Cryptic Studios has unveiled the release date for its upcoming MMO, Star Trek Online. The game will launch on February 2, 2010 in North America (February 5 in Europe), and Cryptic is looking to set the game factor to ‘stun’.

A number of STO’s mechanics were revealed in a recent interview with lead designer Al Rivera. “I see lots of ships. First, let me be clear, there are 16 Federation ship configurations. Each configuration allows the player to customize from the parts of three different ships.” When asked about what happens if you lose a space battle, Rivera replied, “You will suffer a death penalty – we are iterating on that now, but it will likely involve loss of some crewmen, and damage to some of your items. However, you don’t lose your ship. You can respawn at the last unlocked respawn point.” He also admitted that, “for missions, it’s probably around 60% space, 40% ground. This changes a lot depending upon what kind of missions you are pursuing.”

So that means a fair bit of beaming down. Given that the game is based 30 years after “Star Trek Nemesis”, he was also asked of the likelihood of players bumping into any characters from the films or TV series. “You’ll see a few – friend and foe alike – but more often you will interact with many of their children and other relatives.” Alas this probably means I won’t meet Kirk, his toupee or his intergalactic corset.