Star Trek Online for Xbox360? Crafting, Ranks and Combat in new Emmert Interview

Jack Emmert has answered some more of the fans' questions, addressing the issues of if Star Trek Online would be on Xbox360, looking deeper into the economy of the game, dealing with ranks, and giving some tasty hints about how combat would run.

Hailing Frequency has released part two of their interview with Emmert, Cryptic Studios' chief creative officer. (Boldly Play has compressed the video to under 10mb, for those with lower bandwith.)

Emmert finally answered one of the questions that have been big for many STO fans; what has happened to the player-controlled bridge officers that were in past plans? Cryptic's representative had a decisive answer.

"We are not currently planning on cooperative bridge play," he said. "We do not envision, and I think this is something Perpetual had talked about, where different people are manning different parts of the ship. That is not something we are planning on doing for launch."

However, that doesn't mean you'll never see the inside of other peoples' bridges.

"You can beam over to somebody's bridge, cooperate in terms of a mission where you have to go to each others bridges or go to one of these bridges and fight off a Borg infestation, for instance," Emmert said.

When asked about 360 gamers playing with PC owners, Emmert stated that it would be "technically possible" and that the game engine could absolutely support Xbox360 but that it was not yet definite.

Emmert spoke about the two types of combat. Starship combat, which he called "more Bridge Commander-esqe" and ground combat, which would be fast-paced, with "beams everywhere."

"We're aiming for star ship combat to be fun, slower paced, more tactical, more like tall ships. Where positioning, timing, these things are very important."

Emmert noted that starship combat couldn't be compared to traditional MMO combat.

"The traditional MMO structure doesn't necessarily apply when you are dealing with ships," he said. "There are lots of different mechanics that we can use to differentiate starships for space combat. There's firing arcs, there's how much power something has, how fast it can go."

Star Trek Online ground combat looks to be distinctive as well.

"As for ground combat, the standard roles may not really work so well. There are certainly medics, there are certainly different forms of ranged combat, but we are probably not going for quite the same MMO mechanics as you might find in standard fantasy fare."

There was more about fleets, which are now promised to be without a population cap. While the commanders of these fleets will not be paid (it wouldn't be canonical) Emmert said that the players would find themselves achieving new ranks, which would provide their own rewards.

"You will rank up from commander to captain to admiral and so forth," he said. "Over time, as you rank up, you'll get access to larger and larger ships, better crews, and so forth."

Crafting will be one of the skills you can pursue in Star Trek Online, there will be elements of interior design available, with Cryptic aiming to allow as much interior customization of starships as possible. You will also be able to follow in the footsteps of many of Star Trek's famous engineers and build devices to improve the ship.

When asked what the post-release held for players, Emmert had big plans.

"We'll open up more parts of the galaxy, that is the Romulans, Dominion. We will spread into the different quadrants. We hope eventually to go to the point where we take some of our tools and turn them outward to the players so that they can create their own missions, their own planets, their own aliens, their own adventures for one another."