Ship interiors... a little "different"

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Functionally integraded starhip interiors are one of the most interesting game aspects in my opinion, be that in a Star Trek -(Online) or a different context and I am always looking for interesting implementations/versions of them.

Unfortunately looking through the notes of the upcoming tribble patch revealed that ship interiors are obviously not going to be playable/testable yet "for the time being".
After watching videos like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-DNFqI66LA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eBYnvSrIEk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2_jp4k6qXs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XwiHkcXSUw
(The last one has quite a bit of not-so-well-captured space fight/exterior view in it, need to forward to about 2:20 to get to the interior-heavy parts, but still)
(note: I do not take credit for any of these videos, these are just some of those I came across on youtube when looking for interior captures)

etc. again I decided I have found an excellent timekiller to bridge the gap between now and the implementation of funcitonal (and hopefully captivating) ship interiors in SWG.
Some aspects of the game are somewhat outdated including the graphics compared to STO, but paying Star Wars Galaxies a visit once more and resume working on my Gunship's interior as well as equipment/weaponry seems like a fun way to experience working ship interiors once more, even if it should not be for long.

Having an STO lifetime sub obviously helps as there is no question of "should I quit/unsubscribe STO or not". Lifer or not though, to those who have a keen interest in starship interiors and the customization/decoration oft them themselves I can only recomend giving it a try as well.
Just consider it a bridging of time until STO implements its own.

Granted, I had second thoughts as well at first, thinking along the lines of "i have an lts in STO, if I don't spend my mmo time there/subscribe to a different game this gets wasted/makes it a wrong investment", but in the end the thought that getting additional enjoyment for one or two months is worth paying an additional 15 or 30 bucks respectively to me.

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I never played SWG, but those videos made me want to try it out.

Its currently not possible to do ship interiors like that as far as i know, since space and ground are two separate instances. However not "being possible" and the devs saying that "they'll never make it" are two different things. If someone looked at Champions Online and proposed that it be turned into a Star Trek game, everyone would say that it wouldn't be possible.

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Space combat in SWG is in a seperate instance from the planetary/ground combat just as it in STO. When the Jump To Lightspeed pack was first added to SWG it was nothing more than a cheap flight/fighter simulator. The addition of player ships (multiple players aboard) made things kind of cool. On a YT-1300 (Millenium Falcon) you can have someone flying the ship and a player in each turret helping with combat. The ship interior is customizable and you can have gatherings of players aboard ship. I haven't played in a few months, but I have a guildy that just got one of the gunships and he's been wanting to try it out. In SWG this type of thing works due to the nature of combat being more of a dogfight than a capital ship slugfest.

There really would not be much to do in combat for other players to do without completely revamping the combat system, which is very unlikely. The option of the labs aboard ship being functional for research as well as usable in completing mission tasks is very workable as is using Main Engineering as a source for supplementing the Memory Alpha crafting system. While I don't think combat is feasible from a "interiors" standpoint, there are tons of things that could be done aboard ships either solo or as a group.

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It is indeed very unlikely that we will get to see this type of interior gameplay in STO, but it might still end up being well designed and an integral part of the game. Either way though it will still take a lot of development time for STO to get that implemented.

Regarding Star Wars Galaxies and the Jump to Lightspeed expansion: they have indeed expanded the space part quite a bit compared its original release, however the multiplayer ships were in there and working from the begging of the expansion. Granted, they were not very usefull due to the lack of appropriate equipment (eg. approprietly stronger shields compared to fighters) but they were in there and customizable.
The player owned gunships were introduced much later though.
For those who are interested: these ships have a total of 6 non-pilot controlled turrets (ie. other players have to man them, or the pilot has to jump out of his chair and get into one him-/herself), 2 forward facing weaponplacements controlled by the pilot and an operations station (from where you can execute special commands such as transfering shield strenght etc.) meaning 8 different positions manned simultaneously. On top of that you can have (additional, if you want) people with repair kits run around the ship and repair subsystems that get damaged when your shields and armor fail.
I have to admit though that once your shields and armor are down you manage to survive only on rare occasions. There was however one pvp battle once where my ship got literally disabled (the engine got shot- and blown up and we couldn't manouver anymore at all and the energy capacitor was also shot to pieces) but the crew conduced some emergency repairs and we managed to jump into hyperspace and escape.

That brings up the thought of an STO minigame, that you could do in engineering to repair ship damage incurred from deaths on higher difficulty levels, although that is not quite the same.

Originally meant to mention (before getting carried away in SWG nostalgica :) ) that part the the hurdle of getting interiors like in SWG implemented in STO is that here the player's ship is simply a variation of your avatar whereas in SWG it is a seperate object/attachment to your character.

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I never played SWG, but those videos made me want to try it out..

Same here.

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Ah what a ship. I miss my old Vigo so much. Rooms all decorated and stocked with spare parts for repairs and trade. A veritable party palace and fortress rolled into one. ty for sharing.

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I had a Y8, a Nova Courier, YT-2400 and a Decimator (the Nova was on a different character), I left before I got an Imperial Gunboat (the grind was just too tedious for me, I'd already aced all 9 squadrons). But the one thing that all of the POB ships had in common was that you did not feel like you were flying a matchbox car. --- Something that I really hope the incoming interiors alleviate. Well, that and navigation from the bridge would go far toward making us feel like we're really captaining starships.

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I never played SWG, but those videos made me want to try it out.

Its currently not possible to do ship interiors like that as far as i know, since space and ground are two separate instances. However not "being possible" and the devs saying that "they'll never make it" are two different things. If someone looked at Champions Online and proposed that it be turned into a Star Trek game, everyone would say that it wouldn't be possible.

Strictly speaking there are ways around the issues of the ship interior and the exterior being different instances.

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To further water people's mouths I could mention that there is also space based mining.
You can equip your ship with a mining laser and a tractor beam (the tractor beam is optional but when used right allows you to gather the resources faster) find yourself an asteroid of the resource type you want and mine away, be that as part of a crew on a multiplayer ship or alone.

Usually it is more efficient to do it solo or with one person providing cover, fighting asteroid bandits with just a mining laser is ... painful (diamond asteroid mining in kessel with just one mining laser and a tractor beam equipped anyone? It is like pulling your teeth, slow and painfull lol).

I wonder how the anomalies gathering minigame will compare to it, in terms of fun level, although from what I read it will be something completely different.

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To further water people's mouths I could mention that there is also space based mining.
You can equip your ship with a mining laser and a tractor beam (the tractor beam is optional but when used right allows you to gather the resources faster) find yourself an asteroid of the resource type you want and mine away, be that as part of a crew on a multiplayer ship or alone.

Usually it is more efficient to do it solo or with one person providing cover, fighting asteroid bandits with just a mining laser is ... painful (diamond asteroid mining in kessel with just one mining laser and a tractor beam equipped anyone? It is like pulling your teeth, slow and painfull lol).

Y-8's were good for that run. enough hard points for mining lasers tractor beams and still have defensive weapons. With the y-8 cargo hold it wasn't hard to get the guild stores filled with ore (and loots drops) in short order.

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Y-8's were good for that run. enough hard points for mining lasers tractor beams and still have defensive weapons. With the y-8 cargo hold it wasn't hard to get the guild stores filled with ore (and loots drops) in short order.

I imagine it is quite fun but unfortunately I have been on Y-8 mining ships only a few times and don't own one myself. Having both a Decimator and a Gunship with interior decoration I fell victim to the "no more than two POBs with items in them at a time" restriction.

The Y-8 mentioning did bring up an other STO idea though: for when/if the crafting- and gathering system is further expanded, how about allowing players to fly freight ships, granting the ability to harvest more resources in shorter time. Those freighters could be only very lightly armed (although the Y-8 in SWG certainly isn't only lightly armed :) ) and while mining/gathering there would be a chance of getting attacked. If that happens the freighter captain player could send out a distress beacon informing other nearby (in sector-space terms) players and offer them the option to come to help as a mission, kinda like when you get close to SB 24 on the lower levels.

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I think one thing is a must for ship interiors. A first person perspective option.

Cryptic has said before that one of the reasons they oversize certain areas is to avoid annoying camera problems. Well...first person would eliminate that entirely. I mean, who wouldn't want to explore their ship in first person? I can understand keeping combat 3rd person, but having the ability to be 1st person inside the ship, imo, is crucial.

This would allow not only for much more immersion, but also allow Cryptic to make rooms/corridors TO SCALE.

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I imagine it is quite fun but unfortunately I have been on Y-8 mining ships only a few times and don't own one myself. Having both a Decimator and a Gunship with interior decoration I fell victim to the "no more than two POBs with items in them at a time" restriction.

The Y-8 mentioning did bring up an other STO idea though: for when/if the crafting- and gathering system is further expanded, how about allowing players to fly freight ships, granting the ability to harvest more resources in shorter time. Those freighters could be only very lightly armed (although the Y-8 in SWG certainly isn't only lightly armed :) ) and while mining/gathering there would be a chance of getting attacked. If that happens the freighter captain player could send out a distress beacon informing other nearby (in sector-space terms) players and offer them the option to come to help as a mission, kinda like when you get close to SB 24 on the lower levels.

That idea has been brought up on another thread but is still a great idea and opens up a world of possibilities for the future. especially if said captains are neutral faction and can cross the neutral zone for trading runs. Klingons doesn't get much by way of anomalies and can't seem to process them even if they do (at least not that i have spotted) I know there was at least one episode with civilian Klingon ships like a freighter or transport.

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Fun fact: some ships and houses in SWG have...sliding doors ;)
Unfortunately the sliding effect is only displayed for one's own character, meaning if someone else around you walks through one of those doors it usually just stays closed.
Let's hope the STO version, if they really implement it which remains to be seen, works a little better.

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as long as we aren't beaming or loading from room to room :rolleyes:

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To solve the scaling problem they just need to severely limit how far you can zoom out (maybe to 1/3 zoom)