This might be more jig's territory I don't know, but I had a couple of questions about ships.

How do you see the final graphics comparing to say botf or armada?
Is it likely we'll get ships firing out of the phaser arrays/torpedo launchers, also will some ships have pulse disruptors or different torpedo loads?
Are ship upgrades planned to be done in space or at shipyards/starbases? My biggest worry is that the game will be like botf and ships will gain abilities out in space with no need for refits etc.

The appeal for me about botf was always the realism of the starships, they had phasers and torpedoes and no ship in a class stood out as exceptional. My biggest problem with armada for instance was the super powers, sovereigns deflecting torpedoes etc, didn't seem real.

I know with jig and dafedz looking after the ships we'll be in for a treat, if the ultimate mod's anything to go by, was just curious as to see what you had planned. Thanks for your efforts.

One more thing, though not a question, more a request. Please dont forget the Original Romulan Bird Of Prey, the white one with the brown feather paint job. I did so miss that in the original Botf.

the graphics in the final production, (once the 3d engine is sorted) will have high res textures, so we will have some lovely looking ships guys .
and torpedos will not be reflected lol, the weapons will do what they are meant to do, and thats explode so a torp, even when it hits shields will have an explosion to follow, otherwise it would be sily

That is fantastic news mate!

Put me out of my misery, will my defiant have pulse phasers???

no a musket we`ll try to get the right weapons on the right ships though, just for you

The word musket has just triggered a crazy tng flashback! Anyone remember the early tng episode with q where they had to fight, and I quote, "hideous animal things", everyone called them that, even picard!

Seriously though, cheers for updates jig, Seeing the correct weapons on ships will be even more satisfying than the graphics!

Next time you're around, do you know if the ships will be upgraded at starbases/shipyards or out in space, public opinion is refits in shipyards but thought I'd check....

i`d have to go with shipyards or starbases for ship upgrades, the whole getting everything in deep space is stupid beyond belief. for refits ships should have to spend x amount of turns being refited.

That's music to my ears mate. That was the thing I hated most in botf. So unrealistic!

Wahay, so a Galaxy will have orange photons, and a Sovregin will have bule
Quantiums, Excelent. And the defiant having foward phaseres was a bit strange, lol. The refit upgrade things it nice to know, no more speculation.

Just one thing, dosent the defiant have one Phaser strip on its back somewhere....?

EDIT quick research on DITL indicates it does, but theres no picture of it s im not sure where it is. Me think the rear belly, but dont quote me on that.

Hey guys,
This all sounds excellent. Also the idea of incorporating advanced weapons like Quantium torpedoes and Photon torpedoes, as well as pulse phasers over bank phasers sounds excellent. SonOfMogh said it best "That's music to my ears mate." my opinion on refits is all for starbases/shipyards. I'm relieved your getting rid of the "random refits" that I call them. Well if were doing refits, i'd personally like to see the idea of different level of phasers on different ships, for example (i'm pulling random ones from the ds9 tech manual) the Galaxy class has type-10's as does the Nebula, and Akira while the Miranda has type-7's. This should obviously be tied to technological development. Another concept i've been toying with in my mind is to ditch the old concept of one refit per class of ship. If advances from Photons to Quantiums (for those ships that can support them) are discovered, they should be able to be placed on ships impartially, the same goes for phasers, scanners, engine, you get the idea. What is everyones opinions?
-Jega

I think the refit should work like the diffrent aspects of the ship.

You should be upgrading the phasers as new ones come out, so you could put class 10 banks on an excelsior (but the ships should have limits)
So you can build a galaxy with type 1 phaser, im know thats a bit off but you get the idea.

Has anyone ever played a game called Warzone 2100, in that you could build the tanks and thing from diffrent parts.
So what i was thinking was you could build the ships as you see them. Not as in design them, but the basics. Example...

Galaxy chassie
Weapons Class 6-10
Impulse Class 5-10
Warp Class 6-8
Shields Class 6-10

Like that, so you can build a galaxy, and put low class stuff on it, or prehaps in order for gameplay it comes with the lowest tech, but for refits you can change them, that way ships can be upgraded a little often, or have a major upgrade once of twice.

Thats exactly what i was thinking, and in a major interstellar conflict, being able to build ships with maybe lower science marks or a little slower engine, so you could build the ships a little faster would be welcome. Maybe that would not be practical for the money would would save would be marginal, but it's something to think about. Also while i'm talking about building ships faster, I don't know if this has been mentioned yet but their should be a base time for ship construction. FOR EXAMPLE in civ3 it does not matter how much money you divert into science, it takes at least 4 terns to get an advance. On the same idea, it does not matter how cheaply you make a ship, it should take at least a set amount of time to build a ship! And their should be a limit to advancement par class as you suggested. Having a Miranda class ship with type 11 phasers and Quantium torpedoes would be just silly!:D
-Jega

The ability to BUY ships is gonna be scraped, im pretty sure thats the was theve been speaking. Although throwing some money that way should speed it up a bit, people work harded if theres a Bigger paychack at the end.

Hey,
Yea as i've been reading all of the "old" forms I found your discussions on the buying ships idea and i'm totally behind that. 1 turn for a Defiant is a little insane! Also the idea of having money speed up production seams much much more realistic! Has anyone had an idea about having an experienced shipyard? For example the McKinley shipyard over earth or the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards (I picked those 2 purely for comparison) would probably be better at construction than some obscure outpost with a shipyard at a fringe sector.
-Jega

Each ship they build, they gain XP, and the more XP they have, the faster ship production is. Great, sounds excelent. Would be good, dunno how it would be implemented, Definetly one for gturfrey of jigalypuff.

I'm just thinking that an experienced shipyard would build ships faster than an inexperienced ships and XP would accumulate along the same lines as ships and the crew of a shipyard could be sent to a new shipyard in a critical location that would be producing many ships. Just some ideas!
-Jega

First we were talking about experience of a shipyard. Now we want to have the crew of a shipyard to be tranferred over to a new shipyard. I think that if we keep adding such features, it will make the game to complex. I think to give a shipyard some experience possibilities would be good but to give them a crew to be transferred would go to far.

Gturfrey said there'll be no transferrable crew experience so this one's doubtful. I suppose experience is hard to judge in a shipyard, I mean there are a lot of people involved, transferring around, and a lot of automation etc.

Originally by hedgehog

"Just one thing, dosent the defiant have one Phaser strip on its back somewhere....?"

It's on the dorsal surface, on or immediately behind the bridge module (seen- 'paradise lost' and 'shattered mirror')

She also has a forward phaser bank in the deflector housing ('paradise lost' and 'starship down') but favours the pulse phasers if possible.

These 2 banks are generally considered type X, putting them in the same bracket as galaxy class arrays.

I've started so I'll finish... There's 2 forward quantum torpedo tubes, seen firing all the time. An aft photon torpedo launcher (paradise lost, shattered mirror, way of the warrior) And 1 forward photon launcher, also in the deflector housing (shattered mirror, rules of engagement)

That's the defiant's entire arsenal. Along with the 4 pulse cannons.


Just another 2 facts for you,

1/ No ship has ever fired a photon torpedo from a quantum torpedo launcher or vice versa

2/ No ship has ever fired an aft quantum torpedo.

Ok, i stand corrected, but the phaser banks, although not really used, are their and could be overlooked eaisly. You right about the no aft quantiums, and the photon/quantium mix. However i would thing the two weapons are around the same size. I remember Voyager having both types of torpedos but no mention of diffrent launchers.

For gameplay id have to suggest that the two diffrent types are the same sie, and can be used just by a simple swich. Like in Birdge Commander.

Voyager has never had quantum torpedoes.

In the pilot she fired tri cobalt devices from the photon launchers. Little is known about that weapon.

Your right, Chakotay says they have a complement or so many Photon torpedoes, adn Janeway says no way to replensih them. So what ship was it that carried both. Maybe im getting confused with Bridge Commander, i know you had diffrent ones that fired from the same slots. It would make sense for them to be a universial design, just diffrent stuff inside the casing. So much info, all getting bucketed around.

4 ships in the whole of trek have been confirmed as having quantums.

The Defiant
The Enterprise-E
The Lakota
The Cardassian Missile Dreadnaught.

Both the Defiant and the E-E have photons as well as quantums, but they're fired from different launchers. The quantum launchers on both ships look different to photon launchers, bigger, more bulky. I'd guess the tubes aren't compatable, which is why we don't see galaxy class ships firing quantums. All I know with the lakota is she had a massive refit which brought her almost in line with the defiant in terms of firepower.

The prometheus had no mention of quantums, even though the computer described numerous tacical advantages to the doctor. I have to assume it doesn't have them. Perhaps none of it's 3 sections have the power individually, or there's a problem from an engineering point of view.

For gameplay then, howd would suggest this would work. Have the Quantium launcer a diffrent upgrade, or just a following one to the progress of the Photon launcher. I like the idea of being able to upgrade a Galaxy to have Quantiums, it would make sense that Starfleet would do this if the need arised, the Uprated Excel had them, so why not other ships?

I think it should be possible to give a galaxy a quantum launcher, it should probably be quite costly and time consuming- that way you haven't got all galaxies flying around firing quantums.

You've started a train of thought hedgehog, look out for a thread entitled 'tech and upgrading'.......

I say Galaxy class ships should have a quantum launcher. I didn't see one in the series but it makes since that one with 1014 people, a flagship, and one of the most powerful ships in star fleet should have a quantum launcher or heres an idea, the Galaxy X class should get it. A ship that is supposed to be present In the future should get a weapons that is present now. If the Galaxy class ship was getting upgrades it would make since that was deployed on the Galaxy class ship too. What does everyone think?
-Jega

During the dominion war, starfleet couldn't afford to pull galaxy class ships off of borders for massive refits. Baring in mind the galaxy class is 15 years or more older than the first quantum firing ships, they almost definiely don't have them yet. Over time, some may be refitted with quantum launchers, but that's not what the galaxy class is about.

I pray to god they don't have the all good things galaxy refit in the game! That was an imaginary upgrade in an alternate timeline. Not only that, it looks like it's been designed by an over excited 14 year old fanboy! It's dire! Berndt Schneider on the Ex Astris site called it "an immature space dragster" hard as I try I can't think of a more apt description. I mean, why in god's name stick another galaxy nacelle on it! That nacelle design is decades out of date already, never mind by then. If they needed a refit enterprise-D, they'd have been better off giving it a tasteful refit like the constitution. Perhaps have the two nacelles replaced with more advanced looking versions, rather than just add random stuff onto the hull. I kind of liked the phaser cannon though.

If this HAS to be in the game, then make it a final refit of a galaxy, not a seperate ship. Available after the sovereign. The first thing I'll do is mod it out as long as that's possible.

The Galaxy-X is a great ship, one of the best designs ive seen, it was a bit bulky true, but in that future the relations with other racs was unknown, but the feds upgraded the Galaxy to be like a battle ship, with a BFG phaser, transwarp and cloaking tech, shes a real beast, and A GREAT SHIP!

The X project should be one of the last things the Federation does, i think that instead of decommisioning ship they now put them through Major overhaulls, like the Uprated Excel, a ship thats that old, but suped up to be mighty again. Its the same thing that happend to the Galaxy in that timeline, and means that pehaps its possale to happen. But it should be very far down the line, and be very expensive. But Please have it, its one of a few cannon ships that isnt really cannon at all, sounds wieard that.

Don't worry hedgehog, it'll be in there. I don't doubt that!

It's a one off as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't disfigure all my galaxies in that way, maybe just my favourite (or is that least favourite )

Once you see their power in combat, you might change your mind, expecially if things are not going too well for you.