Playing STO from my Ships Bridge

ihatepwe735

Star Trek Online has matured a lot since it was released, with the addition of Queues, Duty Officers and the Admiralty system.

An early, frequently made request was to allow the player to remain on their bridge while the ship traverse sector space on the way to the next mission, and this was shot down on the technical basis that the engine just didn't support it.

Things however have changed: At release, almost all content had to be accessed by flying to it - The PvP zones where in Klingon space - Alerts would pop up randomly on the map. Even PvE queues were associated with specific Stars. Crafting could only be accessed on Memory Alpha.

Now, the vast majority of the end-game content can be accessed from the players preferred social (or non social) map. I can stay at the Academy, in a Fleet Holding - or even on the bridge of a friends ship, and queue for PvE and PvP content - I can use the Admiralty system, send Duty Officers on tasks and perform Alerts, queue for PvP and grind reputation in the PvE queues and be returned back to exactly where my captain started each time.

So, without negating the option of Sector Travel, I think it's time for Star Trek Online to embrace this move. As it has dropped the requirement for sector travel for the other tasks - add the remaining content to a Queue like system so that we can do Missions: Episode and Repeatable, Patrols, Dilithium mining and Foundry content all from a single new user interface.

How can this work:
My proposal is that STO would choose from the available patrols, "next" episode content, in progress, foundry etc missions and build a system similar to the Admiralty or Duty Officer system where some number of promoted missions can be displayed and filtered by type. Players can select a mission - one for every ship they possess in their Ship roster and "Send" the ship. Again - like the DOFF and Admiralty systems - the mission has a timer that counts down - when the mission is ready the player can claim it at their leisure. Claiming a mission would use the Queue system to take the player (flying the ship they selected for the mission), and their teammates - to the starting location of the patrol/mission/foundry map.

This system would not remove sector space, so the wait-times the system imposes can be easily be bypassed by simply navigating normally to the mission location. They could continue to use Transwarp to get there "instantly" in sector space - but the new system would probably include a "transwarp" option too to avoid even the wait time.

Conversely it benefits players by giving them more opportunity to remain in social areas, at the "cost" of having multiple ships prepared.
Cryptic benefits because:
* Players can finally stop asking to be able to remain on their bridge while travelling to missions.
* Players will be encouraged to buy more ships - have more ships equipped - buy more ship slots all of which drive the demand for dilithium and Zen.
* Players and Cryptic benefit from having a more natural way for Cryptic to add new content to the game as this can easily take on the task of promoting content

I would also hope that the system would encourage the growth of new kinds of mission content as it could easily host scenarios based off the Admiralty and Duty Officer system missions: Quell Pirate Activity, Assist Freighter in distress, etc. would naturally fit into this as random dailies.

seaofsorrows

This topic is #11 on the F.C.T. List.

Bye bye thread.

thevampinator

seaofsorrows wrote: »

This topic is #11 on the F.C.T. List.

Bye bye thread.

Well I see it as only the name of the title hes talking about a queue like missions system to be an alternative to traveling there through sector space. Which is different from the FCT Topic, as hes talking about any social zone. In a way it would be convenient for some folks. But I think they would need to create new Ui for it. If they had many more devs then they did. I've got an idea as well they could make a new zone players can travel to within your ship not connected to anything other then the turbolift but also able to be accessed indepdently of ships interior and shuttle interior. But allowing the option to travel there on some ships interiors through the turbolift. This takes you to a room with an intractable starchart where you then sit down and stare at it. Kinda like Neverwinters New Professions system where you sit down at a desk to look at new potential npc crafters in the your professions shop but instead this would take you to sector map. Maybe more a more realistic looking sector map where you can command your crew to chart a course. Maybe a system that upgrades the areas where you can travel too as your advance and level. for each faction. Discovery Astrological Room, Retro Astrological room. Romulan Astrological Room, Starfleet Astrological Room, Klingon Astrological Room. And Dominion Astrological room for Dominion characters only. Romulans would be able to use any of the starfleet astrological rooms including Retro, Discovery and Starfleet if they are allied with Starfleet, And Klingon astrological Room if sided with them. But keep it where Discovery characters can only use the discovery one, Tos ones the retro one and Starfleet ones the regular Starfleet version. Thus allowing the three Starfleet Types to be unique from one another. As well as Give Romulans the option of choosing which one they want to use at will.

They can take inspiration from the starchart in the show discovery making it look like that where you can select which system to go too on a holographic map. Which would be a really fitting idea really and one that could work, of course certain systems would be inaccessible to certain factions. They could remove a lot of the planets that are only there for foundry reasons. Keeping some of the major ones like Betiziod and Cardassia. Keeping the Memorial Zones. Removing old never used Klingon pvp areas. Allow Klingons on K-7 removing their station as in canon klingons and Starfleet do make an appearance on that station even a klingon was in charge there at one point. So what I'm saying here is both factions should share K-7 Making it Neutral Territory for both and taking out the klingon station or keeping it allowing starfleet players to go there giving two new social zones for people that like to roleplay. They could maybe improve performance as they wouldn't need sector space anymore with this new system. They would not need to have many suns to place, or planets.

Another idea I have is they could change the doff system, and make it more like Neverwinters new professions system. Where they have a place like the professions crafting building in Neverwinter but make it where you can interact with your Doffs. The Doffs will no longer be pictures but real npcs you interact with. I could see them doing something this. Given the Tread Cryptic will update their games with concepts they have done with the others. They went ahead and added in Neverwinters Random Queue System for Star Trek Online recently. When they added in extra levels that took so long to grind, they evidently removed the long exp grind. In both games when it became to problematic they reduced it in both games. Making it much easier to get to level seventy and sixty in both.

baddmoonrizin

FCT topic. /Thread