Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[houser2112]

I claimed the free heavy weapon from the dil store for my Mirror Patrol Escort, although that was a while ago. I haven't tested it myself, but I hear that the free HW is worse than nothing, DPS-wise. The energy it drains is not worth the damage it provides.

[MrDakka]

The latest patch buffed its damage to more than twice what was originally. Still probably sucks compared to the rail gun and the pvp rep flak shot

[mr friendly guy]

Undine Nicor
Krenim Imperium
Ferengi Nandi
Husnock

Of those four, the Undine ship is only T5-U, both it and the Ferengi offerings are 4/4 instead of 5/3. This leaves the Krenim and Husnock designs, the Husnock has the strongest hull but I don't think it can mount cannons. Which is strange as its starship trait boosts the damage output of both Cannon Rapid Fire and Beam Overload. As you say you're using beams that of course won't be a problem.

The only weakness is that those ships only get +10 bonus weapon power instead of the +15 that most of the other tac-heavy ships enjoy.

The other ship the UFP you can use is the T5-U of the Chimera or the Manticore. I am sure I have one of these.

The other ship I was thinking of working on, is an escort with 5 tactical consoles and uses some sort of 360 degree shockwave attack. The pilot escorts work nice for this as well as the Theseus temporal escort. Basically I use a photonic shockwave (with modifiers such as the delphic shockwave trait and DOFFs which boost photonic shockwave), also use a subspace boom for pilot escorts or some temporal ability which drain shields with the Theseus temporal escort and spend Zen and get a Gemini T4 cruiser for its console to do a temporal shockwave, letting me have 3 shockwave attacks (4 if the the delphic shockwave trait kicks in, and 5 if the DOFFs abilities kick in).

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Undine Nicor
Krenim Imperium
Ferengi Nandi
Husnock

Of those four, the Undine ship is only T5-U, both it and the Ferengi offerings are 4/4 instead of 5/3. This leaves the Krenim and Husnock designs, the Husnock has the strongest hull but I don't think it can mount cannons. Which is strange as its starship trait boosts the damage output of both Cannon Rapid Fire and Beam Overload. As you say you're using beams that of course won't be a problem.

The only weakness is that those ships only get +10 bonus weapon power instead of the +15 that most of the other tac-heavy ships enjoy.

The other ship the UFP you can use is the T5-U of the Chimera or the Manticore. I am sure I have one of these.

The other ship I was thinking of working on, is an escort with 5 tactical consoles and uses some sort of 360 degree shockwave attack. The pilot escorts work nice for this as well as the Theseus temporal escort. Basically I use a photonic shockwave (with modifiers such as the delphic shockwave trait and DOFFs which boost photonic shockwave), also use a subspace boom for pilot escorts or some temporal ability which drain shields with the Theseus temporal escort and spend Zen and get a Gemini T4 cruiser for its console to do a temporal shockwave, letting me have 3 shockwave attacks (4 if the the delphic shockwave trait kicks in, and 5 if the DOFFs abilities kick in).

Thing with the Chimera is that it still has the 4:3 split for weapons, and the Manticore retains the old layout instead of the 5:2 that the more alpha-strike capable escorts bring. If you have the LTM then you'll definitely have access to it. The Dynamic tactical system is more of a novelty than a must-have. The Jem'Hadar Recon Ship has the same problem of not updating the weapons layout when improving the ship.

I actually bought the Temporal Special Agent pack during the last Black Friday sale when it was half its normal price, I must say I didn't pay the low-level ships' consoles much attention when I claimed them for the admiralty system. My problem has always been that with any ship running 5 tacs it means you do not have all the slots you need to equip all the other consoles that you're likely to want.

[mr friendly guy]

I agree with 5 tacs the ship tends towards escorts with alpha strikes. However since I try things against the grain... I am trying to create a beam boat with good tanking abilities and lots of damage.

I am now working on using the Dominion heavy escort carrier T6 version with 5 tacs. It has 4:3 layout but also a heavy weapon which has 360 degree coverage, so I can pretty much fire 7 out of the 8 slots in a frontal assault. With the 5 phaser vulnerability locators 187.5% damage and 9.5% critical chance. I then use 2 out of the 4 synergistic retrofitting set specifically the Dynamic Power Redistributor Module which gives 17.8% energy weapon damage (not just phasers, but the heavy weapon and omega kinetic cutting beam) and Point Defense Bombardment Warhead (25% projectile damage and 1% critical chance). However the 2 set bonuses gives another 33% damage to phasers.

Now lets add quantum phase catalysts, with epic quantum phase converter giving an extra 25%. Also got a dominion console which gives 15% extra passive damage to directed energy weapon. So that's 32.8% bonus for the kinetic cutting beam and the heavy weapon, and 278.3% damage to phasers. Also have a phaser broadside console and science console boosting shields by 25%.

Now with captain abilities. As a sci captain I have an ability which boost damage by 21%. Using BOFF abilities like Attack pattern omega, set bonuses and override safeties for +40 boost to power and I can become a beast. It gets nicer with some awesome traits, like a tholian one which surrounds them in tholian web when I use overload beam, doing 850 damage every half a second for 6 seconds.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Just seen the latest news, they're doing another Mirror Invasion Event. They ran the streamlined version of The Breach in its place a while back. As I said on the official boards, I hope they've streamlined this in the same way otherwise it means 3 hours a day to get each of my 10 toons through a single instance. Earning competitive marks is a must, especially seeing as the PvEs that earn them have seen a sharp drop in the number of players running them.

[houser2112]

Earning competitive marks is a must, especially seeing as the PvEs that earn them have seen a sharp drop in the number of players running them.

Well, "Competitive Wargames Marks are now included in most Mark of Choice reward packs." now, so that's less of an issue.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-t ... F18%2F2017

[mr friendly guy]

I have reached the maximum 60 slot for one toon. I have sent a complaint to cryptic, but damn. Most of what I do now is to try out new ships for the same toon. I only have one ship slot left. I either have to bring some of these to dry dock (I already bring the non fleet ships, and I think I am going to have to bring the old Dominion T5-U ships to dry dock) to make room. Hopefully cryptic allows me to get more slots.

[mr friendly guy]

Cryptic have replied to my query and just linked me to the wiki about how to increase ship slots. The only other option it seems is to wait for 1000 day veteran award, play and complete the Vault (which I skipped), or play as a Romulan toon and complete a particular quest and that unlocks a ship slot for the whole account.

My other option is to keep one ship slot free and transfer ships back and forth from dry dock as I want to play them, and buy lots of dry dock spots. Damn it cryptic, I willingly spent shit loads of money on STO, why are you stopping me from giving you my money? I am really not that interested in creating a new toon as it would be too much grinding. I just want to keep on collecting ships with my current toon.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Cryptic have replied to my query and just linked me to the wiki about how to increase ship slots. The only other option it seems is to wait for 1000 day veteran award, play and complete the Vault (which I skipped), or play as a Romulan toon and complete a particular quest and that unlocks a ship slot for the whole account.

My other option is to keep one ship slot free and transfer ships back and forth from dry dock as I want to play them, and buy lots of dry dock spots. Damn it cryptic, I willingly spent shit loads of money on STO, why are you stopping me from giving you my money? I am really not that interested in creating a new toon as it would be too much grinding. I just want to keep on collecting ships with my current toon.

With the ship sale that was on weekend just gone, I picked up the new light cruiser and escort bundles, as well as the T6 Excelsior. Though the sale was the first time the T6 Explorer mega-bundle got the 20% discount, I wasn't interested enough to convert the necessary dilithium to cover the Zen shortfall I faced after buying the other aforementioned ships.

The downside to concentrating all your efforts onto one toon is that you're actually hurting how much Zen you can generate through converting dilithium; you must have shitloads of raw ore What you need to watch is that ships you put in drydock are stripped of all their equipment, so unless you use the same stuff across your entire fleet you're gonna need to upgrade your inventory's capacity.

I've found that the only way to manage my fleet, despite grabbing all the free slots in various promotions, is to discharge those store/ten console ships once I've grabbed their masteries and their associated traits. Once I've done that and I like the ship I'll grab the fleet version, no problem. I've found that in spite of doing all this, what with all the various free/event ships kicking around I'll have to offload what few 10-consoles I have whenever a new pack is released. And if I'd bought the T6 Explorer Mega Bundle this problem would be exacerbated since that's stuffing 3 more 11-console ships into an already-crowded shipyard So if you have to get rid of any ships, start with those with the fewest slots.

As for the veteran rewards, unless you're really close to unlocking them you're better off getting the lifetime sub since it unlocks all that stuff immediately. And if you get it during a sale it pays for itself in about a year.

[mr friendly guy]

I got the lifetime sub last year. So maybe I already got the benefits without realising it.

I most probably have to get rid of these 10 console ships, but I got lots of dry dock places I purchased, so it will last me a while yet.

Zen isn't a problem. I can just purchase it.

But I think I am going to have to do end up doing like you say. Oh well, I can still get new ships to try out things. Currently working on the multimission explorers where I strip the T5 ships of their consoles and now working on T6 ships.

[Lord Revan]

Btw in case you didn't know you can dismiss ships without loosing the admirality card, I took several ships just for the cards on my AoY character and dismissed them right after I had made sure I got the admirality card. That said I kept some like the temporal dreadnaught for the ship trait.

[mr friendly guy]

I have dismissed ships before and still kept the admiralty card. That being said I like to keep some of these ships around just in case I ever want to play with them again. Although like people say, its most probably a good idea to get rid of the 10 console ships and keep the fleet version.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Two things are odd about today's maintenance. One, it's happening on a Tuesday instead of Thursday. Two, it's lasting until 21:00 when it normally finishes at 17:30.

I hope this means they're streamlining Mirror Invasion- just shortening the timer by a few minutes will do the job nicely. Thanks to retaining leftover transporters from last year all but my newest characters have already claimed the reward. The damage boost from the console isn't exactly something to get excited about- maybe I'm just not using it right.

[Lord Revan]

though it could they're just up-dating their hardware, the servers have been a bit flaky recently so it could they were trying to fix that, though it's too soon to see if it worked.

[mr friendly guy]

Taking the advice of Lord Revan and EnterpriseSovereign I have managed to free up quite a few ship slots by dismissing ships in dry dock, and transferring ships there which I am not likely to play with and making sure their consoles are on another ship.

Finished trying out the multimission explorers by using a different style of play for my science ships, using inhibitory secondary deflectors. The competitive wargames secondary deflectors are more powerful than standard ones.

Now to try out my T6 sovvie. Anyone got good ideas how to build a ship with 5 engineering slots? I tend to build sci ships and tactical ships, not sure how to handle engineering ships.

[Lord Revan]

check out if there's any engineering/universal consoles that give +weapon power or +weapon dmg and use those, otherwise you want to build tanky with the assumpions that all but the slowest ships will out turn you so you don't want to rely on weapons with narrow firing arcs, standard beam arrays generally give the best damage to firing arc ration for slow(ish) cruisers.

I tend to build my cruisers to outlast the enemy with high durability but that's not the only way to build them.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Although the T6 Sovereign is in theory an intel ship, it's handicapped in that you're having to choose between intel and science boff abilities due to the bridge layout. When you factor in that Science Team and Hazard Emitters are must-have and Polarise Hull isn't far behind, the Sovereign isn't a great choice as an intel ship.

As a normal cruiser it's a better damage-dealer due to it getting +10 weapon power (most cruisers don't) and the fleet version getting a 4th tac slot. As it's a cruiser you'll need Attack Pattern Omega and/or the aforementioned Polarise Hull to counter tractor beams; I don't know if Emergency Power to Engines does this as well.

I don't fly cruisers that often but when I do I generally put Dual Beam Banks up front, when playing as a Fed I'll put the quantum phase catalyst weapons aft while the universal console boosts phaser damage. I'll round-out the complement with a phaser Omni-beam and the Wide-angle Qtorp the ship comes with.

[mr friendly guy]

Looking at the economics of things, despite having level 20 in crafting, unless I have acquired the material from R & D packs or playing, its cheaper to buy completed superior techupgrades from the exchange, rather than buying the raw materials. LOL.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Since when do you need to buy the materials off the exchange? All the raw materials can be obtained either through PvE queues, Duty Officer missions or Admiralty System- the latter is surprisingly good for stuff like salvaged tech.

Speaking of Level 20, most of my toons have just reached L20 in the "Kits and Modules" section. I've yet to actually make anything from that section!

[mr friendly guy]

Unfortunately I don't have time to grind the PvE queues. The admiralty system gives R & D material but its random. So for a common R & D set there is a random chance to get a specific resource. The only resource I actually run low on is the Z-particle, because that seems to be used a lot of what I synthesise. So I end up lots of other resources, but not much in Z-particles.

I have also just reached level 20 in "kits and modules" as well. I would make some upgrade kits but I already upgraded my kit back before you needed a specific tech upgrade for kits.

[FaxModem1]

Summer event rewards:
Arc Games

None of this really looks appealing to me, unless we could use the floaters off Risa, or the ship was a Risian ship, like previous years. Ah well, I'll probably be doing it anyway.

[Lord Revan]

Technically it's possible to use those floaters outside of Risa in foundry missions but I can't think of a single mission that uses the "floater volume" asset though.

[mr friendly guy]

Technically it's possible to use those floaters outside of Risa in foundry missions but I can't think of a single mission that uses the "floater volume" asset though.

There was one where we kill lots of Klingons and the author advised us to use the floaters and drop bombs on the Klingons from above. Needless to say, Sheldon Cooper ignored that and charged right through and carved a swath of destruction through the Klingons.

[Simon_Jester]

I think the Risians would be sad to know floaters were being used to blow people up.

Then again, MMO, so go figure. [shrugs]