Star Trek Online : A New and Unbroken Thread!

[Sir T]

Season 7 is here today!

Big things, now area, you can do missions on New Romulus, Reputation system (Oh goody you can now do fleet projects for yourself. Hold me back)

Also, Dilithium generation just got a big fat kick in the nuts. ITS TIME TO GRIIIIIIND!!!

If you want to read the good stuff and sob quietly, here are the patch notes. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=6522551#post6522551

I really really like the gameplay of this game but its turning into grind central for even me.

[Stormwaltz]

"The Dilithium reward has been removed from the Chart the B'Tran Cluster, Vice Admiral - Daily, mission."

EDIT:

The "General Recruitment" assignment available on both faction Academy zones has been altered:
    Duration increased from 20 hours to 48 hours.
    An input cost of 1000 Dilithium has been added.


BOOOOOOOOOOOO.  

These changes hamstring the very few ways small fleets can get by with the Starbase system. Seriously, my fleet of eight is STILL trying to scratch our way to Tier II.

[Sir T]

They designed the Starbase system with the old Dil generation and then they took an axe to it. This update looks like it was designed by the designers of the NGE. I've been watching the STF channels look on in horror. Would you believe they actually had Dil as part of the price for the reputation system till everyone and their aunt screamed at them?

[Rishathra]

Yeah, now that my easy fleet mark generation has been taken away,  Bat Quadrant's starbase is going to slow down its progress some.  The good news is I only have the tier 2 shipyard to complete at this point and I'll be able to do that off of stockpiles.  I'm worried how much of the embassy I'll be able to upgrade though.

I like the stuff that's been added, but they've gone a bit overboard with the dilithium choking.  Removing dilithium earning activities and adding several new dilithium sinks at the same time is pretty shitty.  Doffgrinding is effectively dead now.

[Morat20]

What did they nerf, Fleet Mark wise? I never even noticed the dilithium costs of recruitment missions.

OTOH, I have a pretty active doff setup -- just hit T4 development. :)

[Sir T]

They removed the "press a button, get 1400 dil" foundry abulity. but that also came with 50 fleet marks. So now you have to pug with idiots to get 19 odd fleet marks. Boo hiss.

[5150]

Steam has a new STO pack (60% off until tomorrow) which appears to come with 2 unique bridge officers and 2 unique escorts (one tier 1 and a tier 5 refit) and a few other bits and pieces - federation characters only though

[Rishathra]

They removed the "press a button, get 1400 dil" foundry abulity. but that also came with 50 fleet marks. So now you have to pug with idiots to get 19 odd fleet marks. Boo hiss.

On the one hand, I understand that clicking a button for 1440 dilithium and 50 fleet marks is maybe a bit too easy.  On the other hand, I really liked it.

[5150]

They removed the "press a button, get 1400 dil" foundry abulity. but that also came with 50 fleet marks. So now you have to pug with idiots to get 19 odd fleet marks. Boo hiss.

So they nerfed the investigate officer reports mission as well?

[Rishathra]

Yup.  They made it so that only missions with an average play time of TWENTY minutes count for Investigate Officer Reports.

[Zetor]

Not taking a side in this (esp. since I don't even play) - but regarding the Foundry, are/were people playing any of the player creations other than the "click this to receive daily reward" one?

[Riggswolfe]

Steam has a new STO pack (60% off until tomorrow) which appears to come with 2 unique bridge officers and 2 unique escorts (one tier 1 and a tier 5 refit) and a few other bits and pieces - federation characters only though

It says you have to have ST:O through Steam to play then says you redeem the code on Star Trek Online. I wonder if it is worth it for 2 uncommon quality bridge officers, a title, an xp boost and 2 Escort ships that look kind of cool admittedly.

[5150]

Steam has a new STO pack (60% off until tomorrow) which appears to come with 2 unique bridge officers and 2 unique escorts (one tier 1 and a tier 5 refit) and a few other bits and pieces - federation characters only though

It says you have to have ST:O through Steam to play then says you redeem the code on Star Trek Online. I wonder if it is worth it for 2 uncommon quality bridge officers, a title, an xp boost and 2 Escort ships that look kind of cool admittedly.

The purchase just gives you a[nother] CD key in Steam use activate on the STO web site (can be used against an existing account or a new one, you'll get more mileage out of it if you're new though). Since STO in Steam is free to begin with I cant see that being a show stopper if you want this

[Riggswolfe]

Steam has a new STO pack (60% off until tomorrow) which appears to come with 2 unique bridge officers and 2 unique escorts (one tier 1 and a tier 5 refit) and a few other bits and pieces - federation characters only though

It says you have to have ST:O through Steam to play then says you redeem the code on Star Trek Online. I wonder if it is worth it for 2 uncommon quality bridge officers, a title, an xp boost and 2 Escort ships that look kind of cool admittedly.

The purchase just gives you a[nother] CD key in Steam use activate on the STO web site (can be used against an existing account or a new one, you'll get more mileage out of it if you're new though). Since STO in Steam is free to begin with I cant see that being a show stopper if you want this

The point is I already have STO, just not through Steam. *shrugs*

[5150]

Steam has a new STO pack (60% off until tomorrow) which appears to come with 2 unique bridge officers and 2 unique escorts (one tier 1 and a tier 5 refit) and a few other bits and pieces - federation characters only though

It says you have to have ST:O through Steam to play then says you redeem the code on Star Trek Online. I wonder if it is worth it for 2 uncommon quality bridge officers, a title, an xp boost and 2 Escort ships that look kind of cool admittedly.

The purchase just gives you a[nother] CD key in Steam use activate on the STO web site (can be used against an existing account or a new one, you'll get more mileage out of it if you're new though). Since STO in Steam is free to begin with I cant see that being a show stopper if you want this

The point is I already have STO, just not through Steam. *shrugs*

Ah I'm with you now, I don't think you'd need to have it installed through Steam to make the purchase as I would expect the game to appear in your Steam library once you make the purchase which is all you need to access the key

[Sir T]

Not taking a side in this (esp. since I don't even play) - but regarding the Foundry, are/were people playing any of the player creations other than the "click this to receive daily reward" one?

I did occasionally, yeah. Most people were too busy chasing dil to bother though.

Anyway, looks like Starbase 24 and Gorn Minefield are now providing Dil for your needs.

[Sir T]

Patch today restored dil from stfs, but at a lower amount than previous. And broke private instances and the foundry...

The new stfs are hella fun though. I did into the hive space normal yesterday and someone said "I thought this was normal" and I said "This is normal. if it was Elite all those cubes would be Tactical cubes"  The ground mission against the borg queen is a lot of fun as well.

[Riggswolfe]

I played some yesterday. I was going to contribute some materials to the fleet projects but it more or less just sat there saying transferring until I got annoyed and canceled out of it.

I ran into an annoying bug where my BOFs and 1 of my weapons got removed during a space battle and I got my ass handed to me. Then I had to figure out a workaround to get my BOFs back at their stations. Highly annoying. Also, Romulans suck to fight at anything other than normal difficulty because of their damned plasma torpedoes.

[Rishathra]

I keep forgetting that they put those in there.  I have to try them.  They sound fun.

I was worried about the time gating of the reputation system, but the good news is that actual progression through it is easy.  I did just one Elite STF last night and earned enough marks to get to tier 1 Omega rep.  It's the same for the Romulans.  The daily wrapper mission for doing patrols in the new sector (which are themselves a lot of fun) alone was enough to get me to tier 1.

One of the things that has made me enjoy STO so much over the years is that they've always been good at adding little touches here and there which enhance the authenticity of the setting.  For example, the mission contact for the daily missions in Tau Dewa sounds EXACTLY like a Romulan female should.  The voice actress nailed the inflections, accent, attitude, etc.  She sounds exactly like someone who was traditionally an arrogant xenophope, laid low by her empire's collapse, struggling to rebuild her civilization, knowing she needs outside help to do it, reluctantly accepting yours and reluctantly grateful for it, while still maintaining her haughty pride.  Mind you, all of this is successfully communicated soley through the short blurbs that she spouts out whenever you select her contact and accept and turn in missions to her, which makes it all the more amazing to me.

Riggswolfe, there's a known bug right now where certain project materials will have the contribute button still highlighted even if the requirements have been met.  That might be what your problem was.

[Stormwaltz]

Is it the same actress who played the Vulcan Admiral in the Reman episodes and the Ferengi in the Dominion ones?

I could tell those two were the same voice actress, but she nailed the distinctive sounds of two very different races.

[Sir T]

It definitely could be, And I agree. she utterly nailed that voice inflection.

You know, despite my griping, I have to admit I'm enjoying the casual friendly gameplay of the reputation system. And I agree the patrols are fun and there's 12 planets or so and you only have to do 6 so you can pick the ones you like. Plus New Romulus is a heck of a lot better designed than Nukura.

So despite them messing up Dil farming I'm actually having a good time with it. Its nice not doing STFs the whole time. But then I have all the ships I want, and I blew a ton of dil I had stored up on the Vesta pack for my science guys and its a really good Sci ship.

[Rishathra]

Are you using those aux powered cannons, or a more traditional weapon setup?

[Sir T]

2 Aux cannons and dual beam in the front, and Turrets and a beam in the back. I might swap in 3 beams in the back to be honest. The nice thing about the aux cannons is that if you use beam overload the -50 to weapon power does not effect the cannons damage at all, a hidden advantage. Also having it draw from 2 sources reduces the power drain on Weapons power.

{edit} Ok, heres the low down

Fermilon Field. Basically a giant healing field around you that heals you and allies. Very nice

The Quantum Field Focus Phaser is a cutting beam that fires in the front 45 degree arc to 12 seconds on the target, doing about 2000 points of damage/sec (with my skills and a phaser boost module) its main weakness is that if the target goes out of arc for even a split second the beam breaks.

Multidimensional Graviton Shield. Pushes enemies back away from you back. Reflects kinetic damage inflicted on you and protects against Grav wells.

2 parts lets you use an advanced slipstream drive that lets you move at 4 times speed when you use slipstream drive.

3 Consoles lets you deploy a shield that makes you invulnerable for 15 seconds, but you cant fire. Similar to the Ablative armour on the Voyager, but it makes you invulnerable, not just highly resistant.

[Riggswolfe]

Alright, I've started contributing to the fleet. I added enough to earn 31,800 fleet credit which I may turn in for fleet marks or something.

[Strazos]

So...can someone let me know who here still plays, especially over TS? I'd like to play with you guys at some point...even if you're on Euro time, since I'm there anyway.

[Morat20]

I play -- jayna@morat1.

I'm still in the default top-end Science ship. I've been looking at expanding. (I have a Mirror Universe ship I'm still equipping that has 2 tactics consoles instead of 2 science, but is otherwise the same). I just don't, other than fleet refits, where to go from here. (Strangely, I'm an engineer flying a science vessel. But I like it!).

I've got a tactics alt, but haven't gotten very far with it - level 5ish. Still don't have a Klingon one. :)

Got to try the new Romulan missions -- did the "rescue ships from the Tholian" and the Vault, which were fun. I haven't done a lot of romulan stuff. Heck, I'm still only partway through that episode.

[Rishathra]

I'm still here, @Rishathra, but I don't use TS or have a microphone.  I hop in to STFs pretty regularly but I am far from super pro at them.  I only just started doing ISE because the mark rewards are so much better than running normal.  I'm also enjoying the new Romulan stuff quite a bit, both the space patrols and the New Romulus stuff.

So Morat, what exactly are you looking to expanding to?  There are better ships out there than what you are flying , but really, they aren't THAT much better.  Your upgrade path is more about steadily improving equipment.  Changing ships is more of a lateral move, trying out different playstyles more than gaining more power.

[Riggswolfe]

I'm so pissed at myself. Those damn temporal lock boxes are like crack to me. I need to put them down and walk away but I keep thinking the next one will have that temporal ship! I've actually gotten 4 of the mirror universe ships and sold 2 of them on the auction house.

[Morat20]

I have a ton of lock-boxes in my bank. Like...120 or so. Mostly temporal, some other ones.

As for ships, I'm kinda curious about carriers. I built the tactics alt to try out some of the tactics ships. Love the massive death by cannon assaults. :)

[Riggswolfe]

I have a ton of lock-boxes in my bank. Like...120 or so. Mostly temporal, some other ones.

As for ships, I'm kinda curious about carriers. I built the tactics alt to try out some of the tactics ships. Love the massive death by cannon assaults. :)

My main is a tactics alt. Here's what I can tell you has been my experience but please know that I am not an expert. Against numerous smaller ships I am typically a terror. I can destroy most smaller ships in a single pass if all of my stuff is off of cool down. The game will usually throw smaller ships at you in groups of 3 or 4 and I find these fights to be little problem as a tactical officer.

Big ships though? Like battle cruisers? I have to play smart if I want to survive and it is often a punishing fight for me. So far Romulans are the worst because if I don't shoot down those damned torpedoes they tear my ship up.

BOFs are helping me a ton especially shield and hull heals from my science and engineering BOFs. I just hit 50 and am going to take the Chimera heavy destroyer out for a spin. I hear it's like an escort but with more survivability at the expense of maneuverability. We'll see how well it works for me.

[Rishathra]

The chimera is nice and I didn't miss the maneuverability.  It feels the same.  I am also a fan of massive cannon damage.  It was hard for me to go back to other ship types after flying an escort.  Carriers are fun to play and very useful, but the raw damage output can be lacking.  The kar'fi is an absolute beast, however.  It can equip cannons and deploy frigates that launch tricobalt torpedoes and mines.  HUGE damage potential.

Do.  Not.  Ever.  Open.  Lockboxes.  You are far better off just earning ec and buying all the good stuff from lockboxes off of the exchange.  I've managed to get all of the nice toys from the boxes without ever opening one.  I sell doffs and artifacts and pretty much anything else that will go for 50k or greater on the exchange, and I make mark 12 consoles and sell them.  This has allowed me to get every good lockbox item other than the no-trade lobi store stuff.  And those are far from the only ways to make money.

Another good way to make money:  Klingon alts.  They are contraband earning machines.  You will easily get more contraband than you can turn in for dilithium, so just sell the excess on the exchange.

[Morat20]

Can you trade contraband from Klingon to Federation characters, through the account bank? How about dilithium? (I know you can ECs and between Fed alts)..

[Rishathra]

Yes on contraband.  For dilithium, there's a trick to it.  Go on the dilithium exchange and make a sale offer on whatever amount of dilithium you wish to trade, and make it a shitty offer so nobody takes it.  Then immediately cancel the offer and the dilithium gets removed from the exchange, but not immediately back on to your character.  Then log on to your other character and claim the dilithium.

[Morat20]

Just a note -- the Season 7 chick with the glowing phaser? Everytime she comes up on the launch screen, I think of Harry Potter. It's like they ripped her straight off a movie poster and just photoshopped in a phaser over the wand.

I'm waiting for her to shout "Expelliearmas!" or whatever.

[Sir T]

Do.  Not.  Ever.  Open.  Lockboxes.  You are far better off just earning ec and buying all the good stuff from lockboxes off of the exchange. 

Yep. If you are that desperate its better to spend you dil or money on Keys and then sell the keys on the exchange. You will get your temporal destroyer much faster that way. That's now I got the Tholian carrier for my Klingon sci, But I might go get a mobius for him.

Agree that the Kar'fi is utter death in the hands of a Tac character. Its just not funny the damage it puts out.