TOS Hull Material For Discovery Ships...

thomaselkins · November 2017

Note: I don't care if you hate Discovery or "TRIBBLE" or not. This thread is about a specific topic and I don't want it to be turned into a Discovery hate thread. STO is an officially licensed CBS product, which means Discovery content being added to the game is inevitable. Your opinion of the show will not change that fact. If you have nothing constructive to say or contribute then please do not bother posting. Thank you.

It's obvious Discovery ships will end up in the game at some point, but it's pretty clear from their designs that they don't exactly match up with the TOS look. Personally I think this is because they're more like Post-ENT era ships from the late 22nd century and therefor look closer to the Enterprise era than the TOS one. Similar to how Miranda and Excelsior-classes were seen in service in the 24th century. That's just my personal head canon right now, but either way I hope that when these ships do make it to the game, Cryptic is able to give them a TOS hull material as an option.

When they added the Kelvin Timeline Constitution-class they obviously gave it a canon hull material, but they also gave it the option of a classic TOS material. They did the same thing with the remastered NX-class. So if they can do that with those ships, then perhaps they can do it with the Discovery ships as well? I think it would be really interesting to see those old yet "new" looking ships be given a proper TOS look to hopefully bridge the gap in design. I mean, STO clearly recreated the TOS era as it should be so if they add these new ships to the game they will have to find a way to make them fit in. Giving them the option of a TOS hull material would be a good way to do it.

Then again if my head canon is somewhat correct and these ships are actually late 22nd century ships, then they could just focus on giving them NX-01 style hulls. A mission where we time travel back to the early days of the Federation and see the refit NX-01 flying beside these ships would actually be pretty interesting to me. It would help bridge that gap between the Enterprise and TOS eras.

leemwatson · November 2017

Personally I don't care what skin I use on a ship as it usually gets over-written by Shield Visual anyway.

Alot of people can't get past the fact that CBS did the right thing in updating the visual of the pre-TOS universe. At our own current course of history we're already working with holographic and touch screen tech, which was sort of included in ENT. I cannot understand why people would want the look of the ships going backwards to the 60's and 80's era of TOS with push button and manual controls.

Loving TRIBBLE by the way.

Unknown · November 2017

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usskentucky · November 2017

Someday they will be able to go back and add all those effects to TOS. How badass would Kirk be if they gave it dark, gritty lighting, updated the music to something like Batman Begins, and then threw a bunch of blue glowing lights with readable displays on top of all those 60s stations that look like little kids playing blocks glued together? Add those horns that are in everything today, the ones from Inception? They’ll just have to go back and make all the old treks conform. That’s the future.

thomaselkins · November 2017

Star Trek isn't real life though, so a complete reboot of the design was unnecessary. For 50 years the TOS era has looked like it has, even when revisited by newer series in the 90s and 2000s. It's one thing to use modern tech to make the TOS era look more advanced than it was shown in the 60s, but from an aesthetics standpoint they didn't have to completely redesign everything. That's the kicker too; they didn't redesign everything. There are plenty of things in Discovery that are updated, but still kept the classic TOS look. The communicators and hand phasers for example have been updated, but still have that retro 60s charm. Why was it ok to keep those faithful and not the ships?

Of course my head canon technically allows both to exist if you consider the Discovery ships 22nd century designs still in active service and newer 23rd century designs haven't been properly shown yet. I'm still waiting for them to reveal a Constitution-class on Discovery.

But the point of the thread is I hope Cryptic is able to give the Discovery ships a classic TOS option. If you don't want to use it, you don't have to. I just want to see what they look like when dressed in "proper" TOS colors and I think they would look neat.

duncanidaho11 · November 2017

It'd be nice, and logically consistent for what they did with the NX (having that TOS hull option), but as nice as it might be the question is always "do the devs have time to set this up?" The subject of how much effort does it take to equip a ship with a new hull material came up with the Miranda refit and the devs did say that it is a consideration. How much a one depends on priorities and time available (hence the introduction of vanity shields, side-stepping the issue with a more easily updated customization system.)

TOS hull on DSC ships would be cool but that might not be enough to push it over the finish line if there's a lot going on for the devs when these ships are (inevitably) released to STO. We'll just have to see (but fingers crossed.)

artan42 · November 2017

There's almost a 100 years between ENT and TOS/DSC/TKT so giving the DSC ships the NX material wouldn't really fit.

The Egalmoss model of the Shenzhou (who are provided with the GCI models of the ships by CBS for their casts) shows it with a matte grey hull similar to the TOS hull colour.

I assume the Shepard, Malachowski, Hoover, Nimitz, Magee, Engle, and Cardenas classes all share the same hull colouring with the Walker Class (the Shenzhou) meaning the only extra material would be the Crossfield classes bronze hull.

I did suspect that the Walker and above classes came between the ESF ships (NX, NC, NV, Franklin, etc.) and prior to the Kelvin era ships (Kelvin, Newton, Mayflower etc.) but the Walker Class is very similar to the Nimitz Class and that was a flagship so I suspect they are more modern ships created just prior to the TOS era ships.

Though to be honest I think all Federation hull materials (including exclusive ones like Vesta, Dreadnought, Avenger, Intel, or Vizier) should be available for all Federation ships (subject to unlocking) from NX to Type 8 (or whatever the J's material is).

duncanidaho11 · November 2017

artan42 wrote: »

There's almost a 100 years between ENT and TOS/DSC/TKT so giving the DSC ships the NX material wouldn't really fit.

Was anyone suggesting that?

thay8472 · November 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

There's almost a 100 years between ENT and TOS/DSC/TKT so giving the DSC ships the NX material wouldn't really fit.

Was anyone suggesting that?

Don't you question the Minister of Marmite!

duncanidaho11 · November 2017

thay8472 wrote: »

Don't you question the Minister of Marmite!

I thought that was Theta?

artan42 · November 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

There's almost a 100 years between ENT and TOS/DSC/TKT so giving the DSC ships the NX material wouldn't really fit.

Was anyone suggesting that?

Yes.

thomaselkins wrote: »

Then again if my head canon is somewhat correct and these ships are actually late 22nd century ships, then they could just focus on giving them NX-01 style hulls.

duncanidaho11 · November 2017

artan42 wrote: »

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

There's almost a 100 years between ENT and TOS/DSC/TKT so giving the DSC ships the NX material wouldn't really fit.

Was anyone suggesting that?

Yes.

thomaselkins wrote: »

Then again if my head canon is somewhat correct and these ships are actually late 22nd century ships, then they could just focus on giving them NX-01 style hulls.

Ah, didn't see that. Thanks.

(Agreed on the point, easier to justify giving an NX a TOS hull upgrade on the basis of it being a refit [with special connotations] than the DSC ships still holding onto the NX hull types.)

artan42 · November 2017

reyan01 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

There's almost a 100 years between ENT and TOS/DSC/TKT so giving the DSC ships the NX material wouldn't really fit.

Would usually agree @artan42 - except that the NX and NX refit material/skins CAN be used on the Temporal Light Cruiser/T6 Connie.......

I know, this is why I went on to say...

artan42 wrote: »

Though to be honest I think all Federation hull materials (including exclusive ones like Vesta, Dreadnought, Avenger, Intel, or Vizier) should be available for all Federation ships (subject to unlocking) from NX to Type 8 (or whatever the J's material is).

duncanidaho11 · November 2017

artan42 wrote: »

reyan01 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

There's almost a 100 years between ENT and TOS/DSC/TKT so giving the DSC ships the NX material wouldn't really fit.

Would usually agree @artan42 - except that the NX and NX refit material/skins CAN be used on the Temporal Light Cruiser/T6 Connie.......

I know, this is why I went on to say...

artan42 wrote: »

Though to be honest I think all Federation hull materials (including exclusive ones like Vesta, Dreadnought, Avenger, Intel, or Vizier) should be available for all Federation ships (subject to unlocking) from NX to Type 8 (or whatever the J's material is).

If Cryptic could I think they would have but there's practical limitations which Cryptic's talked about on Ten Forward. Adding hull types to ships is apparently a labor intensive, and ship-by-ship, process. Barring a major update to the way the ship tailor works (on the back end), it's probably not something they'll ever be able to implement (as nice as the suggestion may be) outside of creating faction-exclusive vanity shields that emulate existing hull types.

pweistheworst · November 2017

I also agree with the original poster in this thread. I'll also make a related suggestion:

If the devs decide to add the U.S.S. Shenzhou to STO then I hope they make it a "Utility Cruiser Retrofit (T6)" and make one of the optional skins the Pioneer class utility cruiser (and TOS Pioneer interior) that is otherwise only available as your starting ship as a TOS character.

This way, the devs can make two sets of Trek fans happy ... both TOS fans and new Discovery fans.

fruitvendor12 · November 2017

leemwatson wrote: »

I cannot understand why people would want the look of the ships going backwards to the 60's and 80's era of TOS with push button and manual controls.

Probably for the same reason some of us like going to classic car / motorcycle shows and seeing the old look.

I'm not sure I'd enjoy a classic car show where every antique car had been "upgraded" to skins instead of paint, iPad dashboards, etc...

I *like* the old TOS look. Because it is exactly a look back in time.

angrytarg · November 2017

leemwatson wrote: »

(...)I cannot understand why people would want the look of the ships going backwards to the 60's and 80's era of TOS with push button and manual controls.
(...)

Maybe because that's what the show looked like and likewise that era in-universe looks like? Other sci-fi universes keep their classic looks around, only Star Trek authors feel the need to change it constantly and thus failing to get a consistent feel for the whole thing which I find is a pity.

artan42 · November 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

reyan01 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

There's almost a 100 years between ENT and TOS/DSC/TKT so giving the DSC ships the NX material wouldn't really fit.

Would usually agree @artan42 - except that the NX and NX refit material/skins CAN be used on the Temporal Light Cruiser/T6 Connie.......

I know, this is why I went on to say...

artan42 wrote: »

Though to be honest I think all Federation hull materials (including exclusive ones like Vesta, Dreadnought, Avenger, Intel, or Vizier) should be available for all Federation ships (subject to unlocking) from NX to Type 8 (or whatever the J's material is).

If Cryptic could I think they would have but there's practical limitations which Cryptic's talked about on Ten Forward. Adding hull types to ships is apparently a labor intensive, and ship-by-ship, process. Barring a major update to the way the ship tailor works (on the back end), it's probably not something they'll ever be able to implement (as nice as the suggestion may be) outside of creating faction-exclusive vanity shields that emulate existing hull types.

I always wondered how this was the case. If you record a map with a ship on it, then edit the demo file and do a hull material swap you can give any ship you want (playable ones, NPCs have materials baked on) any material you want. You want a Galaxy with the Klingon Type 3 material? Just change about 6 lines of code. I've done it for several ships on the size charts I've made for the wiki.

The point being every combination I've done and the existing skins wrap the different hulls perfectly such as using the new Type 7 material on an Obreth or a Constellation and it works perfectly.

angrytarg · November 2017

artan42 wrote: »

I always wondered how this was the case. If you record a map with a ship on it, then edit the demo file and do a hull material swap you can give any ship you want (playable ones, NPCs have materials baked on) any material you want. You want a Galaxy with the Klingon Type 3 material? Just change about 6 lines of code. I've done it for several ships on the size charts I've made for the wiki.

The point being every combination I've done and the existing skins wrap the different hulls perfectly such as using the new Type 7 material on an Obreth or a Constellation and it works perfectly.

Can you put Type 0 (TOS) on a Ambassador for example?

artan42 · November 2017

angrytarg wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

I always wondered how this was the case. If you record a map with a ship on it, then edit the demo file and do a hull material swap you can give any ship you want (playable ones, NPCs have materials baked on) any material you want. You want a Galaxy with the Klingon Type 3 material? Just change about 6 lines of code. I've done it for several ships on the size charts I've made for the wiki.

The point being every combination I've done and the existing skins wrap the different hulls perfectly such as using the new Type 7 material on an Obreth or a Constellation and it works perfectly.

Can you put Type 0 (TOS) on a Ambassador for example?

In theory yes, however it'd take a while as I'd need to get a demo of an Amby and of a ship with a Type 0 material. If you want to see one I'll see what I can do.

duncanidaho11 · November 2017

artan42 wrote: »

I always wondered how this was the case. If you record a map with a ship on it, then edit the demo file and do a hull material swap you can give any ship you want (playable ones, NPCs have materials baked on) any material you want. You want a Galaxy with the Klingon Type 3 material? Just change about 6 lines of code. I've done it for several ships on the size charts I've made for the wiki.

The point being every combination I've done and the existing skins wrap the different hulls perfectly such as using the new Type 7 material on an Obreth or a Constellation and it works perfectly.

It's playing around in demo record that brought up the topic in the first place. Answer: Hooking up a new hull material for the tailor takes significantly more effort than swapping them around in demo record. They're different systems. The devs didn't take us through what exactly is involved but they did essentially rule out the possibility of simply adding one new FED hull (Miranda refit) across the FED shipyard (in the near term, at least.)

(For the exact Ten Forward weekly, check either the stream showcasing the T6 Miranda or the one just after.)

angrytarg · November 2017

artan42 wrote: »

In theory yes, however it'd take a while as I'd need to get a demo of an Amby and of a ship with a Type 0 material. If you want to see one I'll see what I can do.

I was just curious how it works. Does a swapped material come with decals and do they line up correctly and so on.

Unknown · November 2017

This content has been removed.

artan42 · November 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

I always wondered how this was the case. If you record a map with a ship on it, then edit the demo file and do a hull material swap you can give any ship you want (playable ones, NPCs have materials baked on) any material you want. You want a Galaxy with the Klingon Type 3 material? Just change about 6 lines of code. I've done it for several ships on the size charts I've made for the wiki.

The point being every combination I've done and the existing skins wrap the different hulls perfectly such as using the new Type 7 material on an Obreth or a Constellation and it works perfectly.

It's playing around in demo record that brought up the topic in the first place. Answer: Hooking up a new hull material for the tailor takes significantly more effort than swapping them around in demo record. They're different systems. The devs didn't take us through what exactly is involved but they did essentially rule out the possibility of simply adding one new FED hull (Miranda refit) across the FED shipyard (in the near term, at least.)

(For the exact Ten Forward weekly, check either the stream showcasing the T6 Miranda or the one just after.)

Except that's what the demorecord is showing. The mesh bones are what the ships and costumes are. If it can be overlaid by a simply wrap on those bones one way it would work another unless the tailor is doing something very odd compared to how changes should work.

duncanidaho11 · November 2017

artan42 wrote: »

Except that's what the demorecord is showing. The mesh bones are what the ships and costumes are. If it can be overlaid by a simply wrap on those bones one way it would work another unless the tailor is doing something very odd compared to how changes should work.

Except that's not the problem. The hull materials will work if applied but, according to the devs, it's the time required to manually specify what ships should have what options (in the back end) that can be prohibitive.

What we see in demo record is not analogous. If you want to know exactly why, try reaching out to relevant devs on Ten Forward weekly. I'm just passing on what we've heard so far about this specific issue. All FED skins on all FED ships isn't happening, as far as we've been told, given what it takes to simply set that up in code.

mustrumridcully0 · November 2017

If it becomes a promo/lockbox ship, I would not be surprised if it also has some non-standard options like TOS or Kelvin Timeline materials, but a C-Store ship might be limited to the standard palette, plus whatever they introduce for Discovery.

evilmark444 · November 2017

Personally, I think all hull materials should be available on all ships, but that's just me.

TOS Hull Material For Discovery Ships...

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