My 2021 Wish List

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One of the first columns I wrote back in June was a Features Wish List. Of the things on that list, we’ve gotten data node fixes, and that’s about it. On the other hand, we haven’t gotten any of the officers I put on my wish list either. But in the last 14 months, we’ve seen a massive amount of expansion in the game. Armadas are now a way of life, but it’s easy to forget that they were “coming soon” for a year… and only introduced in November 2019. And now we’ve had all types of new armadas.

We’ve also gotten a Roadmap of things we could see in 2021. Territory Capture has arrived, as has last online status. I think these have been big improvements to the game. We still haven’t seen away missions, personalized starships, or a second builder. All of those sound like great features, and I can’t wait to use them in the game. But it’s a New Year and time to think big.

So here are some of the things I’d really like to see from the game in 2021.

Better Cargo Officer or Technology

In the last few months, we’ve had a lot of improvements for protected cargo. New officers. New research, and Territory Capture services. And while I suppose this is a good thing, it does take a lot of the reward out of hunting for overprotected cargo.

But there has been nothing to increase the total cargo capacity of a ship. Nothing since Stonn. Seems like this would be a good ability for an officer like Quark (along with let’s say, a Latinum mining bonus?)

And it would be nice to get a couple of techs to increase a ships total cargo as well. Throw a bone to the base-raiders. If I’ve got to spend billions in parsteel on basic station improvements at level 40, it would be nice to get an officer to make base-raiding a little faster.

A New Warp Range Officer

We’ve had Cadet Scotty for a while, and his +5 to warp range is great, but there’s a big gap after that. After you max Cadet Scotty, there’s really nothing else to extend warp range until level 42 when you pick up a warp particle, or if you’ve got Discovery summoning leveled up enough.

This might be something for one of the new classic engineering officers to add. Maybe B’Elanna, or O’Brien. I’m thinking an epic engineering officer who adds at least 10 warp range.

As an aside, no matter what his officer ability is, it needs to be labeled “O’Brien Must Suffer” as his ability.

Cut Back on the Duplicate Officers

Did we really need two Sarus, two Michael Burnhams, two Paul Stamets? And no Klingons in the Discovery Arc? I’d have to think that we might be in for prime Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. when TOS is released. Other than them, there’s no reason to double up on any officers – so please, just one Picard, just one Sisko, and for the love of al that is holy, just one Neelix.

It’ll be extremely disappointing if we just get the seven or so characters from the regular cast, with a few doubles in there. So when we get TOS, let’s get Kor in there. When it comes to TNG, we’re going to need Tomalak, Gowron, and the Duras sisters. And maybe, just maybe, we could get a new standard faction? Cardassians? Dominion?

Let’s get creative. We’ve got the entirety of the franchise now, let’s have fun with it. From the extremely limited options in the Kelvin universe, let’s really explore the prime universe.

Fewer Spending Events

My least favorite event is the Domination event. It’s like watching paint dry. I can’t imagine that even the biggest spenders in the game are really excited by one of these events. I understand that the app needs to make money, but there’s a natural advantage that bigger spenders have when it comes to skill events as well. The same goes true for the so-called, “auction events,” like that for the ISS Jellyfish.

Saving up your materials for a month, only to finish sixth and get nothing just isn’t fun.

I’d like to see some new events, and new types of events. But not ones that are just “spend X amount of Y material.”

And this goes for daily events, too.

Sorting Officers and Officer Loadouts

I’m going to repeat myself here, and I know that others have called for this – but I’m going to keep at it until we get it.

With 113 officers in the game, and more to come in 2021, we need better sorting and better control of our officer roster. Far too much time in the game is spent hunting for officers. It’s not fun. I shouldn’t have to spend time searching for Pike, Moreau, and Chen over and over again. We should be able to label a set of officers, “PMC” and have them automatically loaded onto the bridge of our ship.

And it might be nice to be able to archive officers we never use, in much the same way we can archive missions that we’re unable (or unwilling) to do at the moment. I mean, it’s nice to have Dr. M’Benga in the game, but I’ve spent more time writing a profile on him than I ever have actually using him in the game.

Attention to Detail

It would be nice to see some little things fixed. Klingon mission bosses should always be Klingon ships, for example. Suliban ships should look like Suliban ships. Snozzberries should taste like snozzberries. Generic bosses take away from the quality of the game.

And excuse me while I nerd out, but a Star Trek game should get the weapons on the Enterprise right.

The Enterprise having two phaser banks is correct… but a disruptor bank?

No, just no. There should be photon torpedoes there. And it should be a kinetic weapon. This seems like it would be a great fix to make when TOS is released.

And while I’m throwing stuff out there, we’ve got a bunch of characters who never appeared in the Kelvin universe who’ve been “Kelvinized” for the game. It would be nice to change them back. Take the helmets off Kang and Mara, for example.

Better Battle Logs

Here’s a basic battle log. A Kirk-led Enterprise taking out a hostile interceptor.

To make this as simple as possible, we can see which officer abilities are firing off in this round, but we easily can’t tell which weapon is firing. Now, you can look up my article on the Enterprise and see what the firing pattern is. But it would be nice to have the weapons labeled. Instead of just “USS Enterprise deals 107235 damage,” how about “USS Enterprise Phaser A deals 107235 damage.”

Battle logs are extremely important to improving your game, and getting your officers right. However, not every player has the time to be a battle log scholar. Let’s make the battle logs more transparent.

And there’s also been talk of making battle logs exportable. That’d be nice, too.

A Smoother, Less Buggy Game

I’m not a software engineer. I know, you’re shocked, shocked. And I know that this is an extremely complicated, and popular game, which leads to bugs in code, and crowded servers, etc.

And I know that they’re working on fixing the game, and there has been a great deal of improvement this year. But there is still too much lag, especially in big takeover battles, or base defenses. There are also too many game freezes and hangs.

This needs to be a priority in 2021.

(On the other hand, the bug where your ships attack each other, or where hostiles attack each other needs to stay. It makes me smile every time.)

Lastly, Thank You Readers!

To all of my readers, I want to say a sincere thank you. In 2020, I had over 430,000 views on this site. I want to thank everyone who’s made a donation to my PayPal, which will allow me to dedicate more time and resources to this site in 2021.