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[Star Trek Online] Boldly Going In Front Of Your Computer For Free!
Owenashi
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
(Disclamer: This type of fight does not exist within the game)
Released February 2010 by the people behind Champions Online, Star Trek Online has enjoyed a quiet amount of success. While no WoW-killer, it's certainly fun by giving players a chance to fly their own starship for either the Federation or the Klingons. Now, on January 17 (17-01) 2012, the game will officially become free-to-play, letting those who didn't feel like paying either fifteen bucks a month or 300 for a lifetime subscription a chance to try the game out.
What's It All About
Despite the recent reboot movie, the game follows the original canon of the franchise (yeah, even that one episode of Voyager) but set ahead thirty years or so after the events of the last original-canon movie, Nemesis. Within that time, things have gotten a bit...well, let's allow him to explain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRA2cW_ASNEWho To Play As
The game forces new players to start out on the Federation side, picking one of eight established races and nine more unlockable ones to start with and play up to Lv25. Then the Klingon side of the game opens, offering five established races and four more unlockable ones.
Also, for those who want to be creative, the game has an 'Alien' race to allow players to make any sort of character they'd like for either side.
From there, players choose a career. These careers are shared by your NPC Bridge Officers who come along on away teams.
Tactical: The main damage-dealers of the game. They use a mix of melee moves, grenades and sneakiness to take down enemies on land while blowing up ships in space quicker with special attack moves and weapon overkill.
Engineering: The masters of keeping themselves and their ships alive if a bit broken. Their ground abilities involve jamming their enemies' weapons and dropping stuff like shield generators, turrets and phaser blasts from high orbit while their space skills let them heal their own ships as well as others.
Science: The most mage-y of the three careers. On the ground, they handle both regular science and doctoring such as healing hurt teammates and stunning enemies before they can act while in space they pull off technobabble skills like draining enemy ships' shields, hacking their computers or knocking crowds of them away with photonic shockwaves.
It doesn't end there as there's basically three different types of ships to roll with once you get a command. Each have slots for your Bridge Officers to lend their space abilities alongside yours'.
Cruisers: The steady workhorse of the fleet. Not the fastest ship but tough to kill with it's strong hulls. Oriented for Engineers.
Escorts: Speedy death-dealers. They can bring a ship down quick but are also easily killed if one's not careful. Oriented for Tactical.
Science Vessels: The in-betweeners when it comes to their stat-standings alongside the ships above. They bring special abilities that allow players to target certain systems of enemy ships. Oriented for Science.
The Klingon ships are mostly the same but forgo proper Science Vessels for Birds Of Prey which bring universal Bridge Officer slots to fill with whatever mix you'd like.
Besides the Bridge Officers, there's also the Duty Officers who come in the same career flavors as well as civilian ones like traders and diplomats. With the Duty Officer system, you send these extras out on little assignments that bring multiple rewards besides cash and experiance if you choose the right people for the job, said jobs ranging from 30 minutes to two whole days to complete. Choosing poorly ramps up the redshirt-factor of the system, putting them out of commission in sickbay for a couple of days if not outright death.
Also, for those who want to be creative, the game has an 'Alien' race to allow players to make any sort of character they'd like for either side.
From there, players choose a career. These careers are shared by your NPC Bridge Officers who come along on away teams.
Tactical: The main damage-dealers of the game. They use a mix of melee moves, grenades and sneakiness to take down enemies on land while blowing up ships in space quicker with special attack moves and weapon overkill.
Engineering: The masters of keeping themselves and their ships alive if a bit broken. Their ground abilities involve jamming their enemies' weapons and dropping stuff like shield generators, turrets and phaser blasts from high orbit while their space skills let them heal their own ships as well as others.
Science: The most mage-y of the three careers. On the ground, they handle both regular science and doctoring such as healing hurt teammates and stunning enemies before they can act while in space they pull off technobabble skills like draining enemy ships' shields, hacking their computers or knocking crowds of them away with photonic shockwaves.
It doesn't end there as there's basically three different types of ships to roll with once you get a command. Each have slots for your Bridge Officers to lend their space abilities alongside yours'.
Cruisers: The steady workhorse of the fleet. Not the fastest ship but tough to kill with it's strong hulls. Oriented for Engineers.
Escorts: Speedy death-dealers. They can bring a ship down quick but are also easily killed if one's not careful. Oriented for Tactical.
Science Vessels: The in-betweeners when it comes to their stat-standings alongside the ships above. They bring special abilities that allow players to target certain systems of enemy ships. Oriented for Science.
The Klingon ships are mostly the same but forgo proper Science Vessels for Birds Of Prey which bring universal Bridge Officer slots to fill with whatever mix you'd like.
Besides the Bridge Officers, there's also the Duty Officers who come in the same career flavors as well as civilian ones like traders and diplomats. With the Duty Officer system, you send these extras out on little assignments that bring multiple rewards besides cash and experiance if you choose the right people for the job, said jobs ranging from 30 minutes to two whole days to complete. Choosing poorly ramps up the redshirt-factor of the system, putting them out of commission in sickbay for a couple of days if not outright death.
Who To Play With
Penny Arcade has a presence in-game on both sides. To quote the G&T thread:
Penny Arcade has a fleet, the "Arcadian Defense Fleet"
We have a chat channel setup, this is where we Arcadians chat. To join, type the following:
/channel_join "Penny Arcade"
The quotation marks are important, don't forget them.
There is also a PA Klingon Fleet, called the "House of M'rch." Everyone uses the same old Penny Arcade channel no matter
their faction.
One thing to keep in mind is that the game leans much more towards the Federation then the Klingon Empire, mainly due to a smaller amount of PvE stuff to do on that side. This is probably why the developers have players' new KDF characters start at Lv20 now. Hopefully this will change in the future.
Where To Go To Learn More
http://www.startrekonline.com/ - The game's site where you can set up your account.
http://www.stowiki.org/Main_Page - The game's wiki, though some of the pages are out of date or non-existent.
http://www.spidermitch.com/sto/index.html & http://www.spidermitch.com/STO/KDF/index.html Big (in size and file-size) detailed charts showing off the ships on both sides.
http://www.alienwarearena.com/giveaway/star-trek-online-subscription-bundle/ - A free 10-day trial key of the game that'll also unlock the NX-Enterprise as a starter ship and ST: Enterprise uniforms for you and your Bridge Officers to wear.
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eroticism
That comes later when they have to rub decontamination gel all over each other.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
SO STOAKED FOR THIS TO GO F2P!
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
I played the Beta, and had a lot of fun with it despite the god awful away missions, but didn't have the money to get it when it came out so it kinda dropped off the map for me for a while. Then I heard that it was going free to play and I have been watching a shit ass load of DS9 so I am super excited for this to happen finally.
Thinking I might go tactical and cruiser or escort. Thats what I did in the beta and I had a lot of fun with it.
Have the away missions gotten better? Please say yes.
Well they've added a 'Shooter Mode' to ground missions. By pressing the B-key on your keyboard, you go to a FPS-like over the shoulder camera-view, complete with targeting reticule. Your weapon's two firing modes get mapped to your mouse buttons with the mouse-wheel/middle mouse button used to melee anyone that comes too close. You can crouch and zoom in this mode too to improve your aim, especially with the energy sniper-rifles. The mode's a lot of fun too with the energy shotguns and chainguns in the game as well. Here's an example of it in action with a Tactical player, set in one of the ground-based Fleet Actions (STO's version of a PvE dungeon).
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
How long would it take me to go from say, base escort to tactical escort?
You can use one of those Alienware keys if you haven't made a STO account yet or applied a key to one. That'll let you play as a subscriber for 10 days plus let you use the NX-Enterprise as a starter Escort.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
wait what now?
Have there been many changes?
e: Refreshing threads before posting is overrated
As F2P, I'm not sure. They've changed overall leveling so you hit Fifty (which is now max rank) FAST. Missions are giving huge amounts of EXP now, you don't need to do patrols if you're using your duty officers well. But I think you need to grind up Dilithium a bit in order to buy ships as an F2Per, someone confirm that?
MineCraft: Menetherin
Steam: Vloeza_SE++
I will level with you or carry you through missions.
The game is a legitimately enjoyable experience, in my opinion. Not just a Star Trek themed chatroom.
Check out the last link in my OP. They have about 4000 keys left which are good for those who want free stuff. Plus I believe some stuff that you unlock as a subscriber, even as a 10-day trial subscriber, stays unlocked after you slip back into F2P-mode.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
you just wanna get laid more than you do now
Players may now log in using either Cryptic or Perfect World account credentials.
Vendors on Deep Space 9 now have appropriate overhead and map icons that show what the vendor sells and which currency they use.
All Qo’noS Foundry contacts should now work properly.
All space weapons have had their FX updated:
If you miss while firing them, the FX for them will miss now too!
Updated the spawn points in Regulus so that you don't face the wrong way when transitioning from Alpha Centauri.
Players can no longer use calendar and journal transwarps when dead or in combat.
The Community Authored tab is no longer disabled for silver players.
Call Trade Freighter now correctly gives access to the exchange.
KDF characters can no longer kill the vacationers on Risa.
Klingon characters now have access to the B’Tran cluster.
PvP maps will now wait a minute before ejecting players.
This means the rewards window will stay up longer.
More French and German translations have been added.
All transwarp powers are now usable only after completing the tutorial mission.
The Special Task Force Equipment mission has been updated for KDF characters so they can now turn it in.
The number of spawn points has been increased for both Sol System and the Sirius Sector Block.
The client should no longer minimize when making changes to in-game options.
The client should no longer minimize when clicking outside it while in fullscreen mode.
Audio:
Updated audio to resolve issues with extra echoes/reverb.
Added some missing audio to nano-pulse weaponry attacks.
Adjusted space phaser cannon audio volume and levels so they sound a little beefier now.
Duty Officers:
Added new shipboard duty officer assignments each of which will, on a critical success, buff a skill for two hours from turn-in of the assignment.
More such assignments will become potentially available as you gain tiers in the Engineering, Medical, Science, Development and Military commendation categories.
Both Ground and Space skill buff assignments are available.
Modestly increased the number of shipboard assignments potentially available at any particular time.
Increased the chance of the Warp Core Engineer duty officer active roster power to activate.
Duty officer assignment "Reclaim Borg Drones" has a more appropriate critical reward.
Updated duty officer asylum assignments that were sometimes incorrectly giving poor quality duty officer rewards.
Colonial Emergency Supply Federation duty officer assignments are now giving the proper Dilithium Ore reward on critical.
Updated text in Gagh duty officer assignment to address a typo.
Updated the UI for Duty Officer assignments to better indicate bonuses based on quality.
Systems:
Space sets have been updated.
Complete list of changes have been posted on the forums: http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=3930895
Breen: Reworked bonuses to tie in to a set concept of "Dominate the Breen"
DEFLECTOR
This item's base Deflector type tied nicely into this concept already, and required no modification.
All skill bonuses now conform to a standard bonus model.
SHIELD
Reduced Polaron Resist from 30% to 20%.
2-PIECE SET BONUS
Replaced Power Transfer Rate with EPS Skill Boost, which has the same net effect.
Aegis: Reworked bonuses to tie in to set concept of "Defense and Avoidance"
DEFLECTOR
Created a custom set of skill mods that more closely match the intended concept of this set.
All skill bonuses now conform to a standard bonus model.
SHIELD
Replaced "Shield Emitter" skill bonus with "Shield System" skill bonus.
Standardized skill bonuses to same scale as Deflector bonuses.
2-PIECE SET BONUS
Updated description, otherwise untouched.
3-PIECE SET BONUS
Changed 3% resist bonus with 10 stack max to 6% resist bonus with 5 stack max.
This speeds up gaining the max effective bonus without making it more powerful.
Klingon Honor Guard:
DEFLECTOR: Added "Flow Capacitor" skill boost
ENGINE: Replaced "Warp Core Potential" skill with Efficiency for Weapons/Shield/Auxiliary systems.
SHIELD: Added another +Capacity bonus
2 PIECE: Bonus Torpedo Dmg now applies to all torpedoes, not just High Yield and Spread.
Maco:
DEFLECTOR: Added "Graviton Generators" skill boost.
ENGINE: Warp Speed corrected to 12.
ENGINE: Replaced "Engine Performance" skill boost with "Driver Coil" skill boost.
SHIELD: Power Bonus now lingers for 15 seconds instead of 10 seconds.
SHIELD: Added another +Capacity bonus.
3 PIECE: Damage of Graviton Beam now scales with Aux power.
Omega:
DEFLECTOR: Added "Graviton Generators" and "Particle Generators" skill boosts.
ENGINE: Added another +Turn modifier.
ENGINE: Slipstream Capacitor properly now reduces Slipstream cooldown by 50%.
SHIELD: Added another +Capacity and +Regen bonus.
2 PIECE: Tetryon Glider is now fully-functional.
Shield Drain is not reported in combat log, but we're working on a solution to this.
Borg: Reworked bonuses to tie in to set concept of "Resist the Borg"
ENGINE
Increased max Full Impulse speed.
DEFLECTOR
Created a custom set of skill mods that more closely match the intended concept of this set.
All skill bonuses now conform to a standard bonus model.
2-PIECE SET BONUS
Reduced magnitude of Hull Regeneration by approximately 40%.
Reduced max frequency of effect from once every 45 seconds to once every 60 seconds.
Added passive skill bonus to Hull Repair skill.
This increases effectiveness of all heals, including the 2-piece proc.
Added passive bonus to Hull Regen rate.
This is displayed as +0.2, works out to shaving about 20 seconds off Regenerating a 20k HP ship from 0 to full.
3-PIECE SET BONUS
Power will now only fire when one of your shield facings is <20%.
Increased frequency of proc from 2% to 10%.
Reduced magnitude of Heal and Heal-Over-Time to approximately 60% of previous values.
Added an additional effect to this proc that will cleanse all Hazard Debuffs, such as the Borg Shield Drain, and continues to cleanse every .5 second for 15 seconds.
Immunosupport Nanite Injectors now properly clear the "Assimilated" debuff from players infected by Borg enemies.
Modified Assimilation to fire off the final assimilation at a lower HP threshold.
This should reduce the frequency with which players will seem to be "instantly" assimilated.
The Nausicaan Energy Leech console is working as designed again.
Can apply up to 8 stacks of -1/+1 energy drain on a target.
Garumba Siphon has been updated so it can now be properly resisted by players with skill in Power insulators.
UI:
A Transwarp button has been added to the minimap underneath the large warp button.
This button allows you to select your transwarp destination from a list instead of slotting your transwarp powers into your power tray.
The Duty Officer icon on the minimap has been updated to match other Duty Officer iconography in the game.
The PVP icon on the minimap has been updated to improve legibility.
Bridge Officer powers placed in the Personal Trays remember where they are placed, no matter when or how often Bridge Officer assignments are changed.
Updated the character rank display:
Level zero will no longer be displayed, it'll just display Ensign.
The level number is now in parentheses following the rank name.
It is now possible to change a ship’s designation via the new Commission Ship UI.
Added "Suggested Traits" to all player species.
During character creation, player trait selection will be pre-filled with a list of suggested traits.
They can still be customized.
Added an auto-hail feature for mission hails.
It works only when you’re on a non-mission map and no hail is currently open:
If there is a complete remote-hail mission, it will automatically hail the contact.
Otherwise it will hail the contact for your next available mission.
All critical hits should now be labeled as such in the combat log.
Known Issues:
MACO 2 Piece set bonus is not functioning as intended.
Omega Engines are granting a cooldown reduction on all space powers instead of just the Quantum Slipstream.
Occasionally, some items in the stores are missing icons and text.
They work properly and can be equipped as expected.
Changing maps or relogging will update the items with the correct icon and text.
The Mask Energy Field set bonus on the Klingon Honor Guard ship item set incorrectly leaves teammates’ ships in stealth when they are firing.
Opening the Skills Window with your ship selected while in space incorrectly displays your character’s skills.
Select your character before spending skillpoints, as it does not work with the ship selected.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Excellent, because I enjoyed the hell out of the quasi SFB style space combat.
When this first came out and I played it I *really* liked the space combat part, but so many other parts of the game got boring real quick. Was also kinda disappointed by how they handled "warp space", but eh, maybe I'll give it another try in a bit.
Who's with me!
Warp 9.
Engage.
Will probably pull this down again soon.
I believe I have a Captain 4
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
I believe I have a Galaxy Class right now but with some different outer shell
big ass cruiser
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Unless you count klingons doing Marauder-themed duty officer missions instead of Diplomacy ones then no not at all. In fact Klingons now start at like level 20 to make up for the lack of content.
As an MMO that does not have WoW combat, it's a hell of a game, but I still hate pretty much all the art and level design and the "story" of the quests and all the stupid fanservice and whatnot
Still, though. Ship combat is pretty boss, and the shooter combat is a definite improvement
Maybe I'll start playing a little again, see how far I can get without paying anything
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
The problem with the game though is that it encourages you to constantly repeat episodes and/or grind exploration missions and that kind of stifles the game because it exposes how truly shallow the content can be.
If you try to be an Eagle Scout about not exploiting the episode item reward system (which is dumb) then the game gets much more visceral because you aren't constantly flying with the best set of Purple/Blue items you can possibly get for your level.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other