Octopus Overlords

So some of the gloss is wearing off.

I've been reading on the forums about the thin treatment of Klingons as a whole and responses from Cryptic to the tune of "Klingon players only account for 18% of the playerbase. We refuse to focus more than marginal efforts on them" - which makes good logical sense in a bean counter way, but is piss poor in game development. If they're included, they should be given equal treatment. Apparently their dress selection is also thin and can't even come close to what you see in the TV series.

I actually got to meet my first PvP players in Kar'rat last night. As my team was resetting for the mission, he popped in right next to us and proceeded to be face-stomped. It happened again later. One assumes that there's only one respawn point and the Klingons share it with the Federation. That's horrible. I encountered another Klingon in the same mission while he was poking at some Borg. I snuck up on him and just as he was in firing range, he somehow managed to go into overdrive and took off so fast that I could never have tracked him down. It was like he hit Full Impulse without any kind of combat cool down timer. One second he was fighting Borg and I shot him. The next second he was flying hard and gone. My boarding party ships chased him for a while before they evaporated. If I had to actually fight that on a regular basis, I'd be pretty pissed. An enemy I can't fight? Awesome.

Needless to say, my desire to play as a Klingon is waning. With it goes the consideration of paying to open a new character slot to try it out.

Farming missions is also getting repetitive. Even if I was a paid player, I'd have a need for large quantities of Dilithium for crafting and other things. This can only be had by running the same handful of missions over each day. The Ker'rat PvPvE area is actually fun, but I can only run it three times to get the mission reward; doing it more is just for items to sell or use. Player-made missions are offline for some inexplicable reason (some kind of conversion) and cannot be done. Exploring nebulae is starting to get thin - The Federation has some strange obsession with scanning carnivorous plants and the Klingons want to put an end to it.

The story missions are more interesting, but don't reward with Dilithium. IMO, they should abolish daily missions and simply make Dilithium a dropped item from anything - 4 here, 6 there, etc - and keep the conversion cap at 8,000 per day. Then you can play any mission any time and not just the same ones over and over. As is, I spend most of my game time running Dilithium missions because I know I'll need it. Another good chunk goes towards collecting resources for crafting because it's some of the best stuff you can get.

Duty Officers are kind of fun to poke at, but once you've queued up a dozen missions for them in 5 minutes, you're done doing that for the day.

I was a hardcore STO fanatic for over 2 years, joined 2 fleets, quit them both, and did everything there was to do except the missions requiring 3 or more players.

I did a couple of those with the 2nd fleet I was in, but it got frustrating to the point of being in a mission for over 3 hours. Very hard thing to do when you have a wife and 3 year old daughter.

I drop in and check on the game from time to time. If I wasnt a lifetime subscriber I would have deleted the game off my laptop a long time ago.

At long last, playable Romulans starting May 21st:
http://sto.perfectworld.com/legacyofromulus" target="_blank

Despite having seemingly a hundred other games I've been waiting for come out yesterday, I also spent a little time with the new Romulan stuff, and it's quite good!

They've come a long, long way from when STO released in terms of storytelling using this engine, and the Romulan tutorial was interesting and a lot of fun.

Seems like they also updated quite a few game and interface elements with one of the big ones being that when you talk to someone now from your ship it opens up a window that shows the person on your main viewer. Doesn't sound like much, but I find it helps immensely in making you feel a little more in the game and it makes the huge blocks of conversation text throughout the game a lot more palatable.

For anyone that liked the game but hasn't played in a while I'd really recommend giving it another shot. It's light years (ha a pun!) beyond where it was even a year ago and the reputation mechanics in the end game are a pretty interesting way to pass the time.

Is there a fleet for OOers? I have a couple friends playing, but I way out leveled them.

Is there a fleet for OOers? I have a couple friends playing, but I way out leveled them.

Oh no! Sectoid had a transporter accident! We have to figure out which one is the original, and which one is evil!

Which one has a goatee? Are either wearing leather?

Well I came searching for this thread to see if anyone is playing it. I've been on end game for a while, I started playing after neverwinter hit and I realized I had an account. I'm currently a max level Romulan grinding out reputation points, and could certainly use some company. I'm also more than willing to help out someone else since it is nice to get away from the grind.

I'm out of town right now but will be home for the end of the week to be able to join up with anyone.

My brother and a buddy of mine still play this from time to time and, after trying to play a little of the re-release of Starfleet Battles via GOG, I was reminded how great the space battles in STO were in comparison, so I fired it up again.

I was shocked to see in the two years since I seriously played they've completely redone the galaxy map as well as a good portion of the Starfleet starting missions, not to mention tons of new high level content and apparently all the PvE Klingon stuff that was long promised. Most recently they've added the dyson sphere from ST:TNG as a location all the factions can visit as well as the delta quadrant.

Anyone still playing this? I messed around with it a bit last night and got my bearings again and just started doing the missions to access the dyson sphere. The new galaxy map in particular is very cool and I didn't realize how much the tiny old maps effected how often I wanted to play... navigating all the old tiny zones was a giant pain, but the new zones are huge and much easier to get around in.

Coming soon.......email just now tells about a new expansion pack in the era of the original series where you can create a fresh new character and get the old ships and fight along side Scotty and Chekov and such.

We're pleased to announce the upcoming expansion
Star Trek Online - Agents of Yesterday!

For the first time, players will be able to create a new character and defend the Federation as a Starfleet captain from the time of the Original Series! Fight alongside members of the classic Enterprise crew, including Chekov and Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, as you explore strange new worlds throughout the history of Star Trek.

A variety of new ships from The Original Series era arrive in this expansion as well. Fly through time and space using iconic ships such as the legendary Constitution-class Starship and the Daedalus Science Vessel.

Captains will boldly go where only one classic crew has gone before in Summer 2016. Watch the announcement trailer to take your first glimpse into the Agents of Yesterday expansion for Star Trek Online!

TRAILER

Cool, Daekhawk, if maybe about 7 years late. I think this is what fans were begging for at launch.

I was a big fan in the day (around 2009-2010). I did find the game brutally difficult to get back into if I went away for 6-months or so. While I could say that about every mmorpg to some extent, trying to re-grasp STO after a long time away was always something I struggled with.

I might have to give it another try. I stopped playing shortly after the Romulan content was released and was at end-game. In general, I found it very repetitive and grindy.

They have added a ton of content since the Romulan expansion. They revamped the sector maps and finished the Klingon player campaign, and redid a lot of the Star Fleet campaign. If you go with a Romulan you have to pick Star Fleet or Klingon eventually, there isn't too much of a separate Romulan only campaign. There is, but after that one is done you do the rest of the campaigns that everyone else does. There is a Lot of content, at least enough to keep you busy for a few weeks if you marathon through everything.

They also retooled nearly every side-content mechanic, with duty officers and research being especially different now. There's an endgame fleet mission mechanic now that is not so much grindy but more daily. Each endgame region also has dailies and you can earn rep with different factions to get faction gear, not unlike WoW. Unlike WoW it doesn't take killing ten million grubs to get to some good gear, either. It takes Some time, of course, but it's nothing like those Korean games.

Plus it's F2P now, so you don't have anything to lose.

I'm kind of a fanboi but not a Fanatic. I signed up for a Lifetime membership before it came out (also LOTRO). I have easily received 10x my investment in entertainment from both of those games. STO I binge on, I'll play for a month or so and then let it sit for 9 or 10 and come back to see what new things are going on in the world. I'm definitely going to hop back on once this TOS content comes out.

aaaaaaand they just redid captain skills again. I think this is the fifth iteration. It is at least the third.

Ive been gone quiet a while and have just returned for a bit of fun. Looks like I still have my free Constitution class cruiser yay.

Some things are blank to me though.

1. I have to keep clicking right click to shoot enemies. What am I missing to just click once and have it keep attacking? I just got a auto rifle but not had a chance to use it yet. Will this do that?

2. Can I change my characters standing stance once Ive created and in game? It looks a bit silly and want a different one.

This space station is confusing. Like the symbol above the NPCs heads wont go away even once you ge ta quest from them. So I stand there going through all the dialog options to see if that changes it...nope haha.

Daehawk wrote:1. I have to keep clicking right click to shoot enemies. What am I missing to just click once and have it keep attacking? I just got a auto rifle but not had a chance to use it yet. Will this do that?

You don't have to keep right clicking on them, but you do need to set up your "powers" bar which includes your weapon triggers. It's like any MMO on the ground. Select your target, click on your attacks. Unfortunately you have to keep spamming that "shoot gun" button (at one point you could set that as "default" attack but I can't find a way to do that anymore).

In space it's different, if you want a weapon to auto-attack your selected target you right click on it to set it to autofire in the middle consose. It should highlight with an outline. If you don't you'll really grow tired of clicking on each weapon to have it fire. Be sure to check the status when you swap weapons or ships.

On the ground I like a 2 level power bar, in space I like 3 bars because there is much more going on and so many more powers to use.

2. Can I change my characters standing stance once Ive created and in game? It looks a bit silly and want a different one.

You need to find a tailor. I believe you can change your default outfit/look/stance for no monies.

This space station is confusing. Like the symbol above the NPCs heads wont go away even once you get a quest from them. So I stand there going through all the dialog options to see if that changes it...nope haha.

Depending on how far you are into the game it's easier to just let quest givers hail you. There's also a big "in progress/available/foundry" mission window that can be less than helpful, but if you finish a mission and nobody hails you immediately afterwards I'd check there. The STO UI is cumbersome. By the time what I wrote makes sense you should have the hang of the mission system. One of the icons around the map menu brings up the "Hail Starfleet" window. That's the one you want to check out. You do NOT have to be on a station or anywhere near the quest giver to accept or turn in a mission except in very few circumstances.

1. Ah ok. Ya I have my ship weapons firing with just a single click. Not sure how I did that though. I just got my free Constitution class hip so Ill have to do that again somehow.

2. Ahh ok..found it...ty. I got an email saying to visit a tailor and I had a free Wrath of Khan outfit. But when I got there it was 500 creds if I wanted it. I musta messed that up.

3. Yes the UI is not the best around thats for sure. I had a easier time of it wit ha new Romulan for some reason.

4. It says my new ship comes with old style blue phasers and they will lvl up with me ...So guess I never have to replace them unless I want to. I like that.

I may need me some creds for that mirror universe Enterprise uniform its pretty cool. But until I can afford food thats a no go lol.

Daehawk wrote:2. Ahh ok..found it...ty. I got an email saying to visit a tailor and I had a free Wrath of Khan outfit. But when I got there it was 500 creds if I wanted it. I musta messed that up.

If you open the Zen Store you can scroll through everything that you should get for free and claim it there. It doesn't work from the in-game "stores" (tailor, ship selector, etc.) You may also have a free ship or some other random items too.

Oh? Nice. Ill have to check it. Thanks.

1. Again how do I view inside my ship like the bridge and sickbay and such?

2. Is there any way to earn Zen in game? I really want the mirror universe enterprise uniform but its about 1500 zen and thats nearly $20 real money. I dont even have $5...its why Im playing free games. I have a half gallon of water and half gallon of tea, 1 ramen noodle, 1 can soup, and 1 can spaghetti and meatballs chefboyardi to last me and my wife until Friday. So putting any money into a game is way out.

In the "?" menu by the bottom right corner of the minimap there's an option to visit your bridge. Can't say there's a sickbay to go to, just the bridge and your captain's ready room (complete with the real ship's captain, your fish!)

There is a way to earn zen in game, but it is incredibly grindy. You may have noticed you earn dilithium from missions. You can earn up to 8000 per day (which is difficult to impossible until you get to the endgame). You "refine" it (click on a button in your inventory tab), and then you can use this refined dilithium to buy (very expensive) equipment or trade it for zen. The exchange rate yesterday was 375 to 1. So if you managed to max out your dilithium for the day you could end up with a windfall of 21 zen. They really want you to spend money to get zen.

There is a dilithium minigame on a mining planet in the Alpha quadrant, and you can do PvE and PvP missions to earn it as well. All the campaign missions dole it out to some extent, along with certain factional dailies. In the multiplayer missions you choose the reward you want - each mission gives different faction points or credits (never choose this, you will Never be short of credits) or dilithium. The PvE missions are pretty fun, they only take 20 minutes or so.

If you ever think you are short on credits there's a guy on Earth Starbase that gives a "Tour the Galaxy" mission. Basically you cruise around as fast as possible to a bunch of different planets and you earn credits for each one you reach before time is up. Free money basically. It's a lot easier once you get an endgame ship with transwarp but you'll still make out OK without it.

I honestly was just going to send you some zen but there seems to be no way to do so. I imagine part of the reason is for account safety, so nobody can clean you out that way if you get hacked.

Most zen items are account-wide, although a lot are faction based (Fed vs Klingon vs Romulan) and some are only character specific. The store is pretty clear about all this though.

End Transmission. Starfleet Command Out.

killbot737 wrote:
There is a way to earn zen in game, but it is incredibly grindy.

Very grindy. Yeah, that's why I stopped playing. Even at endgame it's very grindy. Damn those Ferengi! I remember, if you maxed out and you forgot to cash in (and it was easy to forget), you'd be screwed. I think it reset everyday and you really had to pay attention to it.

Rumpy wrote:

killbot737 wrote:
There is a way to earn zen in game, but it is incredibly grindy.

Very grindy. Yeah, that's why I stopped playing. Even at endgame it's very grindy. Damn those Ferengi! I remember, if you maxed out and you forgot to cash in (and it was easy to forget), you'd be screwed. I think it reset everyday and you really had to pay attention to it.

I think they must have changed that mechanic. Every 24 hours (or every time you log in if it's more than that) you automatically refine any dilithium in your inventory, up to the 8000 per day. There's no reason not to, I think they changed it due to the complaint you've mentioned. There's also a limit on the amount of unrefined dilithium you can have in your inventory, but I can't imagine hitting it unless you were a bot farmer. The daily refining limit still screws F2P folks on the dilithium<->zen market though.

The worst thing I encounter now when I play are all the stupid script spambots. They'll whisper "amazing deal! blah blah at scam,com!" to you, then immediately ignore you. I still report them. I report the email ones too. Sooner or later there will be no more usernames available in the game, the available space will be filled with nothing but banned spambot accounts!

-- Spamborg?

killbot737 wrote: I think they must have changed that mechanic. Every 24 hours (or every time you log in if it's more than that) you automatically refine any dilithium in your inventory, up to the 8000 per day.

Nah, come to think of it, my memory of it was wrong and it was more like you described. Or maybe that came later. I DO remember logging in many times and realizing that I did forget to refine it though.

The worst thing I encounter now when I play are all the stupid script spambots. They'll whisper "amazing deal! blah blah at scam,com!" to you, then immediately ignore you. I still report them. I report the email ones too. Sooner or later there will be no more usernames available in the game, the available space will be filled with nothing but banned spambot accounts!

-- Spamborg?

Heh yeah, an MMO staple basically. Been encountering lots of those on SWTOR.

I just made lvl 10 and got a free ship and chose the Constitution refit...its like Enterprise A. It has 2 forward and 2 aft wep slots. My two blue phasers from my TOS Enterprise moved over...they are supposed to change lvl as I do but I cant tell. Other than those what should my other two weps be? I and testing canons and distrupters and photons..I like photons but plain old phasers seem fine...as in 2 normal phasers and 2 blue ones.

What Im asking is what weps should I use.

If you like to broadside (which is not a bad strategy with the CL/CA/CC ships) you can stick with all beams. I like the 180 degree weapons in the front and the 250 degree in the back so that they'll also hit the enemy when you're strafing them.

Another possibility is one beam and one torpedo each in front and back. That's sort of the classic way to outfit your ship, and it works well for the entire game. Eventually you get up to 3/3 and 4/4 ships and I always think it's a good idea to have a torpedo in at least one slot in front and back unless you've totally specialized in beams and cannnons (and turrets).

Cannons are a pain for the non-tactical ships because they have such a small cone of fire. You really need a ship that can turn on a dime to use them effectively, and the classic Fed cruisers are not that sort of ship.

Those phasers will level up with you, it's strange though because depending on whether you have them mounted or in your inventory you'll see radically different stats for them. You will soon enough find weapon drops (plasma, tetryon, etc.) that will have different secondary effects, and of course green and blue drops - same as other MMOs, they're better than common white weapons.

Ahhh I bet thats why those blue ones didn't look all that great as they were in my inv instead of mounted.

I guess I broadsides fight. I turn one side to the enemy so back and front fire at the same time. Im also adding points to beam weaponry for my ship. My tac officer though seems to have a photon torp specialty so cant use any boost unless I use one. I thought I killed a ship faster with all beams but maybe it was a fluke.

How do I know what officers my ship needs? Im getting mission rewards where it wants me to choose an officer to receive and I have no clue which to get. Im an engineer and it offers each type. Should I get yet another engineer type or a science or a tactical?..i just dont know what I need.

Also I just got my rooster or whatever of duty officers. trying to figure that all out too.

Also I picked engineer because I saw you can make turrets and such during away missions..but I dont know how to build anything and have no idea what my kit does or how to use it.

I need more hotbars too lol.

Ive looked a lot at Starfleet Academy but I have never seen Boothby...is he even there on the grounds?

Never mind. Found his memorial plaque in the garden...2263 - 2382. ...Not bad ...119.

So, under the "U" menu (the one with all your stats and ship stats and many more things) you can assign your duty officers (DO's) to their stations. Each ship comes with different officer stations based on specialty and rank. Science ships focus on science stations, etc. What you want to do is choose the officer that has the powers you want assigned to that particular station. You can also retrain/add skills to your DO's. There's a DO trainer at Earth starbase and some other locations.

In general - tactical skills are about DPS, science are about buffs and mez, and engineering are about healing. Some skills you can only train (you craft a book for them to use, basically) based on your captain's specialty and the appropriate skill tree. The science shield drain and engineering/science shield regen are pretty much essential IMO. Other than that choose what works for you.

BTW don't forget to promote your DO's. That's also in that same tab group. Otherwise while they may have a power you want to use they can't until you promote them, and place them in an appropriately ranked duty station.

You can have completely different space and ground officers. You manage them in basically the same way as the space positions, but I think it's a bit less complicated. I like the tactical DO's with grenade skills, and an engineer with a turret or two, and then a science DO with some healing. Order matters, sometimes you only get to take one or two DO's with you on certain missions.

You can stack hotbars, there should be a little clickable icon next to the hotbar menu. Don't forget to press "P" in space and on the ground to check out all of your available powers that you can add to the hotbars (some of them are your weapons that you don't need to add at all actually).

Technically you only "need" two of each sort of DO, but they also have green and up qualities like loot drops. I tend to choose a few that I like and stick with them, giving them more skills and gear. The rest get put in the corner, Baby!

ed -- So I was reading a bit and a realized I swapped duty officers with bridge officers. But all the mechanics are the same, just swap DO for BO and don't stink up the joint. DO mechanics are yet another aspect that I haven't explained.

Wow its a lot more complicated than I thought. Ill have to remember the P key. I must have just randomly lucked out as I have that shield drain attack in space and a healer for ground. Ill have to just spend time and go through it all before I get back to missions it seems. Thanks!

Oh...my Romulan is lvl 10 and it seems they don't have any more Romulan only stuff for them. I have to join Klingons or Federation. Is there one I should choose over the other? I already have bot ha Fed and Klingon captain.

There's no difference in the Romulans once you have to choose a faction except for the ships you can choose from. There are Romulan-only ships but the rest of the campaign content is the same as for your other characters. Depending on the faction you choose you'll be able to get Romulan and either Fed or Klingon ships.

So really no point in continuing that line.

I think someone in game yesterday tried to give me some Zen. I didn't get it if they did.

Grrr... This thread made me patch up my STO client, despite having no time to actually play the game.

I've won a few thousand gold pressed latinum at the Dabo table. Any idea what I can do with it?

Daehawk wrote:I've won a few thousand gold pressed latinum at the Dabo table. Any idea what I can do with it?

Check here.

Thanks.

Daehawk wrote:Thanks.

I was going to answer "Not much. Get back to the tables!" but upon consideration I realized that I've hit my being-a-total-dick-just-because-I-can quota for the week (which is impressive, really, given that the week started today).

hehe...I thought about winning more then realized I probably need my energy creds more than latinum.