Uniforms for the RPG

[X]

Hey folks. I was once again looking over the shiny new uniforms that we are wearing in the game and thought about the glowing stuff on the uniforms.

There are glowing parts on the waist, wrists, arms, boots, and shoulders and I thought it might be interesting if we used this thread to toss around ideas on what these additions can be.

Here are some of my ideas:

Shoulders: Temporal shields. Emergency transport devices. Integrated Pattern Enhancers.


Wrist: Flashlights

Personal Forcefield using many of the glowing parts as shield generators.


Boots: Variable Gravity Boots ( Can increase or decrease gravity by up to 1g, replacing the need for magnetic boots by creating localized gravity with down being at soles of boots)


Now I really don't know what they options would have been in the Online game, but if we come up with some good ideas and explanations on why Star Fleet would make these additions to the uniform, we can then let Jen and Kenny decide what the uniforms actually do.


So, let's start brainstorming!

[Omra]

In yesterdays post I had an emergency transport beacon as part of the security gear.  It made sense to me to have those on security personnel, if they took damage , they could be beamed directly to a triage portion of sick bay.

And I liked the personal HUD display they showed in the picture also for security.  So I incorporated that in the post also, it would display information of the status of your squad members, and their relative locations to you.  And it could interface with your Phaser rifle, to be used as a targeting reticule.  And could interface with the camera on the rifle, so you could swing your rifle around a corner, and see using the HUD, without exposing yourself to fire.  And also fire at those targets without exposing yourself to harm.

I also imagined that HUD would have an earpiece with it, for squad intergrated communications, probably activated by your jaw muscles, so you could talk without hitting your badge and *CHIRPING* thereby giving away your position.

[wraith1701]

Hey folks. I was once again looking over the shiny new uniforms that we are wearing in the game and thought about the glowing stuff on the uniforms.

There are glowing parts on the waist, wrists, arms, boots, and shoulders and I thought it might be interesting if we used this thread to toss around ideas on what these additions can be.

Here are some of my ideas:

Shoulders: Temporal shields. Emergency transport devices. Integrated Pattern Enhancers.


Wrist: Flashlights

Personal Forcefield using many of the glowing parts as shield generators.


Boots: Variable Gravity Boots ( Can increase or decrease gravity by up to 1g, replacing the need for magnetic boots by creating localized gravity with down being at soles of boots)


Now I really don't know what they options would have been in the Online game, but if we come up with some good ideas and explanations on why Star Fleet would make these additions to the uniform, we can then let Jen and Kenny decide what the uniforms actually do.


So, let's start brainstorming!

These are regular crew uniforms, right?  If so, integrated flashlights and pattern enhancers sound cool I guess, but I'm not so sure that we should soup-up the uniforms too much.

Personal force-fields, variable gravity boots, and personal transporter devices seem a little super-heroic to me.    Maybe these features could be part of a special away-mission uniform or something.  For daily wear, I'm kinda partial to uniforms that are just uniforms. 

[Omra]

I believe the uniforms would be customizable, in other words; could be made mission specific. 

And of course security would want features others would have no need for, and exploration teams would want features that might say, make a harsh environment easier to deal with.  Like heat Shields, or bio filters, or an eyepiece that could swing down that would allow them to see in low light levels.

You could simply clip on modules for whatever situation you were entering in to.  Not just for walking around the ship, but when leaving on an away mission.

[X]

Yeah, from one of the pictures, the primary outfit seems to be the shoulders and the belt. It looks like they are modular add-ons for away missions that can be added to the outfits. Perhaps the outer shirts and the belts are just simple tools that have been integrated into gear. Pattern enhancers or bio-sensors.

[wraith1701]

Making the uniforms customizable for different missions sounds pretty cool.  :thumbsup:

In a series of books I read a few years ago, armored troops had modules that could inject meds (painkillers, healing agents, etc.) if the soldier was injured while on mission; they could also inject stimulants and short-term enhancement drugs to keep the troops alert during extended missions.  Perhaps something like this could be a package for security personel on high-risk away missions.

[X]

That's a good idea, we can add that to the list.

I was also thinking about micro replicators in the belt to make small tools. similar to what the exocomps did in early TNG. Nothing advanced but if it could be used to create minor tools or even emergency rations, that would be a viable progression of the technology.

I don't think the power supply would last more than few days, but it could be a good, but not overpowering tool for the stories. Water and food bars as a part of the database that contains the tools.

[Rico]

Just a question/comment.  But are many of these uniform and ship upgrades just for our new ship?  While I could see special items for certain missions I'm not sure about them being standard ware.  Just my thoughts.

[billybob476]

My 2 cents on this.

It's a good idea but should *really* be used sparingly. Otherwise having a solve-all 'utility belt' will easily become a crutch. Having little replicators and personal shields and such gives easy outs to a lot of potentially tough situations.

[Bryancd]

x3 on the above comments. I think our duty uniforms should just be regular old unifroms. Away teams can be kitted out differently, but just walking around the ship with all that stuff?

[X]

Good questions. I think when the new uniform idea was kicked around, it was that they were testing the uniforms and were in mid testing when the Tiberius blew up. It is not something that is worn by everyone, nor is it an everyday use.

In my initial thoughts, I wondered what the lights did and then I tried to apply evolution of function. If you constantly need to take x,y, and z into an away mission, sooner or later, they will begin to adopt x,y, and z into something in the uniforms.

universal translator went from a wand to being an implant tied to a communicator, that was also integrated into the uniform.

The new uniforms they are field testing gives us a chance to play engineer and think about the vital pieces of equipment that have constantly found themselves needed for missions but had to be carried about.

I wasn't suggesting that the uniforms become easy crutches, but hoping to get us to figure out what would starfleet be considering on making standard in future away team gear.

As for the replicator idea, I don't think the ability to make a few gallons or water or an energy bar or two is overpowering. Then at the same time I asked myself if they have micro replicators that can create tools and such and they have micro transporters that can move speeding bullets from one place to the next, how long before these ideas find some merit in away team gear?

We can tell from the drawing that they still need to carry tool boxes and PADs, but are there things, that won't over power the story, that you think Starfleet would be testing to see if they can make away missions safer?

[billybob476]

I think that equipping for away missions make sense. One thing I never really got about Star Trek was that they always wear their uniforms for everything. They wear them to diplomatic functions, they wear them to war, they wear them to explore hostile environments...

They got away from this a bit in Enterprise where at least sometimes they wore field jackets. Also in the early movies where the Engineering staff wore those white radsuits.

For potentially hostile or unknown situations, for sure clip stuff on. Just don't make it Batman, I don't think Quinn should carry around shark repellent.

[X]

LOL! We can agree on that. No utility belts or shark repellants. I'm thinking functional and logical adaptations of technology to create tools  that the away teams could use.

Currently there are systems in constructions that will convert walking into electrical energy to charge things like cellphones, computers, and iPods. What if the glowing boots are an adaptation of that and the 'belt' stores the recharging power cells? This would allow walking to recharge your communicator, phaser, or tricorder, but a broken leg would lead to that system failing.

I think pattern enhancers built into the gear would also make sense for emergency extractions, but at the same time there are situation where even enhanced patters don't allow for a decent lock for transport.

I think that at some point Starfleet would have to figure out a way to protect their people when they go planet side and if we put passive sensors into the gear to enhance the use of the tricorder or a replicator based emergency ration system, that won't take away from the story and unless you have the data for things outside of the  emergency rations, which is almost impossible given the size of the data needed, miro replicators won't become universal problem solvers, just tools that allow the away teams to move with less external gear but still have necessities. I personally don't see how a replicator that can make one or two beverages and one or two food items would over power things given that it could only create so many items with the power it has and it only can create specific items.

Forcefields are the big iffy, I can do with or without them and understand why we can't create personal shields like the borg, or that we've finally started using the "belts" from the TAS in normal field gear.

We should probably list a few ideas and the pros and cons of adding the tech.

[billybob476]

I also have questioned this for a loooong time. Shy, if any and all communication, tracking, transport locking etc with away team members is done through the comm badge, is it SO DAMNED EASY TO TAKE OFF. Shouldn't it be integrated into the uniform top? Like, at least sewn on?

[Jen]

This is the first time I've read this post... Good discussion and ideas, but I don't want to go to far away from our original thought, which was posted several seasons ago. Because this is post Nemesis—it's not DS9 uniform era—it's the future,  we have room to play with the equipment and uniforms. We posted pictures a few seasons back of what the uniforms look like (STO art work was posted). The thought was that the entire Federation had gone to this uniform design after Tiberius used them in their missions. Lets not get too carried away with all the gadgets. A few of those ideas are fine for away missions but I don't think all this technology would fall in their laps in just the five to ten years after Nemesis.
Here's a link to the other thread:
http://www.treksinscifi.com/forum/index.php?topic=3253.0