Star Trek Online lead designer Al Rivera recently spoke with incgamers.com about the upcoming MMOG and what players can expect in the Federation and Klingon conflict. Al also touched on the death penalty, crafting, and how many different variations of ships the Federation and Klingon Empire will be able to choose from.

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 – for instance, the first ship you get is a Lt. Cruiser, and you can customise it from the parts of a Miranda, a Centaur, and a ShiKahr (something new we introduced to the IP). So technically, there are 48 Starfleet ship models in the game, but there are 16 playable configurations (five Escorts, five Cruisers, five Science Vessels, and one starting Lt. Cruiser).

Don't forget to also check out the Ten Ton Hammer interview with STO's Craig Zinkievich.