In this thread here I proposed the basics of random space encounters:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=124905
However, I wanted to take it ouf of the hot bed of bridge view vs sector space view where it was getting buried. Its the core principal anyway and importatn enough to stand on its owm.
So Star Trek lore has showed many times that even seeminly empty space is not always empty. Such chance encounters with these unexpected places in space has provided the basis of many a show form TOS to Voyager and even Enterpirse. These random elements need to be in the game. They will provide a sense of the unknown, a sense of exploration and a little more Star Trek feel.
I broken the enounter down by types. These are: physical hazards, spatial hazards, time-spatiial rifts, space born life-forms, and unique events. Each of these will be discussed in a further post.
These would act as anywhere from small mini-quests to full blown chains. The unqiue thing about them is that they would be random. In every secotr of space these would pop up in random positions. Be active for a span of time say an hour and the disappear. You would need several hundred of them to start with. They do not have to be all that compley as my examples later will show. The important thing is that some of them should be easily visable and players can choose to investigate them or not. Some should not be avoidable in the sense of getting into the "quest" but you would have an option to "investigate later" and some should simply be unavoidable and require you to complete the quest to exit.
Now on to each type.
Edit: If you have a true interest in this game and seeing it succeed please post in this thread and other construcitve threads to keep them at the top and in front of the devs. To many good ideas get buried by the negative stuff and for that I feel for those who try to be helpfull only to see it buried and not noticed.
Comments
Two examples will serve to show the nature of these events and how they can add deapth to the game play.
1) You have detected a physical distortion in space that is casuing a disruption in the normal trade routes freighter use. You decided to investigate. Through a series of scan you determine that it is a superstring that has come into existence and is literraly bending space around it. After contacting Starfleet they ask you to investigate further and determine if routes should be redirected or if simple warning markers will do. After a series of scans and the information given to you by your sciene officer. Numbers can be made up laterr. You contact starfleet and have 3 options to tell them: reroute shipping, place warning makrers but leave the routes intact, do nothing it will burn out shortly and there is nothing to worry about. Now the ending you choose is up to you. However there is a "correct answer" and you will get xp based on your response. For example if the danger was great and you told starfleet don't worry about it. You might get a little xp and a message that you really need to upgrade your science capablilites. Multi-endings makes this repearable with some unknown varialbles thrown in.
2) The rogue comet. You detect a comet that was blown off course by a recent supernova. it is headed for a farily densely inhabitated system. You investigate and determine it will impace the colonized moon of one of the outer planets. The colony is not large but will be affected by the impact. Destroy the comet. Done
3) the aboe scenrio could be repeated but this time your science officer infroms you there are primitive microbes that are alive in the comet. Starfleet leaves the choice of what to do up to you. You can destroy the comet, try to move it into a different orbit, or evacuate the colony and let the comet impact the moon.
There are countless others only limited by imagination.
Examples include:
1) Stumbling over a series of micro black holes that have damaged your ship. You must identify the cause and determine if its poese a risk to nearby planets or shipping lanes
2) A large black hole has emerged unexpectedly from a collpased neutron star. Your ship got caugth in the gravity well and you must find a way to escape.
3) You have discovred a wormhole. Thies can have multiple quest idiea attached. You investigate and it leads nowhere. Mark it and move on. It leads to the delta quadrant but 50 years int he future. During your invesigation you make contact with someone. Sweet talk them enough and you might gain a nice weapon or some such. You accidently entered the wormhold must escaped from a band of aliens trying to take your shiny new ship and reenter the wormhole to get home.
Again there are many possibilites here.
Example already given.
All of these can provide a number of encounters. As simple as encouter it, identitfy it and ask Starfleet to come study it to more complex choices involving destroying, capturing or even freeing such life forms.
Examples include Kirks encounters with Abe Lincoln, the Gorn, and Apollo. Picards repeat encounters with Q... and such. Generally these involve encoutners with unique life forms who are testing us, interacting with us or punishing us for some percieved transgression. These would be very very rare but completley unavoidable. Rewards for completion should be signficant.
An interesting example of a unique encounter as posted by Trace:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=2191004&postcount=10
Thanks.
As for my thoughts on the ideas within the OP, it may be a long and drawn out OP, but I wouldn't say no to any of those ideas being thrown into the mix, it also wouldn't bother me at all if I were to be taken off guard by some kind of random Space Dwelling Entity, random Spatial Anomaly or even a random mission involving absoloutely anything that fits the Star Trek IP.
If this ever does get implemented into STO, simple option for Crytic would be to add a check box into the options list that allows you to turn these "Random Encounters" on or off, for all those players who are aggravated or upset in anyway by the unknown realistic (but still fictional) things in Space.
There were several episodes in TOS and TNG where the crew came upon some alien probe, derelict ship, or other thing floating out in deep space that led them in to an entire storyline or mission. What if we were to duplicate that? Example below.
- While traveling through space, your science officer speaks up: "Sir, we have detected an object nearby. I recommend we investigate". Of course, you do, and you discover something (let's say it's an old, derelict spaceship).
- You beam over to the ship and find entries in its primitive data logs that show it was launched from a nearby world over 100 years ago. The logs indicate that the people on the ship were peaceful explorers. Although the explorers are long dead, their databanks are intact and contain records of their discoveries.
- You travel to this planet to deliver the data to members of the local government. But all is not as it appears, and your team is ambushed on the planet's surface...
I'll let people's imaginations take it from here
Excellant idea. It would fit well either under physical hazards or as involved as you suggest under unique encounters which is where I will link it.
Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks I am hoping to get some more people to comment and provide ideas.
I also had the same impression as was a little dissapointed to see that no such Random Space Encounter existed in the game.
I will keep responidng to everyone who posts in the hopes of getting this some attention. I too wish to see this.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I would love to get more people discussing this.
I also can appreciate you wanting to seperate this from Bridge view vs. Sector Space, because this really is a seperate issue and most likely has a better chance of being implemented. But I can always wish for both!
Link to the original post
3) Exploration- by getting rid of Sector Space it would make it so much easier to insert exploration missions anywhere you wanted. Click the exploration button for which ever section of space you wanted to explore and ... "Captain we are detecting a system with signs of a pre-warp civilization on one of the planets... Do you want to go investigate?" or "Captain we are getting strange radiation readings from a sun in a local star system... Do you wish to go investigate?"
Thanks. I can see your point about bridge view and exploration/random encoutners as well.
I completely agree with getting rid of sector space. To me, it represents the highest level of zoom in the map functionality, which should be accessed by pressing M to get your bearings on where you are in the galaxy. Then the next level is the area map, galaxy map, and system list, etc...
Warping out of one system, then moving to a loading screen, then moving around in sector space (which is utterly useless and un-interesting), and then moving into another loading screen upon either going to another sector block or system completely kills any sense of immersion and feels very un-natural.
Instead, travelling at warp speed should be similar to how the starship travels at full impulse within a particular system, so that you're actually in space all the time. If you cross into a star systems , your science officer should tell you that you're approaching system x, and give you the option to drop out of warp. Similarly, if you enter an area of space with a high-concentration of enemy vessels (i.e. Deep Space Encounter), then your tactial officer should inform of this you, and if you don't alter course, you'll automatically drop out of warp and be drawn into the conflict. This concept can be applied to the encounters described in this thread.
Adding more interesting and varied content is great, but without changes to the feel and mechanics of the game, the new content will be meaningless.
By the way OP, I love all of the ideas, nice job!
I do NOT like the "unavoidable" part.
Being sucked into a DSE when you're trying to clean up your inventory is already annoying.
Don't throw me into an "unavoidable" mission because I went to refill my water glass while I flew from one end of the current submap to the other. Give me an option to "always avoid".
Picard could give the con to Riker while he went to the head, and feel sure that he wouldn't run the ship into a star or something.
Other than that, I like it. It's very "Trek-y".
I understand what you are saying about the unavoidable. Those would be extremely rare ie less than 1/10 of 1% chance to encounter so it should not be as annoying as some people find the DSE. They are; however, important as they represent true emergencies. Example include time loops such as seen in TNG with the repeated destruction of the enterprise or the interference of Q seen in the very first episode. I agree with your sentiment which is why these should be very rare as to not be annoying but still add the element of suprise and danger that is needed. Afteralll there are some things in space you simply can not get away from.
I really do consider this important and will continue to promote it until...well lets hope it doesn't go that far.
As for the current state of the Deep Space Encounters at present, I think it works very well and it's realistic for the situation to, your definately going to get intercepted by the Klingons if you just tell the helm to come to a full stop while you head down to the cargo bay. LoL
Although, I think I would love there to be some kind of audio warning, when one of those enemie contacts targets your ship and starts to intercept you, I'm going to tell the Devs.
Yea an audio warning would be nice. I know a lot of people mind the current DSE setup although I do not personally. It feels more real to me. But it is one of the reaosns I crafted the randcom encounters to be avoidable....well at least most of them..... you know Q is never going to let you get away:D
Can I avoid them completely somehow (turn off a switch, travel at the top of sector space, etc.)?
If you throw missions at us that we have no choice in whether we take it, and no choice in whether we do it right then, you're going to annoy many people. No matter how rare it is. And some of them will quit over it. I don't think it would pull in/excite enough people to compensate.
I like the idea. A lot. But I don't like having my choices made for me.
So long as even the "unavoidable" ones have a way to NOT do them right then, then okay. They'd be tolerable.
I suppose you could do it somehow... not sure why you would want to. To be honest the really really rare unadvoidable ones would be such a little chance of actully running into them that really to do them you would have to actively hunt for them.
Think of them this way. They are one nail on an 8 lane hiighway. It pops up at random somewhere over a hundred mile stretch of that highway. Lasts just one hour and goes away. What are the odds of you hitting the nail? Really really small. So small to the point that you are never really like to encounter one of them unless you are actively searching sector space for one.
Thank you for your support.