"Balance of Terror" was based on (if not ripped directly from) World War II submarine movies, especially The Enemy Below. Cloaking was just a way for the writers to make a space-submarine, and like submarines and anti-submarine warfare, it stands to reason that the technology to conceal them and the technology to detect them both advance in a technological arms race.
Is it just me or does the Ha'apax concept art look like it has an auxiliary type ship that detaches from it like the Odessey and Bor'tasque have.
Calling it now - Ha'apax will have a three-ship bundle in C-Store ala Oddy/Bortasqu', with special consoles whose set bonus will lean more towards science (where Oddy favors Eng and Bort favors Tac).
This are simply what was mentioned, there is no evidence Romulan cloaking devices are better outside the Scimitar but we also had Chang Bird-of-Prey that did not lead to Klingon ships being able to fire torpedoes under cloak.
It was explained in the movie that changs BoP was a prototype and if you delv deeper you would also know chang stole it and had all info about it destroyed so that he would have the only one in existence.
So once changs prototype BoP was destroyed the perfected battlecloak was destroyed with him and his BoP.
As far as the romulans there military and empire was created around their cloaking technology it also influenced their ship designs so better to utilize a rom cloak.
Its also known that there had been a rom / klink alliance in the past which went horribly wrong but until that alliance the klinks did not have cloaking tech.
What the klinks got and have been using without much improvements are old romulan alpha cloaking technology as in its old school cloak tech.
The romulans are lightyears ahead of the klinks in cloaking technology
That was significantly lighter on details than I was hoping for and also quite revealing. It seems that if the rumors that we can use allied vessels are true then this very limited selection of ships may be the reason.
I'm not saying I'm completely dissapointed, but the fact that the Romulan ships go from "Escort" to "Battleship" as you tier up is somewhat dissapointing. I'll also admit I'd hoped to have a Mogai at T5, not T3.
Are there at least plans to give us different visualization options with the free ships? Or do we need to buy costumes/refits from the C-Store?
Will there be a Risian Clothing Pack? I want to put my Andorian Bridge Officer in a Bikini!
I agree. I don't like the new designs. Mogai and D'deridex are so slender and elegant, the two new ships in this blog look "heavy" instead. I don't know what was the inspiration, but it doesn't seem like it was any of the ships I mentioned.
Another thing that bothers me is the front part that I would call "head". Unlike the mogai, D'deridex and romulan shuttle/science ship those new warbirds don't have a "beak". This part was very characteristic for romulan ships, instead the Dhelan, has a mantis head, and the Ha?apax looks more like a bat. Worse, the Ha?apax looks like two bats in a mating ritual (I'm not trying to be funny, this really was my first impression).
I totally agree and i also dont agree with roms using fed or klingon starships however if roms use shuttles thats fine but starships thats not romulan at all .. otherwise we have to start sharing starships of all factions and you might want to call this game something other then star trek once that happens....... come on cryptic each faction should have its own starships you want to let romulans use ships of there allied friends then let them have shuttles only......:mad:
They've probably just read the description from Memory-Alpha: "The D'deridex-class Warbird was classified as a battle cruiser by Starfleet."
The thing is, Starfleet confusingly uses both these terms along with "B-Type" Warbird too.
If you scroll down to the production notes, we learn that the D'Deridex model used in TNG: Tin Man was different than the B-Type used in TNG: Defector. So given the B-type came before TNG: Defector, one could say that the B-Type was the name Starfleet given D'Deridex's, before they learned the official name. That or the B-Type was the second production models of the D'Deridex and the D'Deridex we know are the C-Type. (Similar to how modern fighters go like F-15A, F-15B, F-15-C, etc).
But with "Warbird Battlecruiser", again it's stupid Cryptic slapping two ship types names like they did. It's no different saying something like "Cruiser Destroyer" or "Frigate Escort"
So much want!! They need to consider this design...
I really like it too.
And you know what? There are some similarities with the Romulan T2 ship with this. Seems like Cryptic stole aspects of this person's design. Pretty low Cryptic.
And you know what? There are some similarities with the Romulan T2 ship with this. Seems like Cryptic stole aspects of this person's design. Pretty low Cryptic.
I think that you may be jumping to conclusions. Numerous Trek artists around the internet should be careful leaving their art around the internet, I also think it's possible that two or more artists might draw upon the same original inspirations. In this case, models from all the Trek series or films. All two or more artists might come up with something similar. Yet be completely unaware of each other's work.
(/\) Exploring Star Trek Online Since July 2008 (/\)
Calling it now - Ha'apax will have a three-ship bundle in C-Store ala Oddy/Bortasqu', with special consoles whose set bonus will lean more towards science (where Oddy favors Eng and Bort favors Tac).
At the absolute bare minimum the auxiliary craft will be C-store only. I don't think it'll be a bundle since we're apparently being forced to use the free version (if we want to use an actual romulan ship and not steal TRIBBLE from our glorious masters), so it'd be a bit weird to have a 5000 zen bundle for it. There was an event to get a free oddy/Bortas but it wasn't part of the standard ship progression.
If you scroll down to the production notes, we learn that the D'Deridex model used in TNG: Tin Man was different than the B-Type used in TNG: Defector. So given the B-type came before TNG: Defector, one could say that the B-Type was the name Starfleet given D'Deridex's, before they learned the official name. That or the B-Type was the second production models of the D'Deridex and the D'Deridex we know are the C-Type. (Similar to how modern fighters go like F-15A, F-15B, F-15-C, etc).
But with "Warbird Battlecruiser", again it's stupid Cryptic slapping two ship types names like they did. It's no different saying something like "Cruiser Destroyer" or "Frigate Escort"
I really like it too.
And you know what? There are some similarities with the Romulan T2 ship with this. Seems like Cryptic stole aspects of this person's design. Pretty low Cryptic.
There is nothing wrong with arists drawing on inspiration from other artists. You would most likely do the same if you was in the same position. And in fairness to them, that's some great inspiration if that's the case.
"Balance of Terror" was based on (if not ripped directly from) World War II submarine movies, especially The Enemy Below. Cloaking was just a way for the writers to make a space-submarine, and like submarines and anti-submarine warfare, it stands to reason that the technology to conceal them and the technology to detect them both advance in a technological arms race.
In which case, it's worth mentioning that in real life there has not been a single advance in submarine detection since WW2. Indeed, neither the Americans nor the Russians can track their own submarines even when they know where they are. So the idea of a continual Red Queen arms race doesn't actually always hold up in fact.
--
You point about the cloak merely being a device to tell a particular story is a good one, however. In fact, everyone commenting on these and similar issues should bare that in mind. The writers of Trek did not set out to build a perfectly coherent, consistent universe. They set out to tell stories, and resorted to many expediencies, and some idiocies, to do so.
Therefore it is an exercise in futility to set up faithfulness to the canon as the yardstick top measure a game. A game HAS to be more coherent, more consistent than a story, because the audience for a game is inside it, bushing buttons and twiddling TRIBBLE. You can;t control what the audience, the players, do, in the same way you can control what a linear stories audience sees.
Let the game be the game. Sometimes games can even feed back into a franchise because they do have to impose such higher standards for consistency - the material West End Games wrote for the Star Wars RPG ended up being used by George Lucas himself as reference material.
In which case, it's worth mentioning that in real life there has not been a single advance in submarine detection since WW2. Indeed, neither the Americans nor the Russians can track their own submarines even when they know where they are. So the idea of a continual Red Queen arms race doesn't actually always hold up in fact.
Just not accurate at all. Subs can be found and tracked. Since WW2, sonars have moved from active sonar to passive sonar for instance. Active is better at locating other ships, but it betrays your current position. However, the development in passive sonars had reached the point where it was more advantagous to find you enement without giving away your own position. Sonar bouys did not exist in WW2. Nor did the ability of submarines to stay underwater for months at a time. And the most important submarine development of all time would be the ballistic missile. Complete game changer for the Cold War.
Stealth and detection do revolve around technology. Something to consider is that the US is the only naval superpower today. So there isn't much of an arms race at the moment. Up to the 1980's, however, both sides were trying to track the other's ballistic missile submarines all the time. Red October isn't voodoo science, both sides tried to develop that kind of technology. The goal was slipping submarines under the nose of an opponent inside 200 miles off a major city. Apparently, it was hard to do
You point about the cloak merely being a device to tell a particular story is a good one, however. In fact, everyone commenting on these and similar issues should bare that in mind. The writers of Trek did not set out to build a perfectly coherent, consistent universe. They set out to tell stories, and resorted to many expediencies, and some idiocies, to do so.
Therefore it is an exercise in futility to set up faithfulness to the canon as the yardstick top measure a game. A game HAS to be more coherent, more consistent than a story, because the audience for a game is inside it, bushing buttons and twiddling TRIBBLE. You can;t control what the audience, the players, do, in the same way you can control what a linear stories audience sees.
Let the game be the game. Sometimes games can even feed back into a franchise because they do have to impose such higher standards for consistency - the material West End Games wrote for the Star Wars RPG ended up being used by George Lucas himself as reference material.
Ok I agree with this. One could argue that STO could at least try to stick to canon a little more though. Its not necessary to recreate the JHAS as the greatest escort of all time other than a plain grab for money. Most divergences that bug people in STO are in the interest of money grabs, not in making better gameplay experience, IMO.
it seems i wont be playing the romulans at this point, the game keeps crashing after the login screen during loading and only music is playing, no other sounds. dunno what the problem is, ive upgraded everything minus the ati driver as that refuses to cooperate with any of my monitors, so it will probably be a driver from last year sometime ntil they fix that issue on their end. adjusted a few things like admin settings or loosing the shadows, post precessing, compatibly to xp and such, no such luck. never had that before and i hope its resolved before the romulan adventure.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
If you scroll down to the production notes, we learn that the D'Deridex model used in TNG: Tin Man was different than the B-Type used in TNG: Defector. So given the B-type came before TNG: Defector, one could say that the B-Type was the name Starfleet given D'Deridex's, before they learned the official name. That or the B-Type was the second production models of the D'Deridex and the D'Deridex we know are the C-Type. (Similar to how modern fighters go like F-15A, F-15B, F-15-C, etc).
But with "Warbird Battlecruiser", again it's stupid Cryptic slapping two ship types names like they did. It's no different saying something like "Cruiser Destroyer" or "Frigate Escort
OK first off the D'Deridex is a battlecruiser not a battleship scimitar is a romulan battleship
And refering to warplane designations was not a great analogy
The F-15 just like many warplanes has many variants one for more ground attack one for spyplane one for electronic warfare etc etc.
Using and letter designation at the end of the F-15 (or whatever warplane) such as F-15 A etc etc helps distinguish them from one another so its far easier to deploy them.
Also helps assinging them to the proper theatre of battle .
If they release a D'Deridex battleship later then they could add a designation like lets say D'Deridex B-Type (I used B-Type as an example only) this would distinguish between the battlecruiser and the battleship of the D'Deridex class.
Wrong, they were deployed by RAF Coastal Command in 1942.
We have better, more sensitive, more precise, electronic gear, but fundamentally we're still using the same techniques that originated in 1916.
The goal was slipping submarines under the nose of an opponent inside 200 miles off a major city. Apparently, it was hard to do
My point is that it turned out not to be evenly balanced. It was possible to make submarines significantly stealthier, it was not to be possible to improve detection enough to find them. Yes, it's dependent on technology, but there is no law that says that it has to be even.
Consider as another example the 300 years that went by before materials technology could come up with an effective answer to the bullet. For that period, armies stopped wearing armour, something they had done with great consistency for the previous two millenia. You can't just assume that the same balance will always be maintained.
Ok I agree with this. One could argue that STO could at least try to stick to canon a little more though. Its not necessary to recreate the JHAS as the greatest escort of all time other than a plain grab for money. Most divergences that bug people in STO are in the interest of money grabs, not in making better gameplay experience, IMO.
I haven't been around long enough to have an opinion on the specifics here, but I have seen similar accusation levelled at designers in other games. I'm wary about that sort of thing because I personally suspect that, with some caveats, the designers probably DO want to improve gameplay. People complain about the grinding and farming, but really without it, what would you do? And why would you do it, if you didn't have something to look forward to?
That perhaps is another discussion; my point though is that while discussion of the established canon can be useful, and it should not be outright ignored, everything has to be subordinated to what will make gameplay better.
Ships look great dev team! On another note, as much as the Scimitar would be a great ship to have as a Captain, due to the awesome magnitude of the vessel, in both size and firepower...I fear Cryptic would not be able to give it justice in specs, due to fair play for both the Federation and Klingons. If it was created, it would have to be dulled down...which may be more disappointing then anything.
Ships look great dev team! On another note, as much as the Scimitar would be a great ship to have as a Captain, due to the awesome magnitude of the vessel, in both size and firepower...I fear Cryptic would not be able to give it justice in specs, due to fair play for both the Federation and Klingons. If it was created, it would have to be dulled down...which may be more disappointing then anything.
I've been thinking about that myself. I think a good way to handle it would be to leave the full blown Scimitar as an NPC ship. Cryptic could then create their own Scimitar inspired version for players. The justification would be that the Scimitar was a prototype and only a few of them were made, which is why they stay as NPC ships. The ones that the players would get would be more of a production model similar to how cars are made today. I think that would be a reasonable compromise.
We are planning to have Romulan Fleet ships. Details TBA.
What I find very disappointing is the design function of these ships.
There is no trinity. No cruisers, no science. Just escort types (battlecruisers are really heavy escorts lets not kid ourselves here).
I was hoping the trinity would be returned not per faction but instead be created by the factions.
Federation being the science and cruiser faction.
Klingons being the raider and dreadnaught/carrier faction
Romulans being the battlecruiser and escort faction.
But... no. Instead we get all factions being twisted into the DPS-focused lame-lazy cookie-cutter mold.
Judging by how few Romulan designs there may be, if they can get away with using the Scimitar, then they will, regardless of whether it works or not. It's about the same size as the Jem Hadar Battlecruiser isn't it (the one that blew the Valiant away)? We've got that as playable, the Scimitar need not be no different. x5 fore weapons, x3 aft.
Judging by how few Romulan designs there may be, if they can get away with using the Scimitar, then they will, regardless of whether it works or not. It's about the same size as the Jem Hadar Battlecruiser isn't it (the one that blew the Valiant away)? We've got that as playable, the Scimitar need not be no different. x5 fore weapons, x3 aft.
5 fore, 3 aft? Cryptic.... make that and take my money.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
If the Scimitar becomes playable, the Jupiter and / or Typhoon should be for Feds, and some sort of equivalent for KDF.
Not sure why. The Scimitar was a class of warbird. These are the most notable/ authoritative references I could find, neither of which mention it as some kind of dreadnaught Memory-Alpha, Star Trek.com
Though I am prepared to admit - Armed with 52 disruptor banks, 27 photon torpedo bays might be aimed a wee bit high for STO
What I do find really interesting though is how the Remans, essentially a "slave-race" of the Romulan Empire were able to design and develop such a predatory warship without the Romulans knowing about it???
Though I am prepared to admit - Armed with 52 disruptor banks, 27 photon torpedo bays might be aimed a wee bit high for STO
Keep in mind that weapons, like everything else, are abstracted here. All those numbers, to me, just say "4 front weapons, 4 back weapons, balanced for beams".
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Comments
Calling it now - Ha'apax will have a three-ship bundle in C-Store ala Oddy/Bortasqu', with special consoles whose set bonus will lean more towards science (where Oddy favors Eng and Bort favors Tac).
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
It was explained in the movie that changs BoP was a prototype and if you delv deeper you would also know chang stole it and had all info about it destroyed so that he would have the only one in existence.
So once changs prototype BoP was destroyed the perfected battlecloak was destroyed with him and his BoP.
As far as the romulans there military and empire was created around their cloaking technology it also influenced their ship designs so better to utilize a rom cloak.
Its also known that there had been a rom / klink alliance in the past which went horribly wrong but until that alliance the klinks did not have cloaking tech.
What the klinks got and have been using without much improvements are old romulan alpha cloaking technology as in its old school cloak tech.
The romulans are lightyears ahead of the klinks in cloaking technology
www.divisionhispana.com
Will there be a Risian Clothing Pack? I want to put my Andorian Bridge Officer in a Bikini!
I totally agree and i also dont agree with roms using fed or klingon starships however if roms use shuttles thats fine but starships thats not romulan at all .. otherwise we have to start sharing starships of all factions and you might want to call this game something other then star trek once that happens....... come on cryptic each faction should have its own starships you want to let romulans use ships of there allied friends then let them have shuttles only......:mad:
If you scroll down to the production notes, we learn that the D'Deridex model used in TNG: Tin Man was different than the B-Type used in TNG: Defector. So given the B-type came before TNG: Defector, one could say that the B-Type was the name Starfleet given D'Deridex's, before they learned the official name. That or the B-Type was the second production models of the D'Deridex and the D'Deridex we know are the C-Type. (Similar to how modern fighters go like F-15A, F-15B, F-15-C, etc).
But with "Warbird Battlecruiser", again it's stupid Cryptic slapping two ship types names like they did. It's no different saying something like "Cruiser Destroyer" or "Frigate Escort"
I really like it too.
And you know what? There are some similarities with the Romulan T2 ship with this. Seems like Cryptic stole aspects of this person's design. Pretty low Cryptic.
I think that you may be jumping to conclusions. Numerous Trek artists around the internet should be careful leaving their art around the internet, I also think it's possible that two or more artists might draw upon the same original inspirations. In this case, models from all the Trek series or films. All two or more artists might come up with something similar. Yet be completely unaware of each other's work.
At the absolute bare minimum the auxiliary craft will be C-store only. I don't think it'll be a bundle since we're apparently being forced to use the free version (if we want to use an actual romulan ship and not steal TRIBBLE from our glorious masters), so it'd be a bit weird to have a 5000 zen bundle for it. There was an event to get a free oddy/Bortas but it wasn't part of the standard ship progression.
There is nothing wrong with arists drawing on inspiration from other artists. You would most likely do the same if you was in the same position. And in fairness to them, that's some great inspiration if that's the case.
In which case, it's worth mentioning that in real life there has not been a single advance in submarine detection since WW2. Indeed, neither the Americans nor the Russians can track their own submarines even when they know where they are. So the idea of a continual Red Queen arms race doesn't actually always hold up in fact.
--
You point about the cloak merely being a device to tell a particular story is a good one, however. In fact, everyone commenting on these and similar issues should bare that in mind. The writers of Trek did not set out to build a perfectly coherent, consistent universe. They set out to tell stories, and resorted to many expediencies, and some idiocies, to do so.
Therefore it is an exercise in futility to set up faithfulness to the canon as the yardstick top measure a game. A game HAS to be more coherent, more consistent than a story, because the audience for a game is inside it, bushing buttons and twiddling TRIBBLE. You can;t control what the audience, the players, do, in the same way you can control what a linear stories audience sees.
Let the game be the game. Sometimes games can even feed back into a franchise because they do have to impose such higher standards for consistency - the material West End Games wrote for the Star Wars RPG ended up being used by George Lucas himself as reference material.
Just not accurate at all. Subs can be found and tracked. Since WW2, sonars have moved from active sonar to passive sonar for instance. Active is better at locating other ships, but it betrays your current position. However, the development in passive sonars had reached the point where it was more advantagous to find you enement without giving away your own position. Sonar bouys did not exist in WW2. Nor did the ability of submarines to stay underwater for months at a time. And the most important submarine development of all time would be the ballistic missile. Complete game changer for the Cold War.
Stealth and detection do revolve around technology. Something to consider is that the US is the only naval superpower today. So there isn't much of an arms race at the moment. Up to the 1980's, however, both sides were trying to track the other's ballistic missile submarines all the time. Red October isn't voodoo science, both sides tried to develop that kind of technology. The goal was slipping submarines under the nose of an opponent inside 200 miles off a major city. Apparently, it was hard to do
Ok I agree with this. One could argue that STO could at least try to stick to canon a little more though. Its not necessary to recreate the JHAS as the greatest escort of all time other than a plain grab for money. Most divergences that bug people in STO are in the interest of money grabs, not in making better gameplay experience, IMO.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
OK first off the D'Deridex is a battlecruiser not a battleship scimitar is a romulan battleship
And refering to warplane designations was not a great analogy
The F-15 just like many warplanes has many variants one for more ground attack one for spyplane one for electronic warfare etc etc.
Using and letter designation at the end of the F-15 (or whatever warplane) such as F-15 A etc etc helps distinguish them from one another so its far easier to deploy them.
Also helps assinging them to the proper theatre of battle .
If they release a D'Deridex battleship later then they could add a designation like lets say D'Deridex B-Type (I used B-Type as an example only) this would distinguish between the battlecruiser and the battleship of the D'Deridex class.
Wrong, they were deployed by RAF Coastal Command in 1942.
We have better, more sensitive, more precise, electronic gear, but fundamentally we're still using the same techniques that originated in 1916.
My point is that it turned out not to be evenly balanced. It was possible to make submarines significantly stealthier, it was not to be possible to improve detection enough to find them. Yes, it's dependent on technology, but there is no law that says that it has to be even.
Consider as another example the 300 years that went by before materials technology could come up with an effective answer to the bullet. For that period, armies stopped wearing armour, something they had done with great consistency for the previous two millenia. You can't just assume that the same balance will always be maintained.
I haven't been around long enough to have an opinion on the specifics here, but I have seen similar accusation levelled at designers in other games. I'm wary about that sort of thing because I personally suspect that, with some caveats, the designers probably DO want to improve gameplay. People complain about the grinding and farming, but really without it, what would you do? And why would you do it, if you didn't have something to look forward to?
That perhaps is another discussion; my point though is that while discussion of the established canon can be useful, and it should not be outright ignored, everything has to be subordinated to what will make gameplay better.
Somehow I don't think the latest generation of US and Russian spy satellites using radar interferometry qualify as 1916 techniques.
Admittedly, the ones looking for submarine wakes are effectively just really really high altitude airplane cameras; but not the above.
I've been thinking about that myself. I think a good way to handle it would be to leave the full blown Scimitar as an NPC ship. Cryptic could then create their own Scimitar inspired version for players. The justification would be that the Scimitar was a prototype and only a few of them were made, which is why they stay as NPC ships. The ones that the players would get would be more of a production model similar to how cars are made today. I think that would be a reasonable compromise.
Mine Trap Supporter
What I find very disappointing is the design function of these ships.
There is no trinity. No cruisers, no science. Just escort types (battlecruisers are really heavy escorts lets not kid ourselves here).
I was hoping the trinity would be returned not per faction but instead be created by the factions.
Federation being the science and cruiser faction.
Klingons being the raider and dreadnaught/carrier faction
Romulans being the battlecruiser and escort faction.
But... no. Instead we get all factions being twisted into the DPS-focused lame-lazy cookie-cutter mold.
5 fore, 3 aft? Cryptic.... make that and take my money.
They do have the Bortasque and the Odyssey as equivalents.
Not sure why. The Scimitar was a class of warbird. These are the most notable/ authoritative references I could find, neither of which mention it as some kind of dreadnaught Memory-Alpha, Star Trek.com
Though I am prepared to admit - Armed with 52 disruptor banks, 27 photon torpedo bays might be aimed a wee bit high for STO
What I do find really interesting though is how the Remans, essentially a "slave-race" of the Romulan Empire were able to design and develop such a predatory warship without the Romulans knowing about it???
Keep in mind that weapons, like everything else, are abstracted here. All those numbers, to me, just say "4 front weapons, 4 back weapons, balanced for beams".
It should come with a Last Starfighter Death Blossom-type console. :P
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
Hopefully tough they don't make that ship as bad as the galaxy class is
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
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