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Collecting ideas: How to make ship interiors more relevant in the game
sophlogimo
Member Posts: 6,507 Arc User
Ship interiors are rarely used in content of STO. I believe this is a pity, and it should change. So let's collect ideas how to make them more interesting, more relevant to the game.
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If that happens, it becomes interesting to have a special interior, because you'll see it often when you're doing a story. It also gets us closer to being able to make Star Trek style "bottle episodes" where interesting stuff happens aboard your ship.
Of course, that also means that the interiors need to be much more similar in general layout, otherwise each interior would require its own version of the same mission. Probably meaning we need to get rid off the existing interiors and instead focus the interior customization on stuff like colors, materials, furniture variations, and some custom decoration elements (like the trophy walls).
Next-best thing might be if they could at least create a foundry map for each interior so that people crazy enough to do so can write missions for different interiors.
In the med bay you cant even heal yourself of injuries or to buy hypos... Why on earth not???? In the engineering bay why we cant even heal (repair) ship injuries??? And so on...
Also a holodeck door installed to be as a direct link with the foundry menu and contacts. So they all appear to be holodeck simmulations/stories... It really sucks to fly all over the galaxy to reach a contact at a certain system/planet or some hidden console/point in ESD...
I thought most of the ships in star trek kinda use a similar design an even layout. I know that overall starfleet ships use a pretty standardized layout design. An so having only a very finite number of choices would make sense, even if we had it that additional interiors were something you could buy as well.
Hell being able to use a tailor on your ship to change your current outfit would be nice too.I also find it weird that we have a account bank access in our ship, but the personal character bank access is only on starbases, which to me sound backwards actually. Actually having a console that you could decode transmissions, which might lead you to investigating worlds, or areas of space that might have different rewards linked to them could be fun.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
did I say anything even close to that? building on a bad fountion, like interiors as they are, means anything they is limited on the flaws in said fountion. so why would they do anything if it not going to do what is needed in the first place?
and doing it wrong because you can't do it right lead to a lot of work trying to fix it, and in the end having to to do it right plus whatever you have to do to get it in a place where you can do it right. best not waste everyones time and money don't you think?
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
I've said before that I'd love to see Starship Interiors done the way Fleet Starbases are done, but scaled to a personal level. Fleet Starbases have their various leveling projects and cosmetic projects. Starship Interiors could work the same way with project inputs scaled to the individual rather than an entire fleet. Leveling one's Starship Interior would give a player access to more things: Bank, Email, Tailor, etc. Cosmetic projects could allow for decor in the Captain's Quarters, Ten Forward, or even allow to toggle between TOS, TMP, TNG, and 2410 aesthetics.
Fleet Starbases have holdings that can also be leveled and have cosmetic projects. On Starship Interiors this would be represented by adding new decks, for example:
Crew Deck: Captain's Quarters with possible Tailor access and trophy displays. Ten Forward with a variety of games that we've seen played in Star Trek and possibly a dance floor. Assign quarters to various BOFFS, visit them and they could give you a daily mission to be done aboard ship.
Life Sciences: a menagerie for storing and displaying pets bought and earned, possible breeding projects for said pets to be unlocked, games for scanning, detecting, identifying life forms.
Stellar Cartography: scanning games for locating, identifying various stellar phenomenon.
Sick Bay: triaging patients game (similar to the Kobali triage mission) for crew members that wander into Sick Bay.
Shuttle Bay: small craft that we own could be displayed here, switching to small craft could be done here, traveling to Fleet Holding could be done here, queueing for shuttle PVE/PVP could be done here, perhaps some unique shuttle piloting/racing missions could be done from here.
Engineering: engineering diagnostic games (warp field, plasma flow adjustments), detecting problems on the ship somewhere then going there and fixing it, a Jefferies tube scavenger hunt type game (using a blank map like Temporal Ambassador), crafting of unique items available only here.
Allow our designated Department Heads to be assigned to occupy the relevant station on board, ex) CMO would be in Sick Bay, Chief Engineer would be in Engineering.
Allow us some (at least limited) choices on crew composition. Perhaps using toggles for species, uniforms that they wear. These options could also be made available through cosmetic projects. Personally, I'd love to see the DOFF roster used to determine crew composition. Allow a toggle or slider for number of crew on a given map with 0 being an option as well. Interacting with random crew members could yield a daily mission or unique DOFF assignment.
The maps themselves could be used to update older episode missions that take place aboard a ship and future missions that need to take place aboard a ship. Also, ship boarding/repel boarders PVE/PVP queues could use the maps as well. Perhaps even a capture the flag type CPVE mission: two teams beam in, Team A captures the bridge, Team B captures engineering. First one to their goal wins.
Additionally, the Starship Interiors maps would be separate and independent from the bridge, so one could use the bridge of their choice. There could be an option to sync visuals between the bridge and interior for ships that only have a bridge and no other decks to re-skin those decks with the same aesthetics. For example, using a Hirogen ship would re-skin the Starship Interiors deck maps using Hirogen textures, using a Tholian ship would re-skin them using Tholian textures.
Unless there is a way to connect them via map moving in the turbolift, unique ship interiors would be retained as they are. They just wouldn't utilize this system. So your full TOS, Defiant, Voyager, etc. interiors would be retained and could be used separately. This proposed Starship Interiors system would be the new default interior for your ship, though. There might be uproar about that, but it's the best way to preserve previous ship interior/bridge purchases with (hopefully) minimal uproar. Perhaps have those purchases automatically unlock texturing/lighting aesthetics to give them an extra bonus. So, those canon interior aesthetics could be applied to the new interiors. It wouldn't be an exact TOS interior, but it would look like that era. It wouldn't be an exact TNG interior, but it would use that aesthetic. It wouldn't be an exact Tholian interior, but it would fit that style.
The deck/room layouts would be generic, so that they could be easily used for missions. As it is, doing a 5-man Starbase defense, the queue randomly chooses a Fleet Starbase from among the participants. Whatever level/visuals that base is in is the map that's used. Same would go for a potential 5-man ship boarding/repelling queue maps. Someone in the team's ship map will be used. The layouts are all the same, but the look might be different.
Yes, FED, KDF, and ROM would need 3 separate layouts, but only for the crew deck and engineering deck. New decks added, like holdings, could be a generic corridor with rooms branching off. What would make them unique would be the skin that's applied to them: a Starfleet skin, Klingon skin, Romulan skin as the basic default look depending on the character. Other skins would be unlocked via cosmetic projects, C-Store purchases, Lock Box ships, etc. The Reputation System could be tied into it, too: Tier 5 Reputation Project that allows for unique Starship Interior visuals.
Oh, and this would be a per character system, not account wide, unless a certain purchase unlocks for the account.
I think that threads and polls like this try to show Cryptic that there might be support to do this, that players would be willing to buy it into it if it were made. And while Cryptic does indeed want to make money, I don't think that is the real hold up here. I think that this is something they might be willing to do, if they knew how they could best implement it and get the most bang for their buck for the time and development that they'd put into it.
The best example I can point to is the Voyager interior. It's beautiful, iconic, and screen accurate. One of the reasons we got that interior with that level of detail, though, was because it was extensively used during the Delta Rising story arc missions. And so, it could be used for future story missions as well. Bonus that it could sold to the masses as a Starship Bridge/Interior.
What I've tried to do with the proposal that I made was less about how much or whether players would be willing to spend real money for it, but rather try to show Cryptic: a direction they could go to implement it; to tie it into systems that they already have; to use it as an asset for future story/mission development; how to expand on it, so that it shows potential for future growth rather than a one-and-done project; to make it an integral part of one's daily game play; and yeah, maybe there are some aspects that can be monetized, too.
We've got to give them more than just saying, "Hey, I'd buy it, if you make it." That's easy to ignore or pass on by. I want to get them interested. I want to give them an idea that gets them excited enough to say, "That's awesome! I'd love to build that into the game!"
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-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The game runs on new things to do, fueled by some type of in-game resource, in addition to players online (metrics) preferably having fun to keep the game popular.
Working interiors with the incredible creativity already proposed makes a lot of sense, and even new missions themselves can involve bridge maps just like on the shows, so whatever functionality is added for such missions gets ported over to player-owned bridges.
Let's please not start an argument. Others have just as much right to post dissenting views. Somtaawkhar has actually posted fairly logical reasoning as to why he believes my proposal isn't feasible at this point in the game's life cycle.
True, but there will always be those who will roll their eyes at a thread topic that pops up over and over again, and instead of just passing it by, cannot help themselves but to make comments without substance.
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Essentially the Bridge would become the central hub for navigating the known galaxy.
I actually find it mind boggling that after 8 years nothing has been done with the bridges, I mean they are the center of every single Star Trek show ever made, one would think having a functional bridge would have been a high priority.
Yes because it absolutely had nothing to do with Tovan being a poorly written and annoying character that was forced upon you, amrite? *rolleyes*
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players have to put one sickbay, one armory, 1 warp core, 1 ten forward and so on, and those are the anchored locations for mission objectives, while everything else is free for the player to layout.
This way, you would have no problems with locating the objectives (since they are bound to specific rooms).
Also, all the interiro talk is not really impossible...since in the old build trailers there were boarding parties shown...and at some point htey were even implemented until being cut...like the Vanilla Exploration System