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With the launch of Season 2, a long requested feature. starship interiors, will soon be added to the game. While it's still limited, I see a lot of potential here. One feature that I would like to see eventually implemented is customized layouts for your ship. The more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized that this could get quite complicated. So I set out to try and simplify and mockup what such a system might look like. Plus, shiny graphics make a proposal much more appealing. And here it is:
The Interface
This is basically an adaptation of the current layout selection window. On the right-hand side, you have the deck selection, the theme selection, a selection of corridor sections and rooms. On the left, you have the actual deck you'll be constructing.
The deck selection drop down selection menu allows you to switch which deck your editing, such as the crew deck or engineering deck. In the future, if Cryptic so chose, they could add additional decks. Below it is the theme selector so that you can choose which style your starship interior could have.
The list below includes all the different corridor sections and rooms that can be used. You'll notice that each item has a point value associated with it. These are starship points and are use to restrict how big you can make a deck. The bigger the section, the higher the starship points required to add it.
The Process
In the beginning, you start with a single turbolift. You can then select the door to the turbolift. This is your first connection point. You can then attach a new section to it, such as a corridor. The corridor will appear transparent until it's locked in. This corridor will have it's own set of doorways. The new section can be rotated, by changing which door it connects to. The new section will be a child of the first. Once you deselect the door, the new addition will lock in and become opaque. You can now add additional sections. Through this process, you'll eventually build a "tree" structure with the initial turbolift being the root. You can add additional turbolifts, but the first is the "primary" turbolift.
As you add sections, a collision check is done to see if the new additions collide with existing pieces. If it collides with something, it will glow red. If you deselect the doorway, any red sections will disappear. You can go back and change earlier sections you added, but any children of that section will change too. If any of those sections collide, they'll turn red.
Doorways which have been connected to something will show as green and, appear in-game as a corridor arch or a sliding door depending on whether it is joining two corridors or connection a room. Doorways which are not connected to anything will show red and appear as a locked door. While each section can only have one parent, it is possible to have corridors loop around and connect with another. When this happens, the doorway will turn gray. This represents a "soft" connection which cannot be directly edited.
The entire deck can be rotated so you can control which way it is oriented on the map. Rooms can also be added, however you're restricted to one of each type. You only get one Sickbay even though several may be available to choose from. There may also be restrictions on which deck a room is available on, i.e. Engineering must be on the engineering deck.
Each deck can have it's own theme, but only one consistent theme per deck. This works very similarly to the bridge selection.
Potential Problems
There are a few potential problems such as how crew could randomly roam the halls of a ship when the layout can change, or how potential future ship-board missions might work with this system.
There's nothing to prevent putting windows with rooms in the center of the deck. What happens if you run a corridor right past the windows in the observation lounge. I suppose one possibility is to extend the collision area for the lounge out from the windows so that any corridor run in front of the windows would "collide" with the it.
Currently, the interiors seem to toggle things on and off as you move through the ship to improve performance. (Did you ever wonder why there's a private hallway leading to your quarters?) A user-generated system would lack the transition points to make this work. Could the majority of players' graphics cards handle having the whole deck on at once, or is there another solution?
Given the complex layout and systems already in place of the bridges, I've kept the bridge separate from the layout customization. That said, if Cryptic could overcome the technical hurdles of integrating these two systems, I could see bridges being rolled together in the future.
Conclusion
So that's my idea in a nutshell. Hopefully I was able to get it across properly. Anyway, let me know what you think and feel free to offer suggestions.
The Interface
This is basically an adaptation of the current layout selection window. On the right-hand side, you have the deck selection, the theme selection, a selection of corridor sections and rooms. On the left, you have the actual deck you'll be constructing.
The deck selection drop down selection menu allows you to switch which deck your editing, such as the crew deck or engineering deck. In the future, if Cryptic so chose, they could add additional decks. Below it is the theme selector so that you can choose which style your starship interior could have.
The list below includes all the different corridor sections and rooms that can be used. You'll notice that each item has a point value associated with it. These are starship points and are use to restrict how big you can make a deck. The bigger the section, the higher the starship points required to add it.
The Process
In the beginning, you start with a single turbolift. You can then select the door to the turbolift. This is your first connection point. You can then attach a new section to it, such as a corridor. The corridor will appear transparent until it's locked in. This corridor will have it's own set of doorways. The new section can be rotated, by changing which door it connects to. The new section will be a child of the first. Once you deselect the door, the new addition will lock in and become opaque. You can now add additional sections. Through this process, you'll eventually build a "tree" structure with the initial turbolift being the root. You can add additional turbolifts, but the first is the "primary" turbolift.
As you add sections, a collision check is done to see if the new additions collide with existing pieces. If it collides with something, it will glow red. If you deselect the doorway, any red sections will disappear. You can go back and change earlier sections you added, but any children of that section will change too. If any of those sections collide, they'll turn red.
Doorways which have been connected to something will show as green and, appear in-game as a corridor arch or a sliding door depending on whether it is joining two corridors or connection a room. Doorways which are not connected to anything will show red and appear as a locked door. While each section can only have one parent, it is possible to have corridors loop around and connect with another. When this happens, the doorway will turn gray. This represents a "soft" connection which cannot be directly edited.
The entire deck can be rotated so you can control which way it is oriented on the map. Rooms can also be added, however you're restricted to one of each type. You only get one Sickbay even though several may be available to choose from. There may also be restrictions on which deck a room is available on, i.e. Engineering must be on the engineering deck.
Each deck can have it's own theme, but only one consistent theme per deck. This works very similarly to the bridge selection.
Potential Problems
There are a few potential problems such as how crew could randomly roam the halls of a ship when the layout can change, or how potential future ship-board missions might work with this system.
There's nothing to prevent putting windows with rooms in the center of the deck. What happens if you run a corridor right past the windows in the observation lounge. I suppose one possibility is to extend the collision area for the lounge out from the windows so that any corridor run in front of the windows would "collide" with the it.
Currently, the interiors seem to toggle things on and off as you move through the ship to improve performance. (Did you ever wonder why there's a private hallway leading to your quarters?) A user-generated system would lack the transition points to make this work. Could the majority of players' graphics cards handle having the whole deck on at once, or is there another solution?
Given the complex layout and systems already in place of the bridges, I've kept the bridge separate from the layout customization. That said, if Cryptic could overcome the technical hurdles of integrating these two systems, I could see bridges being rolled together in the future.
Conclusion
So that's my idea in a nutshell. Hopefully I was able to get it across properly. Anyway, let me know what you think and feel free to offer suggestions.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
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Second, I think this idea is perfect.
And this could also be used for the UGC as well.
That's AWESOME - nicely done!
Now all we need is a choice of different interior styles for rooms/corridors (for example, Sovereign-style corridors, Intrepid-style ready rooms, etc.) - that'd be perfect.
This is a must cryptic!!!
Imagine, you would only have to create some rooms and themes for all the pieces.
But with this kind of a system the fans would be able to have a 99% canon deck layout if their hearts desired it!!!!
Think about the potential!!!
It would also make it more intersting to visit other players ships and see what they have done with the place. :cool:
Hmmm....
If I may paraphrase the Old Spice Guy, "Look again, the editor can now change the theme of the deck!"
Hit refresh if the change doesn't show up.
Cryptic.... make it so!
One possible solution for the problem how to avoid putting walls agains windows is a rough outline of a section through the current ships hull at the position of the current deck. However then the primary turbolift must be positionable, and the scale of the decks' exterior have to match the interior.
And I have an addition: Jeffries tubes between the corridors and emergency ladders inside the turbolift shafts to get from deck to deck in case of a system failure.
Could you make this inside your nice mockup?
Great thread.
.. but theres not enough money and personnel to make it ever happen, ..okay.. maybe then in 2015 with Season 13?
If Cryptic only had the will and power to bring in half of the creative and wonderful fleshed out sandbox-content players can think of, STO would be a dream of a game.
Customized layouts is another thing my heart is glowing for. I really like to customize things in this game. And with this system, we could really try out the job of an starfleet ship designer / engineer and build our own (canon like) ships. And visiting ship interiors from friends & fleeties, would be really fun and interesting. So i am definitely support this idea and thread! If this is technical doable, i would love to see this in the next season updates.
I am a fan of different pictures too. Imagine a system that allows us, to choose from our own screenshots we took in this game. :cool: As for the changing of the ground and wall colors, i would think that "canon theme sets" would do the job. But yeah, its a way we could even more customize things.
Personally i am a BIG fan of the Galaxy & Intrepid class interiors. Simply because they are looking very welcoming. Like an environment where you really feel comfortable. And that has a great deal to do (like someone, somewhere, in this forum already postet) with the choice of colors. The interior of the Enterprise-D is warm. You can almost feel that this is a ship ment for exploration, peace and where families live on board. The Enterprise-E on the other side is a ship with strong military influences, and you can see and "feel" it. The interior of the Defiant is small (like the ship), you maybe get the feeling of an u-boat, and like the Enterprise-E in a military style. The Voyager is kind of a middle thing. I like the overall grey tone of the interior design. It gives the ship a modern, little military, clean and cool look. Here are some references:
Corridors at Memory Alpha 01 + 02
Galaxy class corridor
Intrepid class corridor
Sovereign class corridor (First Contact - blue lights) + (Insurrection - white normal lights) + (Nemesis - red alert lights)
Defiant class corridor
If we get these canon themes / styles for our interiors, a lot of us would be in heaven!
I actually don't want to wait THAT long... ^^
This would be a great idea should it ever be an option for Cryptic.
That is to funny.
For that I have to ask the question, how would, could, should Jeffries tubes work? The don't really have a presence in the game, (other than than one mission which pretty much skips over the crawling through the tubes part,) so I really don't know how they should be implemented. I suppose it could take the form of small room that "leads" to the Jeffries tube network. Plus I always kind of figured that the Jeffries tubes usually ran in between the decks. So perhaps they're something else entirely.
Additionally, their use only comes into play during a crisis, i.e. a ship board mission. I've kind of avoided those on the grounds that I don't know how these would work yet.
I tried while making this, to keep it as simple as possible, from a tech standpoint all it worries about is which door connects to which door. No position or rotation. That said, I'm not going to pretend there isn't some serious, and brand new, tech in this proposal. I would be shock to see it before Season 3, and Season 4 seems more likely.
You never know though, it could be the Secret Project! :eek:
I almost see picture customization, and customization of any specific items, as a separate system entirely. If you think about it, there is already a remarkably similar system in place, the trophy system. I don't think it would take a lot of work to adapt it for use for items other than trophies. I wouldn't mind seeing a little polish on the interface to make it easier than navigating menus.
As for using screenshots, the only hiccup I see is that at the moment is that screenshots are stored locally, not server side. But they have some kind of tech that gets screenshots of your character to the captains database, so it may well be doable.
I would like to see lots more options in what kind of corridors you have, including canon ship corridors. We have lots of options for bridges, why not other rooms? (Eventually of course, I realize these things take time to crank out.) It would also be nice to have customizable textures, such as the LCARS color scheme or the texture of the walls.
AWESOME!!! That would be GREAT!!!
Take City of Heroes for example, large MMO, with the ability to
A: Design your own bases, from a UI much like the one presented here.
B: Create your own missions.
It can be done in an MMO. Now, will they do it? who knows.
As far as having your screenshots up as pictures, good idea, but how would you implement it? Usually, having something like that, and having it be visible for every other person that visits usually requires that they have the pictures on their computer.
I don't pretend to know how much they're engine has changed since that game, assuming it use the same engine at all, but if tech developed for that can be ported over, so much the better.
It sounds like user-generated content may be on the list for future development. It would be nice if this and that could make use of similar tech, especially for the design of bases and mission interiors.
Yeah, it would definitely be a challenge. I wouldn't say it's impossible. They save screenshots of your character for use in the Captain's Database. While that system is somewhat dissimilar, it does show that it's possible to take user-specific screenshots and post them on the server side.
I think the real problem would be storing them. Images are a lot bigger than the usual character data, and when you multiply that by hundreds of thousands of accounts, BOOM! I suppose they could be transferred from client to client on a need view basis, but that would increase bandwidth usage.
in my opinion a startrek mmo should NOT be a combat-oriented-every-player-does-the-same-stuff-game BUT INSTEAD the vulcan principle of IDIC (infinite diversity in infinite combinations) and the way the LCARS display is described (user customizable) already implies that every player should be able to change things.
customizing the ships interior is the smallest issue, if you ask me.
think about a fed player running into an armed klingon force and let the player decide whether he wants to shoot or talk his way out, resulting in a totally different situation on the next mission where he can either meet these klingons or not, depending on the previous decision. THIS is an issue to think about.
but just back to topic....
Well it looks like starship interiors is on the to-do list, although not soon. It seems that it will most likely reuse tech being developed for UGC, which does make sense. So once we see more of UGC, we'll have a better idea of how interiors will work.
From one who owns the TNG Blueprints, the task you envision would be massive. The galaxy class is 42 decks of this:
But if your willing to do it, and it doesn't bring your computer to a screeching halt, more power to you.
Also, I would like to see an "outline" for that particular deck to the ship. So if deck eight is only 100 meters wide, you can't make it 300 meters, to make it more canon. Also, there could be "outline" pieces, that are specifically made to fit the outer sides of the ship. These ones will have windows, so you can see the outside (preferably on what area you are in, like you see Earth/Spacedock if you're in the Sol system.) Also, you can not just "rotate" the parts but "flip" them as well, so maybe if you have a spot that can't be fit by rotating it, you can flip it so it can.
I also would like to be able to interact with different things like.
Bridge: You can "look up" the files on what has happened since Nemesis, Characters, and maybe other players.
Ready Room: Where you can go and customize it with different items that you have bought like desks, fish tanks (something everybody wants), trophies, and other things.
Armory: A mobile "Memory Alpha" for making Tactical Upgrades to your weapons.
Research Lab: Same as Armory, except for science
Engineering Lab: Engineering MA.
Main Engineering: Warp Core Ejection (and other things)
Shuttlebay: Where you can go and (maybe) launch one of your shuttles (the Dandube Runabout, and the Captain Yacht.)
And many more.
The possibilities with this are endless, I really do like your idea, and with everything that you can do, it would make every ship unique and a fun place to go and relax.