For the sake of clarification, I was originally speaking with regards to game mechanics. I have some knowledge of military terminology, however definitions of both antiquity and contemporary sources do not quite always fit in both Star Trek lore and particularly within the functions of the game.
It seems flagship really just is a term for the description text. But why not go beyond that? How about something along the lines of improved arrays, either in strength or range. Perhaps built in abilities, maybe something more than just another attack. Built in healing abilities would be interesting. It would be a heavy cruiser built along team play.
As for dreads, I see them with a med-low turn, big hull, tactical oriented, with some pet support, and a super weapon of sorts. Of course the problem is where does the ship fit in the big picture of the game.
"Used more loosely" is an excuse used by people who do not understand the English language.
Or words have more than one meaning. Or language evolves. Or context changes the meanings of words. Or people use professional terminology incorrectly, but commonly enough for things to develop a secondary meaning. Or about five million other things that make this statement absurdly pedantic.
That is also ... BS as the only references you have is TMP, the USS Entente that is a Federation Class.
Let's see what the canon definition from Memory Alpha is, then.
A flagship is a term referring to the status conferred upon a starship. Typically, a flagship is a starship commanded by a flag officer (an admiral or similar rank). The term also properly applies to the ship of whatever commanding officer is in charge of a grouping of ships. A third, more colloquial usage of the term can mean that the ship in question is considered an "exemplar" of the best capabilities and virtues of the force it represents.
In other words, exactly what I said on the first page.
B-but surely Star Trek would never use a loose term?
The USS Enterprise-D served as the "flagship of the Federation" and of Starfleet, from 2364 to 2371. (TNG: "The Icarus Factor", "Sarek", "The High Ground", "Remember Me", "Ensign Ro", "Man of the People", "Chain of Command, Part I", "Starship Mine", "Force of Nature", "Parallels"; Star Trek Generations; DS9: "Bar Association")
It's almost as if they're using multiple definitions so that the same word can describe different things, but that's impossible! Words mean what they mean and have no shades of meaning whatsoever! Anyone who disagrees don't speak English good no more!
TNG never used the term dreadnought, the USS Enterprise was the Flagship of the Federation and since you want to play this game, I shall entertain you.
I never brought up the term "dreadnought" or whatever it is you're talking about in the second half of that sentence, except to say it has no set definition within the game's mechanics.
The Maquis named a missile "Dreadnought" and the Abramsverse uses it and the Gal-X is called it, and that's about it. It's just a ship designation like "Assault Cruiser" that has no real meaning outside of grouping ship classes together for the sake of ship customization.
For the sake of clarification, I was originally speaking with regards to game mechanics. I have some knowledge of military terminology, however definitions of both antiquity and contemporary sources do not quite always fit in both Star Trek lore and particularly within the functions of the game.
It seems flagship really just is a term for the description text. But why not go beyond that? How about something along the lines of improved arrays, either in strength or range. Perhaps built in abilities, maybe something more than just another attack. Built in healing abilities would be interesting. It would be a heavy cruiser built along team play.
As for dreads, I see them with a med-low turn, big hull, tactical oriented, with some pet support, and a super weapon of sorts. Of course the problem is where does the ship fit in the big picture of the game.
Okay, while the others are doing their whose definition is right thing, let's talk game mechanics that might actually work.:)
Back on the old forums, the ones that are so old all posts are now missing the name of the poster and are only called "Archives Post" some of us KDF players had a few discussions about how to make the factions more unique.
Please not that this was before the Oddy and Borty were added to the game so the term "flagship" was not used in the game at the time.
Aside from the idea to give both (back then it was only two) different attack patterns because "attack pattern omega" sounds weird for the KDF but "attack pattern koloth" would sound cooler and with different stats would make the factions more different we had a talk about flag/command vessels.
So one idea we had was that of command abilities for specific ships that thus provied an "aura"-like bonus to ships surrounding those command vessels.
Please note that I'm not going to claim Cryptic took our idea and added it as comm arrays years later but at the very least there's a remote chance someone actually reads this stuff.;)
So anyway back then stuff like the ensign engineering on the Galaxy was even more useless than today so one of the ideas was to add a 4th type of bridge officer called "flag officer".
And as an homage to Kirk's green jacket in TOS and to differentiatte them from the others we made them and their slot green.
So for certain ships there was a "command variant" of that ship that only differs in the way that the regular ensign slot is replaced by a green "flag officer slot".
Depending on what officer you put into that ensign slot you of course get a different AoE buff for the team but you miss out on an ensign ability that, depending on the ship, you might actually want to use...unless you really find that ensign useless like on the Galaxy.
Another idea we had was without that addition of a special green BO: ships that suffer in one way or another but still provide such an AoE buff, for example by losing out one aft weapon slot.
As the command ships they would not operate alone and as a result there's always someone else around to cover the rear arc.
To make the two factions more different the idea was to give the Federation command cruisers which provide an AoE buff with the command ship at the center of that AoE field, very much like Comm Arrays work today.
For the KDF we thought of something a bit different. We gave them "leader" ships and they were no cruisers but Raptors. So the Klignons would have a stronger command structure at the squadron level. The AoE buff was offset to the rear so that the leader would be in front of the formation with the remaining ships at the rear.
Again the Raptor Leader would suffer from a loss in weapons and again it would be a loss of an aft weapon slot. In terms of game balancing to balance out the buff and in terms if ingame to make room for the command facilities.
*EDIT: To offset the loss of an aft gun, assuming the command system don't, we thought about giving the ship a bit more hull to make it tougher. That goes for command/leaders of both faction /END EDIT*
So how can such a system be adapted to STO of today?
It's still possible to create similar ships and give them comm arrays that provide buffs that are different from the ones we currently have.
So a command cruiser would get two rows of comm array buttons. One are the ones cruiser now have anyway and the other are different ones. And the obvious advantage would be that on the Fed side the command cruisers can have one buff from each row active, which will be different.
On the KDF side a Raptor Leader only has one row but that's obvious.:)
On the ROmulan side a command Warbird would be the same.
What do you think of this idea?
One really big problem this idea has is of course that outside of a premade group nobody will interested in this since a lost rear-arc gun is not offset by a AoE buff when people only operate alone.
Or words have more than one meaning. Or language evolves. Or context changes the meanings of words. Or people use professional terminology incorrectly, but commonly enough for things to develop a secondary meaning. Or about five million other things that make this statement absurdly pedantic.
There is nothing absurd about understanding the meanings of words. However, according to you, a dollop of Cool-Whip is a small serving of a non-dairy dessert topping, or used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the first, largest, fastest, most heavily armed, or best known. Hence, in Star Trek Online the Odyssey class is a dollop of Cool-Whip.
in "real life" a flagship in the US navy is where the senior officer is hanging his hat. note that there can be several flagships, for example, in the past, an aircraft carrier battle group could have the carrier as the group flagship, yet the destroyer squadron or cruiser group may have one of their ships as a flag, assuming that the group or squadron commander is deployed and embarked.
Often a navy may designate a ship of repute as the flagship. IJN Yamato and the Bismarck being examples, and yes they were the most powerful of their class the carrier Akagi was the flagship of admiral Nagumo, though the fleet flag was aboard yamato, when yamamoto was on board.
The Enterprise was flag of the federation simply because TNG was the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. it CAN be construed that the E was flagship, not only because of her lineage, but that Picard was the senior Captain in the fleet.
in DS9, an intriguing theory is discussed.. key ships throughout Starfleet are designated Command ships and responsible for coordinating ships in their sector. (think it was the episode with Adm Jellico)
one requirement for any flagship has to be capable of C3, Command, Control and Communications.
Command: The exercise of authority based upon certain knowledge to attain an objective.
Control: The process of verifying and correcting activity such that the objective or goal of command is accomplished.
Communication: Ability to exercise the necessary liaison to exercise effective command between tactical or strategic units to command.
an escort would make a very poor flagship simply because they do not by thier nature have the facilities or manpower to execute C3.
The Romulan civilian refugees you talk to in The Vault consider Shinzon to be a hero and the last effective ruler of the Empire. I've also long held the belief that Nero would be a Romulan hero for defeating Worf and staving off the Klingon invasion with the Narrada.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
I must disagree as a "freedom fighter" doesn't use weapons of mass destruction to kill billions of innocent civilians just to win. A terrorist does. How many innocent lives were lost when Nero destroyed Vulcan? A whole PLANET!
The way I've seen it in trek, the flagship is always the newest, most advanced, and usually the one that carries a certain name. The enterprise name has seen several ships and refits, but always remains the flagship. The same would be said of the scimitar in nemesis. As long as a ship carries the name and stays up to date, it will remain the flagship until decommisioned or destroyed.
I must disagree as a "freedom fighter" doesn't use weapons of mass destruction to kill billions of innocent civilians just to win. A terrorist does. How many innocent lives were lost when Nero destroyed Vulcan? A whole PLANET!
Not anyone you personally consider a freedom fighter. But another's definition of freedom fighter may be looser.
Comments
It seems flagship really just is a term for the description text. But why not go beyond that? How about something along the lines of improved arrays, either in strength or range. Perhaps built in abilities, maybe something more than just another attack. Built in healing abilities would be interesting. It would be a heavy cruiser built along team play.
As for dreads, I see them with a med-low turn, big hull, tactical oriented, with some pet support, and a super weapon of sorts. Of course the problem is where does the ship fit in the big picture of the game.
Or words have more than one meaning. Or language evolves. Or context changes the meanings of words. Or people use professional terminology incorrectly, but commonly enough for things to develop a secondary meaning. Or about five million other things that make this statement absurdly pedantic.
Let's see what the canon definition from Memory Alpha is, then.
In other words, exactly what I said on the first page.
B-but surely Star Trek would never use a loose term?
It's almost as if they're using multiple definitions so that the same word can describe different things, but that's impossible! Words mean what they mean and have no shades of meaning whatsoever! Anyone who disagrees don't speak English good no more!
I never brought up the term "dreadnought" or whatever it is you're talking about in the second half of that sentence, except to say it has no set definition within the game's mechanics.
The Maquis named a missile "Dreadnought" and the Abramsverse uses it and the Gal-X is called it, and that's about it. It's just a ship designation like "Assault Cruiser" that has no real meaning outside of grouping ship classes together for the sake of ship customization.
Okay, while the others are doing their whose definition is right thing, let's talk game mechanics that might actually work.:)
Back on the old forums, the ones that are so old all posts are now missing the name of the poster and are only called "Archives Post" some of us KDF players had a few discussions about how to make the factions more unique.
Please not that this was before the Oddy and Borty were added to the game so the term "flagship" was not used in the game at the time.
Aside from the idea to give both (back then it was only two) different attack patterns because "attack pattern omega" sounds weird for the KDF but "attack pattern koloth" would sound cooler and with different stats would make the factions more different we had a talk about flag/command vessels.
So one idea we had was that of command abilities for specific ships that thus provied an "aura"-like bonus to ships surrounding those command vessels.
Please note that I'm not going to claim Cryptic took our idea and added it as comm arrays years later but at the very least there's a remote chance someone actually reads this stuff.;)
So anyway back then stuff like the ensign engineering on the Galaxy was even more useless than today so one of the ideas was to add a 4th type of bridge officer called "flag officer".
And as an homage to Kirk's green jacket in TOS and to differentiatte them from the others we made them and their slot green.
So for certain ships there was a "command variant" of that ship that only differs in the way that the regular ensign slot is replaced by a green "flag officer slot".
Depending on what officer you put into that ensign slot you of course get a different AoE buff for the team but you miss out on an ensign ability that, depending on the ship, you might actually want to use...unless you really find that ensign useless like on the Galaxy.
Another idea we had was without that addition of a special green BO: ships that suffer in one way or another but still provide such an AoE buff, for example by losing out one aft weapon slot.
As the command ships they would not operate alone and as a result there's always someone else around to cover the rear arc.
To make the two factions more different the idea was to give the Federation command cruisers which provide an AoE buff with the command ship at the center of that AoE field, very much like Comm Arrays work today.
For the KDF we thought of something a bit different. We gave them "leader" ships and they were no cruisers but Raptors. So the Klignons would have a stronger command structure at the squadron level. The AoE buff was offset to the rear so that the leader would be in front of the formation with the remaining ships at the rear.
http://imageshack.us/a/img233/6364/klingonleaderformation.jpg
Again the Raptor Leader would suffer from a loss in weapons and again it would be a loss of an aft weapon slot. In terms of game balancing to balance out the buff and in terms if ingame to make room for the command facilities.
*EDIT: To offset the loss of an aft gun, assuming the command system don't, we thought about giving the ship a bit more hull to make it tougher. That goes for command/leaders of both faction /END EDIT*
So how can such a system be adapted to STO of today?
It's still possible to create similar ships and give them comm arrays that provide buffs that are different from the ones we currently have.
So a command cruiser would get two rows of comm array buttons. One are the ones cruiser now have anyway and the other are different ones. And the obvious advantage would be that on the Fed side the command cruisers can have one buff from each row active, which will be different.
On the KDF side a Raptor Leader only has one row but that's obvious.:)
On the ROmulan side a command Warbird would be the same.
What do you think of this idea?
One really big problem this idea has is of course that outside of a premade group nobody will interested in this since a lost rear-arc gun is not offset by a AoE buff when people only operate alone.
Often a navy may designate a ship of repute as the flagship. IJN Yamato and the Bismarck being examples, and yes they were the most powerful of their class the carrier Akagi was the flagship of admiral Nagumo, though the fleet flag was aboard yamato, when yamamoto was on board.
The Enterprise was flag of the federation simply because TNG was the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. it CAN be construed that the E was flagship, not only because of her lineage, but that Picard was the senior Captain in the fleet.
in DS9, an intriguing theory is discussed.. key ships throughout Starfleet are designated Command ships and responsible for coordinating ships in their sector. (think it was the episode with Adm Jellico)
one requirement for any flagship has to be capable of C3, Command, Control and Communications.
Command: The exercise of authority based upon certain knowledge to attain an objective.
Control: The process of verifying and correcting activity such that the objective or goal of command is accomplished.
Communication: Ability to exercise the necessary liaison to exercise effective command between tactical or strategic units to command.
an escort would make a very poor flagship simply because they do not by thier nature have the facilities or manpower to execute C3.
I must disagree as a "freedom fighter" doesn't use weapons of mass destruction to kill billions of innocent civilians just to win. A terrorist does. How many innocent lives were lost when Nero destroyed Vulcan? A whole PLANET!
[/SIGPIC]
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