Fore and Aft??

[Verkruk]

Quoting from the ship equipment tab;
On a ship’s paperdoll is its fore and aft weapons, its deflector, its shields and its impulse engine. As players advance through the game, they’ll be able to acquire better items to equip to their ships.

Does this really mean that I will only have the two weapon placements options?
My forward pixel and my rearward pixel as my only hardpoints?

Is it really that difficult to program in multiple weapon hardpoints?
In SFC1, 2 and OP they were 'pre' equipped for us in various configurations that, if the time was taken, a player could learn to modify to some extent.
Then in SFC 3, we had the choice of picking which weapon types, engines, thrusters, armor, shield strength etc etc etc that we could put into predesignated spots.

Even ST Armada had 'multiple' hardpoints, that were in some cases visible.

BC managed to show us the that the charge up effect from federation phaser arrays was indeed possible, and very cool. (Not to mention very Trek)

StarCraft even has multiple hardpoints that can be visibly discerned.

I just don't get why the, imo, incredibly backward step in development.
The idiocy of it is incredible. A groundbreaking new game, on a revolutionary engine, having gone through multiple designers, and from what I have been lead to believe, some of the most talent designers and programmers ever collected... and you can't manage more then two weapon hardpoints!?

This is game breaking!
I guess I can understand the difficulty of placing a fully functional, non lag creating w/e, charge up effect or what some of us call the SDE. But only having 2 weapon placements?!

I frequent multiple gaming stores and a certain gaming cafe business.
These guys are all over the spectrum in the gaming industry, hard core gamers, relaxed gamers, angry games, old gamers, new gamers, those that prefer graphics over storyline, those that love the older games just because, those that can only play the latest and greatest.

Very few have not expressed some interest in STO.
But when I tell them and then show them that there are only 2 weapon placements, hardpoints, areas or whatever you want to call it... their interest in the game dies almost instantly.

So its not just me that is turned off almost instantly by this, again imo, very poor design choice, but many gamers, and not just in a certain area of gaming either.

I think we all can agree that if we want a game where there is only a single forward facing weapon hardpoint, we can go play Asteroid.


I am literally on my knees begging you Cryptic, do not limit where we can place weapons on our ships to just 2 points.

[Azurian]

You forgetting we were already explained that ships have both forward and aft mounted hardpoints. And the Arc of those hardpoints are determined by the type of weapon you have installed.

For instance, hardpoints with small arcs are stronger than those with larger arcs. But larger arcs give you better weapons coverage.

[Arokh72]

Fore and Aft is good enough. Look at most ships and you'll notice that there are several hardpoints on those fore and aft sections, also it maybe be broken further to saucer section (where relevant) and stardrive (or engineering) section, also there is upper and lower section of a ship. Remember the "sides" usually contain crew areas and nacelles as well as other hardpoints for docking, sensor arrays e.t.c. Most post TNG era ship board phaser systems have at least a 180 - 270 degree arc, covering port and starboard sections completely, think of the firing in 3d as in a dome over the array (limited to 180 - 270 degrees on the x and y axis). It is possible we may see some weaker phasers have a 360 degree arc.

[karl-just-karl]

I think the arcs range from 45-270. Might be a problem, might not. Might be too dumbed down, might not. Time will tell.

[ransomwk]

While we will be limited to only forward and aft hard-points, there are supposed to be weapons that have extremely wide firing arcs so that the sides are still covered. They've made it so that they can overlap, creating a broadside...which IMO is very much not trek.

Still, we must consider who we're dealing with. I am by no means an expert on cryptic, as I have never played any of their games, but I've been observing this game closely, and looking at previous projects of theirs. All of this has brought me to the conclusion that cryptic is very good at customization, but not making good game play. I hope I'm wrong, because the implication of me being right is that STO will look very good, and will allow every player to create a unique and distinct avatar right away, but give very limited options on what to do with that avatar once it's created.

[dudewhat]

You will have multiple Fore and multiple Aft weapons, so you can have both a phaserbank and torpedo launcher on the front of your ship. You are not limited to only one type of weapon on the front or back of your ship. And as others said some weapons have large arcs so you can still fire phasers when the enemy is off the side of your ship.

[Tamgros]

They also have the capability in their engine to put firing arcs at an angle.

ie, the 90 degree arc could potentially be pointed starboard or port and not forward or aft. This is pretty much the same thing as what you want, but it's easier for the common user. Kinda a best of both worlds IMO...

[KODudna]

I'm thinking that port and starboard phaser banks (for example) that are placed on the saucer section are included in "fore" weapons, and port and starboard banks on the secondary hull are included in "aft" weapons. And torpedoes are obvious, only fore and aft. No ship has torpedo broadsides ('cept maybe the Akira, but that is a debate that will never be concluded).

So no worries dude, all the weapons you'll ever need are covered. :D

[Faerlzress]

I believe it is based on the ship how many fore and aft weapon hard points there are. I could be wrong though. Also in terms of paper dolls they may simply call them fore and aft for game play consistency. But they didn't say that the arc of the weapon couldn't be tweaked a bit.

Also we have not see the paperdoll they are talking about. When I think of paperdolls I think of standard MMO character slots.

It will be interesting to see how it actually works in game.

[dr_truth]

With the arcs you get in forward and backward slots, you could actually be MORE effective by broadsiding your enemy since that puts them in line to both fore AND aft mounts if the arcs are wide enough, which has the same effect as having side weapon mounts maybe even more so effective.

Honestly i think you are overreacting over nothing because the lack of info/understanding of the game mechanics. So it sounds like you are disappointing people needlessly with false information :(

[Banar]

I'm not sure, but I think what the OP is saying is that he has doesn't want the weapon effects to emanate from the rearmost part of the ship, the frontmost part of the ship, or just from the exact middle. I.E. realistic points of origin/emanation points for beam weapons and torpedoes.

If this is the case, then all I can say is, I hope so too.

[Verkruk]

With the arcs you get in forward and backward slots, you could actually be MORE effective by broadsiding your enemy since that puts them in line to both fore AND aft mounts if the arcs are wide enough, which has the same effect as having side weapon mounts maybe even more so effective.

Honestly i think you are overreacting over nothing because the lack of info/understanding of the game mechanics. So it sounds like you are disappointing people needlessly with false information :(

The information that I am using is directly from this site.
The section that I quoted can be reached by anyone on this site, registered or not.

It clearly states fore and aft weapons slots on the paperdoll, and given what we have seen in the videos, I feel that it has been clearly backed up.

You forgetting we were already explained that ships have both forward and aft mounted hardpoints. And the Arc of those hardpoints are determined by the type of weapon you have installed.

For instance, hardpoints with small arcs are stronger than those with larger arcs. But larger arcs give you better weapons coverage.

This too is a bad idea.
You are penalizing me for getting smart coverage? :confused:
Where in Trek did we ever see a ship lose offensive power because it was capable of firing anywhere from 1 to 360 degrees?

I'm not sure, but I think what the OP is saying is that he has doesn't want the weapon effects to emanate from the rearmost part of the ship, the frontmost part of the ship, or just from the exact middle. I.E. realistic points of origin/emanation points for beam weapons and torpedoes.

If this is the case, then all I can say is, I hope so too.

You sir have hit the nail on the head, thank you.

[Azurian]

This too is a bad idea.
You are penalizing me for getting smart coverage? :confused:
Where in Trek did we ever see a ship lose offensive power because it was capable of firing anywhere from 1 to 360 degrees?

Hey, I'm just telling you what the Devs already told us.

[Ayradyss]

The quote from the Ship Equipment page is thus: "On a ship’s paperdoll is its fore and aft weapons, its deflector, its shields and its impulse engine."

The phrase, "its fore and aft weapons" is ambiguous. It does not specifically state ONE of each, it does not in any way preclude there being MULTIPLE fore and/or aft weapons. It simply states there will be fore and aft weapons slots. Anything more is you reading things into it that were not explicitly stated.

[Deadjester1]

My concern is that, the wider your weapon arc the weaker it is, which would make the Galaxy Class Starship have a weaker phaser by default. It has a massive arc. That kind of system just doesnt make sense.

Most combats will have allot of broadsides involved because of manovering to keep good shields facing the enemy as they take damage. The battle between Kirk and Khan was a very good example of a broadside.

Now Cryptic did mention once that as time progressed they may be adding side hard points, which I awesume if that happens. There will have to be a patch that will adjust several things and we may have to reequip our ships weapons to deal with it. Which is fine.

But it just bugs me that the wider the arc, the weaker it gets because of their lack of port and starboard hard points.

Large ships by default will need larger arcs do to their Lack of manoverability when dealing with much smaller ships then themselves, for example, Galaxy vs BoP.

Something to think about

[TruthSeer]

My concern is that, the wider your weapon arc the weaker it is, which would make the Galaxy Class Starship have a weaker phaser by default. It has a massive arc. That kind of system just doesnt make sense.

...

Something to think about

Larger ships also have more hard points. While something like the defiant might have two or three forward main weapon hard points (phasers, disruptors) a galaxy class can have like 5 -8, even bridge commander counted the weapons on the saucer section (top and bottom) as about 6 or 8 phaser arrays. This would account for why wider arcs are being made weaker than ones with shorter arcs.

[Daemonllama]

My concern is that, the wider your weapon arc the weaker it is, which would make the Galaxy Class Starship have a weaker phaser by default. It has a massive arc. That kind of system just doesnt make sense.

The wider weapon arc vs the narrower weapon arc was referring DIRECTLY to the weapon type, that is to say phasers have a wide arc, and powerful torpedoes have a narrow arc. That's it, chillax.

As far as we know there are no 'narrow arc uber phaser emiiter' for ships.

Disruptors, however, are a different matter.

I'm really starting to dislike this site...

[Faerlzress]

I'm not sure, but I think what the OP is saying is that he has doesn't want the weapon effects to emanate from the rearmost part of the ship, the frontmost part of the ship, or just from the exact middle. I.E. realistic points of origin/emanation points for beam weapons and torpedoes.

If this is the case, then all I can say is, I hope so too.

Yeah I hope things like the phaser circle spin on the Galaxy saucer is in. As well as actually firing from the hardpoints we have seen in the movies/tv shows.

[lordpenquin]

I'm really starting to dislike this site...

Usually what happens is that people that just play the game and enjoy it never come to the forums. If they did they would suddenly find out how broken their game is and how they can't possibly have any fun with it because something is "game breaking".

The more you read the forums the more you wind up hating the game. The less you read the forums the more you like the game. I'm just here killing time until the game comes out. Once it does I never intend to return for fear of having my illusion of a fun and wonderful online experience shattered.

It's almost a red pill / blue pill kind of thing...

only in reverse. The people playing the game are in the real world and the trolls in the forums live in a simulation of reality.

[Daemonllama]

Usually what happens is that people that just play the game and enjoy it never come to the forums. If they did they would suddenly find out how broken their game is and how they can't possibly have any fun with it because something is "game breaking".

The more you read the forums the more you wind up hating the game. The less you read the forums the more you like the game. I'm just here killing time until the game comes out. Once it does I never intend to return for fear of having my illusion of a fun and wonderful online experience shattered.

It's almost a red pill / blue pill kind of thing...

only in reverse. The people playing the game are in the real world and the trolls in the forums live in a simulation of reality.

Pravda, ochin priatna! (On a baseless assumption you are somehow russian)

I dislike the site less thanks to your post.

+1Rep for you good sir.

[scottage00]

Well if you look at the new video you can clearly see hardpoints on the Vo'Quv, and additionally the wider firing arc/weaker weapon is in keeping with the shows and movies. The main weapons are phasers, phaser cannons, and torpedoes and from what we've seen they do conform to that basic rule. Not to say that DS9s phasers are weaker than the peregrine's micro photons because they have a wider firing arc, but generally phasers are weaker than torpedoes.

If this wasn't the case it should still be implemented for tactical reasons, if you want full coverage of your ships firing arcs shouldn't you deal overall less damage than the guy with four sets of phaser cannons and torpedo bays all facing foreward?

[Verkruk]

Well if you look at the new video you can clearly see hardpoints on the Vo'Quv, and additionally the wider firing arc/weaker weapon is in keeping with the shows and movies. The main weapons are phasers, phaser cannons, and torpedoes and from what we've seen they do conform to that basic rule. Not to say that DS9s phasers are weaker than the peregrine's micro photons because they have a wider firing arc, but generally phasers are weaker than torpedoes.

If this wasn't the case it should still be implemented for tactical reasons, if you want full coverage of your ships firing arcs shouldn't you deal overall less damage than the guy with four sets of phaser cannons and torpedo bays all facing foreward?

This was recently brought to my attention and it does raise my spirits a bit.
Sadly, the Federation NX 91001 was still firing Phasers and Photons from the same hardpoint.
That is really was concerns me.

I have no reason to doubt that the game as a whole will be a remarkable game, but for myself, I cannot understand why they wouldn't place accurate hardpoints on a ship.

Multiple ships in some of the newest vids are seen firing from the tips of their nacelles, or the back of the pylons (not always inaccurate) or from other seemingly random place on the ship.

I apologize if my jumping of the gun and using the term 'gamebreaking' has somehow offended you.
But for me, that is a very hard thing to get over and is in fact 'gamebreaking,' at least for me.
2nd, if it doesn't concern you, worry you, or even trouble you in the least bit... why are you getting upset at it?

[scottage00]

Oh no, I'm not getting upset I was just trying to ease some fears about the game, there are a lot of people on this forum who are seem to be seconds away from either a heart attack or a picket line at Cryptic studios. The hardpoint issue really would concern me if I thought they wern't going to implement it. Personally I HATED how in the original Bridge commander all the ships fired from their bridge. I'll repeat that ALL WEAPONS FIRED FROM THE BRIDGE! It was insane! Luckily the Kobiashi Maru mod fixed that.

One of the coolest things about trek was seeing the phaser array light up with energy and then lance out at the enemy and it would really suck not to have that in the game. Just like that one episode "TNG:Darmok" I belive, where the ship shot a phaser out of the torpedo tubes.

[cocoa-jin]

This is the only simplification that didnt bug the crap out of me....you win this one Cryptic!:mad:

[Verkruk]

Oh no, I'm not getting upset I was just trying to ease some fears about the game, there are a lot of people on this forum who are seem to be seconds away from either a heart attack or a picket line at Cryptic studios. The hardpoint issue really would concern me if I thought they wern't going to implement it. Personally I HATED how in the original Bridge commander all the ships fired from their bridge. I'll repeat that ALL WEAPONS FIRED FROM THE BRIDGE! It was insane! Luckily the Kobiashi Maru mod fixed that.

One of the coolest things about trek was seeing the phaser array light up with energy and then lance out at the enemy and it would really suck not to have that in the game. Just like that one episode "TNG: Darmok" I belive, where the ship shot a phaser out of the torpedo tubes.

I don't want any picket lines, maybe some rocks ;) j/k
But I agree, firing from odd, inaccurate or just flat out wrong spots from the ship is about as annoying as it gets.
And personally I don't see myself being able to enjoy a game where that was the case.

And I agree, it would be freaking amazing if they implemented the phaser charge up effect.
While conversely, it would suck seeing yet another ST game that didn't have that very iconic effect in it.

[Lendosan]

You want Rocks?:
http://rockspwnriker.ytmnd.com/

I just hope that phasers fire from phaser banks and torpedoes from launchers. Be a really bad effect to have everything firing from one point fore and aft. :(

[scottage00]

For sure everything wont be coming from one point on the front and one point on the back, the gameplay vids already show that. And what they have shown is pretty realistc, see the Negh'Var firing from it's wingtips. And as for the Vo'Quv shooting from random points all over the hull...well the Klingons are very fond of that kind of thing, especially in the DS9 episodes.

[Cptprev]

For sure everything wont be coming from one point on the front and one point on the back, the gameplay vids already show that. And what they have shown is pretty realistc, see the Negh'Var firing from it's wingtips. And as for the Vo'Quv shooting from random points all over the hull...well the Klingons are very fond of that kind of thing, especially in the DS9 episodes.

exactly what I was thinking....

you kind of have to remember that as the Federation we are explorers and not warriors so weapon hard points may also be affected by lore in that case whereas Klingons are a warrior race thier ships may indeed be better equiped via thier weapon hard points but its all down to the developers guys and tbh we should wait and see how it turns out before we come to any debate/conclusions.

[s0ulsurvivor]

Ditto on the topic of making sure the weapons shoot from the right places. I can't imagine them screwing that up though. It would make for pretty lame looking combat.

[Cptprev]

Ditto on the topic of making sure the weapons shoot from the right places. I can't imagine them screwing that up though. It would make for pretty lame looking combat.

I agree the combat would just look simply lame but as I said in my previous post we should just wait and see because there is a small chance that devs will pay attention to this or are already sorting it and discussing it.

[Blademaven]

I'm thinking that port and starboard phaser banks (for example) that are placed on the saucer section are included in "fore" weapons, and port and starboard banks on the secondary hull are included in "aft" weapons. And torpedoes are obvious, only fore and aft. No ship has torpedo broadsides ('cept maybe the Akira, but that is a debate that will never be concluded).

So no worries dude, all the weapons you'll ever need are covered. :D

I hope this is correct because I believe a large part of the strategy of this game will be manueverability even if cryptic says they dont want 'dogfights'. That being said where you place weapons and what mixes you have in each arc could be crucial. I however think we should be able to mount torp broadsides if you want to try it. A simple system to keep someone from loading their hull with torps would be to differentiate the mounts on a pt system.
1pt mount- phaser
2pt mount- 2 phasers or 1 photon launcher or 1 phaser aray

maybe something like that . . .

[Verkruk]

I hope this is correct because I believe a large part of the strategy of this game will be manueverability even if cryptic says they dont want 'dogfights'. That being said where you place weapons and what mixes you have in each arc could be crucial. I however think we should be able to mount torp broadsides if you want to try it. A simple system to keep someone from loading their hull with torps would be to differentiate the mounts on a pt system.
1pt mount- phaser
2pt mount- 2 phasers or 1 photon launcher or 1 phaser aray

maybe something like that . . .

The easiest way to do that is to create accurate hardpoints for those weapons, and then classify those spaces as heavy weapons, beam weapons, special weapons, unique system/weapons.

They have already done it in SFC: OP.
The wireframe and base programming had a pre-set weapon definition for certain slots.
While in SFC: OP I could ignore or change that soft code, they could change it in STO and make it permanent.

[scottage00]

Yup, they've said that ships will have different slots for different weapons. Like how escorts can equip cannons and cruisers will have extra beam slots because they have more surface area.

[Vorus]

Verkruk, as you probably remember, I share your exact concern. But I've been watching the vids and screencaps, and it seems like things are getting better. I've noticed several Starfleet ships actually firing phaser from the phaser arrays, (Sadly, still without SDEs of course, but it's an improvement.) and most notably, the Negh'Var is the recent videos fired weapons from the wingtip cannons and the under-slung pods, so they got the HPs right in that case at least.

I think the instances of ships firing from their "nose" and "tail" are just remnants of pre-beta setups. They seem to know where ships should be firing from, so I can't imagine them leaving it with such ridiculous firing points for release.

But I still support your thread on principle.