Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[houser2112]

The new Dranuur queues are intresting and for a change you can't just beam in and roll over everything.

They (Dranuur Guantlet, anyway) are also very lucrative. I managed to accumulate 185k EC in vendor trash from one run.

[Lord Revan]

The new Dranuur queues are intresting and for a change you can't just beam in and roll over everything.

They (Dranuur Guantlet, anyway) are also very lucrative. I managed to accumulate 185k EC in vendor trash from one run.

that they can be if you have semi-competent group, with your typical pug you probably won't get that much as they fail the mission in short order.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The new Dranuur queues are intresting and for a change you can't just beam in and roll over everything.

They (Dranuur Guantlet, anyway) are also very lucrative. I managed to accumulate 185k EC in vendor trash from one run.

that they can be if you have semi-competent group, with your typical pug you probably won't get that much as they fail the mission in short order.

I've found Tholian Red Alert to be more vulnerable to this than the Borg one- in the latter the XP gain whenever a cube blows (and the V'Ger core ship) is very good for earning ship masteries . The former goes right most of the time, but every so often (something like 1 in 20-25 PUG runs) the group simply can't put out enough DPS to kill all of the ships in the time available.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

GHETTO EDIT: Forgot to say that having a dilithium weekend right after a Phoenix event is actually a smart move from the devs as it lets players replenish stocks depleted during the Phoenix event. And it'll also cause the exchange rate to recover to pre-phoenix levels more quickly. On the other hand, there's an upgrade weekend coming up. Cryptic were sneaky enough to only add it to the calendar after the Phoenix Event ended.

Great way to trick unwary players into expending upgrades immediately upon receiving them instead of holding off. Luckily I was switched on enough to not use any of the prize tokens I'd gained from the event just gone for that very reason. I'd have been kicking myself otherwise! I noticed that the prize tokens will stack up to 250 for a single inventory slot, whereas the upgrades will only go up to 99. The odds of the UR token dropping are still 1-in-500, this time around mine appeared less than 75 boxes into the first stack of 100 that I bought, bringing my total to 3. Still cannot decide which character/s should get the Jem'Hadar attack ship and Voth Bulwark.

[houser2112]

GHETTO EDIT: Forgot to say that having a dilithium weekend right after a Phoenix event is actually a smart move from the devs as it lets players replenish stocks depleted during the Phoenix event. And it'll also cause the exchange rate to recover to pre-phoenix levels more quickly. On the other hand, there's an upgrade weekend coming up. Cryptic were sneaky enough to only add it to the calendar after the Phoenix Event ended.

Are you sure about this? If dilithium weekends also relaxed the refining limit, then I'd be more willing to believe it could have a practical effect on the economy. Since it doesn't, the only people who are helped by dilithium weekends are those whose ore stockpiles are 0. All dilithium weekends do for those of us who have non-zero ore is allow that pile to grow slightly larger.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Difficult to gauge without knowing the proportion of players who have a surplus of ore relative to those who don't. I took advantage of the opportunity to turn in the rich dilithium claims that I'd gotten from the account-bound lockbox keys from one of the large packs a few weeks ago. Normally they're worth 5k, during the event they were worth twice that.

[FaxModem1]

So, I've been exploring my Fleet's Colony. I rather enjoy the flavor text between the different factions. And if the Tier upgrades, they argue over different things as the colony develops.

[Lord Revan]

So, I've been exploring my Fleet's Colony. I rather enjoy the flavor text between the different factions. And if the Tier upgrades, they argue over different things as the colony develops.

I wonder if they keep arguing even once your colony hits tier 5 or it ends then (my fleet's colony is just tier 1 so I can't say yet), I like how they for the most part have managed to make the Kentari seem like a real culture rather then a suicide cult lead by a very obvious parody of the current US president. Unlike the FE that introduced them did.

[mr friendly guy]

The miracle worker ships look nice. Might think about eventually getting them, but currently I am taking a bit of a break from STO after my main toon has now mastered all slots in the miracle worker subspecialisation.

[houser2112]

The miracle worker ships look nice. Might think about eventually getting them, but currently I am taking a bit of a break from STO after my main toon has now mastered all slots in the miracle worker subspecialisation.

Seriously? I haven't paid much attention to the KDF/Rom versions since I only have an AOY Fed captain, but the Fed versions look awful to me. Having a 12th console is intriguing, and the traits look interesting too, but I cannot stand looking at the ships.

[Lord Revan]

The miracle worker ships look nice. Might think about eventually getting them, but currently I am taking a bit of a break from STO after my main toon has now mastered all slots in the miracle worker subspecialisation.

Seriously? I haven't paid much attention to the KDF/Rom versions since I only have an AOY Fed captain, but the Fed versions look awful to me. Having a 12th console is intriguing, and the traits look interesting too, but I cannot stand looking at the ships.

the KDF and RRN versions look nice, the Starfleet versions look a bit too "fat" for my tastes

[EnterpriseSovereign]

They have a one-day sale for all T5 ships (and bundles). Sadly the one bundle I am interested in, the Galaxy, was not included because it contains a T4 as well as a two T5s.

[mr friendly guy]

The miracle worker ships look nice. Might think about eventually getting them, but currently I am taking a bit of a break from STO after my main toon has now mastered all slots in the miracle worker subspecialisation.

Seriously? I haven't paid much attention to the KDF/Rom versions since I only have an AOY Fed captain, but the Fed versions look awful to me. Having a 12th console is intriguing, and the traits look interesting too, but I cannot stand looking at the ships.

The lateral view looks a bit off, but the dorsal view looks nice.
The 12th console is promising, but maybe not so good with the style I like to play, ie science. I am still going to get the same as 5 science dedicated slots as before (even if I use the 12th universal console slot for science base consoles), and I can't see how I can juggle things around extra to get an extra science base console. Moreover my science ships do their damage by using lots of spatial anomaly powers. Any science ship can be equipped with officers allowing me to use gravity well or tyken's rift and then throw in subspace vortex, however to really do damage I add in extra anomaly powers from the temporal agent skill set, and these ships can't do that.

[FaxModem1]

So, nice little Halloween mission. I got the Zombie Dance. Interesting to see that Michael Jackson survived to the 24th century in pop culture.

[Lord Revan]

So, nice little Halloween mission. I got the Zombie Dance. Interesting to see that Michael Jackson survived to the 24th century in pop culture.

honestly of the late 20th century pop-culture Micheal Jackson and few other prominent stars like for example Madonna I could see easily surviving into the the 24th century as their music definied an era in many ways (or at least the popular culture of that era).

[EnterpriseSovereign]

So, nice little Halloween mission. I got the Zombie Dance. Interesting to see that Michael Jackson survived to the 24th century in pop culture.

honestly of the late 20th century pop-culture Micheal Jackson and few other prominent stars like for example Madonna I could see easily surviving into the the 24th century as their music definied an era in many ways (or at least the popular culture of that era).

If any have a chance it's The King himself, Elvis Presley.

[Lord Revan]

So, nice little Halloween mission. I got the Zombie Dance. Interesting to see that Michael Jackson survived to the 24th century in pop culture.

honestly of the late 20th century pop-culture Micheal Jackson and few other prominent stars like for example Madonna I could see easily surviving into the the 24th century as their music definied an era in many ways (or at least the popular culture of that era).

If any have a chance it's The King himself, Elvis Presley.

Elvis more early to mid 20th century then late 20th though, there isn't a limit on how many people from a certain time period can be remembered.

[Bedlam]

Time periods do tend to get spread out over time though. By the 24th century people would probably be referring to 20th century music as covering everything from Jazz to Club as if it was one type of music rather than thinking of 20's, 70's, 80's etc as we would now.

[Lord Revan]

Time periods do tend to get spread out over time though. By the 24th century people would probably be referring to 20th century music as covering everything from Jazz to Club as if it was one type of music rather than thinking of 20's, 70's, 80's etc as we would now.

most likely but I was more referring to the fact that someone like Micheal Jackson, Madonna or Elvis are more likely to stay in people's minds after their careers have ended due to the impact they had in popular culture of the era. So while by 25th (STO is set in 2410) they'd probably refer to both Elvis and Micheal Jackson as 20th century music, you'll have to admit that in 400 years from now it's more likely they'll remember Micheal Jackson then Katy Perry.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Phoenix Prize Packs are back, time to once again put to use all the refined dilithium I've hoarded since the last sale!

[mr friendly guy]

70 phoenix packs later and all I have to show for it is the phoenix upgrade stuff, which apparently is worth it from a dilithium perspective. Would have loved to have gotten a ship though. Still have a million dilithium left between my two toons, not sure if I should get more, change zen to dilithium (since I get 500 monthly zen) etc.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Last time the dil:zen exchange rate dropped to around 260:1 instead of just under 300, part of the reason it hasn't dropped that far yet is that there's a 20% ship sale running concurrently with the Phoenix event which is inhibiting the price drop a bit. When the exchange rate drops a bit more I'll offload what I don't trade for packs.

Phoenix upgrades are very much worth it, you get way more tech points per dil so you're far better off spending what you've set aside for upgrades on packs. I don't have exact numbers because I don't know the prob. of each rarity but from what I've observed it's something like 50% uncommon, 35% rare and 15% v. rare.

What you need to be aware of is that you shouldn't spend what upgrades you get immediately, last time crafty Cryptic added an upgrade weekend (which doubles points per upgrade) to the calendar right after the Phoenix event ended, which would have caught out the unwary. Time before last they had the weekend co-inside with the Phoenix event, which halved the demand and thus the price drop.

Because I already have all the ships in the "epic" category I have no need for such tokens, if I got one all I could do was downgrade it to UR as there are two ships in that category (T5-U) I don't have- the JHAS and the Bulwark.

Doesn't surprise me that you haven't gotten any ship packs from 70, the odds of even a UR dropping works out at 1 in 500 (never gotten an epic yet). One time I did get lucky in getting such a token after 70 packs in the last lot that I bought, this was my 3rd.

Right now my situation is this: my 10 toons have 600k dil each, what I have to decide is what proportions to spend it on. I'll probably do what I did last time: buy 400k worth of packs (10x10) on each and trade the rest for Zen. I already have all the T6 ships from the store so I'll save the Zen for the next lot of ships that arrive and the next sale of discount them.

The annoying part is that even with all this, the very best stuff is lockbox-based with no guarantees of getting what you want or even close, and I'm not going to blow all my Zen on fucking keys! If I buy any it'll be as part of a key ring bundle which gives an ultimate tech upgrade as well as cheaper keys. The sting in the tail with that is that the resulting modifers are subject to the same RNG as other upgrades, resulting in some expensive mistakes!

[mr friendly guy]

What do you think of the Miracle worker ships? Is it worth it.

I might buy zen while there is excess zen, then swap it back to dilithium later.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

They're the first ships to have 12 console slots so they're a taste of things to come. Both their console sets and their innovation mechanic are more of a novelty than game-breaking IMO. With the latter the effects are at the behest of the RNG- some of the mastery traits can be useful though. The ships also have more bonus power than a lot of the others- while I don't know of any personally I'm sure there are some pretty decent builds out there.

The KDF cruisers are hamstrung by being one of their few ships that cannot mount cannons, which is a greater inconvenience compared to the Feds since the no-cannon rule is nothing new for them; bizarrely, the Rom versions can use them.

As their name suggests they're primarily Engineering-focused, so if tanking is your thing they're ideal. The BOFF configurations on two of them are ok, the Ops version is somewhat lacking in that regard.

Of course, the best of the new ships is the Tzenkethi Tzen-tar Dreadnought Carrier, if you can live with the low (for its type) hull points it's as OP as they come.

I've bought ten lots of 100 packs, should be more than enough to upgrade all my stuff (haven't opened any of them yet). What I need to do now that I'm starting to complete masteries is get crafting gear to fill gaps in my loadout now that I'll be choosing what ships to fly once I've gotten all the traits. Exchange rate hasn't yet dropped as low as it did before, I'm still holding out for a little more.

[mr friendly guy]

Why is the tzenthi dreadnought op. And is that the one purchased will lobi points. Might give it to my second toon since Rommies don't have great carriers otherwise