Star Trek Online ship tactics, part 2
by Adam Holisky 
Nov 20th 2009 at 4:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, New titles, News items, Star Trek Online
Part 2 of the Star Trek Online starship tactics video premiered over at IGN, and there are a couple concepts clarified over a few subjects -- but as with the last video, it's nothing really new. The gameplay footage that's attached to the explanation is quite compelling however, especially with the boarding parties where you can see the little shuttlecrafts head towards the Romulan ship. Let's take a closer look at each of the concepts the video covers.
Power management.
Power management is going to play a big role, which we known about for a while. You can see some detailed pictures of part of the power management UI in yesterday's article, located along the bottom of the screen with words like Defense, Attack, and Speed. Say you have 100 units of power, in STO you're going to be able to devote 25 of those units to the shields, 10 to auxiliary systems, 50 to weapons, and 15 to the engines. Power allocation will not be immediate, it will have some sort of delay associated with it. That means you'll have to think ahead about your strategic choices.
Damage and repair
Much of the ship repair takes place behind the scenes outside of the player's control. You won't be going down to engineering and banging on counsels like Scotty; the STO designers want to keep the player involved in action as much as possible. While we'll need to wait and see how the actual game turns out at launch, we can read into this a little bit and postulate that there won't be too much of a death penalty. In fact, we can see in the video ships coming out of what looks like a ship building facility. Could this be the STO version of resurrection? Time will tell.
Boarding Parties
Players will be able to send their crew over in shuttle crafts to board enemy ships. These boarding parties will try to take over parts of the ship's systems, decreasing the combat effectiveness of the enemy ship. Think of Worf and crew going over to a Borg vessel and knocking out the shields or transwarp drive. That's what boarding parties appear to be simulating.
Overall this video wasn't as interesting as the first part, but it's still good to see some of these concepts in action that we've been hearing about for a while.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
TheDrago said on 4:32PM 11-20-2009
Looks like you'll also be able to separate saucer sections from ships. I saw the Next Generation Enterprise ship flying around in that video without its saucer.
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Chroma said on 7:55PM 11-20-2009
I was going to call you a lier, but I saw it too. It's saucer was flying in the scene also, instead of scurrying back to a starbase. I wonder if that was a proof of concept video of multi-vector assaults within the game?
CCon99 said on 4:40PM 11-20-2009
I'm so glad they decided for us that stuff like running down to engineering to repair your ship's system "isn't fun". Sorry, but what isn't fun is spamming a up, down, left, or right button to repair your ship's shield.
And the part about ship boarding parties is incredibly lame. They know what people want and mean by boarding parties in the game, yet they come up with the "Oh we have boarding parties!!!11!" answers which is just using shuttles as a lame DoT. Players want to physically board a ship and fight either PvE or PvP crews defending a ship from being taken over, not watching a meter for an invisible make believe landing party. It's just so obvious they don't get what a great game this could be, then again what do you expect from a company who thinks they can create a MMO in less then 18 months of work.
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Moe Greene said on 4:48PM 11-20-2009
I'm not impressed with these vids. Well, let me put it another way. I can't see giving up or even taking anytime away from EVE to play this patronizing cartoonish compromise.
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-Drexel- said on 5:01PM 11-20-2009
With all due respect I couldn't imagine NOT playing this game due to beautifully rendered "Spreadsheeeeeets in spaaaaaaaace!"
As to post 1, in STO you are the captain of your ship and even with a boarding party the ship to ship battle continues. How would you suggest they implement boarding an enemy ship during battle while your main ship (that you are the captain) of continues to dog-fight? You're also missing the fact that there will be episodes (their version of quests) that involve fighting and boarding enemy "wessels" :)
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PeterD said on 5:34PM 11-20-2009
You make it sound like implementing boarding would be impossible, when another game has done it already -- Pirates of the Burning Sea had a perfectly serviceable boarding mechanic. STO could take it one step further by having AI take over your ship and fight in a minimalist fashion until the captain returns.
Ryan said on 6:01PM 11-20-2009
I agree with Peter, they could have made it so you could choose to be a member of the boarding party (or direct the boarding party), leaving the ship in the control of a serviceable AI. And if a player's ship was boarded, they could choose to leave the ship as an AI and fight against the boarding party. Or players could let the boarding parties and security forces defending the ship be AIs, and choose to remain in command of the ship. It would just be another choice, allowing players to play the way they want to play.
It seems to me that this game wants people to find their own way to play the game, offering a lot of choices, but they're unwilling to go the extra mile and let players *really* choose. I don't think it would be that much harder to implement something like this in the game. Here's hoping they're *listening* and get this system in the game ASAP; if not at launch, then soon thereafter.
THAC0 said on 5:12PM 11-20-2009
Like i said on Keen and Graev. "This looks like PoTBS game and we all know how well that game did".
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Wensbane said on 8:04AM 11-21-2009
PoTBS is/was the third most enjoyable MMO I've ever played, simply due to it's amazing combat.
What "killed" it, was that the DEVs couldn't decide, even long after release, whether to make it a PvE game, a PvP game, or a balanced combination of both.
They had no long term plan, so it died. THAT simple. Cryptic isn't perfect, but I expect a lot more from them.
Keen said on 5:18PM 11-20-2009
Pirates of the Burning Sea
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topdeck said on 5:43PM 11-20-2009
So ... you send over shuttles and crew as suicide bombers/saboteurs? Seriously? How does that jive with Federation lore?
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dudemanjac said on 6:40PM 11-20-2009
I read in the forum that you are supposed to be able to recall them. And I don't think it is a DoT. The way they descrivbe it make it seem like they could affect things like engines or shields.
Ryan said on 6:05PM 11-20-2009
It was certainly in the series.
Two examples off the top of my head: The federation beaming to Borg cubes to damage the ship from within. Remans boarding the Enterprise-E in Nemesis.
Dumac said on 5:53PM 11-20-2009
Childish pew pew laser and weapon sounds annoy me
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dudemanjac said on 6:40PM 11-20-2009
sounds like Star Trek sounds to me. What would you prefer? Farts? I would bet there is a sound effect volume control.
dudemanjac said on 6:00PM 11-20-2009
Well someone tell me how this pirates thing worked. I want to pilot my ship. It looks like that is the core of the game. Is it okay to have a different game that does not implement this without it being some afront to gamers everywhere?
Do you know that there is not after fight boarding or missions that involve boarding ships for whatever reason? I'm trying to remember how many times in Star Trek the federation was sending over boarding parties in the middle of a fight. I don't think it was as often as some of you would like to think.
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Ryan said on 6:46PM 11-20-2009
I think you're mainly right -- it was fairly rare, but then again so were situations that they got in which could necessitate it. That said, when the boarding parties did occur, it was usually through the transporter system. I would think this would be for fairly obvious reasons: most shuttles are really easy to destroy. However, I don't mind the game taking some licenses with the story in order to make a more interesting game.
Graill said on 6:06PM 11-20-2009
Hmm, the suicide boarders are a bad idea, i see folks knocking off shields and throwing in the mega buffed boarding parties over to basicaly seal the deal. bad idea.
Doesnt mesh with the lore at all and a boarding party would be used only in certain circumstances, i see this being abused as i see the current skill set for the ships being abused if more safeguards are put in place.
Looks like more devs using that "i know whats best" mentality. Have these devs listed who they are using for trek lore and who they are using for the combat physics?
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dudemanjac said on 7:09PM 11-20-2009
Same. shuttles not coming back could be easily explained away as them being teleported back. and since the shields will be down when the other ship blows, there you go. But yeah. I'm willing to take a few believability hits in a game about spaceships and aliens.
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THAC0 said on 7:37PM 11-20-2009
They are some sort of Federation Mujahideen or something! Thats a bizzare twist on Star Trek.
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