Hi,
Some of you may already saw the concept UI for the future Duty Officer System, but Stahl released another pic on his twitter (I recommend people who want to know the latest news of what the STO team is developing to follow him):
http://yfrog.com/h3y7wgifj
After taking a look at it, i began to think about a cool funcionality for a shuttlebay:
When they introduce them into our ships, each class and Tier should have a different shuttlebay space (A Assault Cruiser should have a much larger shuttlebay than a Tactical Escort Refit) and each type of shuttle and fighter should use a different amount of that space, meaning that you could have several Type-8 shuttles or a mix of a few Type-8, a few Runabouts and a few fighters.
Each mission that you assign to your Duty Officers, they should take 1 of those shuttles or fighters, meaning that if you have 2 shuttles, you can only assign 2 missions to your DOffs. And each shuttle should have a different impact in the mission, like in a Runabout, the DOffs should go and return faster and be better protected compared to a Type-8.
That would add a Star Trek feel to the DOffs, since we saw dozens of episodes which officers take shuttles to complete missions while the starship is completing another one.
Any further ideas or critics are accepted.
Comments
However, keep in mind that this is a game. And the game has to be balanced. What do Escorts and Science Vessels get to make up for Cruisers having more shuttle capacity?
Escorts should be capable of holding more fighters, Science vessels more runabouts (since they are the closest to a small science ship) and Cruisers should have more shuttles.
But for this thing to work, we would need more variety of shuttles, runabouts and fighters.
How to plan on allowing/restricting the number of shuttles allowed per ship?
I'd disagree on the concept of giving Science ships additional runabouts. In canon, the only known class of ship to carry Runabouts, was the Galaxy Class (a cruiser). Most ships simply don't have the capacity to carry such large vessels (20m+ shuttles). Voyager's (Intrepid Class) largest shuttle, the Delta Flyer is merely 15 meters in length. All other shuttles are smaller than that.
I'd find it more likely that Science ships would be equipped with additional Type 8s or Type 9 shuttlecraft (Type 9 not currently ingame). The Sovereign Class (Cruiser) was equipped with atleast 1 Type 11 (not ingame).
1° - i think the best would be to every ship have one bay.
2° - In this concept, i think shuttles could be purchased, crafted and maybe get as missions rewards.
3° - I was thinking for the best Trek experience, that the shuttles can be used by you and by the DOffs.
4° - If the 3° line would be used in-game, would create that problem, all shuttles would be used and you can't use them for missions.
Wouldn't that be a good thing? It would force you to manage your shuttles.
That is the problem with my concept and shuttle in STO. When they implement shuttlesbay in interiors and there you can launch your shuttles, how a person will launch a runabout that (s)he have if (s)he have a Defiant?
Of course the Devs will make that possible, because if they don't and try to stay canon, a lot of players won't like that.
I know that people in a Defiant would like to be possible to launch runabouts or large shuttles, like any other ship. So i think all shuttles should be available, but different ships have different amounts of shuttle slots, like i said before.
But that is just my idea and the Devs may never see it.
It would be cool, i was just pointing the problem that some people may complain if they implement my concept.
It would open new resources that we need to manage, increasing our captain of a starship's experience.