STO kind of has that problem ftp gacha games have where there's a ton of systems and no real explanation for any of them.
Unlike those, at least, it's relatively clear what stuff comes from where once you learn to connect it with it's system. Also unlike those games, it's not the core of their monetization system.
Patch with the EV suit slot is out today. It's such a minor thing in the grand scheme of things but I'm very happy about it. My engineer always does the ground endeavours and he has been running around in an EV suit for months because I got tired of switching it out for Nukara.
So the special pop-out armor UI is gone. The force-switch is a hotbar power (but doesn't really make sense to use, as even the Solanae Paladin EVA suit is inferior to almost any proper armor - if you want to switch for visual reasons there's also a control in the character sheet), and the Red Angel transformation is now a power instead of on the suit UI. Ground power real estate is tight because unlike space you can't get the 4th row or the two vertical bars.
Still a super good change overall, you reasonably only lose one hotbar slot and only if you're using a specific armor (which is one of the best in the game but if you missed the event it's a ridiculous cash shop buy). I don't think any other armors have innate powers bound to the pop out bar.
Well, started playing again couple weeks back, made a new captain and have been playing through the episodes and have finally arrived at Klingon Civil War.
And two missions in, i can confidently say that this is one exquisitely polished turd.
Sure, quality of writing has been, variable, at times, but never quite like this.
Suddenly i am expected to believe that J'ula is not the bloodthirsty psychopath she has seemed up until this point, and is instead
Incompetent honorless coward.
And still somehow she gets to call the shots even after we capture her.
I am, somewhat less that fully onboard with this turn of events.
Also, super convenient that J'mpok decided to
go nuts at that exact moment, and not three days later.
Not sure how far in the civil war you are, so I'll watch spoilers. It'll come up a couple missions in, but basically everyone in the arc is just along for the ride, it's a one man show. J'ula and J'mpok are both incompetent idiots who made a deal with a face eating leopard only to be shocked that it eats faces.
In the whole mess there's only two competent leaders involved. One doesn't want the job a second time and the other believes that a chancellor is a weapon to be wielded by power and not a means to power itself.
They could remove everyone but Aakar, Martok, and J'mpok and the story plays out exactly the same way. Most of them are there just to talk, so why did none of them have a word to say about J'mpok's trump card:
"He has a bomb that can destroy the planet!"
"Where did he get that?"
"It's been stuck in a volcano for like 200 years."
"Why didn't you take it out?"
"We were SUPER careful with the button. Only the Chancellor can push it."
"HE IS THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR YOU MUPPETS!"
Having J'ula "rescue" you from the very slowly approaching barrier that you should have had plenty of time to calmly get up and walk away from wach such a forced moment.
Not really helped by her then just standing calmly in one spot while i desperately try to rescue civilians.
But i have read some spoilers that have not left me optimistic of this train wreck getting saved by later missions.
edit-
I have suffered through Knowledge is power, and proven myself a fool.
for a brief moment during
the first time crystal vision
i hoped that this quest would have some level of self awareness about its characters.
Which did not happen, and i was a fool for hoping.
Instead the quest managed to underwhelm my already low expectations.
edit2-
Leap of Faith down.
It was, actually pretty interesting, at first.
Klingon Hell is real, and ravagers are demons inside it (who can send spaceships to assault planets, somehow?), while also being genetically engineered warrior species of the Dominion founders.
Ok, i guess?
The mission itself was mostly fun, apart from the base battle section that continues the trend of annoyingly over tuned, i assume in a bid to make people buy T6 ships instead of playing the the T5 you get from levelling.
And the story was ok as long as i ignored the larger arc it was part of, though i am confused why anyone would trade any soul for Akaar and J'mpok, both are on the way there already anyway.
And the end dialogue is basicly story getting on its hands and knees to lick J'ula's boots.
/facepalm
Bast part of the episode so far, faint praise i know, but honestly this was not bad, except for the whole larger scope of the episode it is part of.
Finally done with Klingon Civil War.
Such an utter waste of talent, time and potential.
I think anyone here could have plotted a better overarching storyline for the episode.
I have to assume this all was mandated from up top and not actually some the dev team and/or writers invented, because that is the only way i can keep playing and hoping that future updates can be worth playing.
I really have to remember to break out my Jem Hadar for these red alerts. He needs the marks, but also I might finally level some of these gamma ship masteries and get them account unlocked.
There's a PA fleet, and I have an alt or two in it, but the person who's currently leader isn't actually from the forums and has taken all the important permissions for themselves.
Hello!
It appears that I have been away from the forums for so very very long that people in the fleet think that I am some sort of rando, or even an invader. This is not the case at all.
While I am no longer active on this forum, I was highly active on it years ago. I have been playing STO off and on since launch, and have been a contributing member of the PA fleet whenever I was actively playing the game.
A while back I noticed that none of the Fleet Admirals were actively playing (though some of them logged in every once in a while) and fleet projects were starting to go by the wayside. I mailed those Fleet Admirals who were still logging in and requested that I be promoted to Fleet, finally, after so many years of being a contributing member (which is easily seen by checking fleet holding contributions). I am not the top contributor of all time, but I'm up there.
As the most active Fleet Admiral I take it upon myself to keep fleet projects slotted and keep track of provisions, slotting those projects as needed. I semi-regularly comb through the member rankings and give promotions to people who are contributing to fleet projects.
Far from "taking all important permissions for myself" I have actually extended key permissions downward through the ranks, because in my opinion they were excessively tightly controlled in the past.
For example, in most fleets earning a promotion to rank 2 fleet member gets you permission to buy from provisioned fleet stores. For years in the PA fleet this was withheld until rank 4 (Captain).
I have not downgraded any other Fleet Admirals from their positions, even ones who haven't logged in since 2014. The game is here, waiting for them should they choose to come back.
While our fleet is largely inactive, it is not dead (there are far deader fleets, trust me I've seen them on my Klingon characters).
If there are suggestions, or if someone thinks I should do something differently, or do something I'm not doing, or stop doing something I am doing, you may mail me in game [email protected]_Quantum and I'll do my best to make you happy.
I do see people on from time to time but they rarely if ever speak to me, and certainly no one ever brought up to me that they thought I was hogging the fleet or anything like that.
More than anything else I consider myself the caretaker of the fleet since most of the people who helped build it have moved on. But with the exception of the rank 5 starbase and rank 4-5 colony offerings, our fleet does have "all the things" and it is a perfectly serviceable fleet to be a part of for solo or casual play.
And as a final note, the K-13 tier 3 xenotech facility will complete tomorrow morning. At that time I will slot the K-13 Tier 3 upgrade project which will require a lot of resources to complete including 20k fleet marks. I only have about 6k fleet marks on hand so I could use some help with this one.
It will cost 500,000 fleet credits to buy the provisions alone (yes I have enough, if you thought I was hogging fleet mark contributions in the past, maybe this will help you understand why - provisions are one of the things that non fleet leaders rarely help with because they cost fleet credits and give you nothing in return.)
There's a PA fleet, and I have an alt or two in it, but the person who's currently leader isn't actually from the forums and has taken all the important permissions for themselves.
Hello!
It appears that I have been away from the forums for so very very long that people in the fleet think that I am some sort of rando, or even an invader. This is not the case at all.
While I am no longer active on this forum, I was highly active on it years ago. I have been playing STO off and on since launch, and have been a contributing member of the PA fleet whenever I was actively playing the game.
A while back I noticed that none of the Fleet Admirals were actively playing (though some of them logged in every once in a while) and fleet projects were starting to go by the wayside. I mailed those Fleet Admirals who were still logging in and requested that I be promoted to Fleet, finally, after so many years of being a contributing member (which is easily seen by checking fleet holding contributions). I am not the top contributor of all time, but I'm up there.
As the most active Fleet Admiral I take it upon myself to keep fleet projects slotted and keep track of provisions, slotting those projects as needed. I semi-regularly comb through the member rankings and give promotions to people who are contributing to fleet projects.
Far from "taking all important permissions for myself" I have actually extended key permissions downward through the ranks, because in my opinion they were excessively tightly controlled in the past.
For example, in most fleets earning a promotion to rank 2 fleet member gets you permission to buy from provisioned fleet stores. For years in the PA fleet this was withheld until rank 4 (Captain).
I have not downgraded any other Fleet Admirals from their positions, even ones who haven't logged in since 2014. The game is here, waiting for them should they choose to come back.
While our fleet is largely inactive, it is not dead (there are far deader fleets, trust me I've seen them on my Klingon characters).
If there are suggestions, or if someone thinks I should do something differently, or do something I'm not doing, or stop doing something I am doing, you may mail me in game [email protected]_Quantum and I'll do my best to make you happy.
I do see people on from time to time but they rarely if ever speak to me, and certainly no one ever brought up to me that they thought I was hogging the fleet or anything like that.
More than anything else I consider myself the caretaker of the fleet since most of the people who helped build it have moved on. But with the exception of the rank 5 starbase and rank 4-5 colony offerings, our fleet does have "all the things" and it is a perfectly serviceable fleet to be a part of for solo or casual play.
And as a final note, the K-13 tier 3 xenotech facility will complete tomorrow morning. At that time I will slot the K-13 Tier 3 upgrade project which will require a lot of resources to complete including 20k fleet marks. I only have about 6k fleet marks on hand so I could use some help with this one.
It will cost 500,000 fleet credits to buy the provisions alone (yes I have enough, if you thought I was hogging fleet mark contributions in the past, maybe this will help you understand why - provisions are one of the things that non fleet leaders rarely help with because they cost fleet credits and give you nothing in return.)
Thank you!
Now then mate, nice to see you!
I think I have a fair chunk of fleet marks kicking around for that last upgrade, will double check later when not wrangling a toddler.
Just gotta find eleventy million common tac/sec doffs for our last back of projects to the Tier V shipyard…
The Tier 5 Starbase is certainly a labor of love at this point. I don't know if we'll ever actually get there but I keep chipping away at it.
For those who might not understand exactly what all we need to do for this, I will explain.
We have three sub-experience bars one each for tactical, engineering, and science. Each of the regular starbase projects you see slotted require 840k EC, 80k expertise, 816 fleet marks, and 154 common duty officers of the appropriate department.
The duty officers are the hardest part of this, and it is especially difficult for one person to do these.
Each time we complete one of these projects, it adds 1,000 experience to our progress bar for that department. Once we fill the bar for a department, we can slot a large project that will raise the level of that department up to 5. Once all three are filled and we've done all three large projects to level up the departments, we will be able to slot the epic project to raise the starbase to Tier 5.
We currently need to do "Practice Tactical Exercises IV" 22 more times, "Theoretical Modeling Projects IV" 51 more times, and "Engineering Construction Projects IV" 73 more times.
That's 22,484 common duty officers of the tactical, engineering, and science persuasion, and now that I write it out like that it suddenly seems even more daunting than it did yesterday.
There are three basic ways to procure common doffs for the starbase.
The first is to run the recruitment doff assignments at Starfleet Academy. There is a Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite recruitment officer who each offer an assignment that gives you a couple common doffs (rarely uncommon, and super rarely rare) that you can run every couple days. There is a personnel officer at the kiosk who will let you run an assignment to recruit a few doffs from each department, her assignments take 3 days to complete and have a three day cool down.
The second way is called "Doff grinding" and the way this works is that the personnel officer has an assignment called "exchange officers" which lets you trade a single purple doff for 3 blues, a single blue for 3 greens, and a single green for 3 commons.
In this way you can start from a purple doff and produce 27 common doffs. Unexceptional purple duty officers with no especially rare (or even good) doff traits can be purchased from the 'commission duty officer' on our starbase - that guy hangs out in the mailroom, across from the transporter pad. Costs 20k fleet credits for one box with a random purple doff.
Doff grinding is slow and annoying but it does produce good results. It's also a consistent source of recruitment commendation cxp. If you were wondering how on Earth you're supposed to level Recruitment to rank 4 - this is it. Do a butt-ton of doff grinding.
I don't expect anyone to purchase purple doffs for doff grinding until after you've bought all the stuff you wanted with fleet credit. This is a FC dump for mature characters, not something to do when you don't have all your tac locater consoles or your lukari deflector, or your 5th trait slot etc.
The third way to procure common doffs is to purchase them off the exchange, they run anywhere from 30-50k EC and I wouldn't ever pay more than 50k under any circumstances.
Often, green doffs are even cheaper when you consider that they convert into 3 common doffs. It's almost never worth it to purchase a blue or purple doff off the exchange for the purposes of grinding, though you might find a bargain priced one from time to time.
So that's what I do with my free time in game. It's grueling, and you can only do so much of it before you need a break.
There's another way to do doff grinding, also. You simply buy truckloads of white doffs from the personnel officer and shovel them directly into the gaping maw of the furnace. You get some fleet credit back from "donating" each one to the project(s), so your fleet credits stretch a bit further. Think of it like recycling.
I've funded, or helped, several fleets myself in this manner.
Commander Zoom on
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
+2
MaclayInsquequo Totus Es UnusHere and ThereRegistered Userregular
I'm in a different fleet, so maybe it's different, but isn't there a guy on your fleet starbase who'll sell non-civvie duty officers for fleet credits? Am I thinking of something else? I'm sure I was buying like 50 at a time when we were working on upping our starbase
You can definitely buy common doffs from that same guy. The exchange rate is better if you buy a purple doff and grind it down, at the expense of time and annoyance.
I of course have chosen the path of annoyance because I am mentally damaged.
You can definitely buy common doffs from that same guy. The exchange rate is better if you buy a purple doff and grind it down, at the expense of time and annoyance.
I of course have chosen the path of annoyance because I am mentally damaged.
I really need to buy another 100 doff slots, because shovelling commons into the project 5 at a time is vexing.
You can definitely buy common doffs from that same guy. The exchange rate is better if you buy a purple doff and grind it down, at the expense of time and annoyance.
I of course have chosen the path of annoyance because I am mentally damaged.
I really need to buy another 100 doff slots, because shovelling commons into the project 5 at a time is vexing.
I find that I need at least 30 free slots for doff grinding to make it workable (and even then it's fussy, more is preferred). You can always free up temporary space by mailing unbound doffs that you weren't wanting to grind down in any case to yourself and then collecting them back at the end.
I have one more thing to say, I think, for the moment.
I know what it's like to be in the position of needing fleet credits for an important upgrade and constantly seeing that the projects slotted for the fleet have everything except "that last annoying thing that I don't have/don't want to part with" full.
Frankly, I used to bitch about that back in the day. If any of the old Fleet Admirals cruise this thread they might even remember!
Well now that the karmic table has turned and I'm the Fleet Admiral, I know exactly why they didn't slot unneeded projects for my fleet credit convenience. They were right, I was wrong.
They didn't slot projects that didn't grow the parts of the fleet that we were actually working on because otherwise those projects fill slower and never finish. No one is going to grind doffs if they can just dump some fleet marks to get the fleet credits they need and be on their way.
So you will see that there is never any project slotted in the Embassy, Dilithium Mine, and Research Lab because they are finished and we have sufficient provisions in those holdings. If the provisions ever dip, the projects to replenish them will be slotted (and I do check this regularly). Fleet Spire science provisions did tend to dip down in the past, because it costs a provision each time someone buys a tac locater console, but after the current two projects complete we will be fine on spire provisions for a while and you will also see those empty.
Colony projects are always available unless one has finished and is taking a day to complete because the Colony is at tier 3 and is still a work in progress. I took it upon myself to finish the K-13 holding which had basically been abandoned because the goodies available for completing it are so minor that no one else cared. However, K-13 will soon be completed upon which you will also see no projects slotted for it (and I seriously doubt we'll ever need to re-provision it).
The Starbase is the main thing to work on, it's the most tedious thing, and I know it's unbelievably frustrating when you need fleet credits and the only thing open is those motherfucking doffs.
So here's what you can do: Down at the bottom of the Starbase tab you will very nearly always see the assignment "Coordinate Colonization Efforts". This is a fiendishly clever and entirely necessary little project that does one critical thing; it gives you a way to flush civilian doffs out of your roster so you don't get clogged up by random civies when trying to grind common doffs.
This project not being consistently slotted was the #1 reason that I finally actually begged to be promoted to Fleet, because I was actually trying to grind away at the Starbase and I kept getting clogged up with civies and the Fleet Admirals at the time were not logging in consistently enough to keep that project slotted, or they didn't understand the importance of it, or both.
Coordinate Colonization Efforts takes 420k EC, 510 Fleet Marks, and 64 civilian duty officers to complete and when it is full the project will complete in just 30 minutes.
Every time I log in I check to make sure that the next one is loaded and ready to go.
And here's the trick if you're hard up for Fleet Credits: "civilian" includes colonists and prisoners that you can get scores of by running admirality. So if you're desperate for Fleet Credits, pop open those boxes and dump them on Coordinate Colonization, wait 30 minutes and dump your 510 Fleet Marks on the next one. I will always re-slot the project the next time I see it needs to be reslotted.
Oh hey, @Regina Fong , since you're about: my Gamma Recruit just picked up 100 of each of the fleet provisions, courtesy of completing a recruit milestone. I don't know if I need to do anything special to throw them in the mix, but if I do, let me knoooow.
Oh hey, @Regina Fong , since you're about: my Gamma Recruit just picked up 100 of each of the fleet provisions, courtesy of completing a recruit milestone. I don't know if I need to do anything special to throw them in the mix, but if I do, let me knoooow.
Unfortunately we have little use for fleet provisions except for the single one that we haven't finished yet, which is K-13.
You can hang onto the others if you have space, otherwise I would toss them. We have to re-provision spire/mine/lab/embassy only very rarely and the amount of provisions needed when the re-provision project is run is trivial (about 20 or so) and I just reflexively replicate them and throw them in at the time the project is slotted.
But if you have K-13 provisions they will be of use tomorrow when the final Tier 3 project is posted. You don't need to do anything special, just have them in your bank or inventory and contribute them as you would any other resource.
The gear gap at level 65 between what you have out of levelling, and what you need to actually do story missions, is nuts.
Levelled a klingon tactical on a whim for the cross faction flight unlock.
Got a heavy bird of prey, put some dual cannons on it, appropriate tactical consoles (only green so just 26% damage bonus instead of 30%), all the tactical skills (probably should grab some engineer and scientist ones for extra hull and shields)...
And i can't even take out the goddamn shields on some enemy ships before they one shot me.
Atleast as a science officer on a science ship my starfleet captain can rely on secondary deflector dot and sciency officer abilities to slowly grind enemies to dust.
Other than farming dilithium until i can get my cannons to mk xv instead of mk xii, i'm just not seeing what i can do.
Maybe grab a carrier and turn one into a beam boat.
But the bird of prey cannon build seems like a lost cause until i have lot more resources to spare.
Maybe slap some beams on it and hope i stay behind the enemy ship long enough to take out the shield and then torpedo them?
The gear gap at level 65 between what you have out of levelling, and what you need to actually do story missions, is nuts.
Levelled a klingon tactical on a whim for the cross faction flight unlock.
Got a heavy bird of prey, put some dual cannons on it, appropriate tactical consoles (only green so just 26% damage bonus instead of 30%), all the tactical skills (probably should grab some engineer and scientist ones for extra hull and shields)...
And i can't even take out the goddamn shields on some enemy ships before they one shot me.
Atleast as a science officer on a science ship my starfleet captain can rely on secondary deflector dot and sciency officer abilities to slowly grind enemies to dust.
Other than farming dilithium until i can get my cannons to mk xv instead of mk xii, i'm just not seeing what i can do.
Maybe grab a carrier and turn one into a beam boat.
But the bird of prey cannon build seems like a lost cause until i have lot more resources to spare.
Maybe slap some beams on it and hope i stay behind the enemy ship long enough to take out the shield and then torpedo them?
One thing you can do if you enjoy leveling alts, or plan to level alts for the recruitment events is to get a crafted set of beams and tac consoles and fully upgrade them to Mk XV (preferably next time there is an upgrade event). Crafted weapons and consoles will be account-bound and you can share them to whatever new character you happen to be working on. Just having a set of maxed weapons makes a DEW build viable at least for story missions and any normal content you want to do.
You're correct that science builds are much cheaper to build for a new character (and especially for a character you might not be very attached to).
Personally I have a nice set of fully upgraded plasma beams and the consoles to go with them. I also got the set of agony phasers from one of the events and upgraded those. Being account bound items, my fresh 65's always have some halfway decent weapons and it makes things much smoother.
Obviously if you decide that the character is worthwhile you'll want to get him his own gear, but maybe you'll find that the character isn't worth the effort. I can tell you my Jem'Hadar recruit just has the polaron gear and Jem'Hadar space set he was given, and while I upgraded it to Mk XV I didn't bother to raise rarity on any of it. I stuck him in the Vanguard carrier, gave him a decent science build, and now that I've finished his recruitment event endeavors I will basically never play the character again. There would be no point kitting him out and he did perfectly fine through all those mandatory queues with his basic equipment and sci build.
You can get account bound mk xiii tetryon beam and cannons from a story mission in delta quadrant episode, so that is a decent starting point i think.
Only one space fight in your own ship and you have a constant npc ally so it is eminently soloable even with bad ship.
Did it lot of times over the weekend to get the beams for my science captain and a spare set for the tac one.
Need to get some consoles though, new romulan can get the generic beam/cannon/projectile ones for now.
Can get some pheonix upgrade bits every 5 days from dilithium and with 3 level 65 characters it is not too bad, assuming i can keep at it couple weeks.
Temporal manipulation set from iconian war gives minor tetryon boost, kobali set for some survivability, a tetryon damage science console from new frontier...
It adds up, eventually.
"You are targeted by the Targ, fly near the Kristak!"
"What's that, fuck off to the ass end of the map?"
"No, fly near the Kristak!"
"CANT HEAR YOU SPEED BOOSTING AWAY FROM THE FIGHT WHEEEEEEEEEEE!"
I am so, so glad I finished the meta campaign earlier and don't have to touch this one at all. Having to endure weeks of idiots the first time Remain Klingon was the daily was plenty.
There's options this time - To Hell With Honor is pretty braindead, just follow the arrows and Emergency Power to Spacebar. Best Served Cold is not so much, but better than Remain Klingon by a longshot.
Much like the Halloween event, as the event wore on people got better at it but dear God the first week or so was horrible. By the time they nerfed my precious sabotage probe, people were actually quite good at doing the skeletons.
Yes, they are. Seems like this storyline was a good time to add a new track but they rolled everything into a track that was already over a year old.
As for the Halloween event, once people realized that the skeletons were just reskinned Herald Constructs and there's a couple of sci and eng powers and one lockbox universal module that instakill them through invincibility (the engineering one is even AOE) runs started getting a lot better. After the first three days I only had one really bad run.
Remain Klingon, though? Nobody ever seems to learn, because even if you're completely clueless you're blowing up fucktons of ships and it FEELS like you're getting somewhere.
Posts
Unlike those, at least, it's relatively clear what stuff comes from where once you learn to connect it with it's system. Also unlike those games, it's not the core of their monetization system.
Still a super good change overall, you reasonably only lose one hotbar slot and only if you're using a specific armor (which is one of the best in the game but if you missed the event it's a ridiculous cash shop buy). I don't think any other armors have innate powers bound to the pop out bar.
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
And two missions in, i can confidently say that this is one exquisitely polished turd.
Sure, quality of writing has been, variable, at times, but never quite like this.
Suddenly i am expected to believe that J'ula is not the bloodthirsty psychopath she has seemed up until this point, and is instead
And still somehow she gets to call the shots even after we capture her.
Also, super convenient that J'mpok decided to
In the whole mess there's only two competent leaders involved. One doesn't want the job a second time and the other believes that a chancellor is a weapon to be wielded by power and not a means to power itself.
I get that they had to shoehorn a Discovery arc in but none of it made any sense and J'ula as a character was just badly written and handled.
"Where did he get that?"
"It's been stuck in a volcano for like 200 years."
"Why didn't you take it out?"
"We were SUPER careful with the button. Only the Chancellor can push it."
"HE IS THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR YOU MUPPETS!"
Not really helped by her then just standing calmly in one spot while i desperately try to rescue civilians.
edit-
I have suffered through Knowledge is power, and proven myself a fool.
for a brief moment during
Which did not happen, and i was a fool for hoping.
Instead the quest managed to underwhelm my already low expectations.
edit2-
Leap of Faith down.
It was, actually pretty interesting, at first.
Ok, i guess?
The mission itself was mostly fun, apart from the base battle section that continues the trend of annoyingly over tuned, i assume in a bid to make people buy T6 ships instead of playing the the T5 you get from levelling.
And the story was ok as long as i ignored the larger arc it was part of, though i am confused why anyone would trade any soul for Akaar and J'mpok, both are on the way there already anyway.
/facepalm
Bast part of the episode so far, faint praise i know, but honestly this was not bad, except for the whole larger scope of the episode it is part of.
Such an utter waste of talent, time and potential.
I think anyone here could have plotted a better overarching storyline for the episode.
I have to assume this all was mandated from up top and not actually some the dev team and/or writers invented, because that is the only way i can keep playing and hoping that future updates can be worth playing.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
More details on the ship itself:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11501973-the-united-earth-defense-force-vessel
Edited to add:
EC Henry talks about designing the Da Vinci.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
Hello!
It appears that I have been away from the forums for so very very long that people in the fleet think that I am some sort of rando, or even an invader. This is not the case at all.
While I am no longer active on this forum, I was highly active on it years ago. I have been playing STO off and on since launch, and have been a contributing member of the PA fleet whenever I was actively playing the game.
A while back I noticed that none of the Fleet Admirals were actively playing (though some of them logged in every once in a while) and fleet projects were starting to go by the wayside. I mailed those Fleet Admirals who were still logging in and requested that I be promoted to Fleet, finally, after so many years of being a contributing member (which is easily seen by checking fleet holding contributions). I am not the top contributor of all time, but I'm up there.
As the most active Fleet Admiral I take it upon myself to keep fleet projects slotted and keep track of provisions, slotting those projects as needed. I semi-regularly comb through the member rankings and give promotions to people who are contributing to fleet projects.
Far from "taking all important permissions for myself" I have actually extended key permissions downward through the ranks, because in my opinion they were excessively tightly controlled in the past.
For example, in most fleets earning a promotion to rank 2 fleet member gets you permission to buy from provisioned fleet stores. For years in the PA fleet this was withheld until rank 4 (Captain).
I have not downgraded any other Fleet Admirals from their positions, even ones who haven't logged in since 2014. The game is here, waiting for them should they choose to come back.
While our fleet is largely inactive, it is not dead (there are far deader fleets, trust me I've seen them on my Klingon characters).
If there are suggestions, or if someone thinks I should do something differently, or do something I'm not doing, or stop doing something I am doing, you may mail me in game [email protected]_Quantum and I'll do my best to make you happy.
I do see people on from time to time but they rarely if ever speak to me, and certainly no one ever brought up to me that they thought I was hogging the fleet or anything like that.
More than anything else I consider myself the caretaker of the fleet since most of the people who helped build it have moved on. But with the exception of the rank 5 starbase and rank 4-5 colony offerings, our fleet does have "all the things" and it is a perfectly serviceable fleet to be a part of for solo or casual play.
And as a final note, the K-13 tier 3 xenotech facility will complete tomorrow morning. At that time I will slot the K-13 Tier 3 upgrade project which will require a lot of resources to complete including 20k fleet marks. I only have about 6k fleet marks on hand so I could use some help with this one.
It will cost 500,000 fleet credits to buy the provisions alone (yes I have enough, if you thought I was hogging fleet mark contributions in the past, maybe this will help you understand why - provisions are one of the things that non fleet leaders rarely help with because they cost fleet credits and give you nothing in return.)
Thank you!
Now then mate, nice to see you!
I think I have a fair chunk of fleet marks kicking around for that last upgrade, will double check later when not wrangling a toddler.
Just gotta find eleventy million common tac/sec doffs for our last back of projects to the Tier V shipyard…
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For those who might not understand exactly what all we need to do for this, I will explain.
We have three sub-experience bars one each for tactical, engineering, and science. Each of the regular starbase projects you see slotted require 840k EC, 80k expertise, 816 fleet marks, and 154 common duty officers of the appropriate department.
The duty officers are the hardest part of this, and it is especially difficult for one person to do these.
Each time we complete one of these projects, it adds 1,000 experience to our progress bar for that department. Once we fill the bar for a department, we can slot a large project that will raise the level of that department up to 5. Once all three are filled and we've done all three large projects to level up the departments, we will be able to slot the epic project to raise the starbase to Tier 5.
We currently need to do "Practice Tactical Exercises IV" 22 more times, "Theoretical Modeling Projects IV" 51 more times, and "Engineering Construction Projects IV" 73 more times.
That's 22,484 common duty officers of the tactical, engineering, and science persuasion, and now that I write it out like that it suddenly seems even more daunting than it did yesterday.
There are three basic ways to procure common doffs for the starbase.
The first is to run the recruitment doff assignments at Starfleet Academy. There is a Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite recruitment officer who each offer an assignment that gives you a couple common doffs (rarely uncommon, and super rarely rare) that you can run every couple days. There is a personnel officer at the kiosk who will let you run an assignment to recruit a few doffs from each department, her assignments take 3 days to complete and have a three day cool down.
The second way is called "Doff grinding" and the way this works is that the personnel officer has an assignment called "exchange officers" which lets you trade a single purple doff for 3 blues, a single blue for 3 greens, and a single green for 3 commons.
In this way you can start from a purple doff and produce 27 common doffs. Unexceptional purple duty officers with no especially rare (or even good) doff traits can be purchased from the 'commission duty officer' on our starbase - that guy hangs out in the mailroom, across from the transporter pad. Costs 20k fleet credits for one box with a random purple doff.
Doff grinding is slow and annoying but it does produce good results. It's also a consistent source of recruitment commendation cxp. If you were wondering how on Earth you're supposed to level Recruitment to rank 4 - this is it. Do a butt-ton of doff grinding.
I don't expect anyone to purchase purple doffs for doff grinding until after you've bought all the stuff you wanted with fleet credit. This is a FC dump for mature characters, not something to do when you don't have all your tac locater consoles or your lukari deflector, or your 5th trait slot etc.
The third way to procure common doffs is to purchase them off the exchange, they run anywhere from 30-50k EC and I wouldn't ever pay more than 50k under any circumstances.
Often, green doffs are even cheaper when you consider that they convert into 3 common doffs. It's almost never worth it to purchase a blue or purple doff off the exchange for the purposes of grinding, though you might find a bargain priced one from time to time.
So that's what I do with my free time in game. It's grueling, and you can only do so much of it before you need a break.
I've funded, or helped, several fleets myself in this manner.
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
I of course have chosen the path of annoyance because I am mentally damaged.
I really need to buy another 100 doff slots, because shovelling commons into the project 5 at a time is vexing.
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I find that I need at least 30 free slots for doff grinding to make it workable (and even then it's fussy, more is preferred). You can always free up temporary space by mailing unbound doffs that you weren't wanting to grind down in any case to yourself and then collecting them back at the end.
I know what it's like to be in the position of needing fleet credits for an important upgrade and constantly seeing that the projects slotted for the fleet have everything except "that last annoying thing that I don't have/don't want to part with" full.
Frankly, I used to bitch about that back in the day. If any of the old Fleet Admirals cruise this thread they might even remember!
Well now that the karmic table has turned and I'm the Fleet Admiral, I know exactly why they didn't slot unneeded projects for my fleet credit convenience. They were right, I was wrong.
They didn't slot projects that didn't grow the parts of the fleet that we were actually working on because otherwise those projects fill slower and never finish. No one is going to grind doffs if they can just dump some fleet marks to get the fleet credits they need and be on their way.
So you will see that there is never any project slotted in the Embassy, Dilithium Mine, and Research Lab because they are finished and we have sufficient provisions in those holdings. If the provisions ever dip, the projects to replenish them will be slotted (and I do check this regularly). Fleet Spire science provisions did tend to dip down in the past, because it costs a provision each time someone buys a tac locater console, but after the current two projects complete we will be fine on spire provisions for a while and you will also see those empty.
Colony projects are always available unless one has finished and is taking a day to complete because the Colony is at tier 3 and is still a work in progress. I took it upon myself to finish the K-13 holding which had basically been abandoned because the goodies available for completing it are so minor that no one else cared. However, K-13 will soon be completed upon which you will also see no projects slotted for it (and I seriously doubt we'll ever need to re-provision it).
The Starbase is the main thing to work on, it's the most tedious thing, and I know it's unbelievably frustrating when you need fleet credits and the only thing open is those motherfucking doffs.
So here's what you can do: Down at the bottom of the Starbase tab you will very nearly always see the assignment "Coordinate Colonization Efforts". This is a fiendishly clever and entirely necessary little project that does one critical thing; it gives you a way to flush civilian doffs out of your roster so you don't get clogged up by random civies when trying to grind common doffs.
This project not being consistently slotted was the #1 reason that I finally actually begged to be promoted to Fleet, because I was actually trying to grind away at the Starbase and I kept getting clogged up with civies and the Fleet Admirals at the time were not logging in consistently enough to keep that project slotted, or they didn't understand the importance of it, or both.
Coordinate Colonization Efforts takes 420k EC, 510 Fleet Marks, and 64 civilian duty officers to complete and when it is full the project will complete in just 30 minutes.
Every time I log in I check to make sure that the next one is loaded and ready to go.
And here's the trick if you're hard up for Fleet Credits: "civilian" includes colonists and prisoners that you can get scores of by running admirality. So if you're desperate for Fleet Credits, pop open those boxes and dump them on Coordinate Colonization, wait 30 minutes and dump your 510 Fleet Marks on the next one. I will always re-slot the project the next time I see it needs to be reslotted.
Happy grinding.
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Unfortunately we have little use for fleet provisions except for the single one that we haven't finished yet, which is K-13.
You can hang onto the others if you have space, otherwise I would toss them. We have to re-provision spire/mine/lab/embassy only very rarely and the amount of provisions needed when the re-provision project is run is trivial (about 20 or so) and I just reflexively replicate them and throw them in at the time the project is slotted.
But if you have K-13 provisions they will be of use tomorrow when the final Tier 3 project is posted. You don't need to do anything special, just have them in your bank or inventory and contribute them as you would any other resource.
Levelled a klingon tactical on a whim for the cross faction flight unlock.
Got a heavy bird of prey, put some dual cannons on it, appropriate tactical consoles (only green so just 26% damage bonus instead of 30%), all the tactical skills (probably should grab some engineer and scientist ones for extra hull and shields)...
And i can't even take out the goddamn shields on some enemy ships before they one shot me.
Atleast as a science officer on a science ship my starfleet captain can rely on secondary deflector dot and sciency officer abilities to slowly grind enemies to dust.
Other than farming dilithium until i can get my cannons to mk xv instead of mk xii, i'm just not seeing what i can do.
Maybe grab a carrier and turn one into a beam boat.
But the bird of prey cannon build seems like a lost cause until i have lot more resources to spare.
Maybe slap some beams on it and hope i stay behind the enemy ship long enough to take out the shield and then torpedo them?
One thing you can do if you enjoy leveling alts, or plan to level alts for the recruitment events is to get a crafted set of beams and tac consoles and fully upgrade them to Mk XV (preferably next time there is an upgrade event). Crafted weapons and consoles will be account-bound and you can share them to whatever new character you happen to be working on. Just having a set of maxed weapons makes a DEW build viable at least for story missions and any normal content you want to do.
You're correct that science builds are much cheaper to build for a new character (and especially for a character you might not be very attached to).
Personally I have a nice set of fully upgraded plasma beams and the consoles to go with them. I also got the set of agony phasers from one of the events and upgraded those. Being account bound items, my fresh 65's always have some halfway decent weapons and it makes things much smoother.
Obviously if you decide that the character is worthwhile you'll want to get him his own gear, but maybe you'll find that the character isn't worth the effort. I can tell you my Jem'Hadar recruit just has the polaron gear and Jem'Hadar space set he was given, and while I upgraded it to Mk XV I didn't bother to raise rarity on any of it. I stuck him in the Vanguard carrier, gave him a decent science build, and now that I've finished his recruitment event endeavors I will basically never play the character again. There would be no point kitting him out and he did perfectly fine through all those mandatory queues with his basic equipment and sci build.
Only one space fight in your own ship and you have a constant npc ally so it is eminently soloable even with bad ship.
Did it lot of times over the weekend to get the beams for my science captain and a spare set for the tac one.
Need to get some consoles though, new romulan can get the generic beam/cannon/projectile ones for now.
Can get some pheonix upgrade bits every 5 days from dilithium and with 3 level 65 characters it is not too bad, assuming i can keep at it couple weeks.
Temporal manipulation set from iconian war gives minor tetryon boost, kobali set for some survivability, a tetryon damage science console from new frontier...
It adds up, eventually.
We seem to be inching ever-closer to just having a giant flying PS5 as a ship, aren't we?
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"What's that, fuck off to the ass end of the map?"
"No, fly near the Kristak!"
"CANT HEAR YOU SPEED BOOSTING AWAY FROM THE FIGHT WHEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Annoyingly I need to buy out half the progress in this one and still do all the days, so I have enough progress to get the Big Campaign Reward.
Are all three TFO’s disco marks this time? I don’t really need those!
Gives me an excuse to get @Regina Fong their fleet marks though, I guess.
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As for the Halloween event, once people realized that the skeletons were just reskinned Herald Constructs and there's a couple of sci and eng powers and one lockbox universal module that instakill them through invincibility (the engineering one is even AOE) runs started getting a lot better. After the first three days I only had one really bad run.
Remain Klingon, though? Nobody ever seems to learn, because even if you're completely clueless you're blowing up fucktons of ships and it FEELS like you're getting somewhere.