Well from a storyline standpoint I do find this a bit disappointing that the Klingons and Romulans seem to have taken a “backseat” to this new expansion.
We had captains from both these factions up until recently going back and forth in time to confront the Na’Khul and now that we are to go back to the TOS era the two factions don’t seem to have a role in it.
I would have liked to seen something where three captains from the three factions had to go back in time and join their respective factions and at the same time work a problem that requires the input from all three captains.
As a player that just means if you have three different faction captains, then you get to see much more of the story and the Star Trek universe of that era. That to me is what an expansion should be about.
Were they working on this for over a year? Because from what I understand the excuse is there was not enough time to develop a storyline or the ships, missions bases etc etc for all three factions. I get the feeling part of the problem was due to something the playerbase has been clamoring about since Legacy of Romulans in that a lot of players did not like (including me) a faction aligned Romulan story.
Now we have an expansion that in no way could support the faction aligned dynamic as the Romulans were enemies to both the Federation and the Klingons. In fact all three factions were enemies.
I do think I will enjoy this new expansion for my Fed captains but I can’t help but feel a bit left out on behalf of my Klingon and Romulan captains.
"There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life." - Ten Bears (Will Sampson)
They developed a new faction really it just can use fed stuff at max level. It isn't entirely different from how the Romulans work. Asking them to do what you propose would basically be adding three new factions at once. No way in hell they could do that.
Just this one meant an entirely new set of leveling missions, new sector space, characters and voice actors, all models and most locations... etc. I mean you really have no idea what all went into this, none of us do.
What do you think all those Romulan and Klingon Tier 6 ships in those cross-factions were? Or what the custom improvements/fixes for Klingons have been that were released lately?
If you call the additions and fixes Cryptic made for the Klingon and Romulan faction as utter neglect,
We're not talking about fixes and exactly what additions have they made hmm? I've yet to see any new Klink/Rom missions. I've also not seen them drop any new ships unless they were reskins of what they made for the feds.
They are not just reskins. The Valiant, Kor and Malem are three similar, but hardly identical ships. The latter two even get enhanced battle cloak. Practically every Klingon or Romulan ship is a Federation ship with at least cloak as extra whistle added on. (Often even more than that.)
Sometimes they even win considerably in the Tier 6 retrofits. The Kolasi grew a hangar bay in its Tier 6 transition, the Bortasque became more maneuverable.
And I argue even if they were total copy & pastes with no mechanical differences - that#s probably still preferable to something like the Federation getting a ship with a trait like Reprocity and the Klingons getting Overwhelming Force. In short, it ensures that all factions also have access to similar abilities and no one gets to have an uber advantages.
But t he mechanical differences are meaningless anyway. The real work goes into the ship designs, and no matter what you do, a Valiant and a Kor look completely different, and fit their respetive factions.
The real disappointment for me was that they didn't make the Jupiter part of a cross-faction pack. It makes me wonder if Carriers are actually not all that popular in STO - compare it to the glut of Cruisers we have in game.
Terrible or broken rehashes of Fed-side table scraps. Proven it doesn't sell? They haven't even proved they have tried to sell a Klingon Sci ship, because the first is a worse version of a freebie Fed ship - and it was one of the worst Fed-ships at that - the Dysons were all terrible.
The Dyson Science Vessels were however the first science vessels ever with secondary deflectors and it took what - over a year until that was finally applied to all other science vessels. And the bugs it had were not faction-specific. All factions suffered from that. But at least the Klingon and Romulan variants of the Dyson had Cloak respectively Battle Cloak. A free extra.
The Varanus is deemed subpar by many, but it ignores that its flaws were also replicated on the D'Kyr and the Nebula - giving Science Vessels a TRIBBLE turn rate. It took enermous amounts of complaints (back then, vastly lead by PvPers) to give them some improvements, and the Varanus was not left out there, either.
It also followed perfectly the ancient ship design guidelines Cryptic seemed to be working under back then, which hardly implies malice. And that is a dumb idea anyway. If cryptic releases TRIBBLE ships, it's become they don't realize they are TRIBBLE, because TRIBBLE ships sell poorly but cost exactly the same as good ships to make.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Maybe the reason why KDF doesn't sell well because there are simply less items in the store?
It matters what they make per ship they make, not what they make with the KDF as a whole. Making a ship is what costs the big money. Too many ships might actually risk making less money per ship, since not everyone is a collector - some people will simply be happy with the ship(s)s they got and will not be in the market for the next ship.
But going by the ship lineup Cryptic has released so far, it seems Cruisers always have a bigger market than escorts, which have a bigger market then Science Vessels or Carriers. And then there is obviously a bigger market for Fed then for KDF and ROM vessels.
For content, it's quite simple however - even if the 3 factions were represented perfectly balanced in the player population, making new story content for only one faction means not reaching 2/3rd of them. If the population is not balanced, the situation gets even worse. Faction agnostic content that is available to all factions is the most efficient way to go. The only reason a new faction with faction-specific content might seem like a good idea to them is because the faction itself might attract new players. Making TOS a faction is a kinda weird move speaking from a mere story perspective, but if you look at the fanbase, it might make sense. We'll see if that actually works out.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
one of my regrets; this ship is awful (wings too big, 2 big red candies, head too big). I would prefered a basic raptor on which all the nice skins of low tier raptors would have been useable: puyjaq , suqob skins
Take the seating off a Fleet Norgh, slap it on a B'rel, add the upgrade token, swap in a 'pilot' seat and give it a 'ship trait' that is absolutely useless to it.
Many ships get updates to Tier 6 similar to that. Look at the Operations Star Cruiser. A Fed ship. No one needs its trait, and the upgrade is pretty standard.
Seriously useless, of zero value on the ship it comes on. Whithering Barrage is great if you're in a Defiant, or a Malem-you've got shields and hull on a Defiant or a Malem, you can afford to hang around. On a BoP (ANY Bird of Prey) if you're lingering at low speed, you're asking to be blown up.
A Bird of Prey can also hang around long enough for a full Withering Barrage, if you know what you're doing.
And Withering Barrage would be great on pretty much every other cannon build, which most KDF ships support, too. So the ship has value even for people that don't want to fly a BoP.
Carriers...must be popular with Fed players. I say that, because in the skill revamp, they specifically included 'skills' that maximize carrier pets, and they built a very expensive Tier Six carrier for Federation Players only.
Carriers don't seem to be all that popular with feds, either.
The Federation has 2 Carriers in its entire line-up.
But in Tier 6 alone, we got two Cruiser triple packs and 1 Escort Triple Pack.
Maybe people like to have that hangar bay on their Cruiser, but real Carriers? They don't seem that popular, or Cryptic would be releasing more.
I think there is a reason why they rather put them in lockboxes, make them event ships or run special promo - They need to generate extra excitement for them.
Science Vessels probably do a bit better, but the ones they put in lockboxes or the lobi store lately seem deliberately designed to be overpowered Science Vessels by turning them into Dreadnaughts. (And thus for real Science Vessel fans, they are kinda disappointing. I own both an Annorax and a Paradox, and I dislike flying a low-turn rate Science Vessel. TRIBBLE the extra weapon slot, who needs that if you run 125 Aux anyway? But I am sure the Cruiser lovers that want to run their BFAW builds are happy.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
That 30% is further divided in half and it takes the same amount of time and money to design and build additions for each faction. The up front costs for development are very large and have to atleast make the money back.
They have plenty of crossfaction goodies to make money off the full 100% however.
There's no reason not to sell everything to the full 100%.
Why sell 1 ship for the 70%, 1 ship for the 15% and 1 ship for the other 15%, when you could sell all 3 to everyone?
I do tend to think that Cryptic might be able to make a few KDF ships relatively "cheap" in terms of modelling.
For example, if they created a Tier 6 Orion Science Vessel that just gives you access to all 3 models, add a new hull material, and buff the stats to be competitive with the Pathfinder (mostly the turn rate is needed), I think they could have a solid KDF Science Vessel. I think the models still hold up pretty well with current standards. But of course, that would still not really be a Klingon Science Vessel.
But I think if they go cheap and still demand the usual price, they will also get negative feedback. Releasing another Fed Cruiser is probably still the safer bet. Similar anger, but more sales.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I do tend to think that Cryptic might be able to make a few KDF ships relatively "cheap" in terms of modelling.
For example, if they created a Tier 6 Orion Science Vessel that just gives you access to all 3 models, add a new hull material, and buff the stats to be competitive with the Pathfinder (mostly the turn rate is needed), I think they could have a solid KDF Science Vessel. I think the models still hold up pretty well with current standards. But of course, that would still not really be a Klingon Science Vessel.
But I think if they go cheap and still demand the usual price, they will also get negative feedback. Releasing another Fed Cruiser is probably still the safer bet. Similar anger, but more sales.
I have a feeling many KDF fans would find adding "new" C-Store ships without actual new models an even bigger insult than not adding any ships at all.
I mean, people already complain the KDF ships are "reskins" of the Feds'. Can imagine the reaction if they stopped making even new skins for them.
I don't understand. The past year has seen the introduction of various 3-faction-packs for almost all new ships. All the mission content is written so that it works for all three existing factions.
What else can anyone want? Why would anyone complain after a year of getting more stuff to buy than ever?
Always the same tune. If you haven't understood the first six years of posts that went over your head then you won't understand the next six years either.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
(In a hypothetical business scenario) Will I "stock my shelves" with a majority of stuff for X? Sure!
But you whine and complain when Cryptic does exactly that. They stock their virtual shelves with "a majority of stuff for" Federation, since it's the vast majority of their customer base, and to you that makes them Satan. When you said yourself, as quoted above, that it's exactly what you would do in their place.
Stop complaining now or be revealed as an utter hypocrite.
Stop strawmanning and taking lines out of context, or be revealed as an utter idiot.
Come on now, stop thinking as a player and start thinking as a business for a minute.
I really hope you don't run/manage a business IRL. Any business I would run would follow the age old concept of 'if someone walks in your door with 35cents in their pocket you want that 35cents before they leave. This means a, good, business should have something for EVERYONE, not just the whiney majority. It should have some cheap things to buy some expensive things, it should have stuff for the X, the Y, and the Z. Will I "stock my shelves" with a majority of stuff for X? Sure! But utterly neglecting the other 2 is shooting myself in the foot.
Oops, too late.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Maybe the reason why KDF doesn't sell well because there are simply less items in the store?
Part of it is that sure, but there's also the part where several of the items in the store are hated by KDF players. I like my Varanus, but most KDF players despise it for its stats. The Bort ran head first into similar issues, players saw the stats and cried foul. You can have a shelf full of toys, but if its ones no one likes, then guess what, they won't sell well.
(In a hypothetical business scenario) Will I "stock my shelves" with a majority of stuff for X? Sure!
But you whine and complain when Cryptic does exactly that. They stock their virtual shelves with "a majority of stuff for" Federation, since it's the vast majority of their customer base, and to you that makes them Satan. When you said yourself, as quoted above, that it's exactly what you would do in their place.
Stop complaining now or be revealed as an utter hypocrite.
As starsword said, take it in full context. The problem is they aren't "stocking their remaining shelf space" with stuff for RR and KDF. What few times we do, we get reskins of the stuff they made for Feds, or now, they aren't even doing that, they're just dropping stuff that looks the same for everyone.
Maybe the reason why KDF doesn't sell well because there are simply less items in the store?
Part of it is that sure, but there's also the part where several of the items in the store are hated by KDF players. I like my Varanus, but most KDF players despise it for its stats. The Bort ran head first into similar issues, players saw the stats and cried foul. You can have a shelf full of toys, but if its ones no one likes, then guess what, they won't sell well.
(In a hypothetical business scenario) Will I "stock my shelves" with a majority of stuff for X? Sure!
But you whine and complain when Cryptic does exactly that. They stock their virtual shelves with "a majority of stuff for" Federation, since it's the vast majority of their customer base, and to you that makes them Satan. When you said yourself, as quoted above, that it's exactly what you would do in their place.
Stop complaining now or be revealed as an utter hypocrite.
As starsword said, take it in full context. The problem is they aren't "stocking their remaining shelf space" with stuff for RR and KDF. What few times we do, we get reskins of the stuff they made for Feds, or now, they aren't even doing that, they're just dropping stuff that looks the same for everyone.
Shelf space is a non-entity here. Also, it's a non-entity for a real business too. Instead of leaving shelves empty you'd rearrange your products to fill the empty space. So your "context" is made up. Cryptic has made at least 6 ships for the KDF in the last year. How many times did they make a Fed ship with no KDF counterpart in that time? I can think of only ONE, the Jupiter.
Maybe the reason why KDF doesn't sell well because there are simply less items in the store?
Part of it is that sure, but there's also the part where several of the items in the store are hated by KDF players. I like my Varanus, but most KDF players despise it for its stats. The Bort ran head first into similar issues, players saw the stats and cried foul. You can have a shelf full of toys, but if its ones no one likes, then guess what, they won't sell well.
(In a hypothetical business scenario) Will I "stock my shelves" with a majority of stuff for X? Sure!
But you whine and complain when Cryptic does exactly that. They stock their virtual shelves with "a majority of stuff for" Federation, since it's the vast majority of their customer base, and to you that makes them Satan. When you said yourself, as quoted above, that it's exactly what you would do in their place.
Stop complaining now or be revealed as an utter hypocrite.
As starsword said, take it in full context. The problem is they aren't "stocking their remaining shelf space" with stuff for RR and KDF. What few times we do, we get reskins of the stuff they made for Feds, or now, they aren't even doing that, they're just dropping stuff that looks the same for everyone.
Shelf space is a non-entity here. Also, it's a non-entity for a real business too. Instead of leaving shelves empty you'd rearrange your products to fill the empty space. So your "context" is made up. Cryptic has made at least 6 ships for the KDF in the last year. How many times did they make a Fed ship with no KDF counterpart in that time? I can think of only ONE, the Jupiter.
Think harder, the Resolute and Hestia both came out as one-offs. Go back further to the Delta pack and you get the Dauntless, Scryer, Eclipse*, and Pathfinder. Also, the Avenger/Arbiter and Mogh/Kurak lack a Romulan version.
* I say "Eclipse" because the QIb and Aehlal, as LCDR Intel cruisers, were more opposite numbers to the Guardian.
Post edited by starswordc on
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Maybe the reason why KDF doesn't sell well because there are simply less items in the store?
Part of it is that sure, but there's also the part where several of the items in the store are hated by KDF players. I like my Varanus, but most KDF players despise it for its stats. The Bort ran head first into similar issues, players saw the stats and cried foul. You can have a shelf full of toys, but if its ones no one likes, then guess what, they won't sell well.
(In a hypothetical business scenario) Will I "stock my shelves" with a majority of stuff for X? Sure!
But you whine and complain when Cryptic does exactly that. They stock their virtual shelves with "a majority of stuff for" Federation, since it's the vast majority of their customer base, and to you that makes them Satan. When you said yourself, as quoted above, that it's exactly what you would do in their place.
Stop complaining now or be revealed as an utter hypocrite.
As starsword said, take it in full context. The problem is they aren't "stocking their remaining shelf space" with stuff for RR and KDF. What few times we do, we get reskins of the stuff they made for Feds, or now, they aren't even doing that, they're just dropping stuff that looks the same for everyone.
Shelf space is a non-entity here. Also, it's a non-entity for a real business too. Instead of leaving shelves empty you'd rearrange your products to fill the empty space. So your "context" is made up. Cryptic has made at least 6 ships for the KDF in the last year. How many times did they make a Fed ship with no KDF counterpart in that time? I can think of only ONE, the Jupiter.
Keep counting. Hestia, Excelsior, Pathfinder, ...
Other than that and also putting aside the TOS Btchslap to the face, they did T6 a bit better than the T5. The quantity of ships are at least more comparable. Science ships of course are another story. Depending on whether the Eternity indeed is as suspected a zen-ship as opposed to a lottery pick ship, there may be a quite a few people who pick it up.
Of course some of us are still owed a Klingon and Romulan science ship won't settle for anything less
Shelf space is a non-entity here. Also, it's a non-entity for a real business too. Instead of leaving shelves empty you'd rearrange your products to fill the empty space. So your "context" is made up. Cryptic has made at least 6 ships for the KDF in the last year. How many times did they make a Fed ship with no KDF counterpart in that time? I can think of only ONE, the Jupiter.
Now yer just being a twit and even others are calling you out on it. And since you are apparently incapable of getting it on your own, I'm using "shelf space" as a metaphor here. They aren't rearranging their products to fill that empty space, they're just leaving it bare and more and more people are noticing that. Now even have some Fed players complaining about it. Here's your sign
Shelf space is a non-entity here. Also, it's a non-entity for a real business too. Instead of leaving shelves empty you'd rearrange your products to fill the empty space. So your "context" is made up. Cryptic has made at least 6 ships for the KDF in the last year. How many times did they make a Fed ship with no KDF counterpart in that time? I can think of only ONE, the Jupiter.
Now yer just being a twit and even others are calling you out on it. And since you are apparently incapable of getting it on your own, I'm using "shelf space" as a metaphor here. They aren't rearranging their products to fill that empty space, they're just leaving it bare and more and more people are noticing that. Now even have some Fed players complaining about it. Here's your sign
The difference is a matter of presentation. "rearranging products" does not require you to CREATE new products. Adding things to the Z-store DOES.
Maybe the reason why KDF doesn't sell well because there are simply less items in the store?
Part of it is that sure, but there's also the part where several of the items in the store are hated by KDF players. I like my Varanus, but most KDF players despise it for its stats. The Bort ran head first into similar issues, players saw the stats and cried foul. You can have a shelf full of toys, but if its ones no one likes, then guess what, they won't sell well.
(In a hypothetical business scenario) Will I "stock my shelves" with a majority of stuff for X? Sure!
But you whine and complain when Cryptic does exactly that. They stock their virtual shelves with "a majority of stuff for" Federation, since it's the vast majority of their customer base, and to you that makes them Satan. When you said yourself, as quoted above, that it's exactly what you would do in their place.
Stop complaining now or be revealed as an utter hypocrite.
As starsword said, take it in full context. The problem is they aren't "stocking their remaining shelf space" with stuff for RR and KDF. What few times we do, we get reskins of the stuff they made for Feds, or now, they aren't even doing that, they're just dropping stuff that looks the same for everyone.
Shelf space is a non-entity here. Also, it's a non-entity for a real business too. Instead of leaving shelves empty you'd rearrange your products to fill the empty space. So your "context" is made up. Cryptic has made at least 6 ships for the KDF in the last year. How many times did they make a Fed ship with no KDF counterpart in that time? I can think of only ONE, the Jupiter.
Keep counting. Hestia, Excelsior, Pathfinder, ...
Other than that and also putting aside the TOS Btchslap to the face, they did T6 a bit better than the T5. The quantity of ships are at least more comparable. Science ships of course are another story. Depending on whether the Eternity indeed is as suspected a zen-ship as opposed to a lottery pick ship, there may be a quite a few people who pick it up.
Of course some of us are still owed a Klingon and Romulan science ship won't settle for anything less
Eternity and Oroborus are zen ships they are in the expansion pack. Name one ship from the Delta Rising pack that was a lockbox ship? How about from the Legacy of Romulus pack? Can't do it? Of course not, they are zen ships, thats how it works.
No need to get nasty. I simply take no fact for granted until it actually happens. I've been disappointed too often to take rumor, prediction, even near certainties for granted, even when past conduct strongly indicates, and I concur it does here.
Maybe the reason why KDF doesn't sell well because there are simply less items in the store?
Nah, I don't buy that. Why? Market dilution. Example:
Say you have 50 Fed Players and 50 KDF. Each of them has enough zen to buy one ship in the store.
The Fed players each have 10 options to choose from to find something that fits their play style. This means that on average there will be 5 purchases of each ship. Individual ships may be more or less.
But the KDF only have 5 options. Thus each of the ships gets bought 10 times.
But that's not what actually happens. In practice there's something like 5 Feds for every KDF or more. So instead of 50 and 50 it's 50 and 10 or less. By extension this means that while the fed ships get 5 sales each, the KDF would only get TWO.
Hasn't Cryptic offered KDF 'exclusive' items (so much for that term and their bologna about it) to the Feds?
So, you go on and add those exclusive items for KDF ONLY to the Feds and that's even less items that are exclusive KDF. That is tipping the balance in the store further.
We don't know the real numbers and for all we know KDF may outsell the Feds. We don't know. No, we don't know. We can assume this and that all day long and speculate but, we don't know.
One thing I do know is less items for KDF and Exclusive KDF items are offered up in the store for the Feds. Don't see them putting Fed stuff in there for KDF and who would want it? lol
Not sure what you mean by exclusive. I'm guessing carriers... which was a dumb idea to have as a faction exclusive thing in the first place. but that makes me wonder what you mean by exclusive Fed stuff... Science ships? Cruisers with all 4 commands?
That or you mean the ship consoles that went into lockboxes... but those were a tech exchange thing, and it gave KDF Fed stuff too.
As for if KDF out sells Fed? There is only one way we have to know. Official statements made by the devs. And they said that Fed ships outsell KDF by a large margin.
I find people raging at me amusing because I like the cross faction bundles simply because I play all three factions.
Ok, after reading all this drivel on the derail of insults and name calling I give up.
Now it is time for shut up.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I don't understand. The past year has seen the introduction of various 3-faction-packs for almost all new ships. All the mission content is written so that it works for all three existing factions.
What else can anyone want? Why would anyone complain after a year of getting more stuff to buy than ever?
because:
1. it seems that time is now over
2. it meant we didn't get any standalone ships at all. everything is thrown in a pack with fed ships. the same can not be said for feds,
3. and that fact storywise were treated even worse then before.
anyone else giot anything?
How many FED and KDF ships were part of the Legacy of Romulus Pack?
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
Comments
We had captains from both these factions up until recently going back and forth in time to confront the Na’Khul and now that we are to go back to the TOS era the two factions don’t seem to have a role in it.
I would have liked to seen something where three captains from the three factions had to go back in time and join their respective factions and at the same time work a problem that requires the input from all three captains.
As a player that just means if you have three different faction captains, then you get to see much more of the story and the Star Trek universe of that era. That to me is what an expansion should be about.
Were they working on this for over a year? Because from what I understand the excuse is there was not enough time to develop a storyline or the ships, missions bases etc etc for all three factions. I get the feeling part of the problem was due to something the playerbase has been clamoring about since Legacy of Romulans in that a lot of players did not like (including me) a faction aligned Romulan story.
Now we have an expansion that in no way could support the faction aligned dynamic as the Romulans were enemies to both the Federation and the Klingons. In fact all three factions were enemies.
I do think I will enjoy this new expansion for my Fed captains but I can’t help but feel a bit left out on behalf of my Klingon and Romulan captains.
Just this one meant an entirely new set of leveling missions, new sector space, characters and voice actors, all models and most locations... etc. I mean you really have no idea what all went into this, none of us do.
Sometimes they even win considerably in the Tier 6 retrofits. The Kolasi grew a hangar bay in its Tier 6 transition, the Bortasque became more maneuverable.
And I argue even if they were total copy & pastes with no mechanical differences - that#s probably still preferable to something like the Federation getting a ship with a trait like Reprocity and the Klingons getting Overwhelming Force. In short, it ensures that all factions also have access to similar abilities and no one gets to have an uber advantages.
But t he mechanical differences are meaningless anyway. The real work goes into the ship designs, and no matter what you do, a Valiant and a Kor look completely different, and fit their respetive factions.
The real disappointment for me was that they didn't make the Jupiter part of a cross-faction pack. It makes me wonder if Carriers are actually not all that popular in STO - compare it to the glut of Cruisers we have in game.
The Dyson Science Vessels were however the first science vessels ever with secondary deflectors and it took what - over a year until that was finally applied to all other science vessels. And the bugs it had were not faction-specific. All factions suffered from that. But at least the Klingon and Romulan variants of the Dyson had Cloak respectively Battle Cloak. A free extra.
The Varanus is deemed subpar by many, but it ignores that its flaws were also replicated on the D'Kyr and the Nebula - giving Science Vessels a TRIBBLE turn rate. It took enermous amounts of complaints (back then, vastly lead by PvPers) to give them some improvements, and the Varanus was not left out there, either.
It also followed perfectly the ancient ship design guidelines Cryptic seemed to be working under back then, which hardly implies malice. And that is a dumb idea anyway. If cryptic releases TRIBBLE ships, it's become they don't realize they are TRIBBLE, because TRIBBLE ships sell poorly but cost exactly the same as good ships to make.
But going by the ship lineup Cryptic has released so far, it seems Cruisers always have a bigger market than escorts, which have a bigger market then Science Vessels or Carriers. And then there is obviously a bigger market for Fed then for KDF and ROM vessels.
For content, it's quite simple however - even if the 3 factions were represented perfectly balanced in the player population, making new story content for only one faction means not reaching 2/3rd of them. If the population is not balanced, the situation gets even worse. Faction agnostic content that is available to all factions is the most efficient way to go. The only reason a new faction with faction-specific content might seem like a good idea to them is because the faction itself might attract new players. Making TOS a faction is a kinda weird move speaking from a mere story perspective, but if you look at the fanbase, it might make sense. We'll see if that actually works out.
one of my regrets; this ship is awful (wings too big, 2 big red candies, head too big). I would prefered a basic raptor on which all the nice skins of low tier raptors would have been useable: puyjaq , suqob skins
A Bird of Prey can also hang around long enough for a full Withering Barrage, if you know what you're doing.
And Withering Barrage would be great on pretty much every other cannon build, which most KDF ships support, too. So the ship has value even for people that don't want to fly a BoP.
Carriers don't seem to be all that popular with feds, either.
The Federation has 2 Carriers in its entire line-up.
But in Tier 6 alone, we got two Cruiser triple packs and 1 Escort Triple Pack.
Maybe people like to have that hangar bay on their Cruiser, but real Carriers? They don't seem that popular, or Cryptic would be releasing more.
I think there is a reason why they rather put them in lockboxes, make them event ships or run special promo - They need to generate extra excitement for them.
Science Vessels probably do a bit better, but the ones they put in lockboxes or the lobi store lately seem deliberately designed to be overpowered Science Vessels by turning them into Dreadnaughts. (And thus for real Science Vessel fans, they are kinda disappointing. I own both an Annorax and a Paradox, and I dislike flying a low-turn rate Science Vessel. TRIBBLE the extra weapon slot, who needs that if you run 125 Aux anyway? But I am sure the Cruiser lovers that want to run their BFAW builds are happy.)
Why sell 1 ship for the 70%, 1 ship for the 15% and 1 ship for the other 15%, when you could sell all 3 to everyone?
For example, if they created a Tier 6 Orion Science Vessel that just gives you access to all 3 models, add a new hull material, and buff the stats to be competitive with the Pathfinder (mostly the turn rate is needed), I think they could have a solid KDF Science Vessel. I think the models still hold up pretty well with current standards. But of course, that would still not really be a Klingon Science Vessel.
But I think if they go cheap and still demand the usual price, they will also get negative feedback. Releasing another Fed Cruiser is probably still the safer bet. Similar anger, but more sales.
I mean, people already complain the KDF ships are "reskins" of the Feds'. Can imagine the reaction if they stopped making even new skins for them.
Always the same tune. If you haven't understood the first six years of posts that went over your head then you won't understand the next six years either.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
Stop strawmanning and taking lines out of context, or be revealed as an utter idiot.
Oops, too late.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
As starsword said, take it in full context. The problem is they aren't "stocking their remaining shelf space" with stuff for RR and KDF. What few times we do, we get reskins of the stuff they made for Feds, or now, they aren't even doing that, they're just dropping stuff that looks the same for everyone.
My character Tsin'xing
Think harder, the Resolute and Hestia both came out as one-offs. Go back further to the Delta pack and you get the Dauntless, Scryer, Eclipse*, and Pathfinder. Also, the Avenger/Arbiter and Mogh/Kurak lack a Romulan version.
* I say "Eclipse" because the QIb and Aehlal, as LCDR Intel cruisers, were more opposite numbers to the Guardian.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Keep counting. Hestia, Excelsior, Pathfinder, ...
Other than that and also putting aside the TOS Btchslap to the face, they did T6 a bit better than the T5. The quantity of ships are at least more comparable. Science ships of course are another story. Depending on whether the Eternity indeed is as suspected a zen-ship as opposed to a lottery pick ship, there may be a quite a few people who pick it up.
Of course some of us are still owed a Klingon and Romulan science ship won't settle for anything less
Now yer just being a twit and even others are calling you out on it. And since you are apparently incapable of getting it on your own, I'm using "shelf space" as a metaphor here. They aren't rearranging their products to fill that empty space, they're just leaving it bare and more and more people are noticing that. Now even have some Fed players complaining about it. Here's your sign
My character Tsin'xing
No need to get nasty. I simply take no fact for granted until it actually happens. I've been disappointed too often to take rumor, prediction, even near certainties for granted, even when past conduct strongly indicates, and I concur it does here.
That or you mean the ship consoles that went into lockboxes... but those were a tech exchange thing, and it gave KDF Fed stuff too.
As for if KDF out sells Fed? There is only one way we have to know. Official statements made by the devs. And they said that Fed ships outsell KDF by a large margin.
I find people raging at me amusing because I like the cross faction bundles simply because I play all three factions.
My character Tsin'xing
Now it is time for shut up.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'