the issue with KDF science ships is just one of the more as yet visable issues dealing with factions in STO
It not a federation style science ships the KDF needs, but a "support" ship with science ship capabilities to bring exotic powers into play. Yet still a ship that reflects the combat oriented nature of KDF ships. Birds of prey are lovely little ships, but the issue with them is "little". They're "raiders" not ships designed to support the battle fleet with exotic powers. They certainly do not have the rather recent secondary deflector array. The gorn sci ships are ancient at this point, though there are some fleet versions but nothing even remotely mirroring the capabilities and several fed faction T6 science ships. For that matter, they're not as good as the RR sci ships.
the best sci ship the KDF has is the DSD. And its a good ship, but its not quite "klingon" oh, and for the record, all KDF sci ships are behind a pay wall of one kind or another. Zen, Lobi, or lock box.. take your pick. It all boils down to if you want one, your going to have to pay money, and the KDF faction science ship you get will not be anywhere near as good as its fed counterparts.. and at best your going to manage to get a t5u ship.. or a zen store ship and the best of the lot is the DSD's. No alternatives.
I don't really care what the reason why are any more.. I spend my cash on other games now, not this one.. To many disappointments. There are some great people that work at Cryptic. They care, and they do understand where I'm coming from, but they're not the people in the position to make the call for a real swan song of KDF focused development to get the KDF factions possibilities on par with the fed faction, and make it stick. I have accepted that its never going to happen. Not happily, not cheerfully, but I have accepted it.
But I sure as heck don't have to further support a product that is no longer aiming to be a AAA rated MMO. It's got its niche, and it can hold onto that quite well. After all, it is the only trek in town But there are much better multi faction MMO's in all genre's other, unfortunatly, then Trek. Maybe this will change, I'm kinda tired of waiting for it.
I had a dream. I wasn't alone. I thought I had a chance to fulfill that dream with STO. I was wrong.
Incidentally, I think a core problem with any of this is not that Klingons or Romulans have too few ships in STO but that Feds have too many. That too much effort has been applied to people paying for every slight adjustment to a ship.
And this isn't Cryptic's doing, really. Cryptic devs have basically said that when they launched, they didn't know what would be the big money maker aside from subs or if there would be one. Now, Cryptic did make a better space game than ground but players really ate up the idea of collecting fleets of ships. You now have many players who won't touch ground unless forced to.
Ship combat represents less than 10% of the average Star Trek movie or episode. Far lesss, actually. Probably closer to 1%, typically. But what STO has attracted are the starship fans. I'd wager the average Star Trek fan doesn't care about ships that much, has never owned a blueprint or a technical manual, and is more drawn to the characters.
But the way STO has become structured, the slightest tweak to a ship layout necessitates a whole new ship design. This creates artificial differences between science/cruiser/escort, it creates a surplus development of Fed ships (because they sell), and it creates a perception of a Romulan/KDF ship shortage (even though the real problem is probably more that they can't be tailored enough to purposes rather than that we need more separate ships).
I think the solution starts when you (and developers) stop thinking of the ship classes as being "roles".
Three styles of DPS. Three styles of mitigation. All equal.
Now, with that established and with it established that PvP is not a strength of the game, ships should be allowed to migrate between class boundaries at some cost... And I also think that, while preserving ship sales is important, I should be able to yank out the bridge officer stations (as one, whole unit) from any ship and be able to place those as a unit into any comparable ship frame. I'm not saying I want an Intel station without buying a ship with an Intel loadout but I kind of do feel I should be able to deposit that loadout into any ship with roughly comparably similar Shield mod/turnrate/inertia/hull...
Let's just start crowdfunding the KDF and RRF Science Vessels and Science-heavy Warbirds and get done with it. We've went far too long without ships for 1/3 of our career selection. It's time we take matters into our own hands.
Let's just start crowdfunding the KDF and RRF Science Vessels and Science-heavy Warbirds and get done with it. We've went far too long without ships for 1/3 of our career selection. It's time we take matters into our own hands.
How would that work since only the devs have access to the code and any say in what does or doesn't go into it? I don't think you can just put something into the game like that.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Let's just start crowdfunding the KDF and RRF Science Vessels and Science-heavy Warbirds and get done with it. We've went far too long without ships for 1/3 of our career selection. It's time we take matters into our own hands.
How would that work since only the devs have access to the code and any say in what does or doesn't go into it? I don't think you can just put something into the game like that.
Add a "crowdfund" tab in the C-Store. Put in a "KDF / RR Science VEssel Crowdfunding package" in there, where people can donate 500 to 50,000 Zen on these ships. Maybe with extra rewards based on the amount you invest.
If the project reaches its funding goal, the Zen is gone and Cryptic gets to work. IF the project doesn't, the Zen is returned to the players.
Problem is obviously that Cryptic would first need to implement this technology in the C-Store. Which requires them wanting to do a crowdfunding system in the first place. That would carry probably some risk they'd have to carefully evaluate. (Maybe they already did that once.)
And if the first project should fail, I doubt Cryptic would do another. (But I kinda doubt it would fail, I bet there will be a few people taking the 50,000 Zen option.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
What makes the "reasoning" on this so much worse is that when was the last time a Fed Sci ship in STO was needed to study primitives and swirly space anomalies? Never.
Science in STO is combat; science boff powers aren't referred to as 'magic' without cause. If anything, the way we (the players) employ science powers is a very Klingon approach to using those powers. Science as applied to combat in the current meta should be a Klingon or Romulan specialty, not the supposedly peaceful Federation and her Starfleet of Tyrants.
The healing and sensor based science powers fit the lore as Starfleet. But those exotic particle streams and graviton based technobabble? The only ship that made regular use of those was Voyager and half this forum can't shut up about un-Trek Voyager is and how Janeway is the worst captain ever.
To those can try to run with the "there aren't any Klingon scientists" card must've never watched the show, or have let pop culture overwrite their good senses. Antaak, 'Arne Darvin', H'ohk, J'Dan, Korath, Mara, Nu'Daq, the missions of the IKS Maht-h'a, IKS Tor'kaht, the Klingon Augments and their effortless subversion of Enterprise's computers, the monks who created the Kahless clone. Even one of the chronologically first times we see a Klingon, the courier Klaang, he had the information being transported in his DNA which was able to be read via a device in the Great Hall on Qo'nos. Klingons and science are not strangers.
There should be endgame (T6) science ships for the KDF and RRF, and not as lockbox prizes or event ships, but genuine Klingon and Romulan built ships of sciencey war. And no, a Bird-of-Prey is not "just as good as a science ship" unless you'd like explain how the universal BOffs and even console spread means the Bird-of-prey is just as good as a Cruiser?
What makes the "reasoning" on this so much worse is that when was the last time a Fed Sci ship in STO was needed to study primitives and swirly space anomalies? Never.
Science in STO is combat; science boff powers aren't referred to as 'magic' without cause. If anything, the way we (the players) employ science powers is a very Klingon approach to using those powers. Science as applied to combat in the current meta should be a Klingon or Romulan specialty, not the supposedly peaceful Federation and her Starfleet of Tyrants.
The healing and sensor based science powers fit the lore as Starfleet. But those exotic particle streams and graviton based technobabble? The only ship that made regular use of those was Voyager and half this forum can't shut up about un-Trek Voyager is and how Janeway is the worst captain ever.
To those can try to run with the "there aren't any Klingon scientists" card must've never watched the show, or have let pop culture overwrite their good senses. Antaak, 'Arne Darvin', H'ohk, J'Dan, Korath, Mara, Nu'Daq, the missions of the IKS Maht-h'a, IKS Tor'kaht, the Klingon Augments and their effortless subversion of Enterprise's computers, the monks who created the Kahless clone. Even one of the chronologically first times we see a Klingon, the courier Klaang, he had the information being transported in his DNA which was able to be read via a device in the Great Hall on Qo'nos. Klingons and science are not strangers.
There should be endgame (T6) science ships for the KDF and RRF, and not as lockbox prizes or event ships, but genuine Klingon and Romulan built ships of sciencey war. And no, a Bird-of-Prey is not "just as good as a science ship" unless you'd like explain how the universal BOffs and even console spread means the Bird-of-prey is just as good as a Cruiser?
It's nice to see a more reasonable perspective on this often-discussed subject. Many seem to talk about science ships in STO as if they're at all related to purposes of research, experiments, analysis, and exploration. They're about combat, just like everything else. Ships, gear, Doffs, Boffs, abilities, specializations, reputation, traits... Everything is about combat. But many seem to talk about science ships as something that isn't combat oriented (if only in a poor attempt to rationalize and excuse the distinct lack of science options for non-Feds).
What makes the "reasoning" on this so much worse is that when was the last time a Fed Sci ship in STO was needed to study primitives and swirly space anomalies? Never.
Science in STO is combat; science boff powers aren't referred to as 'magic' without cause. If anything, the way we (the players) employ science powers is a very Klingon approach to using those powers. Science as applied to combat in the current meta should be a Klingon or Romulan specialty, not the supposedly peaceful Federation and her Starfleet of Tyrants.
The healing and sensor based science powers fit the lore as Starfleet. But those exotic particle streams and graviton based technobabble? The only ship that made regular use of those was Voyager and half this forum can't shut up about un-Trek Voyager is and how Janeway is the worst captain ever.
To those can try to run with the "there aren't any Klingon scientists" card must've never watched the show, or have let pop culture overwrite their good senses. Antaak, 'Arne Darvin', H'ohk, J'Dan, Korath, Mara, Nu'Daq, the missions of the IKS Maht-h'a, IKS Tor'kaht, the Klingon Augments and their effortless subversion of Enterprise's computers, the monks who created the Kahless clone. Even one of the chronologically first times we see a Klingon, the courier Klaang, he had the information being transported in his DNA which was able to be read via a device in the Great Hall on Qo'nos. Klingons and science are not strangers.
There should be endgame (T6) science ships for the KDF and RRF, and not as lockbox prizes or event ships, but genuine Klingon and Romulan built ships of sciencey war. And no, a Bird-of-Prey is not "just as good as a science ship" unless you'd like explain how the universal BOffs and even console spread means the Bird-of-prey is just as good as a Cruiser?
I hardly agree with the "Starfleet of Tyrants" bit, but that's where my disagreement begins and ends. Klingons and Romulans as well have gotten the short end of the stick regarding science ships. I wouldn't go so far as to say it should be a Klingon or Romulan specialty, as Starfleet was mainly a exploration and humanitarian fleet, as well as a defense fleet if necessary. The other two were building ships for mainly war. But between too much and none at all, I prefer the former. The fact we don't get even one science ship each is just absolutely ridiculous. I must commend you for your attention to the show and with that post disproving the idea that Klingons are the "me violent, me want to fight, me kill something now" types that already too many people are trying to pass off as fact. Unfortunately, you can never underestimate an individual's willingness to ignore facts that don't fall in line with his or her own version of what a Klingon is. All the same, I applaud you for saying what you did.
Just imho, I don't even need as many science ships as the Feds do but NOT EVEN ONE??? REALLY??? There are differences in the way science ships are applied in the shows which can get away with not every episode having a shoot'em'up scene and a game like this. Good luck keeping a playerbase if you're mostly doing nothing more than scanning strange pieces of rock.
It would be real nice if they released a decent, T6, non gimped, science ship for Romulans and Klingon. Not a Dyson, not a Varanus, not the mega expensive Annorax, and not the old sell a garbage scow as a science ship and when it sell like a garbage scow, blame the playerbase with the words "they don't sell well". A real good ship with a commander level science boff seat, a secondary deflector, 5 sci consoles, great console and trait and all. Is that really too much to ask? Copy/paste a Vesta, put it in a Klingon ship/warbird design, give it a few T6 extras, PRESTO! Science ships for the other two!
Others decry it, but I like the Trifecta approach to ship classification.
Canon: We only see cruisers in TOS and TNG because the studios had to spend mega-money on models and starship combat sequences back in the day. By the time of DS9 CGI had started to catch up and we see more ship types. Does this mean that the Federation and the Klingons only built cruisers? Well, no. Nor does it mean that cruisers are the 'ultimate' ship in the Trekiverse. It means that the studios had to spend money every time they wanted a new ship, and executives hate to spend money, especially late in a show's run.
There is no canon reason to not have three classifications of ships. Cruisers are the large, multi-purpose ships which can hang out on the fringes of known space acting as area command ships, mobile starbases, and diplomatic envoys. Science Ships are smaller, more focused ships whose role is to conduct long-term investigation into the issues discovered by the Cruiser, whether they be scientific, cultural, or economical in nature. You don't want to tie down your big, expensive cruisers investigating a nebula for months at a time, though one might sit on station conducting research until a relief vessel shows up to take over. Instead, you build a smaller vessel with the specific design which optimizes the science portion of the ship's layout at the expense of other facets of ship design.
Escorts are primarily war-fighters, and they are only called out to deal with trouble when the diplomacy of the cruisers has failed. They are engines and guns wrapped in armor, with just enough amenities to make life aboard them less than horrible. Cruisers stripped of their multi-function apparatus and modified for combat approach becoming battleships, while cruisers designed first as war-fighters are battleships. Big ones are Dreadnaughts. But these share the role of Escorts, and you seldom see them far from trouble-spots.
Game: Many players want to be able to do everything well. The original game design did not cater to that mentality. Instead, it focused on several types of gameplay and optimized the roles so that any one would be more or less equal to the other. Klingons were given Raiders and Battlecruisers, for example, reflecting two styles of Klingon gameplay: hit'n'run, or scrum. The two game-play styles were exclusive: you wouldn't enter a scrum with a raider, and a battlecruiser was less likely to be successful at the run portion of the hit'n'run tactic. Klingon players understood this almost instinctively, and those who didn't watched their BoP explode many times before they learned to not stand in the line of battle and duel a cruiser. Federation players, on the other hand, seem to be obsessed with tanking in an Escort, DPS'ing in a Cruiser, and blowing things up in a Science Ship.
The game was originally designed to make use of the trifecta: Escorts dealt massive damage, Cruisers kept them alive, and Science Ships debuffed the enemy to make the Escort more effective. It was a team-game in design, and a team working together can still cream all the Kirks out there. No ship can, or should, do everything best.
What ruins the concept is not a flaw in the design of the game, but a flaw in the mentality of the player who thinks he's James-Luc Archer.
Comments
It not a federation style science ships the KDF needs, but a "support" ship with science ship capabilities to bring exotic powers into play. Yet still a ship that reflects the combat oriented nature of KDF ships. Birds of prey are lovely little ships, but the issue with them is "little". They're "raiders" not ships designed to support the battle fleet with exotic powers. They certainly do not have the rather recent secondary deflector array. The gorn sci ships are ancient at this point, though there are some fleet versions but nothing even remotely mirroring the capabilities and several fed faction T6 science ships. For that matter, they're not as good as the RR sci ships.
the best sci ship the KDF has is the DSD. And its a good ship, but its not quite "klingon" oh, and for the record, all KDF sci ships are behind a pay wall of one kind or another. Zen, Lobi, or lock box.. take your pick. It all boils down to if you want one, your going to have to pay money, and the KDF faction science ship you get will not be anywhere near as good as its fed counterparts.. and at best your going to manage to get a t5u ship.. or a zen store ship and the best of the lot is the DSD's. No alternatives.
I don't really care what the reason why are any more.. I spend my cash on other games now, not this one.. To many disappointments. There are some great people that work at Cryptic. They care, and they do understand where I'm coming from, but they're not the people in the position to make the call for a real swan song of KDF focused development to get the KDF factions possibilities on par with the fed faction, and make it stick. I have accepted that its never going to happen. Not happily, not cheerfully, but I have accepted it.
But I sure as heck don't have to further support a product that is no longer aiming to be a AAA rated MMO. It's got its niche, and it can hold onto that quite well. After all, it is the only trek in town But there are much better multi faction MMO's in all genre's other, unfortunatly, then Trek. Maybe this will change, I'm kinda tired of waiting for it.
I had a dream. I wasn't alone. I thought I had a chance to fulfill that dream with STO. I was wrong.
And this isn't Cryptic's doing, really. Cryptic devs have basically said that when they launched, they didn't know what would be the big money maker aside from subs or if there would be one. Now, Cryptic did make a better space game than ground but players really ate up the idea of collecting fleets of ships. You now have many players who won't touch ground unless forced to.
Ship combat represents less than 10% of the average Star Trek movie or episode. Far lesss, actually. Probably closer to 1%, typically. But what STO has attracted are the starship fans. I'd wager the average Star Trek fan doesn't care about ships that much, has never owned a blueprint or a technical manual, and is more drawn to the characters.
But the way STO has become structured, the slightest tweak to a ship layout necessitates a whole new ship design. This creates artificial differences between science/cruiser/escort, it creates a surplus development of Fed ships (because they sell), and it creates a perception of a Romulan/KDF ship shortage (even though the real problem is probably more that they can't be tailored enough to purposes rather than that we need more separate ships).
I think the solution starts when you (and developers) stop thinking of the ship classes as being "roles".
Three styles of DPS. Three styles of mitigation. All equal.
Now, with that established and with it established that PvP is not a strength of the game, ships should be allowed to migrate between class boundaries at some cost... And I also think that, while preserving ship sales is important, I should be able to yank out the bridge officer stations (as one, whole unit) from any ship and be able to place those as a unit into any comparable ship frame. I'm not saying I want an Intel station without buying a ship with an Intel loadout but I kind of do feel I should be able to deposit that loadout into any ship with roughly comparably similar Shield mod/turnrate/inertia/hull...
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How would that work since only the devs have access to the code and any say in what does or doesn't go into it? I don't think you can just put something into the game like that.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
If the project reaches its funding goal, the Zen is gone and Cryptic gets to work. IF the project doesn't, the Zen is returned to the players.
Problem is obviously that Cryptic would first need to implement this technology in the C-Store. Which requires them wanting to do a crowdfunding system in the first place. That would carry probably some risk they'd have to carefully evaluate. (Maybe they already did that once.)
And if the first project should fail, I doubt Cryptic would do another. (But I kinda doubt it would fail, I bet there will be a few people taking the 50,000 Zen option.)
Science in STO is combat; science boff powers aren't referred to as 'magic' without cause. If anything, the way we (the players) employ science powers is a very Klingon approach to using those powers. Science as applied to combat in the current meta should be a Klingon or Romulan specialty, not the supposedly peaceful Federation and her Starfleet of Tyrants.
The healing and sensor based science powers fit the lore as Starfleet. But those exotic particle streams and graviton based technobabble? The only ship that made regular use of those was Voyager and half this forum can't shut up about un-Trek Voyager is and how Janeway is the worst captain ever.
To those can try to run with the "there aren't any Klingon scientists" card must've never watched the show, or have let pop culture overwrite their good senses. Antaak, 'Arne Darvin', H'ohk, J'Dan, Korath, Mara, Nu'Daq, the missions of the IKS Maht-h'a, IKS Tor'kaht, the Klingon Augments and their effortless subversion of Enterprise's computers, the monks who created the Kahless clone. Even one of the chronologically first times we see a Klingon, the courier Klaang, he had the information being transported in his DNA which was able to be read via a device in the Great Hall on Qo'nos. Klingons and science are not strangers.
There should be endgame (T6) science ships for the KDF and RRF, and not as lockbox prizes or event ships, but genuine Klingon and Romulan built ships of sciencey war. And no, a Bird-of-Prey is not "just as good as a science ship" unless you'd like explain how the universal BOffs and even console spread means the Bird-of-prey is just as good as a Cruiser?
It's nice to see a more reasonable perspective on this often-discussed subject. Many seem to talk about science ships in STO as if they're at all related to purposes of research, experiments, analysis, and exploration. They're about combat, just like everything else. Ships, gear, Doffs, Boffs, abilities, specializations, reputation, traits... Everything is about combat. But many seem to talk about science ships as something that isn't combat oriented (if only in a poor attempt to rationalize and excuse the distinct lack of science options for non-Feds).
I hardly agree with the "Starfleet of Tyrants" bit, but that's where my disagreement begins and ends. Klingons and Romulans as well have gotten the short end of the stick regarding science ships. I wouldn't go so far as to say it should be a Klingon or Romulan specialty, as Starfleet was mainly a exploration and humanitarian fleet, as well as a defense fleet if necessary. The other two were building ships for mainly war. But between too much and none at all, I prefer the former. The fact we don't get even one science ship each is just absolutely ridiculous. I must commend you for your attention to the show and with that post disproving the idea that Klingons are the "me violent, me want to fight, me kill something now" types that already too many people are trying to pass off as fact. Unfortunately, you can never underestimate an individual's willingness to ignore facts that don't fall in line with his or her own version of what a Klingon is. All the same, I applaud you for saying what you did.
Just imho, I don't even need as many science ships as the Feds do but NOT EVEN ONE??? REALLY??? There are differences in the way science ships are applied in the shows which can get away with not every episode having a shoot'em'up scene and a game like this. Good luck keeping a playerbase if you're mostly doing nothing more than scanning strange pieces of rock.
It would be real nice if they released a decent, T6, non gimped, science ship for Romulans and Klingon. Not a Dyson, not a Varanus, not the mega expensive Annorax, and not the old sell a garbage scow as a science ship and when it sell like a garbage scow, blame the playerbase with the words "they don't sell well". A real good ship with a commander level science boff seat, a secondary deflector, 5 sci consoles, great console and trait and all. Is that really too much to ask? Copy/paste a Vesta, put it in a Klingon ship/warbird design, give it a few T6 extras, PRESTO! Science ships for the other two!
Canon: We only see cruisers in TOS and TNG because the studios had to spend mega-money on models and starship combat sequences back in the day. By the time of DS9 CGI had started to catch up and we see more ship types. Does this mean that the Federation and the Klingons only built cruisers? Well, no. Nor does it mean that cruisers are the 'ultimate' ship in the Trekiverse. It means that the studios had to spend money every time they wanted a new ship, and executives hate to spend money, especially late in a show's run.
There is no canon reason to not have three classifications of ships. Cruisers are the large, multi-purpose ships which can hang out on the fringes of known space acting as area command ships, mobile starbases, and diplomatic envoys. Science Ships are smaller, more focused ships whose role is to conduct long-term investigation into the issues discovered by the Cruiser, whether they be scientific, cultural, or economical in nature. You don't want to tie down your big, expensive cruisers investigating a nebula for months at a time, though one might sit on station conducting research until a relief vessel shows up to take over. Instead, you build a smaller vessel with the specific design which optimizes the science portion of the ship's layout at the expense of other facets of ship design.
Escorts are primarily war-fighters, and they are only called out to deal with trouble when the diplomacy of the cruisers has failed. They are engines and guns wrapped in armor, with just enough amenities to make life aboard them less than horrible. Cruisers stripped of their multi-function apparatus and modified for combat approach becoming battleships, while cruisers designed first as war-fighters are battleships. Big ones are Dreadnaughts. But these share the role of Escorts, and you seldom see them far from trouble-spots.
Game: Many players want to be able to do everything well. The original game design did not cater to that mentality. Instead, it focused on several types of gameplay and optimized the roles so that any one would be more or less equal to the other. Klingons were given Raiders and Battlecruisers, for example, reflecting two styles of Klingon gameplay: hit'n'run, or scrum. The two game-play styles were exclusive: you wouldn't enter a scrum with a raider, and a battlecruiser was less likely to be successful at the run portion of the hit'n'run tactic. Klingon players understood this almost instinctively, and those who didn't watched their BoP explode many times before they learned to not stand in the line of battle and duel a cruiser. Federation players, on the other hand, seem to be obsessed with tanking in an Escort, DPS'ing in a Cruiser, and blowing things up in a Science Ship.
The game was originally designed to make use of the trifecta: Escorts dealt massive damage, Cruisers kept them alive, and Science Ships debuffed the enemy to make the Escort more effective. It was a team-game in design, and a team working together can still cream all the Kirks out there. No ship can, or should, do everything best.
What ruins the concept is not a flaw in the design of the game, but a flaw in the mentality of the player who thinks he's James-Luc Archer.