Tholian Bridge

starkaos · July 2012

Can we be able to walk on the other walls of this bridge since every wall is either a work area or door? Also, the Bridge Officers should be working on the other walls of this bridge instead of just having 2 on the "floor".

Or can Tholians walk on walls since they are crystalline spiders and we don't have the proper gravity generator technology to make full use of this bridge?

tacofangs · July 2012

In Game Answer: Tholians can walk on their own walls, you don't have the foot grip to do so.

Real Life Answer: We don't have the tech to allow you to walk on other surfaces, or change gravity in that way. Kahless knows I want that power, but it's not in the cards for now. It is feasible we could position your BrOs on other floors by making custom animations for them, that turns them upside down and positions them there, but we didn't have near the time to do that, and even if we had, it would have just made it that much more frustrating that you the player couldn't get up there.

Sorry

Unknown · July 2012

This content has been removed.

mastergenera1 · July 2012

I also have a question relating to the tholian bridge,will usable interiors be made of anything other than the bridge?it would be cool to go exploring the ship in an EV suit(thats if the enviro settings are as i think they are)

pyrophile · July 2012

fulleatherjacket wrote: »

Technically that shouldn't be a problem for non Tholians in-universe anyway. Gravity generators would be inside the walls just like they're under the floor, so any wall can be the floor.

Heck, if they can stick to walls, they really don't need gravity at all.

starkaos · July 2012

tacofangs wrote: »

In Game Answer: Tholians can walk on their own walls, you don't have the foot grip to do so.

Real Life Answer: We don't have the tech to allow you to walk on other surfaces, or change gravity in that way. Kahless knows I want that power, but it's not in the cards for now. It is feasible we could position your BrOs on other floors by making custom animations for them, that turns them upside down and positions them there, but we didn't have near the time to do that, and even if we had, it would have just made it that much more frustrating that you the player couldn't get up there.

Sorry

Thanks for the answer. I thought this might be the case. Would be real cool and could make for a fun mission and PvP map.

Unknown · July 2012

This content has been removed.

zerobang · July 2012

tacofangs wrote: »

In Game Answer: Tholians can walk on their own walls, you don't have the foot grip to do so.

Real Life Answer: We don't have the tech to allow you to walk on other surfaces, or change gravity in that way. Kahless knows I want that power, but it's not in the cards for now. It is feasible we could position your BrOs on other floors by making custom animations for them, that turns them upside down and positions them there, but we didn't have near the time to do that, and even if we had, it would have just made it that much more frustrating that you the player couldn't get up there.

Sorry

So how about a Atrox Bridge now?
You guys kinda *forgot about* (don't want to say *screwed us on*) that one.

diogene0 · July 2012

There is something even more frustrating, we can guess 'hidden' corridors on the minimap, and when you get close to the doors, the the color of the lights changes. This is weird, it looks like we should have had more interior space but that it remained unfinished.

tacofangs · July 2012

My take was that the Tholians had some magic way of walking on the walls despite gravity. Much like spiders and other insects do on earth. If they had gravity generators in each floor/wall/ceiling, then you (the player) should be able to walk on those surfaces as well. Since you can't, that's clearly not the way it works.

diogene0 wrote: »

There is something even more frustrating, we can guess 'hidden' corridors on the minimap, and when you get close to the doors, the the color of the lights changes. This is weird, it looks like we should have had more interior space but that it remained unfinished.

huh?
There are short segments of corridor back there because the doors contain semi-transparent orange crystal panels. If I had not put something back there, you would be seeing out into space.

I assure you, there is nothing interesting back there, and the corridors end after a short distance.

I don't know what you mean about the light changing?

starkaos · July 2012

tacofangs wrote: »

My take was that the Tholians had some magic way of walking on the walls despite gravity. Much like spiders and other insects do on earth. If they had gravity generators in each floor/wall/ceiling, then you (the player) should be able to walk on those surfaces as well. Since you can't, that's clearly not the way it works.

So if we get Tholian Boffs, can we have them walk on the walls? It is their ship design after all so it doesn't make sense that they are limited in the same way that players are.

diogene0 · July 2012

tacofangs wrote: »

I don't know what you mean about the light changing?

There are some lights on the doors, and their color changes when the player gets close to them.

leviathan99 · July 2012

tacofangs wrote: »

In Game Answer: Tholians can walk on their own walls, you don't have the foot grip to do so.

Real Life Answer: We don't have the tech to allow you to walk on other surfaces, or change gravity in that way. Kahless knows I want that power, but it's not in the cards for now. It is feasible we could position your BrOs on other floors by making custom animations for them, that turns them upside down and positions them there, but we didn't have near the time to do that, and even if we had, it would have just made it that much more frustrating that you the player couldn't get up there.

Sorry

I'd imagine you could rotate a room around a player but that would affect everyone in the room.

I'd also imagine you could make the room a PhysX object so that the rotation is clientside but then it would look silly to other players. Actually... Hrm. I think each player might see all other players fall through the floor then?

Odd as it sounds, I can see some interesting tech applications of that idea. Depending on how that works.

magusofborg · July 2012

diogene0 wrote: »

There are some lights on the doors, and their color changes when the player gets close to them.

Went and tested this, and indeed, the yellow lights above and below the doors turn blue when you approach them.
I can see what look like corridors through the textured glass around the doors, future expansion?

vixification · July 2012

mastergenera1 wrote: »

I also have a question relating to the tholian bridge,will usable interiors be made of anything other than the bridge?it would be cool to go exploring the ship in an EV suit(thats if the enviro settings are as i think they are)

So what you're saying is that 2500(Minus bridge crew) Crewmen and -women are on the ship working, NONE STOP, in EV suits?

I'm pretty sure it must be Roleplay style Retrofitted to make humanoids breathe and thrive in it, otherwise I doubt it'd be suitable for combat if everyone had to wear big bulky EV suits all the time.

Luls aside: I do agree, I spent A LONG TIME after I finally got my Sci officer to level 50 and ran around the bridge, trying to figure out how to either 1) Open the doors on the side and 2) Find out what those popup consoles at the walls did 3) How to get up to the other consoles! I expected an 800 Lobi crystal or 125 Zen a key with an already low chance to be obtained, ship to have MORE than just a bridge with fancy 1980s pop up car headlight consoles <_< Seriously.

vixification · July 2012

starkaos wrote: »

So if we get Tholian Boffs, can we have them walk on the walls? It is their ship design after all so it doesn't make sense that they are limited in the same way that players are.

Unless its spare bridge consoles incase the first bridge gets destroyed or rendered inoperable? Just press a button and it turns like a ball rolling and gravity turns off and bam, brand new functioning bridge!!!!....Could be...

tacofangs · July 2012

magusofborg wrote: »

Went and tested this, and indeed, the yellow lights above and below the doors turn blue when you approach them.
I can see what look like corridors through the textured glass around the doors, future expansion?

Yes, I know what you're talking about now. I explained the hallways above (in short, without them, you'd see into space through that crystal texture).

The lights were supposed to accompany a negatory sound to indicate the doors were locked. I wanted some acknowledgement that you were trying to open the door, despite the fact that you cannot. So I put in the lights. Red/Green is pretty standard. Since this bridge was designed to feel more alien, I went with Tholian Yellow/Blue.

ETA: The consoles on the "walls" are intentionally all the same as those you have direct access to. My intent was that the tholians may have multiple input locations within the room, and each might be configurable for different purposes, but they are essentially all the same. This is also true with the smaller consoles located around the edges of each floor. Those were also designed to be interacted with from either floor.

magusofborg · July 2012

Thanks for the clarification Tacofangs.

admiralkevin · July 2012

although I don't have a bridge i saw a video and saw the cool light changes, very nice job on the peep(s) who worked on it

edit: makes me want it even more lol

zalandex · July 2012

A fleetmate showed us the bridge a few nights ago. I really like the design, the lighting and the animated interactable Consoles.

Beautiful work tacofangs.

starkaos · July 2012

Yeah. It is an amazing bridge that took a few visits to realize all of its secrets. Thought it was a dark and huge bridge on my first visit and someone showed it to me. Took quite a few visits before I realized that those were consoles on the walls and the whole concept of up and ceilings doesn't apply to this bridge.

captsuns · August 2012

The bridge makes me want a Recluse Carrier or Orb Weaver even more.

maxvitor · September 2012

Tholian physiology enables them to walk on the walls and ceilings of their environment, for them artificial gravity might be a hindrance, they might neither require it nor want it on the bridge, their crystalline exoskeletal nature might negate the problems of muscle atrophy and bone density loss that afflicts humanoids in zero gravity. In any case no creature lives on the bridge and the effects of a duty period working in zero gravity would be negated when returning to a gravity environment when off duty. There is the possibility that the Tholians arachnoid nature resulted in a different design philosophy with their ships, with humanoids the highest level of their ships is at the top dorsal area with every deck below considered down, with Tholians the ships may have a central zero gravity hub with all lower decks that have gravity radiating outwards in all directs from this central location in a web like configuration.
This is all in game pseudoscience but could be used to explain the peculiarities of the Tholian designs.

tacofangs · September 2012

^ Uh . . . ya, what he said. . . ^

maxvitor · September 2012

LOL ya I guess I nerded out there didn't I?

Tholian Bridge

Comments