given the offline/lengthy nature of the assignments system, will there be the possibility of an API coming out similar to what Eve Online offers? One by which 3rd party devs could provide interfaces that allow us to watch (if not change) the status of our assignments?
So in theory I could have Lt. ranked Doffs who answer to a Ensign ranked Boff department head?
Because if so I'm totally going to do it. And I'll change his name to Harry.
It isn't actually that odd that have that happen. I mean, I distinctly remember there being several officers involved with Chief O'Brien's staff, and though he even had to call Nog Sir, Nog still took his orders from O'Brien.
I request that this thread be stickied when it is the appropriate time. DOFFs are a complex new game mechanic. This thread helped me understand it a lot more. And I think it's essential for new players.
Agreed. The amount of valuable information in this thread warrants a sticky so players reading the forums, & looking to understand the Doff system, can find it more easily.
Yes, sticky please. This is most description I have seen on this system to date and the information is most helpful.
So we will now have civilians as well as regular startfleet personnel in the form of traders and diplomats. That sounds good but it brings up a question.
Since we don't have any idea how many DOffs we will be alloted, are the civilians going to be in a separate portion of the list or do they grab from the normal pool we are allotted?
I have a little confusion on how many we get overall and how many you have in each department. I.E.: Tactical, Engineering, Civlian.
The rest of the write up is perfect, and thank you for taking the time to produce it.
Will the rank of our duty officers be determined by the rank of the department head? An example would be if we have an ensign BO as a department head can a LT DOFF be used in that department are would there be restrictions like the department head must be higher rank or the equivlant rank of any officers under them?
Also will an ensign human white be better than say a chief petty officer human white ?
Cant wailt for this new system its my favourite thing in season 4
[...]I totaled up the number of duty officers built so far (over 6000) as well as the number of assignments currently built (a bit shy of 1000), and for both we are on target for the numbers of each we needed. For assignments, the final number will be substantially more than the minimum originally estimated.
[...]
I'm a bit curious how you came up with those numbers. Take the 1000 assignments. Sounds fairly much in the start. Divide them into the 12 commendation categories and they become just a bit below 100 per category. Which still sounds quite a bit. Now add into the mix that there are ~50 sectors each faction can enter and each sector 'should' have his own assignments it suddenly looks kind of awkward. How unique are those 1000 assignments?
And the gazillions of duty officers. I know you guys are getting creative with them, much appreciated. The number I'm interested in that bunch of duty officer is how many unique passive abilities there are.
I'm a bit curious how you came up with those numbers. Take the 1000 assignments. Sounds fairly much in the start. Divide them into the 12 commendation categories and they become just a bit below 100 per category. Which still sounds quite a bit. Now add into the mix that there are ~50 sectors each faction can enter and each sector 'should' have his own assignments it suddenly looks kind of awkward. How unique are those 1000 assignments?
And the gazillions of duty officers. I know you guys are getting creative with them, much appreciated. The number I'm interested in that bunch of duty officer is how many unique passive abilities there are.
Well, he didn't say whether 1000 was the target goal or just that they were on target for their launch goals. Undoubtedly, this'd be the easiest system to plug content into, when compared to FE or PvP. Hopefully, that means for each featured series, a unique suite of assignments becomes available.
the thing is darren: if he counts 'prototype disruptor pistol' and 'prototype phaser pistol' as unique assignments that would be a little bit of a let down.
same with the duty officers. it doesn't matter if there are 1000 or 10000 of them if half of them has a passive bonus to flaming kitten juggling and the other half for drowned dog bowling.
the thing is darren: if he counts 'prototype disruptor pistol' and 'prototype phaser pistol' as unique assignments that would be a little bit of a let down.
same with the duty officers. it doesn't matter if there are 1000 or 10000 of them if half of them has a passive bonus to flaming kitten juggling and the other half for drowned dog bowling.
Aye, it would.
However, this may get the most additions to it on Tribble (I mean, even KDF ships have two new additions now).
Also, don't give Heretic ideas for "flaming kitten jugglers"--so far the powers seem reasonable.
So our DO can train our BO. If my DO trains my BO in the DO "efficient" skill, does the BO have the old "efficient" skill or the new one, that does something different? If the first, that could really destroy the monopoly that uncommon Saurians have in my ship assignments section, lol.
Can you train more than one DO skill to each BO? If so, is there a limit? Can i buy one of every DO for each of my BO and use them all for training so all of my BO have every skill?
We are limited to 3 DO with specific skills to affect the ship, such as "Nursing" which might give faster crew repair. How many different skills are there? Can I buy enough slots in my BO section from the C-store to have 3 different officers for every single skill in order to maximize my ship?
Duty officer skills and traits and Bridge officer skills and traits are completely different. A bridge officer who eats a duty officer gets exactly the functionality that duty officer had.
Right now, we're looking at bridge officers being able to eat about three duty officers, but that may change or vary depending on other factors.
There are about twenty-five skills now. More will be built eventually, of course. I can't say right now how many more exactly there will be there at launch of the system.
Will the rank of our duty officers be determined by the rank of the department head? An example would be if we have an ensign BO as a department head can a LT DOFF be used in that department are would there be restrictions like the department head must be higher rank or the equivlant rank of any officers under them?
Also will an ensign human white be better than say a chief petty officer human white ?
Cant wailt for this new system its my favourite thing in season 4
The rank of a duty officer will probably be irrelevant to the rank of the department head, but remember this part of the system still hasn't gone through full due diligence with Software and UI, so things could change.
All whites of the same specialization have the exact same skill as all other whites of the same specialization. They may have different traits, however. Same goes for green compared to green, blue to blue, etc.
I'm a bit curious how you came up with those numbers. Take the 1000 assignments. Sounds fairly much in the start. Divide them into the 12 commendation categories and they become just a bit below 100 per category. Which still sounds quite a bit. Now add into the mix that there are ~50 sectors each faction can enter and each sector 'should' have his own assignments it suddenly looks kind of awkward. How unique are those 1000 assignments?
And the gazillions of duty officers. I know you guys are getting creative with them, much appreciated. The number I'm interested in that bunch of duty officer is how many unique passive abilities there are.
This is a fair question.
We are on-track for the number we expected to have at this time; we are still building more assignments, and I actually expect to keep building more even after the system goes onto Tribble.
Yes, some of these are systemic variations. Some are not. Enough systemic types combined with enough one-offs should - I hope - result in something that feels organic, natural, and appropriate to the sector and circumstance of your character. Whatever the actual final number winds up being, the goal is that the system feel "right", meaning it feels fresh, but you still have a good idea of what the various assignment do when you see them on the list.
(I will note, too, that most assignments do work across sectors; the major exception are those where you are building up to sector-specific perks or possess gated requirements, such as is the case with most of the current Colonial assignments.)
On the question of duty officers, most specializations (of which there are currently about twenty-five or so) and some unique duty officers have one passive ability that becomes active when that duty officer is placed on the player's active roster. A duty officer is a combination of species + quality + specialization + gender = a whole lot of combinations. Uniques are just that - one-offs that do not come in every combination of the above. They may have traits that normally wouldn't come with their species, they may have a completely new passive ability, they may have a unique portrait or not.
Most of those 6000+ or so are, obviously, the result of the above combinatorial system. The number of uniques is more of a moving target, so I can't give you a good number right now.
However, this may get the most additions to it on Tribble (I mean, even KDF ships have two new additions now).
Also, don't give Heretic ideas for "flaming kitten jugglers"--so far the powers seem reasonable.
Flaming kitten juggling was something Designer Dragon used back in the days. And to be blunt anybody working at Cryptic who doesn't know who that is deserves to be fired immediatly. :eek:
Flaming kitten juggling was something Designer Dragon used back in the days. And to be blunt anybody working at Cryptic who doesn't know who that is deserves to be fired immediatly. :eek:
There go the three new programmers.
j/k seriously, I get to use stealth text to prank people.
I have another BOff-eating-DOff question. With the current tentative consumption limit of three DOffs per BOff, if you get a DOff with a better passive and you want to feed him to your BOff, which previously-eaten DOff goes away? Is the the earliest of the three eaten DOffs? Will there be a way to mix and match DOffs so you don't lose ones you want to keep but can swap out the aforementioned flaming kitten juggler?
Neelix: "Hey Mr. Vulcan! Watch this!" Tuvok: "Mr. Neelix, I fail to see the value in precariously tossing about combusting felines in such a manner." Makes note on PADD to recommend replacing current "morale" officer...
I have another BOff-eating-DOff question. With the current tentative consumption limit of three DOffs per BOff, if you get a DOff with a better passive and you want to feed him to your BOff, which previously-eaten DOff goes away? Is the the earliest of the three eaten DOffs? Will there be a way to mix and match DOffs so you don't lose ones you want to keep but can swap out the aforementioned flaming kitten juggler?
Neelix: "Hey Mr. Vulcan! Watch this!" Tuvok: "Mr. Neelix, I fail to see the value in precariously tossing about combusting felines in such a manner." Makes note on PADD to recommend replacing current "morale" officer...
My current expectation is that you will be able to choose which old skill you which to overwrite.
I was wondering, would you be able to implement some sort of "morale" system into this?
It would be great to see morale of the crew either be higher or lower depending on the successes and failures of not only the DOff missions and assignments, but reaching out into the rest of the game's missions as well.
For example, crew morale could be low based on failures of DOff missions or when you are defeated in combat missions (PvE and PvP), and could be higher based on successful missions and combat victories.
The current crew morale (CCM) number could influence the probability of success and failure for all missions in the DOff system, or give temporary good and bad procs and passives in the rest of the game.
Raising morale could be attained through successes and victories, or by giving the crew leave on planets such as Risa.
Just a thought to add another level of complexity and fun to the DOff system.
So I know the rarity scale of doffs but will the doffs rank determine anything about them? thanks for the answers so far im very excited about this new system:D
Will ship type affect the amount of assignments you can undertake or the amount of duty officers in your inventory?
It would seem ridiculous to me, who flies an escort, if I had the same assignment capacity as a cruiser.
Also, will player ship class affect the outcome of assignments? A science mission from a science ship may have a greater chance of succeeding given that the ship is better capable of handling said mission type.
might be cool to have assignments based on ground locations too. like if you go to starfleet HQ, you can send scientists off to the research institute to bring back new experimental crafting blueprints. or go to a starship tactics simulator to boost phaser response times. stuff like that
visit vulcan and send one off to do mental disciplines, and bring back a boost for your boffs neck pinch ability
Duty officer skills and traits and Bridge officer skills and traits are completely different...
You mentioned before that the skills and traits may be named the same, but are different. No offense, but this seems like a bad idea that can cause confusion.
Haven't you Cryptic Guys ever heard of a Thesaurus? I mean it isn't just a dead dinosaur. :rolleyes:
Couldn't we please have different names?
For example, if the DOff version of Efficient doesn't give +X to the Efficiency Skills (as the Captain and BO traits do), how about giving the DOffs a new trait called: deft, systematic, or well-organized (Just some of my favorites from the aforementioned thesaurus, that I think have a similar meaning)?
This is a real pet-peeve of mine with this system. Otherwise, it all sounds GREAT!
My current expectation is that you will be able to choose which old skill you which to overwrite.
Cool. What happens when you overwrite an old skill? I assume that is gone, like when you replace a Bridge officer special ability now. But would it be possible that when you overwrite a department head passive skill for another, the duty officer that was originally eaten for that old skill comes back as a duty officer?
So I know the rarity scale of doffs but will the doffs rank determine anything about them? thanks for the answers so far im very excited about this new system:D
The rank is tied to the quality (color). For those duty officers that don't have an official rank, they still have a quality. Quality in turn affects the effects when slotted (if that duty officer has a passive skill) or the contribution to a success or critical success when put on an assignment.
might be cool to have assignments based on ground locations too. like if you go to starfleet HQ, you can send scientists off to the research institute to bring back new experimental crafting blueprints. or go to a starship tactics simulator to boost phaser response times. stuff like that
visit vulcan and send one off to do mental disciplines, and bring back a boost for your boffs neck pinch ability
Ground location based assignments are being experimented with. I am hopeful we can work something out for this - possibly even for launch of the system.
Will ship type affect the amount of assignments you can undertake or the amount of duty officers in your inventory?
It would seem ridiculous to me, who flies an escort, if I had the same assignment capacity as a cruiser.
Also, will player ship class affect the outcome of assignments? A science mission from a science ship may have a greater chance of succeeding given that the ship is better capable of handling said mission type.
Ship type currently does not affect the amount, types or outcomes of assignments or duty officers. This was a practical decision that, yes, does fly in the face of immersion a bit, but it was felt the loss in immersion would be made up for with the system being easier to understand and access.
If you want to be more science focused, you still can do this, it just isn't tied specifically to your ship, but instead it is tied to your decisions as captain in terms of what duty officers you recruit and retain, what assignments you send them on, and which duty officers you put on your active roster. These, in turn, will affect what tiers you achieve in which commendation categories, which in turn open up additional options and types of assignments.
Cool. What happens when you overwrite an old skill? I assume that is gone, like when you replace a Bridge officer special ability now. But would it be possible that when you overwrite a department head passive skill for another, the duty officer that was originally eaten for that old skill comes back as a duty officer?
The overwritten duty officer will be gone. This was a technical decision based on data issues.
Is this going to work like a socket? For example, will there be a protrait of the BOff with three boxes underneath where we can "slot" a DOff?
This is a good idea, but unfortunately it isn't practical for data storage reasons.
The data storage issue comes up a lot, btw, because STO - due to things like bridge officers, ship types and duty officers multiplied by costume information uses up vastly more data storage per character than a conventional MMORPG.
This is a good idea, but unfortunately it isn't practical for data storage reasons.
The data storage issue comes up a lot, btw, because STO - due to things like bridge officers, ship types and duty officers multiplied by costume information uses up vastly more data storage per character than a conventional MMORPG.
Would I be incorrect in assuming that, from a storage perspective, every character "owns" a copy of every ship and acquiring a ship simply unlocks it for use?
So... On a certain level, there is ship data (if not costume data) assigned to every ensign for every ship in the game?
There are some things about gameplay that suggest this is the case for me.
Read the OP and all of Heretic's responses up to this point. I seem to understand everything stated, and don't have any questions right now. Looking forward to seeing this in action within the next month or two
Comments
It isn't actually that odd that have that happen. I mean, I distinctly remember there being several officers involved with Chief O'Brien's staff, and though he even had to call Nog Sir, Nog still took his orders from O'Brien.
Agreed. The amount of valuable information in this thread warrants a sticky so players reading the forums, & looking to understand the Doff system, can find it more easily.
So we will now have civilians as well as regular startfleet personnel in the form of traders and diplomats. That sounds good but it brings up a question.
Since we don't have any idea how many DOffs we will be alloted, are the civilians going to be in a separate portion of the list or do they grab from the normal pool we are allotted?
I have a little confusion on how many we get overall and how many you have in each department. I.E.: Tactical, Engineering, Civlian.
The rest of the write up is perfect, and thank you for taking the time to produce it.
Also will an ensign human white be better than say a chief petty officer human white ?
Cant wailt for this new system its my favourite thing in season 4
EDIT: YES! stickied!
I'm a bit curious how you came up with those numbers. Take the 1000 assignments. Sounds fairly much in the start. Divide them into the 12 commendation categories and they become just a bit below 100 per category. Which still sounds quite a bit. Now add into the mix that there are ~50 sectors each faction can enter and each sector 'should' have his own assignments it suddenly looks kind of awkward. How unique are those 1000 assignments?
And the gazillions of duty officers. I know you guys are getting creative with them, much appreciated. The number I'm interested in that bunch of duty officer is how many unique passive abilities there are.
same with the duty officers. it doesn't matter if there are 1000 or 10000 of them if half of them has a passive bonus to flaming kitten juggling and the other half for drowned dog bowling.
Aye, it would.
However, this may get the most additions to it on Tribble (I mean, even KDF ships have two new additions now).
Also, don't give Heretic ideas for "flaming kitten jugglers"--so far the powers seem reasonable.
Duty officer skills and traits and Bridge officer skills and traits are completely different. A bridge officer who eats a duty officer gets exactly the functionality that duty officer had.
Right now, we're looking at bridge officers being able to eat about three duty officers, but that may change or vary depending on other factors.
There are about twenty-five skills now. More will be built eventually, of course. I can't say right now how many more exactly there will be there at launch of the system.
The rank of a duty officer will probably be irrelevant to the rank of the department head, but remember this part of the system still hasn't gone through full due diligence with Software and UI, so things could change.
All whites of the same specialization have the exact same skill as all other whites of the same specialization. They may have different traits, however. Same goes for green compared to green, blue to blue, etc.
This is a fair question.
We are on-track for the number we expected to have at this time; we are still building more assignments, and I actually expect to keep building more even after the system goes onto Tribble.
Yes, some of these are systemic variations. Some are not. Enough systemic types combined with enough one-offs should - I hope - result in something that feels organic, natural, and appropriate to the sector and circumstance of your character. Whatever the actual final number winds up being, the goal is that the system feel "right", meaning it feels fresh, but you still have a good idea of what the various assignment do when you see them on the list.
(I will note, too, that most assignments do work across sectors; the major exception are those where you are building up to sector-specific perks or possess gated requirements, such as is the case with most of the current Colonial assignments.)
On the question of duty officers, most specializations (of which there are currently about twenty-five or so) and some unique duty officers have one passive ability that becomes active when that duty officer is placed on the player's active roster. A duty officer is a combination of species + quality + specialization + gender = a whole lot of combinations. Uniques are just that - one-offs that do not come in every combination of the above. They may have traits that normally wouldn't come with their species, they may have a completely new passive ability, they may have a unique portrait or not.
Most of those 6000+ or so are, obviously, the result of the above combinatorial system. The number of uniques is more of a moving target, so I can't give you a good number right now.
If not, I can see that complicating First Officer->Captain conversions.
This is correct.
Flaming kitten juggling was something Designer Dragon used back in the days. And to be blunt anybody working at Cryptic who doesn't know who that is deserves to be fired immediatly. :eek:
There go the three new programmers.
j/k seriously, I get to use stealth text to prank people.
Neelix: "Hey Mr. Vulcan! Watch this!"
Tuvok: "Mr. Neelix, I fail to see the value in precariously tossing about combusting felines in such a manner." Makes note on PADD to recommend replacing current "morale" officer...
Z
My current expectation is that you will be able to choose which old skill you which to overwrite.
like assigining BOffs to a ship? except DOffs are lost when overriden
I was wondering, would you be able to implement some sort of "morale" system into this?
It would be great to see morale of the crew either be higher or lower depending on the successes and failures of not only the DOff missions and assignments, but reaching out into the rest of the game's missions as well.
For example, crew morale could be low based on failures of DOff missions or when you are defeated in combat missions (PvE and PvP), and could be higher based on successful missions and combat victories.
The current crew morale (CCM) number could influence the probability of success and failure for all missions in the DOff system, or give temporary good and bad procs and passives in the rest of the game.
Raising morale could be attained through successes and victories, or by giving the crew leave on planets such as Risa.
Just a thought to add another level of complexity and fun to the DOff system.
It would seem ridiculous to me, who flies an escort, if I had the same assignment capacity as a cruiser.
Also, will player ship class affect the outcome of assignments? A science mission from a science ship may have a greater chance of succeeding given that the ship is better capable of handling said mission type.
visit vulcan and send one off to do mental disciplines, and bring back a boost for your boffs neck pinch ability
Haven't you Cryptic Guys ever heard of a Thesaurus? I mean it isn't just a dead dinosaur. :rolleyes:
Couldn't we please have different names?
For example, if the DOff version of Efficient doesn't give +X to the Efficiency Skills (as the Captain and BO traits do), how about giving the DOffs a new trait called: deft, systematic, or well-organized (Just some of my favorites from the aforementioned thesaurus, that I think have a similar meaning)?
This is a real pet-peeve of mine with this system. Otherwise, it all sounds GREAT!
Cool. What happens when you overwrite an old skill? I assume that is gone, like when you replace a Bridge officer special ability now. But would it be possible that when you overwrite a department head passive skill for another, the duty officer that was originally eaten for that old skill comes back as a duty officer?
Is this going to work like a socket? For example, will there be a protrait of the BOff with three boxes underneath where we can "slot" a DOff?
-Auspice
The rank is tied to the quality (color). For those duty officers that don't have an official rank, they still have a quality. Quality in turn affects the effects when slotted (if that duty officer has a passive skill) or the contribution to a success or critical success when put on an assignment.
Ground location based assignments are being experimented with. I am hopeful we can work something out for this - possibly even for launch of the system.
Ship type currently does not affect the amount, types or outcomes of assignments or duty officers. This was a practical decision that, yes, does fly in the face of immersion a bit, but it was felt the loss in immersion would be made up for with the system being easier to understand and access.
If you want to be more science focused, you still can do this, it just isn't tied specifically to your ship, but instead it is tied to your decisions as captain in terms of what duty officers you recruit and retain, what assignments you send them on, and which duty officers you put on your active roster. These, in turn, will affect what tiers you achieve in which commendation categories, which in turn open up additional options and types of assignments.
The overwritten duty officer will be gone. This was a technical decision based on data issues.
This is a good idea, but unfortunately it isn't practical for data storage reasons.
The data storage issue comes up a lot, btw, because STO - due to things like bridge officers, ship types and duty officers multiplied by costume information uses up vastly more data storage per character than a conventional MMORPG.
Would I be incorrect in assuming that, from a storage perspective, every character "owns" a copy of every ship and acquiring a ship simply unlocks it for use?
So... On a certain level, there is ship data (if not costume data) assigned to every ensign for every ship in the game?
There are some things about gameplay that suggest this is the case for me.