(although somebody really needs to remind the devs that the Delta Quadrant map is on a different scale from the Alpha/Beta map).
Trust me, no one needs to remind us. Voyager screwed everything up, scale wise. The insane distances they covered in that one show dwarf all of the explored space in the Alpha/Beta Quadrant by several orders of magnitude. There is no good way to have players visit the DQ, AND keep the DQ in scale with A&B. All of our playable AQ and BQ space would fit in one sector of DQ space in game, if the DQ were built to scale. There just isn't any way to do it "right" so we have to overlook it, and make it fun/interesting.
Why does it break immersion to have the button on the UI? There is a ton of other UI on screen as well. Does none of that break immersion?
I'm not going to say that the button breaks immersion, but its a big chunk of screen clutter that I never ever use, and I would be happy to see it placed in the options menu someplace instead of having a home on the game play space.
Tried this out on Tribble for a while and I must say, this is truly amazing. Very cool update indeed! Well done!
The camera still needs a bit of work to keep the focus on your ship, but overall I very much enjoy the updated sector space.
In the coming weeks Sector Space is going to be more empty than ESD. You know why... probably, but I can't say anything until the-thing-that-shall-not-be-named hits with the violence of a tactical nuke.
I'd like to say it's a good revamp, but for how things are going, I can't get excited. My faith reached 0 in devs. They can even tell me my first name correctly if they knew it, and I'd still not believe them.
Neither has the Alpha Quadrant considering the actual scale of space and what was talked about on screen in the shows and movies.
As is often forgotten, there are somewhere between 200 and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Federation controls about 1,500 (about 150-200 member worlds, another 1,000 or so colonies and the like) of them, and it's the largest of the three powers.
Neither has the Alpha Quadrant considering the actual scale of space and what was talked about on screen in the shows and movies.
This deserves to be more widely recognized. One thing I fear is that some future developer of the franchise will conclude that the Milky Way is played out, and start exploring a new galaxy, which is a fast way to destroy a universe. Despite a few quibbles I have with the game map, which mostly stem from major problems I have with the Star Charts, Star Trek's "real" defined Alpha & Beta quadrants are simply not very much bigger than the game's playable space indicates. You could fit well over 100,000 "alpha quadrants" (DS9's definition, that is) in the Milky Way, without even bothering with the Z-axis.
I look forward to this update that I feel is way long overdue.
Another update that needs to happen is the removal of the need to parachute up/down to climb/descend the z-axis.
If they still can not remove or widen the restrictions on the axis of the movement control, then a z-axis thruster needs installed so we can simply thrust our way +/- on the z-axis in maps.
Also, WHY does power level reduce when in reverse? This has never and will never make sense... ever.
Just because I use reverse thrusters does not mean I now diverted power or switched it to negative mode.
Emergency thrusters, maybe, if I chose to divert all available power to reverse thrust, but that has to be a set skill and immediately stop/reverse your current direction.
Simply putting engines in reverse that slowly drains power makes no sense.
See how they can't keep this mess straight? That whole quadrant thing has been nothing but a fiasco since it was brought into the Trek. And not surprising most of it was caused after the passing of Roddenberry.
_____
Lifetime no longer gives a forum title. That should be updated on the Lifetime page that mentions what you get. PMing the CSR doesn't work neither.
I'm not going to say that the button breaks immersion, but its a big chunk of screen clutter that I never ever use, and I would be happy to see it placed in the options menu someplace instead of having a home on the game play space.
My question is if you (and the other fellow) have that button in a very obvious place on your screen. Mine's tucked (along with other Secondary interacts) in the lower right, next to my trays. It's not obvious, and I actually forgot about the option until it was mentioned in the blog.
Trouble is, scriptwriters seem to like the name Vega, so there are loads of canon systems referred to as that - they can't all be the real star Vega. (And as Realmalize points out on his maps website ( https://malsmaps.wordpress.com/real-sector-maps-for-star-trek/ ) probably none of them are, because the real Vega is a very hot star probably not much good for human-habitable planets. He offers the neat rationalisation that probably people publicising new colonies or refineries like the name Vega as much as scriptwriters do, so several people have named their places "Vega" whether they are or not.)
As for why the Federation called the quadrant they were in the Beta Quadrant rather than the Alpha Quadrant, that does kind of make sense - the quadrant system was obviously invented by Earth, since Sol marks the dividing line between Alpha and Beta. So Sol isn't in either quadrant, and presumably they just arbitrarily called the one on the left of their maps Alpha and the one on the right Beta, without asking anyone else. Of such random line-drawing is geography made.
Anyway, arguments over how they drew the map aside, I really like this update, it's more than worth the hassle that's evidently gone into it! The alteration to Tour the Galaxy is a nice touch - I mena, who cares about sectors? They're just lines on a map. "Visit as many planets as you can" is somehow much more satifying.
If you go to upstate New York youll find a Mexico, NY. If you go to Washington youll find a Des Moines, WA. People have a habit of naming things the same thing as elsewhere. Its not a surprise in a Galaxy with billions of stars and even more planets. That there would be some overlapping naming going on.
The in-universe means of keeping one Vega from being confused with another Vega would be to simply follow Vega with its Sector. So Vega, Orion Sector or Vega, [insert name here] Sector.
If you go to upstate New York youll find a Mexico, NY. If you go to Washington youll find a Des Moines, WA. People have a habit of naming things the same thing as elsewhere. Its not a surprise in a Galaxy with billions of stars and even more planets. That there would be some overlapping naming going on.
Lol yeah, look at the number of places in America named after places in the UK.
Or how many people on the planet share the same names. There's a limit to how many unique names we can come up with, unless we start naming people using hexadecimal characters or some such lol.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
About the changes in the Foundry since there won't be any Sector Block Walls, we should have a different ship instead of that Miranda. Because with the Miranda, it takes a long while to get from planet to another planet (e.g. Flying from a planet that is in the alpha quadrant to a planet that is in the far corner of the beta quadrant.) and takes most of your time testing your foundry missions.
And since your Foundry "Dummy" Character is a cadet and it takes forever for him/her to level up to a Lieutenant... well... you know...
"Our history, our past, our present and our future is now forever changed. All we can do is preserve what is left and continue onwards. This is not a surrender nor defeat, we will continue the fight. This is our last hope, our last chance... for victory."
Vlasek D. Lasor - 4.19.3580 Star Trek Online: Foundry Storyline Series
Why does it break immersion to have the button on the UI? There is a ton of other UI on screen as well. Does none of that break immersion?
I'd throw a vote out there for it to be moved, not because of immersion but rather it's not something I'm guessing people toggle on and off frequently enough to warrant it's current position in the UI.
It feels more like a game setting that would be set via the options menu than something that would be interacted with routinely during a typical game session... similar to how the shield facing FX are enabled/disabled.
I would like it better if sector space was made alot bigger. I would like to be able to look around my ship and see nothing but empty space. I realize that travel time is an issue but this can be compensated by:
Allow players to interact with transwarp gates in faction controlled maps, like they can at their own starbases. This way players would be able to travel between hubs without using the on board drive, thus not having to wait for the cooldown.
Allow players to 'visit starship bridge' while the ship continues to travel along a course and give them more to do on their ship. Daily missions like the 'officer of the watch' ones, or career specific tasks like allowing science officers to treat injured doffs, thereby decreasing their recovery time.
Random (optional) interaction during flight.
If players really dislike the travel time, it might also be an idea to provide the option to play on different server types.
Ok, let's say we put Earth DIRECTLY on the border between Alpha and Beta. Half of the system now sits outside the playable space of the map. You can fly up to Earth, and some other planets, but those planets on the other side of the sun? You can NEVER get to them.
I don't think you quite understand the suggestion. A generous radius for the solar system is 100 AU; *almost* everything is inside of about 50 AU, but Eris with a max aphelion of 97.7 is kind of nifty and who knows might be a plot point someday. (It's actually a good choice for a historical "field test" of warp equipment, for instance.) 100 AU is roughly 0.0016 light years, or about 0.58 light days (AFAIK the smallest scale / grid increment used for STO astrometrics).
In realistic scale, draw the Alpha quadrant map overlapping the official razor edge by a light-day; so it's Alpha-plus-one-light-day-of-Beta. Do the same for the Beta map, which then becomes Beta-plus-one-light-day-of-Alpha. Think of it as "bleed" like you do for printing if you want. Good maps overlap their technical borders by a bit, so if you're dealing with something close to the edge, you're not flipping back and forth constantly; this is effectively a special case of that. (Presumably the solar system is scaled up by some bloat ratio for flying about purposes; apply whatever factor that is to the above numbers.)
Then handle Sol normally, it's just on both sides, along with all its planets, etc. Everyone can fly around normally, gawk, start missions, whatever; from either map. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting chopping the system in half; effectively the map boundary has some hysteresis. Fly more than a light-day past the edge of Alpha, you map-change to Beta. Fly more than a light-day past the edge of Beta, you map-change to Alpha. (Times the bloat factor again.)
Digital objects like Sol already exist in multiple phased / instanced locations; it's not like this will suddenly split up space in a new way from a user perspective. We're already accustomed to the idea that if two random captains who don't know each other leave Earth Spacedock, their ships are already not likely to end up in the same version of near-Sol space due being on different instances / maps. "The map is not the territory."
If you wanted to be extra helpful, have "Exit to Alpha Quadrant" and "Exit to Beta Quadrant" options from Earth; this will do the most to reduce unwanted map loading. If that takes tech time you don't have, treat it like everything else where you exit the way you came in.
I'd throw a vote out there for it to be moved, not because of immersion but rather it's not something I'm guessing people toggle on and off frequently enough to warrant it's current position in the UI.
...seriously guys, you can move it. It's an UI element you can move wherever you like, I have mine tucked in the corner.
This may have been reported by someone else, but when I tried this in Tribble, the sound cut out each time I crossed over a sector line. Otherwise, it looks great!
And a question ... will any of the new systems (Ferenginar, Tellar, Trill, Betazed, Denobula) have worlds to beam down to like Andoria, Risa, etc. have today? I personally would love to see Ferenginar.
Is anyone else a little disappointed with the updates to the Foundry? Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to be able to make great story-based Foundry missions that can take place anywhere in the galaxy. Especially Memory Alpha, I'm still sad it was locked out. It was my favourite place to go (and I still have those old schemata sitting in my bank).
Another update that needs to happen is the removal of the need to parachute up/down to climb/descend the z-axis.
If they still can not remove or widen the restrictions on the axis of the movement control, then a z-axis thruster needs installed so we can simply thrust our way +/- on the z-axis in maps.
This is a very important point. I really feel that we -need- the ability to ascend/descend on the z-axis. Having to plot a spiral path with the tightest turn possible is REALLY annoying in a cruiser.
I suspect that the maximum limitations on the degree of pitch control may be an inherent limitation of the game engine. This is an issue with a number of 3D game engines used for FPS and OSS games; the player's view must always be rendered "upright".
That may or may not be the case here, but if it is, the simplest fix would be to add a pair of z-axis keybinds and the ability to ascend/descend straight vertically, even if only with maneuvering thrusters.
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Comments
Trust me, no one needs to remind us. Voyager screwed everything up, scale wise. The insane distances they covered in that one show dwarf all of the explored space in the Alpha/Beta Quadrant by several orders of magnitude. There is no good way to have players visit the DQ, AND keep the DQ in scale with A&B. All of our playable AQ and BQ space would fit in one sector of DQ space in game, if the DQ were built to scale. There just isn't any way to do it "right" so we have to overlook it, and make it fun/interesting.
Why does it break immersion to have the button on the UI? There is a ton of other UI on screen as well. Does none of that break immersion?
"CommanderFangs": I ship it. :P
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
I'm not going to say that the button breaks immersion, but its a big chunk of screen clutter that I never ever use, and I would be happy to see it placed in the options menu someplace instead of having a home on the game play space.
I agree. Someone messed up the whole map.
Beta Quadrant has been barely explored.
Romulans, Klingons, and Starfleet are in the alpha quadrant.
Only a very-very-very tiny amount of episodes talked about the Beta Quadrant.
False, the Klingon Empire is located in the Beta Quadrant.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Klingon_Empire
And the Romulan Star Empire is also primarily located in the Beta Quadrant though touches on the fringes of the Alpha Quadrant.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Romulan_Star_Empire
In the coming weeks Sector Space is going to be more empty than ESD. You know why... probably, but I can't say anything until the-thing-that-shall-not-be-named hits with the violence of a tactical nuke.
I'd like to say it's a good revamp, but for how things are going, I can't get excited. My faith reached 0 in devs. They can even tell me my first name correctly if they knew it, and I'd still not believe them.
Neither has the Alpha Quadrant considering the actual scale of space and what was talked about on screen in the shows and movies.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
As is often forgotten, there are somewhere between 200 and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Federation controls about 1,500 (about 150-200 member worlds, another 1,000 or so colonies and the like) of them, and it's the largest of the three powers.
This deserves to be more widely recognized. One thing I fear is that some future developer of the franchise will conclude that the Milky Way is played out, and start exploring a new galaxy, which is a fast way to destroy a universe. Despite a few quibbles I have with the game map, which mostly stem from major problems I have with the Star Charts, Star Trek's "real" defined Alpha & Beta quadrants are simply not very much bigger than the game's playable space indicates. You could fit well over 100,000 "alpha quadrants" (DS9's definition, that is) in the Milky Way, without even bothering with the Z-axis.
Another update that needs to happen is the removal of the need to parachute up/down to climb/descend the z-axis.
If they still can not remove or widen the restrictions on the axis of the movement control, then a z-axis thruster needs installed so we can simply thrust our way +/- on the z-axis in maps.
Also, WHY does power level reduce when in reverse? This has never and will never make sense... ever.
Just because I use reverse thrusters does not mean I now diverted power or switched it to negative mode.
Emergency thrusters, maybe, if I chose to divert all available power to reverse thrust, but that has to be a set skill and immediately stop/reverse your current direction.
Simply putting engines in reverse that slowly drains power makes no sense.
Memory Alpha puts the Klingons and Romulans in both.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Alpha_Quadrant
See how they can't keep this mess straight? That whole quadrant thing has been nothing but a fiasco since it was brought into the Trek. And not surprising most of it was caused after the passing of Roddenberry.
Lifetime no longer gives a forum title. That should be updated on the Lifetime page that mentions what you get. PMing the CSR doesn't work neither.
My question is if you (and the other fellow) have that button in a very obvious place on your screen. Mine's tucked (along with other Secondary interacts) in the lower right, next to my trays. It's not obvious, and I actually forgot about the option until it was mentioned in the blog.
If you go to upstate New York youll find a Mexico, NY. If you go to Washington youll find a Des Moines, WA. People have a habit of naming things the same thing as elsewhere. Its not a surprise in a Galaxy with billions of stars and even more planets. That there would be some overlapping naming going on.
The in-universe means of keeping one Vega from being confused with another Vega would be to simply follow Vega with its Sector. So Vega, Orion Sector or Vega, [insert name here] Sector.
Lol yeah, look at the number of places in America named after places in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_in_the_United_States_named_after_places_in_England
Or how many people on the planet share the same names. There's a limit to how many unique names we can come up with, unless we start naming people using hexadecimal characters or some such lol.
And since your Foundry "Dummy" Character is a cadet and it takes forever for him/her to level up to a Lieutenant... well... you know...
"Our history, our past, our present and our future is now forever changed. All we can do is preserve what is left and continue onwards. This is not a surrender nor defeat, we will continue the fight. This is our last hope, our last chance... for victory."
Vlasek D. Lasor - 4.19.3580
Star Trek Online: Foundry Storyline Series
I'd throw a vote out there for it to be moved, not because of immersion but rather it's not something I'm guessing people toggle on and off frequently enough to warrant it's current position in the UI.
It feels more like a game setting that would be set via the options menu than something that would be interacted with routinely during a typical game session... similar to how the shield facing FX are enabled/disabled.
Just my two cents...
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
Allow players to interact with transwarp gates in faction controlled maps, like they can at their own starbases. This way players would be able to travel between hubs without using the on board drive, thus not having to wait for the cooldown.
Allow players to 'visit starship bridge' while the ship continues to travel along a course and give them more to do on their ship. Daily missions like the 'officer of the watch' ones, or career specific tasks like allowing science officers to treat injured doffs, thereby decreasing their recovery time.
Random (optional) interaction during flight.
If players really dislike the travel time, it might also be an idea to provide the option to play on different server types.
I don't think you quite understand the suggestion. A generous radius for the solar system is 100 AU; *almost* everything is inside of about 50 AU, but Eris with a max aphelion of 97.7 is kind of nifty and who knows might be a plot point someday. (It's actually a good choice for a historical "field test" of warp equipment, for instance.) 100 AU is roughly 0.0016 light years, or about 0.58 light days (AFAIK the smallest scale / grid increment used for STO astrometrics).
In realistic scale, draw the Alpha quadrant map overlapping the official razor edge by a light-day; so it's Alpha-plus-one-light-day-of-Beta. Do the same for the Beta map, which then becomes Beta-plus-one-light-day-of-Alpha. Think of it as "bleed" like you do for printing if you want. Good maps overlap their technical borders by a bit, so if you're dealing with something close to the edge, you're not flipping back and forth constantly; this is effectively a special case of that. (Presumably the solar system is scaled up by some bloat ratio for flying about purposes; apply whatever factor that is to the above numbers.)
Then handle Sol normally, it's just on both sides, along with all its planets, etc. Everyone can fly around normally, gawk, start missions, whatever; from either map. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting chopping the system in half; effectively the map boundary has some hysteresis. Fly more than a light-day past the edge of Alpha, you map-change to Beta. Fly more than a light-day past the edge of Beta, you map-change to Alpha. (Times the bloat factor again.)
Digital objects like Sol already exist in multiple phased / instanced locations; it's not like this will suddenly split up space in a new way from a user perspective. We're already accustomed to the idea that if two random captains who don't know each other leave Earth Spacedock, their ships are already not likely to end up in the same version of near-Sol space due being on different instances / maps. "The map is not the territory."
If you wanted to be extra helpful, have "Exit to Alpha Quadrant" and "Exit to Beta Quadrant" options from Earth; this will do the most to reduce unwanted map loading. If that takes tech time you don't have, treat it like everything else where you exit the way you came in.
...seriously guys, you can move it. It's an UI element you can move wherever you like, I have mine tucked in the corner.
The Armada
Original join date: Feb 5, 2010
Twitter: @davejl_99, & @STO_BBArmada
And a question ... will any of the new systems (Ferenginar, Tellar, Trill, Betazed, Denobula) have worlds to beam down to like Andoria, Risa, etc. have today? I personally would love to see Ferenginar.
I suspect that the maximum limitations on the degree of pitch control may be an inherent limitation of the game engine. This is an issue with a number of 3D game engines used for FPS and OSS games; the player's view must always be rendered "upright".
That may or may not be the case here, but if it is, the simplest fix would be to add a pair of z-axis keybinds and the ability to ascend/descend straight vertically, even if only with maneuvering thrusters.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster