Blacksheep Video Log Entry 1
Patrol in Sirius, Regulus and Pi Canis Sectors, stardate 89854.93 to 89855.9
"VIDEO LINK: 2409 - The Endless War"
USS Ark Royal, after successfully integrating and evaluating the
Aegis battle management system with 7th Fleet, proceeded on independent 2-day patrol around Federation internal space in order to safeguard lines of communication and commerce.
Priority targets included known concentrations of commerce raiders under the employ of the Klingon Empire; before their withdrawal from Klingon space, Federation corporate assets reported high ranking KDF officers distributing Letters of Marque to Orion Syndicate and mercenary elements friendly to the Empire. These marauders have been consistently causing grief to Federation supply lines to the Pi Canis sector; while the raiders are more than able to elude standard patrol vessels, Ark Royal's retrofitted active electronically-scanned sensor arrays ("
AESA") should give her the edge in long range detection without compromising ownship's position (due to the multi-mode-per-scan operating characteristics of an AESA, also known as a phased array sensor suite.
Two hours out from Sector 001, she rendezvoused with a patrol frigate (Codename: Pink Lips Bravo) bearing markings of Starfleet squadron VSMA-214 "Blacksheep", which served as a pilot vessel to orientate Ark Royal within the Beta Quadrant theatre of operations. While tiny compared to the retrofitted 'battle' star cruiser, the Ushaan class escort was both nimble and tenacious; more importantly she served as a backup vessel in case Ark Royal's prototype navigation and sensor systems required midcourse recalibration.
In combat, the Blacksheep frigate was assigned the role of armed recoonaissance picket - flying ahead of the larger battlecruiser, she would relay targeting data to Ark Royal which would then deploy tricobalt and special-purpose Hargh'Peng anti-ship torpedoes on demand. This
'over the horizon' targeting method was intended to evaluate Pink Lips' ability to perform basic
Cooperative Engagement Capability or CEC as required by XXV Century advanced Starfleet naval operations in the Alpha and Gamma quadrants.
Should the picket vessel be targeted by enemy direct fire, she will withdraw to Ark Royal's R6 (range 6) defensive perimeter where any and all hostile forces would be automatically tarageted and engaged by the Aegis battle management system, which is intended to protect capital ship task forces from massed torpedo and small craft assault from multiple simultaneous vectors. Ark Royal also carried multiple redundant engineering teams for complete self-sufficiency for both herself and attendance vessels; her XXV Century Emissary-Nomad hybrid hull was also equipped with remote power transfer equipment, which can be used to extend ownship's shields to protect an allied vessel close by.
Comments
I'm very fragile. Don't laugh at me!
cutscenes would be awesome not to long though. It has been metnioned loads of times but nothing.
Good work though on this. The camera could use a little work, but it's a nice looking battle.
But... no stopping someone from cutting out 10-20 seconds out of the footage and using it for a mission intro. I mean, in my dreams - STO doesn't have the ability to call external file playback anyway, and external video files are typically too huge to download on the fly.
I wanted to illustrate the sense of dynamic scale and 'pew pew epicness' that can't be gotten from a simple in-game cutscene. I would be happy for a slowly drifting camera aimed at a task force traversing the screen, slow epic flybys of huge ships, etc rather than the existing "focus camera on X object and play dialogue" format.
Demorecord (used in this video) is based on their cutscene tool but they have serious restrictions on in-game space cutscenes for some some reason.
Epic! With just a dash of bias.
An idea here ... Instead of scripting cutscenes, have the game file play a short demo (perhaps a flyby of a mission area) just before plopping the player in his starship.
This would allow someone on the dev team to create some epic camera angles in a demorecorded flight, then use that for a cutscene itself.
Of course, big battles require unreasonable manpower but a 5 second epic shot of a mission objective, a capital ship flyby scene, etc etc, would be much more fluid than just characters (trying to) strut around, yelling madly, then ending up with a static text box.
But like you said perhaps static scenes are all that Cryptic can do in the current mission implementation...
I've thought about that.
I bet the Devs could whip up the tools to pan the camera pretty well. Your scenes, their tools... it would make beautiful movie magic together!
Here's some backstory for your enjoyment. Although I'll warn you I tend to use a lot of non-canon 'RL Navy' terms. They just make sense to me!
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=4125263#post4125263
2409: The Endless War - STO fan video
For those who want a plot, check the new first post of this thread