Urrrrgh, Cryptic needs to seriously fix the mail-system. I have to delete a crapload of old mail one at a time WITH confirmation checks just so I can get anything I mailed myself.
Morality is kind of hazy in the Sphere, seeing as...
the Omega Directive has been activated. The Prime Directive is not in effect, General Order 24 is on the table. No options are too extreme, and all that.
Still, the sphere itself isn't populated, the inhabitants either died or left. Currently, only military forces and some scientific expeditions are present. The fortress ship is military in nature, it's basically a carrier that uses battleships for fighters and dreadnoughts for frigates. And to be fair, we don't destroy it entirely, I'm sure casualties are "only" in the low millions.
Morality is kind of hazy in the Sphere, seeing as...
the Omega Directive has been activated. The Prime Directive is not in effect, General Order 24 is on the table. No options are too extreme, and all that.
Still, the sphere itself isn't populated, only military forces are present. The ship is military in nature, it's basically a carrier that uses battleships for fighters and dreadnoughts for frigates. And to be fair, we don't destroy it entirely, I'm sure casualties are "only" in the low millions.
Hah, I knew it. It clicked mentally to me today what the REDACTED tags in the logs were covering. Makes me wonder if that means we'll see someone from Voyager popping up in the Featured Episode or the Sphere.
That is one of the speculation lines of this "epic" announcement Branflakes has been teasing for the last week. Garrett Wang is probably in their price range, he was a captain in an alternate future around STO's setting, and his character got shit on so much and was never popular enough to create unrealistic expectations.
Edit:
They also redid Worf's NPC, he actually looks like Michael Dorn now. So that's another plausible epic announcement theory.
Apparently even startrek.com thinks it's bullshit that they've been dragging out the "epic secret announcement" for so long, so they just went ahead and broke the story themselves. Worf is going to be a big player in Sphere of Influence on Thursday, and will be voiced by Michael Dorn.
Edit: Shipwank! Gametrailers also seems to have decided that they've dragged out the hype too long and has jumped the gun on posting the first image of the Obelisk-class carrier:
Sleek look with an open, almost skeletal build matching the general aesthetic of the Sphere. Hard to get a sense of scale here, that Odyssey is far in the background and it doesn't have traditional window lines, but it does have purple and black engine trails like the Obex, the Iconian Dreadnought that shows up in several missions. No sense of scale in the picture but I can't help but feeling it's not a large ship. Could be way off on that.
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Edit 2: Trailer is up and the FE and a new queue event released a day early. I will now cease posting spoilers and let you all do stuff with Worf.
New Dev Diary's up on the new ship. Good news is that if you miss out on getting the ship during the FE, you can still buy it from the Fleet's Spire once it reaches Tier 1. Bad news is to complete the ship-set being also released with the FE, you'll need to buy the Advanced version of the ship from the Lobi Store.
EDIT: Youtube version of the trailer for those who don't dig Gametrailers.
Good god, a 360 antiproton array sounds nice regardless.
And good lord, the 3-set bonus applies a weaker version of ep2X to your hangar pets. That could be very interesting depending on what "weaker" constitutes..
Good god, a 360 antiproton array sounds nice regardless.
And good lord, the 3-set bonus applies a weaker version of ep2X to your hangar pets. That could be very interesting depending on what "weaker" constitutes..
Yeah, they give you two pieces of the set and then go, "Now pay us and you get this craaazy nice ability..."
Not that I can blame them for trying to make money, and it's awfully tempting
But man none of my chars can afford so much as antiproton consoles anyway
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Good god, a 360 antiproton array sounds nice regardless.
And good lord, the 3-set bonus applies a weaker version of ep2X to your hangar pets. That could be very interesting depending on what "weaker" constitutes..
Yeah, they give you two pieces of the set and then go, "Now pay us and you get this craaazy nice ability..."
Not that I can blame them for trying to make money, and it's awfully tempting
But man none of my chars can afford so much as antiproton consoles anyway
Its not even the 'now pay us' its the 'now pay us for a random amount of chance/luck at getting a decent amount of lobi crystals!' which i absolutely hate with a passion... ships/powerful consoles should just never ever be on the lobi store... the lockboxes as is are bad enough...
Good god, a 360 antiproton array sounds nice regardless.
And good lord, the 3-set bonus applies a weaker version of ep2X to your hangar pets. That could be very interesting depending on what "weaker" constitutes..
Yeah, they give you two pieces of the set and then go, "Now pay us and you get this craaazy nice ability..."
Not that I can blame them for trying to make money, and it's awfully tempting
But man none of my chars can afford so much as antiproton consoles anyway
Its not even the 'now pay us' its the 'now pay us for a random amount of chance/luck at getting a decent amount of lobi crystals!' which i absolutely hate with a passion... ships/powerful consoles should just never ever be on the lobi store... the lockboxes as is are bad enough...
The 3 piece bonus seems like it'd be a lot more interesting on a ship that can use frigates. I'd say swarmers are made of cardboard, but I've already said that about Peregrines and Scoripions, so I have to compare them to an even poorer building material, like tissue paper or nothing.
The ship is different, though. Generally set up like a standard science carrier, even has subsystem targeting, but it's got an engineering commander. If you have 800 lobi, I think there are better ships to spend it on, but it is a unique carrier.
So this is fun, the new FE has broken all my outfits on every character that has played it. I can now only wear the outfit in slot one. None of the others are wearable. I can edit and change the outfits at a tailor, but when I purchase and back out, nothing changes and I'm stuck in the slot 1 outfit.
So now all my KDF can't wear their honor guard stuff...
I'm going to get back into the game again! I forget how to get added to the fleet, I'm going to make a new captain.
Quick question: At what point do the romulan and federation stories merge? I played the romulans enough to join the federation but it seemed like your personal story line continues after that. I just made a new Federation character and his starting tutorial thingy seems the same as it was when the game launched.
The 15 lobi seems to be per account. I haven't been able to get any past the initial 15 on any of my alts so far. I have been only trying the same mission on each character though.
Romulans ally with a faction KDF/Fed at lvl 10. You'll still have many, many more Romulan specific missions though before you really need to do the Featured Episode Fed/KDF missions.
I don't think the Fed intro revamp has occurred yet. It happens when Season 8 is official (which is soonish as in weeks?). KDF intro is revamped though.
You can ask for a fleet invite by joining the PA channel and asking for one. It's on the first post, but it's
/channel_join "Penny Arcade"
I'd advise making a chat tab specifically for that chat and any others you care about. General chat is usually a horror.
The 15 lobi seems to be per account. I haven't been able to get any past the initial 15 on any of my alts so far. I have been only trying the same mission on each character though.
Romulans ally with a faction KDF/Fed at lvl 10. You'll still have many, many more Romulan specific missions though before you really need to do the Featured Episode Fed/KDF missions.
I don't think the Fed intro revamp has occurred yet. It happens when Season 8 is official (which is soonish as in weeks?). KDF intro is revamped though.
You can ask for a fleet invite by joining the PA channel and asking for one. It's on the first post, but it's
/channel_join "Penny Arcade"
I'd advise making a chat tab specifically for that chat and any others you care about. General chat is usually a horror.
Thanks for the info. Are there any/many Federation only missions that you get that aren't available to romulans? The post tutorial story for the Romulans is pretty decent, and I recall the post-tutorial story for the federation being kind of boring at launch and I just wanted to know how much that changes.
All the Featured Episode missions are all cross-faction. I think it's 4-5 sets of missions/stories.
I found the whole set of Romulan story line missions pretty interesting. They've gotten a bit better at crafting missions.
The Fed missions you miss out on are pretty much the forgettable ones. Mainly ones involving the Klingon war and the early Undine stuff.
And depending on how long it's been since you've last played, all the patrol sectors system mission wrappers are all gone. You can still do patrols by visiting systems/planets, but there's no need to as you level so fast now just with the Episode missions.
The latest featured episode is a pretty good example of how much better they've gotten. It was still not GREAT, but it was actually almost interesting.
The early-made stuff is just awful in every way
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
The new carrier pets on the obelisk must be pretty damn powerful, got first in the last two ops as science...I'd like to say I play pretty well, but even so.
I decided to stick with my Romulan. Went fed, and got fleeted. Do I approach the Episode missions in a specific order? I'm sort of assuming that as I continue with the missions I'm given, they will eventually be offered to me.
Swarmers do seem stronger than scorpions. I think it's down to what they do. Scorpions have dual heavy cannons that they're clunky about lining up and heavy torpedoes that just splash off shields. The swarmers have transphasic torpedoes so they still do something when the awful AI lines them up wrong, and a reduced-range/increased-damage beam array with beam overlaod as the special, so it's never wasted regardless of a shield or hull hit. BOII on the advanced version to hammer it in a bit better. Theoretically the scorpion is better equipped, but the pet AI just handles the swarmers better.
For those who want the advanced swarmers:
In the last ground map, where you extend bridges, read all the optional consoles in order (the non-blue marked walkways). When you reach the last one talking about the ship, go back to the first one and an option to open a hidden compartment will open. Interact with it and receive 2 Advanced Obelisk Swarmers.
This isn't the universal version from the Spire holding, though, it's still locked to the Obelisk Carrier.
The Obelisk is a lot nicer than I expected. I rather enjoy flying around with my swarm of killbots.
-Huh, this new Elachi space mission that awards Rommie marks is pretty darn easy. 32 marks a pop for completing the timed objective ain't shabby. Finally, I shall have all the rep! All of it!
@Heroth it's probably Cold Call. The first mission in the Breen FE. Fast and pretty easy.
@Dissociater, turning in contraband doff assignment, and doff assignments in general really, is probably the easiest way. Barring that, running elite strike forces yields a fair bit by themselves and after you've gotten the gear you want that costs prototypes turning them in for dilithium gets you more. There's also the explore dailies and the PvP missions.
Posts
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
pretty fucking problematic in terms of morality for even Klingons and Romulans. The Federation wouldn't even consider it.
Still, the sphere itself isn't populated, the inhabitants either died or left. Currently, only military forces and some scientific expeditions are present. The fortress ship is military in nature, it's basically a carrier that uses battleships for fighters and dreadnoughts for frigates. And to be fair, we don't destroy it entirely, I'm sure casualties are "only" in the low millions.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Apparently even startrek.com thinks it's bullshit that they've been dragging out the "epic secret announcement" for so long, so they just went ahead and broke the story themselves. Worf is going to be a big player in Sphere of Influence on Thursday, and will be voiced by Michael Dorn.
Edit: Shipwank! Gametrailers also seems to have decided that they've dragged out the hype too long and has jumped the gun on posting the first image of the Obelisk-class carrier:
Sleek look with an open, almost skeletal build matching the general aesthetic of the Sphere. Hard to get a sense of scale here, that Odyssey is far in the background and it doesn't have traditional window lines, but it does have purple and black engine trails like the Obex, the Iconian Dreadnought that shows up in several missions. No sense of scale in the picture but I can't help but feeling it's not a large ship. Could be way off on that.
Edit 2: Trailer is up and the FE and a new queue event released a day early. I will now cease posting spoilers and let you all do stuff with Worf.
EDIT: Youtube version of the trailer for those who don't dig Gametrailers.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
And good lord, the 3-set bonus applies a weaker version of ep2X to your hangar pets. That could be very interesting depending on what "weaker" constitutes..
Yeah, they give you two pieces of the set and then go, "Now pay us and you get this craaazy nice ability..."
Not that I can blame them for trying to make money, and it's awfully tempting
But man none of my chars can afford so much as antiproton consoles anyway
Its not even the 'now pay us' its the 'now pay us for a random amount of chance/luck at getting a decent amount of lobi crystals!' which i absolutely hate with a passion... ships/powerful consoles should just never ever be on the lobi store... the lockboxes as is are bad enough...
I haven't played (seriously) in a couple months, when did this happen? last time i played escorts were the crazy 'in' thing.
If you have all the things, cruisers are really good. If you do not have all the things, they are kind of meh.
The difference here is that escorts are still very damagy even if you do not have all the things.
-edit-
Oh and science ships go from bad to meh if you apply all the things.
The ship is different, though. Generally set up like a standard science carrier, even has subsystem targeting, but it's got an engineering commander. If you have 800 lobi, I think there are better ships to spend it on, but it is a unique carrier.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
So now all my KDF can't wear their honor guard stuff...
Yeah, it seems to be fine Fed side... i've done the mission twice and even swapped costumes during the mission and everything still works.
From what I've seen it's the replay of the mission that breaks the outfits, but who knows how consistent it is.
http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=1018271
Interesting, lobi is account bound now rather than character.
Quick question: At what point do the romulan and federation stories merge? I played the romulans enough to join the federation but it seemed like your personal story line continues after that. I just made a new Federation character and his starting tutorial thingy seems the same as it was when the game launched.
Romulans ally with a faction KDF/Fed at lvl 10. You'll still have many, many more Romulan specific missions though before you really need to do the Featured Episode Fed/KDF missions.
I don't think the Fed intro revamp has occurred yet. It happens when Season 8 is official (which is soonish as in weeks?). KDF intro is revamped though.
You can ask for a fleet invite by joining the PA channel and asking for one. It's on the first post, but it's
/channel_join "Penny Arcade"
I'd advise making a chat tab specifically for that chat and any others you care about. General chat is usually a horror.
Thanks for the info. Are there any/many Federation only missions that you get that aren't available to romulans? The post tutorial story for the Romulans is pretty decent, and I recall the post-tutorial story for the federation being kind of boring at launch and I just wanted to know how much that changes.
I found the whole set of Romulan story line missions pretty interesting. They've gotten a bit better at crafting missions.
The Fed missions you miss out on are pretty much the forgettable ones. Mainly ones involving the Klingon war and the early Undine stuff.
And depending on how long it's been since you've last played, all the patrol sectors system mission wrappers are all gone. You can still do patrols by visiting systems/planets, but there's no need to as you level so fast now just with the Episode missions.
The early-made stuff is just awful in every way
For those who want the advanced swarmers:
This isn't the universal version from the Spire holding, though, it's still locked to the Obelisk Carrier.
-Huh, this new Elachi space mission that awards Rommie marks is pretty darn easy. 32 marks a pop for completing the timed objective ain't shabby. Finally, I shall have all the rep! All of it!
@Dissociater, turning in contraband doff assignment, and doff assignments in general really, is probably the easiest way. Barring that, running elite strike forces yields a fair bit by themselves and after you've gotten the gear you want that costs prototypes turning them in for dilithium gets you more. There's also the explore dailies and the PvP missions.