That doesn't mean it cannot be a nice bonus. Having little quarters for say your First Officer and Chief Engineer would be rather amusing for RP reasons, and you could justify it by having it connected to bank space or Doff Contacts or something.
This is all nice but it doesn't really treat ship interiors as a content hub or consider mechanical approaches.
My current proposal simply extends ship interiors as possible core mission maps, player customised such that each player's experience is unique. To make interiors a content hub would require a fundamental rethink of STO.
Not sure what you mean by "mechanical approaches".
I think there need to be minimum customization areas, at least one well-designed deck that is the same on every ship, aside from colors, lighting, and LCARS. I'd be inclined to make this a deck with a brig, a lab, a holodeck, and a shuttlebay. Structurally like a TNG deck, more than likely.
Don't like the sound of that, I'm afraid - generic layouts for all ship classes is the current implementation.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
This is all nice but it doesn't really treat ship interiors as a content hub or consider mechanical approaches.[/QUOTE[
My current proposal simply extends ship interiors as possible core mission maps, player customised such that each player's experience is unique. To make interiors a content hub would require a fundamental rethink of STO.
Not sure what you mean by "mechanical approaches".
Don't like the sound of that, I'm afraid - generic layouts for all ship classes is the current implementation.
I think being able to have missions set there is more important than having a dollhouse. I want the dollhouse too but I can't shoot people in the face in dev crafted missions on a dollhouse.
Ships need to be split out into a single, default style for one deck (with colors/LCARS/lighting) and then put the dollhouse on other decks.
I think being able to have missions set there is more important than having a dollhouse. I want the dollhouse too but I can't shoot people in the face in dev crafted missions on a dollhouse.
Ships need to be split out into a single, default style for one deck (with colors/LCARS/lighting) and then put the dollhouse on other decks.
No. While a default deck is a given necessity, having all ships use the same deck for interior missions is bland and rather lazy. Does this mean I believe that the Devs should handcraft each interior mission for every ship interior?
Yes, I think so. It would set STO way apart from other MMO's, and make it a lot more faithful to it's IP. Both things this game really could use.
It's not like it would be all that hard. They would only truly have to worry about the Galaxy, Intrepid, Sovy, TOS/TMP Enterprise and whatever the default is. That's only 5 ships. All the rest would be set redresses in true Star Trek fashion.
The Galaxy and Nebula are made out of the same parts, I would assume they would have the same interiors. The Destiny would probably share a lot of parts with the Intrepid. So on and so forth. And like sumghai said, interior customisation would be limited to colour/texture/carpet changes, Trophies and Decorations like paintings, wall scrolls, clocks and furniture styles (But not placement). It would all be very simplified.
EDIT: Someday however, I would love to see a full Miranda interior. There's a part of me that wants to get a buddy, sail to some suitably red nebula and re-enact the Wrath of Khan!
Since you already have a still photo option being the view screen, you simply add a bunch of them depending on where you are.
Like a still photo of ds9 or w/e.
You'd then hit m for map, click something. Still photo turns into an animation with moving stars.
Once at your destination the classic HUD pops up "enter whatever" and viewscreen changes to still photo of said place.
This way you aren't actually looking out into space but can still travel while on your bridge.
In the future people spend more time on the bridge than anywhere else :rolleyes:
Since you already have a still photo option being the view screen, you simply add a bunch of them depending on where you are.
Like a still photo of ds9 or w/e.
You'd then hit m for map, click something. Still photo turns into an animation with moving stars.
Once at your destination the classic HUD pops up "enter whatever" and viewscreen changes to still photo of said place.
This way you aren't actually looking out into space but can still travel while on your bridge.
In the future people spend more time on the bridge than anywhere else :rolleyes:
And thus most of the game's major social areas become ghost towns. Might as well just replace your ship interior with a loading screen and let everybody transwarp from planet to planet.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
I don't know what you mean exactly, what social areas ?
In my example you'd physically move around in space - on other people's screen, like you normally do, only you won't see the actual travel yourself through your viewscreen as it's "hard to do". Only your map would show you moving just like it does now.
And my last comment about "in the future everyone is on the bridge... is intended as hardcore sarcasm since we all know there won't be any changes to the bridge: laughable naive to think major overhauls are going to change things dramatically, get it ?
Hence the innocent, happy yet also contemplating smiley I left at the buttom
That being said having any kind of use for the interiors would have been first on my list in creating a star trek game seeing as most of the shows take place there.
I played star trek on snes which is from what 1998, see my avatar, and that game had travel and fighting from the bridge - in full 3d, barrell rolls and everything.
A more recent example would be bridge commander which I am sure you know...
My idea for interior travel is I think more realistic not asking to redo the engine simply script a few lines of text....
But hey realism knocking on the door it won't sell any lockboxes I can dig it
No. While a default deck is a given necessity, having all ships use the same deck for interior missions is bland and rather lazy. Does this mean I believe that the Devs should handcraft each interior mission for every ship interior?
Yes, I think so. It would set STO way apart from other MMO's, and make it a lot more faithful to it's IP. Both things this game really could use.
It might not have to come to that - rather, the conference room / observation lounge area currently underutilised in my proposal could contain coordinates for NPC placeholders.
The following examples assume sumghai is using his Intrepid-class interior.
Default
sumghai's Intrepid conference room on the port side of the bridge has been customised with the canon Voyager wall textures, a slightly different meeting table and 2409 LCARS.
His default spawn location is the captain's chair of his bridge.
"Standoff" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the two Cardassian Guls in dispute, the game builds the customised gameplay scenario as follows:
1) Loads sumghai's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all the NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- two Starfleet Security guards, using the player's custom Tac department crewmen costumes (otherwise used for hallway wandering NPCs)
- Gul Antos
- Gul Surjan
- Gul Surjan's two guards
- Player's First Officer (in sumghai's case, Cmdr. Thomas Richardson)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- sumghai is using an Intrepid
- Make Antos stand looking out the window
- Have Surjan sit in one of the meeting table chairs with his two guards standing at attention behind him
- Have the two Starfleet Security officers stand by the doorway
- Have Cmdr. Richardson to the side of the conference room LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- sumghai will be using the LCARS computer to look up info on Antos' case and examine the evidence, so make the computer panel on the far wall interactable.
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "Standoff", sumghai start off already standing inside the conference room with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
"First Contact" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the alien (in this case, Gallifreyan) dignitaries aboard:
1) Loads sumghai's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- one Starfleet Security officer (again using the player's custom crew uniform choices)
- Alien Ambassador
- Alien Attache
- Alien Diplomat
- Alien Envoy
- Player's First Officer (again, Cmdr. Thomas Richardson)
- 3 other random BOffs (Lt. Cmdrs. Christine Barber, Vrin K'vov, Corat Remara)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- sumghai is still using an Intrepid
- Have the Ambassdor seated in one of the meeting table chairs
- Have the Attache stand by the window talking to Barber
- Have the Diplomat stand by the wall computer talking to K'vov
- Have the Envoy stand by the far wall talking to Remara
- Have the Starfleet Security officer stand by the doorway
- Have Cmdr. Richardson to the side of the conference room LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- none
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "First Contact", sumghai start off already standing inside the conference room with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
For another player:
ben_sisko is using the Defiant interior.
Default
The Defiant is a tactical escort, so it lacks the creature comforts of other ship classes. Since it has no conference room, the mess hall is used instead (TV canon gives examples of the real Capt. Sisko having powwows in the Defiant mess hall).
ben_sisko is using 100% canonical Belfast decor.
ben_sisko's default spawn location is the captain's chair of his bridge.
"Standoff" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the two Cardassian Guls in dispute, the game builds the customised gameplay scenario as follows:
1) Loads ben_sisko's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all the NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- two Starfleet Security guards, using the player's custom Tac department crewmen costumes (otherwise used for hallway wandering NPCs)
- Gul Antos
- Gul Surjan
- Gul Surjan's two guards
- Player's First Officer (in ben_sisko's case, Kira Nerys)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- ben_sisko is using a Defiant
- Make Antos stand looking at the Defiant's spent phaser power cell display
- Have Surjan sit in one of the mess hall chairs with his two guards standing at attention behind him
- Have each of the two Starfleet Security officers stand by the two doorways
- Have Kira to the side of the mess hall LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- ben_sisko will be using the LCARS computer to look up info on Antos' case and examine the evidence, so make the computer panel on the wall interactable.
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "Standoff", ben_sisko start off already standing inside the mess hall with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
In short, each mission that makes use of player customised interiors simply consults NPC positioning coordinates for that specific class.
It's not like it would be all that hard. They would only truly have to worry about the Galaxy, Intrepid, Sovy, TOS/TMP Enterprise and whatever the default is. That's only 5 ships. All the rest would be set redresses in true Star Trek fashion.
The Galaxy and Nebula are made out of the same parts, I would assume they would have the same interiors. The Destiny would probably share a lot of parts with the Intrepid. So on and so forth. And like sumghai said, interior customisation would be limited to colour/texture/carpet changes, Trophies and Decorations like paintings, wall scrolls, clocks and furniture styles (But not placement). It would all be very simplified.
Agreed.
In Appendix A of my proposal, I've listed the deck / room layouts that are canonically known. As STO has unique non-TV classes, it's up to the devs how to implement those ones, including whether to reuse layouts from canon classes.
EDIT: Someday however, I would love to see a full Miranda interior. There's a part of me that wants to get a buddy, sail to some suitably red nebula and re-enact the Wrath of Khan!
I haz a digital copy of the Strategic Designs Miranda deck plans. U want?
Unfortunately, the way STO works is that when one switches between space and ground, your character's skin literally becomes switch between your ship and your captain. In doing so, only the last known map (and not the precise position) is retained.
There's currently no way of keeping track of your ship's exact position in sector space whilst you're running around inside your ship.
And thus most of the game's major social areas become ghost towns. Might as well just replace your ship interior with a loading screen and let everybody transwarp from planet to planet.
Note that my proposal by no means negates hubs like ESD, Risa, First City or anything - the hubs are still going to be where one can access the bank and the exchange.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
No. While a default deck is a given necessity, having all ships use the same deck for interior missions is bland and rather lazy. Does this mean I believe that the Devs should handcraft each interior mission for every ship interior?
Yes, I think so. It would set STO way apart from other MMO's, and make it a lot more faithful to it's IP. Both things this game really could use.
It's not like it would be all that hard. They would only truly have to worry about the Galaxy, Intrepid, Sovy, TOS/TMP Enterprise and whatever the default is. That's only 5 ships. All the rest would be set redresses in true Star Trek fashion.
The Galaxy and Nebula are made out of the same parts, I would assume they would have the same interiors. The Destiny would probably share a lot of parts with the Intrepid. So on and so forth. And like sumghai said, interior customisation would be limited to colour/texture/carpet changes, Trophies and Decorations like paintings, wall scrolls, clocks and furniture styles (But not placement). It would all be very simplified.
EDIT: Someday however, I would love to see a full Miranda interior. There's a part of me that wants to get a buddy, sail to some suitably red nebula and re-enact the Wrath of Khan!
I could go for that but even then, it wouldn't be a truly custom deck.
Truly custom deck design would mean you get the Foundry editor and you can put whatever you want on the deck. That might work for vendor placements or certain kinds of consoles if they have functionality baked into the asset but devs can't handcraft a mission for a map with no default layout.
Let's say your Deck 12 is a circle and mine's a square and some joker has ESD's map for his Deck 12.
I think there needs to be one generic deck. It should be better looking than the existing ship interiors in game and should have custom LCARS, lights, colors, and wall textures that can make it look okay for any ship.
You could make it 5 generic decks as you're suggesting... But you couldn't have unlimited interior customization on that one deck.
I'm all for sickbay, main engineering, all the iconic locations being customizable.
But there needs to be one (or five or a limited number of) default hallways where missions can be places or the ship interior will always just be housing... and less compelling housing than Fleet Starbases or DS9.
Truly custom deck design would mean you get the Foundry editor and you can put whatever you want on the deck. That might work for vendor placements or certain kinds of consoles if they have functionality baked into the asset but devs can't handcraft a mission for a map with no default layout.
Devs can assume the starter no-frills Miranda interior as the default, but instead of hard coding a special mission-specific instance with the NPCs inside, they simply put placement coordinates just like on all other canon interiors.
But there needs to be one (or five or a limited number of) default hallways where missions can be places or the ship interior will always just be housing... and less compelling housing than Fleet Starbases or DS9.
The take-home message is essentially
- The entire player-customisable ship interior is where missions could potentially take place
- Nothing is hard-coded into the interiors - everything can be swapped out on the fly for any mission / game mode.
- The proposal is much, much more than housing - there will be mini-games as well as full episode missions based entirely inside ships.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
I'd be interested in hearing more ideas for this proposal, especially what sort of game modes / missions / features that could take place.
An idea I recently had was to revamp the crafting system and tie it into the ship interior as follows:
- Players go to social hubs and buy from vendors one-time "schematic unlocks" for gear (weapons, armor, shields, engines, deflectors, kits)
- With the schematic unlocked, players can obtain from their ship's replicator white quality gear of their current Mk level with baseline stats
- Data samples can be used to upgrade these white quality gear by adding modifiers / increasing quality up to purple - the player visits a particular facility inside their ship to do so
- Custom kits, for instance combining a stealth module with a plasma grenade and ambush, could also be made this way.
This reflects TV canon where the crew of a ship could replicate gear to replace lost / damaged equipment without having to wait to "buy" them the next they pull into a Starbase. SBs would then contain vendors offering ready-made white quality gear for newbies / schematics for seasoned players.
Would this warrant the addition of an engineering workshop room into the ship interior? Or a cargo bay?
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
It might not have to come to that - rather, the conference room / observation lounge area currently underutilised in my proposal could contain coordinates for NPC placeholders.
The following examples assume sumghai is using his Intrepid-class interior.
Default
sumghai's Intrepid conference room on the port side of the bridge has been customised with the canon Voyager wall textures, a slightly different meeting table and 2409 LCARS.
His default spawn location is the captain's chair of his bridge.
"Standoff" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the two Cardassian Guls in dispute, the game builds the customised gameplay scenario as follows:
1) Loads sumghai's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all the NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- two Starfleet Security guards, using the player's custom Tac department crewmen costumes (otherwise used for hallway wandering NPCs)
- Gul Antos
- Gul Surjan
- Gul Surjan's two guards
- Player's First Officer (in sumghai's case, Cmdr. Thomas Richardson)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- sumghai is using an Intrepid
- Make Antos stand looking out the window
- Have Surjan sit in one of the meeting table chairs with his two guards standing at attention behind him
- Have the two Starfleet Security officers stand by the doorway
- Have Cmdr. Richardson to the side of the conference room LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- sumghai will be using the LCARS computer to look up info on Antos' case and examine the evidence, so make the computer panel on the far wall interactable.
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "Standoff", sumghai start off already standing inside the conference room with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
"First Contact" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the alien (in this case, Gallifreyan) dignitaries aboard:
1) Loads sumghai's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- one Starfleet Security officer (again using the player's custom crew uniform choices)
- Alien Ambassador
- Alien Attache
- Alien Diplomat
- Alien Envoy
- Player's First Officer (again, Cmdr. Thomas Richardson)
- 3 other random BOffs (Lt. Cmdrs. Christine Barber, Vrin K'vov, Corat Remara)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- sumghai is still using an Intrepid
- Have the Ambassdor seated in one of the meeting table chairs
- Have the Attache stand by the window talking to Barber
- Have the Diplomat stand by the wall computer talking to K'vov
- Have the Envoy stand by the far wall talking to Remara
- Have the Starfleet Security officer stand by the doorway
- Have Cmdr. Richardson to the side of the conference room LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- none
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "First Contact", sumghai start off already standing inside the conference room with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
For another player:
ben_sisko is using the Defiant interior.
Default
The Defiant is a tactical escort, so it lacks the creature comforts of other ship classes. Since it has no conference room, the mess hall is used instead (TV canon gives examples of the real Capt. Sisko having powwows in the Defiant mess hall).
ben_sisko is using 100% canonical Belfast decor.
ben_sisko's default spawn location is the captain's chair of his bridge.
"Standoff" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the two Cardassian Guls in dispute, the game builds the customised gameplay scenario as follows:
1) Loads ben_sisko's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all the NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- two Starfleet Security guards, using the player's custom Tac department crewmen costumes (otherwise used for hallway wandering NPCs)
- Gul Antos
- Gul Surjan
- Gul Surjan's two guards
- Player's First Officer (in ben_sisko's case, Kira Nerys)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- ben_sisko is using a Defiant
- Make Antos stand looking at the Defiant's spent phaser power cell display
- Have Surjan sit in one of the mess hall chairs with his two guards standing at attention behind him
- Have each of the two Starfleet Security officers stand by the two doorways
- Have Kira to the side of the mess hall LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- ben_sisko will be using the LCARS computer to look up info on Antos' case and examine the evidence, so make the computer panel on the wall interactable.
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "Standoff", ben_sisko start off already standing inside the mess hall with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
In short, each mission that makes use of player customised interiors simply consults NPC positioning coordinates for that specific class.
Agreed.
In Appendix A of my proposal, I've listed the deck / room layouts that are canonically known. As STO has unique non-TV classes, it's up to the devs how to implement those ones, including whether to reuse layouts from canon classes.
I haz a digital copy of the Strategic Designs Miranda deck plans. U want?
That has been covered in many other threads.
Unfortunately, the way STO works is that when one switches between space and ground, your character's skin literally becomes switch between your ship and your captain. In doing so, only the last known map (and not the precise position) is retained.
There's currently no way of keeping track of your ship's exact position in sector space whilst you're running around inside your ship.
Note that my proposal by no means negates hubs like ESD, Risa, First City or anything - the hubs are still going to be where one can access the bank and the exchange.
And here is the actual content of this post, see where I am getting at ?
I could have explained the same point without 17,000 letters.
There isn't any reason to reflect this detailed and typeout 11 pages on a not so possible scenario - other than you like to sit around and think about stuff...
Which isn't against the law or anything I just like to make fun of reflectors.
Anyway, if you are trying to sell an idea think about it, pun intended, as a commercial - is it really going to help you to make it 9 hours long ?
Short and sweet; less is more.
Example :
"Granite lockboxes for gold members"
You don't actually have to explain in 800 words what a gold member is and how you picture every single reward in the box and how many lobi's and so on
This isn't a product commercial - it's a proposal, so implementation details are just as important as the concepts.
The document I compiled needs to justify to Cryptic why the aforementioned features are worth doing - where they can extract revenue / improve player retention.
Cryptic devs also often use the line "we don't have the tech for that". I come up with example case studies to prototype what a typical user wants to experience when using a feature, and the implementation is used to show Cryptic how they can build on existing systems to achieve the goal.
You've practically gone through the same thought processes as I have for your "fly from bridge" idea, except that you're simply using tl;dr excuse to mock others for being more cautious.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
Any chance the moderators could turn this thread into a sticky? Seing as this is currently the only active thread on ship interiors, and it has got a lot of good suggestions in it.
Also, any chance Cryptic could hold a poll on ship interior development? To see what features are the most important to players. Wishfull thinking but it would be great if DStahl could let players know what sort of plans they have for interior development in the nearby future. (post season 7)
All I've seen on the state of the game blogs is that they are focusing on other areas which is fine, but there is never any mention about them considering the suggestions players have made.
Any chance the moderators could turn this thread into a sticky? Seing as this is currently the only active thread on ship interiors, and it has got a lot of good suggestions in it.
Also, any chance Cryptic could hold a poll on ship interior development? To see what features are the most important to players. Wishfull thinking but it would be great if DStahl could let players know what sort of plans they have for interior development in the nearby future. (post season 7)
All I've seen on the state of the game blogs is that they are focusing on other areas which is fine, but there is never any mention about them considering the suggestions players have made.
A most excellent idea - if we know what taco and the other devs have in mind for the general direction of possible interior development, we can then refine our proposal accordingly.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
A most excellent idea - if we know what taco and the other devs have in mind for the general direction of possible interior development, we can then refine our proposal accordingly.
I third this proposition!
If I could provide any form of service, I would be more than happy to!
For ships with rooms on different decks, would it be better put the required decks in the same map, each isolated from the others and using the Turbolift car as a "teleport" to emulate moving between decks?
Would that reduce loading time / number of maps required for each interior?
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
For ships with rooms on different decks, would it be better put the required decks in the same map, each isolated from the others and using the Turbolift car as a "teleport" to emulate moving between decks?
Would that reduce loading time / number of maps required for each interior?
That's exactly what they do now.
If you use the /demorecord tool and view the recordings made on ship interiors you can move the camera outside the normal playspace and see not only all the decks for your ship, but all the decks that can be possibly tied to your bridge. IE, If you're not using a TOS or a Belfast bridge, you can see not only the crew and engineering decks for your specific layout, you can see all three layouts (small, medium, large). EVERYTHING is on the same map. This is part of the complication of making custom interior maps currently and why they need to wait on the Neverwinter Foundry tech to make actual customizable interiors. The only thing "customizing" your interior does right now is select which decks you teleport to when you use the turbolift.
For ships with rooms on different decks, would it be better put the required decks in the same map, each isolated from the others and using the Turbolift car as a "teleport" to emulate moving between decks?
Would that reduce loading time / number of maps required for each interior?
Like said above, this is how they do it now.
And having all the decks on a ship is not feasable due to ships like the Sovereign has 26, the Galaxy over 40 decks, and the Odyssey even more. If you put that in a map (even architectually accurate with the decks on top of one another) the lag would be horrendous.
If you use the /demorecord tool and view the recordings made on ship interiors you can move the camera outside the normal playspace and see not only all the decks for your ship, but all the decks that can be possibly tied to your bridge.
-snip-
The only thing "customizing" your interior does right now is select which decks you teleport to when you use the turbolift.
Interesting observation, direphoenix. I guess I never noticed that.
If you're not using a TOS or a Belfast bridge, you can see not only the crew and engineering decks for your specific layout, you can see all three layouts (small, medium, large). EVERYTHING is on the same map. This is part of the complication of making custom interior maps currently and why they need to wait on the Neverwinter Foundry tech to make actual customizable interiors.
The Neverwinter Foundry demo was for building maps room-by-room. That's fine if you're going a ground interior installation like a research lab, not so much if you're doing a ship interior where rooms may have to follow the contours of the hull.
I based my proposal on Taco's musing that each canon ship class would have a fixed sized and shaped interior with a limited texture swapping for walls, doors, LCARS etc, eliminating the current small/med/large variants.
So in conclusion, all the decks can/are/should be put on the same map. Excellent, I'll note that in the proposal. Cheers!
And having all the decks on a ship is not feasable due to ships like the Sovereign has 26, the Galaxy over 40 decks, and the Odyssey even more. If you put that in a map (even architectually accurate with the decks on top of one another) the lag would be horrendous.
Azurian, I presume you've read my doc?
If so, you'll find that my proposal describes map development as involving first identifying which key rooms are on which decks, then trimming/capping corridors and eliminating unneeded decks to keep map size down.
Most of a ship's decks are crew quarters and utilities like water and replicator tanks, M/AM storage and SIF generators, and they don't need to be included.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
The Neverwinter Foundry demo was for building maps room-by-room. That's fine if you're going a ground interior installation like a research lab, not so much if you're doing a ship interior where rooms may have to follow the contours of the hull.
You misunderstand what I mean by Neverwinter Foundry Tech. While we've all see the tech used to construct room-by-room dungeons, that's not what I mean.
In order to make actual custom ship interiors that aren't ridiculously large in order to house all the spaces and deck configurations that can possibly used on any map (and right now, the "bridge" is the actual map with every possible deck configuration attached to it), we need tech that we can use to select a bridge, select whatever decks we need, bundle those together and save that as its own map that we access whenever we select "Visit the Bridge" (which really should be renamed "access ship interior", but that may be a different argument).
Ideally, each of the key rooms on a ship should be located in their correct, canon locations / decks..
Ships in Trek canon have varying numbers of decks, from four in the Defiant-class Tactical Escort through to 42 for the Galaxy-class Exploration Cruiser. It goes without saying that attempting to model every single deck of every ship class would be highly impractical and fruitless - most of a ship are crew quarters and utilities, which have no gameplay value.
A more practical approach that still respects canon would be to only consider a small subset of decks where the rooms are canonically located with corridors sealed off at appropriate locations to minimise map size per deck. Unused decks are simply not accessible, and where canonically possible, rooms could share decks.
Hopefully this clears up the continuing confusion.
You misunderstand what I mean by Neverwinter Foundry Tech. While we've all see the tech used to construct room-by-room dungeons, that's not what I mean.
In order to make actual custom ship interiors that aren't ridiculously large in order to house all the spaces and deck configurations that can possibly used on any map (and right now, the "bridge" is the actual map with every possible deck configuration attached to it), we need tech that we can use to select a bridge, select whatever decks we need, bundle those together and save that as its own map that we access whenever we select "Visit the Bridge" (which really should be renamed "access ship interior", but that may be a different argument).
In that case...
I'm of the belief that if you currently fly a Cerberus class, the only interior layout you get is from the Prometheus family.
The tech you describe is probably for the dev-only end of things.
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
In the context of my hypothetical world where each ship class type has a specific layout, each of those layouts would be their own map, with each explorable deck laid out next to eachother within that single map.
So, the Intrepid would be one map, The Galaxy another, etc. etc.
Other Neverwinter Foundry tech that is not simply "putting rooms next to each other":
"Doors anywhere": this is really big. Although as seen in the videos, this is used when you connect two rooms to each other, there is no reason you can't just select where along a wall to a room you want to place a door. This can also be extended to windows/portholes.
Autopopulating rooms: Most of the rooms we've seen in Neverwinter foundry videos have an option to come already furnished. You can also just press a button and autopopulate it with random stuff appropriate to the room. All of these items can be moved, adjusted, or removed at the user's preference. Imagine what this could mean for STO when you can have pre-packaged sickbays, or autopopulate a cargo bay with the appropriate stacks of cargo containers.
Not necessarily new Foundry tech, but having ship interiors being made via a Foundry-like interface also means that you can select uniforms for the NPCs wandering around your decks (although some tweaking can be done to streamline the application of your custom uniforms to NPCs).
In the context of my hypothetical world where each ship class type has a specific layout, each of those layouts would be their own map, with each explorable deck laid out next to eachother within that single map.
So, the Intrepid would be one map, The Galaxy another, etc. etc.
Other Neverwinter Foundry tech that is not simply "putting rooms next to each other":
"Doors anywhere": this is really big. Although as seen in the videos, this is used when you connect two rooms to each other, there is no reason you can't just select where along a wall to a room you want to place a door. This can also be extended to windows/portholes.
I'm aware of Doors Anywhere, having seen the video. That's fine for non-canon ship interiors.
Canon room and deck layouts would be manually created by devs, though.
Autopopulating rooms: Most of the rooms we've seen in Neverwinter foundry videos have an option to come already furnished. You can also just press a button and autopopulate it with random stuff appropriate to the room. All of these items can be moved, adjusted, or removed at the user's preference. Imagine what this could mean for STO when you can have pre-packaged sickbays, or autopopulate a cargo bay with the appropriate stacks of cargo containers.
Not necessarily new Foundry tech, but having ship interiors being made via a Foundry-like interface also means that you can select uniforms for the NPCs wandering around your decks (although some tweaking can be done to streamline the application of your custom uniforms to NPCs).
Both of these are considered QoL improvements in my proposal.
The autopopulating of props in rooms would be part of the "minor" level customisation where players can custom position small items and knick-knacks (as opposed to the "major" level of swapping out wall and door styles).
I suggested that NPC crew uniforms be accessible via the Operations Officer (as the ship interior's own "tailor").
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
Comments
A bonus, yes.
Off topic. Please don't hijack threads.
My current proposal simply extends ship interiors as possible core mission maps, player customised such that each player's experience is unique. To make interiors a content hub would require a fundamental rethink of STO.
Not sure what you mean by "mechanical approaches".
Don't like the sound of that, I'm afraid - generic layouts for all ship classes is the current implementation.
No. While a default deck is a given necessity, having all ships use the same deck for interior missions is bland and rather lazy. Does this mean I believe that the Devs should handcraft each interior mission for every ship interior?
Yes, I think so. It would set STO way apart from other MMO's, and make it a lot more faithful to it's IP. Both things this game really could use.
It's not like it would be all that hard. They would only truly have to worry about the Galaxy, Intrepid, Sovy, TOS/TMP Enterprise and whatever the default is. That's only 5 ships. All the rest would be set redresses in true Star Trek fashion.
The Galaxy and Nebula are made out of the same parts, I would assume they would have the same interiors. The Destiny would probably share a lot of parts with the Intrepid. So on and so forth. And like sumghai said, interior customisation would be limited to colour/texture/carpet changes, Trophies and Decorations like paintings, wall scrolls, clocks and furniture styles (But not placement). It would all be very simplified.
EDIT: Someday however, I would love to see a full Miranda interior. There's a part of me that wants to get a buddy, sail to some suitably red nebula and re-enact the Wrath of Khan!
Get it done !
Since you already have a still photo option being the view screen, you simply add a bunch of them depending on where you are.
Like a still photo of ds9 or w/e.
You'd then hit m for map, click something. Still photo turns into an animation with moving stars.
Once at your destination the classic HUD pops up "enter whatever" and viewscreen changes to still photo of said place.
This way you aren't actually looking out into space but can still travel while on your bridge.
In the future people spend more time on the bridge than anywhere else :rolleyes:
And thus most of the game's major social areas become ghost towns. Might as well just replace your ship interior with a loading screen and let everybody transwarp from planet to planet.
In my example you'd physically move around in space - on other people's screen, like you normally do, only you won't see the actual travel yourself through your viewscreen as it's "hard to do". Only your map would show you moving just like it does now.
And my last comment about "in the future everyone is on the bridge... is intended as hardcore sarcasm since we all know there won't be any changes to the bridge: laughable naive to think major overhauls are going to change things dramatically, get it ?
Hence the innocent, happy yet also contemplating smiley I left at the buttom
That being said having any kind of use for the interiors would have been first on my list in creating a star trek game seeing as most of the shows take place there.
I played star trek on snes which is from what 1998, see my avatar, and that game had travel and fighting from the bridge - in full 3d, barrell rolls and everything.
A more recent example would be bridge commander which I am sure you know...
My idea for interior travel is I think more realistic not asking to redo the engine simply script a few lines of text....
But hey realism knocking on the door it won't sell any lockboxes I can dig it
It might not have to come to that - rather, the conference room / observation lounge area currently underutilised in my proposal could contain coordinates for NPC placeholders.
Default
sumghai's Intrepid conference room on the port side of the bridge has been customised with the canon Voyager wall textures, a slightly different meeting table and 2409 LCARS.
His default spawn location is the captain's chair of his bridge.
"Standoff" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the two Cardassian Guls in dispute, the game builds the customised gameplay scenario as follows:
1) Loads sumghai's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all the NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- two Starfleet Security guards, using the player's custom Tac department crewmen costumes (otherwise used for hallway wandering NPCs)
- Gul Antos
- Gul Surjan
- Gul Surjan's two guards
- Player's First Officer (in sumghai's case, Cmdr. Thomas Richardson)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- sumghai is using an Intrepid
- Make Antos stand looking out the window
- Have Surjan sit in one of the meeting table chairs with his two guards standing at attention behind him
- Have the two Starfleet Security officers stand by the doorway
- Have Cmdr. Richardson to the side of the conference room LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- sumghai will be using the LCARS computer to look up info on Antos' case and examine the evidence, so make the computer panel on the far wall interactable.
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "Standoff", sumghai start off already standing inside the conference room with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
"First Contact" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the alien (in this case, Gallifreyan) dignitaries aboard:
1) Loads sumghai's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- one Starfleet Security officer (again using the player's custom crew uniform choices)
- Alien Ambassador
- Alien Attache
- Alien Diplomat
- Alien Envoy
- Player's First Officer (again, Cmdr. Thomas Richardson)
- 3 other random BOffs (Lt. Cmdrs. Christine Barber, Vrin K'vov, Corat Remara)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- sumghai is still using an Intrepid
- Have the Ambassdor seated in one of the meeting table chairs
- Have the Attache stand by the window talking to Barber
- Have the Diplomat stand by the wall computer talking to K'vov
- Have the Envoy stand by the far wall talking to Remara
- Have the Starfleet Security officer stand by the doorway
- Have Cmdr. Richardson to the side of the conference room LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- none
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "First Contact", sumghai start off already standing inside the conference room with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
For another player:
Default
The Defiant is a tactical escort, so it lacks the creature comforts of other ship classes. Since it has no conference room, the mess hall is used instead (TV canon gives examples of the real Capt. Sisko having powwows in the Defiant mess hall).
ben_sisko is using 100% canonical Belfast decor.
ben_sisko's default spawn location is the captain's chair of his bridge.
"Standoff" diplomacy mission
After the dialog prompt for beaming the two Cardassian Guls in dispute, the game builds the customised gameplay scenario as follows:
1) Loads ben_sisko's ship interior with his customisation choices.
2) List all the NPCs involved and prepare their appearances:
- two Starfleet Security guards, using the player's custom Tac department crewmen costumes (otherwise used for hallway wandering NPCs)
- Gul Antos
- Gul Surjan
- Gul Surjan's two guards
- Player's First Officer (in ben_sisko's case, Kira Nerys)
3) Lookup NPC positioning coordinates for the player's specific major ship class
- ben_sisko is using a Defiant
- Make Antos stand looking at the Defiant's spent phaser power cell display
- Have Surjan sit in one of the mess hall chairs with his two guards standing at attention behind him
- Have each of the two Starfleet Security officers stand by the two doorways
- Have Kira to the side of the mess hall LCARS computer
4) Locate any interaction "objects" required
- ben_sisko will be using the LCARS computer to look up info on Antos' case and examine the evidence, so make the computer panel on the wall interactable.
5) Locate player spawn point
- In "Standoff", ben_sisko start off already standing inside the mess hall with the door behind him
6) Finish loading map and start mission
In short, each mission that makes use of player customised interiors simply consults NPC positioning coordinates for that specific class.
Agreed.
In Appendix A of my proposal, I've listed the deck / room layouts that are canonically known. As STO has unique non-TV classes, it's up to the devs how to implement those ones, including whether to reuse layouts from canon classes.
I haz a digital copy of the Strategic Designs Miranda deck plans. U want?
That has been covered in many other threads.
Unfortunately, the way STO works is that when one switches between space and ground, your character's skin literally becomes switch between your ship and your captain. In doing so, only the last known map (and not the precise position) is retained.
There's currently no way of keeping track of your ship's exact position in sector space whilst you're running around inside your ship.
Note that my proposal by no means negates hubs like ESD, Risa, First City or anything - the hubs are still going to be where one can access the bank and the exchange.
I could go for that but even then, it wouldn't be a truly custom deck.
Truly custom deck design would mean you get the Foundry editor and you can put whatever you want on the deck. That might work for vendor placements or certain kinds of consoles if they have functionality baked into the asset but devs can't handcraft a mission for a map with no default layout.
Let's say your Deck 12 is a circle and mine's a square and some joker has ESD's map for his Deck 12.
I think there needs to be one generic deck. It should be better looking than the existing ship interiors in game and should have custom LCARS, lights, colors, and wall textures that can make it look okay for any ship.
You could make it 5 generic decks as you're suggesting... But you couldn't have unlimited interior customization on that one deck.
I'm all for sickbay, main engineering, all the iconic locations being customizable.
But there needs to be one (or five or a limited number of) default hallways where missions can be places or the ship interior will always just be housing... and less compelling housing than Fleet Starbases or DS9.
Devs can assume the starter no-frills Miranda interior as the default, but instead of hard coding a special mission-specific instance with the NPCs inside, they simply put placement coordinates just like on all other canon interiors.
The take-home message is essentially
- The entire player-customisable ship interior is where missions could potentially take place
- Nothing is hard-coded into the interiors - everything can be swapped out on the fly for any mission / game mode.
- The proposal is much, much more than housing - there will be mini-games as well as full episode missions based entirely inside ships.
An idea I recently had was to revamp the crafting system and tie it into the ship interior as follows:
- Players go to social hubs and buy from vendors one-time "schematic unlocks" for gear (weapons, armor, shields, engines, deflectors, kits)
- With the schematic unlocked, players can obtain from their ship's replicator white quality gear of their current Mk level with baseline stats
- Data samples can be used to upgrade these white quality gear by adding modifiers / increasing quality up to purple - the player visits a particular facility inside their ship to do so
- Custom kits, for instance combining a stealth module with a plasma grenade and ambush, could also be made this way.
This reflects TV canon where the crew of a ship could replicate gear to replace lost / damaged equipment without having to wait to "buy" them the next they pull into a Starbase. SBs would then contain vendors offering ready-made white quality gear for newbies / schematics for seasoned players.
Would this warrant the addition of an engineering workshop room into the ship interior? Or a cargo bay?
Learn from Hemingway, less is more
I don't get your use of this term.
Being a reflector is a GOOD thing. The big five is all about strengths analysis and reflector is defined as a strength.
And here is the actual content of this post, see where I am getting at ?
I could have explained the same point without 17,000 letters.
There isn't any reason to reflect this detailed and typeout 11 pages on a not so possible scenario - other than you like to sit around and think about stuff...
Which isn't against the law or anything I just like to make fun of reflectors.
Anyway, if you are trying to sell an idea think about it, pun intended, as a commercial - is it really going to help you to make it 9 hours long ?
Short and sweet; less is more.
Example :
"Granite lockboxes for gold members"
You don't actually have to explain in 800 words what a gold member is and how you picture every single reward in the box and how many lobi's and so on
The document I compiled needs to justify to Cryptic why the aforementioned features are worth doing - where they can extract revenue / improve player retention.
Cryptic devs also often use the line "we don't have the tech for that". I come up with example case studies to prototype what a typical user wants to experience when using a feature, and the implementation is used to show Cryptic how they can build on existing systems to achieve the goal.
You've practically gone through the same thought processes as I have for your "fly from bridge" idea, except that you're simply using tl;dr excuse to mock others for being more cautious.
:eek: GIMMIE!!!!!
How is that bad?
If you could provide me with your email address (via the forums Private Message), I can email them to you ASAP.
I also have the SD deck plans for the Intrepid, Defiant and Bird-of-Prey if you like
Also, any chance Cryptic could hold a poll on ship interior development? To see what features are the most important to players. Wishfull thinking but it would be great if DStahl could let players know what sort of plans they have for interior development in the nearby future. (post season 7)
All I've seen on the state of the game blogs is that they are focusing on other areas which is fine, but there is never any mention about them considering the suggestions players have made.
Thank youuuu
I third this proposition!
If I could provide any form of service, I would be more than happy to!
Still no idea what to do with the Captain's Quarters, though.
For ships with rooms on different decks, would it be better put the required decks in the same map, each isolated from the others and using the Turbolift car as a "teleport" to emulate moving between decks?
Would that reduce loading time / number of maps required for each interior?
That's exactly what they do now.
If you use the /demorecord tool and view the recordings made on ship interiors you can move the camera outside the normal playspace and see not only all the decks for your ship, but all the decks that can be possibly tied to your bridge. IE, If you're not using a TOS or a Belfast bridge, you can see not only the crew and engineering decks for your specific layout, you can see all three layouts (small, medium, large). EVERYTHING is on the same map. This is part of the complication of making custom interior maps currently and why they need to wait on the Neverwinter Foundry tech to make actual customizable interiors. The only thing "customizing" your interior does right now is select which decks you teleport to when you use the turbolift.
Raptr profile
Like said above, this is how they do it now.
And having all the decks on a ship is not feasable due to ships like the Sovereign has 26, the Galaxy over 40 decks, and the Odyssey even more. If you put that in a map (even architectually accurate with the decks on top of one another) the lag would be horrendous.
Interesting observation, direphoenix. I guess I never noticed that.
The Neverwinter Foundry demo was for building maps room-by-room. That's fine if you're going a ground interior installation like a research lab, not so much if you're doing a ship interior where rooms may have to follow the contours of the hull.
I based my proposal on Taco's musing that each canon ship class would have a fixed sized and shaped interior with a limited texture swapping for walls, doors, LCARS etc, eliminating the current small/med/large variants.
So in conclusion, all the decks can/are/should be put on the same map. Excellent, I'll note that in the proposal. Cheers!
Azurian, I presume you've read my doc?
If so, you'll find that my proposal describes map development as involving first identifying which key rooms are on which decks, then trimming/capping corridors and eliminating unneeded decks to keep map size down.
Most of a ship's decks are crew quarters and utilities like water and replicator tanks, M/AM storage and SIF generators, and they don't need to be included.
You misunderstand what I mean by Neverwinter Foundry Tech. While we've all see the tech used to construct room-by-room dungeons, that's not what I mean.
In order to make actual custom ship interiors that aren't ridiculously large in order to house all the spaces and deck configurations that can possibly used on any map (and right now, the "bridge" is the actual map with every possible deck configuration attached to it), we need tech that we can use to select a bridge, select whatever decks we need, bundle those together and save that as its own map that we access whenever we select "Visit the Bridge" (which really should be renamed "access ship interior", but that may be a different argument).
Raptr profile
Hopefully this clears up the continuing confusion.
In that case...
I'm of the belief that if you currently fly a Cerberus class, the only interior layout you get is from the Prometheus family.
The tech you describe is probably for the dev-only end of things.
So, the Intrepid would be one map, The Galaxy another, etc. etc.
Raptr profile
Coolio, thanks.
I'm aware of Doors Anywhere, having seen the video. That's fine for non-canon ship interiors.
Canon room and deck layouts would be manually created by devs, though.
Both of these are considered QoL improvements in my proposal.
The autopopulating of props in rooms would be part of the "minor" level customisation where players can custom position small items and knick-knacks (as opposed to the "major" level of swapping out wall and door styles).
I suggested that NPC crew uniforms be accessible via the Operations Officer (as the ship interior's own "tailor").