rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,582Community Moderator
Terradome was also related to Undine infiltration. Which at this point in the game's story isn't a thing. The Undine kinda stopped being a direct threat to the Galaxy at the start of Delta Rising after dealing with Undine Cooper. We've only recently dealt with the Undine again with the most recent episode, and it was on FRIENDLY terms.
Also I hate to say it but the current state of cooperative coordination in TFOs is not exactly good. Hardly anyone communicates, if at all. And Terradome would probably be one that requires communication. Not just DPS and having run it for the umpteenth time to be able to do it in your sleep. Not only that, most TFOs don't exactly give time to type out much, and that's assuming that all participating players even have their chat window OPEN.
Hell TFOs that would probably be better with communication are also silent, like Forged in Fire.
Terradome was also related to Undine infiltration. Which at this point in the game's story isn't a thing. The Undine kinda stopped being a direct threat to the Galaxy at the start of Delta Rising after dealing with Undine Cooper. We've only recently dealt with the Undine again with the most recent episode, and it was on FRIENDLY terms.
Also I hate to say it but the current state of cooperative coordination in TFOs is not exactly good. Hardly anyone communicates, if at all. And Terradome would probably be one that requires communication. Not just DPS and having run it for the umpteenth time to be able to do it in your sleep. Not only that, most TFOs don't exactly give time to type out much, and that's assuming that all participating players even have their chat window OPEN.
Hell TFOs that would probably be better with communication are also silent, like Forged in Fire.
True, that is mainly a side effect of STO apparently not having a working internal voice system (or at least every time I have asked anyone about it the answer is always either that it does not work, or "wait, STO has a voice system?"). The only time there is anything like effective communication is during single-fleet TFO tours using one of several external voice systems that are simply not useful for PUGing since there are literally thousands of channels spread over the various services.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,582Community Moderator
True, that is mainly a side effect of STO apparently not having a working internal voice system (or at least every time I have asked anyone about it the answer is always either that it does not work, or "wait, STO has a voice system?"). The only time there is anything like effective communication is during single-fleet TFO tours using one of several external voice systems that are simply not useful for PUGing since there are literally thousands of channels spread over the various services.
When I tried it years ago, it was unreliable. And because back then teams broke up after a TFO, it also disrupted communications. Not only that, it could bounce between Fleet and Team. Tried using Steam voice chat for a while but that was complicated as all hell to try and get to work, and then I got on Discord and never looked back. lol
Small QOL improvement I'd like to see: Being able to access individual character banks while aboard ship. It really doesn't make sense that you can access account but not character banks that way. Even the smallest starships have cargo holds.
Small QOL improvement I'd like to see: Being able to access individual character banks while aboard ship. It really doesn't make sense that you can access account but not character banks that way. Even the smallest starships have cargo holds.
I would welcome this change.
I'd like to add: quick equip (where you use the character or ship overview screen (the one bound to the U key) to directly pull a weapon from your inventory for example) should be extended to include items in your bank.
There's not much point to having quick equip if you can only equip items from your inventory through it, as you can also just drag those items onto your character anyway.
I've had it happen that I tried to equip a Winter Wonderland weapon, didn't see it in the quick equip screen, bought another one only to find that I had one in my bank.
I've also been in missions where I found myself with sub-optimal weapons because I must have switched my regular gear during the last play session for an endeavour, so that it automatically got placed in the bank or something like that. With no way to retrieve it during a mission.
A more detailed early Klingon campaign, it's all over the place right now, feels like an afterthought when compared to all the other factions.
What there is of it is good but more episodes are needed.
I think a lot of that disorganized feel is because a number of missions essential to smoothing it all out and putting it in context originally have been pulled for revamping and either never returned or the "streamlining" cut the connecting plot threads too much. Of course, in the shows the Klingons tend to be rather disorganized and do a lot of metaphorical tilting at windmills in pursuit of honor, so the effect is more or less similar to the shows feel-wise even though it is annoying game-wise.
Still, it would be nice to get some of those missions back sometime in the not-too-distant future.
Some others that really need to be returned to the main episodes list too (especially since skip has been working for a while now in case the player does not want to do them, which makes the incredibly buggy and misnamed "Available" tab unnecessary) are:
Spectres, which would be ideal for addition to the Temporal Recruit Transponder since it is the only post-tutorial arc where those characters spend any significant time doing operations in the TOS era where their knowledge of the time is actually relevant (and it is also still a better fit for the temporal shenanigans of the Delta Recruits than Dust to Dust which took its place in the Tesseract device, especially since the Kobali Battlezone is already a requirement which renders Dust to Dust redundant for the non-temporal part of the Delta/Iconian war stuff).
The Wasteland arc which has so many Endeavors based on it yet is a real hassle to try and get to for non-Romulans (yes, I know certain missions have to be done to unlock the "available" stuff but it just does not work for every character) and helps make the Romulan arc stuff smoother and more in-context for non-Romulans. In fact, it is popular enough that with a few more random quest givers scattered around it would make a decent mini-Battlezone.
For the love of all that is holy can we please be able to use all our unlocked uniform stuff on our characters and all our bridge officers. I understand (kinda) faction restrictions, but particularly for Romulans, it is SO hard to have all your crew all wear the same uniforms unless you use one of a few specifically for Romulans.
I have a fed aligned Orion BOFF who I have to dress in KDF pieces, for example, because none of the Fed-Rom stuff is available. I don't want to have RP her as an exchange officer.
I can wear the full Terran Emperor's uniform on my characters, but Bridge officers need to Lobi Store uniforms, and even then, the Romulan insignia available to my character on the Emperor's uniform is NOT available to my BOFFS with the Lobi uniform.
I remember in the Foundry you could pretty much dress anyone in anything in any combination. Surely it's not too hard to do this?
Not to mention all the bonkers amount of clipping that goes on with more than just a few combinations of pieces.
Just some examples of a very inconsistent part of the game.
At the very least, if I used Zen or Lobi to get the outfit, I actually feel cheated by this not being a thing.
Oh, and can we have more Bridges for Romulan ships and the ability to use saved tailor outfits, one for Sci, Eng, Tac for the crew who wander around them.
It's an OCD thing...
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,582Community Moderator
I have a fed aligned Orion BOFF who I have to dress in KDF pieces, for example, because none of the Fed-Rom stuff is available. I don't want to have RP her as an exchange officer.
I feel that pain. I got a KDF Andorian BOff who can wear KDF uniforms, but I have to fudge it with my Fed Orion BOffs by using things like the Kelvin Survival Jacket.
Cryptic/DECA should look into making stuff from the following list, many or nearly all are also longtime requests and they've proved they're finally listening more to the fanbase which is also to their benefit financially too(who would have thought, right?).
Kit module slot for Boffs.
Boff second weapon slot.
Selection screen looks according to what primary weapon and kit the character and displayed Boff are carrying(can be set by player from a list of owned ones if need be).
Include the T6 Obelisk carrier upgrade in the T6 Dyson package, since it's relevant.
Holodeck room for holodeck missions(Ship Bridge side room)
QoL Improvement: Reputation marks converter from any type now and future to any other type now existing and future in a 1:1 ratio.
Add missions closer to tradition of Trek doing eras that already have happened in our history. Ancient with maybe outfit, Napoleonic era, Western/OK Coral type with revolver reward(selection between wooden, white, black grip with a star on it), American civil War, TRIBBLE(Nah'kul related?), 1950's, modern times, around the times of the events of "Encounter at Farpoint", when NX engines where being developed, ENT years(I think we have absolutely no mission so far), maybe one or two that are Alterverse("JJ soft reboot" Star Trek, this is still ST one way or the other I can't completelly throw it to fire), practically TNG future episodes and TNG we have; so we also need some SNW era and style episodes, furtherly exploring the Ent J years, Exploring Daniels' origins and allegiances/organization working for, The Burn years, etc.
Phoenix replica ship(with like 7 people bridge and a cockpit that resembles the classic Phoenix. Also personally I would like that to be able to be used both as Ship AND a shuttle. They could also introduce a T'Plana Hath as another mixed purpose ship. I'm sure they can come up with similar ships for other factions. They could be used on Intelligence, stealth and investigation missions and others like the one that Lukari where introduced, that type of thing.
ALL the Enterprise ships we know of the Space era that where made by Earth yards and UFP(not necessarily both at once) and used by Starfleet(so that leaves the Earth Starfleet XCV-330 and 32c.(made not by Earth Yards but still UFP) possible Enterprise to be introduced)
I'd like DECA to see the possibility of: changing race, maybe gender for those that want that, era(say from TOS to TNG or DSC or even Custom like according to the badge we use) and the Transporter beam in/out effect used. Since STO is not completelly canonical now, this should be easier and anyway its up to the user if they want to adhere to that or go their own way as is already happening largely(see those that roleplay SW for instance though the game is ST clearly).
Iconian Servitor Races/Faction(including mirror ones and their uniforms)
Liberated Borg including Mirror ones/Cooperative/Jurati(with slightly different intro like in details and pieces used since they're not that different)
More races options for the Dominion: Cardassian, Vorta, Breen
Custom naming for all non-KLI/non-ROM/non-FED, including S(tar)S(ship), None etc(it could work like the Vorgon ships where there is only one row and we can write both Name, Abrv and numbering there is we want).
Custom ground particle weapon visuals(Selecting outer shape of those the character has, kinda like the Bridges. Then, selection of bolt or beam or wide, color and frequency of firing. Damage also selected of those weaps the character has.)
Update: Edited for clarification/Error correcting purposes.
Adm. Necheyev didn't own ANY Starfleet ships. Starfleet did. Also she didn't make one bolt, connect a single wire, gelpack or device, or otherwise helped on making them. I find it presumptuous she claimed it was HER ships. In fact saying as much would probably warranty a reprimand from any of her superiors in Federation and possibly not participating in said actions as other superior personnel do, would in our days(2409 onwards) result in herself facing the same fate as what she has threatened, in that same penal colony.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,582Community Moderator
I think I can address some of these, at least from a fellow player perspective.
Kit module slot for Boffs.
Already have this in a way as all BOff abilities are also available as Kit Module abilities. The only abilities they don't have access too are really the Universal Kit Modules. So its kinda redundant?
Boff second weapon slot.
Not sure if they'd be able to use that effectively.
Selection screen looks according to what primary weapon and kit the character and displayed Boff are carrying(can be set by player from a list of owned ones if need be).
Don't even know what this means.
Include the T6 Obelisk carrier upgrade in the T6 Dyson package, since it's relevant.
In theory yes. In practice... probably not as much. But odds are a T6 Obelisk is on the drawing board.
Holodeck room for holodeck missions(Ship Bridge side room)
Not all bridges have a holodeck. You'd probably have most people ending up heading to the Academy or potentially their fleet starbase for that.
QoL Improvement: Reputation marks converter from any type now and future to any other type now existing and future in a 1:1 ratio.
I'm gonna have to say very emphatically NO to this. It would effectively KILL anything but Infected because Infected can be knocked out even on Advanced real fast. Need Nukara Marks? Go kill Borg! Need Delta Marks? Go kill Borg! Need Terran Marks? Go Kill Borg.
Why bother making any new TFOs anymore if Infected becomes the end all easy source of EVERYTHING?
Add missions closer to tradition of Trek doing eras that already have happened in our history. Ancient with maybe outfit, Napoleonic era, Western/OK Coral type with revolver reward(selection between wooden, white, black grip with a star on it), American civil War, TRIBBLE(Nah'kul related?), 1950's, modern times, around the times of the events of "Encounter at Farpoint", when NX engines where being developed, ENT years(I think we have absolutely no mission so far), maybe one or two that are Alterverse("JJ soft reboot" Star Trek, this is still ST one way or the other I can't completelly throw it to fire), practically TNG future episodes and TNG we have; so we also need some SNW era and style episodes, furtherly exploring the Ent J years, Exploring Daniels' origins and allegiances/organization working for, The Burn years, etc.
People don't really want more time travel. There were a lot of complaints about time travel for a while. While it could lead to access to things like an NX interior, STO does need to spend time in its own time period rather than shoehorning in every other era under the sun.
Phoenix replica ship(with like 7 people bridge and a cockpit that resembles the classic Phoenix. Also personally I would like that to be able to be used both as Ship AND a shuttle. They could also introduce a T'Plana Hath as another mixed purpose ship. I'm sure they can come up with similar ships for other factions. They could be used on Intelligence, stealth and investigation missions and others like the one that Lukari where introduced, that type of thing.
The Phoenix is pretty much a small craft alone. As much as I'd like to have more small craft, it almost sounds like you want a jack of all trades do everything ship with this proposal.
ALL the Enterprise ships we know of the Space era that where made by Earth yards and UFP(not necessarily both at once) and used by Starfleet(so that leaves the Earth Starfleet XCV-330 and 32c.(made not by Earth Yards but still UFP) possible Enterprise to be introduced)
Well there is one problem. We have not seen the 32c Enterprise yet, and the XCV-330 might not even be a combat ship. We know nothing of her honestly.
I'd like DECA to see the possibility of: changing race, maybe gender for those that want that, era(say from TOS to TNG or DSC or even Custom like according to the badge we use) and the Transporter beam in/out effect used. Since STO is not completelly canonical now, this should be easier and anyway its up to the user if they want to adhere to that or go their own way as is already happening largely(see those that roleplay SW for instance though the game is ST clearly).
I have a feeling the race and gender change tokens would run into the same problem as Cryptic runs into with them. And as much as I'd love to have options for transporter effects, they're currently hardcoded to faction.
Iconian Servitor Races/Faction(including mirror ones and their uniforms)
Not going to happen.
Liberated Borg including Mirror ones/Cooperative/Jurati(with slightly different intro like in details and pieces used since they're not that different)
If this is another faction... not gonna happen. Even if it was it should be locked behind LTS as Liberated Borg are a Lifer perk.
More races options for the Dominion: Cardassian, Vorta, Breen
At STO's current time period, Cardassians and Breen make no sense as they are not members of the Dominion in the 25th Century. In fact Cardassia is basically comparable to post WW2 Japan right now, as a protectorate of the Federation. Also the starting story is tailor made for Jem'Hadar. Would take some work to bring in Vorta, which honestly might only make sense after an initial playthrough with a Jem'Hadar as Odo's influence would grow in the Dominion, possibly opening up discussion of allowing Vorta to have more roles outside administrative.
Custom naming for all non-KLI/non-ROM/non-FED, including S(tar)S(ship), None etc(it could work like the Vorgon ships where there is only one row and we can write both Name, Abrv and numbering there is we want).
Don't most non faction ships already include an option not to have a name prefix?
Custom ground particle weapon visuals(Selecting outer shape of those the character has, kinda like the Bridges. Then, selection of bolt or beam or wide, color and frequency of firing. Damage also selected of those weaps the character has.)
As likely as it is to customize the color, IE not gonna happen.
Honestly, we need to have more episodes each month instead of a few a year. More side missions as well like the old exploration system as well. As much as it's fun to shoot everything, some chill missions would be nice.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Honestly, we need to have more episodes each month instead of a few a year. More side missions as well like the old exploration system as well. As much as it's fun to shoot everything, some chill missions would be nice.
As repetetive as the exploration missions were back in the day, it would be nice to see something similar to them return. Just as long as the procgen system they had before was either greatly expanded upon, or else replaced entirely with a new way of generating interesting missions.
If some of the better Foundry content is still available at least to the devs, maybe some of those could be revisited, refined, and used as a starting point for some kind of Diplomatic and/or Exploration rep system thing but that works more like the special events for how you progess rather than slotting a project with marks and so on. I'm thinking that this would feel a little less timegated, more relaxed, and that you'd maybe do 2 or 3 a day. At the various tiers, you'd unlock some interesting non-combat based stuff like uniform pieces, character titles, ship skins, or whatever, but all themed for whatever the 'rep' ended up being and without any of the FOMO that the other reps can have because you 'need' that one thing. Something to do alone or with some fleetmates between story arcs and that isn't a TFO or an event (I personally can't stand the summer and winter events). You could even add in a few Boffs that were from a race or two unique to the rep to represent making friends with some aliens.
Idk. I haven't explored a Strange New World in this game since Defera. Feels like all that's been happening since then is villain after villain is hellbent on destroying Earth, the Galaxy, the Universe, or the Multiverse. An epic battle once in a while is nice. Every battle being epic gets a little meh. Put those in TFOs?
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Time travel was not universally despised, a lot of people argued for MORE time travel episodes (or even quick single missions if the devs were not willing to do whole episodes/arcs). For one thing, everyone has a favorite Trek era and would like to see missions set there (most seem to be TNG era fans, but probably not as overwhelmingly so as the devs seem to think), and for another, a lot of players actually want to do something with their temporal agents besides just tootle around town taking care of temporally local problems.
Ironically, it turns out that a big part of the reason why there are not more of them in STO is the same reason there were so many of them in TOS: the availability of sets and props. TOS was made at Desilu studios, which since it used to be RKO meant that Star Trek had very easy access to the famed old RKO back lot which included areas like "Arab Village" (used as the fortress in The Cage" and the Organian town in Errand of Mercy and a few other places), the quaint city set (sometimes with the signage from Mayberry still visible instead of being changed) that was used as too many different places in too many episodes to list here, and a few other spots in the Culver City and Hollywood locations along with easily reached non-Desilu locations like Vesquez Rock park.
It was also the heyday of the Western, (which followed the swashbuckler craze of the '50s), which meant Hollywood was practically swimming in props and costumes from those eras and so were readily and inexpensively available. There was also a lot of WWII stuff available, but NBC wanted them to stay away from stuff that was considered too "war oriented" so they didn't do a lot with that besides Patterns of Force and a few "sanitized" props like the phones, cars, and the "tommy guns" used in A Piece of the Action and whatnot where they did not scream WWII.
Now, you would think that in a game where everything is virtual stuff like that would not matter, but it does because good premade meshes and textures tend to be rather expensive and not always compatible without more work than making them from scratch. And making them from scratch takes a LOT of time and effort, especially with the kind of very primitive toolset and toolchain that STO has to work with for map/set/prop building (as shown in one of the old Ten Forwards).
That means that with the limited personnel resources they have to work with they have to leverage their already existing set/prop/etc. assets as much as possible to have any hope of meeting the deadlines of content drops as it is. They have a lot of 2409 set assets of various sorts, and less of the other eras (TOS probably has the most of those due to AoY) and a few have almost nothing at all (like ENT) so of the other eras TOS and DSC are probably the only ones they can do much with at the moment.
They cannot even do that much with SNW without building a lot of new assets, though since in some ways it is a mix of TOS and repainted DSC they probably have a head start if they get really creative with it, if they decide to do any SNW era stuff besides a few displaced ships or whatever.
On the selection screen they already try to equip the captains and boffs with as close to the gear they use as possible, but I suspect they do not actually have the full database available to do that, just a sort of quick and dirty access to reduce the load time, and also they tend to have the boffs doing things appropriate to their department, which often involves generic scanning gear or whatever. Personally, I think that if it is a matter of faster loading, speed is the better option than strict accuracy.
Time travel was not universally despised, a lot of people argued for MORE time travel episodes (or even quick single missions if the devs were not willing to do whole episodes/arcs). For one thing, everyone has a favorite Trek era and would like to see missions set there (most seem to be TNG era fans, but probably not as overwhelmingly so as the devs seem to think), and for another, a lot of players actually want to do something with their temporal agents besides just tootle around town taking care of temporally local problems.
Ironically, it turns out that a big part of the reason why there are not more of them in STO is the same reason there were so many of them in TOS: the availability of sets and props. TOS was made at Desilu studios, which since it used to be RKO meant that Star Trek had very easy access to the famed old RKO back lot which included areas like "Arab Village" (used as the fortress in The Cage" and the Organian town in Errand of Mercy and a few other places), the quaint city set (sometimes with the signage from Mayberry still visible instead of being changed) that was used as too many different places in too many episodes to list here, and a few other spots in the Culver City and Hollywood locations along with easily reached non-Desilu locations like Vesquez Rock park.
It was also the heyday of the Western, (which followed the swashbuckler craze of the '50s), which meant Hollywood was practically swimming in props and costumes from those eras and so were readily and inexpensively available. There was also a lot of WWII stuff available, but NBC wanted them to stay away from stuff that was considered too "war oriented" so they didn't do a lot with that besides Patterns of Force and a few "sanitized" props like the phones, cars, and the "tommy guns" used in A Piece of the Action and whatnot where they did not scream WWII.
Now, you would think that in a game where everything is virtual stuff like that would not matter, but it does because good premade meshes and textures tend to be rather expensive and not always compatible without more work than making them from scratch. And making them from scratch takes a LOT of time and effort, especially with the kind of very primitive toolset and toolchain that STO has to work with for map/set/prop building (as shown in one of the old Ten Forwards).
That means that with the limited personnel resources they have to work with they have to leverage their already existing set/prop/etc. assets as much as possible to have any hope of meeting the deadlines of content drops as it is. They have a lot of 2409 set assets of various sorts, and less of the other eras (TOS probably has the most of those due to AoY) and a few have almost nothing at all (like ENT) so of the other eras TOS and DSC are probably the only ones they can do much with at the moment.
They cannot even do that much with SNW without building a lot of new assets, though since in some ways it is a mix of TOS and repainted DSC they probably have a head start if they get really creative with it, if they decide to do any SNW era stuff besides a few displaced ships or whatever.
On the selection screen they already try to equip the captains and boffs with as close to the gear they use as possible, but I suspect they do not actually have the full database available to do that, just a sort of quick and dirty access to reduce the load time, and also they tend to have the boffs doing things appropriate to their department, which often involves generic scanning gear or whatever. Personally, I think that if it is a matter of faster loading, speed is the better option than strict accuracy.
Exactly I would pay to see more time travel episodes, I personally would love to travel the 23rd century some more, I also would love to do some ENT content, based off the cancelled season 5, I need Archer to fight the Romulans,
Just to put in my $.02 on the subject, I for one do not want to see more time travel stories. I can think of exactly four time travel plots in all of Star Trek that I would consider well done: "City on the Edge of Forever," "Time's Arrow," The Voyage Home, and First Contact. And as rattler pointed out, they really need to stick with the main time frame of the game.
Just to put in my $.02 on the subject, I for one do not want to see more time travel stories. I can think of exactly four time travel plots in all of Star Trek that I would consider well done: "City on the Edge of Forever," "Time's Arrow," The Voyage Home, and First Contact. And as rattler pointed out, they really need to stick with the main time frame of the game.
Agree.
Although it was framed as a simulation, I found myself spamming 'f' all the way through the Discovery missions. The game seemed intent on trying to convince me that there was some kind of story happening and that good people had died, and yet there I was, not giving a ****. It's nothing against the show itself or the characters, but all the way through I just felt like 'why have these people I don't care about at all been shoehorned into this game?' I know why, but it still felt wrong somehow. The Klingon Civil War was ok, I guess. It's not really time travel, but it involves a character from the past, and the way it was done was a real stretch. Some of the TOS missions were interesting too. Making cocktails can be fun I guess. Then there's the timetravel bits of the Iconians, the flashback bits of other episodes. There's even a TFO with time travel. We all play the game, you don't need me to list them all. It already feels like there's a few too many. More would feel creatively lazy.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
I do not know if it would be possible with the games engine, but it would be nice if some kind of dynamic 'power struggle' was present in the game, not in a pvp capacity, as I'm well aware that ship has sailed long ago.
This could be something like the Klingons electing a new leader who wants to return to the 'old ways' and declares war resulting in in conflict between each of the factions. Each quadrant could perhaps have different territories that need capturing or defending - successfully doing either would result in rewards, which players could undertake as much or as little as they would like.
Perhaps the antagonists could be on some kind of rotating basis, Klingons vs Romulans. Romulans vs Humans ect. You own race/faction would not prevent you from taking part in missions against another, as you would do so as a 'mercenary'.
Most likely too complicated or costly to implement however. But here's hoping the new owners will splash out a bit
Terradome was also related to Undine infiltration. Which at this point in the game's story isn't a thing. The Undine kinda stopped being a direct threat to the Galaxy at the start of Delta Rising after dealing with Undine Cooper. We've only recently dealt with the Undine again with the most recent episode, and it was on FRIENDLY terms.
Also I hate to say it but the current state of cooperative coordination in TFOs is not exactly good. Hardly anyone communicates, if at all. And Terradome would probably be one that requires communication. Not just DPS and having run it for the umpteenth time to be able to do it in your sleep. Not only that, most TFOs don't exactly give time to type out much, and that's assuming that all participating players even have their chat window OPEN.
Hell TFOs that would probably be better with communication are also silent, like Forged in Fire.
I was in azure recently where three players were grouped around one asteroid, waiting. I dropped hey, cover the other asteroids and got TRIBBLE you in the chat, so me and the other player were like WTF and tried to cover the other three.
A QOL i would love is a custom prefix for the ships they could even monetize it with an unlock token, like captain rename. I have a concept of a decendent of Horation Hornblower, but the ship needs to be HMS sutherland, not USS
A QOL i would love is a custom prefix for the ships they could even monetize it with an unlock token, like captain rename. I have a concept of a decendent of Horation Hornblower, but the ship needs to be HMS sutherland, not USS
I don't object to custom prefixes at all, but you can still do that concept. It's just that the descendant would be a member of a faction of your choice now.
Or how about the Hysperian battlecruiser if you have it? It has the H.R.N prefix which in your character's case could stand for His/Her Royal Navy?
Some ships have a "no prefix" option, if the one you want to use has that option you could put the "HMS" in the name itself. It would be nice if they did do a write-in option available for all ships though, some of my Romulan crews are supposed to be cross-universe and their ships would properly have the "ChR" prefix.
Terradome was also related to Undine infiltration. Which at this point in the game's story isn't a thing. The Undine kinda stopped being a direct threat to the Galaxy at the start of Delta Rising after dealing with Undine Cooper. We've only recently dealt with the Undine again with the most recent episode, and it was on FRIENDLY terms.
Also I hate to say it but the current state of cooperative coordination in TFOs is not exactly good. Hardly anyone communicates, if at all. And Terradome would probably be one that requires communication. Not just DPS and having run it for the umpteenth time to be able to do it in your sleep. Not only that, most TFOs don't exactly give time to type out much, and that's assuming that all participating players even have their chat window OPEN.
Hell TFOs that would probably be better with communication are also silent, like Forged in Fire.
Which one started out with Sulu in orbit and you had to take him out? somehow i managed to start that sucker solo. took me 10 minutes to realize my shiny new Captain was not going to beat him
I do not know if it would be possible with the games engine, but it would be nice if some kind of dynamic 'power struggle' was present in the game, not in a pvp capacity, as I'm well aware that ship has sailed long ago.
This could be something like the Klingons electing a new leader who wants to return to the 'old ways' and declares war resulting in in conflict between each of the factions. Each quadrant could perhaps have different territories that need capturing or defending - successfully doing either would result in rewards, which players could undertake as much or as little as they would like.
Perhaps the antagonists could be on some kind of rotating basis, Klingons vs Romulans. Romulans vs Humans ect. You own race/faction would not prevent you from taking part in missions against another, as you would do so as a 'mercenary'.
Most likely too complicated or costly to implement however. But here's hoping the new owners will splash out a bit
would be cool to do a Romulan one, New Romulus hasn't started construction in 3 in-game years, D'Tan is leaving Romulans living like homeless people with their tent cities, D'Tan's heart is in the right place, but he really needs to step up for his people before we get another Civil War arc on our hands,
I do not know if it would be possible with the games engine, but it would be nice if some kind of dynamic 'power struggle' was present in the game, not in a pvp capacity, as I'm well aware that ship has sailed long ago.
This could be something like the Klingons electing a new leader who wants to return to the 'old ways' and declares war resulting in in conflict between each of the factions. Each quadrant could perhaps have different territories that need capturing or defending - successfully doing either would result in rewards, which players could undertake as much or as little as they would like.
Perhaps the antagonists could be on some kind of rotating basis, Klingons vs Romulans. Romulans vs Humans ect. You own race/faction would not prevent you from taking part in missions against another, as you would do so as a 'mercenary'.
Most likely too complicated or costly to implement however. But here's hoping the new owners will splash out a bit
That already exists in Gamma Quadrant and the Sphere. You can participate any time you please, and see how popular it isn't.
I'd like some of the old Klingon War missions to be revamped a little and put back in. The missions that have been left in the game build up B'Vat as a good first season/arc villain for the federation character, which pays off in the removed missions. As things are now it just drops him altogether, which is completely unsatisfying.
Time travel was not universally despised, a lot of people argued for MORE time travel episodes (or even quick single missions if the devs were not willing to do whole episodes/arcs). For one thing, everyone has a favorite Trek era and would like to see missions set there (most seem to be TNG era fans, but probably not as overwhelmingly so as the devs seem to think), and for another, a lot of players actually want to do something with their temporal agents besides just tootle around town taking care of temporally local problems.
Ironically, it turns out that a big part of the reason why there are not more of them in STO is the same reason there were so many of them in TOS: the availability of sets and props. TOS was made at Desilu studios, which since it used to be RKO meant that Star Trek had very easy access to the famed old RKO back lot which included areas like "Arab Village" (used as the fortress in The Cage" and the Organian town in Errand of Mercy and a few other places), the quaint city set (sometimes with the signage from Mayberry still visible instead of being changed) that was used as too many different places in too many episodes to list here, and a few other spots in the Culver City and Hollywood locations along with easily reached non-Desilu locations like Vesquez Rock park.
It was also the heyday of the Western, (which followed the swashbuckler craze of the '50s), which meant Hollywood was practically swimming in props and costumes from those eras and so were readily and inexpensively available. There was also a lot of WWII stuff available, but NBC wanted them to stay away from stuff that was considered too "war oriented" so they didn't do a lot with that besides Patterns of Force and a few "sanitized" props like the phones, cars, and the "tommy guns" used in A Piece of the Action and whatnot where they did not scream WWII.
Now, you would think that in a game where everything is virtual stuff like that would not matter, but it does because good premade meshes and textures tend to be rather expensive and not always compatible without more work than making them from scratch. And making them from scratch takes a LOT of time and effort, especially with the kind of very primitive toolset and toolchain that STO has to work with for map/set/prop building (as shown in one of the old Ten Forwards).
That means that with the limited personnel resources they have to work with they have to leverage their already existing set/prop/etc. assets as much as possible to have any hope of meeting the deadlines of content drops as it is. They have a lot of 2409 set assets of various sorts, and less of the other eras (TOS probably has the most of those due to AoY) and a few have almost nothing at all (like ENT) so of the other eras TOS and DSC are probably the only ones they can do much with at the moment.
They cannot even do that much with SNW without building a lot of new assets, though since in some ways it is a mix of TOS and repainted DSC they probably have a head start if they get really creative with it, if they decide to do any SNW era stuff besides a few displaced ships or whatever.
On the selection screen they already try to equip the captains and boffs with as close to the gear they use as possible, but I suspect they do not actually have the full database available to do that, just a sort of quick and dirty access to reduce the load time, and also they tend to have the boffs doing things appropriate to their department, which often involves generic scanning gear or whatever. Personally, I think that if it is a matter of faster loading, speed is the better option than strict accuracy.
Exactly I would pay to see more time travel episodes, I personally would love to travel the 23rd century some more, I also would love to do some ENT content, based off the cancelled season 5, I need Archer to fight the Romulans,
I agree. maybe we can get the temporal cold war to heat up. maybe it didn't die with Noye. if they get creative we could have a nemesis a la the evil leaper from Quantum Leap. we get sent back to 2312, and have to figure out who the baddy is (make there several candidates) heck maybe even randomize it so the several can be the baddy. that would increase replay-ability, though it would be daunting for the devs to code. MAYBE make it only available to Temporal agents. It could spark a whole set of episodes that are only available to each off the recruits. Don't have a gamma? you can either opt not to play the episode, ever, or roll a toon.
Terradome was also related to Undine infiltration. Which at this point in the game's story isn't a thing. The Undine kinda stopped being a direct threat to the Galaxy at the start of Delta Rising after dealing with Undine Cooper. We've only recently dealt with the Undine again with the most recent episode, and it was on FRIENDLY terms.
Also I hate to say it but the current state of cooperative coordination in TFOs is not exactly good. Hardly anyone communicates, if at all. And Terradome would probably be one that requires communication. Not just DPS and having run it for the umpteenth time to be able to do it in your sleep. Not only that, most TFOs don't exactly give time to type out much, and that's assuming that all participating players even have their chat window OPEN.
Hell TFOs that would probably be better with communication are also silent, like Forged in Fire.
Which one started out with Sulu in orbit and you had to take him out? somehow i managed to start that sucker solo. took me 10 minutes to realize my shiny new Captain was not going to beat him
The one with fake Undine Sulu was Terradome. I personally liked trying to do it solo, but when I could finally defeat the enemies on the space map, I found I was stuck on the ground part as there was multiple consoles which had to be done at the same time from memory. I tried going in pug, but the co-ordination was lacking so gave up and just tried the space part a few times to test out my builds.
I do not know if it would be possible with the games engine, but it would be nice if some kind of dynamic 'power struggle' was present in the game, not in a pvp capacity, as I'm well aware that ship has sailed long ago.
This could be something like the Klingons electing a new leader who wants to return to the 'old ways' and declares war resulting in in conflict between each of the factions. Each quadrant could perhaps have different territories that need capturing or defending - successfully doing either would result in rewards, which players could undertake as much or as little as they would like.
Perhaps the antagonists could be on some kind of rotating basis, Klingons vs Romulans. Romulans vs Humans ect. You own race/faction would not prevent you from taking part in missions against another, as you would do so as a 'mercenary'.
Most likely too complicated or costly to implement however. But here's hoping the new owners will splash out a bit
That already exists in Gamma Quadrant and the Sphere. You can participate any time you please, and see how popular it isn't.
Yes, I was thinking of a more robust, expanded and 'fun' version of those.
Comments
Also I hate to say it but the current state of cooperative coordination in TFOs is not exactly good. Hardly anyone communicates, if at all. And Terradome would probably be one that requires communication. Not just DPS and having run it for the umpteenth time to be able to do it in your sleep. Not only that, most TFOs don't exactly give time to type out much, and that's assuming that all participating players even have their chat window OPEN.
Hell TFOs that would probably be better with communication are also silent, like Forged in Fire.
True, that is mainly a side effect of STO apparently not having a working internal voice system (or at least every time I have asked anyone about it the answer is always either that it does not work, or "wait, STO has a voice system?"). The only time there is anything like effective communication is during single-fleet TFO tours using one of several external voice systems that are simply not useful for PUGing since there are literally thousands of channels spread over the various services.
When I tried it years ago, it was unreliable. And because back then teams broke up after a TFO, it also disrupted communications. Not only that, it could bounce between Fleet and Team. Tried using Steam voice chat for a while but that was complicated as all hell to try and get to work, and then I got on Discord and never looked back. lol
I would welcome this change.
I'd like to add: quick equip (where you use the character or ship overview screen (the one bound to the U key) to directly pull a weapon from your inventory for example) should be extended to include items in your bank.
There's not much point to having quick equip if you can only equip items from your inventory through it, as you can also just drag those items onto your character anyway.
I've also been in missions where I found myself with sub-optimal weapons because I must have switched my regular gear during the last play session for an endeavour, so that it automatically got placed in the bank or something like that. With no way to retrieve it during a mission.
What there is of it is good but more episodes are needed.
I think a lot of that disorganized feel is because a number of missions essential to smoothing it all out and putting it in context originally have been pulled for revamping and either never returned or the "streamlining" cut the connecting plot threads too much. Of course, in the shows the Klingons tend to be rather disorganized and do a lot of metaphorical tilting at windmills in pursuit of honor, so the effect is more or less similar to the shows feel-wise even though it is annoying game-wise.
Still, it would be nice to get some of those missions back sometime in the not-too-distant future.
Some others that really need to be returned to the main episodes list too (especially since skip has been working for a while now in case the player does not want to do them, which makes the incredibly buggy and misnamed "Available" tab unnecessary) are:
Spectres, which would be ideal for addition to the Temporal Recruit Transponder since it is the only post-tutorial arc where those characters spend any significant time doing operations in the TOS era where their knowledge of the time is actually relevant (and it is also still a better fit for the temporal shenanigans of the Delta Recruits than Dust to Dust which took its place in the Tesseract device, especially since the Kobali Battlezone is already a requirement which renders Dust to Dust redundant for the non-temporal part of the Delta/Iconian war stuff).
The Wasteland arc which has so many Endeavors based on it yet is a real hassle to try and get to for non-Romulans (yes, I know certain missions have to be done to unlock the "available" stuff but it just does not work for every character) and helps make the Romulan arc stuff smoother and more in-context for non-Romulans. In fact, it is popular enough that with a few more random quest givers scattered around it would make a decent mini-Battlezone.
I have a fed aligned Orion BOFF who I have to dress in KDF pieces, for example, because none of the Fed-Rom stuff is available. I don't want to have RP her as an exchange officer.
I can wear the full Terran Emperor's uniform on my characters, but Bridge officers need to Lobi Store uniforms, and even then, the Romulan insignia available to my character on the Emperor's uniform is NOT available to my BOFFS with the Lobi uniform.
I remember in the Foundry you could pretty much dress anyone in anything in any combination. Surely it's not too hard to do this?
Not to mention all the bonkers amount of clipping that goes on with more than just a few combinations of pieces.
Just some examples of a very inconsistent part of the game.
At the very least, if I used Zen or Lobi to get the outfit, I actually feel cheated by this not being a thing.
Oh, and can we have more Bridges for Romulan ships and the ability to use saved tailor outfits, one for Sci, Eng, Tac for the crew who wander around them.
It's an OCD thing...
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
I feel that pain. I got a KDF Andorian BOff who can wear KDF uniforms, but I have to fudge it with my Fed Orion BOffs by using things like the Kelvin Survival Jacket.
Update: Edited for clarification/Error correcting purposes.
Why bother making any new TFOs anymore if Infected becomes the end all easy source of EVERYTHING? People don't really want more time travel. There were a lot of complaints about time travel for a while. While it could lead to access to things like an NX interior, STO does need to spend time in its own time period rather than shoehorning in every other era under the sun. The Phoenix is pretty much a small craft alone. As much as I'd like to have more small craft, it almost sounds like you want a jack of all trades do everything ship with this proposal. Well there is one problem. We have not seen the 32c Enterprise yet, and the XCV-330 might not even be a combat ship. We know nothing of her honestly. I have a feeling the race and gender change tokens would run into the same problem as Cryptic runs into with them. And as much as I'd love to have options for transporter effects, they're currently hardcoded to faction. Not going to happen. If this is another faction... not gonna happen. Even if it was it should be locked behind LTS as Liberated Borg are a Lifer perk. At STO's current time period, Cardassians and Breen make no sense as they are not members of the Dominion in the 25th Century. In fact Cardassia is basically comparable to post WW2 Japan right now, as a protectorate of the Federation. Also the starting story is tailor made for Jem'Hadar. Would take some work to bring in Vorta, which honestly might only make sense after an initial playthrough with a Jem'Hadar as Odo's influence would grow in the Dominion, possibly opening up discussion of allowing Vorta to have more roles outside administrative. Don't most non faction ships already include an option not to have a name prefix? As likely as it is to customize the color, IE not gonna happen.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
As repetetive as the exploration missions were back in the day, it would be nice to see something similar to them return. Just as long as the procgen system they had before was either greatly expanded upon, or else replaced entirely with a new way of generating interesting missions.
If some of the better Foundry content is still available at least to the devs, maybe some of those could be revisited, refined, and used as a starting point for some kind of Diplomatic and/or Exploration rep system thing but that works more like the special events for how you progess rather than slotting a project with marks and so on. I'm thinking that this would feel a little less timegated, more relaxed, and that you'd maybe do 2 or 3 a day. At the various tiers, you'd unlock some interesting non-combat based stuff like uniform pieces, character titles, ship skins, or whatever, but all themed for whatever the 'rep' ended up being and without any of the FOMO that the other reps can have because you 'need' that one thing. Something to do alone or with some fleetmates between story arcs and that isn't a TFO or an event (I personally can't stand the summer and winter events). You could even add in a few Boffs that were from a race or two unique to the rep to represent making friends with some aliens.
Idk. I haven't explored a Strange New World in this game since Defera. Feels like all that's been happening since then is villain after villain is hellbent on destroying Earth, the Galaxy, the Universe, or the Multiverse. An epic battle once in a while is nice. Every battle being epic gets a little meh. Put those in TFOs?
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Ironically, it turns out that a big part of the reason why there are not more of them in STO is the same reason there were so many of them in TOS: the availability of sets and props. TOS was made at Desilu studios, which since it used to be RKO meant that Star Trek had very easy access to the famed old RKO back lot which included areas like "Arab Village" (used as the fortress in The Cage" and the Organian town in Errand of Mercy and a few other places), the quaint city set (sometimes with the signage from Mayberry still visible instead of being changed) that was used as too many different places in too many episodes to list here, and a few other spots in the Culver City and Hollywood locations along with easily reached non-Desilu locations like Vesquez Rock park.
It was also the heyday of the Western, (which followed the swashbuckler craze of the '50s), which meant Hollywood was practically swimming in props and costumes from those eras and so were readily and inexpensively available. There was also a lot of WWII stuff available, but NBC wanted them to stay away from stuff that was considered too "war oriented" so they didn't do a lot with that besides Patterns of Force and a few "sanitized" props like the phones, cars, and the "tommy guns" used in A Piece of the Action and whatnot where they did not scream WWII.
Now, you would think that in a game where everything is virtual stuff like that would not matter, but it does because good premade meshes and textures tend to be rather expensive and not always compatible without more work than making them from scratch. And making them from scratch takes a LOT of time and effort, especially with the kind of very primitive toolset and toolchain that STO has to work with for map/set/prop building (as shown in one of the old Ten Forwards).
That means that with the limited personnel resources they have to work with they have to leverage their already existing set/prop/etc. assets as much as possible to have any hope of meeting the deadlines of content drops as it is. They have a lot of 2409 set assets of various sorts, and less of the other eras (TOS probably has the most of those due to AoY) and a few have almost nothing at all (like ENT) so of the other eras TOS and DSC are probably the only ones they can do much with at the moment.
They cannot even do that much with SNW without building a lot of new assets, though since in some ways it is a mix of TOS and repainted DSC they probably have a head start if they get really creative with it, if they decide to do any SNW era stuff besides a few displaced ships or whatever.
On the selection screen they already try to equip the captains and boffs with as close to the gear they use as possible, but I suspect they do not actually have the full database available to do that, just a sort of quick and dirty access to reduce the load time, and also they tend to have the boffs doing things appropriate to their department, which often involves generic scanning gear or whatever. Personally, I think that if it is a matter of faster loading, speed is the better option than strict accuracy.
Exactly I would pay to see more time travel episodes, I personally would love to travel the 23rd century some more, I also would love to do some ENT content, based off the cancelled season 5, I need Archer to fight the Romulans,
Agree.
Although it was framed as a simulation, I found myself spamming 'f' all the way through the Discovery missions. The game seemed intent on trying to convince me that there was some kind of story happening and that good people had died, and yet there I was, not giving a ****. It's nothing against the show itself or the characters, but all the way through I just felt like 'why have these people I don't care about at all been shoehorned into this game?' I know why, but it still felt wrong somehow. The Klingon Civil War was ok, I guess. It's not really time travel, but it involves a character from the past, and the way it was done was a real stretch. Some of the TOS missions were interesting too. Making cocktails can be fun I guess. Then there's the timetravel bits of the Iconians, the flashback bits of other episodes. There's even a TFO with time travel. We all play the game, you don't need me to list them all. It already feels like there's a few too many. More would feel creatively lazy.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
This could be something like the Klingons electing a new leader who wants to return to the 'old ways' and declares war resulting in in conflict between each of the factions. Each quadrant could perhaps have different territories that need capturing or defending - successfully doing either would result in rewards, which players could undertake as much or as little as they would like.
Perhaps the antagonists could be on some kind of rotating basis, Klingons vs Romulans. Romulans vs Humans ect. You own race/faction would not prevent you from taking part in missions against another, as you would do so as a 'mercenary'.
Most likely too complicated or costly to implement however. But here's hoping the new owners will splash out a bit
I was in azure recently where three players were grouped around one asteroid, waiting. I dropped hey, cover the other asteroids and got TRIBBLE you in the chat, so me and the other player were like WTF and tried to cover the other three.
I don't object to custom prefixes at all, but you can still do that concept. It's just that the descendant would be a member of a faction of your choice now.
Or how about the Hysperian battlecruiser if you have it? It has the H.R.N prefix which in your character's case could stand for His/Her Royal Navy?
Just a thought or two.
-K
Which one started out with Sulu in orbit and you had to take him out? somehow i managed to start that sucker solo. took me 10 minutes to realize my shiny new Captain was not going to beat him
would be cool to do a Romulan one, New Romulus hasn't started construction in 3 in-game years, D'Tan is leaving Romulans living like homeless people with their tent cities, D'Tan's heart is in the right place, but he really needs to step up for his people before we get another Civil War arc on our hands,
I agree. maybe we can get the temporal cold war to heat up. maybe it didn't die with Noye. if they get creative we could have a nemesis a la the evil leaper from Quantum Leap. we get sent back to 2312, and have to figure out who the baddy is (make there several candidates) heck maybe even randomize it so the several can be the baddy. that would increase replay-ability, though it would be daunting for the devs to code. MAYBE make it only available to Temporal agents. It could spark a whole set of episodes that are only available to each off the recruits. Don't have a gamma? you can either opt not to play the episode, ever, or roll a toon.
The one with fake Undine Sulu was Terradome. I personally liked trying to do it solo, but when I could finally defeat the enemies on the space map, I found I was stuck on the ground part as there was multiple consoles which had to be done at the same time from memory. I tried going in pug, but the co-ordination was lacking so gave up and just tried the space part a few times to test out my builds.
Yes, I was thinking of a more robust, expanded and 'fun' version of those.