Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[Elheru Aran]

Right, well. I don't see why they didn't at least offer a minimal upgrade to your standard Lvl 40 ships. "Here's a taste of what you can get if you spend money". Extra console, weapon slot, boff, I don't know. Run a quick mission if you have to. Just freaking ridiculous.

Because you're getting something each 10 levels, right? Until you hit 50, and then it's nothing... and again, nothing at 60. You get some abilities and stuff, sure, but the space combat is something like... what... 70-80% of people are into STO for? Because it's Star Trek. It's not about sitting on the dirtballs, it's about zooming around in shiny (or not so shiny, if your tastes lay that way) fancy starships.

I mean, I get that Arc/PWE has to make money. So you can still offer extra upgrades, fleet versions, C-store ships and what not. I mean, don't they have a Miranda-- your bog-standard starting ship-- that's a fleet version with 4 slots forward and back, rather than 2 and 1? And the Akiraprise. People buy that shit. They're not going to stop buying that shit if they get free ships anyway, because maybe they want something different, or they want to be the one blowing up Voth with a beginner ship or whatever. Shit, if other games can charge you $3 for a gun that's exactly the same as your other gun but it's a DIFFERENT COLOR, and players still buy it... (OK, maybe Evolve is a bad example)

Long story short: I think Arc/Cryptic/PWE/whoever the fuck runs things is dropping the ball on end-game leveling up rewards. I'm not saying they need to give us a Tier 10 ship or whatever... but giving players that hit the max level something better than having to put up with a ship they got 20 levels ago would be nice.

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly I'm fairly content with my Sovereign class ship. Though an additional science officer on the bridge would be nice. I miss that from my Intrepid.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, I'm at 38 now on my Delta, so I think I'll go for the Sov this time around. Got a Patrol Escort before and... well... meh. Too lightweight. Not enough slots. I think the Sov has enough punch for me to survive not having cannon, which is the fun part of the PE-- just point it and things blow up.

What I *really* like about the Delta Recruit thing is the wads of free money though. Here's some rep marks! Here's some dilithium! Here's some EC! I've done hardly anything and already I have ~3m EC and ~10K dil. Not complaining, that's for sure. Gonna shoot for some Omega and Romulan toys with the rep marks.

[Lord Revan]

I've been building my Iconian Resistance rep on my Starfleet engineer, sure the visuals are as skin tight as as most superhero costumes (hope your character doesn't have body image issues ), I'll probably get the MACO set for her too for 2 reason (first the MACO/HG set has a built in remodulator so for Borg maps it's really good and second the MACO bodysuit leaves at least something to the imagination)

[Simon_Jester]

Hm...

What do people think is a good space set (or for that matter ground set) for a science officer?

[Lord Revan]

Hm...

What do people think is a good space set (or for that matter ground set) for a science officer?

the free Solanae set is good for Sci officer a lot of Aux power/exotic damage, as for ground set I dunno if there's any that boost abilities specific for sci officers.

Basically for a Sci officer you want as much stuff that boosts your exotic damage as possible (my current aux power level is 70/25 for my sci offficer and that's a bit low(ish)), also I'd recomend getting some Aux Batteries so you can get 125+ (with the right gear) aux power for a quick brust. In essence as a science officer your primary means of damage in space are things like grav well or tyken's rift and you want things that boost those as much as possible.

[The Romulan Republic]

Wish my Klingon ship was a bit faster. I'm chasing an escaped spy and I feel like I'm crawling through sector space to reach my destination.

[The Romulan Republic]

Okay, any advice on how to take out a Federation Presidio class starship with a starting Klingon Bird of Prey? Because I haven't had a chance to get a new Klingon ship yet.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, you should have powerful forward cannon with high DPS output. Basically, you use the cannons to penetrate the shields and (optionally) fire torpedoes into the hull through the hole you just made. Break off the attack if it looks like you're getting your ass kicked.

This is one of the early Klingon missions, right? If so then this IS doable.

Hm...

What do people think is a good space set (or for that matter ground set) for a science officer?

the free Solanae set is good for Sci officer a lot of Aux power/exotic damage, as for ground set I dunno if there's any that boost abilities specific for sci officers.

Basically for a Sci officer you want as much stuff that boosts your exotic damage as possible (my current aux power level is 70/25 for my sci offficer and that's a bit low(ish)), also I'd recomend getting some Aux Batteries so you can get 125+ (with the right gear) aux power for a quick brust. In essence as a science officer your primary means of damage in space are things like grav well or tyken's rift and you want things that boost those as much as possible.

Does exotic damage include, for instance, the radiation damage caused by the secondary deflector?

[Lord Revan]

it might I'm not 100% on that it does include the damage from Gravity Well though and Aux power boosts all science officer abilities.

[Elheru Aran]

I vaguely remember that scenario. It really isn't hard. Just boom and scoot. You have enough speed and maneuverability to run circles around most Federation ships.

As for sets: In general I understand the focus is to maximize your DPS. So a lot of people go for, for example, the Kinetic Cutting Beam that you can get from running the Omega reputations and the Romulan reputation for that lovely torpedo-spam launcher. I've always played Tac and Engineering so I can't really say about Science, sorry. Far as I know Revan is mostly correct in that you want to maximize your abilities with that one, not just your weapons as you're going to have less of those on a typical Sci ship.

[The Romulan Republic]

Problem is that the Federation ship spawns a swarm of fucking Peregrine fighters that have just as much maneuverability as me (probably more) and chase my ship down.

Edit: I eventually gave up and went to try to purchase some better gear before trying it again.

[Elheru Aran]

...ok, I definitely didn't run into the Peregrine fighters. I guess that's new.

[Coaan]

The new command ships they added (and retroactively replaced the typhoon with) all have a hangar bay, making fights involving them quite tough for unsuspecting klinks. It's not really an issue feddie side because I can think of maybe one or two instances where there's a carrier to fight.

Klinks had the same problem with Vestas too, if I remember right.

If your difficulty is already set to normal, then you either need better gear or a random to help out.

[Lord Revan]

yeah the Prestido (IIRC) class has replaced the Typhoon in many places including as the default starfleet "battleship" mob for the foundry meaning alot of times your battleship mobs are capable of launching fighters even though that ship type doesn't have the capability in game.

[Lord Revan]

yeah the Prestido (IIRC) class has replaced the Typhoon in many places including as the default starfleet "battleship" mob for the foundry meaning alot of times your battleship mobs are capable of launching fighters even though that ship type doesn't have the capability in game.

[The Romulan Republic]

For some reason it won't let me enter deep space encounters. What the bloody hell?

Anyway, so much for my plan to acquire loot, sell it for energy, buy better gear, and then try the last mission again. I'm stuck.

[Lord Revan]

For some reason it won't let me enter deep space encounters. What the bloody hell?

Anyway, so much for my plan to acquire loot, sell it for energy, buy better gear, and then try the last mission again. I'm stuck.

if I'm online the same time as you, I can bring Morai (my only KDF char (she's no Klingon though)) to help you out assuming the system allow that obviously. Just give a me message in-game if you need a hand.

[The Romulan Republic]

Thanks.

I'd really like to be able to beat this one myself, but I have yet to come up with a good plan for doing so.

Question (I know I really should know the answer to this): When a carrier launches fighters, does it eventually run out or keep launching them indefinitely? If I could eliminate the Peregrines and then take on the big ship...

[Lord Revan]

Thanks.

I'd really like to be able to beat this one myself, but I have yet to come up with a good plan for doing so.

Question (I know I really should know the answer to this): When a carrier launches fighters, does it eventually run out or keep launching them indefinitely? If I could eliminate the Peregrines and then take on the big ship...

indefinetly as far as I know or at least that's how playble carriers work though playble ships can have only 6 craft per hangar active and NPC ships seem to work the same way. at least I've never encounted an NPC carrier that ran out of small craft before.

That said the Presido counts as a battleship IIRC so it's AI might only launch one wave of 6 and then stop launching fighters but I'm not sure.

Best way I can think of would be to focus on the mothership and bring it down first then deal with the fighters.

[Elheru Aran]

Hmmmm. Second time now I've had an extremely annoying bug where I beam out after completing a mission... and it starts over in sector space. I am not amused.

[The Romulan Republic]

Its interesting redoing early Federation stuff with my Ferengi engineer.

On the whole, though, I think the Romulan story might be my favourite so far. Its so tragic and epic to be trying to rebuild Romulan civilization. But I don't really care for the Klingon story. It forces you to play as a vicious barbarian, which isn't my cup of tea. I'll probably keep playing it to see what happens though.

[Elheru Aran]

The Klink stuff, I thought, was a fairly decent way of guiding you through TNG/DS9 style Klingon culture, at least early on (first 10-15 missions anyway). Stuff like going to the funeral for Martok's son and then having to fight off intruders, going to Rura Penthe (where my Gorn was running through the snow in bare feet even though he was wearing a heavy coat. WTF?), seeing Worf's son get knifed in the middle of the Council Hall instead of his father--nice callback to TNG there-- and so forth.

Of course, if you can't stand TNG/DS9 Klingon culture, that may be a problem there...

The Rom story is OK, though it's annoying how little of it you actually get. Most of it is just recycling the same missions you run through with all your other characters.

Federation is just... bland. Boring. Generic. There's nothing about the missions that make them uniquely Starfleet/Fed versus the Klingon funeral or exploring the new Romulan homeworld. You know? I mean, there's some missions that are Fed-only like, IIRC, the one where you're going to kill the Doomsday Machine, or the time-travel one with the Kuvagh'magh. But they don't really resonate with me. They're all by-the-book procedural. Go in there, pull out the hostage, get out, report to Starfleet. Nothing really funky.

Like, say, what if you actually saw what would happen if B'vat went through with taking Miral Paris and bringing the cure to the Klingon plague to the past, and you had to choose what to do to restore the situation, and one choice will make it worse but you don't know which (though of course for game reasons you can probably guess which)?

So basically I guess my problem with the missions is the writing... they're too routine.

[The Romulan Republic]

One of my biggest problem with the stories is that they don't give you much choice as to how you do the job. This is particularly galling with Federation missions where you are forced to act contrary to the Federation's principles and Klingon missions where you are forced to act like a stereotypical Klingon.

[Lord Revan]

the UFP and KDF stories are one of oldest story lines in the game atm, they could really use a redoing. it would be nice if you could indeed at the very least try work things according to federation princibles first.

and it seems odd that my Orion Female would have to beat information out of a starfleet officer when it's known in canon that orion females have near supernatural ability to seduce males and aren't afraid of using cunning to get what they want.

Also my Starfleet engineering officer is telepathic so she should be able to get information that way in certain missions (or they should say why this isn't an option).