I found a decent method of maxing out your ship's cargo size for anyone interested without spending any currency. Not sure if this will be fixed or not. Unlike other Transmission Towers, Gek Transmission Towers allow you obtain more than one Crashed Ship signal at a time. Also, it seems like using different Transmission Towers causes you to go to previous crashed ship locations that you have already found. My first planet had me going back to the starting point far too many times. All the crashed ships I found were either +1 or -1 cargo slot to my current ship's cargo slots.
So get a bunch of Heridium, Zinc, Plutonium, and Iron for repairs and go to a Gek Transmission Tower to get about 10 or so different Crashed Ship signals. Go to each one and either upgrade and repair to the next highest ship or scrap the upgrades on the inferior ship to help with repairs. Of course, make sure you know where your current ship is if you are going to scrap the crashed ship. So after a few hours, you can end up with a 48 slot ship.
Forgot one minor, but important thing to add about repairing crashed ships. Only the Launch Thrusters and Pulse Engine are necessary to repair to fly the ship. The Deflector Shield doesn't require repairing, but it does produce an annoying sound until it is repaired or you leave the ship.
Somebody else brought up Superman in the thread, and his speed, I just expanded on it.
Sorry, must have glossed over it.
Just out of curiosity what from the Animated Series would you like to see in STO?
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
The Kzinti, but I would want them to look like they do on the covers of the Man/Kzin Wars anthologies. Probably some of the ship classes as well.
Does CBS/Paramount have the right to use the Kzinti? If I recall correctly that's why the Tzenkethi were invented even though they were only mentioned.
That said I would love to see a Kzinti - Ferasan - Caitian arc.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
the word tzenkethi was created by combining kzinti and something else, but their creator had absolutely no intention of making them a feline race; in his own words, he pictured them as being 'heavily-armored lizard things'
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
the word tzenkethi was created by combining kzinti and something else, but their creator had absolutely no intention of making them a feline race; in his own words, he pictured them as being 'heavily-armored lizard things'
Oh yeahh, I remember something along those lines now, thanks.
Well apparently the guys on Enterprise were negotiating with Niven to get the Kzinti for season 5 so it seems like he might have been open to considering the idea again but at present most likely they do not have the rights to use them. Just for me though the Kzin have been a favorite for a very long time. Thats the main reason my favorite tabletop Trek RPG was the Star Fleet Battles spin- off Prime Directive as it included them.
SONUVA...
I'm still salty about that. They cancelled Enterprise just when it was getting really good.
That would be amazing though if whoever's legal team could convince Niven to let the Kzinti back into the Star Trek fold. Alternatively Diggs or Niven could actually write the story arc in STO. That could be money.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
@captaind3 well said, I agree. It would be nice to have
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Unfortunately, STO's game engine would require a major overhaul, if not outright replacement, to have a exploration meta even remotely like some of the space exploration games coming out. I've been playing Elite: Dangerous for a few months, and coming back to STO's comparatively microscopic maps feels downright claustrophobic -- and NMS's is supposedly bigger than ED's. It was mentioned earlier that STO is likely to only get a polished-up version of its previous exploration engine, and I have to agree with that prediction.
Unfortunately, STO's game engine would require a major overhaul, if not outright replacement, to have a exploration meta even remotely like some of the space exploration games coming out. I've been playing Elite: Dangerous for a few months, and coming back to STO's comparatively microscopic maps feels downright claustrophobic -- and NMS's is supposedly bigger than ED's. It was mentioned earlier that STO is likely to only get a polished-up version of its previous exploration engine, and I have to agree with that prediction.
It would already be something. People need to stop comparing STO to NMS or other games, it's like saying "I wish FIFA was more like Mount and Blade". It just doesn't work like this and you can't transform a game to another one. What STO can provide is what the old clusters did. Premade maps with some random options for what happens on them. If we can increase these random modifiers orienting along what kind of DOFF/Admiralty missions we have and be able to actually play those it would already make a lot of players happy. Adding something like a progression log system, a memory of events maybe even a "Nemesis" event (with the option of resetting it) it would be the icing on the cake.
I don't expect STO to become a completely different game and acknowledge it's hard limits. But polishing what we already had would be nice. I'd prefer it over the course the game has currently.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Well, it is true that STO's area of Exploration scope is very tiny. If you throw the story arcs out the window, you can visit and explore nearly every part of the map in a day or so.
It is kinda constraining. Unavoidable to compare it with modern systems. Even some of the weaker games have larger scope to them.
I think I heard it best put somewhere else that STO is like playing in a box, while everyone else plays outside.
STO is good for what it is. They just forgot the Mission of Star Trek.
Well, it is true that STO's area of Exploration scope is very tiny. If you throw the story arcs out the window, you can visit and explore nearly every part of the map in a day or so.
It is kinda constraining. Unavoidable to compare it with modern systems. Even some of the weaker games have larger scope to them.
I think I heard it best put somewhere else that STO is like playing in a box, while everyone else plays outside.
STO is good for what it is. They just forgot the Mission of Star Trek.
They didn't forget about it, but they interpret it differently. STO tries to emulate the TV Show Star Trek, AoY even comes with film grain to emulate a TV set. They try to include the story driven drama and go out of their way to reference every single episode ever made. It would be completely fitting and non-immersion breaking to find a easteregg door on some STO map which leads behind the stage, with the actors taking a break and caterers serving snacks. The devs could place themselves in there in the role of a director or producer. This is what STO is.
The universe of Star Trek is what other games tried to emulate. As a Starfleet officer you are not constantly saving the universe, you would do what your DOFF and Admiralty cards to and explore, cartograph, patrol, support without a huge story arc spanning it all. This is what I would prefer, of course with the occasional written episode but I would like more open ended, free gameplay like @captaind3 suggested.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Unfortunately, STO's game engine would require a major overhaul, if not outright replacement, to have a exploration meta even remotely like some of the space exploration games coming out. I've been playing Elite: Dangerous for a few months, and coming back to STO's comparatively microscopic maps feels downright claustrophobic -- and NMS's is supposedly bigger than ED's. It was mentioned earlier that STO is likely to only get a polished-up version of its previous exploration engine, and I have to agree with that prediction.
Well that's a real fact. Frankly the next question is how would everything in STO convert into STO2?
Because we are talking about things that would need to appear in the sequel with a vastly more powerful engine than what we currently have. Improvements are one thing. But you're only going to get so much out of a 60s Corvette with improvements before the 2016 Bugatti just blows past it with ease.
It would already be something. People need to stop comparing STO to NMS or other games, it's like saying "I wish FIFA was more like Mount and Blade". It just doesn't work like this and you can't transform a game to another one. What STO can provide is what the old clusters did. Premade maps with some random options for what happens on them. If we can increase these random modifiers orienting along what kind of DOFF/Admiralty missions we have and be able to actually play those it would already make a lot of players happy. Adding something like a progression log system, a memory of events maybe even a "Nemesis" event (with the option of resetting it) it would be the icing on the cake.
I don't expect STO to become a completely different game and acknowledge it's hard limits. But polishing what we already had would be nice. I'd prefer it over the course the game has currently.
They actually have even more options than we actually think already built into the game. First, each player file having a memory of what has already been done would be money. For instance if we the player actually have a file in our computer that remembers which procedurally generates planets we've already explored and we can return to them.
As far as the stages we can go to. Consider a stage where you need a Risa floater to get around. How about you have to do a rescue mission for another starship that was attacked and one of their shuttles or escape pods crashed into a volcanic crater or a sank into a deep cavern and you have to use the Intel infiltration rope and the Risa Floater to get around, to rescue them.
Or a shuttle defense of a city like the Atmosphere Assault queue. Nothing as hard as a PvE queue, but a quick mission to gain some prestige with that planet.
Rework and reskin a stage like the Voth Fortress or The Vault as an abandoned alien outpost and getting through it gets you anthropological and historic information about this long gone species.
Man I made a long post about this a long time ago.
Have each exploration cluster have its own rep associated with it and have it unlock missions like the Romulan Rep. Ahhh. There is a WHOLE lot they could do even with what they have.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Just want to say @captaind3 , you've got some great ideas for exploration.
And Targ: You're right, that its not really fair to compare. But, we can always learn something from other sources. Even if it's used down the road on another project. But yeah, I'm going to drop this, because Captaind3 pretty much summed up what I would like to see in regards to exploration in a game, this or other future titles.
But also like you said it doesn't have to be super complex, some doff/admiralty tie ins, along with the use of the server wide progress bar might go a long way to improving the Clusters.
I'd like to see the game get revamped too, with more emphasis on "exploring strange new worlds," "seeking out new life and new civilizations," and "boldly going where no one has gone before" and all that good stuff.
I have no idea how that would be implemented, and part of me is like, "Watch what you ask for; you might get it." And I know these things take time and cost money to implement as well. I get that.
But I'd at least like to have something more than just, for example, "fly around this planet, kill 5 groups of enemy ships, and maybe scan a few things." I know that's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the point.
I'd like to see the game get revamped too, with more emphasis on "exploring strange new worlds," "seeking out new life and new civilizations," and "boldly going where no one has gone before" and all that good stuff.
I have no idea how that would be implemented, and part of me is like, "Watch what you ask for; you might get it." And I know these things take time and cost money to implement as well. I get that.
But I'd at least like to have something more than just, for example, "fly around this planet, kill 5 groups of enemy ships, and maybe scan a few things." I know that's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the point.
check out what captain said a few posts up...he's got some great ideas on meaningful exploration/colonization.
Just want to say @captaind3 , you've got some great ideas for exploration.
And Targ: You're right, that its not really fair to compare. But, we can always learn something from other sources. Even if it's used down the road on another project. But yeah, I'm going to drop this, because Captaind3 pretty much summed up what I would like to see in regards to exploration in a game, this or other future titles.
But also like you said it doesn't have to be super complex, some doff/admiralty tie ins, along with the use of the server wide progress bar might go a long way to improving the Clusters.
If I could poll, back when they were putting fluff and story into DOFF chain assignments, how many of you guys were like. "Damn the lower decks I want to go on that mission".
I'd like to see the game get revamped too, with more emphasis on "exploring strange new worlds," "seeking out new life and new civilizations," and "boldly going where no one has gone before" and all that good stuff.
I have no idea how that would be implemented, and part of me is like, "Watch what you ask for; you might get it." And I know these things take time and cost money to implement as well. I get that.
But I'd at least like to have something more than just, for example, "fly around this planet, kill 5 groups of enemy ships, and maybe scan a few things." I know that's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the point.
I'd like to see those situations where you have both previous actions and reputation interact actually.
OK, there was that patrol mission in the Delta Quadrant where you had to defend the Talaxian convoy that had P-O'ed Vaadwaur. Then you had to set up their phaser platforms and fight Team Cobra-La off.
In my version of that in an exploration cluster, if you had had an encounter with that species before then if you explored that sector sufficiently you would've discovered their base and shut it down, you would've actually eliminated their reinforcements and then there would only be one wave. Conversely the fact that you shut down their base and destroyed most of their ships is the reason they were hitting the convoy for supplies.
On the other hand Personal Reputation in that cluster would play into it like this. If you had the highest level of say military reputation then instead of having to fight, what would happen is when you show up, they would scan your ship and say..."NOPE" and they wouldn't even attack, or would break off when you show up. I'd call the accolade "The Dreaded"
The second highest level you'd fight one wave and then the others would bug out and you get full credit for the stage. Now if you have full diplomatic reputation then you could send out a distress call and instead of fending them off alone, you'd have neighboring species joining in the mutual defense. (Which might I add is super Star Trek) and if you've fully explored the cluster and maintained relationships, ALL those species show up... and the pirates will retreat rather than fight. Call that accolade "The Common Defense".
Two ways to the same prize.
A THIRD way, is if your Captain has full diplomacy personal reputation then you could actually negotiate to get the enemy vital supplies and negotiate a truce. And NOT like the Acamar system. I mean you'd have to get through a LONG dialogue tree, and pick one of many [Diplomacy] options to get to the outcome. The best outcome would be they leave with a positive view of you, the median would be they get what they need and leave in peace but don't like you or hate you, and the worst diplomacy choice outcome would be they feel cheated and vow revenge; with a disastrous outcome being the battle.
But yes the five targets or take five scans stuff was so flat that it became meaningless.
And Ambassador Sugihara on Spacedock is meaningless. We should be setting up openings for the diplomatic core. Imagine for your Fleet Embassy if every Embassy you set up on a Cluster world would have a diplomat come through the Romulan embassy like how the Enterprise Crew shows up in the club on Spacedock? Or on our Starbase for that matter.
Next time I post: Influence and Control games. Global Events + Battlezone technology = Let's play Galactic Sphere of Influence.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Alright. In the interest of dumping ideas onto the forums I've seen lots of people want a territory control game in sector space.
The only place that's really possible is in unaligned Exploration Space.
That said me personally I'm not a PvP kinda guy. Nor does Cryptic seem to want to engage PvP on a major level. That's fine though as a this can be rather virtual anyway. This is also by necessity. There are simply less KDF and Romulan players versus Federation players. This is also consistent with canon as both empires as far as area covered are smaller than the Federation.
In the ongoing territory game, the number of colonies and new species that you have colonized or established diplomatic relationships with across all players counts towards your faction's influence. I think this could really tax any procedural or randomly generated system, because you would need a rather large number of species and areas to colonize. All 14 clusters needs to have unique indigenous aliens and unique places to set up colonies. I would reuse the heck out of Virinat, the Romulan Staging ground, even Past Iconia. Now you could start with say as few as 3 species per cluster and and probably a dozen colony sites. But that would have to be for starters.
The factors I would use is areas explored which you could basically handle in the same way as tour the galaxy. Go to this point survey, move to the next point, but as realistic as that is for a Starfleet officer's duties it's not particularly engaging now is it?
So areas explored, species contacted, colonies established. So you would start with the six steps of the colonization chains just as missions.
Choice and Consequence is something I think is heavily needed in this game, so the end game is what is the consequence for this territory control. Well they would play differently for one. Above I outlined the different ways of how diplomatic reputation vs military reputation would influence how a situation would resolve. This system would also influence how they start. For instance in the T'Ong nebula, when under Klingon control a Klingon with military reputation wouldn't get a fleet of allies that would scare off the enemy, but they would come in with guns blazing and actually trigger a bigger more epic battle. For a Starfleet officer entering a Klingon influence area, the normal diplomacy options, especially those that you would have at lower level diplomacy would actually be the wrong options, since people who are influenced by the Klingons would be more militant and respect strength more than a silver tongue. So more aggressive options that in a neutral or Starfleet or Romulan aligned area would start a fight would be needed to stave off a fight in a Klingon influenced cluster.
Conversely for a Klingon entering a Starfleet or Romulan aligned cluster, first of all Klingons would not have diplomacy at first, I would go with Prestige; this warrior is known and can do things on the strength of their reputation, only when he makes it to the maximum level then can they be called a diplomat like Kamarag.
I'm not thinking that when you actually make headway that it should change things that much. For instance a Starfleet Officer who has established allies in the T'Ong nebula, when a situation occurs that you would call in your allies it should be like in "The Defector" The formerly Klingon aligned species would show up in Klingon materiel decloaking around the new enemy, instead of in new Starfleet ships or anything.
Like I said before, colonies and alliances with new species should have set backs. Nak'hul and Iconian attacks if you DON'T show up to stop them would leave you with a weakened position and the allies would start to wonder if you're actually going to be able to protect them or whether allying with you is in their best interest. In the case of a colony if ignored long enough, if it is insufficiently developed then it would be a failed colony like Tasha Yar's homeworld, where when you beam down you're immediately attacked and you would need a different mission chain to rebuild the colony. If it is fully developed and self sustaining if you ignore it after such an attack for too long, then when you entered the system you may come under attack.
As for rewards having a cluster at 90% or better for your faction by always expanding and maintaining relationships with aliens and colonies would be like a global event. Having a whole cluster under your faction control would give XP bonuses or mark bonuses or maybe even a dilithium bonus. Or each different cluster would give a bonus to your faction. For individual captains a colony or ally would give you resources in their possession, crafting materials from a species mining their asteroid belt, dilithium for a species with a system rich in ore, food provision commodities for an agricultural world like Virinat was. You would log in and receive *boom* your daily mats, commodities, and dilithium from your colonies. Maybe each cluster could have a unique console or weapon that they have developed that all their ships have and that they gift you after a long enough period of time. And perhaps we could set up trade networks between different colonies and allies "Great River" style. But that should probably just be automatically something our assigned diplomats do.
I am rather sensitive to the dilithium trading balance here and having clusters, colonies, and allies supplying dilithium may unbalance the system, so a final tier project like building a starbase in the cluster may be needed to offset. Not so expensive that it cripples players with no dilithium, perhaps enough so that the cluster self funds. On the other hand it wouldn't be a fleet Starbase, but a Faction starbase, so literally every Fed could contribute to it. I don't know just spitballing on that, in game economics isn't my strong suit.
Now as I said the Klingons have far fewer players so it should technically be extremely difficult for them to maintain cluster control and thus earn the bonuses in a real PvP fashion, so it should probably be separate with how under control the clusters are being a matter of time investment rather than a PvP situation where you have to fight off Feds or Klingons from entering your cluster.
Alright, that's all I got on that.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I've been playing Subnautica & NMS for the last two weeks...
Neither is perfect (not a hint of Trek anywhere to be seen), but both have been quite entertaining for me.
PWE/Cryptic's Mega-play tactics for money lately, has soured me on playing STO.
I've turned to the internetz rumor-mill about Star Trek: DISCOVERY for my daily Trek fix.
<shrug>
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Adding in exploration just for exploration's sake without a goal or story line would be detrimental
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
Adding in exploration just for exploration's sake without a goal or story line would be detrimental
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
That's what Starfleet is supposed to do, you know?
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Adding in exploration just for exploration's sake without a goal or story line would be detrimental
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
True. ...and then the Borg attacked Earth.
Anyway, doing things with no real goal to them is pointless. If you explore, there MUST be a goal to it: Discovery of new peoples; small warzones; Merchant issues/ trade building; Bounty-hunting your evil twin before he blows up another planet (thinking tv show '24' concept - but with an actual storyline to it); other things I'm failing to list...
To be honest, I get bored and end up finding myself zoning out just searching for enough Doff missions to fill up my total of 20 missions sometimes - doesn't matter which ones.
I'd change a couple of critical factors with STO, but that might mean a full rewrite on how they developed the game. For instance, ever played that old game 'Fable' or 'Fable II'? Your decisions in the game literally determined not only what happened, but also the entire storyline of the game as well as what you were capable of doing during that game. No two games were the same, nor stories, really - just the basic overall arc. STO you hunt like hell for a mission, run mission, get junk, run mission again, get more junk, and repeat until you're good and royally bored. It doesn't evolve with you. I can think of two other games with the variable storyarc concept: FF7 and Baulder's Gate (series). Have to admit that I'd like to see this concept implemented in STO. Never got the chance to play the StarWars game that attempted this, so can't say anything about it as to whether they were successful or not.
PWE/Cryptic's Mega-play tactics for money lately, has soured me on playing STO.
Ouch! Well, that's the standard opinion today. Whole lot of effort for rewards that aren't really that useful. For example: the ship card on offer today as the reward for a Major Event. Would try for the R&D ship, but as a F2P on this account, it isn't worth it.
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
The consumer feedback loop. Just like any market or business model, the consumer must have a reason to do what you want them to do. If that reason isn't much of a pull on the consumer, then why would they do it? Basic Economics. Think of how it would apply to a game system. The Carrot or the Stick...
Keep the ideas flowing, Capaind3! You never know who's reading.
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
That's the problem with Too Long Didn't Read. I addressed that, in that the colonies and allies would ship resources to you. And maintaining the global goal will give the same as current rewards for global events bonus XP and Marks for the whole faction.
And also a different way to play and to address the desire for exploration with already available in game resources.
Adding in exploration just for exploration's sake without a goal or story line would be detrimental
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
I also addressed that, and the scene popped into my head there.
And I quote myself.
The factors I would use is areas explored which you could basically handle in the same way as tour the galaxy. Go to this point survey, move to the next point, but as realistic as that is for a Starfleet officer's duties it's not particularly engaging now is it?
The entire point of colonization and establishing diplomatic contact and making new friends with new species who would only have control of their solar system is that the point of exploring strange new worlds is to seek out new life and new civilizations.
First Contact missions, diplomatic engagement that doesn't revolve around our phaser (or for many Antiproton) banks, and setting other people up to explore those new worlds that we've discovered.
On that subject I'd like to see more types of worlds available for exploration. How about a class O world? Of course that would require us to be able to swim, maybe with a propeller thruster pack to pull us, but that's something they should be doing for Risa anyway. A planet with an archipelago we'd need a Risa surfboard to get around on. A Demon Class planet with no Tholians. And to just bite off Star Wars a Class J planet with a cloud city or something.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I think Cryptic wants to really avoid the whole mess that WoW, Halo and Borderlands fell into and became. That led to legal violations and lawsuits. Just a truely remarkable headache that'd take too long to discuss here.
Nothing wrong with a little one on one though.
In it's early history, STO was intending to allow the different Factions to do large scale P2P events. The P2P Battlezones are what remains of it. If you can pull up the P2P list (I don't recall if it's still accessable, like the PVE ones are), you'll see that one of the reasons that Crypic stopped development on it, was simply that STO players didn't really persue it.
It wasn't a priorty and not enough interest by the players. So why bother with the usual resulting headache?
*shrug*
You can also go over to the P2P part of this forum to find out more about it. Their current threads talk about actually removing it completely from the game. But I'm not offering any further opinion on it.
The KDF, Fed and Rom aren't at war so any P2P with any of these would seem to go against the game's current premise.
Plenty of ways to handle exploration. Meet a new civilization. They need supplies like the old Exploration clusters. You do that, open relations. You start peaceful talks if they are warp capable.
depending on how you do, you start real diplomatic relations. Then you start trade agreements, with the planet, your ship is tasked with patrolling for pirates and such to keep freedom of navigation(or hell could even give us squadrons tumdedum). Planet is brought into the federation, or RR or KDF. Hey they want a starbase and you start bringing in supplies like strategy style, then you have to defend against god knows what depending on where you are.
there's a whole chain of missions you could set up in exploration.
Or we do those rare things and get to watch a star go super nova(and get a unique title for doing so). Then there's the boring old stuff you saw from the beginning of First Contact.
BUT. For me it goes under the header of "A day in the life of a star fleet captain".
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Forgot one minor, but important thing to add about repairing crashed ships. Only the Launch Thrusters and Pulse Engine are necessary to repair to fly the ship. The Deflector Shield doesn't require repairing, but it does produce an annoying sound until it is repaired or you leave the ship.
Sorry, must have glossed over it.
Just out of curiosity what from the Animated Series would you like to see in STO?
Does CBS/Paramount have the right to use the Kzinti? If I recall correctly that's why the Tzenkethi were invented even though they were only mentioned.
That said I would love to see a Kzinti - Ferasan - Caitian arc.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
SONUVA...
I'm still salty about that. They cancelled Enterprise just when it was getting really good.
That would be amazing though if whoever's legal team could convince Niven to let the Kzinti back into the Star Trek fold. Alternatively Diggs or Niven could actually write the story arc in STO. That could be money.
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It would already be something. People need to stop comparing STO to NMS or other games, it's like saying "I wish FIFA was more like Mount and Blade". It just doesn't work like this and you can't transform a game to another one. What STO can provide is what the old clusters did. Premade maps with some random options for what happens on them. If we can increase these random modifiers orienting along what kind of DOFF/Admiralty missions we have and be able to actually play those it would already make a lot of players happy. Adding something like a progression log system, a memory of events maybe even a "Nemesis" event (with the option of resetting it) it would be the icing on the cake.
I don't expect STO to become a completely different game and acknowledge it's hard limits. But polishing what we already had would be nice. I'd prefer it over the course the game has currently.
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It is kinda constraining. Unavoidable to compare it with modern systems. Even some of the weaker games have larger scope to them.
I think I heard it best put somewhere else that STO is like playing in a box, while everyone else plays outside.
STO is good for what it is. They just forgot the Mission of Star Trek.
They didn't forget about it, but they interpret it differently. STO tries to emulate the TV Show Star Trek, AoY even comes with film grain to emulate a TV set. They try to include the story driven drama and go out of their way to reference every single episode ever made. It would be completely fitting and non-immersion breaking to find a easteregg door on some STO map which leads behind the stage, with the actors taking a break and caterers serving snacks. The devs could place themselves in there in the role of a director or producer. This is what STO is.
The universe of Star Trek is what other games tried to emulate. As a Starfleet officer you are not constantly saving the universe, you would do what your DOFF and Admiralty cards to and explore, cartograph, patrol, support without a huge story arc spanning it all. This is what I would prefer, of course with the occasional written episode but I would like more open ended, free gameplay like @captaind3 suggested.
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Well that's a real fact. Frankly the next question is how would everything in STO convert into STO2?
Because we are talking about things that would need to appear in the sequel with a vastly more powerful engine than what we currently have. Improvements are one thing. But you're only going to get so much out of a 60s Corvette with improvements before the 2016 Bugatti just blows past it with ease.
They actually have even more options than we actually think already built into the game. First, each player file having a memory of what has already been done would be money. For instance if we the player actually have a file in our computer that remembers which procedurally generates planets we've already explored and we can return to them.
As far as the stages we can go to. Consider a stage where you need a Risa floater to get around. How about you have to do a rescue mission for another starship that was attacked and one of their shuttles or escape pods crashed into a volcanic crater or a sank into a deep cavern and you have to use the Intel infiltration rope and the Risa Floater to get around, to rescue them.
Or a shuttle defense of a city like the Atmosphere Assault queue. Nothing as hard as a PvE queue, but a quick mission to gain some prestige with that planet.
Rework and reskin a stage like the Voth Fortress or The Vault as an abandoned alien outpost and getting through it gets you anthropological and historic information about this long gone species.
Man I made a long post about this a long time ago.
Have each exploration cluster have its own rep associated with it and have it unlock missions like the Romulan Rep. Ahhh. There is a WHOLE lot they could do even with what they have.
And Targ: You're right, that its not really fair to compare. But, we can always learn something from other sources. Even if it's used down the road on another project. But yeah, I'm going to drop this, because Captaind3 pretty much summed up what I would like to see in regards to exploration in a game, this or other future titles.
But also like you said it doesn't have to be super complex, some doff/admiralty tie ins, along with the use of the server wide progress bar might go a long way to improving the Clusters.
yep. you said it best.
= ^.^ =
I have no idea how that would be implemented, and part of me is like, "Watch what you ask for; you might get it." And I know these things take time and cost money to implement as well. I get that.
But I'd at least like to have something more than just, for example, "fly around this planet, kill 5 groups of enemy ships, and maybe scan a few things." I know that's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the point.
check out what captain said a few posts up...he's got some great ideas on meaningful exploration/colonization.
If I could poll, back when they were putting fluff and story into DOFF chain assignments, how many of you guys were like. "Damn the lower decks I want to go on that mission".
Thanks for the positive feedback folks, I appreciate it. Let me see if I can pull anything else out.
I'd like to see those situations where you have both previous actions and reputation interact actually.
OK, there was that patrol mission in the Delta Quadrant where you had to defend the Talaxian convoy that had P-O'ed Vaadwaur. Then you had to set up their phaser platforms and fight Team Cobra-La off.
In my version of that in an exploration cluster, if you had had an encounter with that species before then if you explored that sector sufficiently you would've discovered their base and shut it down, you would've actually eliminated their reinforcements and then there would only be one wave. Conversely the fact that you shut down their base and destroyed most of their ships is the reason they were hitting the convoy for supplies.
On the other hand Personal Reputation in that cluster would play into it like this. If you had the highest level of say military reputation then instead of having to fight, what would happen is when you show up, they would scan your ship and say..."NOPE" and they wouldn't even attack, or would break off when you show up. I'd call the accolade "The Dreaded"
The second highest level you'd fight one wave and then the others would bug out and you get full credit for the stage. Now if you have full diplomatic reputation then you could send out a distress call and instead of fending them off alone, you'd have neighboring species joining in the mutual defense. (Which might I add is super Star Trek) and if you've fully explored the cluster and maintained relationships, ALL those species show up... and the pirates will retreat rather than fight. Call that accolade "The Common Defense".
Two ways to the same prize.
A THIRD way, is if your Captain has full diplomacy personal reputation then you could actually negotiate to get the enemy vital supplies and negotiate a truce. And NOT like the Acamar system. I mean you'd have to get through a LONG dialogue tree, and pick one of many [Diplomacy] options to get to the outcome. The best outcome would be they leave with a positive view of you, the median would be they get what they need and leave in peace but don't like you or hate you, and the worst diplomacy choice outcome would be they feel cheated and vow revenge; with a disastrous outcome being the battle.
But yes the five targets or take five scans stuff was so flat that it became meaningless.
And Ambassador Sugihara on Spacedock is meaningless. We should be setting up openings for the diplomatic core. Imagine for your Fleet Embassy if every Embassy you set up on a Cluster world would have a diplomat come through the Romulan embassy like how the Enterprise Crew shows up in the club on Spacedock? Or on our Starbase for that matter.
Next time I post: Influence and Control games. Global Events + Battlezone technology = Let's play Galactic Sphere of Influence.
The only place that's really possible is in unaligned Exploration Space.
That said me personally I'm not a PvP kinda guy. Nor does Cryptic seem to want to engage PvP on a major level. That's fine though as a this can be rather virtual anyway. This is also by necessity. There are simply less KDF and Romulan players versus Federation players. This is also consistent with canon as both empires as far as area covered are smaller than the Federation.
In the ongoing territory game, the number of colonies and new species that you have colonized or established diplomatic relationships with across all players counts towards your faction's influence. I think this could really tax any procedural or randomly generated system, because you would need a rather large number of species and areas to colonize. All 14 clusters needs to have unique indigenous aliens and unique places to set up colonies. I would reuse the heck out of Virinat, the Romulan Staging ground, even Past Iconia. Now you could start with say as few as 3 species per cluster and and probably a dozen colony sites. But that would have to be for starters.
The factors I would use is areas explored which you could basically handle in the same way as tour the galaxy. Go to this point survey, move to the next point, but as realistic as that is for a Starfleet officer's duties it's not particularly engaging now is it?
So areas explored, species contacted, colonies established. So you would start with the six steps of the colonization chains just as missions.
Choice and Consequence is something I think is heavily needed in this game, so the end game is what is the consequence for this territory control. Well they would play differently for one. Above I outlined the different ways of how diplomatic reputation vs military reputation would influence how a situation would resolve. This system would also influence how they start. For instance in the T'Ong nebula, when under Klingon control a Klingon with military reputation wouldn't get a fleet of allies that would scare off the enemy, but they would come in with guns blazing and actually trigger a bigger more epic battle. For a Starfleet officer entering a Klingon influence area, the normal diplomacy options, especially those that you would have at lower level diplomacy would actually be the wrong options, since people who are influenced by the Klingons would be more militant and respect strength more than a silver tongue. So more aggressive options that in a neutral or Starfleet or Romulan aligned area would start a fight would be needed to stave off a fight in a Klingon influenced cluster.
Conversely for a Klingon entering a Starfleet or Romulan aligned cluster, first of all Klingons would not have diplomacy at first, I would go with Prestige; this warrior is known and can do things on the strength of their reputation, only when he makes it to the maximum level then can they be called a diplomat like Kamarag.
I'm not thinking that when you actually make headway that it should change things that much. For instance a Starfleet Officer who has established allies in the T'Ong nebula, when a situation occurs that you would call in your allies it should be like in "The Defector" The formerly Klingon aligned species would show up in Klingon materiel decloaking around the new enemy, instead of in new Starfleet ships or anything.
Like I said before, colonies and alliances with new species should have set backs. Nak'hul and Iconian attacks if you DON'T show up to stop them would leave you with a weakened position and the allies would start to wonder if you're actually going to be able to protect them or whether allying with you is in their best interest. In the case of a colony if ignored long enough, if it is insufficiently developed then it would be a failed colony like Tasha Yar's homeworld, where when you beam down you're immediately attacked and you would need a different mission chain to rebuild the colony. If it is fully developed and self sustaining if you ignore it after such an attack for too long, then when you entered the system you may come under attack.
As for rewards having a cluster at 90% or better for your faction by always expanding and maintaining relationships with aliens and colonies would be like a global event. Having a whole cluster under your faction control would give XP bonuses or mark bonuses or maybe even a dilithium bonus. Or each different cluster would give a bonus to your faction. For individual captains a colony or ally would give you resources in their possession, crafting materials from a species mining their asteroid belt, dilithium for a species with a system rich in ore, food provision commodities for an agricultural world like Virinat was. You would log in and receive *boom* your daily mats, commodities, and dilithium from your colonies. Maybe each cluster could have a unique console or weapon that they have developed that all their ships have and that they gift you after a long enough period of time. And perhaps we could set up trade networks between different colonies and allies "Great River" style. But that should probably just be automatically something our assigned diplomats do.
I am rather sensitive to the dilithium trading balance here and having clusters, colonies, and allies supplying dilithium may unbalance the system, so a final tier project like building a starbase in the cluster may be needed to offset. Not so expensive that it cripples players with no dilithium, perhaps enough so that the cluster self funds. On the other hand it wouldn't be a fleet Starbase, but a Faction starbase, so literally every Fed could contribute to it. I don't know just spitballing on that, in game economics isn't my strong suit.
Now as I said the Klingons have far fewer players so it should technically be extremely difficult for them to maintain cluster control and thus earn the bonuses in a real PvP fashion, so it should probably be separate with how under control the clusters are being a matter of time investment rather than a PvP situation where you have to fight off Feds or Klingons from entering your cluster.
Alright, that's all I got on that.
The concept.... not bad, but.... what's the point? What do players get out of it?
My character Tsin'xing
Neither is perfect (not a hint of Trek anywhere to be seen), but both have been quite entertaining for me.
PWE/Cryptic's Mega-play tactics for money lately, has soured me on playing STO.
I've turned to the internetz rumor-mill about Star Trek: DISCOVERY for my daily Trek fix.
<shrug>
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Cmdr. William Riker: We finished our first sensor sweep of the neutral zone.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, fascinating. Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, 52 ultraviolet radiation spikes, and a class-2 comet. Well, this is certainly worthy of our attention.
Cmdr. William Riker: Captain, why are we out here chasing comets?
That's what Starfleet is supposed to do, you know?
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True. ...and then the Borg attacked Earth.
Anyway, doing things with no real goal to them is pointless. If you explore, there MUST be a goal to it: Discovery of new peoples; small warzones; Merchant issues/ trade building; Bounty-hunting your evil twin before he blows up another planet (thinking tv show '24' concept - but with an actual storyline to it); other things I'm failing to list...
To be honest, I get bored and end up finding myself zoning out just searching for enough Doff missions to fill up my total of 20 missions sometimes - doesn't matter which ones.
I'd change a couple of critical factors with STO, but that might mean a full rewrite on how they developed the game. For instance, ever played that old game 'Fable' or 'Fable II'? Your decisions in the game literally determined not only what happened, but also the entire storyline of the game as well as what you were capable of doing during that game. No two games were the same, nor stories, really - just the basic overall arc. STO you hunt like hell for a mission, run mission, get junk, run mission again, get more junk, and repeat until you're good and royally bored. It doesn't evolve with you. I can think of two other games with the variable storyarc concept: FF7 and Baulder's Gate (series). Have to admit that I'd like to see this concept implemented in STO. Never got the chance to play the StarWars game that attempted this, so can't say anything about it as to whether they were successful or not.
Ouch! Well, that's the standard opinion today. Whole lot of effort for rewards that aren't really that useful. For example: the ship card on offer today as the reward for a Major Event. Would try for the R&D ship, but as a F2P on this account, it isn't worth it.
The consumer feedback loop. Just like any market or business model, the consumer must have a reason to do what you want them to do. If that reason isn't much of a pull on the consumer, then why would they do it? Basic Economics. Think of how it would apply to a game system. The Carrot or the Stick...
Keep the ideas flowing, Capaind3! You never know who's reading.
= ^.^ =
That's the problem with Too Long Didn't Read. I addressed that, in that the colonies and allies would ship resources to you. And maintaining the global goal will give the same as current rewards for global events bonus XP and Marks for the whole faction.
And also a different way to play and to address the desire for exploration with already available in game resources.
I also addressed that, and the scene popped into my head there.
And I quote myself.
The entire point of colonization and establishing diplomatic contact and making new friends with new species who would only have control of their solar system is that the point of exploring strange new worlds is to seek out new life and new civilizations.
First Contact missions, diplomatic engagement that doesn't revolve around our phaser (or for many Antiproton) banks, and setting other people up to explore those new worlds that we've discovered.
On that subject I'd like to see more types of worlds available for exploration. How about a class O world? Of course that would require us to be able to swim, maybe with a propeller thruster pack to pull us, but that's something they should be doing for Risa anyway. A planet with an archipelago we'd need a Risa surfboard to get around on. A Demon Class planet with no Tholians. And to just bite off Star Wars a Class J planet with a cloud city or something.
I think Cryptic wants to really avoid the whole mess that WoW, Halo and Borderlands fell into and became. That led to legal violations and lawsuits. Just a truely remarkable headache that'd take too long to discuss here.
Nothing wrong with a little one on one though.
In it's early history, STO was intending to allow the different Factions to do large scale P2P events. The P2P Battlezones are what remains of it. If you can pull up the P2P list (I don't recall if it's still accessable, like the PVE ones are), you'll see that one of the reasons that Crypic stopped development on it, was simply that STO players didn't really persue it.
It wasn't a priorty and not enough interest by the players. So why bother with the usual resulting headache?
*shrug*
You can also go over to the P2P part of this forum to find out more about it. Their current threads talk about actually removing it completely from the game. But I'm not offering any further opinion on it.
The KDF, Fed and Rom aren't at war so any P2P with any of these would seem to go against the game's current premise.
depending on how you do, you start real diplomatic relations. Then you start trade agreements, with the planet, your ship is tasked with patrolling for pirates and such to keep freedom of navigation(or hell could even give us squadrons tumdedum). Planet is brought into the federation, or RR or KDF. Hey they want a starbase and you start bringing in supplies like strategy style, then you have to defend against god knows what depending on where you are.
there's a whole chain of missions you could set up in exploration.
Or we do those rare things and get to watch a star go super nova(and get a unique title for doing so). Then there's the boring old stuff you saw from the beginning of First Contact.
BUT. For me it goes under the header of "A day in the life of a star fleet captain".
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
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