Expanded TOS Ships

avalon91211

I know Cryptic is most likely more or less done with anything regarding Agents of Yesterday. The missions are out, the ships are out. People have already stopped the Sphere Builders over 3 dozen times already I'm sure. But wouldn't it be nice to see some more TOS style ships to fool around with?

I know not everyone on STO likes/loves The Original Series, for whatever reason, but I think it would be cool to see some additional TOS style designs, even if they aren't T6. Not to mention the TOS Romulan and Klingon ships as well would be nice, or at least the skins (Klingon D9 skin for the Negh'tev?) for ships already present. This way at least people aren't locked into playing around with the same groups of ships just because they can't get their hands on a T6 Connie, D7, or T'Liss.

Perhaps something like the Crossbow class:

Or maybe the Pyotr Velikiy, the Constitution's opposite number:

I'm sure there are other designs out there for all 3 factions. Any thoughts or ideas rolling around out there? Do you think I'm crazy? If so, would you join me on this crazy train? Lets discuss!

(Also, like, Cryptic, you could make more money if you did this. Win-win for everyone here. Just tossing that out there)

jexsamx

For the umpteen thousandth time, Cryptic can't use any old design you drag up from the depths of the internet.

That aside, I'm with you on the more TOS ships idea. At the very least a Vet Battlecruiser with a mode change and TOS Phaser Lotus is needed still. Ideally a TOS carrier of some kind could also be released.

TOS era ships for other factions would be great, too. We know they have a TOS-era D'deridex-style battleship for Romulans (poke around the space section of the Galorndon Core mission if you haven't, it's there and it's pretty sweet), and there's that TOS era Negh'var reskin we saw in the first few missions that could stand a release.

jorantomalak

Id like to see a TOS miranda class, they were around during the TOS era if i remember right they were made in that era, the refit came during the TMP era , but would be nice to see the old mirandas getting some TOS love.

drakethewhite

I'd like to see the TOS Gorn and Orion ships offered. They've created the models for them after all (used in the AoY missions).

It'd grab and fly them even as T5 ships out of lock boxes.

byozuma

I'd like to see people not making designs just to make designs. I don't hate how some of them look, but people seem to have this idea that Cryptic will want to use them if they look cool enough. They won't for much the same reason we only have one vulcan ship and one caitian ship. Copyright. Unless you were contracted to design the ship by Cryptic they can't touch your designs without asking for permission first, and that invariably requires lawyers because it's not so simple as calling you on the phone and asking nicely unless you DON'T want credit for the design. And I mean NO credit at all. Copyright is there to protect the artists and it's a tricky thing to work with, which is why Cryptic keeps to those designs CBS has the rights to or what their own development team comes up with.

nikeix

These people out on the web making up what are plainly Star Trek styled kit-bashy starships don't have copyright in the first place. That's what derivative IP rules are for: to protect the original creator/owners from having all the relatively obvious variants getting vacuumed up in front of them by folks randomly moving around the plainly recognizable pieces.

duncanidaho11

I would just like to point out that the OP did say:

Perhaps something like...

That's very much not saying "use this specific design I found, pay the copyright holder whatever they want!"

That said, the overall process by which Cryptic selects what ship to build next is a very murky one that I've never heard talked about. Between specializations, season content, and the general needs of gameplay it's pretty hard to say how amenable Cryptic is to feedback regarding miscellaneous ships designs. An OP may really, really like something but think about how difficult that emotion is to convey to someone else with their own aesthetic sensibilities. Now try conveying that to a video game studio with their own plans and creative remit. It's constraint compounding constraint, so I don't see what an OP like the one we have here can hope to achieve, besides simply saying "I think this ship looks cool!"

Good for you, but how do you translate that into actionable feedback?

kodachikuno

Im all for more TOS and TWoK era ships... even more for taking the gorn/klink/romulan ships they made for AoY and letting us buy them out of the c-store

avalon91211

Ducanidaho11: Good question. Simple answer is, to be honest, I know Cryptic probably won't take my suggestion to heart. Even if they were to make more money off it, for them it wouldn't be "in the best interests of the game." So as I said, it's a simple suggestion on my part and a little hope that maybe a Dev will wander across it and go, "hey, this person is onto something."

You are right however, as much as I'd like to fly the Crossbow, that design couldn't be used. Something of similar look or feel could however.

Nikeix/Byozuma: People who make designs like the above are merely fans like yourselves who wish to expand on the content already there without ruining the original work. No one is gonna out-right remake the Constitution, that is tantamount to messing with perfection. But making another heavy cruiser spawned off the same lineage, that they can do without harming whats already there.

The Pytor Velikiy is actually an old Matt Jefferies design if memory serves, so it wasn't just a matter of:

byozuma#0956 wrote: »

I'd like to see people not making designs just to make designs. I don't hate how some of them look, but people seem to have this idea that Cryptic will want to use them if they look cool enough.

Someone made the design because they wanted to express their vision of Trek, that's all. Kinda like fan fiction writers (of which I am one), we wish to show others our idea or vision of what Trek is or should be, and that doesn't go against copywrite so long as the right people get credit.

To everyone else so far: Thank you for commenting and sharing your ideas and I look forward to answering any further comments, concerns, or questions you have. Let me reiterate that this is not a thread begging the Dev's for more ships, it is a thread to discuss ship ideas within the confines of TOS and in regards to STO.

byozuma

Creating your own 'Enterprise' doesn't violate anyone's copyrights assuming noone's designed anything like it beforehand, and therein lies the rub and why all these fan designs ultimately limit what Cryptic can make. If Cryptic wanted to add a new ship they'd have to make sure noone's designed anything like it else they will have to find the artist, arrange lawyer meetings to secure the rights because NOONE these days trusts a verbal agreement no matter how much both sides might 'mean it' and a properly signed contract is substantially more legally binding anyway.

And before you ask, "What if I don't copyright my design?" you'd be disappointed to know that as soon as you put line to background it's copyrighted to you. Copyright law isn't like it was and is actually more protective of the creator than it is the content holder UNLESS the creator is using their work in a means that undermines the content holder. So yes, you'd still have to deal with the lawyers and securing of rights and all that legal jazz. But this is a good thing. Used to be there were no protections for creators, if you didn't actively pursue securing your own copyrights you didn't have any protections. This was abused rather heavily in the comics industry. Thankfully, this is no longer the case.

This is why just taking ship designs off Google and saying, "Why not this?" doesn't help Cryptic at all. Yes, let's talk of expanding the TOS library of ships, but please leave Google Images out of it. They may be cool designs but the chances of seeing any of them in game are slim to none.

stark2k

I would love to see the actual alternate JJ Abrams universe U.S.S. Kelvin [T6] - Offered in game at the CStore or in another Lockbox, as well as the alternate universe U.S.S. Farragut- the one with the quad warp nacelles.

byozuma

According to searches, the U.S.S. Farragut was the not-quite Miranda looking one with the underslung tri-nacelle design. Though hard to tell from screenshots as the movies don't really care as much about the not-Enterprise ships that aren't the nemesis or McGuffin.

potasssium

That ship looks pretty cool actually.

Temporal Connie, kind of meh.

Give me a T6 Stargazer/Dakota/Constellation/Cheyenne class Heavy Cruiser or T6 Miranda and I could be game.

fruitvendor12

I'm all for more TOS ships and bases. I like them precisely because they look old and dated. There's no reason to think they wouldn't still be around but used by individuals instead of government entities.

Not to beat on a dead horse much, but K-13 is way too dark to be a TOS base. In the original series all ships and bases were brightly lit and colorful. The only time we saw such dark interiors were when they went to alien locations that were meant to be dim and creepy.​​

sorceror01

K-13 brightens up considerably once it's restored. Until then, it kinda stays dim and disheveled looking.

captkelly31

Back before AOY went live, i made a tweet about a TOS Miranda and Oberth, did get a reply, but said they weren't planning on them.

fruitvendor12

sorceror01 wrote: »

K-13 brightens up considerably once it's restored. Until then, it kinda stays dim and disheveled looking.

That's good to hear. I was disappointed when I completed tier 2 and it had not. Thanks.

nikeix

byozuma#0956 wrote: »

Creating your own 'Enterprise' doesn't violate anyone's copyrights assuming noone's designed anything like it beforehand.

The moment you use a recognizable warp nacelle, you're deliberately walking into derivative IP territory - and you will LOSE any argument CBS cares to make. That's kinda what "trademarked all distinctive likenesses" MEANS. You cannot play with other people's toys and expect to own the results and those toys include the entire STYLE, not just individual jumbles of saucers, engineering hulls and nacelles assembled in any particular combination.

So its not a case of "What if I don't copyright my design?" because you CAN'T copyright a design that's blatantly built from CBS's blocks.

xyquarze

nikeix wrote: »

The moment you use a recognizable warp nacelle, you're deliberately walking into derivative IP territory - and you will LOSE any argument CBS cares to make.

Actually earlier. The moment you decide to make something "set in the Star Trek universe", inspired by it, you're walking a tightrope. If you explain your creation using somebody else's IP, you're using their IP.

avalon91211

I can see this has devolved into a discussion about Intellectual property and so on as opposed to a free and open discussion about the topic at hand and things related to it.

Please Keep To The Topic At Hand. If someone wishes to provide a design someone already created and say hey, something similar to this would be cool, they should be able to do so without people speaking about whether it's against the law or not.

So please return to the topic, which is Original Series style ship ideas and whether or not Cryptic should include more of them, at what tiers, what style of BOFF stations, ECT. Thank you

byozuma

The problem is that you yourself opened the can of worms that is copyright by posting two ship designs off the internet. Whether or not it'd be cool is irrelevant in that regard, though I personally think it would be really cool to have more TOS-ified designs. Sadly, the law doesn't care what we think is cool, only what's legal.

snoggymack22

nikeix wrote: »

byozuma#0956 wrote: »

Creating your own 'Enterprise' doesn't violate anyone's copyrights assuming noone's designed anything like it beforehand.

The moment you use a recognizable ...

By Grabthar's Hammer, I say Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

snoggymack22

byozuma#0956 wrote: »

The problem is that you yourself opened the can of worms that is copyright by posting two ship designs off the internet. Whether or not it'd be cool is irrelevant in that regard, though I personally think it would be really cool to have more TOS-ified designs. Sadly, the law doesn't care what we think is cool, only what's legal.

So let's really unpack this particular thread and learn how non-binary this debate really is!

The OP suggested the the Pyotr Velikiy
Which is designed by Masao Okazaki over on his Starfleet Museum website.
The same Masao Okazaki that designed the USS Sagitarius for the David Mack penned series of books that began with Vanguard.
Which got turned into this nifty model:


Now two of the Temporal Ships already part of AoY utilize a similar "shove the body into the saucer" idea as the Pyotr V, the Perseus and the Gemini.

Which is to say that the OP's suggestion is not that bad a suggestion, and it utilizes a concept already done in AoY, and plays off of art designs offered up from an artist that's already worked with the license through the books (the same books that brought us both the Titan and the Aventine).

But setting ALL of that aside, it's been mentioned on more than one occasion that there is only so much a designer can do within the framework of Starfleet, especially in the TOS era. Which is to say, the OP's suggestions are fine as a guide because there's only so many ways you can combine Hull, Nacelles and Saucer with TOS styling on top.

TLDR: Eh, there's no real copyright issues at stake here, and eventually the amount of permutations one can conceive using TOS parts will run out.

byozuma

No, problem is still copyright. In the case of Masao Okazaki's design, there's no telling how much legal wrangling was involved to secure the rights to use his design for those situations. Believe me when I say, "Just because you have the rights to use design A for projects X and Y doesn't mean you can use it for project Z." Case in point, Fasa and their using of Japanese submitted artwork from one of their techbooks to make accompanying miniatures, the Clan IIC series specifically. They got sued hard over those, and lost. This is why the current IIC miniatures are called Reseen, because they had to be redesigned as per the fallout from the lawsuits. Copyright shouldn't be treated lightly no matter how inconvenient you think it is.

kodachikuno

@jodarkrider r @askray @ambassadorkael#6946 can we get some mod help in here? Cant even stay on topic for one post after the OP tries to bring it back.

nikeix

snoggymack22 wrote: »

By Grabthar's Hammer, I say Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

Man, that was good fun. Thank goodness parody/satire is protected use (which is actually a fairly high bar to achieve). Even then you still don't get to violate trademarks which is a thing entirely different from copyright. Which might explain why this~



~has nothing more in common with Federation designs than multiple decks and white paint on the hull. Oh, wait, that could be a deflector dish. Sound battle stations! Arm Lawyerton Torpedoes, full spread!

But really, in its simplest terms if CBS (or one of CBS's licensees at the behest of and with the approval of CBS) were to reproduce one of these designs without exchanging word one with the so-called creators, CBS would get some stink eye for poor taste, but the law would absolutely support that it's their privilege to do so. Right here on these boards we had people making close comparisons to the ships we did get vs. images floating around on the web.

Showing stuff in these threads doesn't somehow magically PREVENT Cryptic from ever doing that thing. They're unlikely to use that material for a multitude of reasons (not least of which, committing to a new ship in-game involves way more than just a wild itch down in the art department) but there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to inspire one of the in-house artists. Though flinging imagery at the public forums may not be the best avenue for doing so . Other than CrypticSpartan's occasional fact-checking and The Great Fanged Taco's periodic outbursts, I'm not convinced the other Devs spend much time here.

So a hearty "Thanks, OP!" That was kind of interesting to see. And yes, it'd be neat if Cryptic were inspired by that to do something similar and add a few more 23c ships. I don't fly or buy them myself, but I know others here enjoy the styling.

kodachikuno

avalon91211 wrote: »

Also, as a B-Tech fan myself, 1. how dare you cross universes, and 2. go to the MWO or B-Tech/Sarna forums to talk about that stuff, alright? Thanks

you do know FASA used to produce a bunch of star trek products for many years right?

byozuma

I was using Fasa's legal failures as an example, an example I'm familiar with being an owner of some of the offending miniatures.

markhawkman

drakethewhite wrote: »

I'd like to see the TOS Gorn and Orion ships offered. They've created the models for them after all (used in the AoY missions).

It'd grab and fly them even as T5 ships out of lock boxes.

Yeah, REALLY cool stuff there.

cidjack

Man, that, horse meat looks tender.

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