Sector space makes sense, just need some tweaking

[Pendra37]

In a perfect world you would have a Massive Huge BIIIIIIG map which contains the whole universe. You could roam around freely. Set your direction and fly into the void. WW2 Online managed to do something like that. They created a persistent 1/2 scale representation western Europe. You spawn at a city and you can wander around for days and go whereever you feel. You move around without load screens and interact with other people (ie shoot them or run them over). You can talk to anyone, no instancing etc etc. But that is a different game and all not that popular among the casual players. That may be due to the fact that it is mind numningly boring to walk 30 minutes from a base to a town just to get shot in a sec... Huge world vs smaller instances 0:1

In STO you have 2 drives with WASTLY different maximum speed. It takes minutes to cross a Normal space instance on impulse, and a split second on warp. Since you can't make the maps larger and you can't make the warp slower STO introduce the Sector (Warp) space, which changes the map scale to compensate for the extremely high speed. This makes perfect sense!
This is good, but, right now, 1 sector space = 20-30 fixed map instances + random missions at random times. So this sector space still feels like confined place.

Here are my proposals about sector space:

Warp Space in general

- Rename sector space to Warp Space
- Remove the „highways”, the „lollypop sticks”, the grid and the „sector end tables” and the "Holo" glow.
- Optionally, make it a little less blue/green/red. That would feel more like space.
- Scale down every Warp space model by 1/10, but keep the speed as it is now. This will add a more "massive" feeling to it.
- You DON'T always move in Warp space. You can stand still in a warp bubble. You can change your speed (warp 0-warp 10) normally.
- If you go near the map border you would receive a visible warning like „you are about to enter xy sector”. If you hit the wall of the sector (or an other perimeter), you will be moved to the other map sector. No questions asked. You don't experience the walls anymore and you will feel like in open space. Best part is, you still haven't changed any current game mech, but still made an impact.

The Warp Space expanded

- If you hit the Drop out of warp button, you drop out of warp. A random deep space instance map loads up. The map may be completely random.
In game mechanics terms, it is almost the same as the "Enter the bridge" instance, but you spawn your starship into space, not yourself into the bridge. That instance may not be visible on the Warp Space but you should be able to invite others (like you do in a bridge instance).
This instance is NOT necesseraly an encounter or mission instance! It may load an EMPTY map and You don’t need to do anything in paticular there.
You can drop out of warp when and where you want to. With this change, you will feel you are in a trully infinite space, because you never know what map the next spatial grid may bring up. (most likely nothing, but who knows...).
You can boldly stop where noone stopped before! Immersion on a new level.

True exploration and Persistent Battlefield in Warp Space

What if the map, loaded upon dropping out of warp was not completely random. Instead it would come from a big global spatial grid database table? That table may hold the following data fields
- Sector coordinates (current pos data) truncated down to maybe the 10s, so you won't have 10s of millions of spatial grids in a sector but enogh to keep us happy for years.
- Map to load: Empty/Black hole/Hidden treasure/1st contact/Planet aid...
- Explorer of the system (1st people to drop out there)
- Current ownership
- Economy value
- Personally owned starbases present

The "Explorer of the system" would trully add some immersion to the exploration part. You would add a small UI box, which displays the current spatial grid coordinates AND you may display the Explorer's name, too (or uncharted). The Explorers would be remembered forewer, or until you reset the galaxy. You would be able to visit the planets and sites you charted over and over. Drop by to see how they are doing. You may have a chain of stories to help the same planet. Etc... Persistent exploration

Now to the "Current ownership" That would be the perfect persistent battlefield. Very similar to the SFC3 but better. PVP would really mean something. You fly to a spatial grid that is not yours, you can contest it by creating a "Fleet staging area", which is basically a PVP request. If no enemy player shows up within the minute, you are transferred into a single player instance with objectives like blowing up 5 beacons/phaser turrets or capturing an outpost or planet within 5 minuts. Alternatively, convert the Economy value into Defense value. The higher the value the thougher the single player mission. If you win the grid is yours. To coutner this, fleets would need to constantly patrol the area to defend contested grids. At the same time, other fleets would need to make incursions and gain space. If one side holds enough grids, for an hour, the campaign is over and the map is reset (compromise truce signed). BTW you may not contest a sector, which does not have a neighbouring friendly sector, so you can't pop up in the middle of the nowhere and cap unprotected spatial grids.

Finally the "Economic value". This is where player owned starships and planet colonization came into place. Build starbases to boost your side's economy. That may result cheaper ships or whatever. You may create colonies and help them through a series of Aid the planet missions to increase the Economy value of the grid. All in all, build Economic value is about you, building the empire.

End result, Practically INFINITE space which adds True Exploration content and Persistent War sector at the same time => NEAT END CONTENT. WW2Online has little more that the persistent war setting and they are doing fine after 9 years.
The benefits are clear, the work requirements are minimal on the basic level and no game mech change at all so there is no risk. If someone doesn't like the new features he doesn't have to use them at all.
But the persistent war sector and the infinite space exploration and persistent empire building would still be hell of a marketing buzzwords.
I think that would really bring this game around.

[attilio]

First, its Warp 1 through Warp 9.99. Warp 10 is infinite velocity where a ship (or whatever is traveling at that speed) can occupy every single point in the universe at the same exact time. No vessel goes that fast, yet.

I like what you did with the code, though I doubt Cryptic needs that lol. What I think we need is an option where players can choose between a sector space, console type look (similar to what we have now) or a warp look where it seems like we are actually going through space.

As for stopping and dropping out of warp with a random deep space instance I say NO NO NO NO NO. What if I want to stop for a moment to change equipment? I have to wait for this loading screen to do it, then when I want to continue warping I need another loading screen? That's just a bad idea.

[Pendra37]

Kirk in TOS travelled at warp 12 and I think at warp 16, too in an episode . I recall reading somewhere that the ships in STO time period can travel at warp 12. Doesn't make any difference, thou.

Loading screens, it takes between 1-4 secs to load up anything on my comp so I don't find it problematic. But if you do, then just don't stop when you reconfigure your ship just travell at crawl speed. Or do it while in normal space.
Point is, drop out if and when YOU want to drop out (or when attacked, but that is a different story).
IMHO it would feel awkward to see a starship standing still while speeding at warp speed, that is why I thought stopping = dropping out of warp. But a "Drop out of warp" button would work just as well.

As for the code, it may be easier to explain to fellow IT developers.

[TFO_KillSwitch]

in closed bata this was worked over agin and agin . and here is y
it is supsed to be like 7of9 astrometrics lab
One particular example is the astrometrics lab on the USS Voyager, . Astrometrics was used for charting stars, planets, nebulae, and other stellar bodies. It contained a large wraparound holographic wall screen which could display a stellar region three dimensionally. There were a series of control panels to manipulate the screen.

[Akido37]

Originally Posted by attilio

First, its Warp 1 through Warp 9.99. Warp 10 is infinite velocity where a ship (or whatever is traveling at that speed) can occupy every single point in the universe at the same exact time. No vessel goes that fast, yet.

This is from Star Trek Voyager.

In TOS, ships like the Excelsior traveled faster than Warp 10. According to lore, they changed the Warp scale to match these new speeds, so Warp 10 was unreachable.

In TNG, specifically All Good Things..., we see the future Enterprise traveling faster than Warp 10.

Take your pick. Personally, I discount anything that happened on Voyager.

[Pendra37]

Originally Posted by TFO_KillSwitch

in closed bata this was worked over agin and agin . and here is y
it is supsed to be like 7of9 astrometrics lab
One particular example is the astrometrics lab on the USS Voyager, . Astrometrics was used for charting stars, planets, nebulae, and other stellar bodies. It contained a large wraparound holographic wall screen which could display a stellar region three dimensionally. There were a series of control panels to manipulate the screen.

I understand that perfectly. Too bad, this tehory just doesn't cut it in real life. Especially if you do this in bridge command mode.

[TFO_KillSwitch]

Originally Posted by Pendra37

Kirk in TOS travelled at warp 12 and I think at warp 16, too in an episode . I recall reading somewhere that the ships in STO time period can travel at warp 12. Doesn't make any difference, thou.

Loading screens, it takes between 1-4 secs to load up anything on my comp so I don't find it problematic. But if you do, then just don't stop when you reconfigure your ship just travell at crawl speed. Or do it while in normal space.
Point is, drop out if and when YOU want to drop out (or when attacked, but that is a different story).
IMHO it would feel awkward to see a starship standing still while speeding at warp speed, that is why I thought stopping = dropping out of warp. But a "Drop out of warp" button would work just as well.

As for the code, it may be easier to explain to fellow IT developers.

Plots involving the Enterprise traveling beyond warp 10 were once featured in the original series (such as warp 14.1 in That Which Survives), and for The Next Generation, it was decided that these would no longer be featured. A new warp scale was drawn up, with warp factor 10 set as an unattainable maximum. This is described in some technical manuals as Eugene's Limit, in homage to creator/producer Gene Roddenberry. Normal maximum warp in the original series was warp 8.

The warp factors above warp 10 in TOS, such as the one above, were slower than warp 10 on the new scale, which reaches an asymptote at warp 10, representing infinite velocity in accordance with the limit imposed by the producers. The Star Trek: Voyager episode "Threshold" concurred with this: the characters ruled that reaching the velocity of warp 10 was impossible — in spite of this, they went on to achieve the velocity, experiencing a peculiar side-effect; they underwent a [reversible] process of hyper-evolution culminating in their transformation into anthropomorphic newts. In this episode, Tom Paris elucidates that, while traveling at warp 10, he was simultaneously present in every part of the universe. At this velocity, the Shuttlecraft Cochrane's sensors are able to collect such enormous amounts of telemetry that the shuttle's storage capacity is completely filled.
The limit of 10 did not entirely stop warp inflation. By the mid-24th century, the Enterprise-D could travel at warp 9.8 at "extreme risk", while normal maximum operating velocity was warp 9.6 and maximum rated cruise was warp 9.2. The Intrepid-class starship Voyager has a maximum sustainable cruising velocity of warp 9.975, the Enterprise-E can go even faster at Warp 9.985. In the alternative future depicted in "All Good Things..." (the final episode of the Star Trek:TNG), Federation starships travel at warp 13.

The USS Excelsior (NX-2000), under command of Captain Styles, was a Federation test-ship for prototype transwarp technology. It is described in Star Trek III as allowing a ship to instantaneously travel at any warp velocity, rather than having to progressively increase velocity to the desired magnitude. Excelsior's first attempt to enter transwarp failed due to sabotage by Chief Engineer Scott of the Enterprise, which prevented the Excelsior from pursuing them.
The bridge readouts of Enterprise-A at the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (illustrated in the spin-off reference work, Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise published in 1987) suggest that the project ultimately succeeded and the USS Enterprise was indeed fitted with transwarp. Susan Sackett's memoirs attribute the lack of transwarp in Star Trek: The Next Generation to
Gene Roddenberry's dislike of the concept
so gene put the smake down on trans warp for the feds

[Cormoran]

I think not allowing people to stop easily in sector space without having to go through yet more loading screens is a big nono, besides you can always use the idea of a static warp shell to explain ships in warp bubbles which aren't moving.

[Jakyre]

Originally Posted by Akido37

This is from Star Trek Voyager.

In TOS, ships like the Excelsior traveled faster than Warp 10. According to lore, they changed the Warp scale to match these new speeds, so Warp 10 was unreachable.

In TNG, specifically All Good Things..., we see the future Enterprise traveling faster than Warp 10.

Take your pick. Personally, I discount anything that happened on Voyager.

1) Actually as per the ToS movies (where the exselsior first appeared) the Excelsior was a prototype ship designed to travel at transwarp but it was a failed attempt. It didn't work so the ship design was refitted with a regular warp drive and mass produced into serivce. So no, the Excelsior class did not travel faster than warp 10.

2) In the future realm of All Good Things... the future ships do state that they're travelling at Warp 13. However in this ALTERNATE future (keep in mind Q only sent him to a POSSIBLE future... and everything would've changed when Picard came back to his time and told his crew and starfleet all about the events in that timeline) we can assume that all warp factors above warp 10 are actually factors of transwarp... not regular warp. So although it seems like they're travelling faster than warp 10 THAT is actually the modified scaling system you refer to. They're not traveling warp 14 in the old scale persay... it would be transwarp factor 4.

3) If you discount anything that happened in Voyager you completely deny the existence of the Hirogen, 7 of 9, the destruction of the Borg transwarp hub, etc that are all incorporated into this game and canon lore. Voyager's canon whether one likes it or not

... and you can't travel warp 10 without serious biological repercussions

[Blodveard]

Personally I think they should remove sector space all together, and let us traverse the zones from our bridge.

This will not happen thoug, until the devs get the insane idea that sector space is a social hub. Hate to break it to them, but sector space is mind numbingly boring and it is by no means social.

If I want to know who is in the sector, let me pull up a mini map while I'm on my bridge.