How about branching missions, mutually exclusive triggers and other bits and pieces that allow players to make choices in how they tackle different goals to complete their missions? Does the current engine support anything like that?
the engine would support it if the devs made it. thats my understanding.
How about branching missions, mutually exclusive triggers and other bits and pieces that allow players to make choices in how they tackle different goals to complete their missions? Does the current engine support anything like that?
It's possible within the game.
They already have a trigger to flag you for The Cure then Khitomer Accord.
I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to have either dialogue choices or pass/fail sections to lead to different content.
I suspect the hurdle is that branching missions are far more intensive than single-arc which are, in turn, more complex than a one-off mission.
The is actually pretty close to how it works already. The ship and captain are both "puppets" and we swap which is active depending on the map type. Unforunately there is some level of delay running the puppet swap (that was the cause of the issues in OB where you would beam down as a ship, the transaction for the swap was delayed). As for your suggestion, that goes back to the "on exactly one map" bit. The map for your ship isn't running on the same server process as a sector space, so you can't control anything in sector space. Doing that level of inter-map communication would turn into an IPC nightmare really fast.
What if sector space is redone so that there are blocks which ones bridge can be loaded into. Sort of a hot-swap of geometry. It's part of the sector space map, but placed OUTSIDE the area your ship is allowed to travel in.
I am assuming that the distant starts and nebula stuff are part of a skybox that has a camera at its center, tied to the direction the player faces. The borders of the navigatable space in each space map uses a special texture that maps the output of the skybox camera, while the navigatable space is outside the skybox and therefore cannot be seen by the skybox camera.
If you place these dummy sectors with the bridges located in them outside the skybox as well, then in theory, we should be able to navigate sector space at least from our bridge. In theory
What if sector space is redone so that there are blocks which ones bridge can be loaded into. Sort of a hot-swap of geometry. It's part of the sector space map, but placed OUTSIDE the area your ship is allowed to travel in.
I am assuming that the distant starts and nebula stuff are part of a skybox that has a camera at its center, tied to the direction the player faces. The borders of the navigatable space in each space map uses a special texture that maps the output of the skybox camera, while the navigatable space is outside the skybox and therefore cannot be seen by the skybox camera.
If you place these dummy sectors with the bridges located in them outside the skybox as well, then in theory, we should be able to navigate sector space at least from our bridge. In theory
That would be nice, but we have no way of doing something like that. Stuff like collision and pathfinding meshes are baked at build time (actually in the case of pathfinding it takes weeks to run all the maps) so you can't easily just load one map into another. Without the prebaked data, server performance would be entirely unacceptable.
The is actually pretty close to how it works already. The ship and captain are both "puppets" and we swap which is active depending on the map type. Unforunately there is some level of delay running the puppet swap (that was the cause of the issues in OB where you would beam down as a ship, the transaction for the swap was delayed). As for your suggestion, that goes back to the "on exactly one map" bit. The map for your ship isn't running on the same server process as a sector space, so you can't control anything in sector space. Doing that level of inter-map communication would turn into an IPC nightmare really fast.
put the players 'internal ship' on the map under the floor so to speak. call it the parking lot,
an area to park the player that the ships above the can't see.
sorta like
ok
you have to uper fly limit...then the main area where ships are, then a lower fly limit
Then add a black..star field textured 'floor' that you can't fly through or see through.
Actually guys, I already got my answer. The engine should support branching missions, i.e. think of the "Suspect" mission where you side with the ship's Captain or Drake, and in Drake later responds with different dialogs depending on which choice was made. I figure the technology is actually there!
The other thing I'd like to see though, is multiple mutually exclusive goals that the player has to choose between to complete a mission. I really hope the engine currently supports this but it hasn't yet been utilized, and if the engine doesn't support this now, that it will be added soon, preferably before the UGC tool-set is ready for mass consumption!
I will state this first: I am a gamer, not a developer. I do not work with computer programming in any form. I am an "office laborer" who has skills in SolidWorks, AutoCAD, CNC Programming, Sales, Customer Service, and Accounts Payable/Receivable (And I'm only freakin 22! )
In reading this thread, and seeing the comments being made, I have to smile at some of you for different reasons. I do not know my way around a gaming engine, but being in the business environment and being involved in meetings with customers/vendors, I know BS when I see it. I refuse to call any of you out because it solves nothing.
However, in my world, if a vendor sells you something that you know nothing about but need to enhance your product, it is counter-productive to pretend you have said knowledge. I can only imagine with these outstanding developers (no sarcasm at all, if it seems much, chock it up to the fact I made 60 grand in new business for my company today, "I'm in the zone") that this game has, that they are fully aware of the origins of their engine and the true flaws within it. For any of us to surmise that we know better, is a pipe-dream.
I deeply respect the open arms and open ears of this team. They are (so far as I can tell) a small business, that while it does have it's quirks, it also contains a group of employees who will mold to their customers far better than, for example, Blizzard, a larger staffed game which drifted from its customer base to suit profits.
Put some trust in these folks that they are doing what they can. Man hours become an issue I suspect, and within your desires, keep this in mind.
And to the average reader, I apologize for the length, but I wanted to verse my entire idea.
EDIT: I sound like a jerk likely to some of you. I just read some posts early on in the thread where it was like people wanted to outsmart the developers about their own engine. What's the point?
ok, you want to go from Sol to Vulcan inside your ship?
You tell your navigator, make it so, they tell you how long the trip will take..and you go wander off to do whatever.
You don't go anywhere, the view screen just runs a moving starfield and a timer starts, when
the timer is up, you zone into the destination
yes, that gets rid of enemy encounters...but if your looking for them, you will just
fly around manually
ok, you want to go from Sol to Vulcan inside your ship?
You tell your navigator, make it so, they tell you how long the trip will take..and you go wander off to do whatever.
You don't go anywhere, the view screen just runs a moving starfield and a timer starts, when
the timer is up, you zone into the destination
yes, that gets rid of enemy encounters...but if your looking for them, you will just
fly around manually
thats what i was thinking! would be nice to get a notification and run to the transporter room or bridge to either beam down or take command of the ship. a nice timer like you said would do this with current tech.
Put some trust in these folks that they are doing what they can. Man hours become an issue I suspect, and within your desires, keep this in mind.
Well said, and I for one am always pleasured by how Cryptic has evolved their technology from City of Heroes to Champions Online and Star Trek Online.
I actually appreciate certain things in Star Trek Online that I see dating back to City of Heroes/Villains (e.g. Ground solo-gameplay that builds upon the Mastermind class from CoV) and I definitely love seeing idea reuse, if not actual code reuse, side by side with new concepts and additions (e.g. the whole idea of two avatars for one character, and two builds rolled into one).
If Cryptic wouldn't have done such a good job, I wouldn't even be interested in asking the focused questions I seek answers to.
That would be nice, but we have no way of doing something like that. Stuff like collision and pathfinding meshes are baked at build time (actually in the case of pathfinding it takes weeks to run all the maps) so you can't easily just load one map into another. Without the prebaked data, server performance would be entirely unacceptable.
Well, it was a thought...
But your explanatiod does point out how the engine does limit the game... as well as the short-sightedness that was present when you guys took on this project. You guys weren't going to have ANY ship interiors at the start, but the overwhelming demand for at least bridges we could walk around on caused them to be folded into the pre-launch development. It's all good. But little to no thought was put into the future of this game in terms of how ship interiors would work in a functional way in conjunction with the rest of the game.
I'm not complaining here. You guys aren't God, after all. Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence are not the traits that anyone can bring to any development table.
I would like to point out that SOE had the ship interior + space flight (Full XYZ axis support, I might add) fully functional six years ago with Star Wars Galaxies: Jump To Lightspeed. So the technology exists for on-the-fly addition and subtraction of interior geometry exists.
ok, you want to go from Sol to Vulcan inside your ship?
You tell your navigator, make it so, they tell you how long the trip will take..and you go wander off to do whatever.
You don't go anywhere, the view screen just runs a moving starfield and a timer starts, when
the timer is up, you zone into the destination
yes, that gets rid of enemy encounters...but if your looking for them, you will just
fly around manually
But your explanatiod does point out how the engine does limit the game... as well as the short-sightedness that was present when you guys took on this project. You guys weren't going to have ANY ship interiors at the start, but the overwhelming demand for at least bridges we could walk around on caused them to be folded into the pre-launch development. It's all good. But little to no thought was put into the future of this game in terms of how ship interiors would work in a functional way in conjunction with the rest of the game.
I'm not complaining here. You guys aren't God, after all. Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence are not the traits that anyone can bring to any development table.
I would like to point out that SOE had the ship interior + space flight (Full XYZ axis support, I might add) fully functional six years ago with Star Wars Galaxies: Jump To Lightspeed. So the technology exists for on-the-fly addition and subtraction of interior geometry exists.
I suppose you can phrase it that way. I don't really see that issue as a limitation since it doesn't directly block any functionality we want, it just doesn't work as a workaround to another, deeper issue (which I will also defend as being entirely reasonable at the time).
ok, you want to go from Sol to Vulcan inside your ship?
You tell your navigator, make it so, they tell you how long the trip will take..and you go wander off to do whatever.
You don't go anywhere, the view screen just runs a moving starfield and a timer starts, when
the timer is up, you zone into the destination
yes, that gets rid of enemy encounters...but if your looking for them, you will just
fly around manually
This is really the way it should work when they add ship interiors. This could add so much to the feel of ST.
The sector space should just stay the same for those who like it. Add an option to just drop the lines in space. Then add function to your ship interior.
The ship interior is just another server anyway. Just use it as such. Travel
should just be time based off of pre-calculated travel in sector space. You pick "x" system, you travel "y" amount of time. Then add in random incounters that your BO' detect and relay to you the Captain.
This could work well or exploration areas as well. Instead of chasing checkmarks in a pizza box. It would be a active scan from you BO. When an unknown system is detected. You have the option to travel to this system. Once there, you have the option to enter the system and the quest begins as it does now.
I would think that the Engine would have mo problem with this type of feature. There would be mo interacton between sector space and the ship interior. No conflict with the two avitars. But it would add a lot to the feel of ST in STO for some players. Then the way it works now would be there for those that like it.
ok, you want to go from Sol to Vulcan inside your ship?
You tell your navigator, make it so, they tell you how long the trip will take..and you go wander off to do whatever.
You don't go anywhere, the view screen just runs a moving starfield and a timer starts, when
the timer is up, you zone into the destination
yes, that gets rid of enemy encounters...but if your looking for them, you will just
fly around manually
Yes. I have also mentioned this as an idea to make travel time more interesting and eliminate the goofiness of sector space. I would hope there would be a way to toggle between traveling through sector space as it stands now (for those who like it) and staying on the ship's interior for the trip.
I would HOPE it would be reasonable to have several different starfield's to display on the main screen to add variety. Another interesting thing would be to have some kind of random counter ticking that would occasionally pop up an alert prompting to enter a DSE or some answer a distress call. Something to keep the trip interesting but non-intrusive if you are AFK or simply admiring the fish tank
I believe this would also fit within the 1 character/1 map criteria that has been mentioned countless times as well. I hope this is something you Dev guys are considering, or at least aware of the idea
Yes. I have also mentioned this as an idea to make travel time more interesting and eliminate the goofiness of sector space. I would hope there would be a way to toggle between traveling through sector space as it stands now (for those who like it) and staying on the ship's interior for the trip.
I would HOPE it would be reasonable to have several different starfield's to display on the main screen to add variety. Another interesting thing would be to have some kind of random counter ticking that would occasionally pop up an alert prompting to enter a DSE or some answer a distress call. Something to keep the trip interesting but non-intrusive if you are AFK or simply admiring the fish tank
I believe this would also fit within the 1 character/1 map criteria that has been mentioned countless times as well. I hope this is something you Dev guys are considering, or at least aware of the idea
Replacing sector space with some other form of travel is not an engine limitation beyond what I mentioned, so perhaps some of these comments would do better in one of those threads. Also, I'm not on the STO team so I can't comment about their plans re: any of that :-)
Replacing sector space with some other form of travel is not an engine limitation beyond what I mentioned, so perhaps some of these comments would do better in one of those threads. Also, I'm not on the STO team so I can't comment about their plans re: any of that :-)
after some thought and what you said, came up with a solution. One that thinks outside the box.
was kinda long so made it a separate thread.
The map for your ship isn't running on the same server process as a sector space, so you can't control anything in sector space. Doing that level of inter-map communication would turn into an IPC nightmare really fast.
I'm guessing you haven't thought carefully about doing it, because it's not that hard and you'll kick yourself when you see it. Your server architecture is actually the "right" solution, so far as it goes, there's just a piece missing.
So, we have a space map, on which a bunch of ships exist, and a bridge map, on which the player exists. The player can freely move around and interact with the bridge map - that stuff is already in the game. The problem we need to solve is: when the player operates a control on the bridge, it needs to affect the behaviour of the ship in the space map. They are assumed to be running on different servers, so we need to do this over the network. Hence, what is required is a network protocol for the bridge map server to control a ship on a space map.
Oh hey, we already have one of those. Currently it's used for the game client to control a ship directly. What you need is therefore the tech for a bridge map to act like the game client. (The space map server wouldn't even notice the difference). The IPC issues can hence be considered "solved problems".
The only other piece you need is for the game client to receive updates from two maps at once, and do scene-in-scene rendering of the space map in the viewscreen area. That's probably the hardest bit to implement, since I doubt the client was written with that in mind; scene-in-scene support means you need two world models being simultaneously rendered, which is fiddly and sucks CPU time and GPU memory, TRIBBLE up all your budgets.
Note that as far as every map server is concerned, each player *does* only occur as one object; it isn't really aware that the other maps exist, except as a command stream associated with triggers on this map.
I don't expect you to actually do this, mind. Based on what I know about the engine, I'd peg it around 2-3 man-months of development time before you can even start on the UI and map assets, so it's a ridiculous amount of work for a feature which doesn't add a whole lot of gameplay depth and is really just for fun. On the whole it's probably a less effective way to fly a ship, and the only useful thing it would add is the possibility of having multiple players on the bridge, cooperating in flying the ship (although that would take a whole lot more work after getting the basic tech done).
ok, you want to go from Sol to Vulcan inside your ship?
You tell your navigator, make it so, they tell you how long the trip will take..and you go wander off to do whatever.
You don't go anywhere, the view screen just runs a moving starfield and a timer starts, when
the timer is up, you zone into the destination
yes, that gets rid of enemy encounters...but if your looking for them, you will just
fly around manually
Since there is still the 1 character/map issue, this would thin out the number of users in Sector Space even more, and make this game feel more like an isolated single player game.
There are already people screaming in threads that the game is empty b/c they can't wrap their heads around the way instancing works in sector space and you may not see people that are in the same sector block as you. This would remove players from sector space entirely, and you'd never see another player except on social maps, unless they just happened to be joining the same system map at the same time as you (if you have auto-teaming open).
Since there is still the 1 character/map issue, this would thin out the number of users in Sector Space even more, and make this game feel more like an isolated single player game.
There are already people screaming in threads that the game is empty b/c they can't wrap their heads around the way instancing works in sector space and you may not see people that are in the same sector block as you. This would remove players from sector space entirely, and you'd never see another player except on social maps, unless they just happened to be joining the same system map at the same time as you (if you have auto-teaming open).
for some people seeing that many people in sector space is a problem. space is vast why are we crammed together? some people want to feel alone in space.
I suppose you can phrase it that way. I don't really see that issue as a limitation since it doesn't directly block any functionality we want, it just doesn't work as a workaround to another, deeper issue (which I will also defend as being entirely reasonable at the time).
Of course it was reasonable. Like I said, I'm not complaining or accusing. It's just my hope that as time goes by, some sort of methodology is put into place that leads to a more immersively Star trek experience.
Yes. I have also mentioned this as an idea to make travel time more interesting and eliminate the goofiness of sector space. I would hope there would be a way to toggle between traveling through sector space as it stands now (for those who like it) and staying on the ship's interior for the trip.
I would HOPE it would be reasonable to have several different starfield's to display on the main screen to add variety. Another interesting thing would be to have some kind of random counter ticking that would occasionally pop up an alert prompting to enter a DSE or some answer a distress call. Something to keep the trip interesting but non-intrusive if you are AFK or simply admiring the fish tank
I believe this would also fit within the 1 character/1 map criteria that has been mentioned countless times as well. I hope this is something you Dev guys are considering, or at least aware of the idea
Replacing sector space with some other form of travel is not an engine limitation beyond what I mentioned, so perhaps some of these comments would do better in one of those threads. Also, I'm not on the STO team so I can't comment about their plans re: any of that :-)
No offense, Coderanger. But every time you remind us that you aren't on the STO team, I really wish that it was someone who WAS on the team expressing the same amount of interest in community interaction as you do. Please don't stop interacting. It's great. I just wish someone on the STO team would become just as interactive as you are... someone who CAN "comment about their plans re: any of that :-)"
ok, you want to go from Sol to Vulcan inside your ship?
You tell your navigator, make it so, they tell you how long the trip will take..and you go wander off to do whatever.
You don't go anywhere, the view screen just runs a moving starfield and a timer starts, when
the timer is up, you zone into the destination
yes, that gets rid of enemy encounters...but if your looking for them, you will just
fly around manually
That sounds like a good way of making it work. And so long as it looks and feels like the way things should on a starship, it doesn't really matter how it works.
To use that old truism: in the best puppet shows, no-one looks for the strings, since no-one can see them...
I posted a possible solution...but when you think of social interaction...what is that exactly?
see a hundred other ships that will never even say 'hi' to you?
or
having your fleet mates with you to chat and check out your new engineering section WHILE
your on your way to DS9 for something?
for some people seeing that many people in sector space is a problem. space is vast why are we crammed together? some people want to feel alone in space.
So what about a sort of delayed teleport? Could the game figure out how long it would take to get from point A to B on the sector space map when you go to bridge mode. Set a course, spend X minutes doing whatever inside your ship, then receive a notice from your helmsman when that timer has elapsed. Then you can choose to stay on your ship or enter the system to start the mission.
The game wouldn't actually tracking your position in sector space, it'd just be a script that runs a timer and a prompt when that timer has elapsed.
This work-around would preclude any communication with other players in nearby space and it would also force you to skip DSEs. Which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it.
depends on your point of view. Some people want the game to feel like ST first and be an mmo second, others dont care.
some people want to go to DS9 to socialize and feel like they are alone while traveling through the vastness of space to get to a mission in romulan space.
Since there is still the 1 character/map issue, this would thin out the number of users in Sector Space even more, and make this game feel more like an isolated single player game.
There are already people screaming in threads that the game is empty b/c they can't wrap their heads around the way instancing works in sector space and you may not see people that are in the same sector block as you. This would remove players from sector space entirely, and you'd never see another player except on social maps, unless they just happened to be joining the same system map at the same time as you (if you have auto-teaming open).
The auto-teaming wouldn't change. You do not need to be in the same instance to get auto-teamed with a group. Just enter the same quest close to the same time.
As far as the problem of not enough players in sector space. That is a game choice issue fromthe Dev's.The fact that systems are just quest instances and not actual open zones for questing caused the missing player issue. To make the game more ST like, you should never see other players in open space. Only around stations and gathering points. So it would make STO more ST like to only see other players in quests, stations and social spots.
If players want more comunication with other players in game. They should try to have a global chat channel put in the game. A channel that is for every player in the server that is not in a mission. Then you would at least see that there ate other players around. You just can't see them.
I'm guessing you haven't thought carefully about doing it, because it's not that hard and you'll kick yourself when you see it. Your server architecture is actually the "right" solution, so far as it goes, there's just a piece missing.
So, we have a space map, on which a bunch of ships exist, and a bridge map, on which the player exists. The player can freely move around and interact with the bridge map - that stuff is already in the game. The problem we need to solve is: when the player operates a control on the bridge, it needs to affect the behaviour of the ship in the space map. They are assumed to be running on different servers, so we need to do this over the network. Hence, what is required is a network protocol for the bridge map server to control a ship on a space map.
Oh hey, we already have one of those. Currently it's used for the game client to control a ship directly. What you need is therefore the tech for a bridge map to act like the game client. (The space map server wouldn't even notice the difference). The IPC issues can hence be considered "solved problems".
The only other piece you need is for the game client to receive updates from two maps at once, and do scene-in-scene rendering of the space map in the viewscreen area. That's probably the hardest bit to implement, since I doubt the client was written with that in mind; scene-in-scene support means you need two world models being simultaneously rendered, which is fiddly and sucks CPU time and GPU memory, TRIBBLE up all your budgets.
Note that as far as every map server is concerned, each player *does* only occur as one object; it isn't really aware that the other maps exist, except as a command stream associated with triggers on this map.
I don't expect you to actually do this, mind. Based on what I know about the engine, I'd peg it around 2-3 man-months of development time before you can even start on the UI and map assets, so it's a ridiculous amount of work for a feature which doesn't add a whole lot of gameplay depth and is really just for fun. On the whole it's probably a less effective way to fly a ship, and the only useful thing it would add is the possibility of having multiple players on the bridge, cooperating in flying the ship (although that would take a whole lot more work after getting the basic tech done).
This would still require an understanding of a client that is linked to a player (is his bridge) but isn't the player itself. And then we are right back to the same routing problem of one player can't be in two places. It isn't unsolvable, but it is far from trivial.
Embarrassingly parallel problem, yo :P
Already done ;-) Distributed network that run on all machines at Cryptic and kicks in after hours.
Comments
the engine would support it if the devs made it. thats my understanding.
They already have a trigger to flag you for The Cure then Khitomer Accord.
I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to have either dialogue choices or pass/fail sections to lead to different content.
I suspect the hurdle is that branching missions are far more intensive than single-arc which are, in turn, more complex than a one-off mission.
What if sector space is redone so that there are blocks which ones bridge can be loaded into. Sort of a hot-swap of geometry. It's part of the sector space map, but placed OUTSIDE the area your ship is allowed to travel in.
I am assuming that the distant starts and nebula stuff are part of a skybox that has a camera at its center, tied to the direction the player faces. The borders of the navigatable space in each space map uses a special texture that maps the output of the skybox camera, while the navigatable space is outside the skybox and therefore cannot be seen by the skybox camera.
If you place these dummy sectors with the bridges located in them outside the skybox as well, then in theory, we should be able to navigate sector space at least from our bridge. In theory
put the players 'internal ship' on the map under the floor so to speak. call it the parking lot,
an area to park the player that the ships above the can't see.
sorta like
ok
you have to uper fly limit...then the main area where ships are, then a lower fly limit
Then add a black..star field textured 'floor' that you can't fly through or see through.
If that would help
The other thing I'd like to see though, is multiple mutually exclusive goals that the player has to choose between to complete a mission. I really hope the engine currently supports this but it hasn't yet been utilized, and if the engine doesn't support this now, that it will be added soon, preferably before the UGC tool-set is ready for mass consumption!
In reading this thread, and seeing the comments being made, I have to smile at some of you for different reasons. I do not know my way around a gaming engine, but being in the business environment and being involved in meetings with customers/vendors, I know BS when I see it. I refuse to call any of you out because it solves nothing.
However, in my world, if a vendor sells you something that you know nothing about but need to enhance your product, it is counter-productive to pretend you have said knowledge. I can only imagine with these outstanding developers (no sarcasm at all, if it seems much, chock it up to the fact I made 60 grand in new business for my company today, "I'm in the zone") that this game has, that they are fully aware of the origins of their engine and the true flaws within it. For any of us to surmise that we know better, is a pipe-dream.
I deeply respect the open arms and open ears of this team. They are (so far as I can tell) a small business, that while it does have it's quirks, it also contains a group of employees who will mold to their customers far better than, for example, Blizzard, a larger staffed game which drifted from its customer base to suit profits.
Put some trust in these folks that they are doing what they can. Man hours become an issue I suspect, and within your desires, keep this in mind.
And to the average reader, I apologize for the length, but I wanted to verse my entire idea.
EDIT: I sound like a jerk likely to some of you. I just read some posts early on in the thread where it was like people wanted to outsmart the developers about their own engine. What's the point?
Pretend.
ok, you want to go from Sol to Vulcan inside your ship?
You tell your navigator, make it so, they tell you how long the trip will take..and you go wander off to do whatever.
You don't go anywhere, the view screen just runs a moving starfield and a timer starts, when
the timer is up, you zone into the destination
yes, that gets rid of enemy encounters...but if your looking for them, you will just
fly around manually
thats what i was thinking! would be nice to get a notification and run to the transporter room or bridge to either beam down or take command of the ship. a nice timer like you said would do this with current tech.
I actually appreciate certain things in Star Trek Online that I see dating back to City of Heroes/Villains (e.g. Ground solo-gameplay that builds upon the Mastermind class from CoV) and I definitely love seeing idea reuse, if not actual code reuse, side by side with new concepts and additions (e.g. the whole idea of two avatars for one character, and two builds rolled into one).
If Cryptic wouldn't have done such a good job, I wouldn't even be interested in asking the focused questions I seek answers to.
Well, it was a thought...
But your explanatiod does point out how the engine does limit the game... as well as the short-sightedness that was present when you guys took on this project. You guys weren't going to have ANY ship interiors at the start, but the overwhelming demand for at least bridges we could walk around on caused them to be folded into the pre-launch development. It's all good. But little to no thought was put into the future of this game in terms of how ship interiors would work in a functional way in conjunction with the rest of the game.
I'm not complaining here. You guys aren't God, after all. Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence are not the traits that anyone can bring to any development table.
I would like to point out that SOE had the ship interior + space flight (Full XYZ axis support, I might add) fully functional six years ago with Star Wars Galaxies: Jump To Lightspeed. So the technology exists for on-the-fly addition and subtraction of interior geometry exists.
This is acceptable as well...
I suppose you can phrase it that way. I don't really see that issue as a limitation since it doesn't directly block any functionality we want, it just doesn't work as a workaround to another, deeper issue (which I will also defend as being entirely reasonable at the time).
This is really the way it should work when they add ship interiors. This could add so much to the feel of ST.
The sector space should just stay the same for those who like it. Add an option to just drop the lines in space. Then add function to your ship interior.
The ship interior is just another server anyway. Just use it as such. Travel
should just be time based off of pre-calculated travel in sector space. You pick "x" system, you travel "y" amount of time. Then add in random incounters that your BO' detect and relay to you the Captain.
This could work well or exploration areas as well. Instead of chasing checkmarks in a pizza box. It would be a active scan from you BO. When an unknown system is detected. You have the option to travel to this system. Once there, you have the option to enter the system and the quest begins as it does now.
I would think that the Engine would have mo problem with this type of feature. There would be mo interacton between sector space and the ship interior. No conflict with the two avitars. But it would add a lot to the feel of ST in STO for some players. Then the way it works now would be there for those that like it.
Yes. I have also mentioned this as an idea to make travel time more interesting and eliminate the goofiness of sector space. I would hope there would be a way to toggle between traveling through sector space as it stands now (for those who like it) and staying on the ship's interior for the trip.
I would HOPE it would be reasonable to have several different starfield's to display on the main screen to add variety. Another interesting thing would be to have some kind of random counter ticking that would occasionally pop up an alert prompting to enter a DSE or some answer a distress call. Something to keep the trip interesting but non-intrusive if you are AFK or simply admiring the fish tank
I believe this would also fit within the 1 character/1 map criteria that has been mentioned countless times as well. I hope this is something you Dev guys are considering, or at least aware of the idea
after some thought and what you said, came up with a solution. One that thinks outside the box.
was kinda long so made it a separate thread.
I'm guessing you haven't thought carefully about doing it, because it's not that hard and you'll kick yourself when you see it. Your server architecture is actually the "right" solution, so far as it goes, there's just a piece missing.
So, we have a space map, on which a bunch of ships exist, and a bridge map, on which the player exists. The player can freely move around and interact with the bridge map - that stuff is already in the game. The problem we need to solve is: when the player operates a control on the bridge, it needs to affect the behaviour of the ship in the space map. They are assumed to be running on different servers, so we need to do this over the network. Hence, what is required is a network protocol for the bridge map server to control a ship on a space map.
Oh hey, we already have one of those. Currently it's used for the game client to control a ship directly. What you need is therefore the tech for a bridge map to act like the game client. (The space map server wouldn't even notice the difference). The IPC issues can hence be considered "solved problems".
The only other piece you need is for the game client to receive updates from two maps at once, and do scene-in-scene rendering of the space map in the viewscreen area. That's probably the hardest bit to implement, since I doubt the client was written with that in mind; scene-in-scene support means you need two world models being simultaneously rendered, which is fiddly and sucks CPU time and GPU memory, TRIBBLE up all your budgets.
Note that as far as every map server is concerned, each player *does* only occur as one object; it isn't really aware that the other maps exist, except as a command stream associated with triggers on this map.
I don't expect you to actually do this, mind. Based on what I know about the engine, I'd peg it around 2-3 man-months of development time before you can even start on the UI and map assets, so it's a ridiculous amount of work for a feature which doesn't add a whole lot of gameplay depth and is really just for fun. On the whole it's probably a less effective way to fly a ship, and the only useful thing it would add is the possibility of having multiple players on the bridge, cooperating in flying the ship (although that would take a whole lot more work after getting the basic tech done).
Embarrassingly parallel problem, yo :P
Since there is still the 1 character/map issue, this would thin out the number of users in Sector Space even more, and make this game feel more like an isolated single player game.
There are already people screaming in threads that the game is empty b/c they can't wrap their heads around the way instancing works in sector space and you may not see people that are in the same sector block as you. This would remove players from sector space entirely, and you'd never see another player except on social maps, unless they just happened to be joining the same system map at the same time as you (if you have auto-teaming open).
for some people seeing that many people in sector space is a problem. space is vast why are we crammed together? some people want to feel alone in space.
Of course it was reasonable. Like I said, I'm not complaining or accusing. It's just my hope that as time goes by, some sort of methodology is put into place that leads to a more immersively Star trek experience.
No offense, Coderanger. But every time you remind us that you aren't on the STO team, I really wish that it was someone who WAS on the team expressing the same amount of interest in community interaction as you do. Please don't stop interacting. It's great. I just wish someone on the STO team would become just as interactive as you are... someone who CAN "comment about their plans re: any of that :-)"
That sounds like a good way of making it work. And so long as it looks and feels like the way things should on a starship, it doesn't really matter how it works.
To use that old truism: in the best puppet shows, no-one looks for the strings, since no-one can see them...
see a hundred other ships that will never even say 'hi' to you?
or
having your fleet mates with you to chat and check out your new engineering section WHILE
your on your way to DS9 for something?
I would take choice 2
I'm not sure that is very conducive to an MMO.
That depends on the MMO player you ask...
The game wouldn't actually tracking your position in sector space, it'd just be a script that runs a timer and a prompt when that timer has elapsed.
This work-around would preclude any communication with other players in nearby space and it would also force you to skip DSEs. Which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it.
depends on your point of view. Some people want the game to feel like ST first and be an mmo second, others dont care.
some people want to go to DS9 to socialize and feel like they are alone while traveling through the vastness of space to get to a mission in romulan space.
The auto-teaming wouldn't change. You do not need to be in the same instance to get auto-teamed with a group. Just enter the same quest close to the same time.
As far as the problem of not enough players in sector space. That is a game choice issue fromthe Dev's.The fact that systems are just quest instances and not actual open zones for questing caused the missing player issue. To make the game more ST like, you should never see other players in open space. Only around stations and gathering points. So it would make STO more ST like to only see other players in quests, stations and social spots.
If players want more comunication with other players in game. They should try to have a global chat channel put in the game. A channel that is for every player in the server that is not in a mission. Then you would at least see that there ate other players around. You just can't see them.
Already done ;-) Distributed network that run on all machines at Cryptic and kicks in after hours.