Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[bilateralrope]

I hit level 58 through the episode missions alone, before hitting the point where I have to earn XP elsewhere. So now to think about how I want to gain XP.

One thing I want to do is max out all reputations for the traits. I've decided that I only want to boost my reputation through the daily rep projects as they have the best XP:Reputation ratio and I want to save my XP for specialisations. The daily mark bonus gives more marks than the daily project costs. Any suggestions for the quickest way to earn some marks for each reputation each day ?

[bilateralrope]

Actually, forget about which method is fastest. I'll stick to PvE queues for now, they are entertaining.

This is the first time I've played an MMO with the rolling for need/greed on item drops. Is there any reason why I shouldn't just click 'need' for everything, since I do need more EC to improve my gear ?

[mr friendly guy]

Actually, forget about which method is fastest. I'll stick to PvE queues for now, they are entertaining.

This is the first time I've played an MMO with the rolling for need/greed on item drops. Is there any reason why I shouldn't just click 'need' for everything, since I do need more EC to improve my gear ?

Not really. Its sort of an honour system. Unless you're filthy rich it most probably helps to click on need.

[bilateralrope]

Actually, forget about which method is fastest. I'll stick to PvE queues for now, they are entertaining.

This is the first time I've played an MMO with the rolling for need/greed on item drops. Is there any reason why I shouldn't just click 'need' for everything, since I do need more EC to improve my gear ?

Not really. Its sort of an honour system. Unless you're filthy rich it most probably helps to click on need.

On that note, has anyone been in a situation where people didn't just blindly click 'need' for everything ?

My previous experience with MMOs has been:
- Guild Wars 1: Items were randomly assigned an owner when they dropped. If that player didn't pick them up within 10 minutes or so then other players could take them. I remember people who switched from WoW to GW trying to convince me that a DKP system is somehow fairer than random distribution, usually shortly before or after complaining about the person running the DKP system abusing it.
- Guild Wars 2: The only drops you get to see are your own unless another player tells you what they picked up.
- Eve Online: When something drops loot, it drops all its loot in a container. Anyone can empty it. In cases where the container is given an owner, taking from that container gives permission for the owner to attack the thief. Shooting the thief is a bad idea

[houser2112]

Actually, forget about which method is fastest. I'll stick to PvE queues for now, they are entertaining.

This is the first time I've played an MMO with the rolling for need/greed on item drops. Is there any reason why I shouldn't just click 'need' for everything, since I do need more EC to improve my gear ?

I started playing this game a couple weeks ago (I have a TOS level 54), inspired by reading this thread. I haven't had a chance to do PVE queues yet, could someone explain this "need/greed" thing? The only MMO I ever played was GW1, so I don't have a frame of reference.

[mr friendly guy]

On that note, has anyone been in a situation where people didn't just blindly click 'need' for everything ?

Playing Neverwinter. A lot of items needs to be identified and if it should be obvious whether its an item your character can use or not. Most of them don't pick items their characters can't use, even to sell. Because you barely get anything from it, unless you're prepared to expend an identification scroll, which in turn costs resources. Most probably not worth the effort.

In STO some weak items I find people don't click need on. And the value most likely explains it. In a game where items go for tens to hundreds of millions on the exchange, it really isn't worth the effort to get items which net you maybe a few hundred to a few thousand EC once you become a filthy rich Ferengi.

[mr friendly guy]

Actually, forget about which method is fastest. I'll stick to PvE queues for now, they are entertaining.

This is the first time I've played an MMO with the rolling for need/greed on item drops. Is there any reason why I shouldn't just click 'need' for everything, since I do need more EC to improve my gear ?

I started playing this game a couple weeks ago (I have a TOS level 54), inspired by reading this thread. I haven't had a chance to do PVE queues yet, could someone explain this "need/greed" thing? The only MMO I ever played was GW1, so I don't have a frame of reference.

As far as I can tell, whoever gets the item is determined by some type of random number like a die roll. However if you put need, you'll get first preferences or at least higher chance of getting it than a player who puts greed. Obviously it relies on an honour system, or else everyone will game the system by clicking need. Frankly some of those items aren't worth it for some people so they would most probably click pass.

Generally when the take item screen flashes on, I sometimes just click any option just to get rid of the tab from my screen.

[bilateralrope]

In STO some weak items I find people don't click need on. And the value most likely explains it. In a game where items go for tens to hundreds of millions on the exchange, it really isn't worth the effort to get items which net you maybe a few hundred to a few thousand EC once you become a filthy rich Ferengi.

I agree that it's not worth the effort to sell them on the exchange. But I've got two reasons for clicking need each time:
1 - It requires less of my attention that looking at what the item is. Meaning more attention for the fight.
2 - In GW1 and 2 a large chunk of my income came from the most common items in the game. Items that were basically vendor trash. Not worth much individually, but there were a lot of them dropping.

In STO I've stopped even trying to sell whites and greens on the exchange, except for a few things that I know will sell for a lot. I'm starting to question if it's worth price checking blues.

[bilateralrope]

The Iconians have a very interesting way of carrying their wounded.

Other bugs I've run into recently:
- Just before the first cutscene in Voyager's meeting room, all the chairs vanished and the characters fell threw the floor. All cutscene my character was standing in the chair with her arms folded. After the cutscene, Nelix was standing on his chair.
- Random trait resets. No clue why they keep happening.
- Icons being removed from my hotbar for reasons unknown. I've had to put shield batteries back on it in combat 3 times in the last two days.
- Started a PvE queue mission. During the time when we couldn't move so that people can read the briefing, one of the other players ships had pushed me 50km straight upwards. So far up that heading downwards on the steepest angle I could manage still had me fly over the objective outside of my weapons range, forcing me to slowly spiral into weapons range. Why can't STO ships fly straight up or down ?
- The automatic dilithium refinement I should have for subscribing isn't working.

[mr friendly guy]

This site is real useful for comparing the effectiveness of STO gear once you upgrade to epic.

https://ufplanets.com/showthread.php?51 ... -Epic-Gear

A lot of ground armour gives way more hit points once you upgrade to epic. The site only goes up to the Iconian set and hasn't added sets after. At that time it appears the ground armour for Iconians appear to be the most powerful. However the Na'kuhl shields give 753 points to the Iconian of 713. So its pretty much better, plus you get that special protection which makes you immune to damage for 10 seconds when your shields drop to less than 10%. Which gives me time to finish off those pesky Jem'hadar on advance level.

So I swapped out the Iconian shields for the Na'kuhl one. However I kept my Iconian antiproton weapon since my kit gives me antiproton damage bonus, and I need at least 2 items from the set to get the hit point bonus. Of course I lose the radiant bonus (ie 3 piece bonus), but I rarely use that ability and it seems to be more useful for team plays rather than individual. I have now switched my secondary weapon with the Na'kuhl one, which gives me the 2 piece bonus of 2% critical chance and 30% critical severity. So all in all, I have become even tankier and more badass on the ground.

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, forget about which method is fastest. I'll stick to PvE queues for now, they are entertaining.

Frankly, it probably IS the fastest method. A lot of the PvE queues can stock you up not just for one daily reputation grind, but for two or even three.

Na'kuhl Raider red alerts are a good choice too, because they can give you literally any kind of mark you want.

Borg red alerts are a good way to earn Omega reputation marks, but there's almost always Borg PvE queues running, so it's kind of pointless.

Tholian red alerts are nice because if you take the right daily mission from a New Romulan contact, you can pick up Nukara marks and Romulan Republic marks for completing the same mission. However, Tholian red alerts are rare, so it depends on whether the random number god smiles on you in the beta quadrant.

If you're a Temporal Agent you also picked up a bunch of freebie rewards that can be turned in for marks by finding Temporal Probes in the single-player campaign.

This is the first time I've played an MMO with the rolling for need/greed on item drops. Is there any reason why I shouldn't just click 'need' for everything, since I do need more EC to improve my gear ?

If you are without honor, then do so by all means.

- Started a PvE queue mission. During the time when we couldn't move so that people can read the briefing, one of the other players ships had pushed me 50km straight upwards. So far up that heading downwards on the steepest angle I could manage still had me fly over the objective outside of my weapons range, forcing me to slowly spiral into weapons range. Why can't STO ships fly straight up or down ?

I'm pretty sure the combat engine is 2.5-dimensional, and is not equipped to handle what happens if a ship does a 'backflip' by flying straight up and then continuing to pitch 'upward.'

Also, the way shield facings work would become problematic if a ship can turn so that its 'up' or 'down' are pointing along your line of fire. Your shots could well be hitting multiple shield facings at once, since there are only four facings and no 'dorsal' or 'ventral' shields.'

[PREDATOR490]

The reason you cannot go up and down is the same reason you cannot roll your ship - Early testers thought it was too complicated to handle and made them sick and you never saw ships doing that in the shows.

Which might be fine for an excuse if Cryptic would stop putting fucking objectives at different heights. It is really silly to make a 3D space game with issues relating to height without making it reasonable to change height for players. Instead you have to do a spiral to your target.

As for NEED / GREED - Select NEED every time unless you know the people you are rolling with. This has been standard practice through STO simply because the game has no 'honour'. Anyone relying on the honour system for PUGs is deluding themselves. That and rolling NEED is simply better because most folks do not care about the loot and want to get the box out of the way as fast as they can.

99% of the loot you will get from random drops is worthless vendor trash, the 'good' stuff costs you dilithium which is Cryptic's money currency and likely a shit load of grinding to acquire. The alternative is to join a Fleet / Guild and work your way up with that system to buy the Fleet equipment but that can be a horrible grind as well.

Not to mention the Dilithium premium is higher and the Fleet stock tends to be gated by the Fleet owners who will want you to jump through hoops before you can buy anything. To be fair, this is kinda justified since Fleet starbases require a massive amount of investment from the Fleet for those items to become available.

[mr friendly guy]

The thing is, in a team environment where I am the only picking up loot, I don't see why I shouldn't click need even if I just get a small amount of EC for it. EC is what I really have trouble earning. As it turns out during the mirror invasion event, I was the only one looting.

[bilateralrope]

The reason you cannot go up and down is the same reason you cannot roll your ship - Early testers thought it was too complicated to handle and made them sick and you never saw ships doing that in the shows.

Which might be fine for an excuse if Cryptic would stop putting fucking objectives at different heights. It is really silly to make a 3D space game with issues relating to height without making it reasonable to change height for players. Instead you have to do a spiral to your target.

The problem is not objectives at different heights. The problem is that the only pointer to the objective is 2 dimensional. I don't know the height until I get close, then I need to travel at too steep of an angle.

[bilateralrope]

Now this is the kind of thing that annoys me.

limited time event starting on Thursday, August 25, 2016, and ending on Thursday, September 15, 2016

That's 3 weeks. 21 days.
I work a 4 day on, 4 day off schedule. 12 hour shifts mean that I can't play STO on the days I'm working. Best case I get 12 days during that period when I can play, depending on when in my schedule I'm at when the event starts. Worst case is 9 days

Once a day, players will be awarded a Multidimensional Transporter for playing this event.

Meaning I can get 9-12 of these.

By turning in 14 Transporters

I need 14 for the reward. Making it something that is impossible for me to obtain.

How often are they going to be running events that I can not complete ?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Look at it this way- unlike the summer and winter events the tokens for this (and Crystalline Catastrophe) remain valid and can be carried forward to future ones. All but my 3 newest toons already have a handful of multidimensional transporters tucked away from last time, meaning I can turn in the event sooner. The trick is not to turn in the excess ones once you've claimed the main reward as that gets you less dil per token, but to save them for next time.

[mr friendly guy]

Look at it this way- unlike the summer and winter events the tokens for this (and Crystalline Catastrophe) remain valid and can be carried forward to future ones. All but my 3 newest toons already have a handful of multidimensional transporters tucked away from last time, meaning I can turn in the event sooner. The trick is not to turn in the excess ones once you've claimed the main reward as that gets you less dil per token, but to save them for next time.

And even with the winter event, if you start the task, you can buy tokens from the lobi store to finish the task even after the event is over. I used it to get that Krenim ship with krenim chronotin torpedo.

[mr friendly guy]

The mirror invasion event is giving me the opportunity to get Iconian marks, which are not easy for the Iconian PvE. I have now gotten a second Iconian ground set, or at least two of the items. The health bonuses are amazing and given it to another one of my away team. The problem is, it doesn't do that much more for them compared to me, since I have armor skill. But an increase of health from 742 (via the Delta alliance set) to 868 with the Iconian set is pretty good. Otherwise I am just going to get all reputation marks to at least 1,000, so in the event I decide I need a new item I can at least get one on short notice.

[mr friendly guy]

Well this is the first time I had PvP single battle in space. Previously I have been challenged on ground and in space with groups, although I rarely play PvP, preferring PvE and completing quests. I felt kind of bad that I won 15 to 0, but I do have questions for those who play PvP.

1. Is it considered bad form to swarm the enemy with ships?

I mean I used photonic fleet and delta flyers +/- delta alliance ships to finish him off before he can escape my shitloads of spatial anomalies. Sometimes he does, but around half the time I manage to weaken him so much with gravity well, casual anchors, chronal inversions etc that my shield penetrating krenim chroniton torpedoes matched with polaron beams finish him off. But when it looks like he is about to escape I summon ships to finish him off.

My opponent tried the same trick against me, but I don't think he has the same number hangar pets or could summon the same number of ships. All he could put up was a sensor disrupting drone of some type which I made short work off, some obelisk hangar pets which I destroyed and he summoned an ally which I destroyed as well. Contrast to photonic fleet and delta alliance summoner which can churn out 3 ships each. It seemed to me he either could not match my ship summoning tricks (most probably because he presumably was tactical as he is flying a tactical ship) or chose not to do so.

2. Is it bad to play "conservatively?"

What I mean by this is not take risks. Essentially most of the time I ran away until my science bridge officer abilities were charged up and fire. In other words, I played with an ambush strategy. While I can't cloak, I can teleport. So I charge up all my science buffs outside the 10 km range and then teleport in, hit him, and it things look like I can't finish him off, run away. Or swarm him with ships.

When he tried casual anchors I didn't slug it out with him (well he has a tactical ship to my science), I just teleported away and waited for his casual anchor to fade.

[bilateralrope]

I've finished the episodes. Now to see if STO can hold my interest, which means a plan for the gear grind. I think my plan is:
- Get the gear I can get through repeating missions. Any suggestions for what would be good ground gear to get at this stage ?
- Then start working towards rep/exchange gear for my ship.
- Then look into gear that costs fleet credits, as I'm unlocking extra trait slots with them before buying any equipment.
- Then start upgrading what I've got.

I'll figure out the ship gear I'm after myself.

The reason you cannot go up and down is the same reason you cannot roll your ship - Early testers thought it was too complicated to handle and made them sick and you never saw ships doing that in the shows.

I've been thinking about about this since I've found that I'm having trouble keeping track of everyone else in a fight. There are a few differences between how Eve Online and STO does things that make STO fights harder to follow:
- Eve lets you zoom out way further than STO does. So you can see the entire battle, instead of just what's in front of you.
- STO keeps swinging the camera around to show your current target (I've seen the option to turn this off before, can't find it again). In Eve, the camera only moves when you move it.
- Eve provides a list of all targets that you can see, with optional filters, that you can use to select targets. STO provides no such list, so you have to click targets in space. Sometimes trying to select one target instead selects another target that is behind that one according to the distance measurements.
- In STO the mouse button you use to move the camera will select a target for you when you click it, or deselect the current target if you click empty space. So that regularly happens accidentally (GW2 had the same problem for a while, then added the option to separate camera and target select functions).

[mr friendly guy]

I've finished the episodes. Now to see if STO can hold my interest, which means a plan for the gear grind. I think my plan is:
- Get the gear I can get through repeating missions. Any suggestions for what would be good ground gear to get at this stage ?
- Then start working towards rep/exchange gear for my ship.
- Then look into gear that costs fleet credits, as I'm unlocking extra trait slots with them before buying any equipment.
- Then start upgrading what I've got.

I'll figure out the ship gear I'm after myself.

Iconian ground gear is pretty good. You need however to upgrade the armour to epic and mark 14 for the extra 301 hit points. Then if you can combine it another piece of the set, you get another 100 or so hit points added. My toon has the armour plus weapons for the set bonus. For the shields I use the Na'kuhl shield, with the untargetable ability when your shields drop to under 10%. This is better than the Iconian shield in raw shield points.

My tactical officer on the away team also has two pieces of the Iconian set. Otherwise the rest of my team has the delta alliance armour and shields, which gives a pretty hefty bonus to health as well, although not as good. Delta marks are easier IMO to earn than Iconian ones. However since we are in the mirror invasion event, all marks can be earned by doing the mirror invasion event and you get more marks doing this than the Iconian PvE, no matter how well the team does on Iconian PvEs.

For weapons I love the Iconian antiproton weapon. It helps if you have a herald kit which boosts antiproton damage. My chief toon has the Iconian gun for set bonuses as well as the Na'kuhl one for increases in critical chance and severity. For my away team, generally I prefer pulsewave weapons for the massive arcwave attack with knockback. If they can get a good shot in, enemies are vulnerable for free shots until they get up. However I tend to mix the weapon type between tetryons, disruptors etc. The reason is just in case an enemy turns out to be resistant to one particular energy type.

You should also invest in kits. Since you play tactical, I can't advise you too much as I only have a science toon. However a lot of abilities such as temporal, intelligence, herald or xindi abilities are universal so any engineer, science officer or tactical officer can use them. I personally love the Herald solar gateways and overcharged turrets.
****************************************************************************************************************

For space, it depends on the type of ship you want to play and whether you want to play multiple toons. Since I so far have only bothered to play with one Feddie toon, he pretty much has like 30 + ships on roster and several in dry dock. So he accumulates a lot of star ship traits which he slots out depending on the type of vessel currently running.

However one good trait is viral torpedo, from the Benthan assault cruiser. It allows your torpedoes to disable a foe.

As for gear, you can find websites or youtube videos explaining what is good. Could you remind me again what type of ship you like playing, ie tactical beam boat, or torpedo boat or escorts which allows cannons etc. I can give more advice once I know.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Look at it this way- unlike the summer and winter events the tokens for this (and Crystalline Catastrophe) remain valid and can be carried forward to future ones. All but my 3 newest toons already have a handful of multidimensional transporters tucked away from last time, meaning I can turn in the event sooner. The trick is not to turn in the excess ones once you've claimed the main reward as that gets you less dil per token, but to save them for next time.

And even with the winter event, if you start the task, you can buy tokens from the lobi store to finish the task even after the event is over. I used it to get that Krenim ship with krenim chronotin torpedo.

The difference is, with the summer and winter events you only need to earn the requisite tokens with one toon to unlock the bonus for all, with these you have to do it with each one individually. Since I have ten toons, even running the event back-to-back with each one it takes me a good three hours to clear them all!

[bilateralrope]

Iconian ground gear is pretty good.

Reputation gear is too much grind for my away team, since that away team is only going to get used when I can't avoid it.

Since you play tactical,

I play engineer. Though that doesn't change the rest of what you said

For space, it depends on the type of ship you want to play and whether you want to play multiple toons. Since I so far have only bothered to play with one Feddie toon, he pretty much has like 30 + ships on roster and several in dry dock. So he accumulates a lot of star ship traits which he slots out depending on the type of vessel currently running.

I want a beam broadside boat.

I've been advised that the Kelvin Timeline Intel Dreadnought Cruiser is a good broadside ship. Until then, I'm using the Assault Cruiser]

As for gear, you can find websites or youtube videos explaining what is good. Could you remind me again what type of ship you like playing, ie tactical beam boat, or torpedo boat or escorts which allows cannons etc. I can give more advice once I know.

Googling keeps turning up sites using an older skill system.
Youtube is just a horrible format for build information.

[FaxModem1]

Well, my Jupiter Class Carrier is embracing the Temporal Defense Initiative. Taste the Rainbow indeed.

On another note, my deflector dish has become a rather interesting disco light emitter.

[mr friendly guy]

I want a beam broadside boat.

I've been advised that the Kelvin Timeline Intel Dreadnought Cruiser is a good broadside ship. Until then, I'm using the Assault Cruiser]

Good choice for the broadside, although its going to be expensive and time consuming getting all those lobi crystals to purchase it from the lobi store. If of course you want to sell your soul to Satan and do a deal with Chinese goldfarmers its certainly doable much faster and much cheaper. The other thing with the Kelvin Intel dreadnought is that it has a nice console which fires phaser broad sides, so if you use phasers, your weapon damage boosters will synergise with the phaser broadside consoles.

Other ships that's nice for broad side is

a. Yamato (ie the future Enterprise from the last TNG episode). You will however need to get a fleet version after this to get the whole 11 console slots. What I like about this ship is that is has a phaser lance. Combine that with quantum phase sets, you also get a big phaser quantum beam whatever which drains power as well as does damage. This is available from the zen store, with the fleet version available at starship requisitions.

b. Command ships - their consoles are pretty nice, but you might not want it if you're going for a pure beam boat. This is available from the zen store.

BOFF abilities - well obviously ones that strengthen beams, like fire at will etc. It sounds like you aren't using torpedoes, so you will have plenty of slots for things like attack pattern <insert whatever letter> which helps.

Now depending on what energy type you play, I might be able to give more advice. But for my broadside ships, I like to try phasers. A lot of sets like quantum phase just gives that nice phaser synergy. There are lots of items which give anti proton synergy as well.

A little bit dated, but this link shows some of the set bonuses for various energy types - https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/comm ... oost_them/

Googling keeps turning up sites using an older skill system.
Youtube is just a horrible format for build information.

Oh, try this. https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds