Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[RogueIce]

Anyone else also find battlezones confusing. I go there, kill a few Voth without much sense of how things are going, and then presto, victory. Most probably from what some other players did. At least its a nice way to get marks, and shooting Voth is fun.

The NPCs in the command center do a good job explaining things, IIRC. Anyway yeah just run out, kill bad guys, interact with anything that looks interactable basically.

As for "presto, victory" that can happen if you get lucky with your instance and it's almost complete. Actually some people will hop instances to find those near-completion ones just so they can farm easier.

[mr friendly guy]

I am just interested in how people play

1. How do people engage in ground combat?

My usual strategy is to use a sniper rifle, which gives me the first hit. Followed up closer with an pulsewave rifle. I now utilise 2 engineers who both can set up shield generators, with one of them capable of setting up phaser turrents as well. However I tend to now charge around and try and outflank the enemy. Shooting people in the back never gets old. Its better than shooting them from the front because of the flank damage. Against the Borg I keep a sword as well in case I need to go HtH. If only I can have 3 weapon slots so I can alternate between those 3 weapons I use.

I have grown quite attached to my sword. I now find it fun to just rush out an engage in HtH. Not only have I killed many Borg drones using a sword, I also slew the Breen leader (hey he was standing on a layer above me and couldn't shoot me, while I snipped as his legs,) and several Undine. So much for "the weak will perish." I have charged head first into Undine using my sword. My heroic distraction allow Tuvok to shoot the Undine while he was trying to hit me when I was hugging distance from him.

I am sure this is a total atypical strategy in fire fights in Trek, unless you're a Klingon attacking DS9.


2. What do you guys do with Duty Officers?

According to the reward, at the end of the day, you complete quests for some EC, dilithium, some occasional items and small amounts of skill and exp points. Oh, and the option to get better duty officers. Doesn't seem like much. There is however the option of putting these guys on active duty to give bonuses, so eventually I will placed some of the space duty officers to give myself bonuses to my ship abilities.

3. What is your basic away team and bridge configuration?

Mine is 2 engineers, 2 tactical and my character provides the science. My bridge is 2 tactical, 2 engineers and 1 science. My total pool of bridge officers is 2 tactical, 2 engineers and 2 science. I don't see the point of getting too many bridge officers (except as a vanity project) so I can preserve the experience points to use in gaining reputation.



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4. Where is everyone else up to?

So I am now in the Delta Quadrant quests. Apparently I need to get to level 60 before I can even start the Iconian quests.

Before the game went into maintenance, I was starting the confrontation with the Vaadwaar. Hopefully I won't find it too difficult, although earlier in this thread it was reported as difficult, especially when they limit the size of your away team.

Space combat in the Delta quadrant is fun. Only a Borg cube could potentially threaten the Bazinga one on one. In the Delta quadrant I totally undiplomatically ejected the Malon polluters without having to deploy drones. I didn't even try negotiation, I just told them to move it or else. Considering a Malon garbage ship had more power than Voyager (it was defeated by Paris's piloting and Janeway's tactics of firing torpedoes at its weaken section) I thought that was a pretty good showing on my part. I must have destroyed wave after wave of Kazon when I helped the Benthan captured a wanted criminal. Again didn't to pull out the Delta flyers or drones. I think the worse my hull went down against the Kazon was 99%, although shields took a pounding.

I was badly damaged Voth ships, but I beat them without resorting to drones. Just in case a second wave comes. Then a ginormous fleet came and I went "oh shit." Fortunately they had to rush elsewhere to aid the Turei.

5. Bugs.

Anyone experience the same bugs?

There was a quest which lets me communicate with a renegade Voth scientist. As soon as I got it, it disappeared.

Another bug is most probably server lag. There is time when they shoot me, and the Bazinga VI is just sitting there like a whale. Then the disruptor fire comes out even after I am no longer pressing fire.

A nice bug though was in a PvE quest where "Infected Conduit". After defeating the Borg I choose the Omega mark reward (well there is only one reward) and then it allows me to choose it again, up to 4 times. Each time netting me more Omega Marks. It can cut down grinding at the very least.

[Imperial Overlord]

I can earn a couple thousand dilithium a day with my duty officers. There's also some builds that benefit/rely on specific duty officer abilities. The rarer ones are, of course, give better bonuses. You seem to understand how to do ground combat (flanking, making good use of your team's powers) so the Vaadwaar shouldn't give you too much trouble on the ground.

[mr friendly guy]

Why is it now that some battles it says I automatically fight at Fleet level? A fleet admiral without his fleet can't win, especially when there is a time limit. The enemies are too numerous to kill by my lonesome even though I am amazed I survived that long.

[mr friendly guy]

Can anyone explain how fleets work. I have joined one waaay back, and it seems like they have a few projects, some of which gives benefits to members. However its not clear do I automatically get the benefits say equipment, or do I have to pay for it. Presumably with fleet credits. Is there also something else I can use fleet credits on.

[RogueIce]

Just Fleet gear. There are some passive benefits I think (IIRC having a maxed dilithium mine can reduce dilithium costs for you in other areas) but mostly it's about donating to the projects to get Fleet Credits which in turn you use to buy Fleet gear.

[Simon_Jester]

Why is it now that some battles it says I automatically fight at Fleet level? A fleet admiral without his fleet can't win, especially when there is a time limit. The enemies are too numerous to kill by my lonesome even though I am amazed I survived that long.

The only battles that work that way are the Borg/Tholian/whatever Red Alerts, so far as I know. The reason they work that way is because they spontaneously pop up and people join them, well... spontaneously. Sometimes you don't get enough people.

Can anyone explain how fleets work. I have joined one waaay back, and it seems like they have a few projects, some of which gives benefits to members. However its not clear do I automatically get the benefits say equipment, or do I have to pay for it. Presumably with fleet credits. Is there also something else I can use fleet credits on.

The projects go to upgrade facilities belonging to the Fleet: the Starbase (near Deep Space K-7), the Dilithium Mine (near DS9), the Embassy (on New Romulus), the Spire (in the Dyson Sphere), and now the Research Lab (uh... somewhere in the Delta Quadrant, I think).

Some of these upgrades just add XP to the facilities; when a facility accumulates enough XP it can be upgraded to the next tier. Tier upgrades and some other things will provide new capabilities to the facilities. Among the capabilities you might see:

-Bank, Mail, and Exchange access (handy since some of these facilities are far from other places you might have them)
-Vendors who sell unique, very high quality 'Fleet' items (such as sweet ultra rare Tier XIII ground armor), or special sets of duty officers unavailable by other means.
-Vendors who sell unique character upgrades (e.g. additional duty officer mission slots, special passive abilities, and so on), some of which you can't get any other way even with Zen.
-People who give you unique Duty Officer missions (like "mine this gigantic pile of dilithium for 500 dilithium that is effectively free every day if you have the necessary duty officers")
-Possibly access to, or better chances of victory in, cooperative Fleet maps.

All these things are purchased using a mix of dilithium and, generally, Fleet credits.

You get the Fleet credits by contributing materials to the Fleet's projects. Donations can be in the form of, including but not limited to, dilithium, Expertise points, raw materials, Common-quality duty officers, commodities (like Shield Generators and Seismic Stabilizers), basic devices weapons systems (like 'need 56 Mk V photon torpedo tubes'), and Fleet marks (which are good for like 100 or more Fleet credits each, and are earned by completing certain STFs, and maybe by some other means I don't remember).

With the new Armada system you can get the Fleet credits by contributing materials to any project being carried out by any fleet in the armada your fleet is affiliated with. Not sure you can contribute dilithium or Fleet marks to 'other' fleets, though.

The 'official' exchange rate of energy credits to Fleet credits is roughly 100:1 (a unit of Warp Coils that is worth 800 EC will earn you 8 fleet credits if you donate it to the fleet), but if you shop around on the Exchange, look at the various kind of items available and that can be expended for Fleet credits, you can usually manage an exchange rate of more like, oh, 70:1. Or 50:1. Or sometimes 30:1. On a few occasions I've been lucky enough to buy colonists on the Exchange at 1 EC per and redeem them for 300 Fleet credits apiece, but that's blind luck on par with the time I found 100 units of Contraband on the Exchange that a guy had accidentally sold for the price of one.

The official exchange rate of dilithium (donated to the fleet) to fleet credits is a flat 1:1, and since there are few if any things you can buy for dilithium that can be turned in for fleet credits, there's no real way to improve on that. Donating dilithium to the fleet is a pretty inefficient way to get Fleet credits, except that:

1) Obviously, if nobody did it, nobody's projects would get finished and being in a fleet would suck. Kind of a tragedy of the commons.

2) Since you seem to be more of a 'pay' player who will spend real money for convenience, you may NOT find it worth your time and effort to screw around on the Exchange looking for cheap ways to get them, when you can just go 'click, click, type type, click' and buy 23000 dilithium for one dollar of real money, then turn them in for 23000 fleet credits.

[mr friendly guy]

Thanks for the info. Maybe I will visit our starbase soon. My first officer definitely deserves some mark XIII gear. Sheldon Cooper of course, already has Mark 14 personal shields purchased from the exchange. Useful to increase survivability against Vaadwaar.

What do you guys think of fleet ships. Most of them seem inferior to Tier 6 ships, and I assume they were around before STO rolled out Tier 6 ships. The Tier 6 fleet ships look just like souped up versions of other tier 6 ships. Unfortunately they don't have a souped up version of the Presidio class. Maybe they can have a Tier 6 fleet upgrade purchasable by zen.

I do however have my eye on the Dauntless class, since I feel its nice to try a different ship style to the tactical + drones + hangar pets + photonic ships style I use. I even have a universal control I am saving which would be nice for ships like this, the Fluidic phase decoupler.

[Simon_Jester]

Thanks for the info. Maybe I will visit our starbase soon. My first officer definitely deserves some mark XIII gear. Sheldon Cooper of course, already has Mark 14 personal shields purchased from the exchange. Useful to increase survivability against Vaadwaar.

There's a significant difference between 'just any' Tier XIII or XIV equipment and the Ultra Rare equipment the fleets offer. Try joining a fleet, going to their starbase, and checking out the vendors; you'll see what I mean.

Remember, just because two items are of the same tier doesn't mean they're equally good. A Mk XI beam array with triple critical damage bonuses is much better to have than a Mk XII Common beam array, for instance.

[Lord Revan]

Thanks for the info. Maybe I will visit our starbase soon. My first officer definitely deserves some mark XIII gear. Sheldon Cooper of course, already has Mark 14 personal shields purchased from the exchange. Useful to increase survivability against Vaadwaar.

There's a significant difference between 'just any' Tier XIII or XIV equipment and the Ultra Rare equipment the fleets offer. Try joining a fleet, going to their starbase, and checking out the vendors; you'll see what I mean.

Remember, just because two items are of the same tier doesn't mean they're equally good. A Mk XI beam array with triple critical damage bonuses is much better to have than a Mk XII Common beam array, for instance.

actually from what I've heard the fleet gear is rather "meh" and it's better to upgrade your existing gear to Ultra Rare or better if you have the right mods in the items.

[RogueIce]

actually from what I've heard the fleet gear is rather "meh" and it's better to upgrade your existing gear to Ultra Rare or better if you have the right mods in the items.

That's assuming, of course, that RNGesus blessed you with the good mods, and not crap mods like [PvPRes] or whatever.

Or you just spend the EC to buy a UR {Weapon Type Whatever} Mk ?? [CrtD]x4 off the Exchange I guess.

In any event, Fleet gear still has plenty of goodies to keep it relevant. The weapons, maybe not (assuming again you want to min/max for [CrtD]x4 or whatever) but even the Elite Fleet weapons have that special modifier you won't find in crafting, assuming you care for it.

The Fleet consoles though are probably the best in this regard. Especially those Vulnerability Locators in the Spire, and I'd assume the Threat Reducing Science ones from the Embassy (these may be superseded by now though, don't know). I know the Spire tac Consoles still reign supreme though, and you can't replicate their innate Critical Hit chance mod with crafted tac consoles.

I think Elite Fleet gear in general is still pretty good, depending on your build and what you want to do. Fleet gear is no longer top dog, I will grant: this is mainly because there are so many more options these days. Plus, it used to be only Fleet was modded to Ultra Rare, but thanks to Upgrades you can get just about anything to UR and now a step above to Epic.

Nonetheless, Fleet gear isn't really obsolete, it just may not be the only choice for your endgame setup.

[Simon_Jester]

actually from what I've heard the fleet gear is rather "meh" and it's better to upgrade your existing gear to Ultra Rare or better if you have the right mods in the items.

As RogueIce notes, you don't actually have control over whether your item gets upgraded to Ultra Rare or Elite quality, and it can be very expensive in both EC and dilithium to do an upgrade.

Even if you do take that road, the upgrades you get are random and may be useless to you.

While Fleet items are also expensive, they're not as freaking impossible to get as [CrtD]x4 beam weapons or the like. Such items are extremely scarce, and therefore correspondingly expensive and hard to come by.

And my original point was simply that Fleet items tend to be far superior to what you can find randomly lying around, and even superior to most of the items you find as end-of-mission rewards. So they are not a 'small' or irrelevant part of the advantages of being affiliated with a Fleet.

[mr friendly guy]

I should be more careful with Foundry games. When they try to be too smart, ie nothing other than a shootfest they fuck it up. I am playing an assault on Qo'nos, which is all well and good, until you die and then you respawn behind a forcefield with no way to get back to kill those guards. Which means you can't complete the game. How hard is it to not have the forcefield?

[Lord Revan]

I should be more careful with Foundry games. When they try to be too smart, ie nothing other than a shootfest they fuck it up. I am playing an assault on Qo'nos, which is all well and good, until you die and then you respawn behind a forcefield with no way to get back to kill those guards. Which means you can't complete the game. How hard is it to not have the forcefield?

the thing is that you're limited to 25 NPC packs (including enemies, allies and any neutral bystanders you might have) and 50 unique NPCs (that cannot attack or be attacked), so on large maps you kind of have to get creative unless you want wast open spaces filled with anothing (which can work if that's what you're going for).

[Alferd Packer]

They just released the stats for the T6 Akira. I'm super pumped.

[mr friendly guy]

They need to make a fleet version of the command cruisers. Extra hull strength, maybe an extra console space (it already has 11, but most fleet versions of Tier 6 ships add an extra console) and extra shield strength. Right now I am tinkering around the edges of my ship. Added spatial charges for that extra firepower, and now have 5 permanent duty officers to boost its power. I am hoping to eventually get a duty officer with extra damage vs <insert race here> which I will rotate in and out depending on the tactical situation.

Anyone have tips on building science ships. I am going to experiment with a science class ship, maybe the Fleet Dauntless (as opposed to regular Dauntless). Extra consoles, hull strength and shields is great. I keep on hearing about exotic damage boosting, but according to the wiki it seems to be in the form of things other than energy damage, eg protons or radiation which isn't polaron/phaser/disruptors/tetyron/antiprotons/plasma. I am curious how to maximise it and also what to use the secondary deflector for.

[Lord Revan]

there's special consoles that boost exotic damage (science or engineering ones) only some deflectors, engines, warp cores or shield might boost it too (deflectors being the most common ones) also if you're gonna go for science ship build a good secondary deflector is a must.

Secondary deflectors give special charectaristic to your science abilities (both innate to character and Boff ones) for example one I'm using atm on my science char adds damage to abilities that normally shouldn't hurt enemies.

[RogueIce]

They need to make a fleet version of the command cruisers. Extra hull strength, maybe an extra console space (it already has 11, but most fleet versions of Tier 6 ships add an extra console) and extra shield strength.

Fleet T6 ships also have 11 consoles. The regular ones have 10. Right now, 11 is the maximum amount of consoles. So on that front, the Command BCs are already "fleet grade" in the same way, for instance, the Odyssey class ships are for T5. And a quick check of STO Wiki indicates their Shield Modifier and Hull Strength are in the same league as the Fleet T6s.

So I'd say those are already Fleet quality as-is.

[mr friendly guy]

there's special consoles that boost exotic damage (science or engineering ones) only some deflectors, engines, warp cores or shield might boost it too (deflectors being the most common ones) also if you're gonna go for science ship build a good secondary deflector is a must.

Secondary deflectors give special charectaristic to your science abilities (both innate to character and Boff ones) for example one I'm using atm on my science char adds damage to abilities that normally shouldn't hurt enemies.

Which weapons normally do exotic damage in the first place? Presumably it must be at least uncommon versions to add in an exotic damage on top of the usual energy one.

Can you tell me which secondary deflector you use?

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On another note, I discovered the joys of upgrading. You can just use the basic up grading kits. Since most of my gear is already rare, very rare or ultra rare, you don't need to upgrade it really to the next rarity. You just need to increase the rank from MK 12 to MK 14. Tried it with my bioneural warhead. Now I am considering upgrading the Kobali Deflector to level 14 for the extra shield boost.

Also upgraded my hand held weapons to mark 14. Those Heralds are tough and I don't think giving an extra 80 shield points at the cost of tons of dilithium is really worth it. I am going to get killed anyway, and I will just respawn. So its best to kill those guys faster.

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What do you guys think of beams + torps. I want my science ship to be somewhat different from my carrier, which is virtually a pure beam boat. I got a whole collection of mark 12 torps of various types, some of which are are rare. Presumably I can upgrade to mark 14. I have seen science builds with ships which aren't the Fleet Version of the Dauntless class, so I should be able to do more if I decide to purchase the Dauntless.

[Lord Revan]

there's special consoles that boost exotic damage (science or engineering ones) only some deflectors, engines, warp cores or shield might boost it too (deflectors being the most common ones) also if you're gonna go for science ship build a good secondary deflector is a must.

Secondary deflectors give special charectaristic to your science abilities (both innate to character and Boff ones) for example one I'm using atm on my science char adds damage to abilities that normally shouldn't hurt enemies.

Which weapons normally do exotic damage in the first place? Presumably it must be at least uncommon versions to add in an exotic damage on top of the usual energy one.

Can you tell me which secondary deflector you use?

actually exotic damage is more of a ability thing and I don't know any weapons that do it. Tyken's Rift and Gravity well are the most common ones but there's others as well.

as for secondary deflectors the one that gives the damage buff is nice, a Deteriorating Secondary Deflector (just a regular mark XI atm nothing special).

[mr friendly guy]

Some weapons have radiant in their name and did some weird type of damage on top of their usual kind, so I assume those counted as "exotic" damage.

[Simon_Jester]

As I recall, it is MUCH better to use Superior upgrade items instead of Basic. The Superior items cost more energy credits, but they save you a tremendous amount of dilithium.

Although I'd need to re-run the calculations to be sure.

[Lord Revan]

Some weapons have radiant in their name and did some weird type of damage on top of their usual kind, so I assume those counted as "exotic" damage.

Radiant AP weapons are just normal anti-proton weapons, the "radiant" mod translates to "+10% critical severity and a chance on hit health buff", it reads "radiation damage" or "exotic damage" then it's exotic.

Anti-proton is kind of the default "exotic" when it comes to energy types but isn't the same as "exotic damage".

EDIT:I actually run an AP build on my science officer char, so I had check the radiant stuff.

[mr friendly guy]

@Simon

Yes, you're most probably right. If dilithium costs were a problem. Although I was not sure how to get hold of superior upgrade items so I stuck with the basic as the Sol spacedock wasn't selling anything else.

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I had a look on youtube and some people give great advise on builds, although I don't understand all of it. I think the only advantage I have is that I am willing to upgrade very rare quest items to mark 14. That being said, I haven't seen anyone in PvE use my style of drones, drones, more drones and carrier pets + photonic fleet. Since photonic fleet is a science ability and drones and carrier pets usually fits into the tactical style of play. Someone would literally need all 3 command cruisers to deploy those 3 drones, and I usually also deploy an aceton assimilator and 2 Delta flyers. So minimum of 6 extra "drones" up to a maximum of 11 (if I can get all 4 delta flyers out + the 3 photonic ships).
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Since I started putting resources into our fleet, its gone from tier 6 to 9 in a few days. Still a long way to go before they get the abilities I want, such as adding more duty officers, adding extra traits and some elite gear. The good news is, there are people who have (maybe not as quick) spent more on the Fleet, so if we can recruit a few more spenders (particularly with regards to common duty officers) we can start building the good stuff.

As a result of the amount of contributions I have made, I have now been promoted 2 spots to commander. Plus I got at least 500,000 Fleet credits and apparently quite a few "lifetime" Fleet credits, which the wikia doesn't actually explain what that does.

[RogueIce]

Plus I got at least 500,000 Fleet credits and apparently quite a few "lifetime" Fleet credits, which the wikia doesn't actually explain what that does.

"Lifetime" Fleet Credits are basically your 'score' (for lack of a better word) so that you can track how much you've given to a Fleet, without that number going down as you spend FCs on Fleet gear.

Speaking of Fleet gear, with the sole exception of Fleet ships, you can get invites to other Fleets that have maxed out their holdings and just buy whatever you want there, provided A) you have enough FCs and B) in the case of consoles and such, your home Fleet has adequate provision levels. NoP Public Service (scroll down the list and you'll see the name, plus the article tells you how to join) is the most well known one. Just request, for instance, T3 Fed Spire, T5 KDF Starbase, etc access.