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The ability to build your own ship???
timchauvin
Member Posts: 85 Arc User
Has there ever been the ability to build your own ship from the floor up? Or could it ever be possible? Even just to mix and match the best attributes of different ships, is that even possible?
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The closest the game has ever come was allowing you to craft a Delta Flyer. This was in, I think, the second iteration of the crafting system (we're currently in the fourth, IIRC). But that didn't really allow you to make your own custom ship, per se; rather, the Delta Flyer you got from crafting was the same one that's now in the C-Store.
But yeah, I seriously doubt that building a custom ship from the ground up would ever be allowed in this game, as ships are the main money train for Cryptic.
Yea, loved playing around in that.
I wouldnt mind having a lot more costume options for starships. I hate that, especially in newer cstore ships, you just get one look, and have no customization at all. It's even worse for the lockbox ships.
All of the original STO ships had/have 3 different designs minimum (some have up to 5 or 6 now that cstore variants have been added) and you can interchange a lot of parts to get a custom look. I would pay money just for additional ship costumes/parts that I could incorporate on my vessels, even if it had no impact whatsoever on gameplay or balance.
That's one of the reasons I ended up buying every single bridge/interior pack on PC. Unfortunately I'm on console now and dont really want to dish out all that cash again =P
Yep. And pretty much everything that game did, STO does better.
for every single player to have a ship of unique design of their very own would just take up a massive amount of storage space on the server that cryptic just cant afford to waste.
even to build a ship from predesigned parts to make it fairly unique to you would need 1000s of different pre-programmed parts for you to play with, it would take a very long time for the devs to design all of the parts and incorporate them into the game.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Step rwo: select ship affiliation, Fed, Klink, or Rom = free, other options such as Ferengi or Jem Hadar may cost more or require racial unlocks, such as Playable Caitian/Ferasan.
Step three: select ship appearance from pre- made models based upon affiliation, including any customization of hulls, nacelles, secondary hulls, or modules. (already in game features.) Certain models may be free, or may require specific unlocks such as C-store or Dil store unlocks.
Step four: select ship class, (cruiser, warbird, raptor, carrier, etc. Some racial affiliations limit available vessel classes, such as warbirds being limited to Romulan faction and BoPs being restricted to Klingon affiliation.
Step five: select and/or purchase special features such as spinal or integrated weapons systems and traits, (from lists of traits available at each stage of mastery.)
Step six: buy the designed vessel.
Note that at each stage of this design process you encounter what magicians call a 'force' which will only allow options already approved by Cryptic. For example, if you select a trait which improves polaron weaponry, all options to improve other energy types would be greyed out. In this way Cryptic can still control the ultimate potential of any designs.
While I am uncertain the game engine will allow such a scheme, the basic premise presented here is simple and only uses elements already in game other than the design engine itself.
My preference would be to link this to fleet starbase shipyards, and limit the number of design options based on the tier of the shipyard. For example, a level 1 Shipyard might be limited to T3 vessels and under.
ok im a little confused if you have it all on PC side why even bother with the console side ?
Actually that's inspired from how some of the build a robot/mech suit games work. Same principle though.
My character Tsin'xing
There was a design contest for the Enterprise F back in the day in which players submitted designs. Some may consider the T6 Federation Carrier vote similar but it's obviously not. Long answer is that the game does not support fully 100% custom part swapping and design and it never will. The best that you can hope for is another ship design contest in the future.
I based it on what a ship of that tier would sell for when you buy it from the shipyard. I also limited what is available to only what Cryptic allows at each tier. So you pay the standard price for a ship of that tier then add additional costs for stuff you want to add. Under my proposal you would spend more for a ship than it would cost to buy a stock ship of that tier. These ships would be a vanity item and would never be able to compete with the munchkin designs Cryptic sells.
Additionally, my proposal would require unlocks for certain features which may cost Zen, Dilithium, and/or Energy credits.
An example might be a spinal weapon such as the phaser lance or the integrated cannon of the Dyson Destroyer. Either of these could require Zen unlocks to obtain the ability to use them in your design, then would require further expense, (possibly even Zen purchase of 'Custom Ship Modules" similar to T5 Upgrades and Fleet Ship modules,) when you purchase the ship you design.
As for competition, well, perhaps. However, the requirement for unlocks may well result in players purchasing several ships to acquire the desired unlocks before they can build their dream ship. Done properly the result of the system I proposed could result in an incentive to buy Cryptic designs and the Zen unlocks as well.
As Damon Wayans said, "Mo money."
I always liked this idea. I wanted them to include a Holographic Disguise console on the Temporal Ships, I think that would have been a nice selling point.
I wouldn't have given them the ability to look like any ship they wanted, but maybe give them 2 or 3 options to just use the skin of another ship.
While I think the disguise idea has merit, I don't see building your own ship as a feasible concept for this game. Would it be cool? Of course it would, but it doesn't seem realistic at all.
In case you aren't aware, the engine doesn't support step #5 of this at all.
"Stat blocks", to include special powers, are hardcoded unique entities. Even amongst the 3 packs (like the Scimitars/flagships, or Dyson Science Destroyers), each one of the three is a fully complete ship entry that has the changes "built in" to the stat block.
One can't just "add" or "subtract" a feature from this. One has to buy the entire ship that has the desired numerics...
That's why a lot of powers (Vesta "Lance", Galaxy Saucer Separation) are usually stuck into the consoles. That's how they can add/remove powers without having to stick entire ship entries into the game.
You could "attempt" to see if certain... consoles... (Like the Vesta's set) can be "unbound" from their ship-line so that any ship can use them, but you're not going to get "integrated ship powers" controllable by radio buttons.
And as far as mixing/matching ship parts (nacelles, pylons, hulls) - what would you do if I tried to slap an Olympus "saucer" on a Galaxy Class "secondary hull/stardrive"? For the record, the Olympus is the "bubble front hospital ship" that's available as the "freebie" T3 Science Vessel...
That's why they restrict "parts" to specific "ship lines/models". Each "part" is designed to integrate with all options of that "ship family" - I can use the Venture Galaxy Saucer (from the T4 C-store ship) on the Galaxy/Venture/Andromeda secondary hull, because the three secondarys are designed to "mesh into" the right spot on that particular saucer...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
My character Tsin'xing
Could be done, is done, limited, in Ship Modification.
They just get less sober.
So, NO!
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Seriously.
They just get less sober.
If you think it's silly, then you do not understand gamers. At all.
If there are posts here that do not appeal to you, or opinions you disagree with, the best way to deal with that is to resist the urge to add comments. Instead, engage with the content you like! Don't feed the trolls!
My character Tsin'xing
My mistake, you are right. So set the dil price to match ships of their tier, then add upcharges for things like Universal BOff seats and Specialization seats. The intent of my post was to present the idea, not set the final price. I was going off of flawed memory when I posted, but clearly stated that the price should be that of a ship of that tier plus the cost of options.
As for power creep, this idea does not allow for it at all. It would allow choices among abilities already allowed to that tier of ship. You won't get the Phaser Lance on it because that is not available until T5, for example. Your T1 custom ship would be no better than a T1 Centaur, but it might have a different appearance. It would definately cost more than a Centaur, though.
As for what can and cannot be done with the engine, I do not know. However, for whatever the issue may be there is a solution. Perhaps the solution here would be to prohibit acquisition of parts that require hard coding. Perhaps there is another option.
Custom Consoles. This would require a Custom Console template from the C-store, and would only allow powers the ship hull supports. If a console is intended to be used, for example, for hull separation, then only hulls with such animations would be able to equip that console. I'd also include the concept of scaling cost to match the number of vessels which can equip the console, with the default cost being that required to equip it on a custom ship design. For that console to be useful on a specific ship class, such as the Nova or the Sao Paulo class, multiply the base cost by one and a half. To have such a console useful to a ship type, such as Escorts or Raptors, multiply base cost times two. To have it usesble on any ship of a particular faction multiply base cost by four, and by eight for a console useable by any ship class. Additionally, to unlock certain abilities such as the saucer seperation ability, you must have unlocked it via purchase of a ship with that power. Such consoles would begin life as Mk XII Gold items, and the costs to apply abilities to them would be based both on what your character has unlocked and the relative desireability of that power.
As for its being worth the developers' time, again I can't say. However, for an idea which both allows customization and encourages purchase of STO products, this one accomplishes the goal. The real question is, are there enough players interested in custom ships to pay back the investment Cryptic would have to make in order to turn the idea into a working minigame.
All of this overlooks Cryptic's history of rigorously controlling the available ship classes. Cryptic may not want us to construct our own designs for many reasons, not the least of which appears to be that CBS wants to hold veto power over what ships are in game.