Will the system pick up on my reward oddy? I had it, played it awhile, then dismissed it in favor of the new one? same question with an unboxed Obelisk Carrier.
No. They've said a few times already that it will only pick up ships which are in your roster at any point after the Admiralty system goes live. So any ships you have used and discarded in the past, will not be available. However, once the system is live you can then discard ships and it will still give you the option to use that in the Admiralty system.
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!!
I seem to have have found out why there's Pass Tokens, there's events that add large amounts to requirements that are not viable to have a success rate of any value. "Borg Transwarp Gateway!" adds +50 All required. "Doomsday Machine" adds +100 TAC required. Borg Transwarp Gateway ended up on my Fed Tour of Duty, which means a hard to hit 60 everything for a 100% chance. Doomsday Machine ended up on a mission with 80 Tac requirements, the top three escorts (mirror and C-Store, though) I had on that char was still a fair bit short of hitting the 180 mark.
EDIT²:The Mirror Ha'nom Guardian proved quite usefull with the ability to ignore +sci requirements from events, did anyone found more ships of that type?
EDIT³:The Annorax does too
Aves Event DSD does too, probably all the grind Event DSDs are like that. I have not seen any that ignore any other category, though.
Will the system pick up on my reward oddy? I had it, played it awhile, then dismissed it in favor of the new one? same question with an unboxed Obelisk Carrier.
No, the system only counts Season 11 forward on dismissed ships, and none of my previously dismissed ships showed up as cards. I haven't tried dismissing and unboxing new ships on Tribble yet, but previous posts say it requires closing and opening the Admiralty UI to get new ships to show up.
You know what, I'm now entirely in favour of the maintenance cool down. It is opposite of grining, it is the game saying "okay, sod off and do something else for a while. Play a mission, play that indie steam game you got 2 years ago for 5 cents and never played, reorganise your dvd collection, go for a walk, frolic in a field with anthropomorphic kittens. Just anything but keep clicking me!" I like that. STO should tell us to get a life more often.
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Aves Event DSD does too, probably all the grind Event DSDs are like that. I have not seen any that ignore any other category, though.
...
There are a few others who ignore +Eng and +Tac requirements, but since i play KDF neither Eng nor Tac is a Problem, just Science is, none of my chars is able to touch 160 required science.
The Ha'nom helps a bit, but seems the only way around this would be the purchase of the DSD pack, which i refuse to do, i see no reason to buy a pack of outdated and underperforming ships just because one person's ego trip deny green and red some proper T6 Science Ships.
Beta, LTA, CE, Multiple preorder Versions, all Addon Packs except AoY, nearly all KDF/Rom and ~50% of all Fedships, over 25 LockboxShips, Endurer of Atari's "Year of Hell", but...
I really dislike Maintenance as currently construed. Just can't make my brain accept "Your 30m assignment, win lose or draw, is knocking these ships out of the rotation for a day and a half" as something I should be down with.
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I'm sure your DPS is great, but as Kahless said, "a petaQ with high system mastery is still a petaQ." (Well, he should have said it...!)
I really dislike Maintenance as currently construed. Just can't make my brain accept "Your 30m assignment, win lose or draw, is knocking these ships out of the rotation for a day and a half" as something I should be down with.
As I said, I could accept this for certain assignments but I think Maintenance should be proportional to the assignment that triggered it.
I really dislike Maintenance as currently construed. Just can't make my brain accept "Your 30m assignment, win lose or draw, is knocking these ships out of the rotation for a day and a half" as something I should be down with.
It gives you a reason to use a Constitution Refit for example, or a Miranda and a Oberth for a simple supply run (Maintenance: Minutes or a few hours) instead of a T6 Galaxy with a Crew of over 1000.
Like someone in this thread said think like an admiral.
Beta, LTA, CE, Multiple preorder Versions, all Addon Packs except AoY, nearly all KDF/Rom and ~50% of all Fedships, over 25 LockboxShips, Endurer of Atari's "Year of Hell", but...
I'm also going to suggest this could be where you bring the non-Diplomacy/Marauding DOff categories up to par, reward-wise...
This, sir, is a very good idea. Now, as long as they're in the neighborhood, it'd be interesting to see more missions featuring optionals whose availability depends on your level in a particular commendation category (so far, the only one that does this is 'Mine Enemy'), and others dependent on career track ('Mine Enemy', again, as well as 'Facility 4028' and 'Second Wave'). Whether career-track-specific optional objectives would be a welcome addition to STFs is open to debate... as distinct from ship-type bonuses (recall that the portals in 'Mirror Invasion' can be closed faster by science ships, something you'd logically expect to hold true in 'Gateway to Gre'thor).
Additionally, I think maybe you could look into something longer term like having Admiralty contribute towards a mini-personal starbase as an office on DS9...
Not a bad idea, either. I'll have to think more on this.
I've played with the system a bit longer, and I'd like to revise a few thoughts:
1) Maintenance, while a pain, isn't as bad as it seemed, for me at least. I've noticed both ships and mission events having maintenance cd reductions. As well, some missions award 1-time use ships, in effect replacing a ship you just used. Ships I thought would be tied up for 1.5 days were available nearly immediately when I logged back in the next time, possibly due to the maintenance cd reducers on a ship and/or the mission itself.
2) One poster suggested part of the reason we're seeing short rosters and long maintenances is that we as testers don't have a ton of T1-T4 ships and can't get them easily on Tribble. As I've looked more closely at some requirements, especially for shorter and lower-rarity missions, I'll agree with this. If I had an armada of lower-end ships *as well as* my current roster of T5/T6/Lobi/Lockbox/Event ships, I may view things a bit differently.
3) Someone mentioned it would be nice to be able to move the Ship Selection window so we can see requirements a bit more easily. While the requirements part isn't a problem for me, it'd be nice to have a movable selection menu for those who are having this issue.
4) 1800 Dilithium per 20-hour maintenance window isn't bad at all. I could grind that out in, what, 3 Advanced queues? And by then, the cost will come down just a bit in that time anyway.
5) The Spec Point rewards feel fine. I've been able to get more Spec Points lately than I've been able to get grinding in quite a while. This is a great catch-up mechanic for non-60s (especially those with deep T5/T6/Lockbox/Lobi/Event ship rosters) and a good supplement to Red Alerts, queues, and missions for 57s-60+s. In other words, the rewards make me feel like I'm making progress with my toon. That is key to my longer-term in-game time and retention overall.
6) The EC rewards for some reason feel underwhelming. I think that's because so much of the good stuff on the Exchange is so expensive. But if EC rewards go up, price inflation happens at a worse rate because, "Well, everyone has a ton of EC now! Just how much of that ton are you willing to let go of?" So that's a tricky balance.
I love this as essentially a simpler DOFF system. I've loved my ships, I've hated my ground and DOFF system stuff. If there were a way to make the DOFF system more like the Admiralty System, personally I'd be for it.
2) One poster suggested part of the reason we're seeing short rosters and long maintenances is that we as testers don't have a ton of T1-T4 ships and can't get them easily on Tribble. As I've looked more closely at some requirements, especially for shorter and lower-rarity missions, I'll agree with this. If I had an armada of lower-end ships *as well as* my current roster of T5/T6/Lobi/Lockbox/Event ships, I may view things a bit differently.
That's really one of the sticking points with the system for me. Until now we've had no real reason beyond the sentimental (or wanting to do crazy things like all Miranda STFs!) to keep any of the lower tier ship in our roster so we're stuck using mostly T5/T6 ships.
What would be a nice gesture is if, when the system goes live, they gave all high-level characters (50+? 40+? not sure where the cutoff should be) a ship claim token for each of the lower tiers. This would put us back on the same footing as a new character leveling up after the system launches with regards to lower tier ships. This is of course based on the assumption that one of the design goals of the system isn't to get us to burn dil on the lower tier ships.
There's no point in sending a T6 ship on a 10 minute mission to only have it out for 1 1/2 days.
Exactly. Don't do that. I don't want you to do that. Go get yourself a few lower-tier ships instead, or just Pass the assignment if it's not worth the investment of the A-Ships you have available.
MAINTENANCE:
Current Naval vessels are deployed for 6-10 months. When they return, they go into a "cold-iron" period for 30 days to perform needed "maintenance/repairs" and are considered "not available". They don't go out for a 2 week cruise and come back for a 2 month "maintenance"...
Hmm.. the Enterprise (1701/1701D) was on a 5 year mission, did all the "stuff" (missions) I saw in the Admiralty System, and she never had a maintenance period. Starships, are inherently self sustaining; self sufficient; vessels "INTENDED" to be on long deployments.
I did not see any way of "beefing" up the ships used. Seems if I use them, they should gain some sort of "crew experience" that would reduce the maintenance period.
MONETIZATION:
Now, as Borticus stated above - .."Go get yourself some lower-tier ships"... NOT a monetization statement, but it could be. You CAN (i.e. should be able to) reclaim most of the lower tier ships (c-Store and Ship Vendor) and get them into "Admiralty" if you take the time to do it and have a spare inventory slot.
Simply "reclaim" the ship, commission it into an open slot, open the "Admiralty" project, and the "reclaimed" ship should show in the list of available ships. If it does, then go to ship inventory, decomission said ship, rinse an repeat until they are all in the Admiralty system.
IMHO, the Monetization of the Admiralty will be for those folks in-game who have to have it now, and only have epic/VR ships in Admiralty. These will be the ones that will buy the Fleet, Fleet T6, c-Store, Dil, Lobi ships just to put them in Admiralty. Lot's of luck with finding Fleet Modules ANYWHERE but the Exchange. Maybe I'll put all my modules on the exchange and after one or two sell,, be able to buy the latest and greatest T6 c-Store ships !!
IMHO, we have enough Dilithium sinks in the game and it is the most sought after item in the game. Aside from the Fleet requirements, another dil sink is not what we need. It would be much more efficient, and "player friendly, if we actually had a process to expend some of the XP points. Most of my toons have 10 million plus.
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Aves Event DSD does too, probably all the grind Event DSDs are like that. I have not seen any that ignore any other category, though.
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There are a few others who ignore +Eng and +Tac requirements, but since i play KDF neither Eng nor Tac is a Problem, just Science is, none of my chars is able to touch 160 required science.
The Ha'nom helps a bit, but seems the only way around this would be the purchase of the DSD pack, which i refuse to do, i see no reason to buy a pack of outdated and underperforming ships just because one person's ego trip deny green and red some proper T6 Science Ships.
Which ships ignore +Eng and +Tac requirements? Those would be handy when the Borg or the Doomsday Machine show up.
Sci is going to be the sticking issue KDF and Roms if the stats stay roughly the same, though I expect that Feds that aren't Sci captains and don't have any Sci ships are going to be in roughly the same boat. Do keep in mind that if you've been around and claimed all the C-Store give aways, you have access to two KDF Sci ships, the Varanus (T5) and a lower tier one that I forget the name of.
I have to add 2 Question:
1) Can we get a "autoclaim" funtction for the Cards of purchased zen ships? So those with a lot of Zen ships can skip the long and tedious claim/discharge "Grind", at least for the C-store ships.
2) Accountwide "Card" unlocks for Lockbox Ships? No? (ok, but i had to ask)
Beta, LTA, CE, Multiple preorder Versions, all Addon Packs except AoY, nearly all KDF/Rom and ~50% of all Fedships, over 25 LockboxShips, Endurer of Atari's "Year of Hell", but...
My first reaction to the cooldown on high level starship use was "Too long". But if this is being pushed as a casual secondary progression system them this is more acceptable. Dil costs to hasten a cooldown should be kept very low; say 1.5 k-2k to reset a 20 hour counter.
I'd like the rewards to be more diverse and more synergies with other existing systems like DOFFing, BOFFs, and the Foundry.
I'd like to see rare items and crew that can only be used in the Admiralty system.
I'd like to see BOFFs benefit, perhaps they can earn regular skills that are coded with an Admiralty title-they earned a new skill from simulating "participating" in Admiralty missions.
Perhaps we can craft special Admiralty crew or item (Special ship systems, weapons, etc.) cards with bonuses.
Foundry missions could be made into simple short-term missions.
I would also like synergies that provide benefits to my ships, like the doffing and crafting system. I appreciate the work and thought that have brought this system to fruition; in it's current state, I'm a bit underwhelmed.
This system is a perfect candidate to expand into a mobile application and should be explored without question. Also, maintenance times on ships need to reflect the time the actual mission takes. A ship shouldn't need a ridiculously long maintenance cycle for a 15 minute assignment. That's absolutely ridiculous.
The Admiralty system is ok. I guess, but I was hoping for a little more. eg giving some of my command crew a slot on a ship as captain , so that I can use some of my other crew members waiting to join my crew, so many.
A few quick responses/clarifications this morning...
Right now I needed to assign 3 ships each time
Not true, all assignments can be started with 1, 2 or 3 ships slotted. Up to you how many you send out.
When i assign starships for a assignment, the pop-up list of available ships often blocks the view of the requirements for the missions.
This is a bug - the window should be movable. We'll work on it.
(various real-world comparisons for Maintenance vs. Assignment durations
Insider tip: This is a video game. You can't really use real-world comparisons to justify game mechanics. If you'd like another way to look at it, you can think of the Assignment+Maintenance part of the same "cooldown" but you get to collect your rewards more quickly.
The balance between durations and maintenance are designed as they currently are for very specific reasons:
* Short duration assignments give you more opportunity to play the game instead spending most of your time offline. This is important to us - we want you actively engaging the system, not just waiting on timers.
* Allowing low-tier ships to complete Maintenance routines more quickly satisfies a core goal of the system - to add value back to older and lower-tier ships that nobody flies anymore.
* Maintenance can be worked around, sidestepped and modified, by playing the system. Or by getting more ships. Yes, there's a monetization aspect to this, but it also supports variable gameplay options and a sense that your choices have important consequences.
* Maintenance periods kick in as soon as the assignment completes, not when you collect rewards. If you ever go offline for a couple days, all of your ships will be back and waiting for you.
All that said, we are listening to your feedback, and may consider tweaking some things. I'm still not sure that most of you are seeing the big picture of how this all fits together, though, and just knee-jerk reacting with "stop putting limitations on my gameplay." But implementing limits is what games -are- at their core: a series of limits and boundaries, and the tools to overcome them. You have to have both.
(various complaints of A-Ship claim processes)
As it stands right now, it would be a significant server performance hit for us to allow A-Ships to exist entirely separate from their associated flyable ships. The current implementation is meant to be as streamlined and friendly on our character/item databases as possible, to hopefully prevent (or at least lessen) Day 1 crashing/lag. Using any other method increases those risks significantly.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Like I said before, I'm not opposed to the system. Anything it offers is a plus over what we had before. It isn't costing us anything we weren't spending before (although it may create some additional demand for dilithium, fleet ships, and low tier ships).
I just feel it's like on whiz bang and would prefer to see it launch with more whiz bang at a later date. In a lot of businesses, you can count on your opening weekend to be the busiest you'll ever be. I think it's better to have all the shelves stocked and all the signage up when you launch to maximize goodwill.
It isn't that this isn't a system with some hidden depth; it is. It isn't that this isn't a system that couldn't have some exciting additions to it; it is.
It's just that it seems like it's being rushed out the door and I'm not clear on why exactly. It doesn't have the kind of direct monetization draw that I think would justify rushing something out the door. I'm going to be personally better off if you rush it out the door because I'll be getting extra rewards sooner. I'd be willing to forego those benefits if it means a more polished and better integrated-into-the-game system later.
The only reasons I could see rushing it out the door would be if Bort gets a bonus from it shipping faster, if Bort foresees leaving the company (which might make it harder to develop later), or under the rationale that players like me would benefit from getting rewards faster. But I think you're potentially losing a fair amount of excitement by releasing this largely as-is, plus some UI fixes and fixes to individual A-ships.
I think you'll get a quick sugar high rush of interest by launching this as it seems to be planned for launch, followed by a quick drop in activity. I think you could have a more sustained spike if this integrates more with other systems and into the game world at launch, with more energy put into things like making the slotting process viscerally pleasing.
I feel like you play defense a lot, Bort. It's a strength but it makes communicating frustrating. I'm sure you play defense on the players' behalf internally and you seem to play defense for the developers and your own work when interfacing outward with the community. You're a protector by nature and that has benefits but it also has ways in which it is not ideal. So far, all of your posts have been to justify and sell what's there and it doesn't seem like any criticism has gotten through.
The system doesn't suck. It can be more. There are benefits, I think, to letting this system grow before you let it out of the nest.
It seems so far that Common ships you get from leveling != common doffs in the doffing system. That is to say that they don't have the same functionality. At least in the doffing system, you can get by with whites, although it would be a slog and you'd get more fails. Here, it seems like that even common ships aren't adequate.
On top of this, ALL VR Lockbox ships (T6 or no...the ones with a .5 % chance of getting from a lockbox) should be Ultra Rare or Epic, period.
You're making a lot of assumptions about the way our business is run. I know you mean well, but it's safer to stick to feedback on the system, than trying to run all of Cryptic.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Borticus, any way to fix the long standing accolade not registering until change of map bug? Makes the XP meter on the Admirality system get stuck (keeps getting XP in same tier even if at 100% full) until you change maps in order to advance tiers. I know you guys are tying everything to accolades lately, but if those are not working 100% accurately then other stuff bugs out.
One more thing. I didn't pay attention to the amount of time they took, but usually with doff assignments, the rarer and more time (and requirements in this case), the more reward. That VR assignment down there seems to reward pretty low compared to the rare one, and more or less in-line with the uncommon one. 30K extra EC I can make in a Japori wave FAW fest.
lucho, don't trust the UI on those rewards for the time being. They aren't displaying reliably.
Skillpoints and Campaign XP rewards scale naturally based on the Duration of the assignment.
Rarity does not factor into these base rewards, but only influence the additional Assignment Rewards. In this particular example, you may notice that the EC rewards are far higher on the VR assignment than on the Common one.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Hey borticus, just wanted to let you know that it is possible for Federation-aligned Romulans to get the Tier 5 Support Cruiser Retrofit card, in case that was unintended.
I have the "Transport Materials for Starbase Construction" assignment. Had a slot open, tried starting it 5 times with different ships and switched maps and nothing. Gave up and took up another assignment and it started up fine. Not sure what the problem was, but possible bug.
Will have two slots open in 9 minutes, so I'll be able to try again.
There's a bug in Availability currently, where you can get a 2nd copy of an Assignment presented to you while the first copy is "in progress." The system correctly considers them unique (which they should be) while Available or On Deck, and properly registers Cooldowns that begin after the Assignment is completed... but that middle step is not currently working correctly.
It sounds like you've run into this, and your "Transport Materials..." Assignment is still in cooldown.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Hey borticus, just wanted to let you know that it is possible for Federation-aligned Romulans to get the Tier 5 Support Cruiser Retrofit card, in case that was unintended.
How did you manage that? You can't commission the T5 ship.
EDIT:
The T3 ship in your list is fine. But the T5 A-ship, called "Support Cruiser Retrofit," should be unobtainable by Roms.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Hey borticus, just wanted to let you know that it is possible for Federation-aligned Romulans to get the Tier 5 Support Cruiser Retrofit card, in case that was unintended.
How did you manage that? You can't commission the T5 ship.
EDIT:
The T3 ship in your list is fine. But the T5 A-ship, called "Support Cruiser Retrofit," should be unobtainable by Roms.
It is, actually. It shouldn't be, but you can commission it if you got the account unlock version from the giveaway a year and a half or whatever ago.
There's a bug in Availability currently, where you can get a 2nd copy of an Assignment presented to you while the first copy is "in progress." The system correctly considers them unique (which they should be) while Available or On Deck, and properly registers Cooldowns that begin after the Assignment is completed... but that middle step is not currently working correctly.
It sounds like you've run into this, and your "Transport Materials..." Assignment is still in cooldown.
Comments
No. They've said a few times already that it will only pick up ships which are in your roster at any point after the Admiralty system goes live. So any ships you have used and discarded in the past, will not be available. However, once the system is live you can then discard ships and it will still give you the option to use that in the Admiralty system.
Aves Event DSD does too, probably all the grind Event DSDs are like that. I have not seen any that ignore any other category, though.
No, the system only counts Season 11 forward on dismissed ships, and none of my previously dismissed ships showed up as cards. I haven't tried dismissing and unboxing new ships on Tribble yet, but previous posts say it requires closing and opening the Admiralty UI to get new ships to show up.
There are a few others who ignore +Eng and +Tac requirements, but since i play KDF neither Eng nor Tac is a Problem, just Science is, none of my chars is able to touch 160 required science.
The Ha'nom helps a bit, but seems the only way around this would be the purchase of the DSD pack, which i refuse to do, i see no reason to buy a pack of outdated and underperforming ships just because one person's ego trip deny green and red some proper T6 Science Ships.
I'm sure your DPS is great, but as Kahless said, "a petaQ with high system mastery is still a petaQ." (Well, he should have said it...!)
As I said, I could accept this for certain assignments but I think Maintenance should be proportional to the assignment that triggered it.
It gives you a reason to use a Constitution Refit for example, or a Miranda and a Oberth for a simple supply run (Maintenance: Minutes or a few hours) instead of a T6 Galaxy with a Crew of over 1000.
Like someone in this thread said think like an admiral.
Not a bad idea, either. I'll have to think more on this.
1) Maintenance, while a pain, isn't as bad as it seemed, for me at least. I've noticed both ships and mission events having maintenance cd reductions. As well, some missions award 1-time use ships, in effect replacing a ship you just used. Ships I thought would be tied up for 1.5 days were available nearly immediately when I logged back in the next time, possibly due to the maintenance cd reducers on a ship and/or the mission itself.
2) One poster suggested part of the reason we're seeing short rosters and long maintenances is that we as testers don't have a ton of T1-T4 ships and can't get them easily on Tribble. As I've looked more closely at some requirements, especially for shorter and lower-rarity missions, I'll agree with this. If I had an armada of lower-end ships *as well as* my current roster of T5/T6/Lobi/Lockbox/Event ships, I may view things a bit differently.
3) Someone mentioned it would be nice to be able to move the Ship Selection window so we can see requirements a bit more easily. While the requirements part isn't a problem for me, it'd be nice to have a movable selection menu for those who are having this issue.
4) 1800 Dilithium per 20-hour maintenance window isn't bad at all. I could grind that out in, what, 3 Advanced queues? And by then, the cost will come down just a bit in that time anyway.
5) The Spec Point rewards feel fine. I've been able to get more Spec Points lately than I've been able to get grinding in quite a while. This is a great catch-up mechanic for non-60s (especially those with deep T5/T6/Lockbox/Lobi/Event ship rosters) and a good supplement to Red Alerts, queues, and missions for 57s-60+s. In other words, the rewards make me feel like I'm making progress with my toon. That is key to my longer-term in-game time and retention overall.
6) The EC rewards for some reason feel underwhelming. I think that's because so much of the good stuff on the Exchange is so expensive. But if EC rewards go up, price inflation happens at a worse rate because, "Well, everyone has a ton of EC now! Just how much of that ton are you willing to let go of?" So that's a tricky balance.
I love this as essentially a simpler DOFF system. I've loved my ships, I've hated my ground and DOFF system stuff. If there were a way to make the DOFF system more like the Admiralty System, personally I'd be for it.
What would be a nice gesture is if, when the system goes live, they gave all high-level characters (50+? 40+? not sure where the cutoff should be) a ship claim token for each of the lower tiers. This would put us back on the same footing as a new character leveling up after the system launches with regards to lower tier ships. This is of course based on the assumption that one of the design goals of the system isn't to get us to burn dil on the lower tier ships.
if yes can we have 20% buff to grav gens for 24 hours
and if not can we have a 20% buff to grav gens for 24 hours
cause you can never grav too much xD
MAINTENANCE:
Current Naval vessels are deployed for 6-10 months. When they return, they go into a "cold-iron" period for 30 days to perform needed "maintenance/repairs" and are considered "not available". They don't go out for a 2 week cruise and come back for a 2 month "maintenance"...
Hmm.. the Enterprise (1701/1701D) was on a 5 year mission, did all the "stuff" (missions) I saw in the Admiralty System, and she never had a maintenance period. Starships, are inherently self sustaining; self sufficient; vessels "INTENDED" to be on long deployments.
I did not see any way of "beefing" up the ships used. Seems if I use them, they should gain some sort of "crew experience" that would reduce the maintenance period.
MONETIZATION:
Now, as Borticus stated above - .."Go get yourself some lower-tier ships"... NOT a monetization statement, but it could be. You CAN (i.e. should be able to) reclaim most of the lower tier ships (c-Store and Ship Vendor) and get them into "Admiralty" if you take the time to do it and have a spare inventory slot.
Simply "reclaim" the ship, commission it into an open slot, open the "Admiralty" project, and the "reclaimed" ship should show in the list of available ships. If it does, then go to ship inventory, decomission said ship, rinse an repeat until they are all in the Admiralty system.
IMHO, the Monetization of the Admiralty will be for those folks in-game who have to have it now, and only have epic/VR ships in Admiralty. These will be the ones that will buy the Fleet, Fleet T6, c-Store, Dil, Lobi ships just to put them in Admiralty. Lot's of luck with finding Fleet Modules ANYWHERE but the Exchange. Maybe I'll put all my modules on the exchange and after one or two sell,, be able to buy the latest and greatest T6 c-Store ships !!
IMHO, we have enough Dilithium sinks in the game and it is the most sought after item in the game. Aside from the Fleet requirements, another dil sink is not what we need. It would be much more efficient, and "player friendly, if we actually had a process to expend some of the XP points. Most of my toons have 10 million plus.
tyvm.. Have fun. Be nice to each other..
Which ships ignore +Eng and +Tac requirements? Those would be handy when the Borg or the Doomsday Machine show up.
Sci is going to be the sticking issue KDF and Roms if the stats stay roughly the same, though I expect that Feds that aren't Sci captains and don't have any Sci ships are going to be in roughly the same boat. Do keep in mind that if you've been around and claimed all the C-Store give aways, you have access to two KDF Sci ships, the Varanus (T5) and a lower tier one that I forget the name of.
1) Can we get a "autoclaim" funtction for the Cards of purchased zen ships? So those with a lot of Zen ships can skip the long and tedious claim/discharge "Grind", at least for the C-store ships.
2) Accountwide "Card" unlocks for Lockbox Ships? No? (ok, but i had to ask)
I'd like the rewards to be more diverse and more synergies with other existing systems like DOFFing, BOFFs, and the Foundry.
I would also like synergies that provide benefits to my ships, like the doffing and crafting system. I appreciate the work and thought that have brought this system to fruition; in it's current state, I'm a bit underwhelmed.
Not true, all assignments can be started with 1, 2 or 3 ships slotted. Up to you how many you send out.
This is a bug - the window should be movable. We'll work on it.
Insider tip: This is a video game. You can't really use real-world comparisons to justify game mechanics. If you'd like another way to look at it, you can think of the Assignment+Maintenance part of the same "cooldown" but you get to collect your rewards more quickly.
The balance between durations and maintenance are designed as they currently are for very specific reasons:
* Short duration assignments give you more opportunity to play the game instead spending most of your time offline. This is important to us - we want you actively engaging the system, not just waiting on timers.
* Allowing low-tier ships to complete Maintenance routines more quickly satisfies a core goal of the system - to add value back to older and lower-tier ships that nobody flies anymore.
* Maintenance can be worked around, sidestepped and modified, by playing the system. Or by getting more ships. Yes, there's a monetization aspect to this, but it also supports variable gameplay options and a sense that your choices have important consequences.
* Maintenance periods kick in as soon as the assignment completes, not when you collect rewards. If you ever go offline for a couple days, all of your ships will be back and waiting for you.
All that said, we are listening to your feedback, and may consider tweaking some things. I'm still not sure that most of you are seeing the big picture of how this all fits together, though, and just knee-jerk reacting with "stop putting limitations on my gameplay." But implementing limits is what games -are- at their core: a series of limits and boundaries, and the tools to overcome them. You have to have both.
As it stands right now, it would be a significant server performance hit for us to allow A-Ships to exist entirely separate from their associated flyable ships. The current implementation is meant to be as streamlined and friendly on our character/item databases as possible, to hopefully prevent (or at least lessen) Day 1 crashing/lag. Using any other method increases those risks significantly.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
I just feel it's like on whiz bang and would prefer to see it launch with more whiz bang at a later date. In a lot of businesses, you can count on your opening weekend to be the busiest you'll ever be. I think it's better to have all the shelves stocked and all the signage up when you launch to maximize goodwill.
It isn't that this isn't a system with some hidden depth; it is. It isn't that this isn't a system that couldn't have some exciting additions to it; it is.
It's just that it seems like it's being rushed out the door and I'm not clear on why exactly. It doesn't have the kind of direct monetization draw that I think would justify rushing something out the door. I'm going to be personally better off if you rush it out the door because I'll be getting extra rewards sooner. I'd be willing to forego those benefits if it means a more polished and better integrated-into-the-game system later.
The only reasons I could see rushing it out the door would be if Bort gets a bonus from it shipping faster, if Bort foresees leaving the company (which might make it harder to develop later), or under the rationale that players like me would benefit from getting rewards faster. But I think you're potentially losing a fair amount of excitement by releasing this largely as-is, plus some UI fixes and fixes to individual A-ships.
I think you'll get a quick sugar high rush of interest by launching this as it seems to be planned for launch, followed by a quick drop in activity. I think you could have a more sustained spike if this integrates more with other systems and into the game world at launch, with more energy put into things like making the slotting process viscerally pleasing.
I feel like you play defense a lot, Bort. It's a strength but it makes communicating frustrating. I'm sure you play defense on the players' behalf internally and you seem to play defense for the developers and your own work when interfacing outward with the community. You're a protector by nature and that has benefits but it also has ways in which it is not ideal. So far, all of your posts have been to justify and sell what's there and it doesn't seem like any criticism has gotten through.
The system doesn't suck. It can be more. There are benefits, I think, to letting this system grow before you let it out of the nest.
On top of this, ALL VR Lockbox ships (T6 or no...the ones with a .5 % chance of getting from a lockbox) should be Ultra Rare or Epic, period.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
One more thing. I didn't pay attention to the amount of time they took, but usually with doff assignments, the rarer and more time (and requirements in this case), the more reward. That VR assignment down there seems to reward pretty low compared to the rare one, and more or less in-line with the uncommon one. 30K extra EC I can make in a Japori wave FAW fest.
Skillpoints and Campaign XP rewards scale naturally based on the Duration of the assignment.
Rarity does not factor into these base rewards, but only influence the additional Assignment Rewards. In this particular example, you may notice that the EC rewards are far higher on the VR assignment than on the Common one.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Will have two slots open in 9 minutes, so I'll be able to try again.
It sounds like you've run into this, and your "Transport Materials..." Assignment is still in cooldown.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
How did you manage that? You can't commission the T5 ship.
EDIT:
The T3 ship in your list is fine. But the T5 A-ship, called "Support Cruiser Retrofit," should be unobtainable by Roms.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
It is, actually. It shouldn't be, but you can commission it if you got the account unlock version from the giveaway a year and a half or whatever ago.
Yeah, that's exactly what I hit.