisely, the Foundry will let you create missions pretty close to the quality of those built by the developers themselves.

Here’s all the wisdom you’ll need. Before we get started, you’ll need to log into Tribble and make a character by pushing the “Create Content” button in the top left. Only this magical avatar has the power to create new missions.

I’ve used custom costumes here to create characters for Captain Decker and Commander Lahti, and a custom map for the space portion of the mission, but there are dozens of NPCs and pre-made maps to choose from, so you can use generic ones to save some time if you want to get right into the mission creation.

Difficulty: Easy
Time: 2-3 hours
Official forums: http://bit.ly/hqLtzc
Starbase USG, a great source for tutorials and reviews of player-created missions: http://starbaseugc.com
STOwiki's Foundry Guide: http://bit.ly/fcXH5g

 
1. Space, the final frontier...

Let’s make a space map where the mighty USS PC Gamer is under attack by the Borg. First, we need to create a slice of space for the action to take place in. Go to the Map tab and click on the “Create Map” button. Choose “Custom Map” and add a few items from the tabs to the right. A planet here, an asteroid field there, a sprinkle of debris and you’ve got space for your quest to live in.

 
2. To boldly go...

But it’s just an empty set—our Star Trek adventure needs action! To get the story underway, go to the Story tab and drag a “Talk to Contact Event” into the mission storyline box. Pop back over to your map and place the contact somewhere in space, and a Map Transition event will be added. Fill in the Map Transition to send players from their location in the game world to the map that you just created.

 
3. Shields up!

Now your players are in position, so it’s time to try to kill them. Drag a “Kill Enemies” event into the storyline, and add an encounter to give them some enemies to fight. Since the USS PC Gamer is under attack from the Borg, choose Borg as your enemy type. Then choose “Borg Squadron – Weak” as the encounter type. Pop over to the map and drag Encounter #1 onto the map, preferably near the spawn point.

 
4. Open hailing frequencies

Once you’ve defeated the Borg, we want the player to talk to Captain Decker, the fearless leader of the PC Gamer. Add another “Talk to Contact” event. By filling in a text box, you can have the player’s science officer inform them that the PC Gamer is hailing, and then add a “PopUp Dialog” and have Captain Decker tell players (via another text box) to defend his ship.

 
5. Evil cubes

The battle rages on. Drag two more “Kill Enemies” events into the storyline. Make sure that each event has one encounter in it (they should appear as Encounters 2 and 3, unless you’ve defied orders and added more—you rebel you). Back on the map box, drag those encounters in, and make them each a Borg Battleship. (Because if Voyager taught us anything, it’s that single Borg ships are easily defeated.)

 
6. Long-range scan

Select each encounter separately, and at the bottom of the screen you’ll see their behaviors, which you can modify. Set all of them to “Ambient with Combat” to have them fight. For Encounters 2 and 3, set the idle animation to “Warp In – Borg.” Setting up the two separate “Kill Enemies” events will warp in one Borg Cube as soon as a player finishes talking to Captain Decker, and another once they defeat the first Cube.

Steps 7 - 12 continue on the next page.


7. One to beam up

Let’s bring the battle inside to help Captain Decker repel the Borg invaders. Create an interior map for the USS PC Gamer—but this time, use a pre-made interior map: Great Bloom. Populate the map by using the pull-down menus to narrow down the type of details (props) that you want to use to give the PC Gamer an assimilated feel. Make sure to test often as you go.

 
8. Borg bonanza

Pull more “Kill Enemies” events into your storyline, and place those enemies on the new map you’ve created. Select each encounter (you can click on each “actor” in a squad separately, or you can treat them as a group) and turn on “Wander.” You can tweak the distance they’ll move, patrol points and how quickly they move from point to point. Now the Borg are assimilating the ship!

 
9. He’s (almost) dead, Jim

In our story, Commander Lahti’s position is being assaulted by Borg drones, and he needs help to mount a defense. Add a “Talk to Contact” dialog to the storyline, and add Commander Lahti to the map. Let’s use a “Reach Marker” event to trigger a Borg boarding party to beam in when the player reaches a certain location, setting off another battle.

 
10. Resistance is futile

To use a “Reach Marker” event, you first need to add it to the storyline and then place it on the map. Add a “Kill Enemies” event, and set the idle animation for the Borg to “Beam in – Borg.” When players round the corner of that hallway, they’ll see the Borg beam in suddenly. It’s a trap! Have Commander Lahti send the players to the shuttle bay after the fight using a “PopUp Dialog.”

 
11. Assimilate this!

For our final epic battle, let’s have two separate groups of Borg attack our players as they approach the shuttle bay. Add another “Reach Marker” event to the storyline and to the map, and then include a “Kill Enemies” event. Add another encounter to the “Kill enemies” event, set the idle animations to “Beam in – Borg” and place the encounters close to the door to ambush players.

 
12. Live long and prosper

Add Captain Decker to the map, and add a “Talk to Contact” event. Then it’s time to test, test and test some more. Make sure that each task flows into the next, and that you’ve filled in each of the text boxes, or else you’ll end up with NPCs who have nothing to say. If you’re able to successfully complete all the objectives, you’re done, and you can share your mission for others to play!

Like most players, I’ve had moments in MMOs when I thought that I could write a better quest than the developers did. “The story was wrong—there should’ve been a fight against dwarves instead of rats at the end of the mission, and the pacing sucked!” Cryptic has responded to Star Trek Online players with a software-based “Oh yeah?” by launching The Foundry, which turned everyone into a mission scripter after it hit live servers earlier this month.

We constructed this guide for the magazine back when The Foundry was still in beta on the “Tribble” test server. It was already full-featured and there should be very little variation in the process you'll go through on live servers, but let us know if you encounter any troubles. Used wisely, the Foundry will let you create missions pretty close to the quality of those built by the developers themselves.

Here’s all the wisdom you’ll need. Before we get started, you’ll need to log into Tribble and make a character by pushing the “Create Content” button in the top left. Only this magical avatar has the power to create new missions.

I’ve used custom costumes here to create characters for Captain Decker and Commander Lahti, and a custom map for the space portion of the mission, but there are dozens of NPCs and pre-made maps to choose from, so you can use generic ones to save some time if you want to get right into the mission creation.

Difficulty: Easy
Time: 2-3 hours
Official forums: http://bit.ly/hqLtzc
Starbase USG, a great source for tutorials and reviews of player-created missions: http://starbaseugc.com
STOwiki's Foundry Guide: http://bit.ly/fcXH5g

 
1. Space, the final frontier...

Let’s make a space map where the mighty USS PC Gamer is under attack by the Borg. First, we need to create a slice of space for the action to take place in. Go to the Map tab and click on the “Create Map” button. Choose “Custom Map” and add a few items from the tabs to the right. A planet here, an asteroid field there, a sprinkle of debris and you’ve got space for your quest to live in.

 
2. To boldly go...

But it’s just an empty set—our Star Trek adventure needs action! To get the story underway, go to the Story tab and drag a “Talk to Contact Event” into the mission storyline box. Pop back over to your map and place the contact somewhere in space, and a Map Transition event will be added. Fill in the Map Transition to send players from their location in the game world to the map that you just created.

 
3. Shields up!

Now your players are in position, so it’s time to try to kill them. Drag a “Kill Enemies” event into the storyline, and add an encounter to give them some enemies to fight. Since the USS PC Gamer is under attack from the Borg, choose Borg as your enemy type. Then choose “Borg Squadron – Weak” as the encounter type. Pop over to the map and drag Encounter #1 onto the map, preferably near the spawn point.

 
4. Open hailing frequencies

Once you’ve defeated the Borg, we want the player to talk to Captain Decker, the fearless leader of the PC Gamer. Add another “Talk to Contact” event. By filling in a text box, you can have the player’s science officer inform them that the PC Gamer is hailing, and then add a “PopUp Dialog” and have Captain Decker tell players (via another text box) to defend his ship.

 
5. Evil cubes

The battle rages on. Drag two more “Kill Enemies” events into the storyline. Make sure that each event has one encounter in it (they should appear as Encounters 2 and 3, unless you’ve defied orders and added more—you rebel you). Back on the map box, drag those encounters in, and make them each a Borg Battleship. (Because if Voyager taught us anything, it’s that single Borg ships are easily defeated.)

 
6. Long-range scan

Select each encounter separately, and at the bottom of the screen you’ll see their behaviors, which you can modify. Set all of them to “Ambient with Combat” to have them fight. For Encounters 2 and 3, set the idle animation to “Warp In – Borg.” Setting up the two separate “Kill Enemies” events will warp in one Borg Cube as soon as a player finishes talking to Captain Decker, and another once they defeat the first Cube.

Steps 7 - 12 continue on the next page.


7. One to beam up

Let’s bring the battle inside to help Captain Decker repel the Borg invaders. Create an interior map for the USS PC Gamer—but this time, use a pre-made interior map: Great Bloom. Populate the map by using the pull-down menus to narrow down the type of details (props) that you want to use to give the PC Gamer an assimilated feel. Make sure to test often as you go.

 
8. Borg bonanza

Pull more “Kill Enemies” events into your storyline, and place those enemies on the new map you’ve created. Select each encounter (you can click on each “actor” in a squad separately, or you can treat them as a group) and turn on “Wander.” You can tweak the distance they’ll move, patrol points and how quickly they move from point to point. Now the Borg are assimilating the ship!

 
9. He’s (almost) dead, Jim

In our story, Commander Lahti’s position is being assaulted by Borg drones, and he needs help to mount a defense. Add a “Talk to Contact” dialog to the storyline, and add Commander Lahti to the map. Let’s use a “Reach Marker” event to trigger a Borg boarding party to beam in when the player reaches a certain location, setting off another battle.

 
10. Resistance is futile

To use a “Reach Marker” event, you first need to add it to the storyline and then place it on the map. Add a “Kill Enemies” event, and set the idle animation for the Borg to “Beam in – Borg.” When players round the corner of that hallway, they’ll see the Borg beam in suddenly. It’s a trap! Have Commander Lahti send the players to the shuttle bay after the fight using a “PopUp Dialog.”

 
11. Assimilate this!

For our final epic battle, let’s have two separate groups of Borg attack our players as they approach the shuttle bay. Add another “Reach Marker” event to the storyline and to the map, and then include a “Kill Enemies” event. Add another encounter to the “Kill enemies” event, set the idle animations to “Beam in – Borg” and place the encounters close to the door to ambush players.

 
12. Live long and prosper

Add Captain Decker to the map, and add a “Talk to Contact” event. Then it’s time to test, test and test some more. Make sure that each task flows into the next, and that you’ve filled in each of the text boxes, or else you’ll end up with NPCs who have nothing to say. If you’re able to successfully complete all the objectives, you’re done, and you can share your mission for others to play!

Who hasn't wanted to put together their own Star Trek episode? That dream is about to come true, sort of. Cryptic have released the Foundry for Star Trek Online, a powerful set of editing tools that will let you create your own missions. The Foundry let you put together your own star systems, script battles, write dialogue and create cutscenes. A mission sharing system will let players rate missions, and the very best will be highlighted with developer spotlight awards, making it easy for players to sift through to the best player made missions.

The Foundry is an exciting addition to Star Trek Online, but it's built on the same tech as Cryptic's other MMOs, meaning there's a chance that similar tools could appear in Champions Online and the upcoming Neverwinter MMO. For more on the mission editing tools, see The Foundry section of the Star Trek Online site. If you're interested in playing Star Trek Online, there's a demo available.

Star Trek Online is one year old. To celebrate, Cryptic Studios have put out a trailer highlighting the many changes and additions made to the game since launch. There's also a sale on, with 20% off lifetime subscriptions and microtransaction items. Read on for details and a video.

Since the game's release, a ton of new missions have been added telling the story of the overarching conflict between the Borg and the Undine. On top of that new uniforms, ships, ship interiors and a series of weekly episode missions have been added. The next major update will add the Foundry system, a mission editor that lets players create their own adventures for other players to enjoy.

There will be a number of birthday celebrations happening across the Star Trek Online universe, including giveaways and some surprise events. Lifetime subscriptions and C-Store items will be sold at a discounted price. For more information, check out the anniversary video below, or head over to the Star Trek Online site. If you fancy trying the game, there's also a demo available.

Yes, you read that right: you can save a whooping 20% if you purchase a lifetime subscription for Champions Online: Free for All - a game that's subscription free. Read on for details.

The lifetime subscription will give players of the game access to all the premium content that normal players would otherwise have to purchase through micro-transactions, such a pretty new capes and some quest packs.

The offer starts on January 25th and runs through until February 4th, and will cost "just $239.99!". The offer also applies to lifetime subscriptions of Start Trek Online, which currently still charges a subscription fee.

Are you ready to lead? Star Trek Online's executive producer Dan Stahl announced that the rank earned at the next level cap (61), Fleet Admiral, is more than just a name--players will finally be given the ability to control and manage a fleet of their own!



The details are light in the Q&A that announces the new rank, but having a small armada of ships under the player's direct control would be a huge change for STO's space combat system, which currently only allows players to control their own individual ship. The space combat is one of the things that Cryptic got right in STO--it's paced just right, with direction taken from the shows and movies to choreograph the ships as they battle in the depths of space. Adding whole fleets that could take orders from players wouldn't have to be overwhelming (the pacing is fairly slow in its current form), but it could be if Cryptic doesn't make these changes very carefully.

It's easy to picture this becoming a fantastic addition to Star Trek Online. The extra planning and tactics make sense in the Star Trek universe, and could create the perfect style of combat for high-level players--who should've learned how to control their ships by now, and can handle the added thought processes required to control a whole fleet. Players already control their A.I. away team members on the ground, and Cryptic could take a similar approach to a controlling your armada of ships as the Fleet Admiral.



I can't help but wonder why Cryptic is prioritizing this development over improvements to ground combat, though. Ground combat has never been the most lauded feature in STO, but lately I've begun to appreciate it more and more. Not that Cryptic's really changed much with it, but I've finally gotten the hang of using my away team's abilities and learned to put more thought into what I'm doing. There's some real potential here, and I hope they're working on fleshing out the ground combat more, in addition to these excited space combat changes. It'd be a shame to leave ground combat in it's current state, no matter how great the space combat gets!

Read the full Q&A for more information.