In this month's "Ask Cryptic", Star Trek Online Executive Producer Dan Stahl gives a few hints to new species' ships including Andorian & Vulcan, plus improved crafting and much more. It seems that open PVP areas may be in STO's future and, for you Voyager fans, a player controllable Delta Flier may be here "sooner than you think." Those of you still waiting for the poker mini-game though, sadly, will be waiting a while. It appears that dev resources have been shifted away from the mini-games and put towards duty rosters / fleet action system. Also be sure to log on Feb 2nd for the 1 year anniversary of STO. Apparently Cryptic is planning something special at either Earth Space Dock or Qo'nos. No word on which yet, but be sure to check the STO forums for more info. Check out an excerpt from this month's question & answer series.

Q:deeboboy: In the up coming weekly series are you going to continue stories from the earlier missions in the game or are you going to continue down the same lines as the current episdes by adding new stories?

A: We plan to do both. While the previous two series were not directly connected to existing plots, the next series is a continuation of a plot that has existed since launch.

Q: Admiral_Tade: With a new year coming up are we going to see more advances in ship mechanics such as the mutli-vector assault mode for the Prometheus class ships and teir 6 ships? Will we get more species ships such as the vulcan Suurok class or maybe even the vulcan cruiser seen as a graphic in the Enterprise episode, "Future Tense"?

A: The ship design team is doing some early R&D on how a Prometheus design would work (which section of the ship would you control if it separates?). This is one example where we are looking at an existing top tier ship and designing ways to make it even more unique. As far as other Vulcan ships, we plan to continue introducing species based ships and while I don't have the Suurok on the schedule, we do have an Andorian ship on the schedule coming up soon. So stay tuned.

Q: Costigan: I was extremely pleased with the improvements from Season 3, mostly the Sector Space visual improvements and the crafting improvements. I was wondering what you might be adding to the crafting system to make it unique? Is the Aegis set the first of many to come?

A: We are well on our way to fully improving crafting and Season 3 was one of the baby steps along the way. Next up is the Duty Officer Roster (formerly known as the crew system) which will start to introduce new craftables based on the Duty Officers you assign to various departments on your ship. We absolutely plan to make more sets and to look at possibly adding weaponry to future sets.

Q: Fractal_Eye: Will the second mini-game make it's way into the game soon? Will the 400-day Veteran Reward, the Captain's Yacht, be a controlable ship, or a pet, like the shuttles and runabout reward? Also, will there be a Klingon version, or will it only be for Feds? Will we be seeing Poker (and, hopefully, 3D-Chess) during Season 3, or will they more likely be introduced in Season 4+?

A: The 2nd Mini-Game that was designed is being looked at for introduction sometime in an upcoming episode, but for now there aren't many details.

The Captain's Yacht (both Federation and Klingon versions) will be a player controlled ship.

As much as I want to see Poker and other mini-games, our Software team is a bit crunched at the moment, and until we hire a few more developers, I've got them focused on more meatier features such as the Duty Roster, and Fleet Actions systems. Poker will be there... someday.

Q: Dalxien: When will we be seeing specs on the new Andorian and Vulcan ships upcoming? Are any melee weapons on the table? I am particularly interested in the Vulcan Lirpa, the Andorian Ushaan-tor, and the Nausicaan Swords, but any info would be appreciated greatly.

A: The Vulcan ship is coming out before the Andorian ship is. We'll get the Vulcan ship specs posted in the next week once it has been finalized. As far as Lirpas and other melee weapons, I wouldn't be surprised to see one pop up as a reward in a future featured episode series.

Q: fourbearsstanding: With Star trek online first year anniversary coming up in February, Dan, can you give us any hints to what you DEV Lads are cooking up for the first year anniversary of STO?

A: We've had our kickoff meeting for our Feb 2nd event and so far most of the fun will be taking place on either Earth Space Dock or Qo'nos. Those that plan on attending the celebration will be able to walk away with a tchotchke to say 'you were there'.

Q: xXLocutusXx: There was talk about open pvp from Stahl, I was hoping that you could possibly elaborate on where you would like to take this idea in game wise.

A: This is a tough subject because there are those who love PVP and those who don't. Looking at the Star Trek Online playerbase, I don't forsee a future where we ever move to a completely open PVP architecture. What I do see are opportunities where we can make Open PVP areas a part of the Story and allow players to play out scenarios where they make sense. My gut says that you'll see more planned PVP contests before you see open world PVP.

Q: Peregrine_Falcon: Dstahl said months ago, during the Death Penalty discussions, that NPCs camping our spawn point in Deep Space Encounters was going to be fixed. So my questions is when will this be fixed? Star Cluster explore missions still have a lot of problems. BOs disappearing into the ground, Borg covertly supplying rebel factions with weapons or searching for artifacts from their 'Third Dynasty', Dual Pistol wielders insta-wiping whole teams, etc. When will these problems get fixed? Also, since Season 3 went live there's a bug that causes Tellarite BOs to shrink uncontrollably if you try to edit their costume. When is this going to be fixed?

A: Deep Space encounters will be fixed in Season 4 because they are being replaced with something new. Star Cluster issues are also being addressed over the next several months as we begin to look at ways to improve exploration. Look for a new concept to be discussed in coming updates. As far as Tellarite height, our lead character artist has posted that we use the Archer to Tellarite reference where Archer is 6.0 and thus our max Tellarite height is currently 5.5. We consider this reference to be more current and accurate to the Tellarite species definition than TOS refs.

If you'd care to debate Matt on this, you can follow the discussion in this thread.

If we ever had an, "Ask the Cryptic Fans" - one of our questions would be "Why do players make their humans 6'4 or taller?" :)

Q: Cpt.Clango: Is there any reason for the plans to ad a tax to the Exchange?

A: The primary concern is to prevent exchange abuse where some players are using it as extra storage. While we've been discussing an exchange posting fee for a while, we have yet to implement it as we are still debating it internally.

Q: nailpeter83: Are there any plans on releasing the Delta Flier, or other shuttle types that players might be allow to fly?

A: Yes. And sooner than you think!

Check out the full series here.

(source Star Trek Online)