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Race change

bernatkbernatk Member Posts: 1,089 Bug Hunter
Race change?
Race change!
Race change.

Race change please for zen. Ty.
Throw in gender change too please. Ty.
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Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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    bernatkbernatk Member Posts: 1,089 Bug Hunter
    ok it's actually species change, but you know what I mean hah...
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    bernatkbernatk Member Posts: 1,089 Bug Hunter
    edited April 2018
    azrael605 wrote: »
    FCT.

    I see no info on race change there or what do you mean?
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    ilithynilithyn Member Posts: 903 Arc User
    Well I mean, technically it would be possible to rewrite the code, but for all practical purposes it's such a massive undertaking that it's never going to happen.

    And I don't get the need for it either. This isn't a game that's all that much about min/maxing, the differences between one species and another are minimal. If it's for roleplay purposes, make a new character.
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    vegeta50024vegeta50024 Member Posts: 2,335 Arc User
    ilithyn wrote: »
    Well I mean, technically it would be possible to rewrite the code, but for all practical purposes it's such a massive undertaking that it's never going to happen.

    And I don't get the need for it either. This isn't a game that's all that much about min/maxing, the differences between one species and another are minimal. If it's for roleplay purposes, make a new character.

    I think some are asking for it because they were so impatient with waiting for a Cardassian species to be released that they made an alien gen toon that looked Cardassian. now that they exist, people want a token so they can be a proper Cardassian.

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    avoozuulavoozuul Member Posts: 3,197 Arc User
    I wouldn't mind this since I created a fakedassian myself as my main engi, but it's not realistic and probably require too much work just to implement such a feature.
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    bloodyrizbloodyriz Member Posts: 1,756 Arc User
    ilithyn wrote: »
    Well I mean, technically it would be possible to rewrite the code, but for all practical purposes it's such a massive undertaking that it's never going to happen.

    And I don't get the need for it either. This isn't a game that's all that much about min/maxing, the differences between one species and another are minimal. If it's for roleplay purposes, make a new character.

    I think some are asking for it because they were so impatient with waiting for a Cardassian species to be released that they made an alien gen toon that looked Cardassian. now that they exist, people want a token so they can be a proper Cardassian.

    Hey I created a Vorta, and if they do give us playable Vorta I will simply decide if it is worthwhile to delete/recreate or not.​​
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    salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    Agreed that it should be FCT.
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    bloodyrizbloodyriz Member Posts: 1,756 Arc User
    Agreed that it should be FCT.

    Yes, to that I do agree.​​
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    salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    edited April 2018
    I think some are asking for it because they were so impatient with waiting for a Cardassian species to be released that they made an alien gen toon that looked Cardassian. now that they exist, people want a token so they can be a proper Cardassian.
    To me, this shouldn't be an issue. I did this exact thing with my delta recruit. I bought the T6 bugship, T6 and T5 Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts, T5 Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier, Galor and Keldon for this character. I also dumped a ton of time and resources into it with traits, lobi costumes and all of the massive amounts of grinding that come with getting every single spec point unlocked. I don't feel as though this character matters any more or less. It looks like a Cardassian. It will always be a Cardassian character for me.

    The day that actual playable Cardassians are released, I'll make another one and I'll give it a different name. I don't see why anyone else would worry about this at all.
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    starkaosstarkaos Member Posts: 11,556 Arc User
    It can't be done. The game code handles species in such a way that it can't be changed while still retaining the rest of your character info. The engine would need to have extensive rewrites to allow it.

    Actually, I am not sure about it. It all depends on how similar the engine that STO uses and Neverwinter uses are since Neverwinter allows species changes. If STO's engine is similar enough to Neverwinter's engine, then species changes are possible.
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    legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,280 Arc User
    neverwinter uses an upgraded cryptic engine from STO...key word there is 'upgraded' - meaning, they probably ripped out the entire character code and re-did it from the ground up while they were building the game to allow for (eventual - you couldn't do it at the start) race change​​
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    asdfjkadfjkasfasdfjkadfjkasf Member Posts: 345 Media Corps
    There are ways to make it work, such as.

    1: You could dump all the character specific data (outfits/traits/etc) without dumping bank/inventory content, then take the player to the character creation screen. The player then effectively rebuilds the character, that's something that should be doable.

    2: You do it through the ticket system, might take some time to process, but it gets sent to a team that has the power to make changes to the database, they can build a new character in a separate environment, then transfer that data to the player.

    I don't think it's impossible to do, there should be ways, it just depends on if there is value in working on implementing a solution. Which there probably isn't, so they haven't done it.
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    duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited April 2018
    There are ways to make it work, such as.

    1: You could dump all the character specific data (outfits/traits/etc) without dumping bank/inventory content, then take the player to the character creation screen. The player then effectively rebuilds the character, that's something that should be doable.

    2: You do it through the ticket system, might take some time to process, but it gets sent to a team that has the power to make changes to the database, they can build a new character in a separate environment, then transfer that data to the player.

    I don't think it's impossible to do, there should be ways, it just depends on if there is value in working on implementing a solution. Which there probably isn't, so they haven't done it.

    1. Assuming that the back-end doesn't make more references to player species than see in visible content. If it does then doubling back on character creation is still going to break things. Developmental hierarchies are complicated (it's a branching series of interdependencies, similar to gene interactions in biological development) and the best way to make changes it to create a whole new individual or focus on downstream changes. STO probably needs to be rebuilt to preserve the original modularity of species options to make changing them after the fact viable (essentially what we've been told in the past, this is an FCT. ;) )

    2. Dev time spent manually changing player species is time not spent on other dev things. Ex. content and bug fixes. I really don't want people taken off Cryptic's staff (or new hires wasted not working on the game) to manage a QoL feature like this. That's definitely a no-go.
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    asdfjkadfjkasfasdfjkadfjkasf Member Posts: 345 Media Corps
    1. Assuming that the back end doesn't make more references to player species than the content we see in-game. If it does then doubling back on character creation is very likely to break things even if premium content is reset (ie. traits and costumes, lock box and lobi options can be costly.) Developmental hierarchies are complicated (it's a branching series of interdependencies) and the best way to make changes it to create a whole new individual (see. the history of biological evolution) or focus on downstream changes (species options in STO are analogous to Hox gene. They're modular at the start but if you try to fiddle after the fact you'll kill the character. The game needs to be rebuilt to preserve modularity for species changes to be easy.)

    2. Dev time spent manually changing player species is time not spent on other dev things. Ex. content and bug fixes. I really don't want people taken off Cryptic's staff (or new hires wasted not working on the game) to manage a QoL feature like this. That's definitely a no-go.

    1: I've not really seen anywhere in the game where it references your character, outside of loading into the tailor and checking what ships you can use. So as long as the change is within the faction you are a part of, and not a faction change, it shouldn't cause too many mistakes. Ideally, every component is separate, and referenced, rather than interconnected through various files, but that depends how it is all built! If they are all deeply connected, then yes, this path wouldn't work.

    2: You don't need devs to work on it, just trained support staff, who have a basic set of tools. The tools would have to be created, but once created, you can train staff to use them. But that comes down to cost of hiring more staff, and investing time into building the tools and training.
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    duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited April 2018

    1: I've not really seen anywhere in the game where it references your character, outside of loading into the tailor and checking what ships you can use. So as long as the change is within the faction you are a part of, and not a faction change, it shouldn't cause too many mistakes. Ideally, every component is separate, and referenced, rather than interconnected through various files, but that depends how it is all built! If they are all deeply connected, then yes, this path wouldn't work.

    2: You don't need devs to work on it, just trained support staff, who have a basic set of tools. The tools would have to be created, but once created, you can train staff to use them. But that comes down to cost of hiring more staff, and investing time into building the tools and training.

    1. That's the point, we players don't see it but that doesn't mean that references or other dependencies aren't being made in the game's code. This is a case of arm chair game development, based on our perspective we might think something should be easy (taking systems completely empirically) but as it turns out it's more complicated. Species is a core option that's embedded deeply into the working of the game. We have been told this explicitly by the devs. We might not appreciate why, but it's difficult to argue against it because we comprehensively lack the support or justification to claim otherwise (apart from making the unsubstantiated assumption that the devs working on the game know less about it's inner workings than we do on the outside.)

    So, it's something we just have to take as is. There's no easy fix for species changes. Options have been explored, none have been found viable. Unless Cryptic revamps the character creation system (a la Neverwinter) it's probably not going to happen.

    2. It's still new hires and money wasted to manually manage a slight quality of life feature, and do nothing else. One staffer is not likely to be significantly cheaper than, say, an entry-level bug tester. Which do you honestly think will have a greater contribution to the success of the game? Will it be at all a positive move for the studio to hire on a staff of species changers when the devs are doing as much as they can to meet content deadlines and fix bugs? Any amount of money spent on any other cause is a infinitely greater investment. This suggestion is a non-starter, if an automated solution can't be found then species changing simply isn't an option.
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    leemwatsonleemwatson Member Posts: 5,345 Arc User
    The Dev's have been asked and addressed this on a few occasions before and the answer was, IIRC, that it would take some backend programming work to make this possible, not just a simple Database shift as some people seem to think it is. Your character is hard-coded to the race and it's traits the moment it's finalized. They were not keen to do this, and it's so much simpler to just create a new character, and it takes about 28 hours of game-time (currently) to level that toon to level 60.

    And I add my opinion that this should be addressed in the FCT's, as this is 3rd time in a month this has come up.
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    asdfjkadfjkasfasdfjkadfjkasf Member Posts: 345 Media Corps
    1. That's the point, we players don't see it but that doesn't mean that references or other dependencies aren't being made in the game's code. This is a case of arm chair game development, based on our perspective we might think something should be easy (taking systems completely empirically) but as it turns out it's more complicated. Species is a core option that's embedded deeply into the working of the game. We have been told this explicitly by the devs. We might not appreciate why, but it's difficult to argue against it because we comprehensively lack the support or justification to claim otherwise (apart from making the unsubstantiated assumption that the devs working on the game know less about it's inner workings than we do on the outside.)

    So, it's something we just have to take as is. There's no easy fix for species changes. Options have been explored, none have been found viable. Unless Cryptic revamps the character creation system (a la Neverwinter) it's probably not going to happen.

    2. It's still new hires and money wasted to manually manage a slight quality of life feature, and do nothing else. One staffer is not likely to be significantly cheaper than, say, an entry-level bug tester. Which do you honestly think will have a greater contribution to the success of the game? Will it be at all a positive move for the studio to hire on a staff of species changers when the devs are doing as much as they can to meet content deadlines and fix bugs? Any amount of money spent on any other cause is a infinitely greater investment. This suggestion is a non-starter, if an automated solution can't be found then species changing simply isn't an option.

    1: I'm basing my assumption on the way I have coded things, although my level of knowledge is limited, and I haven't done software programming, it made more sense to keep things quite modular. So if you make a user profile page, each element that makes it up can be separate, so they can be updated without needing to update the whole of the profile page code. I mean, the devs will know more about the game, unless it's something that has been lost, like demorecord. Maybe it isn't possible to dump data, or maybe it's just not cost effective to code a way to dump player data and rebuild it, cost is the main factor I think.

    2: Of course, it costs money, but they would be doing general support work as well as specialised work. It just depends on what the deemed value is in training/hiring people to do this.

    I'm not saying either of these solutions are worth it, or viable, just putting up two possible solutions. I don't care one way or the other for changing species, I personally think that the cost of implementing something would not have a high return on investment.
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    evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    ilithyn wrote: »
    Well I mean, technically it would be possible to rewrite the code, but for all practical purposes it's such a massive undertaking that it's never going to happen.

    And I don't get the need for it either. This isn't a game that's all that much about min/maxing, the differences between one species and another are minimal. If it's for roleplay purposes, make a new character.

    The issue I think is that after spending tons of real money on character bound items, and then having a species you've always wanted (and possibly been pretending to be with aliengen) finally get released, the subsequent need to spend all that money again to get those ships and items on the species you want is enough to make you just say forget it and stick with what you already have.
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    evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    azrael605 wrote: »
    > evilmark444 said:
    > ilithyn wrote: »
    >
    > Well I mean, technically it would be possible to rewrite the code, but for all practical purposes it's such a massive undertaking that it's never going to happen.
    >
    > And I don't get the need for it either. This isn't a game that's all that much about min/maxing, the differences between one species and another are minimal. If it's for roleplay purposes, make a new character.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > The issue I think is that after spending tons of real money on character bound items, and then having a species you've always wanted (and possibly been pretending to be with aliengen) finally get released, the subsequent need to spend all that money again to get those ships and items on the species you want is enough to make you just say forget it and stick with what you already have.

    I have an aliengen Romulan/Klingon hybrid, he recently took possesion of a Sarcophagus dread, using elite scorpion fighters. Now I didn't spend any money on that, used Dill - zen- keys -EC, but thats a couple million Dill and a few weeks of time making it happen, plus add in tune ups to his build to go with the new ship, new items, re-engineering, etc. If they released an actual RR Romulan/Klingon tomorrow I would be most pleased and would simply create a new character at the next time I have sufficient reason, such as the Recruit event coming with ViL. The existing character would not be deleted or altered in any way, any more than my aliengen KDF Human would be if they added Humans to the KDF races.

    There are other ships you could use for a theme like that though. A better example is what I did with my Delta recruit, I spent a ton of cash getting a Jem'Hadar Strike Ship, JHDC, and Jem'Hadar Lobi uniforms, and that monetary commitment means I'll never consider making a real Dominion character even if my preferred race, Vorta, were to become a playable option.

    Now, since the code makes race changes unfeasible the other option is to introduce a way to unlock some of these things account wide.
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    duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited April 2018

    1: I'm basing my assumption on the way I have coded things, although my level of knowledge is limited, and I haven't done software programming, it made more sense to keep things quite modular. So if you make a user profile page, each element that makes it up can be separate, so they can be updated without needing to update the whole of the profile page code. I mean, the devs will know more about the game, unless it's something that has been lost, like demorecord. Maybe it isn't possible to dump data, or maybe it's just not cost effective to code a way to dump player data and rebuild it, cost is the main factor I think.

    Well that's the problem: it apparently isn't a modular system. Cryptic built that into their subsequent game (Neverwinter) but STO was designed with fixed character attributes in mind. Who know how much the original developers built downstream from those initial decisions (in generating and managing your character data). Well...modern Cryptic (hopefully) but the saying stands. :tongue:

    The easiest way to effectively change a character's species is to start over completely from scratch. We might imagine a system that takes all of your character's data, copies what doesn't relate to your species (inventory, resources, XP, crew, ships, accolades, ect.) and then effectively applies that to a new character...but how easy that is depends on how simply the system was laid out and whether such a copy-paste operation can in fact be setup in the character creation process. From what we've been told: it's very complicated and the incentives to Crpytic (ie. player satisfaction and monetization of the feature) aren't sufficient to invest in replacing the current character creation system (a major project, replacing something else Cryptic could be working on, and carrying with it the substantial possibility of introducing new bugs to core systems.)
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    potasssiumpotasssium Member Posts: 1,226 Arc User
    I'd like to see it, but only for making your character into a Kobali after death. Just purchasable tailer options, and a trait or two added to the pool.
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    abcd0#4990 abcd0 Member Posts: 13 Arc User
    dont ask for overly convoluted stuff, you know they might break something
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