Lt.Goranov: Can we target, different parts of the ship? Like the warp core or the impulse engines, or warp nacells?
You’ll
be able to target subsystems and disable certain devices, and people
will be able to repair them and get them back online. But right now
we’ve just begun working on this system, so it’s still in the “making
it fun” stage.
Certain weapons are better at taking out
subsystems. For instance, phasers are very precise, so they will be
able to hit subsystems rather easily. Disruptors aren’t precise; you
can still take out a subsystem with a disruptor, but it won’t work as
reliably as a high-accuracy weapon. And explosive devices, like photon
torpedoes, have poor subsystem accuracy. They’re blunt instruments and
are more effective at taking out large areas of a ship, like its hull.
Tamgros:
How will partially damaged ships be handled in STO (ie: 1/2 hull
dexterity)? Will it be like a typical MMO where everything works great
until dexterity goes zero, or will you get debuffs/systems going off
line?
Your ship and your items will not underperform as
they get damaged. Your ship has hull integrity – or hull hit points –
and your items, your subsystems, have durability. They’ll continue to
work at full capacity until they’re destroyed. We don’t want to force
people into a downward spiral in combat where you just keep getting
worse and worse. Your shields get weaker, but performance doesn’t
degrade until something goes offline.
There is another axis to
this, though: You have crew on your ship. We lovingly refer to them as
your redshirts. Different ships have different crew complements. The
Defiant class staffs 50 people, and the Galaxy class staffs
1,000 people. Your crew help keep your ship running, and will do things
like affect the repair rate of your ship and affect certain actions you
perform, such as assembling boarding parties, repair teams or medical
teams.
In combat, crew can die or get injured. As you lose crew
from explosive devices like photon torpedoes, those abilities will
weaken. So you may be less effective at repairing your hull, or
launching boarding parties. You can revive some crew based on how good
your medical skills and medical officers are, but inevitably, you will
need to replace some of them.
marscentral: We know it's Science, Tactical and Engineer for Starfleet types, but what about the Klingons?
The
simple answer is they’re exactly the same. No one ever said Klingons
don’t have scientists or engineers; somebody built those ships.
Klingons will probably have a few distinctions in skills and certain
other areas, but the classes will be the same.
Manx: Will there be ways for solo players to get the high end ships, or will they be strictly for fleet members only?
Solo
players will be able to access highest-end ships in the game. Everyone
will be able to fly a Sovereign class ship or a Prometheus class ship
once their skills and rank allow them to do so. That’s not to say there
won’t be endgame rewards and things only guilds can do. But ships will
remain available to everyone.
MagnusTyrel: We know the
Klingons and Federation will be the Primary playable Factions and the
Romulans will be one of the Main villans in the game, how exactly have
you come about balancing the Federation ships with the Klingons giving
that most Federation ships seem to be like flying Fortresses and are
usualy seen disabling Klingon ships in a couple of easy shots, I know
ofcourse that most of this is due to the Hero Ship/Crew factor but
looking at online sources for ship specifications its seems the
Federation has a large advantage... Any Information on this would be
Appreciated.
First and foremost, we’re trying to build a
balanced game. We are trying as hard as possible to remain accurate to
the IP, but when it’s not fun and balanced, we take liberties. We have
to. It’s the same as a question we had a couple weeks ago about Vulcans
having what amounted to super powers in the series – we have to balance
that, and we’ll do the same thing here.
Without going into too
much detail, we know that Federation ships will be able to choose
between escorts, science vessels and cruisers. Those three different
paths represent the different shows. Escorts represent warships like
the Defiant in DS9, science vessels will feel more like the science
ships in Voyager, and the cruisers will represent the Enterprise-like
ships from TOS and TNG. Klingon ships will be distinct and each will
feel entirely different. You can expect to see your favorites like the
Bird of Prey, Vor’cha, Negh’Var, and more, plus maybe a few surprises.
But
the bottom line is there will be balance. There will be ships that are
tougher than other ships. That will exist on both sides. Federation and
Klingons will have different specialties that’ll counter each other.