Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[Elheru Aran]

To be fair in regards to sticking with the treaty, I think a real world political leader in modern times could come up with several reasons why the treaty of Algeron is no longer valid. Some blatantly justifiable, like Shinzon's attempt to genocide earth (he was the Romulan praetor at the time, so an act of war invalidates the treaty), or in STO timelines using some legal shenanigans like saying that the the Romulan Republic and not the Tal Shiar empire is the successor state of the Romulan Star Empire and then signing a friendly deal with the RR relieving them of some of the treaty's obligations.

Isn't Shinzon not actually in STO, the ability to buy his ship notwithstanding? IIRC STO is the original prime timeline (ENT/TOS on through to VOY and the TNG films), after the Hobus supernova that destroys Romulus Shinzon modifies his ship and starts time-travelling in order to find Spock.

Of course STO crossed over with the nu-Trek timeline not too long ago IIRC... so that may be moot.

The latter explanation of them signing a sweetheart deal with the Romulan Republic is much more likely IMO. The Republic would have been in a fragile enough state post-civil war with the Tal Shiar that the Federation could have easily extracted significant concessions from them in return for assistance.

[Lord Revan]

To be fair in regards to sticking with the treaty, I think a real world political leader in modern times could come up with several reasons why the treaty of Algeron is no longer valid. Some blatantly justifiable, like Shinzon's attempt to genocide earth (he was the Romulan praetor at the time, so an act of war invalidates the treaty), or in STO timelines using some legal shenanigans like saying that the the Romulan Republic and not the Tal Shiar empire is the successor state of the Romulan Star Empire and then signing a friendly deal with the RR relieving them of some of the treaty's obligations.

Isn't Shinzon not actually in STO, the ability to buy his ship notwithstanding? IIRC STO is the original prime timeline (ENT/TOS on through to VOY and the TNG films), after the Hobus supernova that destroys Romulus Shinzon modifies his ship and starts time-travelling in order to find Spock.

Of course STO crossed over with the nu-Trek timeline not too long ago IIRC... so that may be moot.

The latter explanation of them signing a sweetheart deal with the Romulan Republic is much more likely IMO. The Republic would have been in a fragile enough state post-civil war with the Tal Shiar that the Federation could have easily extracted significant concessions from them in return for assistance.

It was Nero who travelled to the Kelvin timeline Shinzon is the Picard clone from Nemesis.

[Elheru Aran]

To be fair in regards to sticking with the treaty, I think a real world political leader in modern times could come up with several reasons why the treaty of Algeron is no longer valid. Some blatantly justifiable, like Shinzon's attempt to genocide earth (he was the Romulan praetor at the time, so an act of war invalidates the treaty), or in STO timelines using some legal shenanigans like saying that the the Romulan Republic and not the Tal Shiar empire is the successor state of the Romulan Star Empire and then signing a friendly deal with the RR relieving them of some of the treaty's obligations.

Isn't Shinzon not actually in STO, the ability to buy his ship notwithstanding? IIRC STO is the original prime timeline (ENT/TOS on through to VOY and the TNG films), after the Hobus supernova that destroys Romulus Shinzon modifies his ship and starts time-travelling in order to find Spock.

Of course STO crossed over with the nu-Trek timeline not too long ago IIRC... so that may be moot.

The latter explanation of them signing a sweetheart deal with the Romulan Republic is much more likely IMO. The Republic would have been in a fragile enough state post-civil war with the Tal Shiar that the Federation could have easily extracted significant concessions from them in return for assistance.

It was Nero who travelled to the Kelvin timeline Shinzon is the Picard clone from Nemesis.

Crap. Mixed up my mediocre Romulan villains.

Shinzon didn't actually get as far as attacking Earth though did he? I mean that was his idea with the whole thalaron thingy the Scimitar had, or something, but apart from destroying the Romulan Senate he was still in deep space when Picard and a few Valdores confronted him...

[Lord Revan]

Isn't Shinzon not actually in STO, the ability to buy his ship notwithstanding? IIRC STO is the original prime timeline (ENT/TOS on through to VOY and the TNG films), after the Hobus supernova that destroys Romulus Shinzon modifies his ship and starts time-travelling in order to find Spock.

Of course STO crossed over with the nu-Trek timeline not too long ago IIRC... so that may be moot.

The latter explanation of them signing a sweetheart deal with the Romulan Republic is much more likely IMO. The Republic would have been in a fragile enough state post-civil war with the Tal Shiar that the Federation could have easily extracted significant concessions from them in return for assistance.

It was Nero who travelled to the Kelvin timeline Shinzon is the Picard clone from Nemesis.

Crap. Mixed up my mediocre Romulan villains.

Shinzon didn't actually get as far as attacking Earth though did he? I mean that was his idea with the whole thalaron thingy the Scimitar had, or something, but apart from destroying the Romulan Senate he was still in deep space when Picard and a few Valdores confronted him...

yeah he was intercepted en-route to Earth (or more accurately he intercepted the Enterprise heading to Federation space to warn about the attack).

Biggest Impact Shizon had for STO was to turn remans from a slave race to "merely" second-class citizens in the Star Empire and to equal partners in the Republic.

[mr friendly guy]

Special offer for buying 20 lock box keys and get a free tech upgrade. This goes all the way to epic and max out. Just what I need when my third toon gets space set for their ship, as it takes a load of dilithium to go from rare to epic. Spent a bit of money for zen and converted enough dilithium to get enough zen to buy 3 of those things. The 60 lock box keys did net a few goodies, which I find sell more on the exchange than the lazy thing I used to do of selling to vendors.

Delta recruit period is also over, but I got a toon playing it now. In keeping with the theme of future self give you information to fight the Iconians from the Delta recruit storyline, my first two toons (who have passed the Iconian storylines) buy stuff on the exchange to give to my third toon. She now has a plasmonic leech and some nice tactical modules from the lock boxes. Also have some level 12 modules including Iconian ones for her to use when she gets at high enough level. Future starfleet captains giving Iconian tech to my Delta recruit to fight the Iconians. Love it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I don't think you're getting at what I'm asking. AOY characters made during a certain time period immediately after the expansion went live have special perks that other characters (even other AOY characters made later) do not, namely being able to craft reputation gear at UR Mk XIII instead of VR Mk XII (there may be others, but as far as I know that's the "killer app" of having made an AOY character while the expansion was fresh).

Are there similar perks for Dominion characters with this expansion, such that I should strongly consider getting back into the game when the expansion drops as opposed to later?

Well the upping of rep gear to UR mk. XIII was an account-wide bonus, if there are such perks on offer this time they're not saying.

Special offer for buying 20 lock box keys and get a free tech upgrade. This goes all the way to epic and max out. Just what I need when my third toon gets space set for their ship, as it takes a load of dilithium to go from rare to epic. Spent a bit of money for zen and converted enough dilithium to get enough zen to buy 3 of those things. The 60 lock box keys did net a few goodies, which I find sell more on the exchange than the lazy thing I used to do of selling to vendors.

Delta recruit period is also over, but I got a toon playing it now. In keeping with the theme of future self give you information to fight the Iconians from the Delta recruit storyline, my first two toons (who have passed the Iconian storylines) buy stuff on the exchange to give to my third toon. She now has a plasmonic leech and some nice tactical modules from the lock boxes. Also have some level 12 modules including Iconian ones for her to use when she gets at high enough level. Future starfleet captains giving Iconian tech to my Delta recruit to fight the Iconians. Love it.

Bought a couple keyring bundles a few months back and used the Ultimate Tech upgrades to get a couple of crafted Disruptor DBBs from MkII all the way to XIV. Got crappy 4th modifiers; still I was glad I held on to them when REing went live and I duly got them up to speed.

Using salvaged tech to make experimental upgrades is a very expensive way of upgrading gear thanks to using each token having an associated dil cost. Phoenix tech upgrades offer far better value for money, that's why I bought 500 packs during the recent event as well as 10,000 Zen. Probably a bit excessive as I already have a bunch of surplus weaponry (the most expensive things to upgrade) I can equip new toons with right out of the box.

Plasmonic leech is always handy, what else did you get?

[mr friendly guy]

Got some rare kemocite laced weaponry manuals for my third toons in the lock boxes, which is a must especially since she is tactical. Got some ground and space traits and fleet mark and credit bonus. Already invited her to a fleet and using EC got some points going (the fleet does a once in a while clean out of toons who are inactive, so may as well get her some fleet credit now).

Got the solar gateway kit mark 12 for later, polaron barrage kit (from a lock box, so lets give it a try) and also another one whose name eludes me, but seems like a control kit.

All in all a good start. Currently splitting time between playing the mirror invasion so my two toons get the bonus and playing with my third toon, slowly making her way up. I think I can spend more time on her once the mirror invasion finishes. But then the gamma reputation will start shortly after.

[mr friendly guy]

I had forgotten that you can go through the event tab and claim items even those that were won by other toons. So my primary toon now has the Dominio console (miracle worker ship using phasers with 5 x phaser boost consoles at 37.5 % each with 1.9% crit, quantum phase set with 25% boost to phasers, another 2 set to boost energy weapons 17.8% with another 33% boost to phasers, and now add the 15% from the Domino console and its ability to boost damage with increase firing rate). He is naturally very happy.

Also my third toon gets sompek lightning. She might start claiming more T6 ships (I have five she can claim) and get the admiralty benefits when she reaches level 52. The trait from the Breen Rezketh might synergise well with tactical, it boosts all subsystems power on activating tachyon beam, so use the tachyon beam as a boost for attack.

[mr friendly guy]

Tetryons have really been shown some love by Cryptic.

Lets assume 5 tactical slots and using the standard energy weapon type boost of 37.5% X 5 = 187.5% boost.
Now lets look at the incontrovertible set which you get by completing the mission melting pot a few times
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Incontrovertible_Defenses

Get 3 out of the 4 (minus the warp core or singularity) and you get + 30% tetryon boost
Note, you aren't using any console slots for this. So still using 5 console slots.

Now consider the Krenim temporal set from completing the mission butterfly
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Krenim_Temporal_Manipulation



Get 2 of 3 or all 3 including the warp core and another 13.3% boost to tetryon. Plus if you use 3, you get the Antichroniton Infused Tetryon Discharge, a 10 km sphere which does 3,636 tetryon damage, which doesn't seem much, but wait... till you get the boost from all the tetryon boosting goodness. You can pretty much multiply this by 4. But I digress.

Note, you could get the tetryon boost without using any console slots, if you want the tetryon discharge, you only use one console slot.

Now lets take the Tzenkethi Resolve Set available from the lobi store
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Tzenkethi_Resolve_Set
2 weapon slots and one console lot.

The console gives 15.3% tetryon damage (6.1% extra if fired from the forward 90 degree arc). I expect it would go up to 19% tetryon damage if you upgrade it epic and mark 14. But wait, put in the other 2 weapons (one a tetryon torp) and the other an beam bank, and you get 25% extra tetryon damage. Essentially one console gives 40% + tetryon damage.

Add in the emitter refocuser for 18.8% tetryon damage when upgraded.
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Console_-_Sci ... _Refocuser

So far you've used 7 to 8 console slots for around 290% boost to tetryons. You can add a science to boost shields and a plasmonic leech.

You can chuck in a stick web for another 25% boost to tetryons,ie totally around 315% boost to tetryons.
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Console_-_Uni ... Sticky_Web

That's 11 consoles, and if you fly a miracle worker ship, you can add one more.

Now time to show antiprotons some love. I think I might work on a tetryon set when my third toon gets up to these quests. I imagine since we're focussing on the Dominion, polarons would get nice treatment, although we are not sure what weapons the Hur'q use, so there is a chance there.

Now if you can get a resonating tetryon weapon which procs at 5% instead of the 2.5%, and damn you're all set.
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Resonating_Tetryon_Beam_Array

[EnterpriseSovereign]

That's pretty cool- my Fed Sci already has most of those items, minus the Lobi gear. In order to save up the Lobi even for one ship I'd have to open a shitload of boxes, never mind any gear.

I keep meaning to develop my Sci toons further, perhaps when the current MI event is over I'll be in a position to do so. In the meantime my Fed Sci is flying the Bajoran Interceptor. 5 Tetryon DBBs plus omni beams will handily strip the shields of Borg cubes, but the BOFF layout isn't there yet. And the Krenim BOFFS that have been recommended do not come cheap.

I ended up writing on a Post-it which consoles Saffi currently has, they're either mission rewards or bought via the rep system. If there are better ones out there via crafting or fleet resources, I'm woefully ignorant.

[mr friendly guy]

I keep meaning to develop my Sci toons further, perhaps when the current MI event is over I'll be in a position to do so. In the meantime my Fed Sci is flying the Bajoran Interceptor. 5 Tetryon DBBs plus omni beams will handily strip the shields of Borg cubes, but the BOFF layout isn't there yet. And the Krenim BOFFS that have been recommended do not come cheap.

The BOFFs aren't great for making much passive improvements for space combat stats to be honest. Most BOFFs either have 4 ground traits or 3 ground traits and one space trait. My UFP sci toon have BOFFs which tend to have at least one space trait on the ship and have a specialised away team (with 4 ground traits), which makes more sense in real life. In fact, my original crew has been largely relegated to being in charge of the DOFFs. Aside from Elisa Flores and T'vrell, the former because she has a leadership trait which helps in space,and the latter because she has good control abilities which are damn useful in ground combat. Otherwise my away team consists of an Andorian tactical who subspecialises in command with awesome abilities, a photonic tactical who also specialises in command, a Borg engineer and T'vrell, a science vulcan which I use for the control abilities.

My rommie sci is easy for BOFFs. Just buy ones over the exchange with superior romulan operative to boost crit chance. I keep the original crew I pick up for the ground missions. I feel bad if I discard them because they were with me at the beginning.

For my UFP tactical toon, I got an extra human engineer when I had a ship requiring two engineers, as a human has leadership space trait. Its tempting to do it for every ship where you need an extra tactical or science BOFF, but I think very soon I will run out of BOFF spaces. So I am keeping Kolez for ship duties. I think I will save up and get the Krenim BOFF for tactical at least, since I am going to use lots of tac abilities, and he/she will replace Kolez, who I will relegate to ground duty. I mostly use tactical and science abilities, and less frequently engineering, so its most probably not worthwhile to get the engineering krenim BOFF.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

When you were talking about Tetryons, I just noticed you'd missed the Nukara set. For a sci toon, the boosts offered by the console are very handy, though I'd only use the mine launcher if my ship has a spare aft slot. And the 2-pc dmg boost is always welcome.

Krenim BOFFS were recommended to me because of this:

All Krenim officers possess the following traits, in addition to a random assortment of two others:
Flux:
Passive
+20% Recharge Speed for all Non-Weapon Abilities (self only) (ground)
Temporal Engineering:
Passive (Engineering Officers Only)
+10% Recharge Speed for all Engineering Bridge Officer Abilities (can stack 3 times) (space)
Temporal Applied Science:
Passive (Science Officers Only)
+10% Recharge Speed for all Science Bridge Officer Abilities (can stack 3 times) (space)
Temporal Tactics
Passive (Tactical Officers Only)
+10% Recharge Speed for all Tactical Bridge Officer Abilities (can stack 3 times) (space)

For my Vulcan Sci toon, I'm only interested in the Sci variant- especially as they cost double the refined dil what SRO-equipped embassy BOFFs do.

My rommie sci is easy for BOFFs. Just buy ones over the exchange with superior romulan operative to boost crit chance. I keep the original crew I pick up for the ground missions. I feel bad if I discard them because they were with me at the beginning.

Since they fixed the DOFF assignments that give them as a reward, SRO-equipped BOFFs have become far easier to come by. All 3 of my Romulan toons (1 of each branch) have a full bridge crew of them, with several left over.

I too saw the wisdom of having an entirely separate away team since traits were only useful in their respective environments. I took the easy way when it came to obtaining a Command BOFF by claiming the Kobali one from 'Dust to Dust' . And of course they'd be equipped with the Kobali gear mission rewards!

I've taken to including an android on my away teams, though the most interesting-looking ones are those brought in from other races. As well as Kobali my teams have included Borg, Breen, Hierarchy, Jem'Hadar, Reman and Voth members.

Despite allocating BOFF slots on my crew sparingly I'm still struggling for space, I'll probably have to go for the elite starter pack- it giving an extra couple of slots per character is looking very tempting. The only thing it lacks which I'd have liked is if it had ship slots as well but I can get by!

[mr friendly guy]

I decided to get an Android BOFF for my third toon. Her ability to buff up kit powers is useful for ground combat, plus androids are tough. Theoretically if I go all out, I should have as many artificial lifeforms as possible for the ground team, since they are tough and boost kit powers. If I paid for the temporal starter pack I also get a male science android. And the lobi store nets me a photonic tactical.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I decided to get an Android BOFF for my third toon. Her ability to buff up kit powers is useful for ground combat, plus androids are tough. Theoretically if I go all out, I should have as many artificial lifeforms as possible for the ground team, since they are tough and boost kit powers. If I paid for the temporal starter pack I also get a male science android. And the lobi store nets me a photonic tactical.

I bought the Temporal Special Agent pack a while ago now, mostly for the ships. Finding room in my toon's BOFF rosters for the 0718 is surprisingly difficult as many of them already have several special BOFFS, all Sci. If the elite starter pack was to be reduced in a sale right now, I'd snap it up!

Interestingly, the Phoenix Prize Pack has returned. I was expecting it to appear at least once before ViL goes live, but two occasions so close together is unheard of. Barely 3 weeks since last time, nowhere near enough time for dil stocks to sufficiently replenish to fully take advantage. I have no need to buy more packs since I haven't spent the vouchers from the last 500 packs so I'll be purely buying Zen this time around, the rate is really good right now.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

GHETTO EDIT: I quickly ran the numbers (252:1 at time of writing) and each toon had enough for 500 Zen. Which doesn't sound like much until you factor in that I have ten of them!

Even though it means I now have enough to buy the newest pack when ViL goes live, doing so would be a complete waste. Other new stuff becoming discounted in the Z-store meanwhile, is fair game!

[mr friendly guy]

I had enough dilithium left for 40 phoenix prizes, well 50 if I move the dilithium around. I went with 40, and so my third toon now has red matter capacitor and crystalline torp, which is useful for AP play. Also had enough phoenix upgrades to upgrade all her epic gear I purchased to mark 14 and have around 20 or so left.

I think I might wait till near the end of the phoenix prize packs availability June 5, and see if they simultaneously have a zen sale. Then I can get enough. I anticipate lots of upgrades needed to get my gear to mark 15.

[houser2112]

Did they add anything to the prize lists?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Not as far as I can tell, though I can't be 100% sure that the stuff at the bottom is completely unaltered. The UR and Epic level hasn't changed- last bunch of boxes I opened actually gave me a second epic token. Based on the total number of packs I opened that puts the odds of getting one at 1 in 1,500. I already have all the ships at the epic tier, but the tokens are too rare to simply downgrade.

Prize list.

[mr friendly guy]

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star- ... l/10911443

Abilities of the new ships are in.

Of interest to me

Damar-class Cardassian Intel Science Dreadnought [T6]

Starship Trait – Photonic Diversion
While this starship trait is slotted, activating Jam Targeting Sensors or Evade Target Lock will create a Photonic Decoy at your target's location. This decoy will attack with Spiral Wave Disruptor Beam Arrays and Photon Torpedoes and have a constant Feedback Pulse effect.

Might be a useful trait especially combined with catastrophic overload (which also strengthens Jam sensors). I do use Jam sensors reasonably frequently. Another thing of note, is that Discovery lock box ship also summons a ship, but on using beam overload, which is another ability I use.

Jem’Hadar Vanguard Warship [T6]

Starship Trait – Tricks of the Trade
While this starship trait is slotted, activation of Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field or any Miracle Worker Bridge Officer Ability will grant your team a reduction to Weapon Power Cost for a short time.

Possibly useful especially when you use a miracle worker BOFF ability, including ones which boost weaponry.

Otherwise I can't see too many things which supplement the way I like to play to make me overly enthusiastic about getting it.

What do other people think? Will it help supplement your play?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

At the moment I've been pretty underwhelmed by the current offering of Miracle Worker ships- probably because I haven't yet embraced the relevant BOFF specialisations. And the FED versions are fugly. The Tzenkethi Tzen-tar Dreadnought Carrier looks pretty awesome, though getting one is almost impossible!

Perhaps if I knew which abilities the specialisations rendered obsolete I'd get more involved, but as it stands I can't get excited about them.

I really need to look into science builds, I keep putting off working on mine.

[Elheru Aran]

Decided to fire up STO just to get all the updates in. Holy smeg. That was a bad idea. It might have been easier to just uninstall it and start over... 6835 MB patch.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Regular players weren't spared either, the other night upon exiting the game the client proceeded to download an update that size.

Phoenix event is still going on, the dil:zen exchange rate has dropped to just 242:1, the lowest it's been in years. It'll probably keep dropping until the event ends and the expansion launches, at which time it'll skyrocket. Right now I just need to save what little I'm able to between now and then and then buy all the Zen I can the day before!

[mr friendly guy]

Trying a different style of play with my tactical toon and the first ship to get the treatment is the arbiter battleship, since I wanted its starship trait which interacts with emergency power to weapons. Since my shields suck I am pretty vulnerable to borg shield drain. My best chance is to take them out first before they kill me. To that end I load it with cannons and use the intelligence BOFF ability of overloading subsystem safeties and boost weapon power to enormous amounts for that alpha strike.

I am thinking to use a phantom intel escort (fleet version) and use cloak and decloak for the alpha strike, using overload subsystem safeties for the boost.
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Phantom_Intel_Escort

The problem is, this ship works well with phasers, so I may need my primary toon to get this and load it up with phasers (with a phaser lance console) as its quite expensive to get all the relevant consoles that will really help with phasers (some of them UFP players have to buy the entire ship). My secondary toon is using AP, and I am planning to get her to use tetryon for my tetryon build, mainly so she gets lots of damage boosters with the ability to fire a tetyron wave hitting multiple targets in case the alpha strike doesn't work.

On another note, all my toons now have the paradox correcter and the temporal negotiator, courtesy of my new toon completing the delta agent quests.

[mr friendly guy]

Due to the power of grinding, all my away team has the Na'khul shield. Hopefully cryptic doesn't notice the bug which when this triggers for a member of my away team, it actually protects me as well with a temporary impenetrable shield. So this triggers quite a few times for me. Almost ready to start building that tetryon ship.

[Elheru Aran]

There isn't a direct desktop link you can make for STO, is there? Kind of tired of having to go through Arc every time I want to logon to the game...
EDIT: Also, smeg, 5444 MB patch. On top of that ~6K MB patch I had the other day.

Man.