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Science love!
rosetyler51
Member Posts: 1,631 Arc User
Before you star stripping down to nothing but a lab coat I don't mean that kind of science. I'm talking about SHIPS BABY!
There is a real lack of it. The question is why? I'm not going to try to blame any one person for it. There is enough people doing that already.
If I'm remembering right one of the devs said science ships don't really sell. Why do you think that is?
There is a real lack of it. The question is why? I'm not going to try to blame any one person for it. There is enough people doing that already.
If I'm remembering right one of the devs said science ships don't really sell. Why do you think that is?
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Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The last 2 event ships are kind of a science hybrid, though. That's a step in a well-needed direction.
Science is not deemed as powerful or as sexy as tacticals or cruisers. Cruisers are pretty much what almost every ship in Star Trek seemed to have been in the past. Canon has identified exactly one Escort (Defiant) and one Science Vessel (Oberth). Oh, and a medical ship. (Crusher's ship). Not even the Voyager is identified a science vessel in canon - it's just another sort of cruiser basically. There isn't anything particular sciency about its original mission - she was to hunt down the Maquis. That might require fancy sensors with the badlands and all, but also some firepower - so sounds more like the typical Fed Cruiser.
Personally, I love Science Vessels and Science Captains. I am not alone, obviously, but we're still overall a minority.
In typical combat, tactical and cruisers or escorts perform their role in a straightforward way.
Engineers and Cruisers basically tend to have way too much healing abilities and too little offensive-oriented abilites, but if you're still struggling in a fight, having some come-back powers like Mircacle Worker is nice. Cruisers also got 8 weapon slots, even. And newer cruisers have been deliberately pushed into a more offensive role with more or higher ranked tactical slots.
Escorts have access to the best damage buffs. Tactical Captain are pretty much all about more damage output - you can never go wrong with that in STO.
Science ships may not get the squillions of deeps that an escort or destroyer might, but an enemy with no shields, negative damage resistances and no power, dies as quick, if not quicker than, than a fully powered and buffed one.
You can "wear down" and enemy with massive numbers because all that really requires is hitting spacebar and holding down 'A' or 'D' = "Easy Mode". Or you can press several buttons, time your skills, and "melt" them = "Thinking Mode"
Guess which "mode" is more popular with the masses? It also isn't helped by the fact that 95% of all the "how to play STO" videos and documents on the web are made by the epeen stroking "moar deepz" crowd.
STO is brilliantly fun and actually entertaining as a Science Toon in a Science Ship ... Tholians stripping your shields and power? Voth dropping Tyken's on you? <insert maniacal laugh> "Hahaha! Take that you evil NPC's, I can do that too ... muwahaha".
The OP wasn't talking about the effectiveness of Science gameplay (I could go into specifics... Only a few aspects of Science abilities are of any use while huge swathes are uselessly weak). He was talking about Science Vessels and their availability, which he does have a point on.
The T5/T5U ones can still do the job. But then again, the real options were best in the Fed Lineup. KDF & Rom Science Vessel options even before Profits Rising were woefully bad. T6? To date, there is still zero T6 KDF & Rom Science Vessels.
Profits Rising went live 14 October 2014. Over **8 months** later, this is the type & quantity of T6 releases.
* Counting ship packs as 1
TIER 6
Fed Escorts: 3
Fed Cruisers: 4
Fed Science Vessels: 3
Fed Carriers: 0
KDF Escorts: 3
KDF Cruisers: 3
KDF Science Vessels: LOL, 0
KDF Carriers: 0
Rom Escorts: 3
Rom Cruisers: 3
Rom Science Vessels: LOL, 0
Rom Carriers: 0
Lockbox/Lobi/Promo/Event
Escorts: 5
Cruisers: 5
Science Vessels: LOLWUT? 0!
Carriers: 1
Total T6 Escorts: 14
Total T6 Cruisers: 15
Total T6 Science Vessels: 3, all of them Fed
Total T6 Carriers: 1 Cross-Faction CV
More than 8 months since Profits Rising released and for T6 ships, it's Escorts or Cruisers or GTFO. If you're playing lots of KDF/Rom, then you're doubly out of luck because you don't have a great selection of even T5 Faction Science Vessels to fall back on. Even if restricted to T5 only, the Fed SCI Vessel selection is top notch with nothing coming close. With T6 added onto that, it's hilariously lopsided.
The last major science ship sold was the dyson ships and I think one of the big things that really screwed up those besides the photonic cannon being fused was the how long it took for the faction skins to come out for them. Why I know some people like ships for the stats, style does mean something. A Klingon looking science ship is grand.
Not too far from the truth...
Back in the S5 to S7 window (I think it started changing around S8), Sci was the "lame weak healer class" in a game that didn't need healers.
Therefore, nobody wanted science. BTW, this period of the game's history was colloquially known as "escorts online".
And C-store wise (the mighty metrics of who buys/wants what), the non-Feddie choices are:
Rom & KDF, Dyson Science Destroyers (recently cured of bugs)
KDF, Varanus.
Of course, lack of sales on these = lack of desire in the eyes of the metrics guys. DSD was a what, S7 ship (again, heart of escorts online era, the "transformation" gimmick makes the ship an escort...) And it doesn't help that the Varanus is a T5.0 clone of the Feddie DSSV.
So lack of sales on poorly designed/cheaply copypastaed/bugged/gimmick ships = lack of desire, which is why they're not building more science ships. I still think that if the artists whipped up mods on existing ships (maybe modify that BoP into the constantly clamored for K'Vort and tweak up a new Gorn design) and assigned them slight tweakjobs of the Vesta and Pathfinder stat-blocks there'd be enough "solid sales" to generate further KDF & Republic science ship designs...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I thought the last major Science Vessels sold were the 3 Fed T6 ones, Intrepid, Scryer, Pathfinder?
The DSDs? TBH, I never cared for Destroyer mode. It takes a very precise build to make a DSD function excellently in Destroyer and default Science mode. But the Proton DHC was a waste. There was no Proton Damage TAC Console, no selection of regular Proton Weaponry. In short, Proton weapons have zero synergy with this game, even with each other. Experimental Proton Weapon, DSD Proton DHC... And that's it! No other weapons, no pure Proton TAC Consoles.
I still recall many players clamoring for the DSDs to have faction skins as an option but Cryptic refused. They finally caved in on it more than a year later with the crowd turning away from them ages ago. That was really intuitive. Today, even with the SCI Vessel starved KDF & Rom factions, the DSD is a very rare ship to be seen flying.
Oh I got a fleetmate who mains a Sci... dude has perfected the art of the MegaWell I swear. I think he can even slap a decent Grav Well on a Pilot ship.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
The actual Romulan science vessel makes an appearance in the TNG episode "The Next Phase." But in their infinite wisdom, the STO devs made it into a shuttle skin.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I put that squarely due to the show not focusing on anyone except from a Federation POV. Of course you'll see Starfleet ship lineups far more fleshed out onscreen.
But let's go for now in STO terms and I refer to you the ship lineup numbers I put in several posts above. It's completely out of whack, unbalanced. Did you know that Battlecruisers, i.e. Cruisers that can equip DHCs was a KDF only thing? And that the only place Universal Stations existed were only on the KDF BOP? Yet the Feds demanded these perks, faction identity and separation be damned, and they got them.
So fair's fair. The Non-Fed Factions need to be equalized with their Science Vessel selections of their own.
As for being "canon", are you trying to suggest that throughout the entire history of both the Klingon and Romulan "civilizations" there has never been one single Scientist? Are you saying that a culture that can develop space ships, Warp Drive, 'ray guns' and transporters etc. has no scientific community whatsoever? Please ...
And lets be honest here, what is particularly "canon" about a darn cruise ship flying around in space? Or the fact that the Breen, Xindi, Hirogen, Dominion or any of the other species, would allow wholesale theft of their ships for just anyone to fly around in? Please ...
But then of course we have ye olde self fulfilling prophecy "Science ships don't sell, because there aren't enough buyers, but there aren't enough buyers because there aren't enough ships".
How Cryptic can make the "not enough buyers" claim is beyond me, because THEY HAVE NEVER OFFERED ONE (sorry for caps) If they had released a T6 Science Ship with DR say, and only the Fed one sold, then yes, they might have justification. But they didn't, and never have, so where exactly are they getting their numbers from?
I and many other players who luv Science ships and Science toons KNOW that these would sell like the proverbial hotcakes, but back to my first point, while ever a certain reptile is in charge, is seems like a "pipe dream"
Sure, you don't need to put a Science Captain in a Science Vessel, but.. I just like both. So much that my Fed Delta Recruit was a science captain, depsite already having two Fed science captains.
Because it was used for both. A typical model re-use, with only small alterations. http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Studio_models_(TNG)#Romulan_scout_ship
That might have worked fine in 80s television, but in a 201x computer game it would be too obvious.
Your fundamental flaw in your argumentation is: You don't need science vessels to have science.
Gravity Well III or Subsystem Analysis is needed exactly not at all to build better phasers or a cure for cancer or non-ridged heads.
And the ship we followed for 7 years on its exploration of space, and we see develop cures for strange alien diseases, make an artificial intelligence, or complete the research on a metaphasic shield? It was a Cruiser.
Krieger Radiation was researched on a science lab in orbit of a planet.
Solition Waves were researched on a planet and a Cruiser was used to analyze the wave (and eventually disperse it when the experiment failed).
Subspace Compression Anomaly and Wormholes? Send an Escort, the first pure warship ever build by the Federation.
Hey, at least they used a Nebula class ship to ignite a sun. But wait... Such a Nebula ship was also blowing up Cardassian starships under a rogue (and battle-hardened) Captain? Was it really a Science Vessel, or is that just an arbitrary STO invention?
You're creating a strawman here. It seems highly unlikely that this is the logic of Cryptic. They can compare sales ship by ship, tier by tier, faction by faction, and when they see a group of ships that sells less than comparable ships in tier and faction, and identify they're all science ships, then they have a clear trend.
Even worse is if they see that the flooded the market with a particular type of ship - cruisers - but still each cruiser sells better than each science vessel...
Ask why the players want cruisers. And you're back to two main aspects:
- Most canon ships were cruisers.
- Science vessels gameplay is different and regardless of whether effective builds exist or not - effective cruiser and escorts exist a lot, and they are all DPS focused.
I'm not quite sure what you are saying, regarding "cures for cancer". It is entirely beside the point. The point often used by those opposed to creating KDF and/or Romulan science vessels is that neither of those two factions are "Sciency". Yet you have actually solidified the argument, in the sense that these cultures DO in fact have scientists, so you cannot use that as an excuse NOT to have Science Ships on all factions
I also do not see any "Straw man". Cryptic cannot use any "past performances" or past sales numbers to justify not creating any new ones, because the fact is THEY HAVE NEVER CREATED ANY! I purposely used caps to emphasize that point once again.
As @warmaker001b pointed out, how can you possibly try and claim some sort of "metric" justification when the numbers do not actually give you any data to work with?
You can pull out as many references to this or that event in the TV shows as you like, but the fact remains, there ARE Science Ships in Star Trek, and they can be made to fit whatever class/role that the Devs decide.
A perfect example of this is the Tal Shiar Adapted Battlecruiser or the new Nandi Event Ship. One is a "Cruiser" but with Sensor Analysis and the ability to run Lt Com. Science abilities, the other is an Escort with a quite heavy Science focus.
All it would take would be 1, just 1, T6 Science ship for the KDF and Roms - Let it be a layout clone of the Dauntless, Scryer or Pathfinder, but with a faction oriented skin, and I guarantee it would sell, and sell well.
If it doesn't then what exactly have Cryptic lost? A few days perhaps on the skin? Maybe a few days on the Promo shots and blogs? Even if they only sell a few, I still can't see how it can be a "loss" for them.
its apart of the same problem, if romulans and klingons got t6 science ships and their seating was not that great for science boffs that would mean their effectiveness is not that great overall and so it wont be used as much, it would be back to square one on limited choices again.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Until the Defiant, the Federation didn't have any "Escorts" or "Warships", but they engaged in multiple wars.
They created Klingon Science Vessels for Tiers 2 to Tier 5. So they can compare the Tier 2 Science Vessel sales, the Tier 3 Science Vessel sales, the Tier 4 Science Vessel sales, the Tier 5 Science Vessels sales. They can run comparisons - how well did the Tier 2 Bird of Prey sell compared to the Tier 2 Raptor compared to the Tier 2 Nausicaan Destroyer compared to the Tier 2 Gorn Science Vessel.
They can also compare lockbox sales based on ship type. They can keep the comparision faction-agnostic, or can check for faction trends. If n % of the Federation players own a Lockbox science vessel, do n % of KDF players own a lockbox science vessel? Is it more, is it less?
They can reasonably well extrapolate how this will be reflected in Tier 6 ships.
Yea something like that. I love it withy my fed. Really its my most favourite sci ship ever for some reason I haven’t figured out yet.
But whats with kling? Nope, nothing.
Next best thing similar to it was is the Breen carrier I ended up on my kdf sci with.
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We cannot even talk about what would and would not be an effective KDF/Rom Science Vessel if Cryptic never bothered to make one to begin with.
Besides, different Science Vessel slants have proven to be popular. Whether they are traditional ultra-heavy SCI layout such as the Intrepid, a TAC oriented ship like Nova and Dauntless, or ENG oriented one like the Nebula, Scryer. They can all be made excellent Science Vessels, performers. Those ships I listed are also commonly flown in the STO playerbase.
But again, KDF & Rom cannot even show you how those KDF & Rom Science Vessels will do for the faction since Cryptic refuses to develop any to begin with. It was like this in T5 before Profits Rising. It's even worse with Post-Profits-Rising STO with ZERO T6 SCI Vessels for the KDF & Roms. This is after over 8 months since DR hit the fan.
They can reasonably well extrapolate how Geko's coffee temperture affects T6 KDF Science Vessel sales, the amount of information they'd gain from this would be the same.
The game is not a natural phenomenon. It's made by Cryptic who are fully aware about how the game works and intentionally develop the game into a particular direction. The way STO works, Science Vessels in general, KDF in general and T1-T5 (soon T6) ships in particular are heavily discouraged from playing/purchasing, especially on KDF side since there the ships even lack a synnergy gained from purchasing numerous lower tier versions. Taking this as an indication how well a T6 KDF scince vessel would sell would be just ludicrous.
But maybe they do. Geko's most recent and still often cited reasoning why they will never be a KDF sci vessel is the BortasQu Command variation, a terribly designed "science slant" cruiser with a Lt. Science station and two science consoles. Judging by that I have no trouble believing they actually use the low tier ships to extrapolate on T6 sales. But it would make no logical sense.
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Yeah, that was a wasted opportunity, kinda. I suppose when we players floated the idea, it was already too late.
"Oh, yeah, those science vessels! But not like those, of course no one would buy them!" Sure, you claim that.
Come on, the Nova has this dumb and useless photonic Decoy thing. The Nebula has an equally useless Sensor Booster. You don't need this in the so called "DPS Online" version of Star Trek Online either.
The Science Destroyers? Some say they are TRIBBLE anyway, I think they were fine, and however good or bad they were mechanically - they were the same across all 3 factions, or rather, the KDF and Romulan versions had extra perks in form of cloaking devices. If the sale numbers of these are not comparable, then nothing is.
Also, you overall completely ignore that most people probably don't look that closely for stats. Otherwise we wouldn't have warnings like "bring at least X DPS" to participate...
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I think the main appeal for a ship (for the masses) is indeed looks whereas canon ships still trump anything else. Feds have lots of canon science vessels with their own fanbase. Red side doesn't have that, they could however score with Orion or Gorn designs that are good looking, those are currently only available at low tiers with extra terrible consoles (and as such completely useless), the science destroyers look terrible and don't appeal to many players. Ideally Cryptic would convert canon designs with a different "science" layout. One of the Klingon themed novels for example had a passage that described a dozen K'Tinga battlecruisers being heavily modified for exploration missions. Interchangeable costumes with new stats and toys would work well here.
Superior stats only appeal to a fraction of the vocal forum crowd. I doubt many players that don't partake in "social" STO care about theior dps, the game doesn't even offer ways to determine how much damage you deal in the first place so you already need "inside knowledge" to even get on the dps train.
Right now, though, KDF doesn't offer anything appealing in the science department. Not even a science destroyer aside from the DSD, feds have lots to choose from and three T6 versions whereas the others have none. And, that doesn't change it, the reasoning for that is that they don't sell on KDF side. Which is not surprising if every attempt at introducing science to red side are terrible thought out to begin with.
I would argue that a science vessel for red based on the Intrepid layout (science-science) which comes with a Klingon, Gorn or Orion skin (all in one so you can customize them to all factions' taste) called "Imperial Expedition Vessel" would definitely sell.
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I'm also having trouble recognizing all these Science vessels you are referring to? I can only think of the Phalanx/Draguas at Tier3/Tier4 and the Varanus at Tier5. 3 Ships that's it.
Ugly is a very subjective term. But if you for example think the TIer 5 Science Destroyers were ugly - that was true for Klingon and Federation variants alike. (And not true IMO for the Romulan ship).
And the Gorn Science Vessels aren't ugly shoeboxes.
KDF: Pilot Ship, Matha Raptor, Veteran DD
Roms: Pilot Ship, Faeht, Veteran DD
In general, if a ship has Cmdr TAC station, it's in the Escort family of ships.
In general, if a ship has Cmdr ENG station, it's in the Cruiser family of ships.
In general, if a ship has Cmdr SCI station, it's in the Science Vessel family of ships.
Is this not common knowledge?
You of course have ships that blur the lines:
Scimitar having Cmdr TAC but weapon slots, hull, handling of a Cruiser.
2-Hangar Carriers can be found with Cmdr TAC, ENG, or SCI stations.
But in general, the general classification still holds, regardless of Cryptic's naming conventions.
I said earlier I counted ship packs as 1. I didn't talk about "exclusivity." I talked about ship counts of the general types for the Feds, KDF, Roms, and the cross-faction Promo/Event/Lobi/Lockbox types.