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

[jandrese]

What if there was a new repeatable Starbase project that when complete it opened up a single run of the old Starbase Defense mission? The one that took up to 20 players and had mobs spawning in and trying to blow up your starbase.

The project requires 5 million Dil to start and takes a day to process. If the Fleet wins the encounter every player who participates gets 1000 Zen.

This provides a Dil sink and a reason for a fleet to be active in a single encounter. Takes some pressure off of the Dil market as well. The only drawback is that I think there may be a rule that Zen can only be generated with real cash.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Yes, currently all zen is generated by players either by buying it or from the PC lifetime sub monthly payment (and LTS also required spending cash).

Cryptic has never given out free zen, though PWE use to have that "arc rewards"(?) thing outside of STO that awarded some zen for doing PWE things.

 

[RyricKrael]

Phoenix Prize pack changes go live in a few hours. It reduces the effectiveness of Phoenix Universal Tech Upgrades among other things. I dropped 700k dilithium and stocked up.

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star- ... ze-pack%21

A PARADIGM CHANGE
Phoenix Tech Upgrades purchased from this date forward will experience a reduction in their effectiveness. A close look at their usage stats, as well as a game-wide examination of their economic impact, has led us to conclude that such an adjustment is not only needed, but also long overdue.

Existing versions of these Tech Upgrades that players have already purchased will not be altered, other than having their names changed to include the term “Classic” and their quality upgraded to Epic (Gold). Future purchases will yield a Phoenix Universal Tech Upgrade with the following change:

Tech Points contribution 38,400 (down from 51,200)
Research Points ratio unchanged (still “Standard”)
Still no Dilithium Cost to apply
Still usable on any/all Equipment types
Why?

The original effectiveness of Phoenix Upgrades stemmed from a calculation that assumed a price point of 4,500 Dilithium per application – the “Base” price of a Phoenix Prize Pack. However, with the odds of receiving higher-tier Prize Tokens which could be downgraded into multiple lower-tier Tokens, as well as the option to purchase another Phoenix Prize Pack using low-tier tokens, the actual price per application works out to be significantly lower than 3,000. With this calculating out as a difference of more than 33%, it rendered these Tech Upgrades the most efficient Tech Upgrade in the game by a margin that was much larger than intended.

The upcoming change will narrow this gap, but should not de-throne the Phoenix Tech Upgrade from its position as the best Tech Upgrade in the game. We want to maintain players’ motivation to engage with this Prize, while still lessening its influence as an economic powerhouse.

 

[jandrese]

They didn't include grinding down uncommon+ Phoenix Tokens in the calculation? That's serious amateur hour. And they didn't notice for years?!?

I like how they note that it's still the most efficient form of upgrades, especially since regular upgrades require consumables and have obnoxious timers in order to make them. There's literally no reason to go through the hassle of making them.

 

[DaveSimmons]

D'oh, it's already live now on PC.

Oh well, I'm not hurting for dil so missing the chance to get a pile of "classic" tech upgrades doesn't really affect me.

 

[swiftdraw]

I just finished downloading the game and update. Is there any good, up to date guides on what to do? And what’s the difference between Discovery, TOS, and regular Starfleet?

 

[Krye]

Honestly play through the first few missions (tutorials) without guides. Through like level 50 it's all fun and games learning the new things the game unlocks for you as you play. In the early game there's very little you can 'mess up' in the early game as all the end game things you can get later.

Edit: Make sure you actually read through the popups (aka tutorials).

 

[DaveSimmons]

I just finished downloading the game and update. Is there any good, up to date guides on what to do? And what’s the difference between Discovery, TOS, and regular Starfleet?

Regular is a post-Voyager era captain. TOS and Discovery captains start out in those eras then end up in the post-Voyager era thanks to timey-wimey stuff.

All 3 have somewhat different user interface skins and sound effects.

TOS has a half-dozen episodes set in the TOS era with a couple of TOS crew showing up before timey-wimey occurs. If you sell all your loot you can also pick up some mark 1 TOS ground weapons (pink beam phaser rifle, blue hand phasers) but if you are in Ars fleet I think you can get them at the K-13 fleet holding too.

Disco has a Disco tutorial with Tilly.

After the time jump, everyone plays the same episodes.

There will be a re-run of the TOS (temporal) Recruitment Event sometime during the next year. If you create a brand-new TOS captain during that event they earn some nice account-wide unlocks. That might be a reason to hold off on creating a TOS captain, but if you are a TOS fan you might want to create a second captain anyway.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Console does not have the Phoenix changes yet. Anyone holding on to tokens might want to grind them down to uncommon and exchange them for "classic" tech upgrades before the switch.

 

[RyricKrael]

I just finished downloading the game and update. Is there any good, up to date guides on what to do? And what’s the difference between Discovery, TOS, and regular Starfleet?

Regular is a post-Voyager era captain. TOS and Discovery captains start out in those eras then end up in the post-Voyager era thanks to timey-wimey stuff.

All 3 have somewhat different user interface skins and sound effects.

Bold for emphasis, this is really the only unchangeable thing about the choice. These are hardcoded, they don't/can't sell cosmetics to change these (which is bonkers).

 

[Ked]

TOS starting quests are very weird, and frankly seemed to have broken steps the last two times I ran them. (Which was a couple years back but they haven't done major updating to my knowledge.) OTOH I got through them and they still are the best uniforms.

My big advice is don't worry at all about ships and gear until you're to max level and tier 6 (or are paying them for some tier 5, which I don't recommend.) Try out different ship styles as you level, try out different weapon types, try out all the stuff.

And then once you start getting more endgame gear, try them all again. A couple days of following guides doubled my beamboat DPS. I tried Science at T4 or T5 and couldn't do anything with it, but once I got a few extra event-loot consoles it started to blow up everything. Carriers are a lot of fun somewhere in the middle before other stuff scales past them.


Say, what's the event this month? I got sucked into a different MMO and haven't opened up the client to look.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Delta Recruitment returns to PC on 5-10. This requires creating a 2410 / "regular" fed, Romulan, or KDF once the event starts. You need to play long enough to get a shiny gold event device (finish tutorials) then you can take as many years as you want to complete the event task list to earn account unlocks. It won't work to create a TOS or Discovery fed captain or a Jem'Hadar. (There are also separate recruitment events for creating a new Jem'Hadar and new TOS captain, Disco has no event.)

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star- ... eds-you%21

There is separate Klingon recruitment even that will run sometime in the next year, so it makes the most sense to create a regular fed or a Romulan captain not KDF. Technically you can add a few more very minor account unlocks by creating all 3 but the rewards are so small it's not really worth it to have 2 KDF captains just for that. If you want to play both regular fed and Romulan then you could create both during the event and make just enough progress to get the gold shiny. The Romulan story arc is good and there are a good number of story episodes that only the Romulans get to play.

> what's the new event?

Eeeevil Kuumaarke!

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star- ... -the-storm

 

[Ked]

Ew. Who are these weirdos with snakes floating around their heads, and why would I ever want to cosplay as one?

Oh, it's probably current Trek, so don't bother answering. Well, that's another month to concentrate on HI3 and WoW. At this rate I'll be fully in the mood for the summer event when it comes up. Love that beach life.

 

[swiftdraw]

A buddy of mine who plays off and on told me wait to create a character until the 10th because of the delta recruitment thing. Probably going Federation first with an engineering captain and the goal is to eventually get the Vengeance class if possible. Not sure if that pairing works or not, but my buddy says an engineering captain would probably be my preferred build choice and I really like the Vengeance.

Also, I’m re-learning why I hate fandom.wiki. With out an ad and script blocker, it’s a pain to navigate.

 

[DaveSimmons]

A buddy of mine who plays off and on told me wait to create a character until the 10th because of the delta recruitment thing. Probably going Federation first with an engineering captain and the goal is to eventually get the Vengeance class if possible. Not sure if that pairing works or not, but my buddy says an engineering captain would probably be my preferred build choice and I really like the Vengeance.

Also, I’m re-learning why I hate fandom.wiki. With out an ad and script blocker, it’s a pain to navigate.

Engineer is nice for new players because the captain magic powers are about healing and damage resistance. It's also fun to play for ground combat because you can create drones, turrets, mortars, shield and medical generators, mines. All that distracts the enemies from targeting you which also helps with survivability.

Any captain can fly any ship type. Eng captains buff defense a little, tac buff attack, science buffs space magic.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Ew. Who are these weirdos with snakes floating around their heads, and why would I ever want to cosplay as one?

Oh, it's probably current Trek, so don't bother answering. Well, that's another month to concentrate on HI3 and WoW. At this rate I'll be fully in the mood for the summer event when it comes up. Love that beach life.

One reason to do the daily is if you are working on the multi-event campaign to get a free promo pack ship, lock box ship, or pile of lobi. If you aren't doing that and don't care about the Evil Kuumaarke Evil Outfit then skip away!

 

[swiftdraw]

Made a Discovery character last night so a buddy could help me figure out a few things. My opinion thus far after completing the tutorial and jumping to STO’s timeline:

Ground combat is a chore, space combat is fun, inventory is muddled and I’ve no idea how I scrapped half my inventory last night.

 

[RyricKrael]

Ground combat is a chore, space combat is fun, inventory is muddled and I’ve no idea how I scrapped half my inventory last night.

Yes. Yes. Ignore it, no way you had anything worth keeping.

I've only "enjoyed" ground with my engineer. Well, that and the assimilation module is sort of fun.

 

[swiftdraw]

Also, Fashion Trek Online is real. I think I spent half my 5 hours making a custom alien.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Also, Fashion Trek Online is real. I think I spent half my 5 hours making a custom alien.

"Space Barbie is the real endgame."

It's true: creating a captain, crew, ship and gear to fit a theme is a large part of the fun for those of us not trying to climb the DPS charts. It's also how many of us who aren't dil farmers still end up with 10+ different captains.

 

[tcowher]

Am I the only one who just likes trying new ships, plays them till I unlock the abilities then move to the next? I forgot how many ships I have that I've never flown.
go away for a while come back and find out I have enough zen for a ship pack or the 12th anniversary terran set.... from a lifetime subscription I got a few years ago.

And I probably wasted my epic prize token but I wanted the last of the set of breen ships... I missed the carrier, at least it was the one with the console I was missing. I already had the bajoran interceptor with the domino console.

Of course now trying to fly it I find out that I probably need to look into how to outfit a science vessel.

tc

 

[swiftdraw]

Am I the only one who just likes trying new ships, plays them till I unlock the abilities then move to the next?

I’ll let you know when I’m flying something other than a Miranda/B’rel/T’liss/Malachowski.

I got to say, the Romulan start is probably my favorite. Pity I don’t like their ship designs.

 

[swiftdraw]

Got to level 10 today with my primary Starfleet captain (Oleus Cassidy Broussard of the USS Lafayette*) and it’s still a learning experience. First I picked up all the free stuff from the shops and got some stuff. No idea what half of it is or their purpose. Did the dumb thing #1 and grabbed 9,999 infinity boxes only to learn they need keys. Bought twenty pack on sale because I was buying Zeni for the Borg engineer anyhow. Got a bunch more stuff to include a T5 ship I’ve no idea how to find. Did dumb thing #2 and accidentally bought 3 borg engineers because the game got stuck and I got click happy. I now have 2 borg packs I can’t currently use and no Zeni. Borg engineer I am using is female and called 6 of 9… Nice.

*Did not realize the Layafette was a starship class in game. Oops.

Ground combat alternates between me happily blasting figurative and literal red shirts and me getting swarmed and curbstomped. I’ve gotten better at learning and using my abilities and doing small things like crouching to lessen long range pain. Phaser minigun is fun, turrets are meh, mines are situationally useful. I prefer them to turrets on ‘defend area’ missions. Ground based stuff is still a bit of a slog, but I’m getting the hang of it. Some missions are a pain though. I dread seeing ones that has the floating emotional support flashlight and ones where the minimap is static. In both cases, it makes finding stuff a pain.

Got humbled in space combat after never blowing up in space. Dumb thing #3; dove into a Terran fleet in a Miranda and received a bit of a shock when the battleship tractor beamed me into place. I saw my shields disappear and my hull hit 34% before the next salvo from the fleet blew me up. After tinkering with a few things, I’ve set up my Miranda as a hit and run ship with heavy phasers and torpedoes up front and a mine layer in the back. With liberal use of ‘evasive maneuvers’ I can usually keep things out between 7-10km and running to 11 to recharge my shields and hull. Also it is really easy for me to lure the big scary’s into a minefield of 4-12 mines and watch their health drop. Only issue is the narrowish field of fire for the heavy phasers and torpedoes up front. They can bring the pain, but the ol’ Miranda turns like a two legged cow in mud when not under evasive maneuvers. Kinda hard to bring them to bear at times.

I can’t tell if this poor UI or dumb thing #4. Clicked on the transwarp button on the top mission. Do mission with a strong sense I’m missing some context in regards to the story. Do next mission. Oh heyyyy, this is most the stuff they were referring to from the previous mission. Why is there a ‘to be continued’? Click around some menus and find I did missions 4 & 3 of the Terran Gambit…. :facepalm:

Most of my initial impression are the same. Game is enjoyable, but the free to play monetization will eventually drive me from it mych like Worl of Tanks/Warships and Warthunder. Once I get fixated on something in these games, my financial discipline eventually will fail. Might take a few tears, but it will.

Speaking of, I’m tempted to get the playable federation cat people for my eventual TOS captain. His name is Khajiit and he was raised by Ferengi. He has wares if you have latinum. I realize I’m neither original or funny. I don’t care.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Making mistakes is part of the fun

The TOS captain can only be human, vulcan, andorian, and...tellerite?...even if you unlock other races like catian-totally-not-Kzinti, liberated borg, or talaxian chef. Try creating a TOS to see the races.

Tractors are nasty at low levels. The ways to escape are Evasive Maneuvers (not sure what level you get it at) or more reliably teaching your science bridge officer the Polarize Hull skill.

Mortars are handy on the ground if you can set them up before entering combat.

Very few episodes use static or the flashlight, and only one raid I can think of (Romulan station).

> I now have 2 borg packs I can’t currently use and no Zeni. Borg engineer I am using is female and called 6 of 9… Nice.

Are the packs listed as bound to character, bound to account, or neither? If not bound, you can sell them on the exchange for a small mountain of Energy Credits to use to buy other things. If bound to character, support might refund your zen since you can't use them.


> I can’t tell if this poor UI or dumb thing #4. Clicked on the transwarp button on the top mission. Do mission with a strong sense I’m missing some context in regards to the story. Do next mission. Oh heyyyy, this is most the stuff they were referring to from the previous mission. Why is there a ‘to be continued’? Click around some menus and find I did missions 4 & 3 of the Terran Gambit…

It's a really dumb UI decision. You get offered hails from people offering you missions from a bunch of different story arcs at once, instead of just from the first arc. The mission journal shows you all of the different story arcs in order so you can play them in that correct order if you want.

The only out-of-order episodes you might want to do are the ones for the current event, but you can do the raids / Task Force Operations instead if your level is high enough.

 

[jandrese]

Did the two new story missions.

The first isn't too memorable, it is mostly an excuse to fight your mirror universe counterpart.

The second has a section where you control your mirror universe version, it's sadly no better than other "control a third party character" segments in other missions. It did have one part where there is a horde of enemy ships on one side and some exploding projectiles you have to shoot down. But since I'm flying a slow firing scitorp ship I sucked real bad at it. I wanted to tell the other captains: Why don't one of you guys ineffectively bouncing shot off of those ships come over here and deal with the torpedos, it will only take me 30 seconds to wipe out all of those ships with my space magic.

The very end has you "narrowly escaping" from a whole bunch of exploding Terran ships.

 

[swiftdraw]

The TOS captain can only be human, vulcan, andorian, and...tellerite?...even if you unlock other races like catian-totally-not-Kzinti, liberated borg, or talaxian chef. Try creating a TOS to see the races.

Yeah, you’re right. I had assumed the Caitians would be in TOS start since they had that Caitian in The Animated Series, which was around that time period. That’s disappointing.

Tractors are nasty at low levels. The ways to escape are Evasive Maneuvers (not sure what level you get it at) or more reliably teaching your science bridge officer the Polarize Hull skill.

Pretty sure I had Evasive Maneuvers around level 5. I don’t see the option to train my bridge crew. Evasive Maneuvers biggest weakness is the 45s cool down, but I’ve yet to have it fail on me.

Mortars are handy on the ground if you can set them up before entering combat.

I don’t think I have those unlocked quite yet. Right now all I have is mines and beam turrets.

Are the packs listed as bound to character, bound to account, or neither? If not bound, you can sell them on the exchange for a small mountain of Energy Credits to use to buy other things. If bound to character, support might refund your zen since you can't use them

Character bound. Talking to support it is then..

 

[RyricKrael]

Tractors are nasty at low levels. The ways to escape are Evasive Maneuvers (not sure what level you get it at) or more reliably teaching your science bridge officer the Polarize Hull skill.

Pretty sure I had Evasive Maneuvers around level 5. I don’t see the option to train my bridge crew. Evasive Maneuvers biggest weakness is the 45s cool down, but I’ve yet to have it fail on me.

Couple of notes on Evasive Maneuvers, it is incredibly useful, not just for tractors, but to reposition in TFOs/missions. You can obtain Conn Officers that reduce recharge time (1 purple and 1 blue reduces it to the global cooldown), these are expensive.

The easier option, is a purple Emergency Conn Hologram available in the phoenix store, this duty officer when slotted reduces the recharge time if emergency power to the engines is activated.

 

[swiftdraw]

Tractors are nasty at low levels. The ways to escape are Evasive Maneuvers (not sure what level you get it at) or more reliably teaching your science bridge officer the Polarize Hull skill.

Pretty sure I had Evasive Maneuvers around level 5. I don’t see the option to train my bridge crew. Evasive Maneuvers biggest weakness is the 45s cool down, but I’ve yet to have it fail on me.

Couple of notes on Evasive Maneuvers, it is incredibly useful, not just for tractors, but to reposition in TFOs/missions. You can obtain Conn Officers that reduce recharge time (1 purple and 1 blue reduces it to the global cooldown), these are expensive.

The easier option, is a purple Emergency Conn Hologram available in the phoenix store, this duty officer when slotted reduces the recharge time if emergency power to the engines is activated.

It's things like this that kill me on Free to Play.

Evasive Maneuvers is good!
But it could be better!

 

[jandrese]

The Emergency Conn Officer is in the "Rare" table on the Phoenix packs, which are not too hard to get at all. There was a 20 pack giveaway a few days ago that might still be going on. Worst case once you start earning Dilithium you can buy Phoenix Packs fairly cheap, 2 per day if you are at the Dil refining cap. On average it takes 2 packs to get a Rare reward.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I don’t see the option to train my bridge crew.

You can buy training manuals for energy credits from vendors, for fed on earth spacedock it's a person to the right and underneath Admiral Quinn: https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Training_Manual?so=search

Your bridge officers start off as Ensign and can only learn the common rank skills that match their profession. As you promote the boff they can learn the higher ranks.

It costs expertise accumulated from playing to train them so don't train more than you need to at first.

You can feed a spare boff into a blender to make a delicious slurry that teaches another boff a skill once they drink it down. Yum!

 

[swiftdraw]

Level 45!

After hitting about level 15 I received a T6 Vaadwaur Asitka Battlecruise from a buddy. He says the Supremacy trait will be really useful for the Vengeance. Renamed it Eminent Domain and it is a Pink Floyd laser light show ship. I initially didn't like it coming from my hit and run Miranda, but after learning how to mess with the power settings and switching back and forth between weapons and engines it has grown on me. Setting up the bridge crew helped A LOT, with Fire At Will or OverLoad mixed with Tactical Teams and Assault Mode making enemy ships disappear pretty quick. The Miranda would take 10 of minutes in large fights with me alternating between kiting them in minefields and doing strafing runs with the forward heavy cannons. With the Asitka, either they're dead or I'm dead in ~1 minute unless its a boss battle.

 

[swiftdraw]

And level 65! Onto grinding for the Vengeance.

Some notes:
As they add more things to do (duty officers, admiralty stuff, etc) things get more convoluted. Not all the symbols on the UI have pop-up tooltips when you hover over them and I just have to guess at it.

New Romulan arc was painful. Very Burning Crusade era World of Warcraft area with obligatory fetch quests. Nimbus III wasn’t much better, but had the advantage of being shorter and in a more compact area.

Encountered 2 Vengeance’s and a Legendary Scimitar on one of the Voth battlegrounds instances. I managed just over 4000 damage through the whole thing as they were smacking down entire waves in under 2 seconds. It was impressive as it was annoying, because I had a Endeavor to finish.

Talaxians aside, is the Delta Quadrant just full of assholes? Are the Talaxians Star Treks version of Hobbits?

Found a bug in the Delta Quadrant arc. There is a countdown until the defense grid you repair comes back online. Reinforcements arrive, counter hits 0 and nothing. Apparently the trigger for that mission is broke. I had to hit up one of my buddies to figure out how to submit a bug report. Would not of thought to look under ‘character’ for a mission bug.

 

[RyricKrael]

If you have not already, go to the subreddit and search for giveaway, timeframe <1 week. There are a bunch out right now. Most grant 1 item (a weapon or console - Approaching Agony is one right now and is quite decent for phaser builds), plus a handful of inventory, bank, and bridge officer slots. If you are at max slots, these usually provide an inventory item to transfer to another character. There are different sites, but Alienware and SteelSeries typically have a giveaway for STO at least once per quarter it seems, login to redeem codes at https://www.arcgames.com/en/code-redemption.

 

[DaveSimmons]

And level 65! Onto grinding for the Vengeance.

Some notes:
As they add more things to do (duty officers, admiralty stuff, etc) things get more convoluted. Not all the symbols on the UI have pop-up tooltips when you hover over them and I just have to guess at it.

New Romulan arc was painful. Very Burning Crusade era World of Warcraft area with obligatory fetch quests. Nimbus III wasn’t much better, but had the advantage of being shorter and in a more compact area.

Encountered 2 Vengeance’s and a Legendary Scimitar on one of the Voth battlegrounds instances. I managed just over 4000 damage through the whole thing as they were smacking down entire waves in under 2 seconds. It was impressive as it was annoying, because I had a Endeavor to finish.

Talaxians aside, is the Delta Quadrant just full of assholes? Are the Talaxians Star Treks version of Hobbits?

Found a bug in the Delta Quadrant arc. There is a countdown until the defense grid you repair comes back online. Reinforcements arrive, counter hits 0 and nothing. Apparently the trigger for that mission is broke. I had to hit up one of my buddies to figure out how to submit a bug report. Would not of thought to look under ‘character’ for a mission bug.

Congrats! Keep in mind that all the daily grind stuff is optional -- don't feel like you "have to" do admiralty, duty officers, endeavors, anything at all. Do it while it seems fun then stop. Reputations are worth working on if you want any of the gear or (after a long grind) their vanity shield and free fleet module for getting the fleet version of a ship if it exists.

 

[swiftdraw]

Jumped off the episodic missions for a bit because my Diplomacy skill isn’t high enough to handle the locals in a fashion I believe to be befitting a Federation officer. I was told to got to DS9 for missions to raise it, but I still haven’t seen much. The duty officer missions tend to be lacking as most of them require a Councilor and I don’t have one of those. Banging out levels in Science and Exploration though.

I’ve seen a difficulty spike in space combat in the Delta Quadrant. I had to beg my buddy to switch to his Federation officer he has had since STO was a subscription and bail me out. He pops in with an Akira he is testing, there is a blinding light, and everything in front of his ship exploded. He had to carry me through a couple of battles that, while very winnable, were taking 10’s of minutes due to the tedium that is hit and run tactics in a Vaadwaur battlecruiser against the same.

 

[jandrese]

Vaadwaur tend to be out of balance with same level mobs. I remember artillery ships with 2 million hitpoints that were apparently balanced against the 100k DPS club. The good news is that they aren't especially hard hitting, just kind of a slog to chew through the incredible bags of HP.

 

[swiftdraw]

If you have not already, go to the subreddit and search for giveaway, timeframe <1 week. There are a bunch out right now. Most grant 1 item (a weapon or console - Approaching Agony is one right now and is quite decent for phaser builds), plus a handful of inventory, bank, and bridge officer slots. If you are at max slots, these usually provide an inventory item to transfer to another character. There are different sites, but Alienware and SteelSeries typically have a giveaway for STO at least once per quarter it seems, login to redeem codes at https://www.arcgames.com/en/code-redemption.

So apparently I can’t use those codes as a Steam user, even though my account was linked beforehand.

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out.

I hope that you're doing well. I read that you have redeemed promo codes from the ARC website despite plying originally in Steam. I'll see what I can do on this issue. Since you originally play in Steam, have you checked what is the handle name that you see in the ARC launcher? Have you tried to log out the account in the launcher and enter your full email address in ARC as your user name?

It is also known that if the codes are from ARC they will only be accessible to ARC users and will stay on their own platforms. Take note that Steam and ARC are different platforms.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Jumped off the episodic missions for a bit because my Diplomacy skill isn’t high enough to handle the locals in a fashion I believe to be befitting a Federation officer. I was told to got to DS9 for missions to raise it, but I still haven’t seen much. The duty officer missions tend to be lacking as most of them require a Councilor and I don’t have one of those. Banging out levels in Science and Exploration though.

I’ve seen a difficulty spike in space combat in the Delta Quadrant. I had to beg my buddy to switch to his Federation officer he has had since STO was a subscription and bail me out. He pops in with an Akira he is testing, there is a blinding light, and everything in front of his ship exploded. He had to carry me through a couple of battles that, while very winnable, were taking 10’s of minutes due to the tedium that is hit and run tactics in a Vaadwaur battlecruiser against the same.

I'm not sure the Diplomacy skill affects anything except a handful of very old episodes. Cryptic story design has a few profession options (tac / eng/ science) but no RPG style skill checks.

Evasive maneuvers and I think tank powers (brace for impact, polarize hull?) can help with the artillery barrages. It also helps to have a Neutronium engineering console to resist all damage. The fleet version also adds a small turn rate boost. If you need one I (or most anyone else) can craft you a non-fleet Mark II VR to raise up with Phoenix upgrades. (You craft at Mark II VR not Mark XII so you have 10 extra cheap chances for the quality to go to UR and Epic.)

 

[jandrese]

I think there might have been an old DS9 era mission where some dialog choice was triggered by your diplomacy skill. I don't know if that is in the game anymore or if it works. In any case the result was either cosmetic or it added like one other badguy to the next attack or something inconsequential like that. Don't worry about it. STO's version of Star Trek typically has us diplomatically negotiating with our phaser rifles anyway.

 

[RyricKrael]

If you have not already, go to the subreddit and search for giveaway, timeframe <1 week. There are a bunch out right now. Most grant 1 item (a weapon or console - Approaching Agony is one right now and is quite decent for phaser builds), plus a handful of inventory, bank, and bridge officer slots. If you are at max slots, these usually provide an inventory item to transfer to another character. There are different sites, but Alienware and SteelSeries typically have a giveaway for STO at least once per quarter it seems, login to redeem codes at https://www.arcgames.com/en/code-redemption.

So apparently I can’t use those codes as a Steam user, even though my account was linked beforehand.

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out.

I hope that you're doing well. I read that you have redeemed promo codes from the ARC website despite plying originally in Steam. I'll see what I can do on this issue. Since you originally play in Steam, have you checked what is the handle name that you see in the ARC launcher? Have you tried to log out the account in the launcher and enter your full email address in ARC as your user name?

It is also known that if the codes are from ARC they will only be accessible to ARC users and will stay on their own platforms. Take note that Steam and ARC are different platforms.

That is really odd, can you login via the website & see the redemption entry box? I play from Steam as well, but my account presumably pre-dates Steam.

Not sure if this link still works, assume it is the same as the other. https://www.arcgames.com/en/redeem