Star Trek Online (F2P)

[Deepcrush]

If you're running broadsides there really isn't anything thats going to stop the power loss. I use the offense power setting a lot now since I have four shield regen abilities.

I noticed like me you largely skip on the ground abilities.

[Tyyr]

Lot's of points in power abilities and some consoles can help. Even with all six arrays firing I still maintain a power level of 75, though that's down from 125.

Ground abilities exist. The ground game isn't nearly as fun as the ship board one so I put the bare minimum of points into ground abilities. It can make higher level ground engagements a pain as you have to wait for your cooldowns to be back up before taking on each new group but it's still doable. All the good stuff is in space.

[Deepcrush]

Sent you a friend request.

Agreed, the fun and treats are in space. If I was overly worried about ground stuff I'd be playing WoW. I picked up some good beams and so I switched to an aft load out of QTL/QML. Fly passed a ship, hit the high yield hot keys, one QTL = 3 QTs by the time I pass with auto crits and then let the mines have their fun. I'm lvl 11 but I can still deal out around 13000 damage on a good sweep of my aft weapons.

[Tyyr]

The ground game isn't really bad, it just needs more interesting levels to play on. Right now there's no real meaningful cover and even if you do find it you can't really use it as the second you start to position yourself all the enemies just bumrush you so it just turns into a game of who can burn the other down faster. Just bleh.

Keeping your DOff's busy?

Also, anyone who intends to keep playing for any amount of time I'd recommend that you subscribe for at least a month. First of all each new rank gives you a respec token. Respecs are usually 500 zen ($5) but if you subscirbe the entire time you level you'll get five of them and hitting 50 in a month is easily doable. Subscribe early as they are not retroactive, you only get one for each time you hit a new rank, not any you've already got. Second each rank up will increase your bank and inventory space, usually a 300 or 400 zen option for each increase and you can get up to five. This is retroactive. You gain access to an account bank tab which is a small shared inventory and purse area that any of your toons can access. Also they give you 500 zen each month you subscribe. All that stuff you get to keep even after you stop subscribing. You get another free character slot but if you don't have a character made in it you will lose it. Also if you aren't subscribed and buy they "Two More Character Slots" option later you will only get one. They increase your EC cap from 10 million to 1 billion though you have to rebuy that once you stop subscribing and you'll want it because anything worth buying on the exchange is several million credits.

Even if you just subscribe for a month all that stuff they give you is worth WAY more than $15. You can do it cheaper if you can find an unopened box of the game ($5 to $10 on ebay) which will give you all that without having to subscribe.

So that's my pitch to spend some money on the game. Personally I think it's worth spending a few bucks on it just to support it.

Oh, but don't buy any ships until you hit 50, the lowbie ones are cheap but not much use for more than a few levels.

[Deepcrush]

The ground game isn't really bad, it just needs more interesting levels to play on. Right now there's no real meaningful cover and even if you do find it you can't really use it as the second you start to position yourself all the enemies just bumrush you so it just turns into a game of who can burn the other down faster. Just bleh.

I kinda like that the AI doesn't just sit there. It will try to flank you and it will try to break your cover. But really when I play STO, I'm here to blow shit up in space!

Keeping your DOff's busy?

Absolutely, I can take down a Negh'var in a lucky pass. So long as five of his buddies don't rape me in the process. Its a handy swing that lets me take all the opening damage on the forward, then as I pass them the mines and QTs let fly just as we match position so they still strike his forward shields. Just tears them apart. Only trouble I have is when they get smart and park in place to just trade shots. If there is one thing that no one wants to do, its to have to trade shots with a Negh'var.

So that's my pitch to spend some money on the game. Personally I think it's worth spending a few bucks on it just to support it.

I had thought the same, spending some money just to show support for the game.

[Deepcrush]

Holy shit, just saw a squadron of Excelsiors! Of course we all knew I was going that direction anyhow but seeing them pass was sweet. I do love the sense of scale in the game for ships.

[Tyyr]

I kinda like that the AI doesn't just sit there. It will try to flank you and it will try to break your cover.

Eh, it's not really good AI, I've never had the AI flank me on purpose. It's usually because I just run through their group to get as many to turn towards me as I can so my BOffs shoot them in the back for the flanking bonus. This is really more just the AI being programmed to run right at you. It especially aggrivating with Klingons who just charge and then Bat'leth you. A more tactical kind of game play utilizing cover would be nice.

But really when I play STO, I'm here to blow shit up in space!

That's the same with most people. I think the ground game could be made to work but they'd likely have to overhaul the whole thing and I think even the Devs have kind of given up on it.

Keeping your DOff's busy

Deck Officers, you got them at level 7, they can go off and do missions on their own. Free XP, dilithium, and other stuff.

If space combat isn't giving you that much of a challenge you can always up the difficulty. I prefer to run space missions on Advanced. You will get to the point where you will just blow through enemies like the grim reaper on basic.

I had thought the same, spending some money just to show support for the game.

A month's subscription is the best bang for your buck. You can get about $50 worth of benefits out of it. If you're going to spend any real money on the game spend it there first.

Holy shit, just saw a squadron of Excelsiors! Of course we all knew I was going that direction anyhow but seeing them pass was sweet. I do love the sense of scale in the game for ships.

The refit version of the Excelsior is one of the best cruiser's in the game. So if you love them you can ride them right into the endgame just fine. It's a cruiser though, not an escort.

[Deepcrush]

Eh, it's not really good AI, I've never had the AI flank me on purpose. It's usually because I just run through their group to get as many to turn towards me as I can so my BOffs shoot them in the back for the flanking bonus. This is really more just the AI being programmed to run right at you. It especially aggrivating with Klingons who just charge and then Bat'leth you. A more tactical kind of game play utilizing cover would be nice.

To be fair that is the general tactical thinking of the Klingon grunts. Its a population of cannon fodder.

That's the same with most people. I think the ground game could be made to work but they'd likely have to overhaul the whole thing and I think even the Devs have kind of given up on it.

If enough interest builds they can always do something like a patch or whatever. For now though it holds well enough.

Deck Officers, you got them at level 7, they can go off and do missions on their own. Free XP, dilithium, and other stuff.

Sorry, I read then as buffs... yeah, I have the DOs running missions as constant as possible. If they die, just get more...

If space combat isn't giving you that much of a challenge you can always up the difficulty. I prefer to run space missions on Advanced. You will get to the point where you will just blow through enemies like the grim reaper on basic.

As of now I'm flying a connie, good for support but even on normal if I get jumped by two or three Neghs then I'm toast.

The refit version of the Excelsior is one of the best cruiser's in the game. So if you love them you can ride them right into the endgame just fine. It's a cruiser though, not an escort.

This so makes my day!

[Tyyr]

STO's development team isn't terribly big and no one started it thinking, "Man I can't wait to get a phaser rifle and lead and away team!" Nope, they wanted ships. As it stands I think the ground game does a serviceable job. Personally I'd rather them just tweak the random map generator to get rid of stupid long hallways that are just there to add mission time and add some new mission types. Redoing the ground game to make it more tactical isn't likely to happen and I can live with that.

If they die, just get more...

Then you'll love it when you get to try the Klingon side. Klingon missions are almost universally much more dangerous which means you'll burn through your starter DOffs pretty quickly. Get greens klink side so that you don't lose them all the time.

This so makes my day!

I'm still trying to decide if the top tier Sovereign is worth it. Like the top of the line Excelsior it takes $20 in cash shop items and a tier V fleet shipyard. I'll have the yard with REDdit Alert pretty soon but $20 is a lot for a virtual ship.

[Coalition]

I'm running an Engineer in an Escort. I got tired of the slow turning ability of the starting ship, so went with Escorts. Believe it or not, i managed to use my Lt Escort and made it last all the way through Commander with it, before I finally upgraded to a Defiant at Captain.

My ship has 4/2 for weapons; they are a pair of cannons and a pair of torp launchers in the nose, and a pair of turrets aft. If I can catch an enemy ship in the cone of fire for the cannons, I can chew them up decently (especially with Rapid Fire). When engaging enemy capital ships, I'll shift to 1/4 speed, and effectively be a turret. This gives me the longest time of fire for my cannons (and the widest arc), and I'll just sit off the side of a capital ship, pounding the same arc over and over. My main power allocation is boosting shields, to last as long as I can (weapon power is good as is).

For ground combat, the Engineering shield kit and the explosives kit are the ones I use. The shield kit is brought out when I expect the enemy to stay at range (Orions). If I expect the enemy to close (Klingons and Gorn) I'll deploy minefields in a choke point to thin them out. I don't do as much damage as a tactical officer or have all the fancy stuff for a science officer, but I do decently. One of the habits I've developed is whenever one of my Bridge officers goes down, I'll try to revive them (because I'll likely need to be revived soon after ).

If you are having trouble seeing the various displays when in space combat, you can rearrange the HUD to your preference. I prefer to have the shield display in the center, with weapons just to the right. Speed can be off to the side, as it isn't that important. If I am closing too fast, I'll slow down. If I can barely turn, I'll increase speed by 1 (I probably accidentally decreased speed to zero). If the enemy is too far away, I'll speed up (or even divert power from shields to engines).

One annoying thing is that I have set the Tab button to target the nearest enemy. Unfortunately, in the PvE fights, it will default to the nearest enemy in the forward arc, rather than the nearest enemy. So after destroying a ship, it will target the enemy that is 25.6 away (max weapon range is 10), while the enemy ships at distance 5 are pounding away at my aft shields.


For the ground combat, I can see the purpose with the hallways, or at least the curving ones. This isolates line of sight from one room to another, so the game isn't trying to update online locations in two main rooms. But I agree about the long hallways. I had one ground mission where room 3 was to the west of room 4, but the hallway from room 3 to 4 went below room 4 and entered from the east. The exit from room 4 was to the west, went up and around to room 5 which was to the east:

5& - *4& - *3
* - entrances from room 3 to room 4
& - entrances from room 4 to room 5

Very annoying.

[Tyyr]

I probably had the least fun when I was flying my Defiant. I just do not care for the escort playstyle of strafing runs. I much prefer broadside combat. One thing I really want to get is the 180 degree torpedo console, then I can add my torp launchers into broadside fighting very easily. The downside is that it's part of the $20 refit Assault Cruiser.

I'd suggest going all in with your weapon's power. The overcharge will increase your damage a good deal and I'd probably suggest dropping one forward torp launcher for another dual heavy cannon. Maximize your shield stripping then use Heavy Torpdeo to salvo off three or four at once against their unshielded hull.

Oh, and something else, always pick one type of torpedo and one type of beam weapon. The type specific consoles that boost damage are about 30% better than the general beam and torpedo consoles. So go all phaser, plasma, disruptor, polaron, tetyron or whatever and same with torps, all of one type. You can increase your damage by about 10 to 15% just by focusing on a single weapon type for each.

[stitch626]

So far the most fun I've had was in the advanced Intrepid (it comes with the armor generator from the finale), though still waiting for decent stuff to fit them out with.

On the Klingon side, the starting BoP is great fun.


Also Tyyr, that is a nice setup with your Sov. Beautiful. How long did it take to get those arrays, or did you buy them on the market?

[Tyyr]

Just bought them. I'll confess something. I like to play Foundry missions but at least once a day I run one of the Monty Haul type missions and vendor the junk and put the decent stuff on the exchange. I net about 500,000 EC a run doing that and it takes about 20 minutes. The downside is that you'll hit your random item drop limit for the day doing it hence I only do it once a day. None of that gear is really all that expensive actually.

[LaughingCheese]

I'll be getting online soonish if anyone wants to play.

My new monitor should be arriving shortly so I'll take a break to set that up of course.


Can someone please explain why STO (and MMOs in general) has to have such bad graphics?

Ok, sure there's a lot of NPC's. But it doesn't look like there's really that much more content in the levels than CoD or Crysis. Games like Crysis of course have tons of NPC bad guys. I really don't get it.

That's the one major thing I really dislike about STO (well and the MMO stuff since I'm not really an MMO fan but hey, its free), it just feels too cartoony which, IMO, somewhat cheapens the universe.

[stitch626]

I'll be getting online soonish if anyone wants to play.

My new monitor should be arriving shortly so I'll take a break to set that up of course.


Can someone please explain why STO (and MMOs in general) has to have such bad graphics?

Ok, sure there's a lot of NPC's. But it doesn't look like there's really that much more content in the levels than CoD or Crysis. Games like Crysis of course have tons of NPC bad guys. I really don't get it.

That's the one major thing I really dislike about STO (well and the MMO stuff since I'm not really an MMO fan but hey, its free), it just feels too cartoony which, IMO, somewhat cheapens the universe.

Its because its easier to develop? Also, other than some buggy geometry issues, STO has decent graphics. You want cheap cartoonish, just look at ToR (which also has a lame character creator).

Now, if you want great graphics (aside form old textures that are in the process of being updated) go with EVE. However, that takes some getting used to and isn't cut out for everyone.