I've made this proposal before, and there are foundry missions that do it- I've made a couple myself as proof of concept.
Basically what you do is YES, absolutely, you make missions. But what you do is you make missions that have branching story choices that add a lot of replayability. You add some pre-selected but mix and match generation choices. I don't mean randomized maps, but like, randomized goals.
So for example, let's take your default exploration mission, "explore deep space".
You take that, and that mission is your default. You get a shot of your ship cruising through deep space on a random space map, a captain's log shot of your captain on the bridge not finding anything- and then your science officer goes "There's a strange reading" and you drop down onto the bridge map.
You have options here- you can scan the reading (science), hail it because it might be a ship (tactical), try to boost the gain on the long range sensors (engineering), and these choices are mutually exclusive, with the result branching out into what happens.
When designing it, you make maybe ten possible choices for each of tac/eng/sci that use pre-existing maps but populated customly- NPS to interact with, hostile groups to fight, anomalies to scan. Build it like a TNG episode.
So maybe you pick the tactical option and hail the strange reading. The game randomizes that choice and picks "Ship in distress" and you get a cutscene of another ship in warp, or in a planetary orbit, or whatever- and their captain comes on screen and maybe they've had an accident, maybe they're under attack- whatever. They're not a species you recognize - random aliengen or pre-selected aliens are good here, and your officers are all like 'this could be a first contact situation'.
Then you have to make choices on what you'll do. All from the ground map as if you're actually commanding the ship. You can make tactical, science, engineering choices- but as the mission goes on, other departments 'unlock', like medical, diplomacy- use the doff schools maybe and gate dialogue options on advancement.
So for example you take the diplomacy option and try and talk down the enemies shooting the ship in distress, so you get mutual exclusatory dialogue options that can result in different end results. The way to do this is to chain link dialogue (hook separate prompts into each choice, so you pick one, it closes out of the original prompt and opens a new one).
So you talk them down, or you fail and they attack you. If you talk them down maybe they leave, or maybe they have a grievance for you to adjudicate.
And at each level there's more map randomization (from a pre-selected pool) and different options depending on which path you took.
This would be sort of like the old autogen, but more assisted since you guys would need to actually write the mission framework, and then slot in all the different options. But once it's done, it would be very easy for you to add additional options to that mission.
Whenever someone explores, they get that mission. Some of the bits are the same, but there's little ways to change it up. Change the space the ship is cruising through at the start, add a 'random stardate in TNG font' at the start, change the angle the camera is showing the ship from. Maybe do 'internal mini cutscenes' where the captain is in a different place at the mission start.
So sometimes he's on the bridge. Sometimes he starts with the sleep emote active on his bed and has to GET to the bridge. Sometimes he's in a science lab or ten forward or whatever.
You could also add dialogue prompts like you did for cloaked characters on some missions, where presence of certain ships/character factions, would give different dialogues. Maybe also get some code written to flag neutral NPCs as either allies or enemies on prompt, so you might have a mission turn hostile because the captain is a klingon.
You could also have in the sorting missions that share the same structure, but have their options limited and take place on a random station. DS9/K7/Sierra 39/probably not any of the klingon ones, they all suck.
And you have the same choices of different options which in turn give you different options for the mission. Maybe there's a borg attack and you have to get to your ship. Maybe there's dignitaries docking and you have to get your dress uniform on and go meet them.
Structurally a given map would have all of these options permitted, but which sequence occurs would be determined by the randomizer while the map is loading. This should let you cut down on server resources significantly, rather than needing to have a million and one maps.
The result at the end of this is that the assisted mission generation can create some really fun but repeatable exploration missions, interact with different aliens, fight or don't fight, take different paths, do different things. Explore like it's TNG again.
This sounds amazing! I would love to both play these missions, and build them my self. I haven't even touched the foundry, but a mission creator like this sounds awesome
I don't know. Figuring out a decent exploration system that isn't in the end boring and repetitive seems difficult.
Even if you took Genesis and removed the bugs and the Borg searching for artifacts of their 3rd dynasty, it still wouldn't really be that exciting. BUt more complex and varied stories? THat seems impossible to do without a writer writing each mission.
Games like Elite might have millions of star systems - but that#s all they are. There aren't alien cultures there that you have to interact with, learn their ways, fix any taboo breaks you did or whatever.
But at the core, it seems to me exploration would be about rewarding people that leave the trampled paths and go elsewhere to find something, ideally with some entertainment value like a mission.
What I would like to consider is - don't just think of planets. In Star Trek, a lot of the stories play aboard the ship. They take something aboard like a non-organic life-form or exocompts or nanites or whatever and it affects the crew and the ship. They crash into the anomaly of the week and most of the excitement happens aboard the ship.
The reason the TV shows did that was of course because building sets is damn expensive. So re-using the one you have anyway is great. But you can still bring excitement, moral dilemmas and what not.
So in away - instead of thinking how to generate millions of star systems and planets, think about how to make an ship interior system that can serve as the spring board for new stories.
(And if neccessary, just delete all the existing bridges and interior and the system and revamp it completely.)
You still will have the challenge of coming up with stories. But having a limited and clearly defined set can help writing more of them - and maybe can to some extent be used by a Genesis-like mission creator. The trick is finding story templates and variables that can be meaningfully filled.
"As the ship explores a [STELLAR ANOMALY], shields are knocked out briefly and [ALIEN] boarders beam into [SPOT ON THE SHIP]. They take hostages and demand [DEMANDS]. The player cannot fulfill [DEMAND] with his good conscience, so he has to convince the [LEADER|LEADER'S HUSBAND|RIVAL OF LEADER] to realize the hopelessness of the situation, and help [BRIDGE OFFICER] to do the [TECHNOBABBLE THING] to overpower the hostage takers.
The best missions I have played in STO were the ones which require some intelligent analysis, under some time constraints, with some imminent danger to the Captain & crew. Some measure of self-defense is required, but the best solution is the intelligent one. I can imagine missions where there could be more than one way to complete the mission, but using the more forceful approach would reduce the rewards for completion.
This is the core of the Trek mission & canon; there are decades worth of episodes to peruse to get ideas for such a scheme. In some cases, a mission might succeed because there is a bridge officer of just the right race or relation to the crew (ST:TMP, for example?), just the right ship, providing needed emergency supplies, crafting some item needed by the locals, etc, etc. Here is where the "out of the box" thinking is the most rewarding for game developers and players alike!
But how do you create such missions generally so that no one plays the same?
TV authors haven't managed to dot hat yet - they still write a script for every episode and it takes 2-3 weeks and in case of SCi-Fi, usually a budget of millions to get it done.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Haha, yes, that's what the post I quoted reminded me of.
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Exploration is pretty tricky, as puzzles, 'discovery' missions etc. are really only interesting/challenging once or twice, til you have the new wrinkle down pat.
Combat missions are mostly replayable because of the risk, adrenaline, and mechanics of combat itself.
Randomized/generated maps work ok in a 4X game like StarCraft to keep reruns interesting, but that is mostly because exploration is an essential part of the combat process. It is hard to see how you could randomize an exploration/discovery mission with built-in text and goals etc. - other than a "where do I go to find the X this time" sort of result.
As I and others have suggested, encouraging/rewarding players to craft good Foundry exploration missions triggered by location, is an excellent way in theory to continually expand the possibilities. I say 'in theory' because we haven't really seen how this will work in practice yet, AFAIK there is no 'player reward' system in place, and the Foundry tools need to be expanded for this to work well.
(BTW, if players are going to be doing design/creation work for the game, yes they do both need and deserve to be rewarded for it.)
Other than that the only system I can think of atm would involve creating a sort of 'mission outline' system, where you set up a handful of mission that go like:
Then you set up a basic outline for 'Alien encounter', 'Strange Technology', 'Potential Conflict', 'Diplomatic Tangle' and maybe one or two others.
Next you craft 3-4 interchangeable parts that can go into each stage. with a standard scene shift/transition mechanic between them. Make it so the various parts get plugged in at random, hopefully with slightly randomized map elements and encounters along the way.
(City of Heroes used to do this with its random mission generators... you devs may have heard of that game)
Okay, so now they are coding a new system, with 4-6 basic outlines, each outline requiring about 24 'stage blocks' to make the shuffle interesting, and a background cast of multiple aliens, technologies, and discoveries.
I DON'T SEE ANY WAY THIS COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG...
(well ok there might be a bug or two in the transitions but that's about it)
(and yes, I am aware that this is essentially an expansion on the 'old' exploration clusters)
At any rate: Foundry/Player crafted has the most potential I think, they just need tools and rewards.
The other system would be something Cryptic has more control over, but seems like a fair bit of design/programming work for a team that (I am sorry to have to say this) has trouble getting basic functionality bugs out of important new systems like the Loadout system. Maybe they are different teams and it would go well. We can always hope.
STO originally had this concept. With mild tweaking it could have been more interesting.
Maybe the idea of floating Foundry missions - people create content, do it in a way that is not overly tied to known races, flag it, and those foundry missions are randomly assigned in the "Elite Dangerous Milky Way System Creator" logic..................
There have been some good suggestions so far, and thought I'd just chime in myself. Exploration missions should be randomly generated in some regard, otherwise we will never have the scope or variety of missions to make such a revamp worth it without moving development time away from other features.
What I propose is something like this. Firstly I think we could change the way we "move" around an area of space, uncharted or otherwise. If you've played FTL (and you should have!) it has a sector map with various branching paths to take. At each stage you could use your ships sensors to scan for various anomalies (will list in a moment) and pick one to investigate. The number of options could vary at each stage, some with one others perhaps with three or four. You then advance to your chosen anomaly by ordering the conn to set a course, or if you're a TNG nut like myself... ENGAGE!
The different anomalies could be one of the following:
-Nebulas
-Pulsars
-Black holes - maybe in orbit of a star slowly devouring it (would make for an epic view).
-Binary systems
-Asteroid fields
-Gas Giants
-Deep space
The list could go on and on, there are just so many different settings you could pick. Space missions would in my mind offer the devs the ability to make more of the system than you would if using just ground maps. This is because to create believable, varied ground maps would be pretty time consuming. We all remember how utterly dreadful it was running around the maze of corridors in the old system. I would like to see ground maps, but perhaps they would be limited to half a dozen premade maps. Perhaps if you had premade "blocks" (imagine those flat lego bases) and just slot a few in random orders to create the illusion of variety. I would like to include your own ship interiors as an option too, but am unsure how Cryptic would manage to do this with all the custom bridges available (Intrepid/Belfast etc).
From each of these settings you could have the following scenarios:
-Search and rescue/repairing a stranded ship
-Medical, help investigate diagnose and cure an illness aboard a ship or station/colony
-Scientific, scan for data on nebula for example and collect materials for analysis (could connect to the R&D system?)
-Combat, assist friendly forces face off against and aggressor (any of the major non-alliance races)
-Diplomacy, please do this. It's such a big part of Star Trek and we have no proper missions for it now. Do it some justice and give us a reason to want to use those Rank 4 Ambassador uniforms!
So, a rough guide of how a scenario could play out:
You enter the exploration block from sector space, and load on your bridge. You access the operations (the conn) to view the map and start with the first area. You order your science officer to scan for readings/anomalies and they report back with two choices. You have a solar system with a main sequence star which is emitting strange readings or a nebula which hasn't been charted previously by a starship. You decide to investigate the nebula, your choice is locked in and you yell ENGAGE at your conn officer.
You emerge from warp in a randomly generated space map on the edge of a huge nebula. Your science officer states that they are detecting a faint communications signal coming from the nebula, however you can't get a solid reading due to interference. You move closer and discover a ship, they hail you and state their warp coils have depolarised and they request your assistance. Now this could either be a simple case of beaming some new warp coils aboard, or you could send a duty officer aboard to fix the problem with a short timer (no more than a few minutes!). Another option would be the scanning thing with the magical yellow/blue deflector scan thing. They are grateful for your assistance and warp off with their warp drive fixed. You yourself warp out of the map and back to your bridge to continue looking for new scenarios. You advance one stage across the map, and you have more scenarios to choose from. Once you've completed so many (perhaps five or so) you reach the end of that sector and can claim a reward (dilithium etc), the map is then refreshed and you start again.
I hope that's makes it clear how things could be done. They wouldn't be overly complicated but it wouldn't be the same "scan five of these" missions we had. One of my favourite quick missions to do in STO is the Breen cruiser daily where you emit a deflector pulse and beam the slaves aboard without them noticing and warp out to avoid conflict, or stay and destroy them. We don't need to have huge complex missions like FEs for this system to work.
I can't stress how important this could be to the future of STO. If done correctly, and Cryptic by that I mean don't half-TRIBBLE it or cripple it by adding loads of timers like with the R&D/DOFF system it could breath a lease of new life into STO which in my opinion is starting to stagnate pretty badly with all the nerfs and xp requirements for specialisations. Do this right Cryptic, and we have a REASON to want to buy those new ships you pump out while having a source of content which while not unlimited gives us such variation that we look forward to loading the next map to see what combinations we have, just like I do when I start a new game of FTL.
Finally, apologies for the wall of text!
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So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
I say take the Search for New Romulus ground mission and expand upon it for some exploration missions in the vein of a large-style exploration mission. As well, some won't even be Exploration; you'll inadvertently find a hidden enemy base that you can either report and beam away, or storm for even more valuables.
Basically, have large ones and small ones. All of them guarantee at least one VR reward, whether it's just vendor trash or something useful. The large ones guarantee several hidden rewards throughout. The small ones just serve as a decent stop between missions for those in the mood for a quick exploration for a bit of extra XP/EC.
To make exploration even more attractive to those only interested in rewards, have an entire equipment/weapon line only available from Exploration (expanding on the salvaging/reverse-engineering of the Ancient Omni Beam and Obelisk warp core from the Dyson sphere). We'll call it the Ancient tech series. Within that, are different categories based on dead races such as pre-Sundering Vulcans.
For example:
On one of the worlds, you detect traces of ancient ruins and decide to explore. It's basically ruin exploration similar to the Search for New Romulus one, but at the end, you discover notes and schematics for ancient pre-Sundering Vulcan Plasma tech. Whether it's a beam or a projectile or a cannon is random. You can then R&D it for a 20 hour project, which results in a powerful Ancient Vulcan Plasma weapon that has a straight bonus of Exotic damage (innate and fixed much like AP's Crit Severity rather than being a proc, but scales off of PartGens). However, it will be VR with only 2 mods, due to its potential strength.
And the potency of the weapon is balanced by the need to do more exploration missions and hope for another Ancient Vulcan-related exploration.
On another world, you discover some ancient ruins of a race who literally built and wore advanced tinfoil hats and bodysuits due to having a severe phobia of psychics (maybe the wildlife had psychic abilities as well as affected mental faculties). Your team discovers schematics and depictions that they would later use to create a hybrid Environmental suit designed for your species capable of fully resisting Psionic attacks, Exposes, and Holds. This suit would have 3 different designs; based on origin Faction who crafted them, but also have a bit of the alien element to them. This suit basically would be an anti-Undine and anti-Devidian sort of specialty suit.
However, players will be able to sell/trade the crafted Ancient derived weapons or equipment off the Exchange. The Ancient Schematics can also be sold. However, they are all one-time use; players will have to run multiple explorations for more to craft for weapons to sell, or just to sell to players who might be interested in crafting them.
An example of a stronghold discovery:
After sensing some unusual signatures coming from what should be an uncolonized world, you go exploring, and soon uncover a Tal Shiar operation. You can choose to just report it and get completion for the exploration (a bit of EC/XP based on what you'd get exploring a small Exploration zone), or raid it (NPCs within would be just a little tougher than Normal, but weaker than Advanced, if you played it on Normal). You would only get XP/EC for reporting it, but raiding it takes you to a new map with a number of hidden rewards.
Let's say you do choose to raid the facility, and realize it's dedicated to producing Thalaron-infused weapons. A time limit is involved in how long you have to capture as many of these reward items before the Tal Shiar make off with them. The Thalaron-infused weapons range from potent Thalaron Plasma Beam weapons to Thalaron Emission Torpedoes (Thalaron variant of Particle Emission). These weapons only have 1 random Mod at VR due to having identical but weaker non-proc abilities of the Thalaron Pulse weapon (including the fact that they are also affected by Aux and PartGens), but are potent in their own right.
Upon the timer reaching zero or the total razing of the facility, you can either opt to turn in any or all of the weapons for a major EC and Dil reward, or keep them for your own use (catering to the player's preferences for roleplaying, faction choices, min-maxing, or just wanting a new toy to play with).
These Stronghold raid weapons would NOT be tradeable or sellable on the exchange, to offset their power.
So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
Varied minigames for scanning, for one thing, and less scanning in general. Occasional randomly generated mazes or something. Things like the Undine Infiltration mission where you talk to NPCs and figure out which one's story doesn't add up/which one sounds like the person that you're looking for/whatever, or things like that one Gamma Quadrant mission where you have to do the right combination of processes to obtain stuff. Also, something that actually encourages teaming up to do exploration missions would be good, like multiple class-specific activities that help progress the mission faster, etc. If possible, activities occuring on the ship's bridge would be excellent as well, though I understand that that requires hooking up "hotspots" for stuff on every single bridge map. It'd be worth it though, IMO.
A Foundry mission contest for user-made exploration missions would be great too; the missions could be one-encounter-only then repeatable from the Foundry tab afterwards.
EDIT: Also, Illcadia's massive post pretty much sums up a good deal of what I'd like to see out of Exploration.
Haha, yes, that's what the post I quoted reminded me of.
My first thought was of the computer game Montezuma's Return. It's a lot like Tomb Raider in that you run around through this series of levels collecting loot. There are enemies to fight, but most are more of an annoyance than a threat.
Crowd sourcing exploration missions is a great idea you have hundreds of authors who would most likely jump at the chance of contributing.
Soon you will have a bucket load of exploration missions to choose from to add to the exploration mission pools.
No doubt there are many already in the foundry that can be cherry picked or edited to get the ball rolling.
The reviewing of missions may be a tad difficult to organise but the community may be of help here too.
As long as there is a criteria to the missions scope then each area of space or adjacent areas can have a pool of exploration missions.
A tab to investigate a point of interest and the player will receive a mission from the ever expanding pool.
The tab may include a user preference slider to allow the player to edge towards the gameplay they enjoy most as
Once explored the mission will be taken from the pool for that player but the system will allow the players to replay for fun later if they so choose, maybe on their ships holodeck for instance.
Next time they want to explore space it will be a new mission in a new area with new objectives.
(As a personnal favour could all authors add loads of easter eggs into their areas. As canon as possible please ;-)
For me this equates to grinding without the tedious, repetitive and soul destroying hamster wheel grind that can be found in most mmo's.
I may need to remind some that I feel that a community who are engaged and having fun and playing more.
Are far more likely to invest in their gameplay experience.
Rather than ones who feel the tedious grind has become to much to bother investing in.
I don't know. Figuring out a decent exploration system that isn't in the end boring and repetitive seems difficult.
Even if you took Genesis and removed the bugs and the Borg searching for artifacts of their 3rd dynasty, it still wouldn't really be that exciting. BUt more complex and varied stories? THat seems impossible to do without a writer writing each mission.
Games like Elite might have millions of star systems - but that#s all they are. There aren't alien cultures there that you have to interact with, learn their ways, fix any taboo breaks you did or whatever.
But at the core, it seems to me exploration would be about rewarding people that leave the trampled paths and go elsewhere to find something, ideally with some entertainment value like a mission.
What I would like to consider is - don't just think of planets. In Star Trek, a lot of the stories play aboard the ship. They take something aboard like a non-organic life-form or exocompts or nanites or whatever and it affects the crew and the ship. They crash into the anomaly of the week and most of the excitement happens aboard the ship.
The reason the TV shows did that was of course because building sets is damn expensive. So re-using the one you have anyway is great. But you can still bring excitement, moral dilemmas and what not.
So in away - instead of thinking how to generate millions of star systems and planets, think about how to make an ship interior system that can serve as the spring board for new stories.
(And if neccessary, just delete all the existing bridges and interior and the system and revamp it completely.)
You still will have the challenge of coming up with stories. But having a limited and clearly defined set can help writing more of them - and maybe can to some extent be used by a Genesis-like mission creator. The trick is finding story templates and variables that can be meaningfully filled.
"As the ship explores a [STELLAR ANOMALY], shields are knocked out briefly and [ALIEN] boarders beam into [SPOT ON THE SHIP]. They take hostages and demand [DEMANDS]. The player cannot fulfill [DEMAND] with his good conscience, so he has to convince the [LEADER|LEADER'S HUSBAND|RIVAL OF LEADER] to realize the hopelessness of the situation, and help [BRIDGE OFFICER] to do the [TECHNOBABBLE THING] to overpower the hostage takers.
But how do you create such missions generally so that no one plays the same?
TV authors haven't managed to dot hat yet - they still write a script for every episode and it takes 2-3 weeks and in case of SCi-Fi, usually a budget of millions to get it done.
God I hate typing things like this on a phone >.< sigh. OK, as I proposed, modular design co bined with fixed scripted missions. Yes there's a limited number of permutations, but as long as you keep adding modules it doesn't get stale.
Go online and look up Carcassonne the game. Only three tile types (city, farm, road) you can make infinite combinations of maps with them. Same concept here.
Honestly, I should just build this as a board game and mail it to taco. It would only take like a week or two. >.<
A simple example:
Mission start modules one selected randomly (just a dialog tree needed)
Distress call
Automated beacon
Science officer reports anomaly on sensors
Etc
Adventure composed of 1 or more "obstacle modules" some missions will thus be long, some short.
_
Space combat module examples:
Pirates threatening [ship/planet/etc]
Space entity threatening [ship/planet/etc]
Race 1 threatening race 2 (either or might be new race or known race)
Ground combat modules:
Race 1 threatening race 2
Faction 1 threatening faction 2
It was all a trap, ambush
Space discovery modules:
Dangerous anomaly, maneuver to waypoints or take damage
New discovery: [lost relic, ancient craft, unique science factoid], dialog tree branching options
Scientific bonanza (multiple science harvesting nodes) plus science or explore doff missions
Ground discovery modules:
Scientific bonanza (multiple science harvesting nodes)
Crew has emergency [plague/parasite/mutagenic virus/allergy to new plant], medical doff missions plus branching dialog tree
Ruins of ancient civilization, marauder doff missions or explore doff missions plus branching dialog tree
Space diplomacy module:
First contact (branching diplomacy tree)
Hostile standoff between two factions, branching dialog, (might lead to combat)
Ship in distress, engineering or marauder doff missions, branching dialog tree
Ground diplomacy modules:
Preindustrial civilization, non-combat mission requiring stealth ("everything old is new" as a model)
Commodities/economic opportunity, faction [needs/wants/has] commodity(s), provide or get or steal (may initiate combat), may involve multi-step trades/purchases
Factions in dispute over [technology/resources/land/policy], branching dialog tree, possibly unlocks diplomacy or trade or engineering doff missions
OK, now let's put some of these together using some random numbers, even odd (space vs ground) & 1-3 for combat/discovery/diplomacy & 1-3 for choice 1-3 beneath each module. I pulled up pi to 1,000 decimals started at a spot in the middle and used those numbers here's what I got:
Short example: 2 modules space only
Intro: emergency distress call
Space combat: entity threatening [ship], space diplomacy [ship] in distress
Longer example, space + ground, 4 modules
Intro: science officer notices anomaly
Space discover 1, dangerous anomaly ->
Ground diplomacy 3, faction [wants commodity, pretend its energy cells]
Ground combat 2, faction 1 threatens faction 2 (I guess we just gave the bad guys what they needed to attack a neighbor, oops)
Space discovery 3, scientific bonanza
From a narrative standpoint both work. Ship in distress, chasemoff enemy repair damage, profit.
Funky anomaly, find race on backside of the anomaly, they tricked me, I saved the day, and oh hey before I go that anomaly provided some valuable research.
This, would never get old and it plays like a TV episode generator.
So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
To answer this question we must answer the obvious..."What IS exploration in relation to Star Trek?"
To those who have pointed out the No Man's Sky approach, well that is a yet unproven and new technology. And regardless of how many auto generated worlds they produce, from their marketing videos it's a lot of scanning and walking around. And it won't take trillions of worlds to get bored in short order.
Exploration without fighting? I'm not sure that's the blueprint to follow either and in some ways cheapens what conflict can bring to a story to promote engagement.
Which brings us back to the question of what IS exploration in relation to Star Trek?
If we start with the definition of exploration: the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it, then exploration in Star Trek is almost always a starting point. In fact exploration historically, that is real history, is a starting point to a journey. And that is, I believe, what more of us pine for than just mindless scanning or scientific intrigue. That is to say, we want to explore but we want to get in some *ish on the way that will challenge us and expand us in some meaningful way. And at the end of that journey gain some kind of meaningful benefit or reward that will help up on the next journey.
The answers to select from in the poll, "Exploration MISSIONS" are a bit misleading if not leading the user to a specific answer. Is it Exploration we want or is it missions which involve exploring? Is there a difference?
I haven't read the thread yet but I would really love some exploration missions etc built into the game, as the shows seem to feature it so much and a Star Trek game with out it is sort of lacking a feel of Star Trek.
Just an idea, maybe whatever you make, you could include the missions from the old exploration that was taken out. That way, with the new stuff you're making, and the old content brought back in, there would be a hell of a lot more included, which would take some of the strain off of you, and would make this add-on full of 'new' content.
The more varied it was, the fresher it would feel to people, and the more it would be played.
So, how do you propose we "explore" the universe, without having to make a million custom maps/missions?
What would actually be enjoyable to do, that doesn't involve fighting. Scanning rocks and trees is going to get old.
maybe you should watch some TNG, TOS, and VOY, a number of the missions they took part in had no combat or fairly little. the aspect of exploration isnt just scanning rocks, but diplomacy and exploration of the human condition. perhaps you forgotten what the original message of what star trek was about to begin with? if you have, reconnect with star trek and find imaginative idea for exploration for STO.
solving puzzles to unlock a deeper mystery on a map, finding a way of building a bridge across a lava river and saving lives, general dicsussion and political ramaifications that leads to a potential encounter with another random exploration, and one that may have nothing to do with the other, helping out saving a world from a virus, dealing with an intelligent lifeform one doesnt understand at first and learning to understand it. solving the problem of a geological instability on an inhabited world that threatens to destroy itself...
surely your telling us you dont have enough imagination to come up with some really good exploration?
also what about all those cryptic alien races you had in the original? will they return?
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Looking at the recently created [ongoing] poll results, there's no doubt about it that the choice for exploration is still favoured. As I type this, there's roughly 350 votes that put exploration in the lead over any other option, and whilst I never voted myself (I would have liked more options), I think that exploration is the best result. Why?
Out of all the options going, exploration has the potential to be something different. The game is very much in need of that right now. More missions/queues/functionality just isn't going to cut it I don't think. Exploration, if done right, has the potential to be the saving grace of this game, not only for current players, but for old and new players too; those that may enjoy the concept of a truer trek form of exploration.
I'm not here to tell anyone how to implement this, nor how to do their job. I don't know what ideas may already be floating around the Cryptic office, nor do I know what the game engine is capable of. All I would ask is that you make exploration less combat centric, yet still enjoyable. The old system was (quite frankly) dull and unimaginative. A good portion of the cluster missions involved conflict of some description, there was very little lets settle this with negotiation or lets help you do that, so that you can help us with this etc
Exploration missions should be about making first contact (for better or worse), about seeking new life, evaluating said life and then assessing it. Exploration should be about finding new science and technology (without the use of a rep system). Exploration should offer different challenges each time played.
Please don't give us another pew-pew feature.
That is all.
I see a lot of this and I don't think it takes into account what an MMO is and does, all too often.
It's not strictly about game engine limits (although there is that) but about genre limits. This kind of thing needs concrete feedback or concrete design ideas.
I have a whole heck of a lot of thoughts on this topic for STO or MMOs in general.
To start with, you need fairly open zones.
You do need some randomization but not too much or you lose the important aspect of exploration -- which is context.
Exploration needs story, whether that's scripted or between players.
I'm speaking in vague terms because any ONE of these points could become a novel.
One of my stronger design ideas involves a Clue-inspired minigame. This can allow for emergent multiplayer story generation. You need subject, object, action, and place as things which can be strung together in a coherent way or you have a big wide open map.
Story is not text being thrown at you. It's structure. Probably the single best execution of story (and exploration for that matter) in a game is Journey for PS3.
For all the talk about sandbox vs. theme park play by gaming pundits, I think it's a false distinction. In many cases, I feel like people are discussing vacation attraction vs. carnival game. A well done real life theme park attraction takes into account a lot of the architecture, psychology, and interaction between people who are there.
Journey has the structure of a story -- the important parts, not the exposition -- and is built for people to experience cooperatively with other players in emergent ways.
The full experience is a bit much for STO but the broad strokes should be the basis for STO exploration.
Just wanted to say big thank you for engaging us in the discussion and for letting us know you are reading.
^this most definitely!!
also branching mission paths would be AWESOME... choices that matter, if I do x then y is closed to me. Weather this is actual mission paths, dialogue options, or both.
Another Trek staple was "exploring" a character... excepting Tovan, you gave Romulans a lot of interesting NPC BOFFs that went no where after being introduced... missions to explore cryptic designe BOFFs like these more could be interesting too.
One thing I'd like to see is existing places like New Romulus and the Dyson/Jenolan spheres used more. Given the sheer size of the Dyson spheres, there is a whole lot of exploring that can be done there.
The solonae sphere was described as the equivalent of 250 million m class worlds. And yes, you could have a LOT of cool repayable content exploring solonae ruins, avoiding old defenses (ala step between stars, which I absolutely love as a mission) and occasionally sparring with voth/undine or even the solonae servitors themselves (if you can get them to stick around without fleeing all the time). That could be utterly epic.
Jenolan is much more wide open from a narrative standpoint, since it doesn't have any of the solonae architecture, spires etc.
Okay... I was stepping away but I'll cover some basic points.
A good exploration zone is one that is about getting from point A to point B but where the detours are meaningful and where the environment has plateaus -- little stages, in the theatrical sense -- for activity. I knew a lot of explorers in WoW and one of the keys is that you encounter places that come to take on meaningful relationships with the player.
Ie. This village is "my home" and this area is "a dark wood, full of danger."
I realize this idea is going to have pushback from some people here who just want a flat open area for wandering but wandering is not really exploring.
Exploring is going to mean that there's a cost associated with travel and multiple flavors of reward (intrinsic) for going off route. You need a sense of relationship to environment. This can be accomplished with musical cues (which FMOD and STO obviously support) and game interactions that involve ways of interacting with the environment in ways that are predictable but emergent and subject to risk and change. You need goals but the goals can be things that are not perfectly reliable rather than things which have a predictable cause and effect sequence.
In that regard, I think the STO equivalent of the scarf from journey would probably come in the form of a probability index supplied by a scientist. You're given a task. You're given a world in which you can go and do things which influence the probability of that task (or at least dimensions of it; doing an activity may reduce odds of one thing while increasing odds of another). Then you should be able to lock in your choices and see the consequences play out. This is speaking in very broad terms still but is the basis for exploratory gameplay from wilderness charting to puzzle systems to crafting systems in other games.
I suggest the probability thing because it's a staple of Trek to have a character who cites probability estimates and in a game, it can provide uncertain but somewhat reliable advice that a player is proceeding in the right direction with a task. Imperfect certainty is at the heart of what makes a design exploration based.
I think the Foundry authors would be one of the better choices for that. Have an option to enter a 'side cluster' like Arucanis Arm - and have players make missions just for those maps. Players who's missions are accepted for these side clusters get a small reward. 25 or 50 zen or perhaps a small chunk of dilithium.
These missions should have fairly strict guidelines. The mission must last 15 minutes minimum to 35 or so minutes maximum. The mission must not contain anything that contradicts the current story. The mission must contain something besides combat - be it scan 5 objects or so many lines of 'story'. Any mission approved of for 'exploration missions' cannot be edited after they're accepted by Cryptic and posted to the Exploration chart. Missions accepted by Cryptic no longer count towards a players foundry mission cap.
Example Mission: Distress call from USS Ajax. Enter Arucanis arm, find disabled ship. Minigame or logic puzzle to free allied ship. After ship is freed - move deeper into system to find what disabled them. Find an ancient preserver research platform that was trying to study the Ajax. Automated defenses attack! (Generic npc contacts). After defeating contacts - beam down. More automated Defenses? Explore base, maybe another puzzle or scan run around. Finish with 'contact quest giving npc - he'll dispatch a joint Jenolan Accord research party to study what you found! Good job!
On the player end - I fly to Arucanis Arm. I'm given the option: Explore Arucanis! The game gives me a mission from the approved Arucanis list at random - and I have to complete it before I can be given a new one - dropping the mission without completion will put me on a 1 hour exploration 'cooldown' in which I can get new missions, but no rewards from them. Completing this mission counts towards the Foundry rewards project. Repeated completions don't include a dilithium reward but they do give a slightly boosted xp/specialization point reward so exploring is a valid way to level characters.
maybe you should watch some TNG, TOS, and VOY, a number of the missions they took part in had no combat or fairly little. the aspect of exploration isnt just scanning rocks, but diplomacy and exploration of the human condition. perhaps you forgotten what the original message of what star trek was about to begin with? if you have, reconnect with star trek and find imaginative idea for exploration for STO.
solving puzzles to unlock a deeper mystery on a map, finding a way of building a bridge across a lava river and saving lives, general dicsussion and political ramaifications that leads to a potential encounter with another random exploration, and one that may have nothing to do with the other, helping out saving a world from a virus, dealing with an intelligent lifeform one doesnt understand at first and learning to understand it. solving the problem of a geological instability on an inhabited world that threatens to destroy itself...
surely your telling us you dont have enough imagination to come up with some really good exploration?
also what about all those cryptic alien races you had in the original? will they return?
Something like the TOS episode "Corbormite Manuever"
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Also, I'm going to suggest that a feature of exploration zones be broad objectives that are meaningful but which are vague as to how or whether you'll accomplish them.
Things like: Feed the villagers. Stop the marauders. The trick is that there are multiple ways of doing things, the methods are not perfectly predictable or repeatable, and failure is not exactly penalized but is encouraged as the player attempts to fulfill broad mandates with ingenuity and luck in a large environment.
One thing I'd like to see is existing places like New Romulus and the Dyson/Jenolan spheres used more. Given the sheer size of the Dyson spheres, there is a whole lot of exploring that can be done there.
a lot of worlds in trek have not really been explored out either, including rock climbing, repelling down cliffs for live samples some plant lifeform only known to exist in this one area.. andoria has colonies of these worms that burrow through the ice caves, and yet to see anything significant from any of the major player planets and greater cultures. vulcan has some extensive ancient history around its planet, tranditions to follow, all could make interesting exploration points pitted against the real threat of the enviroments. travelling through the forge to go on a spiritual jouney of enlightenment in the teachings and writings of surak, learning ancient vulcan history. travelling to p'jem, exploring the vulcan way of life. going to andoria, exploring their great underground cities, beutiful deadly ice formations, native fauna and flora.. nothing on the tellarites and this should be explored out, know next to nothing about them, giving them a world, a government and such and having exploration points there...
you keep this type of thing going and some of this stuff should become standard in academy training for a better experience for new players to learn more about the history of the federation and of starfleet, but not just at the academy records, but in paris as well where the federation is based. the same on qo'nos as well, the walls of the first city, specifically standing on the top of those walls, looking out on the distance of the klingon homeworld, taking in the culture, the values, the atmosphere of the place..
the possibility of exploring, the breen, cardassians, deferi, borg, klingon allies like the letheans and gorn, the romulans and their history, their sharp politics... moving on to the spheres, the place is massive and unexplored and there are 2 of them. exploring more the delta quadrant out, heading to the talaxian homeworld, helping out there, potential ancient ruins to explore, lifeforms to scan.. politics with the kobali, talaxians, kazon and hirogen without the delta alliance being around. random encounters in space for short or drawn out diplomatics confrences that learn more about a people then you would get from violence.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Comments
This sounds amazing! I would love to both play these missions, and build them my self. I haven't even touched the foundry, but a mission creator like this sounds awesome
Even if you took Genesis and removed the bugs and the Borg searching for artifacts of their 3rd dynasty, it still wouldn't really be that exciting. BUt more complex and varied stories? THat seems impossible to do without a writer writing each mission.
Games like Elite might have millions of star systems - but that#s all they are. There aren't alien cultures there that you have to interact with, learn their ways, fix any taboo breaks you did or whatever.
But at the core, it seems to me exploration would be about rewarding people that leave the trampled paths and go elsewhere to find something, ideally with some entertainment value like a mission.
What I would like to consider is - don't just think of planets. In Star Trek, a lot of the stories play aboard the ship. They take something aboard like a non-organic life-form or exocompts or nanites or whatever and it affects the crew and the ship. They crash into the anomaly of the week and most of the excitement happens aboard the ship.
The reason the TV shows did that was of course because building sets is damn expensive. So re-using the one you have anyway is great. But you can still bring excitement, moral dilemmas and what not.
So in away - instead of thinking how to generate millions of star systems and planets, think about how to make an ship interior system that can serve as the spring board for new stories.
(And if neccessary, just delete all the existing bridges and interior and the system and revamp it completely.)
You still will have the challenge of coming up with stories. But having a limited and clearly defined set can help writing more of them - and maybe can to some extent be used by a Genesis-like mission creator. The trick is finding story templates and variables that can be meaningfully filled.
"As the ship explores a [STELLAR ANOMALY], shields are knocked out briefly and [ALIEN] boarders beam into [SPOT ON THE SHIP]. They take hostages and demand [DEMANDS]. The player cannot fulfill [DEMAND] with his good conscience, so he has to convince the [LEADER|LEADER'S HUSBAND|RIVAL OF LEADER] to realize the hopelessness of the situation, and help [BRIDGE OFFICER] to do the [TECHNOBABBLE THING] to overpower the hostage takers.
But how do you create such missions generally so that no one plays the same?
TV authors haven't managed to dot hat yet - they still write a script for every episode and it takes 2-3 weeks and in case of SCi-Fi, usually a budget of millions to get it done.
Haha, yes, that's what the post I quoted reminded me of.
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Combat missions are mostly replayable because of the risk, adrenaline, and mechanics of combat itself.
Randomized/generated maps work ok in a 4X game like StarCraft to keep reruns interesting, but that is mostly because exploration is an essential part of the combat process. It is hard to see how you could randomize an exploration/discovery mission with built-in text and goals etc. - other than a "where do I go to find the X this time" sort of result.
As I and others have suggested, encouraging/rewarding players to craft good Foundry exploration missions triggered by location, is an excellent way in theory to continually expand the possibilities. I say 'in theory' because we haven't really seen how this will work in practice yet, AFAIK there is no 'player reward' system in place, and the Foundry tools need to be expanded for this to work well.
(BTW, if players are going to be doing design/creation work for the game, yes they do both need and deserve to be rewarded for it.)
Other than that the only system I can think of atm would involve creating a sort of 'mission outline' system, where you set up a handful of mission that go like:
Stage 1: Setup
Stage 2: Encounter
Stage 3: Primary Goal
Stage 4: Secondary Goal
Stage 5: Resolution Phase
Stage 6: Conclusion
Then you set up a basic outline for 'Alien encounter', 'Strange Technology', 'Potential Conflict', 'Diplomatic Tangle' and maybe one or two others.
Next you craft 3-4 interchangeable parts that can go into each stage. with a standard scene shift/transition mechanic between them. Make it so the various parts get plugged in at random, hopefully with slightly randomized map elements and encounters along the way.
(City of Heroes used to do this with its random mission generators... you devs may have heard of that game)
Okay, so now they are coding a new system, with 4-6 basic outlines, each outline requiring about 24 'stage blocks' to make the shuffle interesting, and a background cast of multiple aliens, technologies, and discoveries.
I DON'T SEE ANY WAY THIS COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG...
(well ok there might be a bug or two in the transitions but that's about it)
(and yes, I am aware that this is essentially an expansion on the 'old' exploration clusters)
At any rate: Foundry/Player crafted has the most potential I think, they just need tools and rewards.
The other system would be something Cryptic has more control over, but seems like a fair bit of design/programming work for a team that (I am sorry to have to say this) has trouble getting basic functionality bugs out of important new systems like the Loadout system. Maybe they are different teams and it would go well. We can always hope.
How about something ... a new zone... that changes over the course of the month...
I.E.
January: Stage 1
February: Stage 2
March: Stage 3
April: Stage 4
^^^ above poster beat me to it.
I suppose you could merge the foundry into this too... add in the remote systems for authors to start missions at.
Maybe the idea of floating Foundry missions - people create content, do it in a way that is not overly tied to known races, flag it, and those foundry missions are randomly assigned in the "Elite Dangerous Milky Way System Creator" logic..................
What I propose is something like this. Firstly I think we could change the way we "move" around an area of space, uncharted or otherwise. If you've played FTL (and you should have!) it has a sector map with various branching paths to take. At each stage you could use your ships sensors to scan for various anomalies (will list in a moment) and pick one to investigate. The number of options could vary at each stage, some with one others perhaps with three or four. You then advance to your chosen anomaly by ordering the conn to set a course, or if you're a TNG nut like myself... ENGAGE!
The different anomalies could be one of the following:
-Nebulas
-Pulsars
-Black holes - maybe in orbit of a star slowly devouring it (would make for an epic view).
-Binary systems
-Asteroid fields
-Gas Giants
-Deep space
The list could go on and on, there are just so many different settings you could pick. Space missions would in my mind offer the devs the ability to make more of the system than you would if using just ground maps. This is because to create believable, varied ground maps would be pretty time consuming. We all remember how utterly dreadful it was running around the maze of corridors in the old system. I would like to see ground maps, but perhaps they would be limited to half a dozen premade maps. Perhaps if you had premade "blocks" (imagine those flat lego bases) and just slot a few in random orders to create the illusion of variety. I would like to include your own ship interiors as an option too, but am unsure how Cryptic would manage to do this with all the custom bridges available (Intrepid/Belfast etc).
From each of these settings you could have the following scenarios:
-Search and rescue/repairing a stranded ship
-Medical, help investigate diagnose and cure an illness aboard a ship or station/colony
-Scientific, scan for data on nebula for example and collect materials for analysis (could connect to the R&D system?)
-Combat, assist friendly forces face off against and aggressor (any of the major non-alliance races)
-Diplomacy, please do this. It's such a big part of Star Trek and we have no proper missions for it now. Do it some justice and give us a reason to want to use those Rank 4 Ambassador uniforms!
So, a rough guide of how a scenario could play out:
You enter the exploration block from sector space, and load on your bridge. You access the operations (the conn) to view the map and start with the first area. You order your science officer to scan for readings/anomalies and they report back with two choices. You have a solar system with a main sequence star which is emitting strange readings or a nebula which hasn't been charted previously by a starship. You decide to investigate the nebula, your choice is locked in and you yell ENGAGE at your conn officer.
You emerge from warp in a randomly generated space map on the edge of a huge nebula. Your science officer states that they are detecting a faint communications signal coming from the nebula, however you can't get a solid reading due to interference. You move closer and discover a ship, they hail you and state their warp coils have depolarised and they request your assistance. Now this could either be a simple case of beaming some new warp coils aboard, or you could send a duty officer aboard to fix the problem with a short timer (no more than a few minutes!). Another option would be the scanning thing with the magical yellow/blue deflector scan thing. They are grateful for your assistance and warp off with their warp drive fixed. You yourself warp out of the map and back to your bridge to continue looking for new scenarios. You advance one stage across the map, and you have more scenarios to choose from. Once you've completed so many (perhaps five or so) you reach the end of that sector and can claim a reward (dilithium etc), the map is then refreshed and you start again.
I hope that's makes it clear how things could be done. They wouldn't be overly complicated but it wouldn't be the same "scan five of these" missions we had. One of my favourite quick missions to do in STO is the Breen cruiser daily where you emit a deflector pulse and beam the slaves aboard without them noticing and warp out to avoid conflict, or stay and destroy them. We don't need to have huge complex missions like FEs for this system to work.
I can't stress how important this could be to the future of STO. If done correctly, and Cryptic by that I mean don't half-TRIBBLE it or cripple it by adding loads of timers like with the R&D/DOFF system it could breath a lease of new life into STO which in my opinion is starting to stagnate pretty badly with all the nerfs and xp requirements for specialisations. Do this right Cryptic, and we have a REASON to want to buy those new ships you pump out while having a source of content which while not unlimited gives us such variation that we look forward to loading the next map to see what combinations we have, just like I do when I start a new game of FTL.
Finally, apologies for the wall of text!
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I say take the Search for New Romulus ground mission and expand upon it for some exploration missions in the vein of a large-style exploration mission. As well, some won't even be Exploration; you'll inadvertently find a hidden enemy base that you can either report and beam away, or storm for even more valuables.
Basically, have large ones and small ones. All of them guarantee at least one VR reward, whether it's just vendor trash or something useful. The large ones guarantee several hidden rewards throughout. The small ones just serve as a decent stop between missions for those in the mood for a quick exploration for a bit of extra XP/EC.
To make exploration even more attractive to those only interested in rewards, have an entire equipment/weapon line only available from Exploration (expanding on the salvaging/reverse-engineering of the Ancient Omni Beam and Obelisk warp core from the Dyson sphere). We'll call it the Ancient tech series. Within that, are different categories based on dead races such as pre-Sundering Vulcans.
For example:
On one of the worlds, you detect traces of ancient ruins and decide to explore. It's basically ruin exploration similar to the Search for New Romulus one, but at the end, you discover notes and schematics for ancient pre-Sundering Vulcan Plasma tech. Whether it's a beam or a projectile or a cannon is random. You can then R&D it for a 20 hour project, which results in a powerful Ancient Vulcan Plasma weapon that has a straight bonus of Exotic damage (innate and fixed much like AP's Crit Severity rather than being a proc, but scales off of PartGens). However, it will be VR with only 2 mods, due to its potential strength.
And the potency of the weapon is balanced by the need to do more exploration missions and hope for another Ancient Vulcan-related exploration.
On another world, you discover some ancient ruins of a race who literally built and wore advanced tinfoil hats and bodysuits due to having a severe phobia of psychics (maybe the wildlife had psychic abilities as well as affected mental faculties). Your team discovers schematics and depictions that they would later use to create a hybrid Environmental suit designed for your species capable of fully resisting Psionic attacks, Exposes, and Holds. This suit would have 3 different designs; based on origin Faction who crafted them, but also have a bit of the alien element to them. This suit basically would be an anti-Undine and anti-Devidian sort of specialty suit.
However, players will be able to sell/trade the crafted Ancient derived weapons or equipment off the Exchange. The Ancient Schematics can also be sold. However, they are all one-time use; players will have to run multiple explorations for more to craft for weapons to sell, or just to sell to players who might be interested in crafting them.
An example of a stronghold discovery:
After sensing some unusual signatures coming from what should be an uncolonized world, you go exploring, and soon uncover a Tal Shiar operation. You can choose to just report it and get completion for the exploration (a bit of EC/XP based on what you'd get exploring a small Exploration zone), or raid it (NPCs within would be just a little tougher than Normal, but weaker than Advanced, if you played it on Normal). You would only get XP/EC for reporting it, but raiding it takes you to a new map with a number of hidden rewards.
Let's say you do choose to raid the facility, and realize it's dedicated to producing Thalaron-infused weapons. A time limit is involved in how long you have to capture as many of these reward items before the Tal Shiar make off with them. The Thalaron-infused weapons range from potent Thalaron Plasma Beam weapons to Thalaron Emission Torpedoes (Thalaron variant of Particle Emission). These weapons only have 1 random Mod at VR due to having identical but weaker non-proc abilities of the Thalaron Pulse weapon (including the fact that they are also affected by Aux and PartGens), but are potent in their own right.
Upon the timer reaching zero or the total razing of the facility, you can either opt to turn in any or all of the weapons for a major EC and Dil reward, or keep them for your own use (catering to the player's preferences for roleplaying, faction choices, min-maxing, or just wanting a new toy to play with).
These Stronghold raid weapons would NOT be tradeable or sellable on the exchange, to offset their power.
Varied minigames for scanning, for one thing, and less scanning in general. Occasional randomly generated mazes or something. Things like the Undine Infiltration mission where you talk to NPCs and figure out which one's story doesn't add up/which one sounds like the person that you're looking for/whatever, or things like that one Gamma Quadrant mission where you have to do the right combination of processes to obtain stuff. Also, something that actually encourages teaming up to do exploration missions would be good, like multiple class-specific activities that help progress the mission faster, etc. If possible, activities occuring on the ship's bridge would be excellent as well, though I understand that that requires hooking up "hotspots" for stuff on every single bridge map. It'd be worth it though, IMO.
A Foundry mission contest for user-made exploration missions would be great too; the missions could be one-encounter-only then repeatable from the Foundry tab afterwards.
EDIT: Also, Illcadia's massive post pretty much sums up a good deal of what I'd like to see out of Exploration.
1. EvE Online
2. Star Citizen
A similar system could/possibly/maybe be implemented in STO
My character Tsin'xing
In truth I love many of the creative ideas here.
Crowd sourcing exploration missions is a great idea you have hundreds of authors who would most likely jump at the chance of contributing.
Soon you will have a bucket load of exploration missions to choose from to add to the exploration mission pools.
No doubt there are many already in the foundry that can be cherry picked or edited to get the ball rolling.
The reviewing of missions may be a tad difficult to organise but the community may be of help here too.
As long as there is a criteria to the missions scope then each area of space or adjacent areas can have a pool of exploration missions.
A tab to investigate a point of interest and the player will receive a mission from the ever expanding pool.
The tab may include a user preference slider to allow the player to edge towards the gameplay they enjoy most as
Once explored the mission will be taken from the pool for that player but the system will allow the players to replay for fun later if they so choose, maybe on their ships holodeck for instance.
Next time they want to explore space it will be a new mission in a new area with new objectives.
(As a personnal favour could all authors add loads of easter eggs into their areas. As canon as possible please ;-)
For me this equates to grinding without the tedious, repetitive and soul destroying hamster wheel grind that can be found in most mmo's.
I may need to remind some that I feel that a community who are engaged and having fun and playing more.
Are far more likely to invest in their gameplay experience.
Rather than ones who feel the tedious grind has become to much to bother investing in.
Whats in it for the devs?
Well.
exploration specialisation?
exploration equipment?
exploration vehicles?
exploration uniforms?
exploration ship varients?
exlporation Boffs?
exploration Doffs?
exploration lockbox?
Do they need any more incentives?
God I hate typing things like this on a phone >.< sigh. OK, as I proposed, modular design co bined with fixed scripted missions. Yes there's a limited number of permutations, but as long as you keep adding modules it doesn't get stale.
Go online and look up Carcassonne the game. Only three tile types (city, farm, road) you can make infinite combinations of maps with them. Same concept here.
Honestly, I should just build this as a board game and mail it to taco. It would only take like a week or two. >.<
A simple example:
Mission start modules one selected randomly (just a dialog tree needed)
Distress call
Automated beacon
Science officer reports anomaly on sensors
Etc
Adventure composed of 1 or more "obstacle modules" some missions will thus be long, some short.
_
Space combat module examples:
Pirates threatening [ship/planet/etc]
Space entity threatening [ship/planet/etc]
Race 1 threatening race 2 (either or might be new race or known race)
Ground combat modules:
Race 1 threatening race 2
Faction 1 threatening faction 2
It was all a trap, ambush
Space discovery modules:
Dangerous anomaly, maneuver to waypoints or take damage
New discovery: [lost relic, ancient craft, unique science factoid], dialog tree branching options
Scientific bonanza (multiple science harvesting nodes) plus science or explore doff missions
Ground discovery modules:
Scientific bonanza (multiple science harvesting nodes)
Crew has emergency [plague/parasite/mutagenic virus/allergy to new plant], medical doff missions plus branching dialog tree
Ruins of ancient civilization, marauder doff missions or explore doff missions plus branching dialog tree
Space diplomacy module:
First contact (branching diplomacy tree)
Hostile standoff between two factions, branching dialog, (might lead to combat)
Ship in distress, engineering or marauder doff missions, branching dialog tree
Ground diplomacy modules:
Preindustrial civilization, non-combat mission requiring stealth ("everything old is new" as a model)
Commodities/economic opportunity, faction [needs/wants/has] commodity(s), provide or get or steal (may initiate combat), may involve multi-step trades/purchases
Factions in dispute over [technology/resources/land/policy], branching dialog tree, possibly unlocks diplomacy or trade or engineering doff missions
OK, now let's put some of these together using some random numbers, even odd (space vs ground) & 1-3 for combat/discovery/diplomacy & 1-3 for choice 1-3 beneath each module. I pulled up pi to 1,000 decimals started at a spot in the middle and used those numbers here's what I got:
Short example: 2 modules space only
Intro: emergency distress call
Space combat: entity threatening [ship], space diplomacy [ship] in distress
Longer example, space + ground, 4 modules
Intro: science officer notices anomaly
Space discover 1, dangerous anomaly ->
Ground diplomacy 3, faction [wants commodity, pretend its energy cells]
Ground combat 2, faction 1 threatens faction 2 (I guess we just gave the bad guys what they needed to attack a neighbor, oops)
Space discovery 3, scientific bonanza
From a narrative standpoint both work. Ship in distress, chasemoff enemy repair damage, profit.
Funky anomaly, find race on backside of the anomaly, they tricked me, I saved the day, and oh hey before I go that anomaly provided some valuable research.
This, would never get old and it plays like a TV episode generator.
To answer this question we must answer the obvious..."What IS exploration in relation to Star Trek?"
To those who have pointed out the No Man's Sky approach, well that is a yet unproven and new technology. And regardless of how many auto generated worlds they produce, from their marketing videos it's a lot of scanning and walking around. And it won't take trillions of worlds to get bored in short order.
Exploration without fighting? I'm not sure that's the blueprint to follow either and in some ways cheapens what conflict can bring to a story to promote engagement.
Which brings us back to the question of what IS exploration in relation to Star Trek?
If we start with the definition of exploration: the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it, then exploration in Star Trek is almost always a starting point. In fact exploration historically, that is real history, is a starting point to a journey. And that is, I believe, what more of us pine for than just mindless scanning or scientific intrigue. That is to say, we want to explore but we want to get in some *ish on the way that will challenge us and expand us in some meaningful way. And at the end of that journey gain some kind of meaningful benefit or reward that will help up on the next journey.
The answers to select from in the poll, "Exploration MISSIONS" are a bit misleading if not leading the user to a specific answer. Is it Exploration we want or is it missions which involve exploring? Is there a difference?
Just an idea, maybe whatever you make, you could include the missions from the old exploration that was taken out. That way, with the new stuff you're making, and the old content brought back in, there would be a hell of a lot more included, which would take some of the strain off of you, and would make this add-on full of 'new' content.
The more varied it was, the fresher it would feel to people, and the more it would be played.
maybe you should watch some TNG, TOS, and VOY, a number of the missions they took part in had no combat or fairly little. the aspect of exploration isnt just scanning rocks, but diplomacy and exploration of the human condition. perhaps you forgotten what the original message of what star trek was about to begin with? if you have, reconnect with star trek and find imaginative idea for exploration for STO.
solving puzzles to unlock a deeper mystery on a map, finding a way of building a bridge across a lava river and saving lives, general dicsussion and political ramaifications that leads to a potential encounter with another random exploration, and one that may have nothing to do with the other, helping out saving a world from a virus, dealing with an intelligent lifeform one doesnt understand at first and learning to understand it. solving the problem of a geological instability on an inhabited world that threatens to destroy itself...
surely your telling us you dont have enough imagination to come up with some really good exploration?
also what about all those cryptic alien races you had in the original? will they return?
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I see a lot of this and I don't think it takes into account what an MMO is and does, all too often.
It's not strictly about game engine limits (although there is that) but about genre limits. This kind of thing needs concrete feedback or concrete design ideas.
I have a whole heck of a lot of thoughts on this topic for STO or MMOs in general.
To start with, you need fairly open zones.
You do need some randomization but not too much or you lose the important aspect of exploration -- which is context.
Exploration needs story, whether that's scripted or between players.
I'm speaking in vague terms because any ONE of these points could become a novel.
One of my stronger design ideas involves a Clue-inspired minigame. This can allow for emergent multiplayer story generation. You need subject, object, action, and place as things which can be strung together in a coherent way or you have a big wide open map.
Story is not text being thrown at you. It's structure. Probably the single best execution of story (and exploration for that matter) in a game is Journey for PS3.
For all the talk about sandbox vs. theme park play by gaming pundits, I think it's a false distinction. In many cases, I feel like people are discussing vacation attraction vs. carnival game. A well done real life theme park attraction takes into account a lot of the architecture, psychology, and interaction between people who are there.
Journey has the structure of a story -- the important parts, not the exposition -- and is built for people to experience cooperatively with other players in emergent ways.
The full experience is a bit much for STO but the broad strokes should be the basis for STO exploration.
http://youtu.be/bKqeD7ojynw
I can go into a LOT more depth about how this applies to STO but it's one of those things it would be tiring to type.
^this most definitely!!
also branching mission paths would be AWESOME... choices that matter, if I do x then y is closed to me. Weather this is actual mission paths, dialogue options, or both.
Another Trek staple was "exploring" a character... excepting Tovan, you gave Romulans a lot of interesting NPC BOFFs that went no where after being introduced... missions to explore cryptic designe BOFFs like these more could be interesting too.
The solonae sphere was described as the equivalent of 250 million m class worlds. And yes, you could have a LOT of cool repayable content exploring solonae ruins, avoiding old defenses (ala step between stars, which I absolutely love as a mission) and occasionally sparring with voth/undine or even the solonae servitors themselves (if you can get them to stick around without fleeing all the time). That could be utterly epic.
Jenolan is much more wide open from a narrative standpoint, since it doesn't have any of the solonae architecture, spires etc.
A good exploration zone is one that is about getting from point A to point B but where the detours are meaningful and where the environment has plateaus -- little stages, in the theatrical sense -- for activity. I knew a lot of explorers in WoW and one of the keys is that you encounter places that come to take on meaningful relationships with the player.
Ie. This village is "my home" and this area is "a dark wood, full of danger."
I realize this idea is going to have pushback from some people here who just want a flat open area for wandering but wandering is not really exploring.
Exploring is going to mean that there's a cost associated with travel and multiple flavors of reward (intrinsic) for going off route. You need a sense of relationship to environment. This can be accomplished with musical cues (which FMOD and STO obviously support) and game interactions that involve ways of interacting with the environment in ways that are predictable but emergent and subject to risk and change. You need goals but the goals can be things that are not perfectly reliable rather than things which have a predictable cause and effect sequence.
In that regard, I think the STO equivalent of the scarf from journey would probably come in the form of a probability index supplied by a scientist. You're given a task. You're given a world in which you can go and do things which influence the probability of that task (or at least dimensions of it; doing an activity may reduce odds of one thing while increasing odds of another). Then you should be able to lock in your choices and see the consequences play out. This is speaking in very broad terms still but is the basis for exploratory gameplay from wilderness charting to puzzle systems to crafting systems in other games.
I suggest the probability thing because it's a staple of Trek to have a character who cites probability estimates and in a game, it can provide uncertain but somewhat reliable advice that a player is proceeding in the right direction with a task. Imperfect certainty is at the heart of what makes a design exploration based.
These missions should have fairly strict guidelines. The mission must last 15 minutes minimum to 35 or so minutes maximum. The mission must not contain anything that contradicts the current story. The mission must contain something besides combat - be it scan 5 objects or so many lines of 'story'. Any mission approved of for 'exploration missions' cannot be edited after they're accepted by Cryptic and posted to the Exploration chart. Missions accepted by Cryptic no longer count towards a players foundry mission cap.
Example Mission: Distress call from USS Ajax. Enter Arucanis arm, find disabled ship. Minigame or logic puzzle to free allied ship. After ship is freed - move deeper into system to find what disabled them. Find an ancient preserver research platform that was trying to study the Ajax. Automated defenses attack! (Generic npc contacts). After defeating contacts - beam down. More automated Defenses? Explore base, maybe another puzzle or scan run around. Finish with 'contact quest giving npc - he'll dispatch a joint Jenolan Accord research party to study what you found! Good job!
On the player end - I fly to Arucanis Arm. I'm given the option: Explore Arucanis! The game gives me a mission from the approved Arucanis list at random - and I have to complete it before I can be given a new one - dropping the mission without completion will put me on a 1 hour exploration 'cooldown' in which I can get new missions, but no rewards from them. Completing this mission counts towards the Foundry rewards project. Repeated completions don't include a dilithium reward but they do give a slightly boosted xp/specialization point reward so exploring is a valid way to level characters.
Something like the TOS episode "Corbormite Manuever"
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Things like: Feed the villagers. Stop the marauders. The trick is that there are multiple ways of doing things, the methods are not perfectly predictable or repeatable, and failure is not exactly penalized but is encouraged as the player attempts to fulfill broad mandates with ingenuity and luck in a large environment.
a lot of worlds in trek have not really been explored out either, including rock climbing, repelling down cliffs for live samples some plant lifeform only known to exist in this one area.. andoria has colonies of these worms that burrow through the ice caves, and yet to see anything significant from any of the major player planets and greater cultures. vulcan has some extensive ancient history around its planet, tranditions to follow, all could make interesting exploration points pitted against the real threat of the enviroments. travelling through the forge to go on a spiritual jouney of enlightenment in the teachings and writings of surak, learning ancient vulcan history. travelling to p'jem, exploring the vulcan way of life. going to andoria, exploring their great underground cities, beutiful deadly ice formations, native fauna and flora.. nothing on the tellarites and this should be explored out, know next to nothing about them, giving them a world, a government and such and having exploration points there...
you keep this type of thing going and some of this stuff should become standard in academy training for a better experience for new players to learn more about the history of the federation and of starfleet, but not just at the academy records, but in paris as well where the federation is based. the same on qo'nos as well, the walls of the first city, specifically standing on the top of those walls, looking out on the distance of the klingon homeworld, taking in the culture, the values, the atmosphere of the place..
the possibility of exploring, the breen, cardassians, deferi, borg, klingon allies like the letheans and gorn, the romulans and their history, their sharp politics... moving on to the spheres, the place is massive and unexplored and there are 2 of them. exploring more the delta quadrant out, heading to the talaxian homeworld, helping out there, potential ancient ruins to explore, lifeforms to scan.. politics with the kobali, talaxians, kazon and hirogen without the delta alliance being around. random encounters in space for short or drawn out diplomatics confrences that learn more about a people then you would get from violence.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
2015, will most definitely be seeing another Expansion for STO... why not just make that... an Exploration only expansion...
Expansion 3: Boldly Go