Star Trek Online : A New and Unbroken Thread!

[Morat20]

Jesus, is there a way to freakin' multi-select in your inventory? I appreciate how...sticky...buttons are (hard to accidentally drag icons off) but good lord. Putting away crafting materials takes forever one at a time!

I'm stuck on my crafting. I can craft a lot of low-level stuff, but can't craft the Captain level stuff -- not so much from lack of crafting skill, just not enough of a lot of the mats. I'm stuck doing level 3s and down -- it appears my last round of crafting simply tapped me out, when I built a lot of lt.commander level stuff.

Do your bridge officers auto-use skills in ground combat? Because if not, I need to see if I can drag their skills to my task bar for eash of use.

Also, tractor beams are nice. :) Finally got mine up with my new ship (Voyager-style) and holding an enemy still to absolutely hammer him is fun.

As for Bat Quadrant -- since I don't have anything else to do with fleet marks, I donate what I have at the end of the day. :)

[apocrypha]

Yeah inventory management sucks a bit. There's no easy way to transfer items from bag to bank, you just have to tediously drag them :/

Do your bridge officers auto-use skills in ground combat? Because if not, I need to see if I can drag their skills to my task bar for eash of use.

They do use them automatically, just not very intelligently. If you put their skills on your bars then make sure to turn off auto-cast for those skills on the Boff bar itself (right click it, same as space skills autofire toggle).

[Morat20]

I didn't realize I could turn on auto for those! I ended up removing the bridge officer windows from my GUI..

A few questions: are there bridge officer skills that can't be learned from the trainer?  And what's with the borg stuff on DS9? That endgame raiding equivilant?

And what's the deal with gold pressed latinum? I ended up earning some screwing around with dabo...

[Stormwaltz]

A few questions: are there bridge officer skills that can't be learned from the trainer?  And what's with the borg stuff on DS9? That endgame raiding equivilant?

And what's the deal with gold pressed latinum? I ended up earning some screwing around with dabo...

Yes, there are better skills that only appear on blue/purple Bridge Officers. When you get those guys, you can either add them to your staff or expend them to "train" one skill on to one of your existing officers. EDIT: Note also that training some of YOUR skills past a certain level unlocks the ability to train some high level BOff skills. For example, I ranked up medical skills, and was able to to train one of my science officers in some III-level healing skill.

GPL is largely worthless, IMO. You can get some holographic ship appearances (cosmetic only) and ship interior decorations from the vendor, and sometimes you see Trade Duty Officer missions that can swap 100-1800 GPL for commodities. Borg stuff is raid-equivalent, you'd have to ask somebody else for more because I don't.

[Rishathra]

RE: Borg stuff.  Do special task forces.  These are five player missions that play like mini-raids, and generally only take 15 minutes to complete.  The ground ones take longer, though.  When you complete one, you get a 'token.'  Turn in tokens to get gear.  That's pretty much it.  Even if the missions aren't your thing, it is very much worth it to play a few missions and buy the borg engines, which only cost 5 tokens, and make travel much quicker.

[apocrypha]

The tokens only come from Borg STF's though - I think level 44 or so is the minimum level to do them.

Be warned that the token exchange and vendor system for the gear is needlessly, stupidly confusing and that there's no way to get a refund if you buy the wrong thing. Be very, very careful redeeming tokens, make sure you're buying the thing you mean to buy!

I'm very underwhelmed by the new Temporal Lockbox/Lobi store ships. Nothing particularly interesting about them at all. Was hoping for a science ship with some real fire-power but no such luck. Plus the Mobius looks like a Rifter, which just makes me pine for EVE.

[Rishathra]

On a purely aesthetic level, I really dig the Klingon timeships.  I will probably buy the mirror one when the prices come down.

[Morat20]

I poked through some of my boxes. Got two pink tholian duty officers, a console that shoots chain lightning (it's not what it's called, its' what it does) and some random Ferengi duty officers and whatnot.

Still have a ton left. I'm also contributing to the starbase -- I have no other use for fleet marks. Not much to do at the starbase yet, except be confused by the guy with all the tribbles.

Also, where do I get a horta? :)

Also, this game levels fast -- especially if you use duty officers and enjoy random group pve. I'm level 37 and I've not even completed the first episode's story.

[Stormwaltz]

Combat Horta are crafted. The non-combat one is earned in one of the Reman arc episodes.

[Morat20]

Combat Horta are crafted. The non-combat one is earned in one of the Reman arc episodes.

I saw that, except I needed a baby horta or something to start the chain.

[Morat20]

How do you turn on auto-use of away team powers on the ground? By "powers" I mean "my flunkies" not mine.

[Stormwaltz]

Huh. I had to load the game to see what you're talking about. The Horta Hatchling item is new - when I did this, that wasn't a requirement for crafting. I have no idea where you get one.

[Morat20]

Huh. I had to load the game to see what you're talking about. The Horta Hatchling item is new - when I did this, that wasn't a requirement for crafting. I have no idea where you get one.

Looked it up. You get it from a quest on the Romulan Front as an optional reward. (Mine Enemy).

[Rishathra]

How do you turn on auto-use of away team powers on the ground? By "powers" I mean "my flunkies" not mine.

They are on auto-use automatically.  You right-click them to turn auto-use off, and then the ability next to their portrait will turn red.

Edit: Also, I think I have an extra horta pet if you want it.  I'll leave it in the fleet bank.

[Morat20]

Ah, that explains it. I finally tried the ground fleet missions. Kinda fun, especially with competent people. My new kit might have something to do with that.

Turret, mortar, medical field generator...:)

I'm a full admiral now, only a few levels from my last ship.

And thanks for the horta! If you don't have it, no big -- I'll get to the proper mission for it rather soon anyways. (Should finish up the klingon arc today).

[Reg]

You've gone from newbie to admiral just since the game went free to play, right?  How much money did you spend along the way?

[Morat20]

You've gone from newbie to admiral just since the game went free to play, right?  How much money did you spend along the way?

Hmm. I bought extra bank spaces once, and two extra bridge officer spaces. Those are about the only things I spent money on until, oh, a week ago when i decided I'd probably be hooked for a few months so I went ahead and paid for there months of gold and some frills (the TOS bundle was on sale!. I wanted me some old school Star Trek stuff).

I didn't buy any XP boosts or ships.

Now I'm level 50 and realizing I can't buy any new ships until Bat Quadrant's starbase gets a bit bigger or I spend real cash. (admittedly, I'm due enough real cash for a ship or two just from the gold sub).

Still haven't finished the first episode. Two more missions to go. The PvE stuff really levels you fast, and I enjoy it.

[Morat20]

FYI, so sick of being one-shotted by those fucking borg plasma thingies. Damn borg.

[Sir T]

Yeah, the borg torpedos are pretty damn uber. But there are ways around it...

Like Boarding patry 3, which cripples them

Jam them so they cant fire.

Target weapons subsystem 3, so they cant shoot anything.

Klingon carriers can train their power with power subsystem drones.

Just wait till you have the joy of fighting Cure Space Elite, which has borg Modified klingon vessels with All their abilities AND the borg modified weapons.

Try and get yourself a shield with plasma resistance at least.

[Rishathra]

There are mirror universe cruisers in the fleet bank if you need one.  I can grab one of the MU science vessels if you prefer them.  And the shipyard is stocked, but the only non-money ships are the science and cruiser refits.

[Morat20]

There are mirror universe cruisers in the fleet bank if you need one.  I can grab one of the MU science vessels if you prefer them.  And the shipyard is stocked, but the only non-money ships are the science and cruiser refits.

I'll look. I'm always hesitant to take stuff from a guild/fleet bank -- stupid sense of fairness! :)

I was actually looking at the science and cruiser refits anyways. I've enjoyed the science vessels immensely, but considering trying out one of the other classes. It's not like I don't have the bridge crew to fly it anymore -- and even if I need a third tactical or engineering officer, I've got some ready and plenty of points to train them.

[Rishathra]

Would you like the engineering or tactical focused science ship?

[Furiously]

They should make a "refit" item for sci, eng and tactical so you can fly any ship you want. I'd be tempted to fly the newbie ship.

[Morat20]

Would you like the engineering or tactical focused science ship?

Sorry. Today's my birthday. :) Just got home! I'll take a look at the ships online and figure it out. :)

[Morat20]

I snagged one. Will have to arrange a few more consoles -- picked Mirror Deep Space. Still a science vessel, but with two engineering instead of two tactical slots.

Actually pulled one of my rare engineers out of waiting duty and trained her up for it. I wish there was a way to pack bridge officers back up. As for duty officers, I had to quickly convert some more commons to uncommon to pick up a new one on the last round of recruitments. Went over 100.

[Morat20]

Last night, when playing PvE --- I think I either shot myself, or someone else shot me. Is there friendly fire? Because I was doing the "freighters running to the starbase" fleet thing, and I swooped down on a bunch of vessels attacking a freighter and fired off that isometric charge thing.

You know, the one that bounces from vessel to vessel? And I got hit by it.

So either it chained off of several vessels and then slammed me, or else someone else fired one and it slammed me, or the NPC attackers could either use that attack or one that looked exectly like it.

[Rishathra]

Were they Klingon ships?  Klingon npcs use the isometric charge in those scenarios.  There's no friendly fire that I know of.

For bridge officers, it is my opinion that ships that lean too heavily in one area (basically having 3 bridge officer stations of the same type) are not as useful as those that spread it out some.  So by just having 2 of each type of bridge officer, you can effectively man any ship worth flying.

[Sir T]

And you can dismiss bridge officers you no longer want at will. Just go to their status page, and then down at the botom drop down list (where you promote them) you select dismiss and type out their name. And thats it, they are gone

[Morat20]

It was klingons. I just got hit right after I fired mine off..so it looked like it bounced back to me. It was kind of a furball at that point.

Bridge officer wise I'm aiming for two of each type, all super rares. I'm not terribly attached to the ones I have.

[Rishathra]

I have more very rare bridge officers than I know what to do with, like literally in the neighborhood of 100 or so.  Is there a particular flavor you are looking for?

[Morat20]

I have more very rare bridge officers than I know what to do with, like literally in the neighborhood of 100 or so.  Is there a particular flavor you are looking for?

I'd have to look. I think I have 4 of the six as it is. They're not exactly hard to come by.

I can see why some of the C-store ships are desireable. Two universal stations? That's...nice. Flexible.

[Sir T]

The excelsior is the best C-Store Cruiser, imo fast and maneuverable and tough, and the transwarp drive is awesome.

The Dreadnaught turns so slowly that its cannons are almost useless until you have figured out how to make it turn, and the Phaser lance is as accurate as a W Bush Budget. Great for pounding slow and immobile targets though.

The Galaxy is fun... once you separate the saucer and you get some maneuverability.

The Nebula is a Great Science-Cruiser Hybrid. And of course there is the Carrier, which loses the Sensor Analisis ability of the other science vessels but gains fighters. Its less tough and has less crew than the Klingon carrier though.

The Prometheus is the best of the Escorts in my humble opinion, partly because of the separation ability but mostly because of the Lt Commander sci slot. People rave about the Defiant though.

[Morat20]

What about the Odyssey? FYI, what duty officer race has telekinesis? Random aliens?

[Sir T]

Dominion Vortas do for certain, dunno about the rest. You get one as a reward when you do the 4th mission in the 2800 series (whos name escapes me at the moment) along with 2 Jem Hidar.

The Oddessy... How do I put this. Its a slow ass brick in space that cant turn to save its life. If you get the pack you might think "YES I can saucer sep AND use this defiant strapped to my back!" but, sadly, you can't use both at the same time, which is fucking stupid. I do see a lot of saucer sepping Oddessys on STFs though, and there's no denying its a great looking ship.

The big problem with it is that its firepower is not actually that impressive, and the reason for that is that Beam ships simply don't have the raw firepower of cannon ships. If you put more than 6 beams onto a cruiser your overall firepower drops because of the power drain. That's a huge reason Klingons rip the feds apart in PVP as they can all use dual cannons. I pretty much use dual beam setups on my ships now as I got sick of tickling things to death. The problem with that on the Oddessy of course is that it turns too damn slowly to get the things in arc (Even with the 45 degree forward cone) unless you separate the saucer, which works until you get blown up and then you are stuck on a cooldown till you can separate again. Also the Saucer sep takes up a console slot. And its mass is so huge that if you turn the ship at any kind of speed the ship can drift past the target.

That's a big reason I like the Excelsior, as it has the maneuverability to make a duel beam and turret setup effective. And to be fair a saucer sepped Oddessy probably does too.

[Morat20]

I see. Currently I'm working with a 2-1 phaser/photon setup (same in the back) and tend to go for broadsides from all four phaser arrays (usually in conjunction with a tractor beam) until the shields are down, and then swivel to fire off overpowered photon shots.

It seems to work okay. I haven't really tried much outside the beam array/photon setup. Considering swapping out my back photon torpedoes for something with more kick though -- transphasic or quantum torpedoes.