Exploration
With Cryptic talking about devising a system for exploration in STO, I think it's time again for me to revisit some of what's necessary.
First off, let me say this: QUALITY should come first. In the past, Cryptic has pushed out a lot of content that is rushed, unfinished or ill-concieved. I'd MUCH rather see the release of an exploration system delayed if it means it will be better quality. In short, don't release it until it's RIGHT.
One of the best games on the market for my money is Elite: Dangerous. One of the many things you can do in that game is EXPLORE. It works like this:
You enter a system where "no one has gone before," and you are informed the star in the system is unexplored. So, you scan it, and are given information about the star. At the same time, you can use your scanner to scan the system for other astronomical objects, such as planets, moons, other stars or what have you. If you discover there are more such objects, you approach each one and scan it. In essence, that's all there is to it.
There is an additional challenge, in case there are objects outside of scanner range. In that case, you might notice such objects (which would look like stars themselves) moving against the background stars while you're in transit to something else you want to scan. If you notice this, it means you have discovered another planet or something, and have something else to go discover and scan.
And that's basically it. Locate the objects in the system, go to them and scan them. It's very simple, and it's very popular among players. Personally, I spend HOURS just travelling around systems scanning things.
Now, it IS possible other things might occur. I might get jumped by a pirate, or I might pass too close to a star or black hole and damage my ship. It's not always the same thing.
STO needs to learn from this example. Now, I'm not saying it should be the SAME as this, but the devs can draw some inspiration from the principles used by Elite's developers.
The first, most basic principle is that we NOT KNOW WHAT IS THERE. The point of exploring is to discover things and that requires and element of the unknown.
In turn, this suggests a need for a system to discover things. I'm not sure such a system exists in the game as yet. In essence, it would mean things remain hidden from view somehow so we can find them. In Elite, planets and things just look like stars against the background stars, so they're camouflaged and finding them becomes a challenge.
During surface exploration this would be easier, as there would be terrain to help hide things in, and many objects might LOOK similar (I mean, suppose you're scanning plants - two might look almost the same, but be different).
In most cases, the point of exploring is to find resources. Even in Elite, part of your purpose as an explorer is to find asteroids with rare metals and ores. The same kind of thing holds true in Star Trek.
So, this is my suggested system.
Unexplored star systems should appear randomly in sector space, and also in unexplored star clusters. These clusters would be similar to the old exploration areas, but would be larger and unmapped. They would be mapped by ships travelling around in them. Unexplored systems would appear in random locations within these zones.
On entering a system, its geographic features (asteroids, moons, planets, anomalies, etc.) would be determined randomly and placed randomly. Additionally, mission locations (eg. an abandoned ship or asteroid base or what have you) would be randomly determined and randomly placed.
A couple of things need to be mentioned here. Not every system will have all possible things in them. You might easily come across a system with no planets at all, or no mission locations. Additionally, some things might be classified as HAZARDS. Hazards are things that can damage or hinder the ship (or landing party members in planet missions) in some way. An example might be an anomaly that drains the ship's antimatter, leaving it powerless. Any hazards generated would include a remedy, though what the remedy is might vary from mission to mission. For the example above, perhaps there's a derelict ship the crew could take antimatter from to refuel.
The player's task would be to visit and scan everything in the system. However, this task could be complicated by other incidents.
These complications could take many forms, and there might be more than one. For example, there might be a severe ion storm approaching, putting a time limit on the mission. There might be an alien ship in the system that could interfere with you. The possibilities are endless.
Once the system survey is finished, if there is a planet in the system, the player can beam a team to the surface and do a similar survey there.
Surveying the planet would consist of taking samples of the ground, water, air, all the different plants, and making observations of the ANIMALS and/or INHABITANTS. As before, there might easily be features that are HAZARDS (such as poisonous plants, explosive rocks, dangerous animals, etc.), and as before any hazard would have a remedy somewhere on the planet.
Animals and inhabitants are something new. Animals would randomly proceed through a number of activities, such as eating, sleeping, socializing, and so forth. The player would have to stay within a certain range while the animals proceed through these activities, and would be credited with collecting data for each activity they observe.
However, we're the CAPTAINS of our ships, and part of our job is supposed to be the delegation of tasks. So, instead of the player standing there watching the animals do things, they would be free to place one of the away team members in range (using the rally point mechanism) while the player went on to other exploring. They would be credited with observing any activities the animals perform while the crewman is in range. Of course, there is always the possibility the animals might wander too close to the npc crewman and attack him. At the same time, I would make it possible for my away team officers to do the scanning and interacting with things, where appropriate for their class. For instance, my Klingon is a Tactical officer, not a scientist, so he really shouldn't be scanning rocks. His science officer should be doing that. It's WHY she's there, after all. Science Officers should be scanning rocks and phenomena. Engineers should be scanning technology and power sources. Tactical officers should be scanning weapons and security systems.
For INHABITANTS, things would proceed similarly. As with animals, primitives would proceed through random activities, and the player would need to observe. Of course, there would be an additional wrinkle that being observed in return could be a disaster, violating the Prime Directive (less of an issue for Klingons and Romulans, of course).
Advanced inhabitants might be contacted, for a FIRST CONTACT situation. How that would go would depend on the addition of another new system, for interacting with NPCs, which I'll describe later.
So, a typical exploration mission would be:
Enter the system (either from sector space or an exploration cluster).
The system is randomly generated.
Scan all features in the system (overcoming any Hazards or Complications as necessary).
Beam down to any planet(s).
Planetary surface is randomly generated.
Gather samples of all features, and observe animals and inhabitants (overcoming any hazards or complications).
Interact with any advanced species, making FIRST CONTACT.
Return to the ship and you're done.
Now, I would pair this with an addition to the crafting system. Specifically, when you collect data, either in space or on the ground, you are not collecting the actual crafting materials. You would need to convert the samples and data you have collected into usable crafting materials. This would be done in your ship's labs (ie. your ship's interior) or in the labs on a space station (eg. K7, DS9, etc). To do this I would add several new SCIENCE skills related to the types of data. For example, if I'm converting mineral data and samples, I would need the Geology skill. You could assign duty officers to do this, or you could do it yourself if you have the skill (which would require allocating points on your skill page as usual).
To be clear here, I'm not necessarily suggesting this be implemented exactly as I've described. This is still quite rough and it's meant only as a guide - to suggest what might be possible.
The ball is in your court, Cryptic. This is your chance to impress me.
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Comments
There is no "what's necessary". If you ask a hundred different people what exploration should be, you'll get a hundred different answers. Your opinion is certainly valid, but it is just as certainly not some "necessity".
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
"The ball is in your court, Cryptic. This is your chance to impress me." - This statement tells me you have expectations that will not be met, and you will burn the development team on the forums, twitter, facebook and reddit. Cryptic is going to do what the find will be the best balance to satisfy a complex a number of goals for this game, you will lumped in with the rest of us as a small part of those goals.
In all honesty, with Cryptic being pissed on over the Jupiter, I bet they really will not be listening to our suggestions as much anymore.
No. You're not the only player of this game. When they release something, just because it might not impress you, doesn't mean it's not impressive to others. When exploration comes back (which they said it will, once they figure out a way to do it that was better than the old system), it will be what it is. I'm sure they'll listen to suggestions, but must-have-or-it-sucks posts are the most likely to be ignored I'd imagine.
The entitlement is strong with this one...
They get pissed on whenever they do anything. Forget the Jupiter, the rage over the Valiant not being objectively over and above better than every other ship was ridiculous. And even then, so many players posted their lists of the 'one true Defiant,' all of them different in some way.
There's no pleasing some players.
Exactly. Cryptic gave democracy a go, and they get accused of fixing the result, even though the poll results were open and live. I mentioned in a previous post about the issue with giving the public a say, and that's that they'll expect and demand more. The hoop-la over the Reliant, as another poster has mentioned, about it not being a 'quantum leap' in ship design, such as a 9 weapon slots, 15 consoles, phase cloaking, invincibility-god-mode and coffee making machine, is exactly why Cryptic should just turn round and say 'Tough. It's our way or the highway'. Yes, Cryptic makes errors and bad judgments, but so does everyone and there are no exclusions on that fact. Removal of the old Exploration missions without a replacement was a really bad one, and with it being a year or so since their removal, one can only hope they come up with a doozy of a replacement!
Personally, the exploration system I'd like to see is one that focuses on narratives of a variety of different lengths randomly populated into the sector block, rather than something that let's players become their own class II probe. Think something that throws DQ-style patrols, diplomacy assignments, and other kinds of missions in with a healthy dose of character assignment by RNG (which is eminently more achievable than the call to build a different genre into this aging MMO.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Additionally, say you find a new system in your exploration, would you then expect that system to be added to the galaxy map? I mean you discovered it right? Now multiply that up by all the potential explorers in the game....
Very true, but the problem with this is that due to the uprated speed of travel, we'd discover everything in our galaxy with-in a week. People forget that 'real' travel times should be days, weeks, months or even years, yet they complain that it take a few minutes to travel from one side of the known Beta Quadrant to the other, which should really take more than a couple of months!
I think that's kinda what they're doing with the new Season 11 stories. I mean, the season opened with a "Hmm... things are going on at that previously-unexplored system. Check it out!" It's scripted, but it was a neat change in pace.
That shouldn't rule out the possibility of bringing back a type of exploration mechanic, but it is neat that they're finding different ways to put things in.
Another thing is that we see some animals attacking each other, acts of predation, territory clashes.
I agree, the ideas the OP have are certainly interesting and they do have merit but you have to also consider the time, money, and employees dedicated to such a project. With everything else on their plate they would have to take alot of time to develop something like this on such a massive scale and the first thing they would have to do is sell the project to the higher ups and that would be a bit of work since the bottom line for them is how much money a project like this would generate. No that's not to say it's outright impossible, but it is definitely a difficult task.
I'm all for something other than combat, but just clicking F a lot isn't fun. Mini games also aren't fun. There needs to be entirely new mechanics introduced into the game.
Or just the proper use of old ones. Basically, the issue here is that you want to have something besides combat which requires some active involvement and on some other order than "keep the thing aligned" which is just tedious. An option to consider are complex dialog trees with some relevance to successfully completing a given mini-mission (there's one still extant diplomacy assignment which stands out as an example for what we could use more of, the Cardassian investigation on Bajor.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
but you will eventually get bored unless you can entertain yourself in the sandbox
In part, Dangerous is great because it is boring. This is a sim, committed to its own part-science, part-fiction set of rules and mechanics. It's not interested in being a piece of entertainment that you pick up and consume.
See that last part there about entertainment? That's what STO is.
Elite: Dangerous is one of the most enthralling and evocative space combat and trade sim games I've ever played. It's also one of the most boring. It's both. I've spent weeks waiting for the moment that something would click and I'd understand how to play Elite in a way that was consistently enjoyable and engaging, but that moment hasn’t come yet.
So basically, it's boring. It will appeal to a small subset of gamers that enjoy that sort of thing. So as I've said elsewhere, if I was Cryptic, I would never do exploration. The amount of money you'd have to throw at it to even have a chance of creating something compelling would be crazy. It would simply not be worth it. And the reality is that Star Trek, what we all love, was never about exploration. Exploration was nothing more that the backdrop for the stories it told. And that's what STO is doing well and should continue to focus on.
Irrelevant. They removed our old system. Least they could do is give it back. There was no reason to remove what we had to begin with. if it "sucked" leave it or improve it.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
so no fighting. no scanning, and no anything else... because thats more or less what mini games are new more active way of doing things that we normally do by pressing f alot.
maybe I'm misunderstanding could you explain more.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
My point is that flying to a pre-determined planned, pressing F and then getting a scripted result is not what I would call exploration. Most of the mini games are the same, but with different graphics. Would be nice to have some sort of puzzle that wasn't timed for example.
I would truly love it if there was away for us to be able to find things/places/species that no one else had found etc, but the problem is that it's not possible in an MMO like STO.
Right, more non-combat missions, because when everything is exciting, it isn't. I also suggest the idea of animal mobs aggro'ing other ones because there's a low-level zone attached to Qeynos in EQ2 where wolves go after deer, and wasps go after spiders.
It's technically feasible to generate billions of star systems from a single key. Coding it is a pain, but once you've got it, there's no limitation to creating enough space that hundreds of thousands of players would not exhaust it for centuries (at which point you just plug in a new key).
Whether Star Trek Online is the venue for it remains to be seen, but there are other games in development that are banking big money on very similar concepts. It would be a bit short-sighted if Cryptic wasn't actively exploring the options.
I played through the original exploration system so you're describing those maps, which would benefit greatly from the massive size of the new quadrants, and let's be clear, each Exploration area would need to be the size of the Beta Quadrant in my view.
It would be a non-violent patrol mission basically.
On the subject of Bridge Officers doing things, I agree 100%. Even in normal missions, a bio scan should be done via my science officer not my engineering captain.
I've also been thinking that BOFFs should have education that gives bonuses and abilities in exploration. For instance my Chief Science Officer would have to have at least a degree in Biology, computer science, and astrophysics to cover all bases. Another science officer could be a botanist so she would be the sci officers I have scan those weird plants in the Tholian Cave on New Romulus for extra XP, EXP, sci CXP or whatever you want. On Mine Enemy, you have to have other players of different careers along to solve all the problems, but your BOFFs should be perfectly capable of those other mission objectives, if they have the Education. You don't want a computer science engineer working on a drill. Kirk and Picard never needed to call in another captain to solve a problem and Janeway and Archer didn't even have the option.
For observing less advanced species, we'd need a duck blind. And abilities like the team stealth in the Terran Task Force could be permanently activated out of combat so you could walk through a settlement without being detected.
Tactical Officers with education in forensics and ballistics, and military history would be able to help you dig details out of ancient battlefields. Actually reconstructing the stories of civilizations ruins would be pretty cool.
I'd like to see objectives based on your BOFFs career for success. If I am on the Tholian flagship retrieving the Tox Uthat, and they say we have to get it and hold off the Tholians, I should be able to post BOFFs to the door to hold off incoming Tholians. I should get the highest chance of success i.e. not interrupted by THolians shooting me, with either two tac officers, shooting them all, or two engineers with force fields and mine barriers. As a Tac Captain I would get two extra security with call in reinforcements (though that would be disabled since they can't beam in and don't have EV suits). Things like that, that require you to think a little.
Education would also play into how strong certain abilities are. An engineer who is a demolition specialist would get a bigger bonus out of Chroniton Mines vs Exocomps.
Even for Captains, for instance Warp Theorist would be a degree in Warp Core design, so you could get advanced degrees and get a bigger bonus and also get a huge difficulty (in this game that would be a time bonus) on anything having to do with warp engines. Singularity cores would be a different degree. An advanced demolition education would grant you a bonus say when you're dealing with the Republic spy's mines on the mission on Sela's ship.
Alright, I'm done, I've gone a bit off subject with my examples.
I kind of want to share the systems I've discovered with my fleet too. Have it be part of the fleet Astrometrics database. So rather than donating marks or dilithium, you acquire a trade agreement with a new civilization that covers a portion of the resources needed for fleet projects.
Have it account for a fleet's exploration initiative, so the more your fleet explores the higher bonuses you get from Starfleet Command. Also have a new exploration space for each area, so you have one for Alpha, Beta, and Delta Quadrant, and one for the Solanae Sphere.
That said yes it would be more player data that would have to be saved definitely.
I once suggested a system where you would have to complete exploration as a process. Scan system, map system, first contact/science expedition, negotiations, ambassador. Then if you didn't visit for a while, you'd have to reestablish contact/ongoing relations.
You'd maybe have a list of explored systems as random generated names that you have contacted, but you'd have to select them from a list to travel to them because their physical location after you've found them once is still randomly generated in sector space.
It should probably be a focus for STO2 or whatever the successor game to this one is called.
Fascinating enough even on New Romulus we don't actually see the predator animals eating other animals.
Agreed. The issue to me is that the minigames are reflex based rather than anything having to do with what you're going for.
For instance, you have to spin around a target while mining dilithium. That has nothing to do with mining. The dilithium isn't going to move in the rock. You should have to say trace out a vein in the ground, like using ground penetrating sonar to find the dilithium then your exocomp comes along and extracts where you've scanned. You only have a limited amount of time to scan as much of the vein as possible.
I have no idea what's going on in the radiation minigame. We have sensors and computers now that can give you the frequency of the radiation you're detecting. Why we need to manually adjust it is beyond me.The radiation minigame should actually be you tracking the radiation to its source and figuring out what's radioactive. Especially on New Romulus where you're setting up a settlement and trying to make sure everything is safe.
It's fascinating considering how early in STO's development people wanted a live all player bridge crew. A Star Trek sim for this game.
As much as I love the story missions, which is a lot, replaying them every week isn't working for me. Especially since the features don't have any alternative endings that make replaying them a different experience.
I disagree that it wouldn't be worth it, as it could be very worthwhile.
You're right and you're wrong. Star Trek is about exploration and that exploration as the backdrop is an integral part of it. However exploration was the framing used to get us to the stories they wanted to tell. Up until this Future Proof arc, STO's framing wasn't exploration, but war. So as much as we've been shooting during the war framing, now is the time for a proper exploration framing to tell these stories.
In my opinion though this game is not competing with Elite Dangerous. It's our spiritual child. Mass Effect. In ME, the exploration led you to little stories that added dimension to the bigger tale.
There were a bunch of small missions in Mass Effect 1 that introduced you to Cerberus. Then in Mass Effect 2 you actually had a history with them if you ran their missions in the first one.
That's what this game needs. Examine every aftermath and every implication. We just finished the Iconian War. Do you think they only attacked us? There are probably thousands of worlds that had Heralds appear on the streets and then vanish as quickly as they came and they don't know what hit them. We could meet those races. We could find the broken husks of the fleets that didn't survive the assault. Whatever happened to that Khan boy that escaped Facility 4028? We're not going to find those stories doing missions in our respective spheres.
Take things out of the systems. For instance our fleet projects have trade with local systems. Well how did we meet these systems? There should've been a mission. Stretch it out.
Do a Doomsday machine hunt mission where we've discovered several star systems completely devastated, and then in the fourth system we find another Planet Killer and instead of the low level fight in the Klingon Arc this time we have to fight it alone (or get a team of friends to warp in and survive til they get there). Or leave the system and have still be on the map after you leave. And if you kill it in a certain amount of time, you get to make first contact in the system it was about to destroy. Things that aren't random, but feel random.
Take all of those DOFF assignment chains and flesh them out as full (and repeatable) missions.
I think one thing that this game could take from Elite Dangerous is how involved it is. STO could use some more simulation aspects. Like ship builds. Equipment is too simple.
They come out with a bunch of different variants on the same torpedo, but there's no crossover.
I have the Regent and the Wide Arc Quantum Torpedo Launcher. That's a piece of equipment that's built into my ship. The torpedoes are different than that though. Why can't I have a Wide Arc Launcher loaded with the Delta Alliance Thoron Quantum warhead, or the Radiant Quantum Warhead, or the Phase Quantum Warhead. Raising the Launcher a Mk level or rarity should give me another slot to add in modifications, which would drastically rewrite the market and all of the Acc, CRTX, CrtDX, DMG that we're used to I know.
The fact is that Elite Dangerous does have a lot more galaxy for your buck, and STO does have a limit where you've played all the content to death. Deep Space exploration is a viable way to keep going.
Okay, while I do agree some people may go a little overboard with their ideas of what ships should have, that doesn't mean any new T6 ships they release should be weaker than a T5 ship, or even worse in some cases. And while I know I sound like a person who wants extremely powerful ships, it's Cryptic who made the game like that anyways. Aside from episodes, DOFF and Admiralty assignments, everything you do in this game involves shooting. And when you get to Elite and Advance stuff, you NEED to do a lot of damage. All the optional objectives are the same with the "get done within this amount of time" bonus. Even in missions where other types of ships would help (I.E the Mirror Invasion event with Cruisers and Science Vessels being faster at closing portals and powering the station), you honestly don't need that. I've done that STF with a team of nothing but Escorts, and we were all Tac. We managed to get done with a whole 6 minutes remaining!
Sure, people will say, "who cares? It's just about having fun!". Well fine, but then why don't the developers focus more on that than making more and more ships that we honestly don't even need? Because the devs care about money, nothing else. And I'm sure there's gonna be a pay-to-win element within the new Exploration System, if they are even making it, as I've seen nothing to indicate they have been.