Suggestion to improve bridge officer gameplay experience.

heliolycan

When I first started playing Star Trek online, what really hooked me into the game was the bridge officers and the shear variety of options we have in their customization. It really helps to immerse me into the game play because I love the RP aspect and it honors the spirit of the Star Trek series, because after all, it's the relationships between the characters that makes the franchise great. Would it be possible to kick it up a notch further?

What I'm suggesting is giving us the option of hybrid bridge officers. Star Trek is full of great characters who were hybrids of two species and I would be personally psyched to be able to create my own Balana Torress or have a Klingon/ Betazoid Hybrid on my away missions. I cant imagine that it would take very much effort to implement this into the game.

I was thinking something simple, like you get a duty officer who's species is listed as Vulcan Hybrid and once you add him to your bridge crew the game prompts you to choose a second species for the officer to belong to. Doing so would unlock all the appearance options for the second species and would allow you to choose one species specific trait to add to the officer. It shouldn't take much coding, everything Im talking about is already in the game.

The other thing I'd like to see is for my department heads to actually be where they are supposed to be in my ship's interior. It just urks me a little whenever I walk into sick bay or engineering and instead of seeing my department head, the game has some random NPC named ships doctor or chief engineer. With that said, again this is more RP oriented, it would be nice if there were more positions to fill aboard the ship so we could see all of our bridge officers working around the ship like Transporter Chief or Conn Officer. It may seem purely aesthetic but it helps with game immersion and would really create the sense that we are putting together our own crews.

schloopdoo

If I could make one change to Bridge Officers, it would be to replace their ground skills with the ability to equip kits. I don't think anyone swaps out ground skills on Boffs as often as they swap out space skills for different ship loadouts. It would expand the market for both the abundant kit frames from lock boxes and the newer kit modules that don't have Boff ability analogues, and it would enable Boffs to enjoy set bonuses from Counter-Command ground set and any future sets where kits contribute to bonuses.

khazlol

i think we are meant to create hybrids with the aliens.

some of the details might require store unlocks. but i am not sure of this

staq16

Personally, I don't think that BOff variety is the issue, especially with the flexibility that the AlienGen gives you - there are very few canon aliens you can't make a good fist of.

IMO the big issue is that there is such an imbalance when it comes to Space traits - Roms rule, Krenim and Nausicaans can be useful, and everything else is irrelevant. Players should not be penalised for wanting bridge crews made up of Humans, Klingons, Andorians, etc...

davefenestrator

staq16 wrote: »

Personally, I don't think that BOff variety is the issue, especially with the flexibility that the AlienGen gives you - there are very few canon aliens you can't make a good fist of.

IMO the big issue is that there is such an imbalance when it comes to Space traits - Roms rule, Krenim and Nausicaans can be useful, and everything else is irrelevant. Players should not be penalised for wanting bridge crews made up of Humans, Klingons, Andorians, etc...

Exactly. A KDF player should not feel forced to get Romulans from their fleet store to replace Klingons just to improve DPS.

Either give all races Operative and Subterfuge, or better yet add Genetic Resequencers for boffs to change or add to the traits of the boffs we already have. Set some limit like max. 2 space traits.

aesica

schloopdoo wrote: »

If I could make one change to Bridge Officers, it would be to replace their ground skills with the ability to equip kits.

Yes. After reading the title of this thread, this is exactly what I came in here to post. I have so many fun, yet unused kit modules that I'd love to give to boffs. Plus, a reason why cryptic should do this, they could add that much more value to the kit modules they like to stuff inside lockboxes.

jorantomalak

If i could change one thing about Boffs

I could finally toss tovan khev into an airlock flush it, and this time he wouldnt come back

noroblad

Lot of coding for what is already in the game pretty much. Just get an alien and make it look like whatever you wanted? It clearly wouldnt be possible to use that to make a klingon/vulcan hybrid for their innate ground skills, but for role playing and cosmetics, you can.

whisperor

I currently have no problems with my BOFFs; I like them just the way they are.
Having said that, I do like the idea off letting BOFFs carry career specific kits with them. Different away missions and different terrain, hostiles, etc. require different tactics and strategy. having flexibility such as being able to swap necessary equipment as needed would be a big plus.
And having the BOFFs being located in key areas (beside their stations on the bridge) of the ships interior would be cool as well. Although we could use some missions, scenarios, PVE, PVP and what not take place solely within our vessels interior.
As for Hybrid races, isn't that what the alien choice on race/species selection is for?

jorantomalak wrote: »

If i could change one thing about Boffs

I could finally toss tovan khev into an airlock flush it, and this time he wouldnt come back

*SIGH*

...This Again?