Do we really need new ships?
John Luck Pikkard
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Currently, I don't see the value of adding new ships. They serve absolutely no purpose. Let's go through possible uses, shall we?
Skirmishes: That's when most new ships are being added. But as soon as you have just one of the bonus crew, you can put that crew on any other maxed 5* ship and you get maximum points. No need to build the new one, which is almost impossible to finish within the event time anyway.
Voyages: If the new ship is a 4*, you're not going to use it for voyages, if you have a 5* maxed, because that will give you more anti-matter. That's true even if the voyage has the trait of a 4* (e.g., freighter). A maxed 5* still gives you more AM.
If the new ship is a 5* ship, it would only make sense for voyages, if it carried a new trait. The more recent additions (Queen's ship, Enterprise E, Assimilated Voyager, ...) all have traits that are already covered by existing ships.
Arena: Even with all the new ships added recently, the arena faves still seem to be the HMS Bounty, the IKS T'Ong and the D'Kora Krayton. So nothing's changed here.
There are no collections for ships or achievements like the immortalizing crew one. So I don't really see any incentive to get schematics for the new ships. Or did I miss anything?
Here are a few suggestions to improve the situation:
Introduce new traits on new 5* ships. I imagine the T'Kumbra will probably have the standard Federation, Fighter, and War Veteran. Get creative, TP
Adjust the AM for voyages so that maxed 4* ships with the trait get more AM than a maxed 5* without the trait. Doesn't even have to be much more.
Give us a ship achievement similar to the one for maxing crew.
Thank you for your attention.
Skirmishes: That's when most new ships are being added. But as soon as you have just one of the bonus crew, you can put that crew on any other maxed 5* ship and you get maximum points. No need to build the new one, which is almost impossible to finish within the event time anyway.
Voyages: If the new ship is a 4*, you're not going to use it for voyages, if you have a 5* maxed, because that will give you more anti-matter. That's true even if the voyage has the trait of a 4* (e.g., freighter). A maxed 5* still gives you more AM.
If the new ship is a 5* ship, it would only make sense for voyages, if it carried a new trait. The more recent additions (Queen's ship, Enterprise E, Assimilated Voyager, ...) all have traits that are already covered by existing ships.
Arena: Even with all the new ships added recently, the arena faves still seem to be the HMS Bounty, the IKS T'Ong and the D'Kora Krayton. So nothing's changed here.
There are no collections for ships or achievements like the immortalizing crew one. So I don't really see any incentive to get schematics for the new ships. Or did I miss anything?
Here are a few suggestions to improve the situation:
Introduce new traits on new 5* ships. I imagine the T'Kumbra will probably have the standard Federation, Fighter, and War Veteran. Get creative, TP
Adjust the AM for voyages so that maxed 4* ships with the trait get more AM than a maxed 5* without the trait. Doesn't even have to be much more.
Give us a ship achievement similar to the one for maxing crew.
Thank you for your attention.
7
Comments
I'm also not against adding new ships to the game. Right now there's just no reason to pursue schematics for the new ships.
But that is still not enough without Bylo's point that we need to earn the ship easier.
* T'Kumbra will likely get Vulcan, as it had an all Vulcan crew. If it doesn't, that will be a lost opportunity.
* @Bylo Band I suggested on another thread that a bundle or two of schematics for the new ship during a mega could be added to the other three events and, maybe, to event packs. It also just occurred to me- what about adding the new or 5* schematics as an option like honor, intel, etc. as a between rounds rewards on the Skirmish itself? If players knew they had a better chance of finishing it, buying a few packs to help it along would be tempting.
* I'm all for splitting the portal a bit more. Boosts come in three tiers, why not the regular portal? Ships in one by themselves. If they don't want to give all crew in a portal, how about adding a few equipment crates in the place of schematics? Basic in the lower portal and premium in the upper. I don't know about a lot of you, but a well timed gold or purple item from a premium crate can be as exciting or helpful as a good crew drop. I've immortalized a couple crew that way. They have the mechanism. They should use it more.
1. A shipyard to improve ship stats (such as antimatter, attack, defense, evasion, shields, & hull), perhaps to generate schems (like the current replicator rooms)
2. Create Voyage divisions like arena (so you can use 3 ships at one time)
a. Division 1: 1- and 2-star ships only with 6 seats (1 seat for each skill)
b. Division 2: 3- and 4-star ships only with 9 seats (2 cmd, 2 dip, 2 sec, 1 sci, 1 eng, 1 med)
c. Division 3: 5-star ships only, 12 seats as current
This is a cool idea, but they would need to offer a big increase in crew slots. That's an extra 15 crew occupied on the other voyages. And if you limit Division 1/2 to lower level crew, then you would need to keep enough crew active to cover all possible skill combinations for them. Now you're talking keeping an extra ~70 crew active for these voyages. I can't imagine most players have that kind of space. The only way I see that working is if they opened voyages up to frozen crew.
Also, the 2 cmd/dip/sec would unbalance voyages in division 2. It would be much easier to staff a CMD/DIP voyage than a SCI/ENG one. ENG/MED would be nearly impossible to staff well especially if it's limited to 4* crew. I don't think you want that much variation in voyage length just based on which skill combo comes up. I would keep it at 6 or 9 crew. Or if you want an interesting twist, make it 8. 1 for each skill and then a bonus 1 for the primary and secondary skill.
But I do agree with those above about getting schematics more easily. I just want that Enterprise-E; I only need 150 more schematics and they never drop.
There would be no limits, you could use any crew on any ship. The analogy to arena is for ship divisions only, not crew assignments.
Currently when I send out a voyage and 4 shuttles I am using somewhere between 24 and 30 of my 308 active crew. So the other 270 or so sit there doing nothing. I don't think crew slots would be an issue.
When I had read your suggestion earlier I made the same assumption as Avi. We are assuming the lower divisions in your suggestion would be similarly restricted to lower star crew as the arena is. Just to be clear, are you suggesting the Div 1 6 seater be crewed by 1-5* cards for voyaging? Are you suggesting three active voyages at the same time?
If similar arena rarity restrictions, the matching cards would take up considerable space. Most players freeze and forget after clearing cadets. My current cap is 150 crew. Devoting even 10 to 2-3* crew would hurt considerably. But if you are suggesting all three would be crewed by 5* our reservations would be mute.
If you don't mind, I like the suggestion, but the rather straightforward copy and lack of restrictions seems redundant. What if instead of a division it was more of a special assignment/long term study? A copy/paste of the voyage model, but more focused on a specific goal? Very specific requirements rather than trait bonuses. For example, take a Klingon BoP, Picard, Data, a doctor, and two klingons and attempt to contact a spy (potential chain on rare success). Take a Vulcan science vessel with 5 character or trait specific crew and study this nebula. Or take a warship with these special trait crew and patrol this trade route. Take a freighter and secure a trade between these planets. Randomly generated, the chance of chains similar to dilemmas, perhaps with special drop profiles to compensate for the tight requirements?
For Skirmish - it comes around 1 every couple weeks ..
For Arena .. once you setup your ship, usually you don't touch it for a long time.
but Voyages ... daily almost ... it really needs that filter/search option...
And I agree with Bylo Band .. .definitely need more ways to acquire schematics as well ...
Answer: just like there are car/truck people, there are players that geek out over ships. (See the Spocktober thread for some immediate examples). This is fandom, and it must be fed.
One could similarly ask “do we really need more crew?” too. Of course we do, for the same reasons.
But I agree that ship collections or the option to send out a second voyage with a lower level ship or a specific trait would make them more interesting and give them some purpose.
Thanks. Just popped in to make sure this was said.
And for me there's a difference between ships and crew. Occasionally, new cards come along that could improve anybody's roster. The new Kira is a case in point, new number 2 voyage crew. The ships that have been added recently do not improve anything. The traits are already covered by other 5* ships.
Plus, there are other incentives for finishing crew: collections and the achievements. Nothing like that exists for ships.
As for the fandom argument: I'd love to see an Akira class ship. Always thought they were really cool. Or the Prometheus from VOY. But only if they bring something new to the game. 😀
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This sounds like the Patrols idea that came up a few months ago. Similar mechanics to Voyages but with smaller crew requirements (6 instead of 12, I do believe) and shorter run times. The possibilities for strategizing the deployment of both a voyage and a patrol at the same time are really exciting,
You have 270 crew slots. Just look at the other thread of people asking for more slots and a slot sale. Not everyone has enough crew to be locking up 27 crew on voyages. Especially if you need to have enough of each skill in case the same skill shows up on all 3 voyages. Speaking of which, trying to balance all 3 voyages returning at different times and not having your best crew stuck on a Division 1 voyage when you Division 3 returns will be annoying. The only way I see this working is to limit crew to lower rarity too.
What really needs to happen with the ships is to get away from the schematics system entirely. The ships should be using the star system, just like the crew, and you level them up exactly like equipping a card. Why ever they went with the schematics system in the first place, I don't know.
Am I aware such a radical change is impossible? Yes. But I can still dream!
The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. We'll get a freighter.
Oh, wait, we already got one of those in the game.
Can you honestly tell be that the Ferengi would have a ship that couldn't carry profitable cargo? A one man escape pod probably has a luggage compartment.
Anybody interested in reading up more on Patrols, here you go: https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/14355/the-big-one-a-collection-of-game-improvement-ideas-please-read/p1
If 4* trait plus maxed 4* ship gave more AM than a maxed 5* ship without trait, it would make sense. The way it is now, it is indeed infuriating.
This could have been my post...thx.
The point is that STT is a collection game. You play to collect Crew and Ships. I would love to have more of both (if they serve a purpose even more)
Unless they give us some option for ships that is similar to citations for crew. If we were allowed to turn unused schematics into a smaller amount of schematics for a specific ship, that could be a solution for example.
like this idea - could take it one step further - create a generic Ship Schematic at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5* levels, that can be used against any ship of that level - and then these drop on voyages....by length of voyage, so 5* schems drop on 10hrs, 4* on 8 hrs or something like that