Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[houser2112]

So the Lifetime Subscription is on sale for $199. I was thinking of doing the "subscribe for 1 month, then cancel" thing, but this is intriguing.

What say you, SDN? Worth the money over subscribe/cancel?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

So the Lifetime Subscription is on sale for $199. I was thinking of doing the "subscribe for 1 month, then cancel" thing, but this is intriguing.

What say you, SDN? Worth the money over subscribe/cancel?

Coincidentally I started playing at the start of 2012, by the time the first month (included with the initial membership) expired the game had switched over to FTP, so I was able to sign up without needing to commit to a monthly sub.

When the LTM is on sale, definitely- if you're a serious player LTM offers substantial savings over the monthly sub. Moreso with the discount as it pays for itself much faster- I bought it during a sale two summers ago and I don't regret it one bit. I wouldn't pay the full price for it, however- I don't love STO that much!

[bilateralrope]

So the Lifetime Subscription is on sale for $199. I was thinking of doing the "subscribe for 1 month, then cancel" thing, but this is intriguing.

What say you, SDN? Worth the money over subscribe/cancel?

How long do you see yourself sticking with STO for ?

[Simon_Jester]

If you foresee yourself staying for years (I don't even know what they'll do for content a few years from now), then it's probably worth it.

But if you're not planning to play quite regularly for years, it's not a good investment. $200 worth of paperback books would be more cost-effective.

[FaxModem1]

I'm playing "Echoes of Light". It's kind of sweet exposing the Lukari to the wonders of the universe. Also, as a bonus, we get to hang around with space whales, the Gekli. I feel a bit like The Doctor when he tours one of his human companions around.

[mr friendly guy]

I find it difficult to trail the Gekli using a carrier ship. In the end I just switched to a pilot escort ship.

[Lord Revan]

for me the issue with the Gekli was that they're not moving at regular speed and there's no "match target's speed" option to I constantly ended being either too fast or too slow.

[FaxModem1]

You don't really have to escort them, you just have to fly to them.

[Lord Revan]

You don't really have to escort them, you just have to fly to them.

for the data gathering part if they've not changed it you have to stay at about 1-2 km from them so essentially you need to escort them, actually you have to stay closer then escorts as even escorts can break off and attack enemies if needed.

[mr friendly guy]

for me the issue with the Gekli was that they're not moving at regular speed and there's no "match target's speed" option to I constantly ended being either too fast or too slow.

That was my problem using the carrier ship. Now granted carriers are slow, so I might have better luck with a cruiser. However with a pilot escort its reasonably easy to trail them.

[Lord Revan]

for me the issue with the Gekli was that they're not moving at regular speed and there's no "match target's speed" option to I constantly ended being either too fast or too slow.

That was my problem using the carrier ship. Now granted carriers are slow, so I might have better luck with a cruiser. However with a pilot escort its reasonably easy to trail them.

funny thing is that I did it first with a GCS and it worked just fine, it was when I used other ships that I ran into problems.

[Lord Revan]

Anyone who tell what I need to put into the "state/region" part of the billing address to get it to work (PS. I live in non-federal republic outside of the USA)

[EnterpriseSovereign]

It was a nice touch that they put in the Farpoint aliens, though they still looked like space jellyfish.

[FaxModem1]

Yeah, it's still nice to see them. When i was first playing it, I expected the aliens who enslaved them from the Titan book Orion's Hounds.

Still, really cool to see them:



Do we know anything about the Tzkinthethi? Aside from the UFP fighting them once long ago?

[mr friendly guy]

There is the crystalline challenge again. Is it just me, or is the Crystalline entity much easier to beat? Granted I am using a powered up science ship using gravity well, subspace vortex, causal anchor, anti time entanglement field and other spatial anomalies, but geez it gets killed fast. Usually I get between 1st to 3rd place, so there is the possibility that a lot of heavy hitters or ships geared up just specifically to fight the crystalline entity are online the same time I take the challenge.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

There is the crystalline challenge again. Is it just me, or is the Crystalline entity much easier to beat? Granted I am using a powered up science ship using gravity well, subspace vortex, causal anchor, anti time entanglement field and other spatial anomalies, but geez it gets killed fast. Usually I get between 1st to 3rd place, so there is the possibility that a lot of heavy hitters or ships geared up just specifically to fight the crystalline entity are online the same time I take the challenge.

I too have noticed it dying really quickly, even on advanced. So many are running it that within seconds of clicking the button you're catapulted right into the thick of it- even when the CE is absorbing weapons fire its health plummets (no idea how). Sometimes its health drops from 66% to 33% in less time than it takes for one absorb-release cycle.

It's much faster than Mirror Invasion- in that event, 10 characters take 3 hours to complete the event. In this, they can do it in a tenth of the time.

[Highlord Laan]

It's because the Crystalline Entity is tuned to group that aren't pulling absolutely asinine DPS. The meta is so screwed that min-max DPS tuners are putting out horrendous numbers on sanely-constructed events and enemies. Making enemies HP gods doesn't help, because then regular players are screwed. Making hyper-difficult instances isn't good either, because commensurate rewards are a must, which will make unprepared and undergeared players partake, causing the minmaxxers to bitch about "scrubs," and the devs re-tuning the difficult content, making everything die fast, ect.

It's a vicious circle, and it will never end. PWE has it's cash cow, and it will be whipped until it dies.

[Lord Revan]

from what I've gathered reding between the lines of what people say in STO and other games it's not even the difficulty that's the problem, it's the popularity or more precise it's the fact that pretty much anyone has access to the good loot making them less special. The ideal for these people would an encounter that as a cakewalk with really good exclusive loot but somehow only they could access it.

That's why you sometimes hear cries to return to old style of attunements in WoW, but to better the fights but to exclude as many people as possible from the instances so that the nolifers can feel good about themselves.

as for STO a problem is partly that people don't really do normal or advanced to train themselves for the elite version meaning the elite version must be planned with assumption that most people have no idea what they're doing as much as I hate the system something like WoW's ilevel system could help here force the people to do normal/advanced until they got the gear/talent to do elite.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Yeah, it's still nice to see them. When i was first playing it, I expected the aliens who enslaved them from the Titan book Orion's Hounds.

Still, really cool to see them:



Do we know anything about the Tzkinthethi? Aside from the UFP fighting them once long ago?

This was all Memory Alpha had to say:

In the mid-24th century, the Tzenkethi fought a war with the United Federation of Planets. Among the starships involved was the USS Okinawa, under the command of Captain Leyton, who had fought against a number of Tzenkethi raiders. (DS9: "The Adversary", "Paradise Lost")

In late 2371, a Founder posing as Federation Ambassador Krajensky informed Captain Benjamin Sisko that the current Tzenkethi Autarch had been deposed. He ordered the USS Defiant to the Federation-Tzenkethi border to reinforce the Federation presence to the new leading faction. However, the entire mission had actually been engineered by the Dominion in an attempt to incite another war between the two powers; there never was a coup d'etat. After his identity was exposed, the Changeling commandeered the Defiant and attempted to attack a Tzenkethi settlement on M'kemas III, though he was stopped before the Defiant reached the planet. (DS9: "The Adversary")

[EnterpriseSovereign]

They've just released the T6 Sovereign that players have been asking for along with its fleet version, it's something I definitely plan on picking up during the next sale. The Imperial skin on that thing is a beast- as much as I love it I'm not going to pay full price when I factor in the cost of a Fleet Ship module in addition to the base cost of the ship.

What's weird is that having converted a shitload of dil to Zen and bought ship packs, I take for granted that not everyone is going to purchase paid content. On the other hand there are the crazies who open lockboxes in the slim chance of getting something awesome.

[mr friendly guy]

It looks nice, although I am not quite good at building engineering ships. My best builds have been science and tactical ships. I might get it, and the phase cloak looks pretty cool. Any ideas on how to build this ship up.

[Lord Revan]

Frankly I find the nacelles of the new ship to be too big, the hull is essentially that of the Sovereign so it works but that nacelles look too big for the hull.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I believe we're now 14 days into the Crystalline Event, so all the first timers will be turning in their shards about now and getting their ore. Expect a spike in the exchange rate...

[houser2112]

I'm one of those first timers (started near the end of AOY), and I have yet to convert a single dil into zen, because there doesn't seem to be a point. Everything I would want to spend zen on is too expensive when your source for it is dil. It takes too long at the current rate (415, last I looked).

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, I thought about getting enough zen for a premium starship or two back when I was still playing... and then I did the math. 415 dil to one zen, for a 200-zen starship (and most of them run higher than that) is 83000 dil. Even doing dil-farming operations (which take time away from playing story missions, which I was more interested in), that doesn't fly in anything less than a few weeks unless you get incredibly lucky with the exchange rate.