Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[Simon_Jester]

In an unrelated note, this sums up the kind of time padding busywork I keep running into on the ground.

Yeah, although honestly I found this mission to be worse for that than a lot of others. I almost feel like the mission was designed to get you irritated with the amiable incompetence of the Talaxians.

Seriously, they are portrayed as disorganized to the point where in my headcanon, my Vulcan science officer mutters to Tuvok during this mission, in a typical Vulcan-style joke:

"I am aware that records say the Talaxian homeworld is under hostile occupation, causing a diaspora of Talaxian refugees. However, based on the observational data, I speculate that perhaps the Talaxians merely misplaced their home planet, and are unable to find it again."

[raised eyebrows ensue]

[RogueIce]

Yeah, the Talaxians were utterly useless. Thankfully I have given my characters more costume slots than they really need, so I always have a 'costume' that is my salty Senior Operations Chief who I use for that mission. I imagine his dialogue goes something like this:

NSFW for language

[mr friendly guy]

You do realize you can just train your bridge officers in different skills and set them to do something else; if you want her summoning medical generators or turrets instead of cover shields, you can do that..

Yes, I could do that. I probably should.

On that note, which types of bridge officers with which skills would be a good general purpose away team ?

I use two tactical (one of them also has command specialization with an ability to call in an air strike), 2 engineers and my toon is the science guy. I like engineers because they can create phaser turrets, shield generators and quantum mortars, for that extra fire power. Not sure how you play though.

Just seems like a lot of work to do when you could be, I don't know, playing the game? That kind of minor incremental improvement in your stats is nice, I guess, but all that kind of takes away from the fun of the game IMO.

Actually at end game, I find that's part of the fun. Trying to work out different combinations. It just gives the game replayable value, especially when you redo the missions at a higher setting.

[Lord Revan]

In an unrelated note, this sums up the kind of time padding busywork I keep running into on the ground.

Yeah, although honestly I found this mission to be worse for that than a lot of others. I almost feel like the mission was designed to get you irritated with the amiable incompetence of the Talaxians.

Seriously, they are portrayed as disorganized to the point where in my headcanon, my Vulcan science officer mutters to Tuvok during this mission, in a typical Vulcan-style joke:

"I am aware that records say the Talaxian homeworld is under hostile occupation, causing a diaspora of Talaxian refugees. However, based on the observational data, I speculate that perhaps the Talaxians merely misplaced their home planet, and are unable to find it again."

[raised eyebrows ensue]

What I like about STO is that for the most part have been able to take things from even less liked Star Trek series and make them sort of work, replaying the Future Proof missions on my AoY char I noticed that Na'kuhl orginally had hair and normal looking eyes before coming the "space nazis" and they sort of have a reason for becoming the villain even if they went off the deep end with it, Noye on the other hand just seems to get crazier everytime you meet him.

[mr friendly guy]

I think you can get pretty close with Disruptors. IIRC there are at least 7 different versions of them, though I believe a few are just different shades of green.

.

I think I did a good job with polarons.
Chronometric polarons are aquamarine (you need two of them for the chronometric energy converter bonus)

Advance thoron infused polaron array is gold (needed one of them for the set bonuses to get isokinetic cannon)

Regular polaron is purple (used a 360 degree omni beam array, so I have three 360 degree beam arrays for extra coverage)

Of course kinetic cutting beam is red and gives 360 degree coverage.

This is for a science ship with 6 weapon slots. If you need more, there is Vaadwaar polaron which gives blue light.

Rainbow ship, and a damn powerful science ship too with battle cloak, plasma barrage, isokinetic cannon, isometric charge, and phaser broadside to complement my gravity well, destabilizing resonance beam, subspace vortex, and of course a secondary deflector doing radiation damage when I use gravity well. Gravity well also explodes due to my trait giving another 8000 damage.

Plus due to my temporal operative skills, when I am near death I teleport out the way. Man the Na'khul science ship is fun.

[bilateralrope]

Any suggestions for which specialisations I should unlock first ?

Looking at temporal operative I see a lot of effects that trigger on DOTs, which my ship doesn't have.

In an unrelated note, this sums up the kind of time padding busywork I keep running into on the ground.

Yeah, although honestly I found this mission to be worse for that than a lot of others. I almost feel like the mission was designed to get you irritated with the amiable incompetence of the Talaxians.

Yes and no. On the one hand, this mission had more of these tasks than others.

On the other hand, they were all click the button to move the number in the right direction, making it quick to get through each 'puzzle'. Others have more walking back and forth or fighting the UI to implement the solution your bridge officer just told you.

This isn't a case of solve the soup cans because your bridge officers do the puzzle solving for you. You just have to do all the busywork.

[bilateralrope]

While attempting experimental console upgrades there was an explosion, placing two more R&D holograms into my runabouts sickbay.

[mr friendly guy]

Any suggestions for which specialisations I should unlock first ?

Looking at temporal operative I see a lot of effects that trigger on DOTs, which my ship doesn't have.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Captain_Specialization

Speaking as someone who has unlocked all of them... it depends on what ship you're going to play or whether you will need it more for ground.

Commando
Pure ground. Boosts hitpoints and shield points. Not so useful if you want space. However I love using commando if I know I am going to be in the queue for ground PvE.

Strategist
Shield boost, but I don't remember any special abilities that really stood out for me.

Pilot
A quick escort like defiant type ships or the pilot escorts might benefit from pilot specialization. Do note that since these ships are already pretty agile, giving more piloting skills to them might not help. Pilot is also useful IMO for ships which are slow such as cruisers and science ships, where you might still need some manoeuvrability. So I pretty much keep pilot as my secondary skill. The turn rate is useful for sloooow ships. I don't really need some of the other abilities of pilot.

If I play a fast ship, I most probably won't need it.

Command officer
Boosts your health for ground and space. Makes tough ships even tougher. I used it when playing command ships early on when I started playing STO. Might be useful for more frail ships, like science or escorts. However with escorts, you should be using speed or special abilities to get away when its too much to handle. Seems more useful for working in teams.

Intelligence

I haven't really found it useful for my playing style, so I can't help you there.

Temporal operative

Now this is real useful for how I play, and not because of the DoT abilities. In fact I don't like the DoT abilities at all. Unfortunately it takes you a while to get the good stuff. What I like about it is

Ground
1. enhance kit abilities -> since I like using ground play
2. using kit abilities recharge my big blasts (secondary firing) faster. Great for ground since my arcwave blast knocks back and covers a large amount of area

Space
1. Exotic particle damage -> this is great even if you don't play science ships, as long as you use some science skills effectively. Even with some non science ships (ie ships without a secondary deflector) I utilise gravity well and maybe subspace vortex. This helps with that.

2. Continuity - allows you to escape by teleporting you out the way and healing you when you're near death. Several times I escaped death from this ability.

3. Boosting anomaly attacks - since I use gravity well and subspace vortex, this allows them to follow enemy ships so they take more damage as its harder to run away.

[bilateralrope]

Reading about the Admiralty system it seems that I should focus on one faction at a time to get the level 10 ship card quickest.

After I've got all three maxed out, I'm thinking of focusing on Federation until I've unlocked all specialisations.

As for my skill build, that's become simplified a bit. EPS corruption is a fun thing to use, which needs 27 points in engineering skills to fully unlock. Thus I need to pick 3 of the engineering skills to not have. I'm thinking Hull Capacity gets ignored, as tanking comes from how fast I heal, not my total hitpoints, and I've got no in-combat healing that is improved by increasing hull capacity.

That leaves me with 19 points. My thoughts are to grab:
- 3 points in shield restoration
- 3 points in defensive manoeuvring
- 3 in shield hardness
- 3 in weapon specialisation (crit chance)
- 3 in weapon amplification (crit damage)
- Shield master (negate a critical hit once every 20 seconds)
- 3 points in hull penetration

Any thoughts ?

I have noticed that skill points are the only area where STO discourages experimentation because every change costs. Traits, gear, specialisations and bridge officer abilities only cost when you unlock the ability, you can switch between unlocked for free. Why is that ?

[Lord Revan]

Just bare in mind that you species like the borg that can more or less nullify your shields so you shouldn't focus on it too hard.

[bilateralrope]

Then I do need to go looking for builds that people suggest because I can't afford to experiment with skill points.

[Zwinmar]

My problem with my Nyhidron Destroyer is no matter what I do there are times where I just get insta-gibbed. Shields are still full and everything, just pop, I'm dead. However, am liking the pilot skills with it, its more than just the agility but also shield hardening and being able to take a point blank warp core breach without damage.

[bilateralrope]

I think I just hit the worst Prime Directive scene that I've ever seen. I just had the reveal about the Kobali temple and what's down there. That would be a very interesting ethical dilemma to explore, especially given the war. But no, that all gets brushed aside because "Prime Directive means we can't get involved" even though the Federation was already involved with the Kobali.

At least all the questionable times the Prime Directive came up in canon Trek were cases where it was being used as a reason to avoid involvement.

[Simon_Jester]

I could have sworn the Federation brokers some kind of arrangement at the end of the whole affair, though.

[bilateralrope]

I could have sworn the Federation brokers some kind of arrangement at the end of the whole affair, though.

I don't know, haven't reached that point yet as I went to do other episodes after that point.

[RogueIce]

I think I just hit the worst Prime Directive scene that I've ever seen. I just had the reveal about the Kobali temple and what's down there. That would be a very interesting ethical dilemma to explore, especially given the war. But no, that all gets brushed aside because "Prime Directive means we can't get involved" even though the Federation was already involved with the Kobali.

At least all the questionable times the Prime Directive came up in canon Trek were cases where it was being used as a reason to avoid involvement.

I could have sworn the Federation brokers some kind of arrangement at the end of the whole affair, though.

They do, but that mission is after the full Delta arc, whereas the Kobali chain is somewhere in the middle of it.

[Simon_Jester]

True I suppose.

I can easily see why the Federation would refrain from forcing the Kobali to do (or not do) anything while the Vaadwaur are still a massive aggressive threat throughout the entire region; they need all the allies they can get and for that matter, just having the Kobali passively prevent the Vaadwaur from awakening the soldiers in that stasis vault is advantageous to the Alliance.

But that's a strategic decision to not force your allies to take an unpalatable step in the middle of a war, not a Prime Directive decision.

[bilateralrope]

True I suppose.

I can easily see why the Federation would refrain from forcing the Kobali to do (or not do) anything while the Vaadwaur are still a massive aggressive threat throughout the entire region; they need all the allies they can get and for that matter, just having the Kobali passively prevent the Vaadwaur from awakening the soldiers in that stasis vault is advantageous to the Alliance.

But that's a strategic decision to not force your allies to take an unpalatable step in the middle of a war, not a Prime Directive decision.

Exactly. Had they said that, I wouldn't have minded and I might have kept pushing through the ground combat there a while longer. But that prime directive comment pushed me over the edge and made me decided that the Kobali prime content wasn't worth it. At least for now.

[bilateralrope]

Loading up my bridge officers with useful abilities:
I'm flying an Assault Cruiser, which limts how many BOFF abilities I get
Tactical officer 1: Beam array overload I, Beam fire at will II
Tactical officer 2: Tactical Team I
Science officer: Hazard Emitters I, Science team II (subspace vortex was too expensive for me to afford)
Engineering officer 1:Emergency power to weapons I, Emergency power to shields II, Engineering Team III, Directed Energy Modulation III
Engineering officer 2: Emergency power to engines I, Reverse Shield Polarity I, Eject Warp Plasma I**

*Officer came with it. Enemy ships keep stopping in the plasma, so it looks useful.

Now for the ground team:
Engineering: Sabotage I, Quick Fix II (for my constructs), Shield Recharge III, Fuse Armor I
Science: tachyon harmonic I, tricorder scan I, Medical tricorder III, Sonic pulse III
Security: Draw fire I, Battle Strategies II, Photon Grenade III, Plasma Grenade II
Science 2: Hypospray Dylovene I, Sonic pulse I, vascular regenerator II, hyperonic radiation II

That last one is running his default skills as I ran out of EC, so I grabbed the BOFF with the best looking skills.

[mr friendly guy]

If subspace vortex is too expensive, why don't you use gravity well?

The sovereign seems built around engineering, a skill I am not that great in. I have ships built around tactical and science, I mainly use engineering skills as a support role, and occasionally offense. So I can't help you too much.

[bilateralrope]

If subspace vortex is too expensive, why don't you use gravity well?

My ship only lets me have the first two skill slots on my science officer. Gravity well only goes in slots 3 or 4. So it's not an option.

[Lord Revan]

besides if you're not running a ship built for it (and even when you are) it's best to have first 2 slots for heals or debuff clearing and only lt. cmd. and cmd. slots for offensive science abilities (as all abilities get better the higher rank slot they are but with heals it's not as important as you're limited by your own stats anyway). As for the the build itself I think there was something that was better then emergency power to engines (emergency power to aux or batterries) you might want to check.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. The problem with having three or four "emergency power to __" abilities is that they share a cooldown, so you can only use one at a time.

[RogueIce]

I would probably replace EP to Engines with Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field for an additional hull heal. If you still want the boost to engines, Auxiliary to Inertial Dampers will also boost the engines while giving you some resists, and won't share a cooldown with the other Emergency Power to X abilities.

[FaxModem1]

Would anyone recommend the Temporal defense initiative console set?

Second question, does it change your ship's colors the same way the Dominion, Romulan or Reman sets do?