The fleet system allows players in a fleet to create and progress a starbase system as a group.
When fleet members enter the system for the first time they will see versions of all of the facilities and starbase that are all partially built. As the fleet progresses the facilities and starbase can be upgraded by the fleet in order to earn a cosmetic upgrade and several functional upgrades per tier. The facilities are as follows:
The fleet ui has been modified from its original version to have a holdings page.
-This page allows players to see the current tier level of their starbase and facilities, as well as the projects that are currently running.
-Clicking on a specific tier indicator will show an image of what that upgrade will look like, along with a list of rewards the fleet will earn for earning the upgrade.
-There is a leaderboard per active project that shows the contribution of everyone that has contributed to a specific project.
+Fleet Projects
A fleet will work together on Fleet Projects in order to progress in this system. Fleet Projects can be thought of as group duty officer assignments that require a fleet of people to provide all of the components in order to be started. These projects are selected and slotted by fleet leadership and can then be contributed to by anyone that is in the fleet. All projects have a set “construction” time that must be completed before the rewards are given and the next project can begin.
Projects exist in several categories:
-Standard
--Standard Projects come in Military, Science and Engineering flavors. These projects award Fleet XP specific to their category and can also provide a small number of buff provisions. Fleets may have any 3 standard or provisioning project running simultaneously.
--Provisioning Projects provide some amount of Fleet XP specific to their category, and also provide a standard number of provisions to a specified Fleet store. (more on provisioning later) Fleets may have any 3 standard or provisioning project running simultaneously.
-Upgrade Projects
--These projects allow players to upgrade facilities and personnel in their starbase. Fleets can upgrade their facility tier, starbase tier, and add upgrades to their interior such as special doff contacts or NPC’s with special functionality. These tend to be the most expensive type of project. Fleets may have one upgrade project running at a time.
-Special Projects
--Special projects allow fleets to unlock unique cosmetic upgrades for their starbase interior or allow them to run a project that grants fleet xp to every non starbase category. Players can have one special project running at a time.
+Contribution
Players can contribute to projects with a variety of items:
-Commodities
-Dilithium
-Duty Officers
-Bridge Officer Skill Points
-Consumables
-Crafting Materials
-Crafted items
-Fleet Marks (Info Further Down)
-And more!
Each of the aforementioned items has a value attached to them in Fleet Credits. As you make donations to a project you will earn fleet credits commensurate with your contribution. Fleet credits can be used to buy brand new ultra-rare items, fleet ships, buffs, and operational assets from the fleet store.
-As you contribute, you as an individual earn fleet credits to spend in your fleet store.
-Fleet Credits belong to the player that earns them and they are retained regardless of fleet status or fleet affiliation.
+Provisioning
There a variety of stores on your starbase that will be unlocked as you progress through the system. Fleet Credits will be the currency used to purchase these items.
-Some of these stores contain Advanced Fleet Items and Elite Fleet Items, both of which are the new Ultra Rare variety. These items cover every space and ground item type in the game and are unattainable anywhere else.
-A ship store can be unlocked that contains fleet ships. The store will be unlocked as you progress, and more ship types will be unlocked as you upgrade your shipyard.
-Once the store is unlocked it must be provisioned. Fleets can run specific provisioning projects that will place a fixed amount of inventory in the store and then the project must be run again to reprovision it.
--For example: A provisioning project is completed that grants 15 space weapons to the space weapon store. That means that 15 total weapons can be purchased, regardless of energy type, or weapon type. Once they’re gone the space weapon store must be reprovisioned.
+Fleet Marks
Fleet Marks are earned by playing any of the new Season 6 content, and are a requirement in most fleet projects. The content that grants these Fleet Marks includes but is not limited to:
All of these maps are available 24 hours a day with no cooldown
-On Holodeck there will be a 30 minute cooldown for repeating the same mission.
There is a calendar event that grants additional fleet marks to any of the missions above.
+Fleet Content:
All fleet content except fleet alerts are available in the public queue to any player regardless of fleet membership.
Private queue creation for fleet content is restricted to players that are in fleets
-Players that are not in fleets may be invited, but cannot create the queue
Opponents in a fleet map are always randomly selected
Starbase Fleet Defense
This is a multiphase 20 person encounter that requires some serious teamwork to complete.
-Phase 1
--Escort Frigates to their warp out point and defend them
-Phase 2
--Regroup at the starbase and defend it!
-Phase 3
--Defend all 4 of your facilities!
-Phase 4
--Defend your starbase from invaders and starbase busting dreadnoughts
Players earn more Fleet Marks the better they perform on each stage
Pro tip! You’ll want to break into four groups of five for phases 1 and 3
Starbase Blockade
Freighters will be warping into your starbase map while under fire! Defend them from their attackers so they can drop off their wounded and supplies at the starbase! The more ships you save the more Fleet Merit you will earn.
Fleet Alerts
Fleet alerts will randomly appear around your minimap reticle. When they do fleet members can queue up to defend their starbase from invaders.
-This is a timed mission where players have to clear an invading force in a set time, then clear a dreadnought encounter in a new set time.
General:
Quark’s bar has gotten a new client.
-He’s a regular, and we can’t get him to stop talking.
Added an Account Bank to each bridge and Ready Room.
Turning in missions now consistently displays and grants rewards the first time.
When selling items, the chat message for the transaction no longer references buying Energy Credits.
It’s possible to sit in chairs again by right-clicking on them.
Players creating fleet events no longer receive a creation error if the default start time is used.
The second floor of faux DS9 in Terradome has had its missing walls replaced.
Repaired the hole into space on two of the large Klingon ship interiors.
Duty Officers:
Resolved typo in success outcome of "Assign Security to Delegation to Dominion" Duty Officer assignment.
Updated tooltip in purple quality Explosives Expert duty officer active roster power.
Duty Officer Assignment offerings will no longer differ between instances of the same map.
When viewing assignments, the required items will now stop incorrectly counting items in the overflow bag when determining if there are enough available.
Added more quotes to Espionage and Exploration category Duty Officers.
Holodeck duty officer Polonius can no longer be slotted on your Space active roster list.
-He does not actually have a power and should not have been allowed to be slotted.
Foundry:
Added the Utopia Planitia interior backdrop, this time for reals.
The Costume Picker camera now correctly frames NPCs.
Removed the non-functional option to drag Kill objectives to Cryptic maps.
The non-functional Unlock Door option has been removed from the Mission menu.
Removed the Dialog with Object objective type.
-This had the same functionality as having an Interact with Object objective followed by a popup dialog, and the older function works better.
Adding a map to a project no longer counts as adding an objective.
The Default zoom in the costume editor should now work better with large ships.
Custom costumes should now display correctly in all previews.
Map transfer button text is now appropriately applied to the mission.
The correct contact name is now displayed for Grant Mission and Popup dialogs.
Not specifying a door for the first map transition once again causes an Unfinished Task.
The Randomize Upper Body button is no longer linked to the lower body as well.
Unfinished Tasks in the Story tab now say Story instead of Mission.
Added the following items to the Detail objects.
-Starfleet Coffin Torpedo 01
-Military Turret 01
-Horta Egg Pile 01
-Single Horta Egg
-Mining Cart 01-03
-Coliseum Weapon Rack 01-03
-Coliseum Lights 01-04
-Glass War Map
-Space Station Hatch 01
-Glass - Panel - Defiant Class Schematic - Ventral
-Glass - Panel - Defiant Class Schematic - Dorsal
-Glass - Panel - Defiant Class Schematic - Fore/Aft
-Glass - Panel - Defiant Class Schematic - Starboard
-Glass - Panel - Odyssey Class Schematic - Ventral
-Glass - Panel - Odyssey Class Schematic - Dorsal
-Glass - Panel - Odyssey Class Schematic - Fore/Aft
-Glass - Panel - Odyssey Class Schematic - Starboard
-Glass - Panel - Starfleet Corps of Engineers
-Glass - Panel - Fleet Modernization Program
-Glass - Panel - Starfleet Applied Sciences
-Glass - Panel - Starfleet Starship Design
-Glass - Panel - Utopia Planitia 01
-Shelf - Glass - Black 01-02
-Banner - Utopia Planitia 01-02
-Banner - Odyssey Class Ship
-Banner - Starfleet Starship Design
-Banner - Romulan Civilian
-Banner - Starfleet Tactical Command
-Banner - Starfleet Applied Sciences
-Banner - Starfleet Corps of Engineers
-Banner - Dervish Class Starship
-Banner - Prometheus Starship
-Banner - Galaxy Class Starship
-Banner - Excalibur Class Starship
-Banner - Luna Class Starship
-Banner - Intrepid Starship
-Statue - Romulan 01
Missions:
Cage of Fire: Cardassian kills now count towards the Vorta Vexer and Founders Foil Accolades.
No Win Updates:
-Updated the Bio Neural Turrets to be a little scarier in Waves 6–10.
-Relocated re-spawn point so that players would not be within range of turrets after they have died.
Of Bajor: Player is no longer attacked every time they try to plant a bug during Eavesdropping on Electronics mission.
Cold Comfort: Choosing an incorrect option in the Tran dialogue no longer prevents the completion of the mission forever.
Welcome to Earth Spacedock: Completing this mission remotely after skipping the tutorial no longer causes the guide to remain.
The Gates of Grethor: The Defeat the Spectres stages no longer comple upon character defeat.
Tweaked position of Kar'ukan in "Boldly They Rode" Ops area and made him more aggressive about pursuing players after they respawn.
The damaged Borg probes in the Tutorial are no longer in such a hurry to get around.
Updated rewards for the Colony Invasion to use fleet marks, and grant bonus fleet marks during Fleet activity.
Updated the Vault to be always available but give bonus rewards when the Vault event is running.
Updated the Vault event mission text to say "Claim your reward" instead of "Claim your datalog".
City on the Edge of Never: B'Vat no longer calls for help the same time Miral Paris does.
Contacts in Battle Group Omega now recognize D’Vak’s true rank of Admiral.
Facility 4028:
-The holographic security guards are no longer present after Isis is offline.
-There is no longer a rogue security guard walking through walls.
Systems:
Resolved an issue that was causing players' Combat Armor stat to not be automatically applied upon entering a ground map.
Breen Cruisers no longer all come equipped with Subnucleonic Beam.
-Some may still use it, but not all.
Hyperonic Radiation II durations were updated to be more consistent across all ranks.
UI:
Resolved an issue that would cause the target conning level to always display as 0.
Skill highlighting will no longer highlight ground skills when a Bridge Officer is selected.
Removed the Abort Mission from the Map window.
The Bellerophon ship class is no longer missing from the Variant drop down selection.
The button for the PVE queue has returned to its location below the minimap next to the Duty Officer button.
A button for the new Fleet Interface has been added to the row of buttons below the Minimap, replacing the PVP Button.
-The PVP Queue can now be accessed from the Minimap dropdown menu.
Improved behavior of autocomplete in chat.
It is now possible to set a focused target that will persist for as long as possible.
-To toggle the focused target, either click the new button on the target frame or via "Set Focus" in the context menu.
The Free Starship Modification granted by Welcome to Earth Spacedock has a proper icon now.
The Notification Settings window was added it to the minimap dropdown menu.
Updated the Dilithium Exchange:
-The Submit Offer to Buy and Submit Offer to Sell buttons will now be disabled if any of the inputs are invalid.
-Double clicking a row will set the Dilithium text entry to that price.
Cleaned up the Duty Officer roster display by removing the redundant info buttons.
PvE Queues: The Details and Join Queue buttons are no longer enabled when there are no queues available.
Removed Discard and Equip from item right-click menu if the item is in a guild bank.
All instances of Cryptic Points have been replaced by ZEN.
Captains will no longer incorrectly appear in the Ship Repair window.
Ensign rank Bridge Officers will no longer display as Unknown allegiance.
Known Issues:
+Fleet System
Fleet Stores
-Fleet stores will not be usable for this push. Players will earn Fleet Credits they will be unable to use until a later push.
-Provisioning assignments do not grant the provisions the reward claims they do. They still grant Fleet XP.
-Operational Assets are not available in this release. Content will feel more difficult without them
Starbase Facilities will disappear when you fly too far away from them. There is still a navigation beacon to assist you in discovering their location.
There is a list of rewards on the starbase holding UI page when you click on different tiers of unlocks. The reward schedule and actually rewarded items is going to change, don’t get too attached.
All fleet content except fleet alerts are available in the public queue to any player regardless of fleet membership.
Private queue creation for fleet content is restricted to players that are in fleets
-Players that are not in fleets may be invited, but cannot create the queue
So if I'm reading this right, these are essentially STF's like the current system, but with a new currency as reward?
That's pretty cool, because I was worried they would force us to run them via a fleet only group.
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Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
Does the fleet carry over to tribble? Otherwise we need to get on there and make one to test.
You can target the web nodes to try and destroy it. You can destroy certain nodes to take down a triangular portion of the web. If caught inside you can't get out. If touching it, your hull can melt fast.
I encountered them in a starbase blockade mission. (Season 6, Tribble)
They do kinetic and tetryon damage and shoot Thermionic Torpedoes. They also shoot Heavy Disruption Torpedos, which are like three moving orbs together.
The description of that web is fucking scary. Sounds like these guys could easily be on par with the Romulans, and probably on par with the Fek'ihri if you're in an escort and can't just park yourself in the middle of the web and pray.
Myself and Significant Other have started playing a week ago, so far just toodling around at Rank 7Lt in piddly light cruisers. I am loving it so far, but as with other MMO's I've played the fear is grind to high end then twiddle thumbs while repeating the same raids and missions and praying for added content with each patch.
So my main question, is it a game that rewards the journey along the way so that we can ignore the grind and just enjoy gaining say a few levels a week and still have fun? Once we do reach Admiral (astonishingly far off yet) does the game hold its charm?
Secondly, my SO is loving groun missions but finds space combat frustratingly confusing. She's never played a 'flight' or 'space' style game before so the 'mouse forward to dive, back to climb' mechanic along with confusion over which way she is facing often means she ends each combat 30K away from me and banging face first into a planet. Can anyone suggest easy solutions? Would an x-box controller be possible?
As we level should we stick with the ships given with each promotion or is it worth shopping around with C or Dilithium for alternatives? Our current levelling rate suggests we'll be at each tier for probably a month or two.
We are playing Tactical/Science respectively. Should we focus on the fiddly 'buff/debuff' stuff that a lot of the science'y skills have or is 'pew pew' max DPS fine for any class? Something simple for now might be best.
I just had to buy the Constitution class. I know, everything I've read has said it will gather dust for 99% of my playing life, but it is the ship that got me into Star Trek in the first place and besides, I have always preferred ships that have that 'How the hell does that thing fly??' look! Hope to see you chaps in game, so far it seems like a decent use of my free time, fingers crossed.
Honestly, STO rewards the path to the end more than the end. When you hit admiral, you'll probably still have a few fronts of story content to go, at which point... yeah, the charm starts wearing thin.
As for the control issue, my suggestion is to use the WASD keys and remap W and S so up is up and down is down. Also, you don't need to fight at full speed, especially in PVE. A cruiser can basically park and fire, I usually fight at 25% speed in mine just as a technicality - you can't turn well on thrusters only so a full stop leaves you unable to adjust angles.
Yeah, I would definitely second the default controls of W/S for your pitch movement. Has your S/O played any other MMO's such as WoW or CoX/CO? It might help with the controlling just to think of your ship as a big flying mount or flying super hero (doubly since it's built on the CO engine anyway :P )
Having your camera type as "Free Camera" may alleviate some issues as well. That way you can just right-click and drag like a traditional MMO avatar. I always found the lock-on camera especially frustrating. I did try an Xbox controller once just to see what it was like, but there are just way too many skills to map effectively.
As for ship builds? Go ahead and focus on max dps. Science has some nifty skills, but most are 90 degree in arc and take some full time micro to get the most out of. If you feel things are getting difficult, or just want to kick back and watch some spaceships pew-pew, you can always drop the difficulty down to normal anyway and enjoy the show
Lastly, I wouldn't recommend spending C-Points buying any of the special lower tier ship unless you have a particular love of that class/skin. Converting Points->Dil is always a favorable ratio on the other hand, so if you really want a change of pace and don't mind dropping a few bucks, then you can pick up another line very cheap.
The end game, at the moment, consists of running the same three space missions (or 3 ground missions, if you hate yourself) to get better gear so you can run the missions faster. It's kind of pointless.
The free ships are pretty good, there isn't really a need to pay for the C-store ships, it's really not Pay to Win (yet). Some of the C-store ships come with neat toys in the form of consoles that can be transferred to other ships but none of them are really game breaking. I hear that the PD turret is nice (from the Thunderchild escort), and I like the Nadeon Detonator from the Bellarophon refit (makes a photon torpedo release a Photonic Shockwave on detonation).
If you plan on buying a c-store ship fed side, I'd put the points towards a carrier, all the other c-store ships are near enough to the free ships that it's not worth it IMHO (I'm holding off until my life time sub stipend comes through and I can pick one up with past me footing the bill).
Also, get the science captain out of the cruiser class as soon as possible. It's a combination that just doesn't work well.
Got a bit of time fighting Tholians in, and they're really well designed, but maybe a bit underpowered. They're complex and unpredictable without being bullshit like Romulans and pre-nerf Borg. Their ships are all small and triangular. Their battleship class (Recluse) is around the size of a Prometheus.
Haven't figured out what Thermionic or Disruption torpedoes do, but Thermionics do have a debuff effect. They also have tricobalt torpedoes. Their tricobalts are different though. If they hit, they can open a temporal rift. After a few seconds, a Terran Empire ship comes out (Think In a Mirror Darkly, but in reverse.) and will fire on either you or the Tholians. The web comes in two forms - the ball style in the picture and a flat wall. The wall is much harder to take down, but you can fly around it. The ball style is easy to take down if you have any kind of AOE. Either one hurts like a sonofabitch if you fly into it, though.
Also, to answer a question we had a while back about different starbase progression tracks having a different look, it's sort of true. You actually have several facilities - the starbase itself, a drydock, an industrial fabricator, a communications array, and a transwarp gate. Drydock gets bigger with military tiers, fabricator with engineering, com array and transwarp gate with science, the starbase with overall exp.
Tier rewards, if anyone's interested (hooked up with a random "invite everyone and try to progress before release" fleet on tribble):
Military:
Each rank improves the shipyard (visual) and the starbase's weapons in fleet alerts. All ships are listed as classified
Rank 1: Ship selection officer, tactical doff contact, 1 ship class
Rank 2: 3 ship classes, mk XII ground weapons vendor
Rank 3: Security officer doff contact, mk XII space weapons vendor, 3 ships
Rank 4: Mk XII "Ground Fleet Weapons" vendor, whatever that means, 3 ships
Rank 5: Brig doff contact, mk XII space fleet weapons, 3 ships
Engineering:
Each rank improves the fabricator (visual), and starbase HP and regen
Rank 1: Minor injury ship repair
Rank 2: mk XII ground armor, major repair
Rank 3: mk XII engines, critical repair
Rank 4: Ship tailor, mk XII ground fleet armor
Rank 5: Crafting, mk XII fleet engines
Science:
Each rank improves the com array and transwarp gate (visual), and starbase shields
Rank 1: Minor ground injury heal
Rank 2: mk XII personal shields, major heal
Rank 3: Mk XII space shields and deflectors, critical heal
Rank 4: Mk XII fleet personal shields
rank 5: mk XII fleet space shields and fleet deflectors
Overall:
Each rank improves the starbase (visual), and unlocks a costume option for fleet members
Rank 1: Mail terminal
Rank 2: Bank terminal, bartender
Rank 3: Tailer, personnel doff contact
Rank 4: Boff trainer, chef, cultural exchange doff contacts
Rank 5: Skill respec, counselor doff contact, "Duty Officer Contact" (what that last one is for isn't elaborated).
So, yeah, military is pretty much what everyone's going to want to push. It's got the weapons vendors and the ships.
The way progression is set up, though, you can't completely focus on one, at least not at the start. You can run 3 provisioning projects, that put stuff in the fleet stores and give the bulk of department EXP, one upgrade project that you use to unlock the next tier when you fill the EXP requirements of your current one, and one special project that seems to be low EXP, no items, but low inputs and short duration.
They are. The advanced escort is a bit easier to make a boff layout around - two EPTS, hazard emitters, polarize hull, and science team and you can deal with just about any annoying debuff. The fleet escort can be a lot more durable - aux2sif or reverse shield polarity can go a long way - but you basically hit 2/3 of the big annoyances on the science end. That's good enough for any single enemy, but a bit fiddly to go from one enemy to the next, which is kind of a thing in Season 6 since No Win Scenario, all the fleet events, and fleet red alerts are all random enemies.
If you get the C-store multivector escort, you can use the MVAM console on the standard advanced escort, which has a better DPS boff setup at the cost of the LTC science slot's support options. The fleet escort is sort of a dead end - its same play style carries over to the heavy escort carrier, but you can't pick and choose like you can with the two advanced escorts.
Edit:
Is there any info out there on the starbase sold ships yet?
Nope, aside from the above-mentioned dev confirmation that an improved Sovereign will be on the Fed lineup. All of them say "Variant" in the description, which makes me wonder if they're mostly refits of lower tier ships. But aside from speculation, they're all "classified," it'll be a few days at least before somebody gets a military tier upgrade finished and can start provisioning the first one, and even then, the fleet stores aren't hooked up and the tier 0 provisioning projects are just spitting out dummy items, so unless it's in the title or description, we might have to wait until devs confirm the new ships.
I ended up going the advanced route; prometheus saucer with the cerberus' talon nacelles looked pretty good. bought a quick set of Xs and I guess I'll finish the romulan front next time I play. then i'll probably focus on my kdf side a little. doing engi/crusiers over there
Great ScottKing of Wishful ThinkingParagon City, RIRegistered Userregular
Under the "what the heck" heading... I don't know when it happened, but all the systems were removed from the B'Tran Cluster. 20 tries on two characters (both versions of the zone), 20 crafting mats anomalies.
In addition to Heretic, Gozer has also announced he is leaving Cryptic as well so if anyone was waiting for him to revamp PvP, well you'll be waiting even longer now. On the upside, now that he's leaving maybe someone will be able to undo the awful changes he made to the STFs and increase the freaking prototype tech drop rate.
In addition to Heretic, Gozer has also announced he is leaving Cryptic as well so if anyone was waiting for him to revamp PvP, well you'll be waiting even longer now. On the upside, now that he's leaving maybe someone will be able to undo the awful changes he made to the STFs and increase the freaking prototype tech drop rate.
Man... I guess you have to take the bad news with the good.
Kind of wonder what's going on that two big names in the game are leaving at about the same time.
In addition to Heretic, Gozer has also announced he is leaving Cryptic as well so if anyone was waiting for him to revamp PvP, well you'll be waiting even longer now. On the upside, now that he's leaving maybe someone will be able to undo the awful changes he made to the STFs and increase the freaking prototype tech drop rate.
Man... I guess you have to take the bad news with the good.
Kind of wonder what's going on that two big names in the game are leaving at about the same time.
Saw a post on the facebook star trek page about 'life time members' being given access to 'Neverwinter Closed Beta test' so... maybe they are leaving to work on finishing that up?
No, they're leaving Cryptic, not just STO. Heretic got a better offer from Gazillion to work on Marvel Heroes. Gozer is also leaving for a better offer, but hasn't said where. If I had to bet, I'd say CCP, because his special brand of crushing grind combined with targeted buffs to block any winning strategy might fly in EVE or that other game they've been developing for years.
According to both of them, they're not being forced out - they're being replaced internally, not by PWE - Borticus, Ro, and a new guy named Archon are taking over Heretic's stuff - Ro did the DS9 doff expansion and Borticus apparently did most of the fill-in on starbases after the system was in place so a lot of what we already attribute to Heretic is these guys. Gozer's successor isn't decided since he's not leaving until some time next month. Both pretty closely involved with the transition and Gozer in particular took personal credit for a bunch of things that were being blamed on PWE. Gozer's even called out some of the people who think he was forced out, and insulted the fleet that leaked his leaving over their "lies and intentional rabble rousing." Some of the tweets he made yesterday (noticing on my feed a bunch of them are deleted today) sound a lot like the ones Logan made right before quitting, and he quit because of the treatment he got from the community. Gozer gets in a day over PVP what Logan got in a year over ship model errors.
As for the PVP revamp, even with Gozer on it, you were going to be waiting a long time for a turd. His first and only concrete idea was removing PVP from the game entirely. By his post in the thread about him leaving, the reason he hasn't said anything else is because he doesn't have any real plans yet.
We are now newly minted Lt Cmdr's toodling around in a Cruiser and Science ship. Your tips helped a lot and my SO has finally clicked with space combat and now enjoys sitting at a distance debuffing/buffing/sticking overloaded torps up backsides while I get pounded on. Fun!
The Episodes really seem to make the game and I hope that when we finish the line it might be far enough in the future that a replay with new characters might be viable. We aren't 8hrs a day players (I did my time in EQ) andd the slow pace is a nice change for us that might keep the game interesting beyond its limitations.
Oh and whoever created the DoFF system is an evil genius. That thing is as addictive as MtG circa Black Border Lotus era. I love it. Gives a real soap opera feel to the player ship with all these random things happening. I only wish there were more personal DOFF missions like inter-deck love triangles and internal squabbles etc.
Oh a question about PvP. Can you have a sealed battle between 2 players on the same side? For example, can me and my partner (both Federation) smack the crap out of one another somewhere in space?
i just hit admiral:lv 40 version. not sure how the game handles level differences when grouping (i know champions did it well enough) but i'll probably be around if you want to play with more people as well.
i just hit admiral:lv 40 version. not sure how the game handles level differences when grouping (i know champions did it well enough) but i'll probably be around if you want to play with more people as well.
It does a "do you want to be set to <teamleaders> level" mechanic, which looks similar to the CoH sidekick mechanic to me.
On the other hand, all the groups I've been in have all been around the same level, so I'm not sure what advantages/disadvantages come from not being at the same level as your team...
@MuddyPaws: As a fellow UKian, if you happen to be around at the same time as me, feel free to drop me a line if you need a hand with anything. Nice to see someone else on during GMT.
i just hit admiral:lv 40 version. not sure how the game handles level differences when grouping (i know champions did it well enough) but i'll probably be around if you want to play with more people as well.
It works very well. Let the lower-level player invite you and then accept the prompt to match their level. You'll be at their numeric level but you'll be pretty strong. Makes blasting through the PvE stuff a breeze. Just be aware that it is limited by your proximity to the team - if you get too far away from the team leader the level-matching breaks. You get 60 seconds of warnings though.
My character is L50 and I team up with my son to play through the missions with him, though we haven't been on in a while (we've been on a Pokemon binge, catching 'em all etc).
One downside of the level matching system: It scales your equipment up to the appropriate level (~1 mk level per 5 levels of difference), but it doesn't account for the fact that you have more weapons and boff slots in higher tier ships. From level 40 to 50 it won't matter - everyone's in tier 5 ships - but it can become a problem if you're the one admiral in a group of lieutenants, the lowbies just can't put out that much damage. You can work around it by making a lower level group member leader and matching down, instead of bumping them up.
someone asked me for an invite to the fleet last night on tribble... the only problem was I'm like 90% sure I was on live. A) How do i tell if i was in the right place or does the PA channel just exist across live/test and i was just catching their bleedthrough chat?
someone asked me for an invite to the fleet last night on tribble... the only problem was I'm like 90% sure I was on live. A) How do i tell if i was in the right place or does the PA channel just exist across live/test and i was just catching their bleedthrough chat?
The chat channels exist across all games that use the same engine. The chat channel also exists on City of Heroes. I'm sure they claim it's a feature, but it's probably just poor design.
Going through the latest data from the monitoring satellite now. The Nukarans are a fascinating culture. Technologically, they’re at a level equivalent to Earth’s Iron Age. Socially, however, they are much more interesting. Today we picked up audio from an assembly gathering. Most of their debates seem to be about trade issues, but there was a dispute between two family groups over grazing rights and a decision about the location of a new temple. We also grabbed some fragments of a poem – I think it was one of the elders teaching a group of children stories of the first king. The Nukarans don’t have a written language yet, so they memorize poems and songs to preserve their history and religion. Some of it is quite lovely – reminds me of Tarbold’s early work. I wish we could get closer. The Mauss doesn’t even have permission to orbit Nukara IV, so we have to keep our distance. I’ve asked again for a duck blind and permission to send a team to the planet to observe the Nukarans directly. There is only so much you can learn from sensor feeds.
This will be my fourth request – and I expect it will be as fruitless as the rest.
Stardate 86308.13, S.S. Mauss
Second Officer’s Log:
Sensors are picking up some unusual readings from Nukara Prime. Useless ball of rock – the heat’s bad enough to fry the sensors of any ship in high orbit, and the radiation makes most readings useless. I’m sure it’s just another false report – we get a lot of those. Still, we better check it out. The Mauss isn’t rated for demon class worlds. We don’t even have metaphasic shields. If we’re lucky, we might be able to stay in high orbit for a few hours.
Stardate 86309.10, S.S. Mauss
Second Officer’s Log:
It wasn’t a false reading. There’s something down there. Wright thinks that there are interspacial rifts occurring on the planet, and if he’s right … gods, what a discovery! Harness those rifts and we might be able to travel to other worlds – maybe even other realities! Other times! Wright says that the rifts are similar to the energy produced by the Iconian gateways. He might be onto something there, but we’re going to need a lot more data before we can confirm that theory. He thinks we should contact Starfleet. I want to wait – what if they quarantine the entire system, and not just Nukara IV? The captain says he’ll make a decision in the morning. Until then, I have sixteen hours of feed from Nukara IV to go through.
Somehow, though, Nukaran culture doesn’t seem as interesting as it did a few days ago.
Stardate 86310.70, S.S. Mauss
Second Officer’s Log:
The captain is giving us two weeks to study Nukara Prime, and if we can make a few more orbits we should get enough data to start refining our theory about the rifts. The Nukarans will have to wait. I’m reconfiguring all of the sensors to target Nukara Prime.
Stardate 86322.10, S.S. Mauss
Second Officer’s Log:
There’s something on long-range sensors. Wright thinks it’s a ship, or maybe even a small group of ships, but with all the sensor echoes we won’t know until they get closer. We’re close to Klingon space, and this isn’t the first time a Bird-of-Prey has wandered into this system. The captain is moving the ship into the shadow of Nukara Prime until they leave. The radiation should conceal us.
Stardate 86322.27, S.S. Mauss
Second Officer’s Log:
Tholians. A Recluse carrier with six escort ships. The captain wants to send a distress signal to Deep-Space K-7, but if we transmit a subspace message the Tholians will detect it. We’re still matching the planet’s orbit, but I know they’re going to find us. It’s only a matter of time. I’m encoding all of the logs and the data we have on the interspacial rifts and the Nukarans.
All we can do is try to protect what we’ve found.
Stardate 86345.37, U.S.S. Alliance
First Officer’s Log:
Arrived at the last known location of the S.S. Mauss at 2150 hours. Sensors detected metallic debris consistent with the science vessel, as well as the remains of several sensor satellites. Analysis of the debris shows signs of tetryon and proton damage consistent with Tholian weapons, but it’s almost unheard of for the Tholians to be in this region of space. There would have to be something extremely important here to draw them so far from their own territory. We’ve recovered the Mauss’ logs, but the data is encrypted. T’Mer says she can crack it, but it will take some time. Maybe there’s something in there that will explain why 22 scientists died.
Also, there's 20% ship-sale going on right now till July 2nd.
Interesting story, but manages to tell us pretty much nothing about why the Tholians have suddenly decided to insert themselves into the current conflict after just asking to be left alone for over 50 years. Having their diplomatic team assassinated wasn't enough to get them to kick the Dominion's ass, so something big must have them pissed off now.
Interesting story, but manages to tell us pretty much nothing about why the Tholians have suddenly decided to insert themselves into the current conflict after just asking to be left alone for over 50 years. Having their diplomatic team assassinated wasn't enough to get them to kick the Dominion's ass, so something big must have them pissed off now.
Spoilered because we've got players in-thread who haven't hit the endgame.
With the reference to the Iconian gateways, I'm betting they're behind this too. Possibly a strike at the Tholian home world like they pulled on the Undine, except the Tholians are smart enough to realize who it actually was and are now seeking out the Iconian energy signatures directly, and incidentally targeting anyone who looks like they might get in the way, or are in the wrong place at the wrong time, or might be attempting to develop Iconian tech.
Also, there's 20% ship-sale going on right now till July 2nd.
Hooray, my 1600 funbucks will be enough to get me that shiny new escort/carrier!
Wait, it's not included in the sale...
Damn. Looks like I'll have to hold off a bit.
Missed that Iconian bit. Interspacial gateways are something the Iconians are known for making on their own. It's even one of the Recluse's special powers.
started doing stfs last night. the space ones seem pretty quick and fun. I can see it getting grindy eventually though. haven't tried the ground ones... not a big fan of ground combat at the moment with the cardassians wrecking my day whenever i get out of that ship.
The ground ones are a clusterfuck. Never risk them in a PUG, people are just awful. Aside from the mk XII ground set items (which are ground elite only), you can grind out everything in the space ones. And the rewards are about the same for missions that take much longer.
Starting Monday, July 2nd, the first players will be reaching the 900-Day mark and they are going to receive some awesome rewards:
"Guardian" Title
This in-game title can be set through the Character Status screen. If you have the default keybinds set, press “U” to bring up this menu. From there, double-check that your character is chosen from the left column, and then click the “Edit Record” button towards the bottom to change your title.
FREE Exclusive Starship "Material"
Your Starfleet and Klingon ships* will gain access to an exclusive new material that has been created specifically for our 900-Day veterans – there is a unique material for each faction. When using the Veteran Material, there are 4 unique paint pattern options available, on top of the usual 13. Visit any shipyard to “customize” your ship with this new material.
*Please note that allied alien (Catiain Atrox Carrier, Vulcan D’Kyr, etc.) and lock box (Jem’Hadar Attack Ship, Cardassian Galor, etc.) ships, as well as the TOS Constitution class, are not able to use this new material.
FREE Exclusive Uniform Variant
Federation captains will gain access to an exclusive Jupiter Veteran Decorated Gold Jacket. This is a golden trim embellished version of the Jupiter Veteran Jacket that is only available to 900 day Vets. Bonus! If you are a 900 Day Vet AND you have purchased the Jupiter Uniform pack, those Jupiter jackets will give you the option to use a Veteran Decorated Gold material on it. It's just another way for us to add an extra little treat for our Vet players.
Klingon captains will gain access to an exclusive Veteran Belt and Wrist Attaches. This belt and fur lined gauntlets are in the style of the previously released Veteran shoulder pads and will complete the look of your Vet uniform.
FREE Full Respec
Each of your characters on your account will earn a full respec/ retrain token. To perform a respec, visit a Skill Trainer available to your faction (Fed: Earth Spacedock and Deep Space K-7; KDF: Qo’noS and Ganalda Space Station; Both: Deep Space 9). Please note that this reward does not respec Bridge Officers and a single character can fully retrain only once per token.
Priority one interview hit a ton of Starbase stuff.
Equipment rewards are purple mk XII and better-than-purple mk XII, which have four modifiers. the Fleet Equipment is in the same qualities, but trades one modifier for a special proc, mentions armor that fires nanite health monitor every minute.
All ship rewards are tier 5, and there's 45 ships between Fed and KDF. All tier 2 and higher ships have a Retrofit (unless there already is one), and then almost* everything has a Fleet Retrofit, with +10% health and shields, and one extra console slot - basically in line with the Odyssey. Fleet store ships have hull type 6 no matter what skin you use, and Fleet Retrofits all get a special interior (one shared by all, not one each). None of them have console powers, but are compatible with matching C-store mods - the Galaxy Fleet Retrofit doesn't have saucer separation, but can equip the Galaxy-R's separation console.
Stats are all over the place, he mentioned the Nova is faster but more fragile than other science vessels, the Sabre is faster than the Defiant but has less hull, etc, a wider variety in speed and durability than existing ships offer. He tried to give everything a different boff layouts, too, so that everything has a distinct definable niche.
*- apparently no Atrox and D'kyr, and KDF got a shorter list of fleet retrofits in a couple cases because the tier 3 and 4 destroyers are almost identical and the raptors aren't that distinct either.
I just redownloaded this, I've been away for a long time, ever since the first Borg team missions showed up. I have a 44 Federation Engineer and a 37 Klingon Scientist. What to do.
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Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
So if I'm reading this right, these are essentially STF's like the current system, but with a new currency as reward?
That's pretty cool, because I was worried they would force us to run them via a fleet only group.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
So my main question, is it a game that rewards the journey along the way so that we can ignore the grind and just enjoy gaining say a few levels a week and still have fun? Once we do reach Admiral (astonishingly far off yet) does the game hold its charm?
Secondly, my SO is loving groun missions but finds space combat frustratingly confusing. She's never played a 'flight' or 'space' style game before so the 'mouse forward to dive, back to climb' mechanic along with confusion over which way she is facing often means she ends each combat 30K away from me and banging face first into a planet. Can anyone suggest easy solutions? Would an x-box controller be possible?
As we level should we stick with the ships given with each promotion or is it worth shopping around with C or Dilithium for alternatives? Our current levelling rate suggests we'll be at each tier for probably a month or two.
We are playing Tactical/Science respectively. Should we focus on the fiddly 'buff/debuff' stuff that a lot of the science'y skills have or is 'pew pew' max DPS fine for any class? Something simple for now might be best.
I just had to buy the Constitution class. I know, everything I've read has said it will gather dust for 99% of my playing life, but it is the ship that got me into Star Trek in the first place and besides, I have always preferred ships that have that 'How the hell does that thing fly??' look! Hope to see you chaps in game, so far it seems like a decent use of my free time, fingers crossed.
As for the control issue, my suggestion is to use the WASD keys and remap W and S so up is up and down is down. Also, you don't need to fight at full speed, especially in PVE. A cruiser can basically park and fire, I usually fight at 25% speed in mine just as a technicality - you can't turn well on thrusters only so a full stop leaves you unable to adjust angles.
Having your camera type as "Free Camera" may alleviate some issues as well. That way you can just right-click and drag like a traditional MMO avatar. I always found the lock-on camera especially frustrating. I did try an Xbox controller once just to see what it was like, but there are just way too many skills to map effectively.
As for ship builds? Go ahead and focus on max dps. Science has some nifty skills, but most are 90 degree in arc and take some full time micro to get the most out of. If you feel things are getting difficult, or just want to kick back and watch some spaceships pew-pew, you can always drop the difficulty down to normal anyway and enjoy the show
Lastly, I wouldn't recommend spending C-Points buying any of the special lower tier ship unless you have a particular love of that class/skin. Converting Points->Dil is always a favorable ratio on the other hand, so if you really want a change of pace and don't mind dropping a few bucks, then you can pick up another line very cheap.
The free ships are pretty good, there isn't really a need to pay for the C-store ships, it's really not Pay to Win (yet). Some of the C-store ships come with neat toys in the form of consoles that can be transferred to other ships but none of them are really game breaking. I hear that the PD turret is nice (from the Thunderchild escort), and I like the Nadeon Detonator from the Bellarophon refit (makes a photon torpedo release a Photonic Shockwave on detonation).
If you plan on buying a c-store ship fed side, I'd put the points towards a carrier, all the other c-store ships are near enough to the free ships that it's not worth it IMHO (I'm holding off until my life time sub stipend comes through and I can pick one up with past me footing the bill).
Also, get the science captain out of the cruiser class as soon as possible. It's a combination that just doesn't work well.
Haven't figured out what Thermionic or Disruption torpedoes do, but Thermionics do have a debuff effect. They also have tricobalt torpedoes. Their tricobalts are different though. If they hit, they can open a temporal rift. After a few seconds, a Terran Empire ship comes out (Think In a Mirror Darkly, but in reverse.) and will fire on either you or the Tholians. The web comes in two forms - the ball style in the picture and a flat wall. The wall is much harder to take down, but you can fly around it. The ball style is easy to take down if you have any kind of AOE. Either one hurts like a sonofabitch if you fly into it, though.
Also, to answer a question we had a while back about different starbase progression tracks having a different look, it's sort of true. You actually have several facilities - the starbase itself, a drydock, an industrial fabricator, a communications array, and a transwarp gate. Drydock gets bigger with military tiers, fabricator with engineering, com array and transwarp gate with science, the starbase with overall exp.
Tier rewards, if anyone's interested (hooked up with a random "invite everyone and try to progress before release" fleet on tribble):
Each rank improves the shipyard (visual) and the starbase's weapons in fleet alerts. All ships are listed as classified
Rank 1: Ship selection officer, tactical doff contact, 1 ship class
Rank 2: 3 ship classes, mk XII ground weapons vendor
Rank 3: Security officer doff contact, mk XII space weapons vendor, 3 ships
Rank 4: Mk XII "Ground Fleet Weapons" vendor, whatever that means, 3 ships
Rank 5: Brig doff contact, mk XII space fleet weapons, 3 ships
Engineering:
Each rank improves the fabricator (visual), and starbase HP and regen
Rank 1: Minor injury ship repair
Rank 2: mk XII ground armor, major repair
Rank 3: mk XII engines, critical repair
Rank 4: Ship tailor, mk XII ground fleet armor
Rank 5: Crafting, mk XII fleet engines
Science:
Each rank improves the com array and transwarp gate (visual), and starbase shields
Rank 1: Minor ground injury heal
Rank 2: mk XII personal shields, major heal
Rank 3: Mk XII space shields and deflectors, critical heal
Rank 4: Mk XII fleet personal shields
rank 5: mk XII fleet space shields and fleet deflectors
Overall:
Each rank improves the starbase (visual), and unlocks a costume option for fleet members
Rank 1: Mail terminal
Rank 2: Bank terminal, bartender
Rank 3: Tailer, personnel doff contact
Rank 4: Boff trainer, chef, cultural exchange doff contacts
Rank 5: Skill respec, counselor doff contact, "Duty Officer Contact" (what that last one is for isn't elaborated).
So, yeah, military is pretty much what everyone's going to want to push. It's got the weapons vendors and the ships.
The way progression is set up, though, you can't completely focus on one, at least not at the start. You can run 3 provisioning projects, that put stuff in the fleet stores and give the bulk of department EXP, one upgrade project that you use to unlock the next tier when you fill the EXP requirements of your current one, and one special project that seems to be low EXP, no items, but low inputs and short duration.
Also I found out tonight I can get the xp in a couple minutes with a patrol that an episode will give me in 30-40
If you get the C-store multivector escort, you can use the MVAM console on the standard advanced escort, which has a better DPS boff setup at the cost of the LTC science slot's support options. The fleet escort is sort of a dead end - its same play style carries over to the heavy escort carrier, but you can't pick and choose like you can with the two advanced escorts.
Edit: Nope, aside from the above-mentioned dev confirmation that an improved Sovereign will be on the Fed lineup. All of them say "Variant" in the description, which makes me wonder if they're mostly refits of lower tier ships. But aside from speculation, they're all "classified," it'll be a few days at least before somebody gets a military tier upgrade finished and can start provisioning the first one, and even then, the fleet stores aren't hooked up and the tier 0 provisioning projects are just spitting out dummy items, so unless it's in the title or description, we might have to wait until devs confirm the new ships.
Kind of wonder what's going on that two big names in the game are leaving at about the same time.
Saw a post on the facebook star trek page about 'life time members' being given access to 'Neverwinter Closed Beta test' so... maybe they are leaving to work on finishing that up?
According to both of them, they're not being forced out - they're being replaced internally, not by PWE - Borticus, Ro, and a new guy named Archon are taking over Heretic's stuff - Ro did the DS9 doff expansion and Borticus apparently did most of the fill-in on starbases after the system was in place so a lot of what we already attribute to Heretic is these guys. Gozer's successor isn't decided since he's not leaving until some time next month. Both pretty closely involved with the transition and Gozer in particular took personal credit for a bunch of things that were being blamed on PWE. Gozer's even called out some of the people who think he was forced out, and insulted the fleet that leaked his leaving over their "lies and intentional rabble rousing." Some of the tweets he made yesterday (noticing on my feed a bunch of them are deleted today) sound a lot like the ones Logan made right before quitting, and he quit because of the treatment he got from the community. Gozer gets in a day over PVP what Logan got in a year over ship model errors.
As for the PVP revamp, even with Gozer on it, you were going to be waiting a long time for a turd. His first and only concrete idea was removing PVP from the game entirely. By his post in the thread about him leaving, the reason he hasn't said anything else is because he doesn't have any real plans yet.
We are now newly minted Lt Cmdr's toodling around in a Cruiser and Science ship. Your tips helped a lot and my SO has finally clicked with space combat and now enjoys sitting at a distance debuffing/buffing/sticking overloaded torps up backsides while I get pounded on. Fun!
The Episodes really seem to make the game and I hope that when we finish the line it might be far enough in the future that a replay with new characters might be viable. We aren't 8hrs a day players (I did my time in EQ) andd the slow pace is a nice change for us that might keep the game interesting beyond its limitations.
Oh and whoever created the DoFF system is an evil genius. That thing is as addictive as MtG circa Black Border Lotus era. I love it. Gives a real soap opera feel to the player ship with all these random things happening. I only wish there were more personal DOFF missions like inter-deck love triangles and internal squabbles etc.
Oh a question about PvP. Can you have a sealed battle between 2 players on the same side? For example, can me and my partner (both Federation) smack the crap out of one another somewhere in space?
It does a "do you want to be set to <teamleaders> level" mechanic, which looks similar to the CoH sidekick mechanic to me.
On the other hand, all the groups I've been in have all been around the same level, so I'm not sure what advantages/disadvantages come from not being at the same level as your team...
@MuddyPaws: As a fellow UKian, if you happen to be around at the same time as me, feel free to drop me a line if you need a hand with anything. Nice to see someone else on during GMT.
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SF&F Reviews blog
It works very well. Let the lower-level player invite you and then accept the prompt to match their level. You'll be at their numeric level but you'll be pretty strong. Makes blasting through the PvE stuff a breeze. Just be aware that it is limited by your proximity to the team - if you get too far away from the team leader the level-matching breaks. You get 60 seconds of warnings though.
My character is L50 and I team up with my son to play through the missions with him, though we haven't been on in a while (we've been on a Pokemon binge, catching 'em all etc).
The chat channels exist across all games that use the same engine. The chat channel also exists on City of Heroes. I'm sure they claim it's a feature, but it's probably just poor design.
Also, there's 20% ship-sale going on right now till July 2nd.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Wait, it's not included in the sale...
Damn. Looks like I'll have to hold off a bit.
EDIT: And for those who're interested in the Veteran Rewards...
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Equipment rewards are purple mk XII and better-than-purple mk XII, which have four modifiers. the Fleet Equipment is in the same qualities, but trades one modifier for a special proc, mentions armor that fires nanite health monitor every minute.
All ship rewards are tier 5, and there's 45 ships between Fed and KDF. All tier 2 and higher ships have a Retrofit (unless there already is one), and then almost* everything has a Fleet Retrofit, with +10% health and shields, and one extra console slot - basically in line with the Odyssey. Fleet store ships have hull type 6 no matter what skin you use, and Fleet Retrofits all get a special interior (one shared by all, not one each). None of them have console powers, but are compatible with matching C-store mods - the Galaxy Fleet Retrofit doesn't have saucer separation, but can equip the Galaxy-R's separation console.
Stats are all over the place, he mentioned the Nova is faster but more fragile than other science vessels, the Sabre is faster than the Defiant but has less hull, etc, a wider variety in speed and durability than existing ships offer. He tried to give everything a different boff layouts, too, so that everything has a distinct definable niche.
*- apparently no Atrox and D'kyr, and KDF got a shorter list of fleet retrofits in a couple cases because the tier 3 and 4 destroyers are almost identical and the raptors aren't that distinct either.
MWO: Adamski