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Crafting system and Ship interior revamp proposal and Discussion
voicesdark
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Subject: Crafting system and Ship interior revamp proposal and Discussion
The Crafting System and Ship interiors have become the redheaded stepchildren (no offense redheaded stepchildren) Cryptic has locked under the stairs and left to rot. There have been a lot of new systems and system revamp the past few seasons, but these two keep getting left out in the cold. There have been many proposals for each system and they range from "WTF are you thinking" to something that would be close to the undertaking of a LOR sized expansion.
This will try to not only bridge that gap and try to be something highly function, but also something that would be moderately easy for the devs to undertake. I will endeavour to include as many already made assets as possible.
I don't want people to simply read this and say either they like it or hate it, it is my hopes that this will get a serious discussion going not only between the players, but also between the players and the devs.
__________________________________________________________
Crafting System:
Monetization: Yes, I'm proposing that small portions of the crafting system be monetized. These portions would only involve special items and would be very microtransactions.
Schematics (Old) VS Blueprints (New):
Schematics:
For items currently available to the crafting system the old schematics system works just fine. They would also serve as stepping stones when leveling your crafting skill.
Blueprints:
Blueprints would be a new addition to the crafting system. Their main purpose would be for top level gear, special crafting projects, and unique items. They would be sold in increments of 1, 5, or 10 and would cost as much as lockbox keys. They would also be account bound.
Shuttlecraft/Fighter Crafting:
When STO went F2P cryptic removed the ability to craft a Delta Flyer Shuttle. Considering how much of a part this shuttle was to Voyager it only makes sense that Cryptic would take advantage of that and move this to the C-Store.
However less popular small craft like the Peregrine Fighter or even a few new/or older small craft could be made available. They would require a Small Craft Blueprint, any mk x Engine, any mk x engine, any mk x weapons (3-4 total), any mk x deflector, any mk x shield, and a very small amount of dilithium for the crafting recipe.
End Game Gear and Upgrading older Gear:
I know I'm going to catch holy raging hell for this one, but the Aegis set is a dinosaur. There have been so many new sets released and/or upgraded and yet the poor Aegis set remains forgotten. I love the visuals on the set, but it just doesn't have the teeth it used to. unfortunately this applies for most everything that is in the crafting system.
I'm also proposing the ability to craft fleet level gear. The justification for being able to craft upgraded weapons and equipment is simple, not everyone wants to join a fleet or has the resources to build their fleetbase to tier 5. Why should these people have to suffer or be forced into a fleet (even if temporarily) just to have access to the top gear?
This would also require the new Blueprints. They would be:
weapons upgrade blurprint
equipment upgrade blueprint
These would be for both space and ground gear, therefore eliminating the need for many different blueprints.
Unique bound to account items:
Simply put there aren't any. Everything you can get through crafting, you can get from the exchange. For example, how about the ability to craft a turret that keeps it's 360 arc and DPS, but deals as much damage as phasers. Or being able to craft a hanger pet squadron that is comprised of both Runabouts and Peregrine fighters launched from the same hangar bay and has double the normal capacity.
Ship interiors and the crafting system...say WHAT?!:
This would be the area where the most amount of work would come into play.
Ship interiors are in need of a major overhaul. The scaling is way off, the layout is oversized for the lack of rooms, in the smaller layouts there's WAY TOO many crew walking around, and overall they're not really that functional. While it would take quite a bit of work to redo these, the payoff in the long run would be worth it. I'll eventually add illustrations to properly show off the new deck layout part of the proposal, but for now we;ll continue.
Anyone familiar with player houses in other games knows it can be as simple as a bed to sleep in, to a full blown quest to build it and then furnish it even being able to place every item individually. In several games there are "furniture packs" you buy from an NPC or store and it automatically adds the furniture based on the pack purchased.
What I'm proposing is that STO during the revamp of the ship interior removes ALL of the aesthetic furniture from ship interiors and allows us to craft a "furniture pack" instead to then be applied throughout the ship. This would be carpet colors, walls, era, theme, and crew uniform. For example I might want Hunter Green carpet, the corridors from Enterprise, The TNG era, civilian theme, and jupiter uniform. Someone else might want blue carpet, The corridors from TOS, the Voyager era, Starfleet theme, and the DS9 unifrom. By era I mean furniture, consoles, equipment,etc. from that time period. These changes would be ship wide.
The universal areas of the ship interior would also contain many possible foundry access points. In the shuttle bay you would be able to select from different small craft to be display much like the floor trophy system (minus customizations to prevent excessive variations needed) and boarding a shuttlecraft via the shuttlebay would automatically transfer you to the space map and ship you selected. you would also be able to enter interior mode of your shuttlecraft to select a docking option that would return you to your shuttlebay and automatically re-select your default main ship.
Holodecks would be given their own unique UI and foundry access so that it only displayed "holonovel" foundry content. Cryptic made holonovels (aka mini missions) could also be purchasable via the c-store. An Example holonovel could be a firing range with automatically locks you into shooter mode for the duration of the timer and scores your hits/misses.
One additional thing I would like to propose is that the commodities/food/drink consumables be given a random buy/sell price. It would add a new trading dynamic to the game, and also give more gameplay style options.
In Summary:
1) Addition of new top level gear without the forcing of joining a fleet or fleet hopping.
2) Adding various Blueprints into the c-store which allow for upgrading gear, crafting new gear, or unlocking new options for ship interiors.
3) would give the crafting system and ship interiors more functionality
4) would largely use existing game assets and systems reducing the need for extensive new asset creation.
5) would help offset the cost of these revamps by monetizing select portions of the crafting system.
The Crafting System and Ship interiors have become the redheaded stepchildren (no offense redheaded stepchildren) Cryptic has locked under the stairs and left to rot. There have been a lot of new systems and system revamp the past few seasons, but these two keep getting left out in the cold. There have been many proposals for each system and they range from "WTF are you thinking" to something that would be close to the undertaking of a LOR sized expansion.
This will try to not only bridge that gap and try to be something highly function, but also something that would be moderately easy for the devs to undertake. I will endeavour to include as many already made assets as possible.
I don't want people to simply read this and say either they like it or hate it, it is my hopes that this will get a serious discussion going not only between the players, but also between the players and the devs.
__________________________________________________________
Crafting System:
Monetization: Yes, I'm proposing that small portions of the crafting system be monetized. These portions would only involve special items and would be very microtransactions.
Schematics (Old) VS Blueprints (New):
Schematics:
For items currently available to the crafting system the old schematics system works just fine. They would also serve as stepping stones when leveling your crafting skill.
Blueprints:
Blueprints would be a new addition to the crafting system. Their main purpose would be for top level gear, special crafting projects, and unique items. They would be sold in increments of 1, 5, or 10 and would cost as much as lockbox keys. They would also be account bound.
Shuttlecraft/Fighter Crafting:
When STO went F2P cryptic removed the ability to craft a Delta Flyer Shuttle. Considering how much of a part this shuttle was to Voyager it only makes sense that Cryptic would take advantage of that and move this to the C-Store.
However less popular small craft like the Peregrine Fighter or even a few new/or older small craft could be made available. They would require a Small Craft Blueprint, any mk x Engine, any mk x engine, any mk x weapons (3-4 total), any mk x deflector, any mk x shield, and a very small amount of dilithium for the crafting recipe.
End Game Gear and Upgrading older Gear:
I know I'm going to catch holy raging hell for this one, but the Aegis set is a dinosaur. There have been so many new sets released and/or upgraded and yet the poor Aegis set remains forgotten. I love the visuals on the set, but it just doesn't have the teeth it used to. unfortunately this applies for most everything that is in the crafting system.
I'm also proposing the ability to craft fleet level gear. The justification for being able to craft upgraded weapons and equipment is simple, not everyone wants to join a fleet or has the resources to build their fleetbase to tier 5. Why should these people have to suffer or be forced into a fleet (even if temporarily) just to have access to the top gear?
This would also require the new Blueprints. They would be:
weapons upgrade blurprint
equipment upgrade blueprint
These would be for both space and ground gear, therefore eliminating the need for many different blueprints.
Unique bound to account items:
Simply put there aren't any. Everything you can get through crafting, you can get from the exchange. For example, how about the ability to craft a turret that keeps it's 360 arc and DPS, but deals as much damage as phasers. Or being able to craft a hanger pet squadron that is comprised of both Runabouts and Peregrine fighters launched from the same hangar bay and has double the normal capacity.
Ship interiors and the crafting system...say WHAT?!:
This would be the area where the most amount of work would come into play.
Ship interiors are in need of a major overhaul. The scaling is way off, the layout is oversized for the lack of rooms, in the smaller layouts there's WAY TOO many crew walking around, and overall they're not really that functional. While it would take quite a bit of work to redo these, the payoff in the long run would be worth it. I'll eventually add illustrations to properly show off the new deck layout part of the proposal, but for now we;ll continue.
Anyone familiar with player houses in other games knows it can be as simple as a bed to sleep in, to a full blown quest to build it and then furnish it even being able to place every item individually. In several games there are "furniture packs" you buy from an NPC or store and it automatically adds the furniture based on the pack purchased.
What I'm proposing is that STO during the revamp of the ship interior removes ALL of the aesthetic furniture from ship interiors and allows us to craft a "furniture pack" instead to then be applied throughout the ship. This would be carpet colors, walls, era, theme, and crew uniform. For example I might want Hunter Green carpet, the corridors from Enterprise, The TNG era, civilian theme, and jupiter uniform. Someone else might want blue carpet, The corridors from TOS, the Voyager era, Starfleet theme, and the DS9 unifrom. By era I mean furniture, consoles, equipment,etc. from that time period. These changes would be ship wide.
The universal areas of the ship interior would also contain many possible foundry access points. In the shuttle bay you would be able to select from different small craft to be display much like the floor trophy system (minus customizations to prevent excessive variations needed) and boarding a shuttlecraft via the shuttlebay would automatically transfer you to the space map and ship you selected. you would also be able to enter interior mode of your shuttlecraft to select a docking option that would return you to your shuttlebay and automatically re-select your default main ship.
Holodecks would be given their own unique UI and foundry access so that it only displayed "holonovel" foundry content. Cryptic made holonovels (aka mini missions) could also be purchasable via the c-store. An Example holonovel could be a firing range with automatically locks you into shooter mode for the duration of the timer and scores your hits/misses.
One additional thing I would like to propose is that the commodities/food/drink consumables be given a random buy/sell price. It would add a new trading dynamic to the game, and also give more gameplay style options.
In Summary:
1) Addition of new top level gear without the forcing of joining a fleet or fleet hopping.
2) Adding various Blueprints into the c-store which allow for upgrading gear, crafting new gear, or unlocking new options for ship interiors.
3) would give the crafting system and ship interiors more functionality
4) would largely use existing game assets and systems reducing the need for extensive new asset creation.
5) would help offset the cost of these revamps by monetizing select portions of the crafting system.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by voicesdark on
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Comments
The simple reason for this is complete laziness on the part of Cryptic.
They chose to use the Champions engine for STO - an engine that's really not suited to the game or especially the space environment - because it was faster and easier than developing a new engine that would have done any kind of justice to the kind of things you should be able to do in Star Trek (not the least of which is the fact that we're in the 3D world of space and are limited to how far we can go up or down).
The reason they gave for the scaling issues is that since there are some very large creatures that we'd have to fight, if they ever get inside our ships, there would be graphics issues at certain camera angles.
The funny part about THAT is that while this was the explanation Cryptic gave us in beta, over three years later there isn't a single possibility that I will have invaders on my bridge (or anywhere else on my ship) that I need to fight.
So there it is in a nutshell. Cryptic was lazy and they really have no impetus to fix this glaring example of the laziness.
Wish it were different, but it never will be unless they're willing to spend the money to develop a new engine that's more suited to the space-and-ground environment of Star Trek than the Champions engine.
And remember - these are the people who couldn't get the Galaxy Class - the most iconic ship at the time since the Constitution - correct at launch. It's STILL got an error where the pylon area meets the secondary hull on the ventral hull.
What're the odds they'd worry about interiors even if they could do something about it?
I fully support these two points as general concepts.
Ideally, any crafting revamp should allow the user to custom build most of the equipment they want to craft. By this I mean choose the rarity and mods they want the item to have from an predefined list. Part of the problem with either of the previous crafting systems is the generally horrid itemization of the items you can make.
some ship interiors are used in episode missions and foundry missions. they are the same map. so it is an issue, it just doesnt come up often for the average player
Oh, I'm well aware that missions take place elsewhere - you can't be in a game for over 3 years without knowing where missions take place (well, I suppose you could but it'd be hard).
The point being that in the over 100 years of Starfleet's history that was established before this game, they never once made accommodations for extra-large beings on their interiors - nor did the Klingons - until Cryptic got its hands on STO and subjected us all to oversized interiors due to their lack of concern for scale.
Just saying that as a result it's unlikely that interiors will ever change.
This is the only bit I strongly disagree with, and frankly you don't stand a chance of getting it implemented into the game. Fleet level gear should be off limits to the crafting system.
I understand that not everyone wants to join a fleet (although I don't understand *why*, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to interact with people and talk if you don't want to - just find one with decent policies and an upgrade path you understand when you enter) but the amount of time, effort and MONEY (EC, Dilithium and real life currency) we have poured into the fleet advancement system to obtain these items has to be worth something. Now you're just trying to say "Oh well some people don't want to do it so give it to them just for a bit of dil and zen and everyone's happy" - well, I'm not. The devs won't accept this either I'm 99.99% sure of that, they built a whole season around fleets and new endgame equipment and they're happy with it.
Crafting should go up to Mk XII purple, which is MORE than sufficient. If you want FLEET level equipment, join a fleet.
Apart from that one section, I like the rest of your ideas
Kirk's Protege.
Maybe split the difference?
Allow crafting to go up to Fleet Tier I equipment to give solo players (like myself, admittedly) a taste of what fleets can offer them, but if they want Tier II and up, they'd still have to join a fleet.
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
I suppose so, but seriously, just go and join a fleet. A nice friendly relaxed one where you know what you're getting into. You don't have to talk, or get involved all the time, or run fleet actions, or donate everything you have - just join one.
You never know, you might like it.
If you want an invite to my fleet (I'm second in command) or more details mail me in game @mikehadfield
Kirk's Protege.
I do agree that the crafting needs some added flavor, like maybe a muti que ability or something like that or maybe the a random attriubite added to the items you create that would be cool.
as far the the ships interior, i dont think that will happen. its not really lazy on the part of cryptic. its about bandwith and the ability of having a fast load time everytime i go somewhere, ie sector space /your ship / my ship/ etc etc. it would create so much lag while the server loads every bit of differnt furniture /shades of grey/ blah blah blah etc etc. Eve Online wanted to try to put custom logos on each players ship, can you think about how much loading and server lag time that game already has on a single shard, and they rejected that idea for pretty much the same reason. i want to play a game, not rubber band all the time.
besides there really isnt much going on board the ship anyhow.
Okay I agree with many points you have here, but honestly I think in the next season(or beyond) Cryptic was going to do something about crafting anyway, lol. But on that note, I agree that things need to take the unique approach you hint at for micro transactions and dilithium. With the in game trading of commodities and data samples, and everything else; Non-Fleet people could get XII purple this way without Fleet resources, but would be hard, or use the black market that could use a massive over hall in game, as the Ferengi traders are basically worthless in game. (Seriously they sell generic COMMON variations of the phaser/disruptor weapons, nothing else! )
But I say expand beyond that, If you are part of a fleet, you should be able to craft fleet level gear that you cannot buy through the Fleet store, As every fleet has an Industrial Fabricator you could use it. This could include using Fleet Gear to craft different variations/more powerful/buffed, BUT also negative as it could be randomized somewhat.
Yes the Aegis Set is a dinosaur, but even I use it sometimes just like the Breen set. They both have some positives, but in comparison to the Maco, Omega, Honor, and Fleet sets, (let alone the Dominion one) they are severely handicapped; I'd say the Breen less so than the Aegis! And let alone the work that went into making the Aegis at the time...making it pointless at later levels. And if you join a Fleet, then the Elite Shields sort of equate to the Aegis Shield+.
The thing with the blueprint/schematics are basically same thing, just we would have to have special ones needed through C-Store/Dilithium/Fleet Project/Asset things.
The furniture, and ship interiors ...debate of the ages, I'll just move on, ha. :cool:
As for the Holodecks...I would say any holodeck at any station/SFA/KA and your ship should have their own holonovel packs that change based on rank! They could be used in relation to your character, crew performance testing, and a place for foundry mission scripting usage(as some already do). In fact could even use them for a Daily.
Now for the fighter thing. I'm going to flat out say it: Flying Shuttles sucks, and when you compare the shuttles you fly to the fighters for hangers you can acquire that can do so much (but are handicapped as they do not activate their powers like a player would), It flat out pains me to say that the Delta Flyer let alone the Runabouts are so underpowered compared to the regular shuttles (which should not have torps at all!), and the Fighters.
In fact the thing could be regular shuttle=basic (phaser only+ability for C-store+1 Ensign universal BOFF), larger shuttle=beefier (phaser+ ability+2 Ensign uni BOFF), Peregrine= Tactical (cannons+torp+ 2 Ensign BOFFS-1 Tac 1 Uni), Runabout= depending on if it has the roll bar either Sci/Tac versions, and none for engineer(phaser+mini torp+ 1 Ensign Boff Uni +1 Lt. Boff whatever version of Runabout), for all 3 factions,
The others should be due to C-Store: The Delta Flyer should be phaser +torp +regen[borg tech you know...]+1 Lt Boff uni +1 Ensign Sci, The Captain's Yacht should have an additional+ Lt Boff Uni. The two factions should have the equal to the Fed versions; should be tiered up above the basic ones. Yes the C-Store ships have abilities, but some stuff does need to be added to make them more worthy of flying/buying. I think they should be scaled to level basically for Boff layout I guess is what I am trying to say...(not sure they can do that, I assume same reason you have to change ships when you rank up...)Also would be nice to include wingmen with them when you fly them solo missions...
Honestly I think the original Fed tutorial (As I never had to do the Klingon one, if there is even one planned...:P ) could be semi-scrapped, and you should do academy missions first, with shuttle training, then some patrolling around safe sector space in shuttles, some ground stuff, then you get assigned to a ship-the one at the start of the Fed tutorial one. It would help make it more believable that you have to fly a shuttle/runabout/fighter around before a light cruiser for a bit before you get ranked to fly a ship staffed with a crew and more abilities.
Beyond that, Idk. Hope it made some sense, if not, I'm sorry my mind goes many ways...derp.