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blath

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  • #10,121
    DaveSimmons - Yeah, the DOFF event are only at Starfleet Academy and the Klingon Academy at Qo'nos. Heh this morning I had a bit of lag trying to take my Romulan to Qo'nos, so much so I started questioning my memory on which faction I had him join. :D

    In regards to the Klingon Duty Officer event..
    I recommend Fire-arms over melee weapons, and maybe a combat pet.

    The fighting hologram, a Federation cadet I think, is armed with a phaser (maybe a phaser rifle I forgot, the klingon version was a bit exasperating at first) and grenade.

    Also during a fight encounter, do try to move away from your assigned student because the fighting hologram will use the grenade, and I lost about three or four students to grenades. Fortunately this doesn't make you redo your collecting, just go get another student by either the console or talking to the contact inside on the right side of the entrance to the academy building. You might, but don't try it just in case, not even need to get a student till you turn the particles so as to get the type of DOFF you want. Also the student has a rifle and helps in the fight so.. good to have.

    For easier kills against the fighting hologram, do the scans near the weapons master on the far side from the academy building... near the lower left corner.. the Klingon with the bat'leth next to the wood post/rail fence. Fighting holograms that come from scans near Klingon, tend to trigger the Klingon to come and help and the hologram falls pretty quickly. In other areas of the map, I saw at least another NPC come and help but it didn't seem consistent.

    I don't know if it was timing, but for me there was quite a bit more failure/ samples disappearing. Most of the time failure rate seemed to be between 3 to 6 consecutive failures. Though sometimes I'd have two consecutive 'useful encounters'.

    The quantity required is fortunately the same as the Federation one, though the uncommon requirement might be lower as I was offered an uncommon trade at 5, but I might have just misread it. But anyway.. 50 for rare, and 75 for very rare. :)

    Anyway.. I don't know if I want to do that again. I mean it wasn't that bad, and I was listening to a podcast at the time. It did almost feel longer, but looking at the podcast episode length and doing 3 episodes.. it took me just a bit of an hour co complete which I think might be the same time as the Federation one. The Federation one seemed less exasperating, probably because I was expecting a more efficient outcome from the Klingon one.. but instead just got so many failure outcomes, and student deaths.

    But in the end I got my very rare DOFF so..yay I guess. :p :)
     
    Ked

    Ked

    Ars Centurion
    363
  • #10,122
    UGH.
    I had worked very, very hard to forget the TOS Halloween episode. Really guys? You have to dig up THIS bit of dreck lore? And completely agree, totally not fun, basically unpugable.

    So last night I instead fell into the hole of DPS optimization. Lately I'd been science-ing and was not ever particularly good at it. But the mirror T6 reward from the last event was very obviously a beam boat so I dug up the DPS League advice and started picking out the BiS stuff I could obtain. Spent a stupid amount of resources, including 100k fleet creds on the wrong things (stupid lists that look almost identical argh) but the rando TFO I flew through just MELTED, so that was a lot of fun.

    Starting to wish I'd worked more consistently on leveling reps - fortunately Discovery is one of the couple I have at 6.

    So... what is basic farming strategy for energy creds? Is there a place to make millions directly, or is it farming drops somewhere?
     
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    DaveSimmons

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    11,018
  • #10,123
    I'm not an expert, but here are some obvious ones besides Exchange PVP and spending real world cash:

    Admiralty and endeavors will bring in a steady flow of credits. Even the easy endeavor is often 50,000.

    Farming dil is a roundabout way (dil => zen => lock box keys), though at 50,000 dil per key it's not speedy.

    Sell doffs from Free doff recruitment and spares you already have. Sell whites but grind any greens into whites before selling them since 3 x white fetches more than 1 x green. If you have a mountain of unused fleet credits you can trade credits for more doffs, either buying low-level or buying some random VR to replace blues and greens you're using now (then grind those down to white).
     
    C

    Captainpuke

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  • #10,125
    RyricKrael said:
    Tour of the galxy is another option, you can build for it, rewards max out around 900k per day. But it is fairly quick.
    Click to expand...
    With the new(ish) Extensively Modified Warpcore trait one of my ships goes like warp 82 in (slipstream, for 90 seconds, with only 30 second cooldown) or some stupid shit. The star systems come up so fast that I have to keep the map open just so I don't miss any. It's pretty funny.
     
    Ked

    Ked

    Ars Centurion
    363
  • #10,126
    I've fallen to the dark side - and installed the DPS meter.

    Someone made the comment a few pages back about a pug possibly showing a 100-fold difference between top player damage output and bottom. I didn't see that tonight, but I saw one TFO where one dude was barely scraping 1k dps and the leader was at 22k. I'm not sure I'd call it "high skill ceiling", but it's a really pleasingly deep system.

    I'm still beam-boating, and hitting numbers between 7k and 9k on the new ship I put together tonight. (Notably I tried it fresh out of the box with the included generic loadout and one tac console and got it around 2.5k. Yes, it's a T6.) There are some marginal build improvements to come, but I think the majority of gain I can realistically get are going to be execution related. Press buttons A, B, and C+D then shoot to alpha strike, rather than A, B, shoot - stuff like that. It'll be interesting to see what my science-y builds do, I think they relatively suck which is the opposite of the meta.

    It's not like DPS tracking in ye olde fantasy RPG, where your numbers reach a really nice clean steady peak, and it's easy to track what a gear change yields down to one or two percent difference. The messy dogfight nature of the space combat really makes things variable. I'd almost call a typical TFO more of a dogpile, where anything can happen and frequently does. But even getting some general baseline numbers is very pleasing instead of needing to second-guess myself, "Is this really working?"

    I do wish the DPS meter had a floating 15 or 30-second average option, I feel like that would really highlight the burst capability better.

    edit: I should note that the output I'm getting feels pretty powerful - throw enough enemies or drop 5 tractor beams on me and I'll still blow up, but most of the waves in the game burn down fast enough with only minor threat management. Before I started optimizing I'd frequently die once or twice in the newer patrols, now that only happens if I do something stupid.
     
    R

    RyricKrael

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  • #10,127
    Assuming you are using CLR? Depends what mission you are running. e.g. Infected Space Advanced, I see players doing 10-20k and others 100-200k damage. DPS measuring works best in ISA/E and HSE. I am going to guess you did a standard mission, instead of advanced, most geared players never queue for standard missions so might not see the same range there.

    Depending on the character, I hit around 125k (A2B BO build) and should probably be hitting much harder, so pilot error I suppose. Beyond gear, macros and keybinding are really important, it is hard to push all the buttons you need without it.
     
    R

    RyricKrael

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  • #10,130
    DaveSimmons said:
    New ships and the part I'm interested in, a new experimental weapon:

    https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star- ... -bundle%21
    Click to expand...
    It is a cool idea, the "few seconds to spin up," seems problematic with TTK (reported as 3 second spin up, 8 second recharge).

    T6 Saber has new experimental weapon. Gatling Emitter. Rapid non-stop damage after spin up. After 3 sec lock on kinetic damage X4 per sec to foe until no longer valid target. 8 second recharge.
    Click to expand...
     
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    DaveSimmons

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    11,018
  • #10,134
    If you still need T6-X ship tokens and/or to grind mastery traits the 2-week version of the red alerts event is supposed to start Thursday - https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star- ... d-alert%21

    Even the Tholian alert goes too quickly these days but it's still fun to do it once in awhile. I remember in the before times when you had to scramble to clear all the groups before the timer ran out, and doing it as a fresh level 50 often meant getting webbed to death.
     
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    Captainpuke

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  • #10,135
    DaveSimmons said:
    If you still need T6-X ship tokens and/or to grind mastery traits the 2-week version of the red alerts event is supposed to start Thursday - https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star- ... d-alert%21

    Even the Tholian alert goes too quickly these days but it's still fun to do it once in awhile. I remember in the before times when you had to scramble to clear all the groups before the timer ran out, and doing it as a fresh level 50 often meant getting webbed to death.
    Click to expand...

    Now you need to scramble to get in enough dps to not get hit with an afk timer :D
     
    R

    RyricKrael

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  • #10,138
    Wrakkenruan said:
    50% off lifetime sub for a couple of days, and then 33% off until Dec. 9.

    Worth it for y'all that are playing lots? I've still never finished a starting area... :(
    Click to expand...
    It was worth it 5 years ago, or 10 years ago, or back in Beta. In all seriousness, they have not updated the rewards since like 2013 (they did add a Jem stuff), unless you are a min-max, multiple character player, probably not worth it. It would take about 2.5y to recoup with the stipend directly, ignoring the other benefits.

    I've regretted not buying it pre-release, every year. The beta was rough and no one had any idea the game would have this longevity. So if you see something you want in Lifetime, buy it, I've brought enough ships that I would rather not see the balance. It is worth noting that with black friday coming, you might be able to get the Legendary ship pack for about the same price.
     
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    DaveSimmons

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    11,018
  • #10,139
    There are nice little benefits besides the 500 zen/month on PC and the Chimera and its other faction reskins:
    - 5% XP gain
    - space fireworks for a flourish in TFOs
    - environment suits for you and crew so you don't need to spend dil or EC on them early on
    - 1 android boff per alt with your choice of male/female and tac/sci/eng
    - additional free skill respecs for each alt
    - woo! Talaxian race unlock! Role-play annoying your friends with horrifically bad food!

    It's kind of worth it if you create many alts and/or have a lot of money burning a hole in your pocket, but the Federation 10th Anniversary 10-ship Legendary Bundle is much better for a Federation faction player since you get the main ships from TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager. That bundle should be back sometime before New Years.

    https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/10th_Annive ... ip_Bundles

    I got my LTS in 2014 so by now I'm $250+ worth of zen ahead on the deal. If you don't expect to be playing for at least 3 years it's much harder to justify.
     
    Ked

    Ked

    Ars Centurion
    363
  • #10,140
    Wrakkenruan said:
    50% off lifetime sub for a couple of days, and then 33% off until Dec. 9.

    Worth it for y'all that are playing lots? I've still never finished a starting area... :(
    Click to expand...

    I got it the last time(?) it was half off, like nine months ago or so. My worry then was just how long the game was going to stay in operation. There seems to be enough churn that it's not in danger of quickly dying, but it's also V.OLD and you wonder about a replacement game. Forum consensus was that it had at least a couple years left in it, but you never know for sure. The general bennies aren't so great (well, the inventory/bank/account bank slots rock) so the monthly currency was the largest attraction, and if the game was going to go away within a year or so I'd have regretted the purchase.

    For someone at the beginning of the game, the T6 ship (it's not quite the same ship in three flavors, but almost) is nice (though there's some charm in going through the free ships the game gives you to learn about the general ship classes) but they aren't spectacular for T6. I don't think I'd want to spend more than 30 on the bundle of three.

    All that said, what do you mean by "never finished a starting area"? If you're not getting out of the first episode worth of missions on any of the tracks, you might not like the game enough to spend 150 on it...
     
    Ked

    Ked

    Ars Centurion
    363
  • #10,144
    On the one hand, I'm kinda happy to see an escape from the "circles and sticks" visual design that is FIFTY-FIVE years old now. I know that the model-makers in '66 never would have imagined that their Enterprise would inform so many decades of imitation, iteration, and enhancement.

    On the other hand, this is a gross marriage of bad modern architecture with Discovery's tendency to eschew rational science. It's not just a tooth, it doesn't even have physical connections between segments and is not fit in any sense as military mechanical design.

    On the gripping hand, one of the charms of the old Federation starship design is that it IS recognizable. This is not - it looks like something on the cover of some far-future SF novel where the artist didn't really bother to read the manuscript.
     
    D

    DaveSimmons

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  • #10,145
    Ked said:
    On the gripping hand, one of the charms of the old Federation starship design is that it IS recognizable. This is not - it looks like something on the cover of some far-future SF novel where the artist didn't really bother to read the manuscript.
    Click to expand...

    It would be fine as a travelling city (a la James Blish) or as a semi-mobile planetary defense fortress or (like you say) from a far-future SF novel like Somtow Sucharitkul's Inquestor series that's ultra-technology or post-technology.

    To me it doesn't fit at all as a future Earth space navy vessel only 8 centuries past TNG/DS9/Voy.
     
    Jonathon

    Jonathon

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  • #10,146
    Ked said:
    On the one hand, I'm kinda happy to see an escape from the "circles and sticks" visual design that is FIFTY-FIVE years old now. I know that the model-makers in '66 never would have imagined that their Enterprise would inform so many decades of imitation, iteration, and enhancement.

    On the other hand, this is a gross marriage of bad modern architecture with Discovery's tendency to eschew rational science. It's not just a tooth, it doesn't even have physical connections between segments and is not fit in any sense as military mechanical design.

    On the gripping hand, one of the charms of the old Federation starship design is that it IS recognizable. This is not - it looks like something on the cover of some far-future SF novel where the artist didn't really bother to read the manuscript.
    Click to expand...
    The detached components (usually warp nacelles) are one of Discovery’s “this is a 32nd-century starship” design cues. How exactly that’s supposed to work is never really explained (although it seems no less plausible as a bit of future tech than warp drive or transporters or ship’s navigators gaining telekinetic powers after attempting to leave the galaxy), but it doesn’t really matter— it’s a design element intended to indicate that we’ve gone beyond the future that Trek’s 23rd/24th century setting envisions. Most of the new Federation ships we see have detached components, as does Discovery itself after its refit.

    As for the “molar”, not sure what’s going on there. Perhaps an attempt to distinguish Earth ship design from Federation ship design— basically underscoring that Earth’s been going their own way outside the Federation for quite a while. We see more familiar designs (and some new ones) once Disco meets up with the remnants of the Federation.
     
    K

    Krye

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  • #10,148
    Ked

    Ked

    Ars Centurion
    363
  • #10,150
    I feel like the "Remain Klingon" event TFO has been rebalanced, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

    Firstly, was there always the little clock and arrow pointing to the ship you need to fly to? I don't remember having that extra prompt on the previous iteration. Especially the arrow, which is AMAZINGLY helpful, if possibly a little small when you're zoomed out. Picking out the ship names from the thickly accented dialogues and the utter mess of continual ship spawns was always a disaster.

    I feel like the repair ships have had their health adjusted upwards, or maybe the repair duration reduced, as I've actually seen the big ships healed once or twice in the last few days where that never actually happened before. Even with some utterly scrub teams it never had happened.

    The other change is that it feels like the algorithm for choosing which ship gets the target circle has gone extra streaky. This is a pain in the ass in both directions: Last night I got sent to ship 1, was happily virusing it when I realized I'd been circled again and had 10 seconds to go to ship 2. Didn't make it, then immediately got circled AGAIN for ship 1. I don't remember this happening, at least not as quickly as this.

    ...and then there's the other side where the it's the idiot who gets chosen every time - a couple nights back there was the guy who went to the wrong ship six times in a row. And then there was the semi-idle player who had parked his dreadnaught up the Z-axis about 4k from one of the ships... but was not actually close enough for it to trigger the event correctly when his ship was chosen. Repeatedly.

    Argh. I start to remember why I checked out of this one the first time. But the other two options are actually more painful, with all the waiting and waiting on the jailbreak one, and repeating the same subevents 5 times (and getting instaganked when all the turrets aggro on you) on the ground attack one. Probably a low-participation month I guess.
     
    R

    RyricKrael

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  • #10,152
    I don't mind "To Hell with Honor" (ground attack), it can be a bit long, but it is fairly straight forward. With Evasive Maneuvers, power to the engine, and the BOFF to recharge Evasive on use, it is fairly quick. Kind of a walk in the park of a mission as long as your team is semi-competent.

    Almost finished, no idea what I am using that token on though (free Tier 6 Infinity Promotion or Infinity Lock Box ship). I guess another Atlas for an alt or Vaadwaur for my main? I'd rather have something account bound I suppose.
     
    jandrese

    jandrese

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  • #10,153
    Ked said:
    I feel like the "Remain Klingon" event TFO has been rebalanced, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

    Firstly, was there always the little clock and arrow pointing to the ship you need to fly to? I don't remember having that extra prompt on the previous iteration. Especially the arrow, which is AMAZINGLY helpful, if possibly a little small when you're zoomed out. Picking out the ship names from the thickly accented dialogues and the utter mess of continual ship spawns was always a disaster.

    I feel like the repair ships have had their health adjusted upwards, or maybe the repair duration reduced, as I've actually seen the big ships healed once or twice in the last few days where that never actually happened before. Even with some utterly scrub teams it never had happened.

    The other change is that it feels like the algorithm for choosing which ship gets the target circle has gone extra streaky. This is a pain in the ass in both directions: Last night I got sent to ship 1, was happily virusing it when I realized I'd been circled again and had 10 seconds to go to ship 2. Didn't make it, then immediately got circled AGAIN for ship 1. I don't remember this happening, at least not as quickly as this.

    ...and then there's the other side where the it's the idiot who gets chosen every time - a couple nights back there was the guy who went to the wrong ship six times in a row. And then there was the semi-idle player who had parked his dreadnaught up the Z-axis about 4k from one of the ships... but was not actually close enough for it to trigger the event correctly when his ship was chosen. Repeatedly.

    Argh. I start to remember why I checked out of this one the first time. But the other two options are actually more painful, with all the waiting and waiting on the jailbreak one, and repeating the same subevents 5 times (and getting instaganked when all the turrets aggro on you) on the ground attack one. Probably a low-participation month I guess.
    Click to expand...

    I don't remember the speed debuff when you got circled from the first time this came out. If you aren't near the target already or have Evasive Maneuvers ready to go (and even then...) it's pretty easy to not make it in time.

    I still consider that mission too unpuggable. I was willing to give it another shot, but since I had to apply all but maybe 1 of the viruses (and that might have been an accident) it's just not worth it.

    I only have 50 points to go on the meta event, so I'm going to run one more and then sit out the rest. The console looked mildly interesting, but with all of the holiday stuff next week I was going to miss days anyway so it's best just not to worry.
     
    C

    Captainpuke

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  • #10,155
    RyricKrael said:
    So...What are people using their Event Campaign reward on?

    I hate character unlocks.
    Click to expand...

    I went with the lobi. I am probably not going to unlock any ships (although I may for a trait on a main) but rather use it to build some exotic and more interesting builds. For example I did my first plasma build on one of my kdf guys. It required a few lobi pieces to build something decent. I am probably going to do a tetryon build, a torp build, and a polaron build with the rest of the crystals.
     
    R

    RyricKrael

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  • #10,156
    Captainpuke said:
    RyricKrael said:
    So...What are people using their Event Campaign reward on?

    I hate character unlocks.
    Click to expand...

    I went with the lobi. I am probably not going to unlock any ships (although I may for a trait on a main) but rather use it to build some exotic and more interesting builds. For example I did my first plasma build on one of my kdf guys. It required a few lobi pieces to build something decent. I am probably going to do a tetryon build, a torp build, and a polaron build with the rest of the crystals.
    Click to expand...
    Yeah, super valid approach. My struggle is, (1) purchase a second Atlas for DPRM on an alt, (1.5) Vaadwaur Juggernaut for trait on my main, (2) Section 31 BC, or (3) Lobi for traits to support a new torp captain.

    My primary is an A2B Beam Intel Dreadnaught, so he is good, but I don't have the vaadwaur trait (I have all or most of the alternatives, so I don't know that I am missing much). I am also sitting on an Epic Phoenix prize pack, decision paralysis all around.

    I think my next go is a kinetic torpedo boat for my current Jem cannon-alt, so Lobi for ships/traits would be great, but the S31 BC is pretty and I can always grind out EC for 300-600 mil lobi ships, but 1.3 billion is just never happening. I have the 10th anv legendaries, so those classic promos hold no appeal.
     
    D

    DaveSimmons

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    11,018
  • #10,157
    I went with the D7 flight desk carrier for one of my KDF captains, since my TOS federation captain already has a Connie: https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/D7_Miracle_ ... ?so=search

    I picked a promo pack ship since those have now been priced out of the exchange, while you can get lobi with credits (buying keys or promo packs on the exchange) or dil (buying zen).
     
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