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Crew Interactions
Captain's Blog Stardate 92384.64
Here's a topic that spawned from last week's blog. Since the game was released people have wanted some kind of interaction with their bridge officers. The crew was probably the most important part of Star Trek and the reason we love it. Their interaction and personalities made Star Trek. So how can we get something like that into STO?
Well I think we can rule out artificial intelligence, but maybe we can take some ideas and create a simulated AI. I've been following the development of FireFly online and they have an interesting crew feature. To summarize, every decision you make that involves your crew, changes the way they view you. If they really get sick of you they can leave. Let's not take it that far in STO, but something close.
What if we had a Crew Interactions system? You do things with your Bridge Officers which improves your relationship with them. This in-turn affects the efficiency of your Duty Officers. Why? You motivate your Bridge Officers, who are the heads of your departments so they motivate the Duty Officers. The Duty Officer efficiency improves rewards for their assignments.
So what kind of interactions can you have with them? Well maybe we could finally put that poker table to use in our ships. Maybe there could be random generic Bridge Officer missions. Holodeck training? Parties? It could be as simple as taking them on your away team. I'm sure the possibilities are endless so share your ideas for crew interactions.
It's not perfect but it could be a start towards making STO feel more like Trek. Yup... I just gave Cryptic another idea for more grinding in STO. Sorry everyone!
Written by Attilio on October 12, 2014 at 09:35 pm
Comments
October 13, 2014 at 04:32 am
There is a little bit interactin when your crew gets scared, I like that feature, i.e. on Nimbus, when they are attacked heavily they get scared and crowd around you. It means you did not manage your away team very well. Sent them into too much heavy battle.
More of this would be great.
October 13, 2014 at 11:15 am
Like SimCity ish type. Only maybe called Shipcity.
October 14, 2014 at 05:51 am
Next thing your gonna mention is that cyptic should start s deep space nine like station for us to command! oops!!!! another idea for cyptic! but that would be cool to run your own station. (not a fleet starbase though)
October 14, 2014 at 11:19 am
I played Star Wars: The Old Republic when it went free to play, inorder to try it out, and I know Bioware put together a pretty good companion system (where most of the game is like STO on New Romulus, where you run around with one Bridge officer with you who assists in combat.)
Each companion in Star Wars has an affection level, and as you roleplayed with characters in missions, your companion affection would be changed.
(I had a Sith Warrior, and if in dialogs, I would select to say: 'I will kill them all, and hunt down their children,' then I would gain dark side points (good) and loose companion affection (bad), as Vette, my companion, didn't like it when I slaughtered people in cold blood.
(You could give them gifts to gain affection as well, depending on their interests. Vette, for example, preferred gifts that were Underworld Goods or Cultural Artifacts to get the most 'affection' points.)
As you reached higher affection, the companions did more damage, would have different dialogs as they told you more of their back-story, and also had companion quests you would unlock.
(Companions are also how you do crafting type missions, you send them off to do something for ~5 minutes, and then they return when the job is done. They can even sell your junk loot for you-)
It was a great system; and as long as Vette was in a good mood, she would periodically joke (in a friendly manner) with NPCs throughout most conversations. She also liked it when you acted insolent with Darth Baras. (My Sith Master....)
It was a balance in the game, if you went for all Dark side, to get more Dark side power, then your companion was less powerful because of the low affection rating. They can even become your enemy!
November 06, 2014 at 10:23 am
This subject is the one thing that STO is missing I love STO's attention to detail they have gone to great lengths to get every detail as close as possible except for this the relationship that develops in a heirachal system between a captain 1st officer and the the bridge crew ect is a pivotal part that that understandably is hard to replicate through technology but if they could expand on this would make the game even more addictive than it already is!
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