I had some ideas that could be interessting. Could have been mentioned in some other thread
BRIDGE
Should be resized to standart proportions at the time the remaining parts of the ships are integrated.
From the captain seat we should be able to give orders to every station with a bit of VO
-> "helm set course for the P'Jem System...warp 8..engage"
..give us a menu to access the stations "Helm/Tactical/Engineering/Science..."
From there you should have choices like in the Helm Menu "set course.."
This would take you to the Map where you could choose your destination..after you have choosen a destination just hit "engage" and...now you should see the ship go to warp and of we go. You would see star streaks in the viewscreen
You should have options like "Hail"..where you could hail starfleet and other players..they could be put on screen and a chat window could open where you communicate with them.
Every station should have some functions. As captain you could go to the specific station on you own and push some buttons to actually also do things by yourself..also nice for all the RP guys out there.
If you enter a system and someone hails you it should be put on the viewscreen.
If you have to beam down to a planet...oh well...be able to tell the persons who should go with you to meet in Transporter Room1 1. From there you actually beam down to the planet/ship/station...whatever
You could issue scan from the bridge...scan system..scan ship/planet...
ENGINEERING
In Engineering you should be able to outfit your ship with new parts..give us a overall scematic display with slots to put parts in there.
You should be able to "research" technical stuff here...the better your engineering officer gets the more you can research...i always wanted to have a genius scotty someday

You should be able to do some power presets here..make it a bit more detailed and animated..like you actually do something.."more power to the light bulbs geordie"
You could build some minigames here..let us help repair the ship to make the progress faster
MEDICAL
here you should also be able to do some research stuff...maybe for stuff like hypos...buff stuff like meal,drinks that are related to the actual person...engineering would be for offensive and defensive hardware stuff.
if a ship get's some hits and crew is injured you would see them there...you could help out with some mini games to get them back faster.
READY ROOM
our generall meeting room...let us put things in there..let us meet there with friends...AND...maybe there are some special top priority messages from starfleet comming in...let the captin actually walk there to see them in private
TEN FORWARD
a sozial place...let us buy drinks and food here and watch the stars
HOLODECK
yeah...let us do some seld defined scirmished here. with friends or against them..space and ground..like a testing field. let us set the odds no matter what.
Let us choose planets we have visited and enemys we have seen.
Or let us just...do nothing there but relax..maybe on an old sailing ship...where we push some promoted officers over board
MISSIONS
make random missions or if we visit a hostile planet there may be a virus that followed us onto the ship after our mission or someone beamed aboard...or an alien wreak havoc on the ship...or maybe we get to see Q...make it a bit random and unpredictable.
RESEARCH
Now the Research part. What we call crafting in other games could be R&D in STO. Just scatter unknown blueprints over the universe for us to find. Then we could research them for energy or what ever to actually get a usefull blueprint...for a new weapon..armor..ship part...buff food..what ever. To actually build something we would need resources that should be written down on the constuction blueprint. If we have them...let us build this part...such blueprints could be in quality from normal to purple.
As an addition let us "modify" stuff. Let's say we would like to modify a phaser bank to output more dmg. Put in a slider..depending on how much the value is..the more it'll cost. Modification range shouldn't be to big. On one hand it should output more dmg but on the other hand it should use more power. That would hold the balance.
Or making firing arc a bit larger but going down with dmg. It's a tad more in customizing options we could get here. Same could go for ground weapons/shields..
Put in some additional part slots like "Warp core"..that's the major part that delivers power to the ship..why not have it as component. Having a decent list of different parts isn't bad. Because it would also be more clear what does what. If the game get's new content such diverse parts would make balancing or puting a tier up a bit easier..not only for dev's but also for people...you could choose better what you want to use and not a part with 3 values that really say nothing to me and change from part to part.
LAST WORDS
We are really missing this big part to push the Star Trek experience very much up. And the ship is one of the major parts in Star Trek. Give us designs to every ship class there is in the game. Make it fully functional. It's a big part where much contend can be used...where missions are born. I personally wouldn't pass on such an opportunity. It's one of the things that has potential to make the game really really big. And if it's done it shouldn't be made sloppy.
I have the feeling that the success to an MMO is in the sum of it's parts...the more it has to offer in terms of diversity..the more successful it will become in the end. I hope this game goes the distance...no matter how hard or how much work it is. If would do it. It's worth it.
Ship combat from the outside is ok...even in bridge commander i only used 3d person view.
But for the sake of Star Trek..everything else should be done from the bridge...optional or not is up to you but the possibility should be there.
Comments
In the end, the developers probably wrote this off as rewarding such a very small portion of the players.
However, the idea that every section of the ship should be accessible is completely feasible (and can be done modularly, using various "themes"). Developers have hinted at this, so refine these ideas some more!
I added this thread to the Ultimate Suggestion Thread:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=2156307#post2156307
So did alot of other people.. Guess what, its not going to happen.
But I think there is no need for functioning consoles. It would be nice to visit the own ship. You could invite your Friends to your Ready room or make an Promotion party on your casino with your Fleet mates.
In short therm. It would bring more Star Trek Feeling into game. And this is badly needed
I distinctly remember reading about this game a couple of years ago and in the dev posts there was something about being able to move about through the ship itself. That got me really excited and I had hoped it was the case, well to be honest I did expect that when I got the game. Sadly that wasn't the case but it should be as that would certainly help to make STO more like the Star Trek we're familiar with.
I don't know I like the idea... A lot don't get me wrong I agree with your first paragraph, but I also think that it would enhance the game immensely. Yes it would be a lot of work, but what's that saying, " nothing ever worth it is ever easy". (or something like that)
To satisfy everyone some windows could be made simplified, and you could select low tech or high tech. IE make it to where if you select high tech you would have to do everything in the OP. Or if you select low tech windows would just show up on your screen, these windows would be like a character window, drop and drag type stuff, hit OK, etc etc.
Off topic: it is nice to see threads like this. Kudos to the OP for a wonderful read.
Sorry have to bump this as I think it is a wonderful idea.
No it's not about Bridge Commander. Just look at the Star Trek movies. If it's similar to Bridge Commander then only because Bridge Commander tried to go after the movies in a certain way. I tried to stay as close to the movies as i could do...i didn't try to bring elements of other games into it. If there are similarities to other games in it then only because they also had Star Trek parts in them
In every movie you had the Bridge of a Ship on screen and that's where STO also should put much work into it..just like of the other ship parts....that's all about Star Trek and Trek feeling
If someone has some additions to various ship stations/parts then i'll gladly write them into the main post here
i remember reading that each player would fill a post, and that eventually you would get your own ship, but you would have to work as a crew first... oh well.. some aspects are never fufilled, and some droped all together
my 2 credits
You read that on the site for the first gaming company that went belly up as they where making the game.Cryptic threw all of that in the trash when they got the IP.
The rest of the stuff; they've said they'll be doing this.
IF it was in the game, i would still be playing it...
The question is...why shouldn't they? It's not that we ask to have things that are not Star Trek. We also don't ask for a god mode or cow level
The game started and most changes we want will take time to make. Only indication we will see if they want to do something or not is when it get's into the game or is announced officaly.
From what i guess is that the less the dev's post in here the more they are working on the game. I assume that a couple of them are tracking bug while others work on the first major addon that should come around middle of march. Atleast that would be the 45 days after launch addon.
The more the game will get to a "complete" state where not much work has to be done, the more they will post on the forums to keep us informed or discuss things with us. Atleast that's how it was with many other MMO's
I wish i would know what will be in the first major addon that's coming mid of march. But i suppose it will a very imporatant addon that could shape the way STO will be going or giving people some insight into the future of the game.
....for a bit of survival on this topic..could interesst someone who hasn't seen it yet
Good stuff, and I'd love to see this prioritized.
i am all about more = better
i especially loved the research section, and i do believe if they want crafting in the game they going to need to create one. right now its a scavenger hunt
the idea of moding the weapons blew my mind with the slider.
if they had attributes with sliders and energy cost for the modification. that would be absolutely amazing. litterally not 2 ships or weapons could be the same.
imagine using your engineer + energy to increase warp speed at the expense of impulse or turn speed and hp or something to that nature.
or using a BP you get from memory alpha + energy some tradable goods in order to modify a weapon to have accuracy or crit severity ect...
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=201706
Please do not spam by bumping threads - I will close them. If the idea is good the community will discuss it and keep the topic alive.
As it is, THIS one is a Zombie. *shovels it back into the year 2010*