I was thinking, it would be really nice if you could see things through your captains eyes.
I am suggesting a Bridge/Captains POV for gameplay.
Imagine a 1st person view from the captains chair, with a large tactical "View screen"...complete with HUD radar, for tracking enemy ship that are outside your field of vision.
Imagine seeing your purple boffs fiddling away at their designated terminals, which would be teractive, with skill trays attached to each station.
Imagine your boffs reacting with certain animations for each skill used...
Imagine watching your boffs and doffs bustle around the ship as you blast away at a BoP on the view screen ...
You'd almost feel like you were really there. It would be immersive, and an intriguing new way to play the game. Role Players would absolutely love it, and for hardened captains, it would add a new level of challenge.
Its just a suggestion, I'm neither a hardened captain, nor a role player, but I'd Definatly appreciate something like Bridge/Captain 1st person view.
I am sorry to burst your bubble man but this is not feasible.
To put it into the most layman's terms....your captain transforms into your ship. you can never experience one or the other at the same time due to them being one and the same.
It has something to with "instances" and what constitutes the "player"
That's correct, but it doesn't mean that what the OP is suggesting is impossible.
Of course there would be problems.
The Devs would have to implement a 3rd "form" that the player can take.
Just like we now can take the "ground-form" (=the character) and the "Space-Form" (=The ship), we'd need a 3rd form for this, pobably with it's own set of Keybinds.
Since the engine is already capable of having you assume 2 forms, adding a 3rd can't be a problem (altough it would probably mean massive ammounts of coding. This would be a Major update, not just a small patch)
You'd see the character-moddel on the bridge, but would controll the Ship in Sace.
You'd bee rooted in the Captains chair, unable to stand up or move around. The movement-keys would acctually steer the Ship, skills availible would be the space-skills, not the Ground skills.
The only real problem with this is that the engine would need to be able to display 2 Maps at the same time. A gound-type-map for the bridge, and a Space-type map for the Viewscreen.
I have no Idea if it is capable of doing that, but to be honest, I sriously doubt it...
If it is possible I'd really love to see that implemented
If they did this--I'm not sure it would really be all that enjoyable, unless the main view screen was on a separate monitor. To put your Boffs in view along with the main view screen will make the main view screen rather small--it'd be kinda like watching a small screen TV from across the room (have you tried sitting you your captain's chair?). If you haven't done so already, go to your ship's bridge and sit in your captain's chair--you'll see what I'm talking about.
It'd also be a pain to move your view to target the ships behind you. I suppose the only way they could get it to work would be to make it look like you were in a movie theatre where the main view screen took up the entire monitor, but your boffs were still visible--which then kinda takes away the point of doing this. Personally, I think the screen is already too cluttered--I just don't have any thoughts as to how to unclutter it.
In concept the thought sounds great--but practically it would be a nightmare to play.
They did exactely what the OP is suggesting, and it worked real good.
You really had that feeling of being the captain in command of the ship.
I was a lott of fun to play.
This game is not nor will it ever be Bridge Commander, the interactive bridge view we have in game would not be usable since it is a dedicated ground map and the game will not support two interactive 3D environments running simultaneously. The only way they could implement this is if the player was given a "Cockpit view" with a fixed non-interactable bridge acting as a picture frame of the space view screen replacing the 3rd person view of the players ship. Without a clear functional 3d radar, not the marginally useful minimap we have, the player would have a very restricted field of view with extremely limited situational awareness, this might be fine in sector space or out of combat, but in combat it would be a game killer.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
They did exactely what the OP is suggesting, and it worked real good.
You really had that feeling of being the captain in command of the ship.
I was a lott of fun to play.
before you ask, yes I play Bridge Commander all the time, I know that game inside and out.
BC cheats a lot in that respect, for one thing, the captain is nothing more then a camera angle, and the bridge is also not really a separate map. Another issue you might run into is that the ship is essentially under AI control while you are in bridge view, yes you can override it and take direct command of the various functions individually, but you can't control the whole ship. I don't think that'll work as well in STO.
I wouldn't mind if you could at least revert to a bridge view while using autopilot in sector space. Sector flight is the most immersion breaking element of the game with things like planet sized ships and the like and looks nothing like how warp flight is supposed to look for Star Trek.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
I think it could be possible to do something close enough with the already existing infrastructure. When the player zooms all the way in, have the ship graphic disable and replace it with a view screen border. No special frills or anything, just a visual effect.
Im for and against this. In one hand i think it would be brilliant, a bit of a bridge commander style game play. but i get that feeling that crypitc would balls it up some way.
Saying that I would love the option just to give it a try and i would deffo like this in sector space.
It would be nice to also have an alert status selector like in SFC where you could pic what alert level your ship was set at etc.
Comments
To put it into the most layman's terms....your captain transforms into your ship. you can never experience one or the other at the same time due to them being one and the same.
It has something to with "instances" and what constitutes the "player"
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Of course there would be problems.
The Devs would have to implement a 3rd "form" that the player can take.
Just like we now can take the "ground-form" (=the character) and the "Space-Form" (=The ship), we'd need a 3rd form for this, pobably with it's own set of Keybinds.
Since the engine is already capable of having you assume 2 forms, adding a 3rd can't be a problem (altough it would probably mean massive ammounts of coding. This would be a Major update, not just a small patch)
You'd see the character-moddel on the bridge, but would controll the Ship in Sace.
You'd bee rooted in the Captains chair, unable to stand up or move around. The movement-keys would acctually steer the Ship, skills availible would be the space-skills, not the Ground skills.
The only real problem with this is that the engine would need to be able to display 2 Maps at the same time. A gound-type-map for the bridge, and a Space-type map for the Viewscreen.
I have no Idea if it is capable of doing that, but to be honest, I sriously doubt it...
If it is possible I'd really love to see that implemented
It'd also be a pain to move your view to target the ships behind you. I suppose the only way they could get it to work would be to make it look like you were in a movie theatre where the main view screen took up the entire monitor, but your boffs were still visible--which then kinda takes away the point of doing this. Personally, I think the screen is already too cluttered--I just don't have any thoughts as to how to unclutter it.
In concept the thought sounds great--but practically it would be a nightmare to play.
They did exactely what the OP is suggesting, and it worked real good.
You really had that feeling of being the captain in command of the ship.
I was a lott of fun to play.
before you ask, yes I play Bridge Commander all the time, I know that game inside and out.
BC cheats a lot in that respect, for one thing, the captain is nothing more then a camera angle, and the bridge is also not really a separate map. Another issue you might run into is that the ship is essentially under AI control while you are in bridge view, yes you can override it and take direct command of the various functions individually, but you can't control the whole ship. I don't think that'll work as well in STO.
Saying that I would love the option just to give it a try and i would deffo like this in sector space.
It would be nice to also have an alert status selector like in SFC where you could pic what alert level your ship was set at etc.