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DREADNAUGHT!: The NPC Ship Request Thread
husnock1
Member Posts: 90 Arc User
A thought occurred to me this morning that grew rapidly into a brilliant idea (or so I'd like to think), And I'm curious to hear others' opinions on it.
Basically, it started as a humble question: why do the Devs go through the effort to design and implement completely new ships for the C-Store/Fleet Store/etc. when there are perfectly viable designs already ingame as NPC ships, standing and waiting as perfect C-Store fodder?
For example, the Typhoon. It's been here since launch (IIRC), people have requested it for as long as I can remember, and the Devs have always responded "maybe," or "not for a while." Why? It's a popular ship, and all it really needs is a facelift. No concept designs, no approval by CBS (save maybe to decide if it should be playable), just a CG-makeover and it's ready to go.
And then there's the KDF's allies' various fightercraft. The Orion Interceptor, the Gorn Naga, and the Nausicaan Stinger. Not to mention the Orion carrier-pet shuttles. Starfleet outnumbers the KDF in regards to small craft by a very nearly 3-to-1 ratio (the KDF has 4, while the Feds get a staggering 11). For a militant faction like the KDF, it makes sense to have a bunch of fighters anyways.
Now for the KDF's NPC big ships. The Orion , Gorn, and Nausicaan frigates, cruisers, and battleships (I have big ideas for the dreadnaughts, see below). The frigates could be Commander-level ships, the cruisers Captain-level, and the battleships Brigadier-General-level. Easy enough.
Now for the big ones: the dreadnaughts. The Starfleet Jupiter, the Orion Warbarge, the Gorn Balaur, and the Nausicaan Ravager. These shouldn't be anything less than VA/LG ships. Furthermore, I remember a Dev (can't recall whom) stating in an interview a while back that they wanted to do "broadside-capable" ships. How about this: instead of implementing a completely new type of weapon slot for port/starboard weapons, why not a weapon (specifically some type of cannon) that can be slotted fore or aft (as usual), but has two 90-degree firing arcs angled out the sides of the ship? You could call them "Broadside Cannons" (just a suggestion), restrict them the the aforementioned four dreadnoughts, and even put extra ones in the D-Store, a la the Galor's Spiral-Wave Disruptor Arrays.
Honestly, not to sound like a fool, but I would pay GOOD ZEN for any of these ships (please, though, no lockboxes). What do you all think?
Basically, it started as a humble question: why do the Devs go through the effort to design and implement completely new ships for the C-Store/Fleet Store/etc. when there are perfectly viable designs already ingame as NPC ships, standing and waiting as perfect C-Store fodder?
For example, the Typhoon. It's been here since launch (IIRC), people have requested it for as long as I can remember, and the Devs have always responded "maybe," or "not for a while." Why? It's a popular ship, and all it really needs is a facelift. No concept designs, no approval by CBS (save maybe to decide if it should be playable), just a CG-makeover and it's ready to go.
And then there's the KDF's allies' various fightercraft. The Orion Interceptor, the Gorn Naga, and the Nausicaan Stinger. Not to mention the Orion carrier-pet shuttles. Starfleet outnumbers the KDF in regards to small craft by a very nearly 3-to-1 ratio (the KDF has 4, while the Feds get a staggering 11). For a militant faction like the KDF, it makes sense to have a bunch of fighters anyways.
Now for the KDF's NPC big ships. The Orion , Gorn, and Nausicaan frigates, cruisers, and battleships (I have big ideas for the dreadnaughts, see below). The frigates could be Commander-level ships, the cruisers Captain-level, and the battleships Brigadier-General-level. Easy enough.
Now for the big ones: the dreadnaughts. The Starfleet Jupiter, the Orion Warbarge, the Gorn Balaur, and the Nausicaan Ravager. These shouldn't be anything less than VA/LG ships. Furthermore, I remember a Dev (can't recall whom) stating in an interview a while back that they wanted to do "broadside-capable" ships. How about this: instead of implementing a completely new type of weapon slot for port/starboard weapons, why not a weapon (specifically some type of cannon) that can be slotted fore or aft (as usual), but has two 90-degree firing arcs angled out the sides of the ship? You could call them "Broadside Cannons" (just a suggestion), restrict them the the aforementioned four dreadnoughts, and even put extra ones in the D-Store, a la the Galor's Spiral-Wave Disruptor Arrays.
Honestly, not to sound like a fool, but I would pay GOOD ZEN for any of these ships (please, though, no lockboxes). What do you all think?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by husnock1 on
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I've been pushing for the Jupiter (and the Typhoon) since I began playing 2 years ago. At one point the supporters and I got the devs to say they'd possibly be adding the Jupiter and Typhoon into the game at or around season 6ish. Needless to say that never happened.
Quite frankly I'd pay 4000 cryptic points for the Jupiter, but I'm starting to doubt if they'll ever actually put the ship into the game. For some reason Crypric's been quite averse to the idea of putting any of the NPC ships in the game (Jupiter, Typhoon, various Gorn/Orion/Nausican ships).
I keep plugging away in the Jupiter Forums (Link in my Signature) but I've never once had a dev actually comment on anything brought up within them.
Plus there's the fact that quite a few of the community here on the forums throw a fit when they think of the Jupiter or Typhoon being added.
I'm a lifer, I can wait...
/sigh
-Quiiliitiila
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
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That said the current models aren't high enough quality to be used without being reworked, I suspect that's why it's not an easy copy and paste, but yeah, it's weird they've never taken these on board, I can only assume it's a CBS block on the Jupiter as it's more or less dissapeared from the NPC lists too.
Exactly what I mean by them needing a facelift.
When you think about it, wouldn't reworking an existing model be a little easier than creating a brand new one from scratch? Or even working on a brand new one from the ground up for a preexisting ship (ex: the Jupiter), which would probably be no more work than (once again) creating a brand-spanking-new design altogether?
I know it's just wishful thinking, but hey. We got our T5 Heavy Escort, our Assault Cruiser Retrofit, our Fed Carrier (TWO, as a matter of fact; THREE if you count the Recluse), our Vesta... I can spend a straight hour naming the stuff we wittled the Devs down on.
So who knows?
The Typhoon, sure it's a nice ship but it's a cruiser that basically does the same thing that an escort would be doing anyways.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
you know all those fighters are the same, right? All those fighters use the Klingon fighter model. In fact, before they added the Peregrines and Scorpions to the game, all of the fighters in the game were just reskins of them, even the Fed and Romulan fighters.
They've said that they don't want to turn the NPC gorn/nausican/Orion ships into Playable ships because the work needed on them would be comparable to introducing a whole new design, they would much rather come up with something original.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
It's like Japan bombed the US in pearl and instead of building more carriers they built cruise ships and put 5'' guns on them. The whole not at war but at war, but not really at war, but at war with multiple entities but not really at war is confusing.
::cough:: Peregine have been in the game since the launch..just not player accessible. StarBase 24 had a number of them flying around the U.S.S. McCoy at the end of that Fleet Action.
Since you're comparing an NPC ship with an NPC ship...how is this relevant?
NPC classes usually have no proper Playership counterpart so if they were converted their would probably be changed as well.
Um, all ingame fighters and pets have their own model.
Stinger
Raider
Naga
This includes the Gorn shield drones and the Orion Marauders.
The only fighters to share a model is the Romulan T'lis and the Generic Fighter.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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As far as I know CBS was ok with the Jupiter staying in the game, it was originally used as a placeholder for the Galaxy X before it first came out. The only reason it's been phased out (that I can find, and trust me I look) is because it has been replaced with the ship it was intended to be replaced by.
The Typhoon has no such backstory, I'm surprised that it has not been put into the game sooner.
Yes, the current models of both are not up to snuff, but as myself and countless others have said in the past, it's infinitely easier to polish a model and add some weapon hard points than to make a new ship from scratch.
It surprises me with all the money grabbing that Cryptic and Perfect World are doing that they wouldn't just add the two ships for some quick cash, as I've said before I'd pay for it... And others would as well.
What it comes down to is Dev time and they have other things to do. My only tif is that we've been calling for ships like the Typhoon and Jupiter since the game started and we've even been told that the Jupiter and Typhoon would be distinct possibilities for this past season. However, everyone at Cryptic seemed to have forgotten...
Ah well, I can wait I suppose...
-Quiiliitiila
They've hardly disappeared - all of the named Dreadnoughts in the new Starbase Fleet Alert mission are Jupiters.
U.S.S. Advance
U.S.S. Eridani
U.S.S. Marlowe
U.S.S. Raleigh
U.S.S. Uhlmann
I don't really care whether the Jupiter and Typhoon become playable; I think they're the two ugliest Fed ships in the game. But if making them playable adds some new skins that show up on NPCs, I'm all for it.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Jupiter, not so much, rarely have I seen an uglier ship.
View it this way, I've been pushing for a Vesta since Beta, and next month, I will finially get one with luck.
Edit: I think the typhoon could be a pretty nice unlockable skin for any Oddy variants.
Really? This game has the Horizon Class, and the Trident Class, not to mention the Imperial, and Nomad Classes. Suddenly the Typhoon looks beautiful.
However the Jupiter is ugly no matter what.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Imperial is hideous, true. The others are ugly, but tolerable. At least they rarely show up during normal gameplay.
The Typhoon, on the other hand, shows up a LOT - almost every time Fed battleship is involved. So it's much more annoying, in my view.
Typhoon is a Battleship; Odyssey is a Dreadnought.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Well then take the 10th console off the typhoon if you want to. This is STO after all.
Both ships are more or less the same size, the actual roles don't matter, STO classifications are stupid anyway.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
The only time they would be useful to a player is in a PVP variant where one player is in a dreadnaught and defended by his team mates whilst the other team tries to destroy it.
It's not practical it wasn't designed for mobile space combat.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
The Jupiter Dreadnought was only recently made (put) into the siege role for the new fleet missions. No one is saying they want to fly the Jupiter "Siege" Dreadnought. That'd be ridiculous. The Jupiter and Typhoon have both been around as normal ships since the beginning of the game, recently the Devs have found more and more uses for them.
Which just tantalizes me further :P
There is also the fact that many "boss" ships have exaggerated HP and would not reflect upon the stats of the player version (if and when it is released).
I could have sworn I'd seen To'duj-like fighters in engagements against all those species, are you sure that's not a recent change? In my defence, the T'lis and interceptor do have similar lines to the To'duj. I do know that at launch, the few times fed fighters appeared in the episode missions they used the generic model.
As quiiliitiila (sorry if I butchered that) said, the Siege Dreadnaughts are boss ships, not really any more relevant to this than the Borg Vo'quv from KA or any other boss ships that have playable counterparts. The Jupiter, Warbarge, Ravager, and Balaur "player versions" can easily be entirely different ships, combat-wise.
Plus, there's the fact that the Odyssey and Bortas'qu (both PLAYABLE ships) have Seige Dreadnaught counterparts, and nobody says anything about those two being "impractical." Just sayin'.
And no opinions on my "Broadside Cannons" idea? I'm hurt.
Finally, as I said in my previous two posts, YES the Typhoon and Jupiter are both ugly. But they have POTENTIAL. A little polish, maybe some (minor) redesigns, and we could have some pretty nifty, unusual, but all around cool-looking ships. And they're clearly still in the minds of the Devs. I mean, they gave 'em both the new Mirror Universe makeover recently, and psychoticvulcan pointed out that the Jupiter is now slotted in Fleet Alerts. So they're neither gone nor forgotten.
So Devs, why not take that extra step and make us pay for something we WANT to pay for?
In your defense; as you said, a number of the other species ships look similar to the To'duj. However, as far as I can remember there have always been "unique model" specie fighters.
-Quiiliitiila
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
No, I haven't commented on them in THIS thread :P
However, in my Jupiter Forums we've discussed the possibility of the side cannons (weapons) for a while. (Link) in my signature.
Preaching to the choir here.
-Quiiliitiila
I think they look similar to the siphon drones, but I don't own them... I also think they are a bluish, but again. That's speculation.