Star Trek Online is free

[White Haven]

Don't get all to fascinated with the Trico's, They have the lowest DPS of all the torpedoes also they move slow and can be shoot down, In PVP tricobalts are completely useless unless you're lucky enough to fight somebody who have no idea what they're doing, In PVE there are some static unshielded structures where they are usefull but that is about it.

Bacically Photons or Quantums are always the better choice if not avilable go for Plasma or Transphasic(works best if you use two items from the breen set) your last choice should be Chroniton or Tricobalt.

That depends largely on what you're flying. In cruisers, I find it's not worth the loss in DPS from maneuvering out of my broadside sweetspot to throw something as pathetic as a normal quantum every eight seconds. For escorts that's another story, given that they're forward-focused to begin with, and science vessels are light on their feet to the point that they're off-target for a far shorter period.

[CaptHawkeye]

For a Free to Play game it's not bad. It's not particularly original either and plenty of aspects of its design smack of laziness and cliche. (Typical MMO grinding, shitty inventory and resource management, cluttered UI, etc) I never would have paid a subscription for it. On the other hand, leveling really doesn't take long, it looks good as far as MMOs go, it's big and has a lot of places to go, the customization both character and ship is excellent, and it's not hard to get the hang of.

Now i'd just love to know why the bridge on my ship is so big, or why perhaps i'm so tiny

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

The downloader isn't working for me; is there another way to get the game?

[Jade Falcon]

For a Free to Play game it's not bad. It's not particularly original either and plenty of aspects of its design smack of laziness and cliche. (Typical MMO grinding, shitty inventory and resource management, cluttered UI, etc) I never would have paid a subscription for it. On the other hand, leveling really doesn't take long, it looks good as far as MMOs go, it's big and has a lot of places to go, the customization both character and ship is excellent, and it's not hard to get the hang of.

Now i'd just love to know why the bridge on my ship is so big, or why perhaps i'm so tiny

I'd agree, it's fairly decent. I might just have been on at the right times, but the community seems a bit more mature in it's outlook than some MMO's I've tried, even looking at the 'chat' window at the bottom left of the screen.

It is hilarious though that if you want uniforms with low necklines (especially for female characters) or outfits like T'Pol's, 7 of 9's, Trois etc that you have to buy them. I'll make do with the free ones thank you, plus you can still get a decent uniform combo with the free ones.

[Molyneux]

I have to say that I love the Duty Officer system - though they seem to have taken out the little "mission outcome" boxes, which makes me sad. I liked reading those.

Also, the Vice Admirals' coat is cool. Love the look of that thing.

[Feil]

I have to say that I love the Duty Officer system - though they seem to have taken out the little "mission outcome" boxes, which makes me sad. I liked reading those.

I noticed those being missing, too. I hope they're just removed for fixing, or something, not gone forever.

[TheFeniX]

Now i'd just love to know why the bridge on my ship is so big, or why perhaps i'm so tiny

The ability to visit the bridge wasn't even going to be available, but RPers and fans of the series complained so much, Cryptic hastily added the ability/bridges in. Then they realized players would spend actual cash on more poorly designed/scaled bridge models, so they added those in as well.

I actually can get a case of "Alice in Wonderland" syndrome when I visit the bridge. All the to-scale consoles and chairs look so out of place in a room design for 15-foot-tall giants. The Klingnon bridges were a bit more to scale last I remember, but still off.

[Anacronian]

You can change the scale of the bridge (large/medium/small) at the ship customization vendor.

[Feil]

No, you can change the length of hilariously huge hallway between hilariously oversized rooms between small/medium/large. The actual size of the rooms is not affected.

[RogueIce]

I actually read that the gigantic bridges were because of the camera for some reason. And that hilariously oversized rooms are something of the norm in MMOs. From what I remember of WoW and DDO, I would tend to agree. Then again APB's interiors aren't outsized so...

Anyway, in game news, today starts the 2nd Anniversery celeration! You can also pick up the Odyseey class (what the new Ent-F will be) and the KDF version for free! All you need to be is LT5 to run the mission, though you'll have to wait until VA to actually use it.

[charlemagne]

Neat, how do I get the mission? Someone special you need to talk to or hail?

[RogueIce]

Neat, how do I get the mission? Someone special you need to talk to or hail?

Some engineer outside of Admiral Quinn's office on ESD or an engineer outside the Great Hall on "Quiznos" (fuck if I'm going to look up the spelling).

Supposed to go live sometime around 1000 PST.

[Keevan_Colton]

the Great Hall on "Quiznos" (fuck if I'm going to look up the spelling).

This just leaves me with a mental image of the great and glorious warrior tradition of the sub sandwich.

[CaptHawkeye]

So apparently in one of the Distress Call missions you fight V'Ger.

It does about as well as you'd expect.

[RogueIce]

So, speaking of the Odyssey class, apparently a bunch of people did a conga line of them at DS9. Here's some pics:



http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/6749/conga9.jpg

Yeah, I only inlined the first. But because it's so freaking beautiful I felt I should. The second is nice but a little spoiled because someone had ability animations going.

[RogueIce]

And more goodies!



A fan made 2nd Anniversary tribute vid, using all in-game footage. I embed the non-text version to watch, but here's the regular one just so I can say this:

Part of those are Foundry missions (aka user created content) but the rest if the official stuff the Devs have done. Essentially, between where it says Foundry Spotlight and Cloaked Intention is user-created, Cloaked Intentions onward is the official.

Epic video is epic. Seriously. Go to YouTube, turn on 1080p and fullscreen this shit. It's awesome.

[Edward Yee]

Neat, how do I get the mission? Someone special you need to talk to or hail?

Some engineer outside of Admiral Quinn's office on ESD

Engineer Kani is actually near the turbolift to Admiral Quinn's office, he's in the lower-right quadrant on the Earth Spacedock map while Q (for the "20-hour cooldown" daily) is in the lower left quadrant.

[Dartzap]

Just unlocked the Klingons, which look to be quite amusing. Q's dancing girls are....yeah....

Think I'll try and get myself a Galaxy class before I do any proper work on the ridgeheads, though.

[charlemagne]

Do Klingons still have practically nada for PvE?


I really enjoy the duty officer assignment system, it's a very nice addition.

I'm not too concerned with stats and min/maxing yet, just enjoying the levelling, but I've got two questions:

- I'm an engineer and I've put skill points in "Attack patterns". Very dumb thing to do yes/no? Is the attack pattern skill tactical chars only?

- I don't get what the stats on deflector dishes do. They have different things they improve, like +10 inertial dampers or +10 shield strength, but switching them around doesn't do anything to my ship's stats. Is there anything I don't see?

[Darth Tanner]

I've been playing for a week on and off and am having a good time in my Saber torpedo boat (I miss my Miranda though) and am looking forward to getting a galaxy in a few levels. I regret picking up two science officers however as I missed out on a Klingon tactical officer a while ago.

Just completed the Section 31 time travel mission and found it highly irritating, not only was the sling shot maneuver impossible to my poor reflexes but getting some random woman a drink while aliens are coming thorugh the walls to eat everyone broke my patience, especially having to run to ask Scotty what type of garnish she likes. Its not like I'm a captain of a starship or anything! Beign set upon by a dozen D7s was enjoyable though.

Is the attack pattern skill tactical chars only?

No your character can use those skills, the icon should be in your action bar.

[wautd]

Despite some (if not, all) irritating ground missions, the game has grown on me, simply because the space combat is mindless pew pew fun. As of yesterday, I unlocked the Klingon faction and the agility of a Bird of Prey is a lot of fun when you're used to a Cheyenne heavy cruiser.

[charlemagne]

Just completed the Section 31 time travel mission and found it highly irritating, not only was the sling shot maneuver impossible to my poor reflexes but getting some random woman a drink while aliens are coming thorugh the walls to eat everyone broke my patience, especially having to run to ask Scotty what type of garnish she likes. Its not like I'm a captain of a starship or anything! Beign set upon by a dozen D7s was enjoyable though.

What irritated me was that I missed by a tiny amount on the last ring on my second try, and then the game just says "oh yeah, you have an autopilot". I was actually looking forward to "beating" the maneuver on my third try, but of course I klicked the "I win" button, because what's the point in manually beating it then?

The drink-mixing was stupid considering the situation, I agree. I wished for an option to just yell at the merchant girl to snap out of it and hand over the thingy already.

No your character can use those skills, the icon should be in your action bar.

Thanks, guess I have to look through my skills again.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

- I'm an engineer and I've put skill points in "Attack patterns". Very dumb thing to do yes/no? Is the attack pattern skill tactical chars only?

- I don't get what the stats on deflector dishes do. They have different things they improve, like +10 inertial dampers or +10 shield strength, but switching them around doesn't do anything to my ship's stats. Is there anything I don't see?

1. I'm 80% sure that skill also affects your Tactical bridge officers, who can also pick up a few attack pattern skills IIRC.

2. Those stats affect mostly Science skills (and maybe a few Engy skills?). They all have various technobabble names I can't be arsed to remember since I mainly play a Tactical/Cruiser combo (and hence have very few Science skills at all; there's a single Lieutenant Science station on my Sovereign). Most relevant Science skills say in their description what type they are, e.g. "...uses the Deflector Dish to blah blah blah...".

edit: They changed the base skill system a bit since I last played (mostly streamlined it, a good thing), and it's certainly gotten some rebalancing, but in general I would still recommend putting heavy emphasis on skills which increase your power levels in some way. It's pretty much impossible to go wrong with +Weapon power or +Shield power. Sitting around in my Sov with power distributed to weapons I have something like:

117/100 Weapons
76/50 Shields
49/25 Engines
38/25 Auxiliary

25 is bare-minimum "maintenance" level for that system (i.e., your shields won't actively degrade, but won't recharge either at 25 exactly), 50 is standard, 75 is double power (i.e., shields recharge twice as fast), and 100 is triple. So, you when you're packing a full +100% to a system over what your power level is nominally set to, you can see the advantage of bonuses to your power levels. Surplus weapon power is also particularly useful for cruisers packing a ton of phasers, since that will chew through all your available weapon power fast.

[charlemagne]

Thanks for explaining - I get it now. It's always good to know what to look for in items.

And I'll have to look deeper into bridge officer skills, I've collected a few that I'm not using right now, and I remember that my toon can teach a couple of skills already, too.

[Scottish Ninja]

With regard to phasers, anything that boosts EPS transfer is very good too - it means your Weapons power will recharge more quickly when firing those, and that will do a lot to keep your DPS up, along with the other benefits of quicker power transfer.