Avesther
New Member
re money in star trek: http://robotics.caltech.edu/~mason/ramblings/moneyInStarTrek.html
STAR TREK Online BETA!
- Thread starter Joshinator
- Start date
cgdoc519
Christian Gamers Alliance Staff Manager
Avesther
New Member
Do they use money on Star Trek or not?
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Sometimes I think the main pleasure that Star Trek affords is the game of explaining the horrendous logical problems that crop up so often.
Many people have observed an inconsistency in the attitude of Star Trek characters towards money. In episodes of both the original and the more recent series, the characters often describe the Federation as if it were a perfect socialist (or at any rate, post-capitalist) society, where there is no money and nobody wants for material things. In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Captain Kirk says that they don't use money in the future. In the movie Star Trek: First Contact, Captain Picard says that in the future no one is motivated by the desire for material wealth. And so on.
But at other times, capitalism seems alive and well in the Star Trek universe. There are money-grubbing space traders like Harry Mudd. The Enterprise crewmembers sometimes spend "credits". The inhabitants of Deep Space Nine gamble in a casino, winning and losing bars of precious latinum. So what gives?
In this case I think there is a logical explanation for the apparent inconsistency. Perhaps the Federation proper is a perfect socialist (or at least post-capitalist) society, where there is no money. But aliens outside the Federation, and quasi-outlaws like Harry Mudd, continue to operate in a capitalist manner. Starfleet personnel, out on the fringes of the Federation, are understandably in a gray area. It may be useful for them to accumulate "credits" and "bars of latinum" to trade with people who care for such things, even if money wouldn't be of any use back home on Earth.
I think this fix works pretty well because (arguably) almost all we see of the Federation are the crews of starships and starbases and scientific outposts on the wild frontier. We see little or nothing of ordinary people living their lives in the heavily-populated core worlds of the Federation. Kirk and Picard may be thinking primarily of these people when bragging about how their society has evolved beyond the need for money.
- - - -
Sometimes I think the main pleasure that Star Trek affords is the game of explaining the horrendous logical problems that crop up so often.
Many people have observed an inconsistency in the attitude of Star Trek characters towards money. In episodes of both the original and the more recent series, the characters often describe the Federation as if it were a perfect socialist (or at any rate, post-capitalist) society, where there is no money and nobody wants for material things. In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Captain Kirk says that they don't use money in the future. In the movie Star Trek: First Contact, Captain Picard says that in the future no one is motivated by the desire for material wealth. And so on.
But at other times, capitalism seems alive and well in the Star Trek universe. There are money-grubbing space traders like Harry Mudd. The Enterprise crewmembers sometimes spend "credits". The inhabitants of Deep Space Nine gamble in a casino, winning and losing bars of precious latinum. So what gives?
In this case I think there is a logical explanation for the apparent inconsistency. Perhaps the Federation proper is a perfect socialist (or at least post-capitalist) society, where there is no money. But aliens outside the Federation, and quasi-outlaws like Harry Mudd, continue to operate in a capitalist manner. Starfleet personnel, out on the fringes of the Federation, are understandably in a gray area. It may be useful for them to accumulate "credits" and "bars of latinum" to trade with people who care for such things, even if money wouldn't be of any use back home on Earth.
I think this fix works pretty well because (arguably) almost all we see of the Federation are the crews of starships and starbases and scientific outposts on the wild frontier. We see little or nothing of ordinary people living their lives in the heavily-populated core worlds of the Federation. Kirk and Picard may be thinking primarily of these people when bragging about how their society has evolved beyond the need for money.
Joshinator
Christian Gamers Alliance TeamSpeak 3 Server Opera
Tek, was that your review on space combat?
vibrokatana
New Member
They pretty much nerfed space combat the second they eliminated multitargeting. All in all it would be great except:
- Your little puny light cruiser is regularly thrown against battleships in missions. This combined with the fact that STO puts numbers ahead of content makes battles increasingly dull as you face the same 3 races in waves over and over again. In CO this was believable and even sometimes fun, but in STO it turns into a grindfest quickly.
- It uses the same system as CO to determine difficulty. This means if you are <= -2 for a mission you will spend eternity taking down their shields and they will make you want to beat the developers senseless. This combined with the same linear "have to do everything to reach max level" mindset from cryptic means paring with friends is challenging at best.
- The effects for phasers are about 10x too "big" IMO. Some of the weapons look laudable because there is no way the effect could come out of the barrel.
- Cryptic has show they like to change game mechanics overnight and don't provide a means to amend with players. For instance early adopters of CO had to deal with
1) not getting enough XP to level, which the devs did not award post patch
2) overnight inflation as they bumped up reward drops instead of fixing the prices for items (namely respecing).
3) overnight gameplay changes that caused an immense increase in difficulty while breaking several dozen skills without amending until nearly a week later
- Your little puny light cruiser is regularly thrown against battleships in missions. This combined with the fact that STO puts numbers ahead of content makes battles increasingly dull as you face the same 3 races in waves over and over again. In CO this was believable and even sometimes fun, but in STO it turns into a grindfest quickly.
- It uses the same system as CO to determine difficulty. This means if you are <= -2 for a mission you will spend eternity taking down their shields and they will make you want to beat the developers senseless. This combined with the same linear "have to do everything to reach max level" mindset from cryptic means paring with friends is challenging at best.
- The effects for phasers are about 10x too "big" IMO. Some of the weapons look laudable because there is no way the effect could come out of the barrel.
- Cryptic has show they like to change game mechanics overnight and don't provide a means to amend with players. For instance early adopters of CO had to deal with
1) not getting enough XP to level, which the devs did not award post patch
2) overnight inflation as they bumped up reward drops instead of fixing the prices for items (namely respecing).
3) overnight gameplay changes that caused an immense increase in difficulty while breaking several dozen skills without amending until nearly a week later
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Keero
Tribe of Judah Membership Administrator
Joshinator, it's a free costume set.
Joshinator
Christian Gamers Alliance TeamSpeak 3 Server Opera
Thank you.
I don't know if I can give a fair review on space combat in any game because it's not really my thing. I think the last time I had fun fighting in space was playing Tie Fighter using an old joystick back in the DOS days.
Good times, good times.
cgdoc519
Christian Gamers Alliance Staff Manager
HAHA indeed.
Elader Arkon
Helped Tek test a thing
The single greatest thing I want in EVE Online is joystick controls. They can keep combat the same, alignment the same, everything, ship movement in regards to speed and velocity can stay the same. I just want to be able to steer my spaceship with a joystick...
The last game I played with it was Rogue Squadron 3D.
Joshinator
Christian Gamers Alliance TeamSpeak 3 Server Opera
you can use your joystick to steer... you just have to set it to WASD.
Wot? EVE Online doesn't allow players to use joysticks to control ships?
Couldn't players just map buttons and axes (axises?) to the keyboard equivalents?
Elader Arkon
Helped Tek test a thing
the issue is, players don't manually 'steer' the ship. You move by *approaching/orbiting/aligning to targets and locations. If you have to manually move the ship in a specific direction, you double click in the area you want the ship to go. Manual steering is really pretty unnecessary, especially in a ship larger than a battleship (the larger it is, the slower they move/turn/align), but it could be riotously fun in the smaller ships.
*and by approaching I mean right clicking on the target and selecting 'approach target'
*and by approaching I mean right clicking on the target and selecting 'approach target'
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Corpfox
Active Member
Anyone else have beta keys?
I'd like to try it out.
If it doesn't work out, can I give back the keys?
Because I have a 50% chance, the game may work due to the OS.
I'd like to try it out.
If it doesn't work out, can I give back the keys?
Because I have a 50% chance, the game may work due to the OS.
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Keero
Tribe of Judah Membership Administrator
Wow, the space combat is VERY sweet. It's like EVE to some degree, yet not boring. Ground combat is so-so, but I'm enjoying the heck out of this. Very polished for a beta. When I get some cash, I'm totally picking this up next month.
Joshinator
Christian Gamers Alliance TeamSpeak 3 Server Opera
Are you buying the lifetime sub? You get to play as a borg if you do.
Keero
Tribe of Judah Membership Administrator
Nah, I don't have enough for that. Federation is fine for me. 
Neirai the Forgiven
Christian Guilds List Manager
*Yuck.* I see this as a major design philosophy flaw, right here.
Neirai the Forgiven
Christian Guilds List Manager
To clarify: if the Borg are just a cool cosmetic racial, then it's not that bad. But if they are just a cool cosmetic racial, Trekkies everywhere will be getting out their axes...
If the Borg are an OP race, that will kill the game balance.
If they are on par with everyone else, there either won't be enough of them to be fun, or they're just arbitrarily locking down content.
I realize that games like to arbitrarily lock down content with Expansion Packs, but the major difference in say, The Burning Crusade is that TBC contains huge amounts of quality content made after the fact.
If the Borg are an OP race, that will kill the game balance.
If they are on par with everyone else, there either won't be enough of them to be fun, or they're just arbitrarily locking down content.
I realize that games like to arbitrarily lock down content with Expansion Packs, but the major difference in say, The Burning Crusade is that TBC contains huge amounts of quality content made after the fact.
Joshinator
Christian Gamers Alliance TeamSpeak 3 Server Opera
They are a fed race.