Star Trek Online (Now for free and people are still playing!)

[DaveSimmons]

I have a couple of getting started Q's:

Is a cruiser tank easier to play for a n00b in PVE than an escort?

From reading a bit of this thread and the wiki, I gather I want a custom alien race with 3-4 space traits. For a tank would those be: Accurate, Efficient Captain, Warp Theorist and one of Astrophysicist or Techie? Or are any of the ground traits a good idea to have instead?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Thanks, I'd probably just pick human but the two required traits don't seem as useful. It's been almost 20 years since I was an ace in Wing Commander 1-2 so I'd like the extra edge to compensate for my dulled reflexes

 

[DaveSimmons]

That's some therapy session if it put 2 crew in sick bay

I'm enjoying the game so far, though to my n00b eyes it feels less polished than SW:TOR: quest directions can be vague, system and planet maps don't always give good guidance, and I miss all of the voice acting. But I'm paying almost $0 for it so I'm not really complaining.

Except about the process to buy (C) points, they made giving them $10 painful. So many hoops to jump through before I could buy the zen points, change them to c points, and finally get my 2 extra boff slots.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Never ever ever nerver nervererver spend dilithium on stuff like weapons. Maybe some super leet DOffs or BOffs, but weapons? No way.

I just did, but it's only the first 3K of awards from the explore anomaly sector missions. I need the blue phaser turret now more than the dilithium later

I also ignored the other advice and did a bit of crafting for green phaser banks (+6% damage) and better consoles, but it was with mats I already had, nothing purchased.

I figure the tiny amounts of mats and dilithium I have now are nothing in the scheme of things, but the better gear will help me survive while I'm learning to play.

Orrrr, you could see whats in the ars fleet bank.....

How do I join the Ars fleet? Total n00b here.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Keep in mind that the cheapest VA ship is 1600 points, and at current market rates, that's about 400000 (400K!) dilithium. I'll let you do the math at 8K refinement per day...

Post your charactername@handle and I'll send you an invite.

Thanks, my federation Lt. Commander is dravann@davefenestrator

Edit: and thanks for the invite, I've accepted. Now if only I could figure out how to set the "member comment" field for my character

Also, what's the etiquette on the fleet bank, both adding and removing? It looks like most is above my Lt. Cmdr level anyway but should I not bother to put in any greens I don't need below level <rank>? Don't try to take anything until I've been in <y> Ars actions? I checked ArsClan but there are no posts there.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I might get salty and spring for the Odyssey Pack... I assume it's 20% off too? The website shows the regular prices for me.

The large print giveth and the fine print taketh away:

*Odyssey and Bortasqu' Packs and Cruisers, as well as Master Keys (single and 10-packs), are excluded from this sale

Are server maintenance schedules listed anywhere? I went to set up some doff missions this morning and the server was down

 

[DaveSimmons]

DaveSimmons[/url]":1g7voxpg]Are server maintenance schedules listed anywhere?

Maybe in the 'announcements' forum on their site?

Thanks. The link from the client itself didn't go anywhere useful, but the thread is there in the forum. It's not pinned as an announcement though, it's just a dev post mixed in with the other threads. I'm used to a little more hand-holding from playing SW:TOR

 

[DaveSimmons]

You might want to head to Sol System today, there is a ship there with a First Contact event and free shuttle pet.

I think I picked a good week to join: first the free IDIC tribble + Q double XP and now this.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Are there any good reviews or details on Foundry missions? From the in-game list I can't tell if a mission is on-level for me or not (Lt. Cmdr) and whether or not it's fun and reasonably bug-free. I'm not looking for the "go stare at a wall to earn your daily" quickies.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm still a noob, so my engineer Command's cruiser is all phasers: beam array + 2 cannon up front, 2 arrays + turret aft. That way I can still do damage despite poor piloting skills thanks to the wide targeting arcs.

My current cruiser is the USS Skylark since I'm a Doc Smith fan. Fleet actions could be right out of one of the books, except for the lack of super-weapons like the sunbeam.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I hit Captain (engineering) last night and was briefly tempted by the pay to win refit cruiser for the extra science boff slot, but I figure I'll only be captain for so long so why bother? Maybe if I was doing P2P I'd have the urge to cheese my way to unearned victories.

I am tempted to grind Night of the Comet for more blue phaser arrays though, just for visual consistency.

 

[DaveSimmons]

This is my first character so I'm not trying to speed through, I want to play through the episodes without being too over-leveled. I'm already above where I should be since I haven't finished the Klingon season yet.

I need to cut back on joining the PVE queues, but wading into a sea of enemies is fun.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Very useful shield (tanking) guide.

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpo ... ostcount=2

Thanks, this looks like what i need to be doing with my cruiser instead of picking my shield powers at random

 

[DaveSimmons]

Don't forget to check your calendars for the Friday the 13th episode.
It will take you 10 minutes to do, tops, and it awards a rare Vulcan Lirpa that does psionic damage and a unique rare Duty Officer.

Thanks! It didn't show up on the calendar for me, or in available missions until I went to the Eta Eradani sector block. Here is the location:
http://www.startrek.com/article/star-tr ... y-the-13th

A blue doff is definitely worth the visit, it's still available for a few more hours.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Anyone get something good from your 2 free "hacked" Ferengi lockboxes? I got a decent blue personal armor, and one of the lobi crystals. There's no way I'll be paying $1.25 each to open any more though.

> Time for me to kill a single probe? 5 seconds MAXIMUM.

Out of curiosity, what do you use for hunting Borg? My VA cruiser is all phasers so I'd probably be in the 1:30 group too, even if I'm not a Rainbow Brite.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Thanks all. I've been using all beam arrays + broadsides which has worked (if slowly) in PVE with my slow cruiser turn speed. Taking out a fighter cluster or set of siphon drones with Fire at Will never gets old

Changing the ship power, upgrading parts, improving my console set should all help. I wonder about the torpedo launcher though -- you get 1 massive spike, but in a cruiser you might miss out on 10-20 beam hits to get it by giving up the beam array. Especially since my consoles are +21/24% to phaser damage.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Yes, there is a nice selection of Rear Admiral and above gear in the Fleet bank. So far I've only taken out one phaser console and put in a couple of other parts, but there is a good selection of ship items especially for nimble escorts that can use dual beams, cannons, torpedo and mine launchers.

I'm up to RA ~45 myself now so should be able to try a fleet action sometime this month.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Is there any consensus on the merits of different torpedo and mine types: photon, plasma, quantum, chroniton, etc.?

I'm curious about torpedoes for following the advice from last page to add 1 or 2 launchers to my beams-only cruiser.

For mines it's partly idle curiosity and partly wondering if some of them should be cleaned out of the fleet bank to make room. Is there any value to chrontion bonus of slowing ships, or is some other type always a better choice?

In the PVE groups I see people launching clouds of mines. When does having a launcher for your ship make sense?

 

[DaveSimmons]

I just reached VA, woohoo! (And d'oh for no more new levels or skill points.)

I'm curious how people buy Odyssey cruisers with dilithium, since they only show as c-points for me, is that a benefit of being a past paid subscriber? Not that I really want to grind dil for a couple of months to get one, I'd probably break down and spend real-world money.

Is there any consensus on which Odyssey is best? Tactical seems better on paper for PVE since you get an extra +damage tac console, but I'm still a n00b so please enlighten me.

 

[DaveSimmons]

My VA is Engineering so extra science consoles might not help as much.

While I'm asking n00b questions: are purple bridge officers really any better than blue or green unless they have some skill you plan to use? I have a couple in my holding pen and I'm not seeing how switching to them would help.

Duty officers you get the safety over whites of not dying, and bonus chance for success or critical success, but I'm not seeing where the +10% / +20% is for boffs.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Anyone else having trouble with the confiscate contraband from crew Doff mission? I've run it four time now, with green quality doffs, each with one critical success trait, and I alway fail. Hell, one mission they both ended up in sickbay. Either it's bugged, I'm terribly unlucky, or I have one badass crew.

I just completed one a few minutes after this post -- 1 contraband and a small hypo. So, just the odds catching up with you I guess.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Doffs need a glass of ale now and then too, especially the white-quality ones. I just had my first one KIA, and it was on a "risk: low" mission. On ta happier note I finished the Delta Volaris colony chain and got my blue doff reward, woohoo!

 

[DaveSimmons]

I've just reached the first episode that needs a shuttle, runabout or Delta Flyer (Romulan season - vault). Any advice on what to get? Are the credits shuttles good enough or is there any reason to spend c-points?

 

[DaveSimmons]

For anyone new-ish like me: there's a tab full of ground gear in the Fleet bank, though it's RA lower / upper rank.

I'm still a n00b, but I just go with 3 expose / 2 exploit ranged weapons, energy dampening armor, best shields (now all white XI or better). Everyone has a tribble (IDIC for my character) and hypos.

You can give them shield and damage batteries but they will use them every combat whether needed or not -- if your character is at a lower rank where credits still matter you might hold off giving them the buff items until the boss battles. They're also always hungry, so will eat and drink any food you give them just for fun.

 

[DaveSimmons]

That, and your doff overview page should have a KIA list --

Bob Andorian, killed fetching crafting materials
Jane Vulcan, killed treating minor injury
Sam Tribble, killed by shore leave on Risa
....

 

[DaveSimmons]

My million-credit mistake, for you to learn from:

It was late at night and I was setting up doff missions before going to bed. "Turn in Changeling" appears, rare, worth a good amount of points. Risk = extreme? I guess I'd better pick one of my best available, a purple.

My sleepy brain skipped right over the warning that you would lose the doff that you sent on the mission.

<vader> NooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!! </vader>

I got about 3,000 dil worth of contraband, enough to buy 3 green doffs, but that was _25_ greens worth of doffs that I just lost

 

[DaveSimmons]

In case anyone checks the fleet bank log: no, I wasn't looting the bank to cover my Dabo losses, I just was tidying up a bit and couldn't figure out how to move items between tabs without using my own inventory to hold them.

The shields and consoles are a little more organized now, and I've grouped the beam arrays I've added together in tab 6 (the torpedoes are there now too).

It should now be a little easier to tell if your spare gear is worth adding to the bank or if there is a better version of the same item there already.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I did spend quite a bit of time sorting and moving stuff a few weeks back....

It was still in decent shape but things fall apart, the center cannot hold. People had added new shields, consoles, etc. in different tabs than the others of their kind.

If we had one more tab I'd be inclined to undo some of that though, and move all of the RA Lower and below gear to its own tab so people leveling up could find the lower rank gear with less hunting. That would also keep us from accidentally replacing the last RA Lower version of console X with an RA Upper version.

I also traded 5x blue doffs for a purple and got.. a purple refugee
owie.

At least you didn't use a purple for "turn in changeling" like I did, see above

 

[DaveSimmons]

I can see why they only made 3 shuttle missions in 5 seasons, I found the season version of The Vault a bit underwhelming. And the reward of a 5000-credit, 1-time-use fighter summon* doesn't give me much incentive to replay it either.

( * At least that's the description says, consumed on use. Something reusable with a cooldown, or a stack of 10+ of these would have been nice. )

 

[DaveSimmons]

I started my first Klingon alt to try out a tactical captain and to get the purple doff while it's available. It definitively feels different to be part of the Empire than in the Federation, including the doff missions (sell your colonists to Orion slavers? )

I finally figured out the buggy email system for sending items -- in case anyone else new runs into this, some mail terminals allow you to collect packages / attachments, for others the "take items" button will be greyed out. In-ship mail is always greyed out for me.

I was also annoyed to see that feds can't craft disruptor weapons, so if you want to craft anything for a K alt it won't be disruptors. I did send my alt a nice photon torpedo launcher though.

 

[DaveSimmons]

PVE or PVP? For PVE Eng /cruisers you don't need to buy anything until Vice Admiral, and only then if you want the Odyssey. For Tactical / escorts, I'm not sure when you might want to buy a c-point ship, but again not while leveling up.

So far as a VA Eng - cruisers the only c-points I "needed" to spend was for the 100 extra doff slots since I enjoy the doff missions side game.

For credits, just do some fleet actions and deep space encounters. For dilithium, do the explore 3 systems daily. You can use those for upgrades without spending any c-points, but might only need them only if you want to change your weapon set.

For my klingon tactical officer I just bought a second turret in back to replace the rear photon launcher, and a second dual cannon for the front in place of the dual beams. I haven't tried that in combat yet so I might have just wasted the energy credits but it's easy to get more.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Is there any secret forum thread or blog about upcoming sales? I'm still thinking of buying an Odyssey cruiser or set, and might also get a couple of character slots to try a science or tactical fed captain. Another 15-25% off sale on items and/or points would be nice.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Can someone give me the rundown of what Duty Officers do actually? Are they like the companions in SWTOR where you can send them out on missions and come back with stuff etc? PS, I am tactical officer, but for some reason I am in a Exploration Cruiser (aka Picard's ship). All I can think of is that I got it back when the game first came out without actually reading up on it. I joined some random fleet to help me in a pinch and one of them said don't worry about it until I get to level 40 then I get a free ship of my choosing and then I should worry about my bridge officers as well. Any advice? Also any Ars fleets taking in refugees :bigdumbgrin: ?

Duty officers have 2 functions:
- The duty officer missions side game, which is completely optional. It does give you the chance to make a bit of extra dilithium on the side, and eventually to (rarely) get some nice ship components like a turret launcher for a ship device slot and random ship parts. On the other hand you can do a few fleet actions for enough credits to buy things instead.

- doffs can be assigned to back up your bridge crew and away team. They don't show up but they add buffs like a faster recharge for a skill or the chance to get a better effect.

I'm enjoying the side game, but I only plan to do it once per side (Fed and Klingon) not for when / if I do alts.

As a fed officer you get 4 free-ship tokens on your way up the ranks. At the highest rank (Vice Admiral) if you want a final ship upgrade it costs 2,000 c-points / $25.00 cash unless you wait for a sale. $50 if you want all 3 variants of the Odyssey cruiser. You might not need the final ship: I haven't bought it yet but I'm just doing the episodes and fleet actions no PVP.

So, unless you're already a rear admiral you'll get one or more chances to change ship types for free as you level up.

Bridge officers: as it was explained to me recently, the main bonus you get with blue or purple is they might have a rare Space skill, or a "superior" version of a ground skill, giving a slight bonus. Aside from that even the white-qualty boffs are fine.

FYI, blue boffs are currently dirt cheap in the exchange, so you can shop for ones with better stats than your current ones.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Ack, I'm dumb, forgot about the surname: Buxaroo@LordWhorfan. I also left my fleet.

Shouldn't you be playing the Undine faction?

(And say "hi" to John BigBooty.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MqJ3iGBdOo

 

[DaveSimmons]

Duhhh --- after 200 hours I finally found out about setting beam weapons to auto-fire by right-clicking in the weapons HUD. With that and the free STF-intro quantum torp launcher my star cruiser feels at least 15% more deadly!

In less embarrassing blog news, thanks to last weekend's doff points event I now have everything at rank 2 except Recruitment, and that's getting close.

 

[DaveSimmons]

As a heads up. theyre doing some `special` mission re-runs

http://startrekonline.com/node/3132

a chance to get Boffs, doffs, and previously `special` items

Thanks, I've been meaning to replay the Devidian sequence for the phase-shifted personal shield and RA-level ship phasers so this is a perfect excuse.

If anyone does this and won't use the [Phaser Beam Array Mk XI [Dmg]x2] reward from "Everything Old is New", just add it to the fleet bank (there's space in the rare MX tab) and I'll make good use of it.

 

[DaveSimmons]

As a heads up. theyre doing some `special` mission re-runs

http://startrekonline.com/node/3132

a chance to get Boffs, doffs, and previously `special` items

Thanks, I've been meaning to replay the Devidian sequence for the phase-shifted personal shield and RA-level ship phasers so this is a perfect excuse.

If anyone does this and won't use the [Phaser Beam Array Mk XI [Dmg]x2] reward from "Everything Old is New", just add it to the fleet bank (there's space in the rare MX tab) and I'll make good use of it.

Mission rewards are generally Bind on Pickup.

The replay wikii entry says the retro phasers are BOP but the generic phaser beam arrays are not marked as such. Not a big deal either way though, just saying I can use them if you get them (and they aren't BOP). As can anyone else with a phasers build.

http://www.stowiki.org/Episode_replay

 

[DaveSimmons]

Sigh, the maps where your ship is slowed to a crawl are really fun, especially when you have to go all over the map looking for your goal. I'm reading a magazine and posting here while I wait for the escaping Klingons to show up . . . somewhere . . . in "Secret Orders."

Any minute now . . . sigh . . . one more pass through the marked area that's 100% Klingon-free . . . nope . . . other direction? . . . finally. What, there are two groups? SIGH.

 

[DaveSimmons]

As a heads up. theyre doing some `special` mission re-runs

http://startrekonline.com/node/3132

a chance to get Boffs, doffs, and previously `special` items

FYI, the new content is a 1 Lobi crystal per episode scavenger hunt. The crystals appear inside other items like crates. An accolade is added (after you find the first one?) that lists hints on where to find each one.

For the Devidian sequence:

Spoiler

Skirmish - med bay second floor, as a medkit
Spin the Wheel - wall panel in South section on East wall behind some barrels
What Lies Beneath - second floor, main room, upper walkway as crate
Everything Old is New Again - (after Bones) - room where integrate subspace emitter, other side of console
Night of the Comet - in space, an asteroid at the tail of the comet

 

[DaveSimmons]

According to this science DPS guide for noobs like me, you might do even better with just 6 beams:

http://sto.necrobones.com/science-dps.html