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Making starship bridges useful (and used)
janusforbeare
Member Posts: 1 Arc User
I've seen a lot of debate about starship bridges, ranging from the possibility of introducing a Foundry-esque element to bridge design (which sounds great), to discussions about whether they're even a priority for Cryptic (supposedly the bridge packs are not big sellers in the C-store). It seems fairly self-evident that part of the reason players don't want to invest in new bridges is simply because they aren't often visited by anyone but the owning players themselves. I've been thinking about this problem, and I'd like to humbly submit a few suggestions for ways to make starship bridges more practical, particularly for fleets (and even PUGs).
1. Sector/system travel while on the bridge. By allowing players - whether solo or grouped - to travel between systems while in ground mode, we would be given a travel experience similar to what we're familiar with from the various television series. Rather than watching our ships fly themselves between systems (which is boring, and a little bit silly, when your ship tries to navigate around other players), we could socialize with other captains, hold mission briefings, show off our BOFFs and trophies, etc. Obviously, the ships wouldn't be literally moving through sector space, so a countdown system would be needed.
2. Shipboard holodecks that could be used to practice combat against specific types of opponents. This would allow captains in transit to prepare less experienced group members for the tactics needed in their upcoming mission.
3. Mini ground missions on board one's own ship, to help pass the time in transit. A few examples include combat drills, system repairs, containing tribble infestations, and dealing with the personal concerns of one's BOFFs. As there are similarities here with DOFF assignments, perhaps a similar reward structure could be instituted.
These are just a few suggestions, which may (or may not) have been made before. However, I think giving players a reason and opportunity to visit their bridges, or those of their teammates, would not only take advantage of an underused resource and add an interesting new dimension to gameplay, but would also boost the sales figures of the bridge packs.
Thoughts? Ideas? Feedback?
1. Sector/system travel while on the bridge. By allowing players - whether solo or grouped - to travel between systems while in ground mode, we would be given a travel experience similar to what we're familiar with from the various television series. Rather than watching our ships fly themselves between systems (which is boring, and a little bit silly, when your ship tries to navigate around other players), we could socialize with other captains, hold mission briefings, show off our BOFFs and trophies, etc. Obviously, the ships wouldn't be literally moving through sector space, so a countdown system would be needed.
2. Shipboard holodecks that could be used to practice combat against specific types of opponents. This would allow captains in transit to prepare less experienced group members for the tactics needed in their upcoming mission.
3. Mini ground missions on board one's own ship, to help pass the time in transit. A few examples include combat drills, system repairs, containing tribble infestations, and dealing with the personal concerns of one's BOFFs. As there are similarities here with DOFF assignments, perhaps a similar reward structure could be instituted.
These are just a few suggestions, which may (or may not) have been made before. However, I think giving players a reason and opportunity to visit their bridges, or those of their teammates, would not only take advantage of an underused resource and add an interesting new dimension to gameplay, but would also boost the sales figures of the bridge packs.
Thoughts? Ideas? Feedback?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by janusforbeare on
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Comments
Would love to get a green tint to get rid of the atrocious, retina-burning red interior. But since you never go there anyway except once a week tops with an alien artifact... why should I pay Zen for that? Silly.
You can't sell people cosmetic things that they never see. That's the punchline to a non-functioning joke "There once was this guy, and he fell down, but you can't see him". Everyone gets that's not a funny joke.
Charging Zen for bridges nobody sees is pretty much telling that joke and demanding payment. So of course very few people buy the bridge packs. Unless you're a hardcore roleplay nut, you're not getting anything for what you pay. You're just lighting Zen on fire.
"We are smart." - Grebnedlog
Member of Alliance Central Command/boq botlhra'ghom
My biggest issue with the bridge/ship environments is that they're really ugly; I know they need to build in enough space for the camera to move around but everything is far too over-sized. I'd much rather have more realistically scaled interiors with more detail, and someone absolutely needs to fix the wandering crew; I'm using the small interior (which is far too big anyway) and yet I have this huge stream of personnel wandering in long lines, usually over consoles and anything else in their way. I'd rather see more crew members just doing stuff; engineers performing maintenance, people chilling out in the mess hall. It would be great if the crew more accurately reflected my duty officers as well, using them to determine appearance, and maybe even have my duty officers showing up in different places depending upon my current assignments; e.g - if one is wounded they'd appear in sick bay, if I assign one to run scans then they might appear at a spare terminal on the bridge or in the science lab and so-on.
It would be great to have the ship interiors feel more alive. If a ship has damage it could even be reflected visually until you have it repaired, and would be a great building block towards ship boarding actions that actually use the interior of your ship.
So yeah, I'd love to see much more detailed, properly scaled interiors, with more visitable areas; I'd love to see the armoury, if my ship has torpedo launchers I'd love to see them. Hell, I'd like to be able to crawl around in Jefferies Tubes; all stuff that would later be an absolute delight to play around with for Foundry maps when building missions. Would also open up the possibility of team ship boarding where the ship you have to attack/defend is actually one of the ships chosen from your team.
Game Balance - Ship Size and Wingmates
the ship tailor needs to be completely redesigned,
add tons of options to customizing the bridge in the ship tailor
have each ship with a fix specific bridge,
(kinda weird to allow a cruiser or a smaller ship to have a carrier or battleship size bridge.)
have a fed/kdf reputation system to add certain and unique
unlocks in the ship tailor
(example: dabo table rep project - which adds dabo table in the mass hall and adds a trade department for trade doff assignments)..
have an option to allow fleet members, friends, team mates, to be allowed
to transport on my bridge if docked in the same place at the fleet starbase or outpost.
just my thoughts on this...
Even if you put free zen on the bridge I wont visit it with the current laoding times.
For those unfamiliar with flight sim mode, what I meant by that is we sit in captain chair and look through the screen on the bridge with additional radar on HUD (similar to current setting) and simply fly the ship. It's exactly as we see Captain Picard of TNG on TV show. It has its own unique experience in comparison to current arcade mode.
The implementation in current STO should not be too complicated. A trial for flight sim mode can be done in Enemy Contact at sector space. Players can have the option of flying their ship in flight sim mode or in arcade mode. A new space STF scenario can be added which must be flown in flight sim mode, while current space STF would get the optional of flight sim mode.
I feel this flight sim mode is the main reason for people to care about their ship briidge design. I also support the idea of having a more live bridge and onboard the ship. I would love to see all acive BoFF as well as candidate BoFF in my ships. I have many good looking/unique BoFF candidates, but they cannot be seen anywhere on my ship for they are not stationed on the bridge. It's a total waste of my unique BoFFs.
Why would STO bother with this? Well, simply enough, if such things are available on STO, this would bring STO much closer to the actual life of Star Trek. I believe STO dev has all tools and technology in hand, and it's only a matter of resources and time to make such things available. Keep upgrading and we, STO fans, are behind you, Dev.:D
Mr. Spock: And the ways our differences combine, to create meaning and beauty.
-Star Trek: Is There in Truth No Beauty? (1968)
"Detecting a large energy build-up ... sir, it's near the Reman ship!"
"Captain [close up]: On screen"
"Romulans! The battleship is powering disruptors, Captain. Should we go to red ..."
[Captain nods]
"First Officer [close up doing ready emote]: Red Alert"
Doff Operations Officer [pan to the side]: The scout ship's weapons and engines are damaged, sir. It can't take much more! The Remans are cloaking sir. Attempting to re-establish sensor lock.
[Zoom out of bridge]
Captain, the Reman ship has cloaked, but its engines are damaged and sensors are detecting a tachyon leak. They can't stay hidden for long.
We should attack the Tal Shiar ships, sir! When we destroy them, the Remans will be able to escape. They will lead us right to their base!