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Just For Fun - How would you implement the Romulan Faction?
felixhex
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I ask this because I have read a few threads and many posts were Romulan fans and non fans both dislike the way Romulans are going to be implemented in May. I for one don't really care. Whatever they have thought of I will make work for me. But I do tend to agree with those who say the Romulans should not be flying Fed or KDF ships period. I see maybe the Roms would get aid from the Federation. Maybe the KDF too. That's a maybe with the KDF. And maybe the Roms would even try to find work within the many fleets out there. But no way should they gain access to captain a fleet vessel from the Federation or KDF. I ask myself this question to help with immersion and RP stuff. Is it possible to see this play out on a Star Trek tv show? If the answer for me is no, then I discard whatever it is. If the answer is, then for me it becomes canon or at least STO canon and that works for me. The idea of Roms flying FED or KDF ships is crazy, unless they have joined either faction in which case defeats the idea of a whole new faction. So I have rambled too long. My original question, how about it? How would you implement the Romulan faction? Story wise and other stuff.
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I have no problem with the Roms being split into 3 sub-groups and the players coming from the Republic sub-group. The Tal Roms are just mean and evil. Trek's not about playing evil. The KDF aren't evil just because they're the red side.
Damn Straight-
Of course, there were no fleet starbases back them, so that hadn't factored into my reasoning, and I certainly didn't see picking a side coming; but I don't really have a problem with either of those things. If the RR had the resources to be building starbases all over the place, then they wouldn't need Federation and Klingon Empire support; and since the RR is already working with both Starfleet and the KDF, I guess being able to go either way makes sense.
It never crossed my mind that the main body of the RSE would ever be a playable faction, since they are too strongly tied to STO's main plot; and the RR offers a chance to do something new and interesting with the Romulans as a faction anyway, so I have no problems with us being part of a dissident group.
I probably wouldn't have given access to other factions ships, but then, since we will be working with those factions anyway, there's nothing to stop me imagining that any such ships I run into are just allied forces; rather than Romulans in other people's ships. I really don't get why other folks are so certain that it'll ruin their immersion.
Still, I guess if I were doing it, I'd have made it a separate faction from either the RSE or the New Romulus folk. D'Tan and Obisek can't be the only leaders who are tired of the abuses of the old order. That way, it could have left more room for playing a 'traditional' Romulan, while still giving us a chance to play the rebel. It would also have meant that New Romulus would have remained a neutral party, and could have served exactly the same function for the Romulan faction as it does for the other two. I'd still have made it an allied faction; but I might have waited until I could release 2 at once, then have each one ally with a single main faction.
Oh, and since this hypothetical fourth Romulan faction would not necessarily have been as hard up as New Romulus, I'd have given Romulan fleets starbases.
No access to allied ships (or lock box ships for that matter)
A broken down starbase on the edge of Tholian space (Ds9 in episode 1 styling)
Option to NOT ally with the other two factions
No membership of Omega force (seperate STF's involving Romulan goals)
I also would have fired the guy who thought that Romulans getting access to ally ships and allies not having the same access to Romulan ships, was a good idea....
- Starter ship should be the current NPC Romulan Frigate; TOS version should be in the C-store
- Both Romulan and Reman ships are available (not just different skin)
- specific Romulan-only Foundry missions
Most of those are just nitpicks, really. I'm fairly optimistic about Cryptic's version so far.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
I don't know what the plans are for future factions or how this gamemode might work, but that was my guess as to how they'll be implemented up until the reveal. So, maybe it's for the best, I don't know. Like, for example, it could be based around fleets/alliances of fleets.
Having it implemented like this doesn't exactly exude confidence that the playerbase will grow significantly, but rather a precaution not to segregate the population even more.
At 45 you align yourself with a faction. You can't use their ships but can use anything else. Likewise they can't use your ships but your presence grants them certain gear they can acquire.
Specific DOff packs granted when you do teh recruit missions from the academies, but that's it - all special doff packs give you DOffs of your allied faction.
Each ship would have two variant - one Romulan look, one Reman look. Each ship would have two hull options barring a Fleet and Vet hull; Romulan and Reman.
You would have three ship types at endgame barring C-Store offerings; Cruiser (D'd), Escort (Mogai), and Science (original design). For the first five levels you fly a Romulan BoP (ENT skin), and could purchase the classic skin if you wanted.
C-Store offerings would include a "flagship" cruiser warbird with three different leaning variants, whose consoles have a sci-slanted set bonus.
You would have no unique fleet bases or holdings, but get certain exclusive bonuses from the Embassy and a few unique missions on New Romulus. Feds and KDF would get a few new missions there, too, but locked out to you.
In other words if it had been up to me to pick the best way to implement Romulans in a cost-effective manner, y'all'd hate me so much right now.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
I'd have had the Romulans start off in Tarren Mill probably. Or somewhere deep in the Feerot Jungle.
Lol, though so sad it is almost true...
And shame on Cryptic for distorting when people say this is what they want into 'They want to play as the Tal Shiar'. They did it again on Priority One just recently. There's a difference between the Tal Shiar and the RSE, even if Cryptic is trying to pretend there isn't.
For example, you stealing the secrets of Slipstream technology from the Federation and that's how you unlocked the ability.
(EDIT: After thinking about it more, D'Tan and his cronies can jump off a bridge on Mol'Rihan. I would have a Romulan faction with just Imperial Romulans. Most of my proposed ideas would remain the same, with some alterations.)
1. Romulans would stand as their own faction, playing as a member of the New Romulan Empire. There will be no alliances with other factions, no sharing of opposing faction's resources. You fall under the command of Empress Sela and work with the Tal'Shiar.
2. Romulans would be adversarial towards Federation and KDF, but will side with them against common enemies, just as it is between the Fed and KDF. When it comes to the Iconians, however, it's a whole different ballgame.
3. Romulans would get their own Starbases, with an appearance embracing foreign technologies (Borg, Iconian, etc.). Fleet project costs across all factions would also be adjusted to help smaller fleets get on their feet. Instead of an embassy, Romulans would probably work on building a hidden base on New Romulus from which to launch sabotage operations from against D'Tan and Obisek. They will offer similar rewards as embassies do, in a Tal'Shiar flavor.
4. PvP would have to be reinvented from the ground up. The way I see it would be to split it between Meta-PvP and Faction-PvP.
- Meta-PvP would take place outside of the game's canon, existing as it's own separate feature. (wargames or holodeck simulations if you will, or holomatch if you've played Elite Force). This would contain your standard free-for-all, team, or objective-based matches, where the game will pit players of all factions against each other as teams would be comprised of players from any faction.
- Faction-PvP would involve gameplay vs other factions in large-scale objective-based battles, territory and resource control, and starbase assaults. Fed vs KDF, Fed vs Romulan, KDF vs Romulan.
5. Some PvE endgame content with faction teaming would have to be rehauled to allow any current and future factions to play with one another...and make sense. For everything faction specific, Romulans will of course get their own version of these missions.
- Vault Shuttle Event would be redesigned, being different for each faction. Fed and KDF would have to fight the opposing faction from taking the Vault. Romulans would get their own version of the mission where they must defend the Vault against Fed/KDF/future faction invaders.
On the other hand, I also see the Vault as being a resource to fight over in Faction-PvP. Story will have to advance to explain why Obisek and his Remans were "forced out." Oh the possibilities... :rolleyes:
6. The Lockbox conundrum. Since Romulans would not share lockboxes with Fed and KDF, I'm not sure how this would work out. Lockboxes would have to be rehauled from the ground up to support any number of different factions. One idea would be to introduce special "vouchers" in place of actual prizes. Depending on your faction, your character would take these vouchers to a Lobi Consortium vendor and claim your faction's version of various prizes (Romulan Timeships, Uniforms, mirror universe ships, etc.). This way, lockboxes themselves wouldn't have to be constantly updated to support new factions. A new voucher vendor and voucher items could just be added instead. Vouchers can also provide much more freedom to players in terms of what prizes they want, possibly making lockboxes more enticing.
(Ex. Special ship vouchers would all be the same across all lockboxes. A player could open a Cardassian lokbox, receive a special ship voucher, and then use it to get the Galor, or a D'kora, or an Orb Weaver, etc.)
I have no idea how those cross faction consoles would work out. :P
7. Reputation. For Romulans, Omega Force will be replaced with Tal'Shiar reputation, offering similar rewards. In addition to Omega Force gear "stolen" from the Fed/KDF, Romulans will get their own equivalent of Maco/Honor Guard sets. In Borg STF's, Romulans will play with Fed/KDF/future factions, but will get Tal'Shiar marks instead of Omega marks.
- For Romulans and future factions, "adapted" sets would have to be reworked and simplified.
- Romulans will get an entirely different New Romulus reputation system involving sabotage attempts on New Romulus, along with entirely different missions at each tier. On New Romulus, Imperials will be "disguised" as one of D'Tan's citizens. While they accept missions from the same NPCs, they will be sabotaging objectives rather than helping.
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And that's all I have thought out so far.
Thoughts?
Make 1 fed faction. Have a kdf and romulan "sub faction".
Give players of sub factions a starfleet rep.
When you get to certain levels of the rep give them access to teaming and missions and fleets and earth space dock and starfleet academy.
Rinse repeat for all factions.
D'tan pulls back from his alliances and enters a ceasefire/detente with the Tal Shiar. The Klingons become openly hostile and the feds become more neutral as they rein in section 31 and decide how to proceed forward.
Eventually D'tan creates a new senate under pressure and the new romulans are a hodge podge of conflicting views, save one, to rebuild the republic in a way that preserves freedom of the romulan people but paves the way for uniting the empire, through diplomacy if possible, force if not. Only united can they stand and the "empire"/Tal Shiar will not sit idly by.
The new romulans then find themselves battling the Tal Shiar from within and the Klingons from without. A tal shiar plot threatens the federation and section 31 is redeemed as they discover the plot originated on new romulus and may possibly involve some of the new senators. Open hostilitiy ensues with the feds though no declaration of war exists.
Of course this means the romulans are an independent faction, but have limited resources, The in game romulans will grow as things are added by the dev team, star bases and such.
..................................................................
but as they decided to keep it divided, i would suppose them to add a REDESIGN project to the Embassy/SB to make it look Romulan.
and we will need special Romulan foundry
As I see it, the collapse of the Romulan Star Empire is inevitable, from the moment ch'Rihan is destroyed. The Empire's too centralized to survive the loss of its capital, especially when a half-breed like Sela has assumed the title of "Empress". (Don't look at me like that - I'm projecting Romulan thought processes from available evidence, and it doesn't look like they'd be happy about being led by someone who's only half-Romulan.) So, as my ideal story opens, you're a young erein (lieutenant, roughly), commanding a minor ship on the fringes of what's left of the Empire, when you get word of the disappearance of Sela. Your first mission would then be to find and execute the Tal Shiar political officer on board your ship. You then can try to build a new Empire, using the resources available to you, taking you on the 1-10 course, or perhaps as high as 20. At that point, you're butting up against every other would-be Emperor in your sector - and some of them have allied against you. Just as your situation begins looking its bleakest, an envoy from D'Tan comes, offering you assistance, on the condition that you bring your ship to Mol'Rihan and agree to cooperate with his allies in Starfleet and the KDF. Agree, and you'll have access to all the lovely new tech and ship types his alliances offer; refuse, and you're on your own against your new enemies.
(That's called "Hobson's choice" - a "choice" that really isn't one.)
Wanting to survive, you take the envoy up on his offer; he gives you coordinates for Mol'Rihan, and when you get there representatives from Starfleet and KDF are there to recruit you to assist them. (Any missions against other Romulans at this point can be excused as being battles against fools misguided enough to follow the Tal Shiar's lead, and too stubborn to see the error of their ways and join you. You know, kind of like those missions currently in the Klingon storyline where you have to spend your time shooting at Klingon ships from the House of Torg.)
This implements a Romulan "faction" that fits into the storyline as established, giving Romulan players a unique starting point, while requiring only cosmetic changes to later missions (mostly having to do with dialog).
Allow the player to choose thier side (bad or good) at creation and viola.
Those that want to be the bad romulans can be and those that do not are not forced to do so.
R.I.P
And if you don't feel like doing that you could always join D'tans space hippie group.
1. As a separate faction, with their own fleets and starbases.
2. Each individual player gets to choose which side to ally him/herself with, Federation or Klingons, which gives access to that faction's quests/content, but not their ships.
3. For PvP, the Romulan players get pooled together and make their own team, and can end up either facing the Feds or Klingons. When not enough players are queuing for PvP, Romulan players can be grouped with either Feds or Klingons. (Depending on which side they are allied with.)
Aid in leading the Romulan Star Empire back to its former greatness.
Join the Romulan Praetorian Guard and teach those epohh loving hippies what it means to be a true Romulan!