Star Trek Online

If it's a video game it goes here.

Moderators: LawBeefaroni, Arcanis, $iljanus

Post Reply
User avatar
Rip
Posts: 26891
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:34 pm
Location: Cajun Country!
Contact:

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Rip »

ericb wrote:There is a text / command that will turn on the autoattack again. It's " /defaultautoattack 1" and it should stick afterwards.
So you type that in the chat window? Or is there a hey that open a command window or something?

I made this freakish Alien for the Klingon character since I don't expect to play it much anyway. Wish they had just let me have a second fed one instead. Any way I made here as long/tall on every limb possible yet as thin as would allow. The I did a random head until I got a one I liked that was green and has big ears. Named her Emerald Widow.

I suck with the Klingon stuff and don't really like much for the atmosphere or the way the ships fight. They look cool, but I would prefer effectiveness.
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Daehawk »

It hurts that STO could be so much more. But as usual they made it functional and somewhat fun but stop there.

I think Ill play a little. I had a Fed science captain with the tv series Constitution Class Cruiser. I have a Klingon but dont know much about it. As I recall I have a Bird of Prey or perhaps a B'rel class. It sucks .
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

I just finally DL'd this last while Sid Meyer's Railroads! was continually crashing on my Windows 7 machine.

I didn't have much of a 'fight' getting my account set up once I got the system to remind me what email address was used for my "Perfect World" account. I probably also have a Cryptic account somewhere from another game.

Character creation was a little arcane. It typically concerns me when I have to make decisions on skills without actually having any understanding as to what those skills will give me. How good are the Vulcan skills? Is +10 Sensors worthwhile? Are all the races essentially equal, or are some more equal than others? Ultimately I opted to make my own race. 6'8" tall, hefty, green skinned with yellow slitted eyes and a lot of little ridges and creases in his head and skull. He's 'rigid' when he's not moving, looking stoic and impassive. Uniform colors are green and dark grey. For skills I decided to forego the arcane and stick to straight numbers - +5% damage, +10% Accuracy - that kind of thing. Science career? Why not (apparently popular with the folks here, too).

During the tutorial I got a good feel for how clunky ground combat can be and learned to live with it as it is. There's no strategy to it - just mash the buttons as fast as I can and don't aggro too many enemies at once.

Ship combat is by far more interesting and enjoyable, but at these early stages it seems to be basically about circling my enemies while hammering them with phasers. My Science vessel can hit an enemy with both the fore and aft phasers if I keep them right on my sides. Photon torpedoes are essentially for aiming right at oncoming targets. I toyed with having both phasers aimed forward, but it seems less efficient and makes it harder to use the torpedoes as that means turning my ass directly at my enemies and not using either phaser bank.

The "minigame" when I have to scan an anomaly (loot a chest) at first confused me, but after the first one I understood what I needed to do and haven't missed one yet. Now it feels like a pointless hoop - it's easy to accomplish, but must be done.

For some reason, I thought I'd get to really customize a ship and not just pick what shape each component has. Is my saucer section A, B, or C? Are my engines A, B, or C? What's my color scheme? That's about it so far. I had it in my head that I'd be doing something like you might in Galactic Civilizations II, which would be both awesome and terrible (for people with no creativity).

I'm just now getting into the Wiki and looking for "starter tips" but am hoping someone here has a few brief bits of advice based on their own experience. I'm not so far in that I can't start over if my class, skill, or racial selections seem less than favorable.

*Note: Already the Wiki is making me wish I had picked Engineer. I typically jump at any class that "summons" anything to help them fight, and Engineers apparently get drones and turrets. I'll be restarting tonight one way or another. I'm thinking Accurate (+10% Accuracy), Elusive (+10% Defense), and Astrophysicist (mostly for + 10 Sensors) for space with Acute Senses (stealth detection) for Ground, custom race. I'll try to avoid being a green-skinned alien again.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10903
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by TheMix »

Paingod wrote:The "minigame" when I have to scan an anomaly (loot a chest) at first confused me, but after the first one I understood what I needed to do and haven't missed one yet. Now it feels like a pointless hoop - it's easy to accomplish, but must be done.
No real advice. I dabbled for a week or so, but haven't been back in a while.

One thing you may not have discovered, there are keyboard shortcuts for the minigame. I think it was the arrow keys. I initially started with using the mouse to click the buttons on the popup. But it's way easier to use the arrow keys. Much more responsive. Not a big deal since you aren't failing, but still might make it a bit easier.

Other than that, I'd agree that the space combat is the only real fun. There are some events(?), zones(?), battlegrounds(?)... thingies that you can do where you essentially queue up and then join in a bigger battle with a bunch of other ships. I think mine were just against the Borg. Those were kind of fun.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
Blackhawk
Posts: 43491
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:48 pm
Location: Southwest Indiana

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Blackhawk »

I put in a couple of months, but haven't played in a long time. From what I recall, you have more flexibility than that in setting up your ship. You choose the appearance that way, but you choose your ship's abilities via crew training, and pick and choose your internal components as well.
(˙pǝsɹǝʌǝɹ uǝǝq sɐɥ ʎʇıʌɐɹƃ ʃɐuosɹǝd ʎW)
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

TheMix wrote:One thing you may not have discovered, there are keyboard shortcuts for the minigame. I think it was the arrow keys. I initially started with using the mouse to click the buttons on the popup. But it's way easier to use the arrow keys. Much more responsive. Not a big deal since you aren't failing, but still might make it a bit easier.
There's a few things I suspected when I started looking for info today, and that was one of them. I've been just clicking on the arrows to get it to move where I want, but knowing I can use the arrows (and probably WASD) will make it much easier.

The other was auto-attacking. It looks like there might be a bug with it, but I'm already tired of having to click the "Fire all weapons" button constantly. I don't even bother to pay attention to the refresh of my weapons, I just keep clicking and clicking and clicking while watching my ship fly through combat and maneuvering.

Some things I did discover (and should have guessed) is that I shouldn't be engaging in combat at Full Impulse power. Nor should I be circling enemies the way I have, but instead concentrate my firepower on one area to demolish their shields faster and get to their hulls easier. The combat tactics that need to be employed are similar to those I learned in some high seas piracy games, minus the concern over wind speed and direction (making it much easier) - hull facing, turning to absorb damage with less damaged shielding, broadside attacks, etc. I was surprised to see that being closer to an enemy increases damage done, but can get you close to an explosion when it happens too.

I don't think I'll bother with PvP and might only dabble in groups (limited time availability), so it's going to be a lot of PvE solo missions.
Blackhawk wrote:I put in a couple of months, but haven't played in a long time. From what I recall, you have more flexibility than that in setting up your ship. You choose the appearance that way, but you choose your ship's abilities via crew training, and pick and choose your internal components as well.
Yeah - the external appearance is pretty static, except choosing a design and color scheme. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of outfitting my ship with crew and devices. Last night I picked up a new shield that was about 8% better than the one I had, and a couple other doodads that I simply threw in because there was nothing there to begin with.
Last edited by Paingod on Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10903
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by TheMix »

Oh, to be clear, the thingies that I was referring to are not PvP (just in case it was misunderstood). I'm with you, no interest in PvP.

There are keyboard shortcuts for the engine speed as well as the Fire All button (pretty sure). But I believe that I pretty much do what you do, spam that button. The mouse I use to click the special skill buttons (boost healing, overload torpedoes, repair shields, etc). You definitely want to pay attention to who is on your officer team. Some skills are better than others (depending on your play style). And you definitely want to manipulate your speed during combat. Just like with most of the flying teams, slow speed allows for faster turning. So that's an excellent way to keep an enemy's weakest shield in sight. Especially when you need to line up an overcharged torpedo. And you probably should watch out for the subsequent explosion. I'm pretty bad about getting in too close. The 3D can get you in trouble too, if you get too close. I've had issues where I couldn't target because the enemy ship was above or below me, and thus out of the firing arc.
I was surprised to see that being closer to an enemy increases damage done
I don't think I ever noticed that. I'll have to file that away...

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

TheMix wrote:And you definitely want to manipulate your speed during combat. Just like with most of the flying teams, slow speed allows for faster turning. So that's an excellent way to keep an enemy's weakest shield in sight.
Yeah, last night I was just a flying monkey.

Anyone who knew how to play would have probably just sighed at me and walked away...
Paingod wrote:I'm in a star ship! Phasers on full! Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Arm the photon torpedoes! Fire! FIRE!
Tonight I'm hoping I end up being all...
Paingod wrote:See that starboard shield? Yeah. It's gone. Now watch me melt your goddamn hull through that little hole I made.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
NickAragua
Posts: 6100
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by NickAragua »

I played through pretty much all the plot missions as a federation engineer. My ship did admirably in PVE, but I would get schooled in PVP every time. Perhaps because I never bothered trying to understand the fifty billion stats, it just didn't seem like it would make a difference. I enjoyed the starship combat enough that I was willing to slog through the ground missions to get to the next dogfight.

For the starship track, I focused on weapon damage/accuracy, with a side focus in ship toughness and repair capability increase. You get bridge officers who can have abilities that compliment/supplement yours, but chances are, unless you spend real money, only one or two of them will get to use their high level abilities.

There are three types of ships - cruisers, science vessels and escorts. Cruisers are the tanks, science vessels focus on repair and buffs generally and escorts can mount the heaviest weapons. Weapons generally trade off firepower for firing arc, so you can have little piddly turrets that fire 360 degrees and are useful for shooting up mines and other space debris, while for real firepower you want front-firing torpedoes and cannons.

I used a cruiser most of my way through and was happy alternating between broadsides with my 270 degree firing arc phaser arrays and occasionally firing off a photon torpedo salvo when somebody wound up in front of me. You should also invest in a single mine launcher (not multiple as they share a cooldown) - the AI loves to run into mines that you drop off as you circle around each other.

You don't want to be mounting too many energy weapons (i.e. phasers/disruptors etc, as opposed to torpedoes and mine launchers), because eventually their damage output will drop as your starship can't power them all.

I hear if you have an Escort class vessel, you want to invest heavily in fast turn rate and load up on front facing cannons to annihilate the opposition in record time.

Your initial build seems pretty solid to me, although I don't know about that "Sensors" bit, unless you really pump it up, you won't be able to detect cloaked ships anyway. I would recommend going with something else. As an engineer, you're occasionally expected to fix up your ship or your allies' ships so maybe go that route instead.

BTW, I was able to create basically a shaved space orangutang. You'd see these dead serious cutscenes, and I kept half-expecting my guy to start hooting and flinging poop.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

I actually picked up a minelayer as loot from one kill... so I've got that. I didn't equip it since it's always been my experience that mines in games suck unless you work to lure enemies into them. The Wiki says mines will chase any enemy within 4km, so that's something. Just crawl in close to broadside, and unload some mines while I'm there.

What I had been reading seemed to suggest that your available ships was determined by your class... ie: Engineers used Cruisers, Tacticals used Escorts, and Science uses ... Science. I hope I'm misreading that, and what you mention about being able to use any ship (but maybe it's less effective for you) is the truth. As an Engineer, I don't have natural access to a "Carrier" class ship that can launch fighters. It seems like at best I can get an Oddessy ship that launches a smaller warship for support.

It also looks like some kind of seriously heavy nerfing of Engineers happened a while back. Thumbing through the Wiki, and trying to look up Drones and Turrets I kept running into "This page refers to abilities that are no longer in the game" type messages. From the looks of it, only Drones are still there in a condensed form, and maybe turrets are still but it's hard to tell by what's been hacked and slashed.

If it does take that much sensor power to detect something, I'm not entirely sure what to get. My next best option seemed to be Warp Theorist, which seems to add a little power to everything the ship does.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
Rip
Posts: 26891
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:34 pm
Location: Cajun Country!
Contact:

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Rip »

Right-Click on a weapon to set it to autofire.

Been a while since I played. One maxed out character and a couple low level ones.
Arac
Posts: 75
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:12 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Arac »

Paingod wrote: What I had been reading seemed to suggest that your available ships was determined by your class... ie: Engineers used Cruisers, Tacticals used Escorts, and Science uses ... Science. I hope I'm misreading that, and what you mention about being able to use any ship (but maybe it's less effective for you) is the truth. As an Engineer, I don't have natural access to a "Carrier" class ship that can launch fighters. It seems like at best I can get an Oddessy ship that launches a smaller warship for support.
I seem to recall there being some talk about that kind of mixed-class/ship thing being restricted to subscribers, but I'm not sure if that's something they went ahead with. I do hope not.

You won't have access to carriers because the Federation doesn't have one apart from the very-recently introduced and microtrans-only Armitage class, which is a combination escort/light carrier. Klingon characters get dedicated carriers at end-game.
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

Arac wrote:You won't have access to carriers because the Federation doesn't have one apart from the very-recently introduced and microtrans-only Armitage class, which is a combination escort/light carrier. Klingon characters get dedicated carriers at end-game.
Looking over the wiki, there's the Atrox Carrier at the bottom of the "Science" list, which has two fighter bays - and a Heavy Carrier at the bottom of the Tactical list, which has one fighter bay. This ship also makes me a little confused - apparently it breaks into three fighting sections and you control one of them.

I was looking over some screen shots of different ships, like you might see when buying them, and didn't see specific class restrictions to them, just rank restrictions.

There's also a number of "Premium" ships, but it sounds like a person might be able to collect Dilithium Crystals from daily missions and turn that into Credits over time, to the point where you could purchase a premium ship without actually having to spend real money. The same goes for special crew members or pets.

I badly wanted the Borg Tribble when I saw it in the store.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
NickAragua
Posts: 6100
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by NickAragua »

RE: Fighters

One of the missions in one of the later campaigns gets you a 50-charge fighter launch module, which launches three fighters that look cool but appear to be completely useless. Also, in observing the klingon fighters, they don't seem to do much, either, other than clutter up screen space and take a little bit of damage. But yeah, as a starfleet guy, you're not going to be seeing fighters for a while.

Last time I was in the game (months ago), each "real money credit" sold for about 200 dilithium crystals, while most of the "premium" ships cost 800+ real money credits. So, you're looking at 200 x 800 = 160,000 dilithium crystals. Since you have an 8k / day "dilithium refining" limit, you're looking at 160/8 = at least 20 days of daily farming (going up to 30 or 40 for a higher end ship), which is doable but takes time. Not to mention that there are other things that soak up dilithium, such as certain crafting ingredients (*ahem* "Unreplicatable materials").

For reference, I spent probably one or two months playing the game, switched ships seven times, but was only able to rack up about 500 real money credits, which was not even close to being enough for a premium ship. Generally, you would want to save your real money credits and buy a level 50 premium ship, as anything below that is simply a waste - the lower end stuff will get pasted by the higher end stuff every time, no questions about it.

Going through the plot missions on 'normal' difficulty, I never felt like my standard ship couldn't stack up to the bad guys I encountered. I guess if you're doing PvP, playing on the harder difficulties or going into some of the more difficult instances, you'll probably want to invest that kind of time (or real money) into a better version of your ship, but for me it just wasn't worth it.
Black Lives Matter
Arac
Posts: 75
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:12 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Arac »

Paingod wrote:
Arac wrote:You won't have access to carriers because the Federation doesn't have one apart from the very-recently introduced and microtrans-only Armitage class, which is a combination escort/light carrier. Klingon characters get dedicated carriers at end-game.
Looking over the wiki, there's the Atrox Carrier at the bottom of the "Science" list, which has two fighter bays - and a Heavy Carrier at the bottom of the Tactical list, which has one fighter bay. This ship also makes me a little confused - apparently it breaks into three fighting sections and you control one of them.

I was looking over some screen shots of different ships, like you might see when buying them, and didn't see specific class restrictions to them, just rank restrictions.

There's also a number of "Premium" ships, but it sounds like a person might be able to collect Dilithium Crystals from daily missions and turn that into Credits over time, to the point where you could purchase a premium ship without actually having to spend real money. The same goes for special crew members or pets.

I badly wanted the Borg Tribble when I saw it in the store.
You're quite right, I forgot about the Atrox, that's new too. The Heavy Escort Carrier is the Armitage escort/carrier hybrid I mentioned. The MVAM-splitty Prometheus escort is a lot of fun, actually, too.

You can use the in game dilithium exchange to exchange dilithium for store points to buy those kinds of things, yes. It's a Hell of a slog, but doable. At the current rate of exchange you're going to need about 700,000 dilithiums to get a 2000-point ship, which is... a lot. Weeks of solid grinding, probably.

Edit: To clarify from NickAragua's post: 800 points is the /cheapest/ ships. These are generally more 'fun' ships designed for aesthetics like the TOS Enterprise. 1500-2000 is more typical of an end-game viable ship.
User avatar
JSHAW
Posts: 4514
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:03 pm

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by JSHAW »

Since the game went free to play all the premium ships that show up are going to be items purchased in the C-Store.

I have a lifetime membership, have several FED's that are max level and a Klingon that is max level.

It's been a LONG time since any NEW Cryptic content has been generated by the dev team. The only thing that kept this game going for a LONG time
were player generated missions from The Foundry.

A couple of years ago Cryptic was cranking out NEW weekly episodes, and within the last year there's been very little content trickling out.

I'm on a self-imposed hiatus until there's something worth doing in the game. Doing daily runs to grind out dilithium just doesn't cut it for me. :grund: :grund:
User avatar
NickAragua
Posts: 6100
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by NickAragua »

JSHAW wrote:It's been a LONG time since any NEW Cryptic content has been generated by the dev team. The only thing that kept this game going for a LONG time were player generated missions from The Foundry. <snip>

I'm on a self-imposed hiatus until there's something worth doing in the game. Doing daily runs to grind out dilithium just doesn't cut it for me.
Yeah, this is pretty much what happened to me - I played through all the campaign missions, and then a few player designed missions... and then that's it. Nothing. You're level 50, but all you have is a bunch of repeatable group instances that might get you some "ultra special elite gear", which it is pointless to acquire because the only thing you can do with it is... run more of the same group instances.

But, it's fun while you're running through the campaign.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Kasey Chang
Posts: 20750
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:20 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
Contact:

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Kasey Chang »

I'm a free player who played about 4 hours, and gave up.

You can't buy anything worthwhile in the starbase UNLESS you cough up $$$ to buy the important crystals. You're not give hints on where to go and what to fight. I basically wandered through the starbase for an hour and decided it's not worth my time.
My game FAQs | Playing: She Will Punish Them, Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, The Outer Worlds
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

JSHAW wrote:Doing daily runs to grind out dilithium just doesn't cut it for me. :grund: :grund:
Are there any of those that a relative newbie can do, or are they all for high-end players?
Kasey Chang wrote:I'm a free player who played about 4 hours, and gave up.

You can't buy anything worthwhile in the starbase UNLESS you cough up $$$ to buy the important crystals. You're not give hints on where to go and what to fight. I basically wandered through the starbase for an hour and decided it's not worth my time.
But, for the price, it was worth it. If the game kicked you in the shins, it was worth it. It is free to play.

I haven't run out of things to do by just following the missions I'm given. So far I've done a lot of "Training" missions that lead me around to different people who do different things. I've rescued a ship from raiders and done a Vulcan diplomatic mission that involved visiting a sacred planet with an ambassador. My queue still has me lined up for another three missions, including an apparent trade run.

The game is a little sparse (okay, very) on how to get around and find what you want, but I've learned a few things.
  • Try clicking everything on the HUD to see what it does.
  • Inside the starbase, look over the hallways and doors for direction indicators for different areas.
  • Set a mission as active to have the destination highlighted on your map.
  • You can open the Starfleet insignia to talk to people who gave you missions.
  • There's an icon you can click on next to space missions which will bring you to them on autopilot.
  • When you're in space, you can open the map and choose a system to go to, or fly there manually.
  • SCAN everything. There's an icon to scan the map, and your ship will draw a line to the nearest anomaly.
Last night I remade my character and am happier with it in general. In two and a half hours I was able to restart from scratch and get further than I was the previous night. Fights went quicker, I skipped conversations I had already read, and I knew my way around.

What I've come to realize is that there's a LONG level grind to go through to get anywhere. Missions seem to be the only worthwhile thing to do, and I'm doing them. Oddly, not a single one has "paid" me for completing them. The only energy credit I have has come from selling ship components I've found instead of using them. I decided to weigh a completely empty bank account against selling an upgraded shield and opted to sell the shield so I'd have *something* sitting in the bank. I get that money is useless in the future, but it's a big part of what drives gamers in the here and now.

I'm "Level 1.3" and won't get my next ship until I get to "Level 2.0" ... that's a long time to stick in a newbie rig. I understand there aren't hundreds of ships to work with so I can't be given a new one every couple of steps, but most games give you a sense of progression pretty early on. At best I'm finding bits and bobs to make my ship a little better, but the ship itself remains the same.

The Engineer is proving to be fun. Ship combat isn't much different, but on the ground I can speed things up with a "Deploy Mines" ability I have... I basically see a group of enemies and kamikaze run at them, deploy mines right on top of them, run back, and watch them all die. Repeat every 20 seconds. Makes for pretty fast combat. I'm lacking the ability to heal people, though. In the first couple missions, I had to scan injured crew members of a ship I was rescuing, and the game basically said "You're not a Science officer. Leave these people to die." ... it kind of upset me a little that I couldn't even direct one of my lackies to drag the wounded guy back to the transporter.

I also found more interesting items somehow than I did last time I went through some areas. I picked up a set of dual phasers that are a hoot to run around shooting. I also found a dual cannon and mounted it on my ship, which has proven to be very valuable as long as I'm willing to face my enemies directly; this meant learning how to refocus shields to the front.

Knowing now to knock out shielding and focus on an area of the enemy has made a big difference in how fast fights end, but I have to admit I take more of a beating since I have to keep myself right in line with them to do it. I'm struggling a bit to learn how to manuever while adjusting speed and keep an eye on my HUD while also using abilities as needed. Flying circles like an idiot took longer, but I left every fight almost unscathed.

I also ran into a random encounter, but couldn't access it. A huge Borg cube arrived in the space area, and it was almost on top of me. When I clicked on it, I saw (in what I assumed was the "Level" area) a "-3", meaning to me that I should be able to take it if it's 3 levels below me. I flew over and ran right into it, to no effect. I started flying around, bumping it randomly while it flew erratically. Every now and then a message popped up that said something like "Engage this enemy" and I'd try to click it, but it vanished every time I tried. Once my Tactical officer popped up after I clicked, but I was in a clicking frenzy and dismissed her trying to confirm that I wanted to start the fight before I even got to fully process what she was asking. Eventually a group of 5 or 6 people were all flying around this thing, bumping it, humping it, and rubbing themselves against it - and finally it warped out.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
Defiant
Posts: 21045
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:09 pm
Location: Tongue in cheek

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Defiant »

JSHAW wrote:Since the game went free to play all the premium ships that show up are going to be items purchased in the C-Store.

I have a lifetime membership, have several FED's that are max level and a Klingon that is max level.

It's been a LONG time since any NEW Cryptic content has been generated by the dev team. The only thing that kept this game going for a LONG time
were player generated missions from The Foundry.

A couple of years ago Cryptic was cranking out NEW weekly episodes, and within the last year there's been very little content trickling out.

I'm on a self-imposed hiatus until there's something worth doing in the game. Doing daily runs to grind out dilithium just doesn't cut it for me. :grund: :grund:
Wasn't there a series of feature episode missions released back in... feb or march or something? I remember I was going to play them with a friend, but we never ended up finding a good time for us to play, and then my desktop died and I havent played the game since. Still have to complete at least a third of the federation missions (and nearly all of the klingon ones)
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

I'm a couple days in and the game is still on a learning curve. The abundance of stuff to get a handle on remains a little overwhelming.

Last night I picked up Duty Officers and promptly sent them all off to go do whatever the hell they do and left. I'll come back whenever and pick them up. My level of concern over that particular 'minigame' is minimal. I understand the concept and application, but don't care for the "Come back in three days to collect these people" thing. Not one bit. I'll just assign them all at Starfleet and call it good. I'll check in, update, and reassign there - but under no circumstance do I see myself wanting to chase around the galaxy to track down dropped NPC's when I could be shooting down Borg.

I'm starting to care more about Dilithium farming, but I don't think I'll ever have enough time to accumulate 8,000 per day, and honestly don't think I'll bother converting it to Credits at a rate of 350 crystals to 1 credit. If I care that much, I'll spend money on the game.

The Ker'rat Borg mission was fun, and I ran it a few times. After my first trip to acclimate myself, I stayed as the consistently highest scoring person, netting three "Rare" items that were basically useless to me. I hope to get something with Engineering purpose or ship components eventually from that. This is the first place I died, after getting jumped by two Borg Cubes that basically mauled me from behind. After that, I was killed 2 more times running these missions and have learned to be much more cautious about running into those cubes. Apparently it takes at least two people who are Level 10 to take one down.

I'm currently level 8, and I think my ship has all the best equipment it can have before I get my next one. I've crafted everything it could hold from all the resources I had hoarded and everything I pick up now just gets sold to a vendor (but apparently I should be dropping it on the Exchange).

My weapons are two (Dmg) Mk II Phasers, and 1 (Dmg) Mk II Phaser Turret. I work to keep my broadsides on the enemy and my phasers aimed at the weakest shields. I dropped my Photon Torpedoes simply because I didn't like having to turn and directly face an enemy - it meant that I would get too close and have to spend more time backtracking away before I could make another attack run. The Turret lets me attack anything anywhere and I can keep myself easily capable of hitting a target with all phasers at all times.

I've changed a preset for weapons - 70 weapon, 40 Shield, 65 Engine, 25 Aux. This has been working well for me as a general setting since I started it. I do fairly good damage, go relatively fast, and my shields regen slowly - but I have Regen shields and two Shield Regen abilities that keep me pretty full against everything except Borg Shield Drain and Borg Cube attacks.

There does seem to be a correlation of range vs. damage, too. At 9km, I think I was hitting targets for 190 damage; at 3km, that was around 220 damage - if I recall correctly. I'll have to do more testing. Keeping an enemy weak spot accessible seems easier at longer ranges, and it's easier to escape a fight at long range as well. I fled more than a couple Borg Cube attacks by being at 9km and mashing my Evasive Maneuvers button.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
NickAragua
Posts: 6100
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by NickAragua »

RE: Duty Officers

They will automatically come back to your ship no matter where you drop them off, so don't worry about sending them on a mission somewhere in Romulan territory. They'll catch a shuttle.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

NickAragua wrote:RE: Duty Officers

They will automatically come back to your ship no matter where you drop them off, so don't worry about sending them on a mission somewhere in Romulan territory. They'll catch a shuttle.
Thank Odin. Now I'm a lot less annoyed by that. I was fully prepared to simply abandon them to their fate wherever I dropped them and pick them up when I happened to remember they were there.

"Sorry Bob. I've got to leave you here on this Ferengi base for a couple years. Hope you understand."

Upon further reading, it also looks like I can assign a few of them to do things on my ship. I'll have to see what that's about.

*Edit: For as important as it is, you'd think there'd be a clear and concise guide somewhere readily available as to what power levels actually do to you. Auxiliary power seems to confuse most people.

What I've gleaned so far...
  • Weapon: +2% damage per point over 50, and -2% damage under 50 for any non-projectile weapon.
  • Shield: +4% shield regen per point over 50, and -4% under 50; increases shield damage resistance at higher levels (35% at 125)
  • Speed: +2% base speed per point over 50, and -2% under 50.
  • Auxiliary: Skill potency? Turn speed? Cloak and Sensors? Hull repairs? Tachyon Beam shield drain?
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
NickAragua
Posts: 6100
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by NickAragua »

Paingod wrote:What I've gleaned so far...
  • Weapon: +2% damage per point over 50, and -2% damage under 50 for any non-projectile weapon.
  • Shield: +4% shield regen per point over 50, and -4% under 50; increases shield damage resistance at higher levels (35% at 125)
  • Speed: +2% base speed per point over 50, and -2% under 50.
  • Auxiliary: Skill potency? Turn speed? Cloak and Sensors? Hull repairs? Tachyon Beam shield drain?
Heh, no wonder I couldn't kill anything with my phasers unless I did an "all power to weapons".
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

NickAragua wrote:Heh, no wonder I couldn't kill anything with my phasers unless I did an "all power to weapons".
Sometimes it's better to just hit them with everything, be damned your other systems. When an enemy isn't posing any serious threat, it's nice to just end them.

As I move along in the game, I'm starting to have more fun with Ship combat ..
Increase damage, turn to hit his flank, match speed and circle, recharge shields, increase engines, Fire At Will, etc...

... while Ground combat remains basically the same.
Pewpewpewpewpewpew ... next fight ... pewpewpewpewpewpew ... next fight ... pewpewpewpewpewpew ...

I'm also kind of agonizing slightly over how to pick and choose bridge crew skills. I hired on a Klingon tactical officer (not because he was Klingon, but because he had Fire At Will and I wanted it) and I sometimes wonder if I should have kept High Yeild from my other tactical officer on board and stuck with Torpedoes. I'm paralyzed on spending Bridge Officer points because I'm pretty sure this group isn't what I'll end up with in the long run, so I've amassed almost 5,000 officer experience with no intention of using it right now.

I might just bite the bullet tonight when I get home and spend like mad on Fire at Will - it's a lot of fun to watch happen, even if I do aggro everything in 10km. I've read that even if you hit your level cap and cannot improve the Captain further, the bridge staff keep getting experience, so I suppose it's a never-ending potential to keep trying new things.

Right now from my officers I have:
Fire At Will: +25% DPS with Beams for 10 seconds, random targets (adds 1 extra beam to the volley)
Jam Targeting Sensors: Prevents enemy from targeting me for 12 seconds until I do XXXX damage to them
Emergency Power to Shields: Boosts shield regen, shield strength, repairs shield subsystem for 30 seconds

My character provides me with:
Rotate Shield Frequency: Boosts shield regen, shield strength for 30 seconds
Evasive Maneuvers: Boost flight speed, turn rate, defense for 8 seconds
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
NickAragua
Posts: 6100
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by NickAragua »

The good part about bridge officer skills is that you can a) use a bridge officer to give another some good skills and b) eventually train them in certain skills yourself.

Fire At Will is an excellent ability, especially for a ship with lots of phasers. High Yield Torpedoes is also pretty good. From what I remember, phasers and such do high damage to shields, but once you knock the shields down, torpedoes do a lot more damage to hulls. Later on, I would also look into giving them some of the attack patterns, which are pretty good buffs.

I can't say enough good things about engineering officers. Among other things: "Emergency Power to [System]" gives you a quick power boost in that system (ahem weapons), "Reverse Shield Polarity" makes incoming phasers regenerate your shields, "Boarding Party" sends a shuttle over to the target to give them random debuffs (including but not limited to knocking out their shields and weapons) and "Directed Energy Modulation" for shield penetration.

RE: Bridge Officer skill points
Your starship has eng/tac/science consoles with certain capacity, so, you don't need to worry about the higher tier abilities initially. I would max out the abilities you use regularly without any regret as, yes, you get effectively unlimited bridge officer skill points.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

I've finally finished compiling info for myself on class abilities, and what it seems like is:
  • Engineers: Primary role is healing and buffing self, secondary role is healing allied hull damage and systems, tertiary role is debuffing enemies.
  • Scientists: Primary role is f***ing with enemies, secondary role is repairing self shields and buffing self, tertiary role is repairing allies shields
  • Tactician: Primary role is buffing self to deal damage, secondary role is debuffing enemies to take damage, tertiary role is disabling enemy systems
The difference between the ship types seems to be:
  • Cruiser: Heavy hull, moderate shield, 4 devices, extra engineering officers, slow to turn, huge crew (repair)
  • Escort: Light hull, light shield, 2 devices, extra tactical officers, fast to turn, tiny crew (repair)
  • Science: Moderate hull, high shields, 3 devices, extra science officers, moderate turn, moderate crew, scanning abilities
So the "ship to match a role" means having more of a type of class of officer to perform more of those abilities - but an Engineering captain could have an Escort ship with multiple tactical officers to increase their DPS instead of having more healing abilities.

The relatively vague class descriptions don't give it away very completely. I am enjoying my Engineer, no doubt - I like that I have a high survivability in combat. I will have to try a Science officer now that I actually know what they do, but have just the one character slot. They have me there. I'll have to spend at least $5 to open up 4 character slots so I can make a Klingon, a Science guy, and a Tactical. Then there's not much else to get.

The High Yield Torpedo does exactly that, the next volley fired does extra damage. My problems were just that I had to maneuver to face the enemy to use it (90º arc for the launcher) and that sometimes their shields would come back online before it hit, drastically reducing damage done. The turret just lets me hit everything all the time, instead of having one uberblast every couple of minutes.

I look forward to training my Engineering officers, but I'll never be able to train up my Science or Tactical officers myself. At best I'll be swapping their abilities out as I find new ones. That's the part that makes me reluctant to spend points on them... knowing that some day I might just find someone with "Fire At Will 3" and have to ditch all the work I put into the guy with "Fire At Will 1". It's an interesting system, no doubt, but it makes me fear "wasting" progress.

The Klingon will probably stay longer than anyone else, so I'll dump points into his Fire at Will and enjoy the effects. It really is fun to watch my ship go berserk in the middle of a group of enemies. Maybe ineffective, but fun. Against one enemy, it's lethal.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
Arac
Posts: 75
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:12 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Arac »

Paingod wrote: I look forward to training my Engineering officers, but I'll never be able to train up my Science or Tactical officers myself. At best I'll be swapping their abilities out as I find new ones. That's the part that makes me reluctant to spend points on them... knowing that some day I might just find someone with "Fire At Will 3" and have to ditch all the work I put into the guy with "Fire At Will 1". It's an interesting system, no doubt, but it makes me fear "wasting" progress.
If you do find that guy, you can use him to train up one of your current guys with one of his skills at the cost of 'using him up', so to speak. That's why BOs with rare rank 3 skills are so expensive on the exchange. And lower ranked skills can be swapped out at will at Earth Spacedock. The upshot is that the only advantage to rarer officers - and the only disadvantage to the ones you start with - is they have better passive abilities, which ultimately count for very little, so you should feel free to train up and stick with your original guys if you like them.
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

Arac wrote:If you do find that guy, you can use him to train up one of your current guys with one of his skills at the cost of 'using him up', so to speak. That's why BOs with rare rank 3 skills are so expensive on the exchange. And lower ranked skills can be swapped out at will at Earth Spacedock. The upshot is that the only advantage to rarer officers - and the only disadvantage to the ones you start with - is they have better passive abilities, which ultimately count for very little, so you should feel free to train up and stick with your original guys if you like them.
I swapped a couple people out last night with new hires from the vendor in the Sol space dock. I saw a couple in the retail list with Tier III skills, but they didn't look like great ones. As a result, I only ended up throwing away my Science officer and original tactician and replacing both. Now my crew is:

Male Vulcan Engineer (Promoted)
  • Engineering Team 1 (45 second cooldown)
  • Boarding Party 1 (1 min, 20 seconds cooldown)
Male Andorian Engineer (Promoted)
  • Emergency Power to Shields 1 (35 second cooldown)
Male Klingon Security (Promoted)
  • Beams - Fire at Will 1 (35 second cooldown)
Female Klingon Science (Promoted)
  • Science Team 1(45 second cooldown)
My only 'complaint' with this crew is that the Team skills cause a brief cooldown on each other. When I send off the Science Team, the Engineering team gets a 15 second delay before it can be used, and the Science Team has a 45 second cooldown. I can, however, cycle them pretty easily after that since one will be naturally on cooldown still when the second becomes usable.

I also skipped accidentally into Lt. Commander and got my first "real" ship - the Cruiser. It's currently outfitted with all of my old equipment from my first ship, plus an added quantum mine launcher so I don't need to fart around with trying to turn my ass towards the enemy to fire a photon torpedo.

I returned to the war zone and plied my new ship there against the odds and got 1st place the two times I was involved, but still got nothing worthwhile. I do need to find and insert a second Engineering station as well, and since I'm right there I'll keep trying to get one - hopefully a Very Rare one.

Tonight I'm going to try the "Advanced" difficulty setting for a couple missions and see how rough it is. Normal difficulty has been pretty easy with my defeats only coming when I get carried away with thinking I'm great.

... and I can breed Tribbles?!?
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

The voyage of discovery in these kinds of games sometimes means you get hit with things like a brick.

I've been discovering an unpleasant truth - that while the game is "Free to Play", moving into a "Paid" arena will require much more investment than $5 here and there to do anything interesting. The option to convert Dilithium to Credits (currently going for 350 crystals to 1 credit) would mean dedicating myself to a very long haul (months?) of sheer mission repetition... OR ... I can pay $100 per character to get a decent end-game experience - ships, cargo space, bridge officer space, duty officer space, etc. The cost in terms of real world dollars and time investment is simply too high to be worthwhile.

For example, I can't even spend $5 to unlock a couple character slots. I must spend at least $10 in order to get enough Credits to buy 2 slots. This would leave me with 300 Credits left to spend, which I could use to open up a couple bridge officer slots. Almost everything you buy is specific to a single character, not your account, so any investment does not carry over. If you delete a character, you throw away everything you've spent on them. To boot, there's not a single "Top Tier" ship that you don't have to buy. Once you're a Vice Admiral, you can either cough up $30 or keep playing with your Rear Admiral ship. There's no other option.

When I played World of Tanks, that was a "Free to Play" game that did it right. It's the model that any other developer should mimic. You're not penalized in any way for not spending money, and you can spend a little here and there to get worthwhile things. If you had money to burn, you could drop $50 on single a premium tank - but you never have to. There was enough of a free game that you could always get to the end and compete successfully. Money is simply an accelerator. Factor in that there's really no "grind" for levels as long as you're actually enjoying the tanks you currently have. Moving up changes the game; it doesn't specifically make it better.

Knowing this now, I'm left to wonder what I should do. It bothers me that there's a minimum $10 ante to try more than one career at a time. I'm still enjoying the game but I know I'll never want to pour a lot of money into it. I could do a static $10 investment and open up 2 more character slots so I can play around with a Science career and try a Klingon when I hit level 25 with my Engineer.

I'll probably play for a few more nights just out of love for the Trek world, but ultimately wander away in search of less expensive pursuits. This appears very much to be a game designed for lovers of all things Trek who have a lot of disposable income and free time. I have neither.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
NickAragua
Posts: 6100
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by NickAragua »

I got lucky and bagged an Odyssey-class ship during some christmas special, so I was able to finish all the campaign missions without too much trouble. Unfortunately, the storytelling mechanism isn't exactly gripping, so you might not make it through.

On normal difficulty mode, I didn't have much problem even before I reached level 50. For the PVP stuff and advanced instances though, you're pretty much hosed.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
JSHAW
Posts: 4514
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:03 pm

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by JSHAW »

IF you want to get every trivia question correct when you go to Starfleet Academy to "test your knowledge", go to this link and
you'll be able to find every answer to every question you will come up against. I minimize the game on my screen, open up my firefox browser,
pull up that link and BINGO! I win!!!!

Paingod, I can train any of your tactical guys you have in FIRE AT WILL 3.

Here at the skills that I can train bridge officers at. My favorite character is a level 50 Tactical. His name is SHAW.

GROUND - Photon Grenade 3
GROUND - Sweeping Strikes 3
GROUND - Fire on my Mark 2
GROUND - Lunge 3
GROUND - Overwatch 2
GROUND - Stealth Module 2
GROUND - Stun Grenade 1
GROUND - Target Optics 3

SPACE - Beam Fire at Will 3
SPACE - Tactical Team 3
SPACE - Torpedo High Yield 3
SPACE - Attack Pattern Beta 3
SPACE - Attack Pattern Omega 3
SPACE - Cannon Rapid Fire 3
SPACE - Dispersal Pattern Beta 3.

If any of you guys currently playing STO see any skills from my list that you want any of your bridge officers trained in, send me a PM here and
we can try to arrange to meet up in the game. Refresh my memory on how you transfer your BO to me, it's been a long time since I've done
it. I had an in-game friend I use to sell rare materials and other stuff to, and I use to train his BOFF's when he needed something I had.
User avatar
Rip
Posts: 26891
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:34 pm
Location: Cajun Country!
Contact:

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Rip »

I haven't been on in forever. We need an OO meetup, that might get me to play a little more again.
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

I assume that you can't have a Tier III ability in the first slot, and that some might not even be available until the 4th slot - the soonest I might be able to take advantage of Fire At Will III might be when I get to Commander and then opt to use an Escort class ship instead of a Cruiser. I'll probably stick with my Cruisers for now, but it means I'll never be able to use the Fire At Will III. I do appreciate the offer, though.

I increased my difficulty a notch last night, and while space missions take a little longer now they don't seem to pose more of a threat. Ground missions, on the other hand ... apparently I haven't been spending enough skill points in ground abilities.

It took me a good 4-5 minutes to kill the boss of a randomly generated "explore the base" mission. His shields would not drop, and he kept spamming shield and plasma turrets. My entire team was wiped out except for me by the time I got it down to just him and all I could do was run to my Science officer after pumping myself full of stims, and then beg my Science officer to keep me alive while I brought the others back to life. Then we all gathered around the guy and plinked him - 2hp at a time - to death.

I will say that I'm very amused by "Boarding Party" and love to drop that on an enemy as I do a fly-by from .5km away. The shuttles launch and then vanish into him without more than half a second passing between. Then his shields and systems start crapping out... :D

I also kind of left the PvPvE War Zone last night almost empty-handed. I ran it three times for my Daily mission, but only ranked twice. Apparently you're instanced in something level appropriate. I went from being an ass-kicking level 9 that dominated those missions to being a punching bag level 10 that struggles to show on the scoreboard. No good weapons or consoles to be had. I think my next order of business is to hoard crafting supplies and make myself a slew of MkIV weapons and ship gear.

I didn't end up a huge fan of Mines. In fact, I found them somewhat limiting - they required that the target's shields be down in order to do anything useful and I couldn't really control when they hit. The only nice thing was that I crapped them out everywhere and it was inevitable that enemies ran into them. I picked up Plasma torpedo launcher and tried it out again for a while, but still found that I couldn't easily drop a target's shields and get a good torpedo shot more than once every couple of minutes. I really rely heavily on phasers to get the job done since I turn so damn slow.

I think I'm going to shift back to a full phasers approach, with regular phaser banks in every slot that will hold them and turrets in slots that won't. I've already been running with Weapons power at 100% and tweaked other settings slightly, with efficiency settings, so that they're all in the 40's. That's fine by me for combat.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
Blackhawk
Posts: 43491
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:48 pm
Location: Southwest Indiana

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Blackhawk »

Free to play doesn't usually mean a free game. It means a free extended demo. If you want the full experience, they still expect you to pay for it. If they retail the game for $50 and charge $15 a month (plus a free month) and the average player plays for three months, they are getting $80 per person to play. Free to play gives them better exposure, but they wouldn't switch the game unless they expected to make more money that way than by retail + subscription.

I've done some F2P MMOs, and I generally find that they cost me less than full retail + sub MMOs, but not by a lot. If you're going to play for three months, expect to shell out money comparable to what you'd pay for a similar pay game if you want to full experience.
(˙pǝsɹǝʌǝɹ uǝǝq sɐɥ ʎʇıʌɐɹƃ ʃɐuosɹǝd ʎW)
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

Blackhawk wrote:I've done some F2P MMOs, and I generally find that they cost me less than full retail + sub MMOs, but not by a lot. If you're going to play for three months, expect to shell out money comparable to what you'd pay for a similar pay game if you want to full experience.
I really don't mind dropping *some* coin on a "FTP" game, but it's that STO has set up certain minimum entrance fees for certain required experiences that bothers me. Their model is more "Free Until You Pay".

Ref: World of Tanks. You can access 97% of the tanks in the game without ever spending a dime. You can reach the absolute top level and compete successfully without spending a penny. However, spending money in that game lubricates the experience and helps speed up your journey. It isn't a requirement; it's entirely optional. The game was so much fun that I never once questioned the value of the money I was putting into it. They've made a metric assload of money with this model.

STO has established a lot of roadblocks and artificial barriers, even for paid subscribers and lifetime members. Example: You must acquire Dilithium to make some purchases - extra ships, new crew, etc. This is only done by running certain missions over and over and over or by buying it with RL cash. The game has four different kinds of currency you can work with that I'm aware of so far.
  • Energy Credits, the lowest form of currency. It (currently) costs 950,000 energy to buy one Key.
  • Dilithium Crystals, the best form of currency available to free players. It (currently) takes 350 Crystals to get 1 credit.
  • Cryptic Credits, the baseline purchased currency. It takes $1.20 to get 100 Credits.
  • Lobi Crystals, earned for spending RL money on Keys to open chests. It takes 100 Credits to get one Key.
It's funny. I never balked at a subscription fee to an online game because I was supporting the staff that were continually improving and supporting it. For some reason when they make it "Free" and then hold out their hands to stop you from accessing things until you "Pay" I find it diminishes the game. Purely psychological. I happily paid for 3 years of subscriptions for City of Heroes, but wouldn't spend a penny when it went "Free" - the game wasn't about playing the game anymore. The game became "How much do I want to spend to get how much of the game?"

I suppose I have the same fundamental issue with "DLC" packs that companies release now. It used to be that a company would release a game and that was that. Maybe they'd release some free extra content to thank their buyers. Maybe they've eventually release a substantial expansion and sell that for $10 to $20. Now they ship games and immediately have "Extra Content" you can spend more money on, and plans to make 4 more minor releases, each costing $10. It just bugs me. So I don't bother with those games until the developers say they're done with it and then I pick the entire thing up on sale somewhere. This is the reason I don't yet own StarCraft II, Episode 1. I'm waiting to get the full StarCraft game, all episodes, for one price.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
JSHAW
Posts: 4514
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:03 pm

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by JSHAW »

I think my next order of business is to hoard crafting supplies and make myself a slew of MkIV weapons and ship gear.
OR...you find yourself a person, like myself that can craft all that stuff now, you pass off the needed materials to them and let them
craft it for you, no charge from me. I never charge for crafting, it's no skin off my neck to do it.

When I was going through the ranking my character up process I learned that if I wanted the best equipment I could afford it
meant farming for materials, which I sold on the exchange. When I built up enough EC I would buy the materials I needed of the
exchange, and craft. Maxing out my crafting ability was not hard to do, it just took one weekend of hardcore grinding to get
the ability maxed out.

It is a great skill to have, so that way you don't have to get others to do your crafting. Some people that belong to a fleet get their
fleet crafter to do it. That means they collect all the materials and if it's a big fleet, they wait in line till someone get's to their request.
I was in a fleet that did it like this, got tired of waiting and asking, so I decided to max out my crafting ability and bypass the red tape.
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

JSHAW wrote:
I think my next order of business is to hoard crafting supplies and make myself a slew of MkIV weapons and ship gear.
OR...you find yourself a person, like myself that can craft all that stuff now, you pass off the needed materials to them and let them
craft it for you, no charge from me. I never charge for crafting, it's no skin off my neck to do it.
I've already gotten about 320 skill in crafting by virtue of playing around and using up everything I had to fully equip my ship and primary character. I think the range for MkIII-IV items is around 360 to 500. It shouldn't be hard at all for me to make my own stuff, and crafting has always been something I enjoy in games.

All that's really left is that hoarding. Unless skill level somehow determines how strong bonuses are (which I haven't seen in any FAQ) I should be able to produce anything I need fairly readily.

I do really like that this game makes it worthwhile to craft your own stuff and it's not just the same or marginally better, but actually a solid improvement over what you can normally find.

Given that the cap for crafting skill is ~1600 or so, and everything you make gives 20-50 skill for making it, it should be very easy to cap this out for me.
JSHAW wrote:When I was going through the ranking my character up process I learned that if I wanted the best equipment I could afford it meant farming for materials, which I sold on the exchange. When I built up enough EC I would buy the materials I needed of the exchange, and craft. Maxing out my crafting ability was not hard to do, it just took one weekend of hardcore grinding to get
the ability maxed out.
I'm confused. It sounds like you scavenged for crafting components so you could sell them in order to buy crafting components.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
User avatar
JSHAW
Posts: 4514
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:03 pm

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by JSHAW »

JSHAW wrote:When I was going through the ranking my character up process I learned that if I wanted the best equipment I could afford it meant farming for materials, which I sold on the exchange. When I built up enough EC I would buy the materials I needed of the exchange, and craft. Maxing out my crafting ability was not hard to do, it just took one weekend of hardcore grinding to get the ability maxed out.

I'm confused. It sounds like you scavenged for crafting components so you could sell them in order to buy crafting components.
In STO crafting there are some materials that are more scarce / rare, than others. Some of the particle traces take longer to farm, and those are the ones
that people NEED more when crafting some of the higher end gear.

I wouldn't say I "scavenged" crafting components, I farmed for many hours and days to get what I needed, in order to SALE the rare particle traces on the
exchange. When I was maxing out my crafting ability there are some items that I didn't want to sit there are craft many times over just to level up the crafting ability. One example - schematics.

If I was making quantum torpedoes or tricobalt torpedoes, or the AEGIS set (engine/shield/deflector), I'd buy those schematics off the exchange.

Selling items on the exchange put EC credits IN my bank inventory, so if there were items/materials I'd be able to buy off the exchange, to quickly ramp
up the leveling process of crafting, I did it. It's not that hard to understand once you're in the mindset of crafting and only crafting 24/7 every day you're logged on.

I wrote down shopping lists of what the exact amounts of materials I needed for the exact items I was crafting at the time. If I could find those materials
on my shopping list ON the exchange, I bought them there. I farmed the RARE particle traces, which funded my purchases from the exchange.

I had 1 guy who would buy ALL my rare particle traces, I could make 1-3 million EC in 1 day's work, just by selling to him.

Hope this explains and clears up any confusion. One thing is for sure when leveling up your crafting ability - It costs EC to do it, and alot of materials.

When you have ALOT of EC, and alot of the materials you need for crafting are available ON the exchange you can do one of two things -

1. You can farm for ALL your materials out there in the expanse of space OR...

2. You can buy alot of your materials on the exchange.

Happy Trails!
User avatar
Paingod
Posts: 13132
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:58 am

Re: Star Trek Online

Post by Paingod »

That does clear it up somewhat. I was a little confused as to what you might mean.

I kind of get it now, though. I hit 20 last night and realized I'd have to farm a whole new set of resources, and that all of my older resources were basically null. I've got close to 100 of each of the 1st tier, and 30-50 of each of the second tier. It's enough to craft some equipment to raise my skill high enough to start making new stuff for myself.

I'm very tempted to go out to whatever systems spawn these materials and just gather gather gather until I can fully outfit myself. Once I was fully outfitted in crafted gear for the 10-19 level range, I felt pretty dang powerful. I'd love to feel that way from 20-29.

Crafting in this game seems to take only a marginal extra effort, if you're collecting resources as you come across them. I always go out of my way to pick up everything in every mission (unless it means going backwards because it was missed). I managed to finally get myself fully outfitted by level 17 and then had nothing to do except move on up to 20 while continuing to hoard data samples.

I think I've got at least 1 of every particle trace, some I have 4 of. I have no intention of using them until I can make something "End Game" out of them. Everything else is too temporary.

I've also moved past "Advanced" difficulty and into "Elite" - and the game is finally challenging me pretty consistently. I've learned my tactics for the Ground missions well enough to overcome most fights easily still and space battles remain fun but take longer with enemies putting up more of a fight. The best part is that good items seem to pour out of everything, and I'm enjoying that too.

I discovered that I sometimes get overzealous in one of the Starbase 24 missions (I was sent there at level 6, but didn't actually do it until 16 because every time I went in, no one was starting one up). The mission spawned at level 14 and I took point - and before I knew it, I had mashed my Fire at Will button and aggro'd half a dozen ships. They made pretty short work of me. After that I played more cautiously and was able to survive a slaughter that left me on the opposite side of the battle from the rest of the group. Instead of working my way around and rejoining them, I simply took on 3 or so escort ships on and then each battle ship by itself until I closed the gap and was able to fight with them again. At the end I was awarded 1st place. Given the amount of time I spent off on my own, I was surprised.

I persist in using pure Phaser banks, despite the lower DPS than other weapons. Since I use Cruisers and my turn rate is abysmal, I figure I'd be wasting DPS if I tried to fire volleys by aiming forward and then turning back. It would take several seconds to completely turn around, assuming the enemy doesn't position itself and make it take longer. However, its very easy to simply engage broadside to an enemy and keep all 4 beams focused on them in relentless firing.

With my new Cruiser having 6 total weapons slots I'm beginning to think I'll have no choice but to diversify my weapons array. I imagine that 6 phasers would drain my weapons power so fast that I'd be doing 50% damage instead of 150%. I'll try it anyways to see if it can be managed. It'll be a thing of beauty to see all those beams flying around... I wonder if I can get Phasers in different colors, just for visual variety, if not different effects.

Now that I have a good understanding of game mechanics and how it all fits together, I'm much more interested in trying a Science officer as well. While I enjoy being a "Hit me! HIT ME! Is that all you got?" ship, I think I'd also really enjoy being able to really screw with enemy ships in a big way. I'm also 5 levels from opening up the Klingon option, which looks a little different. And very red. They may yet pry $20 out of my hands to try some new stuff.
Black Lives Matter

2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
Post Reply