In the Dreadnought! novels by Diane Duane, there is reference to a separate scholia at Starfleet Academy called Command Track or something similar. People selected for this remain within their career field but are also intended to be used as command slot personnel from their first day in the Fleet. They graduate from the Academy as Lieutenants rather than Ensigns. They also attend for another year, I think. Diane implies this a few times but does not say so directly in the novels. I tend to think of what she wrote as equivalent to post graduate courses.
Also the Executive or First Officer's job is to present her Captain with a smoothly running completely functional instrument with which the Captain then implements policy as directed by Fleet Command. The XO takes care of the day to day stuff, duty rosters, galley menu, basic crew qualifications and paperwork, so the Captain can focus her attentions on the mission.
An amusing fact I ran across: During WWII in the British Royal Navy, the XO of any submarine was usually referred to as "Jimmy". Including official paperwork. I laughed when I discovered this. I never found an explanation for it. Still looking though. I have implemented this in STO to the extent I can. I have a lot of BOffs whose name is Jimmy.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
New system looks great, easy to use and configure, good work.
One thing missing is that the descriptions for all of training manuals are blank, it just has the name but no other info.
Please add description of the abilities, especially the names of the new command ones make us imagine too much: "Reroute Power from Life Support II: Increase power by 20 to all subsystems, 50% of crew unconscious for 15 seconds."
retrofitting old ships with hybrid seats could give better monetization options than not though.
imagine:
t5u ships gain one ens level hybrid seat
free event t6 get lt seat
cstore t6 ships get lt.com seat/two seats, one ens, one lt.
lobi/lockbox get comm seat/two seats, one lt, one lt.com.
it'll still be worth it to get the new ships since they'll have much better options by default, but it'll make buying older ships still a viable tactics.
which means more money for cryptic, especially if it was a token that would unlock specialization for a predetermined seat.
player could buy a token for intel, another for command, apply both to a t5u scimitar and get an ens level seat that could switch between intel and command at will.
Now clowns, that's another story. They scare the crap out of me.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
Then you haven't actually been following Star Trek very closely at all:
STO refers to the "Red" shirts, as Tactical Officers. In reality, these are actually Command Officers. The "Gold" shirts are either Operations or Tactical Officers. In STO, they decided to make the Red shirts "Tactical", and keep Gold solely as Engineers.
I have. The colors of the shirts have always meant more than one thing. Going by TOS colors Gold = Command, Red = Security and engineering, blue = science and medical.
and yet Sulu wore gold and was the Helmsman
Checkov wore gold and was the Navigator
Uhura wore red and was the comms officer.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
In the Dreadnought! novels by Diane Duane, there is reference to a separate scholia at Starfleet Academy called Command Track or something similar. People selected for this remain within their career field but are also intended to be used as command slot personnel from their first day in the Fleet. They graduate from the Academy as Lieutenants rather than Ensigns. They also attend for another year, I think. Diane implies this a few times but does not say so directly in the novels. I tend to think of what she wrote as equivalent to post graduate courses.
Also the Executive or First Officer's job is to present her Captain with a smoothly running completely functional instrument with which the Captain then implements policy as directed by Fleet Command. The XO takes care of the day to day stuff, duty rosters, galley menu, basic crew qualifications and paperwork, so the Captain can focus her attentions on the mission.
An amusing fact I ran across: During WWII in the British Royal Navy, the XO of any submarine was usually referred to as "Jimmy". Including official paperwork. I laughed when I discovered this. I never found an explanation for it. Still looking though. I have implemented this in STO to the extent I can. I have a lot of BOffs whose name is Jimmy.
What you are referring to are line officers. Line officers are people who regardless of their job are in line for command. Eventually a line officer will end up commanding a ship. In the Navy officer would do a division officer tour (of any school) then a Department Head tour (of any school) and if all goes right then they'd get command.
The other side of that is Staff Corps officers...like Medical or Dental. These are officers who are not in line to command a ship. A command for a doctor would be heading up a hospital.
The XO/First Officer's main job it to train the crew. On top of all the things you listed in combat he would oversee the damage control teams and wouldn't be on the bridge. This way of the bridge takes a hit..the chain of command is in tact. The Chief Engineer would not direct the damage control teams because he would be too busy trying to keep the ship's power plant up and running. I was stationed on an aircraft carrier in the US Navy and the third senior officer handled duty rosters. I am not sure about galley menu's...I never remember seeing anyone have to approve them.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
I have. The colors of the shirts have always meant more than one thing. Going by TOS colors Gold = Command, Red = Security and engineering, blue = science and medical.
and yet Sulu wore gold and was the Helmsman
Checkov wore gold and was the Navigator
Uhura wore red and was the comms officer.
Well aware of the colors in both TOS, and the TNG+ era.
TOS:
Command: Gold
Operations/Security: Red
Science/Medical: Blue
TNG:
Command: Red
Operations/Security: Gold
Science/Medical: Blue
Basically, they flipped the two colors around (for what reason, I do not know). Both Sulu and Chekov wore "Gold", and held "Command" level positions. Helmsman/Navigator was combined for the TNG-era, and typically flown by an officer in Command "Red" (just like Sulu/Chekov in TOS). Case in point, Wesley Cruser, and Tom Paris. ENT reverted to the "TOS" coloring, with Travis Mayweather wearing a uniform with a "Gold" Command trim.
Operations include jobs both on the bridge, as well as Security and Engineering.
Always a chance, I suppose. But it's not currently in our design plans to do so.
Bad Move. You'd get much more use and more player use out of the systems if they were usable on the current ships and there would be more play variety.
I'm not able to use a Command Officer on an Intel ship? They don't have command officers?
It makes very little sense.
Let's see what Command ships you guys produce. Tier 6 canon is the way to go for the record.
The whole "spend $30 to grind Argala to get the specialization needed to actually use your ship and then rinse/repeat" thing just pisses me off.
So, I'll give a few suggestions instead of ******** and moaning:
1) Just as you have the option to add a specialization to a bridge officer candidate, add a means to get a specialization to a bridge officer slot on a ship.
or
2) Increase XP across the board. If the cycle is going to be this short between new ships/specializations, you have to make it easier/less grindy to get there. I'm on 27 of Intelligence, and the idea of having to do another around again makes me nauseous.
or
3) Give people more options to use their favorite looks on the new ships. People pay for both looks and power creep, so maybe they'll pay another $30 if they can keep a Defiant/Galaxy/Voyager-ish looking ship with an option of a different BOFFs setup.
I agree with everything except number 3. All ships need to be more customizable as to what abilities the crews can use, but if we just make it so you can swap looks then it becomes pointless to have different ships, unless they completely rework how ships are classified.
I'd say that as far as having a new specialization out THIS fast, it's worth noting that sometimes it's good to leave some space. I'm no where near finished on any specialization, and I wasn't expecting a new one til May. I'm not going to accelerate my grinding though, but if this game is going to stay fun, then the grind should be minimized.
In this game yes. But canonically it was different.
Command track was a separate vocation that only opened up at the Commander rank. Recall Troi's Commander test. Her billet, her position was ship's counselor so she stayed in blue, Crusher's Billet was Chief Medical Officer, so she stayed in blue, BUT they were Commanders who had completed the training for the Command track.
When Worf became Strategic Operations Officer, a tactical command billet that involved coordinating fleet movements, then he went into command red even at the Lt Commander rank.
Whenever Data was made first officer and stopped being the operations manager of the ship, he went to Command Red. Crusher, command of a medical ship, but in Command Red.
Geordi started out as a helmsmen in red, but was promoted to Chief Engineer and went into Ops Gold.
If you look at the Enterprise senior staff however the two guys wearing red were the two guys whose ONLY job was commanding the ship and crew, the CO and XO.
I have. The colors of the shirts have always meant more than one thing. Going by TOS colors Gold = Command, Red = Security and engineering, blue = science and medical.
and yet Sulu wore gold and was the Helmsman
Checkov wore gold and was the Navigator
Uhura wore red and was the comms officer.
Helmsmen and Navigator are in the Tactical and Command pathway. Always have been. Mayweather also wore command gold. Remember Ent was Contiguous with TOS so there was no change between.
Uhura specifically wore red, at a time when red was operations and security. Communications falls under operations, even in the modern Navy. Note that Worf the security chief in Operations Gold, always handled communications on the Big E-D.
As for why the change, the producers wanted to do away with the old "redshirt" effect, so they put the important people in the red shirts this time. It would actually be funny if Starfleet did that in universe, noticing the trend in junior officer fatalities. It's also possible that leaving command officers in red was a holdover from the late 23rd early 24th century, TOS movie uniforms which were all predominantly red.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Well, I know Cryptic at one point had plans for a "First Officer" system, that eventually did not come to pass. If there is going to be a Command spec tree, I think it would be a fine addition to any ship to allow this feature to finally be added.
A First Officer bridge officer slot on every ship (even with limited bridge officer powers) would be a nice way to introduce players to the game mechanics, in case Cryptic wanted to go with "Command Ships" in the future, that offered more Command power usage.
I barely have any experience with the Intelligence powers since the only Intelligence ship I have is the Breen Carrier.
If Cryptic wanted to capitalize and get the most out of monetizing the Command spec tree, I think the best way to go about it is give the rest of the playerbase a taste of what it can do by retroactively adding it to all of the end-game ships as First Officer bridge slots.
Along those lines I think it would be much better if every ship merely had a single 'specialist' boff seat where you could seat an intel, or a command, or whatever else they come up with.
I understand you want to sell ships. Thats why they have traits, consoles, and unique setups. They do not need to have 10 super special boff abilities attached as well, it just makes all this high quality extra systems work you guys do become wasted in a way.
This would be an ideal time to add a Typhoon/Jupiter class of ship, but I'm not going to tell Bort/[Insert staffer name here] what s/he can or should do in regards to ship stocking. Just a suggestion that a Command Officer/Intel-spec'd Typhoon would be a nice addition to the game.
Always a chance, I suppose. But it's not currently in our design plans to do so.
I would strongly recommend this as a upgrade to T6/ retrofit to some or all FLEET SHIPS... adding a FLEET SEAT with a COMMAND SPECIALIST BOFF seat would really make sense (coming from a veteran twice over, and a Gold subscriber who would gladly pay 700 ZEN to upgrade FLEET SHIPS to T6F if they would have this Command Specialist BOFF seating).
Also I think there are some great KDF and ROM ships that DESERVE the command BOFF hybrid seat, and could quickly be upgraded to T6 for 700 ZEN. How about a T6 Denderickx (never spell it right I know) or a or a T6 KDF Carrier or T6 Bortesque (same spelling comment).
It is imperative , the devs MUST make all Tu5 ships able to upgrade to a command/intel station , otherwise who will fly the older ships. Especiallywhen those are not that old take Vesta class for example , it should be the best technology that starfleet has all the new prototipes have been tested and implemented on Vesta. It's newer than Interprid ... . Anyway the Tu5 ships upgrade to new spec stations is mandatory , if they still want to call this game Star Trek
Always a chance, I suppose. But it's not currently in our design plans to do so.
It would be a good move to make the Lieutenant Intel seats of the current non-Intel Tier 6 ships be adjusted to a Generic Hybrid seat. So kind of like the universal slots, but the specialization portion of the slot is universal while the regular career portion (Engineering, Tactical, Science) of the slot is fixed.
My reasoning is that the Guardian Cruiser is more suited for the Command specialization than the Intel specialization.
Will there be a way to train BO's with skills that are currently only trainable via sacrificing a BOFF to train another BOFF? For example, Beam Overload 3 or EMP Probe 3, etc.
As it sits right now with how its on Tribble, you MUST find a BO with the correct non-trainable skill and only use that BO. But it seems like this system is designed to reduce the number of BO's you have to have in order to swap between ships, and focus more on their traits... Without sacraficable boffs you are stuck with dozens of extra BO's just for specific skills.
Hey guys, I hear what you're getting at, and we hear your concerns.
But this thread is supposed to be about the abilities, and the specialization specifically. I'd like to steer the conversation away from just discussing the availability (or lack thereof, at the moment) of Command Seats on starships. Even though they are intertwined, it really is a separate subject.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Hey guys, I hear what you're getting at, and we hear your concerns.
But this thread is supposed to be about the abilities, and the specialization specifically. I'd like to steer the conversation away from just discussing the availability (or lack thereof, at the moment) of Command Seats on starships. Even though they are intertwined, it really is a separate subject.
I do find the new expose/exploit interaction for energy weapons and projectiles interesting. I am assuming the -resist effects the enemies hull resistance as written and feel it would be more attractive if it effected both hull and shield kinetic resist. I would argue for penetration instead but with the variety of ways to gain that already it might not be such a good idea.
Hey guys, I hear what you're getting at, and we hear your concerns.
But this thread is supposed to be about the abilities, and the specialization specifically. I'd like to steer the conversation away from just discussing the availability (or lack thereof, at the moment) of Command Seats on starships. Even though they are intertwined, it really is a separate subject.
Would you suggest we start a new thread then elsewhere to cover the concerns? My issue with the new system is:
1 - There is not enough on Tribble to effectively test it and I feel it was rushed to the server too early.
2 - We only learned about it a few days ago so this will be another case of a system "set in stone" that we will get as is whether we like it or not.
3 - I am not in favor of the additional gates associated to training my BOFFs in terms of time, skill points, and dilithium. I feel I am being taxed even further for something that is a fundamental part of gameplay.
4- The 1.5 million XP needed to train my BOFFs now is way out of line. Have you not heard the playerbases concerns about the XP issues? Why would another XP laden system be release before those are fully addressed? Are things to address it coming along with this update?
On it's merit I think the system is designed well, as I do think of all the systems in game (except for crafting which is terrible but that is another story), but this implementation of it is poor. That is the crux here. Nicely designed systems that are poorly implemented from the perspective of the consumer.
I am in favor of the people who think ALL ships should now get a "First Officer" seat where this BOFF will sit. Roll this into the "First Officer" system that was planned so long ago. Give them two skills at ranks based on the ship tier and player level. Move them through, Eng/Lt - Lt/Lt.Cmdr, Lt.Cmdr/Cmdr, and let them be trained to a higher rank so you can get a Cmdr/Cpt skill on your highest tier ships.
People will blast me for power creep but c'mon that ship has sailed with DR and people doing over 100k DPS already.
Even though they are intertwined, it really is a separate subject.
This part doesn't even make sense. Even, Oxymoronic if you will. Command Seats on ships, and Command Specialization are most definitely part of the same subject. And plenty of players have voiced their opinions on their existence (or lack thereof) on existing ships (on Tribble). Like the ships with the Intel Specialization available, Command Specialization will likely be limited to brand new 30+ dollar ships. Which is both counterproductive to the existing Fleet of ships in game, and downright off-putting for potential customers.
What sells more?
Tier 5 + upgrade
or
Tier 6
Seeing as most of the iconic ships exist at Tier 5 (none at Tier 6), I'd wager on the former, even thou the cost of which is actually HIGHER than Tier 6 (Tier 5 cost 2500 Zen + Upgrade for 700 Zen ... Tier 6 cost 3000 Zen)
Hey guys, I hear what you're getting at, and we hear your concerns.
But this thread is supposed to be about the abilities, and the specialization specifically. I'd like to steer the conversation away from just discussing the availability (or lack thereof, at the moment) of Command Seats on starships. Even though they are intertwined, it really is a separate subject.
I really can't say much, and I don't think anyone can but I could be wrong, because I don't think anyone out there has enough points to unlock ten tiers of command. Is there anything that can be done about this so we can test the systems? Something like the level granter on the Jenolan sphere that's now not working last I checked. Some way to get the points to be able to test the system.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
After looking over the new specialization tree, to me they look interesting. A bunch of team wide buffs, and stuff to help out the team on ground and space. It even has a team wide run speed bonus, and a xp bonus that adds up the more players you have on your team.
I like the idea of the energy weapon and torpedo interactions that the torpedo exploits will open up.
Being a huge fan of having pets and minions, I especially like what the ship trait this specialization gives you. Being able to call more and more ships in to support you will be fun, in my opinion.
To me this looks like the specialization to use when you are on a team, where intel is the one to use when you are of on your own.
As I can't test any of this because of not having the points to fill it up with that is the extent of my feedback at this time. I'll try to add more when we can test out the abilities, and when we can test out the bridge officer abilities, whatever they are.
I went to the store to check out the Boff command abilities, even if they are the low level ones, and I have to say, it is very annoying to not be able to tell what it does from the tooltip anymore.
All the store's tooltip reads is "This trains a boff in X ability" That is useless information. Please make the tooltip tell us what the heck the ability we are looking at does instead of telling us that it is an item that trains an ability.
On top of this we (or at least I couldn't) can't actually give my boffs a specialization, so I can't train the abilities onto my officers in order to see what they do.
Please let us know when you are going to implement this in a way that will actually allow us to do something to give you feedback with.
Okay took a look at the modules in the dil store here are a few thoughts:
-Delegated Devestation: I can see this getting exploited by a coordinated team. One person activates it making everyone else immune to weapons offline, then the other four teammates activate it, bypassing the weapons offline penalty and gaining a team wide +200% bonus to energy weapon damage.
-I really like the look of Hammer and Anvil, and Timely Intervention
-Take Cover's immunity to control seems like a bit much to me. Combat should be all about the interaction of abilities. One of those interactions is going into a crouch to take less damage, and the counter is to do a knockdown of some sort (I like grenades for this) knocking them out of the crouch. This seems like it will simply remove this interaction, effectively removing a part of the game, at least that is the way I see it.
You stated that in order to train a current Bridge Officer in the new Command Abilities, you needed to spend a total of 10 points in the Command Specialization. I spent 10 points (I log in daily and have been unlocking all the Specializations with the daily 2 points from the XP Tribble Granter. Got Pilot, Intelligence fully unlocked and was saving up points to unlock Commando all at once) in Command, however, there is no way that I can find (through R&D, Bridge Officer skills, or elsewhere) to "Train" a Bridge Officer in Command to let them learn the new skills. Is this a bug? Is there something I am supposed to do? You indicated that you would get something from the Officer Training to give to a Bridge Officer to train them, but there is nothing there, just regular training manuals for the regular abilities. Also, I have noticed that my Tactical Fleet Admiral can not "Make" a Training Manual for Beam Overload 3 or Torpedo Spread 3. Where do we get these Training Manuals from? I have 5 different Tac Officers on Tribble and none of them can make these. Is this also a bug?
One last thing, I noticed that if you go to one of your Bridge officers, on the Status Tab, and click the Career drop down on the bottom and hit Promote, the option comes up to promote them to Captain.
Does this mean what I think it does? Is the Captain Bridge Officer idea (where you promote a Boff to Captain and put it in control of one of your ships) being worked on finally? Thanks
Overall, I like the new system, but not sure that i like the idea of another "specialty" class of T6 ships.
One last thing, I noticed that if you go to one of your Bridge officers, on the Status Tab, and click the Career drop down on the bottom and hit Promote, the option comes up to promote them to Captain.
Does this mean what I think it does? Is the Captain Bridge Officer idea (where you promote a Boff to Captain and put it in control of one of your ships) being worked on finally? Thanks
We have no design plans to allow Boffs to advance to Captain at this time, or any time in the near future. This is likely an oversight in the new code that was setup for the Boff Training Revamp.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Along those lines I think it would be much better if every ship merely had a single 'specialist' boff seat where you could seat an intel, or a command, or whatever else they come up with.
So rather than having relatively unique intel, command, and so on ships you have one general mass of T6 content (with T5-U on its heals to add redundancy.)
The point of any of these specializations [from my armchair] is to specialize, making it easier to create compelling ships even after cryptic has spent these past years exploring the more obvious combinations of stations, consoles, and base stats. You may even able to justify two near identical cruiser being released NOW if you have one with intel space on a LT and the other with Command space on a CMDR and LT. Now while that may mean that cryptic can spend less time worrying about what to populate the c-store with [except as far as producing that content is concerned] that has the more relevant benefit of ensuring that as we continue to play more desirable content can be trusted to be released.
As far as gameplay is concerned having one ship that can do everything is the simpler solution but as an ongoing piece of entertainment its the less fun/productive one (see. why we have profession locked boff stations in the first place. Restriction forces strategy and more stragies is something the devs can sell and without it becoming an unreasonably Ferengi practice.)
In short: yay! I approve of the fact that the new spec is being handled like the old spec (broadly.) However what might help further justify the effort of investing in specialized boffs (besides the ground powers and incidental relevance to a new ship) is some other, less conditional, benefit to becoming a specialist. Would a command and intel boff space trait [in a 5th slot] be out of the question?
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You stated that in order to train a current Bridge Officer in the new Command Abilities, you needed to spend a total of 10 points in the Command Specialization. I spent 10 points ... in Command, however, there is no way that I can find (through R&D, Bridge Officer skills, or elsewhere) to "Train" a Bridge Officer in Command to let them learn the new skills. Is this a bug?
The item you're looking to unlock in the Officer Training R&D School is called a Specialization Qualification. If the recipe is missing (or not unlocking correctly) then yes - that's a bug.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
We have no design plans to allow Boffs to advance to Captain at this time, or any time in the near future. This is likely an oversight in the new code that was setup for the Boff Training Revamp.
Comments
Also the Executive or First Officer's job is to present her Captain with a smoothly running completely functional instrument with which the Captain then implements policy as directed by Fleet Command. The XO takes care of the day to day stuff, duty rosters, galley menu, basic crew qualifications and paperwork, so the Captain can focus her attentions on the mission.
An amusing fact I ran across: During WWII in the British Royal Navy, the XO of any submarine was usually referred to as "Jimmy". Including official paperwork. I laughed when I discovered this. I never found an explanation for it. Still looking though. I have implemented this in STO to the extent I can. I have a lot of BOffs whose name is Jimmy.
One thing missing is that the descriptions for all of training manuals are blank, it just has the name but no other info.
Please add description of the abilities, especially the names of the new command ones make us imagine too much: "Reroute Power from Life Support II: Increase power by 20 to all subsystems, 50% of crew unconscious for 15 seconds."
imagine:
t5u ships gain one ens level hybrid seat
free event t6 get lt seat
cstore t6 ships get lt.com seat/two seats, one ens, one lt.
lobi/lockbox get comm seat/two seats, one lt, one lt.com.
it'll still be worth it to get the new ships since they'll have much better options by default, but it'll make buying older ships still a viable tactics.
which means more money for cryptic, especially if it was a token that would unlock specialization for a predetermined seat.
player could buy a token for intel, another for command, apply both to a t5u scimitar and get an ens level seat that could switch between intel and command at will.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
I have. The colors of the shirts have always meant more than one thing. Going by TOS colors Gold = Command, Red = Security and engineering, blue = science and medical.
and yet Sulu wore gold and was the Helmsman
Checkov wore gold and was the Navigator
Uhura wore red and was the comms officer.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
What you are referring to are line officers. Line officers are people who regardless of their job are in line for command. Eventually a line officer will end up commanding a ship. In the Navy officer would do a division officer tour (of any school) then a Department Head tour (of any school) and if all goes right then they'd get command.
The other side of that is Staff Corps officers...like Medical or Dental. These are officers who are not in line to command a ship. A command for a doctor would be heading up a hospital.
The XO/First Officer's main job it to train the crew. On top of all the things you listed in combat he would oversee the damage control teams and wouldn't be on the bridge. This way of the bridge takes a hit..the chain of command is in tact. The Chief Engineer would not direct the damage control teams because he would be too busy trying to keep the ship's power plant up and running. I was stationed on an aircraft carrier in the US Navy and the third senior officer handled duty rosters. I am not sure about galley menu's...I never remember seeing anyone have to approve them.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Well aware of the colors in both TOS, and the TNG+ era.
TOS:
Command: Gold
Operations/Security: Red
Science/Medical: Blue
TNG:
Command: Red
Operations/Security: Gold
Science/Medical: Blue
Basically, they flipped the two colors around (for what reason, I do not know). Both Sulu and Chekov wore "Gold", and held "Command" level positions. Helmsman/Navigator was combined for the TNG-era, and typically flown by an officer in Command "Red" (just like Sulu/Chekov in TOS). Case in point, Wesley Cruser, and Tom Paris. ENT reverted to the "TOS" coloring, with Travis Mayweather wearing a uniform with a "Gold" Command trim.
Operations include jobs both on the bridge, as well as Security and Engineering.
I'm not able to use a Command Officer on an Intel ship? They don't have command officers?
It makes very little sense.
Let's see what Command ships you guys produce. Tier 6 canon is the way to go for the record. Agreed. It would've been optimal. But I need to see what they've got first.
I agree with everything except number 3. All ships need to be more customizable as to what abilities the crews can use, but if we just make it so you can swap looks then it becomes pointless to have different ships, unless they completely rework how ships are classified.
I'd say that as far as having a new specialization out THIS fast, it's worth noting that sometimes it's good to leave some space. I'm no where near finished on any specialization, and I wasn't expecting a new one til May. I'm not going to accelerate my grinding though, but if this game is going to stay fun, then the grind should be minimized.
There's no apparent rest period.
In this game yes. But canonically it was different.
Command track was a separate vocation that only opened up at the Commander rank. Recall Troi's Commander test. Her billet, her position was ship's counselor so she stayed in blue, Crusher's Billet was Chief Medical Officer, so she stayed in blue, BUT they were Commanders who had completed the training for the Command track.
When Worf became Strategic Operations Officer, a tactical command billet that involved coordinating fleet movements, then he went into command red even at the Lt Commander rank.
Whenever Data was made first officer and stopped being the operations manager of the ship, he went to Command Red. Crusher, command of a medical ship, but in Command Red.
Geordi started out as a helmsmen in red, but was promoted to Chief Engineer and went into Ops Gold.
If you look at the Enterprise senior staff however the two guys wearing red were the two guys whose ONLY job was commanding the ship and crew, the CO and XO.
Helmsmen and Navigator are in the Tactical and Command pathway. Always have been. Mayweather also wore command gold. Remember Ent was Contiguous with TOS so there was no change between.
Uhura specifically wore red, at a time when red was operations and security. Communications falls under operations, even in the modern Navy. Note that Worf the security chief in Operations Gold, always handled communications on the Big E-D.
As for why the change, the producers wanted to do away with the old "redshirt" effect, so they put the important people in the red shirts this time. It would actually be funny if Starfleet did that in universe, noticing the trend in junior officer fatalities. It's also possible that leaving command officers in red was a holdover from the late 23rd early 24th century, TOS movie uniforms which were all predominantly red.
Along those lines I think it would be much better if every ship merely had a single 'specialist' boff seat where you could seat an intel, or a command, or whatever else they come up with.
I understand you want to sell ships. Thats why they have traits, consoles, and unique setups. They do not need to have 10 super special boff abilities attached as well, it just makes all this high quality extra systems work you guys do become wasted in a way.
Oh well.
I would strongly recommend this as a upgrade to T6/ retrofit to some or all FLEET SHIPS... adding a FLEET SEAT with a COMMAND SPECIALIST BOFF seat would really make sense (coming from a veteran twice over, and a Gold subscriber who would gladly pay 700 ZEN to upgrade FLEET SHIPS to T6F if they would have this Command Specialist BOFF seating).
Also I think there are some great KDF and ROM ships that DESERVE the command BOFF hybrid seat, and could quickly be upgraded to T6 for 700 ZEN. How about a T6 Denderickx (never spell it right I know) or a or a T6 KDF Carrier or T6 Bortesque (same spelling comment).
It would be a good move to make the Lieutenant Intel seats of the current non-Intel Tier 6 ships be adjusted to a Generic Hybrid seat. So kind of like the universal slots, but the specialization portion of the slot is universal while the regular career portion (Engineering, Tactical, Science) of the slot is fixed.
My reasoning is that the Guardian Cruiser is more suited for the Command specialization than the Intel specialization.
As it sits right now with how its on Tribble, you MUST find a BO with the correct non-trainable skill and only use that BO. But it seems like this system is designed to reduce the number of BO's you have to have in order to swap between ships, and focus more on their traits... Without sacraficable boffs you are stuck with dozens of extra BO's just for specific skills.
But this thread is supposed to be about the abilities, and the specialization specifically. I'd like to steer the conversation away from just discussing the availability (or lack thereof, at the moment) of Command Seats on starships. Even though they are intertwined, it really is a separate subject.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
I do find the new expose/exploit interaction for energy weapons and projectiles interesting. I am assuming the -resist effects the enemies hull resistance as written and feel it would be more attractive if it effected both hull and shield kinetic resist. I would argue for penetration instead but with the variety of ways to gain that already it might not be such a good idea.
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Would you suggest we start a new thread then elsewhere to cover the concerns? My issue with the new system is:
1 - There is not enough on Tribble to effectively test it and I feel it was rushed to the server too early.
2 - We only learned about it a few days ago so this will be another case of a system "set in stone" that we will get as is whether we like it or not.
3 - I am not in favor of the additional gates associated to training my BOFFs in terms of time, skill points, and dilithium. I feel I am being taxed even further for something that is a fundamental part of gameplay.
4- The 1.5 million XP needed to train my BOFFs now is way out of line. Have you not heard the playerbases concerns about the XP issues? Why would another XP laden system be release before those are fully addressed? Are things to address it coming along with this update?
On it's merit I think the system is designed well, as I do think of all the systems in game (except for crafting which is terrible but that is another story), but this implementation of it is poor. That is the crux here. Nicely designed systems that are poorly implemented from the perspective of the consumer.
I am in favor of the people who think ALL ships should now get a "First Officer" seat where this BOFF will sit. Roll this into the "First Officer" system that was planned so long ago. Give them two skills at ranks based on the ship tier and player level. Move them through, Eng/Lt - Lt/Lt.Cmdr, Lt.Cmdr/Cmdr, and let them be trained to a higher rank so you can get a Cmdr/Cpt skill on your highest tier ships.
People will blast me for power creep but c'mon that ship has sailed with DR and people doing over 100k DPS already.
This part doesn't even make sense. Even, Oxymoronic if you will. Command Seats on ships, and Command Specialization are most definitely part of the same subject. And plenty of players have voiced their opinions on their existence (or lack thereof) on existing ships (on Tribble). Like the ships with the Intel Specialization available, Command Specialization will likely be limited to brand new 30+ dollar ships. Which is both counterproductive to the existing Fleet of ships in game, and downright off-putting for potential customers.
What sells more?
Tier 5 + upgrade
or
Tier 6
Seeing as most of the iconic ships exist at Tier 5 (none at Tier 6), I'd wager on the former, even thou the cost of which is actually HIGHER than Tier 6 (Tier 5 cost 2500 Zen + Upgrade for 700 Zen ... Tier 6 cost 3000 Zen)
I really can't say much, and I don't think anyone can but I could be wrong, because I don't think anyone out there has enough points to unlock ten tiers of command. Is there anything that can be done about this so we can test the systems? Something like the level granter on the Jenolan sphere that's now not working last I checked. Some way to get the points to be able to test the system.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
I like the idea of the energy weapon and torpedo interactions that the torpedo exploits will open up.
Being a huge fan of having pets and minions, I especially like what the ship trait this specialization gives you. Being able to call more and more ships in to support you will be fun, in my opinion.
To me this looks like the specialization to use when you are on a team, where intel is the one to use when you are of on your own.
As I can't test any of this because of not having the points to fill it up with that is the extent of my feedback at this time. I'll try to add more when we can test out the abilities, and when we can test out the bridge officer abilities, whatever they are.
All the store's tooltip reads is "This trains a boff in X ability" That is useless information. Please make the tooltip tell us what the heck the ability we are looking at does instead of telling us that it is an item that trains an ability.
On top of this we (or at least I couldn't) can't actually give my boffs a specialization, so I can't train the abilities onto my officers in order to see what they do.
Please let us know when you are going to implement this in a way that will actually allow us to do something to give you feedback with.
-Delegated Devestation: I can see this getting exploited by a coordinated team. One person activates it making everyone else immune to weapons offline, then the other four teammates activate it, bypassing the weapons offline penalty and gaining a team wide +200% bonus to energy weapon damage.
-I really like the look of Hammer and Anvil, and Timely Intervention
-Take Cover's immunity to control seems like a bit much to me. Combat should be all about the interaction of abilities. One of those interactions is going into a crouch to take less damage, and the counter is to do a knockdown of some sort (I like grenades for this) knocking them out of the crouch. This seems like it will simply remove this interaction, effectively removing a part of the game, at least that is the way I see it.
You stated that in order to train a current Bridge Officer in the new Command Abilities, you needed to spend a total of 10 points in the Command Specialization. I spent 10 points (I log in daily and have been unlocking all the Specializations with the daily 2 points from the XP Tribble Granter. Got Pilot, Intelligence fully unlocked and was saving up points to unlock Commando all at once) in Command, however, there is no way that I can find (through R&D, Bridge Officer skills, or elsewhere) to "Train" a Bridge Officer in Command to let them learn the new skills. Is this a bug? Is there something I am supposed to do? You indicated that you would get something from the Officer Training to give to a Bridge Officer to train them, but there is nothing there, just regular training manuals for the regular abilities. Also, I have noticed that my Tactical Fleet Admiral can not "Make" a Training Manual for Beam Overload 3 or Torpedo Spread 3. Where do we get these Training Manuals from? I have 5 different Tac Officers on Tribble and none of them can make these. Is this also a bug?
One last thing, I noticed that if you go to one of your Bridge officers, on the Status Tab, and click the Career drop down on the bottom and hit Promote, the option comes up to promote them to Captain.
http://s42.photobucket.com/user/tre_razor/media/33_zpsb1ccb73f.jpg.html
Does this mean what I think it does? Is the Captain Bridge Officer idea (where you promote a Boff to Captain and put it in control of one of your ships) being worked on finally? Thanks
Overall, I like the new system, but not sure that i like the idea of another "specialty" class of T6 ships.
Holy TRIBBLE, I hope you're right.
Nooope. Let's nip that rumor in the bud.
We have no design plans to allow Boffs to advance to Captain at this time, or any time in the near future. This is likely an oversight in the new code that was setup for the Boff Training Revamp.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
So rather than having relatively unique intel, command, and so on ships you have one general mass of T6 content (with T5-U on its heals to add redundancy.)
The point of any of these specializations [from my armchair] is to specialize, making it easier to create compelling ships even after cryptic has spent these past years exploring the more obvious combinations of stations, consoles, and base stats. You may even able to justify two near identical cruiser being released NOW if you have one with intel space on a LT and the other with Command space on a CMDR and LT. Now while that may mean that cryptic can spend less time worrying about what to populate the c-store with [except as far as producing that content is concerned] that has the more relevant benefit of ensuring that as we continue to play more desirable content can be trusted to be released.
As far as gameplay is concerned having one ship that can do everything is the simpler solution but as an ongoing piece of entertainment its the less fun/productive one (see. why we have profession locked boff stations in the first place. Restriction forces strategy and more stragies is something the devs can sell and without it becoming an unreasonably Ferengi practice.)
In short: yay! I approve of the fact that the new spec is being handled like the old spec (broadly.) However what might help further justify the effort of investing in specialized boffs (besides the ground powers and incidental relevance to a new ship) is some other, less conditional, benefit to becoming a specialist. Would a command and intel boff space trait [in a 5th slot] be out of the question?
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The item you're looking to unlock in the Officer Training R&D School is called a Specialization Qualification. If the recipe is missing (or not unlocking correctly) then yes - that's a bug.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Dadgummit! Oh well. Thanks for clarifying.