The argument for canon simply fails because the Escort/Cruiser/Science class isn't canon itself. So you can't really argue effectively that the Neb is a Cruiser based on Canon when there isn't a canon classification for what makes a cruiser in the first place.
Unfortunately you can blame DS9 for this fiasco, as it was the first time that the designation for ship roles was ever used.
"The Search, Part I" identified the USS Defiant as an Escort.
As I recall, this is the only time that I heard a Starfleet vessel classified in a role in canon.
Really, the most canon appropriate configuartion is to make it all three types. But it was mostly a Science vessel, and it makes sense for it to be a Science ship in game if they had to pick one type.
You know... I wonder if it wouldn't be better to have all ships set up like that; where the mission role would depend more on your choice of equipment than on the hull type. Something like that could work even better when the ingame items affect your ship's appearance as well.
Seriously, why not? Originally, they (Cryptic and friends) stated that it's important to be able to visually distinguish what an enemy ship is capable of, so they set up the three-class system... it's important to know that an escort/cruiser/sci fight a certain way, are capable of certain things.
But is it really?
Does your fighting style change much whether you're attacking a Cruiser or a Sci vessel? And even if so, would you not know the enemy ship's capabilities within the first few seconds of a fight anyway?
If all of the ships were configurable, based on the number of hardpoints, type and capacity of warp core, weapon type, shield type, armor/hull plating, crew size based on life support capacity, deflector type... then our ships would be completely customizable. Some things could be changed on the fly, some (like upgrading your warp core) would require that you dock with a station/shipyard.
Suppose that:
A ship started as an empty hull. Upon being commissioned, it is outfitted with a "stock" standard set up. You are limited in what you put on the ship by the amount of power your ship's warp core can output, and by the size/capability of your ship's life support systems.
If you want more powerful weapons, you can divert power from your warp core, but at the cost of a reduction in overall speed. If you don't, you're weapons either fire at reduced capacity, or even not at all.
Same deal with your shields. Cruiser hulls have large, powerful warp cores so they can spread more power out to more systems. Escort hulls would have large cores, but most of the power is automatically diverted to the weapon systems. Science hulls have more room for labs and scientists. (I'm sure we could think of a good reason to have them... say if exploration were to be revamped; so it becomes worthwhile to discover things, or explore. )
Anyway, back to the configurability issue: The "tiers" could be kept separate by basing the size of the "stock" warp core and basic equipment capability. Lower tiers have smaller cores, and lesser-powered weapons. But the lower tiered hulls could be outfitted by more advanced players with more powerful cores and equipment, making them viable as end-game-worthy ships. Maybe this would require an engineer of a certain level/rank to oversee the upgrade. Maybe it requires you to be docked with a construction pod. -- Maybe you would need various components to perform the upgrade... holy TRIBBLE, we're crafting too!
Regardless, such a change could have a lot of benefits to the game at large, with a relatively small cost in terms of game mechanics changes, and if they're already working on affecting our ship's appearance by equipping loot items/components, then a lot of the art is done as well. The highest cost would be in programming the ships to act in accordance with the many different pieces of equipment, but they already do that... consoles and equipment already affect our ships stats directly.
Thoughts? This might deserve a thread on it's own...
ok, so flying around esd today i noticed that the nebula was rebadged a sci vessel, now my hope is that they are just rying to throw people off cause it is a cruiser. i as a tac officer was actually looking forward to playing my favorite ship, and now that is possibly an impossability... i will not buy it if it is a sci vessel, and i will whine and cry like the sci's for equal right as far as an escort goes... thus the escorts would be the only peeps getting no love...
plz cryptic leave the nebula as a cruiser so we can "all" enjoy it. there is no reason a sci player cannot use a cruiser, they are just being stubborn...
the other problem this brings up with me is the lack of canonality with this move. the nebula was an explorer cruiser, it has the same armaments as a galaxy, and is just a bit smaller. three for and three aft weapons hardly would do it justice, and the fact that only sci peeps would benefit from it (being a multi role ship in canon) further makes me lose the star trek feel. i have been drooling for this ship since the game released and now i feel like because a couple of people complained, (though a far vaster majority wanted it to stay cruiser) u guys caved in. i have baught every cruiser you released, but i have baught no sci vessels, and i will continue to not purchase sci vessels (as i know most tacs and engineers feel the same way..). a vessel loses to much when it is a sci vessel for it to be apealing to tac and engineer.... if your gonna give the sci's something, develop a new ship that no one cares about... but be fair and make the cannon ships (unless otherwise slated like a defient being an escort, or the olympic being a sci for example) cruisers.
again i am disapointed that the devs decided to make it a cruiser, and then caved.... really lame for the rest of us... the disapointment makes me lose interest in the game....
"The mission profile of the Nebula-class varied from performing various scientific roles to conducting patrol and transport duties." A quote from Memory Alpha. How much more canon can you get?
And we already have two "special" Cruisers. Does everything canon have to be a Cruiser? Some of the Science Vessel commanders might like something special too.
Unfortunately you can blame DS9 for this fiasco, as it was the first time that the designation for ship roles was ever used.
True, but what makes the Defiant an Escort?
I mean we know it was called an Escort, but what does that actually mean? We can infer a few things, like that it's a smaller ship, with less crew. It has plus weapons rather then beam weapons... But are those things what make it a Escort? Or are those things simply what makes up the Defiant class?
There's nothing in canon that defines what a Escort is, let alone a Cruiser or Science ship... Is the Enterprise of any make ever called a Cruiser? I believe some ships were refereed to as Science ships. Like Picard/Kirk saying that they'd do what they could until Star Fleet could send out a Science ship. There may of even been a case of seeing one of those science ships... But again we just know that some ship is called a Science ship, with no real idea of what that means.
So people are trying to argue apples and oranges by claiming that it is more canon to call it a Science or Cruiser, when there's no canon definition of what makes a ship a Science, Cruiser or Escort.
"The mission profile of the Nebula-class varied from performing various scientific roles to conducting patrol and transport duties." A quote from Memory Alpha. How much more canon can you get?
Heh is Memory Alpha, CBS?
I think you'll find CBS and their licensed affiliates etc will create "canon" for the ip and Memory Alpha will interpret and report the creation as best they can with the information they have in a true to non-biased format. Thats how much more canon you can get, just go to the source, if you can. Which for average Joe out there aint really going to happen. So we turn inwards and debate to the cows come home.
Love that bit about: " varied from performing various scientific roles to conduct patrol and transport duties"
hmm just how many ships in how many Star Trek stories also performed the same or similar roles and then some? ^^
Star Trek ships are plot devices, very cool plot devices, you can create a legend out of the smallest ship or the largest one, the fattest looking or the thinest looking, ultimately its whatever the storyteller wants to further the plot. Cryptic should take a step back with STO on this and re-evaluate this universal role of the starship and try not to pigeon hole them too much.
You know... I wonder if it wouldn't be better to have all ships set up like that; where the mission role would depend more on your choice of equipment than on the hull type. Something like that could work even better when the ingame items affect your ship's appearance as well.
Seriously, why not? Originally, they (Cryptic and friends) stated that it's important to be able to visually distinguish what an enemy ship is capable of, so they set up the three-class system... it's important to know that an escort/cruiser/sci fight a certain way, are capable of certain things.
But is it really?
Does your fighting style change much whether you're attacking a Cruiser or a Sci vessel? And even if so, would you not know the enemy ship's capabilities within the first few seconds of a fight anyway?
If all of the ships were configurable, based on the number of hardpoints, type and capacity of warp core, weapon type, shield type, armor/hull plating, crew size based on life support capacity, deflector type... then our ships would be completely customizable. Some things could be changed on the fly, some (like upgrading your warp core) would require that you dock with a station/shipyard.
Suppose that:
A ship started as an empty hull. Upon being commissioned, it is outfitted with a "stock" standard set up. You are limited in what you put on the ship by the amount of power your ship's warp core can output, and by the size/capability of your ship's life support systems.
If you want more powerful weapons, you can divert power from your warp core, but at the cost of a reduction in overall speed. If you don't, you're weapons either fire at reduced capacity, or even not at all.
Same deal with your shields. Cruiser hulls have large, powerful warp cores so they can spread more power out to more systems. Escort hulls would have large cores, but most of the power is automatically diverted to the weapon systems. Science hulls have more room for labs and scientists. (I'm sure we could think of a good reason to have them... say if exploration were to be revamped; so it becomes worthwhile to discover things, or explore. )
Anyway, back to the configurability issue: The "tiers" could be kept separate by basing the size of the "stock" warp core and basic equipment capability. Lower tiers have smaller cores, and lesser-powered weapons. But the lower tiered hulls could be outfitted by more advanced players with more powerful cores and equipment, making them viable as end-game-worthy ships. Maybe this would require an engineer of a certain level/rank to oversee the upgrade. Maybe it requires you to be docked with a construction pod. -- Maybe you would need various components to perform the upgrade... holy TRIBBLE, we're crafting too!
Regardless, such a change could have a lot of benefits to the game at large, with a relatively small cost in terms of game mechanics changes, and if they're already working on affecting our ship's appearance by equipping loot items/components, then a lot of the art is done as well. The highest cost would be in programming the ships to act in accordance with the many different pieces of equipment, but they already do that... consoles and equipment already affect our ships stats directly.
Thoughts? This might deserve a thread on it's own...
Remember my "modular ships" idea from years back? I still believe that is the best way to design a ship for a Trek game, but I don't know if they can risk introducing an STO NGE.
Seriously, why not? Originally, they (Cryptic and friends) stated that it's important to be able to visually distinguish what an enemy ship is capable of, so they set up the three-class system... it's important to know that an escort/cruiser/sci fight a certain way, are capable of certain things.
But is it really?
Does your fighting style change much whether you're attacking a Cruiser or a Sci vessel? And even if so, would you not know the enemy ship's capabilities within the first few seconds of a fight anyway?
I think they should keep the three category system but allow you to mod ships between classes and maybe redefine what the limits of a class are.
Instead of identifying a ship category by it's profile, allow any ship to serve as DPS, Tank or Heals/Buffs with the right build out and create a UI option to display the Science, Tactical, or Engineering symbol above the ship's name similar to how raid icons like hearts and stars work in WoW.
In my perfect world, you can make that Galaxy an escort, a science vessel or cruiser although it may be more suited to one of these roles and come as a cruiser "out of the box". And whichever role you've hammered it into, you're identified with an icon (optional display) above your name that other players can see.
I mean we know it was called an Escort, but what does that actually mean? We can infer a few things, like that it's a smaller ship, with less crew. It has plus weapons rather then beam weapons... But are those things what make it a Escort? Or are those things simply what makes up the Defiant class?
There's nothing in canon that defines what a Escort is, let alone a Cruiser or Science ship... Is the Enterprise of any make ever called a Cruiser? I believe some ships were refereed to as Science ships. Like Picard/Kirk saying that they'd do what they could until Star Fleet could send out a Science ship. There may of even been a case of seeing one of those science ships... But again we just know that some ship is called a Science ship, with no real idea of what that means.
So people are trying to argue apples and oranges by claiming that it is more canon to call it a Science or Cruiser, when there's no canon definition of what makes a ship a Science, Cruiser or Escort.
Actually Captain Sisko defined what an Escort is, according to Starfleet.
Sisko: "Officially she's classified as an escort vessel... unofficially the Defiant's a warship. Nothing more, nothing less."
Kira: "I thought Starfleet didn't believe in warships."
Sisko: Desperate times breed desperate measures. Five years ago, Starfleet began exploring the possibility of building a new class of starship. This ship would have no families, no science labs, no luxuries of any kind... it was designed for one purpose only -- to fight and defeat the Borg.
The Defiant was the prototype... the first ship in what would've been a new Federation battle fleet.
Dax: So what happened?
Sisko: The Borg threat became less urgent. Also, some design flaws cropped up during the ship's shakedown cruise, so Starfleet decided to abandon the project.
O'Brien: What sort of... design flaws?
Sisko: You'll have complete access to the ship evaluation reports, but to put it simply... it's overgunned and overpowered for a ship its size. During battle drills, it nearly tore itself apart when the engines were tested at full capacity.
In yellow are the key points, but Sisko laid it all out pretty well.
- Warship
- No Families
- No Science
- No Sick Bay (As pointed out later by Dr. Bashir)
- No Luxuries
- Overgunned and Overpowered
but I don't know if they can risk introducing an STO NGE.
That is an interesting point...
If they were to change the ship class system at this point what effect would it have?
IMO the game would of been better off without the class system, let people buy a hull, shields, engines with turn rate, hard points, ect... Much the same way we make characters in CO. Every ship starts off with 1 sci, eng and tact console, all the rest are universal. Then you can buy a Galaxy class ship, and fit it out to match your play style, rather then buying a ship to match your style.
But at this point what effect would completely revamping the system have? Is it too late for people to make the change, or is STO not established enough yet, and the change wouldn't have that much of an impact.
I don't think it would be anywhere near as bad as NGE... That revamped the class system completely. To something like that here would require a much more drastic change. Like saying Sci officers are limited to T1 and T3 ships, and if you play a Vulcan you can't carry any weapons.
One possibility is that they could have prefab stats for each T5 ship in each of the three configurations (Escort, Science, Cruiser) and crafting could allow you to "flip a switch" between the configurations.
A Galaxy Class warship/escort would still have relatively high crew and relatively low turn rate. But it would have drastically fewer crew than its cruiser configuration and higher turnrate than any cruiser (while having the lowest turnrate of any escort).
If they were to change the ship class system at this point what effect would it have?
IMO the game would of been better off without the class system, let people buy a hull, shields, engines with turn rate, hard points, ect... Much the same way we make characters in CO. Every ship starts off with 1 sci, eng and tact console, all the rest are universal. Then you can buy a Galaxy class ship, and fit it out to match your play style, rather then buying a ship to match your style.
But at this point what effect would completely revamping the system have? Is it too late for people to make the change, or is STO not established enough yet, and the change wouldn't have that much of an impact.
I don't think it would be anywhere near as bad as NGE... That revamped the class system completely. To something like that here would require a much more drastic change. Like saying Sci officers are limited to T1 and T3 ships, and if you play a Vulcan you can't carry any weapons.
My proposal for a modular system was such:
Every ship has a number of modular spaces that can be filled with a variety of equipment. The reality is though that a Defiant will never be a Galaxy and a Galaxy will never be a defiant. What this means is that a Galaxy would likely have more modular slots than a defiant, but it would never be as agile or as purely aggressive as a Defiant.
The problem with a system like this is that it would require huge rebalancing issues when it comes to PvP. There would be constant need to address unbalance as new builds, new items and new ships throw things out of whack.
Is a Modular system possible? Yes. Is it currently feasible given the stage STO is at? No. Changes this big are never received well even if they are needed.
Yep thats why there is no real definitive list of all of Star Fleet's ships and types as the producers needed to keep the list vague to allow future stories to include both new and old as a storytelling tool. Hence why Cryptic is possibly painting itself into a corner and causing these sorts of balance, us/them frustrations.
It would have been better off (I suspect in the long run) just having a universal ship skills set, with universal properties for each ship class. Where the true differences were noticed, like the stories so often told in Star Trek, were what the crew in the form of the Captain and their BOffs could bring to the ship. This could come in a variety of formats and all provide a better more fairer experience to all concerned, avoiding possible ip/canon/balance angst to boot.
You could then provide a more tailored flavour to your ship of choice based on the career and level of the captain, their choice in skills and composition of your Boffs that did not necessarily translate to high dpsing nor a cookie cutter mentality or flavour of the month ship etc
Tricky stuff.
It's not just story telling, they didn't have the time/budget to keep making new ships. Making the ships more universal, and using old models allows money to be devoted elsewhere. It's why you saw so many excelsiors and mirandas and oberths in the world. we've made up story reasons for why that's true, but the real reason is it was too damned expensive and time intensive to design and build new models every week. Especially when the star of the show is the Enterprise and her crew.
And in answer to that, I submit my earlier post, 4 up from here.
Yep pretty much similar song to my hymn sheet heh
We have seen some weapons that level along with our pc's; why not the ships develop into legends like how their Captains and crew do in the episodes we complete?
Kirk got a new ship at Admiral..just! Then a re-fit followed by a new build of the same type, renovated though might I add. Picard had to wait till the movies! Bless poor ol Janeway she had a long legendary journey ahead more or less in the same ship. As for Sisco...well..is a station a ship? Ohh thats right the Defiant later on...etc
Lucky for us in STO we have the freedom to plonk our Captain in different ships that we see fit though we are handicapped by the current system if not out right penalised by those choices if our favourite ship so happens to sit pretty much unchanging at Tier 1 say or whatever.
The refit system et all seems to be a patch to a hole thats getting bigger and bigger. Wouldnt it be more fun for us and attractive to many if we could just pick our favourite model and see her develop whatever the level? Sure you'd have your career and choice of Boffs et all to flavour her but ultimately wouldnt that truly be where the balance of play should sit instead of ship tiers and types? ^^
It could prevent alot of heartache from fans trying to live the STO dream, it would certainly keep the C-Store running for the right reasons, give folks something to aim for with emblems too!
Either way its an avenue I'd say definitely worth investigating but sadly I suspect the genie has already left the bottle.
It's not just story telling, they didn't have the time/budget to keep making new ships. Making the ships more universal, and using old models allows money to be devoted elsewhere. It's why you saw so many excelsiors and mirandas and oberths in the world. we've made up story reasons for why that's true, but the real reason is it was too damned expensive and time intensive to design and build new models every week. Especially when the star of the show is the Enterprise and her crew.
Yep your so right, a leaf out of the book Cryptic could well heed in terms of gameplay, as well as tangible and intangible costs incurred with the current system for the future development of STO.
Mind you I am only looking from the outside in, with respect to my comment above but playing on the inside, out. They could be very robust enough to keep producing that kind of content sustainably in mmo terms. ^^
... gameplay-wise, the Nebula is a solid support ship. ...
Dont sacrifice the image of a great ship because it fits better to your current needs of game play. Think of something different. The Neb has NEVER been a support ship. NEVER. It has been an explorer, an escort, a warship or even a bomber. But never support or science. (at least not the version with the triangular weapons platform on top. The round sensor platform is a different story, but that one only occured once or twice at all - and yours dont look like that...)
Dont sacrifice the image of a great ship because it fits better to your current needs of game play. Think of something different. The Neb has NEVER been a support ship. NEVER. It has been an explorer, an escort, a warship or even a bomber. But never support or science. (at least not the version with the triangular weapons platform on top. The round sensor platform is a different story, but that one only occured once or twice at all - and yours dont look like that...)
How do you explain the USS Prometheus which was assigned to assist a teraformer in igniting a dead star? (Obvious science mission profile)
How do you explain the USS Farragut which was tasked with the salvage and recovery operations for the USS Enterprise D after it went down on Veridian III? (Obvious Engineering / SCE Mission Profile)
The Nebula is a good all-around support ship, and was always portrayed as such. It can fill any kind of mission from tactical to science to engineering.
No real bonuses? You do realise how game changing the Tachyon Detection Grid ability could very well prove to be, right?
The ability to cloak and pick a fight is about the only advantage the KDF side has left. We don't have any of these fancy new skills that have come with the new run of fed ships, and from the sounds of the things we're due to get with our new ships liking a BoP that fires while cloaked we'll still have nothing to address the balance gap that ships like the Galaxy X and Excelsior have generated - and so now even cloak will be nullified by ONE ship.
ONE Nebula class can potentialy prevent an entire Klingon group from cloaking.
I have to admit, I find it rather ironic that while all the KDF players are looking at this ship and seing such a potential un-balance to PVP which could very well end FvK, Fed players are looking at it saying its worthless and has no bonuses.
Granted on some maps and some games cloak has less advantages, but considering fed players have spent 8 months whining about how OP cloak is, now that you're getting a ship that will effectively kill off cloak you're complaining?
Sheesh.
Huh. I always thought the Galaxy X existed to pad KDF damage/kill stats.
Does everyone know that the original Aircraft Carrier was this:
USS Jupiter:
Laid down on October 18, 1911, USS Langley began its life as the Proteus-class collier USS Jupiter. Launched the following April, Jupiter joined the fleet in April 1913, under the command of Commander Joseph M. Reeves. Shortly after passing sea trials, Jupiter was sent south to the Mexican coast. Carrying a detachment of US Marines, the Navy hoped that the ship's presence would aid in calming tensions during the 1914 Veracruz crisis. With the situation diffused, the collier departed for Philadelphia in October, becoming the first ship to transit the Panama Canal from west to east in the process.
After service with the Atlantic Fleet Auxiliary Division in the Gulf of Mexico, Jupiter was switched to cargo duty in April 1917. Sailing in support of US efforts during World War I, the ship did not return to coaling duty until 1919. Following service in European waters, the ship was ordered to return to Norfolk for conversion into an aircraft carrier. Arriving on December 12, 1919, the ship was decommissioned the following March.
Now everyone does realize that you can put alot of Science gadgets in a Cruiser Hull to make it become a Science Ship.
Just thought you might want to open your eyes to a reality that we are at war, and sometimes hard decisions have to be made.
NO canon is necessary in 2409, no Star Trek movies depict an era past Nemesis (other than bits and pieces of the future) in various shows.
Turning this ship into a science ship is basically turning it into the Kar'Fi of the federation. DSSVs are not exactly a popular choice among the playerbase. So this ship isn't going to appeal to players on the basis of performance. Unless the "gimmick" power is overpowered. And that'll be met with far more nerf cries than I think this game needs right now.
This ship ends up being appealing solely on the basis of looks. Which isn't going to part "gamers" from their money. Just collectors and fans of the nebula itself.
This ship ends up being appealing solely on the basis of looks. Which isn't going to part "gamers" from their money. Just collectors and fans of the nebula itself.
Isn't that exactly what you should expect with a c-store item?
Isn't that exactly what you should expect with a c-store item?
Not after they released the excelsior to it. Or the TOS Enterprise (it's the superior T1 option due to having an extra engi console). Or the test server tribbles (now Klingons can buy Tribbles that buff them). Or the Borg bridge officer.
They really ought to get hopping and release the TR-116 to the C-Store. Especially since GROUND combat is getting a look-see semi-makeover. That rifle has some very interesting in-game properties.
NO canon is necessary in 2409, no Star Trek movies depict an era past Nemesis (other than bits and pieces of the future) in various shows.
You don't ignore the relatively recent past just because the game takes place x years in the future. Cryptic set the standard, themselves, that "modern" technology still includes the same design, and indeed the very same classes of ships, of 30 years prior.
"The mission profile of the Nebula-class varied from performing various scientific roles to conducting patrol and transport duties." A quote from Memory Alpha. How much more canon can you get?
And we already have two "special" Cruisers. Does everything canon have to be a Cruiser? Some of the Science Vessel commanders might like something special too.
:cool:
Also according to Memory Alpha the Galaxy-class had this:
The Galaxy-class starship housed over one hundred separate scientific research labs. Very few of the research labs remained under the same discipline of science for more than six months. Most shared the same design; only a few had extremely specialized equipment.
So by your reasoning should this information be used to change the Galaxy-class into a science vessel?
So by your reasoning should this information be used to change the Galaxy-class into a science vessel?
It sorta should be. The Galaxy class was specifically designed for long-term exploration missions.
Mind you... at the time we saw very few classes and they all seemed to have an exploration/science focus. It wasn't until the days of the Defiant and Akira that ships started to take on other roles.
Really, the most canon appropriate configuartion is to make it all three types. But it was mostly a Science vessel, and it makes sense for it to be a Science ship in game if they had to pick one type.
Mostly a science vessel? What canonical documentation do you have to this effect? Star Trek: Armada? One episode of ds9? Seriously, what?
ok so the dev posted things that streangthen my point.. first off, it has 3 for and 3 aft "hard points" as he put it. this is not particularly pleasing to a tac officer.. secondly, everyone is going to gank the ship now cause it probably wont be able to survive since it is a sci ship... thirdly, that universal bof slot is useless to a tac officer, cause in order to make a sci ship usefull, one would need sci skills lol... ?facepalm.... i know with my luna/tac build that i depend greatly on my sci abiliies to knock shields out, and to enhance dmg and what not.. so now your asking a tac to pic between the two... at least in a cruiser perspective its an easy choice, one would always go with tac...
for those of you who argue that cruisers get everything and that sci gets nothing... lets look at it, the excelsior came out, obviously more of a tac oriented cruiser, dont count the dreadnaught cause it is fairly useless at this point, you rarely see them anymore, and that was not meant to be such a readily available ship in the begining.... so now cryptic was gonna balance it by making a very sci heavy cruiser, that could have been used by all.. so arguments that sci would gain nothing is irrelevant...
i didnt care about the dreadnaught, i didnt really care about the excelsior, but i was excited about the nebula, but now i am not even gonna consider purchasing it.... shame on cryptic for making the ship very unusable by all...
so now since the sci guys whined and ****ed and groaned their way into a ship that had more support to be a cruiser, us tac officers should start doing the same... i for one vote that they should give us either an apollo class, or an new orleans class, or maybe even revamp the sovreign to be an escort, i mean if the bulky nebula can be a sci, why not a larger tac.. seriously, thats what it is intended for primarily.... oooh i have an idea, why dont we make the defiant class a sci ship, i mean it has sensors right guys.... lol....
even more disapointed than when i started this thread.....................................................
You don't ignore the relatively recent past just because the game takes place x years in the future. Cryptic set the standard, themselves, that "modern" technology still includes the same design, and indeed the very same classes of ships, of 30 years prior.
Cryptic as with other MMO's that take place after the Canonical past, are not engraved in what they MUST do in the future.
They must set the standards of the past, but can deviate from them, if CBS/Paramount allows them to. Read the rest of my post you quoted. We are at war, and with that, you can do things outside of the norm.
As far as the Federation goes, the Prime Directive can be set aside in times of war. So therefore, standards can be set aside.
Again, outfit a canoe with a machine gun, it becomes a gunboat, like it or not. The clas of ship is a Cruiser, but full of science technology, hence Science Ship.
Comments
Unfortunately you can blame DS9 for this fiasco, as it was the first time that the designation for ship roles was ever used.
"The Search, Part I" identified the USS Defiant as an Escort.
As I recall, this is the only time that I heard a Starfleet vessel classified in a role in canon.
You know... I wonder if it wouldn't be better to have all ships set up like that; where the mission role would depend more on your choice of equipment than on the hull type. Something like that could work even better when the ingame items affect your ship's appearance as well.
Seriously, why not? Originally, they (Cryptic and friends) stated that it's important to be able to visually distinguish what an enemy ship is capable of, so they set up the three-class system... it's important to know that an escort/cruiser/sci fight a certain way, are capable of certain things.
But is it really?
Does your fighting style change much whether you're attacking a Cruiser or a Sci vessel? And even if so, would you not know the enemy ship's capabilities within the first few seconds of a fight anyway?
If all of the ships were configurable, based on the number of hardpoints, type and capacity of warp core, weapon type, shield type, armor/hull plating, crew size based on life support capacity, deflector type... then our ships would be completely customizable. Some things could be changed on the fly, some (like upgrading your warp core) would require that you dock with a station/shipyard.
Suppose that:
A ship started as an empty hull. Upon being commissioned, it is outfitted with a "stock" standard set up. You are limited in what you put on the ship by the amount of power your ship's warp core can output, and by the size/capability of your ship's life support systems.
If you want more powerful weapons, you can divert power from your warp core, but at the cost of a reduction in overall speed. If you don't, you're weapons either fire at reduced capacity, or even not at all.
Same deal with your shields. Cruiser hulls have large, powerful warp cores so they can spread more power out to more systems. Escort hulls would have large cores, but most of the power is automatically diverted to the weapon systems. Science hulls have more room for labs and scientists. (I'm sure we could think of a good reason to have them... say if exploration were to be revamped; so it becomes worthwhile to discover things, or explore. )
Anyway, back to the configurability issue: The "tiers" could be kept separate by basing the size of the "stock" warp core and basic equipment capability. Lower tiers have smaller cores, and lesser-powered weapons. But the lower tiered hulls could be outfitted by more advanced players with more powerful cores and equipment, making them viable as end-game-worthy ships. Maybe this would require an engineer of a certain level/rank to oversee the upgrade. Maybe it requires you to be docked with a construction pod. -- Maybe you would need various components to perform the upgrade... holy TRIBBLE, we're crafting too!
Regardless, such a change could have a lot of benefits to the game at large, with a relatively small cost in terms of game mechanics changes, and if they're already working on affecting our ship's appearance by equipping loot items/components, then a lot of the art is done as well. The highest cost would be in programming the ships to act in accordance with the many different pieces of equipment, but they already do that... consoles and equipment already affect our ships stats directly.
Thoughts? This might deserve a thread on it's own...
"The mission profile of the Nebula-class varied from performing various scientific roles to conducting patrol and transport duties." A quote from Memory Alpha. How much more canon can you get?
And we already have two "special" Cruisers. Does everything canon have to be a Cruiser? Some of the Science Vessel commanders might like something special too.
:cool:
True, but what makes the Defiant an Escort?
I mean we know it was called an Escort, but what does that actually mean? We can infer a few things, like that it's a smaller ship, with less crew. It has plus weapons rather then beam weapons... But are those things what make it a Escort? Or are those things simply what makes up the Defiant class?
There's nothing in canon that defines what a Escort is, let alone a Cruiser or Science ship... Is the Enterprise of any make ever called a Cruiser? I believe some ships were refereed to as Science ships. Like Picard/Kirk saying that they'd do what they could until Star Fleet could send out a Science ship. There may of even been a case of seeing one of those science ships... But again we just know that some ship is called a Science ship, with no real idea of what that means.
So people are trying to argue apples and oranges by claiming that it is more canon to call it a Science or Cruiser, when there's no canon definition of what makes a ship a Science, Cruiser or Escort.
Heh is Memory Alpha, CBS?
I think you'll find CBS and their licensed affiliates etc will create "canon" for the ip and Memory Alpha will interpret and report the creation as best they can with the information they have in a true to non-biased format. Thats how much more canon you can get, just go to the source, if you can. Which for average Joe out there aint really going to happen. So we turn inwards and debate to the cows come home.
Love that bit about: " varied from performing various scientific roles to conduct patrol and transport duties"
hmm just how many ships in how many Star Trek stories also performed the same or similar roles and then some? ^^
Star Trek ships are plot devices, very cool plot devices, you can create a legend out of the smallest ship or the largest one, the fattest looking or the thinest looking, ultimately its whatever the storyteller wants to further the plot. Cryptic should take a step back with STO on this and re-evaluate this universal role of the starship and try not to pigeon hole them too much.
And in answer to that, I submit my earlier post, 4 up from here.
Remember my "modular ships" idea from years back? I still believe that is the best way to design a ship for a Trek game, but I don't know if they can risk introducing an STO NGE.
I think they should keep the three category system but allow you to mod ships between classes and maybe redefine what the limits of a class are.
Instead of identifying a ship category by it's profile, allow any ship to serve as DPS, Tank or Heals/Buffs with the right build out and create a UI option to display the Science, Tactical, or Engineering symbol above the ship's name similar to how raid icons like hearts and stars work in WoW.
In my perfect world, you can make that Galaxy an escort, a science vessel or cruiser although it may be more suited to one of these roles and come as a cruiser "out of the box". And whichever role you've hammered it into, you're identified with an icon (optional display) above your name that other players can see.
Actually Captain Sisko defined what an Escort is, according to Starfleet.
In yellow are the key points, but Sisko laid it all out pretty well.
- Warship
- No Families
- No Science
- No Sick Bay (As pointed out later by Dr. Bashir)
- No Luxuries
- Overgunned and Overpowered
That's an escort. According to Starfleet anyway.
That is an interesting point...
If they were to change the ship class system at this point what effect would it have?
IMO the game would of been better off without the class system, let people buy a hull, shields, engines with turn rate, hard points, ect... Much the same way we make characters in CO. Every ship starts off with 1 sci, eng and tact console, all the rest are universal. Then you can buy a Galaxy class ship, and fit it out to match your play style, rather then buying a ship to match your style.
But at this point what effect would completely revamping the system have? Is it too late for people to make the change, or is STO not established enough yet, and the change wouldn't have that much of an impact.
I don't think it would be anywhere near as bad as NGE... That revamped the class system completely. To something like that here would require a much more drastic change. Like saying Sci officers are limited to T1 and T3 ships, and if you play a Vulcan you can't carry any weapons.
A Galaxy Class warship/escort would still have relatively high crew and relatively low turn rate. But it would have drastically fewer crew than its cruiser configuration and higher turnrate than any cruiser (while having the lowest turnrate of any escort).
My proposal for a modular system was such:
Every ship has a number of modular spaces that can be filled with a variety of equipment. The reality is though that a Defiant will never be a Galaxy and a Galaxy will never be a defiant. What this means is that a Galaxy would likely have more modular slots than a defiant, but it would never be as agile or as purely aggressive as a Defiant.
The problem with a system like this is that it would require huge rebalancing issues when it comes to PvP. There would be constant need to address unbalance as new builds, new items and new ships throw things out of whack.
Is a Modular system possible? Yes. Is it currently feasible given the stage STO is at? No. Changes this big are never received well even if they are needed.
It's not just story telling, they didn't have the time/budget to keep making new ships. Making the ships more universal, and using old models allows money to be devoted elsewhere. It's why you saw so many excelsiors and mirandas and oberths in the world. we've made up story reasons for why that's true, but the real reason is it was too damned expensive and time intensive to design and build new models every week. Especially when the star of the show is the Enterprise and her crew.
Yep pretty much similar song to my hymn sheet heh
We have seen some weapons that level along with our pc's; why not the ships develop into legends like how their Captains and crew do in the episodes we complete?
Kirk got a new ship at Admiral..just! Then a re-fit followed by a new build of the same type, renovated though might I add. Picard had to wait till the movies! Bless poor ol Janeway she had a long legendary journey ahead more or less in the same ship. As for Sisco...well..is a station a ship? Ohh thats right the Defiant later on...etc
Lucky for us in STO we have the freedom to plonk our Captain in different ships that we see fit though we are handicapped by the current system if not out right penalised by those choices if our favourite ship so happens to sit pretty much unchanging at Tier 1 say or whatever.
The refit system et all seems to be a patch to a hole thats getting bigger and bigger. Wouldnt it be more fun for us and attractive to many if we could just pick our favourite model and see her develop whatever the level? Sure you'd have your career and choice of Boffs et all to flavour her but ultimately wouldnt that truly be where the balance of play should sit instead of ship tiers and types? ^^
It could prevent alot of heartache from fans trying to live the STO dream, it would certainly keep the C-Store running for the right reasons, give folks something to aim for with emblems too!
Either way its an avenue I'd say definitely worth investigating but sadly I suspect the genie has already left the bottle.
Yep your so right, a leaf out of the book Cryptic could well heed in terms of gameplay, as well as tangible and intangible costs incurred with the current system for the future development of STO.
Mind you I am only looking from the outside in, with respect to my comment above but playing on the inside, out. They could be very robust enough to keep producing that kind of content sustainably in mmo terms. ^^
And I had so much hope after the Excel and the weeklies...:(
How do you explain the USS Prometheus which was assigned to assist a teraformer in igniting a dead star? (Obvious science mission profile)
How do you explain the USS Farragut which was tasked with the salvage and recovery operations for the USS Enterprise D after it went down on Veridian III? (Obvious Engineering / SCE Mission Profile)
The Nebula is a good all-around support ship, and was always portrayed as such. It can fill any kind of mission from tactical to science to engineering.
Thus it should be portrayed as such in STO.
Huh. I always thought the Galaxy X existed to pad KDF damage/kill stats.
Does everyone know that the original Aircraft Carrier was this:
USS Jupiter:
Laid down on October 18, 1911, USS Langley began its life as the Proteus-class collier USS Jupiter. Launched the following April, Jupiter joined the fleet in April 1913, under the command of Commander Joseph M. Reeves. Shortly after passing sea trials, Jupiter was sent south to the Mexican coast. Carrying a detachment of US Marines, the Navy hoped that the ship's presence would aid in calming tensions during the 1914 Veracruz crisis. With the situation diffused, the collier departed for Philadelphia in October, becoming the first ship to transit the Panama Canal from west to east in the process.
After service with the Atlantic Fleet Auxiliary Division in the Gulf of Mexico, Jupiter was switched to cargo duty in April 1917. Sailing in support of US efforts during World War I, the ship did not return to coaling duty until 1919. Following service in European waters, the ship was ordered to return to Norfolk for conversion into an aircraft carrier. Arriving on December 12, 1919, the ship was decommissioned the following March.
Now everyone does realize that you can put alot of Science gadgets in a Cruiser Hull to make it become a Science Ship.
Just thought you might want to open your eyes to a reality that we are at war, and sometimes hard decisions have to be made.
NO canon is necessary in 2409, no Star Trek movies depict an era past Nemesis (other than bits and pieces of the future) in various shows.
This ship ends up being appealing solely on the basis of looks. Which isn't going to part "gamers" from their money. Just collectors and fans of the nebula itself.
Isn't that exactly what you should expect with a c-store item?
Not after they released the excelsior to it. Or the TOS Enterprise (it's the superior T1 option due to having an extra engi console). Or the test server tribbles (now Klingons can buy Tribbles that buff them). Or the Borg bridge officer.
They really ought to get hopping and release the TR-116 to the C-Store. Especially since GROUND combat is getting a look-see semi-makeover. That rifle has some very interesting in-game properties.
You don't ignore the relatively recent past just because the game takes place x years in the future. Cryptic set the standard, themselves, that "modern" technology still includes the same design, and indeed the very same classes of ships, of 30 years prior.
Also according to Memory Alpha the Galaxy-class had this:
So by your reasoning should this information be used to change the Galaxy-class into a science vessel?
It sorta should be. The Galaxy class was specifically designed for long-term exploration missions.
Mind you... at the time we saw very few classes and they all seemed to have an exploration/science focus. It wasn't until the days of the Defiant and Akira that ships started to take on other roles.
Mostly a science vessel? What canonical documentation do you have to this effect? Star Trek: Armada? One episode of ds9? Seriously, what?
for those of you who argue that cruisers get everything and that sci gets nothing... lets look at it, the excelsior came out, obviously more of a tac oriented cruiser, dont count the dreadnaught cause it is fairly useless at this point, you rarely see them anymore, and that was not meant to be such a readily available ship in the begining.... so now cryptic was gonna balance it by making a very sci heavy cruiser, that could have been used by all.. so arguments that sci would gain nothing is irrelevant...
i didnt care about the dreadnaught, i didnt really care about the excelsior, but i was excited about the nebula, but now i am not even gonna consider purchasing it.... shame on cryptic for making the ship very unusable by all...
so now since the sci guys whined and ****ed and groaned their way into a ship that had more support to be a cruiser, us tac officers should start doing the same... i for one vote that they should give us either an apollo class, or an new orleans class, or maybe even revamp the sovreign to be an escort, i mean if the bulky nebula can be a sci, why not a larger tac.. seriously, thats what it is intended for primarily.... oooh i have an idea, why dont we make the defiant class a sci ship, i mean it has sensors right guys.... lol....
even more disapointed than when i started this thread.....................................................
Cryptic as with other MMO's that take place after the Canonical past, are not engraved in what they MUST do in the future.
They must set the standards of the past, but can deviate from them, if CBS/Paramount allows them to. Read the rest of my post you quoted. We are at war, and with that, you can do things outside of the norm.
As far as the Federation goes, the Prime Directive can be set aside in times of war. So therefore, standards can be set aside.
Again, outfit a canoe with a machine gun, it becomes a gunboat, like it or not. The clas of ship is a Cruiser, but full of science technology, hence Science Ship.