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An idea for Expanding and Improving the Ship Upgrade system.
kovabomb
Member Posts: 52 Arc User
For some time now we’ve enjoyed the ability to upgrade some of our favorite Tier 5 ships to keep them on par with the newest T6 vessels. I for one have been very happy with this, however I’ve had an idea kicking around in my head that I thought I would bounce off the community. Now I’m sure someone has posted something similar to this at some point, but perhaps I can add something to the discussion.
In the ship store, there currently exists a wide verity of crafts of different tiers. The lower tier ships are good for a new and leveling character, but quickly become obsolete and good only for experimentation and creative play in the end-game since they are not eligible for upgrading and some do not have a retrofit or fleet variant. On top of that, there are some ships that the developers have stated cannot be brought forward as end-game ships due to contractual obligations, such as the Constitution class. This has left a good deal of potential untapped in the lower tier ships.
The idea that came to me was to expand the current upgrade system to include the lower tier ships in a limited way, so as not to make the fleet and retrofit ships completely redundant. Once a character reaches the next tier of rank and unlocks the next ship tier, they gain the ability to purchase ship upgrade tokens for their older ships and bring them forward with them. Some ships would be limited to a certain tier (such as the Constitution only being eligible up to T4 or T5), and other ships would be limited to the tier just below that of their retrofit or fleet counterpart. For these ships, the player would be granted a discount to purchase the retrofit or fleet variant if they have the lower tier ship upgraded to the maximum level it can achieve, similar to how fleet ships are discounted if the player has purchased the C-store variant. Other low tier ships that have no fleet or retrofit counterpart (and are not limited by other provisos) would be able to reach the upper limits of the ship tiers, joining the T5-Us and T6s.
Let’s knock this idea around a bit and see if it has any potential.
In the ship store, there currently exists a wide verity of crafts of different tiers. The lower tier ships are good for a new and leveling character, but quickly become obsolete and good only for experimentation and creative play in the end-game since they are not eligible for upgrading and some do not have a retrofit or fleet variant. On top of that, there are some ships that the developers have stated cannot be brought forward as end-game ships due to contractual obligations, such as the Constitution class. This has left a good deal of potential untapped in the lower tier ships.
The idea that came to me was to expand the current upgrade system to include the lower tier ships in a limited way, so as not to make the fleet and retrofit ships completely redundant. Once a character reaches the next tier of rank and unlocks the next ship tier, they gain the ability to purchase ship upgrade tokens for their older ships and bring them forward with them. Some ships would be limited to a certain tier (such as the Constitution only being eligible up to T4 or T5), and other ships would be limited to the tier just below that of their retrofit or fleet counterpart. For these ships, the player would be granted a discount to purchase the retrofit or fleet variant if they have the lower tier ship upgraded to the maximum level it can achieve, similar to how fleet ships are discounted if the player has purchased the C-store variant. Other low tier ships that have no fleet or retrofit counterpart (and are not limited by other provisos) would be able to reach the upper limits of the ship tiers, joining the T5-Us and T6s.
Let’s knock this idea around a bit and see if it has any potential.
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Comments
as T4 ships would be the only ships worth upgrading there is very little point as most players get T5 ships shortly after reaching this point either via the c-store or events.
there is a considerable amount of work involved for cryptic to make upgraded versions of ships and this is why they limited the upgrades to only T5, the time involved is just not worth the projected profit from such a venture.
they only really made the T5U upgrades as they realised it could be some time before many players got T6 ships and the projected profit was worth the time involved to do the work.
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maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
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As the others said, this is brought up repeatedly, and believe me it has NO BENEFIT at all to upgrade low tier ships that you spend all of a day or two in due to getting another ship due to a promotion.
It's time this 'idea' became an FCT and it's time for people to quit asking for it, especially a Connie upgrade that has already been upgraded numerous times (just read the descriptions!).
That said, I would put forward another upgrade possibility for existing T5/T5-U ships: specialization. After all, if you can add a command or intel 'subclass' to your bridge officers, it does not seem beyond the realm of possibility for a project to exist which allows you to 'hybridize' a station on such a ship.
I think shuttle combat just needs a revamp. The point of an upgrade system is to allow for multiple tiers to exist in the same area of gameplay with an accessible channel between them (specifically T5, T5U, and T6.) There's no reason to maintain that same setup with shuttles. If they need more power and capability, just give them more power and capability.
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