Should we have Gauntlet and Voyage only characters?

Lady Gaghgagh

So I was thinking since the gauntlet is essentially a battle arena, and voyages is mostly mission-based excursions, should we have some characters only be available for the gauntlet.

I have long since been an opponent of beast creatures in the game, since I always consider how can a beast necessarily command a crew? But if beast creatures are used in a fighting arena or as non-leadership roles as would be on a Voyage, then it may be possible to include such crew in the game. They would be unavailable for space battles, away missions, or shuttles though. I still don't think it's a good idea to do smaller pet creatures like Porthos or Spot though, having them fight in an arena is pretty cruel.

Some crew that could work this way are the Crystalline Entity, Ripper, Horta, Gracie & George, Junior (from "Galaxy's Child"), Gomtuu (from "Tin Man").

I am still wary of this idea, but maybe? I just keep imagining destroying people with the Crystalline Entity in gauntlet or having it be a part of research on a voyage and that sounds fun.

cannabination

I think there should be a creature slot on voyages and even on your main ship that grants bonus effects. Gracie and George could grant a cmd bonus, Ripper a Science bonus, The Crystalline Entity a sec bonus, etc. They could have cooler effects like quicker chron recharge, more credits from warped missions, an additional item from warped missions, etc, but that would require more work to implement and balance than I think DB is willing to commit even if they thought it was a good idea. They would have to be baby cards or something with no stats, or maybe only ship abilities.

If you're going to make them an actual card I feel like they have to be available for each game mode. Do we really think that Lal or APU 3947 would do a better job in command than Gomtuu? I totally understand where you're coming from, but with all the inconsistencies already in the game I feel like this is another we'd have to ignore to get those characters in the game in a way that allows us to actually use them.

Lady Gaghgagh

cannabination wrote: »

I think there should be a creature slot on voyages that grants bonus effects. Gracie and George could grant a cmd bonus, Ripper a Science bonus, The Crystalline Entity a sec bonus, etc.

I actually like this idea a whole lot better. It would then let us add in Porthos or Spot for something like a DIP bonus, although for them I imagine a small bonus.

Interestingly enough, I wonder why you consider Gracie and George to be a CMD bonus, I would expect DIP because they communicated with the Probe. Personally I also feel Ripper would be an ENG bonus, although a SCI bonus is understandable. Actually it doesn't necessarily even need to be a creature per se, we could also do V'Ger in this slot.

It may be better for these "creatures" to add a bonus to two skills, since you can only have one "creature" slot. The bonus I assume would be percentage based.
So perhaps...
Porthos = COM, DIP
V'Ger = COM, ENG
Sha-Ka-Ree = COM, SEC
Gomtuu = DIP, SEC
Spot = DIP, ENG
Gracie & George = DIP, SCI
Junior = ENG, SEC
Horta = ENG, MED
Ripper = ENG, SCI
Crystalline Entity = SEC, SCI
Cnidarian = MED, SCI

Cpt. Caveman

I vote no.

Fix the current bugs, and get Customer Support Tickets down from 4 weeks before they reply to something reasonable.

Lady Gaghgagh

Cpt. Caveman wrote: »

I vote no.

Fix the current bugs, and get Customer Support Tickets down from 4 weeks before they reply to something reasonable.

This is not what I asked about. This is simply an idea for future implementation, not a "implement now!" thread. Because if we decided to nix any idea ever based on bugs in current gameplay, then may as well take all ideas off the table then. I am not asking about priority of implementation, I am asking about creative ideas to see in-game at some point possibly. So if you're basing your judgment of this idea on the fact of current gameplay bugs, that's looking at something entirely different than what this thread is discussing.

So you either like the idea for the idea or have some interest in it, or you don't like the idea for the idea. Current gameplay bugs and customer support response times are irrelevant.

cannabination

I meant Dip, and I Vacillated a bit on Ripper. I decided that the whole fungal bit was more science than engineering.

Burnham, Michelle

Maybe lol. That's a bit out there. I thought you meant 'only dropping in' and I was a bit confused.

So I'm thinking, these 'creatures' would be 1* only, provide a boost but not be able to fill a full crew members position, and would fit into an additional slot. I can't see that working in the gauntlet, but on voyages and shuttles, definitely. Perhaps there would be other limitations, like Porthos only provides a boost to Archer, and Spot only to Data, Ripper to Discovery crew, and so on, whereas others may provide a generalized boost. Perhaps we have a limit to 5 dedicated creature slots in our crew manifest which can be frozen or thawed as required.

I know that's not quite what you are thinking, but it might be the easiest way to insert them into the game without making them 'full crew'. What do you think?

Edited to recapitalise Spot.

cannabination

I was thinking they'd be various star levels, like porthos would probably be a 3* while George and Gracie would be 5. They would both give Dip, but the whales would give more. However, it would be pretty cool if Porthos also gave Cmd if Archer were on your bridge crew, for example.

[BL] Q

Lady Gaghgagh wrote: »

cannabination wrote: »

I think there should be a creature slot on voyages that grants bonus effects. Gracie and George could grant a cmd bonus, Ripper a Science bonus, The Crystalline Entity a sec bonus, etc.

I actually like this idea a whole lot better. It would then let us add in Porthos or Spot for something like a DIP bonus, although for them I imagine a small bonus.

Interestingly enough, I wonder why you consider Gracie and George to be a CMD bonus, I would expect DIP because they communicated with the Probe. Personally I also feel Ripper would be an ENG bonus, although a SCI bonus is understandable. Actually it doesn't necessarily even need to be a creature per se, we could also do V'Ger in this slot.

It may be better for these "creatures" to add a bonus to two skills, since you can only have one "creature" slot. The bonus I assume would be percentage based.
So perhaps...
Porthos = COM, DIP
V'Ger = COM, ENG
Sha-Ka-Ree = COM, SEC
Gomtuu = DIP, SEC
Spot = DIP, ENG
Gracie & George = DIP, SCI
Junior = ENG, SEC
Horta = ENG, MED
Ripper = ENG, SCI
Crystalline Entity = SEC, SCI
Cnidarian = MED, SCI

A dog with command and dip skills and a cat with dip and engineering is when I delete this game. Not to mention the others.

Maybe in the 24th century things are different and dogs do political debates and cats have opposable thumbs to use a hyper spanner and crawl in to jefferies tubes whatever about having an avatar like a teibble and uni dog but skills is where the line is drawn

Clanof

[BL] Q wrote: »

Lady Gaghgagh wrote: »

cannabination wrote: »

I think there should be a creature slot on voyages that grants bonus effects. Gracie and George could grant a cmd bonus, Ripper a Science bonus, The Crystalline Entity a sec bonus, etc.

I actually like this idea a whole lot better. It would then let us add in Porthos or Spot for something like a DIP bonus, although for them I imagine a small bonus.

Interestingly enough, I wonder why you consider Gracie and George to be a CMD bonus, I would expect DIP because they communicated with the Probe. Personally I also feel Ripper would be an ENG bonus, although a SCI bonus is understandable. Actually it doesn't necessarily even need to be a creature per se, we could also do V'Ger in this slot.

It may be better for these "creatures" to add a bonus to two skills, since you can only have one "creature" slot. The bonus I assume would be percentage based.
So perhaps...
Porthos = COM, DIP
V'Ger = COM, ENG
Sha-Ka-Ree = COM, SEC
Gomtuu = DIP, SEC
Spot = DIP, ENG
Gracie & George = DIP, SCI
Junior = ENG, SEC
Horta = ENG, MED
Ripper = ENG, SCI
Crystalline Entity = SEC, SCI
Cnidarian = MED, SCI

A dog with command and dip skills and a cat with dip and engineering is when I delete this game. Not to mention the others.

Maybe in the 24th century things are different and dogs do political debates and cats have opposable thumbs to use a hyper spanner and crawl in to jefferies tubes whatever about having an avatar like a teibble and uni dog but skills is where the line is drawn

100% agree. If people really want Spot then have a new version of Data that has Spot with him. Have a new Archer with Porthos on it as well, etc.

But I did laugh picturing Spot using a hyperspanner, thanks for that image.

Dr. Anomaly

I like the idea of characters which COULD be "equipped " to other characters to give a bonus. You could "equip" Porthos to a character to give a bonus to say Sec (dog's nose) and double the bonus if it were Archer, "equip" Spot for a bonus to Dip, double if it were Data, "equip" an Osmotic eel for a bonus to Med, double if it was Phlox, etc.

This would also let you give a skill (albeit a small value) to a character that didn't have that skill to begin with i.e. equip Osmotic eel to Nexus Kirk to give Him a bit of Med.

This wouldn't be a permanent equip, it's be like assigning crew to a ship, you could switch the creature from character to character as needed.

[BL] Q

Here's a crazy idea : There's two avatars in the vault with literally no use or function in the game (Tribble and unidog)

Tribble can grant a 2%-5% Xp bonus while running missions

And Unidog can increases Chron recharge

Dr. Anomaly

You know, a further thought. We have components that are rarity 0* through 5* but characters are 1* through 5*. What if these "equippable" characters were 0*? That way they wouldn't have to create a whole new rarity for them and no one's going to be upset that Spot is a 3* when there's a Data that's only 2* or whatever

Burnham, Michelle

Well, I get that people don't want Ripper or Spot at the helm, amd they obviously don't do diplomacy or engineering by themselves. What I was thinking, though, that the health of Porthos affects how Archer handles daily life, as does Spot with Data, so they increase the abilities of their 'owner' to function well. Again, with Ripper, who doesn't do much by himself, but the Discovery can't even function without him!

So they are unable to provide a bonus unless the prerequisites are there. They don't fill crew spaces but have an additional 'creature slot' which is limited to 5 per ship (we don't want the place over-run with animals, it's not a farm). Maybe they can have negative effects too, like a Tribble can lower the Klingon crews' stats but increase the ability of humans to do diplomacy.

Lady Gaghgagh

BelleAnna wrote: »

Well, I get that people don't want Ripper or Spot at the helm, amd they obviously don't do diplomacy or engineering by themselves. What I was thinking, though, that the health of Porthos affects how Archer handles daily life, as does Spot with Data, so they increase the abilities of their 'owner' to function well. Again, with Ripper, who doesn't do much by himself, but the Discovery can't even function without him!

So they are unable to provide a bonus unless the prerequisites are there. They don't fill crew spaces but have an additional 'creature slot' which is limited to 5 per ship (we don't want the place over-run with animals, it's not a farm). Maybe they can have negative effects too, like a Tribble can lower the Klingon crews' stats but increase the ability of humans to do diplomacy.

Mostly your first paragraph was what I meant when I posted in this thread a bit earlier. That these creatures aren't functional crew in and of themselves but influence the functionality of the actual crew. I wouldn't want these bonuses via influence to be overly limited though, like Spot only gives Data bonuses, no, Spot should give bonuses to all crew if Spot is employed in the creature slot. There should also be no negative effects to having a creature in the creature slot I think. Coding negative effects would be a little difficult anyway.

So in response to Q's line of "A dog with command and dip skills and a cat with dip and engineering is when I delete this game. Not to mention the others.", these creatures don't have the skills themselves, they just are able to influence the efficiency of crew who do have these skills. It's a lot like the idea of a therapy pet, therapy pets unless specifically trained, do not perform the tasks that humans do, therapy pets instead provide emotional support so that a human can feel motivated and responsible to do the tasks they are supposed to do or need to do.

Commander Sinclair

I can see them (especially the larger space faring species) being encountered during a voyage, or even seeing/encountering them on special away missions flying around the Alpha quadrant for bonuses. But to actually implement them as a working part of ship systems?? To me, it just doesn't quite make sense.

Gauntlet, however, is a free-for-all, so RNG away!