I am looking at
http://suricatasblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/stoshiptierchart1.png
From one tier to the next there are various stat increases, and additional weapon console and what not.
Just as an example
You have a Defiant Class Tactical Escort
Right now the only difference between it and the other Tactical Escorts are cosmetic, and that's fine with me.
When you rank up you and the next tier opens that automatically puts you into
Prometheus Class Advanced Escort
The upgrades you get are
Hull +500
Crew +100
Turnrate -2
Additional Sci, and Tac BO
Additional Aft Weapon
If with your character you want your career to be a Defiant Class Captain, in the future do you think it will be possible to just buy upgrades to make your ship stat wise match the higher tiers? In return you forgo being able to take command of one of those ships.
Again that was just an example, you could sub in any ship. I just like the idea of being able to pick out whatever ship feels like the best fit for you and be able to keep it viable if you wanted to.
Edit:
Just to condense this for someone new to the thread that doesn't want to read it all these pages.
Basic idea is to allow different models of ships to able to be used by max level players and not take a hit to stats vs their t5 counterparts
Some ways that have been suggested to do this have been
a specific mission arc could allow for these ship upgrades and a corresponding C-store Micro Transaction could work
Refitting of ships is very common in the canon. I do not think it is unreasonable in rearguard to that to have a "refit" option. Even the Miranda can be tooled out to be FAR more effective, perhaps equivalent to a T4 space-frame. I would expect such a refit would have to be done incrementally, a tier at a time, and would be extremely expensive.
Providing various options for refit would be very cool. "Buying" alternative equipment slots and BO slots as the refit progresses. Even porting ship attributes between the Fed and the Klings would be acceptable. Imagine a Miranda with the innards of a T4 BoP or a T2 Connie with the innards of a Negh'Var.
branching attributes with limitations in refitting according to prior refits is an obvious option. if you add another engineering console slot to a Miranda you can add either another engineering or science BO slot. If you add a science BO slot instead of an engineering BO slot you can only take a silence console. taking the engineering console slot and then an engineering BO would then open up the ability to reinforce the hull. If that reinforcement is taken then it cuts off adding another tactical console but maybe not preventing a tactical BO.
Each addition is one increment. Each increment increases pretty substantially in EC cost. Eventually the refit tree truncates itself due to crossover limitations. you can only refit to a certain point and refit diversity limits potentual refit options.
Just a basic money sink where you can buy different model ships with t5 stats
Make it possible via crafting system
If it was limited to a player only model then fair enough but on the outside looks like the normal T5 then that might work but frankly its a poor way of implementing it.
Ideally, they should make the option to reach T6 and at this rank you get to CHOOSE the specific model of ship you want to fly from any of the previous range. Call it Admirals perogative just like Riker decided to upgrade the E-D into the Galaxy X.
That would actually offer a unique variety to endgame since everyone is going to have their own taste in design. If some stupid people want to get prissy and say you cant fit the technology of a Soverign into a Miranda then fine, scale up the MIranda model to the size of a Soverign = problem solved.
Alternatively, have each model come with sats suitable for the size of the ship and have each size fill roles. Thus you can have a Defiant that is fast and agile but lacks heavy armor / shields and lots of crew. Or you can go with the big bulky Galaxy with extra consoles and beefer defences but it turns slower than a planet.
For those that want to complain it unbalances PVP - fine, make it a quest reward secluded into its own little level bracket thus pvp will only be made up of players that have these options available. Thus no level 1 player is going to get nuked by an Admiral posing in a Miranda.
Comments
Perhaps you could allow each ship to be upgraded only one tier, such that a miranda couldn't suddenly be as good as a tier 5 escort.
I really don't want to lose my defiant class escort when I hit admiral, but the benefits of doing so are undeniable. But I seriously doubt cryptic would go for this.
Well, when you have a custom Nova Class, you're not that happy to get this ridiculously designed HOPE class if you ask me.
Even if you don't actually...
Even if each character were allowed only one of these "Refits" with additional refits being microtransactions I think this would be very popular.
i personally am already going to nerf myself, im planning my stat distribution around the intrepid class, and i intend to sick with that ship and ignore the admiral level science vessals.
im certainly gonna miss my extra hull/shields and console slots.. but IMO it is worth the sacrifice to captain the ship from my favorite star trek franchise... (Voyager for the simpletons)
i dont think that cryptic thinks farther than what is for lunch that day
I think you might be right
- Hull slot(s), Hull = hull point * Tech * ships size,
- Warp Core slot(s), Warp Core = Power * Tech * Core size,
- Station slot(s) Station = Ensign,Lt., Lt.Cmdr, Cmdr., etc<- the quality of the stations not the number of
I don't think they would have the ship get bigger (they might) but it could be useful for adding more variety.Also it would address issues players have with the ship designs (some want more hull though it means less speed, some may want more power but less effiecent etx.)
I would prefer to keep the surprise part personally, but I think no matter what the general idea could be implemented in a way to bypass those possible pvp concerns.
To me this speaks to the eventual need for player representatives who can talk with the STO dev staff about what is and is not possible. A few studios do this. Given the importance of the IP to Cryptic and fans it would be nice to see direct cooperation between players and developers as CCP does with EVE. SOE has a similar program through the SOE Fan Fair where in they have serious sit-downs with community leaders once a year to explore possibilities in development.
Back on the topic...
Refitting of ships is very common in the canon. I do not think it is unreasonable in rearguard to that to have a "refit" option. Even the Miranda can be tooled out to be FAR more effective, perhaps equivalent to a T4 space-frame. I would expect such a refit would have to be done incrementally, a tier at a time, and would be extremely expensive.
Providing various options for refit would be very cool. "Buying" alternative equipment slots and BO slots as the refit progresses. Even porting ship attributes between the Fed and the Klings would be acceptable. Imagine a Miranda with the innards of a T4 BoP or a T2 Connie with the innards of a Negh'Var.
branching attributes with limitations in refitting according to prior refits is an obvious option. if you add another engineering console slot to a Miranda you can add either another engineering or science BO slot. If you add a science BO slot instead of an engineering BO slot you can only take a silence console. taking the engineering console slot and then an engineering BO would then open up the ability to reinforce the hull. If that reinforcement is taken then it cuts off adding another tactical console but maybe not preventing a tactical BO.
Each addition is one increment. Each increment increases pretty substantially in EC cost. Eventually the refit tree truncates itself due to crossover limitations. you can only refit to a certain point and refit diversity limits potentual refit options.
Ships chassis expansions and component customizations...
Look at SWG's reverse engineering system, and look at the old paper Star Trek RPG from the 80's for queue's on ship-making...
If you divided the customizations up so your old ships could be specialized for PvE ...Raids... or PVP specializations, you could expand all of those subsystems for every type of player in this game...
That is significant
Bump for this
1. More customization
2. Makes all ships viable throughout your career
3. Adds more choices/depth to game
As far as pvp issues, if you see the persons rank above their name then problem solved. You know that if you're fighting an admiral, then the ship is probably a refit.
yeah, I'm absolutely against players making ships. It makes no sense what so ever. The only way it could is if Cryptic adds a neutral faction that can cross boarders and then dedicated noncombat crafting classes. Both of which I emphatically support. But, in addition to that a single player should never be able to make any part of a ship by themselves with the exception of consoles. even making larger parts such as beam arrays or full space-frames should be a group effort.
I don't mean one person makes one component and another takes that component to make another. I mean it would take a 5 person group of engineers with their Bo equivalents to manufacture one frame together, which should take quite a bit of time and resources (which are not in the game at this time). This is also EMPHATICALLY support.
Only then would we see something resembling the Star Fleet Engineering Corps at UPSY. THAT would be cool and accurate and fun. Single players making giant ships, no thanks.
EDIT: Crafting Raid content, interesting...
This is a neat idea. It makes sense as we have seen many times a tricked out ship that is well beyond its power band range all because a captain or admiral likes to that ship/class.
For Science the coming Captain line of ships I find completely offensive. No I do not want a beachball on the front of my ship. Additionally this line of ships for Bridge Officer consoles make not sense - if the sto wiki is correct. At work right now not in game. The load out is 3 1 1. The next tier of ship is 3 2 2. Huh? This is beyond reason. What would make more sense and offer better scaling for 3 2 1. I hope this is an error on the site otherwise stacking 3 consoles on one thing without some other skills to balance it out is silly.
I have no problems with what you're saying..I would be for that as well...
I'm just going by mechanics of systems that have worked brilliantly in the past....
I'm all-for STO coming up with a more Trekish implementation of it...
I just know for *certain* that it should be in game... The details are for the designers to mull-over... Your idea is as good as any...
Not a bad thing to have eventually, I think.
I agree completely. Mine are only as good as anyone else's. The details are for the developers to mull over. All we can, and should do, is put our ideas out there for them to ponder, if they care to ponder about them. Looks like I need to become one of those developers
For the upgrades and customized stats you are basically just changing the numbers. I don't know how hard it would be to create the interface to allow us to make those changes... but I think the ability to make X ship have "Hull +500, and Crew +100" should be possible.
To make it so we can not customize on a point to point bases which could lead to some complications. Instead they just create a ton premade variations of each ship.
Maybe something like this would be best (using the defiant as the example)
Tactical Escort Defiant (defualt)
Hull 25000
Crew 50
Device Slot 2
Impulse Mod 0, 20
Turnrate 17
Tac BO
Sci BO
Eng BO
Eng BO
Eng Console
Eng Console
Sci Console
Sci Console
Tac Console
Tac Console
Tac Console
Fore Weapon
Fore Weapon
Fore Weapon
Fore Weapon
Aft Weapon
Aft Weapon
That's the defualt, one customized option would be
Tactical Assault Escort Defiant
Same as above but 20% hull reduction, +X to turn, +X to speed (I guess Impulse modifier)
Tactical Resilient Escort Defiant
Same as above but 20% hull increase, -X to turn, -X to speed
Those are obviously just made up examples just get the basic idea across. I am not pretending to know what would be balanced in this game with my limited knowledge.
Now there are options per ship class, and to upgrade it would be something like
Advanced Escort Defiant (only available when you could otherwise control any T4 ship)
The upgrades you get are
Hull +500
Crew +100
Turnrate -2
Additional Sci, and Tac BO
Additional Aft Weapon
and so on.