CRYPTIC we'd like to see modernized 25th Century Ship Interiors for all faction ships, with decks efficiently utilizing space regardless if small, medium or large interior. So HOW TO GENERATE REVENUE for items that hasn't sold in the past--if it's broke FIX IT!
Flashback: "Human Error" is the 164th episode of Star Trek: Voyager Season 7--Seven customizes her quarters.
1. Players desire Interior Pack's that unlock a Bridge with 2-4 addition room variations throughout the ship--number dependant on size of rooms updated & customizations included. Initial development based on modular design would require time, yet once completed the room type identifies its size from Small Square, or Small Rectangular up to Medium, Large or Extra Large. It be great then if you could obtain various different Science, Engineering, or Tactical Rooms to unlock via CSTORE &/or GPL. Limiting and expanding the rooms to 3-4 square &/or rectangular sizes make unique rooms available for a few more decks.
2. Because different packs unlock different bridges or rooms throughout the ship, it be nice if each deck could customize carpet/flooring/wall patterns that extend throughout a deck with universal textures & colors like SKIN/MAKEUP that integrates to a common theme just as the outfit tailor does. So if a new Medical Bay introduces unique floors & walls, it be nice to apply a similar pattern to walls/flooring throughout that deck just like changing pants or their color's on your crew.
3. Each Interior pack earned or purchased from CSTORE; and perhaps a few supplement options for GPL to acquire or unlock additional textures, or trophies that be more like placeable furniture from: plants, paintings, aquariums, instruments, artifacts, equipment, area rugs, beds, sofas, chairs, tables some that can be placed in 1 or more of the 3 customizable area's like Ready Room, Captain's Quarters, 10 Forward. It also be nice if you could customize items for your crew Quarter's like your First Officer, Chief Engineer, Chief Scientist, and Chief Medical Officer too.
4. Allow some rooms to adjust lighting in different areas--Ready Room, Ten Forward, Captain's Quarter's mainly as the other Ship area's should follow a more standardized lighting model based on the Faction. Yet it be good to also allow aside from the Ready Room, Captain's Quarters or 10 Forward to expanding various other trophies depending on the Room or Deck (Command, Crew, Tactical, Engineering, or Science Decks also with some room able to place unique items within them to change or swap out instruments, plants, artifacts, to many other things like change a belt or a com badge on an Officer.
5. Regardless of Interior size all Faction ships should have 5 standard decks: Command, Crew/Recreation, Tactical, Engineering & Science.
- Command Deck should include a Bridge, with Ready Room, and a joining Conference Room, and with some doors leading to the Conference or Ready Room and two others to the Turbo Lifts.
- This would be like customizing your Captain at Tailor for the Command Deck.
- Crew/REC Deck w/ 1-2 Holodecks (interior size), includes Captain Quarters, 3 Crew Quarters, 10-Forward, & Medical Bay.
- Tactical Deck w/ 1-2 Hanger Bays/Transporter Rooms/Cargo Bay's dependant on Interior Size + Armory, and/or Brig, possibly others.
- Engineering w/ Engine Room, Computer Core, Antigravity & Dampening Systems, and Weapons & Torpedo Room.
- Science Deck w/ 1-2 Research Areas (Medium to Larger size), Sensor Analysis, Deflector Control, Astrometrics, Hydroponics, etc...
Missed Opportunities to encourage more to BUY or VISIT interior:- Ship Captains be allowed to used saved 1-2 versions of each Deck a Primary & Secondary and marking which is active. Then any of the saved interior views could also be used to publish those settings as a FOUNDRY map with all customizations they purchased available for use in their Foundry Mission. In TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and all Movies a lot more occurred on Starships with each captain making customization to interiors. Providing this would encourage foundry authors to have missions aboard various faction starships at times, while allowing them to show off their unlocked ships & interiors, especially if more Rooms or Decks allowed not just Bridges but also many other rooms to slowly be added or expanded. A few options could even be given for those with GPL but would need to be unique or different than the CSTORE versions.
- Ship's Interior Holodecks should be able added as shown above. It be a great way for Foundry Author's to really not only explore missions in Space but also to have Players run FUN missions like Cross County Skiing on Andoria, or to load other missions like Capture a Changling on Bajor, or perhaps EVENTS could unlock new holodeck recreational missions as well. Hiking & Repelling on Risa, or Ziplining on Vulcan each which may give unique or interesting rewards. Still improving the foundry options for not only creating combat missions but also recreational missions with different types of simulations having Holodecks on Starship Interior's could be both a FUN & Interesting way to create different simulations from Your first Shuttle Pilot Training quest similar to the one in the Delta Quadrant to who knows what?
- Engineering & Sickbay we should be able to go their to repair injuries to encourage more frequently visitation not just Port or Doctor at ESD, Quonos or Romulan Command Center. Not to mention offering more options for DOFF missions and others not available in Sector Space or Ground Maps from NPCs aboard your starship.
- Federation, KDF and yes finally Romulan's should all be given places to display trophies in ten forward, ready room and captain's quarters. And they've really never done much with Trophies since they were first introduced early on. Then they quickly stopped unlocking new ways to earn them and I think this was really a missed opportunity. They could expand options to earn Trophies to include so many other things to really personalize several types of rooms.
- Perhaps C-Store & GPL could each buy/unlock different Room customizations, &/or Bridge options depending on your Faction. Allow more optional missions &/or foundry simulations to take place on the Starship and I think it be a great way to encourage more wanting to customize their Starship Interior's far more!
Comments
But to be successful INTERIORS need to be more attractive & expand game content.
This REALLY needs attention.
More love for ship bridges, even mini-games o scenes would be welcome.
Get to work Cryptic, don't be lazy.
That was exactly the reason behind my comments. In the past I realize Ship Bridges don't sell particular well, but all we got a bridge nothing else, often they have doors that don't open and no personalization anywhere. Everyone loves the great work done on the new sector space maps, and this would really complete the final frontier needing an update.
The problem is we don't get that many reasons or opporunities to visit or show off our ships interiors, yet in the TOS, Star Trek Movies, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and TNG Movies a lot of screen time occured on Starships. I just believe some of these idea's would expand missions or gameplay aboard Starships. Allowing users to publish their unlocked and saved ship interiors for foundry authors, it would also allow the developer to show new rooms or customizations. One allows users to show off their customized ships in their foundry's missions, another would allow cryptic to have a variety of small to large interiors to show off new rooms or customizations each year.
Either way we'd get to see a variety of unique faction starship interiors allowing us to be more connected to the universe we LOVE. Let's just hope they continue to improve other aspects like they have done with our Sector Space Maps.
They stated it that interior won't don't sell compared to ships or extra content - even thought bridges are content. The Difference is that almost nobody go into the interior of their ship.
We should leave that for now, since they're right. Almost nobody go to their ship's interiors because why they would do that in the first place?
maybe when Cryptic feels the necesity to enter into the "Housing" Mood they would do something for ship interiors but for now. it won't be happening any time soon
The reason it doesn't work TODAY is because we can only purchase a single Bridge, and none of the rooms or cooridors can be customized or have options to choose what Research Lab, Medical Bay, Transporter Room, Cargo Bay, or so many others we might want to see on our ships. Look at the degree of customization available for our Crew, Cryptic always sold the high degree of customizing Bridge Officer's sadly they never really explored that for the Ship's. I just think this be the next logical step especially if it allowed for optional missions, foundry simulations on the Holodeck like Repelling on Risa or Ziplining on some other planet as the next logical step.
Allowing Small to Large Ship Interiors with more options for Game Play hasn't really been explored at all in my view. I don't know how well some of these CSTORE packs would sell; but if they priced them right or included a few more things or ways to tweak interiors along with more to do it might be highly attractive. They could also explore GPL as an alternative way to unlocking other Bridges &/or Room's just the ones unlocked with GPL & those with ZEN would each be unique options based on the Faction you are with.
One of the old favorites that hasn't been mentioned in a long time is Player-vs-Player Poker. They actually put in a table in the lounge area after this was first brought up, in STO's first year.
Well they could tie ship repairs to interiors, but there would have to be somekind of incentive that's better than simply pushing a button at the nearest Starbase.
But a good possibility I think could work is if they tied it into exploration (if and when they get it in STO). For example, collecting samples that needs analyzed. So you could do it yourself on your ship, or assign it to a DOFF (which takes longer). If the crafting was more traditional (aka assembly), it could've function the same way as well.
It's sad because bridges and ship interiors could have been this game's "housing". I mean even games like Path of Exile let you customize your own little housing area.
They dropped the ball on this one.
Add your idea above as #5 for missed opportunities. This is exactly the reason WHY I wrote this thread and started with 4 points on missed opportunities... Those are only a small subset of the much larger list I though we could come up together to present to CRYPTIC.
I repeat again: Missions must happen on interiors. Not Mini-Games.
That's the only thing that gives them a purpose and creates a real reason to want to be there.
I think customization is the least important aspect of interior. But if you must it, I'd limit it colours and textures and maybe optional objects. But I think the overall dimension need to be similar to identical if missions are supposed to be happen there and work with the customization. Or they need to come up with a way to have both.
But they can put in as many interiors and as many customization options as they like - as long as interiors are not important for playing story content, only a tiny minority will care about them.
Theoretically, the hideout system of Champions Online might be closer to what we'd need. Except there are no missions happening in CO hideouts either...
That's why I like Path of Exile's hideout system. You can invite to your hideout NPCs that give missions and who rank up as you do them, unlocking more hideout customization options, crafting options and gear to buy. Hideouts in that game have pretty much become mandatory because of it (but not so mandatory that if you don't have one you can't progress). Everyone invites the NPCs they feel will benefit them the most, and some people put an amazing amount of creative effort into their hideouts.
Rift had a hideout system too but it didn't have the functionality of Path of Exile's so I didn't like it as much. Purely cosmetic with no other function is still pretty useless. Cosmetic and important to the game is the key.
STO can't have that level of creativity. Starship interiors all share a basic design aesthetic so we can't have Odysseys with corridors that look like jungles or ancient pyramids, but we can choose layouts, decorations etc. including the uniforms our boffs and doffs wear, and maybe some specialized NPCs to take up residence that offer us useful daily missions like the Path of Exile system.
I think a system like that would be more well-received than Cryptic might realize.
We have so much character customization, we need better interiors.
Here's my list of mini games that would draw players in to their ships..
1- Player vs Player poker. (betting real dilithium or energy credits.)
2- Optional Missions that feature the ship interior more often. Kind of like an episode of the show that took place on the ship. AKA: Solving a ship-board mystery that salutes the show such as nanoprobes escaping a lab and messing with the systems of the ship. Or dealing with a shipboard disaster AKA: hitting a quantum filament knocking the ship offline or a holodeck malfunction and needing to rescue your crew from insane holodeck characters from the old west.
3- Holodecks that replay missions, as well as sick bay and engineering to heal your officers or ship in space. Perhaps the healing options will have limits so you still have to go to ESD for major repairs.
4- Shuttle craft pilot practice, with take off and landing procedures.
5- Multi player ship operations games such as each player taking a console and running through a battle drill all controlled from the Bridge.
Completion of these missions comes with unique interior and uniform rewards as well as dilithium.
Cryptic says people dont buy interiors but the truth is, they aren't really appealing and if we had our beloved canon interiors as well as customizable decore (including the kind of LCARS computer graphics we want) we would see more sales! Also; we have seen new games such as the space walk/dilithium mining so we know the game engine can support different dynamic games such as the ones we've suggested here.
Lets see these updates now that Starfleet is going back to exploration!!!
Well even our canon bridges can be way off:
I would have bought the Galaxy bridges if they weren't so laughably oversized. The "small" Romulan bridges in game are closer to the actual Galaxy bridge size than the Galaxy bridges.
They never bothered to fix them because they don't care about bridges.
They'd see that people still cares about interiors.
So far, except for some mediocre bridges, all new interiors have been part of big packs.
Some people may not want to pay 4000 zen, to get some ships and stuff they don't care about, just to have an interior.
Not to mention the fact that you never gave Romulans the trophy slots.
Basically, Interiors are cool, Interiors could be one of Cryptic's money making schemes.
Instead, it turned out to be... Forgotten because Cryptic thinks it doesn't sell well, when they don't put it on sale properly.
at the moment cryptic is just totaly blind to the fact is that the reason the currant bridge packs do not sell is because the quality of work on them is totaly abyismal, and as much as i do LOVE the defiant and the intrepid bridge and interior ... i dont use either of those ships so it wouldn't make sense to buy them that and i don't wan to purchase the rest of the stuff in the packs.
Changing the Crew Deck is like outfitting your First Officer, change looks of different rooms on a deck like selecting a hat, jacket, belt, pants or boots; whereas customizing a room akin to adding pockets, combadge, rank or should pads on a jacket. I think with a little thought you could have a highly customized interior with more functionality; and more people considering earning unlocks in game or through C-Store for their faction. Maybe I'm just a dreamer.
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In the Voyager episode "TUVIX" the Doctor asks KES to take the Tuvok/Neelix Hybrid from Sick-Bay to the Research Lab we don't currently have on board. Later in the episode when Janeway decides to seperate TUVIX, she along with Security escort him from the bridge to Deck 5, where Harry and the Doctor are waiting in Sick Bay. The Doctor refuses without the patients consent, yet Janeway weighted the two lives she let die, so as a former science officer takes his place. It shouldn't have had to come to this--let TUVIXs sacrifice not be in vain.
I realize others in the past have asked for expanded customization, yet tried to identify new opportunities, that may see us visit more, show to friends, or the community at large. If users in Foundry could publish a saved interior as map choices with customizations unlocked for the 5 floors it opens a lot of game play options aboard Starships. Cryptic could use a similar method for missions aboard different Starships with unique interiors.
That's the problem in a nut-shell right there. The reason players don't have any interest in utilizing their ship interiors is that they're gawd awful. Period. The scale is out to lunch, the textures are t e r r i b l e as well as the layout and assets being uncustomizable, even on a basic level.
I know of no other game where content such as missions or mini-games are expected to be tied to their in-game property. I don't need any reason to visit my house in LotRO other than it's my house and it's completely different from where I actually live. It's the place where I proudly display for *all to see* all of the various trophies I've collected on my various and sundry adventures. If my ships' interior looked cooler and less like a 'medical office building lego set', I assure you I'd visit more often. In fact, I still do pop on to a couple of the bridges I bought back when they were available precisely because they are neat looking. And if not for the current interiors being woefully inadequate, why then do players here need to come up with reasons to be forced into their in-game properties when no other MMO seems to *need* to? I'm not saying there aren't perks available in some MMO housing schemes, I just don't see them as being absolutely required as they seem to be here, for the property to be considered useful.
The part that really burns about all this is that Cryptic previously gave us the super cool hideouts and lairs in the City of Heroes/Villains game, so I know just how cool our interiors could be.
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
Agreed.