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Crossbreeds

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I saw a couple character customization threads that hinted at this but I was wondering about in character or BO creation that besides alien we could be offered a crossbreed option. This option would allow you to select your parent races. Mom was this dad was this then based on a genealogy compilation your given a resulting offspring that can be modified just like any other race.

Using this your new Char could gain access to both species trait sets. I think it should be random as to which is dominate and the set trait on your char and should not give you the same freedom as a alien to select 4 traits I think you should still have at least one or two traits predetermined for you.

Your species classification would be Klingon/human, human/Vulcan or Klingon/romulan as examples. Whichever was your dominate race would be your first race announced. Just a thought any opinions on this?
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Simple enough to do anyway without fancy gadgets.

    Human/Klingon hybrid? Just choose a klingon and use the slider on it to lessen the forehead ridges.

    Whilst i welcome anything that allows more detailed/easier character creation
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    Dekkameron wrote: »
    Simple enough to do anyway without fancy gadgets.

    Human/Klingon hybrid? Just choose a klingon and use the slider on it to lessen the forehead ridges.

    Whilst i welcome anything that allows more detailed/easier character creation

    Yes but give that creation of yours the teamwork and leadership skills... Go ahead... Did you do it yet? The method I suggest would give you access to those traits
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2010
    Spock; Half Vulcan, half Human (Full Vulcan abilities)
    Deanna Troy; Half Human, half Betezoid (Partail Betezoid abilities)
    B'Elanna Torres; Half Human, half Klingon (Partial Klingon abilities)
    Sela; Half Romulan, half human...

    A cross breed is not an Alien or a graphical alteration. Interspecies offspring inherent different traits. This is the key to this customization. I think it could be simple to add a species for BO or Captain simply called crossbreed. By selecting it the next option would be the race of your parents. This would generate the base traits you could have, for captain you could then select your traits for BO they would be determined for you as with any BO.

    After that is it is customization as normal.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2010
    Tragamite wrote: »
    Yes but give that creation of yours the teamwork and leadership skills... Go ahead... Did you do it yet? The method I suggest would give you access to those traits

    ...which is exactly why it shouldn't be an option. Your character's backstory should be for flavor only, not a method of min-maxing yourself into trait combinations.

    I do not support this idea.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2010
    I'm for it.

    But you can roughly give your playable character mixed traits. Just choose an alien, and add traits inherent to either speceies. The cosmetic side is fairly easy. That's how I got my Klingon/Orion captains.

    But I would doubt this game will let us cutomize our BO's to the extent of our Captains. It looks like we're stuck with randomly assigned traits for our Alien BO's which is weird, since recently I built an Andorion/Romulan BO that came with character traits like neither Andorians or Romulans.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2010
    Darkjedi wrote: »
    ...which is exactly why it shouldn't be an option. Your character's backstory should be for flavor only, not a method of min-maxing yourself into trait combinations.

    I do not support this idea.

    I value your input but you maximize your traits by making an alien, a crossbreed would only have the options available to its ancestory and still only be able to select 4 total traits.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2010
    The only thing I want from the 'alien' creator is the ability to NAME the race, being just called 'alien' is kinda TRIBBLE since we are all aliens in space anyway..
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2010
    Paneth wrote:
    The only thing I want from the 'alien' creator is the ability to NAME the race, being just called 'alien' is kinda TRIBBLE since we are all aliens in space anyway..

    Supposedly, Cryptic was gonna let us define an alien officer's race and traits at character creation, and then put up the custom creations on a list, as part of a "species library", but that hasn't been talked about in ages. This would have then let new players pick alien species from this list, in addition to the normal Federation races.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2010
    I think this is really esoteric compared to where the game is at and what it needs but my ideal would be, first, to unlock C-Store race's parts for character creation and then, down the line, to turn the character creation process on its head.

    Instead of selecting a race and THEN customizing the look, I'd make it so that you select the look with the full set of alien tools and the look you select determines what race you are.

    You make something that LOOKS Klingon then you ARE a Klingon or a Klingon hybrid.

    Then any additional costume slots you have get locked into the Klingon options.

    Among other things, it means no creating a fake Vulcan because you like the alien racials better. It also means that something that uses enough Vulcan appropriate parts might get access to some Vulcan racial traits.

    And for the person who wants a quick character creation, there would be presets for known races.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2010
    GT01 wrote: »
    Supposedly, Cryptic was gonna let us define an alien officer's race and traits at character creation, and then put up the custom creations on a list, as part of a "species library", but that hasn't been talked about in ages. This would have then let new players pick alien species from this list, in addition to the normal Federation races.

    I can see why they dropped it, that's a bundle of trouble. There is such a thing as too many choices, and imagine all the clever ways to slip in a Terms-violating alien race name. If you want to name your race, it's best to be a drop-down option in your bio.

    I'm not fond of the idea of hybridizing traits; you're likely to get the min/maxers all running around with the same Class/Race Hybrid type, telling others how much better they are. Bleah. I get enough of that from vegans and their mind powers.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited September 2010
    Tavenji wrote: »
    I can see why they dropped it, that's a bundle of trouble. There is such a thing as too many choices, and imagine all the clever ways to slip in a Terms-violating alien race name. If you want to name your race, it's best to be a drop-down option in your bio.

    I'm not fond of the idea of hybridizing traits; you're likely to get the min/maxers all running around with the same Class/Race Hybrid type, telling others how much better they are. Bleah. I get enough of that from vegans and their mind powers.

    I believe that is why there are so many aliens around...to maximize traits. Crossbreeds wouldn't have all access they would still be limited to thier heratige.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    A push for more participation
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Tavenji wrote: »
    I'm not fond of the idea of hybridizing traits; you're likely to get the min/maxers all running around with the same Class/Race Hybrid type, telling others how much better they are. Bleah. I get enough of that from vegans and their mind powers.

    Unless new space traits are added min/maxers will go alien since well the canon races all have at least 1 ground trait...so that wouldn't change space combat at all.

    As for ground...not really much would change there either since the race specific traits are similar to ones available in the alien gen or aren't particularly any better than whats available in the alien gen, which is more indicative of the whole trait system being less than good since it skews a lot to being alien...not that the traits have that big of an impact to begin with, have toons with just ground traits and still do a lot better in pvp with people with space traits.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    just say no

    the caitians already dry hump everything that moves, we dont need them making half cat babies!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Just use the existing "Alien" options. Any kind of randomness in parent species skillsets will only lead to people minmaxing racial traits, and to some pretty weird combinations.

    I think like Darkjedi on this one. There's a reason for why some traits are limited to one or two distinct species. Both for flavor reasons and because they are so powerful that they shouldn't be used in another combination. The development resources for coding this are better used elsewhere (for example in a menu that lets us set non-BO crew uniforms).

    The only thing I'd like to see would be the ability to give an Alien species its own name.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    I would like to see this myself.

    I have some characters that are technically human/betezoid and klingon/betezoid and even one that would be considered a liberated borg with the human/betezoid traits.

    The alien creator does not work for me in the sense I want it in those regards.

    Have a hybrid character creator that gives you the same exact options you would with the species creator that we have now.

    At max you should have an option of three species, but have the same exact number of options you would if you do not have a hybrid

    If I remember right, you were given two specs related to the species plus you got to chose two more. That should not change.

    When you pick the hybrid, you should only be able to choose from a list of featured that are included with the full species so you would have to choose 2 there and then the other two like you normally do.

    For the hybrids right now for the human/betezoid, I choose betezoid. For the Klingon/Betezoid I chose Klingon and for the liberated Borg Human/betezoid I chose borg.

    If we had these, this would be nice.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Tragamite wrote: »
    Yes but give that creation of yours the teamwork and leadership skills... Go ahead... Did you do it yet? The method I suggest would give you access to those traits

    Define what the "Teamwork" and "Leadership" traits mean outside of the game. They don't define those ideas, any race can use teamwork or leadership, they just don't get the "Teamwork" or "Leadership" game play mechanic. The concepts aren't constrained to humans, but the game play mechanics are.

    If you want a crossbreed you can use the Alien Gen and make one that is able to show teamwork and leadership, they just don't get the mechanics behind it, which are esoteric metagame stuff anyway.

    There are very few exceptions where Alien Gen would be inadequate. Really the only one I can think of would be Vulcan/human hybrids, since we've seen through Spock that they have access to distinctly Vulcan abilities like the Mind Meld. Realistically though they can be accurately simulated by just choosing a vanilla Vulan and adding some human blood to your biofluff. After all though Spock has displayed quantifiably "Vulcan traits" he has never displayed any which are inherently human and specifically non-Vulcan.

    So, you'd be hard pressed to find a scenario where you'd need the exact mechanics of a species unless you're trying to min/max your way to a better character.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Define what the "Teamwork" and "Leadership" traits mean outside of the game. They don't define those ideas, any race can use teamwork or leadership, they just don't get the "Teamwork" or "Leadership" game play mechanic. The concepts aren't constrained to humans, but the game play mechanics are.

    If you want a crossbreed you can use the Alien Gen and make one that is able to show teamwork and leadership, they just don't get the mechanics behind it, which are esoteric metagame stuff anyway.

    There are very few exceptions where Alien Gen would be inadequate. Really the only one I can think of would be Vulcan/human hybrids, since we've seen through Spock that they have access to distinctly Vulcan abilities like the Mind Meld. Realistically though they can be accurately simulated by just choosing a vanilla Vulan and adding some human blood to your biofluff. After all though Spock has displayed quantifiably "Vulcan traits" he has never displayed any which are inherently human and specifically non-Vulcan.

    So, you'd be hard pressed to find a scenario where you'd need the exact mechanics of a species unless you're trying to min/max your way to a better character.

    Yet we are talking an ingame ability. Thus it does matter. Although originally when I posted this I was looking at the teamwork ability as a space ability and the fact that Sauriens were the only other race with a space ability thus making federation the only faction to have space abilities.

    Now with the Borg in the Cstore and the idea that Teamwork on BOffs is not a space trait makes the idea a little less of a priority. You make a very valid point that any race can diplay leadership and teamwork but so too could any man or woman be seductive and cause someone to go against thier own better judgment to please that person for the sake of being with them.

    Being that this is a game and with the Alien Gen availability I don't see that this idea would be hard to implement. However it is completely possible to use the customization tools and biography functions to present a crossbreed in game, but that is not the point.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    i'm all for making more customized characters. I support this. If they put it into the c-store, i'd even buy it.

    i suspect there would be some limitations though. i don't think all species should be hybrids. it should be limited to humanoids only. After all, a horta/human hybrid would be ... impossible. although, a horta / tholian hybrid would be interesting. Assuming that these species ever become playable. If not, then we have nothing to worry about.
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