The other day I was looking at some forum posts about having other factions such as borg and cardassians, then I was thought - there are civilians in this galaxy as well!
I'm wondering what some thought were on an option to create a civilian character whose abilities were decided in a similar way as the specialisations work out as now. The career options for a civilian could be very diverse:
- Bounty Hunter
- Explorer/Scientist
- Trader
- Smuggler
- Leader (of a colony or something)
- Pilot
- Farmer/miner (or some kind of resource harvester)
There could also be a greater range of ships, the ability to earn reputation with faction such as the feds/klingons/roms/cardys/dominion/kazon/bajorans/talaxians/tholians etc. etc. etc..
Ok. Now let's be realistic about it (not trying to be rude; just blunt). You get all the junk heap ships (all Civilian or converted Civilian to rudimentary warship) and no access to top Faction-specific T5s or T6s even if you're aligned with them (same way Romulans cannot). Access to Faction ships at T2-T4 depends on how many missions you complete for that Faction, and helping other factions reduces your points with Factions not quite friendly with them (restriction/limitation removed once Surface Tension is played; as that's when the Alliance formally kicks in, and new missions that don't reduce other Faction points appear).
On the other hand, you get missions to help you discount Lobi purchases so that you can buy Lobi ships up to 80% off at level 50, with the restriction that they're account bound the moment you buy them (meaning no farming such alts to sell Lobi ships on the exchange, but can farm them for your mains. You're still going to be buying the Keys somehow).
Would be a great idea for a new slave alt just for grinding EC, Dil, and Lobi gear for the mains, as well as expanding the civilian side of the story, but given how the Romulans were done, does anyone really think that this fraction option would really work?
Seems real pointless in STO which is more or less about military combat. How are civilians supposed to get military hardware through legal means? Maybe you can get a really old / weak ship like a T1 or T2 ship at best, but T3 or above? No.
Since current missions are geared towards military factions introducing a "civilian faction" means Cryptic would need to create missions specifically for that faction. Sounds like a complete waste of resources and time to devote to a specific faction.
I could go on with a lot more negatives for such a faction, but I don't feel like wasting time and effort on it. In short, a civilian faction does not fit into the game. To make it somewhat viable Cryptic would need to treat it like an expansion to introduce specific content for that faction. Since civilians will not (or at least should not) be able to access current military reputation system, there will be far less few people playing the "civilian faction" compared to the Romulan faction.
What is this constant whining for more factions, did nobody learn from the romulans?
I means seriously, they couldn't really support ONE faction, leaving the Feds with to little content and the klingon completly ignored.
Then everybody cried romulan and now we have 2,5 factions of which one gets to little new stuff and the other 1,5 prety much nothing,...
....and now you want more factions for them to ignore?
For gods sake role play yourself a little. Why do people get anything chewed for them?
I play my Kumari flying tac as a merc, the ship looks non starfleet, the "uniforms" look not like uniforms but like clothes... And I rp him that way. It's not that hard to get out of the federation Skin and its even easier for Klingons and romulans....
The idea has some merit, but as others mentioned, where would these civilians get a hold of weapons and ships ?
They'd have to buy civilian class ships from the ferengi perhaps...which would be tuned for whatever job your civilian does, ie: Bounty Hunter, Diplomatic aid etc etc.. which could be interesting, but would be a lot of work to develop.
Overall, the idea seems a little more suited to a Star Wars themed game.
Civilians would just be misplaced in a game that basically focuses on military organisations and nothing else. Especially since it's been confirmed that all content will be the same for everyone from now on.
It would be quite straightforward to RP such roles anyway. The main social hubs all have civilians meandering around anyway and there are ship and costume choices should you want to fully commit to it.
You could go further and rely on Doffing to level you up so you can skip through the content and only play those missions most relevent to your character. But you would have a much easier time being something combat related.
Well, that reaction was ...unexpected... on my part - and just to note - I really don't think to idea was worth making a suggestion to Crypticx, but it would widen the game out. Anyway, I appreciate the feedback, maybe I'll start think up some more concepts...
And yes, I totally agree about the current Romulan situation.
Comments
Ok. Now let's be realistic about it (not trying to be rude; just blunt). You get all the junk heap ships (all Civilian or converted Civilian to rudimentary warship) and no access to top Faction-specific T5s or T6s even if you're aligned with them (same way Romulans cannot). Access to Faction ships at T2-T4 depends on how many missions you complete for that Faction, and helping other factions reduces your points with Factions not quite friendly with them (restriction/limitation removed once Surface Tension is played; as that's when the Alliance formally kicks in, and new missions that don't reduce other Faction points appear).
On the other hand, you get missions to help you discount Lobi purchases so that you can buy Lobi ships up to 80% off at level 50, with the restriction that they're account bound the moment you buy them (meaning no farming such alts to sell Lobi ships on the exchange, but can farm them for your mains. You're still going to be buying the Keys somehow).
Would be a great idea for a new slave alt just for grinding EC, Dil, and Lobi gear for the mains, as well as expanding the civilian side of the story, but given how the Romulans were done, does anyone really think that this fraction option would really work?
Seems real pointless in STO which is more or less about military combat. How are civilians supposed to get military hardware through legal means? Maybe you can get a really old / weak ship like a T1 or T2 ship at best, but T3 or above? No.
Since current missions are geared towards military factions introducing a "civilian faction" means Cryptic would need to create missions specifically for that faction. Sounds like a complete waste of resources and time to devote to a specific faction.
I could go on with a lot more negatives for such a faction, but I don't feel like wasting time and effort on it. In short, a civilian faction does not fit into the game. To make it somewhat viable Cryptic would need to treat it like an expansion to introduce specific content for that faction. Since civilians will not (or at least should not) be able to access current military reputation system, there will be far less few people playing the "civilian faction" compared to the Romulan faction.
I means seriously, they couldn't really support ONE faction, leaving the Feds with to little content and the klingon completly ignored.
Then everybody cried romulan and now we have 2,5 factions of which one gets to little new stuff and the other 1,5 prety much nothing,...
....and now you want more factions for them to ignore?
For gods sake role play yourself a little. Why do people get anything chewed for them?
I play my Kumari flying tac as a merc, the ship looks non starfleet, the "uniforms" look not like uniforms but like clothes... And I rp him that way. It's not that hard to get out of the federation Skin and its even easier for Klingons and romulans....
They'd have to buy civilian class ships from the ferengi perhaps...which would be tuned for whatever job your civilian does, ie: Bounty Hunter, Diplomatic aid etc etc.. which could be interesting, but would be a lot of work to develop.
Overall, the idea seems a little more suited to a Star Wars themed game.
Civilians would just be misplaced in a game that basically focuses on military organisations and nothing else. Especially since it's been confirmed that all content will be the same for everyone from now on.
It would be quite straightforward to RP such roles anyway. The main social hubs all have civilians meandering around anyway and there are ship and costume choices should you want to fully commit to it.
You could go further and rely on Doffing to level you up so you can skip through the content and only play those missions most relevent to your character. But you would have a much easier time being something combat related.
And yes, I totally agree about the current Romulan situation.