"Classic" Star Trek is getting older and older, which may go without saying. Cryptic must take the franchise into the future. These designs are just fine for what they are meant to be. I'm not a fan of them either, but I don't have to be to enjoy the game.
As for fan art, if Cryptic touched them then some form of compensation would be necessary, if not through the court system. I'd bet that's why Cryptic uses it's own artists to come up with something. You know, in-house.
IMO - "Classic Trek" is what brought many people into STO. Cryptic would do well to remember that as even the 26th century Enterprise 1701-J has traceable Federation Starship design elements. If some of the (in game lore) recent Federation designed ships like the Odyssey Class, Regent Class, Avenger Class, the most recent Tactical Escort whose Class name escapes me atm -- had options to become FULL T6 ships (and not just T5U ships); I probably wouldn't care; but if I'm flying a Federation Starfleet ship, I want it to LOOK like one from a design perspective - and none of the four Fed T6 ships do (IMO). YMMV.
If 'Classic Trek' is too old for Cryptic ship designers, maybe they should be shifted to a different game. There are other space science fiction based MMOs available (and coming) in the near future. If I want a generic/original IP space based MMO, I'll play one of those. When playing something with the 'Star Trek' brand attached to it, the Federation ships should LOOK like Star Trek ships as they pretty much have in Star Trek lore across some 250 years of (in universe) Starfleet design. Again, the T6 Klingon and Romulan ships STILL LOOK like Klingon and Romulan ships. The only ones that really go 'off the reservation' as it were are the Starfleet T6 ships. <-- That's my problem with them. YMMV.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
To me so far - NONE of the T6 Federation faction ships done by Cryptic look like they have ANY design lineage back to previous Fed Starfleet designs AT ALL. The KDF and Romulan T6 ships at least LOOK like Klingon and Romulan ships respectively. I hate to say this but it appears Jamjamz truly hates actual Federation Starfleet ship design aesthetics. I'm amazed CBS approved the T6 Fed designs myself.
the Escort though looks like a Defiant and a Jhas had a kid...
I think the issue is the Hull they used. If they were shown painted in more classic colors I think the dislike for the new designs would be less. The hull coloring does give it a Tron like feeling. But with more classic hulls they really are not that off if you took current in game ships and try to advance them.
I don't think CBS really cares about STO mate. I think they're only concered with the agreed cash flowing in their bank account and issues that concern their iconic intelectual property, like the Constitution Class for example. Other than those cases, I don't think they're much intereseted or concerned with what's going on in STO.
Anyway, even the title of this thread is wrong. Calling these abominations "Federation" is already an insult to the franchise.
If that were indeed the case (they were only concerned with cash flowing in, we'd have a T5 (or T6) original STAR TREK (TOS) 1701 Constitution Class in the game. -- That said, they can 'spin' their design justifications all they like, but the T6 Fed ships don't look like Starfleet ships at all (IMO); and that just sad for a game based on the Star Trek franchise.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
...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.
That's the only one that looks trek at all, let alone fed. In actual fact, it looks a lot like the old Probert concept for the Ambassador class.
The Sci looks pretty Starfeet to me...
the Escort though looks like a Defiant and a Jhas had a kid...
I think the issue is the Hull they used. If they were shown painted in more classic colors I think the dislike for the new designs would be less. The hull coloring does give it a Tron like feeling. But with more classic hulls they really are not that off if you took current in game ships and try to advance them.
I think these could all look trekish (notice the "ish" at the end) with a lot of modifications and a reskin, but as they stand they don't even look trek, let alone fed.
I posted this on Reddit and figured it was apt here.
Just a little nugget of information to chew on, we design ships for everyone, not for 1 specific group of people.
I love the shapes and lines of canon Star Trek ships, but there are plenty, some might say tons, of players that enjoy designs that stray from the standard Star Trek path.
With that said, I feel we can do a better job at getting the traditional Star Trek feeling into ships and I actively advocate for it.
No matter what ship we make or how it looks, it won't be good enough for some people. At the end of the day you can only do so much with two nacelles a saucer and a hull in a specific configuration.
If every ship we ever made was a slight variant of a canon ship, the game would have no ship diversity, which might be fine for the vocal minority group of players that want STO to be pure canon, but would not maintain the silent majority of players that enjoy diversity.
Again, we want to respect canon and canon-style as much as possible, but diversity is also important.
Nick "Crypticquack" Quackenbush
33.33% of the STO Ship Art team.
100% of the new guys on the STO Ship Art team.
If that were indeed the case (they were only concerned with cash flowing in, we'd have a T5 (or T6) original STAR TREK (TOS) 1701 Constitution Class in the game. -- That said, they can 'spin' their design justifications all they like, but the T6 Fed ships don't look like Starfleet ships at all (IMO); and that just sad for a game based on the Star Trek franchise.
That's why i specifically mentioned "cash flow and iconic intellectual property ala Constitution Class". Although I do sometimes wonder how much that really falls on CBS's shoulders and how much of it is actually Cryptic using smoke and mirrors because they're not willing to make it happen. They seem petrified by the possibility of a really good and usefull hero ship, because they seem to think it will hurt all other sales. At least I get that feeling, especially after the 'Galaxy Revamp' fiasco and not having any of the iconic ST ships upgradeable to T6. Plus, we never got an official statement from CBS on this and Cryptic's word means less and less with each passing day.
Anyway, that's a whole other topic. heh The sad fact here is that you're completely right on your assesment of these "Federation" ships.
Take a Star Trek fan that doesn't play STO, show him/her those and ask them what it is. See what they say. Take another Star Trek fan and let him try STO. See their reaction when they see Undine and Borg ships all over Earth, and Starfleet using the unholy spawns of TRON and Mass Effect that use cloaks and sinister tactics.
Again, we want to respect canon and canon-style as much as possible, but diversity is also important.
That is all well and good but they should at least look like they belong in the franchise, not to mention their faction. It is possible to iterate the past designs and have them look good. You've proven that with the klingon and the romulan t6 designs. So why the sudden "AND NOW FOR SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT" with the fed boats?
I see no one asking for connie clones. What I do see are people asking for something that fits in the franchise better than the current t6 fed boats. The klingon and romulan ones do, so it is obvious the ability is there.
I fear (and i fear a lot of things about Delta Rising) that those who play STO because of the classic Star Trek feeling and the ships will leave because even if they can upgrade their ships to T5U it won´t be T6 and i assume every future improvement will go to T6 ships so the gap between T5.5, T5U and T6 will become wider, deeper and darker.
And if, in the future, we will get T6.5 or T7 ships those old classics will be completely obsolete (i think now i can use that word) and be replaced with all of those new Designs.
But these ships made me delete my Klingons and Romulans because i see no reason why in should invest in those ships too even if the Romulan cruisers look quite good. I have one Fed with maxxed REp and Fleet and one Fed Tac. that i rarely use.
BTW why do we get Intel ships? Does anyone here want to have anything to do with S31? Will Drake replace Quinn or do we get a Drake BOFF?
I
If every ship we ever made was a slight variant of a canon ship, the game would have no ship diversity, which might be fine for the vocal minority group of players that want STO to be pure canon, but would not maintain the silent majority of players that enjoy diversity.
Would be a less smaller problem if we just simply keep our canon vessels and just upgrade /buy the seatings/layouts instead of whole new ships. Simply speaking buying console/Boff slots. Of course you could restrict them to Science-new Science ships and blocking an escort layout for sci ships.
An Intrepid Class with Vesta seating/layout? Would gladly pay for it...
That is all well and good but they should at least look like they belong in the franchise, not to mention their faction. It is possible to iterate the past designs and have them look good. You've proven that with the klingon and the romulan t6 designs. So why the sudden "AND NOW FOR SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT" with the fed boats?
I see no one asking for connie clones. What I do see are people asking for something that fits in the franchise better than the current t6 fed boats. The klingon and romulan ones do, so it is obvious the ability is there.
Because they are something totally different...they may have nacelles, saucers, deflector dishes that look different but they are still fed ships. Just because they don't fit your ideal doesn't mean that is lost. Again, if all our ships looked the same it would not be a good thing for the game.
Vehicles can and do vary wildly within the confines of their required mechanics.
Nick "Crypticquack" Quackenbush
33.33% of the STO Ship Art team.
100% of the new guys on the STO Ship Art team.
I posted this on Reddit and figured it was apt here.
Just a little nugget of information to chew on, we design ships for everyone, not for 1 specific group of people.
I love the shapes and lines of canon Star Trek ships, but there are plenty, some might say tons, of players that enjoy designs that stray from the standard Star Trek path.
With that said, I feel we can do a better job at getting the traditional Star Trek feeling into ships and I actively advocate for it.
No matter what ship we make or how it looks, it won't be good enough for some people. At the end of the day you can only do so much with two nacelles a saucer and a hull in a specific configuration.
If every ship we ever made was a slight variant of a canon ship, the game would have no ship diversity, which might be fine for the vocal minority group of players that want STO to be pure canon, but would not maintain the silent majority of players that enjoy diversity.
Again, we want to respect canon and canon-style as much as possible, but diversity is also important.
Well I like them over all.. but I do have one request...
Is there customization for these new T6 ships? If there are can we see a few?
Also some screen shots with different hull textures as well would be nice.
Because they are something totally different...they have nacelles, saucers, deflector dishes. They are still fed ships. Just because they don't fit your ideal doesn't mean that is lost. Again, if all our ships looked the same it would not be a good thing for the game.
They may be fed ships logically, but they don't look like it.
It isn't just me who feels this way. You just have to look at the thread to see that many people feel this way.
Again, they don't have to all look the same. They don't have to be connie clones. You guys did a great job with the klingon and the romulan boats. They're an advancement on what preceded them, yet they are obviously Klingon/Romulan respectively. The fed ones simply don't look trek, let alone fed.
...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.
Dude you are not alone here. my fleet saw the fed cruiser. NONE of us liked it and made similar comments. The ONLY ship in the bunch that looks Fed is the Guardian. and only a handful like the other 3 ships.
I would argue the USS Defiant didn't look like it belonged on Star Trek when it debuted.
One could argue that it was a ship designed for a role that had never, until that point, been in canon. I see your point, though the defiant didn't seem to have come from another galaxy aesthetically.
I posted this on Reddit and figured it was apt here.
Just a little nugget of information to chew on, we design ships for everyone, not for 1 specific group of people.
I love the shapes and lines of canon Star Trek ships, but there are plenty, some might say tons, of players that enjoy designs that stray from the standard Star Trek path.
With that said, I feel we can do a better job at getting the traditional Star Trek feeling into ships and I actively advocate for it.
No matter what ship we make or how it looks, it won't be good enough for some people. At the end of the day you can only do so much with two nacelles a saucer and a hull in a specific configuration.
If every ship we ever made was a slight variant of a canon ship, the game would have no ship diversity, which might be fine for the vocal minority group of players that want STO to be pure canon, but would not maintain the silent majority of players that enjoy diversity.
Again, we want to respect canon and canon-style as much as possible, but diversity is also important.
Listen, I understand your point that you're making ships for everyone and not just "canon purists". But just when does this game cease to be Star Trek? STO is F2P, that means anyone can join without much or any investment. They don't need to be fans of the franchise, or even like it for what it's worth, yet they'll be still able to come here and post request threads about ships that stray from the standard Star Trek path. Does this give them leverage over how the game should look? What if "tons of players" start asking for machine-guns or tanks? Isn't it the studio's responsibility to keep things "under control" and relevant for a Star Trek environment?
Straying from the mainstream design is one thing, but you guys seem to strayed into another galaxy. The Starfleet ships you presented have the mechanical elements of Star Trek ships, yet don't look anything alike. They look metallic, glowy at places they shouldn't be, seem to have no windows.....I mean, the Avenger looks kinda' weird too, but still close and reckognizable enough for a Star Trek ship.
From these 3 Fed. T6 ships we can see - (and this is just my opinion, ofcourse), the escort is passable if it gets the option to use some of the standard hull materials. The cruiser could be passable as well under those circumistances. And some windows. The sci.ship however looks all kinds of weird to me.
Don't mean to jump on your case here crypticquack, so sorry if it seems that way cause I know it does. I'm actually very glad to have a Dev. come and talk to us, especially when the work he does is being questioned. That takes backbone and pride in your work, and I respect that. A lot.
I just want to give you some food for thought: There's a reason why people are reacting like this to the Federation ships, while generally liking the Klingon and Romulan T6 ships you designed.
Or even the Tempest for what it's worth. Compare the general reactions to the Tempest and the T6 ships.
Again, sorry if I sounded harsh. I'm just kinda' dissapointed in the direction that Cryptic seems to be taking the "hero faction" of ST, aesthetically as well as mechanically.
P.S. Loving the work you do on KDF ships! Don't change that mantra, ever, every single one looks awesome.
I would like to ask a question. Will we be able to use our Vet materials on the new ships or will we be boned again, like we were with the Dyson ships?
I would argue the USS Defiant didn't look like it belonged on Star Trek when it debuted.
I disagree. It had similar greyish hull material. It had a distinct "saucer" shape, and visible nacelles and impulse engines.
The new Intel boats, all have some garish looking "Tron" hull armor, with an extreme lack of actual details. I guess the Bridge module was trimmed off the hull of these new ships. They look more like the USS Vengeance, in the alternate JJ Abrams timeline, than they do any ship in the Prime timeline.
And the nacelle style on these new ships? Atrocious. Even if you'd take the new Intel Cruiser, and put it up against the Prometheus (which is an Escort, but with a "similar" layout), the Prometheus definitely looks Starfleet. The Intel Cruiser, does not.
Here's a question for crypticquack: Will there by ANY Tier 6 ships that are refits of canon designs? If there's nothing but Intel ships, count me out post-Delta Rising.
...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.
I disagree. It had similar greyish hull material. It had a distinct "saucer" shape, and visible nacelles and impulse engines.
The new Intel boats, all have some garish looking "Tron" hull armor, with an extreme lack of actual details. I guess the Bridge module was trimmed off the hull of these new ships. They look more like the USS Vengeance, in the alternate JJ Abrams timeline, than they do any ship in the Prime timeline.
And the nacelle style on these new ships? Atrocious. Even if you'd take the new Intel Cruiser, and put it up against the Prometheus (which is an Escort, but with a "similar" layout), the Prometheus definitely looks Starfleet. The Intel Cruiser, does not.
Here's a question for crypticquack: Will there by ANY Tier 6 ships that are refits of canon designs? If there's nothing but Intel ships, count me out post-Delta Rising.
All it is the Tron hull colors.. if you changed the hull to more classic that ships lines are Starfleet.. its just the coloring is not classic star trek
Listen, I understand your point that you're making ships for everyone and not just "canon purists". But just when does this game cease to be Star Trek? STO is F2P, that means anyone can join without much or any investment. They don't need to be fans of the franchise, or even like it for what it's worth, yet they'll be still able to come here and post request threads about ships that stray from the standard Star Trek path. Does this give them leverage over how the game should look? What if "tons of players" start asking for machine-guns or tanks? Isn't it the studio's responsibility to keep things "under control" and relevant for a Star Trek environment?
Straying from the mainstream design is one thing, but you guys seem to strayed into another galaxy. The Starfleet ships you presented have the mechanical elements of Star Trek ships, yet don't look anything alike. They look metallic, glowy at places they shouldn't be, seem to have no windows.....I mean, the Avenger looks kinda' weird too, but still close and reckognizable enough for a Star Trek ship.
From these 3 Fed. T6 ships we can see - (and this is just my opinion, ofcourse), the escort is passable if it gets the option to use some of the standard hull materials. The cruiser could be passable as well under those circumistances. And some windows. The sci.ship however looks all kinds of weird to me.
Don't mean to jump on your case here crypticquack, so sorry if it seems that way cause I know it does. I'm actually very glad to have a Dev. come and talk to us, especially when the work he does is being questioned. That takes backbone and pride in your work, and I respect that. A lot.
I just want to give you some food for thought: There's a reason why people are reacting like this t the Federation ships, while generally liking the Klingon and Romulan T6 ships you designed.
Or even the Tempest for what it's worth. Compare the general reactions to the Tempest and the T6 ships.
Again, sorry if I sounded harsh. I'm just kinda' disappointing in the direction that Cryptic seems to be taking the "hero faction" of ST, aesthetically as well as mechanically.
It's fine, I know coming here will get my case jumped on, I elect to do it.
With that said, I am going to keep going back to saying that we know that we have created fed designs that are at the extreme end. But that is by design. We can do plenty of classic canon style ships and again, that is something I personally push for, but ship diversity is part of the reason for the games success.
Of course there is such a thing as 'going to far', but we are all professionals in this building and care deeply about our game. So that discussion happens often and early. Again, the forums are a vocal minority of our players and we have to cater to a very large audience who are mostly silent with wildly different views on what is 'cool'.
As an example I just read criticism that the Guardian is TOO canonical styled right next to a post criticizing the intel ship designs for being TOO NON canonical. We have a tough balance to achieve here with our diversity and it is something that we consider more then the forums are willing to give us credit for.
Also, the Intel ships are non-standard ships...
Nick "Crypticquack" Quackenbush
33.33% of the STO Ship Art team.
100% of the new guys on the STO Ship Art team.
Because they are something totally different...they may have nacelles, saucers, deflector dishes that look different but they are still fed ships. Just because they don't fit your ideal doesn't mean that is lost. Again, if all our ships looked the same it would not be a good thing for the game.
Vehicles can and do vary wildly within the confines of their required mechanics.
let me ask sth back:
do you design that game for your very own ideals and pleasure, or for the player ones, cause my impression is that we're not liking the same startrek here. if you contantly design the game for your pleasure instead of that of the players, you know what happens next. you will play your game alone.
we seem to have nothin in common when it comes to designing fedships. nearly every second design of you causes uproar and is only bought, because it brings a PLAYSTYLE.
thats wasted, for players AND for the designers.
those ships look NOTHIN like startrek or starfleet. and its only with your starfleet designs somehow. its like you "play" with this a lot more than with kdf/rom. and you dont end up well with it.
you want sth new and cool? add the alpha concepts to the game - unaltered. (i recognize the guardian as derived/altered from one of the alphas, and you realise that this ship got a lot more acceptance than the intel ones, right?)
sry but ive not seen anyone actually relating to my HARD FACT engineering arguments yet. this is not a discussion about aesthetics, its a discussion about the fact that those ships are unlikely to be build, if you have any empathy for a scifi universe of startrek. from an engineering standpoint. they would only have one deck, they wouldnt be buildable that way. they wouldnt have place for all the neat technology.
you design ships from reverse. aesthetic, then you justify odd aesthetics with makebeliev techbabble.
better design ship vice versa: think about a tech, a new system, ability, new purpose -> then design that and then make a ship from it.
you do it in reverse and it ends up beeing starwars episode: tron ... (and that it looks like tron isnt an opinion, everyone thinks that, its common sense, some may like it, but those are not trekkies)
Kind of like a line of ships designed for gathering intelligence?
The defiant at least had the same kind of visible details as boats that came before them. The new intel boats look as if they come from another galaxy or franchise.
There's this one thing that is bugging me however. I think "Intelligence" is a bit of a misnomer for these boats. So far, intelligence gathering ships (In the real world now) have been small converted freighters and the like. I think it would be more accurate to compare these with some kind of cutting edge ship, or one of the US navy submarines that have the Dry Deck Shelter (DDS) for divers to use in covert ops.
At least, "covert ops" is the vibe we're supposed to be getting, right?
I want to be clear: I'm not saying you have to like the new ships. Personally, I'm pretty fond of the escort, and I'm a little iffy on the other two.
I have to say, the klingon and romulan boats are very nice indeed. I think they could use some small changes, but the overall vibe with them is fantastic. They look awesome and I would gladly use them as long as the layout is reasonable. The team should be proud of those! The two klingon boats especially.
But I don't think it's necessary to pretend the universe is coming to an end, just because we don't care for a few of the designs.
I'm not acting like that. I'm deeply disappointed yes, but it's hardly the end of the world. This simply means the stats will have to be pretty darned impressive to make me want to use those boats fed side.
I disagree. It had similar greyish hull material. It had a distinct "saucer" shape, and visible nacelles and impulse engines.
The ships we've seen have saucers (okay, the science ship is more sauceresque), and they all have visible nacelles. The shots in the trailer show visible impulse engines. They don't have a "traditional" hull material that we've seen, but for all we know it may be an option.
From the screenshots, I think I see bridge modules, as well - toward the rear, between the nacelles on the cruiser and escort, and in a more traditional location on the science vessel.
As for the nacelles...I don't care for the cruiser's nacelles, but they do remind me of the Steamrunner. The escort has comparable nacelles to the Defiant, and the science vessel's nacelles are similar in size and length to the Intrepid or Nova, at least proportionate to the rest of the ship.
Again: mileage may vary, but I don't think it's an affront to humanity.
...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.
Completely lost any and all interest in T6 fed ships.
They simply just do not at all look Federation anymore, they look totally alien.
Seriously, where is this coming from? The Odyssey, the federations latest and most advanced flagship does not even have a hint of this.
Just looking at the pictures nothing remotely would indicate to me that these are federation starships.
I have to agree. I absolutely hate the design of all the fed ships except the Guardian. They were doing great w/ the Regent, Exeter, Venture, Armitage and Tempest. But these "intelligence" UFP ships are sooo fugly. They need to quit trying to reinvent the wheel...
At least, "covert ops" is the vibe we're supposed to be getting, right?
I think that's probably correct. An emphasis on intelligence-gathering, but in an era when you can simply cloak yourself from detection, rather than disguise yourself as a freighter or what have you. And heavily-armed, should the need to defend yourself arise. Definitely more akin to a submarine than some kind of false flag sailing ship.
...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.
Comments
IMO - "Classic Trek" is what brought many people into STO. Cryptic would do well to remember that as even the 26th century Enterprise 1701-J has traceable Federation Starship design elements. If some of the (in game lore) recent Federation designed ships like the Odyssey Class, Regent Class, Avenger Class, the most recent Tactical Escort whose Class name escapes me atm -- had options to become FULL T6 ships (and not just T5U ships); I probably wouldn't care; but if I'm flying a Federation Starfleet ship, I want it to LOOK like one from a design perspective - and none of the four Fed T6 ships do (IMO). YMMV.
If 'Classic Trek' is too old for Cryptic ship designers, maybe they should be shifted to a different game. There are other space science fiction based MMOs available (and coming) in the near future. If I want a generic/original IP space based MMO, I'll play one of those. When playing something with the 'Star Trek' brand attached to it, the Federation ships should LOOK like Star Trek ships as they pretty much have in Star Trek lore across some 250 years of (in universe) Starfleet design. Again, the T6 Klingon and Romulan ships STILL LOOK like Klingon and Romulan ships. The only ones that really go 'off the reservation' as it were are the Starfleet T6 ships. <-- That's my problem with them. YMMV.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Really?
Constellation class
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/307/3/4/constellation_class_ortho___uss_stargazer_by_unusualsuspex-d6sah8l.jpg
to the Prometheus Class
http://th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2013/329/0/e/prometheus_class_ortho___uss_prometheus___sheet_1_by_unusualsuspex-d6vha41.jpg
To the Eclipse Intel Cruiser
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/game-pack/detail/718-delta-rising-operations-pack
I see the evolution of the designs...
Or the Guardian Cruiser http://images-cdn.perfectworld.com/arc/1c/cf/1ccfe6a7d3e62f86d69b6eec1c3ba8a51409699076_656x369.jpg looks like a normal Starfleet cruiser...
The Sci looks pretty Starfeet to me...
the Escort though looks like a Defiant and a Jhas had a kid...
I think the issue is the Hull they used. If they were shown painted in more classic colors I think the dislike for the new designs would be less. The hull coloring does give it a Tron like feeling. But with more classic hulls they really are not that off if you took current in game ships and try to advance them.
If that were indeed the case (they were only concerned with cash flowing in, we'd have a T5 (or T6) original STAR TREK (TOS) 1701 Constitution Class in the game.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I agree. That's pretty sad.
That's the only one that looks trek at all, let alone fed. In actual fact, it looks a lot like the old Probert concept for the Ambassador class.
I think these could all look trekish (notice the "ish" at the end) with a lot of modifications and a reskin, but as they stand they don't even look trek, let alone fed.
Just a little nugget of information to chew on, we design ships for everyone, not for 1 specific group of people.
I love the shapes and lines of canon Star Trek ships, but there are plenty, some might say tons, of players that enjoy designs that stray from the standard Star Trek path.
With that said, I feel we can do a better job at getting the traditional Star Trek feeling into ships and I actively advocate for it.
No matter what ship we make or how it looks, it won't be good enough for some people. At the end of the day you can only do so much with two nacelles a saucer and a hull in a specific configuration.
If every ship we ever made was a slight variant of a canon ship, the game would have no ship diversity, which might be fine for the vocal minority group of players that want STO to be pure canon, but would not maintain the silent majority of players that enjoy diversity.
Again, we want to respect canon and canon-style as much as possible, but diversity is also important.
33.33% of the STO Ship Art team.
100% of the new guys on the STO Ship Art team.
That's why i specifically mentioned "cash flow and iconic intellectual property ala Constitution Class". Although I do sometimes wonder how much that really falls on CBS's shoulders and how much of it is actually Cryptic using smoke and mirrors because they're not willing to make it happen. They seem petrified by the possibility of a really good and usefull hero ship, because they seem to think it will hurt all other sales. At least I get that feeling, especially after the 'Galaxy Revamp' fiasco and not having any of the iconic ST ships upgradeable to T6. Plus, we never got an official statement from CBS on this and Cryptic's word means less and less with each passing day.
Anyway, that's a whole other topic. heh
Take a Star Trek fan that doesn't play STO, show him/her those and ask them what it is. See what they say. Take another Star Trek fan and let him try STO. See their reaction when they see Undine and Borg ships all over Earth, and Starfleet using the unholy spawns of TRON and Mass Effect that use cloaks and sinister tactics.
I'm sure it was obvious the Constellation and the Prometheus are both Starfleet canon ships....:P
If you changed the hull colors they would have a totally different vibe.
That is all well and good but they should at least look like they belong in the franchise, not to mention their faction. It is possible to iterate the past designs and have them look good. You've proven that with the klingon and the romulan t6 designs. So why the sudden "AND NOW FOR SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT" with the fed boats?
I see no one asking for connie clones. What I do see are people asking for something that fits in the franchise better than the current t6 fed boats. The klingon and romulan ones do, so it is obvious the ability is there.
And if, in the future, we will get T6.5 or T7 ships those old classics will be completely obsolete (i think now i can use that word) and be replaced with all of those new Designs.
But these ships made me delete my Klingons and Romulans because i see no reason why in should invest in those ships too even if the Romulan cruisers look quite good. I have one Fed with maxxed REp and Fleet and one Fed Tac. that i rarely use.
BTW why do we get Intel ships? Does anyone here want to have anything to do with S31? Will Drake replace Quinn or do we get a Drake BOFF?
Would be a less smaller problem if we just simply keep our canon vessels and just upgrade /buy the seatings/layouts instead of whole new ships. Simply speaking buying console/Boff slots. Of course you could restrict them to Science-new Science ships and blocking an escort layout for sci ships.
An Intrepid Class with Vesta seating/layout? Would gladly pay for it...
Because they are something totally different...they may have nacelles, saucers, deflector dishes that look different but they are still fed ships. Just because they don't fit your ideal doesn't mean that is lost. Again, if all our ships looked the same it would not be a good thing for the game.
Vehicles can and do vary wildly within the confines of their required mechanics.
33.33% of the STO Ship Art team.
100% of the new guys on the STO Ship Art team.
Well I like them over all.. but I do have one request...
Is there customization for these new T6 ships? If there are can we see a few?
Also some screen shots with different hull textures as well would be nice.
Keep an eye out for future blogs. : ]
33.33% of the STO Ship Art team.
100% of the new guys on the STO Ship Art team.
They may be fed ships logically, but they don't look like it.
It isn't just me who feels this way. You just have to look at the thread to see that many people feel this way.
Again, they don't have to all look the same. They don't have to be connie clones. You guys did a great job with the klingon and the romulan boats. They're an advancement on what preceded them, yet they are obviously Klingon/Romulan respectively. The fed ones simply don't look trek, let alone fed.
I would argue the USS Defiant didn't look like it belonged on Star Trek when it debuted.
One could argue that it was a ship designed for a role that had never, until that point, been in canon. I see your point, though the defiant didn't seem to have come from another galaxy aesthetically.
Listen, I understand your point that you're making ships for everyone and not just "canon purists". But just when does this game cease to be Star Trek? STO is F2P, that means anyone can join without much or any investment. They don't need to be fans of the franchise, or even like it for what it's worth, yet they'll be still able to come here and post request threads about ships that stray from the standard Star Trek path. Does this give them leverage over how the game should look? What if "tons of players" start asking for machine-guns or tanks? Isn't it the studio's responsibility to keep things "under control" and relevant for a Star Trek environment?
Straying from the mainstream design is one thing, but you guys seem to strayed into another galaxy. The Starfleet ships you presented have the mechanical elements of Star Trek ships, yet don't look anything alike. They look metallic, glowy at places they shouldn't be, seem to have no windows.....I mean, the Avenger looks kinda' weird too, but still close and reckognizable enough for a Star Trek ship.
From these 3 Fed. T6 ships we can see - (and this is just my opinion, ofcourse), the escort is passable if it gets the option to use some of the standard hull materials. The cruiser could be passable as well under those circumistances. And some windows. The sci.ship however looks all kinds of weird to me.
Don't mean to jump on your case here crypticquack, so sorry if it seems that way cause I know it does.
I just want to give you some food for thought: There's a reason why people are reacting like this to the Federation ships, while generally liking the Klingon and Romulan T6 ships you designed.
Or even the Tempest for what it's worth. Compare the general reactions to the Tempest and the T6 ships.
Again, sorry if I sounded harsh. I'm just kinda' dissapointed in the direction that Cryptic seems to be taking the "hero faction" of ST, aesthetically as well as mechanically.
P.S. Loving the work you do on KDF ships! Don't change that mantra, ever, every single one looks awesome.
I disagree. It had similar greyish hull material. It had a distinct "saucer" shape, and visible nacelles and impulse engines.
The new Intel boats, all have some garish looking "Tron" hull armor, with an extreme lack of actual details. I guess the Bridge module was trimmed off the hull of these new ships. They look more like the USS Vengeance, in the alternate JJ Abrams timeline, than they do any ship in the Prime timeline.
And the nacelle style on these new ships? Atrocious. Even if you'd take the new Intel Cruiser, and put it up against the Prometheus (which is an Escort, but with a "similar" layout), the Prometheus definitely looks Starfleet. The Intel Cruiser, does not.
Here's a question for crypticquack: Will there by ANY Tier 6 ships that are refits of canon designs? If there's nothing but Intel ships, count me out post-Delta Rising.
Kind of like a line of ships designed for gathering intelligence?
I want to be clear: I'm not saying you have to like the new ships. Personally, I'm pretty fond of the escort, and I'm a little iffy on the other two.
But I don't think it's necessary to pretend the universe is coming to an end, just because we don't care for a few of the designs.
They simply just do not at all look Federation anymore, they look totally alien.
Seriously, where is this coming from? The Odyssey, the federations latest and most advanced flagship does not even have a hint of this.
Just looking at the pictures nothing remotely would indicate to me that these are federation starships.
All it is the Tron hull colors.. if you changed the hull to more classic that ships lines are Starfleet.. its just the coloring is not classic star trek
It's fine, I know coming here will get my case jumped on, I elect to do it.
With that said, I am going to keep going back to saying that we know that we have created fed designs that are at the extreme end. But that is by design. We can do plenty of classic canon style ships and again, that is something I personally push for, but ship diversity is part of the reason for the games success.
Of course there is such a thing as 'going to far', but we are all professionals in this building and care deeply about our game. So that discussion happens often and early. Again, the forums are a vocal minority of our players and we have to cater to a very large audience who are mostly silent with wildly different views on what is 'cool'.
As an example I just read criticism that the Guardian is TOO canonical styled right next to a post criticizing the intel ship designs for being TOO NON canonical. We have a tough balance to achieve here with our diversity and it is something that we consider more then the forums are willing to give us credit for.
Also, the Intel ships are non-standard ships...
33.33% of the STO Ship Art team.
100% of the new guys on the STO Ship Art team.
let me ask sth back:
do you design that game for your very own ideals and pleasure, or for the player ones, cause my impression is that we're not liking the same startrek here. if you contantly design the game for your pleasure instead of that of the players, you know what happens next. you will play your game alone.
we seem to have nothin in common when it comes to designing fedships. nearly every second design of you causes uproar and is only bought, because it brings a PLAYSTYLE.
thats wasted, for players AND for the designers.
those ships look NOTHIN like startrek or starfleet. and its only with your starfleet designs somehow. its like you "play" with this a lot more than with kdf/rom. and you dont end up well with it.
you want sth new and cool? add the alpha concepts to the game - unaltered. (i recognize the guardian as derived/altered from one of the alphas, and you realise that this ship got a lot more acceptance than the intel ones, right?)
sry but ive not seen anyone actually relating to my HARD FACT engineering arguments yet. this is not a discussion about aesthetics, its a discussion about the fact that those ships are unlikely to be build, if you have any empathy for a scifi universe of startrek. from an engineering standpoint. they would only have one deck, they wouldnt be buildable that way. they wouldnt have place for all the neat technology.
you design ships from reverse. aesthetic, then you justify odd aesthetics with makebeliev techbabble.
better design ship vice versa: think about a tech, a new system, ability, new purpose -> then design that and then make a ship from it.
you do it in reverse and it ends up beeing starwars episode: tron ... (and that it looks like tron isnt an opinion, everyone thinks that, its common sense, some may like it, but those are not trekkies)
There's this one thing that is bugging me however. I think "Intelligence" is a bit of a misnomer for these boats. So far, intelligence gathering ships (In the real world now) have been small converted freighters and the like. I think it would be more accurate to compare these with some kind of cutting edge ship, or one of the US navy submarines that have the Dry Deck Shelter (DDS) for divers to use in covert ops.
At least, "covert ops" is the vibe we're supposed to be getting, right?
I have to say, the klingon and romulan boats are very nice indeed. I think they could use some small changes, but the overall vibe with them is fantastic. They look awesome and I would gladly use them as long as the layout is reasonable. The team should be proud of those! The two klingon boats especially.
I'm not acting like that. I'm deeply disappointed yes, but it's hardly the end of the world. This simply means the stats will have to be pretty darned impressive to make me want to use those boats fed side.
The ships we've seen have saucers (okay, the science ship is more sauceresque
From the screenshots, I think I see bridge modules, as well - toward the rear, between the nacelles on the cruiser and escort, and in a more traditional location on the science vessel.
As for the nacelles...I don't care for the cruiser's nacelles, but they do remind me of the Steamrunner. The escort has comparable nacelles to the Defiant, and the science vessel's nacelles are similar in size and length to the Intrepid or Nova, at least proportionate to the rest of the ship.
Again: mileage may vary, but I don't think it's an affront to humanity.
I have to agree. I absolutely hate the design of all the fed ships except the Guardian. They were doing great w/ the Regent, Exeter, Venture, Armitage and Tempest. But these "intelligence" UFP ships are sooo fugly. They need to quit trying to reinvent the wheel...
I think that's probably correct. An emphasis on intelligence-gathering, but in an era when you can simply cloak yourself from detection, rather than disguise yourself as a freighter or what have you. And heavily-armed, should the need to defend yourself arise. Definitely more akin to a submarine than some kind of false flag sailing ship.