The SF-MMO Star Trek Online is now redesigning its entire world, the sector space, in a large operation.
Under the brilliant title “Shaka, when the walls fell” there is a long dev blog entry from the developers of Cryptic Games, who explain in detail how the redesign of the sector space is supposed to turn out.
At the moment there are many “relatively small” systems, and as soon as you fly into another one, there is a delay when crossing the borders. Cryptic Games wants to change that and have only three “large zones”: The Alpha, Beta, and Delta Quadrants. To make it nicer, 350 systems are being rearranged (yes, they are moving worlds, that’s what designers do at STO), based on the star atlas by Geoffrey Mandel (which is considered quasi-canon) and arranging the sectors in a quadrant in a square manner. Some new systems like Betazed are also being added by the world builders.
When merging all sectors of the quadrants, we wanted to avoid any annoying corners or invisible walls, so each map received additional sectors to make them a large rectangle. The Delta Quadrant was already rectangular, so it did not receive any new sectors. However, all sectors of the Delta Quadrant were also merged into one map.
The universe is big … really big … essentially gigantic!
The designers face the problem that the real universe in a video game would be quite boring because it is so vast that the inhabited planets and the area where action would take place would be extremely dispersed. And a spaceship would hardly be recognizable in space; one would have to sit with a magnifying glass in front of the PC. So they are looking for compromises between “canon” and this strange concept of “reality” and fun gameplay.
So, the universe is big. Really big. You wouldn’t believe how incredibly huge it is. And of course, we cannot reflect that in our game.
In the redesign of the universe, the aim is to make flying around in space feel more impressive. This is achieved, for example, by changing relationships: The spaceship no longer appears larger than a planet in space.
Result: The space compared to your ship is now much larger than before. Your Intrepid is no longer a giant next to Earth, and space is now much ROOMIER.
