Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[FaxModem1]

Dilithium bonus weekend, so a mission where you get around 5 dilithium gets you 7, mining for around 200 gets you 400, and so on.

[The Romulan Republic]

I wonder if they'll do something special for Star Trek's 50th. anniversary next year. They did something for the game's fifth anniversary after all.

Here's a thought: an inter-dimensional crossover with the reboot universe to tie in with the next film (its due out then). Or another TOS time travel mission.

[RogueIce]

Here's a thought: an inter-dimensional crossover with the reboot universe to tie in with the next film (its due out then).

The rights are different. Cryptic has a license with CBS (who has the TV show and I guess whatever EU books they care to use) but the new movies are Paramount and they can't do anything with them.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's odd. They refer to Nero (I think), the destruction of Romulus (a lot), and Spock's "death" in the game.

[RogueIce]

That's odd. They refer to Nero (I think), the destruction of Romulus (a lot), and Spock's "death" in the game.

I think they can use certain story elements (which technically occurred in the prime universe) but it mostly comes up when people ask about the new Enterprise or the uniforms being in-game.

[Lord Revan]

they can use story elements up to when Spock-prime gets sucked to the portal, hence the mention of Nero and the Hobus supernova.

[Elheru Aran]

they can use story elements up to when Spock-prime gets sucked to the portal, hence the mention of Nero and the Hobus supernova.

The story of the STO universe starts after Spock-Prime leaves; that's more or less the direct point of divergence, and why they get to play with all the TV series stuff. The movies are a reboot, so Paramount doesn't give a shit about what the MMO does with the storyline-- they started a whole new universe to play with.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's a pity. I'd like to see the new universe show up at some point.

[Elheru Aran]

It's possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The big problem is twofold: first, the nu-Trek universe is such a dramatic departure from the original, and secondly, you'd have to bring out wacky time-travel shenanigans again given that nu-Trek is going back to the TOS period and STO is a long way away from that (300 years?). They've already pulled out the Mirror Universe and more time-travel stuff; I'm not sure the player base could really tolerate it. Though to be frank, they've covered pretty much all the historic references, the only thing that's really left is interacting with TNG.

Power differences would also be dramatic; TOS was much more low-key than nu-Trek, which is far more explodey. It'd complicate the game mechanics and balance.

[The Romulan Republic]

Star Trek Online is pretty "explodey" too.

Anyway, I finally got my hands on some quantum torpedoes. My current armament on my Intrepid is four phaser arrays and two photon torpedo launchers. I'm thinking of replacing one of those with the quantum torpedoes.

[White Haven]

Quantum on a cruiser are simply, straight-up better than photon. Photons have, broadly speaking, better sustained DPS where quantums have better alpha strike, but lower sustained DPS. Given how mediocre torpedoes are right now in general, the last thing you want to do is sit there pointing your prow or tail at someone long enough to fire multiple cycles of a launcher while half your real damage-dealing armament lies silent, photons are only a good choice on a ship that always points its nose at the enemy to begin with (escorts).

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. The main use I can come up with for torpedoes on a cruiser is to fire a spread of them into a mass of threatening but puny targets (fighter swarm, attack ships, minefield), or to exploit a case where I just whittled down the shields.

In the former case it's probably a good idea for me to turn my stern toward the enemy just to get some distance between myself and the threatening contact swarm.

In the latter case, the odds of my turning fast enough to exploit the hole in their shields and get a torpedo in before they recharge are... a bit iffy.

[White Haven]

Exactly, especially when squared off against the increased speed with which you'll burn the aforementioned shields (and the then hull) down with the addition beam you could be using in place of one or both of those torpedo tubes.

Don't get me wrong, I wish torps weren't, well, crap, but as things stand they very much are. They're not useless, but the opportunity cost of both fitting them and, once fitted, using them (especially on a cruiser) is higher than the actual damage they can put out in the majority of cases.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, an Intrepid is a science ship rather than a cruiser, right? Does that change things at all?

[White Haven]

It means you give up a bit less real DPS time to wobble a torp into arc since you're more maneuverable, but your armament layout is still structured around broadside beams, and that means that 'I can do real damage with a beam broadside' and 'I can fire torpedoes' still aren't things which can happen at the same time. Again, torps aren't worthless, they just aren't worthwhile enough in terms of sustained DPS to be worth sacrificing the beam mount that could have been fitted there instead in the majority of cases.

The world is made of exceptions, of course, but there's a very good reason that outside of people running dedicated torp-boats (who do exist, but are VERY rare and hard to pull off properly), the only torp that currently gets a lot of traffic at the high end of play is the Neutronic one from Delta rep, and that only because it's hellaciously bugged right now and does vastly more damage than it's supposed to.

EDIT: Even in a frontal-cone setup, like, say, an escort or a dual-beam-bank setup or something, they're still of dubious utility because of how much DPS they give up against shields. That only gets worse as you go higher in difficulty levels, because shields start to balloon to recockulous proportions, so the opportunity to drop a torpedo salvo through a gap gets more and more uncommon. I hope that gets changed in the near future, but it's going to take major changes to how torpedoes work to do it without making torps simply blatantly overpowered across the board and swinging the problem in the other direction.

[The Romulan Republic]

Actually, I've noticed that the Intrepid can fire its forward phasers aft (but not its aft phasers forward), which means it can fire all its phasers and an aft torpedo at once. Is this a bug?

[White Haven]

You have noticed nothing of the sort. Forward slots are forward, aft slots are aft, and if you have beam arrays, they can both bear to the sides. The only way a forward weapon can bear aft, or vice versa, is if it's a turret or one of a very, very small pool of 360-degree arc beams that you almost certainly do not possess, and that are rarely better to equip than normal beams because that additional arc of bearing comes at a cost.

[The Romulan Republic]

With all due respect, are you calling me a liar? Or are you calling me delusional?

Its possible that the phasers were firing slightly off to the side rather than straight aft, but I'm pretty sure I've seen the Intrepid fire all its phasers more or less aft. Or, like I said, it could be a bug.

Edit: To the best of my knowledge I do not possess any of those 360-degree arc beams. I have possessed turrets, but I don't have one in use on my Intrepid.

[Lord Revan]

IIRC beams "latch on" to their targets so that if a fast ship goes from front arc to rear arc it might seems like your front beams shot to the back arc but in truth when they started firing the target was in the front arc.

That said your front beam arrays can fire at about 45 degree arc behind and similary your rear beams can fire 45 degrees arc to the front.

[RogueIce]

It means you give up a bit less real DPS time to wobble a torp into arc since you're more maneuverable, but your armament layout is still structured around broadside beams, and that means that 'I can do real damage with a beam broadside' and 'I can fire torpedoes' still aren't things which can happen at the same time. Again, torps aren't worthless, they just aren't worthwhile enough in terms of sustained DPS to be worth sacrificing the beam mount that could have been fitted there instead in the majority of cases.

The world is made of exceptions, of course, but there's a very good reason that outside of people running dedicated torp-boats (who do exist, but are VERY rare and hard to pull off properly), the only torp that currently gets a lot of traffic at the high end of play is the Neutronic one from Delta rep, and that only because it's hellaciously bugged right now and does vastly more damage than it's supposed to.

EDIT: Even in a frontal-cone setup, like, say, an escort or a dual-beam-bank setup or something, they're still of dubious utility because of how much DPS they give up against shields. That only gets worse as you go higher in difficulty levels, because shields start to balloon to recockulous proportions, so the opportunity to drop a torpedo salvo through a gap gets more and more uncommon. I hope that gets changed in the near future, but it's going to take major changes to how torpedoes work to do it without making torps simply blatantly overpowered across the board and swinging the problem in the other direction.

As a counter-point to the above, Torpedo Spread 3 with quantums is just so pretty

But I love my Wide-Angle Torpedoes off the Regent class and they make things easier in that regard. Because you can bring the torps to bear easier and still fire off beam arrays thanks to that [Arc] modifier. I'm sure the hardcore DPSers won't like it because it's a modifier that isn't [CrtD] or whatever the most popular one is these days, but meh.

Honestly The Romulan Republic outside of probably Elite STFs (and you are a long way from those) it just doesn't matter that much because you can still play the game perfectly fine. But then it all depends on what you're looking to do at end-game.

The only way a forward weapon can bear aft, or vice versa, is if it's a turret or one of a very, very small pool of 360-degree arc beams that you almost certainly do not possess, and that are rarely better to equip than normal beams because that additional arc of bearing comes at a cost.

I assume the cost is because the [Arc] is in place of a modifier that would be considered "more useful" or whatever?

[Lord Revan]

To be honest in most Elite STFs I've done it mattered more that you knew what you were suppose to do then having "Super mega DPS", sure you need good(ish) DPS but you also don't want to fall to the trap that DPS is everything.

[Lord Revan]

something I noticed when grinding at Argala to get my Orion character to lvl 60 was that while Argala Patrol gives nice xp for fairly small effort (about 10 000 skill points on normal) you should have at least 1 way to nullify tractor beams preferbly 2 or more that don't share cooldowns.

Argala patrol gives you 5 waves of ships from 3 possible races selected randomly at the start (meaning all 5 waves will be of the same race), The Kazon who apart from randomly disabling your shields (due to the energy type of their weapons) will do nothing special and even the shield disable isn't as bad as it sounds as there's loads of things that fix disabled shields. the Hirogen are the second possible race and their Apex Battleships can hit you with Jam Sensors ability, have tractors beams and photonic fleet, also some ships deploy tractor mines probably the battleship but I'm not sure but the hirogen aren't still that bad as only the battleships have tractors and don't use them that often. Last are the Malon and they're a pain the cruiser and battleship level mobs deploy these gas cloads that hurt your shields and kill crew members and they spam tractor beams generally pulling your into those gas clouds.

another tip is that the last wave is 1 named heavy and 2 medium ships, I'd recomend that you kill the medium ships first as the named ship can deploy/summon light ships to assist and when you disable it you stick to the disabled ship unless you manually switch targets. the small ships aren't an issue in and of themselves but can be targeted when you try killing the medium ones (Kazon cruiser, Hunter escort or Malon cruiser), the Named one is really just a beefier version of the heavy ships you've already delt with in the previous waves (Kazon carrier, Apex Battleship, Malon Battleship) and can safely be left to be the last as disabling that ship and the medium ones ends the mission. Though the named is beefy enough that you cannot avoid having that least some small ships show up.

[The Romulan Republic]

My Federation character's story has merged with my Romulan character's story.

I tested my new quantum torpedoes on those Tal Shiar sons of bitches.

All things considered, I'm liking the Romulan stuff in this game.

[RogueIce]

My Federation character's story has merged with my Romulan character's story.

I tested my new quantum torpedoes on those Tal Shiar sons of bitches.

All things considered, I'm liking the Romulan stuff in this game.

They just redid it, so it flows better with the overall story. Before, it was pretty much separate from the Romulan PC story. And, IMO, overall a drag to get through (there were some good missions, but most were a pain).

[The Romulan Republic]

It was certainly effective to visit the colony my Romulan character started out on and explore its desolate ruins.