A question of Navigation

[bsharpe]

How do we think they will implement this? Would you like to see full sectors and coordinates typed in from the keyboard? Or do you think it will be more like select an object from a map and warp too. Wait a few minutes maybe even seconds and then you arrive?

Also how big would you like the "Star Treck" universe to be? Would you like to see Waypoints out to some where remote like DS9, or would you be happy with a 2 minute warp non stop out to somewhere like DS9?

[Exezer]

It should be both ...if someone wanted to get technical they could and if they wanted to travel easily they should get the option.

Also the Verse should be as big as it is in Star Trek....even bigger if it makes more of an impact.

[Sorbek]

How do we think they will implement this? Would you like to see full sectors and coordinates typed in from the keyboard? Or do you think it will be more like select an object from a map and warp too. Wait a few minutes maybe even seconds and then you arrive?

Also how big would you like the "Star Treck" universe to be? Would you like to see Waypoints out to some where remote like DS9, or would you be happy with a 2 minute warp non stop out to somewhere like DS9?

I would say no on the keyboard types coordinates...would like to pick a star cluster and it show me the way points for the course that's plotted. Would like the option also pick a route that did or didn't go through "pvp" zones if I'm not using a transwarp conduit.

The universe will be forever expanding that much is certain. So I don't expect travel to DS9 from Earth taking that long. Maybe 8-10 minutes..A lot of people are against having to travel for longer than that to get anywhere in a game.

[bsharpe]

It should be both ...if someone wanted to get technical they could and if they wanted to travel easily they should get the option.

Also the Verse should be as big as it is in Star Trek....even bigger if it makes more of an impact.

Although i think that both methods of the co-ordinate system could be implemented. You will be very lucky indeed to get the full universe. It takes weeks to get to DS9, i seriously cannot see them doing that. That would be hardcore lol

[Exezer]

Ehh thats why they need to make it somewhat more ejoyable to travel in that long of a distance ...i mean come on there will be a holodeck to keep you company and maybe amuse you enough till the end of the trip.

Also im hoping they will make it so you can really have a conversation with your crew mates maybe on deck floor or on other decks that are not traveled alot really.

[Sorbek]

Ehh thats why they need to make it somewhat more ejoyable to travel in that long of a distance ...i mean come on there will be a holodeck to keep you company and maybe amuse you enough till the end of the trip.

Also im hoping they will make it so you can really have a conversation with your crew mates maybe on deck floor or on other decks that are not traveled alot really.


As much as I would love to do all of this stuff and have semi realistic travel times as an option I realize that I'm in the minority on this. Most people do not have the time or just don't want to wait that long to travel to a place.

[Exezer]

You wouldnt be waiting to get to the destination.. you would be playing the game and also getting things done or working on your battle plan or many other things..also you could be taking care of you ship mates or many other things ....crafting for instanced.

[marscentral]

I really don't think there's enough to do on a starship to justify a journey taking 3 or 4 real life days (or longer!). While I agree travel from one end of the quadrant to another should not be instantaneous, I really think I should be tracking it on my watch not my calendar.

In terms of actual navigation, something similar to Mass Effect (but with an LCARS graphic) would be pretty cool.

[Exezer]

I dont mean that long of a time to wait ...i mean like MMO wait time like 5 to 10 mins or alittle more .....yea right like ill wait a day or 2 to travel to a place.

They also were talking about warp gates so im thinking thats one thing that is going to help of the times.

[Bretticus]

Dont want to get into the warpspeed/realtime debate, its been done to death IMO, but I would imagine seeing its going to be a PC and Console game there will be a point and click on map to warp interface, although I think it would be great if it was coords entered via the keyboard, would make if more realistic to the ST ships.

[Zyrious]

Probably be some kind of Menu where you see a graphical display of the sectors you can travel to. As to the layout in the game, thinking in realistic MMO terms, i'm thinking what you'll have is a set of transwarp gates/corridors that lead to certain parts of the Quadrant, and each one has a couple of sectors that are traversable. The exception being unknown space, which may use a instance/Procedurally generated system for a large set of worlds for people to discover. Its possible, when you take the Transwarp to the "Unexplored" sectors, you enter an instance that then generates random solarsystems/sectors for you to explore. And they will probably only include a few key points deep in federation/klingon space for use as hubs. The rest being Neutral Zone sectors, and sectors behind the neutral zone for each faction.

That's my "Realistic" feeling of how they're going to handle the mechanics and layout of it all for this MMO. Could be wrong.

[Saladin_Class]

As much as I would love to do all of this stuff and have semi realistic travel times as an option I realize that I'm in the minority on this. Most people do not have the time or just don't want to wait that long to travel to a place.


New MMOs are coming out sith travel in real time. Yes you will be able to fly a month or two in any one direction, to get away from it all.

I am waiting to see a X,Y,Z compass and how many noobs wont be able to leave SOL, for they cant figure out where 225, mark 45 is.


I know for a fact there are space MMOs out there that use this type of navigation.

Let see if STO has what it takes

[Trekkie]

I think that navigation will be a combination of both of the ideas presented in the first post. I do think that navigating a ship will be somewhat streamlined in order to make the game more accessible, but I think that there will be a lot of options with regard to possible destinations.

[Saladin_Class]

How do we think they will implement this? Would you like to see full sectors and coordinates typed in from the keyboard?


No they want the kids to be alble to play too.



Or do you think it will be more like select an object from a map and warp too. Wait a few minutes maybe even seconds and then you arrive?



Warp speed will be like JTL, splash screen and you are there

Also how big would you like the "Star Treck" universe to be? Would you like to see Waypoints out to some where remote like DS9, or would you be happy with a 2 minute warp non stop out to somewhere like DS9?[/QUOTE]

Only serious players would enjoy flight in real time, with the possiblity of being pulled out of warp.

How big, no one knows. The technology is here ot make in near endless, but I figure it will be scaled down so folks dont get lost in space.

[Merius]

This is how I would want it.

Earth to DS9 - Travel Time 160 Hours - Real Time

Two options are given to you to select.
Option1: Warp Speed - Do things on your ship while the countdown timer says 159.99 and gets lower.
Option2: Instantly Arrive at DS9 - Ingame clock tells you that your characters spent a week waiting, you didn't.


If you opt for Option 1 - at anytime you can go to the navagation console and select option 2 to instantly get there.

However - I would try not to do this as much, because while I'm traveling at Warp Speed - my communications officer may say "Captain, we are picking up a distress call" My Tactical Officer may say "Captain, we are picking up weapons fire off the starbord bow" My Ops officer may say "Captain, I'm reading an annomoly 5000 meters away, should we alter course and investigate?"


For those reasons! I would go with Option 1 - but if the timer says I've waited 20 hours and nothing has happend, I might just say, "click" option 2.


Best!

Merius

[Merius]

Sorry, Internet fluk

[OrabIbo]

Considering LCARS systems were still pretty user friendly, Why would it be so difficult as entering the coordinates by hand?. You enter in a search for the location you want to go to, computer pulls up coordinates for it's location, and you Go! It doesn't really have to be more technical than that, unless you want to go places that the computer isn't preprogrammed to go.

In this case why not just point and click. The only need for percise coordinates is if you want to meet up with someone.
Then percise coordinates are necessary otherwise, depending at what scale you are looking on the map you could be anywhere from 1-50 light years off! And never end up meeting one another!

[ValkerOmega]

i dont think itll take that long to get to one place place or another with warp, that would be one of the things like flying in wow, it gets you there really fast compared to walking, but walking, or flying impulse, would literally take forever.

im more interested in how movement will be handled in combat, will it be like eve where we just set a distance from the target ship and fly in circles, or will our ships actually be flying around each other trying to get an advantage?

[Silverspar]

If I had to sit for 160 hours to get somewhere, I would never play this game. I'm sorry, but I don't have that kind of job,a nd I am not being paid to play the game. A game is meant to be fun and entertaining, and I really can't understand the people that think the Star Trek experience should be about the wait in between the moments.

[Merius]

If I had to sit for 160 hours to get somewhere, I would never play this game. I'm sorry, but I don't have that kind of job,a nd I am not being paid to play the game. A game is meant to be fun and entertaining, and I really can't understand the people that think the Star Trek experience should be about the wait in between the moments.

I never said you had to, I said you had 2 options:

First Option: spend the time to travel
Second Option: get there instantly.

Whats wrong with having the choice to go the distance? and the choice to get their instantly?

I want both...

[Kinjiru]

I never said you had to, I said you had 2 options:

First Option: spend the time to travel
Second Option: get there instantly.

Whats wrong with having the choice to go the distance? and the choice to get their instantly?

I want both...

I think I prefer a third method.

We've know that we'll have Impulse drive for sublight maneuvering, Warp for intersystem travel, and Transwarp Conduits (TWCs) for larger distances.

What I'd like to see is sublight and warp speed is handled realtime, but long distances would be through the TWC's. Working gameplay mechanic would probably have space divided up into sectors, where Warp travel would be possible realtime within each sector (read as Server node) but travel between sectors would have to take place via said TWCs and some form of cutscene/loading sequence, to give your machine time to load the new sector.

But that's just a theory. :)

[Sullen]

In WoW, travel time from one end of a continent to the other (using a flight path) would be about 20 mins. That's from Darnassus to somewhere around Un'guro Crater. I think that travel time should be 1 min at the shortest, and 30 min at the longest (one end of the entire map to the other).

[OzzyNF]

I think it will be just as simple as ordering your helmsman to set a course for "enter place here" ala bridge commander, but I agree that if you want to do it yourself, you should be able too.

I think there should be no instancing included in STO. You shouldn't go instantly from one place to another. I think I saw somewhere that there will be travel time. I think this is essential bc you may pick up a distress call enroute or so intercept a klingon attack on a federation vessel, etc. Travel time is something thats gotta be integrated into the game. Cryptic has already said there will be travel time, but have not commented further. They also said that there will be trans warp conduits and wormholes around as will to make some of the longer travel times, a little shorter.

[Sullen]

I hope they have detailed looking star charts. :P

[OrabIbo]

In WoW, travel time from one end of a continent to the other (using a flight path) would be about 20 mins. That's from Darnassus to somewhere around Un'guro Crater. I think that travel time should be 1 min at the shortest, and 30 min at the longest (one end of the entire map to the other).

I agree with ya here, And even when using the Trans Warp Conduits. It still takes up to 30mins to hop to one part of the galaxy to the other.

But if you make the choice to travel by foot or Impulse/Warp it can take hours depending on how you traverse space. Do you make a straight bee line towards the destination? (which in most MMO's is nearly impossible because of the high level aggros between here and there.)
Or meander around taking the safest route.

And I wonder if Warping will be totally safe, meaning no way you can get attacked. Or is it possible to get intercepted and forced to drop out of Warp?

I would prefer the latter. Giving NPC's and enemy PvP PC the ability to drop you out of Warp will make things interesting and engaging. There will of course need to be measures taken to prevent greifing with this. Such as you should be able to be given the choice to fight or flee. Not be stuck in a fight that is hopeless for you to win.

Which often happened in EvE with their Warp Jammers. And Pirates PC players would often prey on Miners or ppl just traveling from one system to another. The thing about EvE though is you HAD to use the gates. Star Trek can give you the option to not use the games and warp from anywhere! As long as you don't mind taking a little longer to travel a safer route!

[Silverspar]

In WoW, travel time from one end of a continent to the other (using a flight path) would be about 20 mins. That's from Darnassus to somewhere around Un'guro Crater. I think that travel time should be 1 min at the shortest, and 30 min at the longest (one end of the entire map to the other).

Actually I will disagree with you. Travel time was one of the biggest turn offs in WoW. Because all the important places you needed to go would take you half an hour to get to, not including the excess travel of mounted, that just flight time, not including continent hopping which can add even more time depending on your load times.

Quite frankly, 30 minutes is a lot of time especially to casual gamers and should not, ever, require a player to eat up up to half of a casual players time in the game. If someone has an hour or two of playtime the last thing they are going to want to do is spend most of it looking at a star field. I'm sorry to all the people that believe 30 minutes is fair travel time, it's not.

[Sullen]

Actually I will disagree with you. Travel time was one of the biggest turn offs in WoW. Because all the important places you needed to go would take you half an hour to get to, not including the excess travel of mounted, that just flight time, not including continent hopping which can add even more time depending on your load times.

Quite frankly, 30 minutes is a lot of time especially to casual gamers and should not, ever, require a player to eat up up to half of a casual players time in the game. If someone has an hour or two of playtime the last thing they are going to want to do is spend most of it looking at a star field. I'm sorry to all the people that believe 30 minutes is fair travel time, it's not.

Instantly getting to places kind of takes away the "vastness" of it all, so I prefer longer times. I never minded it in WoW because I would just go afk during flight.

[OzzyNF]

Actually I will disagree with you. Travel time was one of the biggest turn offs in WoW. Because all the important places you needed to go would take you half an hour to get to, not including the excess travel of mounted, that just flight time, not including continent hopping which can add even more time depending on your load times.

Quite frankly, 30 minutes is a lot of time especially to casual gamers and should not, ever, require a player to eat up up to half of a casual players time in the game. If someone has an hour or two of playtime the last thing they are going to want to do is spend most of it looking at a star field. I'm sorry to all the people that believe 30 minutes is fair travel time, it's not.

I tend to agree with sullen here. Travel time is necessary and will be in the game and thats fact. I don't think it will be hours by any means but I believe its the players' choice to take the safe route or the quickest as long as its not the only route.

In star trek there is lots of things to do enroute..... repairs, distress call, giving another user aid after a battle. There is alot to do enroute if you wanted to so I think its necessary and besides I believe Cryptic said that travel time will be in game.

[Vicelance]

I think there needs to be travel times for no other reason than battles. If someone can get into a fight with an NPC or PC ship and summon friends from the other side of the Galaxy fights between two ships would turn into fleet battles as players called their friends to join the fight in PVP zones, and if someone picks a fight with an NPC they can't beat they would just call allies who could be there in an instant.


In the event of a Borg cube players should have to communicate and try to intercept it in a system where a majority of them can get there before the cube. Not just warp to the location where the cube was spotted and everyone arrive at the same time.

[Sullen]

I think there needs to be travel times for no other reason than battles. If someone can get into a fight with an NPC or PC ship and summon friends from the other side of the Galaxy fights between two ships would turn into fleet battles as players called their friends to join the fight in PVP zones, and if someone picks a fight with an NPC they can't beat they would just call allies who could be there in an instant.


In the event of a Borg cube players should have to communicate and try to intercept it in a system where a majority of them can get there before the cube. Not just warp to the location where the cube was spotted and everyone arrive at the same time.

A wonderful idea, and just one of the reasons I'd prefer having travel times. :P

[Silverspar]

Instantly getting to places kind of takes away the "vastness" of it all, so I prefer longer times. I never minded it in WoW because I would just go afk during flight.

I never said instant, but I shouldn't spend half an hour staring at my monitor waiting. Sorry you feel that the vastness of space is more important than the fun in the game, but I tend to disagree with any point that will try to enforce such a view over fun any day.

[OzzyNF]

like i said before I am sure there will be much to do enroute

[Sullen]

I never said instant, but I shouldn't spend half an hour staring at my monitor waiting. Sorry you feel that the vastness of space is more important than the fun in the game, but I tend to disagree with any point that will try to enforce such a view over fun any day.

I'm sure travel times wouldn't be 30+ min every flight, that's just one side of the quadrant to another. You'll move to new zones as you get a better ship/higher rank, so you'll likely log out at the part of the map that is most important to you.

Keep in mind that realism is an important part of the fun in the game, too. Obviously things being TOO real would take away from the game, but I think my description of flight time is reasonable.

Maybe you can enter a transwarp conduit, log out, and then come back 30 min later. There are always solutions that would be reasonable to everyone. =D

[Sullen]

like i said before I am sure there will be much to do enroute

And what he said...

[Silverspar]

I'm sure travel times wouldn't be 30+ min every flight, that's just one side of the quadrant to another. You'll move to new zones as you get a better ship/higher rank, so you'll likely log out at the part of the map that is most important to you.

Keep in mind that realism is an important part of the fun in the game, too. Obviously things being TOO real would take away from the game, but I think my description of flight time is reasonable.

Maybe you can enter a transwarp conduit, log out, and then come back 30 min later. There are always solutions that would be reasonable to everyone. =D

30 minutes would still be too long. You have to remember, that a good portion of the playerbase will have limited time to play, at most two hours. Them spending 30 minute blocks travelling from one extreme to another, especially in later stages of the game, would be too much for most casual players with limited time, especially since we don't know how the mission set up alone would be.

Travel times should take a few minutes, not instant, but 30 minutes, again, just too much time. Furthermore we don't know if there will be anything to do en route at all.

[OzzyNF]

He means 30 mins to cross the whole galaxy. That is not unreasonable in my estimation. I don't know why you won't let this go, you make some good points but again there will be things to do while your travelling I am pretty sure of it. You may even find some side mission type things on the way.

[Silverspar]

He means 30 mins to cross the whole galaxy. That is not unreasonable in my estimation. I don't know why you won't let this go, you make some good points but again there will be things to do while your travelling I am pretty sure of it. You may even find some side mission type things on the way.

Because Star Trek is about going to new worlds and new civilizations. Defining plenty to do is one thing, finding a mission on the way, that's another. Considering in WoW the amount of time it could take to travelt one place to another as well, espeically since you had to discover the flight paths first. That was one of the worst aspects of WoW. Furthermore, for late gameplay, or end game as it is often called, the travel times to those end game points became longer and longer everytime. Especially considering that places of commerce were in the big cities. So you could end up spending a lot of time travelling instead of actually playing the game in WoW.

Honestly, that's just not fun. Everyone is also making an assumption that there will be something to do from point A to point B. What exactly do you think there will be to do? Random distress signals everytime you warp would end up becoming old hat honestly, and would start striking of just filler. After you've saved your 40th freighter from the Romulan neutral zone how many more times would you divert yourself to do that again?

Then remember that there are going to be trans-warp hubs and worm holes. So all in all, I would rather stick to reasonable travel times that doesn't involve eye-strain staring at the screen watching a starfield go by as head towards a destination. And like it or not, there are going to be points that you need to go to a main starbase or spacedock to conduct trade and such, and I doubt Deep Space stations will provide that hub.

[OzzyNF]

we don't know ne thing about our ships' interior yet, maybe you could go to the holodeck, give the engineer a hand in engineering, maybe something breaks on the ship, you can't just assume to be looking out the window, lol, come on u really think the developers haven't thought about this. they already said that there will be some travel time so i am sure they will give the option of keeping busy if you want it.

[k.mpok]

I would like to see warp handled by a Point-click style system off a map for insta-warp to a new sector. In the same way I would hope for an input type system for movement within a sector.

As for the size of the vers I am hope for a huge system where you hardly run into another player. The further you get away from you home sector the less populated it should be. As for travel time I am hoping for a somewhat lengthy trip, ONLY if there is stuff to do while in route. I would be happy with a 20-30 min trip from sector 001 to the furthest system. This may seem extreme but its not when you consider the size of vrse. That 20-30 min trip should be from Alpha to Delta Quadrant (once in game somewhere down the road). A 5-10min trip from sector 001 (Earth) furthest boarder to Beta/Gamma.

Remember most of what we will see upon release will mostly be of the Alpha Quadrant. Remember most of ToS, TNG, and ENT all took place in the Alpha Quadrant.

[OzzyNF]

i don't think warp should be instant, there should be warp time and it should be included in travel time.

[Omega1]

i think either would be fine aslong as its done correctly

[simply]

I think there will be the map or xyz coordinates to insert.

In box game we may get the full map of the alpha quadrant. :)

[bsharpe]

I also believe there has to be travel time, and quiet a bit of it too. I think silverspar points can be easily addressed by not traveling from one side of the quadrant to the other in one go. A sort of system hop, where you can jump for a couple of minutes and be at a nearby system from where you came from. It wopuld do nothing for the immersion factor if you could cross the quadrant in a few minutes. Also, as One player has said previously, if you get attacked by NPC or another player no way should you be able to hold out on the edge of the quadrant whilst friends arrive from sector 001 to your aid.

I would also like to see both forms of co-ordinate systems implemented.

[V_GER]

Both forms is logical.
End message.

[bitgolem]

Well, since navigation in space is not really about going in a straight line from one place to another. I think you should either enter your destination by coordinates, or select a known destination from a list in the navigational computer, and then the optimum course to that destination is displayed on the navigational star chart. You can either engage that route, or manually select another for whatever reason (Captain, the most direct route to Sirius Prime takes us dangerously close to a Type 3 pulsar.)

[OrabIbo]

30 minutes would still be too long. You have to remember, that a good portion of the playerbase will have limited time to play, at most two hours. Them spending 30 minute blocks travelling from one extreme to another, especially in later stages of the game, would be too much for most casual players with limited time, especially since we don't know how the mission set up alone would be.

Travel times should take a few minutes, not instant, but 30 minutes, again, just too much time. Furthermore we don't know if there will be anything to do en route at all.

kay seriously, how often would you need to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other? Most quests and missions pertain to a single zone/sector. Possibly expanding out to 5 or so that you can get to fairly instantly.

In fact Warping really complicates things. And it's a big question mark in many ppls minds. As ppl usually think of Warping as, star streaking by and pretty much nothing else happens.

There is a multitude of things that "could" happen while at warp. I can see dangerous areas of space where NPC's will aggro you and attempt to try to drop you out of warp. Thus it may be prudent to avoid these areas of space if you don't wish to get stopped there, as it can slow down your progress. Or you could come across the occasional spatial anomolies that can drop you out of warp and have strange effects on your ship.

All in all, you also don't want these instances happening everytime you travel. Otherwise you have the frustrating early RPG syndrom where you walk a few feet and get a encounter and fight the same boss characters over and over until you get to your destination. :P bah! nobody wants that.

So there obviously needs to be plenty of things to do ship side. Little quick things crafting on your ship, or manging your warp field to obtain faster Warp speeds to shorten your time in warp. Or maybe a game of 3D chess?!

It's hard to say how they will handle travel in STO?

Will they allow us to steer while at warp? Will you view a stellar map to avoid NPC ships that might aggro you?
Will we see spatial bodies fly by as we Warp through the game, or will it be a series of stars streaking by no matter where we warp to?

To me Warping sounds boring unless there are things to do. On the other hand Typical travel times in most all MMO's to get to the most extreme areas of the game. From one side to the other typically take 30mins.

A few areas always have exceptions because they are high level content. So I can see NPC's that are higher level than you aggroing you and forcing you to drop out of warp, while lower lvl NPC's are there but are unable to bother you. And even still there will be special NPC's that roam even in low level areas that if encountered can give the most experienced players a challenge. These are the Elites/Notorious Monsters/ Legendary NPC's that typically have a newbie running through a zone calling for help! hehe

Borg, would be a great example.

STO is definately unique and it will be very challenging for them to find a good balance. But I doubt traveling anywhere will be more or to much less than 30mins. And as they add expansions and more space, They will strategically place Trans Warp conduits that are evenly spaced so that the travel time don't exceed much more than 30mins.

Where is the challenge if you can get anywhere in the game in less than 10mins? All games will run out of quests that you can get to quickly and you will have to travel further.
yet many times can you do a quest in the same area before it starts to feel like grinding? and you want to move elsewhere? It's really hard to say.

[bobh]

Astrogation lab ftw.

[Merius]

Do people really want to travel? I mean seriously.. isn't it better just to stay where you are?

Safer too?

[OrabIbo]

Do people really want to travel? I mean seriously.. isn't it better just to stay where you are?

Safer too?

That seems like a pretty silly question to ask of STO. Especially coming from someone that has a signature "To boldly go..." If you aren't going anywhere, Where can you go?

To me if you are going to get a big fancy ship with a whole universe to explore, I better be able to explore it!

I do wonder though how the galaxy will be laid out, how they will provide endless exploration, and given the fact you can Warp anywhere. How long does it take to get places by warp and what can you do while you are at warp?

They could do what they did with EvE, But for good god, if your gonna have several hops to get from one side of the galaxy to the other! Give me something else to do besides look at my ship warp from one gate to another! :P Sure I can get intercepted, and at times it was a welcome relief from traveling! but only if I had not decided to go AFK when traveling.

There seriously shouldn't be much of a reason for me to go AFK just to go to Warp.