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Thread: Star Trek Online Conversion

  1. #16
    Bouncy Caitian I just realised where I recognized your quote from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
    Tractor beams are not designed for sling shotting Asteroids!! "What other use is there then?" T'Pak klingon/ vulcan hybrids response to fighting in an asteriod field.

  2. #17
    I would like to see: personal equipment, places, and starships!

  3. #18
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    working on that in the proposal and will see if I can get permission to do the startships and equipment out to 2410...they are going to be adding some new cutting edge technology in the next update
    A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions -- if only we lived in one.

    Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "Now We Are Alone"

  4. #19
    I'll see if I can talk to Jesse H. about this, he's a buddy and I think he might have some notes laying around somewhere.
    Commander William T. Riker: My great-grandfather once got bit by a rattlesnake. After three days of intense pain... the snake died.

  5. #20
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    Tell him I said hello.

    I'm just glad he's out of the fraggin' hospital....
    Patrick Goodman -- Tilting at Windmills

    "I dare you to do better." -- Captain Christopher Pike

    Beyond the Final Frontier: CODA Star Trek RPG Support

  6. #21
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    BC, I would like to see the game info of the Stargazer class. You know, length, decks, crew, speed (in WFs), weapons, etc... I dunno if the game gets that specific, but get me what you can, please.

  7. #22
    Another thing that my crew was interested in, was that since they play STO, how do you get that satisfaction of getting better weapons, consoles, shields, engines, etc.?
    Commander William T. Riker: My great-grandfather once got bit by a rattlesnake. After three days of intense pain... the snake died.

  8. #23
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    Aside from quelling the impulse to ask Fugazi Girl to marry me, I have only a little to contribute to this thread- and little of that is actually hopeful or positive.



    As far as the OP and intent go, BouCait, the only thing we have to offer Cryptic is word of mouth adverstising and an expansion of their brand.

    To put it in religious terms, you don't send missionaries to the already faithful, you send them to those who have not yet heard "the Word".

    Since we are already dyed-in-the-wool Trekkers and hard-core gamers, they'll actually gain very little.



    In theory, we might help expand their canon through mission ideas and write-ups, but they're already getting that service free of charge through their Foundry- and there's nothing to stop them from simply lifting the data right from our posts here or at BTFF.

    Either way, the story will need to be drastically simplified and coded to run on their platform- so there's little incentive for them to work with us.

    Moreover, our hobby directly competes with their service for time. Hours spent at the gaming table (or eating, sleeping, bathing, etc.) are hours spent away from their game.

    Since they went free-to-play, they make their money by nickle-and-diming the poor schlubs who play for all the little extra "goodies"- special ships, special tools, special consoles, etc.

    It's a calculated effort, and as a time-sink, they can tolerate no rivals (gaming is a jealous god).

    http://www.cracked.com/article_18461...-addicted.html

    For that reason, they simply have little or no incentive to help us.

    As far as what we might want from them, the only two things of any real value are ships and setting data. Anything else is likely to be counterproductive at best.



    Let's be honest, when we talk STO equipment, we're talking about four things: buff, de-buffs, weapons, and shields.

    • Buffs give you temporary bonuses.
    • De-buffs give you temporary penalties.
    • Weapons are rated by Damage type and Damage Per Second (DPS) (everything else is window dressing).
    • Shields are rated by Damage Reduction (DR), Strength, and Rate of Recharge.


    In order to give these attributes meaning (and to give the various pieces of gear for which they charge value) they have hundreds (or thousands) of tables to differentiate between a Type 6-b modulating photon castrator and the Type 6-c.

    CODA, by contrast, assigns characters equipment bonuses ranging (generally) from +1 to +5 .

    From their perspective, a Type II and a Type III phaser differ in Damage type, DR, and DPS. In their mechanism, those differences are critical.

    From our perspective, a Type II and a Type III phaser differ only in magazine size and range.

    If we were to incorporate (or attempt to incorporate) STO-style gear, we would necessarily have to incorporate STO style complexity in order to make any differences meaningful.

    That means more tables, more rules-lawyering, and more time spent looking things up- all of which destroy suspension of disbelief, dramatic pacing, and story telling.

    STO gets away with it because all of the number crunching is done off-camera (and generally seamlessly) by the computer. We would have to do all of that number crunching manually.

    Such a game might make accountants and actuaries squee- but it'll drive the average casual (or not-so-casual) player to distraction.

    Incorporating STO-style gear will either simply be cosmetic with no (real) impact on play-balance, or it will increase the Narrator/GM's workload exponentially.

    There is no real third option.



    The other consideration is that they have all of these equipment options because that's the only real advantage they can offer their players.

    Boiled down to essentials, STO is basically a three function game: 1)travel from A to B. 2) Shoot bad guys. 3) Press lever in correct order, get food pellet.

    There is no provision for outsmarting your opponents, or a completely off-the-wall approach to solving the problems presented: you start at one end of the maze and have to get to the other end. There are only so many routes you can take- you have to choose one of the options they present you.

    That being the case, the equipment options are the only real variation the system can support- and even those are more hype than substance.



    As far as the ships go, STO is even less useful than their equipment. Setting aside the aesthetic issues (most of the designs in my opinion are guppy-with-a-thyroid problem designs), the only real "gain" we'd get are some clean images of the hardware.

    In STO, a light cruiser is a light cruiser is a light cruiser. Until it is customized in play (there's that complexity again), the only differences are cosmetic. They all have the same number of crew, hull points, equipment slots, and power.

    If we were to convert STO-style ships, we'd either have to incorporate STO-style equipment modifiers (there's that complexity issue again) or "freeze" the design and go from there- which is what we do with our own designs anyway.

    We'd be doing all the work to stat out these ships- and for what tangible gain? "Official" permission to use their artwork?



    The best material to be gained, IMO, is setting (and perhaps species) data and/or history.

    Even that, though, is either a re-hash of already available material or bare-bones essentials.

    To make the data useful in your RPG, you're going to have to expand and personalize it in any event. Except for a few NPCs and name places, there simply isn't that much there.

    In the interests of full disclosure, my recent campaigns (Shattered Stars and Land's End), borrow some of the timline (up to 2390) and the concept of the Klingons taking advantage of the destruction of the Romulan homeworlds by going to war and a few other tidbits.

    But those "borrowings" amount to less than two hundred words.

    In summary, I just don't see that STO has that much to offer us- or vice versa.
    Last edited by selek; 01-03-2013 at 10:25 AM.

  9. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by selek View Post
    Aside from quelling the impulse to ask Fugazi Girl to marry me, I have only a little to contribute to this thread- and little of that is actually hopeful or positive.
    Flattered - what would that be ? An Influence (Charm) test vs my Willpower ?

    In regard to the original topic, usually when I see stuff converted and made available on line they usually contain a disclaimer. Something like "Based on Star Trek On Line by Cryptic Games", or "Original Material by Cryptic Games, CODA System by Decipher inc." might cover it.

  10. #25
    I'm also trying to figure out how the personal shields and armor would work, borrow from different races in the aliens guide?
    Commander William T. Riker: My great-grandfather once got bit by a rattlesnake. After three days of intense pain... the snake died.

  11. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by C5 View Post
    I can only confirm what Aldaron said: ST:O happens in the Trek timeline we know and love (and by the way contains countless continuity nods to the series and even books). The events from the Abrams movie are alluded to, but only up to the destruction of Romulus and the sacrifice of Spock (and the fact that Zachary Quinto voices Spock when you encounter the Enterprise in the past, but even then it's clearly the TOS Enterprise).
    The destruction of Romulus lead to an interesting story arc by the way.
    The universe in ST:O is quite interesting and mainly expands upon the standard continuity.
    Quinto voices the EMH in the tutorial. The guy who voices Spock when you go through the Guardian of Forever is named Leonard Nimoy.

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by PicardX View Post
    Quinto voices the EMH in the tutorial. The guy who voices Spock when you go through the Guardian of Forever is named Leonard Nimoy.
    I'm pretty sure Nimoy was only voicing the description of sectors when you entered them as well as the congratulation message you get when you level up (how cool is that by the way).
    The voice you hear when contacting the vanilla Enterprise during the GoF mission is distinctly different and I thought I recognised Quinto's (though it's been some time since I played this mission).
    Aaand... apparently the Internet proves me wrong. Guess Mr Nimoy managed to change his voice to sound younger on that one
    "The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
    Terry Pratchett

  13. #28
    Yeah the level up message for Federation characters and sector messages as well.

  14. #29
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    Finally back to working on this. Will be working on ground equipment and such for the players to use as well as starships
    A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions -- if only we lived in one.

    Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "Now We Are Alone"

  15. #30
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    STO Wip

    Hey Catian,

    My players and I started to do a home brew conversion for CODA to STO about six months ago. It's been collecting dust for the last three or so but I'd be happy to compare notes. We built out a reasonably complete set of starship build rules and did some work on personal shields. We also retooled the 25th century weapon capability charts; we tried using the existing charts in the additions on the BTFF site (thanks Patrick) but the penetration vs. Shield thresholds were insanely skewed and most ship to ship combat lasted about three rounds.

    Anyway if you're interested let me know.
    "Bad thinking is punishable. Good thinking is quickly and easily rewarded."

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