The galaxy feels empty because there aren't civilian ships except in 1 sector, and they don't do anything but sell you stuff you don't need. I'd love to answer distress calls, run into a diplomacy mission on an alien ship, or see a rare-spawning mob and call the whole sector over to go kill it. I'd love to see NPC's attack other NPC's and be asked to take sides in a conflict. Right now I only get that as a random encounter in Genesis and I don't even see that kind of 'show up and save the helpless crew' patrol mission very often.
Updating the visuals would help, but really, I need something to do in Sector Space besides AFK bio break.
Any chance of explaining options suggested by the team, even if it's napkin drawing from a meeting?
i too would love to hear about what ideas are on the drawing board
the community no doubt will have some very good input on the potential for probably one of the most important revamps this game has/will see, hope you guys will not keep things too tight lipped
There are many on the team that have this as one of the highest priorities and while it wasn't scheduled for Season 2 - I'm expecting us to get to this sooner than later. We are investigating different designs and have a few internal demos we've been looking over. We want the galaxy to feel much more vast than it currently does. So we agree with this thread.
There are many on the team that have this as one of the highest priorities and while it wasn't scheduled for Season 2 - I'm expecting us to get to this sooner than later. We are investigating different designs and have a few internal demos we've been looking over. We want the galaxy to feel much more vast than it currently does. So we agree with this thread.
Whoa, really? I honestly didn't think yall would do that, but kudos! is there a possibility that sector space will become 1 map instead of really broken-up and instanced? That's one of the things that kinda hurts the game for me. everything is so instanced I don't feel like I'm in a galaxy. More like a hall with rooms.
I guess you could go with a more "inside the ship" navigation.. dunno. maybe in sector space you play inside your ship & just chart courses. That way you can enjoy your ship interiors, look at holo maps or other cool "space charty" things showing our current position etc, & give commands. (I mean, c'mon we use chart course all the time). Seems like it would be cool since you are adding ship interiors.
There are many on the team that have this as one of the highest priorities and while it wasn't scheduled for Season 2 - I'm expecting us to get to this sooner than later. We are investigating different designs and have a few internal demos we've been looking over. We want the galaxy to feel much more vast than it currently does. So we agree with this thread.
There are many on the team that have this as one of the highest priorities and while it wasn't scheduled for Season 2 - I'm expecting us to get to this sooner than later. We are investigating different designs and have a few internal demos we've been looking over. We want the galaxy to feel much more vast than it currently does. So we agree with this thread.
I would give Dstahl much andorian love... but im not into that sort of thing LOL
So i'll would like to see a
12 meter tall Monument to Dstahl instead. 4 meter tall Bronze on an 8 meter tall black italian marble pedistal. One foot crushing sector space and and his hand out stretched to the future much like Zeprham Cochrans 8P
We will put it in the central core of Starbase 1 8D
I wish that communications didn't bring my ship to full stop, it would be nice to be able to sit in my ready room and open comms and get my various daily missions, or some random missions in the future, while I am en-route someplace.
FYI - There's a setting in the Game Options menu that controls this behavior. The default is 'on' (where communication stops your travel); but you can set it to 'off' - I think it's under 'Hud'; bu not sre. I do remember seeing it though.
I'm all in favor of making the zones more seamless and a little less instanced. I think it'd only add to the Star Trek feel in the long run.
But it's the little things too. Like floating tags in the Nebula Arms. I'd rather see those as floating planets... I feel like I'm in a barren holo deck most of the time dully going to grid square 4 by grid square 8 and repeating...
The only real problem I see with sector space is that it's a sort of ungainly hybrid of actual warp travel, and a stellar cartography display, without really being either - either have a big, static map showing the progress of your ship, or have the ship zipping through a starfield at ludicrous speeds.
Stellar Cartography would be a fantastic addition to any functional interiors post Season 2 - it'd be awesome to walk in, pull up the relevant area map, then plot a course to one's desired destination. And maybe some more variety in plotting courses, too - as well as the current option (click on a system, click 'ok', then travel in a straight line to it), how about more specific options? Like, for example, selecting a random spot in a sector, and choosing the course taken - e.g. a parabolic arc taking the ship around part of a sector, avoiding running into hostile contacts. That'd be really cool.
I keep hearing about the social aspect of Sector Space being the important thing, but I fail to see how it is in any way a social hub now. I have yet to meet or speak with someone through Sector Space. I think places like DS9 and Earth Spacedock, because of their locations and functionality, are the true social hubs. I could care less of Sector Space became a 2D map where I point at my destination and warp there (assuming I could then explore my ship). I don't think there would be any social impact at all. The zone chat will always be there.
I keep hearing about the social aspect of Sector Space being the important thing, but I fail to see how it is in any way a social hub now. I have yet to meet or speak with someone through Sector Space. I think places like DS9 and Earth Spacedock, because of their locations and functionality, are the true social hubs. I could care less of Sector Space became a 2D map where I point at my destination and warp there (assuming I could then explore my ship). I don't think there would be any social impact at all. The zone chat will always be there.
Agreed. The lack of anything to DO in sector space makes it something people travel through entirely focused on the destination, not the possibility of running into people.
I think it should be increased in size way beyond that, with the current look of sector space kept for a zoomed out long range sensor/mapview.
lol well, ya got to start somewhere....don't want to scare off the developers
They are a shy species..prone to sudden flight if flightened by big changes
the dream to me would be to make Sector space exactly like real space with vast distances between systems. and being able to really drop out of warp in a system without loading a screen. IE i could un dock from sol space dock go to warp sit a few moments watch my ship in warp and control it etc. then drop out of warp in or near the wolf 359 system seamlessly as if one map..
There are many on the team that have this as one of the highest priorities and while it wasn't scheduled for Season 2 - I'm expecting us to get to this sooner than later. We are investigating different designs and have a few internal demos we've been looking over. We want the galaxy to feel much more vast than it currently does. So we agree with this thread.
God I hope one of those is traveling through sector space from your Bridge..That is star trek..anything else lessens the experiance.
Honestly, I love sector space because I'm in control, not the autopilot. If I had to travel inside the ship, I would feel even more boxed. 40-50 pre-determined star system names in a listbox would be the WHOLE galaxy. That is seriously not what I want from a space exploration game. That is what keeps me out of EVE. And if STO interstellar travell turns to something like that, I'm out of here. I want to head for the "2nd star to the right".
When you say, you want to be able to do stuff while in warp, you can right now. Replicators, Inventory, Personal stats, everything is available right now in sector space. So you don't have to walk 2 floors to access your storage area, just press a button, but is that really a problem for most of us? Don't want annoying popus and DSE, agreed, don't like them either and should be optional setting in your OPTIONS. Like "Traffic con always Yes", and "DSE always Evade"
Finally, what I keep saying for a while. You can travel right now while walking on the bridge => load up 2 instances. Set the direction and make the screen small and always on top. Then alt+tab to the "bridge instance" Sit in the chair and ponder on the big questions of the life. Like is it really fun to watch my character looking sharp but doing absolutely nothing for 5 minutes or should I play a quick round of Solitare on my mobile phone while in transit? The other possibility would be that you would like to "Socialize" with your computer crew, but that is faaar beyond my understanding. Maybe I'm just too logical, but I never bought the idea behind "Sims".
Good sector space. BTW can we just call it Warp space? Because you have that area to compensate for the high speed of Warp.
- Remove clutter or make it switchable in Options
- Change the scale, but keep the speed
- Make DSE optional, like "Captain, we have multiple incoming on an attack vector, shall we evade?" Yes means you continue on course, No means you fight. Or even better, make an Options switch.
- Make border traffic con optional with an Options switch.
- More black.
- May want to add warp speed starlines
- Make it possible to drop out of warp anytime to see what is in there
This is what This other thread is all about. True exloration and persistent PVP war sectors all with 1 small improvement.
I don't really understand all the hate on sector space. It kinda made sense to me when I first saw it. Actually I started thinking of it as a form of Stellar Cartography (yes I know it is not, but I just think of it as a form of stellar cartography).
On reading up about sector space (and experiencing it) during beta and through to now, my understanding is that it cannot be removed from the game without redoing/redesigning the whole game (which will simply never happen now).
Also, the ribbons and lolly pop like planets are apparently from Perpetual's specs (if I remember correctly) and the ribbons were meant to be special highways where you actually travelled faster.
The so called suggestions of just removing sector space are pretty silly - as that will just not happen (as I said, would require complete redesign of the game).
However, I think some tweaks to sector space would certainly make it more interesting. So, I think some graphical options could be a start to alleviate some players' anxiety with regards to sector space. Options to remove the ribbons and the sticks from underneath the planets I think would be a good start for most people. That could actually add to space feeling more like space
I also think that while in sector space, since it is a representation of being in warp, the trails or perhaps an effect around the ship, should be more warp like. To me at least, moving in sector space feels exactly the same as moving in an actual system at full impulse. It needs to "feel" faster in sector space.
- Remove clutter or make it switchable in Options
- Change the scale, but keep the speed
- Make DSE optional, like "Captain, we have multiple incoming on an attack vector, shall we evade?" Yes means you continue on course, No means you fight. Or even better, make an Options switch.
- Make border traffic con optional with an Options switch.
- More black.
- May want to add warp speed starlines
- Make it possible to drop out of warp anytime to see what is in there
/agree
Warp visual effects while moving would be a great improvement at low cost.
I think is said this many times back in beta but bears repeating.
How to ...improve sector space
Double thier size
ditch the map markers
represent the systems in a realistic manner
if you cursor over a system, then its info pops up
fixed, nolonger looks like a road map, also the increase in size will elliminate the closterphobic
feel to it
I like this idea, increase the size of sector space and remove the grid (which is responsible for that map feel). Maybe increase the vertical distances between systems a bit too,
I'd like to see the grid on the bottom go away and the planets that are able to be visited that are enlarged, do something different with those.
I wasn't a star trek fan when I started playing this (although I got converted afterwards) but I was an outer space/astronomy fan. What drew me in to this was the fact you can explore outer space. Make it feel VAST. I'd LOVE that.
It breaks immersion for you, not for me. Please refrain from all-encompassing broad strokes. And here we run into the flaw of this forum as a way to gather data for continuing development of STO. It is rife with logical fallacies and inductive reasoning Cryptic seems prone to falling for.
Yes, it is immersion breaking to me. It is apparently immersion breaking an not liked by quite a few others. That holds just as much weight as your own opinion, so please refrain from trying to dismiss the ideas and thoughts of others simply because you don't like them.
It's rather clear that the devs already intend to change sector space. They even have several internal demos to review concepts for it. It's more than likely going to change whether you like it or not.
Honestly, I love sector space because I'm in control, not the autopilot. If I had to travel inside the ship, I would feel even more boxed. 40-50 pre-determined star system names in a listbox would be the WHOLE galaxy. That is seriously not what I want from a space exploration game. That is what keeps me out of EVE. And if STO interstellar travell turns to something like that, I'm out of here. I want to head for the "2nd star to the right".
When you say, you want to be able to do stuff while in warp, you can right now. Replicators, Inventory, Personal stats, everything is available right now in sector space. So you don't have to walk 2 floors to access your storage area, just press a button, but is that really a problem for most of us? Don't want annoying popus and DSE, agreed, don't like them either and should be optional setting in your OPTIONS. Like "Traffic con always Yes", and "DSE always Evade"
Finally, what I keep saying for a while. You can travel right now while walking on the bridge => load up 2 instances. Set the direction and make the screen small and always on top. Then alt+tab to the "bridge instance" Sit in the chair and ponder on the big questions of the life. Like is it really fun to watch my character looking sharp but doing absolutely nothing for 5 minutes or should I play a quick round of Solitare on my mobile phone while in transit? The other possibility would be that you would like to "Socialize" with your computer crew, but that is faaar beyond my understanding. Maybe I'm just too logical, but I never bought the idea behind "Sims".
Good sector space. BTW can we just call it Warp space? Because you have that area to compensate for the high speed of Warp.
- Remove clutter or make it switchable in Options
- Change the scale, but keep the speed
- Make DSE optional, like "Captain, we have multiple incoming on an attack vector, shall we evade?" Yes means you continue on course, No means you fight. Or even better, make an Options switch.
- Make border traffic con optional with an Options switch.
- More black.
- May want to add warp speed starlines
- Make it possible to drop out of warp anytime to see what is in there
This is what This other thread is all about. True exloration and persistent PVP war sectors all with 1 small improvement.
yes, yes i would hate it more, also i really dont understand people need for bridge commander aspects in this game
What bothers me the most is that you cannot be inside of your ship while traveling through space. Seriously, am I the only person who thinks that is stupid? I am very excited for the ship interiors, but if you cant actaully travel between systems while you are walking around the interiors, whats the point?
Yes I know all the nay sayers, and the reasons...."the engine just cant handle it" or "its not worth the effort", or " what about sector space"...
Honnestly, if I could have my cake and eat it to, I would some how keep both (Sector Space, and travel within your ship interior). Without getting into details of how it could happen, or how long, or how imposible it would be be to achive.
But if I could only choose ONE it would be travel within your ship interior (with a damn timer or something) seriously.....Sector space is, IMO, the worst part of STO. It sucks...im sorry to the DEV that created it...I am sure you wish it could have been better, but it is a flop.....
Now if I have to sacrafice movment just to enjoy my ship that would just ROYALLY SUCK!!. Right now with the 'Bridge View' i dont really care because you cant do anything on the bridge anyway.... But once ship interiors are introduced, if you cant travel between systems while you are walking around the ship....its again IMO a half implemented feature much like many others in this game....:mad:
Actually I can't see a reason why we can't have both, such as Sector space and Travel while on ship at the same time. If we had optional DSE and Traffic con the Sector space and the Bridge travel would be equal options.
If you want to walk around, you just enter you bridge in Normal space, add your destination, a timer starts and there you can roam around in your ship while in transit. During that time, you are NOT visible on sector space. Simple, you don't care about sector space and sector space doesn't care about you. When the time is up, you could leave you bridge instance and pop up at the destination, you selected from the listbox. Some random OPTIONAL events/encounters may pop up for good measure. End of story. To make it canon, you are traveling in confined transwarp corridor not in warp space. That is the reason you are not visible in sector space.
If you want to actually fly in sector space, just do it as you do now. Some random OPTIONAL events/encounters may pop up for good measure. End of story again.
Free warp travel and bridge auto-pilot travel are NOT mutually exclusive. Sure you can't travel both ways at the same time, BUT you can have both in game as an option.
That would split the community and lower the "Socializing hub" aspect of sector space. However, if you don't care and don't use that aspect at all, you won't miss it a bit and you won't be missed as well.
Actually I can't see a reason why we can't have both, such as Sector space and Travel while on ship at the same time. If we had optional DSE and Traffic con the Sector space and the Bridge travel would be equal options.
If you want to walk around, you just enter you bridge in Normal space, add your destination, a timer starts and there you can roam around in your ship while in transit. During that time, you are NOT visible on sector space. Simple, you don't care about sector space and sector space doesn't care about you. When the time is up, you could leave you bridge instance and pop up at the destination, you selected from the listbox. Some random OPTIONAL events/encounters may pop up for good measure. End of story.
If you want to actually fly in sector space, just do it as you do now. Some random OPTIONAL events/encounters may pop up for good measure. End of story again.
Free warp travel and bridge auto-pilot travel are NOT mutually exclusive. Sure you can't travel both ways at the same time, BUT you can have both in game as an option.
Those are my thoughts exactly...I just wish cryptic would agree and tell us that "it will be so"!!
Comments
Updating the visuals would help, but really, I need something to do in Sector Space besides AFK bio break.
Now that would be FUN!!
i too would love to hear about what ideas are on the drawing board
the community no doubt will have some very good input on the potential for probably one of the most important revamps this game has/will see, hope you guys will not keep things too tight lipped
YAY, i love you dstahl
Whoa, really? I honestly didn't think yall would do that, but kudos! is there a possibility that sector space will become 1 map instead of really broken-up and instanced? That's one of the things that kinda hurts the game for me. everything is so instanced I don't feel like I'm in a galaxy. More like a hall with rooms.
I guess you could go with a more "inside the ship" navigation.. dunno. maybe in sector space you play inside your ship & just chart courses. That way you can enjoy your ship interiors, look at holo maps or other cool "space charty" things showing our current position etc, & give commands. (I mean, c'mon we use chart course all the time). Seems like it would be cool since you are adding ship interiors.
YESSSSS!!!!!!
I would give Dstahl much andorian love... but im not into that sort of thing LOL
So i'll would like to see a
12 meter tall Monument to Dstahl instead. 4 meter tall Bronze on an 8 meter tall black italian marble pedistal. One foot crushing sector space and and his hand out stretched to the future much like Zeprham Cochrans 8P
We will put it in the central core of Starbase 1 8D
FYI - There's a setting in the Game Options menu that controls this behavior. The default is 'on' (where communication stops your travel); but you can set it to 'off' - I think it's under 'Hud'; bu not sre. I do remember seeing it though.
But it's the little things too. Like floating tags in the Nebula Arms. I'd rather see those as floating planets... I feel like I'm in a barren holo deck most of the time dully going to grid square 4 by grid square 8 and repeating...
To illustrate:
Stellar Cartography (Enterprise-D)
Voyager at warp
Stellar Cartography would be a fantastic addition to any functional interiors post Season 2 - it'd be awesome to walk in, pull up the relevant area map, then plot a course to one's desired destination. And maybe some more variety in plotting courses, too - as well as the current option (click on a system, click 'ok', then travel in a straight line to it), how about more specific options? Like, for example, selecting a random spot in a sector, and choosing the course taken - e.g. a parabolic arc taking the ship around part of a sector, avoiding running into hostile contacts. That'd be really cool.
remove the grids and tradelanes and make it look like an actual universe. texture the planetary systems, add nebulas and asteroid belts.
best thing i can use as an example is Pirates of the burning seas map ....but better looking
Agreed. The lack of anything to DO in sector space makes it something people travel through entirely focused on the destination, not the possibility of running into people.
How to ...improve sector space
Double thier size
ditch the map markers
represent the systems in a realistic manner
if you cursor over a system, then its info pops up
fixed, nolonger looks like a road map, also the increase in size will elliminate the closterphobic
feel to it
I think it should be increased in size way beyond that, with the current look of sector space kept for a zoomed out long range sensor/mapview.
lol well, ya got to start somewhere....don't want to scare off the developers
They are a shy species..prone to sudden flight if flightened by big changes
hey one can dream.
God I hope one of those is traveling through sector space from your Bridge..That is star trek..anything else lessens the experiance.
http://www.airsoft-booking.com/other/Sector_space_almost_hud.jpg
http://www.airsoft-booking.com/other/Sector_space_almost1.jpg
http://www.airsoft-booking.com/other/Starfield2.jpg
Honestly, I love sector space because I'm in control, not the autopilot. If I had to travel inside the ship, I would feel even more boxed. 40-50 pre-determined star system names in a listbox would be the WHOLE galaxy. That is seriously not what I want from a space exploration game. That is what keeps me out of EVE. And if STO interstellar travell turns to something like that, I'm out of here. I want to head for the "2nd star to the right".
When you say, you want to be able to do stuff while in warp, you can right now. Replicators, Inventory, Personal stats, everything is available right now in sector space. So you don't have to walk 2 floors to access your storage area, just press a button, but is that really a problem for most of us? Don't want annoying popus and DSE, agreed, don't like them either and should be optional setting in your OPTIONS. Like "Traffic con always Yes", and "DSE always Evade"
Finally, what I keep saying for a while. You can travel right now while walking on the bridge => load up 2 instances. Set the direction and make the screen small and always on top. Then alt+tab to the "bridge instance" Sit in the chair and ponder on the big questions of the life. Like is it really fun to watch my character looking sharp but doing absolutely nothing for 5 minutes or should I play a quick round of Solitare on my mobile phone while in transit? The other possibility would be that you would like to "Socialize" with your computer crew, but that is faaar beyond my understanding. Maybe I'm just too logical, but I never bought the idea behind "Sims".
Good sector space. BTW can we just call it Warp space? Because you have that area to compensate for the high speed of Warp.
- Remove clutter or make it switchable in Options
- Change the scale, but keep the speed
- Make DSE optional, like "Captain, we have multiple incoming on an attack vector, shall we evade?" Yes means you continue on course, No means you fight. Or even better, make an Options switch.
- Make border traffic con optional with an Options switch.
- More black.
- May want to add warp speed starlines
- Make it possible to drop out of warp anytime to see what is in there
This is what This other thread is all about. True exloration and persistent PVP war sectors all with 1 small improvement.
third one is ok, ditch all the controls except speed....they are only needed in non-sector areas
On reading up about sector space (and experiencing it) during beta and through to now, my understanding is that it cannot be removed from the game without redoing/redesigning the whole game (which will simply never happen now).
Also, the ribbons and lolly pop like planets are apparently from Perpetual's specs (if I remember correctly) and the ribbons were meant to be special highways where you actually travelled faster.
The so called suggestions of just removing sector space are pretty silly - as that will just not happen (as I said, would require complete redesign of the game).
However, I think some tweaks to sector space would certainly make it more interesting. So, I think some graphical options could be a start to alleviate some players' anxiety with regards to sector space. Options to remove the ribbons and the sticks from underneath the planets I think would be a good start for most people. That could actually add to space feeling more like space
I also think that while in sector space, since it is a representation of being in warp, the trails or perhaps an effect around the ship, should be more warp like. To me at least, moving in sector space feels exactly the same as moving in an actual system at full impulse. It needs to "feel" faster in sector space.
/agree
Warp visual effects while moving would be a great improvement at low cost.
I like this idea, increase the size of sector space and remove the grid (which is responsible for that map feel). Maybe increase the vertical distances between systems a bit too,
I wasn't a star trek fan when I started playing this (although I got converted afterwards) but I was an outer space/astronomy fan. What drew me in to this was the fact you can explore outer space. Make it feel VAST. I'd LOVE that.
Yes, it is immersion breaking to me. It is apparently immersion breaking an not liked by quite a few others. That holds just as much weight as your own opinion, so please refrain from trying to dismiss the ideas and thoughts of others simply because you don't like them.
It's rather clear that the devs already intend to change sector space. They even have several internal demos to review concepts for it. It's more than likely going to change whether you like it or not.
yes, yes i would hate it more, also i really dont understand people need for bridge commander aspects in this game
Yes I know all the nay sayers, and the reasons...."the engine just cant handle it" or "its not worth the effort", or " what about sector space"...
Honnestly, if I could have my cake and eat it to, I would some how keep both (Sector Space, and travel within your ship interior). Without getting into details of how it could happen, or how long, or how imposible it would be be to achive.
But if I could only choose ONE it would be travel within your ship interior (with a damn timer or something) seriously.....Sector space is, IMO, the worst part of STO. It sucks...im sorry to the DEV that created it...I am sure you wish it could have been better, but it is a flop.....
Now if I have to sacrafice movment just to enjoy my ship that would just ROYALLY SUCK!!. Right now with the 'Bridge View' i dont really care because you cant do anything on the bridge anyway.... But once ship interiors are introduced, if you cant travel between systems while you are walking around the ship....its again IMO a half implemented feature much like many others in this game....:mad:
If you want to walk around, you just enter you bridge in Normal space, add your destination, a timer starts and there you can roam around in your ship while in transit. During that time, you are NOT visible on sector space. Simple, you don't care about sector space and sector space doesn't care about you. When the time is up, you could leave you bridge instance and pop up at the destination, you selected from the listbox. Some random OPTIONAL events/encounters may pop up for good measure. End of story. To make it canon, you are traveling in confined transwarp corridor not in warp space. That is the reason you are not visible in sector space.
If you want to actually fly in sector space, just do it as you do now. Some random OPTIONAL events/encounters may pop up for good measure. End of story again.
Free warp travel and bridge auto-pilot travel are NOT mutually exclusive. Sure you can't travel both ways at the same time, BUT you can have both in game as an option.
That would split the community and lower the "Socializing hub" aspect of sector space. However, if you don't care and don't use that aspect at all, you won't miss it a bit and you won't be missed as well.
Those are my thoughts exactly...I just wish cryptic would agree and tell us that "it will be so"!!