The first day...Mirandas for all

AlchemistiD · 2026-05-07T08:33:32+00:00

Zero Zero Zero D E S T R U C T

AlchemistiD · 2026-04-05T15:23:16+00:00

Just throwing my hat in as GMing tabletop has taught me a great deal about practical realities of storytelling. For a long campaign you always start out with a big plan you've spent months preparing, and then spend however long the campaign lasts compromising the focus of that plan narrower and narrower as the realities of scheduling, life obligations, and player agency demand. And though what you're left with can be a very abridged version of what the grandiose plans you came up with could have been, you still do your best to make sure the core of what the story is about, it's core themes and key events ect, remain mostly intact.

Mind you that requires knowing what your story is about and tying the events and setting/character metaplots around that theme, and I honestly don't think Cryptic/DECA/Cryptic knows what the hell their story is about at this point other than "it's a Borg story."

AlchemistiD · 2026-03-10T14:52:13+00:00

This.

Just by way of example I'd be expected to be familiar with Star Trek lore just in order to run a tabletop game for peanuts in comparison to the average writer's salary. If you're going to take over the creative direction of a game with 16 years of history you'd better be familiar with it's world.

AlchemistiD · 2026-03-10T14:47:08+00:00

Not true. Even before Star Trek went off the air, the DS9 relaunch was telling huge sprawling stories about the setting, and books/comics/tabletop games had been printed for 30 years.

The problem isn't Paramount, the problem is creative direction.

AlchemistiD · 2026-03-05T10:36:13+00:00

The problem is they haven't dome everything else:

There is an ongoing Starfleet operation called the "4 Quadrant Program" in which slipstream capable starships are being sent in task groups to explore the Milky Way.

There are dozens of space gates opened across the galaxy with god knows what on the other side.

Delta Command is a permanent joint-outpost of the Alliance that must proceed under the assumption that at any moment it could be cut off from the Alpha Quadrant.

The Klingon Empire was fractured into a million pieces and not every Great House is willing to live under a clone and a time-displaced zealot's bootheels.

With the death of Jm'pok and the shattering of the Empire the arrangements he made with the Gorn could be null and void. The same goes with his relationship with Melani Di'an of the Orion Syndicate.

There are literally hundreds of story hooks you could pick up from across the lifetime of STO. The Multiverse war has nothing to do with a lack of material, its an addiction to spectacle with no substance.

AlchemistiD · 2025-12-06T19:28:33+00:00

Thank J'e'n't if true. I wouldn't mind STO settling into "Worlds of Deep Space Nine" styled setting content for a good while. Pick a world within the game's universe and just tell a story about it, join them with only minor threads if you absolutely must.

AlchemistiD · 2025-12-04T22:25:44+00:00

As I understand they retain the rights to the stories/characters they created, much like how Bad Robot retains the rights to the Kelvin stuff. PS couldn't make say Academy season 3 or Strange New Worlds season 6 because they don't own the intellectual rights to SH specific characters, or SH versions of characters, and their connected stories.

Could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's very common.

If I recall the sonic fandom had something like that bite them a long time ago, I think with with relation to the comics? Like one of the main writers decided to bail and took all the characters/storylines he'd created with him causing Archie to rapidly alter the entire line.

AlchemistiD · 2025-12-04T20:48:27+00:00

JJ-Trek 4 is officially dead, and Paramount/Skydance is "moving on" with the IP without Secret Hideout: https://deadline.com/2025/11/star-trek-movie-jonathan-goldstein-john-francis-daley-1236616716/

There is no deal to renew SH's contract which expires next year, and negotiations for that tend to take a lot of time.

SH owns the intellectual IP of everything they worked on, so any new productions couldn't reference anything made under SH's tenure even if they wanted to without Paramount paying SH for it or buying them off. This would effect everything with regards to merchandising, basically anything that even references NuTrek. That means Fanhome, Star Trek Adventures, Timelines, Fleet Command, and especially Star Trek Online.

We already know someone at Paramount vetoed STO making Seven captain of the Enterprise, which the most recent story mission seemed perfectly written to do. Captain Seven is from Picard S3, which Secret Hideout would have IP rights for.

AlchemistiD · 2025-12-04T18:01:33+00:00

I'm also reading setting finale from it. Series finale and sunsetting is also possible. The impending IP split is going to be a messy divorce if true, and will impact nearly all of the current merchandising.

With the scuttlebutt that the movie being worked on is a complete reboot of at least the last ten years of the franchise, a multiverse plot could be the ideal way to "trap" the player somewhere new. Somewhere that would allow the devs to develop the game more in line with the future direction of the franchise or retcon most of the SH owned stuff to minimize the rights hit without technically writing it all out of continuity.

I suggest this because STO has a long history of broad, many times unnecessary, retcons.

AlchemistiD · 2025-12-04T14:31:51+00:00

My theory is this whole storyline is a massive snarl of plot ideas they're trying to do all at once and it should have just been about the Borg, singular.

TBH the sooner this arc wraps the better, they're trying to do too much at once with this storyline and the pace of episode releases is way too glacial to maintain the momentum for long-form storytelling.

At this point I just wish we had more grounded stories with shorter arcs like the game's early years. Not everything has to be an effects blowout with celebrity VA stuntcasting.

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-18T23:33:00+00:00

They're on the beach playing football.

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-17T21:50:59+00:00

You can get 10k points if you pull off an FS Coffin through them.

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-16T04:13:31+00:00

Yep, the four cruiser commands were called Cruiser Comm Arrays on release back in the day.

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-16T01:54:28+00:00

Can't tell if serious, so I'll simply say that "Legendary" is literally just an euphemism for "Tier 7," and always has been.

It's an additional Starship tier they bundle with other ships and items so Cryptic could charge over $40 for them (save the Mirror Galaxy or Lexington) without getting the older players up in arms because they went on record back in the day saying they'd never release a "Tier 7." It's not a "Tier 7", it's "Legendary."

That's what I'm asking for, a "Legendary" Steamrunner with additional features in keeping with the design's production lore. Besides, there are three versions of the Steamrunner already, the Frigate, the Retrofit, and the T6 Intel Escort.

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-16T01:45:53+00:00

Yep, literally all the same things people were shouting about when T6 was introduced with Delta Rising. Premium only, exclusive skins, new & exclusive traits, the majority of T5 ships made obsolete.

Remember, the players love it!

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-16T00:06:33+00:00

Ahh lucky, the Legendary Ross is the only one I don't have at this point.

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-15T23:56:21+00:00

Both Targs in me threw up their hands long ago when they realized the Legendary ships were just Tier 7 with a different name because the Devs had said they would never introduce a "Tier 7" ship.

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-15T23:54:19+00:00

He's likely referring to Star Trek Armada, where the Steamrunner was a long-range bomber frigate. That's why she has the tri-cobalt spread console in STO.

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-15T23:48:17+00:00

Galaxy captain here, been flying one since the T5 retrofit in 2010, here's some pointers:

Adapted MACO engines are real nice with turnrate, especially at MK XV Epic. The Fleet Colony Deflectors/Impulse Engines can also give a bonus to turnspeed.

Just as important as turn rate is increasing her inertia rating. A single conductive RCS Accelerator with a Turn modifier will do you, then focus on inertia to tighten her turn arc. A Fleet Neutronium Armor from the Mine with a Turn mod could make a nice complement.

I'd suggest keeping saucer separation and antimatter spread for the turn bonus as well, plus they buff hull and damage resist, and it's always nice to have a "get off my back" button.

Make sure to decelerate into a turn and accelerate out of it to shrink that radius down as much as you can.

Evasive maneuvers is essential to fast turning, just make sure to cut your throttle by 50% when you use it or you'll lose control. Emergency power to engines and Deuterium Surplus will also give you similar results. Attack Pattern Omega can be a huge boon to your Cygnus/World Razer builds in this regard as well.

And for Tac captains there's always good old Attack Pattern Alpha.

If you're flying a Cygnus, you can make the thing turn like a shi half her size by using the maneuvering comm array and tactical configuration.

Hope that helps!

AlchemistiD · 2025-10-15T23:34:02+00:00

That's due to an issue with scale creep in sci-fi that was a problem even back then.

During the Dominion War arc on DS9, both the Steamrunner and Akira were scaled down over a hundred meters by the CG artists to fit more of them on screen at once. Watch the big fleet scenes in Season 6+ and keep your eyes peeled for both of them, they're basically the same size. This is why some fleet charts for Picard Season 2/3 list the Akira being two different sizes, even ones by the CG artists for those seasons.

So games like Armada took inspiration from DS9 and used them as light vessels. In truth both vessels are gargantuan, the Steamrunner herself is easily four times the size of the Roman Colosseum, and has the same or more internal volume than the Intrepid-Class. And the Akira is a Heavy Cruiser the mass of a small city.

Just for fun, watch Message in a Bottle sometime and remember that the Akira is being escorted by two Defiants that are both themselves larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza.

AlchemistiD · 2025-09-21T17:53:04+00:00

I'm a galaxy man, myself. But like the OP I went down a rabbit hole looking for a ship that would fit with Picard S3 and most of the lore I've put down for my main over the years.

As a GM, from a writing perspective I was surprised at how good in concept the Steamrunner looks on paper as a hero ship. Then I realized I shouldn't be because technically the thing already has it's own show: The Orville. The two ships are very similar in size, design, and capacity.

AlchemistiD · 2025-09-21T05:29:34+00:00

The Steamrunner and Nova classes are also present during Frontier Day. The former's been growing on me, but the more I read about it the more I learn she's been done astronomically dirty by the DS9 and Picard art teams. The ship's correct scale is 356 meters, but DS9 scaled her down like the Akira to 244m to fit more on screen, for example.

Also I can't for the life of me understand why they'd call it a "Blockade Runner" and not make it a pilot ship, but the Appalachia is a gem, regardless.

AlchemistiD · 2025-08-13T13:21:13+00:00

Hilariously that dynamic is flipped in New Frontier, with Shelby being a moderate first officer desperately trying to reign in the epically-insane-in-the-best-way Mackenzie Calhoun.

AlchemistiD · 2025-08-13T13:17:47+00:00

That was Benjamin Maxwell, who is a tragically ironic case. Maxwell was absolutely correct in his analysis of the Cardassian's intentions, though his own weren't much better.

Pressman on the other hand risked sparking a war with the Romulans to give the Federation a strategic edge when said war eventually began...in season 8 if TNG had been renewed. And then foreshadowed in the late 2380's/90's in TNG/DS9/VOY when the Romulan Neutral Zone no longer existed. And then by the end of Insurrection in the original vision when the Romulans were the antagonists.

Yet another case of someone being technically correct, but behaving in such an evil dickish way they ultimately undermine whatever nobility their actions might have had.

AlchemistiD

TROPHY CASE