what sort of new gaming engine would you like to see STO upgrade to If possible.

zzzspina01 · October 1

I just love science fiction. so, I play a lot of space games. Like stellaris, space empires, galactic civilizations, and so on. But I think the best space game I play would be No Man's Sky. I would love to be able to fly around in a universe like that for star trek online. visiting all the rases and planetary systems. possibly claiming a planet for yourself. being able to build themed areas like a zoo foe all the animals (Non-combat Pets) you collect. I think it would be something amazing.

sthe91 · October 1

I would rather them not upgrade to any new gaming engine but instead optimize the Cryptic Engine that they use already. Newer does not always mean better and I do not want to lose the stuff I acquired for a STO 2.0. Plus they said it is not worth the expense already. Not everyone has fancy computers to play this game, my previous laptop which I had to do a clean install of Windows 10 (because I did something impulsive) is a potato because of that and it took a long time for the loading screen to load and you cannot go to another window while waiting otherwise you get a black screen. While on my gifted new Windows 11 gaming PC I can do it with ease with no black screen. There is more to a game than graphics.

With that said it would be cool if the game (using a better port) were on Nintendo Switch and supported on Steam Deck for those who have those consoles and handheld devices respectively. As well as there were improvements to the server infrastructure that they use to run the games that they have produced.

leemwatson · October 1

zzzspina01 wrote: »

I just love science fiction. so, I play a lot of space games. Like stellaris, space empires, galactic civilizations, and so on. But I think the best space game I play would be No Man's Sky. I would love to be able to fly around in a universe like that for star trek online. visiting all the rases and planetary systems. possibly claiming a planet for yourself. being able to build themed areas like a zoo foe all the animals (Non-combat Pets) you collect. I think it would be something amazing.

The Dev's have already said moving to another engines will not improve the graphics about 6 or 7 months ago. Anyone who has been paying attention will have noticed that new missions, environments and ships have a greater quality than what is 5 years older. Cryptic's own has been built on and improved numerous times.

What folk seem to miss is that each and every asset has to be rebuilt from scratch to improve the graphical quality. It's not a case of chucking the game at a new engine. The way we fly around is by choice, not limitation, to allow for players of all abilities to fly around without getting disoriented in a 3D space.

The only real limitation is time.

davefenestrator · October 2

It would be more practical No Man's Sky to license the Trek IP since what you're asking for is so different from the STO design and existing content. It might be a fun game, it just (in my opinion) doesn't fit with the existing STO.

Unknown · October 2

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krisxr400 · October 3

I think it would be awesome to see a new sto. It doesnt have to be ultra modern in terms of graphics. I dont need off the hook graphics, or a game that tries to look "real", because they never do and i think it makes the game worse. Keep the fun factor and the simplicity, keep all the mechanics, just a true remake without trying to reinvent sto. Things like hallway sizes, toon sizes, all of the scale brought in line, less finicky code. I say finicky because ive heard over the years players stating that the core of this games code is "legacy" (am i using that term correctly), and is kinda untouchable because most of the original coders moved on years ago and didnt leave notes on how they built much of the games features.

So ya, something more inline with idk 2015-2017ish hardware and os. Gosh when this game launched was the microsoft os vista? or older? That stuff was blah even when it was new. Might even be easier to create new content and squash bugs and glitches. And maybe my crew will finally stop being disobedient and sit down in those chairs!

davefenestrator · October 3

Attempting to build a new engine is very expensive and can go horribly wrong, see: Sonos - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/sonos-ceo-admits-to-insufficient-app-testing-we-released-it-too-soon/

But yes, if the budget existed then a clean start and building from scratch to support easier content creation and code maintenance would be a big step forward. We're talking millions of dollars and probably years of work though.

Some engines spend 12 years and $500 million without delivering a finished game - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen

rattler2 · October 3

I'll have to consult with my fellow Mods, but I think talk of migrating to a new game engine could be interpreted as a varation of STO 2.0, which is an FCT. As much as we might like to see STO realized in something like Unreal or one of the other high end engines... its honestly not gonna happen.

leemwatson · October 3

rattler2 wrote: »

I'll have to consult with my fellow Mods, but I think talk of migrating to a new game engine could be interpreted as a varation of STO 2.0, which is an FCT. As much as we might like to see STO realized in something like Unreal or one of the other high end engines... its honestly not gonna happen.

IIRC it was Jessie Henig who said it wouldn't happen on Ten-forward a few months back, and explained all the pitfalls etc. So, it should be FCT'd.

phoenixc · October 3

STO doesn't need a new engine, what it needs is to clean the current code up a bit to take out some of the snarls caused by kludging and (ideally) update some of some of it, like take out some of the climb/dive angle restrictions and whatnot (and it would be great if they could add Vulkan support, though it probably would be too much effort to do so for the return they would get out of it).

Also, they could use some more modern dev tools so they can bring out new content quicker than they can currently, either by updating the interfaces and intelligence of their current tools or by adapting third-party off-the-shelf tools to the needs of STO (some of those tools may even be able to handle it just by using user-end customizations).

Porting to a new engine is never quick or easy, and most of the few games that have successfully done that have actually ported between the game's original engine and an engine that was a "cousin" of that engine instead of porting to a completely different one.

captainkoltar · October 3

leemwatson wrote: »

rattler2 wrote: »

I'll have to consult with my fellow Mods, but I think talk of migrating to a new game engine could be interpreted as a varation of STO 2.0, which is an FCT. As much as we might like to see STO realized in something like Unreal or one of the other high end engines... its honestly not gonna happen.

IIRC it was Jessie Henig who said it wouldn't happen on Ten-forward a few months back, and explained all the pitfalls etc. So, it should be FCT'd.

I'm not a mod of course, but I'd consider the purpose of something being an FCT. It seems to me that the FCTs are intended to stop people demanding things of STO (or talking about flamefests etc). Having a discussion which is not demanding anything wouldn't necessarily go against the FCT - especially looking at the STO 2.0 one.

"It's not going to happen, but this would be cool."

is different to

"Give me this now!"

Having said that, I'm not a mod.

rattler2 · October 4

Well... after consulting the Council of Mod... speculation on Game Engines doesn't equal STO 2.0.

So... you guys are good until someone starts calling for a migration.

I do agree that the STO 2.0 FTC should be updated to include Game Engine Migration. For now though this subject is open to interpretation depending on how it is being discussed.

theboxisred · October 4

rattler2 wrote: »

Well... after consulting the Council of Mod... speculation on Game Engines doesn't equal STO 2.0.

This was clear from the title of the thread.

Question for the Forum Moderators:
Wouldn't intentionally taking forum topics out of context violate the following rule?
(I'm not pointing at rattler2. I've seen this behavior here before from users.)

Flaming and/or Trolling
You may not post content which contains insults to other users or Perfect World Entertainment Staff, are specifically made to create undue discontent on the forums, disturbances in forum threads, pick fights or otherwise promote unfriendly conversation.

(These rules should be updated to reflect current ownership.)

Just so there is no "misunderstanding," I'm not commenting on moderation. I'm asking for clarification from the Moderation Team.

baddmoonrizin · October 4

theboxisred wrote: »

rattler2 wrote: »

Well... after consulting the Council of Mod... speculation on Game Engines doesn't equal STO 2.0.

This was clear from the title of the thread.

Question for the Forum Moderators:
Wouldn't intentionally taking forum topics out of context violate the following rule?
(I'm not pointing at rattler2. I've seen this behavior here before from users.)

Flaming and/or Trolling
You may not post content which contains insults to other users or Perfect World Entertainment Staff, are specifically made to create undue discontent on the forums, disturbances in forum threads, pick fights or otherwise promote unfriendly conversation.

(These rules should be updated to reflect current ownership.)

Just so there is no "misunderstanding," I'm not commenting on moderation. I'm asking for clarification from the Moderation Team.

I would need further clarification on what you mean by "intentionally taking forum topics out of context" before I could answer that. Can you give me an example?

vetteguy904 · October 4

Is no man's sky the continually expanding universe? would be interesting if it could be adapted, but the narrative of STO is too restrictive

theboxisred · October 4

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

theboxisred wrote: »

rattler2 wrote: »

Well... after consulting the Council of Mod... speculation on Game Engines doesn't equal STO 2.0.

This was clear from the title of the thread.

Question for the Forum Moderators:
Wouldn't intentionally taking forum topics out of context violate the following rule?
(I'm not pointing at rattler2. I've seen this behavior here before from users.)

Flaming and/or Trolling
You may not post content which contains insults to other users or Perfect World Entertainment Staff, are specifically made to create undue discontent on the forums, disturbances in forum threads, pick fights or otherwise promote unfriendly conversation.

(These rules should be updated to reflect current ownership.)

Just so there is no "misunderstanding," I'm not commenting on moderation. I'm asking for clarification from the Moderation Team.

I would need further clarification on what you mean by "intentionally taking forum topics out of context" before I could answer that. Can you give me an example?

I don't want to get into specific things that have happened since my goal isn't to throw dirt at anyone, even in private.

I have a hypothetical in mind and since I'm going into the game to play around for a while I'll grab a UI screenshot to demonstrate and DM you the scenario, since it would be rather off topic to continue this query here.

protoneous · October 4

krisxr400 wrote: »

Things like hallway sizes, toon sizes, all of the scale brought in line, less finicky code. I say finicky because ive heard over the years players stating that the core of this games code is "legacy" (am i using that term correctly), and is kinda untouchable because most of the original coders moved on years ago and didnt leave notes on how they built much of the games features.

Ah yes, the spaghetti code. What a tangled mess. With most of the original coders long since moved on it's probably like trying to decipher an alien language.

Actually I can recall we got some guidance on this not to long ago and apparently the STO code is not like pasta but is actually properly documented.

captainkoltar wrote: »

"It's not going to happen, but this would be cool."

Absolutely

Although I must say after recently upgrading my laptop the game looks pretty nice just the way it is.

spiritborn · October 4

It's best to think of the game engine similar to the foundations of building, you can't really replace it without rebuilding the rest too. Honestly I think new engine might once all the previous content has been rebuilt to it add a bit better lighting and maybe some minor mechanical updates but nothing like some people are dreaming.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't No Man's Land a single player game, those can always do more due to not having to track as many people.

STO has to at all times track everyone online and what they see (on server side) not mention the servers need to track those off-line so they spawn in the correct location when they come back online, all this takes resources. A single player game only has to track what a single player sees so everything else can be dormant even if the game is technically on-line.

Unknown · October 4

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krisxr400 · October 4

I don't think creating a new engine is practical at all, but using/licensing an existing one is more economical. I'm not a coder either, and i don't know if they'd be good options, but something like unreal or even unity. Idk if either of these are capable of providing the same game mechanics of sto. I have seen unity engines evolve over the last 10 years and am impressed with some of the games i have seen on that engine over the last cple of years.

davefenestrator · October 4

krisxr400 wrote: »

I don't think creating a new engine is practical at all, but using/licensing an existing one is more economical. I'm not a coder either, and i don't know if they'd be good options, but something like unreal or even unity. Idk if either of these are capable of providing the same game mechanics of sto. I have seen unity engines evolve over the last 10 years and am impressed with some of the games i have seen on that engine over the last cple of years.

That is just one piece of an actual game's engine like STO. It doesn't give you ship behavior, weapon behavior, console behavior, all the powers / weapons interaction computation. It doesn't cover how maps are built and stored/retrieved, how players and NPCs move around the maps and interact with them, how NPCs act. The scripting for events, map and scene changes, "things happening" that aren't combat. It doesn't cover inventory, gear slots, ... so many pieces built on top of the "graphics engine" part that Unreal provides.

The big games using Unity still take years to build with it as a starting point.

rattler2 · October 4

spiritborn wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't No Man's Land a single player game, those can always do more due to not having to track as many people.

Can be played multiplayer.

jonsills · October 4

protoneous wrote: »

Actually I can recall we got some guidance on this not to long ago and apparently the STO code is not like pasta but is actually properly documented.

Oh, trust me, spaghetti code can be quite thoroughly documented too. It just has weird calls and loops, and parts can wind up being connected that have no business being connected. (How did CO vehicles manage to shut down the chat channels that once connected all of Cryptic's games? They're completely different systems that should never have interacted in any way whatsoever!)

Unknown · October 4

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Unknown · October 4

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protoneous · October 4

jonsills wrote: »

protoneous wrote: »

Actually I can recall we got some guidance on this not to long ago and apparently the STO code is not like pasta but is actually properly documented.

Oh, trust me, spaghetti code can be quite thoroughly documented too. It just has weird calls and loops, and parts can wind up being connected that have no business being connected. (How did CO vehicles manage to shut down the chat channels that once connected all of Cryptic's games? They're completely different systems that should never have interacted in any way whatsoever!)

Feel free to speculate about STO's code. For me the game is working well and the graphics look better than ever

inferiority · October 4

Porting a game to a different Engine isn't going to magically make the game better. (I wish it did, though...)

However, it can be done.
"Uru: Ages Beyond Myst" was designed by Cyan to be a multiplayer, online game. Unfortunately, Ubisoft pulled the plug on the online portion before the game even launched leaving Cyan to hastily rework the game to be possible to play as a single-player.

Fans hosted their own servers for the online portion, with Cyan's blessing, and this led to GameTap becoming an official for Myst Online. Unfortunately, Cyan had to replace the engine in the game, from Plasma to PhysX (or maybe it was the other way around?) - I believe this was due to a rights issue. GameTap closed the servers about one year later and since then, Cyan have hosted the game as "Myst Online: URU Live Again" and have since released the source code and development tool plugins for fans to ultimately add their own content to the game.

Now, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Myst Online: URU Live are mostly the same game, but since they run on different game engines, they 'feel' quite different. For the most part, the engine swap was quite successful. But one puzzle requires kicking some stuff around and the 'stuff' responds very differently in the two games.

It took Cyan a lot of time to convert the game and when Myst Online first re-appeared, it lacked a lot of the content from U:ABM. Over time, as Cyan converted the content, this was added in updates. But it took Cyan a lot of time to get there.

Star Trek Online is a much bigger game than Uru, so I wouldn't like to even begin to estimate how long it would take to convert the game to run on a different Engine...

rattler2 · October 4

inferiority wrote: »

Star Trek Online is a much bigger game than Uru, so I wouldn't like to even begin to estimate how long it would take to convert the game to run on a different Engine...

Well... recreating all the assets in the new engine... recoding all the VFX... carry the one...

Yeeeaaa... might as well just make a new game at that point.

spiritborn · October 5

inferiority wrote: »

Porting a game to a different Engine isn't going to magically make the game better. (I wish it did, though...)

However, it can be done.
"Uru: Ages Beyond Myst" was designed by Cyan to be a multiplayer, online game. Unfortunately, Ubisoft pulled the plug on the online portion before the game even launched leaving Cyan to hastily rework the game to be possible to play as a single-player.

Fans hosted their own servers for the online portion, with Cyan's blessing, and this led to GameTap becoming an official for Myst Online. Unfortunately, Cyan had to replace the engine in the game, from Plasma to PhysX (or maybe it was the other way around?) - I believe this was due to a rights issue. GameTap closed the servers about one year later and since then, Cyan have hosted the game as "Myst Online: URU Live Again" and have since released the source code and development tool plugins for fans to ultimately add their own content to the game.

Now, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Myst Online: URU Live are mostly the same game, but since they run on different game engines, they 'feel' quite different. For the most part, the engine swap was quite successful. But one puzzle requires kicking some stuff around and the 'stuff' responds very differently in the two games.

It took Cyan a lot of time to convert the game and when Myst Online first re-appeared, it lacked a lot of the content from U:ABM. Over time, as Cyan converted the content, this was added in updates. But it took Cyan a lot of time to get there.

Star Trek Online is a much bigger game than Uru, so I wouldn't like to even begin to estimate how long it would take to convert the game to run on a different Engine...

I think FF14 is much better example of game of STO's size having an engine swap. As Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 used a modified version of the Final Fantasy XII engine, while Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 and beyond uses an engine similar to Final Fantasy XV but optimized for MMO use.

Why I think FF14 is a better example as it was an active game while that swap happened, oh and Final Fantasy XIV was less then a year old when they decided to do the swap and it still took them several years for the 2.0 version to come out.

rattler2 · October 5

spiritborn wrote: »

I think FF14 is much better example of game of STO's size having an engine swap. As Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 used a modified version of the Final Fantasy XII engine, while Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 and beyond uses an engine similar to Final Fantasy XV but optimized for MMO use.

Why I think FF14 is a better example as it was an active game while that swap happened, oh and Final Fantasy XIV was less then a year old when they decided to do the swap and it still took them several years for the 2.0 version to come out.

FF14 also had the issue of being kinda... bad in 1.0. Like actively punish you for playing a long time bad. Some kind of cultural thing influenced the design of the game to push people out so they don't play all day. I don't know if YoshiP was in charge at the time, but after A Realm Reborn came out, FF14 improved SIGNIFICANTLY. And to do it... they literally ended the world. lol

spiritborn · October 5

rattler2 wrote: »

spiritborn wrote: »

I think FF14 is much better example of game of STO's size having an engine swap. As Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 used a modified version of the Final Fantasy XII engine, while Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 and beyond uses an engine similar to Final Fantasy XV but optimized for MMO use.

Why I think FF14 is a better example as it was an active game while that swap happened, oh and Final Fantasy XIV was less then a year old when they decided to do the swap and it still took them several years for the 2.0 version to come out.

FF14 also had the issue of being kinda... bad in 1.0. Like actively punish you for playing a long time bad. Some kind of cultural thing influenced the design of the game to push people out so they don't play all day. I don't know if YoshiP was in charge at the time, but after A Realm Reborn came out, FF14 improved SIGNIFICANTLY. And to do it... they literally ended the world. lol

Yoshi-P came to that project to fix the mess the original team for 1.0 did (he didn't join until 1.x content and it was he made the estimate that it was impossible to salvage 1.0 and they needed to do a full rebuild from the ground up), the original 1.0 had some rather weird ideas, like not having a jump (which is why even in current FF14 jump is an ability that you get on level 1 instead of just being a normal movement option like in pretty much every other MMO) and I don't mean the dragoon "jump into low earth orbit" jump but the normal jump STO characters have too, only as part of their normal movement.

what sort of new gaming engine would you like to see STO upgrade to If possible.

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