So, Memory Alpha is just another shop...?

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I confess I did not during beta pay much attention to Memory Alpha. Ok, none at all actually. I went there today to "figure it out".

Let me get this straight: all the anomalous material we collect (radiation, anti-matter, alien artifacts, etc, etc) are used to pay for upgraded versions of equipment we already have. We give the old equipment we are replacing and "X" amount of whatever anomalous data the "price" is. Correct?

So... this is just another shop with another for of currency and there is in fact in STO no crafting whatsoever. None. Nada. And no, training and trading BOff's does not count as crafting either.

This will be my third "big issue" with the design of the STO game (the others being the "semi-3D" space movement restrictions and the awful thing that is "neon city" Sector Space).

I really reall like the game - but these thigs should have been better thought out and more fleshed out.

I look forward to seeing what they bring to the game over the coming years.

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As far as I've been able to tell, Memory Alpha is just a place to trade in those artifacts and stuff for other items.

It's a pretty large area for just that one store-trade-in-vendor, so maybe there's some future hope for actually using those items for something else.

Even if Memory alpha was really only about doing stuff with those scan-discovered items:

**** had morphing items from one to another - they could do that a memory alpha
SWG and LotRO had socketting items with stuff - they could do something like that at memory alpha

Maybe you could use those artifact items to 'buff' one of the items you already have

Hopefully there's something in the works to make Memory Alpha more useful.

If there is something else there, I'd love to know.

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I don't know, but I think Memory Alpha has more than one scientist/shop but until you've made/bought 30 items from the one really popular shop keeper there, then you don't have access to the others. The others have higher level items, not that I'm likely to ever see or use them personally...

But in answer to the original question, yes, that's it in terms of 'crafting'.

Anyone know of a list of items and 'costs' from Memory Alpha?

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Per this article http://outpostgamez.com/news/835/startrek-online-crafting/


I'd say Memory Alpha is still not up and running.

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Once Recipes are put into the game, Memory Alpha will have a purpose, opening up those other NPC "shops".

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I confess I did not during beta pay much attention to Memory Alpha. Ok, none at all actually. I went there today to "figure it out".

Let me get this straight: all the anomalous material we collect (radiation, anti-matter, alien artifacts, etc, etc) are used to pay for upgraded versions of equipment we already have. We give the old equipment we are replacing and "X" amount of whatever anomalous data the "price" is. Correct?

So... this is just another shop with another for of currency and there is in fact in STO no crafting whatsoever. None. Nada. And no, training and trading BOff's does not count as crafting either.

This will be my third "big issue" with the design of the STO game (the others being the "semi-3D" space movement restrictions and the awful thing that is "neon city" Sector Space).

I really reall like the game - but these thigs should have been better thought out and more fleshed out.

I look forward to seeing what they bring to the game over the coming years.

Yes, you are correct. Memory Alpha is another in-game commerce mechanism labeled as "crafting". So in total there are four in-game currencies: energy credits (which you only get by selling drops), starfleet merits (which you only get by completing missions), anomalies (which you only get by scanning anomalies in space and on the ground), and badges (which you get by completing "exploration" missions and pvp).

Just a side note, you can buy ground items (like hyposprays) on DS9. You don't have to spend your anomalies for them. I don't know if the 'Large' sized items are for sale, though.

Z

Edit: And skilling up your bridge officers, despite what Al Rivera says, is NOT crafting. That's like saying upgrading your ship's equipment is crafting. It's not. It's just something for Cryptic to point to and say, "Uh, see? You can...um...build stuff...."

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How is that different from "crafting" in any other game?

You gather X material, use a pattern to convert said items into an item that is usually just a tiny bit better than an already existing item in game.

All they truly removed was players having to gather the required recipes and making everyone choose what type of crafter they want to be, if any.

The player still has to "craft" in a specific area and push buttons in a specific sequence to receive the finished product.

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How is that different from "crafting" in any other game?

You gather X material, use a pattern to convert said items into an item that is usually just a tiny bit better than an already existing item in game.

All they truly removed was players having to gather the required recipes and making everyone choose what type of crafter they want to be, if any.

The player still has to "craft" in a specific area and push buttons in a specific sequence to receive the finished product.

grab all the stuff put it into the replicator... and poof.. all done..... love technology

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I would really like memory alpha if they made it a real "upgrade center". Instead of forcing you to trade in one particular item for an upgraded version, let you place the upgrade on any existing item you already have. That way, you could take your uncommon or rare quality items to MA and further tweak them out. Sort of like enchanting items is in WOW, for those who are familiar with that. This would lead to another layer of optimization (something the game does great with already), and shouldn't be too terribly hard to implement.

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How is that different from "crafting" in any other game?

You gather X material, use a pattern to convert said items into an item that is usually just a tiny bit better than an already existing item in game.

All they truly removed was players having to gather the required recipes and making everyone choose what type of crafter they want to be, if any.

The player still has to "craft" in a specific area and push buttons in a specific sequence to receive the finished product.

The issue here is that "crafting", as it is commonly seen, follows a certain pattern that gives players ownership over the crafting process. It is a matter of character development - that's the key. In most MMO's, crafting is done under a function of professions, wherein a player gets to develop their ability to make or modify items of varying type and function... but the point is that they are retaining and developing the knowledge of HOW to do this. Crafting is a function of that knowledge; the finished product is ancillary to crafting, and is NOT the crafting itself or even material to it. Sure, the player may like what they've made and may even select a crafting profession specifically to get access to those items, but they're still not the crafting itself.

I think Cryptic failed to understand this. I also think they failed to understand how important this is to an MMO playerbase, especially one that has such strong RP leanings as the Trekkie faction. This is why, as I understand it, they've said they're looking into an expanded crafting system, one that I presume will reflect more traditional crafting methods.

In closing, my own opinion: Memory Alpha is a vendor, and is not crafting. Training bridge officers is an character development system and are very interesting but are merely an extension of training the self, which is definitely not crafting either.

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Crafting = non combat gameplay = let's rush that so we can spend more time rebalancing torpedoes vs mines for the 153th time.

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it seems very clear that Memory Alpha is not fully online just yet. A confirmation from development would be nice.

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How is that different from "crafting" in any other game?

You gather X material, use a pattern to convert said items into an item that is usually just a tiny bit better than an already existing item in game.

All they truly removed was players having to gather the required recipes and making everyone choose what type of crafter they want to be, if any.

The player still has to "craft" in a specific area and push buttons in a specific sequence to receive the finished product.


That's not really what people want in 'crafting'. Bad crafting systems might share some similarity to that, but not ones that offer something else in the game. There have been some excellent crafting models in MUDs and MMOs for years, but just getting some random drops and walking over to a vendor to see what ingredient slots you might fulfill is not a model worth supporting in terms of crafting.

That being said, it fulfills the game mechanic of collecting random stuff for something better.

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Per this article http://outpostgamez.com/news/835/startrek-online-crafting/


I'd say Memory Alpha is still not up and running.

I wish we had a dev to confirm, but alas, that's asking too much.

This morning (when things were still running) I threw a bunch of data at it, created something like 4 shields, 5 large energy cells, 5 large hypos.. still nothing.

For this one thing I wish we had a definite picture of whether it's completed or not.

My guess is not, but dang it, just come out and be frank about it.

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Yeah, more like 'minor upgrading', not crafting. It's weak to say the least.

Kinda like going into a car shop and getting new chromed wheels. I didn't 'make' anything and neither did they. I upgraded.

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Pretty much just a shop yeah. It's like Cryptic took all the key things about Star trek, added them to their game but put no thought, no attention to setting or detail into them and just squashed them into a typical, boring and unimaginative MMO mould.

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If it's like gaining faction in other games, then a progress bar would certainly be appreciated. It would also be nice to be able to simply turn in data without having to 'upgrade' equipment. By the time you hit Lt.Cmdr, most of the things Romaine offers are pretty useless.

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This morning (when things were still running) I threw a bunch of data at it, created something like 4 shields, 5 large energy cells, 5 large hypos.. still nothing.

.

A lot of us tried that during OBeta in hope we would unlock the others crafting officers : no effect either. Probably they just did not change this yet.

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All I have to say is I'm sick and tired of crafting. I'm tired of farming and grinding and morphing and....well I'm sick of it. Besides. It's all been done before guys. Starfleet Officers per say don't spend their time forging a new nacelle out of the alloy that they mined and forged themselvs. This is an all new idea here and a breath of fresh air thank god.
It's nice to be able to change the look of my ship and my uniforms without worrying. Ultimately would it be cool if every ship had unique items to it and mods? Sure. But at this point and time in gaming, it's impossible. Someday in the future, but for now none of that concerns me.

The only thing grinding my gears a bit is the lack of 3D movement. I don't know who mentioned that earlier but they hit the nail on the head. I don't think it would have been too difficult to allow the ships to pitch roll yaw and head in any direction they wished within the sectors. But again....maybe in the future.
As for memory alpha......wasted space ....maybe in the future......

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I'm sorry, I've held it in for quite some time now, but I will say it here...

a lot of posts disguised as constructive criticism read nothing more the "wah wah wah wah, I want STO to be exactly like all the other MMO's out there! I don't want a different and potentially unique experience, I want the same experience I'm getting in another MMO, with a Star Trek logo on it..."

That being said, I will offer my 2 cents...

I think a unique way of affecting a crafting system would be to tie it into career paths, giving further customisation options to all players based on their respective choices, ie tactical officers rig up weapon systems and tweak with optimising firepower, science officers invent new technologies (ones you probably couldn't master with training) and optimise subsystems, Engineers add bits and pieces and could possibly get unique rudimentary systems scrounged together.

But, as cryptic have said, development in this game will be influenced by the desires of the gaming community, if that's what you want, make some noise and develop some patience...

Flameout

-Bemm

/re-lurk

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For all the faults of SWG i love the crafting of the game. When i didnt have time to do missions or where board with them. I crafted. Be nice if we could use the AData to modife the items we have and such. Find enough radiologic data and other stuff and you can open up a screen where you can change the different states of each weapon. Make a heavy cannon that eats more energy but has a shorter recharge time.

Look in the star trek verse the people where aways tweeking their ship, hell voyger was probally the most modifed ship

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Memory Alpha = Futuristic Crafting.

You are bringing them anomalies that allow them to research better technology.

You start out only being able to research low level stuff. After you have successfully researched a bunch of low level things, higher level things unlock. The process repeats up to researching max level items.

Replace "research" with "craft" and you have the exact same process that every game ever has had for crafting. The only difference is that instead of walking up to a forge or a leatherworking station, you are instead walking up to a research scientist.

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I confess I did not during beta pay much attention to Memory Alpha. Ok, none at all actually. I went there today to "figure it out".

Let me get this straight: all the anomalous material we collect (radiation, anti-matter, alien artifacts, etc, etc) are used to pay for upgraded versions of equipment we already have. We give the old equipment we are replacing and "X" amount of whatever anomalous data the "price" is. Correct?

So... this is just another shop with another for of currency and there is in fact in STO no crafting whatsoever. None. Nada. And no, training and trading BOff's does not count as crafting either.

This will be my third "big issue" with the design of the STO game (the others being the "semi-3D" space movement restrictions and the awful thing that is "neon city" Sector Space).

I really reall like the game - but these thigs should have been better thought out and more fleshed out.

I look forward to seeing what they bring to the game over the coming years.

As you get into the higher tier/level of crafting more unique and rarer items recipes will pop-up. You do have to make things to open up the new recipes as you level.

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A lot of us tried that during OBeta in hope we would unlock the others crafting officers : no effect either. Probably they just did not change this yet.


they did unlock in open beta, you must not have done enough crafting with Romaine to unlock them. I did. What I didn't do was count how many items I did.

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they did unlock in open beta, you must not have done enough crafting with Romaine to unlock them. I did. What I didn't do was count how many items I did.

Too bad you did not post in the bazillion threads about this problem I read on the forum then. Even if you lost count, maybe you can give us an estimation of how many things you bought ?

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It's no exaggeration to say that I took every single hypospray and energy cell I found to Memory Alpha to get fancied up in some unspecified way. I burned through a hundred and fifty anomalous whatevers easily, and all she ever said was "Go get more."
There needs to be some kind of meter for this, either a set number she makes you collect & turn in, a set number of improved items you have to buy from her, or something. Otherwise, you spend forever running around collecting stuff that you can't use because there's precious few actual upgrades you can get for equipment and no way of tracking your progress.

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Too bad you did not post in the bazillion threads about this problem I read on the forum then. Even if you lost count, maybe you can give us an estimation of how many things you bought ?

Sorry, I count like any other human, that is 1, 2, many. it wasn't one or two, it was many.

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There needs to be some kind of meter for this, either a set number she makes you collect & turn in, a set number of improved items you have to buy from her, or something. Otherwise, you spend forever running around collecting stuff that you can't use because there's precious few actual upgrades you can get for equipment and no way of tracking your progress.

I'm sure this thing is not working properly : either it's not complete, either it's broken.

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I'd like to think it's broken, because I distinctly remember taking at least 15 each of medium hypos and medium shield charges and sitting there pushing the Buy button over and over. In open beta, very close to launch.

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How is that different from "crafting" in any other game?

You gather X material, use a pattern to convert said items into an item that is usually just a tiny bit better than an already existing item in game.

All they truly removed was players having to gather the required recipes and making everyone choose what type of crafter they want to be, if any.

The player still has to "craft" in a specific area and push buttons in a specific sequence to receive the finished product.

Build the Phaser or disruptor being upgraded from scratch and answer that. You can't build the prime component, that being the one being upgraded. So it's not crafting it's purchasing an upgrade from a science center.

Hence, you fly to Memory Alpha and hand off the supplies you've been collecting to a chief scientist that says ok we can upgrade this, this or this with what you have.

Crafting is saying oh let me borrow that machine over there so "I" can build this, this , or this here.

see Crafting you do, upgrading they do.:D

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Thus far, Mikehlubb is the only person I've seen who claims to have unlocked the higher stores. Has ANYONE else done this?

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Thus far, Mikehlubb is the only person I've seen who claims to have unlocked the higher stores. Has ANYONE else done this?

Not to my knowledge, but there's no way to be sure.

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Memory Alpha is ... incredibly inconvenient and generally not a fun part of the game.

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I don't know if memory alpha is broken or not, but even if it gets more love I still won't think it is a good fit for the game. If ever they was a game that would support having mining facilities on far off asteroids, or research stations high in orbit around some unknown planet, or even a refinery it is this game. How many times have we had missions where the goal is to defend a freighter, destroy a facility, or rescue a scientist. Why can these not be used for player crafting? Why can we not have mining facilities, processing plants and refineries? Why can we not have research outposts and scientists working to find upgrades and such?

The content is mostly there. The models are there to use...the lore is certainly there, but we are stuck with a system that is very lacking. I honestly can't call it a crafting system at all. I know that Cryptic does not want to do the same as other companies, but they should certainly take note on what worked and what didn't in them. The system as it stands now in Star Trek Online has absolutely no depth. There is so much that can be done with what is already in game, and I for one am willing to wait for it to be implemented, but please change what is currently in place.

Crafting has become the second part of an MMO. One half is the character leveling, and the other has become crafting. In this case there is really nothing to it, and is not fulfilling.

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One other thing about the Memory Alpha deal that I don't quite understand. How is gathering random anomalous data supposed to result in predictable item upgrades?

They could easily fix this by saying that the researchers are doing favors of fixed item effects in return for the gathering of data. That would make sense. It would also make this obviously a vendor system and not crafting, but I think we're already there so no harm done :P