SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
What's probably going to happen is ship tiers will roughly correspond to doff rarity, with higher tiers having more traits. I do like the idea of requiring a diverse stable, so like science ships can get xyz traits, escorts can get abc, shuttles efg etc.
The Star Trek Online team is pleased to announce the epic conclusion of the five-year Iconian War story arc with Star Trek Online: Season 11 – New Dawn!
New Dawn will rise out of the grim wartime tale to introduce an all-new story focused on rebuilding and hope. Discover a previously unknown civilization and uncover the mystery of a strange traveler from another time. New Dawn also sees the return of Chase Masterson reprising her role as Mirror Leeta from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a returning member from the large stable of Star Trek franchise actors.
Along with new lore and story progression in Season 11, Star Trek Online will also be updated with new gameplay options in the form of the Admiralty System. Take command of your inactive starships to complete dangerous assignments and gather exciting rewards, while advancing your influence in the Admiralty campaigns. Within this system, each starship is given special traits and stats that must be used to successfully complete assignments. Plan carefully which ships are sent on which assignment in order to meet their requirements and offset various hazards, in an effort to yield great rewards across any of three separate campaigns.
There is so much new and exciting content that we can’t wait to show off! Stay tuned for more information about Star Trek Online: Season 11 - New Dawn!
Doffing with the stable of ships eh? Sounds pretty neat. I really really hope that T6 ships are not just 100% better at this in all aspects in a naked cash grab.
Of course they will be. And there's probably gear checks involved, so better start outfitting your stable of T6s with upgraded Mk XIVs!
Trailer voiceover: "It's time to be explorers again. To make explore new worlds. To solve new riddles. To contact new civilizations."
Trailer video: Shooting a horde of Tholians swarming down a hallway and ESD in flames.
I imagine a lot of the peaceful exploration will be tied up in the admiralty system, the same way it's been tied up in the doff system. Easier stories to tell than to play.
That was a pretty good trailer. Not as good as the couple with big stirring speeches like LoR, but better than the last few. There's a video up of the dev panel at the Las Vegas con, I still haven't had time to actually watch it, but the timing is a lot like the relative timing with Delta Rising, and the panel had a lot of neat information about that expansion.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
Equipment also doesn't have an effect so it's literally card unlocks. Look forward to lockbox ships with terrible layouts but really good Admiralty traits!
Going right from one FE into another again, Thursday is Butterfly. After M'tara's death, the remaining Iconians have gone full rage mode. Meanwhile, the Alliance completes the temporal weapon and deploys it in a temporal incursion against the Iconians, presumably unleashing a second Year of Hell.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
Quick heads up that it's giveaway time again, today is the Section 31 uniform for free! Lasts until 10 am PDT August 13th.
Here's hoping they don't cheap out on ships again. Some of the nicer t4/6 ships or oddball t5's nobody likes would be awesome from an Admiralty standpoint without them having to feel like they're giving away top tier ships. Hell, if Admiralty works they way I'm thinking, low tier ships should still be like green doffs, so even throwing out some tier 1/2/3 ships would be a fleetbuilding jumpstart.
SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
edited August 2015
Today is two free spec points apparently, which is kinda nice. Found under the promotions tab in the cstore. (Update, it's per character, so alts if yer interested)
Quick note, if you can't spend the points, check your skill tree, I had the "skillpoints invalid" thing again, so got a free respec which isn't actually going through so I'm stuck at the moment.
Apparently it's not just me, there's a bug report up already.
On the plus side, the rewards for the new episode look pretty great!
The temporal disentanglement suite incorporates Krenim temporal technology into your astrometrics suite. The disentanglement suite is able to run simulations to predict events in the ship’s immediate future, giving a significant tactical advantage in combat. The console increases your Auxiliary Power, Shield Capacity, and reduces damage to your Shields. In addition, the console provides a Critical Chance and Critical Severity buff, which scales based on your Auxiliary Power level. Players will receive the Temporal Disentanglement Suite at a rank-appropriate Mark, and it can be freely upgraded to Mk XII. Further upgrades will require Technology Points and Dilithium as normal.
+4 Aux Power Setting
+20% Shield Capacity
+0-2.5% Crit Chance based on Aux
+0-10% Crit Severity based on Aux
Reduced damage to shields by 3%
Krenim Temporal Manipulation Set
Antichroniton Focusing Emitters (2 piece)
This two piece bonus increases your Tetryon energy weapon damage.
Antichroniton Infused Tetryon Discharge (3 piece)
This three piece bonus deals heavy Tetryon damage to multiple enemies near your ship. The discharge then triggers bursts of Antichroniton energy, dealing additional damage in a small area around each target.
That console is probably going to replace my Phaser defence satellite.
They've been reasonably generous with specialization points after cracking down on "exploits" such as "killing immense numbers of NPCs", but it's still crap that reasonable progress is dependent on the steady flow of weekly rewards and the generosity of Cryptic's maybe-twice-a-year giveaways.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
Spec points should just be account wide.... if it's good enough for diablo/marvel heroes/etc it's good enough for trek.
On the other hand they probably aren't account wide because it would break something and make all characters unable to equip shields.
Players who quit playing for an extended period were recently sent an email with a link to unlock the Andromeda class for free and get 10 specialization points.
Oh, if you had quit but came back for a free uniform and one spec point, you don't get the email, because lol.
Players who quit playing for an extended period were recently sent an email with a link to unlock the Andromeda class for free and get 10 specialization points.
Oh, if you had quit but came back for a free uniform and one spec point, you don't get the email, because lol.
Players who quit playing for an extended period were recently sent an email with a link to unlock the Andromeda class for free and get 10 specialization points.
Oh, if you had quit but came back for a free uniform and one spec point, you don't get the email, because lol.
got that e-mail this morning, my level 53 captain is now level 60 and has a Tier6 Andromeda to go along with my Tier 5U Avenger
so that's cool
Oddly it's not like I haven't played for years or something, played a bunch 6 months or so ago even
Players who quit playing for an extended period were recently sent an email with a link to unlock the Andromeda class for free and get 10 specialization points.
Oh, if you had quit but came back for a free uniform and one spec point, you don't get the email, because lol.
I had gotten the spec points, but not the uniform and still got the email.
Players who quit playing for an extended period were recently sent an email with a link to unlock the Andromeda class for free and get 10 specialization points.
Oh, if you had quit but came back for a free uniform and one spec point, you don't get the email, because lol.
I had gotten the spec points, but not the uniform and still got the email.
I hadn't gotten an email when I checked yesterday but I checked again after seeing this and there it was. What a pleasant surprise.
Edit: Apparently I also have a free character slot. Not sure when that happened but I'll take it.
People don't like the fiddlyness of the maneuver system and the metagame has always been way worse than WoW at latching onto the thing that counters the most powerful thing and declaring it most powerful long after it's been run into the ground, so we're still in full FAW mode for a while. Personally, the HEC is my favorite T6 escort, but I've been in love with the Armitage for a long time.
So is there definitely not going to be any sort of battleground or warzone for the Iconian rep? I guess I better grind all my marks during the crystalline entity event because I haven't found one of their task force missions enjoyable in years.
So is there definitely not going to be any sort of battleground or warzone for the Iconian rep? I guess I better grind all my marks during the crystalline entity event because I haven't found one of their task force missions enjoyable in years.
A good non-queue place for ico marks (or at least where I got all of mine) is replaying one of (or both) of the Kobali ground missions via the replay console outside the General's building. "At the gates" and "the last stand*"*irc both give a choice of either a delta or iconian mark box+a relevant token thing (like ancient power cells). That +the daily bonus is a fair amount and it's pretty quick as there is usually always one or two other people around.
So is there definitely not going to be any sort of battleground or warzone for the Iconian rep? I guess I better grind all my marks during the crystalline entity event because I haven't found one of their task force missions enjoyable in years.
A good non-queue place for ico marks (or at least where I got all of mine) is replaying one of (or both) of the Kobali ground missions via the replay console outside the General's building. "At the gates" and "the last stand*"*irc both give a choice of either a delta or iconian mark box+a relevant token thing (like ancient power cells). That +the daily bonus is a fair amount and it's pretty quick as there is usually always one or two other people around.
Ahh, excellent. That's how I got my ancient power cells for a bio-neural gelpack but that was before iconian marks existed.
It's also fun to watch somebody say "stop running u puzzies you cant die to it on normal" and then dying to it on normal.
On a related note, did they change how you counter recrystalization? Because my tachyon beam doesn't seem to be wiping it at all this event. I've seen stacks upwards of 180 on elite.
The fact that you have to do "Step between the Stars" 3 times to get the solanae shield/deflector/engine set is a hate-crime.
Although it is certainly effective at making sure no one bought the solanae science destroyer set.
"Hay guys don't you love our new overpriced ship set you totally must because we're going to make you fly it several times."
5 months later tier 6 drops and the solane destroyers are instantlly outclassed by the Pathfinder which is actually cheaper and only needs to be bought once.
SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
Yeah, Cryptic do seem to have learned that dropping players into a brand new ship with a questionable weapons loadout and none of their usual bridge officers doesn't really do that ship any favours when it comes to sales in the store. It's a nice idea but it tanks pretty hard.
I've not noticed any changes to the entity this time around myself but I don't really pay attention to its buffs as they are too hard to find in the sea of debuffs.
Yeah, Cryptic do seem to have learned that dropping players into a brand new ship with a questionable weapons loadout and none of their usual bridge officers doesn't really do that ship any favours when it comes to sales in the store. It's a nice idea but it tanks pretty hard.
I've not noticed any changes to the entity this time around myself but I don't really pay attention to its buffs as they are too hard to find in the sea of debuffs.
I think it worked fine with the... omg I'm brain farting on the name... the obelisk carrier?
Is that the right name? It had a decent loadout and if you just switch power to shields, come to a full stop and press buttons while shitting out swarmers it acquits itself quite well. Well enough that I've never been bothered by needing to replay "Sphere of Influence". "Temporal Ambassador" is also fine, because it's not a very lengthy fight where you're required to fly the Ambassador, and you get a free ship at the end.
But "Step Between the Stars" is just obnoxious. The length of time you have to fight in the science destroyer is way too long, the loadout of the ship is vomit, the ship itself is pretty questionable, and the whole thing is an attempt to get you to pay a lot of money for this ship - which they've just shown you is a tetchy hybrid sci-battlecruiser that is fragile and wants you to mix cannons and beams which no one wants to do.
-edit-
It's also a big let down because the ground section of the mission is excellent. But then it caps off with an obnoxious too-long space battle in not-your-ship.
-edit edit-
Oh but it needs to be said; Tim Russ is easily the best castmember VA that they've had guest star. He did a really really good job and I love that he still enthusiastically voices Tuvok after all this time. Michael Dorn is also pretty good.
I just dreaded having to fly the Annorax in Butterfly Effect. They spared us that one.
I actually think the best voice work they got out of Delta Rising was Garret Wang of all people. In Ashes to Ashes, he manages to give the most genuinely emotional performance in the game that wasn't based on the weight of decades Nimoy put into his later turns as Spock.
Well, keep in mind that it's deliberate, the terrible loadouts that teach most players a terrible example for outfitting their ships. Geko said that the random equipment is to let players try out different weapons, and that, to quote, "Sure, we could make escorts come pre-equipped with all dhcs, but that's a boring way to play."
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
All well and good, but when you have specced your captain and doffs and boffs to play a certain way, you get hosed by the grab bag approach to ship outfitting.
The ground section of Step between Stars is really good though, one of my favourite settings in the game, plus it gets more points for introducing the "set your own challenge" mission mechanic
I can see the thing about it being boring. The metagame favorite specs range from boring to frustrating to play, and I'm still clinging to the old vape build (DHCx2, DBB, torp, using HY, BO, and CRF to frontload burst damage) just because it was engaging and visually impressive, even if stacked cannons outperforms it hands-down.
But there's a huge middle ground between there and these freakish monstrosity loadouts they give us. They could give escorts DHC, DC, DBB, Torp forward and turret, BA, torp aft and be a perfectly serviceable setup that's not boring and is canon-friendly to boot. There's no reason to slam the lever all the way over to freakish mine/single cannon/heavy torpedo/DBB hybrid builds with schizophrenic skill support.
I have completely resisted the near-mandate that everyone is supposed to go all DHC/Turret or all beams. I just don't care what is optimal, and I've simply tapped out of all their new STFs that are designed around the current possible DPS, because I'm nowhere near it and don't care.
This is Star Trek, god damnit, and my ships are going to have phasers and photon torpedos because I fucking said so.
SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
Yup, my Geneva cruiser has two torps up front (on a cruiser! Madness!), five romplas beams and the cutting beam. I justify this by saying she's a test platform for the tech-sharing initiative with the romulan republic.
Never antiproton, not even once! The stats may be good but the firing sound is just as bad as those blue phasers.
Yup, my Geneva cruiser has two torps up front (on a cruiser! Madness!), five romplas beams and the cutting beam. I justify this by saying she's a test platform for the tech-sharing initiative with the romulan republic.
Never antiproton, not even once! The stats may be good but the firing sound is just as bad as those blue phasers.
My main character does use AP but that's because he flies a Wells science vessel, and uses the temporal set which is AP, so I figured the Wells is supposed to be AP.
Pretty much I equip ships with what I figure is supposed to go on them. Typically for me that means phasers and photons, but I have a character who flies an undine ship, so I splurged on undine weapons for him because they just look right with that ship and nothing else does. Those are AP too, but look completely different. I was a little worried I'd find the knock back proc annoying but I barely notice it.
I just dreaded having to fly the Annorax in Butterfly Effect. They spared us that one.
I actually think the best voice work they got out of Delta Rising was Garret Wang of all people. In Ashes to Ashes, he manages to give the most genuinely emotional performance in the game that wasn't based on the weight of decades Nimoy put into his later turns as Spock.
Speaking of this... is the 'Butterfly effect' Time limited? or more precisely are the items time limited? i just got a mail for a 50 -> 60 boost which i gladly took but then i noticed that mission and noticed that it has 'new' items coming at a later date so it made me wonder if they are time limited or what....
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
The items are not, the weekly reward box with the spec point or big tech upgrade is. The later items just unlock as a reward choice on the dates given, after the last one the mission will go into the Iconian war arc and lock to level 60s, but you'll be able to pick any of the gear rewards after each playthrough.
Posts
Also there's a trailer now
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Of course they will be. And there's probably gear checks involved, so better start outfitting your stable of T6s with upgraded Mk XIVs!
Trailer video: Shooting a horde of Tholians swarming down a hallway and ESD in flames.
I imagine a lot of the peaceful exploration will be tied up in the admiralty system, the same way it's been tied up in the doff system. Easier stories to tell than to play.
That was a pretty good trailer. Not as good as the couple with big stirring speeches like LoR, but better than the last few. There's a video up of the dev panel at the Las Vegas con, I still haven't had time to actually watch it, but the timing is a lot like the relative timing with Delta Rising, and the panel had a lot of neat information about that expansion.
Also "If you own the ship, you get a Admiralty ship" in response to "Do we need to bring old ships "up to date" "
Equipment also doesn't have an effect so it's literally card unlocks. Look forward to lockbox ships with terrible layouts but really good Admiralty traits!
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Going right from one FE into another again, Thursday is Butterfly. After M'tara's death, the remaining Iconians have gone full rage mode. Meanwhile, the Alliance completes the temporal weapon and deploys it in a temporal incursion against the Iconians, presumably unleashing a second Year of Hell.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Yeah I made sure to snag those last night.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Quick note, if you can't spend the points, check your skill tree, I had the "skillpoints invalid" thing again, so got a free respec which isn't actually going through so I'm stuck at the moment.
Apparently it's not just me, there's a bug report up already.
On the plus side, the rewards for the new episode look pretty great!
That console is probably going to replace my Phaser defence satellite.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
On the other hand they probably aren't account wide because it would break something and make all characters unable to equip shields.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Oh, if you had quit but came back for a free uniform and one spec point, you don't get the email, because lol.
so that's cool
Oddly it's not like I haven't played for years or something, played a bunch 6 months or so ago even
I had gotten the spec points, but not the uniform and still got the email.
I hadn't gotten an email when I checked yesterday but I checked again after seeing this and there it was. What a pleasant surprise.
Edit: Apparently I also have a free character slot. Not sure when that happened but I'll take it.
A good non-queue place for ico marks (or at least where I got all of mine) is replaying one of (or both) of the Kobali ground missions via the replay console outside the General's building. "At the gates" and "the last stand*"*irc both give a choice of either a delta or iconian mark box+a relevant token thing (like ancient power cells). That +the daily bonus is a fair amount and it's pretty quick as there is usually always one or two other people around.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Ahh, excellent. That's how I got my ancient power cells for a bio-neural gelpack but that was before iconian marks existed.
Plus dodging the big explosion by doing a well timed barrel roll never gets old.
On a related note, did they change how you counter recrystalization? Because my tachyon beam doesn't seem to be wiping it at all this event. I've seen stacks upwards of 180 on elite.
Although it is certainly effective at making sure no one bought the solanae science destroyer set.
"Hay guys don't you love our new overpriced ship set you totally must because we're going to make you fly it several times."
5 months later tier 6 drops and the solane destroyers are instantlly outclassed by the Pathfinder which is actually cheaper and only needs to be bought once.
lol
I've not noticed any changes to the entity this time around myself but I don't really pay attention to its buffs as they are too hard to find in the sea of debuffs.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
I think it worked fine with the... omg I'm brain farting on the name... the obelisk carrier?
Is that the right name? It had a decent loadout and if you just switch power to shields, come to a full stop and press buttons while shitting out swarmers it acquits itself quite well. Well enough that I've never been bothered by needing to replay "Sphere of Influence". "Temporal Ambassador" is also fine, because it's not a very lengthy fight where you're required to fly the Ambassador, and you get a free ship at the end.
But "Step Between the Stars" is just obnoxious. The length of time you have to fight in the science destroyer is way too long, the loadout of the ship is vomit, the ship itself is pretty questionable, and the whole thing is an attempt to get you to pay a lot of money for this ship - which they've just shown you is a tetchy hybrid sci-battlecruiser that is fragile and wants you to mix cannons and beams which no one wants to do.
-edit-
It's also a big let down because the ground section of the mission is excellent. But then it caps off with an obnoxious too-long space battle in not-your-ship.
-edit edit-
Oh but it needs to be said; Tim Russ is easily the best castmember VA that they've had guest star. He did a really really good job and I love that he still enthusiastically voices Tuvok after all this time. Michael Dorn is also pretty good.
I actually think the best voice work they got out of Delta Rising was Garret Wang of all people. In Ashes to Ashes, he manages to give the most genuinely emotional performance in the game that wasn't based on the weight of decades Nimoy put into his later turns as Spock.
The ground section of Step between Stars is really good though, one of my favourite settings in the game, plus it gets more points for introducing the "set your own challenge" mission mechanic
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
But there's a huge middle ground between there and these freakish monstrosity loadouts they give us. They could give escorts DHC, DC, DBB, Torp forward and turret, BA, torp aft and be a perfectly serviceable setup that's not boring and is canon-friendly to boot. There's no reason to slam the lever all the way over to freakish mine/single cannon/heavy torpedo/DBB hybrid builds with schizophrenic skill support.
This is Star Trek, god damnit, and my ships are going to have phasers and photon torpedos because I fucking said so.
Never antiproton, not even once! The stats may be good but the firing sound is just as bad as those blue phasers.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
My main character does use AP but that's because he flies a Wells science vessel, and uses the temporal set which is AP, so I figured the Wells is supposed to be AP.
Pretty much I equip ships with what I figure is supposed to go on them. Typically for me that means phasers and photons, but I have a character who flies an undine ship, so I splurged on undine weapons for him because they just look right with that ship and nothing else does. Those are AP too, but look completely different. I was a little worried I'd find the knock back proc annoying but I barely notice it.
Speaking of this... is the 'Butterfly effect' Time limited? or more precisely are the items time limited? i just got a mail for a 50 -> 60 boost which i gladly took but then i noticed that mission and noticed that it has 'new' items coming at a later date so it made me wonder if they are time limited or what....
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO