Star Trek Online

[Arcana]

,,,Does it matter which specialization is Primary or Secondary? I see there are bonuses for the different Specializations being 'Active' but I don't see any advantage to having a Specialization as Primary vs. Secondary. Now that you mention it, I had forgotten Strategist is Secondary only.

I believe the main difference now is that passive benefits work whether you activate a specialization as primary or secondary, but active benefits can only be used from the primary.  In other words, if the spec ability grants you a buff all the time then primary or secondary doesn't matter.  If its a clicky power, it has to be primary.

In terms of survivability, I think Pilot is your best bet.  Before I got enough survivability to basically solo the Borg events I used to love to use Rock and Roll to escape certain death.  And Turn the Other Cheek is a good tanking ability, although you have to be tough enough to get shot at from all sides to get the most benefit out of it (or be a really good escort driver that can keep turning to bring different firing arcs to bear on the enemy).

[Xev]

I think I might go Strategist, then. There's appealing things in both Specializations. Strategist seems like a guilty pleasure Spec for some reason..

I've got two newbs coming up now, too. I was going to try Cruisers on my Tactical guy but decided to just make a Tactical/Cruisers guy. I wanted to try out an Engineer and the only thing I want to fly with one at this point is an Escort so that made newb 2 easy.

I'd kinda like to try an Exotic damage Escort build if there is such a thing.

Xev needs to get himself a t6 ship. I've been saving up for Fleet Ship Modules. Iirc I need 4 and the cheapest I see them at is ~ 15 million EC. The Fleet ships themselves aren't that expensive... iirc. I don't know how Fleet Ship Modules interact with Fleet ships I just know I need to have them to get one.. I also don't know if the t6 Fleet ships are decent or not - I still kinda don't get t6's and why one is better than another.

The costume creator is not sooo bad in STO, really. I made a decent Doctor Smith and brought another idea I had in my head to life decently enough with it.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

Booo I just noticed that the Fleet ships are kinda gimped (no Starship Mastery, which I don't know a whole lot about). And require 5, not 4, 15-20 Mil EC Fleet Ship Modules..

soo 80ish Mil EC will get me a t6 wannabe... Holy geez.

Good thing I came up with some newbs!

So what do I need to do to get a Real t6? Can I just buy one outright for hundreds of millions of EC from the Exchange? What's the deal with Starship Masteries?

[Xev]

[GameplayAnnounce] You have been assigned an AFK penalty for not participating enough in this queued event.

Say wha..!

2 hour AFK penalty.. My guy may be a newb but he was far from AFK. He's got all purple gear that's at his level.. I was doing the easiest Fleet Marks queue. I've been leveling in the queues! Yesterday I was, anyway. This was the first queue I ran today.

2 hour lockout.. pfft.

-----

PS

The Computer Science professor from the local community college just happens to be a neighbor of mine... I've been doing some work for him this year, non computer.. is how I met him. Anyway... he's on a dish to tower wireless ISP that has a Normal monthly fee with Normal service. He was nice enough to do some pings for me today and voila:


PING patchserver.crypticstudios.com (208.95.185.41): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=0 ttl=39 time=97.880 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=1 ttl=39 time=94.255 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=2 ttl=39 time=99.694 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=3 ttl=39 time=94.546 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=4 ttl=39 time=91.765 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=5 ttl=39 time=93.170 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=6 ttl=39 time=90.788 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=7 ttl=39 time=92.891 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=8 ttl=39 time=91.984 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=9 ttl=39 time=92.433 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=10 ttl=39 time=94.996 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=11 ttl=39 time=90.517 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=12 ttl=39 time=92.272 ms
64 bytes from 208.95.185.41: icmp_seq=13 ttl=39 time=90.828 ms


It's just a small sampling, and a single sampling, and it's just Pings... and 90+ms pings aren't the greatest in the world.. But... That's encouraging.

[Arcana]

Booo I just noticed that the Fleet ships are kinda gimped (no Starship Mastery, which I don't know a whole lot about). And require 5, not 4, 15-20 Mil EC Fleet Ship Modules..

soo 80ish Mil EC will get me a t6 wannabe... Holy geez.

Good thing I came up with some newbs!

So what do I need to do to get a Real t6?

I'm not a fan of the fleet ships.  They are basically really expensive upgrades of T5 ships that have only minor improvements.  Nice to have if you're rich and in a fleet that generates a ton of stuff, otherwise eh.  The easiest way to get T6 ships is to participate in the events that come up about every quarter, like the summer event that just concluded.  They usually have some task to perform that awards 40 somethings per iteration and require 1000 somethings to convert to an event starship, which these days is a T6 ship.  The events are typically like 40 days long and you have to do the whatever thing 25 times, so you don't have to do them every single day, and the thing whatever it is typically takes five to ten minutes to do, more or less, so 25 sessions of ten minutes each doing something that requires little to no actual in-game capabilities** is about the easiest way I can think of to get a T6.  What's more, if you do the tasks on a single character and unlock the T6, it becomes available to all of your characters, for free.


** Although, the task is sometimes aided by things you can buy or do during the event.  For example, during the summer event the required task is to fly through three aerial slalom courses with a jetpack.  The (relatively) freebee jetpck only lasts an hour (so you have to take the time to get one every day) and is slow: it can take fifteen minutes to run all three courses.  You can buy a permanent one, and there are better and better ones.  The max speed one can run all three courses in five to ten minutes depending on where they are located (it is randomized) on the map.  Those require separate currency you earn doing other things during the event.  It will certainly help to have a fast jet pack, but entirely optional if you do not want to do those other things.  Because they run that event every year, over time it is possible to eventually have the best everything (jetpack, racing board, etc) without much gameplay, just accumulated over time.

[Xev]

I'd been saving up forever for one of those Fleet ships and then I saw they weren't full T6's. I see it in Zone chat all the time 'how do I get a t6". The general advice seems to be 'wait for an event', like you said.

T6's are in the Exchange, too, huh? I should look.. If they come from lockboxes they are probably sellable. I don't know much about them as far as which one I would want to buy, even if I could buy one, at this point. It does feel like time to move up, though..

I got another AFK penalty with Smitty last night! What's up with that.. Two in a row. Sheesh my gear is to the 9's for my level and I'm being as active as I can... If my dps is so low then why even let players my level in the queue to begin with, sheesh. I mean, I'm rockin' it for my level (19 atm) compared to my first newb.

[Arcana]

I'd been saving up forever for one of those Fleet ships and then I saw they weren't full T6's. I see it in Zone chat all the time 'how do I get a t6". The general advice seems to be 'wait for an event', like you said.

T6's are in the Exchange, too, huh? I should look.. If they come from lockboxes they are probably sellable. I don't know much about them as far as which one I would want to buy, even if I could buy one, at this point. It does feel like time to move up, though..

Technically you can't sell the T6 ships themselves, but when they show up in lockboxes they show up in a "box" themselves sometimes that is sellable.  Generally, they are very, very expensive to get that way.

I got another AFK penalty with Smitty last night! What's up with that.. Two in a row. Sheesh my gear is to the 9's for my level and I'm being as active as I can... If my dps is so low then why even let players my level in the queue to begin with, sheesh. I mean, I'm rockin' it for my level (19 atm) compared to my first newb.

Sounds like a bug of some kind.  You don't get the afk penalty for doing low damage, you get it for being idle.  I've heard of players getting hit with the afk penalty while not being afk from time to time, but I am not an expert on that bug and do not know how it is being triggered by non-afk players per se.

[Xev]

Define: very, very, expensive..

hehe

I could have looked! Was just online.. I don't know which one to buy, anyway. That's another hurdle.

Getting to level 15 in all R&D pools is expensive, timewise, too, but, it happens, eventually.. I don't need one right now, chop chop, I just would like to see one in my future.. It would be nice to choose my own, too, vs. getting what is from an Event. It's cool they do that. I couldn't get online regularly enough during the Summer event to even attempt it otherwise I would have snapped that one up.

No idea what is up with Smitty and his perma bans! Sheesh.. Two in a row. That's 4 hours banned. I was hopping, too! Just the day before I got like 2 levels or more with him in queues.

Hey, to totally go off topic within the topic... Have you read through that History of STO? They're not showing any signs of slowdown, either. I was impressed. Shades of CoH. Good on them. It *is* Star Trek.. ya know. So, good on them.

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10095363

[Xev]

If you're any kind of TOS fan the new mishes are kinda a must. Shame on me for skipping them until now! In my defense... I really did not like one of the first mishes I ran that had me crawling all over the place with a flashlight and a pinpoint of light, lost... Kinda not as thrilling as Space Battle..

The character 3d models and lighting seem better now, too - this was the first and only letdown about STO for me, was their 3d character models. And they didn't raise PC requirements to make the improvements.

I'm in my first Cruiser past the newbie one and I have to say... yay! I like cruising. Little broadside action... Maybe toss in a couple torpedoes.. I fly my cruiser totally different than my Escort, have almost completely different Boff skills, use some different gear, I do pretty decent dps and am stealing agro in earlier levels than I did in my Escort and I also blow up less..

I saw someone's reaction to first finding out there is an AUTOFIRE in the game and I have to say I have had a similar reaction. WHY oh WHY did no one tell me..

Save yourself some keyboard/mouse wear, newbs, and learn about Autofire..

You may also want to learn about Keybinds at the same time.. They work similarly to how they work in CO, so far, to me. They can be handy things to use while you are..... autofiring..

While we're on the subject of newb tips. Remember we were talking awhile back about not knowing the front of our own ship from the back, in battle? Here's a couple newb tips.

1) If it fits your build, get you an Autoturret... Use it on the bad guy you want to fire your space ray guns at. Line up your ship with the line coming from your turret, leading to your target...FIRE!
2.) Hotkey "Reset Camera' in 'Movement and Camera'... Whenever you get disoriented... hit this button and it will line the camera up so that you are facing your target. For the most part.. You can keep tapping it as often as you like, by the way..


SMITTY!

I have to work a little on his round belly and his face/head ... and maybe his hair color, but, I am pleased with this start  : )



Oh, and how cool is it that you can rename Boffs? Smitty is flying with John, Will, and Judy...and the blue girl that I can't rename who will become Don or Maurine or Penny at some point.


~~~ Moar Smitty - note the exquisitely narrow shoulders, pursed lips, receding hairline..  and kinda flared eye thing. I could get his nose and chin and head shape just right if I stared at a picture and the costume creator at the same time for long enough. It's not so bad, the costume creator, really.

[Arcana]

Save yourself some keyboard/mouse wear, newbs, and learn about Autofire..

You may also want to learn about Keybinds at the same time.

I use one of those spacebar keybinds that simultaneously fires weapons and distributes shield power so I can just keep tapping to keep shields balanced.  There are much more sophisticated ones out there that do things like rotate through Aux2Bat firings or emergency power builds, but that's good enough for my purposes.  I recommend googling around for those, however, as they can really reduce finger strain.  STO is a much more clicky MMO than most, if you want to play actively.

[Xev]

This gives some basics and was good enough to tell me how to string commands together with one key.

https://ufplanets.com/showthread.php?30768-Dark-s-Guide-to-Being-Lazy-Multiple-Command-Keybinds-and-You!

It's pretty simple, what little keybinding there is in this guide. Very similar to CO which also has lots of whack-a-moles that get smacked easier with keybinds.

[Xev]

PATCH DAY!!!!!!

*cringe*

hehe...

[Xev]

I survived another patch... Servers down again tomorrow! Wha?

*shakes head*

See, now here is the thing with me and mishes... It's kinda like the thing with me and CORDS. I just don't do well with cords. So, there I am, really enjoying the mishes with the original Star Trek crew. I mean, really enjoying. Good stuff. But even on the simple stuff I have probs...

Return to Babel? First, I find out I didn't know how to use the scanner all this time.. It took me awhile to figure that out. Then, the Mess Hall bit bugs on me - there was no scan the delegates part, so I was running around with nothing to do until I restarted the mish. Ugh... mishes!

Then... I take a close look at John... And see he got himself a gender change..!



I mean, I really like the AOY mishes so far... When I first watched Star Trek it was just a fantasy to do stuff like this - be in a video game where you star in your favorite TV show and that TV show is the awesomeness that is Star Trek.. But... it seems like I always have probs with mishes..

And yes, I know my combat tray is weak and under populated but Combat has been easy enough to this point that it's not been a prob.

[Tahquitz]

Then... I take a close look at John... And see he got himself a gender change..!

If I remember correctly, ST:TNG was initially Trans-friendly, allowing female officers into pantsuits and men to wear the regulation "spacedresses".  Of course, that stopped early on.

All the same, interesting glitch.

[Xev]

[Xev]

Today has turned out to be sit and do mishes day. There are some neat toys in some mishes.. Mishes with useful rewards??? noooooo can't be! Can too!

I can see my loot up front and skip mishes with loot I don't like, too! Now this is my favorite feature of Episode mishes, so far.. and I can come back to loot I may want at a later date, too..! I can just lewt ho away... when I'm in that mode. Like right now. The XP and change of pace has been entertaining, too.

I could run mishes for the immersion....the STORY.... the dedication a true MMO'er would give to their game... But nah, I'm pretty much in it for the loot  : ) and something different to do. So, the way their system works, once again, works for me.

There is a lot to do in STO!

And for the most part you don't have to do it in any form or fashion.. Just dive in and start doing stuff.. String the probably many things you do together into your own version of the game. Make some newbs... And play them very differently.

[Xev]

I like my first alt experience. Due to how tradeskilling works it gives me a reason to stay active with my main, yet, be in newbie mode.

Making an alt in STO has been its own mini game and I can see how I can expand on this game with at least 1 more toon. I like how my first alt is working out. It's hard to explain.. It doesn't feel so much like I'm dumping one toon for another due to I can see how the few alts that I have planned can work together and the two I have already do. I can never seem to stop playing both the toons I have, either, due to one is making gear for the newb and the newb is leveling and then sometimes when I'm on the gear making one I decide to go for some fast and easy Fleet Marks that I didn't have to wait on the Cooldown for, for example.. In CO, once I got past Q farming, my alts felt more shelved. Creating Alt guilt..

*shrug*

: )

Who can explain the mind of a video gamer...

[Xev]

Here's a newb tip I could have used and so I pass it on to You...

Bridge Officers.

As far as I can tell, as long as your Bridge Officer is not White/Common, it doesn't matter what color he is. The only reason you don't want him to be Common is that you can't promote him very far and at some point you may want him to be more promotable.

So, who cares if your Boffs are Very Rare or Uncommon, as long as they have the skills you want them to have in the end. You can give them the skills you want them to have by training them. You can train any color Boff just as easily as another.

The only exception that I can think of is if a really rare skill is only available on a Very Rare/Purple Boff and you happen to see that Boff for less than the cost of the Training Manual for that skill or maybe you can't even find the Training Manual for the skill the Boff has. There isn't a Training Manual in the Exchange for every trainable Boff skill in the game.


 

[Arcana]

On the subject of newb tips for bridge officers:

1.  You can take bridge officers out of your inventory and place them in a stand by inventory just for bridge officers.  You can put up to 15 bridge officers in there if you want to hold onto them but can't use them yet and don't want them taking up valuable inventory space.

2.  You can convert bridge officers into training manuals for bridge officer skills.  If the BO has the skill, you can convert them into a training manual for that skill.  Its a little easier to manage training manuals than bridge officers in terms of moving them around, trading them, etc.  Of course, you can also use the training manual to train another bridge officer in that skill.

3.  Higher rarity *usually* indicates having more skills, but higher rarity is not necessarily always better.  For example, there are some romulan bridge officers you can purchase in fleet bases, but on the federation side it is actually the *blue* romulan ones that people want not the purple (very rare) ones, because they have the better skills (specifically: they have superior romulan operative).

4.  Bridge officers are also landing party officers, and they have their own gear including armor, weapons, and items.  You can use bridge officers as "mules" to hold stuff you don't want to sell but don't want to take up inventory space.  Besides the four you equip as desired to go down on landing parties normally, the rest can still take armor and weapons you want to keep, and each has four item slots you can place things like batteries and such.  One very useful thing you can put in BO inventory slots are tribbles if you also want to keep food-stuff in your inventory.  Tribbles eat food, so keeping both food and tribbles in your personal inventory eventually leads to having lots of tribbles and no food (tribbles "multiply" as they eat food).  Put tribbles you want to keep in BO inventory slots, and problem solved.

5.  Bridge officers also have skills, and most of the time those skills affect ground combat.  Much less frequently they help space combat (see: superior romulan operative above).  Those tend to be the more useful ones, just because you tend to be in space more often and ground buffs are easier to get.

6.  As a default rule, don't buy bridge officers except in two situations.  One: you're rich, you're constructing a very specific build, and you know what you want exactly.  Two: you're buying them with special currency under special conditions - for example, some events like the summer event allow you to buy special bridge officers with luhlunat favors: that's a special currency you can only use on Risa and only during the summer events and you can only buy certain things anyway.  You should still spend on things like fast boards and floaters first, but eventually it makes sense to buy those since what else can you buy?  Also, there are some really good bridge officers you can buy in fleet starbases with fleet currency.  If you know what you're doing, go for it.  But in general, bridge officers fall from the sky as rewards (particularly in duty officer missions).  Eventually, you'll be just plain throwing them away because you won't know what to do with them and can't sell them fast enough, or converting them into training manuals for skills you don't even want just to play black-out bingo with your bridge officers. 

7.  Don't forget duty officers.  They are different things.  Bridge officers are the ones you slot into your bridge officer slots: you use their abilities in space combat and they beam down with you on landing parties.  You have a separate set of duty officer slots and they specifically provide space and ground buffs to you.  They don't get inventory, gear, none of that.  They just have one specific skill, like speed up the recharge of torpedos, and if you slot them you get that one buff.  You get to activate five space and five ground to start, and there are ways to earn one more of each.  Novice players sometimes mix up BOs and DOs or think they are the same thing because the terminology is similar, but they serve different functions.

[Xev]

6.  As a default rule, don't buy bridge officers except in two situations.  One: you're rich, you're constructing a very specific build, and you know what you want exactly.  Two: you're buying them with special currency under special conditions - for example, some events like the summer event allow you to buy special bridge officers with luhlunat favors: that's a special currency you can only use on Risa and only during the summer events and you can only buy certain things anyway.  You should still spend on things like fast boards and floaters first, but eventually it makes sense to buy those since what else can you buy?  Also, there are some really good bridge officers you can buy in fleet starbases with fleet currency.  If you know what you're doing, go for it.  But in general, bridge officers fall from the sky as rewards (particularly in duty officer missions).  Eventually, you'll be just plain throwing them away because you won't know what to do with them and can't sell them fast enough, or converting them into training manuals for skills you don't even want just to play black-out bingo with your bridge officers. 

If you know exactly what you want it is not Always so expensive to buy the manuals and Boffs to make the manuals to put together what you want. I just did it for Smitty when he got his final T5 ship and it was fairly painless to have All Boffs with almost Exactly what I wanted. I used all newbie Boffs that I started the game with (I have only 2 purple Boffs)  except 1 white one and I used a Very Rare that I stumbled across when I was making Training manuals that I just happened to like to replace him.

If you Don't know exactly what you want.. It's real easy to find out.. Just check the Skills page for each Boff you have - (fill up all your Boff stations if they aren't already filled for some reason, like if you just got a new ship) - and look at each and every skill available for that each and every Boff station at each and every level they can get a skill and see what appeals to you. All Boff skills are right there for you to scroll through at your leisure and pick and choose a theme from. You can change your mind later, too... and train a new skill that you want to try. Can swap back and forth between skills if you trained more than one for a particular level, too, if that is desirable.

The only exception to the above, as a Fed with my particular build and needs, has been, there were a couple of Skills that I was interested in that I either couldn't find or were too expensive to be worth it to me.

Other than that, Boff building was fairly easy! It just took me time to decide what I wanted and go get it. It helps to have your Roster window open that shows the Skills you want and the Exchange window at the same time and then just shop away and cross your fingers that the stuff you want is there and not too expensive.

I had pretty good luck! Real good luck... I got almost exactly what I wanted for .... It had to be under 2 million EC. I shopped the Training Manuals first, and if the Skill I wanted was too expensive, I tried to find it on a Doff and then make a Training Manual out of them  : )



Here is another newb tip.... Don't start out Tactical/Escort... Unless you are just a natural Mozart at STO.. you are just asking for pain..

I am leveling a Cruiser right now (lvl 41 and dinging like a pinball macheen) and it already shreds.. Sometimes I *feel* like I am doing Escort or even better dps for my level and I ALWAYS outsurvive my Escort by a long shot.

It's 10x easier leveling a dps oriented Cruiser than a survival oriented Escort..

[Arcana]

It's 10x easier leveling a dps oriented Cruiser than a survival oriented Escort..

As we used to say in CoH, death is the strongest DPS debuff.  You can't DPS if you're dead.

Although just like CoH, I think its faster to level an escort to about level 15ish, just as it was faster to level blasters to about level 20ish.  Up to that point, it is rare to face a genuine threat so pure DPS is where it is at.  But once you start facing things that can actually kill you, first the Scrappers start outleveling you, then the Defenders, then the Controllers, then the Tankers, then the civilian purse-snatch victims.  In STO, when all else fails broadside Cruiser tactics will usually work when things get rough.  The only thing that is a real serious threat in the standard content is the Romulan warbirds with high yield plasma torpedos that can ruin your day.  Beam Fire At Will is your friend here.

When I'm leveling new alts, I start in the escort, then transfer to a cruiser in the high teens.  That seems to work the best for me.