Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[FaxModem1]

Anyone else having problems logging in? I am unable to log in both STO and neverwinter, which are both Cryptic games.

I recently had to reinstall both of them because my computer died, but they were working fine earlier today. I have submitted the bug, but I am wondering if its just me or a problem with steam. Perhaps its easier if I install Arc instead.

Sorry, I haven't had any problems.



On another topic, I'm about to try and make a Foundry mission, anything I should know going in?

[Lord Revan]

Anyone else having problems logging in? I am unable to log in both STO and neverwinter, which are both Cryptic games.

I recently had to reinstall both of them because my computer died, but they were working fine earlier today. I have submitted the bug, but I am wondering if its just me or a problem with steam. Perhaps its easier if I install Arc instead.

Sorry, I haven't had any problems.



On another topic, I'm about to try and make a Foundry mission, anything I should know going in?

it depends what kind of mission are you intending to make?

For narative focused mission like what I like to do you have to remember that there's limits to what is possible in foundry (for example if you want a ship be disable in combat you need to make 2 objects and it might look like the ship "jumped" to new location when disabled since you can't lock it down to follow where the "enemy" ship will be).

I can try to give more advice once I know that kind of mission you're trying to accomplish.

[RogueIce]

On another topic, I'm about to try and make a Foundry mission, anything I should know going in?

Try to avoid writing an entire novel worth of text the player has to click through.

Try to avoid spamming too many enemy mobs.

Those two are some of the biggest Foundry annoyances I come across, so it's as good a place as any to start with advice.

[Elheru Aran]

Essentially, try to design an episode of the game that hits your happy buttons, and unless you're really far out in your tastes, odds are decent that most other people won't find it too far out of their tastes to enjoy.

[Lord Revan]

Essentially, try to design an episode of the game that hits your happy buttons, and unless you're really far out in your tastes, odds are decent that most other people won't find it too far out of their tastes to enjoy.

this is very good advice, try to think of a mission you'd want to play thru and do that and if your tastes aren't really wierd people should play that (oh and do remember that there's rules as to what you can and cannot do for example you aren't allowed to recreate the likeness of any actual people(intentionally that is)).

[Elheru Aran]

Essentially, try to design an episode of the game that hits your happy buttons, and unless you're really far out in your tastes, odds are decent that most other people won't find it too far out of their tastes to enjoy.

this is very good advice, try to think of a mission you'd want to play thru and do that and if your tastes aren't really wierd people should play that (oh and do remember that there's rules as to what you can and cannot do for example you aren't allowed to recreate the likeness of any actual people(intentionally that is)).

Out of curiosity do 'actual people' include Star Trek actors? Because I know there have been a decent few that appeared in the game so far. Are you not allowed to use, say, Sela/Denise Crosby in Foundry missions?

[Lord Revan]

Essentially, try to design an episode of the game that hits your happy buttons, and unless you're really far out in your tastes, odds are decent that most other people won't find it too far out of their tastes to enjoy.

this is very good advice, try to think of a mission you'd want to play thru and do that and if your tastes aren't really wierd people should play that (oh and do remember that there's rules as to what you can and cannot do for example you aren't allowed to recreate the likeness of any actual people(intentionally that is)).

Out of curiosity do 'actual people' include Star Trek actors? Because I know there have been a decent few that appeared in the game so far. Are you not allowed to use, say, Sela/Denise Crosby in Foundry missions?

well there's a bit of a grey area with people who appear in-game as NPCs like Sela but you couldn't use the physical appearence of Jean-luc Picard as the rights to that belong to the actor Patrick Steward, you can however have Picard contact you thru "sound only" subspace communication or be mentioned in the mission, you just can't show him. So yes "actual people" does include trek actors, as rule of thumb remember that the character belong to CBS/Paramount but the likeness belongs to the actors, that is btw the reason why you ever see laying Kirk face down in such a way that his features aren't clearly visible as neither William Shatner or Christofer Pine gave the premission to use their likeness as this rule extends to Cryptic as well and not just the players.

[Elheru Aran]

Interesting. I suppose Cryptic tries to stay on top of Foundry missions of course, and tries to remove anything that uses these actors, even the ones with STO characters, in an offensive way?

[Lord Revan]

There's also the fact that an actor could demand that their likeness be removed or they got paid for the use if they found out and that could get really expensive for Cryptic. As I stated the actors who are already in-game are a grey area as technically they're already paid for their work and likeness. Obviously there's limits as to exactly what you can do storywise as well so you can't for example do a mission that's for example pro-GOP propaganda as political messages (well intentional ones) are forbidden.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

One thing I've noticed which is good is that they've buffed the reputation set items- they now start at UR instead of VR. Great for future purchases, not so much for items bought beforehand!

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Newest ship sale has kicked off, just as I've completed the masteries of the last lot of ships I bought. I suspect dil to zen will have climbed a bit

[EnterpriseSovereign]

GHETTO EDIT: I had enough Zen for 2 packs so I bought the cross-faction escort and battlecruiser bundles for the mastery traits. Dil to Zen has of course climbed to 412:1. I have 2 offers on the exchange that will convert once the price drops back below the 400 mark which will take me halfway to the next ship pack. Seeing as how the remaining packs are a bit 'meh' at the moment I'm in no hurry

The kitting out aspect of any new ship is always mentally exhausting, especially when you have 10 characters- each of which have to be built individually!

[Laughing Mechanicus]

So I've just started playing this recently after feeling like dipping my toes into an MMO again. Currently up to level 22 with a Klingon tactical commander, enjoying it so far despite some slightly shonky early Klingon ground missions.

Does anyone have any tips for getting the most out the game? I'm currently in the Klingon story line with the Fek'ihri, which is fine, but I'm conscious I'm playing some of the oldest content - should I be looking at starting the episodes to play newer stuff for the best experience? Is there a "loop" of stuff I should be doing?

For bridge officers - should I be looking to replace my starting set with some more suited to my play-style before I start levelling them up, can I find "better" ones elsewhere etc... Also how much attention should I be paying to the duty officer assignments system? How much should I be engaging with crafting?

I'm also confused about ships - there's obviously a couple at each major rank that you can buy for energy credits or get given free, but the majority seem to cost Zen. Does any other option ever open up to get those ships beside real money? The paid-for ships are expensive, especially as they will become obsolete quickly as I level up (unless I've missed some mechanic to keep lower tier ships competitive?).

I'm not averse to putting in some money though - are there any particular things I could pickup to improve my experience?

[bilateralrope]

For bridge officers - should I be looking to replace my starting set with some more suited to my play-style before I start levelling them up, can I find "better" ones elsewhere etc...

There are two things on boffs that matter:
- Their skills. You can train new skills to get the skills you want.
- Their traits. Which you can't change and many are limited to specific species.

Work with the BOFFs the game gives you till you hit max level, buying new skills for them when it's useful to do so. Level them up to use the skills they can use as soon as you can. Then, once you have EC to spare, look for BOFFs with traits you want on the exchange.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Don't bother with the low-level Zen ships, the only one worth having is the Vandal because the Plasmonic Leech console is a must-have.

The only way to avoid spending real money is to convert refined dilithium to Zen. Unfortunately the dil-to-Zen exchange rate is about 420:1 (capped at 500). Long gone are the days when the prices were double digits! And with the daily refining limit of 8,000 it'll take a long time to accrue the required Zen.

On the upside, Zen ships are unlocked account-wide so other characters will be able to use them.

[Elheru Aran]

The early Klingon arc is pretty nice because it's *different* for a pretty decent while. You have some pretty legit Klingon-only missions for a good while. Romulans aren't as lucky, they get to recap a bunch of stuff that's pretty transparently lifted from Federation missions, and it isn't terribly long before Romulan chars have to jump into playing the same story missions as everybody else.

[mr friendly guy]

Hmm. According to the release notes, kit modules and kits can now be upgraded. This would be useful when I play some foundry quests with lots of ground combat. I have also accumulated quite a few upgrade tokens, although I haven't played properly for a while.

[bilateralrope]

I just realised that STO was the first MMO I've spent any time playing that doesn't have something ingame called a Moa.

Every other MMO without moas had some design decisions I didn't like.

[RogueIce]

I just realised that STO was the first MMO I've spent any time playing that doesn't have something ingame called a Moa.

Every other MMO without moas had some design decisions I didn't like.

The hell is a moa?

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I hope he is actually referring to the extinct flightless bird, and mainly chooses games to play based on their presence of absence.

Extremely noob question - ships can be bought/sold on the exchange, yes? Do they have their own special exchange terminals? I don't see a category for them on the exchanges I've visited.

[mr friendly guy]

I hope he is actually referring to the extinct flightless bird, and mainly chooses games to play based on their presence of absence.

Extremely noob question - ships can be bought/sold on the exchange, yes? Do they have their own special exchange terminals? I don't see a category for them on the exchanges I've visited.

Only ships which aren't in the zen store can be traded on the exchange. They do not need special terminals, just the usual ones. Just search for the ship type you want to buy, or click sell if you want to sell.

[Lord Revan]

That being said most ships worth buying from the Exchange are super expensive as in starting from 10 mil and going up from there, ships are under special item boxes IIRC. Unless there's a specific ship you want it's generally not worth it to try find a ship in the exchange, plus the winter event will be soon as you get essentially a free T-6 ship from that (or at least you got one previously).

[mr friendly guy]

Well upgraded my kit to mk 14 and gold quality. Adds quite a few capabilities to my character who is already tanking on the ground. However I still got killed due to server lag. LOL. Or it could be even my new GPU can't handle the new monitor's graphics, although my new rig has nice CPU and overkill with 16 GB ram.

Looking forward to the reviews on Sphere builder ships.

[bilateralrope]

I just realised that STO was the first MMO I've spent any time playing that doesn't have something ingame called a Moa.

Every other MMO without moas had some design decisions I didn't like.

The hell is a moa?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa

An extinct flightless bird from New Zealand. It shows up in a lot of MMOs. Usually fantasy MMOs, but Eve Online has one ship called a moa.

I hope he is actually referring to the extinct flightless bird, and mainly chooses games to play based on their presence of absence.

I don't choose to play an MMO based on if they are in the game or not. It's just a coincidence that MMOs with design choices that I like all have moas in some form. STO being the only exception.

[mr friendly guy]

The sphere builder Edoulg science ship has a few neat tricks. For maximising exotic damage is a matter of balancing consoles which give 37.5 particle gen, and some consoles which boost exotic damage by x%. Previous the 31 st century temporal ship a casual anchor which boosts exotic damage by 15%, and then slap on the auxilliary consoles from the Kelvinvrese connie and the vaadwaar constriction anchor for exotic damage boost. The sphere builder ship has a quantum deceleration field generator which also boosts exotic damage by 15%, but combine it with the other sphere builder console it gives another 15% boost to exotic damage.

The disadvantage over something like the 31st century fed temporal vessel, is that the casual anchor itself does damage. So the sphere builder ship gives more boost to exotic damage, but one less exotic damage ability with good range. In exchange however, the quantum deceleration field also does more damage, more so than the casual anchor I find, but... and here is the rub, you need to get in close, like 4 km close. So I am now working on tactics how to make use of this. One way is to fire the chroniton fragmentation warhead you get from the sphere builder carrier, which does a great job of disabling ships.

All in all, looks like it was worth it to get the sphere builder ships, for me anyway.