USS Washington-C - NCC-40904

Description
Today, [b]Ferengi[/b] gives us a version of the new [b]USS Washington-C (NCC-40904)[/b]! One of two maps in progress at the moment by the Star Trek: New Hope group, who have, in the past released such fine maps as Station Modas and USS Ariana. Does this version of USS Washington continue the trend? Short answer: No.

The Washington is a fairly sizable Luna-class starship (as seen in the Star Trek: Titan novels) which has all the usual areas you would expect in a roleplaying map; the bridge, sickbay, engineering, as well as countless rooms that have... well... just computer screens and tables. This map is science lab heaven, although the problem is that none of the controls in these rooms actually do anything, no special features or even bleeps. Elsewhere is better, though. The main rooms have all the usual features and the layout of the decks is excellent, especially Deck 1, which is expanded beyond just simply a bridge and ready room. The shuttlebay was the biggest disapointment, map-wise, with its lazy design and poorly operated lift. On a technical side, missing textures can be a huge problem if you don't have all the required maps (and more) in your BaseEF. Even with everything the readme asks for, there are still several blank textures. The mapping quality itself wasn't a problem, although on the Engineering deck, there were multiple cases of doors lacking an upper frame, resulting in the skybox being seen. Even the textures themselves are nothing new and give you that nostalgic Poseidon-A feel (thats not a good thing).

You may start to think that I'm having a bad day and I'm taking it out on this poor file, but I was expecting something of better quality. This may only be a beta, however. To be fair to the mapper, the ship and the design isn't all that bad and if you get the textures sorted, you could have excellent roleplays on this map. With some more development and perhaps some more features, this map could be really good, but the stage it is at feels lacking. Feels like a Beta, not a proper release.

Of course, whatever the quality, this is a must for roleplayers!

~ Luke20 (The Tenth Doctor)