Star Trek Online is free

[CaptHawkeye]

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.

The ground sections would 1000x more fun if they were like Elite Force rather than another hit point grind like most MMOs. They actually tried to implement "shooter" controls into their RPG gameplay scheme and it worked about as well as that shit always works. It didn't.

[RogueIce]

Do Klingons still have practically nada for PvE?

They've added some stuff, and it is new from what I know. I think they mostly got around it by starting your KDF character at level 20, so while there is new stuff, it doesn't compare to the Feds; but since you have fewer levels to go through anyway (as opposed to starting at the bottom) they've kinda masked it better.

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?

As mentioned, your Tactical Boffs can pick those up and it'll help them. I don't think your character will ever get any Attack Patterns inately.

If you click on the top bar where you see those lines showing your rank progression, you'll get a table where you can scroll down and see what abilities you unlock as you level. You can even see stuff for the other classes in case you ever feel like rerolling or getting an alt some day.

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?

As mentioned, science skills. TBH that's something I've not bothered with and generally go with what gives me shield boosts and the like, rather than worry about flow capicators and crap.

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.

Nice thing there is that you can also retrain them into pretty much anything (AFAIK) at ESD for the cost of Energy Credits, which are pretty easy to get via selling junk loot or even just old stuff you don't care about, ie: stripping off Mk IV gear from your LCdr ship when you may have used at Cdr but don't when you hit Capt/started picking up Cdr gear to the vendors or the Exchange (assuming it's not bound).

What I did to make some megabucks was selling T1 crafting materials on the Exchange in bulk. So I'd go and see what an individual piece was selling for, and if it was say 1000 EC for 1 physical sample, I'd sell a lot of 10 physical samples for 9500 or something. You can get quite a bit just by chasing after anomalies in each mission.

Now, if you want to get into crafting yourself, that means you'll have to farm more later naturally. But TBH when they made the 'Even Tier' stuff cost dilithium I now don't bother with it really, especially since I'll tend to pick up the Even Mk levels from mission rewards anyway since they revamped that. I probably won't bother crafting until I hit VA for the Aegis set, though to be fair I got enough crafting skill before they changed things that I don't have to worry about it. For a new character you'd need to level your skill to get the end-game stuff. Though, to be fair, the odd-numbered Mk level blues are still pretty good, if you want to do it. I just don't care to spend dilithium on the upper end.

[Coaan]

Or you can do the smart thing and not expend huge amounts of resources and effort crafting when there's a much easier way to get equipment. By the time you are capable of using something like Aegis, you can run Special Task Forces and gain access to the grind for the MACO and Omega sets, which are just about the best thing ever and don't cost you tons of Dilithlium in the form of unreplicatable materials.

Crafting is a waste until they revamp it.

Regarding deflectors..

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?

Different ones give different bonuses to the skills that boost your science skills. If one (for example) has +10 to particle generator, it's going to give you a slight bonus to your gravity well skill over and above how many skill points you already have. Getting a good deflector such as the MACO one from STF's also gives you substantial bonuses to shielding and general jazz.

Mainly the deflector is used for science and some engineering skills though. The Effects will show on your skills tooltip in a combat situation, but not until then due to the UI being pish.

[Mr. Coffee]

Yeah, it's pretty easy to Mark XI pimp-fit a ship just running STFs on normal. Takes a it longer for the Mark XII stuff, but like Cooan said, it beats pissing dilithium away on their terrible crafting system.

[White Haven]

STO is noteworthy in that it's the only game I can think of to have, sequentially, multiple bad crafting systems in the same game.

[Atia]

I got a question for those who’ve done the task force stuff. How easy are they to do it with pub groups? Me and a friend have basically been playing as a fleet of two and pimping our ships out with the shitty crafting system and spending gobs of free time running the dailies but I would like some of that MACO gear and whatever but he seems to be under the impression that all the competent people run those with their friends or fleets and the two of us if we tried would get stuck with the stupid pubs and just be wasting our time. Anyone with experience doing them know how true this is?

[Vanas]

Flying them on normal with public groups is easy enough, especially Cure (Space). I'd avoid Elite mission with pubbies though, unless you outnumber them 4:1. There's good pubbies, don't get me wrong, but still. Maybe not worth it.

[Coaan]

I got a question for those who’ve done the task force stuff. How easy are they to do it with pub groups? Me and a friend have basically been playing as a fleet of two and pimping our ships out with the shitty crafting system and spending gobs of free time running the dailies but I would like some of that MACO gear and whatever but he seems to be under the impression that all the competent people run those with their friends or fleets and the two of us if we tried would get stuck with the stupid pubs and just be wasting our time. Anyone with experience doing them know how true this is?

Normal STF's are basically Pubbie-proof. You have to be asleep or hit with a particularly viral version of stupid to fail them. In many cases, the Space ones are easier than the dailies especially since many of the end dailies include ground combat.

Khitomer Accords on elite (Both Space and Ground) are still pretty damn hard to fuck up even with incompetent, illiterate assholes. The Cure on Elite (both ground and space) are pretty much the Hardest STF's in the game due to the level of competence and attention/effort required. Infected Elite Space is the next in that, though it's alot harder to lose in that given there's no 'you lose if you fail this' objective.

Terradome is not something I count at the moment given they haven't yet redone that fail cascade to fit the new PvE system. I don't recommend doing that one at all if it's anything like the pre-free to play version.

You are going to get good pubbies and bad pubbies. The good ones do exist - I've been in plenty of groups where we just rampaged through everything and some we failed before we even got really going.

Either your friend needs to sack up and deal with it, or you need to find a group to run with that'll give you the other three members needed to make up a full STF.

Think about it though. If pubbies were the problem he's making them out to be, I'd have never managed to get as far as I have, gear wise. All it takes is a little determination and the realisation you are going to encounter stupid in groups occasionally. It kind of goes part in parcel with the internet.

[charlemagne]

It's good to know that ignoring crafting isn't fucking me over, so I'll happily continue ignoring it I've already made a couple 100k ec by selling off mats from anomalies in missions and from duty officer assignments on the exchange. I didn't bother selling items there yet, I'm just recycling when the inventory gets full. So far I didn't even need energy credits for anything.

Thanks for the deflector explanations! I'll look for some +shield items and call it a day. Also, I think my tactical bridge officer already has a attack pattern skill, can't use it yet on my Cmdr. ship, but I'm glad that I didn't waste those points.


Btw., diminishing returns on maxing out skills seem pretty steep - in your experience, is it better to actually max out a couple important skills, or maybe spread out points more and get more bonuses etc. that way, just not that high bonuses?

[Coaan]

It depends on the skill.

If it's something you find yourself using alot, such as energy weapon spec? then you want everything you can get your hands on. If it's something like flow regulators, or driver coils? taking it up to six ranks is probably more than fine.

As a rule, I only max out skills for those I use all the time in a given class command. Maxing out your shield skills are mandatory for every class though.

[Atia]

@Vanas & Coann
Thanks for the advice. I’m glad to hear that the STFs are at the very least doable without having to the trouble of finding a fleet full of people who aren’t lame. My only real end gaming MMO experience has been with FFXI (make of that what you will my tolerance for bullshit and abuse), which if you didn’t have at least a dozen people who are competent you wouldn’t get. Even then there was no guarantee.

I guess that leads to a follow up question. What exactly is the average time to get a piece of armor from these things? Is it all random? A couple of runs for each piece or something else entirely?

[Coaan]

It depends entirely on luck.

The drop rate is still incredibly rare despite the increases made by cryptic. If you decide to use EDCs for guarrenteed pieces, you need 20 for the mark ten and 40 for the mark elevens.

Mark Twelve set pieces/loot can only be gotten with prototype borg salvage/prototype borg stuff. Rare as all get-go and ONLY gettable from within elites.

As I say though, it's all luck based when you get the drops. I had a friend get two of three set pieces of the mark ten stuff on her first two STFs, so your mileage may vary.

[Atia]

Well that doesn’t sound too bad then. Though I probably wasted all my luck doing that Q anniversary quest thing where I ended up getting a Borg officer out of a mystery box so it'll probably be june before I see anything nice now. D:

[CaptHawkeye]

I went for the Dilithium every time on Q's game. Good loot is easy to find everywhere even on Advanced Difficulty.

[Dartzap]

I'm confused - I just hit Captain, its told me to go forth and get a new free ships, but it wants me to pay a hueg amount of purple for it. am I being dense?

[Alferd Packer]

On a lark I downloaded this over the weekend. Anyone know of a good FAQ or similar for a complete noob? I mean, I'm having fun (moreso because I'm not paying), but I feel like I'm going about the game all pants-on-head retarded, like I'm missing out on huge parts of it.

[Atia]

I went for the Dilithium every time on Q's game. Good loot is easy to find everywhere even on Advanced Difficulty.

Eh I thought about going for the dilithium every day but I make plenty of that crap doing the daily missions everyday so I just took the items. Everything worked out in the end, Rawn the Raging Rigellian got a fancy new armor that makes him look just lovely while he gets shot up, and the U.S.S. Durandal (the only ship in Starfleet with the hull made out of sugar glass) has a fancy new engineering officer in the form of 3 of 4.

[Scottish Ninja]

I'm confused - I just hit Captain, its told me to go forth and get a new free ships, but it wants me to pay a hueg amount of purple for it. am I being dense?

Gotta go talk to Admiral Quinn and he'll give you a token for a free ship. I got caught up on that myself.

[Dartzap]

Yep, talked to me when I got to spacedock, turned I had to talk to him again....blah.

Dont suppose anyones got some tips on knocking out the Rhea? She aint no normal warbird, thats for sure....

[RogueIce]

Or you can do the smart thing and not expend huge amounts of resources and effort crafting when there's a much easier way to get equipment. By the time you are capable of using something like Aegis, you can run Special Task Forces and gain access to the grind for the MACO and Omega sets, which are just about the best thing ever and don't cost you tons of Dilithlium in the form of unreplicatable materials.

Fair enough. I've not gotten to endgame so I don't really know how Aegis stacks up compared to MACO and Omega. I might craft it to satisfy my inner completionist, though I won't be in any hurry.

Crafting is a waste until they revamp it.

Can't say I disagree there. I mean, I might be tempted for the lower tier stuff if I have the mats just lying around and don't feel like waiting on a mission or drop to upgrade something. At least if I've just had shit luck and am still using stuff from two ranks ago.

Spending dilithium on upper tier just isn't worth it though.

STO is noteworthy in that it's the only game I can think of to have, sequentially, multiple bad crafting systems in the same game.

Really? When I played it this time last year (1st year event) I didn't think it was too bad. Hunting nebulas for mats wasn't too bad. The only downside I saw was with the particle traces for purple gear. They're rare, as I'm sure they should be, but kinda uneven. For instance, I have like 7 pieces of one type of rare, yet I've never come across another type at all. Kinda annoying.

What was so bad about it pre-dilithium? The choices in what you can get are rather limited (at least until around Captain I think, and even then only in beams and torps does it start to vary IIRC) but other than that I didn't hate it.

Then again this is the first (and thus far only) MMO I've played in which I've bothered to craft, so I have no real frame of reference.

The new dilithium cost blows and I hate it, but a year ago (was there anything in-between?) I didn't think it too bad.

[mithie]

STO is noteworthy in that it's the only game I can think of to have, sequentially, multiple bad crafting systems in the same game.

Mate, if you think the crafting system in STO is bad - stay away from Age of Conan...

[Molyneux]

Wait, there's crafting in STO? I really never bothered with it.
I have to say that I'm grudgingly liking the Odyssey-class; it's now my current Vice Admiral Engi ship.

[Nephtys]

What is this item I have in my inventory? Lt. Cmdr Scandalbottom has reactivated from a trial account from like two years ago, and I have something called 'Starship'. It looks like a badge, but doesn't really say anything. Nor can I use it.

[charlemagne]

Maybe a token for a free starship with your last promotion?

[Stofsk]

Captain Timmystyle and myself have been having a blast playing this game, but it's still got a bit of a steep learning curve to it. I'm just trying to figure out how to play it smoothly.

Currently I'm a level 3 nobody LT in command of a Centaur. I really, really want a spaceship that doesn't handle like dogshit.