Since the other thread appears to have disappeared, I wanted to start a new one to ask what the community and the devs think of including material (especially ships) from other Star Trek sources such as the novels and games like Klingon Academy, Birth of the Federation, and Dominion Wars.
I realize both that the Luna class is in game already (which is an awesome thing) and that there are potential legal barriers to material form other games, but I'd still like to hope that some of the ships and other material available elsewhere could show up in STO.
Would absolutely positively LOVE to see this class in the game.
That thing looks like a Luna and a Sovereign got drunk one night and made sweet passionate "docking procedures" with each other, and that monster is the love-child.
Prettier than the Vesta and Star Cruisers, though.
Would absolutely positively LOVE to see this class in the game.
HOLD ON!
2200 crew?
Six torpedo launchers?
Sixty decks?
This is the problem with fan-made ships, they're always ridiculously overpowered compared to the canon ones.
yeah, if Starfleet had nigh-infinite resources and no worries about losing the ship to any enemy or spacial anomaly, sure, ships like this might be reasonable.
But imagine the blow to Starfleet morale if just one of these ships were lost with all hands. That's nearly a quarter of Starfleet's losses from the battle of Wolf 359!
No, sorry, maybe a similar hull structure for a much smaller ship, with fewer uber-epic-awesome-sauce statistics, but as is? No way.
It's a flying paper weight, what on Earth would you want that thing for? o__O
EDIT: It would look vastly better with a an engineering hull and actual nacelles, now that I've stared at it a bit. It'd be kinda like a tiny Prometheus with only two nacelles and no over-the-top MVAM. As it is it just looks like a saucer that's been chopped off the rest of an otherwise mediocre ship.
We have a pretty big thread started about this guys; Its a wishlist for any "canon" ships (including those from licensed novels, games, and artwork, which would be considered *soft canon*) you want to see added to the game.
Go take a look, and if you see a licensed ship we don't have, add a reply and I'll add it to it.
Note that the legal status of these vary from one to the next. Ships which were entirely designed by a game company for their game while they held the license likely belong to them, but its still possible to go thorugh CBS to cross-license if the money was right.
Artwork for books will be different depending on the source - some are retained by CBS, some by the publisher, and some by an artist who gets royalties from each book/calendar sold.
Its really not for us to worry about, we simply express our interest, and if there is enough (as there seems to be for Vesta, and perhaps the NX-01 Refit) then Cryptic can go through their CBS representative to see if it can be acquired.
We likely would never hear anything about it one way or another until its "hey, we got permission and its in development" or something.
Both have fanmade, soft canon, and game only ships. Pick and choose peoplem but be warned..there's plenty of horrible designs and some good designs as well.
Wow, that thing is hideous. I have no idea why anybody would want that.
Its not so much the ship but the technology would give the Federation an interesting way to balance the Klingon cloaking device. Holographic masking technology allows you to disguise yourself as an allied ship, even if the illusion works for just a few seconds, its a decent advantage.
Its not so much the ship but the technology would give the Federation an interesting way to balance the Klingon cloaking device. Holographic masking technology allows you to disguise yourself as an allied ship, even if the illusion works for just a few seconds, its a decent advantage.
This is probably the first thing I've read from you that I actually fully agree with. Its unique, has its own tactical applications, and just generally sounds... deviously fun.
This is probably the first thing I've read from you that I actually fully agree with. Its unique, has its own tactical applications, and just generally sounds... deviously fun.
Well thank you, I do not talk rubbish all the time, only most of the time. I also think that Federation could have a varient of the Proxima class carrier from Starfleet Command 2. It was a rather interesting ship with its own fighter bays, I imagine the design would have to be updated but it has also appeared in Star Trek Legacy.
We have a pretty big thread started about this guys; Its a wishlist for any "canon" ships (including those from licensed novels, games, and artwork, which would be considered *soft canon*) you want to see added to the game.
Go take a look, and if you see a licensed ship we don't have, add a reply and I'll add it to it.
Right. I'll be happy to add in my ship wishlist.
And I do agree with DiamondCelestalis that the Incursion would make a very interesting Federation counter to the Klingon cloak advantage (though I think it isn't much to look at).
They can scale the one I posted down... Or something to that effect. that ship used to be VERY popular before STO came on. So what better way to make fans happy then to have it in game.
In case of Novels we are dealing with individual authors.
With other games we are dealing with Corporations, and thats an entirely different mess.
In the case of novels, the authors don't own the material as far as I understand it. Pocket Books/Simon & Shuster owns most of the books.)
S&S is a sister company of CBS and so material from the books is likely to be similar to material from the movies; Cryptic can go through CBS to get special permissions because it isn't dealing with licensees, actors, or authors -- it's an established channel dealing with the same corporate family as CBS.
I suspect strongly that, as a consequence of that, we could probably get references to "Star Trek: Borg", "Star Trek: Klingon" and "Starship Creator", as these were published by Simon and Shuster. Everything in these games is part of the same corporate family as CBS and Paramount and the process of including it should be similar to the inclusion of Mackenzie Calhoun (from the New Frontier books -- and the approvals on this went through Pocket, not Peter David) or the Wrath of Khan Admiral's jacket, TMP Connie, and Excelsior (which needed special clearance from Paramount).
Other games contain material whose ownership is more murky and were published by competitors of Cryptic who might be less likely to answer a request or be litigious in the event of a misunderstanding.
Because Pocket and Paramount (who own the books and movies) are branches of National Amusements, which also owns CBS (Cryptic's actual licensor, which owns the TV shows), there are inroads there which have been used already.
This is the problem with fan-made ships, they're always ridiculously overpowered compared to the canon ones.
yeah, if Starfleet had nigh-infinite resources and no worries about losing the ship to any enemy or spacial anomaly, sure, ships like this might be reasonable.
But imagine the blow to Starfleet morale if just one of these ships were lost with all hands. That's nearly a quarter of Starfleet's losses from the battle of Wolf 359!
No, sorry, maybe a similar hull structure for a much smaller ship, with fewer uber-epic-awesome-sauce statistics, but as is? No way.
I did want to come back and point out something about this.
You're right that a lot of fan ships are simply silly with their stats. And there are things about this class that I personally don't like, but its actually fairly reasonable as these things go.
Sovereign has 16 phaser banks and 10 torpedo tubes. Its between 23 and 28 decks tall and contains 900 crew (with a max evac capacity of somewhere around 9000) And the Galaxy was sometimes carrying around 1200 people with families on board.
The design of this ship was sort of an "alternate" path sort of taking the Galaxy to the next level instead of the more warship-esque Sovereign. More of a throwback to the City-in-the-stars - although in the end it doesn't end up being much larger than a D'Deridex Warbird.
And before we accuse fans of being unreasonable, lets not forget the vision that one Doug Drexler, verteran Trek designer, had for the Enterprise J. Its 2 miles long and truly is a mobile civilization. Even though this Excalibur came before the J, it does sort of fit in with the idea that given enough peacetime, Starfleet wouldn't build warships, but ships built to wander the far reaches of the Galaxy and explore.
Comments
Would absolutely positively LOVE to see this class in the game.
But ships from other games will "never" happen.
The same legal barriers preventing the use of ships from other games applies to ships from novels as well.
Not quite the same.
In case of Novels we are dealing with individual authors.
With other games we are dealing with Corporations, and thats an entirely different mess.
That thing looks like a Luna and a Sovereign got drunk one night and made sweet passionate "docking procedures" with each other, and that monster is the love-child.
Prettier than the Vesta and Star Cruisers, though.
Actually, it's the Authors.. And the Publishers, the Distributors.. There's contractual entanglements, exclusivity agreements, etc..
Now, there's far more of that involved in Games, but books are no walk in the park.
HOLD ON!
2200 crew?
Six torpedo launchers?
Sixty decks?
This is the problem with fan-made ships, they're always ridiculously overpowered compared to the canon ones.
yeah, if Starfleet had nigh-infinite resources and no worries about losing the ship to any enemy or spacial anomaly, sure, ships like this might be reasonable.
But imagine the blow to Starfleet morale if just one of these ships were lost with all hands. That's nearly a quarter of Starfleet's losses from the battle of Wolf 359!
No, sorry, maybe a similar hull structure for a much smaller ship, with fewer uber-epic-awesome-sauce statistics, but as is? No way.
It's a flying paper weight, what on Earth would you want that thing for? o__O
EDIT: It would look vastly better with a an engineering hull and actual nacelles, now that I've stared at it a bit. It'd be kinda like a tiny Prometheus with only two nacelles and no over-the-top MVAM. As it is it just looks like a saucer that's been chopped off the rest of an otherwise mediocre ship.
The Luna is from a novel series. Of course, the ship image is from a fan contest run by a CBS subsidiary company.
(Which means the Qang class Klingon cruiser -- From the I.K.S. Gorkon books -- may be in a similar state.)
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=180809
Go take a look, and if you see a licensed ship we don't have, add a reply and I'll add it to it.
Note that the legal status of these vary from one to the next. Ships which were entirely designed by a game company for their game while they held the license likely belong to them, but its still possible to go thorugh CBS to cross-license if the money was right.
Artwork for books will be different depending on the source - some are retained by CBS, some by the publisher, and some by an artist who gets royalties from each book/calendar sold.
Its really not for us to worry about, we simply express our interest, and if there is enough (as there seems to be for Vesta, and perhaps the NX-01 Refit) then Cryptic can go through their CBS representative to see if it can be acquired.
We likely would never hear anything about it one way or another until its "hey, we got permission and its in development" or something.
http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/index.php
Both have fanmade, soft canon, and game only ships. Pick and choose peoplem but be warned..there's plenty of horrible designs and some good designs as well.
Wow, that thing is hideous. I have no idea why anybody would want that.
Its not so much the ship but the technology would give the Federation an interesting way to balance the Klingon cloaking device. Holographic masking technology allows you to disguise yourself as an allied ship, even if the illusion works for just a few seconds, its a decent advantage.
This is probably the first thing I've read from you that I actually fully agree with. Its unique, has its own tactical applications, and just generally sounds... deviously fun.
Well thank you, I do not talk rubbish all the time, only most of the time. I also think that Federation could have a varient of the Proxima class carrier from Starfleet Command 2. It was a rather interesting ship with its own fighter bays, I imagine the design would have to be updated but it has also appeared in Star Trek Legacy.
Right. I'll be happy to add in my ship wishlist.
And I do agree with DiamondCelestalis that the Incursion would make a very interesting Federation counter to the Klingon cloak advantage (though I think it isn't much to look at).
Bonaventure
Miranda (TOS)
The Bonaventure comes from the "Ships of the Line" book.
The TOS Miranda was described in the "Vanguard" book series. (USS Bombay)
You may now flame my love of TOS.
In the case of novels, the authors don't own the material as far as I understand it. Pocket Books/Simon & Shuster owns most of the books.)
S&S is a sister company of CBS and so material from the books is likely to be similar to material from the movies; Cryptic can go through CBS to get special permissions because it isn't dealing with licensees, actors, or authors -- it's an established channel dealing with the same corporate family as CBS.
I suspect strongly that, as a consequence of that, we could probably get references to "Star Trek: Borg", "Star Trek: Klingon" and "Starship Creator", as these were published by Simon and Shuster. Everything in these games is part of the same corporate family as CBS and Paramount and the process of including it should be similar to the inclusion of Mackenzie Calhoun (from the New Frontier books -- and the approvals on this went through Pocket, not Peter David) or the Wrath of Khan Admiral's jacket, TMP Connie, and Excelsior (which needed special clearance from Paramount).
Other games contain material whose ownership is more murky and were published by competitors of Cryptic who might be less likely to answer a request or be litigious in the event of a misunderstanding.
Because Pocket and Paramount (who own the books and movies) are branches of National Amusements, which also owns CBS (Cryptic's actual licensor, which owns the TV shows), there are inroads there which have been used already.
I did want to come back and point out something about this.
You're right that a lot of fan ships are simply silly with their stats. And there are things about this class that I personally don't like, but its actually fairly reasonable as these things go.
Sovereign has 16 phaser banks and 10 torpedo tubes. Its between 23 and 28 decks tall and contains 900 crew (with a max evac capacity of somewhere around 9000) And the Galaxy was sometimes carrying around 1200 people with families on board.
The design of this ship was sort of an "alternate" path sort of taking the Galaxy to the next level instead of the more warship-esque Sovereign. More of a throwback to the City-in-the-stars - although in the end it doesn't end up being much larger than a D'Deridex Warbird.
And before we accuse fans of being unreasonable, lets not forget the vision that one Doug Drexler, verteran Trek designer, had for the Enterprise J. Its 2 miles long and truly is a mobile civilization. Even though this Excalibur came before the J, it does sort of fit in with the idea that given enough peacetime, Starfleet wouldn't build warships, but ships built to wander the far reaches of the Galaxy and explore.
So don't be too hard on the creator of this ship.
Now... sometimes fans can get carried away.
Captain Jean-Luc Hyperriker.