The Creeping - Part 1: Concepts

[DOCa Cola]

posted on June 30th, 2009, 7:27 am

Last edited by DOCa Cola on June 30th, 2009, 9:27 am, edited 4 times in total.

Today we'd like to show you some first behind-the-scenes content of Fleet Operations, to learn more about how new features are planned, evaluated and implemented during development.

Click here to read this article!

posted on June 30th, 2009, 7:39 am

Excellent . It's good to see that work has started on the Noxter. I remember the Beta 2 version so I have high hopes for this one 

posted on June 30th, 2009, 7:46 am

Wow.... I'm impressed. I take it melee combat will still be a part of the noxter?

posted on June 30th, 2009, 8:04 am

yay!

posted on June 30th, 2009, 8:19 am

so they aren't goona speak english, right?  
cool concepts btw.

posted on June 30th, 2009, 9:57 am

Really nice work Optec And I like the idea of a breeder too, sort of a small mother organism hehe. Hopefully you'll able to implement them much better this time around

Looking forward to new info 

[Sideeffect]

posted on June 30th, 2009, 10:25 am

Last edited by Sideeffect on June 30th, 2009, 10:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Who the hell are the Noxter ??

I have seen most Star Trek shows and never even heard of them. 

Why are unknown random races being added when some main races like the Cardassians and Ferengi are not in the game yet.

Even adding Species 8472 back would be better than adding in unknown races and tbh the Noxter sounds just like species 8472.

So please don't add this race over proper Star Trek races and as for the Iconian's the empire is dead so why are they even considered to be added.

Just add Species 8472, Cardassians and Ferengi and you have a completed star trek game that makes sense.

All the new planned races Ciadan/Iconian/Noxter are pretty random additions that just sound like what the developers want rather than what the people who play the game might want.   There is no way that most of the people who play this game and download it would choose Noxter over Cardassians or Ferengi. 

posted on June 30th, 2009, 10:53 am

Quite the attitude you have for a guy who has only been registered on these forums for 2 minutes.
How about you just appreciate they are adding a new race into the game? Even if you do not agree with it, there are better ways to get your point across

Oh about Noxter, they are a FO made-up race. They have their story about Fleet Operations and they are trying to make that into a game, that is why they are in - they play an important part in the story.
It is their mod after all, you know 

And just out of curiosity, how exactly would the Ferengi be a viable race in FO? They have like 1 ship class, and even that one is crappy. Not to mention that they are no where near a position to be able fight off the likes of Borg, Dominion, Klingon...
As I understand it, they will make an appearance as a NP race, and rightly so. As will the Cardassians, who are also not really a superpower anymore, since the Dominion almost wiped them.

[Sideeffect]

posted on June 30th, 2009, 11:08 am

Last edited by Sideeffect on June 30th, 2009, 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't see you complaining about the posts saying what a great idea this is.

I don't have an attitude problem just a different opinion which I didn't express in a rude way unless you consider questioning developers ideas rude?

The Ferengi are a major power also and their ships are more than capable of standing up to the Federation as shown in TNG when they could have destroyed the Enterprise D.

As for the Cardassians every race in the quadrant was in a mess after the Dominion war so they were in no worse state than the others.

posted on June 30th, 2009, 11:20 am

Hmm, sounds interesting.

My idea:

What bothers me a bit is the "mother". I think the "mother" is at the beginning a princess that will be able to produce only small things. Eggs for "construction" ships that may be changed into a space station.

So you produce an egg out of the princess, and this egg can be converted into a space station. So you need for every "station" an egg. and not like now, one construction ship that can build everything. Every station absorbes a specific amount on ressources right? So when you get out of ressources, the organisms may die out of hunger.

So in order to take advantage of the constant decrease of ressources, you need a constant gain of ressources. Something like a mining station that will cut into a moon and stay there forever while absorbing a constant amount of ressources. So you have no freighters that will deliver the ressources.

In order to build advanced ships, you need to build a 'prince' that will dock on the 'princess'. You can add up to four 'prices' to the princess. If done, it will become a 'mother' that can construct all the ships you need. In order to do 'research' you build up an 'immune system' around your mother that will include stations for adaption (similar to the borg) and defense patterns. These stations are linked by a hive (similar to the borg) but not through physical tunnels.

So what do we have now?
We have a princess that will grow over the time to a mother. It can be 'upgrades' with four 'prince' modules.
This is your starbase, your fleetyard and your science station.
If the mother is destroyed, you will lose everything. If it is intact, you have everything left. So you may only have a single, large station that grows in its might with building out.

Building ships:
The mother can produce at the first only small ships and with the attachment of additional princes even larger ships.

You have the ability to 'develope' your ships over the time from class one to class three for every ship class.
The more you upgrade a class ,the more additional abilities it will gain and the stats will rise.

Every ship will also consume a certain amount of ressources, so your fleet size is limited.

Science:

- You can make the ressource consumption more efficient if your 'immune system' gains the ability of 'advanced metabolism'.
- You can increase the stats of your defense stations and level up your ships when you dicover 'adaptive genetics'. You can directly change the genetics of your ships. This 'Evolution' got more than just one level.
- You can build more ship classes and stations when you discover "organic engeneering"

So the mother can be build out with yards (prince) ,science stations (immune system + brain) defense stations (immune system) and thats it,
The immune system works in this way: Every time, you destroy an enemy ship, your "hive" will learn and after a certain time of destruction, your immune system collected enough informations to do research about it (brain).
After the research is done, you might be able to refit your ships, build new ships and even new stations.

What about other stations?
- At level zero you have also access to build defense stations. These can be refitted after tech up. Remember that you need for every external station an egg, so when you try to build up stations far away from your mother, it will take some time.
- You have a mining station called "metamorphosis" that will convert dilithium and tritanium into things that are able to be used by the metabolism.
Now we have everything we need compared with the other races. But what would be a noxter if he would'nt be a NOXTER?
You can not only build defense patterns and mining stations, you can also build an 'overlord'. That will be some kind of Deep Space station like for the other races. This overlord is a hell of a space station and the "man" of the mother.

He cant produce ships ( he is a man  :rolleyes: ) but got a large amount of offensive and defensive abilities. The overlord can only be build within the "link" range of the mother. But, because the mother loves many giggolos at the same time, you can build more than just one overlord. BUT pay attention. You have a constant decrease of ressources. You might be able to build mor than one overlord, but this also means, you need more moons to supply them.

What do I do when my mining station gets shot down?
Well, put a part of your fleet to sleep or a part of your stations. If you dont need stations like the "research part" of the mother, because everything is already researched, you can put it to sleep. It will consume only 10% of the ressources it will need when it is awake.

You can set your stations to "auto-sleep" so they will wake up if they get warned. The time they need to wake up will depend on the genetics and so on the tech level you have.

So when you overlord will sleep and a borg Cube will show up, it will wake up after for example 10 seconds.

If you have a fleet in the near of your overlord, the overlord will awake when the enemy is near but not within weapon range.

So suprise attacks against Noxter might be mighty but should be well planned.

Ships-level-up:
What do the ships get when they level up?
Well, its the same for us humans. You learn to fight if you fight. You will be able to evade enemy fire better, are able to fire better (longer range, better hit chance, more damage) your body will be hardened and if leveld up regenerate faster.

So similar to the system we have now. Special:
The Noxter dont have something like a 'veteran queue' They may rank up as much they want, BUT the rank up will cost IMMENSE ressources, more than the other races need.

Ships:

Scout:
Fast ship, good sensor range, may be able to cloak itself when in 'sleep' modus but with remaining its sensor range. Got a single weapon with very short range but good damage.

Destroyer:
You have two kinds of destroyer:
- Attack destroyer which is build for combat. Fast, hard to hit, medium weapon range but good punch and regenerative abilities.

- Antibody: Is a kamikaze-like ship similar to the dominion bug in collision modus. But it wont destroy itself when entering an enemy ship, it will go onto the hull, getting into it, slowly killing the crew and take the enemy ship over. You get a HUGE research bonus if you make it that way. Also, the ship you captured is now mixed tech and cant be re-captured.

With this kind of ship, you may easily capture other small and medium sized vessels, but in order to take over large vessels, you may need more than just one Antibody. The Antibody will cut itself through the enemy hull until it is down to 50%. When the hull is down to 50%, the assimilation begins. Now your antibody needs special energy for killing the crew. If it runs out of special energy, it will die before taking over the ship.
As long the hull is'nt under 50%, you can shoot the antibody down from the ships hull.

Cruisers:
The cruiser-vessels are the first vessels equipped with not only beam weapons. They got biochemical torpedos that will try to go through enemy shields, if weak enough. These torpedos are so to say small eggs with a small brain with only one order: Destroy!

The cruisers also are more sophisticated at got more "love" from the mother, so they withstand more damage and deal more damage.

Battlecruiser: This cruiser got two beam weapons and one torpedo launcher. It got NO special abilities. It was build to be a frontline vessel with only this purpose and with no other value.

Thinker: Support-Cruiser: This vessel is an atrillery ship with long range bionic torpedos. It can 'harden' its position by deactivating its propulsion in order to withstand better enemy attacks. Also the offensive value gets slightly increased. When entering this status, this ships needs a little time to change to 'normal mode'

Battleship:
The small brother of the overlord with engines. This ship can fire energyhungry parasites that will drastically drain the energy output of enemy ships so that they lose weapons and propulsion. This ship can also 'hardening' its position and is able to 'eat' enemy ships. Thus, this ship is very slow, you may not be able to get within 'eat-range'.
After an enemy ship is eaten by the Battleship, is counts as assimilated.
It is a dreadnought.

Additional modules:
"Mutant modules"
When you upgrade your tech level you can refit your ships with mutant-modules, if they are able to. They are like borg modules. You can choose between many kinds of modules, but will only be able to add one per techupgrade.

You can also add many many more additions to this race.

Why would'nt it outblanance the game? Because you have a certain amount of ressources you can spend per time. So even when you only build uber-ships, these ships would also consume uber-ressources. So make it like you want, but an empire that can only support 3 ships because they are so mighty, is not a real empire. And when it would get destroyed, you have real problems, because it will take much time to rubuild those ships to their levels.


Avatars:
Avatar #1:
Agressive fighter:
- bonus for offensive and defensive values of your ships
- additional modules
- additional battle-designs for ships

Avatar #2:
Expander:
- reduced costs for ship support
- reduced costs for shipbuilding
- reduced time costs for research

Something like that

posted on June 30th, 2009, 11:27 am

DARN IT SHEVA YOU TYPE FAST!!


Ok, I love this Idea, So I, will input my own Ideas as well.  What if there was a breeder and the genetic secreter.  It takes time to lay an egg, of which all ships and stations are formed.  You don't control the egg laying process, you only control where it happens, as you just tell the "ship" to stand ground, then move here, and then here, then here, and so on.  So it has a set routine.  The egg laying process is slowed by moving.  After an egg is laid, there are a set of small stations, such as nutrient enrichment embryos, and small defensive organisms(turrets) available, and another set of small ships. E.G. scout ship, destroyer, and breeders.  Next, is the genetic secreter, or your starbase.  this contains all the genetic information for your races ships and station.  When an egg has reached the first level, you tell the egg what to become, and the genetic secreter, secretes a mist or something, much like the borg nanite process.  This mist slowly travels to the place the egg was laid.  Then the Egg starts to continue the process and eventually ends up as your desired selection.  Now, you may also click a continue maturity process button on the egg selection menu, this will let the egg once again grow.  After it has reached stage two, it will stop, and give you another set of selections for stations such as, Knowledge foundations, and mobile secreters.  These should carry a limited amount of the secretion and can only be used for combat ships, making it a small more flexible shipyard.  Last would be the final maturity stage, this is for mixed tech, however this would implemented, and a small knowledge secretion ship.  Now my Idea for a cool way of doing research and special weapons is this: This ship goes to a Knowledge "pod" and extracts the knowledge from it.  now this ship can use that special weapon, or it can be transferred to any ship it wants.  This would make all the Specials inter-changeable.  Lastly there is an obvious problem, which is that all the eggs would be very vulnerable to attack, which gives me this Idea.  They should have the passive ability to defend their self's in this way.  When an enemy ship comes near, the egg secrets an mist that confuses the enemy ship to think, either the egg isn't there, it is a friendly ship, or it merely cannot fire upon it. This would change in this order as the egg matures.  All the noxter ships would have to be very strong considering the time it takes to build them.

[Anonymous]

posted on June 30th, 2009, 11:31 am

Last edited by Anonymous on June 30th, 2009, 12:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Double posting here.  It seems that our Ides are compatible Sheva. I espically support these Ideas.

*snip*
So you need for every "station" an egg. and not like now, one construction ship that can build everything. Every station absorbes a specific amount on ressources right? So when you get out of ressources, the organisms may die out of hunger.

So in order to take advantage of the constant decrease of ressources, you need a constant gain of ressources. Something like a mining station that will cut into a moon and stay there forever while absorbing a constant amount of ressources. So you have no freighters that will deliver the ressources.


Avatars:
Avatar #1:
Agressive fighter:
- bonus for offensive and defensive values of your ships
- additional modules
- additional battle-designs for ships

Avatar #2:
Expander:
- reduced costs for ship support
- reduced costs for shipbuilding
- reduced time costs for research

posted on June 30th, 2009, 11:51 am

Who the hell are the Noxter ??

I have seen most Star Trek shows and never even heard of them. 

Why are unknown random races being added when some main races like the Cardassians and Ferengi are not in the game yet.

Even adding Species 8472 back would be better than adding in unknown races and tbh the Noxter sounds just like species 8472.

So please don't add this race over proper Star Trek races and as for the Iconian's the empire is dead so why are they even considered to be added.

Just add Species 8472, Cardassians and Ferengi and you have a completed star trek game that makes sense.

All the new planned races Ciadan/Iconian/Noxter are pretty random additions that just sound like what the developers want rather than what the people who play the game might want.   There is no way that most of the people who play this game and download it would choose Noxter over Cardassians or Ferengi. 

These races ARE what the devs want...it's their mod, based on a storyline that they've already got. Personally, I'd choose Noxter over both Ferengi and Cardassians as they provide a far more interesting form of gameplay besides another "build a yard, build research stations, build ships" ethos - more variety is more fun in my opinion. Besides that, Star Trek is all about new life forms, heck it says that in the opening credits of two of the shows!

Also, it was never said in any of the shows that Species 8472 behave in a similar way to how the Noxter do...all we've seen of them is that they use bio-engineered ships - it's never explicitly said whether they're the same species as the pilots and whether they're born or constructed.


Anyway, back on topic - looks amazing Optec, I liked playing as Noxter in Beta 2 (heck, still do sometimes ) and hopefully this will make them even more fun to play!

posted on June 30th, 2009, 11:58 am

In fact, The only stations we have seen of species 8472 is a recreation of a starbase station, so who is to say that their stations arn't just like the feds in normal space, and that would be booring. 

The noxter have been in fo scene longer than I have been coming to this site, and I have been coming here for several years.  And who knows maybe you will get your way, and 8472, and the cardies, and the ferengi will end up in the game, but IMO, the Noxter present a whole new game play concept,and just for that reason alone they are supported, not to mention how cool they are going to look.

posted on June 30th, 2009, 12:06 pm

Now my Idea for a cool way of doing research and special weapons is this: This ship goes to a Knowledge "pod" and extracts the knowledge from it.  now this ship can use that special weapon, or it can be transferred to any ship it wants.  This would make all the Specials inter-changeable.  Lastly there is an obvious problem, which is that all the eggs would be very vulnerable to attack, which gives me this Idea.  They should have the passive ability to defend their self's in this way.  When an enemy ship comes near, the egg secrets an mist that confuses the enemy ship to think, either the egg isn't there, it is a friendly ship, or it merely cannot fire upon it. This would change in this order as the egg matures.  All the noxter ships would have to be very strong considering the time it takes to build them.

Did you mean something like a school, where the ships may learn new specialattacks, but some are restricted to a few "ship classes", because they need some special "hardware".

I think there should be a "pusher"/"puller", which pushes/pulls the eggs to their position, because they can't move (like tractor beam, but with direct contact). The eggs should have the posssibility to reflect energy weapons like beams or disrupters and they are so small, so they get seldom hit by torpedos.

I think the Noxter ressources should be harvested by a Noxter, which lives in the moon and on the moons surface, you may hide this harvester inside the moon (implementation as cloaking, but it should be a hiding), but there it isnt able to harvest ressources.


"Evolving" or "Growing" should consume ressources and then later they need fewer. Ships should get experience and dont need ressources, because a veteran soldier need no food for getting experience.

There should be a possibility to heal the Noxter, I think it should be something like a hospital or so, but it needs ressources (replacements, food, bandage...).

How would be a feeding station, where all Noxterships get food and then their food decreases constantly or with special attacks. Feeding a ship will cost ressources and this food may be a substitute for special energy, whick does NOT regenerate but decrease all the time until next feeding. A ship without food will die. So there may be Food transporters which may bring food to ships with deactivated/destroyed propulsion...

This food management would be interesting in combat.


P.S.: I would like to read the story