Star Trek Online is going Free to Play January 17th. But if you are a previous subscriber you can start the Free to Play today.

Got the email about it and reinstalled today. Didn't get a chance to really mess with it again, I've completely forgotten how to play it, but being free I think it's worth giving it another go.

Thanks for the heads up. I may give it a go. As its free to play, does the game have much depth ?

I have been playing a little of battlestar galactica online and whilst its fun to play, the depth of the game is quite shallow. For me its only a game to fill some time on the lap top whilst the main computer is in use. IS STO the same ?

STO is likely to be very deep for a F2P MMO. The reason it went F2P was it wasn't very deep for a PAID MMO.



The Jedi Master

Got the email myself, played for a bit last night. Apparently I was a subscriber for over 300 days before I canceled, who knew? It's a pretty decent game, IMO. Played the beta, preordered, played for quite a while after launch, quit for RIFT. Been waiting for it to go F2P.

Started a new character to help re-learn the game, which I was supprised I was able to do. Apparently non-subscribers, i.e., Silver players, only have two character slots. When I logged in for the first time, all four of my old characters were still there, and I was able to create a new one. Weird.

I dig some of the changes they made, but they still don't have official controller support, which makes me sad. I only ever played STO with my Xbox controller. I feel the game really translates well to a controller, and with the addition of the Shooter Mode for ground combat, even more so.

Anyway, it's worth giving a try if you're a Star Trek fan.

Anyone here doing this?

My brother and I are HUGE trekkies, so we decided to give it a shot.

We were unable to get Voice Communications to work. The MIC Test passes, i can see hear myself in playback, but no one can hear me, and people on my team all seem to have volume turned down, and if i try to turn it up i goes right back down.. (oy).

im using my Xbox 360 Controllers w/ Headsets for VOX in all of my games lately. and STO has "Xbox 360 Controller" settings.
But I'll have to remap the controls a lil.

Anyway. Brother and I did a Few missions, and so far its OK, and since its free I'll ride this one out for as long as I can.

I wasnt much into MMOs before (played FFXI when it was free on XBL, but that's about it.).

I may end up using TeamSpeak instead of in game VOX, that way i can communicate w/ my brother and make sure we are on the same servers when doing missions.

i have over 460 hrs into the game. i really like all aspects of it

After I mentioned it the other day, I've really spent some time in there. The game really comes alive around level 20 when you can get a good cruiser. Set the difficulty to the highest setting and play through the story missions and you'll jump up the ranks about 1.5 per mission. Wish I'd noticed that earlier.

The ground missions are ok, but I prefer the space action. The ground controls sometimes get a little stuck making it frustrating. If it had proper controller support, like in Mass Effect, and ship control like in ST Legacy, it would be great to kick back with this more. It's not that bad though and the missions are better at this point. I'm still in the first Klingon storyline, but there are several on there already. Fun stuff!

I'm in the SimHQ group. Someome sent me a message on there, but I didn't see it for a long time. Sorry for not responding. I usually have that chat box minimized.

Dont Remember what level I am, I only played 2 days/missions so far (Tutorial, Azura, and the one with the shapeshifter),

My brother deleted his character and started over.

we played one mission together last night, and the shapeshifter's ship that we had to hold off nearly destroyed mine on the normal difficulty, after I had already upgraded some of the phasers and shields from items acquired in the previous missions.

for ship combat I pretty much play the same way i did in ST:Legacy, rotating my ship, to spread wear on the shields, and to rotate through each weapon arc. but the POS ship i started with has like 1 photon bay, and 2 phasers... lol.. I set Power to Defense, to keep my shields charged, Im learning a few extra things as I go last night (managing Shield power diversion, extra attacks etc).

So you saying if i set the difficulty to the highest setting, I'll go throug the first few levels quicker?

I still haven't figured out how to acquire the "money" to buy new ship parts/consoles.

and We tried for 2 hours to get Voice communications to work, but it wouldnt work for us. set up the mic and headset, chose to "test mic" and it worked there, but couldnt hear anyone, and they couldnt hear me. (yes i know to press the N button to talk, seems like i wasnt connected to whatever server is for voice.

was looking to see if someone wanted to start a SimHQ group/fleet or whatever

i THINK my handle is William@skatezilla
(this part is also messed up, as its using my old Cryptic username/handle in the game by my PW handle to login. trying to add my brother to my friends took a while because of that.)

Hey RK,

That was me! LOL! No worries. I was big into STO for awhile, but tapered off when all the big changes loomed on the horizon. I just happened to see you there and was surprised since the SimHQ channel had generally gone dark.

Now that so much has changed, I'm having a hard time getting back into it with my high characters. SWTOR, which is definitely a more polished experience, hasn't helped my return any. :-D

Deacon

Sorry Deacon! I'll be more on the lookout. LOL



Yeah, bump it up. It doesn't seem much harder, but you've got respawns anyway if it comes to that. You can always get in over your head, just watch the level number of the missions.
I was running an escort ship before, which was pretty limited. When I hit lvl 20, you get a free ship so I went with a cruiser. I actually did buy some points to get it, since they had given me 500 to start with. I got the one I bought with the points, an Excelsior(?) and an Akira destroyer/escort. The cruiser far outclasses the escort ship.
It does play a lot like ST:L, which I've been playing again on 360. The cruiser has 3 front/3 rear, so it's well decked out. With wide firing arcs, it puts a ton of firepower out from the broadside. That and shield work like you mentioned just turns the game around.

Don't forget your skills for your character and crew. You can promote your crew under the skills heading IIRC, and train them. Add their skills to your ship function menu.

The game also has some kind of crafting deal, but I don't bother with it. Seems to be a lot deeper than it was at first as far as what you can do in general.

There aren't many points in the random missions you run across in space, but they're fun. Do the big points missions to get leveled up and get the bigger cruisers and the game improves a lot.

yeah, my brother and I started one mission, got to the "boss" ship, which would heal/regenerate itself everytime we got it to 75%, the AI only fought for like a minute then they just sat there.

So for 3 hours we are battling this ship before i had to leave to get ready to goto sleep.

I used to play a lot of Starfleet Command 1 and 2 back 10 years ago. I played some of SFC3, but the changes other than "TNG era" vs TOS were not for the better. I played the Legacy demo on my 360 and thought it ok, but never bought it. I wonder if it's around somewhere cheap now?



The Jedi Master

I played for about a month when this first came out, then quit as the Klingon side had little to no missions, and were getting destroyed by Starfleet players due to the utter disparity in content. Has the Klingon content been expanded to compete yet? More importantly, is PvP worthwhile at all? When I was playing you could only PvP in arenas, no open-world PvP yet...

Can't say that this game really impresses me as much as Eve, even pay to play Eve is much better, gorgeous graphics and much better stories.

Eve is excellent and obviously deep, so I doubt any MMO will approach it in complexity. However, it's SLOW and hard to get to the point that it's really worth it. I want a game I can get into, play a while, leave and come back later to enjoy again. Eve needs to be a career. LOL The early missions are repetitive and annoying too, rescuing some birds, a soft drink formula etc. With STO, you get into something familiar, it doesn't take long to get ranked up and you see constant tie in's to all of the shows and movies. To break things up, you have the ground missions. It's a pretty good system.
Still a good looking game, just a different style. The combat *does* look better.

is there a SimHQ group thingy for the Humans?

I haven't got a clue how it works, but there is one. Adds a SimHQ channel to the chat box, but other than that I'm not sure what the benefits are?

yeah send me a message to Blackmail@madmoses ill accept you tonight when i get in

it wont let me send messages, lol....

Message sent moses..

my brother wanted to know if he can get into the fleet as well?

he has an account on SimHQ, from when we played Janes FA/USAF/F15/F18, but he's not a forum junkie like me... most of his time is actually in Games,

but we've both been playing this non-stop lately...

sure

promoted you as well so you should be able to add folks as well

I'm going to checkthis out too, I mean what the heck, the price is certainly right! I remember looking into it when it came out only tossed the reviews pan it for a lack of depth/polish. F2P makes it sound.much.more interesting.

What do I have to do to hook up with the SimHQ crew ingame?

I will have to keep an eye out for you guys.

Still play but not as much as I used to..still hurting after the raping Cryptic gave to its subscribers in favor of the less than loyal free players.
Though things are starting to look up a bit.

I started a Trill today. Its ok so far.

Yeah, I started a human character a couple of days ago. OK is about all it seems to me. Worth every cent, though!

Send a message to Blackmail@MadMoses and i will get you into the Fleet

im sittign at level 50.. only thing i have left is a few episodes and the repeating borg stf mission as part of omega force.......

i cant even use any skill points....

Dont forget todays 2 free ships for the 2nd year anniversary

Err Im Already Level 50..

which ships is Q giving away?



Ima do this wormhole mission 2 more times to collect 2 more level XII Tetryon Beams (already got 2), so i can have 2 front/2 rear, then I just got to replace my 'pedos... wondering if i want to attempt to level up my research in Memory Alpha and build mark X Quantum pedo's or just look on the exchange...

my entire bank is full of effing elements, no weapons or anything, just straight elements, 50+ of each.. haha..

I'll Prolly do the Q quest for the Odyssey ship when i get off work..

as for the klingon side.. i havent even started a klingon character yet... so i might wanna do that... just to do the quest then go back to federation.

Odyssey for Feds and Bortas for KDF

I'll do the Q quests tonite, get me my new odyssey class, and soup it up... and it'll be better than my sovereign.... which right now struggles against the borg ships, because it still had Stock phasers... once im done adding the XII Very Rare tetryon phaser banks to teh front and back, plus the Quantum torpedos over that photon garbage.. + the Tetryon and quantum consoles... it will own..



then start a klingon character..

friends i play with dont even bother with the klingon side, but I'll do it just to get the Battleship.. cuz im a greedy #%&*$#...

i played for a few hours with the Odyssey class, its bulky, but so is the one i had, so the consoles for turn rate helped,

i still havent gotten around to buying torpedos... so its still using regular Mk X pedos... I want Quantums.. but the prices have jumped...

had to buy a better shield generator.....

isnt this ship supposed to have the saucer come off??

Nope...that is the +1 C-Store version that will be out some time in the future.

We get the basic model and the souped up version with all bells and whistles comes later for $$$$.

the update also added a Dilithium store button next to Duty Officers.

I dunno if I like the Odyssey, seems way to bulky even with RCS and Turn Accelerators...

Just run the Daily lvl 50 missions in Gamma Quadrant and you will get enough credits or what ever they are called to out fit your ship with quantums

I ran the Odyssey mission, it was a nice test run. I'm just level 31, so I won't see it for a long time. I parked my Galaxy and went back to my Excelsior, but decked it out in weapons and equipment. Much more fun and a better looking ship than the Captain level cruiser skins.

The biggest complaint I see from people in the cesspool(official forums)is about the turn rate...

The ship is a very large massive cruiser not a small nimble escort they seem to think it should be.

That would be like complaining that the Nimitz CVN cannot turn as fast or tight as say a Spruance DD.Or a better comparison would be complaining that a 747 cannot turn as fast or tight as an F-16.

a Nimitz can turn pretty fast :p.

The only thing I dont like is that Im against the level cap, so No matter how many missions/quests i do I can improve any skills because it throws all my skill/bridge points away...

if I could reset my skill points, I'd re-do them so that everything is on my weapons and shields w/ engines using whatever i have left for "Space Skills",

Like I am with my Klingon Character... and my bird of prey just owns everything at level 22,

I Might go back to my Sovereign... Only Difference is a Universal Station and some other lil things.

ARE YOU SERIOUS!??????

Yep. Same here. Glad I'm not paying for it. Rather takes away from my enthusiasm.

One reason I love being a paying member.

5-10 second wait and in I go.

I decided to cough up for a month on this after seeing that Disney World type line. LOL
Subscribers don't have to deal with that queue.
As much fun as I'm having with it, it's worth $15 for now. Even bought a few C bucks.

Anyone else notice some kind of graphical update recently? The ground combat part seems to look a lot nicer than it did a week ago. Or maybe the areas I've gone to are just better designed?

i had some major clipping issues in space when i was playing the vault mission just now....

Yeah, they added some more GFX options..

as well as voice overs for some of the characters..

the Anniversary Day Patch was 400+MB

DL'd and played last night for the first time. I thought it was great!

I will probably sign up for a month or so and see how it goes. I'd like to buy a Constitution but feel wierd about buying a ship I haven't earned yet. lol

I think your Offered Constitution Class at level 10
.

I think I went:
Miranda (lvl 1)
Constitution (Lvl 10)
Stargazer (lvl 20)
Intrepid (Lvl 30)
Sovereign (lvl 40)
Odyssey (lvl 50)

So who here is still active?

And in the Fleet?

Tried starting up again, need to relearn some stuff.

I've played almost daily, at various times.

Ship-wise, I ran an escort at first, until I could get the Excelsior dlc. Also got an Akira at that time, but have hardly used it. Got a Galaxy class at the next step up, but went back to the Excelsior again, just more fun.

I have just started checking it out. Level 9 only. Its interesting and has some good aspects.

my brother and I still play...

I like STO atm. And thanks to the Dilithium exchange i'm currently grinding some Dilithium while trying to get all the MECO mk XI and XII gear for my little Spaceship. Unfortunately the STF pickup groups are a heavy hit and miss in terms of competency, especially on the Elite level.
My first goal is to get around 100k Dilithium to buy 500 Cryptic points so that i have some extra character slots and with 8k Ore that i can refine each day it should take about 11-12 Days. Sure i could just use cash to get the Cryptic Points right now, but since i have to grind to get the MECO gear anyway i thought i could reach both goals in one strike.

I'm a little confused by the economy - what is the difference between dilithium, energy credits, and c-points?

C Points you pay for with real $$$

Dilithium can be refined and spent or traded for C-Points (i think its like 184 Refined Dilithium to 1 C Point)

Energy Credits are the Currency used for The Exchange.


Theres also Gold Pressed latinum

Honor Guard Credits

Exploration Credits

and a mess of others for Omega Force etc.

Some Changes:

There are now "Large Batteries" (Engine, Shield, Aux, Weapon)

STF Drops are now Locked Boxes, that can only be opened with a Master Key, which you buy with C points or for 1.3 Million Energy Credits

The Locked Boxes are Gay.

Thing is that will vary on the exchange....last I looked it was up to 250 dilithium per 1 C-Point.

Also for anyone not aware the first episode of the new Featured Episode series revolving around DS9 and the Dominion has started in STO.

Beat it already,

now i got like 12 lock boxes and no keys... lol..

I have to admit, the lock boxes are a dissapointment. I don't think i will bother collecting them any more as its taking up too much inventory space. for me, its not worth paying for a key to open them.

Aside from that, i am a little puzzled over the war zone PvE, as its the same mission over and over and over again, though i have received some great drops from it.

But, its a bloody good game for free.

Just one question. I know that paying members avoid the queues to log in, but do they also get preferences in logging into a system or sector aswell? I notice very long waiting time when its very busy and popping into memory alpha and sol as two instances.

when i login it puts me where ever i was when I logged out..

as for queues, that recently started for me ... usually its a 5 minute or less wait.


i use my bank for the minerals and crap, i think I'll keep the lock boxes there, as the Cardassian Ship they are giving out in them are far better than the Odyssey Cruiser.

most weapons get demoted to my other ships as i upgrade my main one, and any old old old weapons just get put through the Replicator.

weapons i dont want or use, consoles and stuff, i check the value the replicator will give me vs the prices on the exchange, put it up for sale, usually undercutting everyone, and if it dont sell, when it expires just dissolve it through the replicator, i think at one point i had 4 million Energy Credits, but i wanted Level X Quantums for my borg fighting...

but being at level 50, all the points i earn, i guess get thrown away.. which sucks.

You do know that using the replicator you are taking a loss compared to selling to a vendor?

You get more money selling to a vendor or cargo/trade ship than you do using the replicator.

i do that too, trade with the ferangi

I just started STO because it`s F2P now. As a light trekkie, I like it so far. If they only would have speech output and not text only. Though, on one of the first missions with a Vulcan I could hear speech!? Is that something they will add in the future for all conversations? Anyone knows?

Just downloaded this and I'm now taking on my first real mission. Enjoying it quite a bit so far, I hope there's not too much grinding.

Here's my ship! The USS Freyja.

I am not going to lie here....

As a free player welcome to the biggest grindfest if you actually want anything in game.Want a ship after you level past I think it was Commander...grind out that dilithium to buy it.Want to do crafting and make gear and weapons...grind out that dilitium to do it.Want to buy good gear from a vendor...grind out that dilithium to get it.

Just to make a MkIX item in crafting will take you 3-4 days of grinding the dilithium to afford that one piece...want to outfit your whole ship welcome to months of grinding just to do so.

BTW...Welcome to Star Trek Online.

Now the game is fun but it is a very big grindfest if you actually want anything good.Even for the subscribers.

Now you can get enough gear to level with as you do missions and can repeat them to keep up to date sop there are options...juts grindy if you want the better or best gear available.

Not grinding here. I run missions, jump in the bigger battles. I'd rather drop a few bucks and keep the fun going rather than get bored with it. Parts are cheap. If the game's enjoyable, sending them a few bucks for it just makes sense as well.

If i'm enjoying it I don't have any problem giving them money for the parts i want Raw, sounds like it works for you. I'm not going to be playing full time or to be the best.

Does paying for the odd part remove most of the grinding? It appears to me that the game doesn't really force you to rinse and repeat if you don't want to. I'm happy plodding along with the story if that's ok. Taking part in adhoc missions now and then

I think I sent in $5 or 10? Then in the exchange you sell your "C" points for dilithium at a pretty good rate. Seems to vary a little bit from day to day, but not too much. Then use the dilithium to get the top ranked and most effective weapons/consoles/ship parts you need at the requisition desks or in the exchange. When I hit Captain, I got decked out with that level ship equipment so I could get the most out of them. I'm 1 or 2 days away from hitting lower vice admiral now, and just now getting outclassed again. I'll give them a few more bucks, maybe even buy the better Excelsior refit when I level up, just to be set and not have to worry about it.

Ł5-Ł10 sounds like a fair deal to me. It's going to tsake me a very long time to get up to the kind of levels you are talking of anyway. I'm only going to play a few hours a week. I have no idea how Skate got to level 50 in 10 days. Well I do actually, but there's no way I'm playing like that hehe

Edit: I'm going to have to look into the economy side a little because I don't quite understand it yet. So you don't buy C and then buy the actual parts. What you do is trade the C for Dilithium, at the exchange? You then look for the best deals for equipment and buy them with dilithium in game. Where's the best places to buy the equipment? I take it the exchange is somewhere that isn't AI, it's more like an auction house for the players? Where else is the best place to buy things at a decent price?

Sorry for all the questions, going to go through the STO Wiki later.

TW's ship looks like a Miranda class and Sovereign class had a baby.



The Jedi Master

It's the Saucer section of a Centaur and the nacelles of the Shikar, all held together by the struts of a Miranda. It does have it's father's eyes

This baby bites too!

It follows a proud tradition. Miranda and Galaxy had the Nebula baby after all!



The Jedi Master

Hey Tiger,

Just to add to Cworth's point a bit. Truly, you will never find grinding is a MUST in STO, but you may find little else to do at endgame and it will certainly be tempting in PvP where the standard MMO rule applies...go heavy or go home.

As you level, there will never be a grade-appropriate mission (i.e. LT9, LC7, etc.) that absolutely requires you to have better gear. The AIs just not that tough that you can't beat it with what you have. Even endgame PvE fights won't leave you crippled without the ultra-rare weapons, shields, or consoles.

Of course, at endgame, there are only so many missions to do; and the only reward for killing the cube each day will come from swagging out your ride into an uber battle boat and THAT process will be a bit of a grindfest should you decide to do it. Also, if you decide to be a PvPer you may find that, while being all purpled up is not absolutely necessary...it sure helps. Because you know there's some dudes out there in Mountain Dew fuelled gank machines that have been grinding since two weeks after launch!

By far, the story missions were the most fun for me, and don't forget the foundry, user-created missions that run the gamut from "meh" to awesome, but that lengthen your story arc with some nice filler in any case.

I'm still on occasionally as Matthew Decker. I leave my SimHQ channel open in the hope of finding some intelligent life amongst the noise.

Deacon

Leveling in STO is insanly fast even if you don't play that much. Do a patrol here and a borg invasion there and you already gain a quadzillion levels (exaggerated of course in case you didn't noticed). To get the most out of STO i would recommend that you set yourself some goals to reach, because to be honest once you reach 50 there is not that much interesting content.

I made a goal for myself to get 110K dilithium to buy the 500 c-points to get additional Char slots and i made it. I have 2 Fed chars now, a tac and a sci guy, beside my klingon and my next goal will probably be to get a enough dilithium to buy the defiant retrofit, since it's my favourite ship. Sure grinding 350k dilithium is a long road, but at least it will keep me busy for the coming months and i get some other nice gear along the way.

Your goals may differ vastly, but at least set yourself some or you will get bored very quickly in STO.

how'd you hide the HUD for the screenshots?


I'll prolly finish the episodes, and go back and start re-doing them, as episode awards level up with you, so the cool crap i got at level 12 that i phased out because it wasnt cutting it in level 20+ i can go back and re-do the mission and get a level appropriate version.

there's only liek 3 or 4 stf mission and they get old quick.

the borg invasion ones are annoying when i get thrown into a level 14 group of kids in shiops with next to no punch, and they dont know that you have to take out the regen probes and keep them gone in order to fight the big guy...

F10 toggles it I think? Or I might be thinking of another game I've got going on.

Well, sometime in the last patch, the screenshot button was added, which works for me...

Wow! Those are great shots! I wish I had been around for the Odyssey weekend...that's a great looking ship.


There is also an option in the preferences that allows you to turn off the shield quadrant graphic on screen.

That way you can take battle shots without the ring appearing. Actually, I liked it so much I just left it off. :-)


Deacon

i like knowing my shields, but i think i have it on the HUD/GUI too, so I will prolly turn it off, as it clutters screenshots.

The Odyssey suffers from being a large boat, in most space combat its like Titanic vs speed boats,



In groups of more than 2, I fly in max speed (emergency power to engines III), let off a cloud of plasma as i pass through them, hit the emergency power to weapons, Spread III Pedo's and Beam at Will III, and Fire All, from there I usually take out 2 instantly, the last one gets taken out with High Yield Pedo's III and Beam Overload III.

I tried to go back to my sovereign, which has the same setup, minus 1 console, and 1 universal slot, but I wasnt able to re-train my crew assignments, so that I had the Skills I wanted.

The RCS Accelerator and Jem Hadar Combat Impulse engines help with the turn rate.

The Intrepid Class was very nice, as I was able to do so much warefare with virus fields and tractor beams and stuff.

Ah, THAT'S why the exhaust is purple.



The Jedi Master

it was alot more colorful that that, when I had the special Shields, i think they were 9000+ HP, but they just charged too slow, and i didnt want to fight off one group, only to run and hide while I wait for the shields to re-charge.

Nice shots again!

Was that the Aegis set you had before? I still am running the Aegis set, though I understand that there are all sorts of new setups that have become available while I was gone.

See you're still rocking the Tetyrons. I've thought of giving phasers or polerons a shot now that there are fewer spec boundarys...though the blue beams are still the best looking I think.

Deacon

Reman Shields.... Very Strong, but take forever to re-charge, I actually went back to using them now that I have a console that speeds up the regen.


Perks of Level 50, Quantum Slipstream, makes those cross map treks a bit quicker...







The Reman Shields Modification

At what point do you begin adding on other components like that?
I finally hit lvl 40, and the Excelsior Refit I've been wanting. Love having the transwarp option, and this one has a lot more sectors than the first one did.

around lvl 45 or so..

Some of the weapons i replayed the same mission at least 4 times to get (the MkXI tetryon Beam Arrays).

Well here is my little Escort:







As you can see i have the Borg console and the Borg engines on together with the MECO deflector and Shield. A fun Ship to fly

The Tour of the Universe event is really fun with the Borg engines, since you can fly warp 20 with them (even more if you have skilled drive coils)

i was gonna outfit my ship with all borg stuff, but in the STF missions lately all I get are effing cardassian lock boxes, and I have 70 of them im about to just delete as Im not gonna pay for the keys.

game seems to be full of glitches for me today..

none of my quests are being progress (the exploration ones, i explored like 5 systems and they didnt count towards teh 3).

3 separate systems, the borg drones kept falling underneath the ground,.. so they can shoot at me but i can hit them, i think after about 20 minutes the game beamed them back above the ground. My team wasnt so lucky, they were stuck below the ground the entire mission.

I was never a big STFer...mostly just ran the dailies to outfit my ship. I was running about five characters at one point but I put STO aside for awhile. After all the changes, I've had a hard time getting back into it.

Here's the only screenie I have of my current main ship, the Constellation; named after the the ship of my namesake, Matt Decker.




Here's my Vulcan tac officer with his namesake, the Intrepid. Was hoping to get an all Vulcan crew, but gave up on it after awhile.




And the last is a third alt, that I keep at LT just so I can fly around the old TOS Connie. I generally just ran foundry missions on him and blast Klingons. Still a favorite of mine.










Once they get high enough, I have been running all Aegis...I just like the set bonuses. I have another engineer alt that is a crafter. But now I don't know what I can craft anymore or how much it will cost. I need to commit a weekend to it sometime.


Deacon

i need a guide to find the better parts and where, right now im just going through the stories, i think im on the breen, but after that... there's nothing but STF and Stuff.

The daily borg invasions suck as I end up doing most of the work all the time and no one knows how to take down the Unimatrix ship except me, so i keep trying to tell people what to do and they wont effing listen, and they die like 50 times.

Borg invasion can be pretty easy if you stick close to the Unimatrix at one of the end points. Those plasma bolts hurt the command ship quite badly if they hit you and you are at 0 km to the Unimatrix. Doing it this way my record so far is 1:30 mins for the destruction.

So your Saying, Stick close so the plasma bolts hit me and their own ship?

I always have 4 ships taking out the probes, while the heavy cruisers just lay into the ship with pedo's and phasers...


if I can, im gonna keep Dual beams in my inventory, destroy the cubes and stuff, break off as the unimatrix spawns, and swap out my fore phasers for the dual beams, since the unimatrix dont move, its easy to keep nose on target.

Full Jem'Hadar set makes my Odyseyy Class more fun to use, less aggravation.

Increases Turn Rate, Adds Power to weapons...

i only got one ability though, i didnt get teh "dominion synergy" or the "victory is life" skills.. (Hrmm).

I also have the Full Breen set in my Intrepid (right now im using my older ships to stock pile consoles and crap, instead of wasting my bank space and inventory,

i deleted/dropped all the cardassian lock boxes, and i ignore them when they spawn.

i deleted 90% of the elements in my bank (my entire back was elements, as I was literally going after everything to get whatever.)

I think i stored all my Decent Shields that i couldnt stick onto my ships into the bank.

most of the weapons and consoles i get more money from teh replicator now.

For Stock Mk X+ Engines, the rep. gives me 20K+, before it was ZERO. I think i made a mil EC just cleaning out my inventory.

The lock boxes are getting very annoying. I don't see myself buying the keys, much less as many keys as I collect boxes.

Blame Al Gore. They're his idea.




The Jedi Master

that and im tired of trying to play and have:

"XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX@XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX WAS AWARDED A GALOR-CLASS CARDASSIAN CRUISER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

repeatedly scroll across the middle of my screen.


Also forgot to mention, for completing the 2800 we got some Shroud Ability, which brings in 2 alternate dimension versions of your player. I'm finding this VERY useful.

But if you dont complete the 2800 before the 19th You dont get it.

I still haven't been able to place my finger on the exact reason(s) why MMO's don't appeal to me. I mean, I like Star Trek, I like Star Wars but I have zero interest in either of their current MMOs.

The Jem'Hadar shields are currently seriously bugged and cryptic seems to be on the lazy side to fix it. Basicly with a little bug/exploit the shield becomes nearly invincible. Downside of the whole thing, which makes it very annoying, is it lags the whole zone. PvP has basicly become impossible to do since you have god mode like players and huge lag. Sometimes i even notice it in STFs as well if someone has the shields on, but it is not that bad.

i didnt notice that, might have to look into it,

I may go back to the shields i had, which has both Higher over strength and A lot faster Regen.

I hate MMO`s to, but STO is for free. Just make an account, wait endless minutes (at least if you have small broadband connection like me ) downloading the installer, wait another minutes patching and then enjoy a really nice ST universe. There´s nothing you will lose aside from time playing it.
@all: Keep the pics coming. Skatezille, great screens of the transwarp tunnel and so on. Oh man, I look forward to add some new tech to my ship.

Already been fixed as of yesterdays patch...

From the patch notes....

Jem'Hadar Space Set will no longer improperly trigger a Brace For Impact power effect.
This will disable the unintended synergy with Shield Distribution Duty Officers which was leading to ridiculous amounts of passive Shield Healing.

Which is what was causing the nearly invincible shield bug.

Forgot to post these, from the 2800 episodes,and after getting my ship to the all "Jem hadar" set.

I want an Jem'hadar attack ship Or better, a Jemmie Battle cruiser.

My character has been commanding the Excelsior-class U.S.S. Redwing since before Season 5 began. Captain Jasmine T. Moraigne, at your service. She's known as "Jazz" to her friends, is the great-granddaughter of an original-series Starfleet legend (who did not serve on any ship named Enterprise, by the way) and is actually a reserve vice-admiral (meaning she is still wearing Captain's rank because I think it's ridiculous for a bunch of vice admirals to be starship captains). I believe I was able to get the ship before the Excelsiors became pay-only, if I recall correctly.

It's interesting how your characters' command crews shape up as you progress. You collect your own little Star Trek-like little band who have all sorts of interesting adventures together, and with a little imagination you can see in your mind's eye your own cool Trek adventures. Looking at Redwing's brain-trust the other day on the bridge (pity there is no option for an Excelsior-class bridge) I notice that the top three are all women! That is, the captain, the first officer (Commander Saapak, of Vulcan, a tactical department officer) and the chief medical officer (Lt. Cdr. Arpli Bray, a Betazoid). Additionally, Oser, another Vulcan woman, is the Operations officer. The men are represented by chief science officer Lt. Cdr. Anton Strobalinsky; the chief engineer, Commander Mike Lauber; the alien Ensign Rehki, who is Cdr. Lauber's assistant, and the tactical officer, Lt. Cdr. Theris Avrab, an Andorian, who round out Redwing's department heads. I didn't pick these folks. It just happened that way from mission rewards at the lower ranks. I also presently have one Reman science officer, a Breen tactical officer, and a Jem'Hadar tactical officer I got as special mission rewards too, though I'm not sure I'm going to keep them. They're not "Starfleet"; you can't even change their outfits.

It's fun. And I like playing Foundry missions, and even reliving the old storyline content as reruns from time to time.

Miao, Cat

i just dis miss most of the officer awards, as my officers i started with are trained in what i want, and maxed. and if i need to retrain i goto starbase and re-train, i have enough E Credits for all of that.

too bad i can max out my character. as once you hit level 50, the skill and bridge points are locked.

i havent strayed away from the odyssey in a while as I don't want to go through and re-configure all the weapons and abilities for everything.

i used the sovereign a few times, before that i was using my Intrepid.

im gonna play the new mission tonite prolly, and just play through my klingon character to max him out as well, and maybe pick on some newb federation players in the borg battle thing

My newest ride.




After months of the Excelsior Refit, I decided to give the Dreadnought I bought a while ago a try. USS Constellation, like all my ships. Named by my captain, Matthew Decker, who was himself named after a great, great grandfather, who gave his life in a misguided attempt to avenge his crew on stardate 4202.9...

"The commander is responsible for the lives of his crew, and for their deaths. Well, I should have died with mine."

- Decker's final words

"Matt, it's not there anymore."
"Don't you think I KNOW THAT?!?!?!"

One of the best scores for the classic eps too.




The Jedi Master

I always loved that line. In researching the quote, I was a little disappointed to learn that the actor didn't particularly like the storyline and hammed it up, though it comes across spot on to me. Playing with the data cards though, was a nod to Humphry Bogart in the Caine Mutiny in which Bogey played with ball bearings was a great touch and suited the character perfectly.

Another thing I didn't know was that the music was composed shot for shot for this episode, which is why they flow together so well. The music was reused (as was common) in later episodes, but because it was wrapped around the scenes after they were shot, was never quite so perfectly matched as it was here.

Huh, the funny things you learn on the Interweb!

Deacon

It's so boring, though. And no community. People just argue over petty things and engage in peeing contests, and no one ever uses the voice channels. I got sick of the grind and being the only one on comms. Boring. I'd rather play a flight sim with a whole group in Hyperlobby. If the grind was doing math, geometry, logic, chemistry, and physics with increasing difficulty whenever there's a console to do something at or an anomaly to analyze, that might be worth it. I would actually enjoy doing just intermediate algebra problems between battles. That and having comms would help. But the whole follow-the-breadcrumbs and hit F thing gets old REALLY fast. I may be a bit of a geek, but I'm not a %$#@! nerd who goes nuts on liveries and the latest character outfit. I was never in to comics. I never spent hours painting models. If that's what the average star trek or MMPORPG fans are like, then I'm not one of them.

voice channels barely work, thats why.

i gave up on their voice comms.

i think now, when my brother and I both play, we use the Battlefield 3 Voice Coms and just minimize the battle log and load up Star Trek

that First Contact day mission was a boring run back and forth on a ship and talk to people for nothing mission.

meanwhile, nearly everyone i play with says the same thing, we have been at level 50 for who knows how long, our character is pretty much locked as we cant keep adding to his abilities. and they have yet to even hint they are raising the cap or adding new abilities.

The lack of more endgame content is the one unfortunate thing with STO for me. After tricking out my cruiser, I was left with not much else to do.

I wish there were true warzones where you felt as though you could contribute like in Pirates of the Burning Sea. Or a long campaign chain where you were engaged behind enemy lines that required little scripting and some random elements like the original Starfleet Command. Things like that would really give you something to work on after you hit cap.

Deacon

I have to admit, I am actually enjoying this MMO. I used to play Lineage II years ago. I've tried dozens of MMO's since and none kept me interested more than a couple of weeks.

What I'm liking about STO is the ground & ship combat. The sounds and explosions are great as well.

Might actually keep playing this for a while. Helps that it's free to play. :-)

Well, it's finally happened. Cryptic reset passwords for most of its members (a security breach that happened 1 1/2 years ago) and now quite a few (including me) are locked out. It's been 5 days and still no response (except bot e-mails) from their customer service. (Well, did I expect anyone to call on the 'weekend'?)

Bad thing is that I am a paying customer and I can't even log-in to cancel my payment!
You would think they would be more concerned about people who actually give them money.
Guess the only thing to do is contact my credit card company and stop payments to Perfect World and Cryptic. Sheesh!

As a friend of mine said, "This would have made a great single-player game. Play through it once and put it on the shelf."

PS> Before anyone asks, I cannot reset my password as the e-mail address I signed on with is no longer valid (hell, I've moved
TWICE since then). And they won't accept my ID by e-mail, so I'm royally forked...