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It's that time again - FUNCTIONAL BRIDGES!
lexsan82
Member Posts: 41 Arc User
So I've been out for a few months, so forgive me if I haven't heard any updates or promises related to the following post. I'd love to hear that this has finally been addressed.
The problem: Staying logged in, or wanting to log in when the grind has burnt me out. What to do in this Trek universe when the "game" stuff is getting repetitive?
The solution: Immersion. This universe lacks immersion. It's that elevation of a game from shallow 2-dimensional 'read this, kill x number of that, go there' play, to a true interactive world around you. It's what I think a lot of Star Trek fans try STO for in the first place, but are ultimately disappointed after the newness of the latest content release wears off. When we're no longer emotionally invested in an episode arc, or friends aren't around for some group pvp, and the "cantina crawl" seems woefully over-utilized. The feeling you crave: to be able to interact with your crew and your ship around you, be it on leave or traveling throughout the galaxy.
What am I getting at? FUNCTIONAL BRIDGES/interiors! Give us the ability to interact with our crew. The ability to issue commands, to influence our missions, to navigate our ships, for exploration, to team up with friends on the same ship for a common goal. Think Bridge Commander. Think Star Wars Galaxies ship interiors and gameplay. Think of all the possibilities!
Show some support if you agree!
The problem: Staying logged in, or wanting to log in when the grind has burnt me out. What to do in this Trek universe when the "game" stuff is getting repetitive?
The solution: Immersion. This universe lacks immersion. It's that elevation of a game from shallow 2-dimensional 'read this, kill x number of that, go there' play, to a true interactive world around you. It's what I think a lot of Star Trek fans try STO for in the first place, but are ultimately disappointed after the newness of the latest content release wears off. When we're no longer emotionally invested in an episode arc, or friends aren't around for some group pvp, and the "cantina crawl" seems woefully over-utilized. The feeling you crave: to be able to interact with your crew and your ship around you, be it on leave or traveling throughout the galaxy.
What am I getting at? FUNCTIONAL BRIDGES/interiors! Give us the ability to interact with our crew. The ability to issue commands, to influence our missions, to navigate our ships, for exploration, to team up with friends on the same ship for a common goal. Think Bridge Commander. Think Star Wars Galaxies ship interiors and gameplay. Think of all the possibilities!
Show some support if you agree!
Post edited by lexsan82 on
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Comments
if you mean control your ship from the bridge and be in the bridge when doing missions, then no, the engine cannot handle that (downlside to having an early millennial engine)
if you want that, then the engine either needs to be overhauled, or completely redone.
Don't let the join date fool you
Not necessarily.
It should be possible, if the bridge view is displayed in a space map as a client-side overlay. It might need to be shrunk down a bit from normal to fit, and have an invisibility zone for objects outside of the bridge to prevent them from showing up inside.
To other players, it would look as per normal with the player's ship flying around, but to the player they would be flying from their ship's bridge with their captain and bridge officers seated and active at their stations.
Technically speaking, players would still be flying their ships using the exact same mechanics as before, but with an extra model replacing their ship that only they can see. No system overhaul or redo would be necessary, but the desired effect would be achieved.
A tailor NPC looking like a cabinet.
It's strange when you can't customise outfit on your ship when probably all your belongings are stored in your room.
Or if you're on a relatively large ship, a barbershop like on the Enterprise-D. Could come with a special interior in a "TNG Bundle". If they ever let players customize their interiors with swappable modules, things like this could be unlocked for players to use in their starships.
Astrometrics and hydroponics would be another couple of facilities I'd love to see, although I'm still brainstorming about what functionalities they'd have.
However, I have commented many times past year, I think there is away around it and allow players to have a space battle right from their bridges, without going into 3D space. Where you treat the bridge like a movie set (with pivoting) and players could give commands that would mimic being in a Space Battle right on the bridge.
Though the downside of this system is that it would be impossible to do regular missions or regular PvP since it cannot function in the existing 3D space environment. It would have to exist in a special environment. Which wouldn't degrade it's function at all.
For an example, roleplayers could use this bridge to go to any system in game without map changes. And with the new ability to change backdrops, you could have all the destinations loaded so you could go anywhere without running into other player ships (literally). And with a built-in time delay between destinations, it would actually feel like Star Trek.
And this could also benefit from team play, where one player acts as the Captain and have certain set of orders (like in Bridge Commander), another player acts as Helm, another OPs, one Tactical, and another acting as Science or Engineering. And they work as a team to do missions that could only be done with this bridge system. This potenitally could even work with PvP, and with a tradition Star Trek layout than the STO layout, PvP wouldn't be over in an instant, you could actually use strategy to defeat them.
But doubt Cryptic would be interested in such a system. :rolleyes:
This ties in with my earlier suggestion above.
Use a copy of the player's bridge as a model tied to their ship as a client-side replacement for their ship model. There would be a field preventing anything from space from appearing inside of the ship for immersion protection. Due to the model being client-side, other players would still see the player's ship, not the bridge model they're seeing.
Since it's a client-side only model tied to and hiding the player's ship, it would change angle depending on the movement of the player's ship. It may even be possible to use the "hull % = damage visuals" tech to display battle damage in the client-side bridge model as damage accumulates.
Unfortunately, the game treats your captain and ship as the same entity; it doesn't duplicate it. Only your captain or your ship can exist at any time. The best example of this is when players beam down, to say ESD, but instead of appearing as their captain, they appear as their ship. This glitch happen a lot in Beta and seem to have returned briefly in the opening days of Season 8.
As for the "field" you describe, I'm not sure how you would define that in the backend. You'll get clipping effects.
So yeah, massive engine overhaul needed.
I think TacoFangs touched on this topic a few times. Maybe he'll reiterate if he sees this thread.
The closest I've read on this forum that would make use of your bridge while traveling is to essentially have you wait on your bridge while a timer counts down. The timer is based on the time it takes from your last sector space spawn position to your new location. Then you get the option to "beam down". Basically, if I was flying from ESD to DS9, I would be skipping out the sector space transit and be loading nothing but ground maps.
Edit: This thread has pictures of the glitch: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=914931
(UFP) Ragnar
Someone needs to inform the Devs that it's a virtual environment. Nothing is impossible.
As for the OP... There were more than a few episodes in the IP which took place entirely within the ship interior. There are a variety of missions, from Intruder Alerts to Mechanical Failure to Crew Infections that could be played out within the ship interior.
Like said above, this is something only a Dev can answer.
Needless to say, if it was doable, they would've already done it.
What I was suggesting was not to load up the actual bridge or characters, as per my original suggestion thread where I'm getting this from. Instead, the game would use the data on which bridge you have selected for your ship, as well as checking the active costumes of your character and their bridge officers.
The game would then load up copies of these in a client-side "costume change" to the player's ship. No appearing in two places at once; for the player, their ship IS the bridge. The officers appearing on the bridge - being dummies reskinned to match the bridge crew - would also be client-side, and the whole thing would probably have to be scaled down a bit to save on resources and space.
They've already done client-side only graphics as early as Champions Online (which precedes this game), so if nothing is really in "two places at once" via costume changes and client-side graphics, it should be possible.
I was referring to a system more like this. An actual 3rd system independent from the current Ground or Space systems. A way to tie in a revamped exploration system (like the aforementioned Astrometrics Labs) or a way to play revamped Diplomacy missions, navigation using commands and a timer, and entering combat would be a simple matter of loading a space combat map to use the standard Space system or Ground system for combat. I'm primarily talking about how I'd say 85% of scenes in Star Trek are played out: on the bridge or in the ship interiors.
It's like I'm back in 2010!
Which basically means an entirely new game.
It's not impossible but it's just not worth the massive effort that would be required.
Nothing is impossible! Not if you can imagine it! That's what being a scientist is all about!
Nothing wrong with people wanting an authentic Trek experience in a game that supposed to be all about Star Trek. :P
In my opinion such a large part of the show takes place on the bridge there is simply no excuses.
Mind you, I am not asking for anything huge at this point and though developers did say there is a way to do it, I would be happy with a simplified version.
Throw a gif up at the view screen and let players spawn in space from the bridge.
Then you add a menu people can click to "travel", a timer runs and the view screen animation and the classic engine sound effect both gives the illusion of movement when in fact you just "fake transwarping".
But of course you can't put it in a lockbox, just don't come out and twist the story saying it's not possible or it doesn't belong.
Bridge View is fine and dandy... if you have a slow, predictable, low-enemy-count enviroment, were Overview is simply NOT needed...
Anything above 2-3 Enemies is a complete HORROR on the Bridge and simply not feasible and now combine that with the fast combat of STO and the zipping around, you'll get nauseous when you lock your bridge view on an enemy.
You can't maneuver very well... due to the lack of complete overview... You simply cannot see where the hell your ship is going or if the enemy is now to your right or your left!
And now try all this in PvP... real humans and not "relatively slow" NPCs?
This is about travel and content on interiors. There isn't one solution for that (because that's a matter of tastes) but there can be many good ideas.
Hey, WoW's big new feature is giving the player their own RTS city to manage, strategize, and populate with things they gather/do in the open world.
system Lord Baal is dead
Simply because it ALWAYS ends with that...
Even if it not directly said, it's the only logical conclusion, first movement then combat.
I agree with more functional Interiors, Foundry Addons and more Content... just keep it away from the bridge.
But when Cryptic adds simple movement and you not being able to do more than just sit and watch, people will freak the f*ck out and accuse them of laziness again and again and will demand "more functions" to the bridge... like Combat.
I don't know that to be the case and I don't think you know it either.
Tough. That's the burden of businesses built on technologies, the need to constantly develop those technologies to keep pace with the expectations of their customers. Else we'd be playing a massively multiplayer version of STO eight bit pong, instead of just seeing it as a mini-game.
I've seen this done before -- two environments rendered in one place -- ahh yes the inventory screen. You see that 3-D re-render of you? That's two different environments. They could run this type of an environment as a primary, while overlaying the a low-resolution combat render on the main screen of the bridge. This would give everyone here what they want and be within the realm of possibility.
Note that I don't think I've ever used the word 'impossible.' It's all code, nothing is impossible given enough time, money, and manpower.
However, what I have said in the past, and will repeat now, is that our game, as it stands today, is not set up for this at all. It's not an engine limitation per se, and it's not because our engine is old. It's because it's not how the game was designed. Again, possible, but not probable.
The problem, as stated by others, is that your "character" is both a ship, and a captain, simultaneously. When you are in space, you are drawn as a ship. When you are on the ground, you are drawn as a person. So, when you are in sector space (as a ship) and go to your bridge (as a person), your ship ceases to exist in sector space. You are no longer there. You are ONLY on your bridge. When you leave your bridge, and go back to sector space, you become a ship again, and your captain (and the bridge) cease to exist.
So, there is no easy way to track you through sector space while you are actually on another map. Again, this is likely possible, but is not set up, and would require significant coding.
To my (non-programmer) mind, the best alternative is the count-down method others have mentioned. Instead of "flying" your ship from the bridge, you go to your helm officer, tell him which system to go to, and a timer counts down however long it takes to get there. During the countdown you can meander around your interior, doing whatever captainy things captains do. When the timer is up, your helm officer informs you that you have arrived, and you can load that map.
The problem with the above is what happens when you leave your bridge part way through the count down. If you leave at the start, you go back to where ever you left to get to your bridge. If you leave at the end, you go to your destination. If you leave in the middle, where do you go? Remember, there is nothing tracking you through sector space, so we have no functional idea where your "ship" is right now. Instead, we just know that you're 50% done with the countdown. So, we can't drop you in the right spot in sector space, do we dump you back at the start? We can't let you cheat by going to the end point. . .
Another issue is how to determine the timing. I guess we could manually fly from every planet to every other planet to get a baseline, but that's annoying. IMO I think this idea best works with a unified sector space, so that there is no map loading between sectors. Timing things in that mode would be a much simpler task, as we could just determine distances between them. A unified sector space would also make it easier to drop you in an appropriate spot if you were to leave your bridge part way through your journey. It's something that has been tossed about, but I haven't heard anything concrete about that in a while.
In addition, I wouldn't really want to do this unless we did some major bridge refresh as well. I think we have a lot of terrible bridges in the game. I also think it would be cool if your viewscreen could reflect the system you are at, but that would be more tech, and wouldn't really work until the above bits happened. They're all nice ideas, and I think everyone on the team would love to see it, but there is a LOT of work involved, and a lot of edge cases that can break things horribly. It's not a trivial undertaking.
Keep in mind, the above suggestion would only be for travel, not fighting anything. That would be an even bigger can of worms to wrestle with.
The monitor overlay idea has been raised a number of times before, but imo it would just feel chintzy. We couldn't do a full 3d bridge overlay, it would just be a texture. Basically cutting a viewscreen out of cardboard and pasting it onto your monitor. I don't think anyone would be satisfied by that.
Ok, then how is it plausible to render a 3-D model of your captain while in space by hitting "U"?
See what I did there? :P I think you are over-thinking what needs to be done. Having a "dummy" model exactly like in the U screen perma-camped in the captain's chair (with some random emotes while sitting) is (as I'm sure) all they're asking for.
If you're not in the captain's chair then you're not commanding your ship
On a serious note though, I think it would be pretty awesome for anyone visiting your bridge to be granted a buff or temporarily be given your abilities (like any tact or sci captain having a miracle worker ability while another engineer player is on his bridge) while at the same time sharing exp and loot with them.
Getting, and drawing your costume isn't an issue. We could draw your captain and your ship side by side. They are just costumes on the ENTITY that is you. The problem is that there is only one YOU ENTITY. And it only exists in one map at a time. It's keeping track of TWO separate entities, both representing you, on two different maps that is problematic.
Right, but I'm sure you can do the same thing by drawing this virtual entity in the captains chair while rendering a small, low-rez overlay of the combat on their front screen (I think you may be seeing now how insanely easy this could be) and make everyone here utterly ecstatic.
The captain sitting in the chair doesn't have to be the player entity -- it only needs to be a model wearing the costume.. If you get up, you should get a load screen that pops you in the bridge. And other players should only see your ship. I'm saying this could be achieved with mere window-dressing
To be clear, the loading between this and the bridge needs to be flawless (perhaps the bridge's assets in cache when in this mode so there is minimum load, that is threaded while animating the model standing up).
I don't know anything about your engine or your capabilities or limitations. So this will probably sound ridiculous, but I'm trying to do some outside-the-box thinking.
What about keeping a proxy copy of a player on every single sector space map (or one step further, every non-combat public map), to be 'generated' upon zone-in? The one issue that'd come to mind is it'd take up a population slot in every instance in "reserve", completely negating the whole point of instancing.
Yes, but then you need funding and materials. Otherwise, you're just daydreaming.