I've always enjoyed mining in space games, there is just something relaxing about it - and I've noticed alot of tasty looking rocks about the galaxy just asking to be zapped! I see alot of mining colonies for the aliens I seem to forever spend my time saving so why not let us get some mining equipment and get mining

Things to be found could be anything from Data Samples to rare Crafting Materials in future releases, rare gems to make some really nice Avatar jewellry.. Ore for badges / Energy Credits.. so many different ways to take it and use it.
Let the trolling begin!
Comments
I'll start off!
"EVE's over there ---->"
Could be fun for those who want to enjoy the Star Trek Universe from a more neutral perspective.
It would be nice to have a civilian faction where you can do things like that but I can't see how to work it into the game myself.
Star Fleet doesn't actually deal with mining, they do help to upkeep the mining outposts by delivering supplies and doing medical checkups. As for Klingons they get someone else to do it for them because that would be below any warrior.
I hear what you say about Star Fleet not mining but perhaps because Star Fleet is in a alternative reality now, in the distant future and at war with the Klingons things will have changed.
Mining skill sounds great.
What else can we have?
Plant gathering planetside to make health buffs?
Skinning? Me wants a Gorn belt, shoes and wallet! (Not nice to skin a sentient life form though so maybe scratch that!)
Engineering to build our own rare weapons? Kinda got that in memory alpha (ish).
OK so I'm being silly.
Maybe some sort of gathering / crafting other than what is currently available could pan out well.
You're confused, Starfleet is not in an alternative reality. The game takes play in the same reality as Enterprise, STO, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and all of the movies except the newest ST movie. The new movie takes place in an alternate reality, but it doesn't affect this game in anyway (except for the fact that Spock is lost). This chart explains it http://media3.startrekonline.com.s3.amazonaws.com/img/misc/Chart-01.jpg
Back on topic
Mining wouldn't be a problem for me. It would be nice to have a civilian type faction that can do things other than fighting in a war.
I do agree that any form of addition to gameplay is good and for that reason I wont outright disagree with it. I wonder how they could implement it so that it works however. Obviously it would be some form of proffession.
It would be nice if you had to have mining specific ships to do the mining which would be located in neutral space where the enemy faction can attack you at free will (so long as they find you on the system you are mining at).
Im more for it than against but it all depends on how they would add it. Because EVE has it though I doubt they will go that way.
Not to my knowledge however id imagine some variant of a freighter would suffice.
That's my only issue with general crafting systems for this game.
I went to Starfleet Academy to be an engineer. Or a scientist. Or maybe a tactical logistics technician. If I wanted to be a hunter or miner, I'd have stayed on the farm back home and went to some other kind of training facility. I'm a military official, not a civvie! I'm captain of one of the more advanced starships in the galaxy, optimized for exploration and combat.
For the KDF... you're a proud warrior. Sure, there's honor in providing resources for the glorious Klingon empire, but not for warriors. You live, breathe, and eventually die in combat. You captain a proud warship full of other honorable warriors, designed for one purpose: Destroy your enemies and cow everyone else into submission. What would your superiors say if you took up something like mining? Worse, what would your peers think about you? "Oh, look at poor K'vat. Too much work in fighting worthy foes for him! He's reduced to shooting rubble!" There is no honor in mining for a true Klingon warrior, or any of the KDF's fine warrior breeds. Even those shady Orion know that you get someone else to do all of that TRIBBLE!
I'll wait for them to refine the crafting-as-research-and-design system they have in place. It's not perfect, and it needs a lot of work, but that's far easier to swallow then mundane things that a dedicated military officer wouldn't have time for as anything more then a hobby.
Some things are too complex for a replicator. A warp core, for example, has to actually be manufactured. Typically smaller items like most foods, cloths, many forms of medices...furniture, and small-arms like phaser pistols and tricorders can be replicated. The more complicated it is, the less likely it can be replicated.
Agreed.
The only way I see a standard crafting system being viable in STO is if they add a civilian class. And just adding the Ferengi as a faction won't do either...how many Ferengi captains did any mining? None that I ever saw. No, mining and manufacturing is a civvie thing and should remain as such. That said, if they were to add civilian classes and open up a regular crafting system for them, I would possibly make a civilian alt.
How often in the various shows did people improve/cobble together/invent interesting gadgets and equipment? And 'oh noes, the flarxian wave manifold is out of juju, we need to go find a juju vein to replace vital essences!' plots happened at least a handful of times.
Heck, STO already HAS at least one mission I can think of where you protect a guy who needs to find dilithium (or something) to repair his engines, and there's probably more. (I think some of the explore missions do that sort of thing)
I think the thing I like least about the current crafting system (if you can call it that) is that it thematically robs the player of any conceptual ownership of the crafting. You aren't crafting anything, you're showing up with parts so that the NPC can craft it for you.
Yeah. That's awesome.
That's my only issue with general crafting systems for this game.
I went to Starfleet Academy to be an engineer. Or a scientist. Or maybe a tactical logistics technician. If I wanted to be a hunter or miner, I'd have stayed on the farm back home and went to some other kind of training facility. I'm a military official, not a civvie! I'm captain of one of the more advanced starships in the galaxy, optimized for exploration and combat.
For the KDF... you're a proud warrior. Sure, there's honor in providing resources for the glorious Klingon empire, but not for warriors. You live, breathe, and eventually die in combat. You captain a proud warship full of other honorable warriors, designed for one purpose: Destroy your enemies and cow everyone else into submission. What would your superiors say if you took up something like mining? Worse, what would your peers think about you? "Oh, look at poor K'vat. Too much work in fighting worthy foes for him! He's reduced to shooting rubble!" There is no honor in mining for a true Klingon warrior, or any of the KDF's fine warrior breeds. Even those shady Orion know that you get someone else to do all of that TRIBBLE!
I'll wait for them to refine the crafting-as-research-and-design system they have in place. It's not perfect, and it needs a lot of work, but that's far easier to swallow then mundane things that a dedicated military officer wouldn't have time for as anything more then a hobby.
This is Star Trek On line not Starfleet on line. The United Federation of Planets encompasses more than a military might. Why cant we have civilizations instead of a military force? Just a thought...
I think it's disingenuous to state that I don't find crafting viable - on the contrary, I think it would add something to the game (and intimated as such at the end of my post), but I feel the ridiculous notion of mining with a ship you're requisitioned (versus ownership, like most other intarwebz spaceship games one could mention) for the purposes of exploration and defense with generally more applicable combat and scientific functions as a result is a little... well. I sort of stated my opinion on that when I mentioned it being ridiculous, didn't I?
When was the last time you actually saw the Enterprise take a break from it's seven (was it seven? I thought it was originally five, but I do remember it not being an internally consistent tour of duty) year mission to seek out life and new civilizations so that the crew could mine an asteroid field for non-episode specific resources?
Which is another thing that sort of bothers me about all of this - when was the last time we seriously had a mining vessel before the Narada? And again worth noting that even that ship was totally dedicated to the core aspects of mining and was nothing more then a mining base with engines. I've been to enough mining operations in the game thus far, and indeed remember a number of episodes about such facilities, to suggest that this kind of practice was somewhat uncommon. Instead, it would seem that a lot of races in the Trek universe focus on building static bases to do these sorts of things, and only transport the materials off the base-site when they're properly processed. I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise, either - why build a mining base on an asteroid when you could just design a ship to do it? Seems a bit peculiar, doesn't it, even if we do have one (1) shining example of a proper mining vessel.
I sincerely doubt that a Starfleet or KDF ship is going to have the proper equipment for such procedures, or that they would look kindly on you using their (again, you don't own the ship. You've been requisitioned it by the political entity you work for) ship for such purposes for your own personal profit.
While technically true, the fact of the matter is every player character in the game works for Starfleet, and that the main characters for every series produced about the show Star Trek have revolved around Starfleet officials and members, with the occasional highlights by other groups. I'm sure the United Federation of Planets does have more to it (infact, I've been to a few of their civilian locations in-game so far), players aren't part of them.
And I'm sure you meant 'civilians', not civilizations, and assumed such when formulating my response. If you meant otherwise... well, we're going into a whole different debate, and I apologize for my inaccuracy (you know what assumption makes you, after all!
Which is exactly why Cryptic should begin developing civilian/neutral sub-factions and factions. There are enough people who want to play "that game" (the mining, noncombatant crafting, do something other than fighting game) that it warrants development.
Such things are all over the franchise and canonical.
Does that justify adding 'that game' to 'this game', and the amount of time and developer resources on making it a reality?
And I'm curious as to your market research to determine the viability of this at this point in time, as well. Data faskinates me (and I don't mean the android! ...Well, technically, he faskinates me as well, but that's a different discussion).
No class of Star Fleet or KDF vessel is designed for mining, nor even practically able to be refitted as a mining vessel. Additionally, the ONLY mining vessel known to exist in Trek is the Narada, every other instance of on-screen mining has been done by a static facility with the ships only serving to haul the cargo/product and other supplies. However, there is no real reason - even with that said - why a mining ship could not be added to the game (if civilian-crafting classes were to be created).
Would all of this be a good idea? I don't know, I think it would be interesting and would like to see Cryptic give it a shot at some point.
Oh come on... give that "where is your empirical evidence' stuff a break. Just read the forums. There are plenty of people in the game already who are interested in such a thing. Aside from that, I know a few score people personally (most of a sizable EQ2 guild and a SWG guild as a whole) who haven't even touched STO for lack of such game-play forms but are interested in STO IF that type of game play is put in. No, it is not market research in a formal sense (market research is "scientifically" flawed anyway) but that makes it no less valid.
In my sphere of MMORPG players there are only about 15 of around 150 people in a MMORPG gaming community playing STO, the rest want to but lack of "civilian" game-play (mining, harvesting/agricultural, dedicated noncombatant crafting, pure trade, even bartending, and tailoring) keeps them away. I highly doubt, given the shear number of people I know who are interested in such a thing, that the number of people who want that are a small group.
As far as market research goes, In development circles this is actually a well know quantity that has yet to be truly tapped. how the heck do you think SWG has maintained around 125k users even after the NGE fiasco? It certainly isn't the quality of game mechanics. Its the crafting and entertaining that's keeping it alive.
Broaden your mind and look around at the populations of MMORPGs out there and look at how many people play those games for the crafting and economy aspects where they are part of the world construction. It is more than a plausible assumption, it is dang near fact.
I say refine that and call it the IES (Item Enhancement System) and then build in an actual crafting and resource gathering for release in about 16 months.
I have a break coming up in my graduate work soon. I am seriously contemplating sitting down one day of that break and writing up lose crafting and harvesting skill trees for civilian classes.
I think you don't quite have enough objective information to claim that it's fact, honestly. And you're running damn close to being insulting over something that was intended as a serious, honest question. You can't go around stating these sorts of things as facts, especially when you don't have any solid market research to back it up (you allude to it having been done, and you make supposition based on purely subjective personal data and theories, but you admit to having nothing).
Honestly? I don't necessarily see where a solid crafting system is a make-or-break deal. I will admit that I can see the tangible benefits in having one that works fine, and I don't think the one we currently have even remotely qualifies as crafting in even the most light definitions of the term, but that doesn't exactly mean we should be randomly forcing things into place without at least some research and thought put into it. Pigeon-holing this kind of system in is probably not a sound idea, but if the developers do the research and the crunching on it and think it is, hell. I'll give it a fair shot. But I'll disagree with the decision.
The question that's really important here, however, is does Atari/Cryptic even have the right to make that kind of decision with the property? That's something I was going to bring up in my original diatribe (which I will admit - it was) on the subject. The developers of this game sort of have to verify everything with the license holder in regards to the property, and as I pointed out... almost every single bit of the TV and movie series the game is based off has centered almost entirely around Starfleet and the relative political entities. A lot of the intimacies of what actually qualifies as civilian day-to-day routine has been left up in the air (even those civilians married to Starfleet personnel don't really qualify as civilians in the generally accepted sense of the word - and I say that as someone who comes from a military familial tradition) for the most part, and I'm not entirely sure what kind of ruling Paramount would have on that sort of thing (as the current holders of the intellectual property license, and besides the developers, the only group who's opinion matters here). If they red-flag it, then it's kind of dead in the water there.
There are enough games out there to satisfy these kinds of urges, and I don't see how any of the suggestions laid out in this thread so far do anything to do justice to the original property.
No information is ever objective. We see in it what we wish to. If you think I am being insulting or trying to be insulting you have mistaken my tone. Market research really means diddly. The figures derived from market research are manipulated to suit the needs of the moment. I am being honest in my assessments in that i indirectly infer that I posess an "informed opinion", nothing more, and really, nothing more is needed in this case. this is an open conversation intended to share ideas. I did not allude to it having been done. What I said is exactly as it is. In development circles it is a known aspect of player desire and is discussed quite a bit behind closed doors and through leading industry information clearing houses and publications. We talk about this stuff, a lot. If you look at what I said in no place did I insist it was fact. the closest i cam was when I said it was "dang near fact" but not a fact in and of itself.
In no place did I even infer that a solid crafting system was a make-or-break deal. What I was saying is that it is an untapped market share, or a little tapped one, at least. STO could go on for a long long time with the MA crafting hoax but to ignore the known fact that many people like ACTUAL fleshed out crafting systems rather than a blatant item exchange system. It is not what can be stood to lose but instead what stands to be gained.
To pass over the possible opportunity to gain a couple hundred thousand subscriptions, which I think is a fair estimate and probably under par to the reality, is totally Cryptic's call. All we can do as players is advise accordingly. Which is really my only intent. They know whats up and they know what I am talking about.
Your opinion matters, just as mine does. please do not feel that I am dismissing your opinion, because I am not.
That's true, which is why I was responding to THIS person:
It's not all about you!!