Star Trek Online : A New and Unbroken Thread!

[Surlyboi]

Episode 8.5 launched yesterday in typical STO fashion. The servers shit the bed explosively and repeatedly, like a baby with food poisoning. The servers were down yesterday longer than they were up.

That said, the story addition is spectacular.

[Stormwaltz]

I think - I think - they fixed the two most paper-cut-obnoxious bugs of the last two years: random skills adding themselves to the hotbars on every map transition, and DOff Department Heads changing themselves on every map transition.

I'm still holding my breath, though.

[Tannhauser]

Just finished the new 8.5 mission.  Nice!  I love these little storyline additions they keep adding on to the game.  I'm not a guy who does dailies, never have, so I've been away from STO for a few weeks after getting a good taste of the Dyson missions and ground combat.  Good to see their attempts to keep a story line going.

[Surlyboi]

I got the borrowed ship, it's passable, but the stock model without all the right consoles is still less powerful than my adapted destroyer.

[Riggswolfe]

Just worked out how to set priority on my space weapons auto-fire. That was...helpful. I want the hyper-plasma torpedo launcher to fire first, then the Omega one. I might swap the Omega one to the back, though. I'm only using Torpedo Spread 1 and High Yield Torpedo 1 though..

How do you do this? Is it chat commands?

[Morat20]

Just worked out how to set priority on my space weapons auto-fire. That was...helpful. I want the hyper-plasma torpedo launcher to fire first, then the Omega one. I might swap the Omega one to the back, though. I'm only using Torpedo Spread 1 and High Yield Torpedo 1 though..

How do you do this? Is it chat commands?

Click order. Whatever order you click weapons to turn them to autofire is the priority.

So I turned off all the torpedoes from autofire, then turned "hyper plasma" on first, then omega -- so the HP now has priority to fire. Strangely simple and not really documented. Took me awhile to track it down.

I need to log back on to STO and at least take a look at the fleet projects. I spent the Winter Event stocking up on marks....:)

[Tannhauser]

Thanks for that tip! 

[Surlyboi]

Seriously, just get us to shipyard 3. I'm working my ass off to do it, but it's slow going.

[Morat20]

Seriously, just get us to shipyard 3. I'm working my ass off to do it, but it's slow going.

Working on it. I was focusing on getting to Spire 1. I'd like to get to Embassy 3 to get the top-end kits and the third bonus duty officer job slot.

But right now I'm out of marks and out of dilithium. :) I've got something like 6 personal projects that need dilithium too and I'm trying to balance them. (On the bright side, I have graduated to elite missions and seem to do okay, so bonus?)

[Surlyboi]

I've only run two elite STFs ever. One was a smashing success, the other a complete disaster.

[5150]

I'm having huge problems playing this, I get dropped with a server timeout on every-single-zone change (and then it takes me a couple of attempts to get back in. It was hit an miss over xmas the the timeout counter _almost_ reaching 10 during a zone change and the occasional drop but now it's every one.

I've tried the EU proxy in the launcher (couldn't even connect) and am >< that close to logging a support ticket (to which I preduct a stock and completely irrelevant reply) but I wondered if anyone knew of any timeout settings (probably only need to double it to 20 secs). I've looked through the files but couldn't see anything obvious

A google search returns a bunch of people with the same issue years ago but no fix because in most cases the server was actually down :-(

[Merusk]

No clue, sorry.

Just hit 50 on my Rommie and now I'm trying to puzzle out how to actually do damage.  My Fed char has the Andoran ship and it kicks ass, but even after upping to MK XII cannons on the Rommie I can't pummel things as quickly.  Quite annoying.

[Surlyboi]

Tac, sci or engie?

[Merusk]

Fed is Engie, Rom is Tac.   

I thought maybe it was just perception on my part but then I ran another daily on the fed and was able to tear-up the Voth cruiser in the Andoran that proceeded to pummel the Rommy on whom I'm using the 700 day vet cruiser at the moment.   

[Simond]

I'm having huge problems playing this, I get dropped with a server timeout on every-single-zone change (and then it takes me a couple of attempts to get back in. It was hit an miss over xmas the the timeout counter _almost_ reaching 10 during a zone change and the occasional drop but now it's every one.

I've tried the EU proxy in the launcher (couldn't even connect) and am >< that close to logging a support ticket (to which I preduct a stock and completely irrelevant reply) but I wondered if anyone knew of any timeout settings (probably only need to double it to 20 secs). I've looked through the files but couldn't see anything obvious

A google search returns a bunch of people with the same issue years ago but no fix because in most cases the server was actually down :-(

Turn off dynamic patching in the options.

[Surlyboi]

Fed is Engie, Rom is Tac.   

I thought maybe it was just perception on my part but then I ran another daily on the fed and was able to tear-up the Voth cruiser in the Andoran that proceeded to pummel the Rommy on whom I'm using the 700 day vet cruiser at the moment.   

Engies are significantly more versatile in my experience than Tacticals. That said, switch out your boff stations, get more engineers in those universal slots. This has worked for my tactical.

[Riggswolfe]

Fed is Engie, Rom is Tac.   

I thought maybe it was just perception on my part but then I ran another daily on the fed and was able to tear-up the Voth cruiser in the Andoran that proceeded to pummel the Rommy on whom I'm using the 700 day vet cruiser at the moment.   

The number one mistake most new Romulans make is not taking advantage of battle cloak. You get that buff everytime you attack from cloak so your attack pattern should be cloak-decloak-attack-pull away-cloak-decloak-attack. More or less. If you do it right your DPS will go up pretty well. Get BOFFs and Doffs that increase your de-cloaking damage, as well as traits for yourself along with a reduction in the cloak cooldown timer.

[Merusk]

Yeah, that one I realized a while back while leveling.  Rommies are the EQ rogues of STO: they should be vanishing as often as possible.  So I cloak/de, pop off cannon & torp abilities and then come 'round again.  (Unless of course I'm in a group where I take all the damn aggro because despite my low DPS I'm still outstripping the other players)

I'm just trying to puzzle out why things like the Voss cruisers pop to my Andoran while they are a struggle on the Rommie.  All I can figure is I'm still using Tier X engines, etc because I haven't re-run the Breen missions at 50 and don't have the rep for other gear yet.   I sold some fleet modules and am sitting on millions so I debated upgrading from the Blue MkXII plasma cannons to Purples but I can't justify that cost for the apparently small bump in dps.

[Surlyboi]

How many cannons do you need and what type?

Also, I ran my third elite STF last night, got called a noob, but still out-damaged everyone on the mission and finished it successfully.

[5150]

Turn off dynamic patching in the options.

Thanks, I tried that yesterday but it didn't make a huge difference (still timeout on every zone but I now seem to get back in on the first try)

I could understand it if I was entering a zone I'd never been in before or that has been updated since my last visit but all I'm currently doing is bouncing between the academy and Q to do Party Patrol on 8 characters

[Surlyboi]

Check the fleet bank Merusk.

[Merusk]

I'm not in your fleet, but thanks   

[Surlyboi]

Bleh. I'll mail 'em to ya tonight.

[Merusk]

Bleh. I'll mail 'em to ya tonight.

Rock, thanks.

[Torinak]

Giving this a try (Fed Engineer Thorlyg@Tynprr), just made Commander. The game is sure rough--polish and quality-of-life tweaks are rather lacking, especially for a 4-year-old game. But some parts of it do feel "Star Trek" enough to be entertaining for now.

[Morat20]

Did I use bonus dilithium weekend to finally turn in the quest for capping Nukara reputation and got 48,000 dilithium instead of 32,000? Yes I did. :)

Which is good, because I have, um, 120,000 dilithium backlogged Tier V purple sets to acquire. (Two more for the Romulan, all three of the Mk 12 Omega...)

[Merusk]

I continue to be confuzzled about how you acquire dilithium in such vast quantities.  My characters haven't ever had more than 30k at a time.

Not that it matters at the moment since ARC is being a bitch and not letting me log in.

[Surlyboi]

A combination of capping reputation runs, doff assignments and running dailies.

[Morat20]

I continue to be confuzzled about how you acquire dilithium in such vast quantities.  My characters haven't ever had more than 30k at a time.

Not that it matters at the moment since ARC is being a bitch and not letting me log in.

You get like 32,000 for capping reputation (it's a quick run there, turn it in quest). I happened to have NOT gotten around to turning in the one for Nukara, so with the bonus weekend -- I took the time.

Most of it is doff assignments -- 2000 for turning in contraband, and I can generally run another 1000 or so with misc other missions. Then there's dailies -- doing the Lore at starfleet academy is quick and easy for 480, and then just do some group PvE -- the daily PvE missions, and then elite missions or just regular Omega missions.

I don't really grind for it, I just don't spend it that often. I've got 55k to refine, but 48 of that was a one-off (well, 32k+16k bonus) Nukara rep. I've got a Dyson one coming soon for another 32,000 though..

Just make sure to always keep an eye out for Confiscate Contraband from Crew and Inspect Freighters and try for crits. I've got a stack of 45 contraband in my inventory whcih is what, 2 or 3k per 5?

[Merusk]

Ah.. I have yet to cap a single rep (grind..grind..grind) and I always fail the contraband Doff mission.  I should buy some purple security personnel.

The dailies and such I'm doing, it's just time then. Good to know, thanks.

[Morat20]

Ah.. I have yet to cap a single rep (grind..grind..grind) and I always fail the contraband Doff mission.  I should buy some purple security personnel.

The dailies and such I'm doing, it's just time then. Good to know, thanks.

Yeah, I put serious work into my doffs. :) Mostly to get good purples for the space/ground slots I wanted, but once you finish some of the colonization quest chains you get a lot of purple doffs.

It takes a lot longer to make it than to spend it. The 45k now that I have left to refine is all spoken for, as is another 50k on top of that. But that's because I'm currently buying 2 sets (three pieces each) of Mark XII purple rep gear. Which is, short of fleet bases, about as pricey as it gets. :)

[Surlyboi]

I just blew all of my Dil on two sets of XII Dyson ship gear, I'll do it again for XII Omega and MACO ground gear, so I'm basically done for when it comes to dil for at least another month or two.

[Stormwaltz]

Not that it matters at the moment since ARC is being a bitch and not letting me log in.

You installed ARC? o_O

I guess the Khan outfits are nice and all, but seriously: fuck bloatware.

[Morat20]

Ah.. I have yet to cap a single rep (grind..grind..grind) and I always fail the contraband Doff mission.  I should buy some purple security personnel.

The dailies and such I'm doing, it's just time then. Good to know, thanks.

Admittedly, the only reason i capped Dyson rep so easily is the mark packages from the Winter event. (Winter Epohh breeding). Also generated the marks to cap Nukara (I was close anyways), and for the Borg and Romulan Space gear sets I was buying.

What's ARC?

[Rishathra]

I started playing this again after a few months away, and holy hell.  The Sphere is really well done and I enjoyed pretty much everything in it.  This game may have some long-standing warts but the art direction definitely isn't one of them.  A stand out moment is when you are in the subspace network access area and the different worlds appear as you approach various platforms. 

I'm generally not a ground guy but I hopped down to the battle zone just to check the place out and the next thing I know it's three hours later and I had a blast.  I want player mechsuits now.

As someone who has six non-mule alts I also really appreciated the addition of the reputation sponsorship token.