Bridge Officers

[Tribbler]

At the beginning there was a huge discussion that required it's own Sticky about Bridge Officers.

Cryptic made the announcement that they would not be having multiple players operating your ship, but rather use NPC pets or Bridge Officers to fill the ships needs.

With all this talk about TRUE 3D space environment and *Rolls*, *Looping*, 6 sided shields etc. do you think that because of the complexity to interface with the various other parts of the ship, the game was dumbed down as to not overload the Captain?

If there were 4 other Players operating (Navigation, Weapons Control, Shield & Defense Systems, Engine) then I would think that all the 3D immersion would be in the game.

It was already stated that it would be boring for the player to have to look at the Weapons Console throughout a fight, and that they needed to give the other non-captain players something more to do.

So using this philosophy, maybe the questions are answered about *rolling* and real 3D space dynamics.

A large ship requires alot more detailed information about systems and sub-systems, that a person can react to. Information overload and reaction time would really be hard to control if all the information was being solely handled by the Captain alone.

Knowing that you are the only one to handle all of the ships abilities, this was the only way for Cryptic to go since they were not utilizing real players to assist in your ships performance.

Make sense? Your thoughts?

[pdidy]

I think what they should do is allow players to "take over" the AI's spot, meaning that they can control the station. The captain tells what they should do and they either do it, say what they think, etc, etc, etc. Cause that was how it was done in the movies, books, etc. And it adds a little nit of teamwork to the mix.

[Jiryathia]

I don't think that would really help. While it would leave less things on your plate so you have more time to focus on flying, basick spins in 3d envirement really aren't hard, and would eventually become easy second nature. It's not one of the things that would be harder to do under pressure.

[Tribbler]

I don't think that would really help. While it would leave less things on your plate so you have more time to focus on flying, basick spins in 3d envirement really aren't hard, and would eventually become easy second nature. It's not one of the things that would be harder to do under pressure.

I have played a True 3d Space game that had rolls, spins, loops, (basically dogfighting). To stay focused and watching the ships every move for targetting reasons, takes your eyes off your shield strength.

Imagine if the only way to harm your enemy is to individually target 16 (example) various systems after his shields go down.

Maneuvering, keeping your shields up, ship speed, and target lock would be daunting.

[Reinkaos]

I'd much rather have six-sided shields, so that I know precisely which side of my ship is being pounded, instead of wondering whether or not whether my left or right rear shields are being drained when I'm attacked from behind. It would help to plan maneuvers and let me know exactly which shield I'm facing towards them.

[Kairutk]

I would liek to see "instances" where you can make a group and take BO positions and theny play together on a mission.

[pdidy]

I'd much rather have six-sided shields, so that I know precisely which side of my ship is being pounded, instead of wondering whether or not whether my left or right rear shields are being drained when I'm attacked from behind. It would help to plan maneuvers and let me know exactly which shield I'm facing towards them.

Yeah, kinda like in Bridge Commander, and in the movies they say, "Sir! Forwards shields is failing!" basically every 2 seconds, and it would make the game easier, but also more challenging, because you're trying to get a decent shot on somebody, and the area where your weapons are (place something here), that area's shields are gone!

[Awarkle]

ive done games design at university (got a degree and everything just no job damn you recession) the problem with game design is that.

Normally it comes from one person the intial spark and then you go into a room wiht lots of other like minded people (remember most game developers are gamers themselves) and they think of absolutley everything they could possibly want in the game.

Then they bring in some realists and ask them. Can we Do this ?

I think in this instance we would all have loved to be the crew on someone elses ship but the developers realised that not everyone will sit in the captains chair, i mean consider some of the background characters on startrek they stand at a console and monitor it all throughout the day, some come in and replace them but generally they are stood looking at a bank of monitors pressing buttons.

now the people at cryptic would have gone over each aspect of the ship which areas to leave out which to leave in. now i personally beleive if they had gone with perpetuals vision which revolved around the crew inside a ship in effect the ship becomes background to the players. Then yes it may have worked i dont think there is any mmos on the market that follow that trend but would it have been fun ?

could you have stood at that bank of monitors for 4 hours during a raid ensuring the intermix ratio was perfect meanwhile the person on the helm is doing all kinds of fancy stuff the weapons officer is shooting the medical bay is dealing with casualtys engineering is preventing a warp core breach. and you see non of it because your back is turned from the view screen and your pressing the buttons 1 2 3 over and over again.

Its the problem all designers want, hell i designed a mmo back in 1998 (yes 1998) that would be multi console, would have people start off as humanoid avatars and eventually elevate them to the sort of birds eye view like command and conqour then eventually to masters of orion. It had everything from realistic starship construction to multiple means to travel through space from solar sails to warp drive and even hyperdrive. I also designed in time travel to have the entire game run concurrently on three separate servers each server would represent present past future, depending on what you did on the past server WOULD effect the other two, with the final outcome is that when you progress to the future server you have a set time limit in which to do everything before you have to activate your time drive and return to the past. It was quite a design document ill tell you that.

However i dont think the time travel idea would ever be feasable and the programming requirements to effectivly have loads of different game types from first person shooter, to space combat to rts then finally 4x space combat. I was definatly younger back then to consider all those ideas as a mmo. and to implement the posibility it would run on all consoles of the time (n64, ps2, dreamcast, pc)

the point is that cryptic have a big design document somewhere that someone has written out from scratch they have gone over every single little idea with a fine tooth comb, they have asked the programmers if it is feasble they have asked the art if its doable. and in the end they have a deadline that the people who PAY them set. deadlines can move and most mmo companies now understand that a game can and will fail if its not playable or bugs exist that are unforgivable. however there comes a time when a company must put the game out and recoup some of that investments.

6 shield arcs and true 3d movmenet as well as barrell rolling and 3d interiors would be nice but im prepared to accept a game that is finished and working is easy to undersand and pick up, has a lot of depth and more importantly keeps me entertained. than have some amazing work of art that doesnt do anything well.

[redbeard1682]

Bridge Commander.

AI was pretty darn decent at controlling flight. If it can be done on a 2002 game it can be done on a 2010 game. And that goes for all the positions, too. My engineering officer should come up with a prioritized list of repairs automatically without me telling him. My tactical officer should automatically return fire in a firefight without me telling him. The AI can do it - I have seen it done - I have been bested many times by the AI.

Use the AI, Luke.........Let go, Luke...........Luke, Trust me.

Now that's not to say I shouldn't be able to jump in at any point and directly deal with it. That's where the Dev's failed on the "no multilayer on 1 ship". 2 people jockeying 1 ships systems - all of them around vice 1 doing all the work would be a great advantage and really put the team into teamwork.

The looping/rolling thing was so that it wouldn't be a dogfighter. :rolleyes: So they created a dogfighter where the dogs have leashes on. But that's neither here nor there..... :p

[Tech151]

I think that players should be able to take over the spots because Star trek is about team work and taking advice from crew members. That's how it should be in STO. Having NPCs is nice when you have no friends online or you want to do some solo questing but when it comes to PVP it would be awesome to share the battle with your friends on the bridge. Think of how much easier it would be to fly the ship and evade when not having to focus on attacking because your friend is handling the targeting and such. And then doing ship repairs during combat would be an awesome feature for your friend in engineering to tackle.