Maybe the Romulans will finally become an independent third Faction.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
It only blows up because you do a 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more' routine that invites it. Say nothing if you have nothing to say. Save it for ST:LV and unveil what you wish to unveil.
Do what you did with the changes to the 14-day Events. Say absolutely nothing about it until the week before you're going to implement it.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Romulans becoming an independent third Faction is a mechanical change to the game, so it is not that at all.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Translation: "Nothing new is really going to happen, so those of you who are just lurking and hoping for the game to go in a bold new direction can just keep on lurking and hoping."
You know what Al? That sounds like a really great plan. But just to be clear, While I am lurking and hoping, I am also not playing... And if I am not playing, I certainly am not paying. Not that it matters, as I am merely but a single drop in an ocean. And there are plenty of drops who will throw money at this game to maintain its status quo of mediocrity, right?
Yeah.
Back to lurking and hoping...
Well, you're allowed to hope, but big changes don't just offer the chance of maybe getting someone back - it could also be a reason for some to leave.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
^^^
Most likely (based on the storyline for the upcoming "Star Trek: Picard" series;
which is supposed to heavily involve the aftermath from/of the destruction of Romulus; and its effect on Jean Luc Picard's later life.)
-- They need to recon the majority of the STO Romulan backstory that they presented way back in their "Road to 2409" 'fanfiction' timeline. It may mean some tweaks to existing STO Romulan storyline content in the game but I doubt it'll change too much of the existing already VOed Romulan faction content, but we'll see.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
^^^
Most likely (based on the storyline for the upcoming "Star Trek: Picard" series;
which is supposed to heavily involve the aftermath from/of the destruction of Romulus; and its effect on Jean Luc Picard's later life.)
-- They need to recon the majority of the STO Romulan backstory that they presented way back in their "Road to 2409" 'fanfiction' timeline. It may mean some tweaks to existing STO Romulan storyline content in the game but I doubt it'll change too much of the existing already VOed Romulan faction content, but we'll see.
Hopefully it will not mean dumping the Romulan Republic for whatever half-witted setup they are likely to have in the Picard series. The shows have a bad track record of "extincting" whole empires when only their homeworld is destroyed, as if everyone commutes to the colonies and territorial positions every day but sleeps on the homeworld or something, and other similar nonsense.
The shows have a bad track record of "extincting" whole empires when only their homeworld is destroyed, as if everyone commutes to the colonies and territorial positions every day but sleeps on the homeworld or something, and other similar nonsense.
Well, "extincting" means the political entity, not the species here, and I don't think that is that unreasonable. Of course I can only guess here, not having witnessed the collapse of a major galactic power first hand as of now.
But first, historically, many empires or similar powers on earth collapsed after losing their capital city. Granted, mostly it was due to civil war or external war, and the enemy could wipe up the rest, but also major disasters played a role occasionally. The more centralized a government is, the more vulnerable it of course is, and also the more force needed to keep colonies/provinces/planets in line, the more regional rulers would be likely to seize control for themselves after the downfall of the central power, ending the entity as such. In the end it is rare for an entity to just continue in a similar style from a new capital, instead crumbling, at least for a while.
Also, both SF series and games (think 4X games like Master of Orion, or Galactic Civilizations) tend to overestimate the size colonies will likely grow to in the timeframe given. If Earth started colonizing today, we'd have around 7 billion people here and start off small on other planets. We have around 400 years to grow our colonies into self sustaining planets. Vulcans and by extension Romulans had a bit more, but not by orders of magnitude. Now, it is possible to get a couple hundred million people to new places in this timeframe, compare what happened in the Americas, and certainly to get them self sufficient, but since birth rates tend to go down with prosperity, the growth of the colonies will likely be less in these instances than it used to be. But even if a billion or two inhabitants would populate those colonies by the time of downfall of the central planet, they'd be divided over dozens of planets, leaving maybe 100 million for the possible new capital planet. Let's be generous and say even 1 billion. Certainly enough to continue on your planet, but possibly lacking the ability to control vast swathes of space. And even if every planet was sustainable and not dependent on trade via the homeworld, more likely than not your empire will have lost way, waaaay over half its population, its most advanced infrastructures, most of the "important people", most of its logistical capabilities.
Certainly a rebuild is not impossible, but I'd say it's pretty reasonable to assume that for the time being you cease to be a power to be reckoned with in these surroundings, in other words, "go extinct".
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Also, both SF series and games (think 4X games like Master of Orion, or Galactic Civilizations) tend to overestimate the size colonies will likely grow to in the timeframe given. If Earth started colonizing today, we'd have around 7 billion people here and start off small on other planets. We have around 400 years to grow our colonies into self sustaining planets. Vulcans and by extension Romulans had a bit more, but not by orders of magnitude. Now, it is possible to get a couple hundred million people to new places in this timeframe, compare what happened in the Americas, and certainly to get them self sufficient, but since birth rates tend to go down with prosperity, the growth of the colonies will likely be less in these instances than it used to be. But even if a billion or two inhabitants would populate those colonies by the time of downfall of the central planet, they'd be divided over dozens of planets, leaving maybe 100 million for the possible new capital planet. Let's be generous and say even 1 billion. Certainly enough to continue on your planet, but possibly lacking the ability to control vast swathes of space. And even if every planet was sustainable and not dependent on trade via the homeworld, more likely than not your empire will have lost way, waaaay over half its population, its most advanced infrastructures, most of the "important people", most of its logistical capabilities.
That's the real question isn't it? How many people would migrate from Earth to Mars if people were to IRL start building a colony on Mars? I don't think you'd have a shortage of people willing to leave their lives on Earth behind. I honestly think that any ships scheduled to transport colonists would be booked completely full for pretty much every trip. If there were colonies to migrate to, there would be no shortage of people willing to migrate.
That is what I find to be unrealistic in sci-fi. The one part of "The Vengeance Factor" I utterly loathed is that the Gatherers were in any way interested in going back to Acamar. They left because it was too crowded! Why were they the only Acamarians to want to find a less crowded place to live?
Also, both SF series and games (think 4X games like Master of Orion, or Galactic Civilizations) tend to overestimate the size colonies will likely grow to in the timeframe given. If Earth started colonizing today, we'd have around 7 billion people here and start off small on other planets. We have around 400 years to grow our colonies into self sustaining planets. Vulcans and by extension Romulans had a bit more, but not by orders of magnitude. Now, it is possible to get a couple hundred million people to new places in this timeframe, compare what happened in the Americas, and certainly to get them self sufficient, but since birth rates tend to go down with prosperity, the growth of the colonies will likely be less in these instances than it used to be. But even if a billion or two inhabitants would populate those colonies by the time of downfall of the central planet, they'd be divided over dozens of planets, leaving maybe 100 million for the possible new capital planet. Let's be generous and say even 1 billion. Certainly enough to continue on your planet, but possibly lacking the ability to control vast swathes of space. And even if every planet was sustainable and not dependent on trade via the homeworld, more likely than not your empire will have lost way, waaaay over half its population, its most advanced infrastructures, most of the "important people", most of its logistical capabilities.
SF also tends to massively overestimate the need for people in a technologically advanced society. Star Trek has sapient AI and the romulans were running remote-controlled ships in since at least the 22nd century. Realistically, Sela could've run the entire empire all by herself on AI and remote...like a 4X game.
I hope they actually give some storyline played through KDF and/or Romulans and JH
See any storyline we play after the starting arcs treats us pretty much as if we were Federation so a change would be very welcome
Well, everything for KDF & Romulans as of Reman Resistance arc is where the story converges for them, while Storm Clouds Gather is where the Jemhadar join.
They seem to want to do the unified storyline because they want everyone to be able to play the story. Hence why they decided to do Age of Discovery as historic simulations for everyone but the Discovery Captains (at least prior their temporal shift).
I hope it's nothing too drastic. They're already planning on revamping my beloved Romulans (which is fine, it is old now and the lack of VA is actually noticeable in comparison) but I hope most everything else gets left untouched and they focus on upcoming story instead of changing old stuff that maybe doesn't need to.
The shows have a bad track record of "extincting" whole empires when only their homeworld is destroyed, as if everyone commutes to the colonies and territorial positions every day but sleeps on the homeworld or something, and other similar nonsense.
Well, "extincting" means the political entity, not the species here, and I don't think that is that unreasonable. Of course I can only guess here, not having witnessed the collapse of a major galactic power first hand as of now.
But first, historically, many empires or similar powers on earth collapsed after losing their capital city. Granted, mostly it was due to civil war or external war, and the enemy could wipe up the rest, but also major disasters played a role occasionally. The more centralized a government is, the more vulnerable it of course is, and also the more force needed to keep colonies/provinces/planets in line, the more regional rulers would be likely to seize control for themselves after the downfall of the central power, ending the entity as such. In the end it is rare for an entity to just continue in a similar style from a new capital, instead crumbling, at least for a while.
Also, both SF series and games (think 4X games like Master of Orion, or Galactic Civilizations) tend to overestimate the size colonies will likely grow to in the timeframe given. If Earth started colonizing today, we'd have around 7 billion people here and start off small on other planets. We have around 400 years to grow our colonies into self sustaining planets. Vulcans and by extension Romulans had a bit more, but not by orders of magnitude. Now, it is possible to get a couple hundred million people to new places in this timeframe, compare what happened in the Americas, and certainly to get them self sufficient, but since birth rates tend to go down with prosperity, the growth of the colonies will likely be less in these instances than it used to be. But even if a billion or two inhabitants would populate those colonies by the time of downfall of the central planet, they'd be divided over dozens of planets, leaving maybe 100 million for the possible new capital planet. Let's be generous and say even 1 billion. Certainly enough to continue on your planet, but possibly lacking the ability to control vast swathes of space. And even if every planet was sustainable and not dependent on trade via the homeworld, more likely than not your empire will have lost way, waaaay over half its population, its most advanced infrastructures, most of the "important people", most of its logistical capabilities.
Certainly a rebuild is not impossible, but I'd say it's pretty reasonable to assume that for the time being you cease to be a power to be reckoned with in these surroundings, in other words, "go extinct".
Actually, they have in essence done it as both the political entity and somehow as a species extinction even though in the latter case they would have had plenty of other worlds (and yes, it might take them quite a while to reorganize in the worst scenarios).
Some of it may have been sloppy dialog that was meant to convey the idea that the empire in question was rolled up back to the homeworld and destroyed (like the Minbari were doing to the Terrans in the Babylon5 flashbacks) but sounded like just the homeworld was destroyed, but others were things like supernovas destroying the race's homeworld or other planetary scale disasters are also mentioned in throwaway dialog a lot.
The situation you describe is what almost happened to the Klingons, not only did their main source of wealth blow up in their faces (literally) it severely damaged their homeworld and it was a race as to whether the economic collapse or the internal friction that would tear them apart first (as it turns out neither was quite enough to do that and they recovered).
The Romulans would be in much the same boat, though theoretically their wealth was not as much involved (except for in a single canon source, Nemisis, which contradicts every other canon source and places a planet full of dilithium in their home system). The whole point of the singularity powersource instead of matter-antimatter is that the area the Romulans settled was unusually poor in dilithium (for example the female commander in "The Enterprise Incident" stressed the fact that they are a poor but proud people way back in TOS, and it is well established that the only real wealth that mattered in TOS was dilithium). The STO take on what happened to the RSI is actually quite realistic given that their government was apparently constantly on the verge of flying apart as it was from references in other Trek works.
Look... I really want an excuse to come back to and spend money on this game, I assure you, Cryptic. But as long as all you do is maintain the status quo, I can also assure you that I will neither come back to, nor spend money on STO. And I refuse to believe that I am the only one to embrace that position. You know what must be done. So just do it.
I want an excuse to come back, but that does not mean I will ever spend any money on it again. Very large and drastic changes need to be made to this game before the wallet is dusted off. As you say, all they have done is remove the things we either liked or loved. There are so many things they can't do and it seems to be for the same reasons they couldn't update the foundry, they just don't have the staff who can do these things, for whatever reason, be it cash, PWE, lack of imagination, or complete misunderstanding of their player base.
They don't answer the awkward questions on the live stream, critics here are silenced, the big fleets are dead or dying, I honestly don't know how they are keeping this game running. I have hope for the future but as time progresses it seems more forlorn. So, now we are told it's not a mechanical change but more story based, and we have to wait a year to find out what that is, I'm sorry but this is pushing hype into the grounds of unwarranted hyperbole and they need to either tell us what is going to change or accept the consequences.
Yeah I think so, as well. The things I loved, they killed, like the Foundry, exploration clusters and even stories not focused on Discovery (they're not really dead, but it feels like they are of no importance anymore...) and as it seems, there won't be any 2410 content in the foreseeable future
I just wish they would make good on their intent to give us an exploration aspect to the game. Supposedly something was at one point in the works and they did indicate an intent to provide something that would replace what they took away from us at some point.
Cryptic has said, since they removed exploration clusters, they have only had high level/whiteboard ideas for a new exploration system, and to expect it never.
But because all PWE wants is for them to maintain the mediocre status quo, it won't happen.
PWE has nothing to do with it. The game is the way it is because Cryptic's data shows this is the kind of thing most people want.
Kael even talked a little about this in the livestream, saying that the reason why Cryptic hasn't put effort into player housing is because their data shows most of the playerbase isn't into that, and is instead far more into the space barbie. Same reason why there is no real plans to do an "evil" faction like the Terran Empire, or something similar. The data and feedback they got from adding more morally grey, or outright evil, scenarios like Kobali, and Renegades Regret, was "the player don't want this". This is also part of the reason why the Foundry wasn't updated often, and why it was eventually closed. The data showed that putting money into it wasn't being brought back, and that while many people used it, it wasn't even 60% of the playerbase. And same thing with exploration clusters, the cited reasons they were removed was because people complained about getting stuck in them, and that the content was bad to begin with.
That's kind of chicken and egg...a game is played by people who want the things the game has. People who want something the game doesn't have, won't play it.
Focusing exclusively on the lowest common denominator of the current playerbase is giving up an most if not all growth potential. Indeed the repeated narrowing of that focus is driving people away on the edges.
Cryptic also has some experience as regards player housing and EEEEvil factions. You may recall that until NCSoft pulled the rug out from under them, Cryptic was the studio behind the famed City of Heroes. Its City of Villains expansion was intended to service that portion of the playerbase that was clamoring to play villains. Turned out that the Rogue Isles were never very heavily populated - being eeevillll <cackle, rub hands together> turned out to be the sort of thing that only a tiny group ever actually enjoyed doing. Most of the sales of CoV were apparently due to the fact that it also introduced supergroup bases.
They also have "player housing", beyond the ship you have in STO. CO has Hideouts, places the hero can go to get away from the world at large. Most people only have them because the Hideout includes an Account Bank, the only way to access one in CO, and easy access to the Tailor. Most folks playing MMOs appear to enjoy being in the same area as other players. Weird, huh?
In short, both research data and experience have shown Cryptic that the things you clamor for here are things you clamor for, and that most of the player base is quite indifferent to them.
They also have "player housing", beyond the ship you have in STO. CO has Hideouts, places the hero can go to get away from the world at large. Most people only have them because the Hideout includes an Account Bank, the only way to access one in CO, and easy access to the Tailor. Most folks playing MMOs appear to enjoy being in the same area as other players. Weird, huh?
Successful player housing systems do inded tend to be in the same area as other players, rather than hidden behind invite-only loading screens. After all, what's the point of having a cool house if nobody can see it? Housing is mostly Barbie.
Though facilities that players would find useful beyond just showing off, such as storage, are also a common feature.
Alas, I haven't played CO enough to know much about the hideouts. While the tailor in that game is pure unrestricted awesome and I wish STO would copy it, the gameplay I never could get very excited about.
They also have "player housing", beyond the ship you have in STO. CO has Hideouts, places the hero can go to get away from the world at large. Most people only have them because the Hideout includes an Account Bank, the only way to access one in CO, and easy access to the Tailor. Most folks playing MMOs appear to enjoy being in the same area as other players. Weird, huh?
Successful player housing systems do inded tend to be in the same area as other players, rather than hidden behind invite-only loading screens.
And how would that make any sense in the context of Star Trek Online?
We're Captains of our own ships. What is our "Player housing"? Our cabin aboard the ship? What would all teh players constantly hang around on the same ship if they are all Captains of other ships?
Our Starbase? But how often would we even be there, we're constantly send around the galaxy with our ships! Of course, our Starbases are already a kind of player housing. Yet I don't think I've ever seen fleet mates at the same time in the Starbase as me. Maybe that's completely different for more active and social fleets.
You get a lot of customization options for your starship and for your character - and everyone can see that, and it's very plausible they can do so. And... it works. People love kitbashing and vanity customization options.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
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That would be an interesting one. But since it's legacy spaghetti code on the part of the LoR content, it will be unlikely.
Hoping for the best though!
Do what you did with the changes to the 14-day Events. Say absolutely nothing about it until the week before you're going to implement it.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
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l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Well, you're allowed to hope, but big changes don't just offer the chance of maybe getting someone back - it could also be a reason for some to leave.
^^^
Most likely (based on the storyline for the upcoming "Star Trek: Picard" series;
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Hopefully it will not mean dumping the Romulan Republic for whatever half-witted setup they are likely to have in the Picard series. The shows have a bad track record of "extincting" whole empires when only their homeworld is destroyed, as if everyone commutes to the colonies and territorial positions every day but sleeps on the homeworld or something, and other similar nonsense.
See any storyline we play after the starting arcs treats us pretty much as if we were Federation so a change would be very welcome
Well, "extincting" means the political entity, not the species here, and I don't think that is that unreasonable. Of course I can only guess here, not having witnessed the collapse of a major galactic power first hand as of now.
But first, historically, many empires or similar powers on earth collapsed after losing their capital city. Granted, mostly it was due to civil war or external war, and the enemy could wipe up the rest, but also major disasters played a role occasionally. The more centralized a government is, the more vulnerable it of course is, and also the more force needed to keep colonies/provinces/planets in line, the more regional rulers would be likely to seize control for themselves after the downfall of the central power, ending the entity as such. In the end it is rare for an entity to just continue in a similar style from a new capital, instead crumbling, at least for a while.
Also, both SF series and games (think 4X games like Master of Orion, or Galactic Civilizations) tend to overestimate the size colonies will likely grow to in the timeframe given. If Earth started colonizing today, we'd have around 7 billion people here and start off small on other planets. We have around 400 years to grow our colonies into self sustaining planets. Vulcans and by extension Romulans had a bit more, but not by orders of magnitude. Now, it is possible to get a couple hundred million people to new places in this timeframe, compare what happened in the Americas, and certainly to get them self sufficient, but since birth rates tend to go down with prosperity, the growth of the colonies will likely be less in these instances than it used to be. But even if a billion or two inhabitants would populate those colonies by the time of downfall of the central planet, they'd be divided over dozens of planets, leaving maybe 100 million for the possible new capital planet. Let's be generous and say even 1 billion. Certainly enough to continue on your planet, but possibly lacking the ability to control vast swathes of space. And even if every planet was sustainable and not dependent on trade via the homeworld, more likely than not your empire will have lost way, waaaay over half its population, its most advanced infrastructures, most of the "important people", most of its logistical capabilities.
Certainly a rebuild is not impossible, but I'd say it's pretty reasonable to assume that for the time being you cease to be a power to be reckoned with in these surroundings, in other words, "go extinct".
That is what I find to be unrealistic in sci-fi. The one part of "The Vengeance Factor" I utterly loathed is that the Gatherers were in any way interested in going back to Acamar. They left because it was too crowded! Why were they the only Acamarians to want to find a less crowded place to live?
My character Tsin'xing
Well, everything for KDF & Romulans as of Reman Resistance arc is where the story converges for them, while Storm Clouds Gather is where the Jemhadar join.
They seem to want to do the unified storyline because they want everyone to be able to play the story. Hence why they decided to do Age of Discovery as historic simulations for everyone but the Discovery Captains (at least prior their temporal shift).
Actually, they have in essence done it as both the political entity and somehow as a species extinction even though in the latter case they would have had plenty of other worlds (and yes, it might take them quite a while to reorganize in the worst scenarios).
Some of it may have been sloppy dialog that was meant to convey the idea that the empire in question was rolled up back to the homeworld and destroyed (like the Minbari were doing to the Terrans in the Babylon5 flashbacks) but sounded like just the homeworld was destroyed, but others were things like supernovas destroying the race's homeworld or other planetary scale disasters are also mentioned in throwaway dialog a lot.
The situation you describe is what almost happened to the Klingons, not only did their main source of wealth blow up in their faces (literally) it severely damaged their homeworld and it was a race as to whether the economic collapse or the internal friction that would tear them apart first (as it turns out neither was quite enough to do that and they recovered).
The Romulans would be in much the same boat, though theoretically their wealth was not as much involved (except for in a single canon source, Nemisis, which contradicts every other canon source and places a planet full of dilithium in their home system). The whole point of the singularity powersource instead of matter-antimatter is that the area the Romulans settled was unusually poor in dilithium (for example the female commander in "The Enterprise Incident" stressed the fact that they are a poor but proud people way back in TOS, and it is well established that the only real wealth that mattered in TOS was dilithium). The STO take on what happened to the RSI is actually quite realistic given that their government was apparently constantly on the verge of flying apart as it was from references in other Trek works.
Yeah I think so, as well. The things I loved, they killed, like the Foundry, exploration clusters and even stories not focused on Discovery (they're not really dead, but it feels like they are of no importance anymore...) and as it seems, there won't be any 2410 content in the foreseeable future
Focusing exclusively on the lowest common denominator of the current playerbase is giving up an most if not all growth potential. Indeed the repeated narrowing of that focus is driving people away on the edges.
They also have "player housing", beyond the ship you have in STO. CO has Hideouts, places the hero can go to get away from the world at large. Most people only have them because the Hideout includes an Account Bank, the only way to access one in CO, and easy access to the Tailor. Most folks playing MMOs appear to enjoy being in the same area as other players. Weird, huh?
In short, both research data and experience have shown Cryptic that the things you clamor for here are things you clamor for, and that most of the player base is quite indifferent to them.
Though facilities that players would find useful beyond just showing off, such as storage, are also a common feature.
Alas, I haven't played CO enough to know much about the hideouts. While the tailor in that game is pure unrestricted awesome and I wish STO would copy it, the gameplay I never could get very excited about.
We're Captains of our own ships. What is our "Player housing"? Our cabin aboard the ship? What would all teh players constantly hang around on the same ship if they are all Captains of other ships?
Our Starbase? But how often would we even be there, we're constantly send around the galaxy with our ships! Of course, our Starbases are already a kind of player housing. Yet I don't think I've ever seen fleet mates at the same time in the Starbase as me. Maybe that's completely different for more active and social fleets.
You get a lot of customization options for your starship and for your character - and everyone can see that, and it's very plausible they can do so. And... it works. People love kitbashing and vanity customization options.