Star Trek: Legacy Walkthrough, Controls and Campaign Tips
A Star Trek: Legacy walkthrough is easiest to follow once you set the difficulty and learn the basic combat keys. This guide covers both, plus how the era-spanning campaign is laid out.
In this article
You can start a Star Trek Legacy walkthrough by setting the difficulty before your first mission, then learning the space combat controls. The TrueAchievements walkthrough begins from Ensign, so that is the setting to choose first [1]. Related reading: Phoenix Wright.
The campaign spans all Star Trek eras, so the story covers far more than one period of the franchise [2]. In single player, you play as the Federation and Starfleet [2].
GameFAQs has a PC walkthrough for the game [3]. TrueAchievements hosts a story walkthrough that you can follow from the first mission onward [1]. This article takes a mission-by-mission approach, with practical tips for space combat and the campaign's eras.
How do you set the difficulty before the first mission?
Set the difficulty to Ensign before you start the first mission. The walkthrough begins from that setting, so starting there keeps your opening fight in line with the steps that follow. [1]
The change takes three steps:
- Open the OPTIONS menu and select GAMEPLAY/CONTROLS. [1]
- Set the difficulty to Ensign.
- Back out to the MAIN MENU and start the first mission.
The menu path is OPTIONS > GAMEPLAY/CONTROLS, and the difficulty setting sits on that screen. Picture it this way: you open OPTIONS, move into GAMEPLAY/CONTROLS, set the difficulty to Ensign, then press back until the MAIN MENU appears. From there, the first mission is your next choice.
If you already started Star Trek: Legacy on another setting, go back to OPTIONS and make the same change before you begin the mission. That way the opening fight matches what the walkthrough describes.
Once the first mission is running, you will need the space combat keys right away. Keep this page open so you can return to the setup steps if you restart the game.
Which keys do you need for space combat?
Press the spacebar to target a ship, then press F to begin following it. Those two keys handle the basics of space combat in the opening fights, and you use them together. [3]
Targeting and following
Start by targeting. Press the spacebar to select the enemy ship you want to fight. [3] Then press F to begin following that target. [3]
Targeting comes first. If you press F without a target selected, your ship has nothing specific to follow, so pick the ship with the spacebar before you reach for F.
Keeping your ship on the right enemy
Enemy ships move around during a fight, so your target can change. Think of the spacebar as choosing who you are fighting and F as telling your ship to stay with that choice.
Say a second enemy swings in front of you while you are chasing the first. Press spacebar on the ship you want next, then press F so your ship follows that one instead. You don't need to restart the whole fight each time the battle shifts.
If you lose track of an enemy, don't keep steering in circles. Target it again with spacebar, then press F once more. Repeating those two presses is faster than chasing a ship you have lost in the middle of a turn.
A simple rhythm for the opening fights
A practical rhythm works well: target, follow, fight, then retarget when the next ship becomes the threat. Each cycle takes two presses, so you rarely need to stop and think about the controls. Keep the pattern steady and your ship stays focused on the enemy you chose.
Once the pattern feels natural, the keys become second nature. Your ship should now be moving toward the enemy you selected.
What is the first objective in the campaign?
The first objective is to protect T'Uerell's ship. [3] Your opening fight is built around keeping that ship alive, so stay close to it instead of chasing enemies across the map.
Your ship is the one that matters here, not the enemy you can hit most easily. If a hostile turns toward T'Uerell's ship, switch your attention to that threat, even if it is harder to reach. A distant kill does nothing for the objective if the ship you were protecting is destroyed.
Say a hostile swings around toward T'Uerell's ship while you are chasing a damaged enemy across the screen. Break off, turn toward the new threat, and stay on it until it is gone. Then return to the ship before you pick another target.
Once you have a target, keep it in view. Follow the ship as the walkthrough directs, and tie your course to its position rather than to a single enemy. That keeps you in the right place when new threats appear.
Here is the order to work in:
- Target the enemy that is threatening T'Uerell's ship.
- Follow the ship as the walkthrough directs, keeping it inside your view.
- Check the mission objectives on screen before you move on.
Objectives update as the fight changes, and moving on too early can leave you out of step with what the mission wants. When the objective text changes, the mission has reached its next stage. If the fight starts to go wrong, reset your focus on the ship before trying anything new.
How is the Star Trek Legacy campaign organized?
The campaign doesn't follow one timeline. Star Trek: Legacy spans all Star Trek eras, so the story can jump between time periods from one mission to the next. [2]
Single player is the Federation and Starfleet
In single player, you play as the Federation and Starfleet. [2] That stays the same even when a mission drops you into a different era. If you finish a mission set in one period and the next one moves to another, you are still on the Starfleet side.
The other factions are in the wider game
The Borg, Romulans and Klingons are also playable factions in the wider game. [2] Single player is built around the Federation, so if you want to play as one of these factions, look for it outside the campaign.
How to think about the timeline
When a new era starts, don't expect the setting to reset your progress or your side. Think of the campaign as one Starfleet story told across several periods of Star Trek history. That makes it easier to follow the missions in order, even when the time period changes.
Where can you find the full mission-by-mission walkthroughs?
GameFAQs and Neoseeker are good places to start if you want a full PC walkthrough or FAQ for Star Trek: Legacy. GameFAQs lists a PC guide titled "Star Trek: Legacy - Guide and Walkthrough" [3]. Neoseeker's page gathers the game's FAQs, guides and walkthroughs in one place [4].
IGN and TrueAchievements also host walkthroughs for the story missions. The IGN page is simply titled "Walkthrough" and sits in its Star Trek: Legacy guides [5]. TrueAchievements has a "Guide for Star Trek: Legacy - Story Walkthrough" that covers the campaign's story [1].
Don't read any of these from start to finish. A full walkthrough is long, and most of it covers missions you haven't reached yet, so you can spoil the next fight without meaning to. The campaign also jumps between time periods, which makes it easy to lose your place.
Instead, find the mission you are stuck on and read only the steps for it. Say you keep losing a fight in the middle of a mission. Open the walkthrough, find that mission's section, follow the steps in the game, and close the page.
Keep the walkthrough open in a separate browser tab so you can jump between missions quickly. On Neoseeker, use your browser's find feature to search the page for the mission's name before you scroll. That keeps the walkthrough a help tool rather than a script you follow line by line.
What should you do next in Star Trek Legacy?
Your one thing to remember is to set the difficulty to Ensign and learn the spacebar and F key before the first fight. The walkthroughs begin from that setting [1], and the spacebar targets a ship while F starts following it [3].
Then start the first mission and follow its objectives in order. Early on, the space fights are where you learn the most, so take them slowly. If a mission stops you, return to a full walkthrough for that mission instead of rereading the whole thing. Pick up where you got stuck and keep moving.