Star Trek Online : A New and Unbroken Thread!

[Morat20]

I keep noticing something odd on the duty officer systems -- I'll go to take an assignment I have the personnel for (no red marks or boxes) and then I'll be...missing someone. Latest one was a chef.

Didn't show up under the first officer's recommendations. So I go unclick that, and the civilian tab is completely empty. So I go double check -- and I have a chef "on reserve", not on an active assignment. I'm pretty certain I didn't assign the chef to some other position on the same op, but I guess that's possible.

I've also got to take a closer look at my uncommons -- I've got a surprising number of scientists with "unscrupulous" or "aggressive" which are generally not the greatest traits in a scientist.

[Rishathra]

As a cruiser, you want to put the low fire rate torpedoes in there for sure.  Photons are nice on an escort that can fire them constantly because they are always facing the target, not so much on the cruisers.  Your basic setup is otherwise a solid cruiser tactic.

I am saving up for the Regent, not for the ship itself, which I do like, but for that 180° torpedo launcher.  Maintain a constant broadside AND constant torpedoes?  Yes please.

As to the duty officer thing, I've noticed that some are bugged and occasionally won't show up on the selection lists for assignments.  Also, make sure it's a Fed duty officer, because the game lets you have Klingon faction doffs in your roster, it just won't let you use them for anything.  I'll send you an extra chef when I log in tonight, just in case.

[Morat20]

I use a klingon explosives officer all the time. I think he's klingon. I should double check.  I've been spending more than I should on duty officers and consolidating them into uncommons and starting to train up some rares. That has led to some..weirdieties I need to prune.uncrupulous scientists and way too mant advisors, not enough counselers and such.

Just need to t ake a bit and sift through it.

Fyi, what do you recommend for slow firing torpedoes fore and aft? Quantum, transphasic?

[Rishathra]

Note when I say Klingon I mean Klingon faction.  Federation-aligned Klingons are kosher.  There used to be a bright red border around portaits that would tell you this duty officer is the wrong faction for you, but they got rid of that for some reason.  Check the background of the portrait.  It will have a Federation or Klingon Empire symbol.

For torpedoes - quantum, hargh'peng, or tri-cobalt if you know what you are doing and it fits your play style.  Not a fan of transphasic.  They used to be completely worthless, but they were buffed recently.  Now they just suck less.  Some people like chroniton for the snare.

[Morat20]

I can tell I'm gonna need at least an hour to scour through my duty officer lists. How does. Donating duty officers to the starbase work? They have to be unbound, right?

[Sir T]

Take a look at what the torps special effect is. Photons are basically rapid fire. Quantums are raw damage. Plasma set things on fire and make a bog glowing ball when you high yield them. Chronoton slow them down, Transphasic do more damage through shields. There's a rapid fire transphasic that you can get from the breen missions as well.

Oh yeah, and tricobalts are shit.

[Rishathra]

Donating duty officers works like any other resource, just click on the donate button and a window will pop up allowing you to choose which ones to contribute.  They can be bound, just not the ones from Lt. Ferra.

[Stormwaltz]

Oh yeah, and tricobalts are shit.

There is nothing finer than hitting High Yield, popping an engine boost, then diving straight at a Borg command ship and popping a Heavy Tricobalt as you pull away.

[Morat20]

I said screw it and filed a bug on it. Orion, Civilian, Chef. Not in sickbay. On reserve duty. Will NOT come up to assign. Weird. I've only got the one chef -- uncommon one at that!

I have got to go over my bridge officers skills. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to play a bit more.

[Sir T]

Are you sure the DOFFs (Duty Officers) are of your faction? Fed ones wont work for klings and vice versa.

[Morat20]

Are you sure the DOFFs (Duty Officers) are of your faction? Fed ones wont work for klings and vice versa.

Nope! It's not.

Dammit! All I did was check the character's race -- Andorian = Federation, right? Apparently not. Andorian = Klingon in this case.

[Rishathra]

Huh, that's unusual.  I don't think I've ever seen an Andorian Klingon before, other than the ones you can buy from Marauding tiers.

Tier 2 Starbase finishes today!  Get your uncommon astrometrics scientists and fleet marks ready.  The transwarp gate project is up next.

[Morat20]

Don't think I have much left in fleet marks as I donated a ton, but have a four day weekend and plan to earn some more. ill check into astrometrics officers, but I don't think I can donate the dilithium purchased ones, right?

So what does the next tier of starbase get?

[Rishathra]

The Tier 2 Starbase gets us bank access, and more importantly, our starbase no longer looks like a Hitachi Magic Wand!  It also opens up the bartender project, but I only have about half of the Rotgut and a quarter of the Romulan Ale required to complete that one, so I'm going to wait a bit before starting it.

The midterm goal is to get the Fabricator and Shipyard to Tier 2, so we can have a better selection of ships, and also open up fleet space weapons for purchase.  Long term, I'll just keep the stores stocked and inch slowly towards the Tier 3 shipyard, and then the Tier 3 base.  Beyond that, I think that'll be it, as even large fleets are balking at the Tier 4 requirements for stuff.

Are you remembering to do the Investigate Officer Reports daily?  That's 50 fleet marks and 1440 dilithium for like, 30 seconds of work.

[Morat20]

I have not done that one. I've seen it, but not tried it. I think I conflated that one with. The foundry events.

Send me a list of anything I should be holding onto instead of vendoring..or a link to a list. I'm sure its on the wiki somewhere.

Edited to add: oh, it is the foundry one. Must be three quick missions someone designed to be over fast. Wish you earned something for people playing your missions, as long as they had a certain minimum length

[apocrypha]

Wish you earned something for people playing your missions, as long as they had a certain minimum length

There is an option to give a Dilithium tip to the mission author when you complete it, I would imagine that authors of good missions do get some tips.

I give small tips if I do a real mission, not just the "run to the tailor" instant missions :)

[Rishathra]

Run to the tailor?!?  Pffft.  Way too far.  I step outside the transporter room and click a panel once to complete three missions.   

Now, there are some really amazing missions that people have made, and they are well worth doing, but if you're not at least doing the daily, that's money on the table man.

[Stormwaltz]

I don't feel right doing those. I have to at least do Grand Negus' two-wave ship combat missions at Wolf 359 (search for "ufp distress").

[Rishathra]

I like those too.  They fill the 'short but still feel like you are doing something' niche well.

[Morat20]

I see we got a snazzy conference room. :) I've been throwing marks and what dilithium and other stuff I could spare into the projects. I like the starbase. Useful.

[Rishathra]

There's finally SOMETHING THERE now.  It looked odd that there was this room with basically nothing in it.  I'm hoping that the special projects will eventually extend to the starbase exterior as well.  Unlocking maps and stuff like that, so we could have the starbase orbiting a planet instead of being in the middle of nowhere for example.

If you haven't looked yet, you need to check out the ground equipment at the fleet vendor.  There's actually some really good stuff there.  I also forgot to mention that another perk of the tier 2 base is you can now buy uncommon duty officers.  They are random, but they pull from the reinforcements duty officer roster, so there are a bunch of new abilities.

[Morat20]

I grabbed some, actually. :) I really need to get the top-end engineering kit (the fabrication one with III's across the board. I've got the one step down one).

Most of the rather awesome stuff on the vendors was too pricey at the moment.

Also, what the hell is "tribble breeding"?

[Sir T]

Once you start doing STFs you can buy Mark X requisitions for 5 edcs or 1 rare borg salvage, and that will net you a Mark X kit.

[Morat20]

Once you start doing STFs you can buy Mark X requisitions for 5 edcs or 1 rare borg salvage, and that will net you a Mark X kit.

I've actually got 4 edcs right now. I accidentally did an elite Borg mission this morning. And did one on purpose (not elite!) latter today, just to get a feel for them.

[Rishathra]

Don't waste the edcs.  Get one more for the Borg engine.  Your kit is in the bank.

[Morat20]

Don't waste the edcs.  Get one more for the Borg engine.  Your kit is in the bank.

Ack! Too late! I actually got quite a bit. Armor, phaser rifle, kit....I was mostly working with the edc system. I've still got a few, but I already bought the kit before I checked here.

I get...deeply confused on Borg missions, though. Kinda hard to tell what's going on at times, and I think I need a better keyboard layout. I die way too much - -mostly because I can't hit the shield batteries or hypo easily (and they're small ones, and I need bigger ones).

[apocrypha]

Also, what the hell is "tribble breeding"?

Tribbles + rare food = rare tribbles.

Tribble Breeding!

[Morat20]

So I grabbed that kit and an omega body armor and rifle -- question, what's better? MACO or OMEGA stuff? Or is it just dependent on playstyle?

The warp 14 warp engine looked nice for space, though.

[Rishathra]

MACO is defensive, Omega is dps.  Both are good at their respective categories.  The ground stfs are also a bit more unforgiving when it comes to pugs/inexperienced players, and they take much longer to complete than the space ones, even if you know what you are doing.  So for purely edc earning purposes, I recommend Cure and Infected space.  That said, I have a lot of fun in the ground ones, especially when you put together a ground set.  Instant remodulation is  .

Regarding space sets, MACO is waaaay better than Omega.  The shield alone is a beast, and the engines break the warp 10 barrier, which helps in sector travel a lot.

[Strazos]

Hmmm...haven't played this for quite some time - since before it went F2P.

I guess it's perhaps worth patching up and getting back into? I think I stopped somewhere around the time that I got access to the Defiant-class ships and was trying to figure out how to make people melt most-quickly in PvP.

[Sir T]

The differentse between Maco and Omega ground sets is simple. maco Gives more protection, has a shield heal secondary poer and give you a defensive field effect on you alone. It also has a far better gun

The Omega gun is junk and its protection is not brilliant. But it gives a dodge bonus natively and here is the important thing. It cases a field that at mark X Increases the dodge of everyone in the team, Mark XI increases the dodge and Chance of critical hit, and At Mark XII gives a bonus to Dodge, crit hit and damage. And the good thing? Its cumulative, so the effect increases with every guy that has one on the team. So if you have 3 guys with Omega sets the Borg just get mown down, and your team survives better. Frankly after 100s of STFs I never use Maco anymore and the first thing I look at is how many Omegas we have on the team. You can tell but the amount of tactical readiness fields you see beside your status. If I see 3 fields I know we are going to have a good run.

[Morat20]

So get Omega for ground, but use a different gun unless doing a STF?

[Sir T]

Well, the field is the 3 piece power so 

Besides, you have another gun slot, and you don't have to be holding the gun for it to work, just have it equipped. And its actually not too bad, its just that borg adapt to it quickly. But whenever this topic comes up every says "the Omega is bad becasue THE GUN SUCKS!!"

I will say that a guy I know was testing the Mark XII fleet armour and he got murdered. We had a look and it turned out that he was just so used to the dodge bonus that the slightly better protection offered didn't matter.

[Morat20]

So I kept trying to figure out how to feed food to tribbles. It turns out, I can just leave them in my bank account with food. So, you know, apparently I'm gonna breed tribbles now. :)

I hate retraining officers to new skills -- swapped out tachyon beam for energy siphon and it screwed up my entire task bar.

[Ironwood]

Did you watch the episode ?