Starfleet Orion

The playfield is a thirty-two high by sixty-four wide grid of possible locations. The map can contain ships, stacked on the same grid space if needed, as well as planets and other objects. The game is turn based, with the two players taking turns at the keyboard to enter their commands, which are then carried out simultaneously. Each player controls one or more ships, and the game continues until one or both are destroyed, or escape by flying off the playfield.

Ships are powered by a single energy source whose power has to be divided up among the many parts of the ship, including drives, shields and weapons. Each ship is armed with a beam weapon whose chance to hit a target is based on the target's size and the "beam quality" of the firing ship. The amount of damage caused by a hit are reduced with distance, making it primarily a short-range weapon. In addition, ships are armed with missiles or torpedoes for long-range fire.

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".

The game came about in a roundabout fashion when Jon Freeman joined a Dungeons & 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.

Automated Simulations claimed in advertisements for the $19.95 Starfleet Orion that "game mechanics are extremely simple, but play is exciting, challenging, and rich in detail". Versions were available for the Commodore PET, TRS-80, and Apple II. The complex setup and requirement for two players was an obstacle to casual play, which led Freeman and Connolley to quickly release the single-player Invasion Orion.

Alan Isabelle reviewed Starfleet Orion in The Space Gamer No. 30. Isabelle commented that "I was quite impressed by Starfleet Orion. I have seen enough bug-ridden, boring computer games to know when a good one comes along. I highly recommend it in spite of the rather high price."

Jerry Pournelle praised the Orion games' realism: "Classical principles of fleet warfare work, and strategy and tactics are more important than luck".