Tuesday Discussion: Ship Schematic Economy
Prime Lorca
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
There haven't been any ships added to the game for a while. I wonder if the existing game economy just doesn't make it worthwhile for the devs. There's a couple obstacles that I see.
5-star ships are essentially useless until they hit level 8. Even then, they only get voyage use. Getting to level 10 takes a TON of schematics. This makes it pretty cost prohibitive to try to max a new ship. And the cost-to-reward ratio is very unfavorable. I think this hurts DB's bottom line and results in no new ships for us. So is there a remedy for this? I've had a couple ideas.
If the cost to level a ship were dramatically reduced for the first week, would more players chase the schematics (buy packs) to level it with a reduced number of schematics? Would it be enough for DB to justify creating new ships?
Ships are usually introduced during a skirmish. If the event bonus were an attack bonus or cooldown reduction or something else that made skirmish battles faster, would that be enough to sell more schematics?
Are either of these ideas workable? Do you have ideas to make the ship schematic economy work for both players and DB?
5-star ships are essentially useless until they hit level 8. Even then, they only get voyage use. Getting to level 10 takes a TON of schematics. This makes it pretty cost prohibitive to try to max a new ship. And the cost-to-reward ratio is very unfavorable. I think this hurts DB's bottom line and results in no new ships for us. So is there a remedy for this? I've had a couple ideas.
If the cost to level a ship were dramatically reduced for the first week, would more players chase the schematics (buy packs) to level it with a reduced number of schematics? Would it be enough for DB to justify creating new ships?
Ships are usually introduced during a skirmish. If the event bonus were an attack bonus or cooldown reduction or something else that made skirmish battles faster, would that be enough to sell more schematics?
Are either of these ideas workable? Do you have ideas to make the ship schematic economy work for both players and DB?
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If/when that fix is made, then I think the first step to take would be to drop the price of schematics packs. They are a frightfully awful deal right now and I would be surprised if anyone but the most rabid of collectors or profligate of spenders bought them at all...the value of what you get from them versus the cost is seriously out of whack. Absent any threshold rewards or future Arena rank rewards, a best case scenario is that it costs 600 dil to get the ship to level 1 (a little under $10, based on the $10/700 dil price point) - 150 dil per pack and a guaranteed drop of 150 5* schematics. If we continue to assume that you only get the new ship rather than the featured 4* ship (a bad assumption but one that makes the math easier), you can’t get that ship leveled up to being even minimally useful on voyages for less than $50 and you can’t finish leveling it without using almost $90 worth of dil (based on the $100/8200 price point). These costs go up dramatically once you remove that assumption about which ship is going to drop from each pack.
If a steep price drop isn’t happening, then the structure of the schematics packs has to change - call it at least five guaranteed drops of the featured 4*/5* ships rather than just one, plus a guaranteed drop (or two, or three) of the featured 2* ship. Why the 2* ship? Because they are harder to max than a 5*, thanks to the low drop rate of 2* schematics in the basic rewards packs (as many credits as I burn up on those, I still haven’t finished the 2* Jem’Hadar battleship or the 2* Valdore-type warbird and only this year finished the Sphere and the Jem’Hadar fighter).
I'm a completionist, so try to max all my ships, even if they have duplicate traits to others ... so I still have a go in the Admiral division because the only ship I've not maxed outside of the multitude of 5*s is the Jem'Hadar Battleship (lvl 6 of 7) ... the other two Arena divisions I've just given up on.
The only trait "missing" in the 5*s is Maquis ... but I'm okay with having one dud trait for voyages when running 5* ships.
I'd never buy a pack for ship schematics, no matter what the price, a complete waste given the fact that I've got all 3* and 4* ships maxed and I never use the replicator anyway other than when I need to clean out my inventory. So I buy a pack for a tiny boost in schematics for a ship that is basically useless until lvl 8?
I think the photo below is nowhere unique and most players will probably be stocked even more ... but it just shows, how for a pretty average player it is already kinda crud.
EDIT: yes ... fix sorting in Voyages or the actual ship menu ... would help, pretty useless at present.
Right now virtually no one (including me) tries to max a ship with the 350 dil packs. But if they offered something like $25 for 2500 schematics (purchasable 3 times) they would get a handful of the collectors out there to spend some cash to finish off the ship.
That reminds me of the last time they had a cash deal for schematics...easily the worst money I ever spent on this game. What you’ve described would be far nicer than that old ISS Defiant deal.
Now, with Picard and other new series coming out, that will change soon and we may see new ships added to the game then.
Only the fact once it's maxed I will get the max AM bonus on scout trait for voyages - I wouldn't say that is riveting though.
There are still some desirable ships out there - the Excelsior, the Enterprise-B, the Negh’Var, the Xindi Aquatic Cruiser...those are just the first few that come to mind. But if it takes fifty taps to find them when setting up a voyage, why bother?
While it would be nice to get a few new ships, even if they change these two things, I don't know how much work and time it takes to add a new ship to the game. As someone mentioned on a another thread, it's probably more than a new character requires and I'd prefer if that extra time was invested into QoL improvements, the new bonus system that we were asked feedback for or some other new feature that makes it easier to upgrade old legendaries or gives long-time players a way to use all of the trainers, schematics and replicator rations that we keep hoarding.
Same here. That scout trait burns me when it comes up
I still would not mind a U.S.S. Prometheus.
Dupe Ship schematics are the first thing i use as replicator fuel.
Regarding topic, i don t need anymore new ships as long as sorting is a pain and art is as slobby and less detailed as the recent new Skirmishes ships.
haha ... yeah I know, but all those 1-4* items for crew I've already maxed are kinda irritating too ... at least ship schematics stack and the 1-4* items remain singles usually (so take up more space).
But in all seriousness, recently I did an inventory cleanup ... I do scroll to the bottom of the ship schematics list and dump the 1* and 2* ship schematics into a 5* item ... why those numbers are low compared to the others (e.g. only 15 Val Jean schematics) ... and yes ... I have to do an inventory clean-up again ... but that's for a different thread.
There are too many QoL issues that need to be dealt with before new ships are added in my opinion.
That was going to be my request!
With a four-second insta-kill Vector Attack Mode!
Ov (Overall) | Vo (Voyage) | Fa (Faction) | Ga (Gauntlet)
Sb (Ship Battle) | Bt (Boss Battle Traits) | Co (Collection) | (Cd (Cadet)
As far as the economy issue, I've also reached the point where all ships are useless to me in the game unless they are 5-star ships at least at level 8. However, I enjoy flying some other ships around from time to time just for the joy of seeing them on my screen. For that, however, all I need is Level 1.
In another thread, I suggested . . .
Here are specific examples of how this could work:
Prize: 100 Schematics for the new legendary starship USS Prometheus
Frequency: Only claimable once per day
Location: Pollux IV (Hirogen location in the game since it was scanned by Seven through the Hirogen network)
Crew: Seven in Blue, Chief Engineer Torres, and Mobile Doctor
Ship: USS Voyager
Bonus: 5% chance of winning EMH Mk. 2 (Legendary - MED/ENG/SEC) instead of schematics
Prize: 100 Schematics for the new legendary starship USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B.
Frequency: Claimable multiple times a day, but only on Tuesday
Planet: Earth (where the "B" was in drydock at the beginning of Generations)
Crew: Captain Harriman, Demora Sulu
Ship: USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B (the ship would have to be introduced in a skirmish event first)
Bonus: 5% chance of winning Nexus Guinan or Dr. Tolian Soran instead of schematics
Prize: 100 Schematics for the new legendary starship USS Excelsior.
Frequency: Only claimable once per day
Planet: Earth (where the Excelsior was in Spacedock at the beginning of ST:III)
Crew: Admiral Kirk, Commander Uhura, Commander Scott, Commander Sulu (new version of Sulu needed)
Ship: USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A
Bonus: 5% chance of winning Captain Styles (Super Rare - CMD/DIP/SEC) or Excelsior Engineer Scotty (Legendary - ENG/CMD/DIP)
Prize: 100 Schematics for the new legendary starship USS Equinox (which should have the Scout trait)
Frequency: Only claimable once per day
Location: Mars (where all Nova-class ships were built)
Crew: Captain Ransom (CMD/SCI/DIP) and Lieutenant Burke (CMD/ENG/SEC) (need to be introduced to the game first)
Ship: Nova Class
Bonus: 5% chance of winning Nucleogenic Lifeform (Super Rare - ENG/SEC/SCI) instead of schematics
Prize: 100 Schematics for the new legendary starships USS Odyssey or USS Yamato
Frequency: Only claimable once per day
Location: Mars (where all Galaxy-class ships were built)
Crew: Leah Brahms
Ship: Galaxy Class
Bonus: 5% chance of winning Captain Keogh or Captain Varley (Super Rare - CMD/SEC/DIP) instead of schematics
Prize: 100 Schematics for the new legendary starship USS Phoenix
Frequency: Only claimable once per day
Location: Vulcan (where the Phoenix was built)
Crew: Captain Picard and Transporter Chief O'Brien (Uncommon - ENG/CMD/DIP)
Ship: USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D
Bonus: 5% chance of winning Captain Maxwell (Legendary - CMD/SEC/ENG) instead of schematics
Captain Level: 95
VIP Level: 12
Unique Crew Immortalized: 525
Collections Completed: Vulcan, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Cardassian, Uncommon, Rare, Veteran, Common, Engineered, Physician, Innovator, Inspiring, Diplomat, Jury Rigger, Gauntlet Legends
The other thread you mentioned inspired this thread. I wanted further conversation on the topic. I'm quite happy with the resulting input.
And let's not overlook the fact that there's almost no point to using anything less than a 5* ship, once you have one at level 6 or higher (2250 antimatter is where 4* level 9 ships end). So over half the ships (27 5*s vs 30 4*, 3*, 2*, and 1*) available are affectively worthless, leaving two unique traits (Hirogen and Maquis) in voyages, and some iconic ships (Enterprise D; original Voyager), completely unusable.
I have some ideas but I'll use the spoiler tab for those uninterested in reading them:
Second: ditch schematics and use "parts" (or something similar; you could probably use schematics). You would then level the three areas of the ship (Power, Evasion, Accuracy) just like with the cards, only using "parts" rather than the assorted items. Levels of each attribute would be level 1 to 10. They could be leveled as soon as you have the first card of a ship. All ships would have four seats for cards, and three traits (the traits would need to be audited to fix the well documented mistakes).
Next, you would need to eliminate duplicate ships. I'm mainly thinking of the class ships (Valdore class or Constitution class; almost all of the current 3* ships) but there would be some other ships removed too (Assimilated Voyager for example). Anything that has a specific ship gets eliminated. That's because all the ships are suddenly on the same level. This would raise the Val Jean and one of the Hirogen ships up, and wouldn't require new ships to get those traits. Also, we'd have options for the scout trait; looking at you suddenly renamed USS Equinox! And we could use the Ent-D again!!!
After that, the Arena needs to be revamped. You might be asking "without stars, what about the levels of the Arena?" To which I would answer: small, medium, and large. That would be a new trait for each ship and would correspond to Commander, Captain, and Admiral levels (which they kinda already correspond to). Also, the prizes would be the "parts" item mentioned earlier and the quantities would need to be large enough to make it worthwhile to compete (if the Arena weren't the only present way to level up a ship, I would ignore the system completely; the rewards are pitiful).
Finally, grandfathering this in for established players. Any ship kept would be brought up to the level roughly corresponding to their level in the old system. So any fully leveled 5* ship would be fully leveled in the new system; a fully level 4* ship would be at level 9 with four stars; a fully level 3* would be level 8 with 3 stars; and so on. Obviously more complicated for a half leveled ship, but something can be worked out. Eliminated ships would get the amount of parts of equal value and extra schematics in inventories would be turned into parts.
I'm sure I'm missing something, so feel free add on. This is a radical change to system, so I expect a lot of people to not like it. I also, in no way, expect it to be considered by DB...but I can dream!
Example - my voyage wants a Federation ship, i pick one, then EACH of my crew that also have Federation get, say, +5 AM as a bonus for using that ship?
would something like THAT spur more spending and/or arena-ing?
The featured ship in a skirmish should also get a small attack boost so the so called "whales" could get a small benefit towards winning the event but not too much to unbalance the competition.
As for the search function it should be sorted by highest AM to lowest including the traits bonus so scrolling wouldn't be needed.
And if they went the other direction and nerfed non-bonus ships to make it not so easy to coast along and not give a toss about ships, I feel like a lot of people would react like how it was when they decided you'd have to change crew on every battle during a skirmish to get the full bonus - 'Too much effort, can't be bothered'. Ships not really mattering to most players is kind of accidentally built into the DNA of the game - once you play enough Dabo to get a maxed Cube or K't'inga you're done - and I don't know if there's a route to transform ships into a major money-maker without rejigging the whole game and risking annoying the people who actually are paying money for things the way they are.