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shuttle thoughts
rinkster
Member Posts: 3,549 Arc User
So the shuttle event has ended.
While I can't speak for everyone, I'd like to say how enjoyable this event was.
Shuttles are, for some of us, a major missed opportunity in game.
This event, by virtue of simply repurposing already popular and seasoned content, seems to me a resounding success.
It seemed to me that queues for these events, especially the fleet alerts, were solid all weekend and popped readily whichever faction one was.
One can only charatcerise the event as 'generous'.
Copious and flexible mark boxes, on an event with no cooldown.
Clearly this strongly influenced the popularity of the event.
However, in my view, it also showcased the simple desire of many to have an excuse to fly our shuttles.
I've been critical of Cryptic in the past, and no doubt they'll give me reason to be critical again.
However, this event was a resounding success in my view.
Well done cryptic.
While I can't speak for everyone, I'd like to say how enjoyable this event was.
Shuttles are, for some of us, a major missed opportunity in game.
This event, by virtue of simply repurposing already popular and seasoned content, seems to me a resounding success.
It seemed to me that queues for these events, especially the fleet alerts, were solid all weekend and popped readily whichever faction one was.
One can only charatcerise the event as 'generous'.
Copious and flexible mark boxes, on an event with no cooldown.
Clearly this strongly influenced the popularity of the event.
However, in my view, it also showcased the simple desire of many to have an excuse to fly our shuttles.
I've been critical of Cryptic in the past, and no doubt they'll give me reason to be critical again.
However, this event was a resounding success in my view.
Well done cryptic.
Post edited by rinkster on
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Comments
But anyways, I find the shuttles very very un fun to play because they blow up in like 3 seconds because whatever shield you put on doesn't matter. Also the shuttle tends to turn invisible when I turn and that's really annoying.
A habit I've picked up, due to my tendency to rabbit on for ages and create impenetrable walls of text.
Also.
It's how.
One speaks.
On a forum.
Like Shatner.
The event did highlight some issues along those lines for me.
Much harder to keep weapons with narrow arcs of fire on target, due to scaling and sizing issues. It was hard to find the sweet pot on the zoom.
However, as shuttles are so under utilised, I reckon its a skill that we'd soon pick up if we flew our tiny ships more often.
No cooldown was incredible. It allowed me to run the event at my own pace, without having to wait for cooldowns to expire, etc.
Flying my shuttle was a fun change of pace, as I'm usually a cruiser captain, but other than this event, shuttle queues rarely fill. Perhaps shuttle missions should be buffed a bit (not 118 marks, but more than they are now) to encourage use.
More shuttle gear would be awesome. I don't find it terribly realistic to put my full sized warp core in a Danube or Peregrine fighter. Perhaps to help with this, shuttle missions and queues drop shuttle gear (more than just Operation Gamma and The Vault)? That would get the economy rolling on the exchange. Make this gear worthwhile (360 degree beams, perhaps an extra accuracy mod or something on cannons.) Find some way to make the other gear (shields, defllectors, engines) unique as well.
Overall I find shuttles are under-used and under-developed. This event proved to me that they don't have to be, it was fun to fly, and the fast paced "mob" feeling was pretty cool. More gameplay like this would be welcome.
Here's what I'd like to see
- New Shuttles/Fighters
- New Unique Mechanics
- New Challenges
- New Unique Weapons
In the future hopefully.I'm sorry to people who I, in the past, insulted, annoyed, etc.
- Shuttles are poorly balanced. Some come with one BO slot and that's it, others can have 2 plus a special ability, and some of the good ones can only be had via Lobi, not via Zen or Dilithium or EC.
- Shuttles are extremely fragile against the typical crits created by NPCs.
- Healing powers in shuttles seem almost useless, you get so little out of it compared to what the same power gives you on a larger ship. (makes me wonder if there is also something similar to the Assimilated Set double dipping going on, making heals worse than they should be)
There is a lot less space magic going on overall - most of the flashy effects (other than Torpedo Spread perhaps) are Lt. and upwards power. (I think this is something that makes the idea of Tier 2 PVE or PVP missions particularly interesting - you can have "one" space magic, but beyond that, it's mostly about manoeuvring.)
Certainly, as you and Ralph mentioned, I'd be happy to see a range of shuttle only gear. Enough to make it sensible to demarcate shuttle and starship gear more stringently.
As a side effect, such a move would be an admirable opportunity to rebalance shuttle PvP.
No cool down timer.
100+ marks for each run.
And it would be just as popular as the shuttle event.
Personally I hate shuttles. and am glad its over. I ignored it for the first 2 days but seeing all the text in fleet chat about gaining a ridiculous amount of marks changed my mind. "Got 1200 Rom marks now after just a couple hours!" etc.
Hoped into a shuttle and didn't enjoy STO for the next 2 days to get the marks I needed for certain gear, Then stopped. ( I wanted the Undine set)
Im glad its over. lol
Well, I'm glad your ordeal is at an end.
Sadly, I'm just enough of a TRIBBLE to hope your ordeal starts again soon. :P
I fly escorts, love that thrill. so Shuttles just felt like the same gameplay, Stripped down with no cool powers to use.
The knowing if youre in the right firing arc I found can be a problem with just about any ship depending on how you adjust the camera when flying. I got reacquainted with it quicker on this shuttle event than I did the scimitar which Ive always felt has to be point farther down then what looks right to fire cannons. Typing that brings back memory of when I first started to try docking things in ksp.
It was a nice change of pace over all.
On the equipment, they should make shuttle gear separate from the other ships. It's not like it would be hard to do as everything is coded for it. They could also make it Rep/Fleet/Lobi so Cryptic gets their cut too.
They also need to tweak the shuttles some as well with maybe like 3 sub categories like the full size ships so you could have an interceptor (Tac), multi-role (Eng), support shuttle (Sci). Keep the max of 3 consoles, 2 BoFF slots (Ensign Only), and 1 device. Then each type would have their "native type and 1 universal or 1 of the other 2 careers. E.G. The shuttle has 1 Engineer Boff and the other can be either a Tac or Sci BoFF. That way Interceptors won't have 3 tac abilities. and keep some semblance of balance
Interceptors would be the mini escorts and have 1 tier 1 Tac Boff ability. Multis would have 1 Eng ability and so forth
Also, it was mentioned in another thread, a race mini game with shuttles would be nice. Maybe something run by the Ferengi.
Makes me think we should have a Tier 1 ship weekend soon...break out your connies and starter b'rels. Would be a fun use of those
Also in favor of more shuttle FA with more balanced rewards as a perm queue.
The issue with shuttles is the lack of ability's that ships in STO need to be functional at a basic level. TT, hull & shield heals are all mandatory. With the current shuttles you just can't do it all, so the only thing you can do is focus on damage and hope for the best.
At a minimum, just to cover the basics, you would need 4 Boff slots, 1Eng, 1Sci, 2Tac (without doffs & no room for shield res buffs). This would work well for everyone given that veteran players could use 2 purple doffs to regain a tactical slot, and reduce the cooldown of their other heals with more doffs (assuming team ability's) while new players could give up some survivability with TT for greater damage output.
/End of thread derailment.
I'm sorry to people who I, in the past, insulted, annoyed, etc.
Otherwise, my old shuttles have gone back into the dust covered box called "Mothballs."
They were never any serious part of the game. And PVE missions involving them were more of a hassle.
Fed NWS Shuttle Edition W10 with clear on N and W
Shuttle Event - Fleet Alert - DPS Edition
I have to say, i really enjoyed the weekend, finally some actual pve challenge... I didnt really farm marks though, but was busy dps hunting ;D
best regards, RyanSTO