Starfleet Orion

Starfleet Orion
Splash screen from the TRS-80 version
Developer(s)	Epyx
Publisher(s)	Epyx
Designer(s)	Jon Freeman and Jim Connelly
Engine	custom
Platform(s)	PET, TRS-80, Apple II
Release	1978
Genre(s)	Sci-Fi strategy game
Mode(s)	two-player hotseat

Starfleet Orion is a 1978 science fiction strategy game written and published by Automated Simulations (who would become Epyx in 1983). It appears to be the first space-themed strategy game sold for microcomputer systems. The game was originally written in BASIC for the Commodore PET, but later ported to other early home computer platforms including the TRS-80 and Apple II. The game was something of a success, leading to a string of successes for the company, notably the major hit Temple of Apshai.

The game came about in a roundabout fashion when Jon Freeman joined a Dungeons and Dragons game being hosted by dungeon master Jim Connelly. Freeman was an experienced gamer, a regular contributor to Games magazine and author of A Player's Guide to Board Games. Connelly had purchased a PET computer to handle bookkeeping during his D&D games, and was interested in finding ways to make some of the money back. The two collaborated on Orion; Freeman coming up with the basic concepts of the game and Connelly coding them up. The game was completed just before Christmas 1978.

The complex setup and requirement for two players was an obstacle to casual play, which led Freeman and Connolley to address this and quickly release the single-player Invasion Orion. In this game the combined human forces face the Klaatu, an extremely powerful alien race. The power of their ships make up for the basic AI the game used, which essentially consisted of the Klaatu ships driving directly at the humans, firing all the way.

Orion's "Battle Manual" tells of the meeting of the Interstellar Union of Civilized Planets, or simply Stellar Union, and a group of planets colonized hundreds of years earlier by a forgotten breakaway group. The action takes place in an isolated corner of the expanding Stellar Union's space, allowing the two forces to be fairly evenly balanced as the much larger Union only can only muster a small number ships in the area. The game came with twelve pre-rolled scenarios based on this canon, each increasing the number of ships and their variety, eventually ending in a battle with seven ships on one side and nine on the other, the later being named the titular "Starfleet Orion".