Quality-of-Life Improvements (starting with map travel)

meurik

I should warn people before-hand, this post will become quite large, and list quite a few examples of quality-of-life improvements that this game could sorely need. As such I will attempt to split the posts up in smaller/larger segments, to make it easier to read.

Travel between maps
In this game, you have several different methods of traveling from one map to another, whether it is to beam from a station to your ship, ship to planet, planet to station etc. I'll give some examples:

Consistency #1
Starfleet Academy: Beaming up gives you a list of options, allowing you to travel to either; Earth Spacedock, Sol System, or Sirius Sector Block.

Klingon Academy: Beaming up gives you a list of options, allowing you to travel to either; First City, Quonos System, or Omega Leonis Sector Block.

Consistency #2
Deep Space Nine: Upon entering system, player must first approach the starbase in order to "dock" with station. Leaving station, beam-up is instant, and drops the player inside the Deep Space Nine "system". No options for beaming into the system space, or beaming directly to Beta Ursae Sector Block.

Starbase 39 Sierra: Upon entering system, player must first approach the starbase in order to "dock" with station. Leaving station, beam-up is instant, and drops the player inside the Starbase 39 Sierra "system". No options for beaming into the system space, or beaming directly to Alpha Centauri Sector Block.

Consistency #3
Earth Spacedock: Player can beam up from any location, and return to Sol System. If player is standing on a transporter pad, he/she is presented directly with option to beam to Starfleet Academy.

First City: Player can beam up from any location, and return to Quonos System. If player is standing on a transporter pad, he/she is presented directly with options to beam to either the Klingon Academy, or the orbital shipyard.

Consistency #4
Sol System: Upon entering system, player can beam directly down to Starfleet Academy, but must first approach Earth Spacedock in order to "dock" with station.

Quonos System: Upon entering system player can NOT beam directly down to the Klingon Academy, and instead must approach the planet before beaming down to either the First City, or the Klingon Academy

Consistency #5
Fleet Starbases: Beaming up is not even possible, unless the player is physically standing inside the area of the transporter pads. When doing so, the options to beam up are presented immediately (no popup), and allows player to beam into system space, or directly to Eta Eradani Sector Block. Transwarping to fleet base, and then exiting to sector on the other hand, drops player back into whatever system/sector he/she was in before transwarp.

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If you wouldn't mind, please try and keep ALL systems consistent. Pick one method of travel or the other, since having so many different methods could become quite confusing for most "new players". Each version have their own pros and cons, but I believe the best solution is combination of the following:

Upon entering a new system, player should have access to a "travel" button allowing instant travel to all visitable locations within the system. For Sol this would be instant travel to Earth Spacedock or Starfleet Academy. The travel list should also include the option to return to sector block. Similarly, if on a planet or station, player should have immediately access to the "travel" button and be presented with options to travel to other visitable locations inside system (from Earth Spaceodck, this would be Starfleet Academy), as well as options to return to system space or sector block. Lastly, if a player is in sector space, if the nearby system contains a social area (such as Earth Spacedock), player should be given the option to travel directly to spacedock (bypassing Sol System entirely).

There should not be a need to physically move your player or ship to a location before being allowed to transfer to another map. The only reason one would otherwise do so, is to provide immersion. For most players, such immersion is primarily an annoyance, as well as a time-sink.

I'll end this post with a couple of examples of how the "new travel" would look:

Player on Earth Spacedock:
--- Travel to Starfleet Academy
--- Travel to Ship
--- Exit to Sector Block

Player inside Sol System:
--- Travel to Earth Spacedock
--- Travel to Starfleet Academy
--- Exit to Sector Block

Player outside Sol System (in Sirius Sector Block):
--- Travel to Earth Spacedock
--- Travel to Starfleet Academy
--- Travel to System

meurik

Reserved for future post

abcde123123

drop the orbit completely. why can't we not beam in directly to where we want to beam in?

i.e.

Academy -> sirius
yet
ESD -> Sol -> Sirius.

That one really makes me mad.

Warp animation - why can't we have just warp animation instead of connection screen? Having both is a bit of a nuisance.


And starbase warp in warp out... This is just amazingly screwed up.

obsibree

Another idea:
Since we can go from
Anywhere > Your Ship Interior
Why not allow someone to pick where to go when they leave their bridge?
Your Ship Interior > one of (Last Map), (Last map's sector), (Last map's system), (Anything accesible from last map's system)

For example, if I went to my bridge from First City, valid exits would be:
First City (Last map)
Qo'noS System (contains First City)
KDF Academy (accessible from system)
KDF Shipyard (accessible from system)
Omega Leonis Block (contains Qo'noS System)

Unrelated: Is it possible to rename bridges such that they don't show as "Standard Bridge", "Kirom Bridge", etc, but "USS Beta Feighlioch Bridge", "AKS Gik'tal Bridge"?

maxvitor

While you may beam directly to STA, with docking at ESD you are supposedly mooring the ship, what's missing are little cutscenes that show your ship docking at and leaving the station, always spawning at the transporter further adds to the disparity. If you are going to spawn on the transporter anyway you should be able to beam over without having to move your ship and the only reason I can see for the current arrangement is to force players to fly their ships around in the vicinity of the station for the sake of ambiance' in what would otherwise be a static image.

bluegeek

I will agree that I would like to see something like an "Exit to Eta Eridani Sector Block" button from the Fleet Starbase map.

And I also agree that we should be able to expect a standard set of map transitions in and out of every social map.

meurik

Since Forum Posts are always more entertaining with some graphic art, I have made up some quick mockups that I would like to see as "Improvements" to the current travel system.

I'd just like to add (since my examples are based out of Starfleet Academy), next to the minimap you have a "Beam to Ship" button, which is suspiciously greyed out. That button should definitely replace the "Low priority interaction" UI element, as the source for a 1-stop shop in all forms of travel.



Notably, I gave each button a more "Trek" like terminology, which also serves to clarify for the player what exactly will happen upon clicking said button. Once you click one of the buttons, the effect should be instantaneous without a Confirmation popup. Also made the slight modification to the UI, in putting an X in the corner rather than a ---, to make it more clear that it will close the window (and not minimize it as one would assume in a Windows application).

EDIT: On Sol System map, you have 2 options for leaving the system; "Depart System" which replaces the non-functional "Beam to Ship" button next to the minimap. Or "Warp To Sector". Both of which give different confirmation popups. I feel as though these are relatively minor things, that should be easy to fix. I hope one of the environmental artists or map makers see's this thread at some point.