[Heyallo]

Cryptic had backup choices for the Emperor, like Harry Kim, in case Wil Wheaton couldn't do it.
~Emperor Harry Kim is new want now =P

Emperor Barclay would've been fun, but his actor isn't really worth touching right now.
~Really? Emperor Barclay would have been AWESOME! not as awesome as Emperor Harry Kim or Emperor SHUT UP WESLEY, but still.

Clothing is being looked at by character artists piece by piece, here and there. Things will get updated, but there likely wont be a sweeping "we updated all the clothes" moment
~THIS! THIS SO HARD! It's a start at least.

Kael doesn't understand the obsession Trek fans have in regards to killing characters they don't like, like air-locking Wesley.
~REALLY?!?!?! <insert SHUT UP WESLEY meme here>

No plans for a TMP bridge pack(someone asked about one in chat)
~I'm going to cry now.

Kael doesn't think the vet ships are high on the remaster list.
~They should be, they say updating for space barbie, so yes, should be.

Kael has advocated for adding the Grand Nagus ship as a free giveaway, but Cryptic is understandably gunshy about the ship due to how legendarily angry people were about the ship. On one of his first weeks on the job Kael found a pack of Nagus ship codes, but was too afraid to use it. One of the last pieces of advance LaughingTrendy gave to Kael before they left was never talk about the Grand Nagus ship. Will pass along idea of making it available for a ridiculous amount of GPL.
~The ol' "First rule about fight club is we don't talk about fight club" rule eh?

Kael's favorite TFO is Starbase One.
~My man!

Kael would like Cryptic to have more real merch to represent STO
~*digs up STO launch commbadge from box proudly*

Cryptic knows they need to do something about crafting since no one really uses it anymore, but talks keep stalling about what exactly to do with it.
~So they introduced it, retooled it and now they wanna mess with it again?

[Taku]

DSB1 TFO is besto because it can always be soloed. Easily. On ADV. Epic is tricky to solo. For me, anyway.

Now, about Remans with wigs. . .

[Petrarch]

Has there been some sort of controversy with Shultz at some point? The fact that they seem to casually dismiss him out of hand without a second thought seems very odd.

[Sul-Matuul]

Has there been some sort of controversy with Shultz at some point? The fact that they seem to casually dismiss him out of hand without a second thought seems very odd.

He’s a big Trump fan and hosts a conservative radio talk show I believe. Probably why they don’t really want to involve him in anything to do with the game/franchise.

[Taku]

He’s a big Trump fan and hosts a conservative radio talk show I believe. Probably why they don’t really want to involve him in anything to do with the game/franchise.

The crazy guy from The A-Team? Say it ain't SO! (But it is. . .)

[Dwight] Schultz has made a name for himself in recent years as a Rush Limbaugh wannabe, hosting the conservative talk radio podcast ••••••• ••• •••••, writing on the blog ○○○ ○○○○○○○○○, and acting as a substitute host for America's favorite talk-radio Republican +++++++ ++++++.

Schultz is a big Donald Trump fan and is critical of both Republicans and Democrats who are against Trump.

No free nutso PR here.

[Petrarch]

Well that answers that, didn't realise that was a path he went down.

Freedom of speech is often quoted, but a lot of people seem to forget that while sure, you can say what you like, freedom of speech does not give you freedom from consequences, especially if you're peddling stuff you know is either misleading or just outright lies.

[Remsus]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1609522424?t=0h12m13s

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comment..._weekly_10422/:

Big note at the beginning of this. This stream was heavily math/mechanics based, and doesn't translate well into notes, so watch the stream for all the nitty gritty. This is just various comments/details from throughout the stream that translated well into notes.

• Winter ship is a new Fek'ihri ship
  
• Byr'jai is a smaller ship, maneuverable, replacing the skin for the frigate class in the Fek'Ihri critter group
  
• Cryptic has a spreadsheet that has all the ships/classes/seating they put out the last few years which they use to make sure they're not making too many of the same kinds of ships
  
• More then one ship between Somerville, and winter event
  
• March Legendary being Akira or Valdore possible
  
• Fed bundle of Aquarius/Hestia also leaked as possibly upcoming
  
• Early 2023 ship bundle patrol escort also leaked as possibly upcoming
  
• Farragut SNW(ENG, Temp Op cmdr spec, pilot Lt/Ens spec, lockbox)
  
• Jeremy suggests new Fek'Ihri ship might be miracle worker secondary spec since its not commonly seen on tac ships/would give it a unique feeling to it
  
• Light escort class for the winter ship
  
• Jeremy doesn't want to make it a raider since Cosmo's ship is a raider, and all the universal seats doesn't leave a lot of room for creativity with event ships
  
• Since event ships aren't supposed to have as broad appeal/universal performance expectation as things like legendary or other ship so they can use it for more experimental ship designs
  
• Wouldn't make the ship a Heavy Destroyer, since that is more a cruiser sized ship
  
• Winter ship is about as long as a Connie's nacelle
  
• Jeremy wants to branch out from making all these smaller ships pilot spec
  
• Later considers Temp Op LtCdr spec seat, and an intel Lt/Ens spec seat, to combine with the fire damage of Fek'ihri ships and their phasing powers
  
• Galaxy Quest scene inspired the tethered mines in the lobi store
  
• Jeremy isn't sure how much Cryptic can do in regards to the entity limit in regards to mine layers, though he will pass along the enemy disappearing issue
  
• Cryptic is still waiting to get the models for the SNW Gorn ships. Trying to remake all the details on them without the concept art would be difficult
  
• Cryptic has a separate spreadsheet they can use to compare stats between ships. Stats came from STO wiki since its easier to get them from there then from the game data
  
• Jeremy gave a no on a 6/0 weapon ship. He doesn't think its necessary, and its goes against two major considerations.
  
• They have a large catalogue of ships that they want to stay viable, and the money you spent is worth it, by not just making a ship thats universally better. Don't just want to invalidate older ships because it erodes buyer confidence.
  
• When they break a precedent, they don't want it to be just breaking a precedent, but creating a new rule. Why was this done? What value does it serve to new ship design? Does it add new options in terms of ship designs? etc.
  
• Tac primary(specifically escorts/raiders) with 7 weapons or fewer get experiment weapons
  
• Fire is hard to draw. Very large fire effects are a larger performance hit, and tend to look ugly, so they generally avoid it. Fire effects should be kept small/sudden.
  
• Jeremy mentions Fek'Ihri use some mind control powers in STO lore, so maybe the fire in space you see from them isn't really fire but your brain just interprets it that way
  
• Cryptic uses these spreadsheets, as well as looking at similar ships on the wiki, and other ships in the same family(Fek'Ihri) to constantly refine ship stat selection so they aren't just reusing the same hull/shield/turn rate modifiers. Each ship goes though this cycle at least 1.5 times.
  
• Soft rule for ships, that Jeremy admits they sometimes break, is that the primary seat(tac/sci/eng) should have equal to or the most amount of consoles
  
• Having 1 console in Tac/Sci/Eng would mean that you would have zero console in that type until you reach like level 30 due to the way scaling works. So Jeremy doesn't really want to do that.
  
• Jeremy would like to revisit the ships that only get +15 bonus power and give them 20 like modern T6 ships do. Though he admits he doesn't have time currently to do that.
  
• Jeremy finds ships with 6 BOFF seats as undesirable because it tends to lead to too many low ranked seats. Also doesn't want to do more then 13 powers because the number of powers for a T6 is generally considered "sacrosanct". Going to 14 would be closer to T7 ships which they don't want to do, though they have kicked around the idea of adding a new BOFF power slot onto T6 ships via a T6 upgrade token.

All decisions in regards to the event ship subject to possible change between now and release.

[Bridger]

[Petrarch]

Ten Forward Weekly 10/12/22

• Kael jokes that "with god as his witness" there will never be a Curry class in STO. If he sees it on the ship schedules hes going to erase it(note, Kael has no power over ship releases, and he's just joking here)
  
• Kael, Jeremy, and Thomas, say the Curry is just an Oberth with weirder/worse proportions
  
• The remastered Odyssey probably wont be added into the game until it shows up in Picard S3, as to not upstage Picard on revealing it
  
• Cryptic doesn't know how the ENT-F will show up in Picard S3, and don't expect Shon to be captain.
  
• Tobias Richter did the remaster of the old Stargazer, back when it was remastered.
  
• Kael would like to get the folding sword from the Kelvin movies added. Thomas isn't sure why they didn't do it. Jeremy says it would be a lot of animation support, but is doable.
  
• New ship: Valdres Command Strike Wing Escort
• Thomas says its the long requested... for some reason... Norway(includes canon Norway skin)
  
• Ship was designed and modeled by Eric Henry, aka ECHenry
  
• Thomas says he had no real rush on his part to do the Norway, because it isn't a ship he particularly likes. While they don't always get to things people want right away, they do look at requests, tally them up in their head, and will do something if they feel theres a critical mass behind it. That being said, Thomas did want all of the First Contact ships in the game at some point
  
• Thomas originally couldn't figure out why does it look the way it does, or what is it for. Then he realized that it reminded him of one of those heavy lift cargo helicopters, with the big gap in the back. Once he latched onto that, he decided it could be a heavy lift starship that picks up large cargo/colony fab pods and takes them out to the frontier. Once he figured that out he got more excited about it, and talked to ECHenry about it. ECHenry added a bunch of what looks like latches/mag clamps to the bottom of the ship that makes it look like it could fulfill that role. The flat saucer being related to it needing to land on the surface of planets. Also could be used as a troop transport during the Dominion War. Compares it to Star Wars: Clone Wars transports.
  
• Clone Wars isn't one of Thomas' favorite Star War movies, but the Battle of Geonosis is one of his favorite sequences.
  
• The lore of the ship being good at carrying cargo meant it was probably good at carrying hanger pets. Ship comes with unique pets, the Valkyrie class from Star Trek Invasion. These fighters were modeled by Mauricio Tejerina.
  
• Thomas had long wanted to do a 25th century Starfleet fighter, originally considered an update to the Peregrines. Due to the on a whim Email to CBS/Paramount regarding using ships from older games, and CBS/Paramount's approval, instead went with the Valkyrie. Why make something new when there is something from this classic game they can pay homage to?
  
• Thomas does say that just because they can do ships from other games now doesn't mean the next one wont be for a long time. It all depends on what the game needs
  
• Typhon from Invasion isn't Thomas' favorite ship
  
• Valkyrie pets have fore and aft torpedoes, and can use high yield and spread
  
• Ship is in the Zen store as part of a bundle, or individual purchase
  
• Thomas was really excited that everyone in the chat knew it was a Norway variant when revealed. Says hes proud of the team they have, and how they're able to distill down the essence of these ships, while bringing something new to it, and also making sure that core identity is still there. Thomas has been training new people to do work on ships for STO, and theres a lot of stuff that, after awhile of doing it you just assume is second nature, when it really isn't. Its learned. Jeremy: The better they get at it, the easier the ship artists make it look.
  
• Experimental Weapon: Mjolnir
• Does heavy AOE electrical damage. 360 targeting arc.
• Console: Heavy Pulsed Tractor Array
• +% damage for tractor beam BOFF abilities. +X starship Exotic particle generators. Pulls a foe in, push them into another foe for kinetic damage.
  
• Ships beyond a certain size wont get pulled, just take additional damage.
  
• dea for console comes from ship being a cargo hauler, powerful tractor beams to move ships/cargo pods around. If it can't move the ship due to size its pulling parts of the hull off in lore.
  
• Ship trait: Constructive/Destructive Field Interference
• Tractor beams steal shield, energy drain reduce resists
• Trait originally only did the shield steal, but Jeremy felt like they could do more with it. Based on players often having a drain build when using tractor beams, they came up with the secondary effect.
  
• Jeremy believes it can give NPCs negative drain resistance
• Ship has fleet version
• Comes out in about two weeks
• This ship will not be able to use the Oslo skin due to the ship being on its own skeleton from the Akira
• Ship comes with a new Norway material, based on the Defiant material. The original Norway in the show was pattered using the Defiant texture, so its the same in STO. This material can't be used on other ships.
  
• Vesper and Excalibur skins for the Connie getting revamped
• Excalibur skin revamp based off of the Sovereign
• Vesper skin revamp based off of the Ambassador
• Thomas wants to go through the old STO ships, one tier, and ship type, at a time, and revamp the old STO launch era skins. Plan for remasters is to take the original STO design, and filter it through the closest canonical lens, to fill out the skin selections for those eras/fill in the gaps in Star Trek history. Like how with the Shi'kahr, there wasn't Miranda sized ship of the Galaxy Class. Nebula was like a Galaxy class Miranda, but still about as large as the galaxy. Shi'kahr is a smaller support vessel sized ship for the Galaxy class.
  
• Excalibur remaster done by outsourcing partners at Virtuous. Kelly Phillips, a concept artists at Cryptic, did the concept art for this remaster.
  
• Sovereign refit material is being unlocked for everyone because its the natural fit for the Excalibur. No longer need to buy the legendary bundle to use it on ships that could use it. Sovereign window type added to all Constitution variants(that this skin applies to) Excalibur revamp has animated bussard collectors like the Sovereign.
  
• Added Narendra material to Connie family because it fit best for the Vesper revamp. Vesper looked like an advanced Excelsior/proto-Ambassador with the way the nacelles/saucer looked. Made to be a ship from the early 24th century, around 2325-2340. Neck grill, copper colored deflector, and large phaser strips, on the Vesper inspired by the proto-Ambassador.
  
• Some confusing statements about an Exter remaster, it existing, but not being on the list shown in-game due to being relegated to dilithium store, and Thomas not wanting to promise anything until they're actually able to do the work.
  
• Ship remasters should be out soon, Thomas will talk to production.
  
• Not as much work needed as the Shi'kahr revamp, since the base designs were a lot better. Mention theres going to be some harder ones they're going to have to massage, with Jeremy mentioning the old Olympic variants. Some of these revamps are just going to be uprezes, others are going to be more transformative like the Shi'kahr was.
  
• These two remasters have been in development for 5-6 months due to working with outsources taking more time.
  
• Mauricio Tejerina is working on a Romulan ship
  
• There was some anxiety at Cryptic after the California class was first shown off because people were going to their Miranda and making quasi California classes with them. Thomas got a nervous email from someone who wondered if CBS was going to be unhappy about it. Thomas's response was "I don't know what to tell you, we can't just take this stuff away. Its not the actual Cali class, just people getting creative in the tailor."(conversation started because people pointed out Kael made something that looked like the Titan-A in the ship tailor with the revamped parts).
  
• Thomas has anxiety about possibly doing the Pakled Clump Ship at some point. Not just the model, but the materials which is the tricky part due to needing so many different materials for it. Making it customizable would be a big technical issue.
  
• Second new ship: Seneca Command Carrier
• T6 Hiawatha class from Discovery S2
• Cryptic doesn't know the name of the class since its never mentioned in DSC, only mentioned it was a medical frigate
• Thomas thinks its kinda fun. He likes utilitarian type ships that have a long fuselage, and cargo pods and such.
• Comes with both the Seneca and Hiawatha costume.
  
• Thomas was adamant that if they did this ship he wanted it to be a carrier, because he felt like the STO reason to do this ship at all was to made it a carrier due to the cargo pods on the side being used for hangers. Thomas and Jeremy think that you could probably, in universe, change all 12 of the cargo pods into hangers if you wanted. While he didn't have time to do it, Thomas did think about creating various skin options like that for the ship. Changing the pods to this or that. The pods can be switched out between the Seneca and Hiawatha pods.
  
• Tobias Richter were both modeled both versions of the ship, and Hector did the concept art for the Seneca.
  
• Tries to be as close to the lore of it being a "medical frigate" and still be a desirable ship. Focuses on command since its a support focused spec.
  
• Has new pet variant. New variant of runabouts that is a support variant. Like the Danubes but has a medial nanite repair payload isntead of tractor beam to heal themselves/player/allies.
  
• New pets are unlocked by buying these ships, but can be used on any ship.
  
• Trait: Supplementary Support Network
• Launching pets reduces captain/command BOFF cooldowns
• Console: Non-Baryonic Buffer Field
• +X all damage resistance rating vs hazards. +X auxiliary power setting. PBAoE ally buff, incoming damage converts to DoT.
• Console power similar to the clickable on the Lorca armor, but works on you and allies.
  
• Kael: "its really a ship about erecting support for your allies so they can penetrate enemy defenses, and bring you to a satisfying conclusion".
  
• Has a fleet version. Fleet version for both this ship and the Norway is available at T3 of the Starbase.
  
• Logo on the front of the ship can be changed to UFP logo, fleet logo.
  
• Jeremy doesn't know off the top of his head if the ship has access to the Walker bridge, has to look at the precedence of other 2410 versions of DSC ships.

Pinched the transcript from Reddit. The Norway is coming! Disappointed that the Oddy remaster is being held back but I can see why they're sitting on it. Still, a lot of ship updates coming in and there's even mention of a new Romulan ship too.

[Heyallo]

Experimental Weapon: Mjolnir
Does heavy AOE electrical damage. 360 targeting arc.

MEW MEW!

[Jestersmith]

Ten Forward Weekly 18/10/22

• Discovery Far From Home lockbox will join the Infinity Box later this year
• Vanity shield galleries for new ship blogs were stopped due to time issues. It took several hours to make for each ship
• New ENT-F bridge will be made playable at some point, Kael is pushing for it to happen soon
• Marshal Janeway will not return in this storyline
• The next story update, coming with the anniversary update, will be the end of the Terran arc
• Cryptic is looking into keyboard controls being fixed on consoles. Kael has no definitive answer either way
• Winter event will start and end on the same days it does for PC. Kael doesn't have the exact dates for that on him
• The new ship bundle will appear on consoles soon
• Kael believes DOFFs are still faction divided due to old coding from how the game used to be more faction divided. Will ask about possibly having that changed
• Kael doesn't know what the next story arc after the Terran arc will be. He knows Al Rivera has ideas, but they haven't gotten that far into it to have something actually planned
• Kael thinks its unlikely they will continue using the voice box thing for possible player character voice acting due to players saying that isn't how they imagine their character sounding. If STO was starting development today Kael would push for voiced PC/BOFFs, but that isn't what this game is
• Kael doesn't know when the updated Connie skins will be added. Will likely just show up in an update this week unless Thomas writes a blog to promote it
• TOS characters can't be Caitain likely because the animated series rights were still an issue then. Isn't as easy as just setting a flag and Caitains are now playable on TOS faction
• Kael would have to ask, pretty early in the year, about/get production to schedule a time to make an in-game event if they do fleet week again next year
• More likely to see old event rewards being added to Phoenix/Mudds then events being re-run
• Kael will check to see if Cryptic an just make KDF Lower Decks DOFFs or if that needs approval from someone
• We will find out what else is in the upcoming bundle on a blog on Thursday
• Terran option for new players unlikely because not as many people like playing evil characters, and its unlikely they will be making new tutorials in the future
• Character race/species/gender swap is something Cryptic is working on, but its slow
• Kael doesn't have the data on if the TFO/patrols for the Halloween event are more popular, but suspects its the TFO since you only have to play it once to get daily credit
• No plans to completely overhaul ground combat, but there might be tweaks here and there
• Kael doesn't know why the transmutation charm only lasts 1 minute with a 1 min cooldown. He assumes its some sort of balance reason
• Kael would like to see a KDF-DOM Alliance ship, something like a small fighter thing
• New fleet changes will come on console when Season 27 is added on November 1st
• Kael passed along infinity lockbox pain points from twitter thread to systems, and to the rest of the team. QA is looking into that if you open a 2nd box it doesn't remember your previous selection, and Jeremy is looking into the possibility of making weapon choice packs a choice pack instead of random, but no promises
• Kael thinks porting over Champions' Nemesis system to STO would be very difficult, not sure how they would do it
• Kael would like to interview Kate Mulgrew if they did another fleet week
• Kael would like to have the Lower Decks crew, and/or Patrick Stewart, in STO when asked who he would most like to see in STO
• Kael has passed along the request to make zooms closer on console
• We will be seeing SNW Romulan ships/costume
• FPS issues on Xbox has already been fixed, and the team is working on fixing the other issues
• Kael will pass on the idea of having past event ships being added to the campaign event reward pool for next year
• No Bajoran stories planned for right now
• Kael will pass along critical care accolade being broken
• There is a reason why some ships can go without the abbreviations like USS/ISS, and why some are forced to have it
• Nothing yet on the old Klingon War missions being re-added. Kael has more hope on them being re-added, but nothing specific
• Kael will pass along possibly getting a SS prefix added to Oberths since several Oberths used it
• Uniforms are harder to get to than ships due to the size of the character team. Kael has informed them that players want the Picard 2385 uniform
• No news on giving elite BOFFs captain pips/rank
• Kael isn't sure if Brent Spiner has ever been approached for VA work for STO. Everyone showing up in Picard S3 is kinda touchy for Cryptic to use right now because they cant step on PIC S3's stories
• Cryptic doesn't know what is going to happen with the ENT-F story in PIC S3. Kael doesn't think we will see Shon/Shon will be captain of the ENT-F
• Odyssey remaster will become available when it shows up in PIC S3
• Unlikely we will see Shatner in STO any time soon
• NPCs on DS9 likely run/do jumping jacks because they're cycling through a group of animations
• Kael thinks Avery Brooks voice over work would be awesome. Cryptic has heard first that he was retired, and then that he wasn't, but Hollywood was blacklisting him. Kael doesn't know, and thinks getting a hold of him is difficult, but they would love to have him
• No plans for a Constitution class in the zen store right now
• Kael was always amused by the bug where putting on a beard made your character invisible. Cryptic left in a bug that lets you throw tribbles at the DS9 dartboard because it was too funny to remove
• Kael would like to see the hunter guy from this season of Lower Decks added to STO
• Kael will pass along request to have Embassy Boffs use faction uniforms
• Kael asks if people would possibly be interested in buying Borgifed versions of classic ship(someone was taling about it in chat)
• Little chance we will ever be able to command ships from the bridge

Link to original
https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comment...weekly_101822/

[vonLuden]

Little chance we will ever be able to command ships from the bridge

Command from the bridge would presumably mean looking at a view screen as in the shows. This seems retro to me. The crews in the shows would have better situational awareness if they used a virtual space view as we do in the game. Something like this:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/me...path-prefix=en

[Jestersmith]

Ten Forward Weekly 25/10/22

• Console players don't get zen for lifetime due to the deals with Microsoft and Sony
• Wil Wheaton will be back for the anniversary update
• Kael has been looking into why the Klingon computer lines Cryptic recorded haven't been put into the game
• Kael is pretty confident there wont be T7 ships. It makes more sense to make new T6 variants of existing ships then making T7 ships
• Cryptic has looked into making the Valkyrie ships playable, its gone up/down on their interest/priority list, but the swarm ship tech has a hold up
• Kael will bring up making Sela's Empress uniform playable to the team
• Pet inventory is something Cryptic has been talking about for years, but there's issues with it
• Kael will ask about the possibility of making admiralty cards purchasable separate from the ships
• There's ongoing discussions about being able to change weapon power skins, Cryptic has some concerns with it
• Unlikely to do a Thanksgiving event because Halloween and Christmas are already close to each other, and when Thanksgiving is is different in many countries
• Last part of the ship event will likely happen between Halloween and winter events
• Kael will ask about randoms excluding TFOs that you've already have gotten daily bonus marks on
• Cryptic is looking to talking about changes on the stream before they make big changes to balance/gameplay in the future, to prevent issues like what happened with the last balance change
• There was a time where Cryptic thought they might get the Protector from Galaxy Quest, but that didn't work out
• Kael asked about getting Klingon versions of the LD DOFFs, he said we'll see about it
• Cryptic doesn't want to bring the pink vanity shield back as a purchase since it was for charity, but Kael does want us to get another chance at getting it
• Cryptic doesn't have access to any FASA material
• Kael thinks making marks/dilthium shared across the account would likely break the economy even more(he was asked if theres been talk about making them account wide)

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comment...weekly_102522/

[Jestersmith]

Ten Forward weekly 15/11/22

• Some of the objectives of the Bug Hunt revamp included:
• Making sure optional objectives are better called out
• Making sure the number of marks you get matches the time put into it, so its competitive with other TFOs
• Cleaning up areas where players might get stuck
• Alarm bugs where changed from spawning in the middle of fights to being before fights, and running off so they better seem to fit the purpose of alarm bugs.
• Each successive alarm bug moves faster, and reaches the end of its patch faster, meaning you have to kill it quicker
• Added indicators to the various pit drop down sections because its rare that you just drop down into a pit in STO, in order to prevent confusion from some players, and worries of fall damage. Normally if you have to go up or down there are stairs/ramp, indicators were added to inform players this is where you're supposed to go
• Jesse fixed an exploit where people would just run through one of the rooms, fall down the pit, and fight the bugs in the next area, ignoring the ones in the previous one. Now the bugs from the previous room will follow you so you have to fight them also.
• Various polish updates include Lt VanDerveer actually plants an explosive device instead of just playing an animation as he did previously
• Fixed collision in certain rooms, and along the collapsed pillar bridge, to prevent people from getting stuck/falling into the chasm
• Spawn mother was given more HP so the fight isn't over instantly
• Base marks on Bug Hunt were increased from 15 to 45 because Jesse felt like, even if you failed all the optionals/fumbled the TFO, that you still at least got something worth your time
• Praetor ship blog was late because the reference material given to Cryptic by CBS turned out to not be the most accurate one to what appeared in the TV shows, so the art/model had to be remade in several areas
• Kael doesn't see Cryptic ever putting playable skins of famous Trek characters for sale since that isn't the point of STO. The point of STO is playing your character. And, as Jesse mentions, not all actors licensed their likenesses to CBS/Paramount, so they would have to do a bunch of deals with individual people to allow that
• Praetor ship will have both the screen accurate skin, and the one Cryptic originally made, available
• Things like hairs for major NPCs like Janeway are built as one piece into the rest of the head sculpt so they can't just be made player available since they aren't separate objects. Kael will ask the character art team if there is anything that can be made available
• Jesse, and one other person who is currently learning how to, on the systems team are the only two people on the systems team who have not made a ship
• Cryptic is aware, and working on, the bug on console that kicks people when they report players
• Players were locked in place during the briefing period since that is standard for TFOs now, but waiting period was reduced from 1 min to 45 seconds
• Briefing period exists to let people with slow computers/connections load in before the TFO starts
• Jesse very briefly considered making the explosions in Bug Hunt do damage to players, but decided against it since they don't do friendly fire
• Old ground maps, like those on the Cure/Khitomer/Infected ground TFOs used an terrain modeling system, different from the one they use now. Redoing those maps requires redoing all of the terrain, and that is at least a 6 week job for an environment artist.
• Before redoing those TFOs they would need a "battle plan" for that they're going to do for making a whole new map for those TFOs, since it isn't going to be the same map, it isn't going to be the same objectives, and it isn't going to be something designed to take 30-45 minutes to complete like they were originally set up to be. Effectively like making a new TFO from scratch
• Redoing the Assault on Terok Nor TFO into Forged in Fire still took environment time since the new DS9 map, while already built, was made for story missions and needed to be adjusted for 5 players/larger battles
• If Cryptic did revamp Infected/Cure/Khitomer ground it would likely be part of a new Borg arc, if they ever get to doing a new Borg arc, like how Assault on Terok Nor was revamped since they were doing this Terran arc
• Cryptic has been working on reducing some of the effects in the game, and more is coming on that
• Jesse doesn't drink, but "porting the old Foundry to console would involve him going getting a bottle of something very stiff, pouring several fingers of that, and starting from there"
• Cryptic frequently has internal direction discussions about things like once X story is over what is the next thing they do. Is it another big story, a series of isolated stories, do they take the time to go back and redo a bunch of older content etc. The direction is chooses partially by what the team is excited about, and what CBS/Paramount are doing. If CBS/Paramount thread a giant narrative across all the various Trek projects Cryptic would want to jump on that, but if theres going to be a lul in new content for awhile Cryptic will go do their own things/revamp older content
• STO doesn't have ads like Star Trek Fleet Command because the company behind Fleet Command has like literally billions of dollars they can use for advertisement, STO does not
• Kael believes Cryptic has decided what the next story arc will be, but hes not sure how many of the details are locked down about that
• Jesse was asked if, when he started on STO, did he see is being as strong as it is running into year 13? Short answer reply is he thought it could last 13 years, but didn't think it would be a successful as it is today since there was no evidence of Trek coming back on TV to bring in more people
• Cryptic has been talking internally on if STO's timeline will be a fork from the prime timeline. There's storylines and stuff Cryptic wants to do, and gotten a way into planning, only for CBS/Paramount to say no. Cryptic recently hired an actor for the next storyline(I think he actually meant release here), and they wanted to use the prime version, but CBS/Paramount said they couldn't use the Prime version of that character, but the contract for that actor was already signed, so they had to pivot to using the mirror version of that character. Because of stuff like that they have considered saying they are an alternate timeline. The problem is they're learning that wont necessarily fix the issue. Even if they are official an alternate timeline they could, hypothetically, try to use Patrick Stewart for something only to get told no we're using him for X by CBS/Paramount, and they(Cryptic still couldn't use him. So it may not be worth it to make it an alternate timeline.
• Yes, Jesse has a multitude of characters of he does play them every day
• Jesse says item sets pose an issue with game design where, if you give people exactly the stats/powers that they want, they have no reason to change it/break their set bonus for a new item. So its a game design challenge to make sets that are interesting, and competitive, and that give useful abilities, but don't make it to where its "go get this set and you don't need anything else" This doesn't mean they aren't going to do more item sets, but the amount of work needed to make a set, and for players to earn a set, playing an often hour+ mission 3-4 times to get all the items, isn't always the best way to go. Which is part of the reason they stopped doing mission set rewards.
• The events they've been running these past few years have been getting more engagement then featured missions did in the past. People like playing events with multiple choices more then replaying the same mission over and over. Another reason why they stopped doing mission set rewards.
• Kael knows of only one time a story was cancelled/changed due to something other than CBS/Paramount, and that was the original post ViL story which was changed to be a DSC story.(based on past TFW the original story arc was some Terran story like the current one, minus the DSC characters obviously)
• The developer who originally made Bug Hunt is now working on WoW
• There is a discussion in the systems team about a loot overhaul. How you pick up loot, how need/greed works. Its in a very preliminary stage.
• Jesse made Defense of Starbase One in 3 days due to a hitch in the schedule where they needed something quick that went with the new DSC stuff they were making.
• There was an internal bug in DOSO that was fixed before the TFO originally came out. A senior programmer made some under the hood changes to faction/allegiance stuff, but this affected the invisible NPC in the TFO map that controls things like ship spawns, certain effects, etc, so the game thought there was still a hostile NPC on the map and wouldn't progress to the next stage. People were pulling their hair out trying to figure out what the issue was. Jette found it by using a tool that tracked every NPC the map considered active, and then killing everything visible with a command power. When this one NPC was left neither she nor Jesse knew what it was, but someone on one of the other teams did and fixed it.
• Jesse also talks about a bug that happened when he worked on developing Fallout 1 where the game's combat system were treating walls as NPCs, and if the walls got hit by stray bullets it would give them stats from various junk data and caused wall sections to start moving around the map as NPCs in combat.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comment...weekly_111522/

[Petrarch]

Didn't realise they had a former Fallout dev at Cryptic, that'll be Jesse Heinig. He did the design and scripting of Ian, Tycho & ZAX. He's also one of the folks responsible for developing the SPECIAL system after they weren't able to use GURPS.