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Request: Deep Space Nine revamp (interior)
jeffel82
Member Posts: 2,075 Arc User
The thread on ESD has inspired me to bring up this topic yet again, and I didn't want to do anything to derail that thread any further.
In short, DS9's interior could use a revamp to bring it more in line with what was seen on the series. It was my favourite series, and it pains me to see the in-game location failing to live up to its potential. Here are my suggestions:
Ops
Ops actually looks pretty good at this point. I think Kurland could safely be relocated to the Commander's office, and the office could perhaps use some additional decor. The texture on the Ops "pool table" MSD has always been a poor fit for the table.
Promenade
This is where most of the polishing comes in to play. My wishlist:
Quark's
There are a couple of ways I think Quark's could be improved as well.
In short, DS9's interior could use a revamp to bring it more in line with what was seen on the series. It was my favourite series, and it pains me to see the in-game location failing to live up to its potential. Here are my suggestions:
Ops
Ops actually looks pretty good at this point. I think Kurland could safely be relocated to the Commander's office, and the office could perhaps use some additional decor. The texture on the Ops "pool table" MSD has always been a poor fit for the table.
Promenade
This is where most of the polishing comes in to play. My wishlist:
- Build the Infirmary: An important location on the show, and the residence for the Medical Officer contact, currently found in the Multipurpose Room (MPR). Also a potentially useful Foundry hookup.
- Build the Security Office: Another important location from the show, home to the Federation security officer doff contact. Another useful Foundry hookup, especially with the holding cells attached to the office.
- Scrap the MPR and build the Assay Office: A smaller space for the Mail, Bank, and Exchange (would obviously need to be bigger than the one seen in the show, but could be much smaller than the current MPR).
- Shipyard/Docking Ring: This could be pretty much kept as-is, but I think this should be the spawn point for those beaming on to Deep Space Nine - I'd rather appear next to the airlock doors than beam into the middle of the Promenade.
- More walk-in "shops:" Give the Deferi, KDF, and Romulan Republic (heck, maybe even the Cardassians) diplomatic Consulates on the Promenade. Home to the mission and doff contacts for the non-Federation factions. Also a potentially very useful Foundry hookup.
- Clickable chairs at the replimat.
Quark's
There are a couple of ways I think Quark's could be improved as well.
- Replace the giant ramp with the screen-accurate spiral staircases. They don't have to be functional - just hook them up to interact like a turbolift to go up or down one level.
- Clickable chairs and barstools throughout.
- Holosuite doors and control panels on the 3rd floor: At the very least, useful for the Foundry.
You're right. The work here is very important.
...talking to players is like being a mall Santa. Everyone immediately wants to tell you all of the things they want, and you are absolutely powerless to deliver 99% of them.
Post edited by jeffel82 on
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There was actually (supposed to be) a transporter on the Promenade. I don't think they ever showed it (or even built it?) but it's on all of the blueprints.
That makes sense. If I recall correctly, the set was largely incomplete throughout the first season, and was gradually expanded after that. Just like in STO, they wouldn't build a transporter room unless they had a script that called for it.
In seriousness though, I've never been too happy with how DS9 looks. The interior for Quarks is damn near spot on, especially now that Morn has been put in his stool. Any revamp would be awesome. You could even tie it in to an event
Vice Admiral Dir Sonatra, I.R.W. Kholairlha, Scimitar Class Warbird
Vice Admiral Oshin S'ree, USS Steamrunner, Steamrunner Class
TEN FORWARD FLEET
Make it so!
Who built it in the first place?
I' baffled how it's missing every canon location except the lowest floor of Quark's and Ops.
It's a heavily planed and documented piece of canon and defiantly the most planable starbase ingame.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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I don't think the set was incomplete exactly. They had all the same stuff (mostly) from season 1 onward. The place where the Assay Office was would get used for any number of other shops. The school, Garak's, Security Holding, etc. were all there.
However, the entirety of everything ever shot on "the promenade" was shot in the same 135* or so arc. It was never a full circle, and so what exactly fills the rest of that circle is questionable.
http://pat.suwalski.net/film/st-stages/stages/stage17.png
(Note the Transporter on the far right.)
Environment Artists that don't work here anymore. I don't know for sure, but it doesn't really matter.
Just like ESD, I'd love to rebuild DS9's interior, but it's all about getting time from the leads to do so.
IMO ESD needs it more. Yes, DS9 actually has a lot of canon to back up what it should be, but ESD is much more heavily traveled, and the current one is atrocious.
Yeah, you're right - double-checking, it was a portion of the 2nd level which was incomplete and ended in a blank wall until the post-Season 1 hiatus, when they opened it up and added the 2nd floor entrance to Quark's. Everything else was in place already.
That's a great blueprint, lots of interesting details. I also like the floor plan from the DS9 Technical Manual. Most of the shops on it would be completely useless in STO, but it's a nice reference for what the size and orientation of the rooms would be.
At launch, the Cardassian sector and missions were just about the final content in the game in terms of progression. STO's launch was notoriously rushed, and I've always felt that it shows the most in this area (both the design of DS9 and the quality of the Cardassian zone missions).
That's fair to say. My personal biases lead me to prefer a DS9 revamp, but your argument makes more sense from a design perspective.
My sincere hope is that you guys can do both.
But morn isn't in the right, spot and he isn't even on a stool hes on the chair.
^^This. Good thing is, that one can kinda feel, that, with Tacofangs, there is a designer who really loves and cares for the IP.
STOWiki admin.
I do love the fact that you want to do this and not just that it's 'an interesting idea'.
Have the feds start from DS9 instead of ESD :P.
My KDF character spends all his time on DS9, for the security officer, and also for the fact that it has lights
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I agree. ESD is the first place in the game that people that people really "see". But man does DS9 need some love.
A transporter platform is already mapped in Ops. It's not big and would make the small Ops map too character busy as an arrival point. But if it were triggered for departures that would be nice.
Personally, I don't understand why Kurland isn't there already. But I think Ops needs an overhaul.
Yeah, a simple "Beam up" prompt when you step onto the Ops transporter pad would be cool...bonus points for a Cardassian transporter animation!
You're right, of course...that wasn't what the poster was suggesting, though.
On the series, basically all non-station personnel (and station personnel most of the time, for that matter) were depicted as physically docking with the station and entering through the docking ring/airlocks.
I would support either building the never-built-on-the-show Promenade transporter room, or simply having everybody spawn in at the shipyard airlocks, as if we'd docked.
I sent a general pitch for a Cardassian progression to a few of the devs. I'm not sure if they got a chance to read it, but I think it has much promise.
9 Episodes = 30+ episodes...?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
It's pronounced "S.T.O." "Stow" sounds idiotic! lol
The shot is from over Garak's shoulder in the Replimat, looking past the spiral staircase on the left of Bashir to the . . . doors(?) on the right. Those doors would be the transporter.
Not at all. I agree that beam to that three-person pad isn't practical for ongoing play in what isn't a large space. A beam out prompt would at least acknowledge what the television show interpreted. That the area really is a transporter pad and would be in addition to the Promenade transporter others have pointed out.
However, a beam-in to Ops would be immersive for the purposes of The Foundry. But only in that example.
That's a fun idea. In my OP, I deliberately left out stuff which could be considered non-functional fluff, but there are plenty of cool DS9 locations which could be added: a portion of the habitat ring, cargo bays, runabout landing pads, the ward room (already in-game thanks to Second Wave), and so on.
Another thing that bugs me about DS9 is the textures. Everything in-game looks...grimy. That's the only way I can describe it. After Starfleet and the Bajorans fixed the station up, it was a pretty clean-looking place, but the in-game version looks tarnished or neglected, somehow.
Adding some of the other places in, like habitat ring, could also allow more doors for foundry use.
Yeah, I actually love the, "But the Foundry authors could use it, even if the devs don't!" argument, though I doubt it carries much weight when the devs are trying to justify the time they spend on a project.
I don't mean to argue the point, but I would think DS9 would be on par. Yes, ESD is far, far more heavily trafficked; however DS9 is a heroic location. The Enterprise has her core command crew fleshed out, and even makes a number if appearances in the game now. DS9' new crew should get similar treatment. By adding the iconic locations to the promenade you could expand on the lore of the modern Deep Space Nine, and more importantly, add more Trek to Star Trek Online. Likely far cheaper than a V.O. session.
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/7x24/dogsorwar_242.jpg
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/7x24/dogsorwar_253.jpg
(You can see the same doors I posted earlier in the second shot here)
It still might be better to beam into the docking ring area rather than a transporter pad.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
The whole "docking ring area" as it exists now is non-canon. That wouldn't be THAT bad, but it also looks totally out of place and absolutely not like DS9 (artwork, dimensions, layout, etc.). Those clumsily added extra rooms on both sides of the Promenade-ring in the current DS9 map (shipyard and bank/exchange) should definitely not be part of any revamped DS9-interior.
In addition to the missing canon locations (infirmary, security office/brig, Garak's shop, etc.), any redesigned DS9-interior should have the center of the Promenade-ring filled with Quark's Bar, Grill, Gaming House and Holosuite Arcade (in the SAME instance, i.e., part of the SAME map, as the rest of the promenade).
The incredibly clumsy and ugly "staircase" connecting the different levels within Quark's has to be annihilated (i.e., not be part of any newly made map, of course), however it will be a challenge for the designers to accommodate access to the upper levels via the narrow and tiny corkscrew stairs. The only way popping to my small mind, would be to just make the corkscrew stairs interactive, i.e., you click on them, and then your character automatically uses them. Either this is then animated, or your avatar just re-appears on the other end of the stairs (would save the time to generate those rather intricate animations). The same would have to be done for access to the upper level of the Promenade (to which the 2nd level of Quark's is connected to as well). The current system with the elevators artificially splits the map up, resulting in virtually no one roaming the upper level, therefore preventing this awesome place to be "alive".
Fazit:
STOWiki admin.
is necessary... Fix the Quark's Bar ground map (Specifically the staircase), and split the Multipurpose Room's functions into multiple rooms. Then move the spawnpoint to in front of the docking hatches, and you're basically done. Transporters would be good, but aren't really necessary IMO.