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(For the developers) New Idea: Foundry, but for ships instead of missions!
obiwanman
Member Posts: 3 Arc User
Don’t let my username fool you. I made that email when I was five and when Star Wars was fairly new. A couple years later I turned die-hard-Trekkie and have been ever since. Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts about something that I feel would be a great addition to the game for those who are more on the creative side.
So we had the Foundry for a while (RIP) for creating custom missions, which I thought was great since I am kinda on the creative side! Not bragging, just stating a fact. Anyway, we also have the in-game ship customization tool at most starbases. I absolutely love this feature, as it allows even more creativity and customized gameplay! That being said, I feel like it could be improved upon. I’ll get to my ideas in just a bit.
So, there have been other games in the past where you could design your own “trekified” ship, like the 2000 game “Star Trek: starship creator,” which was ok, for it’s time, but it is clearly outdated and extremely limited in nearly every aspect. Then STO came out with it’s Achitect program, letting players have a great deal more freedom in ship designing. Sadly, like all great things, it was relentlessly exploited for farming and had to be removed, which is clearly understandable. Also, with the Foundry now gone, I feel like something needs to fill the creative gap there. So, I have a proposition that would keep players from being able to exploit this feature while still allowing for an immense amount of freedom for players like myself. Enter the “Shipyards,” the ship-based version of the Foundry. Now, just hear me out before you completely dismiss the idea. If you’re a developer of this game, you’re probably thinking “Well, we’ve already tried this before, and it didn’t work. Why should we try it again?” Allow me to explain by walking you through what I imagine the process for this being like.
Here’s where my ideas start:
So, you open up the game and get to your character selection screen. At the top, there is (or used to be) a button that says “create content.” Click on that and you come to the “Shipyards” version of the foundry menu where you can click “Create New Ship” or “Fly Custom Ship.” (The names are self-explanatory but I’ll go into detail anyway)
Fly Custom Ship - basically just test-fly your ship in a map of your choosing from a drop-down list of test maps or solar systems from the actual game.
Create New Ship - When you click “Create New Ship,” a screen similar to the current “Customize Starhip” screen will appear with the same layout, but here’s where it differs. On the left-hand side of the bottom tray, where the presets usually are, there would be a list of ship classes (not names of classes, but types like “cruiser”, “battleship”, etc.) ranging from “Frigate” and “Escort” types all the way to “Dreadnought” and “Carrier” with the weakest at the top and strongest at the bottom. Selecting which type of ship you want will determine the overall size of the ship (some parts are a little bigger than others, so this is not a ‘fixed’ size) as well as a fixed (by fixed I mean that the ship parts you select, more on that later, do not influence it) base health, speed, turn rate, number of fore weapons, aft weapons, console slots, and hanger bay slots. The interior, window types, and material types do not change. You still have the “Advanced” button in the bottom right corner, but here’s where things get really interesting. You still have the of the types of parts, (main hull, saucer, neck, pylons, and nacelles, along with other odds and ends like the “secondary hull,” I think it is, on one of the science escorts) but under each part is a list of ALL available ship parts for your chosen faction, including ships obtained through lock boxes and special ship requisition packs. Additionally, parts from ships above the class of ship you choose will not be available to prevent players from buying the ship they want for a cheaper price than the original. (Example: You can’t put dreadnought parts on a regular cruiser, but the reverse is possible) I had the idea that maybe you could purchase “Custom Ship Requisition Tokens” with zen, in the actual game, for a price of, let’s say 1,000 zen along with a [T6] version for 1,500 zen. You could then have the cost be 1.5x - 2x the original amount for each ship used. For example, you make a custom ship classified as a heavy cruiser with parts from an Excelsior, an Exeter, and a special requisition kelvin command heavy cruiser in the “Shipyards.” You could then purchase it for 2x the amount of each ship used, but special requisition ships you already have would be “free” because, well, you already have them. There’s no need to buy it again. So, let’s say that, for this example, the cost of buying an Excelsior (advanced heavy cruiser) is 1,000 zen, the Exeter (cruiser refit) is 750, and any special requisition ship you’ve unlocked or purchased would be free. The total would be 1,750 zen. Now multiply that by 2 and that’s 3,500 zen. Then add the T6 Custom Ship token for 1,500 zen. To purchase this ship in game would be 5,000 zen. Now lets say you already own the Excelsior. Take 1,000 zen away from the total before the 2x multiplier to get 750 for the Exeter. Now multiply that by 2 to get 1,500 zen plus the 1,500 zen for the T6 Custom Ship Token and you pay 3000 zen instead. There is virtually no work-around to cheat this system, as it would always cost more to buy the ship this way. So, in that manner, it basically protects itself and could potentially bring in good revenue along with more players with a creative aspect. I feel like it really would make the game much more immersive and enjoyable.
Sincerely,
A very hopeful customer.
P.S. Great job on the game so far. It’s nice to finally have a GOOD Star Trek game and to know that there are other developers out there with similar interests. Fun interests. Anyway, keep up the good work!
So we had the Foundry for a while (RIP) for creating custom missions, which I thought was great since I am kinda on the creative side! Not bragging, just stating a fact. Anyway, we also have the in-game ship customization tool at most starbases. I absolutely love this feature, as it allows even more creativity and customized gameplay! That being said, I feel like it could be improved upon. I’ll get to my ideas in just a bit.
So, there have been other games in the past where you could design your own “trekified” ship, like the 2000 game “Star Trek: starship creator,” which was ok, for it’s time, but it is clearly outdated and extremely limited in nearly every aspect. Then STO came out with it’s Achitect program, letting players have a great deal more freedom in ship designing. Sadly, like all great things, it was relentlessly exploited for farming and had to be removed, which is clearly understandable. Also, with the Foundry now gone, I feel like something needs to fill the creative gap there. So, I have a proposition that would keep players from being able to exploit this feature while still allowing for an immense amount of freedom for players like myself. Enter the “Shipyards,” the ship-based version of the Foundry. Now, just hear me out before you completely dismiss the idea. If you’re a developer of this game, you’re probably thinking “Well, we’ve already tried this before, and it didn’t work. Why should we try it again?” Allow me to explain by walking you through what I imagine the process for this being like.
Here’s where my ideas start:
So, you open up the game and get to your character selection screen. At the top, there is (or used to be) a button that says “create content.” Click on that and you come to the “Shipyards” version of the foundry menu where you can click “Create New Ship” or “Fly Custom Ship.” (The names are self-explanatory but I’ll go into detail anyway)
Fly Custom Ship - basically just test-fly your ship in a map of your choosing from a drop-down list of test maps or solar systems from the actual game.
Create New Ship - When you click “Create New Ship,” a screen similar to the current “Customize Starhip” screen will appear with the same layout, but here’s where it differs. On the left-hand side of the bottom tray, where the presets usually are, there would be a list of ship classes (not names of classes, but types like “cruiser”, “battleship”, etc.) ranging from “Frigate” and “Escort” types all the way to “Dreadnought” and “Carrier” with the weakest at the top and strongest at the bottom. Selecting which type of ship you want will determine the overall size of the ship (some parts are a little bigger than others, so this is not a ‘fixed’ size) as well as a fixed (by fixed I mean that the ship parts you select, more on that later, do not influence it) base health, speed, turn rate, number of fore weapons, aft weapons, console slots, and hanger bay slots. The interior, window types, and material types do not change. You still have the “Advanced” button in the bottom right corner, but here’s where things get really interesting. You still have the of the types of parts, (main hull, saucer, neck, pylons, and nacelles, along with other odds and ends like the “secondary hull,” I think it is, on one of the science escorts) but under each part is a list of ALL available ship parts for your chosen faction, including ships obtained through lock boxes and special ship requisition packs. Additionally, parts from ships above the class of ship you choose will not be available to prevent players from buying the ship they want for a cheaper price than the original. (Example: You can’t put dreadnought parts on a regular cruiser, but the reverse is possible) I had the idea that maybe you could purchase “Custom Ship Requisition Tokens” with zen, in the actual game, for a price of, let’s say 1,000 zen along with a [T6] version for 1,500 zen. You could then have the cost be 1.5x - 2x the original amount for each ship used. For example, you make a custom ship classified as a heavy cruiser with parts from an Excelsior, an Exeter, and a special requisition kelvin command heavy cruiser in the “Shipyards.” You could then purchase it for 2x the amount of each ship used, but special requisition ships you already have would be “free” because, well, you already have them. There’s no need to buy it again. So, let’s say that, for this example, the cost of buying an Excelsior (advanced heavy cruiser) is 1,000 zen, the Exeter (cruiser refit) is 750, and any special requisition ship you’ve unlocked or purchased would be free. The total would be 1,750 zen. Now multiply that by 2 and that’s 3,500 zen. Then add the T6 Custom Ship token for 1,500 zen. To purchase this ship in game would be 5,000 zen. Now lets say you already own the Excelsior. Take 1,000 zen away from the total before the 2x multiplier to get 750 for the Exeter. Now multiply that by 2 to get 1,500 zen plus the 1,500 zen for the T6 Custom Ship Token and you pay 3000 zen instead. There is virtually no work-around to cheat this system, as it would always cost more to buy the ship this way. So, in that manner, it basically protects itself and could potentially bring in good revenue along with more players with a creative aspect. I feel like it really would make the game much more immersive and enjoyable.
Sincerely,
A very hopeful customer.
P.S. Great job on the game so far. It’s nice to finally have a GOOD Star Trek game and to know that there are other developers out there with similar interests. Fun interests. Anyway, keep up the good work!
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Comments
Why the Foundry worked to begin with was that it was 100% free, you didn't have to pay a single cent of real life money to anything from it and it was essentially irrelevant if you didn't want to interact with it as it was it's own seperate thing. What you're suggesting is neither.
That said, I would like more parts to be available for the existing ship customization system. While some ships have quite a variety of parts (Akira series, Miranda series, Prometheus series) others don't have as many (Edison/Hoover, Kohlr) especially Romulan Republic, KDF, and Jem'Hadar ships. (The T6 Risa Corvette is a nice exception to that, even if it doesn't have much of an interior.) For Federation ships, it might not be too hard to make more nacelles available. (A Reliant with Galaxy nacelles would be cool, or a Gagarin with Armitage nacelles.) Probably would be harder for other factions.
If I were in charge of STO, I would want every "free" ship to have at least 3 sets of parts, not counting zen store ships. The limited customization is one reason why most of the ships I've bought are Federation and why I have 4 Fed/Fed allied chars and only 2 KDF or KDF allied chars. On the other hand, I'm not sure how many people actually bother to customize their ship parts.
> The Foundry was in essence a simplified version of the mission editor the devs use, a lot of the mission logic and AI was shared with the Cryptic built missions.
>
> Why the Foundry worked to begin with was that it was 100% free, you didn't have to pay a single cent of real life money to anything from it and it was essentially irrelevant if you didn't want to interact with it as it was it's own seperate thing. What you're suggesting is neither.
I realize that the foundry was 100% free. What I am suggesting would be an optional payment if you wanted to use that ship in the actual game. If not, you could still fly your ship in a test map, which would be single-player only. Another solution would be to only allow these ships on the experimental servers such as Tribble and Redshirt, but not the main Holodeck server so that it would not affect game progress.
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> @edrickvellorin said:
> While technically speaking your proposal may be possible, it would be a lot of work and would likely require custom versions of existing parts. (A regular Miranda saucer is just not going to fit on a Galaxy class neck without major work, especially if you wanted the Saucer Separation console to work.) And that's just a Federation example, parts compatibility would be even more of an issue with KDF and Romulan Republic ships. And that's just talking about the 3D modelling aspect.
I see where you’re coming from, and I meant to clear this up in the original draft. I believe the current ship customization mechanic is based on sets of corresponding, three-dimensional points attached at certain places on the different parts so that the parts basically “snap” together. (I use a similar method in some of my programs) This would actually not require much work, if any, as most parts already have the required snap-points. Some parts, such as the Miranda saucer would require a “neck” snap point to be added in order for it to be used with “neck” pieces. KFD and Romulan ships would not require much of anything, as nearly every ship has a similar configuration. However, when first designing the ship, you would need to select which faction you would like the ship to be constructed for. You would not be able to use cross-faction parts (Only federation parts for federation, discovery, and tos federation factions, Klingon parts for the KFD faction, etc.). And any parts that clip or have mismatching textures would not be cryptic’s fault. It would be at the discretion of the player to design the ship as they see fit. As for the 3D modeling aspect, I am not familiar with the program that they use. I was not planning on having the 3D modeling aspect as I have not seen where many people have used used it. I do not believe it has been all that profitable for them.
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