They really should open the Academy up more.

scorpwanna · July 2023

I went on a little walk about and worked my way up to the 3rd or so level. To my surprise, there's a bar, shuttles, seats that work. Stuff you can't see when you are on ground level. Now why do this if we're never suppose to be up there?

baddmoonrizin · July 2023

Why? Because that part of the map was used in the 2409 FED Tutorial.

spiritborn · July 2023

Also I think you see parts of that from the ground. Not mention it's not unheard of for games to have areas that were meant to be used for something but never ended up used for what ever reason and the remnants of those unused areas might still be found.

stolok · July 2023

Most game devs are myopic about one important fact: map space is good Always, always, always allow maximum map space to players. Whatever is available, let them use it. It makes the world feel bigger.

I guess they are afraid of the extra maintenance or something? There must be a reason so many games cut off perfectly good spaces.

spiritborn · July 2023

stolok wrote: »

Most game devs are myopic about one important fact: map space is good Always, always, always allow maximum map space to players. Whatever is available, let them use it. It makes the world feel bigger.

I guess they are afraid of the extra maintenance or something? There must be a reason so many games cut off perfectly good spaces.

It could also be a performance consideration in an open map like the SF you need way more unplayable area to sell the playable area. The map can't just stop with a hard "after this is the void" line, there must the impression that the map keeps on going after the playable area stops. IIRC SF academy is located in coast of San Francisco Bay and not on an island so there's no natural edge the map could have (aka a point where it could stop naturally as modelling the whole continental USA is too much)

phoenixc · July 2023

spiritborn wrote: »

stolok wrote: »

Most game devs are myopic about one important fact: map space is good Always, always, always allow maximum map space to players. Whatever is available, let them use it. It makes the world feel bigger.

I guess they are afraid of the extra maintenance or something? There must be a reason so many games cut off perfectly good spaces.

It could also be a performance consideration in an open map like the SF you need way more unplayable area to sell the playable area. The map can't just stop with a hard "after this is the void" line, there must the impression that the map keeps on going after the playable area stops. IIRC SF academy is located in coast of San Francisco Bay and not on an island so there's no natural edge the map could have (aka a point where it could stop naturally as modelling the whole continental USA is too much)

While they are not incredibly accurate with geography, or even consistent across the various movies and series showing the campus, the part of Starfleet Academy that is in STO appears to be about where the coastguard station in the Golden Gate Recreation Area (near the north end of the bridge) is in the real world. Also, Starfleet seems to occupy the areas on both ends of the bridge since some of the stuff they show (mostly Starfleet HQ scenes) appears to be in Fort Point near the south end of the bridge.

crm14916 · July 2023

There are also a few more buildings that could be opened up… we could always have a “Barclay” type character quoting 2409 answers randomly, offices for our “fleet admiral” characters, other contacts for missions, etc… Lots of room for expansion there…

CM

captainhunter1 · July 2023

scorpwanna#3529 wrote: »

I went on a little walk about and worked my way up to the 3rd or so level. To my surprise, there's a bar, shuttles, seats that work. Stuff you can't see when you are on ground level. Now why do this if we're never supposed to be up there?

I'd love for them to open this area for characters.

It would be really easy for them to do - just have the turbo lift door at the end of the hallway in the classroom section on the ground floor have an option to take you to the shuttlebay. Logically this is also where characters would be dropped off after using the 'Take shuttle to Academy' option in the ESD shuttle area.

It's a win-win for everyone - we get a little bit more realism and the dev's previous work on this area doesn't go to waste.

autobotgoldbug · July 2023

crm14916 wrote: »

There are also a few more buildings that could be opened up… we could always have a “Barclay” type character quoting 2409 answers randomly, offices for our “fleet admiral” characters, other contacts for missions, etc… Lots of room for expansion there…

CM

I was hoping they would transfer over that class of cadets from the old ESD. You know where you used to get fan service from them when you advanced in rank?
If they could put that into a room on the academy that would be cool.

cheesebasket · July 2023

Captain Taggart's office is also fully furnished on the academy, with the most detailed skull in the game in his office, on a shelf. the file on the screen of his desk is 99871.

if you got that far, you've probably noticed the bridge has no road on it...but it doesn't need one since you'd never normally be able to see it, it's a modeling technique that saves on processing power by culling out details that aren't visible from the player's normal viewpoint.

real shame about that skull tho...it gets no love, someone went to all that trouble to model it better than the ones in Skyrim and it only ends up on the shelf of ONE room at the beginning of a non-Discovery or TOS character's playthrough.

could be the Player's admiralty office tho if e never get player starbases, Admiral Kensington has an office on Starfleet Academy... and the room is just sitting there, unused

spiritborn · July 2023

If we're talking about spaces we'd love to see expanded/rewamped I'd love to see that one area in ESD you have access to but now serves no purpose expanded into something, I dunno what but something else then pointless empty space (it used to serve as possible Foundry entry doors but that functionality is now obviously not used).

They really should open the Academy up more.

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