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

[SunnyD]

Simply put: Consider what happened with Champions Online on launch day. Expect the exact same thing to happen with STO on launch day.

Having been in closed beta for 2 months now (broken promise #1 - should have been in for 4 months), with the release date being in less than a month, there's no way in hell STO will be even feature-complete let alone come with enough content at launch. Hell, they've changed the UI 3 times in the last month alone, and I'm not talking minor changes here.

It's a decent premise, but poorly executed. Far too many instance changes, it would be good for someone with ADD imho. Balance issues are far too numerous. Large portions of the game are either unfinished or haven't even been started. Only two factions at launch, one of them being PvP only?

I could go on, but let me sum up best by saying "Wait 4-6 months AFTER launch to pick up this one." For your own good...

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by RDeVoe:

I could go on, but let me sum up best by saying "Wait 4-6 months AFTER launch to pick up this one." For your own good...

You clearly don't understand that the only way games get better is by having people buy and pay for 4-6 months of an unfinished product so the dev's have the money to do the "real" release later on. If nobody signs up and pays for a broken uncompleted game it'll never get finished!

On the contrary, I do understand it. It's a catch-22. Obviously somebody out there will pay for it, which is what I would bank on.

I suppose I could phrase it as "if you want an unpolished and unfinished game experience where the only draw is that you're playing a Star Trek game, then this is for you". Would that be better?

 

[SunnyD]

Re: Unlocking Klingons

Around level 5 or so you should get a mission chain that results in the mission "Unlikely Allies" or something to that effect, where you "help" a group of Klingons by killing a changeling infiltrator.

Once that mission is done, you should then be able to create a Klingon character.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by Starbuck79:
After reading all that it makes me glad that Bioware and Lucas are putting some serious money begind The Old Repubic. I have a feeling that an accountant somewhere said "You need to Launch this in Jan 10 or you will run out of money."

That accountant is called "Atari". That right there should explain enough for anyone.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by Happysin:
In all seriousness, how is this in any way compelling over Eve? It sounds like they added semi-functional areas to some of Eve's core mechanics and slapped a Star Trek paint job on it.

Not remotely close to EVE. STO is a PvE game, first and foremost. It's more typical MMORPG in control as well - get in, mash your buttons, cast your spells, and see who doesn't blow up first. Very little strategy involved, and nearly NO team mechanics needed.

It offers a traditional MMO "storyline" theme (at least for Feds right now), and PvP is canned battleground style "deathmatch", "capture the flag" or "domination" FPS-type of game modes.

It is about as far from EVE as it gets.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by Sykus:
Anyone have a non fileplanet mirror? Preferably torrent? I've been queued for like 2 hrs and it's only getting longer.

Official Mirror list:
http://www.startrekonline.com/download

And with that, it's time for me to head home. Have fun, if I manage to log in (and stay logged in - the login server is crashing often as it had in Closed Beta), feel free to look me up. My global handle is @miralenwan, same as in CO.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by Abulia:
One of my local buds that I play online with and our weekly tabletop RPG also is in STO so he and I will try out the grouping. Thus far I haven't done any grouping and who knows, STO may really shine in this department. (Fleet actions does sound really appealing.)

Fleet action is a simple giant clusterfuck, pardon the vernacular. Just a bunch of lemmings moving along from mob blob to mob blob, no "teaming" required.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by Keen314:
Fleet Actions and Deep Space Encounters. Are you avoiding these? Every sector has several DSE's and one Fleet Action.

Thing is FA's and DSE's don't require you to team, and in fact most people don't. (See my earlier post as to a description) Every single one I've played during the course of the closed beta, I think I got teamed maybe once or twice, tops. And even then, it was in name only presumably because someone wanted to share XP, not to coordinate any tactics. The only real way you'll end up in a group atmosphere is if you're part of a fleet (guild) that likes to do things together.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by Keen314:

Originally posted by SunnyD:
Thing is FA's and DSE's don't require you to team, and in fact most people don't.

I'm new to MMO's, so I'm curious what would require you to team? The FA's have too many enemy ships for you to enter an instance alone and win (the 3rd or 4th one in particular, has a really tough boss. We had to organize a bit to beat that one). The DSE's can probably be done alone, but it'd be a long fight. All the FA's and DSE's I've done, have not been in actual teams, but just a random group of people working together to kill the enemies.

That's essentially what I meant. It's a random unaffiliated glob of players, but none of them have to be in any formal team or group. Working together simply means occasionally firing at the same target - if you want to. It's not like a WoW instance where you have to have 5 members in your group all focusing on the same target one after another to make it through.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by ewichern:
For now... I just submitted ticket ID# (i.e. bug report) 391,422. Yup. Almost 400,000. Not sure if that count has been reset at any point from the start of Alpha/CB/OB, but regardless... that's a lot of bugs.

I'm pretty sure that's a shared bug tracker for all of Cryptic's projects.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by HappyBunny:

Originally posted by Dav-:
That lifetime subscription offer is tempting.. 1.5 years worth of fees for a lifetime subscription? I can easily see myself playing STO for that long, since I have for other MMOs in the past..

I'm really skeptical of lifetime subscriptions that are only available as preorders, because so much of the MMO value proposition depends on what happens to the game after it launches.

I don't think people who shelled out for Champions Online lifetime got a good deal.

If it's any indication, I bought the 6-month pre-sale for CO, and only ended up playing maybe about 5 weeks total when it initially came out.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by chem:
Can someone sell me on this game versus, say, Eve or WoW?

And let's say you avoided the 'away team' aspect of it -- how much purely shipborne gameplay is there and can you exclusively level up and upgrade your ship through that?

Once it gets rolling and people roll Klingons, you can pretty much exclusively level up through shipborne play. PvP (currently) is by far the fastest wait to gain XP in the game. In fact, once past level 10, it out-strips PvE missions significantly. I expect this to be "balanced" eventually.

Note: There are "away team" style missions for PvP as well, but since you choose which PvP queue's you want to participate in, it's not that much of an issue.

There's also DSE's and FA's. You should be able to keep yourself in your ship 99% of the game if you so desire.

 

[SunnyD]

Just imagine how much fun this is gonna be on Tuesday or next weekend when the throngs of retail purchasers flood the... um... servers.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by KParks:
So, UI question that I can't figure out. Is there some way to unlock the various things (weapons bar, shield bar, hot bar, BO bar) at the bottom of your screen to move them around? Since I got my T2 ship the weapons box (because it contains the target subsystems menu) overlaps a little bit with my bridge officer powers box and it is really annoying.

Hit escape, select "Rearrage HUD UI" from the menu.

 

[SunnyD]

My Miranda (ShiKhar actually) was:

Front -
1x Dual Heavy Phaser Cannon Mk1
1x Photon Torpedo Mk1

Rear -
1x Phaser Mk1

Arguably you get more utility going 1x Phaser up front and broadsiding through shields to take them down faster, but there's a lot of maneuvering involved, and can take a lot out of the equation when you try to bring your torps around for the kill. I found that I could alpha with the cannons at range and have their front shield down by 6km with a pair of high yield torps on the way (they'd usually have already taken 1 torp on the way in). I've successfully alpha'd NPC cruisers this way in one pass.

My escort is currently:
Front -
1x Dual Heavy Phaser Cannons Mk2
1x Dual Phaser Bank Mk1
1x Photon Torpedo Mk2

Rear -
1x Phaser Turret Mk2

I just got the turret, so I can't comment on it's effectiveness. Previous had a Mk2 phaser in there, and it's pretty damn useful. Hoping the reduction in rear-facing DPS (turret is about half of a phaser bank) is compensated by the additional front DPS the turret brings.

This setup is even more potent on alpha approaches than the previous one, obviously. I tried a Mk2 Quantum in the slot too, but honestly it only made about 50 damage per hit difference over Mk2 photons, and the photons fire more often making the DPS better overall.

I still get raped in PvP by just about any Klingon ship though. Rapid fire + Tractor beam ftl.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by VidX:
You need to decide on your playstyle. If you are going for cannons you really don't need the dual phaser bank. That's a 45 arc plus 2 90 arcs. If you want the cannons to hit you will be within the 45 arc anyway.

Also, torpedoes are handy for burst damage. If you are speccing cannons there's really no T1 skills you can put on your Tactical BO that will be of use so your only real choice is Torpedo: High Yield 1. If you spec for this then you should go for Quantums instead of Photons for the up-front damage. Yes, Photons fire faster and have a higher overall DPS but have a lower per-shot damage. With High Yield 1 Rank 9 you will have a 30 second cooldown on High Yield. That's 1 every 4 shots with a Quantum meaning you actually get 5 torpedoes out every 30 seconds or so. The DPS is slightly more than photons on their own. Also, if you need more than 4 shots to kill something anyway you are in trouble as the Escort isn't designed to stand up to something that withstands it's DPS for 30 seconds Really only the Battleship or Dreadnought classes will be in that area and you won't be fighting them on your own at this stage. You will have access to higher tier weapons (Plasma, Antiproton, etc) when you will anyway.

I agree with most everything. It was a conscious choice that I put the dual phaser on - I mostly PvE and I wanted something with a bigger arc so that I could still hit while maneuvering. That and I didn't have a second dual cannon at the time.

Again, with the quantums, unless they scale better at higher ranks, I'm just not seeing it. As I mentioned, Mk2 quantums have maybe a 50 damage boost over Mk2 photons. That's per hit, not DPS. IMHO, not worth the justification of slotting in the quantums (yet).

Again, my focus is PvE anyway, so my comparisons to PvP ownage is only an afterthought.

 

[SunnyD]

Alright, finally got some decent drops last night and re-arranged my escort.

F:1x Dual Heavy Phaser Cannon Mk2
F:1x Dual Disruptor Cannon Mk2
F:1x Quantum Torpedo Mk2
R:1x Phaser Turret Mk2

Also picked up a Tactical Console (drop) boosting Quantum Torpedoes by +10.

The biggest change actually was that I went and promoted my second tactical officer and swapped him into the Lieutenant's tactical chair. That gave me access to both Tactical Team AND Rapid Fire (should be called rabid fire), while allowing me to keep High Yield Torpedoes on the other slot.

I ran Halting the Gorn Advance (2nd FA), ended up scoring about 6400 points when it was all said and done, next closest was in the 4000's. Man oh man... I would rip through usually about 5 or 6 enemy frigates on approach while the rest of the fleet was still working on their second one. Cruisers go down with ease. I even took alpha just for S&G on a couple runs (at full shields). Basically, I went through the whole FA without dying. Granted, they were mostly -3 mobs.

I did try a war zone as well. Borg at +3 - I was very effective there too (even when the cubes would totally drain all shields).

Now all I need to do is find a decent way to generate skill points so I can level up a little faster. Taking a science ship in the next tier.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by AaronPeek:
Guys, For those of us who do not bleed MMO...

can we get this in english, I have not seen ANY way of upgrading a ship.

All i know is I fought the Gorn, and the Gorn won.

It lasted like 30 seconds.

Step by step:
- You need to "rank up" to Lieutenant 11
- Spend I think 6400 skill points, at which you'll automatically get promoted to Lt. Commander.
- Once at Lt. Commander, go to your mission journal (J key), click on the "Hail Star Fleet" button, and Admiral Quinn should have a mission for you. Accept this mission.
- Head back to Sol system (Transwarp aka: stone of recall sort of skill is handy here if you're not close) and dock at the spacedock in Sol.
- Head up to Admiral Quinn's office, tag him for the next step in the mission.
- (Optional) Go to the Stateroom, talk to the guy on the podium, it's an optional portion of the mission, so you don't have to. I don't think you get anything for it.
- Head to the shipyard part of the station, go up the ramp on the left side (where you customize your ship) to the second level and take the turbolift there to ship requisitions.
- In ship requisitions, at the counter to your left should be a vendor that sells ships, she will be the last part of this mission. Walk up to her (him?), and select "Store" from the dialog.
- You'll see two sets of ships available for purchase from the next tier. This mission gives you a single credit which will let you requisition a ship from the tier, you but it here.

Use the terminals in the same room prior to purchasing if you want to find out the stats/abilities of each ship. The T2 terminals I believe are the farthest to the RIGHT in the room.

Also, once you buy your ship, you will need to go back to the spacedock proper (take the turbolift out of the room) back into the shipyard area (down the ramp) and talk to one of the folks in there in order to SET your ACTIVE ship. If you don't, when you beam out you'll be back in your old ship.

You can customize your new ship only after you set it active, however you can equip ANY ship you own any time, active or not (makes swapping items out easy that way).

Hope that helps.

 

[SunnyD]

well, season 5 came out on the first of december. f2p is only like a month away.
here's the new updates on the official site and here's the stowiki version.

Bah, I wanted FTP before SWTOR came out.

I don't they'll make it in the next 10 days.

F2P was never intended to start before January.

 

[SunnyD]

Turrets are low dps, but they are constant low dps if youre in range, perfect for rear slots, but compared to forward facing beams/cannons, 20% lower at a minimum.

But, being the huge troll that I am, Ive set up my star cruiser with all turrets and had tac guys with cannon rapid fire/spread fire, the amount of `what the eff...` in stf's was a joy to behold.

So basically you set up a flak boat?

Just started my son on his journey through the stars. Hopefully I'll get to hang out with him a little, but right now my time is in SWTOR. Though I have had some fun with STO in the last week, pulling out my RA from mothball.

 

[SunnyD]

Well... I was pretending it was Galactica.......


dont judge me !

I'm not judging! I love the idea. I had it in mind to do the same thing a long long time ago, just never did. I could imagine the sight though!

Honestly, I like the whole fire at will thing with beams everywhere like a disco ball. Gives me a sort of homeworld/babylon 5 warm fuzzy feeling.

 

[SunnyD]

I got my Breen ship for the Winter Wonderland event yesterday. Fun boat. Good firepower off the bat, plenty of slots, really good turn rate. I think I may need to use this as my main axe for a bit.

Yeah, I came back to STO too late and ignored the "winter event" for about a week or so after I started casually playing before I realized what the big prize was. I saw the stats on the breen ship and it would be perfect for my tactical commander I'm leveling up right now (well, when he makes it to captain I guess). Oh well.

If anyone in Ars is around in the evenings, feel free to message @miralenwan (I'm usually on as Ray Gaxten). Not sure why but I'm finding STO fun again after having come back from a ~2 year hiatus. Duty Officer missions are keeping me busy.

oh, yeah, I am *NOT* in any fleet either. Just sayin'.

 

[SunnyD]

Out of curiosity, how active/organized is Ars in STO? Just a few stragglers or do you guys actually get together fairly regularly to do stuff?

 

[SunnyD]

Quick question... should I be saving my "holiday" turn-ins (like bells/beads/whatnot) or should I be selling them while the prices are decent? I don't know if Cryptic reuses these things or not. Beads seem to be going for about 100k EC each... plus there's always the exchange for GPL thing (which I have no idea if that's even worth it).

Or should I be buying those ridiculous RP-like items which I don't care about? The glowing Batleth is kinda cool looking... but anyway.

 

[SunnyD]

Well, I'll be on for a bit tonight if anyone in Ars is around to fleet me. Char name is Ray Gaxten@Miralenwan.

I'm just putzing around in Q's Wonderland collecting crap.

 

[SunnyD]

So what is latinum good for outside of the "cosmetic" stuff you can buy from the event?

I ask this because I'm trying to decide whether to sell, keep or "exchange" all my leftover winter wonderland token stuff for GPL.

 

[SunnyD]

Does anyone know if you can still research the winter eopph's at all? I have several in various stages that just finished the other night, but I'd rather not trade them in for romulan marks until they're "done" growing if possible.

 

[SunnyD]

Re: Attack Pattern Beta

I've noticed the same thing. With it up stuff just falls apart under my guns, but every time I mention it in game I get the standard "Beta is crap, go with Gamma instead". The only big advantage I see with Gamma is that it negates tractor beams (which are bad bad news when the cube snares you with one), but Evasive also does the same thing and is free.

Wait wait wait... Evasive Maneuvers breaks free of tractor beams

Somebody needs to read the powers descriptions more often!

It doesn't "break" tractors, but it does let *most* ships move rather well while under their influence. However when EM drops, if the tractor is still on you, you come back to a grinding halt.

 

[SunnyD]

Evasive just lets you go straight forwards a little faster when under a tractor beam. If you can get 5k away from the enemy that is tractoring you, it will cease to function upon you. Sometimes hitting EM can help to give you that distance, but not always. As a general rule, EM does nothing to counter tractors and don't count on being able to use it as such.

Also not entirely true - EM gives you the ability to turn considerably better while under the effects of a tractor beam. I've used it in situations where instead of running away, I wanted to turn around and hammer a heavy plasma down my target's throat at point blank range instead. EM mostly negates the effects of a tractor beam during it's duration - but it definitely doesn't cancel it out.

Another thing to take into account is the size of the ship using the tractor too. Bigass borg cubes and their tractor beams versus tiny escorts are decidedly at an advantage, and the effects of EM and heavily diminished in such cases.

 

[SunnyD]

Bigass borg cubes and their tractor beams versus tiny escorts are decidedly at an advantage, and the effects of EM and heavily diminished in such cases.

Try doing this in a Mirror Universe event and you'll see just how EM doesn't work very well against tractors in many cases. It's not that you can't use it to counter tractor beams, but that it's not a good idea to train yourself to use it as such. Because there will be plenty of times when you expect it to counter and it simply won't. Better to get a real counter like Polarize Hull.

That was exactly my point though. Under typical circumstances, it does indeed work well against tractor beams. Under STF or other conditions where the opponents you're going against are obviously going to be very buffed against, EM is much much less effective. I'm definitely not saying it's equivalent to Polarize Hull, especially since I haven't done a heck of a lot of upper level content. I'm just saying it is useful in a good amount of situations, and does come for free if you don't have anything else.

 

[SunnyD]

I got the Defiant type escort last night... new ship syndrome... I got blown up twice trying to get the hang of it I was doing OK after a little while. It turns so fast that the Phaser Cannon (45' arc) are hard to line up. Should I stick with that loadout? (Beam Array, 2x Cannon, 1x Photon) up front or is there a better one?

Uh... why are you using beams at all on a tactical escort?

I'm definitely not the best authority on loadouts since I'm just coming back to the game after a multi-year hiatus, but I'm thinking:

Front:
1x Dual Cannon
2x Heavy Cannon
1x Quantum Torpedo

Rear:
Turrets (that way you basically add your rear slots to forward DPS)

That way you focus all your BOFF skills on cannons and whatnot, maximizing your impact.

 

[SunnyD]

wtb: fleet invite? Or do I just smell bad?

 

[SunnyD]

wtb: fleet invite? Or do I just smell bad?

put your full account info like SunnyD@orangejoooose and the we can.

I already did... 2 pages ago.

So I hit cappy with my Tactical dude today, got my defiant-esque ship. Did The Doomsday Machine for the first time in years. I must admit, they've done a LOT with the missions since the game first came out. This mission used to pretty much be warp in, blow up a couple things, go "Oh crap, Planeteater!", then try to kill it.

Now there's a fairly neat story line to it, and actual cutscenes.

Spoiler

And fed players get to fly around a Klingon ship no less.

Needless to say, I ended up putting the Harph'pheng in the rear of my tactical escort. After I realized it has a hell of a long cooldown and also DOESN'T utilize any torpedo skills (high yield/spread), it was like yeah nice, it flies real fast and does decent damage even if they have shields up, but I need my torp skills. Then I figured with the escort turning on a dime, I can ram high yield torps down, then turn and fling one of those bad boys out my butt. Pretty nice combo.

 

[SunnyD]

Invite sent. Must have just gotten missed. No biggie.

Danke. I'm in! The USS Leatherhead is at the fleet's disposal.

In other news/questions...

Is there a penalty for mixing weapon types? Like phaser/disrupters? I'm just trying to figure out whether the tactical escort just sucks for weapon power or whether putting those tacheon cannons alongside the phaser cannons are causing my weapon power to drain ridiculously fast (yes, I've managed to bottom out my weapon power somehow).

 

[SunnyD]

whether putting those tacheon cannons alongside the phaser cannons are causing my weapon power to drain ridiculously fast (yes, I've managed to bottom out my weapon power somehow).

You've nailed it here. Stick to the same energy type with weapons...

Back in the phasers go I guess.

 

[SunnyD]

See that's what I thought too. But I made sure to do a run after I swapped in the tacheon cannon... no skills, no nothing. And after sustained fire for a bit (completely non-empirical study) I was hitting 0 energy on weapons. Unless there was a drain debuff or something I didn't see on me. I dunno. I'll fool around with it again tonight some and see what happens. Still waiting to find some better guns up front anyway.

 

[SunnyD]

Yeah, Dual Heavy Cannons actually drain 12 energy per cycle and Turrets only drain 8. The Borg Cutting Beam is essentially a turret, which is likely why it drains the same amount.

If you have 3 DHC up front, plus 3 turrets in the back, you're potentially losing 52-48 weapon power per volley, depending on what shoots first. If you don't have your power cranked up, you'll flatline your weapon power in a flash. At that point, even if your weapons don't go offline, you're only doing a tiny fraction of the listed DPS. You'd be better off only shooting a few weapons at that point.

For people who don't already know, Weapon Power to DPS ratios:

• 125 power = 250% weapon DPS
  100 power = 200% weapon DPS
  75 power = 150% weapon DPS
  50 power = 100% weapon DPS
  25 power = 50% weapon DPS
  0 power = weapons offline

Thanks... I think that's what did it. I was dicking around with my power levels since I'm starting to get into the area where I'm getting all sorts of bonuses, and was trying to min/max weapons/shields a bit since I've started to get shredded a good bit more running the default full weapon power. I've been running something like 80(~100) weapon/70(~90) shields lately to good effect for damage and survivability, but now that you explain that along with the weapon drain I'm seeing, coupled with that tacheon cannon (or was it tetryon?) being a dual heavy for the extra couple points of drain, I'm pretty sure my power level tinkering is what's flat lining me now.

Again, I'll play more with it tonight and see what happens, but I'm pretty sure now with that explanation that's what I'm seeing.

 

[SunnyD]

Oooh, this is awesome! I started a Star Trek game nerd-fight!

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Hope ya'll don't mind... too much.)

 

[SunnyD]

My theory was not so much for the first salvo, which would have all 4 cannons firing at once regardless, but for the followup shots. If the DHC and the DC start spreading out their fire, it seems like they could benefit from generally higher power levels over the long run. Whereas if you just had all DHC, they would all fire as a group, recharge as a group, and fire as a group over and over again.

Maybe you could spread it out by manually firing one or two then start mashing space bar? It would be so easy to get synced back up though when your target explodes and you have to find a new one, or you nose away from the target for a second or something.

Which begs the question... is there any possible way to macro that?

I mean even if there's effective benefit to doing it that way... it would just LOOK FRIGGIN COOL to shoot that way.

 

[SunnyD]

Lots of little milestones for me today:
- Hit RA with my tac cappy today
- broke 1 million EC with him
- finally figured out and got the "free" additional duty officers from the academy

A few other things I learned:
- The Mirror Universe Incursion event is insane for leveling. I think I got about 4 levels in 3 runs in an hour last night from it (which powerleveled me halfway through captain).
- Attack Pattern Alpha + Scatter Cannon + Torpedo Spread can make whole squadrons of ships go boom in a hurry. It's that ridiculously good.

I'm also curious, did most of the "Romulan" neutral zone mission series go away? I haven't seen pretty much any of the old missions and had maybe like 2 missions total in Romulan space with this captain.