Star Trek

I already have a crew ready to move over from SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) when this game goes live. It is amazing how many people like both concepts, but in the end prefers ST becuause it is a cooler world to make a game from...

There are ALOT of issues with a ship Crew... I dont think it will happin, however I do hope it will make it.

I'd like to see the vessels crewed by actual players.  Not only does it make it more of a team effort and challenge to have a larger ship (and teams should be rewarded with the ability to have a larger ship for putting in the effort to coordinate) but this is a massively multiplayer game with humans as most players.  Having the system control such an important facet seems like a singleplayer move to me.

I'm hoping for multiple pcs on each ship.  I don't see where the problem is.  If I'm an ensign then I'll listen to the captain, maybe if you're a klingon it'd be different (with challenges) but in the federation you do what your captain says.

In th FAQs they said that soloing would be a viable option, so this may all be a moot point.  I can't think of how viable it would be to have a ship and not be able to get it out of orbit, get stuck on on plant forever? Not my idea of truly being soloable.

I think it would be nice to see a mixture of the two, NPCs filling in for PCs when there aren't PCs available.  Such as "Ensign Paris to transporter room" "ensign Expendable take over"

And if you don't think there have ever been ensign expendables...... watch another episode :-P

I bet you'll be able to solo - on a runabout, or the likes of that.

Seriously, I don't even see how you folks can see non-PC crews as a possiblity... the whole point of the game is to be able to play things other then command track.

But can someone tell what an Engineeer would actually do while playing?

Captain: "I need more power engineering!"
Engineer: "Aye Sir!"
Engineer slides power bar up to max
Engineer: "Full power sir!"

How is that fun?

Captain: "We have an instability in the warp core! Chief, you better get down there as fast as possible"

Engineer runs to Engineering and trys to solve problem. Then you get there and the warp core is fine. So what's the problem?

*dun dun dun*

*Runs a level 5 diagnostic*

Engineer: "Captain, it seems we have an alien device on board giving out false signals. I'm gonna try and deactivate it now"

Engineer (soliloquay): 'Now is it the blue wire or the red wire?'

EDIT: If it's not obvious, it will have its exciting moments. But any job can be tiresome/boring at some point.

For an example of Multi-crewing, I point you in the direction of World War II Online- www.wwiionline.com . I believe there is a free trial available for 14 days, if anyone wants to see what I'm saying.

It has multicrewing for vehicles- it's a realistic WWII simulation- you could think of it as, say, a massive uber-realistic game of BF1942, with 1000x the players and which lasts for months at a time.

The WWIIOL system makes both multi-crewing and solo-crewing viable.
In the name of realism, every vehicle is crewed by however many people would of crewed it IRL. So, for example, your average Destroyer might have a pilot, a lookout (with a telescope), another lookout, a bloke controlling the foward main guns, a bloke controling the rear main guns, a bloke contorling the small guns at the front, a font AA gunner and a rear AA gunner... but this doesn't mean that all those positions have to be filled for the ship to function effectively.
Basically, when you spawn with your tank/ship/plane/whatever, you have multiple positions.... but you can switch between them. In the ship for example, I start off at the pilot station, and by pressing "6" i can switch to controlling the rear anti-air guns, or by pressing "2" I can control the starboard lookout. The ship handles so as if I have the throttle set when I'm in the pilot position, it will remail like that even when I'm operating another station. Likewse, on a bomber, if I'm flying in a straight line and I switch to the gunner station, the bomber won't fall out of the sky because it doesn't have a pilot, it just continues flying in a straight line- I hope you get what I mean.
Anyway, the use of different positions/stations/whatever-you-want-to-call-them like this means it so that soloing is completely possible. A destroyer captain can still use his guns and pilot his ship and use his lookouts... he just can't do it all at the same time. When he has a second person multi-crewing with him, he can be controling station X, while the other person in controling station Y. think of it as like consoles on the bridge- a lone captain on the bridge can still control all his ships functions... but if he wants to, say, do some fancy flying and shooting at the same time, he needs a crewmate, so both the helm and weapons can be manned at once. So in encourages the use of multi-crewing, and giving a slight advantage to those who multi-crew... but still allowes people to go solo if they want. Also, it doesnt give a specific "captain" position- a pair of comrades can work together as equally powerful rather than one-commanding-the-other, if they want. Ive never ever, in about half a year of WWIIOL addiction, seen an argument between two multi-crew mates: multi-crewing can easily be implimented without constant arguing. Also, with a destroyer for example, one can only be spawned by someone with very high rank. Rank is gained by having sucesful missions (usually going somewhere, killing something, getting back in one piece.) Now obviously, theres more chance of doing that if you're in a big-arse destoyer rather than a miniscule motorboat. So by multicrewing with someone else that has the ability to spawn a big-arse destroyer, you get to experience the destroyer for yourself. And the fact that the big destroyer will more likely get you mission sucess than anything else you may spawn gives a very good incentive for lower ranks to co-operate with multi-crewing. Also, it means that larger ships etc don't have great chunks of thier potential wasted because they have no crew... perhaps a similar system could be applied in Star Trek:Online?

(I hope somebody has some idea what im on about ... )

Quote (TemporalShifter @ Sep. 10 2004, 2:17 pm)

Captain: "We have an instability in the warp core! Chief, you better get down there as fast as possible" Engineer runs to Engineering and trys to solve problem. Then you get there and the warp core is fine. So what's the problem? *dun dun dun* *Runs a level 5 diagnostic* Engineer: "Captain, it seems we have an alien device on board giving out false signals. I'm gonna try and deactivate it now" Engineer (soliloquay): 'Now is it the blue wire or the red wire?' EDIT: If it's not obvious, it will have its exciting moments. But any job can be tiresome/boring at some point.

That would depend on really if the dev's will make it that interactive.

Wouldn't it better if you just let the user have the choice of bots or other players? That way you satisfy both sides of the party and everyone's happy.

co-operative roll playing would make it unique and may just keep it from failing

Quote (Jeffk38uk @ Sep. 10 2004, 11:00 pm)

Wouldn't it better if you just let the user have the choice of bots or other players? That way you satisfy both sides of the party and everyone's happy.

Perhaps. As long as they can satisfy both sides with an equal high standard of integrity.

Because I wish to be apart of Starfleet itself, if possible it would be great to have a crew to control functions in a ship, rather then having it automatic. This is not counting crafts that ONLY require 1 person to operate. I mean a crew to run different departments. But, this would cause problems if a person qualified in specific areas are not around. You would need to have a good number of backups qualified to operate the specific sections of a ship.

I figure you'll have NPCs for when your senior staff is out on lunch - as such, they won't be as good.  For example, your impulse drive cuts out durring the middle of a battle:  Would you rather have that non name ensign (NPC) repair it or that Lt. Cmdr that took a lot of goading to get him on your ship (a Good PC, which a lot of ships want).

I think NPCs should be able to perform tasks, just not as well.  Either they can't get things up to 100%, or they'll take a lot longer (150% of the time of a PC, maybe even 200% of the time it takes a good PC to do the task - therefore giving you a reason to want PCs, but don't need them)

But yeah, I could see needing an NPC crew to replace the real folks when, say, your helmsman takes a console to the face and is carted off to sickbay.

Quote (Borg_Unicomplex @ Sep. 10 2004, 6:21 am)

You cant just think in terms of what might be cool for you...when designing a game...you have to think of what the Majority wants....Multiple PC controled ships would be chaotic to say the least!

When reading the FAQ it is stated a "crew" will either be given the use of a ship for missions, or commissioned a ship. This means IF the ship is ONLY controled by a single person, what wil lthe REST of the crew be doing in the mean time? This is why I think individuals qualified or not will be able to control certain aspects. Think of as PlanetSide where you are qualified in a craft. In this case those qualified in a department or use will probably be able to "operate" "use" a console. Tus the aspects being delegated to the crew.

The aspects I think that will be selectable by a crew will be on a ship bridge:

Navigation
Tactics
Communications
Helm
Science/Scensors
Engineering

But, as far as operation of other parts of the ship, beside the Transporter, I am not sure.