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It's time to reinstate Starfleet General Order 15

jayfreelancerjayfreelancer Member Posts: 17 Arc User
Starfleet General Order 15: No flag officer shall beam into a hazardous area without armed escort. - Lieutenant Saavik, 2285

(tl;dr in next post below)


Personal Log, First Officer Melanie Harris, U.S.S. Corona

"The Corona has returned to duty following repairs after the recent Undine assault on Earth Space Dock. Our casualties were relatively light, and the damage to the ship far less extensive than that of Space Dock itself. However, even with the wide-scale unrest this incident has caused across the fleet, my own concerns are somewhat closer to home."

"It began some time ago, during the Dominion takeover of Deep Space 9. As per the official reports, Captain Trelfar had led negotiations with Dominion representatives to bring a peaceful end to the occupation, but at the last minute, was forced to make a lone infiltration of the station via spacewalk, guided by Captain Kurland over communicator. What did not make into the official record, however, was the somewhat questionable decision to make this spacewalk in a lightly armoured civilian environment suit, despite the Corona having a full complement of Starfleet-issue suits that could have been beamed over to Captain at a moment's notice, along with a security detail."

"This odd judgement continued with Captain Trelfar's involvement with the Nukara Strikeforce, when he would routinely beam down to the Nukara Prime Base Camp alone, and it was only after numerous close calls there that I was able to convince him to accepting an escort again as a matter of routine. Our subsequent tour of duty assisting the Romulan Republic on New Romulus has progressed without serious incident."

"All of that seems to have changed with the discovery of the Solanae Dyson Sphere. The Iconian Gateway incident caught us all unawares, leaving the Captain trapped without support from the Corona, though he was backed up by a few officers from the Enterprise, along with Klingon and Romulan crew. However, during our mission to the sun station of the Solanae sphere, Captain Trelfar insisted on beaming over to assist Admiral Tuvok alone, despite my advice to the contrary. This decision could have been disastrous had the Voth forces on the station been greater in number."

"However, it is our most recent battle at Earth that has me most concerned. After beating back the Undine invasion fleet, the Captain them beamed over to Earth Space Dock with Admiral Tuvok. The Corona has a crew of 2,500 hands, and Voyager a crew of nearly 200, yet both senior officers deemed that no-one could be spared from either ship to accompany them to the front lines of an active battle. I am convinced it was only my insistence that Captain Trelfar be equipped with a full set of M.A.C.O. gear before beaming to Space Dock that prevented a tragedy."

"When Admiral Quinn relaxed the rules on commanding offers leading away missions at the start of the war, he cannot have had this kind of risk-taking in mind. After everything the Corona has been through since the beginning of the Klingon War, most of the crew would be ready to follow the Captain to ends of the galaxy, but it increasingly seems like he feels he must shoulder the burden alone, and reading reports from other ships seems to show this is a trend across the fleet. I'm deeply worried about the psychological effects the war is having on the captain; this is true of many of the crew, but the effects on command decisions could be catastrophic."

"I fear that without revised regulations from Starfleet Command, we're going to start seeing more captains - our colleagues and friends - dying alone."
Post edited by jayfreelancer on

Comments

  • jayfreelancerjayfreelancer Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    tl;dr:

    Seriously Cryptic, what's with our Captains going it alone recently? With the exception of the Voth Battlezone, it feels like I never do anything with my away team any more.

    I get there are times when the game mechanics would make things difficult (Boldly They Rode and A Step Between Stars are good examples) but when I beamed down to ESD to fight the Undine with only Tuvok to back me up, it just seemed ridiculous. Starfleet's single most important installation, and we can only spare two guys to rescue its CO? I have TWO AND HALF THOUSAND crew on my ship, and we can't even spare a redshirt?

    Let's have more appearances for our away teams in future story episodes, please. I miss them!
  • nagrom7nagrom7 Member Posts: 995 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    We've been at war for years on multiple fronts, do you think redshirts grow on trees?

    You have a good point though.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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  • empokempok Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    I agree, I want to take my away team with me, especially when you know you are about to beam into a combat situation, if we cannot have all 4 then at least let us beam down with 2, but definately with "Surface Tension" we should of had a full away team knowing that we was beaming down to ESD which was infested with Undine!

    With the new tutorials each faction has gained, we develop along side our boffs, so you start to grow attached to them, you equip them with the best items you can get while you are leveling up and they go on every mission with you... then you hit lvl50 and seem to just ditch them, its like: "I'm lvl50 so I don't need you losers anymore!"
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • derrico1derrico1 Member Posts: 281 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    the only way general order 15 could work is if cryptic would finally allow the player to use your first officer or a bridge officer on missions instead of always using your captain on ground maps . using your first officer or boff would be a great way to level up those officers ........
  • peetapipmacpeetapipmac Member Posts: 2,131 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    It would be nice to have a new featured ep that wasn't strictly single player.

    I can understand why they would have to with the ones that feature special ships, but there is no reason the new one couldn't have been multi-player.
    It's not my fault if you feel trolled by my Disco ball... Sorry'boutit.



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  • alaerickalaerick Member Posts: 166 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    What I'd like to know why the Captain is doing a red shirts job.. Last time I checked Captains did captainy things and red shirts did red shirty things..
    A beautiful death awaits you...
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  • feiqafeiqa Member Posts: 2,410 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    alaerick wrote: »
    What I'd like to know why the Captain is doing a red shirts job.. Last time I checked Captains did captainy things and red shirts did red shirty things..

    Hold over from ToS. The main character(s) went into the situations and solved all problems alone. The rest of the crew were there for the body count.

    On the OP's point. I agree, any mission that can't have more than one player. Really should have at least one of your Boffs with you.

    (Though I also argue that in Boldly they Rode you did not have time nor the room for an away team. This was a stealth mission and unless your captain lugged around their own suit. They used whatever the Vorta had handy as they snuck across the hull. A team would have been spotted.)

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  • matridunadan1matridunadan1 Member Posts: 579 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Not just from TOS, it was just as bad in TNG.

    Case in point: When encountering a new planet, apparently the "proper" method of exploration is to beam down the ship's entire senior command crew (without escort) to an unidentified and unexplored location with zero knowledge of threats or hostiles.

    About the only thing they do right is to make sure the planet isn't in danger of blowing up and that their target location isn't in the middle of a volcano or under the sea. The rest is Redshirt Roulette.
  • skk1701jskk1701j Member Posts: 243 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    As far as I remember from TNG and Voy the captain is mostly not part of the away team. The first officere did it with a few senior officers. Only when it was save or mandatory, the captain left the ship.

    There was an TNG Episode, Picard complaining about not being allowed to leave the ship and being on an away team.

    For Surface Tension:
    Diplomatic part on spire and on Qonos the player does ground. Starbase is the job of the first officer (boff)
  • gofasternowgofasternow Member Posts: 1,390 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    "Sphere of Influence" could be chalked up to "no time". You were there to watch what should have been something simple that went completely balls up thanks to those blasted Iconians. "A Step Between Stars" and "Surface Tension"... you got me.
  • cmdrscarletcmdrscarlet Member Posts: 5,137 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Wait ...

    Kirk replied there is no such order ...
  • rifter1969rifter1969 Member Posts: 654 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Wait ...

    Kirk replied there is no such order ...

    I went through the whole thread hoping that someone else would say that... :D

    But, I do agree with the OP, and I would also like to add, nicely written! :D:cool:
  • paxfederaticapaxfederatica Member Posts: 1,496 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    I've always presumed it was due to gameplay and technical concerns.

    If the devs were to add your away team to, say, "Surface Tension" but not make any other changes to it, that would amount to severely nerfing the ESD portion of the mission, because then you'd have six characters (including yourself and Tuvok) fighting the Undine instead of just two (or seven instead of three, for that sequence with the Caitian NPC) - five of which have any manner of special abilities, all except for Tuvok who just shoots at stuff.

    To restore the gameplay balance, they'd need to either drop a lot more Undine from the ceilings for everyone to fight, or make all the existing ones boss-level or close to it, and those "solutions" would come with problems of their own that the devs would also have to mitigate, especially adding more Undine. Too many NPCs in an area at once would severely hurt STO's performance on PCs with less RAM or older video cards.

    TL/DR: "Away team is OP, plz nerf"
  • astro2244astro2244 Member Posts: 623 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    (tl;dr in next post below)


    Personal Log, First Officer Melanie Harris, U.S.S. Corona

    "The Corona has returned to duty following repairs after the recent Undine assault on Earth Space Dock. Our casualties were relatively light, and the damage to the ship far less extensive than that of Space Dock itself. However, even with the wide-scale unrest this incident has caused across the fleet, my own concerns are somewhat closer to home."

    "It began some time ago, during the Dominion takeover of Deep Space 9. As per the official reports, Captain Trelfar had led negotiations with Dominion representatives to bring a peaceful end to the occupation, but at the last minute, was forced to make a lone infiltration of the station via spacewalk, guided by Captain Kurland over communicator. What did not make into the official record, however, was the somewhat questionable decision to make this spacewalk in a lightly armoured civilian environment suit, despite the Corona having a full complement of Starfleet-issue suits that could have been beamed over to Captain at a moment's notice, along with a security detail."

    "This odd judgement continued with Captain Trelfar's involvement with the Nukara Strikeforce, when he would routinely beam down to the Nukara Prime Base Camp alone, and it was only after numerous close calls there that I was able to convince him to accepting an escort again as a matter of routine. Our subsequent tour of duty assisting the Romulan Republic on New Romulus has progressed without serious incident."

    "All of that seems to have changed with the discovery of the Solanae Dyson Sphere. The Iconian Gateway incident caught us all unawares, leaving the Captain trapped without support from the Corona, though he was backed up by a few officers from the Enterprise, along with Klingon and Romulan crew. However, during our mission to the sun station of the Solanae sphere, Captain Trelfar insisted on beaming over to assist Admiral Tuvok alone, despite my advice to the contrary. This decision could have been disastrous had the Voth forces on the station been greater in number."

    "However, it is our most recent battle at Earth that has me most concerned. After beating back the Undine invasion fleet, the Captain them beamed over to Earth Space Dock with Admiral Tuvok. The Corona has a crew of 2,500 hands, and Voyager a crew of nearly 200, yet both senior officers deemed that no-one could be spared from either ship to accompany them to the front lines of an active battle. I am convinced it was only my insistence that Captain Trelfar be equipped with a full set of M.A.C.O. gear before beaming to Space Dock that prevented a tragedy."

    "When Admiral Quinn relaxed the rules on commanding offers leading away missions at the start of the war, he cannot have had this kind of risk-taking in mind. After everything the Corona has been through since the beginning of the Klingon War, most of the crew would be ready to follow the Captain to ends of the galaxy, but it increasingly seems like he feels he must shoulder the burden alone, and reading reports from other ships seems to show this is a trend across the fleet. I'm deeply worried about the psychological effects the war is having on the captain; this is true of many of the crew, but the effects on command decisions could be catastrophic."

    "I fear that without revised regulations from Starfleet Command, we're going to start seeing more captains - our colleagues and friends - dying alone."




    That or general order 24 for planets infested by borg and species 8472. :D
    [SIGPIC]583px-Romulan_Star_Empire_logo%2C_2379.svg.png
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  • dareaudareau Member Posts: 2,390 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Wait ...

    Kirk replied there is no such order ...

    And suddenly realized that that was Saavik's "vulcan" way of saying "Can I tag?", at which point Kirk, realizing that the only way to let the command track trainee learn about away missions is to send her on them (with appropriate redshirt escort of zero), he accepted her on the team...
    Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...

    To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
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  • jeffel82jeffel82 Member Posts: 2,075 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    General Order 15: The Anti-Drama, Anti-Fun Clause.

    No thanks. :)
    You're right. The work here is very important.
    tacofangs wrote: »
    ...talking to players is like being a mall Santa. Everyone immediately wants to tell you all of the things they want, and you are absolutely powerless to deliver 99% of them.
  • ikonn#1068 ikonn Member Posts: 1,450 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    rob2485 wrote: »
    I totally agree. A the 2 that beam down in the voth battlezone in my case spend more time dead than they do shooting. I am tired of respawning my bridge officers however, there are times when I wish I had them.

    That FE with Tuvok to back us up is pretty lame. It should have been a full on assault team to beat on the Undine. I think the reason it was only Tuvok is due to using him in the episode. I am thinking contractual obligations.

    This poster brings up a good point. Add to that the fact that the boffs we take will constantly get hung up in doorways (especially coming and going from the Command Center) or run into walls in the battlezone. And you would think that a Starfleet Officer, KDF Academy Graduate, or a Romulan Academy Graduate would know to walk up or down the ramps in the battlezone.

    I have had quite a bit of fun with the Voth battlezone, and I am normally a person who much prefers space combat over ground.

    The OP also makes a valid point.... we simply need more redshirts. As important as the FE is, I would really like to have seen the ESD interior portion of the mission as a separate battlezone along the same lines as the Voth battlezone. Who knows? maybe in the future, the devs will make something like that for us. That part of the FE, IMO, was the most fun for me.

    The entire FE was great, and I have to give credit where credit is due on this one. I thoroughly enjoyed the FE, but the ESD interior was, IMO, the best part. The environment you beam into was beautifully done. I really would like to see more missions like this in the future, but hopefully with the use of eaither all our BOffs or as part of an open-map battlezone.

    Realistically, in a combat situation, the commanding officer of a starship wouldn't go it alone when the stakes are that high, and I think the defense of Spacedock and rescue of Admiral Quinn should have allowed for the use of more resources than a starship skipper and RAdm Tuvok.
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  • deaftravis05deaftravis05 Member Posts: 4,885 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    I have redshirts, I beam them down every 2 minutes
  • zeuxidemus001zeuxidemus001 Member Posts: 3,357 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    derrico1 wrote: »
    the only way general order 15 could work is if cryptic would finally allow the player to use your first officer or a bridge officer on missions instead of always using your captain on ground maps . using your first officer or boff would be a great way to level up those officers ........

    Would be cool if you could turn other characters into boffs/officers on your mains ships and do like that to get things done faster :)
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