GUEST BLOG: Ship Management, Load-Outs and Quick Equip Systems

Hi Captains:

CaptainGeko here, and wow am I excited tell you about a few new features heading your way in Star Trek Online – the new Ship Management, Load-Outs, and Quick-Equip systems. These systems are really going to change the way you play the game, and we couldn’t be more excited to share them with you.

Ship Management System

This system is the core of the 3 new features. Basically, this system will allow you to swap between ships from any public/social (non-instanced) map – like Sector Space, Earth Space Dock, etc. You simply select the ship you want, your old ship will warp away, and your new ship will warp in. But wait, there’s more…

Have you ever logged into the game and wanted to change to your cruiser, escort, etc. but ultimately decided not to because it would take too much time and you only had an hour or so to play? You just didn’t want to invest the 30 or 40 minutes it can take in setting up your new ship build? Well, the new Ship Management System can help you there too as we are introducing another new feature we are calling Load-outs.

Load-Outs System

This system will allow you to set up pre-set load-outs for each of your ships (two slots are provided for free on each ship, and additional load-out slots may be purchased in the C-Store). When you swap to a different ship, it will remember the load-out you left it in, and you can immediately swap to a different saved load-out if you choose. You don’t even need to have the gear you need in your inventory as swapping load-outs will pull your gear (e.g. weapons, shields, devices, consoles, etc.) from your inventory, other ships, and even your bank (NOTE: it will not be able to pull from your Account Bank, Fleet Bank, or other characters, though). The same gear can be assigned to multiple ships and load-outs.

Load-outs can also be set up to remember your Bridge Officers, and soon after the initial implementation of the system is released, load-outs will also remember your Duty Officers and even your Power Tray layout. BAM! You’re ready to go.

When the system launches, you will only be able to edit load-outs of your “readied” ship. So if you want to create or edit a load-out for a different ship, you will have to switch to that ship via a “ship selector” contact. Later, the system will allow you to edit any of your “inactive” ships at the “ship selector” contact without needing to make them your “readied” ship.

Quick Equip System

To make setting up load-outs even easier, we are introducing the brand-new Quick-Equip system. Simply click on any gear slot in your ship’s status screen and you will see a list of all available gear that can go into that slot. The system will even tell you where that gear is located – whether it is in your inventory, your bank, or on another ship. If you are at a starbase, Quick-Equip will allow you to move gear freely from bank to ship to ship. If you are not at a starbase, Quick-Equip will restrict you to the gear in your inventory and readied small craft, but it will still show you other potential gear you have stored in the bank or on another ship – that gear will just be grayed out. This allows you to know what other options you may have waiting for you. The Quick-Equip system also works when equipping your Captain and Bridge Officers in their status menus.

The above features are still a work in progress, so with testing, iteration and your valued feedback, details are subject to change. The system will be hitting Tribble soon, so lookout for Feedback threads that will be posted and make sure to try it out for yourself and leave your feedback. Also, as mentioned, some of the above features may release shortly after the launch of Season 8.5 on the 30th of this month.

See you in-game, Captains. Live long and prosper,

Al “CaptainGeko” Rivera

Lead DesignerStar Trek Online