Proposal - Full Borg-Body "skin" - How to, with existing assets?

jodarkrider

Somewhat related to my last monster-long topic, about tailor and its' customization. Again, this forum doesn't make for a nicer formatting, so prettier, more marked version can be found in my personal website.

GO HERE FOR NICER FORMATTED ARTICLE!

That Borg Body. OHHH MYYY!

One of these late-nights or early mornings, which prompt me to make further babbling. With my recent rant on STO tailor, and particulary, unusueable costumes for our Captains AND full-body-skins – this is what has been nagging on my mind – In regards of lack of full-Body Skins for our Liberated Borg Captains. Sit down, and read, if you want.

NOTE: Included images are HEAVILY Photoshopped, for clear illustration!

Where to start?

Now, before people jump down on me, saying that the developpers do not need more work, by adding something as “insignificant” as this – this is how you could do it, while using *existing* game assets and the full-Borg Body skin has been neglected for years, despite of it being Lifetime-Subscriber perk & Remans, for example, have their full-Body skins already.

Most of you are familiar with the existence of the Borg-suit, which is available on the Borg Bridge officers from the C-store. However, they are not available to the Captains. I won’t go into WHY in this particular rant – covering it with just one single disapproval and disagreement – but – here is how you can give us, Liberated Borgies, a full-Body Skin, with just re-arranging some cathegories in the Tailor.

NOTE: I am not fully familiar with the internal structure of the Tailor, so please take the above statement with a grain of salt. It may not be as simple – however, I still believe, doable without large work-investment.

Full Borg Suit. How to. (Larger version available, open in new tab)

As you can see – The “Bare Borg Feet”, is in fact, already available to our Captains. I unlocked it after obtaining the ‘Beachcomber’ outfit (the short pants), where the option of bare feet comes either as “Skin” or “Borg feet”. What we clearly need, are the Borg ‘pants’, on the picture marked as “Armor-Borg”, as well as the upper, torso piece.

As a side note – I edited the horrid skin-showing female version, to match the other version which is in game, as seen on NPC’s. Judging by style of the NPC (picture below), it’s easily available in the game, just not available to our female Bridge officer. Personal taste – and if this ever appears in game for our Captains, I’d prefer to have both versions included; for females, so no skin-revealing only, please, pretty please? Males clearly, have full-suit, matching this one on the picture.

Alternate Female Borg-suit piece, yes pls.

This imho makes for a nice option for all Liberated Borg Captains – and I would love to see this assembly as a standalone costume for us, available.

Now, onto ‘full-body skin’, ENGAGE!

Making some of those summer costumes relevant! Show my Borginess!

I have marked areas on the picture, where we would have an option to set the bare-skin to show the Borg suit, instead of the usual “meatbag” skin. I’m unsure if the Chest Blend is sufficient, it could also be added as “Undershirt” – a cathegory I’ve seen by couple of costumes, which include two upper pieces as if in one. However, it depicts the intent, I believe, quite sufficiently.

The lower-body – would then, instead of when setting “Bare-Legs”, and picking “Skin” or “Stockings” (For Females) would have “Bare Borg” instead. The “Feet” option, as I’ve already said, has the “Bare Borg” option available. But, it looks very out of place, without the option of setting the same style to the character’s legs.

OMG… those are fancy shoes.. O_O

Again, this has me thinking – that they could simply finalize this look for us – as the initial touch of it is there, by offering “bare” Borg-suit styled legs to us already.

Bottomline?

Before anyone says, that this is ‘hideous’ – please don’t go there. Preferences and aesthetics are very personal, and the same thing could be said about the Reman body-skin, or any “odd-alien” skin. This is only an interesting concept, I’ve been mulling over in my head, when thinking about concept for my character and I think, at least standalone the full-Borg body suit would be nice for some of us.

Likewise – The Borg-full Body skin would be ideal, if it offered this, armored version, and also the bare, but ‘infected’ full-body skin, for those, who want to go more “meatbag”, rather than Borgish. Obviously, the infected-body skin doesn’t need much different explanation, so I won’t go covering it in this particular idea.

Thank you for reading, this is your Caffeine-powered Monster signing off!

artan42

I don't have any Borg characters, but I might in the future, more Borg bits would be welcome.

fringecutlery

I was going to commend you for your impressive image manipulation skill where you managed to seamlessly apply a skin from another character from a different angel, with different proportions and under different lighting conditions; but then my gaze landed on the Talaxian-only hairstyles on the right.

While it's true that you've edited aspects of some images, I think what you have beneath your layers of tweaks are more notable than your image manipulation and the message you aim to deliver.

jodarkrider

fringecutlery wrote: »

I was going to commend you for your impressive image manipulation skill where you managed to seamlessly apply a skin from another character from a different angel, with different proportions and under different lighting conditions; but then my gaze landed on the Talaxian-only hairstyles on the right.

While it's true that you've edited aspects of some images, I think what you have beneath your layers of tweaks are more notable than your image manipulation and the message you aim to deliver.

I should point out it is a TONS of layers in photoshop mixed together, as well as it comes from Tribble server, to match the costume names. Small trick was used - for the benefit of illustration. Hope that clears it out.
Also sorry for short reply, currenftly en route to holidays with family.

fringecutlery

Who said anything about lack of clarity?

wraithshadow13

I've been making this my personal crusade since beta. Why would they not make borg skins full body? They didn't even make the infected complexion cover the hands. Considering we have to pay $300 to play as the Borg, this is entirely unacceptable to me. And that was BEFORE open uniforms were a thing. Now, given the open uniforms, the off duty options, and even the Risian wear, you would think that they would add considerably more full body skins (like Cardassian, more accurate Klingon, or Denobulan). A while ago, I'd read in a post, that someone linked in the last thread about this, that they were indeed working on adding the Borg skins to the game. Even now, you can see that the infected complexion is 'infected 1'. But that was a while ago, and I really haven't seen or heard anything about this yet. I'd even been asking about it in threads where Crypticjoejing has been posting. Nothing yet.

I'll post to their twitter, and post what they say (if anything) once I hear back.

jodarkrider

wraithshadow13 wrote: »

I've been making this my personal crusade since beta. Why would they not make borg skins full body? They didn't even make the infected complexion cover the hands. Considering we have to pay $300 to play as the Borg, this is entirely unacceptable to me. And that was BEFORE open uniforms were a thing. Now, given the open uniforms, the off duty options, and even the Risian wear, you would think that they would add considerably more full body skins (like Cardassian, more accurate Klingon, or Denobulan). A while ago, I'd read in a post, that someone linked in the last thread about this, that they were indeed working on adding the Borg skins to the game. Even now, you can see that the infected complexion is 'infected 1'. But that was a while ago, and I really haven't seen or heard anything about this yet. I'd even been asking about it in threads where Crypticjoejing has been posting. Nothing yet.

I'll post to their twitter, and post what they say (if anything) once I hear back.

I'm behind you on this - and it's why this seemingly crazy idea crossed my mind & this monster long topic exists - I mean, my post is an idea how to get us a Borgy variant with already existing assets, when no additional effort in creating them is needed, as this Borgy suit is in game, and our C-Store Borg Bridge officers already have it. Although, as I also mentioned, for those who'd find use of the Infected-body skin, that should exist too, as a variant, imho. But, I understand the devs are occupied - and I've always tried to bring not just critisms, but also possible ideas and solutions, along; which hopefully will sprout into something nice & more options for all of us.

captainoblivous

Heh, I love those borg feet. I've had access to them for at least two years now on my toons thanks to some kind of bug with the risian outfits that allow it to be selected. I always thought they looked rather like wetsuit shoes (yes, they exist)

Nicely done btw

baddmoonrizin

Yes, it boggles the mind why they would make the Borg Bodysuit available for the various Borg BOFFs, but it's not available for LibBorg Player Captains. I don't know that I'd want it as a skin complexion, as would seem to be implied by the fourth pic, but I definitely want it as a UNIFORM option (stress on uniform, NOT some other category that wouldn't be useable by BOFFs). I'm hopeful that the full body Infected skin complexion is on the list of things being done by the artist who's working on the full body textures.

turbomagnus

For some reason, I can't help but wonder how that Borg full-bodysuit would look with the Seven of Nine hand and eye options...

monkeybone13

I would love to have the borg bridge officer suit (top, pants, shoes) for liberated borg captains.

jodarkrider

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

I don't know that I'd want it as a skin complexion, as would seem to be implied by the fourth pic, but I definitely want it as a UNIFORM option (stress on uniform, NOT some other category that wouldn't be useable by BOFFs). I'm hopeful that the full body Infected skin complexion is on the list of things being done by the artist who's working on the full body textures.

The ideal way would be to have it both as a standalone costume (ie. yes, Uniform) - the costume exists already, it's just not available for our Captains, and additionally, 'skin complexion' (The assets exist, so less work needed than for creating something new, so it means just a small trickery with tailor categories, basicly), along the option for 'Infected' option for people who want their Lib Borg less cybernetic. That was the basic idea behind this proposal.

gavinruneblade

+1

I have a couple lib borgs and both of them would absolutely use this in at least one slot.

I would also love the exposed spinal column like the full drones get but I realize that might be a nightmare with regard to other costume set items and animations, so I'll live without. But this proposal seems realistic and useable. So it gets my support.

wraithshadow13

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums#/discussion/1148227/whats-the-beef-with-the-liberated-borg/p1

It's an old thread (so no necro), but it was a small accumulation of what I and a few others would love to see added to the Borg as a playable species. Needless to say, it doesn't need to be as fancy as the Romulans got, but still, it was kind of a halfassed thing from the get go, so considering that it's still a selling point five years later, it would be nice to see Liberated Borg get a little love, especially considering how early they got shafted on the Cryptic side.

skymagus00

+1 that it would be nice. However, it is possible to get a very good TNG drone look with the right items:



Using the more brownish blacks the above comes out quite well. I am using the 7 of 9 eye and hand pieces, Hirogen jumpsuit and armoured pants, miner boots, Krenim leather collar, a bunch of standard kit pieces and the infected skin. Playing alien also means I can appear as a Borg version of any base-species.

markhawkman

This brings back memories..
http://marhawkman.deviantart.com/art/BorgCollective2-556403618
Yeah, that's a lot of pictures. So I'll point out the most useful ones.

Top row second from left: Borg Boff suit
second row, center: STF Borg Boff

Those are both uneditable. The art assets were simply never designed to work that way.

the Top left, and third from right are armor costumes I tinkered with to make them look Borg.

jodarkrider

markhawkman wrote: »

Top row second from left: Borg Boff suit
Those are both uneditable. The art assets were simply never designed to work that way.

The Borg Boff suit is perfectly editable on my Starfleet Liberated Borg Engineer. Just saying. The outfit works normally as Upper-uniform + legs + feet. It's also what is used in my initial post, except, I edited it to the alternate version of it, which doesn't ridiculously skimp on my Borg-look by revealing clevage... ugh. (And the unrevealing version of the same suit DOES exist, some NPCs have it, check the foundry & initial post with the Borg-NPC female in the Tutorial mission. Not talking the Zombie-look with missing body-parts (The STF Sci Borg model), that is indeed, uneditable and a separate, standalone model

So why we aren't given at least that editable Borg suit, is beyond me. Always being 'cheap-skate' on releasing assets and Tailor features, which even exist, but are not available for us (Face presets, yes); for us...

markhawkman

Did you try re-shading it?

Hmm.. if it can be reshaded, then yeah it doesn't make sense to not let players use it.

jodarkrider

markhawkman wrote: »

Did you try re-shading it?

Hmm.. if it can be reshaded, then yeah it doesn't make sense to not let players use it.

At least the Borg suits, should be available to Liberated Borg Captains - given the Reman, Klingon and Human Borg Boffs do have them. Plus add the existing, but so far on NPC's only, non-skimpy version for females, as seen in my OP, but reposting. Same suit.



I've been grumpy over this a lot - as the devs are OK releasing weird, nonsense & totally "immersion breaking" ships to the players, but something like this, not, even though it's perfectly Trek. And no, don't give me the "7 of 9 didn't retain most of her implants". Look at Hugh. 7 of 9 was only skimped to be appealing to male audience.

In 2410, it would be down to each individual Lib. Borg how many implants they'd want to retain, imho, as long as they got their cortical node fully functional, as that IS what prevents the implants from being rejected, aside of the fact that most Borg, liberated or in the Collective would die without it anyways (guess what, from Implants rejections, and since some implants replace vital biological organs as well... makes sense..) from technobabble's standpoint. Duh.

wraithshadow13

It still bothers me so much that this species was so expensive to play, and they put so little effort into them. Even after this long, they still have done nothing to improve or even update the playable borg.