Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator

Original System: Unknown


Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (or just plain old Star Trek: SOS) is another Sega port of one of their arcade games. 

There are two differences between the versions.  First, there is a major change to the control scheme between the two system.   Due to the Atari 400/800 controller only having one fire button, the Warp function had to be changed to pulling back on the controller while holding down the fire button while the Photon Torpedo function is activated by simply pulling back.  In the 5200 version the Photon Torpedoes have been mapped to the second button and Warp is activated by pulling back on the controller.  This makes the controls feel much more natural.

The second change is also related to the controls.  The Atari 400/800 version of the game also offers keyboard commands which some may find easier to use.  This option was obviously removed from the 5200 version due to the lack of keyboard.

Interestingly Sega included a joystick overlay for the Atari 2600 and 400/800 ports, but not for the 5200.  This is probably because the overlay was unnecessary to begin with and with the 5200's controls being more natural the cost of redesigning it for the 5200's controller didn't make sense.

 

 

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