What is Starfleet's SOP? Did they ever mass produce cloak capable ships? Because not even the Defiant-class were cloak capable, only the special, lead vessel. Not in TOS, even after Kirk & co stole a cloaking device. Not even in the TMP timeframe where Kirk & co return home with a captured Klingon BOP. Not even in TNG/DS9/VOY timeframe, years after those earlier TOS/TMP developments, was Starfleet fielding cloak capable vessels.
And lastly, in a war that pushed the Federation and the rest of the Alpha Quadrant to its very knees, with catastrophic losses that even Starfleet could hardly replace... the Dominion War... and Starfleet was not fielding cloak vessels. A war that stretched the Federation to its very limits with massive loss of life and ships, and Starfleet never fielded cloak vessels. In an alliance with both the Klingon Empire AND Romulan Star Empire... and Starfleet never fielded cloak vessels. Even after the good will immediately after the Dominon War, with all 3 major powers of the Alpha Quadrant having lost alot, and Starfleet never fielded cloak vessels.
THAT is the theme of Starfleet. Again, Roddenberry's Shining White Knights don't skulk in cloaks.
I did mention small argument and gave counts against the 'never' portion of the argument.
Now that I have taken your bait and you mine by responding.
Let's look at the incidents here. Archer has a suliban cloak and they do try and figure it out but the technology is quite a bit ahead of them. Memory serves, they lost that pod back to the suliban before much more use came from it.
Kirk's stolen cloak, the purpose was to learn how it worked and make new counters against it. Taken back to star fleet.
TNG cloak, developed by semi-rogue members of Starfleet (Testing a cloak on the ship led to a mutiny???) Research vessel gets phased into an asteroid. Same group when it is found sends Enterprise to retrieve it. (Romulans seal Enterprise inside asteroid. . what just to be . . . .<comment left omitted to keep pg rating> ) Picard uses phasing cloak to get out of asteroid then decloaks. To show the Romulans that the federation had developed one illegally.
The federation is fully capable of developing one so why don't they? Well let's borrow from memory Alpha.
The episode finally provides a canon explanation for why the Federation doesn't use these devices. Moore stated, "I thought, let's sew this up, not because it's the last season but because I'm sick of that question at the conventions!". He believed the treaty was the easiest explanation, and better than those offered in the past ? that the cloaking device harmed humans, that the device wouldn't work on Federation starships, or that "we don't sneak around". (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion) The last explanation was in fact Gene Roddenberry's. He is quoted in the Star Trek Encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 79) as having said "our people are scientists and explorers ? they don't go sneaking around."
So Roddenberry says the Federation does not sneak around doing civilian work. (science and exploration) Michael Moore says it is because of a treaty with the Romulans. (love to know what the Federation got out of that one. A pinky shake that the romulans would be nice guys? :rolleyes: )
Now the Federation is at war with multiple enemies, the treaty got blown up with Romulus. And they just started getting some cloaking tech from their new Romulan wards.
Why not start using it on bigger ships of war? Hence installation on a dreadnaught, a small warship/escort, and a battlecruiser. Now if they drop it into a science vessel they will kill my arguments completely. . .
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
LMAO!!!
Yup, I think this certainly qualifies as a troll thread. It sould remain open however, so we can laugh at this. After all the KDF has been through with Cryptic there's no point to be pissed anymore, we should just laugh at their decisions. :P
Scene 1. A person with a blue t-shirt enters a store. Can I have a coke please? Yes, that would be 3.50 sir. Here you go, thank you come again.
Scene 2. A person with a red t-shir enters the same store. Can I have a coke please? 10 bucks a**hole! Now get out of my face before I call the cops on you!
And this seems ok to you?
You know, we're all people and we're all Cryptic's costumers. It's sheer nonsence having to pay more for the same service because you like to play Klingon.
I never said it was ok, because I honestly wish that wasn't the case. But it is reality, and being Captain Hindsight doesn't really help matters any. Cryptic has admitted and apologized enough times regarding the KDF. I don't think there is anyone at Cryptic who sincerely wants to see the KDF suffer out of some sense of maliciousness. But the past is the past, and Cryptic will continue to get crucified on this. Since Cryptic has admitted and apologized multiple times, I honestly don't see the point in trying to flog them in public square on a regular basis.
Ofcourse they didn't make as much as they wanted. The KDF had next to no content back then, only a handfull of badly copy/pasted Federation story arcs. The KDF was locked behind 25 levels of Federation gameplay back then. Therefore only a small amount of die-hards played the faction. And that's why they didn't make as much money as the wanted.
Cryptic needs to make a full product before attempting to sell it, that's a leason they still haven't learned.
Again, the power of hindsight doesn't help the present any. Unless we have a time machine to go back to 2009/2010 to redo the KDF faction, the present reality is that the money they put in the KDF did not make a profit. They are a for-profit company, and for better or worse, any money they made is now gone. They don't 'owe' the KDF anything for free, because they are not going to stay in business by operating at a loss of revenue. We can speculate over what they woulda/coulda/shoulda done and the what if scenarios if things were done different, or we can remain in the present and focus on the future while remembering -- not reliving the past.
Again, tell me what have they released for the KDF in the store in the past 20 months so we could make them money?
Nothing, because anything they did create wouldn't make money. If anything it'd cost them money made elsewhere in the game. Either Cryptic/PWE are evil capitalist overlords who are greedy as hell and want to make as much money as they possibly can, or they wake up every morning twirling their handlebar moustache and thinking of new ideas to make the hardcore KDF players angry. You can't have it both ways. If they really care about making money, then we would see a lot more KDF ships, yes? But we don't. Because there is no money in the KDF.
LMAO!!! Yep, they built LoR alright. :P Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the people that apreciate having a full faction experience the most and I love the new missions and the way they have been done. I have praised them for this on many ocassions.
But players did not come?
Hmmmm I wonder why.....surely can't be because LoR introduced the largest power creep seen so far in STO and they slapped it on only one faction? Nah that surely couldn't be it. :rolleyes:
I don't really wonder why. STO is an extremely easy game to begin with, so this 'power creep' really doesn't jive with me. But I do know that many players (including myself) have been clamoring for the Romulan faction. I would even go as far as to say there were more of us wanting a Romulan faction than those of us wanting an improved KDF faction. When Dstahl said he wanted to "build it, then they will come", it's a direct reference (not only to Field of Dreams) to bringing 1-50 content, and allowing a player to start at level 1, complete with a tutorial. That's it. His idea was that if Cryptic devoted resources to providing that, then if KDF numbers improved... then there would be potential for a new focus on the KDF. Regardless of 'why', the point is that Dstahl did what he said he would do. Numbers didn't improve. Pointing fingers and playing the blame game does not help.
Hmmm...maybe it's because our last T5 C-Store ship was released 20 months ago and the faction doesn't have anything to compensate for almost 2 years of power creep? Nah, I must be delusional, that can't be it! :rolleyes: I mean, what player wouldn't want to purposely gimp themselves by playing a faction stuck in 2012?
A faction's health is not dependant on c-store ships. C-store ships might be an indicator, but it is not the direct root cause. The facts remain the same, there is no money in the KDF, and pointing fingers helps noone. Many players recognize that mistakes were made with the faction. Cryptic admitted to it and apologized for it. But people wanted a Romulan faction. There is money in the Romulan faction. People will play KDF because they like the KDF. People will play Romulans because they like the Romulans. People will play Federation because they like the Federation. When it comes to 'power creep' in a game that routinely nerfs difficult missons because people whine about it being too hard, I find it a very big pill to swallow. It might be your opinion that that is why -- but I think you'll find people play different factions for various reasons, not a single unifying reason like power creep.
What really is unfortunate is that this type of amateurish aproach by Cryptic ensured that STO will never reach it's full potential and be the game it could have been only if they paid a bit more attention and had a vision. That is the real sad part, not that KDF players would have to be satisfied with thrown bones.
Again, having hindsight does not really help. Pointing out what they woulda/coulda/shoulda done is only destructive, not constructive. 'What could have been' is not as important as 'what it is now'. STO is still a successful game, and it's still making money. Unfortunately, the KDF faction remains a black spot on the game's reputation and regardless of who is to blame, the reality still exists that there is no money to be made in the KDF faction.
I did mention small argument and gave counts against the 'never' portion of the argument.
Now that I have taken your bait and you mine by responding.
Let's look at the incidents here. Archer has a suliban cloak and they do try and figure it out but the technology is quite a bit ahead of them. Memory serves, they lost that pod back to the suliban before much more use came from it.
Kirk's stolen cloak, the purpose was to learn how it worked and make new counters against it. Taken back to star fleet.
TNG cloak, developed by semi-rogue members of Starfleet (Testing a cloak on the ship led to a mutiny???) Research vessel gets phased into an asteroid. Same group when it is found sends Enterprise to retrieve it. (Romulans seal Enterprise inside asteroid. . what just to be . . . .<comment left omitted to keep pg rating> ) Picard uses phasing cloak to get out of asteroid then decloaks. To show the Romulans that the federation had developed one illegally.
The federation is fully capable of developing one so why don't they? Well let's borrow from memory Alpha.
So Roddenberry says the Federation does not sneak around doing civilian work. (science and exploration) Michael Moore says it is because of a treaty with the Romulans. (love to know what the Federation got out of that one. A pinky shake that the romulans would be nice guys? :rolleyes: )
Now the Federation is at war with multiple enemies, the treaty got blown up with Romulus. And they just started getting some cloaking tech from their new Romulan wards.
Why not start using it on bigger ships of war? Hence installation on a dreadnaught, a small warship/escort, and a battlecruiser. Now if they drop it into a science vessel they will kill my arguments completely. . .
Actually, it still does not change anything with the portrayal of Starfleet and the Federation as a whole in canon Star Trek at all. Again:
Those are completely isolated incidents.
What is Starfleet's SOP? Did they ever mass produce cloak capable ships? Because not even the Defiant-class were cloak capable, only the special, lead vessel. Not in TOS, even after Kirk & co stole a cloaking device. Not even in the TMP timeframe where Kirk & co return home with a captured Klingon BOP. Not even in TNG/DS9/VOY timeframe, years after those earlier TOS/TMP developments, was Starfleet fielding cloak capable vessels.
And lastly, in a war that pushed the Federation and the rest of the Alpha Quadrant to its very knees, with catastrophic losses that even Starfleet could hardly replace... the Dominion War... and Starfleet was not fielding cloak vessels. A war that stretched the Federation to its very limits with massive loss of life and ships, and Starfleet never fielded cloak vessels. In an alliance with both the Klingon Empire AND Romulan Star Empire... and Starfleet never fielded cloak vessels. Even after the good will immediately after the Dominon War, with all 3 major powers of the Alpha Quadrant having lost alot, and Starfleet never fielded cloak vessels.
THAT is the theme of Starfleet. Again, Roddenberry's Shining White Knights don't skulk in cloaks.
All throughout the history of the franchise, across the entirety of 5 TV series encompassing different eras of Trek, 6 movies with the TOS crew, 4 films with the TNG crew, and if we want to use the JJ-verse, 2 JJ-Trek films... and NONE show the Federation producing cloak capable ship classes. Across the entirety of Star Trek.
Again, THAT is the theme of Starfleet, in Star Trek canon. Roddenberry's Federation does not go skulking around cloaked. It has happened in a few episodes, but that is NOT how the Federation and Starfleet works.
And it did not do it when things were desperate in the costly, devastating Dominion War, despite having the know how, despite being aligned with 2 traditionally cloak capable powers. Starfleet still did not skulk in cloaks.
That is a staple of Star Trek. That is one of the characteristics of Starfleet compared to everyone else.
I never said it was ok, because I honestly wish that wasn't the case. But it is reality, and being Captain Hindsight doesn't really help matters any. Cryptic has admitted and apologized enough times regarding the KDF. I don't think there is anyone at Cryptic who sincerely wants to see the KDF suffer out of some sense of maliciousness. But the past is the past, and Cryptic will continue to get crucified on this. Since Cryptic has admitted and apologized multiple times, I honestly don't see the point in trying to flog them in public square on a regular basis.
This was not hindsight, this is current reality.
If I want to buy a fleet Excelsior today, I splash 2k Zen for the T5 retro and then can have a fleet version for a single module on all my Fed chars.
If I want to buy a fleet Tor'kaht today, I need 4 modules per every char I want to have the ship on.
And yet, fleet versions of the few T5 ships we do have like the Guramba, Kar'fi still haven't been released. Already made ships, so no loss here all they need to do is 10% buff as all fleet ships and that's it. They still haven't done this.
Again, the power of hindsight doesn't help the present any. Unless we have a time machine to go back to 2009/2010 to redo the KDF faction, the present reality is that the money they put in the KDF did not make a profit. They are a for-profit company, and for better or worse, any money they made is now gone. They don't 'owe' the KDF anything for free, because they are not going to stay in business by operating at a loss of revenue. We can speculate over what they woulda/coulda/shoulda done and the what if scenarios if things were done different, or we can remain in the present and focus on the future while remembering -- not reliving the past.
And again I did not post that because of hindsight, but to place a logical explanation to the reason why KDF ships didn't make as much money as Federation ones.
Nothing, because anything they did create wouldn't make money. If anything it'd cost them money made elsewhere in the game. Either Cryptic/PWE are evil capitalist overlords who are greedy as hell and want to make as much money as they possibly can, or they wake up every morning twirling their handlebar moustache and thinking of new ideas to make the hardcore KDF players angry. You can't have it both ways. If they really care about making money, then we would see a lot more KDF ships, yes? But we don't. Because there is no money in the KDF.
Hello Nostradamus. Didn't know you're still here with us.
And while I enjoy playing KDF the most, I'm by no means a hardcore KDF player. I think my signature supporting a better Galaxy class and forum title that says I bought a LoR pack are evidence enough that I play all of the factions.
I'm not speaking in the role of an "angry KDF hardcore player" here. I'm speaking as a reasonable gamer that has problems comprehending the shortsighted way Cryptic as a game developer goes about things. There are at least a dozen top quality MMOs out there with multiple factions and guess what - the factions in those games are almost equally played with minor variances. And all the factions make their share of money for their developers. Now the fun part - those factions are equal. Equal in assets, equal in content, equal in updates and equal even in power creep. Cryptic's factions in STO on the other hand are a complete mess and all over the place.
I don't really wonder why. STO is an extremely easy game to begin with, so this 'power creep' really doesn't jive with me. But I do know that many players (including myself) have been clamoring for the Romulan faction. I would even go as far as to say there were more of us wanting a Romulan faction than those of us wanting an improved KDF faction. When Dstahl said he wanted to "build it, then they will come", it's a direct reference (not only to Field of Dreams) to bringing 1-50 content, and allowing a player to start at level 1, complete with a tutorial. That's it. His idea was that if Cryptic devoted resources to providing that, then if KDF numbers improved... then there would be potential for a new focus on the KDF. Regardless of 'why', the point is that Dstahl did what he said he would do. Numbers didn't improve. Pointing fingers and playing the blame game does not help.
You don't know the numbers so don't pretend that you know if they decreased, increased or remained the same.
And the power creep doesn't really jive with me as well or I wouldn't be using a Galaxy Retrofit. Although I'd like it to be more usefull in game and to my teams.
But, during my years in STO I learned one thing - the power creep is important to most of the people. And you can't blame them, it's in the human nature - everyone aims to have the best ship, best equipment, coolest uniforms etc. It's the way people are. And Cryptic knows this very well, that's why the splashed the power creep only on Romulans in the LoR expanison - to guarantee high sales of the new content. I seriously doubt that this many people would be playing Romulans if Cryptic made their ships as outdated as the KDF ones are today.
So wheather me and you like to admit it or not, power creep is a "thing" for the majority of the players here and influences the player dispersion between the factions.
A faction's health is not dependant on c-store ships. C-store ships might be an indicator, but it is not the direct root cause. The facts remain the same, there is no money in the KDF, and pointing fingers helps noone. Many players recognize that mistakes were made with the faction. Cryptic admitted to it and apologized for it. But people wanted a Romulan faction. There is money in the Romulan faction. People will play KDF because they like the KDF. People will play Romulans because they like the Romulans. People will play Federation because they like the Federation. When it comes to 'power creep' in a game that routinely nerfs difficult missons because people whine about it being too hard, I find it a very big pill to swallow. It might be your opinion that that is why -- but I think you'll find people play different factions for various reasons, not a single unifying reason like power creep.
Again - You don't know the numbers. I don't know the numbers. And even by Cryptic's standards I believe it's to early after LoR even for them to make an estimate on numbers.
So stop pretending that you know the numbers or if you're really clairvoyant give us a few tips on the Premier League matches tomorrow, maybe we KDF players will make some cash to send to Cryptic because of nothing. :P
Again, having hindsight does not really help. Pointing out what they woulda/coulda/shoulda done is only destructive, not constructive. 'What could have been' is not as important as 'what it is now'. STO is still a successful game, and it's still making money. Unfortunately, the KDF faction remains a black spot on the game's reputation and regardless of who is to blame, the reality still exists that there is no money to be made in the KDF faction.
If you say so, Nostradamus, if you say so. :rolleyes:
Not that it negates the whole "ignored faction" argument, but the Red-Side did just get brand new Prefixes for their faction ships.
It's a small thing, but it does indicate that Cryptic isn't entirely ignoring that side.
Now, please continue to kick each other in the proverbial groin, it makes for great popcorn-drama reading.
:cool:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
You're a good debater, but this is getting too wall-of-texty even for me. I don't want to marginalize your points, so I'll throw them all here.
On the topic of the Fleet Vor'Cha. There's nothing to fix in terms of cost. Noone gets a Fleet Module discount on non-T5 c-store ships that cost 2,000 zen. The Vor'Kang is a Captain-level skin and costs 1,500 zen. You don't get a module discount on the Fleet Galaxy-class for purchasing the Venture-class refit for 1,500 zen. Only the T5 version that was 2,000 zen (and not a freebie token, either). You don't get a Fleet Module discount for getting the Commander-level version of the Excelsior either. Only the T5 retrofit version.
The T5 Vorcha retrofit in of itself is not on the c-store from where I'm sitting -- only available for dilithium, although it might be gotten for free from rank-up to Brigadier General. Someone who actually has it could verify.
We are getting the Fleet Garumba, Kar'Fi, and 1,000 day veteran ship soon. If it's not fast enough, there's nothing I can really say.
I do have 3 KDF characters, and I play them because I like the KDF faction... not for any perceived advantage over anything or anyone else. Power creep is one of many reasons people may play a faction, but it's not the defining one. In the right hands, a good KDF pilot can outperform a bad Romulan pilot in an equivelant ship.
I won't pretend to know the numbers. But I can look at reality. If there is money to be made in something, a business will take advantage of it. I don't need to pretend to know the numbers to know that truth to capitalism. If the KDF had a high monetary gain from it, we would see more KDF ships. I don't need clairvoyance to know that if something does not make money for a business, then it is ignored or shelved in favor of projects that do. Based on past dev interviews, this seems to be the case.
Cryptic isn't a charity, it's a for-profit business. If we get a KDF ship -- unless there is some kind of massive cash flow from it, chances are the costs required to make it will outweigh any profit gained from it, any revenue loss will be made up for by revenue made elsewhere in the form of Federation/Romulan/Lockbox content.
So what I can do is hope that whenever this new KDF ship arrives, that the sales numbers will be high enough that Cryptic will have to take a second look at them and say, "Hey, maybe there is profit to be had here."
My prediction: A copy & paste of the Fleet Torkhat, just with the Vespa-Regent-ish model & texture of the new "Avenger" model. Though this time, it's fine for Cryptic to forget they copied a Klingon ship and leave on the cloak.
Oh, Monbosh Battleship, nice to meet you!
... and then, the "Battlecruiser" format of ships will now also belong to the Feds to literally complete their lineup of all manner of style of ships.
Disembodied voice = KDF/multi-faction players
Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella = Devs
Amy Madigan as Annie Kinsella = Management
I'd be happy to make more C-Store purchases on the KDF end, but there's a limit to what's actually worth buying. Sure, the KDF needs a balance pass and more C-Store content, but given that it took just over 3 years from official launch (2 Feb 2010) to Legacy of Romulus (21 Mar 2013) for the KDF to get level 1 access and level 1-50 PvE content... it could be awhile before this happens.
I'll be overjoyed if the devs prove me wrong and provide the KDF with additional species and costumes, two more C-Store ship 3-packs, and appropriate Fleet Ship Module discounts for Fleet ships. By discounts, by the way, I refer to discounts akin to the level 40 Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit discount for the Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit. Of course for some reason the devs made the Fleet versions of the Destroyer, Flight-Deck Cruiser, and Raptor classes out of T4 ships so that they wouldn't be eligible for any Fleet Ship Module discount... yeah.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
So it seems the word of the UFP president is about as firm as the Real Life political word. No more research into Cloaking........
I guess this is really a Romulan designed ship.
Might as well hang it up KDF fans. Cryptic never got the chance or took the chance to make a money grab on our fandom and it appears we may be looking at the tail lights of the fed-roms as they speed away on the most current money train into cryptics wallet.
Federation and Romulan players subsidize the KDF faction. You don't throw money into a bottomless pit if you want to stay in business. Cryptic Studios and PWE is not a charity organization.
You don't have as many ships as the Federation. True.
But the KDF has always been the underdog in STO. KDF players have done more with less.
We have this same conversation every single time a new Federation ship comes out. The dead horse is barely recognizable as an equine life form at this point.
You've gotten the Fleet Kamarag, and you're getting the Fleet veteran bird-of-prey, and the Fleet Kar'fi (not sure if any other Fleet ships are in the pipe).
If you're going to live under the Federation and Romulan Republic's roof, while we pay the bills -- a little gratitude for what you do get would be appreciated.
Your roof has leaks.
Cryptic never once in the history of STO offered the KDF fanbase as near completed all at once faction to enjoy.
It has always been one excuse after another with handouts in between on why things just did not work out.
Had they put the effort into selling the KDF as they did for the Romulans things may have been surprisingly different with a much better influx of money for them. Much like they git when they designed the LoR release in total.
Instead we got short changed from day one, so step off your high horse of "we Roms pay the bills" becuase you didnt exist months ago and are only just another monetary injection that will most likely be forgotten this time next year many many lock boxes from now.
I'm a bit pissed off that they're making a Federation battlecruiser that looks spectacularly ugly, meanwhile the KDF ship that was promised has been delayed. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that they worked on both contemporaneously or even worked on the Fed bc longer and thus was closer to release than the KDF ship.
I don't know what to think, other than simple disappointment.
I'm only pissedoff because once again someone felt they had to come and "explain" how its our fault the KDF is so underwhelming in substance after so long a time in STO.
We knew the fed battle cruiser w/cloak was gonna come eventually if they thought they could make quick fandom money off it.
"As others had already said, they made money off the Scimitars so why not a fed battle cruiser"
I personaly have not stopped spending money on STO not because of boredom but becuase its no longer a good investment for my fandom in Star Trek.
i understand (partially) not making many ships for a faction were its assumed you will not break even (although they make enough with the rest to afford stuf flike that imo)
what i dont understand why they are not intrudcing new kdf specific boffs, maybe something special with torps like added torp dmg on boffs and some nice doffs two. That cant be that big a deal for them financially and it would be an easy way to increase the likelyhood someone goes like "hey that sounds cool, i want that too" but not by giving it to fed but staying firm and leaving it on kdf side like it should have been with pl
thats basically like giving kdf the death blow instead of helping to bringt it back to (more) live and maybe even to the critical point were new ships do at least bringt in what they invested in them
since they didnt do anything that sort for kdf they cant have data that says no thats not worth it, they just never tried afaik and thats really the sad part here
maybe by keeping playing kdf we tell them like "hey its bad but we still play and buy stuff" so they think its all fine somehow
and btw what i really dont understand is why they stand firm on the 2 faction at war stuff while openly recognizing that the kdf has only very little amount of players
LoR would have been a great time to do stuff like that to make the choise fed/kdf for roms much harder then it is now
You're a good debater, but this is getting too wall-of-texty even for me. I don't want to marginalize your points, so I'll throw them all here.
On the topic of the Fleet Vor'Cha. There's nothing to fix in terms of cost. Noone gets a Fleet Module discount on non-T5 c-store ships that cost 2,000 zen. The Vor'Kang is a Captain-level skin and costs 1,500 zen. You don't get a module discount on the Fleet Galaxy-class for purchasing the Venture-class refit for 1,500 zen. Only the T5 version that was 2,000 zen (and not a freebie token, either). You don't get a Fleet Module discount for getting the Commander-level version of the Excelsior either. Only the T5 retrofit version.
The T5 Vorcha retrofit in of itself is not on the c-store from where I'm sitting -- only available for dilithium, although it might be gotten for free from rank-up to Brigadier General. Someone who actually has it could verify.
We are getting the Fleet Garumba, Kar'Fi, and 1,000 day veteran ship soon. If it's not fast enough, there's nothing I can really say.
I do have 3 KDF characters, and I play them because I like the KDF faction... not for any perceived advantage over anything or anyone else. Power creep is one of many reasons people may play a faction, but it's not the defining one. In the right hands, a good KDF pilot can outperform a bad Romulan pilot in an equivelant ship.
I won't pretend to know the numbers. But I can look at reality. If there is money to be made in something, a business will take advantage of it. I don't need to pretend to know the numbers to know that truth to capitalism. If the KDF had a high monetary gain from it, we would see more KDF ships. I don't need clairvoyance to know that if something does not make money for a business, then it is ignored or shelved in favor of projects that do. Based on past dev interviews, this seems to be the case.
Cryptic isn't a charity, it's a for-profit business. If we get a KDF ship -- unless there is some kind of massive cash flow from it, chances are the costs required to make it will outweigh any profit gained from it, any revenue loss will be made up for by revenue made elsewhere in the form of Federation/Romulan/Lockbox content.
So what I can do is hope that whenever this new KDF ship arrives, that the sales numbers will be high enough that Cryptic will have to take a second look at them and say, "Hey, maybe there is profit to be had here."
There is no reason for KDF players to get a discount someone else is not also getting, no issue with that.
How hard is it to apply the standard Fleet skin to a ship add a console slot and adjust a couple of stats up 10%? Apparently its harder that making a completely New ship from scratch. Mmmm Fed/KDF vet ships have been availible for almost a year now, they were released Oct 10, 2012.
Huh, In equivalent ships a good pilot will always outperform a bad pilot. No shock there.
The reality is that they are not even trying to take advantage of the potential sales from KDF fans:
Where are the player costumes and ship skins? Cryptic Store click on the appearance subsection:
Fed options - 22
KDF options - 1
Rom options - 2
Making those would give them a feel for the KDF marketplace the problem is there is One costume to buy. 1 costume in the c-store in 3 years?
Speaking of STO playable ships lets compare the number of T5 ships available for players to purchase:
Fed - 13 (counting 3pk ships as 1)
KDF - 5 (counting 3pk ships as 1)
Rom - 8 (counting 3pk ships as 1)
So how can we give them money to show support for the KDF again?
Up until the Legacy of Romulus was released all KDF players had to start off as Fed players, it honestly boogles my mind that they didn't whip out some costume options for the LoR release - that are in the Foundry apparently, give them a color palette to choose from and slap a price tag on them or the often requested Mek'leth or the Nausicaan Energy-Lance that is also in game but only usable by NPCs.
How often do you see players running around in TOS nurse skirts and the KDF Warriors skirts? Now which one is the account unlock? Hint its not the KDF one.
Look at my SIG all those Roms listed only 3 are allied with the Federation and I've only been playing since the game went F2P.
If they Truly want to make money on the KDf faction its not hard to do, Give us things to BUY and we will BUY them, but we can't give you money for things that aren't there.
Edit due to post 46: raised hand quickly thinks for a sec drops hand and goes out for a smoke
And yet, fleet versions of the few T5 ships we do have like the Guramba, Kar'fi still haven't been released. Already made ships, so no loss here all they need to do is 10% buff as all fleet ships and that's it. They still haven't done this.
Iconians in purely trolling an flame baiting - I mean for gosh sakes the thread is about a new C-store T5 ship and he throws out - "well you guys got and anniversary ship" - which the fed's got to - "so you should be happy" - totally irrelevant to this thread.
As to the Fleet Guramba and Fleet Kar'fi which would put out a 5 tac console ship - Guramba at least - I have my doubts - the amount of Fed tears from their exploding ships could cause real problems on the forums.
Added to all these Klingon tears, it'd really tip the scales.
There are tears and complaints because players are ignored - then there are tears and complaints because players are carebears.
Why do you think since the fleet system has been out they have not done a 5 tac console Guramba? Because its too hard to up the stats 10%? No because it would be a very deadly ship.
I have never argued that KDF fleet ships are not some of the best in the game - my gripe like many others is that there are few new T5(none since the flying brick)
The real reason this one is the biggest slap in the face is that Geko just said they have the design finished and the model half done for a new KDF T5, but had to put it off till next year so they could focas on Season 8 Voth ships - but they had time to slip a new T5 Fed battlecruiser into this busy schedule??
There are tears and complaints because players are ignored - then there are tears and complaints because players are carebears.
Why do you think since the fleet system has been out they have not done a 5 tac console Guramba? Because its too hard to up the stats 10%? No because it would be a very deadly ship.
I have never argued that KDF fleet ships are not some of the best in the game - my gripe like many others is that there are few new T5(none since the flying brick)
The real reason this one is the biggest slap in the face is that Geko just said they have the design finished and the model half done for a new KDF T5, but had to put it off till next year so they could focas on Season 8 Voth ships - but they had time to slip a new T5 Fed battlecruiser into this busy schedule??
That is the salt being rubbed in the wound.
Then vent on the Devs, but the Fed players didn't do anything here. Heck you look at thread about the Avenger in the Fed shipyards; its mostly a lot of "well, I guess we'll see?" and head-scratching about why this ship exists at all, very little passion one way or the other. A mindset of perpetual victimhood does not excuse lashing out at fellow players who didn't do a damn thing.
Then vent on the Devs, but the Fed players didn't do anything here. Heck you look at thread about the Avenger in the Fed shipyards; its mostly a lot of "well, I guess we'll see?" and head-scratching about why this ship exists at all, very little passion one way or the other. A mindset of perpetual victimhood does not excuse lashing out at fellow players who didn't do a damn thing.
LOL - I don't even think the devs know there is a Klingon shipyard section of the forums!!
I Love it! The first time one of these ships enters kerrat...You just know its gonna be alpha'ed into space dust! Also fleet gurumba is on the cards, haven't checked the javelin console on tribble to see if a fleet version is coming?
Yeah had a derp moment! I say let the feds have their new toy! Fat lot of good it will do them when they will spend most of the time staring at the re-spawn button!
As a KDF-player I'm not particularly surprised as it was predictable that the KDF ship would be pushed back the Fed ships would keep coming.
As someone who also plays the Fed side, I'm not sure what to think.
On the one hand Geko keeps telling us cruisers are fine but on the other hand this ship comes along. Well I hope this does not mean Cryptic just abandons Federation Cruisers as a whole and replaces them with this new toy. That would be a real bummer for me.
With regards to the Treaty of Algeron: just because you repeat something does not mean it becomes true. When a government leaves office, treaties don't expire automatically. Otherwise once after a new government came to power (by whever means) EVERY single treaty ever signed with any nation would have to be done over again. That's the dumbest thing I've heard in a long while...and I read a lot of dumb stuff on the internet all day.
Did Gowron have to resign the Khitomer Accords after he bacame chancellor of the Klingon Empire?
Did Martok? No.
Here's a good example of how it really works:
"The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles"
(an unwieldy name for sure!) was signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
It is still in effect today.
Neither of them is still in power, one of them is dead and the Soviet Union does not exist any more.
I repeat: It.is.still.in.effect.
Why? Because that's how it works in real life: Governments come and go but when there is still a nation or a successor state, the treaty stays.
Repeating somthing that is known to be false does not make it right just because you do it often enough.
Actually, it still does not change anything with the portrayal of Starfleet and the Federation as a whole in canon Star Trek at all. Again:
All throughout the history of the franchise, across the entirety of 5 TV series encompassing different eras of Trek, 6 movies with the TOS crew, 4 films with the TNG crew, and if we want to use the JJ-verse, 2 JJ-Trek films... and NONE show the Federation producing cloak capable ship classes. Across the entirety of Star Trek.
Again, THAT is the theme of Starfleet, in Star Trek canon. Roddenberry's Federation does not go skulking around cloaked. It has happened in a few episodes, but that is NOT how the Federation and Starfleet works.
And it did not do it when things were desperate in the costly, devastating Dominion War, despite having the know how, despite being aligned with 2 traditionally cloak capable powers. Starfleet still did not skulk in cloaks.
That is a staple of Star Trek. That is one of the characteristics of Starfleet compared to everyone else.
Apologies if this seems a strawman but I see an error in the canon argument. Since the show(s) are based on watching the federation we can take the bulk that they did little to no use of cloaking technology. The few times it happened were anomalies. That the federation never changes its values.
The Romulans in two TOS exchanges come off as proud, militant, and professional. But have cloaks. Klingons, are shown using deception, infiltrators, sabotage and general back stabbing. But with no cloaking tech. By the movies they had three cloaked ships. All birds of prey. Those are from Search for Spock (Kruge's ship and first. He uses it to steal and murder in federation space.) Voyage Home (Same ship flown by kirk) Final Frontier. (Klaa's ship, used to attack a vessel on a rescue mission and maybe put a knife in the back of an imperial enemy.) and Undiscovered Country (Chang's ship that can fire when cloaked. Used to assassinate his chancellor and frame the federation for it.)
Then by TNG yeah no. Klingons are the warrior race that views backstabbing as honourless and the Romulans are the ones skulking in shadows waiting to betray anyone for the laughs. But the Federation is always the white knights that never stoops to any skullduggery except by radical individuals.
We run that filter through then the only Klingons that should use cloaks are those with out honour. Except they got shown as using them a lot in TNG.
The Romulans and the Klingons both changed drastically from their roots and expanded on their technologies and applications. Is your argument that the Federation is static and unchanging?
(Again, sorry if this seems a strawman argument. But I am having difficulty demonstrating why it seems odd that the Federation does not at least dabble in cloaking technology. If for no other reason than to know what all their neighbors around them can actually accomplish.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I don't care if every single Fed ship gets a built in cloak as long as all KDF ships get a balance pass to go along with it.
Since the Romulan Battle cloak came alone really what does it matter any more who has a cloak. It's an old and silly argument.
Canon mean less than nothing in this game anymore - it stopped being relevant or a realistic argument a long time ago - it's been stepped on, beaten to a bloody pulp and thrown to the curb with the trash - it's meaningless.
This is a space shooter game loosely based on the Trek universe and not much more.
I never want to hear the canon excuse anymore because the games developers have already decided that it does not matter. It's a closed subject.
(I got little sleep last night and I am cranky this morning!! - not to do with this ship of course that would be silly)
So it seems the word of the UFP president is about as firm as the Real Life political word. No more research into Cloaking........
I guess this is really a Romulan designed ship.
Might as well hang it up KDF fans. Cryptic never got the chance or took the chance to make a money grab on our fandom and it appears we may be looking at the tail lights of the fed-roms as they speed away on the most current money train into cryptics wallet.
If only it would be the UFP president, Roach. This is the new way Cryptic handles things.
Once some time ago, they at least had proper ideas how the game should work and seemed to have vision and good intention. Nowdays it's all about the quick & easy buck, to hell with longetivity and to hell with Star Trek.
I personaly have not stopped spending money on STO not because of boredom but becuase its no longer a good investment for my fandom in Star Trek.
While I still keep my sub., unfortunately this is exactly how I'm starting to feel about things. STO is becomming less and less ST by the day and I'm also begining to doubt if it's a good investment in my Trek fandom.
With all due respect to Cryptic, but if I was looking for a generic MMO game I wouldn't be here cause there are better ones that treat their factions equally and at least try to respect all their customers.
Raise your hand if any of this comes as a surprise..?
*Raises hand in shame*
I wanted to trust Cryptic, I really did. I really believed that after all the "our team has doubled" mumbo jumbo the KDF will start getting things now and then. Mind you, I didn't expect nearly as much attention as the Federation is getting, but something...
When people started creating threads themed "Where's our T5 ship that was promised?" I told them to be patient and that there's still 2 or 3 months left in the year.
The real reason this one is the biggest slap in the face is that Geko just said they have the design finished and the model half done for a new KDF T5, but had to put it off till next year so they could focas on Season 8 Voth ships - but they had time to slip a new T5 Fed battlecruiser into this busy schedule??
That is the salt being rubbed in the wound.
^^ This is exactly the issue here. I don't mind as a KDF player that the Federation gets a new ship. (I actually hate this ship more as an Federation player)
The issue is that Voth ships are aparently constructed in the Klingon Fleetyards leaving the Starfleet Shipyards open for business. The issue is that the faction that's waiting for a T5 C-Store ship for almost 2 years and has gaping holes the size of the Grand Canyon in it's ship lineup has their ship delayed "for the greater good of S8 and all STO players" while for the faction that has so thick lineup that it's about to explode, this clearly isn't the case.
I'm not excusing Cryptic at all, but we really don't know how long into the development cycle this ship was before today's news. And technically speaking Geko didn't say that the KDF ship was pushed into a 2014 release. He said that a 2013 release 'may not be practical anymore'.
That to me sounds like they'll try for 2013, but there's a strong chance it might be 2014.
Comments
I did mention small argument and gave counts against the 'never' portion of the argument.
Now that I have taken your bait and you mine by responding.
Let's look at the incidents here. Archer has a suliban cloak and they do try and figure it out but the technology is quite a bit ahead of them. Memory serves, they lost that pod back to the suliban before much more use came from it.
Kirk's stolen cloak, the purpose was to learn how it worked and make new counters against it. Taken back to star fleet.
TNG cloak, developed by semi-rogue members of Starfleet (Testing a cloak on the ship led to a mutiny???) Research vessel gets phased into an asteroid. Same group when it is found sends Enterprise to retrieve it. (Romulans seal Enterprise inside asteroid. . what just to be . . . .<comment left omitted to keep pg rating> ) Picard uses phasing cloak to get out of asteroid then decloaks. To show the Romulans that the federation had developed one illegally.
The federation is fully capable of developing one so why don't they? Well let's borrow from memory Alpha.
So Roddenberry says the Federation does not sneak around doing civilian work. (science and exploration) Michael Moore says it is because of a treaty with the Romulans. (love to know what the Federation got out of that one. A pinky shake that the romulans would be nice guys? :rolleyes: )
Now the Federation is at war with multiple enemies, the treaty got blown up with Romulus. And they just started getting some cloaking tech from their new Romulan wards.
Why not start using it on bigger ships of war? Hence installation on a dreadnaught, a small warship/escort, and a battlecruiser. Now if they drop it into a science vessel they will kill my arguments completely. . .
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Yup, I think this certainly qualifies as a troll thread. It sould remain open however, so we can laugh at this. After all the KDF has been through with Cryptic there's no point to be pissed anymore, we should just laugh at their decisions. :P
I never said it was ok, because I honestly wish that wasn't the case. But it is reality, and being Captain Hindsight doesn't really help matters any. Cryptic has admitted and apologized enough times regarding the KDF. I don't think there is anyone at Cryptic who sincerely wants to see the KDF suffer out of some sense of maliciousness. But the past is the past, and Cryptic will continue to get crucified on this. Since Cryptic has admitted and apologized multiple times, I honestly don't see the point in trying to flog them in public square on a regular basis.
Again, the power of hindsight doesn't help the present any. Unless we have a time machine to go back to 2009/2010 to redo the KDF faction, the present reality is that the money they put in the KDF did not make a profit. They are a for-profit company, and for better or worse, any money they made is now gone. They don't 'owe' the KDF anything for free, because they are not going to stay in business by operating at a loss of revenue. We can speculate over what they woulda/coulda/shoulda done and the what if scenarios if things were done different, or we can remain in the present and focus on the future while remembering -- not reliving the past.
Nothing, because anything they did create wouldn't make money. If anything it'd cost them money made elsewhere in the game. Either Cryptic/PWE are evil capitalist overlords who are greedy as hell and want to make as much money as they possibly can, or they wake up every morning twirling their handlebar moustache and thinking of new ideas to make the hardcore KDF players angry. You can't have it both ways. If they really care about making money, then we would see a lot more KDF ships, yes? But we don't. Because there is no money in the KDF.
I don't really wonder why. STO is an extremely easy game to begin with, so this 'power creep' really doesn't jive with me. But I do know that many players (including myself) have been clamoring for the Romulan faction. I would even go as far as to say there were more of us wanting a Romulan faction than those of us wanting an improved KDF faction. When Dstahl said he wanted to "build it, then they will come", it's a direct reference (not only to Field of Dreams) to bringing 1-50 content, and allowing a player to start at level 1, complete with a tutorial. That's it. His idea was that if Cryptic devoted resources to providing that, then if KDF numbers improved... then there would be potential for a new focus on the KDF. Regardless of 'why', the point is that Dstahl did what he said he would do. Numbers didn't improve. Pointing fingers and playing the blame game does not help.
A faction's health is not dependant on c-store ships. C-store ships might be an indicator, but it is not the direct root cause. The facts remain the same, there is no money in the KDF, and pointing fingers helps noone. Many players recognize that mistakes were made with the faction. Cryptic admitted to it and apologized for it. But people wanted a Romulan faction. There is money in the Romulan faction. People will play KDF because they like the KDF. People will play Romulans because they like the Romulans. People will play Federation because they like the Federation. When it comes to 'power creep' in a game that routinely nerfs difficult missons because people whine about it being too hard, I find it a very big pill to swallow. It might be your opinion that that is why -- but I think you'll find people play different factions for various reasons, not a single unifying reason like power creep.
Again, having hindsight does not really help. Pointing out what they woulda/coulda/shoulda done is only destructive, not constructive. 'What could have been' is not as important as 'what it is now'. STO is still a successful game, and it's still making money. Unfortunately, the KDF faction remains a black spot on the game's reputation and regardless of who is to blame, the reality still exists that there is no money to be made in the KDF faction.
Actually, it still does not change anything with the portrayal of Starfleet and the Federation as a whole in canon Star Trek at all. Again:
All throughout the history of the franchise, across the entirety of 5 TV series encompassing different eras of Trek, 6 movies with the TOS crew, 4 films with the TNG crew, and if we want to use the JJ-verse, 2 JJ-Trek films... and NONE show the Federation producing cloak capable ship classes. Across the entirety of Star Trek.
Again, THAT is the theme of Starfleet, in Star Trek canon. Roddenberry's Federation does not go skulking around cloaked. It has happened in a few episodes, but that is NOT how the Federation and Starfleet works.
And it did not do it when things were desperate in the costly, devastating Dominion War, despite having the know how, despite being aligned with 2 traditionally cloak capable powers. Starfleet still did not skulk in cloaks.
That is a staple of Star Trek. That is one of the characteristics of Starfleet compared to everyone else.
This was not hindsight, this is current reality.
If I want to buy a fleet Excelsior today, I splash 2k Zen for the T5 retro and then can have a fleet version for a single module on all my Fed chars.
If I want to buy a fleet Tor'kaht today, I need 4 modules per every char I want to have the ship on.
And yet, fleet versions of the few T5 ships we do have like the Guramba, Kar'fi still haven't been released. Already made ships, so no loss here all they need to do is 10% buff as all fleet ships and that's it. They still haven't done this.
And again I did not post that because of hindsight, but to place a logical explanation to the reason why KDF ships didn't make as much money as Federation ones.
Hello Nostradamus.
And while I enjoy playing KDF the most, I'm by no means a hardcore KDF player. I think my signature supporting a better Galaxy class and forum title that says I bought a LoR pack are evidence enough that I play all of the factions.
I'm not speaking in the role of an "angry KDF hardcore player" here. I'm speaking as a reasonable gamer that has problems comprehending the shortsighted way Cryptic as a game developer goes about things. There are at least a dozen top quality MMOs out there with multiple factions and guess what - the factions in those games are almost equally played with minor variances. And all the factions make their share of money for their developers. Now the fun part - those factions are equal. Equal in assets, equal in content, equal in updates and equal even in power creep. Cryptic's factions in STO on the other hand are a complete mess and all over the place.
You don't know the numbers so don't pretend that you know if they decreased, increased or remained the same.
And the power creep doesn't really jive with me as well or I wouldn't be using a Galaxy Retrofit. Although I'd like it to be more usefull in game and to my teams.
But, during my years in STO I learned one thing - the power creep is important to most of the people. And you can't blame them, it's in the human nature - everyone aims to have the best ship, best equipment, coolest uniforms etc. It's the way people are. And Cryptic knows this very well, that's why the splashed the power creep only on Romulans in the LoR expanison - to guarantee high sales of the new content. I seriously doubt that this many people would be playing Romulans if Cryptic made their ships as outdated as the KDF ones are today.
So wheather me and you like to admit it or not, power creep is a "thing" for the majority of the players here and influences the player dispersion between the factions.
Again - You don't know the numbers. I don't know the numbers. And even by Cryptic's standards I believe it's to early after LoR even for them to make an estimate on numbers.
So stop pretending that you know the numbers or if you're really clairvoyant give us a few tips on the Premier League matches tomorrow, maybe we KDF players will make some cash to send to Cryptic because of nothing. :P
If you say so, Nostradamus, if you say so. :rolleyes:
It's a small thing, but it does indicate that Cryptic isn't entirely ignoring that side.
Now, please continue to kick each other in the proverbial groin, it makes for great popcorn-drama reading.
:cool:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
You're a good debater, but this is getting too wall-of-texty even for me. I don't want to marginalize your points, so I'll throw them all here.
On the topic of the Fleet Vor'Cha. There's nothing to fix in terms of cost. Noone gets a Fleet Module discount on non-T5 c-store ships that cost 2,000 zen. The Vor'Kang is a Captain-level skin and costs 1,500 zen. You don't get a module discount on the Fleet Galaxy-class for purchasing the Venture-class refit for 1,500 zen. Only the T5 version that was 2,000 zen (and not a freebie token, either). You don't get a Fleet Module discount for getting the Commander-level version of the Excelsior either. Only the T5 retrofit version.
The T5 Vorcha retrofit in of itself is not on the c-store from where I'm sitting -- only available for dilithium, although it might be gotten for free from rank-up to Brigadier General. Someone who actually has it could verify.
We are getting the Fleet Garumba, Kar'Fi, and 1,000 day veteran ship soon. If it's not fast enough, there's nothing I can really say.
I do have 3 KDF characters, and I play them because I like the KDF faction... not for any perceived advantage over anything or anyone else. Power creep is one of many reasons people may play a faction, but it's not the defining one. In the right hands, a good KDF pilot can outperform a bad Romulan pilot in an equivelant ship.
I won't pretend to know the numbers. But I can look at reality. If there is money to be made in something, a business will take advantage of it. I don't need to pretend to know the numbers to know that truth to capitalism. If the KDF had a high monetary gain from it, we would see more KDF ships. I don't need clairvoyance to know that if something does not make money for a business, then it is ignored or shelved in favor of projects that do. Based on past dev interviews, this seems to be the case.
Cryptic isn't a charity, it's a for-profit business. If we get a KDF ship -- unless there is some kind of massive cash flow from it, chances are the costs required to make it will outweigh any profit gained from it, any revenue loss will be made up for by revenue made elsewhere in the form of Federation/Romulan/Lockbox content.
So what I can do is hope that whenever this new KDF ship arrives, that the sales numbers will be high enough that Cryptic will have to take a second look at them and say, "Hey, maybe there is profit to be had here."
Oh, Monbosh Battleship, nice to meet you!
... and then, the "Battlecruiser" format of ships will now also belong to the Feds to literally complete their lineup of all manner of style of ships.
Disembodied voice = KDF/multi-faction players
Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella = Devs
Amy Madigan as Annie Kinsella = Management
I'd be happy to make more C-Store purchases on the KDF end, but there's a limit to what's actually worth buying. Sure, the KDF needs a balance pass and more C-Store content, but given that it took just over 3 years from official launch (2 Feb 2010) to Legacy of Romulus (21 Mar 2013) for the KDF to get level 1 access and level 1-50 PvE content... it could be awhile before this happens.
I'll be overjoyed if the devs prove me wrong and provide the KDF with additional species and costumes, two more C-Store ship 3-packs, and appropriate Fleet Ship Module discounts for Fleet ships. By discounts, by the way, I refer to discounts akin to the level 40 Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit discount for the Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit. Of course for some reason the devs made the Fleet versions of the Destroyer, Flight-Deck Cruiser, and Raptor classes out of T4 ships so that they wouldn't be eligible for any Fleet Ship Module discount... yeah.
I guess this is really a Romulan designed ship.
Might as well hang it up KDF fans. Cryptic never got the chance or took the chance to make a money grab on our fandom and it appears we may be looking at the tail lights of the fed-roms as they speed away on the most current money train into cryptics wallet.
R.I.P
Your roof has leaks.
Cryptic never once in the history of STO offered the KDF fanbase as near completed all at once faction to enjoy.
It has always been one excuse after another with handouts in between on why things just did not work out.
Had they put the effort into selling the KDF as they did for the Romulans things may have been surprisingly different with a much better influx of money for them. Much like they git when they designed the LoR release in total.
Instead we got short changed from day one, so step off your high horse of "we Roms pay the bills" becuase you didnt exist months ago and are only just another monetary injection that will most likely be forgotten this time next year many many lock boxes from now.
R.I.P
I don't know what to think, other than simple disappointment.
We knew the fed battle cruiser w/cloak was gonna come eventually if they thought they could make quick fandom money off it.
"As others had already said, they made money off the Scimitars so why not a fed battle cruiser"
I personaly have not stopped spending money on STO not because of boredom but becuase its no longer a good investment for my fandom in Star Trek.
R.I.P
what i dont understand why they are not intrudcing new kdf specific boffs, maybe something special with torps like added torp dmg on boffs and some nice doffs two. That cant be that big a deal for them financially and it would be an easy way to increase the likelyhood someone goes like "hey that sounds cool, i want that too" but not by giving it to fed but staying firm and leaving it on kdf side like it should have been with pl
thats basically like giving kdf the death blow instead of helping to bringt it back to (more) live and maybe even to the critical point were new ships do at least bringt in what they invested in them
since they didnt do anything that sort for kdf they cant have data that says no thats not worth it, they just never tried afaik and thats really the sad part here
maybe by keeping playing kdf we tell them like "hey its bad but we still play and buy stuff" so they think its all fine somehow
and btw what i really dont understand is why they stand firm on the 2 faction at war stuff while openly recognizing that the kdf has only very little amount of players
LoR would have been a great time to do stuff like that to make the choise fed/kdf for roms much harder then it is now
There is no reason for KDF players to get a discount someone else is not also getting, no issue with that.
How hard is it to apply the standard Fleet skin to a ship add a console slot and adjust a couple of stats up 10%? Apparently its harder that making a completely New ship from scratch. Mmmm Fed/KDF vet ships have been availible for almost a year now, they were released Oct 10, 2012.
Huh, In equivalent ships a good pilot will always outperform a bad pilot. No shock there.
The reality is that they are not even trying to take advantage of the potential sales from KDF fans:
Where are the player costumes and ship skins? Cryptic Store click on the appearance subsection:
Fed options - 22
KDF options - 1
Rom options - 2
Making those would give them a feel for the KDF marketplace the problem is there is One costume to buy. 1 costume in the c-store in 3 years?
Speaking of STO playable ships lets compare the number of T5 ships available for players to purchase:
Fed - 13 (counting 3pk ships as 1)
KDF - 5 (counting 3pk ships as 1)
Rom - 8 (counting 3pk ships as 1)
So how can we give them money to show support for the KDF again?
Up until the Legacy of Romulus was released all KDF players had to start off as Fed players, it honestly boogles my mind that they didn't whip out some costume options for the LoR release - that are in the Foundry apparently, give them a color palette to choose from and slap a price tag on them or the often requested Mek'leth or the Nausicaan Energy-Lance that is also in game but only usable by NPCs.
How often do you see players running around in TOS nurse skirts and the KDF Warriors skirts? Now which one is the account unlock? Hint its not the KDF one.
Look at my SIG all those Roms listed only 3 are allied with the Federation and I've only been playing since the game went F2P.
If they Truly want to make money on the KDf faction its not hard to do, Give us things to BUY and we will BUY them, but we can't give you money for things that aren't there.
Edit due to post 46: raised hand quickly thinks for a sec drops hand and goes out for a smoke
Iconians in purely trolling an flame baiting - I mean for gosh sakes the thread is about a new C-store T5 ship and he throws out - "well you guys got and anniversary ship" - which the fed's got to - "so you should be happy" - totally irrelevant to this thread.
As to the Fleet Guramba and Fleet Kar'fi which would put out a 5 tac console ship - Guramba at least - I have my doubts - the amount of Fed tears from their exploding ships could cause real problems on the forums.
Added to all these Klingon tears, it'd really tip the scales.
There are tears and complaints because players are ignored - then there are tears and complaints because players are carebears.
Why do you think since the fleet system has been out they have not done a 5 tac console Guramba? Because its too hard to up the stats 10%? No because it would be a very deadly ship.
I have never argued that KDF fleet ships are not some of the best in the game - my gripe like many others is that there are few new T5(none since the flying brick)
The real reason this one is the biggest slap in the face is that Geko just said they have the design finished and the model half done for a new KDF T5, but had to put it off till next year so they could focas on Season 8 Voth ships - but they had time to slip a new T5 Fed battlecruiser into this busy schedule??
That is the salt being rubbed in the wound.
Then vent on the Devs, but the Fed players didn't do anything here. Heck you look at thread about the Avenger in the Fed shipyards; its mostly a lot of "well, I guess we'll see?" and head-scratching about why this ship exists at all, very little passion one way or the other. A mindset of perpetual victimhood does not excuse lashing out at fellow players who didn't do a damn thing.
LOL - I don't even think the devs know there is a Klingon shipyard section of the forums!!
As someone who also plays the Fed side, I'm not sure what to think.
On the one hand Geko keeps telling us cruisers are fine but on the other hand this ship comes along. Well I hope this does not mean Cryptic just abandons Federation Cruisers as a whole and replaces them with this new toy. That would be a real bummer for me.
With regards to the Treaty of Algeron: just because you repeat something does not mean it becomes true. When a government leaves office, treaties don't expire automatically. Otherwise once after a new government came to power (by whever means) EVERY single treaty ever signed with any nation would have to be done over again. That's the dumbest thing I've heard in a long while...and I read a lot of dumb stuff on the internet all day.
Did Gowron have to resign the Khitomer Accords after he bacame chancellor of the Klingon Empire?
Did Martok? No.
Here's a good example of how it really works:
"The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles"
(an unwieldy name for sure!) was signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
It is still in effect today.
Neither of them is still in power, one of them is dead and the Soviet Union does not exist any more.
I repeat: It.is.still.in.effect.
Why? Because that's how it works in real life: Governments come and go but when there is still a nation or a successor state, the treaty stays.
Repeating somthing that is known to be false does not make it right just because you do it often enough.
Apologies if this seems a strawman but I see an error in the canon argument. Since the show(s) are based on watching the federation we can take the bulk that they did little to no use of cloaking technology. The few times it happened were anomalies. That the federation never changes its values.
The Romulans in two TOS exchanges come off as proud, militant, and professional. But have cloaks. Klingons, are shown using deception, infiltrators, sabotage and general back stabbing. But with no cloaking tech. By the movies they had three cloaked ships. All birds of prey. Those are from Search for Spock (Kruge's ship and first. He uses it to steal and murder in federation space.) Voyage Home (Same ship flown by kirk) Final Frontier. (Klaa's ship, used to attack a vessel on a rescue mission and maybe put a knife in the back of an imperial enemy.) and Undiscovered Country (Chang's ship that can fire when cloaked. Used to assassinate his chancellor and frame the federation for it.)
Then by TNG yeah no. Klingons are the warrior race that views backstabbing as honourless and the Romulans are the ones skulking in shadows waiting to betray anyone for the laughs. But the Federation is always the white knights that never stoops to any skullduggery except by radical individuals.
We run that filter through then the only Klingons that should use cloaks are those with out honour. Except they got shown as using them a lot in TNG.
The Romulans and the Klingons both changed drastically from their roots and expanded on their technologies and applications. Is your argument that the Federation is static and unchanging?
(Again, sorry if this seems a strawman argument. But I am having difficulty demonstrating why it seems odd that the Federation does not at least dabble in cloaking technology. If for no other reason than to know what all their neighbors around them can actually accomplish.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Since the Romulan Battle cloak came alone really what does it matter any more who has a cloak. It's an old and silly argument.
Canon mean less than nothing in this game anymore - it stopped being relevant or a realistic argument a long time ago - it's been stepped on, beaten to a bloody pulp and thrown to the curb with the trash - it's meaningless.
This is a space shooter game loosely based on the Trek universe and not much more.
I never want to hear the canon excuse anymore because the games developers have already decided that it does not matter. It's a closed subject.
(I got little sleep last night and I am cranky this morning!! - not to do with this ship of course that would be silly)
LMAO!!!
Thank you sir for starting my day with a laugh!
If only it would be the UFP president, Roach. This is the new way Cryptic handles things.
Once some time ago, they at least had proper ideas how the game should work and seemed to have vision and good intention. Nowdays it's all about the quick & easy buck, to hell with longetivity and to hell with Star Trek.
While I still keep my sub., unfortunately this is exactly how I'm starting to feel about things. STO is becomming less and less ST by the day and I'm also begining to doubt if it's a good investment in my Trek fandom.
With all due respect to Cryptic, but if I was looking for a generic MMO game I wouldn't be here cause there are better ones that treat their factions equally and at least try to respect all their customers.
*Raises hand in shame*
I wanted to trust Cryptic, I really did. I really believed that after all the "our team has doubled" mumbo jumbo the KDF will start getting things now and then. Mind you, I didn't expect nearly as much attention as the Federation is getting, but something...
When people started creating threads themed "Where's our T5 ship that was promised?" I told them to be patient and that there's still 2 or 3 months left in the year.
Man I feel like an TRIBBLE now.
^^ This is exactly the issue here. I don't mind as a KDF player that the Federation gets a new ship. (I actually hate this ship more as an Federation player)
The issue is that Voth ships are aparently constructed in the Klingon Fleetyards leaving the Starfleet Shipyards open for business. The issue is that the faction that's waiting for a T5 C-Store ship for almost 2 years and has gaping holes the size of the Grand Canyon in it's ship lineup has their ship delayed "for the greater good of S8 and all STO players" while for the faction that has so thick lineup that it's about to explode, this clearly isn't the case.
That to me sounds like they'll try for 2013, but there's a strong chance it might be 2014.