I'm going to start with a disclaimer: I don't think all ships should be able to reach T5 stats. This is ridiculous to me. I don't think a ship as small as the T1 Miranda and Centaur or the T2 Constitution, Nova and Sabre should be able to do what the Sovereign, Prometheus and Titan can do. Those ships are all bigger and more advanced with stronger and better designed hulls. Not all ships should be created equal.
But I do think that each Tier of ship should be upgradable to have near equal capabilities of the next tier up. Same weapon and console slots as the next tier up and the same BOFF slots.
I think a T2 Constitution should be able to be refitted so it has the weapon and console slots of the T3 Centaur. I think the T3 ships should be upgradable to the same load outs as the T4 and so on. This means if any player has a ship class they really love for aesthetic and nostalgic reasons, they can use it effectively for twice as long instead of being forced to choose a class they can't stand the sight of. This will not harm anything about the game. It will not cause everyone to fly around in Defiants or Constitutions or Galaxies or Intrepids. There will always be players who want the look of the Olympic, the Centaur, the Sovereign, the Emissary, the Prometheus and so on.
That being said however, I do also think that refitting a ship should not make it completely equal to the tier above it. I think a refitted ship should retain its old hull strength, crew compliment and turn rate. You may think that will make some refitted classes perform slightly better than native ships of that tier, but I think there will still be a balance to this. For example:
A T4 Defiant refitted to T5 would still out-turn a Prometheus, but its hull would be weaker and it would still have less crew.
A T4 Galaxy refitted to T5 would have more crew than a Sovereign but would still turn slower and have a weaker hull.
And when it comes to the Admiral level, I think there should be two refit options for T4 ships. For cruisers, either an assault refit or science refit. For escorts, either an advanced refit or fleet refit. for science ships, either a recon refit or deep space refit.
So what about cost? Maybe this option could be available only through the C Store if Cryptic ever do go down this path and feel like being greedy about it. People will pay (I certainly would). But if refits were to be available through energy credits then I'd have to say they should be expensive compared to getting a new ship. I think a player should have the option when promoted to either get their new ship for free(like we have now) or pay the cost of their current tier level to refit their current ship. This would leave refitting strictly optional. The players who don't care for such trifles as aesthetically pleasing ships would therefore happily ignore the choice and get their next ship for free as usual. And that would leave us who love our Constitutions, our Novas, our Akiras and Defiants, our Intrepids and our Galaxies to keep them instead of being forced by game mechanics to trade up to stay competitive.
I know there will be plenty of players who will hate this idea and denounce it as stupid and wrong, and there will be some who support it as an interesting one, and some who think it doesn't go far enough to encourage player freedom or satisfy their own desires for the game. I do however have one thing to say about a certain kind of response I've seen before and all the trolls are gonna love this:
By posting replies to the effect of:
"If you want a better ship, just upgrade to the next tier."
"When you get to T(X+1) you can have a T(X+1) and discard the T(X). So no need for a 'refit'."
"You should accept what Cryptic gives you and like it."
Anything written by Pasquatic.
You thereby admit that you have no argument against this idea that holds any credibility in the face of the reality of a business situation:
If a company sells a product and enough customers want the product changed and this change leads to increased demand for the product and more revenue for the company, then the company will always make the change because companies are not rigid unchanging disciplinarian parental figures who aim to teach customers to be satisfied with less than the exact thing they want.
i agree 100%. this is one of the better ideas bouncing around the forum. my favorite ship so far has been my commander (hvy) crusier, it got me to cpt5. after that point it started to get outclassed pretty fast. so, i agree with all your points, except the hull. keep the turning but i think you would have to at least split the difference in the hulls strength between tiers. if there is a 7000 hull diff, let the refit get 3500 to make it effective longer.
*EDIT* if it were to become a c store item i would pay for it, but if im spending cash, i want all attributes carried over except if was going to cause the turning to go down. in that case you would get the better of the two.
Whatever Cryptic chooses we NEED the ability to have all ship types participate in either PVP or larger PVE encounters. It's Star Trek in it's purest form space combat wise.
Whatever Cryptic chooses we NEED the ability to have all ship types participate in either PVP or larger PVE encounters. It's Star Trek in it's purest form space combat wise.
That's a good point (at least to me.) I guess the game needs some "auto-leveling" for this case (doesn't it already exist?) - reduce or increase weapon damage, hull and shield points to a common value. Higher tier ship still have more bridge officer powers and similar abilities available, but a few Mirandas should still be able to overcome a more powerful, higher tier ship if they work together.
IMHO, they should just allow the BO positions be upgrade to the captains rank. No refit, no hull upgrades, no new weapon slots, and no new BO posts.
An Admiral gets, 1 commander and if room a lieutenant commander based on type of ship, and a lieutenant for each of the other stations
A Captain gets: 1 commander based on ship and Lieutenants for other posititons
A Commander: 1 Lieutenant commander based on ship and the rest ensigns
A Lt Commander gets 1 Lieutenant based on ship and the rest ensigns
When flying a Tier 1 ship, the can select any station to have the lead officer.
So if an admiral was flying a Miranda, they would have a commander (of any type) and lieutenants at the other two stations, no additional weapons and no additional consoles Of course it would be outfitted with Mk X gear, so it would be better equipped than an normal Miranda, but its still a Miranda.
I think console slots should be based on Rank. so if you are in a T2 you get the same amount of console slots as a T5 if you are a RA. Now i think weapon slots and armor should be upgraded but within reason... you are right a T5 should not be in the same ball park as a T2 so i would limit a armor upgrade or a weapons upgrade for instance you have to buy a weapon slot in a T2 up to 3 forward weapons and 3 rear. and each slot cost 200k energy credits . so basicly you can 1 slot for forward and aft max to any ships. what do you guys think?
This is all well and good, but if they do decide to rework their current ship parts placement system to accomodate refit ships, I don't want my sovereign warp nacelles suddenly protruding from the saucer section, or the secondary hull placed directly behind the saucer.
This is all well and good, but if they do decide to rework their current ship parts placement system to accomodate refit ships, I don't want my sovereign warp nacelles suddenly protruding from the saucer section, or the secondary hull placed directly behind the saucer.
If Cryptic decide to change the way ship parts fit together, that has nothing to do with my idea.
If Cryptic decide to change the way ship parts fit together, that has nothing to do with my idea.
Currently a Tier ship would have all their parts in roughly the same place, I just don't want constitution parts to suddenly go in the locations of the Cheyenne or vise versa if Cryptic were to suddenly treat T2R as T3. Knowing Cryptic and their current ship part placement mismatches (look at a starcruiser variant's warp pylon placement, one's higher than the other) I don't have much faith in them if they do incorporate refit tiers.
I really like this idea, OP. I sometimes bring out my lower tier ships for fleet actions, just because i like to help provide a bit more visual diversity for the fight. I'd love to be able to refit a lower tier ship to make it more competitive in those situations.
Currently a Tier ship would have all their parts in roughly the same place, I just don't want constitution parts to suddenly go in the locations of the Cheyenne or vise versa if Cryptic were to suddenly treat T2R as T3. Knowing Cryptic and their current ship part placement mismatches (look at a starcruiser variant's warp pylon placement, one's higher than the other) I don't have much faith in them if they do incorporate refit tiers.
I really didn't imagine refitting one ship to have the stats of the class above would also mean you could swap out the parts with the same class above. That would indeed be ridiculous. A T3 refit for example might be known just as T3 Refit or T3X and not T4 to maintain a differentiation between the tiers.
Kirk had the best ship in the fleet, and it was because of the crew more than anything. Since that is the biggest reason there is such a gimping when an Admiral uses a lower tier ship, then that should be fixed. Admirals have used lower-tier ships throughout the TV series.
Look, the EASIEST way is just allowing us to re-skin the admiral tier classes with a lower class image and call it "refit". It doesn't effect game balance in ANY way and it is easy to implement.
Probably could be coded out in a few days. Simple really.
Kirk had the best ship in the fleet, and it was because of the crew more than anything. Since that is the biggest reason there is such a gimping when an Admiral uses a lower tier ship, then that should be fixed. Admirals have used lower-tier ships throughout the TV series.
Look, the EASIEST way is just allowing us to re-skin the admiral tier classes with a lower class image and call it "refit". It doesn't effect game balance in ANY way and it is easy to implement.
Probably could be coded out in a few days. Simple really.
Overthinking this will make it never happen.
Excellent suggestion, Devs you really need to pay attention to this guys post in essence everbody gets what they want in this situation without hours and hours of programming wasted. All you guys need to do is make teir 4 ships and option for customizable for a teir 5 ships. I constantly hear that the Teir 5 tacts ships are just plan ugle and do not look anything like fed ships and that god forsaken dreadnought is worse. Please dont make that ship the fed battleships carriar lol. Also for future ship designs that get added to the game can we have a fan art contest and have the community vote for which one they like most thx.
Kirk had the best ship in the fleet, and it was because of the crew more than anything. Since that is the biggest reason there is such a gimping when an Admiral uses a lower tier ship, then that should be fixed. Admirals have used lower-tier ships throughout the TV series.
Look, the EASIEST way is just allowing us to re-skin the admiral tier classes with a lower class image and call it "refit". It doesn't effect game balance in ANY way and it is easy to implement.
Probably could be coded out in a few days. Simple really.
Overthinking this will make it never happen.
Well Admirals can use lower tier ships... but that doesn't make the physical ship any better...
And by "reskining" (not what that work means) you mean using the tier 1 model and skin but having tier 5 stats? That makes no sense...
Looking at a ship gives you a visual sense of its abilities. A Constitution class ship CAN'T have a crew of 900 and a hull 3 times as tough as it originally had..
Having an Admiral command the Enterprise didn't make it have more weapons, more crew, or more hull...
even more ridiculous if you look at the Klingons.. is a bird of Prey going to start launching fighters like a Vo'quv?
That being said I am all for something like the Tier +1 move.. Ideally, there should be something graphically different to the ship to mark the refit.. A weapon pod, Sensor blister, extra support strut...
Kirk had the best ship in the fleet, and it was because of the crew more than anything. Since that is the biggest reason there is such a gimping when an Admiral uses a lower tier ship, then that should be fixed. Admirals have used lower-tier ships throughout the TV series.
Look, the EASIEST way is just allowing us to re-skin the admiral tier classes with a lower class image and call it "refit". It doesn't effect game balance in ANY way and it is easy to implement.
Probably could be coded out in a few days. Simple really.
Overthinking this will make it never happen.
Completely disagree, they lower tier ships are inferior. KIrk may have had the best crew, but his ship had the same weapons, consoles and stations as any other Constitution class ship. I think the only change should be allow an upgrade of the crew ranks in the same positions.
I pretty much agree with this. I want to be able to upgrade a ship to the next tier. I agree that a ship refitted to the next tier should not be quite as powerful as a ship normally in that tier. This is how I see it. Let's say I go from LCDR to CDR. For whatever reason i want to keep my T2 ship. Maybe I'm in a science ship and I really love my Nova and dont like the flying door TRIBBLE (which isnt the case for me, I'm all about the Olympic). Instead of purchasing the T3 we should get a refit option and have so many refit points to spend. Each type of refit should have a price. Adding an additional console costs X points. A console that matches the type of ship would cost less, any other console would cost more. So it costs less to add another science console to a science ship, but costs more to add tactical or engineering console. Or you could decide to upgrade an existing Ensign level console to the next rank. Again I feel that consoles that match the ship would cost less and so on. It still manages to keep the theme of each class of ship. Or you could decide to add an additional weapon slot, place it fore or aft. Or increase the turn rate of a ship. Not dramatically, but enough to be worth the cost. In my opinion the number of crew and the hull value shouldnt change. So when all is said and done something like this could happen. I have 1000 refit points (completely making these values up on the fly) I decide that I want an additional weapon slot forward (400 pts), I want to upgrade my tactical console to LT (costs 300 pts) and maybe increase turn rate from an 11 to a 12 (200pts). And at that point I'm done, though there could be different ways to mix and match and spend your points. Any points left over would carry through when I make Captain, but only if I stay with this ship and refit it again. But as I said before you should never be able to surpass the regular ship of that tier, so in this case something like adding an additional console wouldnt be an option, but later on when you reach a higher rank and the ship of that tier normally has the additional console you can add it as well. but of course there should still be certain limits. For instance each class of ship should have a max number of consoles it can hold, and a max number of weapons fore and aft. The Miranda should never have the same number of consoles and weapons that a Sovereign has. I think this adds a ton of customization options for your ships, and isnt that what a lot of people really like about MMOs? Finding a way to really make it your own. I guess that covers it, hope it makes sense.
I like Scotimus' idea. It could be a whole new refit system with it's own economic unit or it could use energy, merits, badges, combination of them etc. At the same time though I think there should be a limit to how many tiers you can go up as many others have said. +1 tier isn't bad but I'd also be okay with +2 tier.
With +2 the Mirandas don't get past the Tier 3 Cmndr level ships and your Tier 2 LtCmndr ships won't make it past Captain level. Yeah I know that means no Constitutions at Admiral level but by this point in the Star Trek timeline they aren't all that impressive of ships. Yes Kirk was an Admiral and used one and his ship/crew were considered the best, but back in that timeframe the Constitution was still one of the best ships in the fleet with only the Excelsior above it. By STO timeline, heck even TNG timeframe, that is not even remotely the case.
As for the refits either way you do it there needs to be a visual distinction that it is a refit. That is supported in cannon with the Enterprise refit and it's a balance point for PVP. It kind of goes back to them taking out tintable weapons colors (not opening that can of worms). The weapons weren't meant to be changed in color so that in PVP you knew a distruptor from a phaser, and I think a refit ship should look different so you can tell at first glance a Tier 4 Escort from a Tier 4 Escort Refit that can keep up with a Tier.
Finally, and I think most agree, the refit should be a step below the actual tier ship. It's an active choice between min/maxing at that point or taking a hit to capabilities in order to get what you the player wants. Kind of like the choice Kirk had, did he want a technically better Excelsior or take an older but more familiar Constitution. Overall a refit system is a good idea but I'm sure it would take some work to devise the new parts for the visual distinction, creating a cost system to it, etc, etc. Good concept none the less that hopefully will be looked into and fit Trek cannon.
I see no reason to limit how far we can upgrade a ship. Just make each upgrade progressively more expensive. If someone is so fond of their Miranda that they are willing to pay to upgrade it all the way to Tier 5, why not allow that? I refuse to believe that it is actually impossible to fit more weapon banks into the ship. Just not cost effective. It would likely require removing, or at least redesigning, certain non-essential areas of the ship, such as the holodeck and the lounge, to accomidate those extra weapons. One level of upgrades should not be too expensive, but the cost should increase dramatically for each level after. If someone is so dedicated to a ship that they wish to upgrade it time and again, and are willing to pay the costs associated, why not allow it?
I see no reason to limit how far we can upgrade a ship. Just make each upgrade progressively more expensive. If someone is so fond of their Miranda that they are willing to pay to upgrade it all the way to Tier 5, why not allow that? I refuse to believe that it is actually impossible to fit more weapon banks into the ship. Just not cost effective. It would likely require removing, or at least redesigning, certain non-essential areas of the ship, such as the holodeck and the lounge, to accomidate those extra weapons. One level of upgrades should not be too expensive, but the cost should increase dramatically for each level after. If someone is so dedicated to a ship that they wish to upgrade it time and again, and are willing to pay the costs associated, why not allow it?
Two reasons.. one being that it is not unreasonable to expect that looking at a ship should give you some idea of its capacity.. You see a Defiant class you know what are going to get roughly..
The second is while retrofitting is possible on some level, it goes beyond putting in another weapons bank.
The Miranda class isn't rife with holodecks and lounges (sure it has some.. but what like 10% 15% of the ship)
Newer weapons (don't forget we are talking more powerful as well as more of them) need more power.. means bigger engine...
And what about more eng/tac/sci device slots? Where do those come in?
How does more crew fit in there?
Where does the extra hull come in?
Do you let it keep it previous turn radius, but allow it to have 4/4 weapons slots like a tier 5 cruiser?
You couldn't turn a 1905 cruiser into a modern Battleship, Aegis cruiser, or Modern Aircraft carrier
I like Scotimus' idea. It could be a whole new refit system with it's own economic unit or it could use energy, merits, badges, combination of them etc. At the same time though I think there should be a limit to how many tiers you can go up as many others have said. +1 tier isn't bad but I'd also be okay with +2 tier.
With +2 the Mirandas don't get past the Tier 3 Cmndr level ships and your Tier 2 LtCmndr ships won't make it past Captain level. Yeah I know that means no Constitutions at Admiral level but by this point in the Star Trek timeline they aren't all that impressive of ships. Yes Kirk was an Admiral and used one and his ship/crew were considered the best, but back in that timeframe the Constitution was still one of the best ships in the fleet with only the Excelsior above it. By STO timeline, heck even TNG timeframe, that is not even remotely the case.
As for the refits either way you do it there needs to be a visual distinction that it is a refit. That is supported in cannon with the Enterprise refit and it's a balance point for PVP. It kind of goes back to them taking out tintable weapons colors (not opening that can of worms). The weapons weren't meant to be changed in color so that in PVP you knew a distruptor from a phaser, and I think a refit ship should look different so you can tell at first glance a Tier 4 Escort from a Tier 4 Escort Refit that can keep up with a Tier.
Finally, and I think most agree, the refit should be a step below the actual tier ship. It's an active choice between min/maxing at that point or taking a hit to capabilities in order to get what you the player wants. Kind of like the choice Kirk had, did he want a technically better Excelsior or take an older but more familiar Constitution. Overall a refit system is a good idea but I'm sure it would take some work to devise the new parts for the visual distinction, creating a cost system to it, etc, etc. Good concept none the less that hopefully will be looked into and fit Trek cannon.
I completely agree with this.. but I have time imaging how you could make Tier+1 AND Tier+2 upgrade visually obvious.. If there was a way to do it clearly I would definitely support this...
But I do think that each Tier of ship should be upgradable to have near equal capabilities of the next tier up. Same weapon and console slots as the next tier up and the same BOFF slots.
That being said however, I do also think that refitting a ship should not make it completely equal to the tier above it. I think a refitted ship should retain its old hull strength, crew compliment and turn rate.
So what about cost?
Great minds think alike. I've thought about this issue and come to the exact same conclusions. There is absolutely zero reason Cryptic can possibly come up with NOT to make it so.
As far as cost goes, I don't think it should be a C-store perk. People are already paying a monthly fee and something that amounts to a cosmetic election shouldn't cost more real money. Why not use one or two of the fifty different currencies already present in the game and make them useful.
Make the refit cost appropriate to the tier crossover:
\* where %X% = Cruiser, Science, or Escort
T1 %X% upgraded to T2 %X% : 1000 Starfleet Merits + Whatever a T2 %X% Costs to purchase
T2 %X% upgraded to T3 %X% : 1700 Starfleet Merits + Whatever a T3 %X% Costs to purchase
T3 %X% upgraded to T4 %X% : 2500 Starfleet Merits + Whatever a T4 %X% Costs to purchase
T4 %X% upgraded to T5 %X% : 3200 Starfleet Merits + Whatever a T5 %X% Costs to purchase
You couldn't turn a 1905 cruiser into a modern Battleship, Aegis cruiser, or Modern Aircraft carrier
I would argue that you could do it, but it would be prohibitively expensive to do so. So much so that it would be cheaper to buy several boats, rather than refit that single one. Which is why it isn't done. But if you love that 1905 cruiser so much that you have to have it upgraded, and money is no object, you'll find a way to do it.
That is the real reason ships get abandoned. It becomes more expensive to upgrade them than to buy entire fleets of new ships. But most of us have money (energy credits, whatever) coming out of our ears. If we want to sink several million in credits and tens or hundreds of thousands of Starfleet merits to turn that Miranda into a tiny battle fortress to rival a Sovereign, why not?
I would argue that you could do it, but it would be prohibitively expensive to do so. So much so that it would be cheaper to buy several boats, rather than refit that single one. Which is why it isn't done. But if you love that 1905 cruiser so much that you have to have it upgraded, and money is no object, you'll find a way to do it.
That is the real reason ships get abandoned. It becomes more expensive to upgrade them than to buy entire fleets of new ships. But most of us have money (energy credits, whatever) coming out of our ears. If we want to sink several million in credits and tens or hundreds of thousands of Starfleet merits to turn that Miranda into a tiny battle fortress to rival a Sovereign, why not?
Well, technically, it's not our ship. We just command it. I imagine putting in a request to starfleet command, even if you're an admiral, has mountains of redtape, redshirts, red BS, that go along with it before they come back and say "STFU, you're demoted to flying a garbage scow full of rubber dog **** to Vulcan."
Well, technically, it's not our ship. We just command it. I imagine putting in a request to starfleet command, even if you're an admiral, has mountains of redtape, redshirts, red BS, that go along with it before they come back and say "STFU, you're demoted to flying a garbage scow full of rubber dog **** to Vulcan."
"They tried to decommission her about five years ago. One of the advantages of being an Admiral is you choose your own ship." - Admiral Riker, All Good Things...
"They tried to decommission her about five years ago. One of the advantages of being an Admiral is you choose your own ship." - Admiral Riker, All Good Things...
Granted, so I'll give you my best wishes in consulting with command (cryptic) about letting you refit your ship
Really, I would like it too, even though the sovereign is my favorite so I won't be part of the refit crowd.
"They tried to decommission her about five years ago. One of the advantages of being an Admiral is you choose your own ship." - Admiral Riker, All Good Things...
That is proof of exactly what I am saying..
The ship get retrofitted.. they have to add things on, and change the shape...
And that is just one Class upgrade.
You say that we should be able to take ships that are more than 100 years old and "update them"?
And how do propose that a 1905 cruiser be upgarded to an Iowa class battleship?
Is there room for 3 sets of triple 16 in guns? No.
Is there room for a helicopter pad? no.
And I chose the Iowa class on purpose.. because there is WWII ship that was upgraded at great cost to modern standards.. but if they had built the next class of Battleship (USS Montana), it would have had even more gun (4 sets of triple 16 inch guns).
So you say that a Miranda class ship should be able to do everything that a Miranda class (234 m length) should be able to have everything that a Sovereign class (685 m length)? That makes no sense...
I don't care how much it costs you can't pay any amount to add all those weapons + crew + hull
I would argue that you could do it, but it would be prohibitively expensive to do so. So much so that it would be cheaper to buy several boats, rather than refit that single one. Which is why it isn't done. But if you love that 1905 cruiser so much that you have to have it upgraded, and money is no object, you'll find a way to do it.
That is the real reason ships get abandoned. It becomes more expensive to upgrade them than to buy entire fleets of new ships. But most of us have money (energy credits, whatever) coming out of our ears. If we want to sink several million in credits and tens or hundreds of thousands of Starfleet merits to turn that Miranda into a tiny battle fortress to rival a Sovereign, why not?
Upgraded, but not made equal to a state of the art vessel twice the size of your existing vessel.
Sure you can, especially in a world like Star Trek. We have photonic lifeforms that need neither sleep nor food. All the room for your crew could easily be a single hard drive. That would free up quite a bit of room for a larger warp core, would it not?
We have already accepted that a Mark X phaser bank is the exact same size as a Mark I (the fact that they can be installed in the "tiny" Miranda is proof of this), is it really so hard to believe that a ship could be completely gutted and rewired to accomidate four more?
Let's look at a comparison, the Defiant. There is a bit of debate about the size, but we'll go with the creator's 128m. That's just over half the size of the Miranda. How many weapons is it carrying? You're telling me that you couldn't cram the Defiant's weapons onto a Miranda? That's absurd.
We've seen from the Enterprise X that it is possible to add to a ship to help it in places where it lacks. We've seen from the Defiant that 234m can hold quite a bit. Where, then, is the limitation?
Comments
My idea includes that. A T5 Intrepid with a recon or deep space refit is part of it.
*EDIT* if it were to become a c store item i would pay for it, but if im spending cash, i want all attributes carried over except if was going to cause the turning to go down. in that case you would get the better of the two.
Whatever Cryptic chooses we NEED the ability to have all ship types participate in either PVP or larger PVE encounters. It's Star Trek in it's purest form space combat wise.
An Admiral gets, 1 commander and if room a lieutenant commander based on type of ship, and a lieutenant for each of the other stations
A Captain gets: 1 commander based on ship and Lieutenants for other posititons
A Commander: 1 Lieutenant commander based on ship and the rest ensigns
A Lt Commander gets 1 Lieutenant based on ship and the rest ensigns
When flying a Tier 1 ship, the can select any station to have the lead officer.
So if an admiral was flying a Miranda, they would have a commander (of any type) and lieutenants at the other two stations, no additional weapons and no additional consoles Of course it would be outfitted with Mk X gear, so it would be better equipped than an normal Miranda, but its still a Miranda.
If Cryptic decide to change the way ship parts fit together, that has nothing to do with my idea.
Currently a Tier ship would have all their parts in roughly the same place, I just don't want constitution parts to suddenly go in the locations of the Cheyenne or vise versa if Cryptic were to suddenly treat T2R as T3. Knowing Cryptic and their current ship part placement mismatches (look at a starcruiser variant's warp pylon placement, one's higher than the other) I don't have much faith in them if they do incorporate refit tiers.
I really didn't imagine refitting one ship to have the stats of the class above would also mean you could swap out the parts with the same class above. That would indeed be ridiculous. A T3 refit for example might be known just as T3 Refit or T3X and not T4 to maintain a differentiation between the tiers.
Kirk had the best ship in the fleet, and it was because of the crew more than anything. Since that is the biggest reason there is such a gimping when an Admiral uses a lower tier ship, then that should be fixed. Admirals have used lower-tier ships throughout the TV series.
Look, the EASIEST way is just allowing us to re-skin the admiral tier classes with a lower class image and call it "refit". It doesn't effect game balance in ANY way and it is easy to implement.
Probably could be coded out in a few days. Simple really.
Overthinking this will make it never happen.
Excellent suggestion, Devs you really need to pay attention to this guys post in essence everbody gets what they want in this situation without hours and hours of programming wasted. All you guys need to do is make teir 4 ships and option for customizable for a teir 5 ships. I constantly hear that the Teir 5 tacts ships are just plan ugle and do not look anything like fed ships and that god forsaken dreadnought is worse. Please dont make that ship the fed battleships carriar lol. Also for future ship designs that get added to the game can we have a fan art contest and have the community vote for which one they like most thx.
Well Admirals can use lower tier ships... but that doesn't make the physical ship any better...
And by "reskining" (not what that work means) you mean using the tier 1 model and skin but having tier 5 stats? That makes no sense...
Looking at a ship gives you a visual sense of its abilities. A Constitution class ship CAN'T have a crew of 900 and a hull 3 times as tough as it originally had..
Having an Admiral command the Enterprise didn't make it have more weapons, more crew, or more hull...
even more ridiculous if you look at the Klingons.. is a bird of Prey going to start launching fighters like a Vo'quv?
That being said I am all for something like the Tier +1 move.. Ideally, there should be something graphically different to the ship to mark the refit.. A weapon pod, Sensor blister, extra support strut...
With +2 the Mirandas don't get past the Tier 3 Cmndr level ships and your Tier 2 LtCmndr ships won't make it past Captain level. Yeah I know that means no Constitutions at Admiral level but by this point in the Star Trek timeline they aren't all that impressive of ships. Yes Kirk was an Admiral and used one and his ship/crew were considered the best, but back in that timeframe the Constitution was still one of the best ships in the fleet with only the Excelsior above it. By STO timeline, heck even TNG timeframe, that is not even remotely the case.
As for the refits either way you do it there needs to be a visual distinction that it is a refit. That is supported in cannon with the Enterprise refit and it's a balance point for PVP. It kind of goes back to them taking out tintable weapons colors (not opening that can of worms). The weapons weren't meant to be changed in color so that in PVP you knew a distruptor from a phaser, and I think a refit ship should look different so you can tell at first glance a Tier 4 Escort from a Tier 4 Escort Refit that can keep up with a Tier.
Finally, and I think most agree, the refit should be a step below the actual tier ship. It's an active choice between min/maxing at that point or taking a hit to capabilities in order to get what you the player wants. Kind of like the choice Kirk had, did he want a technically better Excelsior or take an older but more familiar Constitution. Overall a refit system is a good idea but I'm sure it would take some work to devise the new parts for the visual distinction, creating a cost system to it, etc, etc. Good concept none the less that hopefully will be looked into and fit Trek cannon.
Two reasons.. one being that it is not unreasonable to expect that looking at a ship should give you some idea of its capacity.. You see a Defiant class you know what are going to get roughly..
The second is while retrofitting is possible on some level, it goes beyond putting in another weapons bank.
The Miranda class isn't rife with holodecks and lounges (sure it has some.. but what like 10% 15% of the ship)
Newer weapons (don't forget we are talking more powerful as well as more of them) need more power.. means bigger engine...
And what about more eng/tac/sci device slots? Where do those come in?
How does more crew fit in there?
Where does the extra hull come in?
Do you let it keep it previous turn radius, but allow it to have 4/4 weapons slots like a tier 5 cruiser?
You couldn't turn a 1905 cruiser into a modern Battleship, Aegis cruiser, or Modern Aircraft carrier
I completely agree with this.. but I have time imaging how you could make Tier+1 AND Tier+2 upgrade visually obvious.. If there was a way to do it clearly I would definitely support this...
Great minds think alike. I've thought about this issue and come to the exact same conclusions. There is absolutely zero reason Cryptic can possibly come up with NOT to make it so.
As far as cost goes, I don't think it should be a C-store perk. People are already paying a monthly fee and something that amounts to a cosmetic election shouldn't cost more real money. Why not use one or two of the fifty different currencies already present in the game and make them useful.
Make the refit cost appropriate to the tier crossover:
\* where %X% = Cruiser, Science, or Escort
T1 %X% upgraded to T2 %X% : 1000 Starfleet Merits + Whatever a T2 %X% Costs to purchase
T2 %X% upgraded to T3 %X% : 1700 Starfleet Merits + Whatever a T3 %X% Costs to purchase
T3 %X% upgraded to T4 %X% : 2500 Starfleet Merits + Whatever a T4 %X% Costs to purchase
T4 %X% upgraded to T5 %X% : 3200 Starfleet Merits + Whatever a T5 %X% Costs to purchase
OR
Make the retrofit cost your Promotion Slip.
I would argue that you could do it, but it would be prohibitively expensive to do so. So much so that it would be cheaper to buy several boats, rather than refit that single one. Which is why it isn't done. But if you love that 1905 cruiser so much that you have to have it upgraded, and money is no object, you'll find a way to do it.
That is the real reason ships get abandoned. It becomes more expensive to upgrade them than to buy entire fleets of new ships. But most of us have money (energy credits, whatever) coming out of our ears. If we want to sink several million in credits and tens or hundreds of thousands of Starfleet merits to turn that Miranda into a tiny battle fortress to rival a Sovereign, why not?
Well, technically, it's not our ship. We just command it. I imagine putting in a request to starfleet command, even if you're an admiral, has mountains of redtape, redshirts, red BS, that go along with it before they come back and say "STFU, you're demoted to flying a garbage scow full of rubber dog **** to Vulcan."
"They tried to decommission her about five years ago. One of the advantages of being an Admiral is you choose your own ship." - Admiral Riker, All Good Things...
Granted, so I'll give you my best wishes in consulting with command (cryptic) about letting you refit your ship
Really, I would like it too, even though the sovereign is my favorite so I won't be part of the refit crowd.
That is proof of exactly what I am saying..
The ship get retrofitted.. they have to add things on, and change the shape...
And that is just one Class upgrade.
You say that we should be able to take ships that are more than 100 years old and "update them"?
And how do propose that a 1905 cruiser be upgarded to an Iowa class battleship?
Is there room for 3 sets of triple 16 in guns? No.
Is there room for a helicopter pad? no.
And I chose the Iowa class on purpose.. because there is WWII ship that was upgraded at great cost to modern standards.. but if they had built the next class of Battleship (USS Montana), it would have had even more gun (4 sets of triple 16 inch guns).
So you say that a Miranda class ship should be able to do everything that a Miranda class (234 m length) should be able to have everything that a Sovereign class (685 m length)? That makes no sense...
I don't care how much it costs you can't pay any amount to add all those weapons + crew + hull
Upgraded, but not made equal to a state of the art vessel twice the size of your existing vessel.
We have already accepted that a Mark X phaser bank is the exact same size as a Mark I (the fact that they can be installed in the "tiny" Miranda is proof of this), is it really so hard to believe that a ship could be completely gutted and rewired to accomidate four more?
Let's look at a comparison, the Defiant. There is a bit of debate about the size, but we'll go with the creator's 128m. That's just over half the size of the Miranda. How many weapons is it carrying? You're telling me that you couldn't cram the Defiant's weapons onto a Miranda? That's absurd.
We've seen from the Enterprise X that it is possible to add to a ship to help it in places where it lacks. We've seen from the Defiant that 234m can hold quite a bit. Where, then, is the limitation?