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Where're the exploration, colonization & industrialization Systems?

sirsitsalotsirsitsalot Member Posts: 2,803 Arc User
Title says it all... If this game could get these horizontal progression paths, I would buy Zen to unlock them...
"There can be no meeting of the minds between two parties
if both parties are not willing to meet in the middle."
-Ambassador Samuel J. Stone
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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  • gaevsmangaevsman Member Posts: 3,190 Arc User
    What?, there is no such thing in this game.. :neutral:
    The forces of darkness are upon us!
  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    edited May 2020
    I think that in Cryptic's mind, they've already given us "exploration" in the form of patrols and admiralty. I don't agree that this is sufficient but I think that they aren't worried about it at all. "Colonization" would have to serve some sort of game play purpose. Fleets already have a fleet colony holding which serves the purpose of draining you of dilithium in exchange for some new gear vendors. Also, we can already build installations with our other fleet holdings. You can "construct" ships by purchasing them with dilithium, zen or EC. "Industrialization" just seems to be another word for crafting which we already have to.

    Reading what you've written, OP. It seems that you're looking for an entirely different game. You may want to try out an RTS or 4x game.
    When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,501 Arc User
    edited May 2020
    No thanks. A modern Star Trek version of SimCitry and/or a 4X game might be fun but as a deep stand alone game not a tacked-on minigame.

    Heroes of Phasers and Space Magic (and the simpler Admiral's Bounty: Crossworlds & Armored Orion Princess)
    SimFederationColony
    No Man's Gone Before Sky
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,501 Arc User
    It wouldn't make enough money, unless you're willing to pay Cryptic $1 million plus to fund it.
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,501 Arc User
    We had it, it was bad. Procedurally generated exploration leads to the Third Borg Dynasty (or was it the Fifth?).

    You can always buy No Man's Sky
  • vegeta50024vegeta50024 Member Posts: 2,335 Arc User
    The biggest problem that we in the forums have talked about with the exploration system is the problem of how you balance the system in three ways:

    1) Providing enough content so that players can't just consume the content at the rate they do with regular episodes

    2) Making sure that the content makes sense in regards to what the player has done within the game. Like for example, if the Dominion are allies, they don't get enemy encounters where the Dominion are shooting at them.

    3) Figure out a way to justify the cost of the system and find a way to pay for the development time.

    They can't just develop procedurally generated content and have it be permanent, since it means that if its permanent, new players would never get to experience the thrill of encountering a particular system if it already exists. That's why in the old system, we never could visit the same system twice.

    TSC_Signature_Gen_4_-_Vegeta_Small.png
  • gaevsmangaevsman Member Posts: 3,190 Arc User
    Yeah, you are talking about Microprose Birth of the Federation... it was a great game, but STO is not designed, nor is going to be like that game.. I agree that a new BotF would be nice, after all, i spend months working on the 3D patch (i was know as Hades back then), so i really love that game, but this one is not it.. :smile:
    The forces of darkness are upon us!
  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,569 Arc User
    Terraforming Mars??

    Galactic Civilizations??

    Anno 2205??

    What game are we taking about?

    Is Terraforming Mars going to add a Utopia Planitia DLC?
    '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.'
    Lt. Philip J. Minns
  • ilithynilithyn Member Posts: 903 Arc User
    Why do we have three versions of the same thread? Time for a merge @baddmoonrizin @darkbladejk
    Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.
  • vegeta50024vegeta50024 Member Posts: 2,335 Arc User
    We had it, it was bad. Procedurally generated exploration leads to the Third Borg Dynasty (or was it the Fifth?).

    There is a big difference between Procedural Generation and Madlib. The only thing about the original exploration system that was procedurally generated were the maps, but not for immediate playability. A developer still had to go in and tweak the geometry and make sure everything was solid. Genesis, which is what the PG Engine was called, was never a part of the actual game. Just what they used it to produce.

    No... The original exploration system was as incomplete as the rest of the game was at launch. It never felt like anything more than a placeholder for something more robust. But aside from a few new maps added to the pool, early on during the game's life, they never did anything with it. Oh... they fixed buggy maps occasionally. And my fixing them I mean they took those maps out of the pool thus removing the bugs. then it stopped getting dev attention all together. And then, they removed the system but suggested that at some point, a new and better exploration system would be added. The last mention of that was years ago. Supposedly the new exploration system concept was on their white board, but there wasn't anything to share about it yet, and there was no timetable for it going into actual development.

    Maybe you don't remember, but they actually put out a poll asking us what we wanted to see them focus on . Exploration was included in that list, I suspect, as just an afterthought. I don't think that they really thought it would have a chance of being the highest-voted option on the poll. But it was. We had them over a barrel. They HAD to do something related to exploration...

    The season after the Iconian war arc, we got a trailer that talked about getting back to exploring the galaxy... There. The did something related to exploring. But did we really get to explore? Nope... We just got more of the same kill or blow up anything that moves.

    And just like that, the overwhelming number of votes on the poll THEY posted was were rendered moot, and exploration was swept down the hole under the rug.

    Have they posted an official poll asking us what we want to see them focus on again? No. But if they did, I doubt they would include exploration as an option.
    You can always buy No Man's Sky

    I already have it. It turned out to be pretty awesome. But it isn't Star Trek

    IF Cryptic were to create an exploration gameplay loop for STO, and lock it behind a Zen unlock, I would open my wallet and buy it. If each tier of advancement required an additional Zen purchase, I would buy those too. Because it would be a SYSTEM that runs autonomously behind the scenes and would not require continuous development beyond bug fixes and new resources and scenarios to keep it fresh, Something that one person with the right tools could do, once the core system is implemented. Maybe they can contract a coder to produce the system and tools with a requirement that each section of the code include detailed comments explaining what does what. That way Cryptic will not be able to make the excuse that "We don't have a developer on staff anymore that understands the code." That way, if something needs to be tweaked or added to the system, anyone who knows how to code can get in there and do it.

    Why do I want to pay to unlock an exploration system? Because, right now, the only thing we really have to pay for is mostly just fluff. Oh... I buy this ship so I can look a little different while I re run the same missions over and over while Cryptic takes several months to release the next bit of mission content, which I can blow through in a matter of hours and be back to square one... And we all know that if it cannot be monetized, then it won't be prioritized

    Give me something MEANINGFUL to buy into.

    Let there be a meta game in place that factors in resultant elements from exploration, so participation has an actual purpose other than running on a treadmill. That is the key right there... It has to have more meaning than just running around discovering things for just the individual player's benefit. Even the wow factor of knowing that you will likely never discover the same exact thing twice will not be enough if there is not some meaningful application outside of exploration.

    I want a STO with greater depth, and I am willing to pay real money to go down paths that allow it.

    I want this IN ADDITION TO what the game already has. Not IN PLACE OF it.

    Here's the thing. You're suggesting that they make a system by which if you want to progress, you have to pump money into. Every system though in the game is unlocked for free and every bit of advancement is open for free at any point, and has some kind of monetization aspect attached to it.

    - Core skill system: Starts at level 5 and progresses to level 50 for regular skills, retrain tokens can reset skills.
    - Duty officer system: First group of duty officers come as a free unlock, additional duty officers can either be acquired by zen or for free via different means in-game.
    - R&D system: Materials can be farmed in game or bought from the C-store via R&D packs. Also ties into the duty officer sysem.
    - Admiralty system: Generates ship cards at the start based on what the player has, more ship cards acquired mostly via indirect purchase of ships in the C-store or by other means.

    A key thing about these 4 systems I highlighted is that they all require no cash input to unlock, but do provide a means to advance via monetization if people so wish to. None of the means to progress require actual money to unlock further progress.

    The fact is, what you want in STO is honestly never going to happen with the age of the game.

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  • spiritbornspiritborn Member Posts: 4,248 Arc User
    edited May 2020
    Honestly you could have merged all 3 into one thread, there's no real reason why they need to be seperate threads, especially as of the 3 only exploration would really make any sense rest are just adding something for its own sake and demand pretty much building a second game client to run under the current STO client to work the way you suggest or at least the way I think you're suggesting as you're rather light on details.

    EDIT:The player character is for all intents and purposes a military officer so storywise you would have pretty much 0 input on industrialization and highly limited input at colonization at best. Exploration is different as it's part of Starfleet's mandate.
  • darkbladejkdarkbladejk Member Posts: 3,698 Community Moderator
    I have merged the previous 3 threads into one. You don't need a separate thread for each thing. If you like to amend the opening post here to include all 3 things under one banner feel free to do so and I will remove any duplicate items. making requests is fine within reason but please don't spam the forum in the process. There is no need for it.
    "Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations

    Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Member Posts: 5,165 Arc User
    Simply put, this is not that kind of game. Whether it should have been or not is obviously debatable, but at this point you can't turn this game into that. But it's a fun game for what it is.

    The-Grand-Nagus
    Join Date: Sep 2008

    og9Zoh0.jpg
  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Member Posts: 5,165 Arc User
    Simply put, this is not that kind of game. Whether it should have been or not is obviously debatable, but at this point you can't turn this game into that. But it's a fun game for what it is.

    This game was never about building starbases, dilithium mines, embassies, or coloneys, until it was for those interested.

    Touche B)

    The-Grand-Nagus
    Join Date: Sep 2008

    og9Zoh0.jpg
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