With the way the whole cross faction ship access opened up earlier this year you can pretty much play as an "independent", or at least a representative of one.
I have a "Former" Starfleet captain with a crew of golden-hearted rogues, fugitives, and people who "don't belong" that wander the quadrants in a battered old B'rel doing "odd jobs" for pay.
The mission system as it stands doesn't really lend itself to playing a "trader" but a mercenary crew can thematically work as the whole "haplessly thrown into events" card plays out in the more grandiose arcs.
With the way the whole cross faction ship access opened up earlier this year you can pretty much play as an "independent", or at least a representative of one.
I have a "Former" Starfleet captain with a crew of golden-hearted rogues, fugitives, and people who "don't belong" that wander the quadrants in a battered old B'rel doing "odd jobs" for pay.
The mission system as it stands doesn't really lend itself to playing a "trader" but a mercenary crew can thematically work as the whole "haplessly thrown into events" card plays out in the more grandiose arcs.
Exactly and Seven's jacket works for people who want to play as civilians, smugglers or pirates.
your BS meter is getting old. how much are they paying you anyway?
Ahh yes the typical "I can't actually refute the argument so I'm going to call BS and accuse you of being paid" response.
Amusing to see the 4chan style of debate is still alive in late 2021.
hey @rattler2 this guy is trolling again. pelase dont let him ruin the forums for everyone else.
He's not the troll in this particular argument. But you do you.
Meanwhile, back on topic, I agree that STO doesn't really have room for a "civilian" faction. What's the exciting storyline, trying to run a shipment of Andorian tubers to their destination in the Gamma Quadrant before a competitor manages to drive the price down? Upgrading the transtators in the mol'Rihan transporter network? The adventures of a small cruise liner carrying loads of vacationers between Risa and Earth?
"Merc" is just a backstory. I've got at least one merc operating a Denerios-class interceptor she bought on the black market, on retainer to D'Tan. She's not actually part of the Romulan Republic, but it's a steady paycheck...
To be fair, most of a Starfleet captain's life probably isn't that interesting either. Writing reports, receiving all sorts of system check reports, going over crew issues, serving as escort for some diplomat or trading convoy, maybe doing some peer review if the captain is also a scientist (like Janeway and Picard were)...
The exciting stuff from episodes and movies are usually exceptional events that interrupt the pretty ordinary daily lifes of the crew.
Which means that a civilian captain could do the same things and still encounter interesting stuff in-between - but then you'd have to wonder indeed what the added value of being a civilian in such an instance is. Just doing civilian things only without any adventure or action probably wouldn't be attractive enough to most players, even though adding some content such as the things you describe could be fun - but for existing factions.
Long story short: a civilian could do all the things a Starfleet officer does. But then there'd be no point in having a civilian faction. More civilian-type content could be a valuable addition to the game, but not if it's only for a civilian faction.
So either way, we don't really need a civilian faction I think. The content would quickly be too boring for most players, exciting content wouldn't have much to do with a civilian faction.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
your BS meter is getting old. how much are they paying you anyway?
Ahh yes the typical "I can't actually refute the argument so I'm going to call BS and accuse you of being paid" response.
Amusing to see the 4chan style of debate is still alive in late 2021.
hey @rattler2 this guy is trolling again. pelase dont let him ruin the forums for everyone else.
He's not the troll in this particular argument. But you do you.
Meanwhile, back on topic, I agree that STO doesn't really have room for a "civilian" faction. What's the exciting storyline, trying to run a shipment of Andorian tubers to their destination in the Gamma Quadrant before a competitor manages to drive the price down? Upgrading the transtators in the mol'Rihan transporter network? The adventures of a small cruise liner carrying loads of vacationers between Risa and Earth?
"Merc" is just a backstory. I've got at least one merc operating a Denerios-class interceptor she bought on the black market, on retainer to D'Tan. She's not actually part of the Romulan Republic, but it's a steady paycheck...
To be fair, most of a Starfleet captain's life probably isn't that interesting either. Writing reports, receiving all sorts of system check reports, going over crew issues, serving as escort for some diplomat or trading convoy, maybe doing some peer review if the captain is also a scientist (like Janeway and Picard were)...
The exciting stuff from episodes and movies are usually exceptional events that interrupt the pretty ordinary daily lifes of the crew.
Which means that a civilian captain could do the same things and still encounter interesting stuff in-between - but then you'd have to wonder indeed what the added value of being a civilian in such an instance is. Just doing civilian things only without any adventure or action probably wouldn't be attractive enough to most players, even though adding some content such as the things you describe could be fun - but for existing factions.
Long story short: a civilian could do all the things a Starfleet officer does. But then there'd be no point in having a civilian faction. More civilian-type content could be a valuable addition to the game, but not if it's only for a civilian faction.
So either way, we don't really need a civilian faction I think. The content would quickly be too boring for most players, exciting content wouldn't have much to do with a civilian faction.
As for a civilian faction race cardassians clearly are out, so maybe if it was a race that we don't currently have, what about the Suliban? we already have their ships.
Exactly and Seven's jacket works for people who want to play as civilians, smugglers or pirates.
Not just Seven's jacket. The Kelvin Survival Jacket can as well.
The TOS Mirror Universe jacket works well as do the Enterprise pants which can be recoloured to make a passable denim.
The DSC starter uniform pants make a passable denim too, without any manipulation, though they would be a fancier version since they have that sort of cavalry stripe like bedazzling feature. The c-store DSC uniform is darker and the surface does not look as denim-like even when you lighten it up though I suppose enough fiddling with it might do the trick (I haven't spent much time trying that so far).
there are also the mudd's outfit (the boots are cool), the talaxian clothes (the 2 jackets are very interesting), the kelvin kdf uniform, even the borstaqu boots can be interesting, they have a cowboy style
What you are describing is emergent behavior, and it would be great if the devs could put it in. Unfortunately it is not something easy to build even when designed into the game from the start, and bolting it on as an afterthought is even more difficult, along with being extremely costly in terms of time, software resources, and money in that rework effort.
Where there is a marketplace of sorts the game does not really have a crafting economy something like that would require for instance, so they would have to develop one of those, and a large number of other things even before writing the first line of code, and that is just the beginning. In essence they would be bolting on practically another whole game and that is not something a small team like they have now can do in any reasonable time without dropping everything else, which is of course impossible if they want to keep the game going.
While it does count as Necro...
I think I'll let it slide as this one is a bit of a grey area IMO. While the topic isn't relevant to current events in game per se... it was on topic. Not only that, its not a subject where its gonna be sitting for a year or two then have someone respond to it thinking its still relevant to the game as it stands at the time of post, unlike subjects of mechanics or current meta.
If another mod disagrees, then I'll abide by the decision of the other mod.
I wouldn't say it needs to be a FACTION. But rather a new DIVISION. We have science, Engineering and Tactical. A choice of Civilian could work.
Personally I think Medical should be it's own Division, it's weird having it be tied to Science despite being the same colour, medical knowledge and scientific knowledge are two separate things,
Ideally, something like this would be done one profession loop at a time. Maybe two if it is a loop that has a counter-profession associated with it.
Emergent gameplay is appearance only. True emergent gameplay happens when players spontaneously do something that feeds into other players' experience. These threhold-based scenarios would still be scripted, and there should be no official statements in terms of what conditions must be specifically met to trigger them or prevent them. But when they happen or prevented a few times it won't be hard to figure out what generally must be done to achieve the desired results. Like for example if enough players patrol a specific route will result in the odds of hostile encounters along that route being nonexistent. By the same time, players refusing to patrol that route will guarantee that hostile encounters would start showing up. And a secondary variable woul determine how many hostile encounters must be dealt with before going back to the normal trigger/avoid threshold.
While it might be engaging to actually play the scenarios, I suppose that it could be done through a revamping/extension of the Duty Officer and Admiralty systems, made so that the success/failure of assignments influence the meta-game's variables. In this way, those assignments could have a lasting impact on things. In fact, my idea for civilian profession gameplay loops are inspired by the professions available to DOffs that players themselves cannot currently undertake. I always felt that the game fell short because of that.
Regarding a crafting economy, it is not necessary to do too much more than what is already done. But an addition to the R&D aspect to produce components and research data that can be submitted to the Alliance towards the completion of an extended fully participatory arc where the number of research reports and components that get submitted determine when the threshold is reached to advance a long-term scenario to its next stage. Very much the way that advancing a branch of a fleet holding or reputation tree is handled mechanically.
In a way, the meta variable manipulation would work similar to how endeavors work, and how objective-based unlocks are achieved. Except that the results would be if thing1 + thing2 - thing3 / thing4 = or > VALUE then triggerX=1. Things 1 2 and 3 would each be modified by a different gameplay loop. Thing 4 might be modifyable by multiple other loops. This being the case, some events may never trigger, while others trigger regularly.
Comments
I have a "Former" Starfleet captain with a crew of golden-hearted rogues, fugitives, and people who "don't belong" that wander the quadrants in a battered old B'rel doing "odd jobs" for pay.
The mission system as it stands doesn't really lend itself to playing a "trader" but a mercenary crew can thematically work as the whole "haplessly thrown into events" card plays out in the more grandiose arcs.
Exactly and Seven's jacket works for people who want to play as civilians, smugglers or pirates.
Not just Seven's jacket. The Kelvin Survival Jacket can as well.
The TOS Mirror Universe jacket works well as do the Enterprise pants which can be recoloured to make a passable denim.
To be fair, most of a Starfleet captain's life probably isn't that interesting either. Writing reports, receiving all sorts of system check reports, going over crew issues, serving as escort for some diplomat or trading convoy, maybe doing some peer review if the captain is also a scientist (like Janeway and Picard were)...
The exciting stuff from episodes and movies are usually exceptional events that interrupt the pretty ordinary daily lifes of the crew.
Which means that a civilian captain could do the same things and still encounter interesting stuff in-between - but then you'd have to wonder indeed what the added value of being a civilian in such an instance is. Just doing civilian things only without any adventure or action probably wouldn't be attractive enough to most players, even though adding some content such as the things you describe could be fun - but for existing factions.
Long story short: a civilian could do all the things a Starfleet officer does. But then there'd be no point in having a civilian faction. More civilian-type content could be a valuable addition to the game, but not if it's only for a civilian faction.
So either way, we don't really need a civilian faction I think. The content would quickly be too boring for most players, exciting content wouldn't have much to do with a civilian faction.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
As for a civilian faction race cardassians clearly are out, so maybe if it was a race that we don't currently have, what about the Suliban? we already have their ships.
The DSC starter uniform pants make a passable denim too, without any manipulation, though they would be a fancier version since they have that sort of cavalry stripe like bedazzling feature. The c-store DSC uniform is darker and the surface does not look as denim-like even when you lighten it up though I suppose enough fiddling with it might do the trick (I haven't spent much time trying that so far).
sadly a lot of interesting clothes are lobi
Not sure it it counts as Necro but Nice Job.
Oh, this is very nice work! Well done.
Where there is a marketplace of sorts the game does not really have a crafting economy something like that would require for instance, so they would have to develop one of those, and a large number of other things even before writing the first line of code, and that is just the beginning. In essence they would be bolting on practically another whole game and that is not something a small team like they have now can do in any reasonable time without dropping everything else, which is of course impossible if they want to keep the game going.
While it does count as Necro...
I think I'll let it slide as this one is a bit of a grey area IMO. While the topic isn't relevant to current events in game per se... it was on topic. Not only that, its not a subject where its gonna be sitting for a year or two then have someone respond to it thinking its still relevant to the game as it stands at the time of post, unlike subjects of mechanics or current meta.
If another mod disagrees, then I'll abide by the decision of the other mod.
Personally I think Medical should be it's own Division, it's weird having it be tied to Science despite being the same colour, medical knowledge and scientific knowledge are two separate things,
however this sounds like a cool idea.