Starship Construction

ashman7286

I come up with this idea a few days ago. Starship construction. Have a Utopia Planitia reputation system added and the first project be the starship construction unlock. Then whichever starship part you want, whether it be nacelles, hull, saucer etc. be a construction yard unlockable through a project.

So say i want an Excelsior hull, Sovereign nacelles, Connstitution saucer and Galaxy neck. I would need to do 4 projects to unlock the necessary parts for the construction. Once the parts are unlocked you go to your ship customization screen and add the parts together and when you click build it will begin another final project to construct that ship. Once that project is complete it will unlock that design for purchase at your shipyard.

Paintjobs could also be unlockable through projects in teh rep system too. So select a 2409 skin or even a custom design. Begin the project and once complete it will be unlocked in your ship customizer when you modifiy that particular ship.

Obviously you wouldn't or shouldn't be able to put Prometheus nacelles on a Defiant or something so it would be limited to certain parts that would fit the part you are using. So if i wanted to fit the nacelles from a Prometheus to a Defiant it wouldn't let me because they aren't compatible.

This could also open up a whole new way of ship building. If i fit a Galaxy hull then you gain shield power. If i fit a Prometheus saucer then a boost to weapon power. Fit Sovvy nacelles then a boost to engine power etc.

This way we will see some truly unique designs and in pvp you will never know the build or role of the enemy vessel. Just because you see a larger cruiser doesn't mean it's in a tnk/healer role. Same as a small escort size, it could be a Sci crowd control build with cannons.

I thought i'd put it out there. What do you think???

corbinwolf

I like this idea and personally agree. I would take it one step further though and make it so that you can choose how many of any one console slot you can place in Sci, Eng and Tac. This is the same for weapon slots. If everyone had the option to do this and increase the slots on their existing ships in a similar fashion than inevitably everybody would fly what they want, how they want, etc...

I think the game is very limiting in some ways and this is ideal imo. The above would generate more income I think with new parts and what not being added regularly. I am sure there are millions of reason people will come up with as to why this may not work, especially perhaps where immersion is concerned. However, its a game and inevitably there are thousands of space faring species who I am sure are part of Starfleet but need special conditions met on ships - hence new designs other than those simply shown on television or movies.

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theodrim

I like the idea in theory, but on the other hand I know exactly where it would lead -- a bunch of truly fugly, unholy mutant, Deliverance-baby-looking starships, that sacrifice the impression their project designer wasn't shooting heroin into their eyeballs in favor of an trivial numerical advantage. Plus, the Stop Having Fun Guys would be out in force deriding people for not all flying the U.S.S. Extra Chromosomes, because all other ships compare to it suck.

EDIT: Not to mention the number of ships that will invariably be large-scale mock-ups of genitalia flying around. We already get enough of a Freud kick in the spaceborne paean to the famous psychiatrist in the V'ger mock-up Borg ship.

kyeto13

dat kit bash....

Yeah. not a fan of the Ultimate kitbash. this has been suggested several times before to the same response. The game programing cannot handle such a design and they will have to scrap and rework the game from the ground up in order to do that.

The ship combat abilities and the ship's skins are on different systems. There is a limited way the game can handle ship layouts as gear and combat abilities. If you have a customizable Ship layout system, the game will have to have to have to load every single available combination of boff/console/weapons layout, plus the hull/shield/power layout combination available from all those combinations. This would also mean assigning stats and bonuses to each piece of an ship. So a whole new cluster**** of data will have to be thrown into the balance of the game issue.

The skins are a bit more flexible, but there is still a base assumption of where the center of your avatar (what you control in game) and offsets it X amount from that center to build the ship. Different ships models have different offsets for the nacelles and the necks. For example, the Luna class nacelles are tucked underneath the baseline, while the Constitution is set well above the baseline. The Sovereign and the Vesta have almost no neck between the saucer and the secondary hull, while the Constitution class has a really long neck. While you can remix some of the parts between the sets, the sets are matched up so the nacelles, saucer, and other things line up in about the same place of the model. Ultimate kitbashing would completely TRIBBLE up that system, meaning either a complete retool of the ship's avatar system from the ground up. Or really REALLY bad avatars with floating or embedded parts and mismatched polygon grids with massive holes at the junctions.

Also, there are some HORRID kitbashes out there that no one in Utopia Planitia would allow to get past their doodles on toilet paper.

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kyeto13

skollulfr wrote: »

3 paragraphs to explain flaws in the idea that the op pointed out and implied there should be limits on...

protip. dont make posts bigger than you would read.

I pointed out that this would be a massive re hull of the entire game system, devoting all of the devs attention to fix something that is not all that broken. This would be so much of a change that it would be easier to have a different company start up a game with this mechanic in place from day 1. Turning STO into this type of ship customization system would be too massive of a rehull to do and you might as well reboot the game.

And I would, and frequently DO read post bigger than that. I also read books... for pleasure.

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felderburg

I would prefer the idea that has been floated around before of something like a "nacelle pack" - you buy it from the C Store, and can fit any of the nacelles from the pack on your ships. Things like that, that are theoretically easier to mash onto any ship, rather than making every piece fit with every other piece would be better, especially in the C Store since there's a monetary incentive for them to do it.

sasheria

It is a cool idea, but I think it should have some limitation.

First, you need to buy the original ship (C-store, in-game, or lock boxes) in order to customize from it.

There should be limitation on which part can be added/customize.

The hard part is coming up with a formula that will prevent "uber power" ships being build from this.

Example:
I bought Kumari set, Vetsa set, and multi-mission. When I build my "own ship" I can't combine the power of different set (and thus able to use all console).

Example construction:
Pick a ship base: Tactical, Science, Engineering (this will be the base of bonus power and shields)
Then you could combine different part of that ship type (i.e. pick tactical and then create your own ship design and slots)

The slots are limited to what ship you already have access. Thus you CAN'T create a 5 fore slot until you bought Kumari set (all three or something restricting)

There should be a balance factor (i.e. hull/shield adjustment) if a person want to add extra "class" to the ship. i.e. Escort + carrier option or 5 fore slot science vessel. If you do that, you will sacrifice some bonus and such.

Picking out console slot will also be limiting (probably upto 9 so c-store ship will be better than player build) but allocation will have pros/cons.

This is just a rough idea.

ashman7286

You could base the construction on points.

Each base you pick (Eng, Tac, Sci) gives a certain amount of points to be spent on Engineering parts (cruiser/dreadnought), Science parts (sci vessel/carrier) and Tactical (escort/destroyer).

Then for every part you add it uses a set amount of points to prevent players from building the "heavy escort tactical carrier cruiser".

This is much like the skill point system already in use for characters and boffs.

Also each part could have an inertia number or a size or weight. The bigger the parts or more parts you add the slower your ship will be. Nobody will create a Galaxy based Escort Carrier because it'll be really slow. It would make sense to build a Galaxy based Cruiser.

The bigger nacelles you fit will make it faster in sector space but will reduce it's turn rate and impulse speed. The more console slots also have an impact on system power so you can't have more than 4 or 5 Engineering slots because you'll have next to no Engineering power to run them all. This can also be offset by fitting a larger warp core but again this will reduce turn rate and impulse speed.

There's a million ways that this can be controlled.

drac0s65

I think it's a good idea but, I would like to see it where Captain's can update their existing ships as they level. An option, you can either get a new ship or you can add slots or bridge officer stations.

glados122

Hmm spending 5 years to make da ultimate ship.

theodrim

glados122 wrote: »

Hmm spending 5 years to make da ultimate ship.

Ah if it were true to canon, the "ultimate ship" would just be a warp core with a bunch of deflector dishes attached to it, with only one crew member -- a liberated borg child.

renomiller

This is a great idea that I don't think CBS would allow Cryptic to ever do.

chandlerashari

I was thinking if they had a Shipyard rep, itd be to customize their current ships. A Retrofit perk if you will.

Maybe i'd just be a tier unlock.

and its be very marginal, very costly

Add 10 perc hull/Take 10 perc shield mod: 36k dill, a lot of other stuff
Add 1 Tac Console/Take 1 Engi Console: same

something like that, more drastic changes as you incriese the tiers etc.

felderburg

What they really need is the ability to let us have ship skins once we've unlocked a set even if we're not using the set at the time.

mowghta

I like the customization idea , but i prefer upgrade an existing hull from tier 1 to tier 5 :

Exemple : upgrade a miranda class with hull stengh , shield strengh , consoles slots