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Agents of Yesterday: The player character insignia

excalibur37excalibur37 Member Posts: 17 Arc User
I've been able to get through the first half of the first mission of Agents of Yesterday, so I don't know if this is addressed further in the story, but I figured I'd bring it up anyway:

Agents of Yesterday is supposed to be based in the year 2270. Based on the use of the TOS bridge in the tutorial, I'm presuming this takes place before ST: The Motion Picture (which, according to Memory Alpha, was around the early 2270s).

In this time, the Uniform Insignia which has come to represent the whole of Starfleet starting with ST: TMP, originally represented the ship the wearer was serving on. In this case, the insignia was used by the USS Enterprise. Since the player character would never be officially serving on the USS Enterprise, that insignia would never be worn by the player character in an official capacity.

Additionally, this insignia primarily represents space warp (it's shown in the novel Star Trek: Federation when Zefram Cochrane is describing warp travel. Presuming the player character is representing a temporal agent, my opinion is that it would make more sense for temporal agents to have an insignia related to time travel rather than one related to space warp, especially since it appears that temporal agent, while being a united entity under the temporal accords, is not under the same umbrella as Starfleet.

For the sake of continuity. will the player character have the ability to "create" their own insignia to represent their ship? I imagine it would just be a matter of porting the ability to upload an insignia from the Fleet component to make it available to individual players, in addition to providing a selection of templates to choose from for the less artistic.

Answers

  • miamiviceroymiamiviceroy Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    As much as it isn't lore-friendly, I seriously doubt this feature makes it into the game. When you stop to consider how many people play the game, and how many of them have multiple characters, and the fact that each one of those characters would have to have a completely unique insignia, that gets nightmarishly complex in nanoseconds...

    (For the record, I am 100% in favor of a complete revamp to bring the game into line with lore wherever remotely feasible from a coding perspective.)
  • andromeda981andromeda981 Member Posts: 32 Arc User
    The USS Ariel and the USS Enterprise both used the same assignment patch. The USS Antares, Defiant, Constellation and Exeter used unique ones. So it's not hard to imagine that multiple ships used the same patch, since it would be a bit of a pain in the butt to have a unique patch made for every single uniform for every single ship commissioned. And since this is 2270 and on the verge of entering TMP, it's not unreasonable that the assignment patch became the first universal patch prior to the insignia badges.

    Another thing to take into account is that during the 23rd century Starfleet had not yet perfected Replicator Technology and mostly had big bulky ones at Industrial sites. So something as aesthetic as a patch would be made by hand, rather than use valuable energy of the Industrial models.
  • evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    The functionality is already in game in the form of fleet emblems, but I highly doubt they would unlock that for TOS badge creation
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  • phenomenaut01phenomenaut01 Member Posts: 714 Arc User
    I'd love some sort of simple interface to make our own ship badges like you're talking about, but I doubt it would ever happen.

    The TOS badges were really pretty basic, so 5 to 10 simple shapes and insignia that you can mix and match would add a whole new level of customization onto an already very robust system.

    A guy can dream right?
  • excalibur37excalibur37 Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    Yeah. I appreciate that the feasibility of having a unique emblem for each player character is impossible, especially if you consider the high user frustration and lag issues if the game has to check every single emblem created to validate that it's unique.

    But I was hoping for something that was at least template based, or have a selection of shapes for various sectors on a grid (let's say 3×3) representing parts of the insgina (similar to the flexibility with costumes), allowing for there to at least be varied insignias in the game.

    The easier solution would have been to slightly move the timeline to be after the events of ST: TMP (which, for all intents and purposes, is an extended pilot of a Star Trek series that was to follow TOS). But this would involve re-costuming every ship and bridge in the expansion, something which would now be an incredible burden now that alpha versions of actual episodes are on tribble.
  • phenomenaut01phenomenaut01 Member Posts: 714 Arc User
    The USS Ariel and the USS Enterprise both used the same assignment patch. The USS Antares, Defiant, Constellation and Exeter used unique ones. So it's not hard to imagine that multiple ships used the same patch, since it would be a bit of a pain in the butt to have a unique patch made for every single uniform for every single ship commissioned. And since this is 2270 and on the verge of entering TMP, it's not unreasonable that the assignment patch became the first universal patch prior to the insignia badges.

    Another thing to take into account is that during the 23rd century Starfleet had not yet perfected Replicator Technology and mostly had big bulky ones at Industrial sites. So something as aesthetic as a patch would be made by hand, rather than use valuable energy of the Industrial models.

    Give that we can manufacture clothing by with machines today, I seriously doubt that they can't do the same in 2270. :smiley:

    But I get your point, sort of. The Ariel is one of those iffy canon things. According to Startrek.com, the S.S. Ariel (not U.S.S. - though there's no real distinction that I can find between the two) was a small ship with only 6 crewmen and not really on the same level as the Enterprise. Maybe they had different patch assignments for different divisions within Starfleet? Who knows.

    Regardless, given that the game can parse the data of fleet patches without causing too many issues, I don't think that doing the same for some customized ship badges would cause much trouble. The geometry is basically the only difference - besides the specialty divisions.

    Here's are some of the badges that were on the show:

    13a6230b19b417c1f31b552c772e2d80.jpg


  • dareaudareau Member Posts: 2,390 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    If I remember correctly:

    The entire reason all of Starfleet went to the "Iconic Enterprise Arrowhead" is that the Enterprise was the only one of the "original 12 heavy cruisers" that survived her initial 5 year mission.

    Then we also know that there's an 18 month window between the end of said mission and the start of TMP - the time that the Enterprise sat in refit.

    However, rampant speculation exists that with the show "ending" in 1969 and the movie filming in 1976-1978 window (for a 1979 release), there was a second 5 year mission of the Enterprise.

    So, for all we know, AoY will be in that second 5 year mission window... Where the arrowhead was "iconic" but the uniforms were still velour...
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  • kamenriderzero1kamenriderzero1 Member Posts: 906 Arc User
    nearly ever source I've read assumes the second 5 year mission was between TMP and WoK. Current show canon (VOY:"Q2") sets the end of Kirk's first 5 year mission as 2270.
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  • excalibur37excalibur37 Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    nearly ever source I've read assumes the second 5 year mission was between TMP and WoK. Current show canon (VOY:"Q2") sets the end of Kirk's first 5 year mission as 2270.

    I concur. According to memory alpha, TMP was in the early 2270s, while WoK was in 2285. it also suggests that season 3 of TOS was 2269. If Voyager made a hard date of 2270, that would also give TMP a smaller window (18 month refit = 2271-2272)
  • brianduselbriandusel Member Posts: 24 Arc User
    As a player, I would appreciate a few options rather than just the arrowhead. But, we'll see, right?
  • stostargatewarsstostargatewars Member Posts: 179 Arc User
    The dev Al Rivera/CaptainGeko has already said in an interview that there will be 90 TOS badges to use.
  • jarenriccarjarenriccar Member Posts: 248 Arc User
    The dev Al Rivera/CaptainGeko has already said in an interview that there will be 90 TOS badges to use.
    90? i highly doubt that. 9? maybe.
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  • norcaler2norcaler2 Member Posts: 114 Arc User
    The dev Al Rivera/CaptainGeko has already said in an interview that there will be 90 TOS badges to use.
    90? i highly doubt that. 9? maybe.

    I'd wager the actual total of emblems per "ship" would be thirty, but with 3 different ones each for command, operations, and science officers.
  • tuskin67tuskin67 Member Posts: 1,097 Arc User
    edited June 2016
    The dev Al Rivera/CaptainGeko has already said in an interview that there will be 90 TOS badges to use.
    90? i highly doubt that. 9? maybe.

    that was the exact number he gave.

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  • daveynydaveyny Member Posts: 8,227 Arc User
    edited June 2016
    Yeah, he practically said They went hog-wild creating the patches.
    He was very excited about it.
    B)
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  • tuskin67tuskin67 Member Posts: 1,097 Arc User
    edited June 2016
    norcaler2 wrote: »
    The dev Al Rivera/CaptainGeko has already said in an interview that there will be 90 TOS badges to use.
    90? i highly doubt that. 9? maybe.

    I'd wager the actual total of emblems per "ship" would be thirty, but with 3 different ones each for command, operations, and science officers.

    I have to agree with this actually. Its probably 30 shapes, and then the 3 divisions per shape, which would make 90 badges.
  • jtoon74jtoon74 Member Posts: 409 Arc User
    daveyny wrote: »
    Yeah, he practically said They went hog-wild creating the patches.
    He was very excited about it.
    B)

    Sweet!!
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