Cryptic has a preview build of the Season Three update for Star Trek Online. One of the biggest features that I’m looking forward to is the revamp of sector space.
The Pelia and Orellius sector blocks have been in the game for a little while now. I assumed that the sector space overhaul was basically going to be making similar changes to the rest of the game. What I wasn’t expecting was all of the other little details. Stars go from points of light to large flaming spheres. Stars streak by your ship while at warp (and speed up at higher warp factors). Astrometrics can be toggled off, which hides the grid and the traffic paths. There are special effects when you enter special areas like the Briar Patch, the Badlands, and the Mutara Nebula. The overall effect is to make the space maps feel much bigger.
It’s still not perfect. There are still popup’s you have to click on when transferring between sector blocks, for instance. But it’s an immense improvement, and I say that as someone who liked the original design (or at least didn’t hate it).
Click through to see the video.
That’s very cool. I thought sector space looked pretty silly when I tried the game out, so I’m glad to see Cryptic making with the update. Once again they prove that they’re listening to their fans.
They’ve been maintaining an incredible level of communication and openness with the player-base ever since Daniel Stahl took over as Executive Producer. He posts on the forums nearly as much as the community manager does.