I think that their should be starship flight simulation in STO. Sure its a little hard to implement with all the other game features, but hell, who ever said Star Trek was easy to do.

I don't really get the concept of 'simulating' something that doesn't exist, but I do believe that helmsmen should have, in addition to queue-able manuevers, the ability to take free-flight control of ships in ship-to-ship battles.

I believe this should be wholly separate from crash-landing.  I honestly don't think the time it takes to code areas of a planet for big ships to land on is worth the time it takes.  I cannot think of anything inherently fun or challenging about that, nor do I find much precedent for it in the series.  Perhaps as part of a storyline there may be A planet which you can land on out there by engaging the landing sequence (Cut scene) but I don't really see any advantage, fun, story potential or any other redeeming quality in allowing players to land their big giant ships on planets at random.

Sorry, I've been so disagreeable lately... maybe I've been thinking about this game too much...

Perhaps I've misunderstood...

What do we mean by "Flight simulation" exactly?

To me that means creating menial tasks that are involved with flight to make it as involved and detailed as flying a real jet even though the show is very vague about what it is that helmsmen do, exactly.

I think what alot of ppl want to see on here with flight simulation.  Is the ability to have all the ships systems accounted for so they can do various strategic manuvers in combat.  The kind of things they have seen the the show.  The more options you have available to you the more dynamic and unpredictable combat is.

I kinda think they should stick with the basics then add some abilities here and there.  Given each feature the time it deserves to make it work right.

Faking that your ship is wounded, or disappearing in a nebula so you can get the chance to surprise the enemy, edging into a planets atmosphere to reveal a cloaked ship....

They are all specific instances that have happened in the shows, many ppl wish to have them realized in game so they can act them out. 
But I think aside from simulating the ship.  The environment is part of the simulation to.  Because often times it's the ship taking advantage of it's surrounding environment to turn the tables on the enemy.   

This is what war stories are made of! :)

I suppose it depends on how they are going to build the game.

If they are going down the "canon" road - similar to "Infinity: The Quest For Earth" - then they will have smooth space to planet transitions - where you can fly into the atmosphere of a planet and work your way down to the surface.

In this day and age, it is not necessary to have any kind of "bridge" cutscene, as the server power and technology exists for you to fly down.

I for one would be very disappointed if i was taking off in my shuttle for the first time from Starfleet Command HQ, to trek into space, and just as i hit the clouds, i got a cutscene - WTF?!

The company making Infinity is much smaller than Cryptic, and if they can do it, so can cryptic.

If they have this infrastructure in from the start - then all we really need to make crash landings viable, is a good physics system, another common feature in recent MMOs.

So you enter the atmosphere of a planet, and obviously the planet has a different set of physics credentials which take over - if you don't have sufficient thrust to stay in flight, you are gunna fall down and crash into the planet.

Tweak your existing damage system so that when the ship hits the surface, it gets 'censored' up, and bam, you have crash landings.

All of this is assuming that Cryptic implement systems that are already being used in today's MMOs - and personally, i think that with their history, they will exceed our expectations.

Crash Landings? Here we come! (but seriously, don't just go crashing ships all the time, they cost allot of money...,OK?)