I read several reviews that had the same complaints about the layout of the character generation material in the core book, so that apparently is a problem.
Has anyone played the game? How are the rules? Specifically, how do they compare to d20?
Lastly, is there any hope for Star Trek d20?
Playing the game right now (and yes, this is the future 19 years later talking).
The layout (of chapters and sections, not images and graphics) and editing is atrocious. Not just chargen, but everywhere. Everything is much harder than it needed to be, because of poor organization and worse ability to explain things cleanly and succinctly.
But it is possible to understand what they intended. It's just much harder than it should have been.
At its core CODA is very similar to d20, that is 3rd edition D&D.
Except it uses 2d6 instead of d20. This isn't inherently better or worse, but the devs fail to change the game enough to not make their choice a worse one. Specifically, with low scores you fall short and with high scores you cannot fail. The devs simply failed to recalibrate their numbers correctly.
It does not help there's no cap on skill levels. Meaning a cap on skills per level. It's clear the devs want a skill-based game. But D&D is a level based game. They should probably have chosen to go with an actual skill-based engine like Basic Role Playing (BRP), but I guess their superiors were swept up in the 2002-2003 d20 craze.
It does not help that there's far too many skills. Some skills are God-tier: Sys Ops (System Operations) is one single skill that's used to run EVERYTHING on a Starship. Imagine D&D bundling Perception, Athletics, Arcana and Stealth into a single skill. Now imagine you split up Handle Animal into three or five separate skills, for handling felines, lupines, bovines etc.
Which skill do you put points in? You can choose Handle Bovines (has happened maybe once in a thousand Star Trek episodes). Or, you can choose a skill that lets you run EVERYTHING on the Enterprise, including, but not being limited to: piloting the ship, targeting phasers and torpedoes, managing shields, reading sensors, and operating transporters. (In starship combat, there's a concept known as maneuvers, and you only cover two out of three bases with Sys Ops)
Yes, there are far too many skills and far too many skills that just don't matter. This is a game which splits Athletics into Athletics, Gymnastics and Sports, and Athletics isn't nearly as useful as it is in D&D to start with.
Combined this gives off a clear and strong "skill tax" vibe. You pretty much automatically spend your first few bundles of XP on raising critical skills like Sys Ops to a competent level (or even maxing it out). Raising skills that characterize your PC or help you role-play simply has to wait.
It's if D&D presents an option to quickly become level 10 in key areas of expertise, even though you remain an incompetent level 1 elsewhere.
The game engine simply has level-based roots, and it needs the idea low-level heroes face low level threats and skill DCs (or TNs, Target Numbers), while high-level heroes face challenges involving higher numbers.
Remember, all this is years before 5E and bounded accuracy.
The devs, however, clearly want a more realistic game where skill DCs remain objective - the same task keeps the same DC, and does not increase with PC level.
Again, that's the job of a game engine that's not level based.
