So if there is going to be a new ESD in STO, I would rather recommend Chung's original design - it contains warmth and love for Star Trek, see:
Would you mind pointing out the differences between the concept art and the final version of the new Spacedock, because aside from the rings beneath the pods and some yellow lighting, I can't see much of a difference?
That means something will have to happen to the Enterprise-G. Something possibly catastrophic.
In all fairness, we keep forgetting that STO is in its own universe. Personally, I call it the "Online-verse" as many things that take place in the game as well as events leading up to the game's official story contradict the new established canon.
I'll admit, I'm an old school fan, and not really big on Kurtzman Trek, myself. But that being said, an upgraded design for ESD makes sense to me. Of course as ships get bigger and more technologically complex, they would need a more advanced facility to be able to handle those new ships. Of course, as another poster pointed out, this new facility could be very well be the new ESD, while the older model could have been repurposed for something else. A civilian spacedock for privately owned ships, perhaps? Makes sense to me. How often have real life militaries repurposed their facilities and equipment for civilian use?
And what's wrong with upgrading the look? The Enterprise gets an overhaul and looks sleeker in ST:TMP and everyone loves it. ESD gets a similar overhaul and people go nuts?
Indeed, but in terms of the broad strokes, the two timelines can fit together, especially if Butterfly is used as the point of convergence. Of course, the finer details would need a bit of finagling, such as having Hugh survive Narissa's attack on the Artefact, if the rumours of Jonathan Del Arco’s return for the anniversary are true.
Unfortunately, it would indeed mean the demise of the Enterprise-G at some point prior to the rogue Dominion arc. Personally, I think repurposing the role played by Captain Data and the Enterprise-E in the Path to 2409 would be ideal, as whilst the Enterprise-E was destroyed by the Undine, Data and most of his crew survived. I could certainly see Seven in that role given her history with Species 8472.
Losing her ship could also explain why Seven’s working with the Fenris Rangers again during the events on Excalbia, and working with Daniels as a temporal agent when the player character is sent to save first contact with the Vulcans.
Like I said though, it needs some work when it comes to the smaller details.
So if there is going to be a new ESD in STO, I would rather recommend Chung's original design - it contains warmth and love for Star Trek, see:
Would you mind pointing out the differences between the concept art and the final version of the new Spacedock, because aside from the rings beneath the pods and some yellow lighting, I can't see much of a difference?
That means something will have to happen to the Enterprise-G. Something possibly catastrophic.
In all fairness, we keep forgetting that STO is in its own universe. Personally, I call it the "Online-verse" as many things that take place in the game as well as events leading up to the game's official story contradict the new established canon.
I'll admit, I'm an old school fan, and not really big on Kurtzman Trek, myself. But that being said, an upgraded design for ESD makes sense to me. Of course as ships get bigger and more technologically complex, they would need a more advanced facility to be able to handle those new ships. Of course, as another poster pointed out, this new facility could be very well be the new ESD, while the older model could have been repurposed for something else. A civilian spacedock for privately owned ships, perhaps? Makes sense to me. How often have real life militaries repurposed their facilities and equipment for civilian use?
And what's wrong with upgrading the look? The Enterprise gets an overhaul and looks sleeker in ST:TMP and everyone loves it. ESD gets a similar overhaul and people go nuts?
Indeed, but in terms of the broad strokes, the two timelines can fit together, especially if Butterfly is used as the point of convergence. Of course, the finer details would need a bit of finagling, such as having Hugh survive Narissa's attack on the Artefact, if the rumours of Jonathan Del Arco’s return for the anniversary are true.
Unfortunately, it would indeed mean the demise of the Enterprise-G at some point prior to the rogue Dominion arc. Personally, I think repurposing the role played by Captain Data and the Enterprise-E in the Path to 2409 would be ideal, as whilst the Enterprise-E was destroyed by the Undine, Data and most of his crew survived. I could certainly see Seven in that role given her history with Species 8472.
Losing her ship could also explain why Seven’s working with the Fenris Rangers again during the events on Excalbia, and working with Daniels as a temporal agent when the player character is sent to save first contact with the Vulcans.
Like I said though, it needs some work when it comes to the smaller details.
Gladly:
The proportionality and the details of an artificial object play a central role in how we perceive and experience it aesthetically. This has both psychological as well as historical and cultural roots. The Golden Ratio, as an example of harmonious proportionality, is often perceived as particularly pleasing because it represents a balanced and simultaneously natural division of space or form. It is one of the "ideal" proportions that frequently appear in nature, such as in the arrangement of leaves, shells, or galaxies, and is therefore intuitively perceived as beautiful.
Examples:
In Chung’s original version, ring structures are not only present on the main hull but also repeated on the five side platforms. This creates an aesthetically sensual connection between the main hull and the side platforms because a constructive idea is repeated. One can debate whether the rings are appealing. But either they are used consistently, or they are omitted entirely. In the ESD from STP, only those on the hull remain, which makes the toothpicks extending downward from the side platforms appear completely out of place.
Furthermore, the cone structures have slightly convex inclinations, which makes the entire design (as with Carson's ESD) appear much more natural and harmonious.
Additionally, the lighting in Chung’s version is much more atmospherically positioned, giving a certain lightness to the massive upper primary cone (the dock). And the warm lighting of the upward-pointing antennas/structures creates a pleasant contrast to the relatively cold surroundings (Earth, the rest of ESD).
Overall, Chung´s version is a very well-thought-out aesthetic concept. Unfortunately, the test server version of the ESD turned out even less successful than the version in STP, as the lower cone appears much larger in proportion to the upper cone compared to STP. Moreover, the upper and lower antennas are compressed, making the entire ESD appear bulkier than in STP.
Thanks for this update and staying true to canon. Will the interior stay the same or will that too get an update to match the new design of the station?
Thanks for this update and staying true to canon. Will the interior stay the same or will that too get an update to match the new design of the station?
Asked this myself @baddmoonrizin has stated that there will be minor interior adjustments too as it is in the blog.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,669Community Moderator
Indeed, but in terms of the broad strokes, the two timelines can fit together, especially if Butterfly is used as the point of convergence. Of course, the finer details would need a bit of finagling, such as having Hugh survive Narissa's attack on the Artefact, if the rumours of Jonathan Del Arco’s return for the anniversary are true.
Unfortunately, it would indeed mean the demise of the Enterprise-G at some point prior to the rogue Dominion arc. Personally, I think repurposing the role played by Captain Data and the Enterprise-E in the Path to 2409 would be ideal, as whilst the Enterprise-E was destroyed by the Undine, Data and most of his crew survived. I could certainly see Seven in that role given her history with Species 8472.
Losing her ship could also explain why Seven’s working with the Fenris Rangers again during the events on Excalbia, and working with Daniels as a temporal agent when the player character is sent to save first contact with the Vulcans.
Like I said though, it needs some work when it comes to the smaller details.
I'm honestly content with having STO's Ent-F being a far newer ship than she was in canon. And using Butterfly to be the point of divergence or whatever has a major flaw. Pre Butterfly Seven is in her Voyager persona, and had been working with the Daystrom Institute. Before that she did work with a Task Force on Anti-Borg stuff that got disbanded because the threat seemed to be over. She was rather unhappy with that, and frankly Vega Colony proved her right. Post Butterfly we get Seven's Picard s1 persona where she seems to be a liasion with the Fenris Rangers, but continuing some work with Starfleet in a civilian capacity.
And don't forget this was all before s3 came out and Seven was a Starfleet Officer in Canon.
Trying to align the game with canon is fine in most places, but the way the story worked out there will ALWAYS be issues aligning everything, and in most cases not even worth the mental gymnastics and just use the bone of Alternate Reality to explain why it doesn't fit.
So we're probably not going to have an Ent-G because STO's Enterprise is the Ent-F, and she is far newer than the canon verison. Yea we have Connie-IIIs but in STO's timeline it is not time for an Ent-G as the Ent-F is still alive and kicking and only about 3 years old right now. Besides... I kinda like Captain Shon.
As we get more canon 25th Century content it may become more difficult to adjust things to fit the current state of the game. So we take what we can, and what we can't... Alternate Reality. It just so happens that STO's universe is probably one of those that are literally right next door to the Prime Universe, thus why it aligns so closely with it in terms of events.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Some of it can also be explained by paradox thrash from all the forward/back Temporal operations going on. For example, to anyone outside of the "eye" of whatever temporal op caused each change, Seven could have "always" been in her VOY, Fenris, or PIC s3 persona, or different combinations of them, or whatever depending on where they happen to be in the timestream when they see her. There are some (non-Trek mostly) novels, like for instance Dinosaur Beach and The Man Who Folded Himself that make the Trek and STO thrash look tame.
I read the Reddits and FB announcements from this, I must have counted maybe 20 at best that complained....out of near 400 posts. You're right about the poster not being able to read the room.
I'm not going to say anything more about that poster's conduct than you've already said.
It's a very small room, in a building that the great majority of the playerbase has never even seen, let alone visited.
So if there is going to be a new ESD in STO, I would rather recommend Chung's original design - it contains warmth and love for Star Trek, see:
Would you mind pointing out the differences between the concept art and the final version of the new Spacedock, because aside from the rings beneath the pods and some yellow lighting, I can't see much of a difference?
Gladly:
The proportionality and the details of an artificial object play a central role in how we perceive and experience it aesthetically. This has both psychological as well as historical and cultural roots. The Golden Ratio, as an example of harmonious proportionality, is often perceived as particularly pleasing because it represents a balanced and simultaneously natural division of space or form. It is one of the "ideal" proportions that frequently appear in nature, such as in the arrangement of leaves, shells, or galaxies, and is therefore intuitively perceived as beautiful.
Examples:
In Chung’s original version, ring structures are not only present on the main hull but also repeated on the five side platforms. This creates an aesthetically sensual connection between the main hull and the side platforms because a constructive idea is repeated. One can debate whether the rings are appealing. But either they are used consistently, or they are omitted entirely. In the ESD from STP, only those on the hull remain, which makes the toothpicks extending downward from the side platforms appear completely out of place.
Furthermore, the cone structures have slightly convex inclinations, which makes the entire design (as with Carson's ESD) appear much more natural and harmonious.
Additionally, the lighting in Chung’s version is much more atmospherically positioned, giving a certain lightness to the massive upper primary cone (the dock). And the warm lighting of the upward-pointing antennas/structures creates a pleasant contrast to the relatively cold surroundings (Earth, the rest of ESD).
Overall, Chung´s version is a very well-thought-out aesthetic concept. Unfortunately, the test server version of the ESD turned out even less successful than the version in STP, as the lower cone appears much larger in proportion to the upper cone compared to STP. Moreover, the upper and lower antennas are compressed, making the entire ESD appear bulkier than in STP.
Interesting, in the smaller picture you posted from Instagram, I couldn’t see any of that. Having found a much larger image on James Chung’s website however, I can see what you mean about the convex curves being more apparent, particularly on the main dockyard structure and midsection. The ring below the midsection even matches the curve of the structure above.
- Earth Spacedock - From Concept to TV and the Game -
Whilst it wouldn’t be 100% accurate to the canon version, I certainly wouldn’t object to the rings being added below the pods, as like you say the towers extending below do seem somewhat extraneous without them.
Excellent point about the antennas by the way. I hadn’t noticed, but they are indeed extremely truncated on the game model. I’ve also noticed that the pods are missing a few details. First, the docking bay doors use the same markings as the five sets of doors on the main dock. Second, there appear to be three distinct cut-outs below each set of doors, which can be seen in the bottom right of the images below.
- Earth Spacedock - Missing Details -
I wonder if these observations could be forwarded through channels to Tumerboy. Perhaps that’s something one of you fine moderators could help with?
looking impressive so far but one thing that has still bugged me even with the current look of ESD are those doors on the upper bridge of the ESD interior ive still been curious with them as theyve served no purpose. With this new ESD overhaul what pupose will those doors on the upper concourse bridge serve as will the upper bridge have any use? I mean will those upper bridge doors have any much use at all if not what point is there in keeping those upper doors much anymore?
Indeed, but in terms of the broad strokes, the two timelines can fit together, especially if Butterfly is used as the point of convergence. Of course, the finer details would need a bit of finagling, such as having Hugh survive Narissa's attack on the Artefact, if the rumours of Jonathan Del Arco’s return for the anniversary are true.
Unfortunately, it would indeed mean the demise of the Enterprise-G at some point prior to the rogue Dominion arc. Personally, I think repurposing the role played by Captain Data and the Enterprise-E in the Path to 2409 would be ideal, as whilst the Enterprise-E was destroyed by the Undine, Data and most of his crew survived. I could certainly see Seven in that role given her history with Species 8472.
Losing her ship could also explain why Seven’s working with the Fenris Rangers again during the events on Excalbia, and working with Daniels as a temporal agent when the player character is sent to save first contact with the Vulcans.
Like I said though, it needs some work when it comes to the smaller details.
I'm honestly content with having STO's Ent-F being a far newer ship than she was in canon. And using Butterfly to be the point of divergence or whatever has a major flaw. Pre Butterfly Seven is in her Voyager persona, and had been working with the Daystrom Institute. Before that she did work with a Task Force on Anti-Borg stuff that got disbanded because the threat seemed to be over. She was rather unhappy with that, and frankly Vega Colony proved her right. Post Butterfly we get Seven's Picard s1 persona where she seems to be a liasion with the Fenris Rangers, but continuing some work with Starfleet in a civilian capacity.
And don't forget this was all before s3 came out and Seven was a Starfleet Officer in Canon.
Trying to align the game with canon is fine in most places, but the way the story worked out there will ALWAYS be issues aligning everything, and in most cases not even worth the mental gymnastics and just use the bone of Alternate Reality to explain why it doesn't fit.
So we're probably not going to have an Ent-G because STO's Enterprise is the Ent-F, and she is far newer than the canon verison. Yea we have Connie-IIIs but in STO's timeline it is not time for an Ent-G as the Ent-F is still alive and kicking and only about 3 years old right now. Besides... I kinda like Captain Shon.
As we get more canon 25th Century content it may become more difficult to adjust things to fit the current state of the game. So we take what we can, and what we can't... Alternate Reality. It just so happens that STO's universe is probably one of those that are literally right next door to the Prime Universe, thus why it aligns so closely with it in terms of events.
Yeah, the age of the Odyssey-class in general is one of the biggest disparities between the game and TV timelines. Then again, the lore written for pretty much all the ships that were used in Picard has them entering service within the 2409 to 2411 timeframe. It’s not an easy change to reconcile, even when using Butterfly to align more closely with the prime canon, because you have to come up with a reason for the exact same spaceframe designs to be in service some twenty plus years earlier in the case of the Odyssey, and a minimum of eight years for the others.
Oh, the way I envisioned Seven’s path after losing the Enterprise-G in that post was definitely a means to align with the depiction of her on Excalbia that’s based on Season One of Picard.
But yeah, there are an awful lot of smaller details in particular that would have to change. The Imperial Romulan State from the Path to 2409 could become the Free Romulan State for instance, and despite Worf becoming a teacher on Earth in 2402, there’s no reason why he couldn’t return to Qo’noS to serve as gin'tak to the House of Martok in 2405.
Still, it would probably be easier to rewrite the Path to 2409 so it aligns more closely with Star Trek Picard to begin with. It would need multiple entries for certain developments if the timelines were to be brought more closely together though, since pre-butterfly would need to reflect things like Seven's Voyager persona and Data being in the body of B4 when he visits Sela at the end of Temporal Ambassador.
looking impressive so far but one thing that has still bugged me even with the current look of ESD are those doors on the upper bridge of the ESD interior ive still been curious with them as theyve served no purpose. With this new ESD overhaul what pupose will those doors on the upper concourse bridge serve as will the upper bridge have any use? I mean will those upper bridge doors have any much use at all if not what point is there in keeping those upper doors much anymore?
The upper concourse is home to the memorial for those of Star Trek’s history who have passed away. It also serves as a quiet area to watch the world go by if you’re into that kind of thing. It does sound like those turbolifts will be used to take us to the main floor if we dock manually though once the new Spacedock arrives on the Holodeck server.
I've only seen people looking forward to the changes, with only one person vehemently opposed to it.
As BMR said, if you're so opposed to it as to want to leave, you know where the door is, don't let it hit you on the way out. But don't threaten to leave unless you get your way, that never works. People will just wave goodbye to you.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
Lol if ESD was getting a "well-deserved facelift", what doesn't the Klingon and Romulan equivalents need then? They've had so little love thrown their way they don't just deserve a facelift they deserve a complete rework.
Seriously they could just as well merge everything into Fed at this point because that faction is the ONLY one getting any form of attention from the devs now.
Yeah yeah complain that too few players play the other factions all you want but that's to be expected when they DO NOT GET ANY ATTENTION!
/edit: Seriously, Federation is probably the least deserving of any sort of facelift in STO.
Lol if ESD was getting a "well-deserved facelift", what doesn't the Klingon and Romulan equivalents need then? They've had so little love thrown their way they don't just deserve a facelift they deserve a complete rework.
Seriously they could just as well merge everything into Fed at this point because that faction is the ONLY one getting any form of attention from the devs now.
Yeah yeah complain that too few players play the other factions all you want but that's to be expected when they DO NOT GET ANY ATTENTION!
/edit: Seriously, Federation is probably the least deserving of any sort of facelift in STO.
First of all, the United Federation of Planets or Federation is the main faction in the Star Trek TV series as well as Star Trek Online. Second, it is the main moneymaker and the majority of the playerbase focuses on Starfleet ships and others connected to that faction. It has always been this way. So it makes sense the focus would be on an updated Earth Space Dock and other Fed stuff.
That is not to so say there are no Klingons, Romulans, or Dominion around who wouldn't also merit some more attention. There has been some attention given to the Romulan Republic with a revamped Romulan tutorial that was not publicized when it came out and the Year of the Klingon, that introduced the Klingon Recruit.
Thirdly, I would never say that Qo'NoS and New Romulus won't ever get an update, who knows, maybe in the near future. We will see what DECA does next year and in the future.
What I miss about the old ESD is the cadets saluting you when you speak to them.
I still hope they could move that part or the NPCs into a class room down on the academy one day.
As for the past ESDs, I was hoping they would use that interior for maybe a Vulcan or Andor space dock.
Heck give Tellar Prime a space dock! Those engineering geniuses deserve one!
In comparison, Star Trek Picard has given the ship almost twenty years of active service that can be delved into in the future, a starring role during one of the most important events in Federation history, and left the ship’s fate open as of 2401, since the Fleet Formation System was still active when the Enterprise-D destroyed the Borg super cube.
That means that the Enterprise-F can still be waiting in drydock for Captain Shon to reactivate during the Dominion crisis of 2409, in the true Enterprise tradition of answering the call to save civilisation as we know it.
That means something will have to happen to the Enterprise-G. Something possibly catastrophic.
In all fairness, we keep forgetting that STO is in its own universe. Personally, I call it the "Online-verse" as many things that take place in the game as well as events leading up to the game's official story contradict the new established canon.
I'll admit, I'm an old school fan, and not really big on Kurtzman Trek, myself. But that being said, an upgraded design for ESD makes sense to me. Of course as ships get bigger and more technologically complex, they would need a more advanced facility to be able to handle those new ships. Of course, as another poster pointed out, this new facility could be very well be the new ESD, while the older model could have been repurposed for something else. A civilian spacedock for privately owned ships, perhaps? Makes sense to me. How often have real life militaries repurposed their facilities and equipment for civilian use?
And what's wrong with upgrading the look? The Enterprise gets an overhaul and looks sleeker in ST:TMP and everyone loves it. ESD gets a similar overhaul and people go nuts?
Lol if ESD was getting a "well-deserved facelift", what doesn't the Klingon and Romulan equivalents need then? They've had so little love thrown their way they don't just deserve a facelift they deserve a complete rework.
Seriously they could just as well merge everything into Fed at this point because that faction is the ONLY one getting any form of attention from the devs now.
Yeah yeah complain that too few players play the other factions all you want but that's to be expected when they DO NOT GET ANY ATTENTION!
/edit: Seriously, Federation is probably the least deserving of any sort of facelift in STO.
Let's see, Romulan missions all got a huge face lift, as did the Klingons......just where is the 2409 Fed facelift!? Oh....they haven't got round to doing it since they removed the missions BEFORE they updated the KDF and ROMs! Cryptic moved the earth to give the Roms and KDF unique missions a huge improvement, so your complaint literally falls flat on it's Bat'leth.
Roms have around 28 unique missions, with KDF around 20 at last count, whilst 2409 have just their tutorial and a handful of missions that are shared between the other Feds, Rom and Jemmy Feds.
Klingon First City got an update when the missions got updated, but there is no canon Klingon Spacedock variant, but it did get a clean up.
Romulans don't have one because it's literally been a couple of years in game time since they moved to New Romulus, so what's more important, their planetary infrastructure or a space dock???
So despite Roms and KDF having more unique content EACH than all the Fed factions together and thousands of more hours of Dev time spent on them, the Rom and KDF population is lower, and that's the Dev's fault!?
The ONLY thing that needs an improvement is New Romulus, BUT that should be a mission-specific change that unlocks at a certain point in the storyline, just like changes to sector space.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
The ONLY thing that needs an improvement is New Romulus...
I'd completely disagree with you. I think New Romulus looked beyond amazing when it was added in 2012 & New Romulus Command in 2013.
I believe it was the quality of New Romulus that spurred the Dev Team on to update ESD in 2014. Bear in mind that "Legacy of Romulus" included a huge amount of Klingon-centric content as well as the Romulan Republic stuff.
I reckon Updating Qo'noS took a back seat during the development of the next three expansions:
Delta Rising - a huge amount of new endgame content added (2014);
Agents of Yesterday - new TOS-era faction with a complete new story arc (2016);
Victory is Life - Dominion faction added with more end-game content (2018).
An update to Qo'noS was possibly in the works but there had been a surprising development in the world of Star Trek - it had returned to TV!
This meant that getting the game to tie-in with the TV show was the smarter move, which pushed back Qo'noS updates again.
Thankfully, we did eventually get it in 2021, which you've already pointed out.
But, I do believe that Legacy of Romulus is where much of the quality improvments we've been seeing in the game, actually had their beginning...
- - - - I n f e r i o r i t y - C o m p l e x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
„What the… No, Please, No.“ was my first reaction when I read the news page about Propert Station coming to STO. I continued to read this post (what was written by then) and almost got furious. Less so by the statements themselves but by the behavior of some people on both sides of the argument that I read. Since I was tired from work I decided not to add my voice … and I didn’t get around to reading up on it till now.
Doing so, I’m happy to see that emotions have cooled down.
Personally I grew up with TNG and the replays of the TOS-movies on TV. The “old” ESD always represented home and coming back home for me. More than any place on earth ever portrayed in Star Trek. As such I would hate so see it gone completely. That’s how I feel about it.
What I think about it is that, with Propert-Station, we’re talking about the most prominent orbital installation shown in the ST-show closest to the STO-time. As such, not having it present in STOs earth orbit would be illogical.
It also doesn’t matter that I too think the design of Propert-Station looks less sophisticated. It’s both plausible and in line with federation design. And most of all, it’s a copy from the show and the people at cryptic did a remarkable job implementing it. Based on what I saw on tribble.
So over all I think I’ll be able to live with it. Maybe, eventually, I’ll even like it.
As for the changes to Earth, I understand them. For the “Sol system functionality”, I just love those Ideas.
Out of curiosity: Will we be able to tell where the interior is from the outside? Matching the shape and arrangement of the windows/shuttlebay doors? That’s something I never could manage to do in the past or on tribble.
„What the… No, Please, No.“ was my first reaction when I read the news page about Propert Station coming to STO. I continued to read this post (what was written by then) and almost got furious. Less so by the statements themselves but by the behavior of some people on both sides of the argument that I read. Since I was tired from work I decided not to add my voice … and I didn’t get around to reading up on it till now.
Doing so, I’m happy to see that emotions have cooled down.
Personally I grew up with TNG and the replays of the TOS-movies on TV. The “old” ESD always represented home and coming back home for me. More than any place on earth ever portrayed in Star Trek. As such I would hate so see it gone completely. That’s how I feel about it.
What I think about it is that, with Propert-Station, we’re talking about the most prominent orbital installation shown in the ST-show closest to the STO-time. As such, not having it present in STOs earth orbit would be illogical.
It also doesn’t matter that I too think the design of Propert-Station looks less sophisticated. It’s both plausible and in line with federation design. And most of all, it’s a copy from the show and the people at cryptic did a remarkable job implementing it. Based on what I saw on tribble.
So over all I think I’ll be able to live with it. Maybe, eventually, I’ll even like it.
As for the changes to Earth, I understand them. For the “Sol system functionality”, I just love those Ideas.
Out of curiosity: Will we be able to tell where the interior is from the outside? Matching the shape and arrangement of the windows/shuttlebay doors? That’s something I never could manage to do in the past or on tribble.
Actually, you can pinpoint it. If you go to the planet side of the station, the interior from the game is behind the big window bank on that side. And if you look to the left (facing the station) you can see the line of open shuttle access doors that you can see beyond the section of the bay you can actually walk in. Personally, it seems odd for Quinn's office to be on that level instead of up top under the antennas, but it is not unbelievable that it would be there either.
One interesting point is that if you look at the huge windows there looks to be the edges of blast doors on either end of the strip which makes sense since they could be shut during attacks on Earth for extra protection (though in order to have those doors they would have to be in sections stacked like Pringles in their can or old time razor blades in an injector style box since the shuttle bays are in the way if they were just long single-piece doors).
Thanks, thats cool. Though I just checked. Both on the main server and on tribble. While this is the logical point, the shapes of the doors and windows don't match. It's closer at propert station then on the current though. But then, it might simply be my old GPU not beeing able to show the sufficiently high enough detailled textures.
As for the edges of blast doors, how cool would that be to see those in action? Maybe in a cut-scene?
Thanks, thats cool. Though I just checked. Both on the main server and on tribble. While this is the logical point, the shapes of the doors and windows don't match. It's closer at propert station then on the current though. But then, it might simply be my old GPU not beeing able to show the sufficiently high enough detailled textures.
As for the edges of blast doors, how cool would that be to see those in action? Maybe in a cut-scene?
True, it would make for a good cutscene element.
It makes me wonder why the modern shows never show armor doors sliding shut over the silly picture window on the bridge of the JJ Abrams and CBS Trek ships since it would add some tension to the battle scenes.
Thanks, thats cool. Though I just checked. Both on the main server and on tribble. While this is the logical point, the shapes of the doors and windows don't match. It's closer at propert station then on the current though. But then, it might simply be my old GPU not beeing able to show the sufficiently high enough detailled textures.
As for the edges of blast doors, how cool would that be to see those in action? Maybe in a cut-scene?
True, it would make for a good cutscene element.
It makes me wonder why the modern shows never show armor doors sliding shut over the silly picture window on the bridge of the JJ Abrams and CBS Trek ships since it would add some tension to the battle scenes.
During season 1 of Strange New Worlds, there do actually appear to be exterior scenes where the blast door over the viewscreen is closed. It inspired me to use the Gamma saucer section on my Flight Deck Cruiser, since the hull where the window is on the SNW version gives the impression of having a panel over it.
- Viewscreen Blast Door -
"..to boldly go where no one has gone before."
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,669Community Moderator
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
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Indeed, but in terms of the broad strokes, the two timelines can fit together, especially if Butterfly is used as the point of convergence. Of course, the finer details would need a bit of finagling, such as having Hugh survive Narissa's attack on the Artefact, if the rumours of Jonathan Del Arco’s return for the anniversary are true.
Unfortunately, it would indeed mean the demise of the Enterprise-G at some point prior to the rogue Dominion arc. Personally, I think repurposing the role played by Captain Data and the Enterprise-E in the Path to 2409 would be ideal, as whilst the Enterprise-E was destroyed by the Undine, Data and most of his crew survived. I could certainly see Seven in that role given her history with Species 8472.
Losing her ship could also explain why Seven’s working with the Fenris Rangers again during the events on Excalbia, and working with Daniels as a temporal agent when the player character is sent to save first contact with the Vulcans.
Like I said though, it needs some work when it comes to the smaller details.
Gladly:
The proportionality and the details of an artificial object play a central role in how we perceive and experience it aesthetically. This has both psychological as well as historical and cultural roots. The Golden Ratio, as an example of harmonious proportionality, is often perceived as particularly pleasing because it represents a balanced and simultaneously natural division of space or form. It is one of the "ideal" proportions that frequently appear in nature, such as in the arrangement of leaves, shells, or galaxies, and is therefore intuitively perceived as beautiful.
Examples:
In Chung’s original version, ring structures are not only present on the main hull but also repeated on the five side platforms. This creates an aesthetically sensual connection between the main hull and the side platforms because a constructive idea is repeated. One can debate whether the rings are appealing. But either they are used consistently, or they are omitted entirely. In the ESD from STP, only those on the hull remain, which makes the toothpicks extending downward from the side platforms appear completely out of place.
Furthermore, the cone structures have slightly convex inclinations, which makes the entire design (as with Carson's ESD) appear much more natural and harmonious.
Additionally, the lighting in Chung’s version is much more atmospherically positioned, giving a certain lightness to the massive upper primary cone (the dock). And the warm lighting of the upward-pointing antennas/structures creates a pleasant contrast to the relatively cold surroundings (Earth, the rest of ESD).
Overall, Chung´s version is a very well-thought-out aesthetic concept. Unfortunately, the test server version of the ESD turned out even less successful than the version in STP, as the lower cone appears much larger in proportion to the upper cone compared to STP. Moreover, the upper and lower antennas are compressed, making the entire ESD appear bulkier than in STP.
Asked this myself @baddmoonrizin has stated that there will be minor interior adjustments too as it is in the blog.
I'm honestly content with having STO's Ent-F being a far newer ship than she was in canon. And using Butterfly to be the point of divergence or whatever has a major flaw. Pre Butterfly Seven is in her Voyager persona, and had been working with the Daystrom Institute. Before that she did work with a Task Force on Anti-Borg stuff that got disbanded because the threat seemed to be over. She was rather unhappy with that, and frankly Vega Colony proved her right. Post Butterfly we get Seven's Picard s1 persona where she seems to be a liasion with the Fenris Rangers, but continuing some work with Starfleet in a civilian capacity.
And don't forget this was all before s3 came out and Seven was a Starfleet Officer in Canon.
Trying to align the game with canon is fine in most places, but the way the story worked out there will ALWAYS be issues aligning everything, and in most cases not even worth the mental gymnastics and just use the bone of Alternate Reality to explain why it doesn't fit.
So we're probably not going to have an Ent-G because STO's Enterprise is the Ent-F, and she is far newer than the canon verison. Yea we have Connie-IIIs but in STO's timeline it is not time for an Ent-G as the Ent-F is still alive and kicking and only about 3 years old right now. Besides... I kinda like Captain Shon.
As we get more canon 25th Century content it may become more difficult to adjust things to fit the current state of the game. So we take what we can, and what we can't... Alternate Reality. It just so happens that STO's universe is probably one of those that are literally right next door to the Prime Universe, thus why it aligns so closely with it in terms of events.
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It's a very small room, in a building that the great majority of the playerbase has never even seen, let alone visited.
- Earth Spacedock - From Concept to TV and the Game -
Whilst it wouldn’t be 100% accurate to the canon version, I certainly wouldn’t object to the rings being added below the pods, as like you say the towers extending below do seem somewhat extraneous without them.
Excellent point about the antennas by the way. I hadn’t noticed, but they are indeed extremely truncated on the game model. I’ve also noticed that the pods are missing a few details. First, the docking bay doors use the same markings as the five sets of doors on the main dock. Second, there appear to be three distinct cut-outs below each set of doors, which can be seen in the bottom right of the images below.
- Earth Spacedock - Missing Details -
I wonder if these observations could be forwarded through channels to Tumerboy. Perhaps that’s something one of you fine moderators could help with?
Oh, the way I envisioned Seven’s path after losing the Enterprise-G in that post was definitely a means to align with the depiction of her on Excalbia that’s based on Season One of Picard.
But yeah, there are an awful lot of smaller details in particular that would have to change. The Imperial Romulan State from the Path to 2409 could become the Free Romulan State for instance, and despite Worf becoming a teacher on Earth in 2402, there’s no reason why he couldn’t return to Qo’noS to serve as gin'tak to the House of Martok in 2405.
Still, it would probably be easier to rewrite the Path to 2409 so it aligns more closely with Star Trek Picard to begin with. It would need multiple entries for certain developments if the timelines were to be brought more closely together though, since pre-butterfly would need to reflect things like Seven's Voyager persona and Data being in the body of B4 when he visits Sela at the end of Temporal Ambassador.
The upper concourse is home to the memorial for those of Star Trek’s history who have passed away. It also serves as a quiet area to watch the world go by if you’re into that kind of thing. It does sound like those turbolifts will be used to take us to the main floor if we dock manually though once the new Spacedock arrives on the Holodeck server.
As BMR said, if you're so opposed to it as to want to leave, you know where the door is, don't let it hit you on the way out. But don't threaten to leave unless you get your way, that never works. People will just wave goodbye to you.
Seriously they could just as well merge everything into Fed at this point because that faction is the ONLY one getting any form of attention from the devs now.
Yeah yeah complain that too few players play the other factions all you want but that's to be expected when they DO NOT GET ANY ATTENTION!
/edit: Seriously, Federation is probably the least deserving of any sort of facelift in STO.
First of all, the United Federation of Planets or Federation is the main faction in the Star Trek TV series as well as Star Trek Online. Second, it is the main moneymaker and the majority of the playerbase focuses on Starfleet ships and others connected to that faction. It has always been this way. So it makes sense the focus would be on an updated Earth Space Dock and other Fed stuff.
That is not to so say there are no Klingons, Romulans, or Dominion around who wouldn't also merit some more attention. There has been some attention given to the Romulan Republic with a revamped Romulan tutorial that was not publicized when it came out and the Year of the Klingon, that introduced the Klingon Recruit.
Thirdly, I would never say that Qo'NoS and New Romulus won't ever get an update, who knows, maybe in the near future. We will see what DECA does next year and in the future.
I still hope they could move that part or the NPCs into a class room down on the academy one day.
As for the past ESDs, I was hoping they would use that interior for maybe a Vulcan or Andor space dock.
Heck give Tellar Prime a space dock! Those engineering geniuses deserve one!
Let's see, Romulan missions all got a huge face lift, as did the Klingons......just where is the 2409 Fed facelift!? Oh....they haven't got round to doing it since they removed the missions BEFORE they updated the KDF and ROMs! Cryptic moved the earth to give the Roms and KDF unique missions a huge improvement, so your complaint literally falls flat on it's Bat'leth.
Roms have around 28 unique missions, with KDF around 20 at last count, whilst 2409 have just their tutorial and a handful of missions that are shared between the other Feds, Rom and Jemmy Feds.
Klingon First City got an update when the missions got updated, but there is no canon Klingon Spacedock variant, but it did get a clean up.
Romulans don't have one because it's literally been a couple of years in game time since they moved to New Romulus, so what's more important, their planetary infrastructure or a space dock???
So despite Roms and KDF having more unique content EACH than all the Fed factions together and thousands of more hours of Dev time spent on them, the Rom and KDF population is lower, and that's the Dev's fault!?
The ONLY thing that needs an improvement is New Romulus, BUT that should be a mission-specific change that unlocks at a certain point in the storyline, just like changes to sector space.
I believe it was the quality of New Romulus that spurred the Dev Team on to update ESD in 2014. Bear in mind that "Legacy of Romulus" included a huge amount of Klingon-centric content as well as the Romulan Republic stuff.
I reckon Updating Qo'noS took a back seat during the development of the next three expansions:
An update to Qo'noS was possibly in the works but there had been a surprising development in the world of Star Trek - it had returned to TV!
This meant that getting the game to tie-in with the TV show was the smarter move, which pushed back Qo'noS updates again.
Thankfully, we did eventually get it in 2021, which you've already pointed out.
But, I do believe that Legacy of Romulus is where much of the quality improvments we've been seeing in the game, actually had their beginning...
Doing so, I’m happy to see that emotions have cooled down.
Personally I grew up with TNG and the replays of the TOS-movies on TV. The “old” ESD always represented home and coming back home for me. More than any place on earth ever portrayed in Star Trek. As such I would hate so see it gone completely. That’s how I feel about it.
What I think about it is that, with Propert-Station, we’re talking about the most prominent orbital installation shown in the ST-show closest to the STO-time. As such, not having it present in STOs earth orbit would be illogical.
It also doesn’t matter that I too think the design of Propert-Station looks less sophisticated. It’s both plausible and in line with federation design. And most of all, it’s a copy from the show and the people at cryptic did a remarkable job implementing it. Based on what I saw on tribble.
So over all I think I’ll be able to live with it. Maybe, eventually, I’ll even like it.
As for the changes to Earth, I understand them. For the “Sol system functionality”, I just love those Ideas.
Out of curiosity: Will we be able to tell where the interior is from the outside? Matching the shape and arrangement of the windows/shuttlebay doors? That’s something I never could manage to do in the past or on tribble.
Actually, you can pinpoint it. If you go to the planet side of the station, the interior from the game is behind the big window bank on that side. And if you look to the left (facing the station) you can see the line of open shuttle access doors that you can see beyond the section of the bay you can actually walk in. Personally, it seems odd for Quinn's office to be on that level instead of up top under the antennas, but it is not unbelievable that it would be there either.
One interesting point is that if you look at the huge windows there looks to be the edges of blast doors on either end of the strip which makes sense since they could be shut during attacks on Earth for extra protection (though in order to have those doors they would have to be in sections stacked like Pringles in their can or old time razor blades in an injector style box since the shuttle bays are in the way if they were just long single-piece doors).
As for the edges of blast doors, how cool would that be to see those in action? Maybe in a cut-scene?
True, it would make for a good cutscene element.
It makes me wonder why the modern shows never show armor doors sliding shut over the silly picture window on the bridge of the JJ Abrams and CBS Trek ships since it would add some tension to the battle scenes.
- Viewscreen Blast Door -
lol couldn't resist.
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