Jetpacks?

xgnxlentgamer02

Hey guys! I'm Ren, a Lifetime Veteran for Star Trek Online. Recently, I've began playing more Star Trek Online since I stopped around the beginning of the year. I'm here to discuss a suggestion I have. The suggestion I have is to add jetpacks to the game. I started thinking about this around Summer 2017, mainly because of how much fun I was having on Risa with the floater. Before I begin, I'd like to establish that this is just a rough outline of my idea.
First off, I'd like to discuss how much it would cost. Since it's obviously going to be a rather overpowered item, there would be 2 ways to earn it. The first way is to spend 1,000 Zen on the jetpack in one of these categories: Legacy Unlocks, Items, or Promotions. The second way is to earn 100,000 Dilithium and purchase it through the Dilithium Store.
Second, I'm going to talk about the functionality and stats on the jetpack. The jetpack would be an epic quality item with a flight speed of +50. It would have superior flight maneuverability as well. It's pretty much just a remake of the Risan Floater, but with a few differences. The differences would be that you can actually fire your weapons while in the air. Having the jetpack would also reduce your accuracy, but increase your range from 10 meters to 20 meters. It would be the same for the attacker. Melee weapons would of course be rendered disabled while in flight. It would also have the same recharge time as the Risan Floater, but it would activate faster. Since the jetpack would be so overpowered, here's the way I would plan to limit it. The jetpack would have a limited altitude range, only being able to ascend maybe 30 meters above the ground. Also, if the user's health drops below 25%, the jetpack will become inoperable, dropping the user out of the sky.
Finally, I'd like to talk about how it would look. I was also inspired by the Mandalorians from Star Wars for this whole idea. Starfleet, Klingons, and Romulans would all have their own jetpack designs. There would also be multiple kinds of jetpacks like the Risan Floaters. You could buy them in different colors and patterns. Here are the base designs for the jetpacks.
Federation:



Klingon:


Romulan:


Lastly, instead of having the effects of the Risan Floaters, they'd have blue plasma coming out of the thrusters. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read this! I hope this gets into the game!

jslyn

The Floater is used on Risa because Risa is designed for it. Contrary to the illusion that it gives, maps are not true 3D. There is nothing in places that you cannot see within normal movement range. They are set fronts. There are no top, or backs, or textures to the environments. To add Jetpacks to anywhere other than places that Floaters can be used would require the maps to be rebuilt to accommodate them. That is just not going to happen, my good fellow.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

angrytarg

Rocket boots! I want rocket boots!

nimbull

Pogo sticks, seeing a Gorn in a pink speed-o bounding around on a pogo stick would make my day.

duncanidaho11

nimbull wrote: »

Pogo sticks, seeing a Gorn in a pink speed-o bounding around on a pogo stick would make my day.

Seconded.

saber1973a

A tophat, thats deploys a propeller anyone?

storules

This used to be in one of the F.C.T (frequently created threads).

Here's the formal DEV response:

tacofangs wrote: »
...snip...

What I have said, and will say again, is that up until the Risa Revamp, maps were not made with flying in mind. I've worked on two Superhero MMOs, both with Flying characters, and I can assure you that flying is not a simple matter. If you're going to have flying in a game, it is much easier to build your maps with that in mind, than it is to retrofit old maps to work with flying.

Video Games are like movies. In both cases, we only build what the camera is able to see. Movies have much tighter controls over that camera, but we have a few controls ourselves. We can direct where you are able to go within a map, and we (until Risa) know that you aren't going to be able to fly, or get up high to look down on things. As such, like movies, we essentially build sets. False fronts, so it looks like the map continues on in the backgrounds, even though it doesn't really. Movies do the exact same thing. Old Westerns are probably the most famous for it, but it's true today as well.

So, on any given map now, we might have buildings with no roofs. We might have alleyways that go around a corner to nothingness. We might not have a ground plane outside of the few streets you can see. This means that if we just turned on flying, you could not only see, but get to all of those places. Which (imo) runes immersion rather quickly, and can actually have adverse effects on the game/server stability.

In addition, many maps are built with your computer's performance in mind. When you can see for a very long distance, your video card has to draw many, many more objects. This slows down/heats up your card, and your framerate can drop significantly. We often rely on methods to block your line of sight, to keep performance good. If you can now fly up over the walls of a city, and can now see 20x farther than you could before, your computer won't like it.

There is also a matter of gameplay. If you can fly, it becomes much easier to game the AI, or even bypass large parts of the mission. We had a major problem in Champions, where players would simply fly over all of the enemies in a map, and then just fight the boss. We tried putting in powers on the mobs to essentially shoot down flying players, and players hated it. It is not an easy problem to deal with.

Our maps are not broken, they simply were not designed for flight, and retrofitting old maps for flight is not an easy process.​​

starswordc

[Mod Hat] Closing this thread. This isn't going to happen, due to, as @jslyn observed, a technical matter of maps not being designed for flying characters. Per @tacofangs in the Frequently Created Threads thread:

"What I have said, and will say again, is that up until the Risa Revamp, maps were not made with flying in mind. I've worked on two Superhero MMOs, both with Flying characters, and I can assure you that flying is not a simple matter. If you're going to have flying in a game, it is much easier to build your maps with that in mind, than it is to retrofit old maps to work with flying.

Video Games are like movies. In both cases, we only build what the camera is able to see. Movies have much tighter controls over that camera, but we have a few controls ourselves. We can direct where you are able to go within a map, and we (until Risa) know that you aren't going to be able to fly, or get up high to look down on things. As such, like movies, we essentially build sets. False fronts, so it looks like the map continues on in the backgrounds, even though it doesn't really. Movies do the exact same thing. Old Westerns are probably the most famous for it, but it's true today as well.

So, on any given map now, we might have buildings with no roofs. We might have alleyways that go around a corner to nothingness. We might not have a ground plane outside of the few streets you can see. This means that if we just turned on flying, you could not only see, but get to all of those places. Which (imo) runes immersion rather quickly, and can actually have adverse effects on the game/server stability.

In addition, many maps are built with your computer's performance in mind. When you can see for a very long distance, your video card has to draw many, many more objects. This slows down/heats up your card, and your framerate can drop significantly. We often rely on methods to block your line of sight, to keep performance good. If you can now fly up over the walls of a city, and can now see 20x farther than you could before, your computer won't like it.

There is also a matter of gameplay. If you can fly, it becomes much easier to game the AI, or even bypass large parts of the mission. We had a major problem in Champions, where players would simply fly over all of the enemies in a map, and then just fight the boss. We tried putting in powers on the mobs to essentially shoot down flying players, and players hated it. It is not an easy problem to deal with.

Our maps are not broken, they simply were not designed for flight, and retrofitting old maps for flight is not an easy process."

[/Mod Hat]