Star Trek Online

[Vostok 7]

You give thousands of dollars or more to China every month, what's $15?

[mikeszekely]

For that matter, we're on a message board that routinely imports countless toys, videos, games, etc from Japan. Why is it ok to spend money if it's going to Japan, but it's not ok if the money goes to China?

If it makes you feel any better, their California branch seems to operate fairly independently from the Chinese HQ, including scoring a few projects on their own. Or, for extra happy good feelings, remember that the game is free to play now (or Tuesday). You can play the game without spending a dime on it. I canceled my sub back in October (because I didn't think I was playing enough for it to be worth it and knew it was going to be F2P, not because I have anything against Perfect World).

Seems I can't totally avoid paying money to Cryptic/PW, though. The Akira's fine if you're playing Escorts, but if you're playing Science or Cruiser, you're going to want to spend real money for one of the other ships. I plan on buying an Excelsior when I get home from work tomorrow.

[Vostok 7]

The money that goes to Japan ultimately goes to China since that's where all the toys are made anyway

What's funny is not even 30-40 years ago, most people would have had the same feelings about Japan that most people feel about China now.

[anime52k8]

For that matter, we're on a message board that routinely imports countless toys, videos, games, etc from Japan. Why is it ok to spend money if it's going to Japan, but it's not ok if the money goes to China?

because all that money is going towards toys and not playing a crappy MMO game.

[mikeszekely]

because all that money is going towards toys and not playing a crappy MMO game.

At least I can afford the crappy MMO...

[TehPW]

You give thousands of dollars or more to China every month, what's $15?

sure but like i have control over that LOL

[Max Jenius]

Yeah, I may go with the start from scratch route. At least until I figure everything out.

[mikeszekely]

Yeah, I may go with the start from scratch route. At least until I figure everything out.

The nice thing with that is that, depending one when you last played, it's a pretty different game. A lot of the main story episodes have been re-done with new, added objectives and even an occasional cut scene. The game is also a bit more streamlined. You don't have to run around looking for people to give you missions anymore. You can simplay hit the Hail Starfleet button, then click the Available tab to see what's there, or just enter a system to see if it has a patrol mission. Thing is, you can actually skip that, even. You will be hailed by the whoever has the next main story mission, which are to be completed in order now. The downside to this is that the game is a little more linear, but on the plus side the plot feels more coherent.

The economy has changed a bit. Your primary currency is still Energy Credits. There's also Gold Pressed Latinum, of which I have one and have found no use for. There's Cryptic Points, which are how you spend real money on in-game stuff. Then there's Dilithium. Cryptic seems to think Dilithium is a big deal, going so far as to suggest that if you don't need it you can sell it to other players for Cryptic Points. I'm not so sure. See, the easiest way to get Dilithium is with the new Duty Officer system. Duty Officers are a collection of lower-level officers with a list of traits. You can send them on assignments by trying to match the needs of the assignments with their traits. Then you wait. After a period of time, your Duty Officer button will turn green, letting you know a mission was finished. Depending on the risk, they'll either fail, die, succeed, or critically succeed. I haven't had any die or fail so I don't know what kinds of penalties there might be. Success brings Energy credits, raw Dilithium, XP, skill points, and the like. Critical Success gives you more stuff. So by telling people to do stuff, then checking later to see if it's done, I've managed to collection around 3000 Dilithium without ever figuring out why I need it. I'm ultimately hoping to figure out how to sell it, then to amass enough that someone might give me 200 Cryptic points for it. I'm a tad peeved that you're forced to buy Cyptic points in bundles that are pratically guaranteed to leave you wtih leftovers after you buy what you really want (in my case, the Excelsior). I've got 200 points leftover, and 200 more would let me buy another ship and then be done with Cryptic points.

You also seem to level up much faster, especially at lower levels. I started playing again maybe a week ago? I'm Commander (27). More specifically, I had just hit Commander on Monday, and I'm sure sometime today (Wednesday) I'll hit Captain. This is just from doing the main story missions, some patrol missions, and sending out Duty Officers. It seemed like the Lieutenant levels breezed by, Lt. Commander lasted a little longer, and Commander has lasted a little longer than that. While I think that means most players can rush to the top-tier ships pretty quickly, it does solve my earlier complaint that it was difficult to reach the higher levels without doing the exploration missions (which I hate) repeatedly, PVP, or fleet actions (even though the game is an MMO, I enjoy playing it mostly as a single-player game).

[TehPW]

the one thing i sorta dislike is the quickness of leveling up... from the POV of gear. it made crafting far less important since its better just to shop at the exhange for items as you level (plus that they limited what you could craft though you can craft low level purple gear but again, with the ease of leveling, having purple gear that soon is less worth the grinding...

and the dilithium is used for purchasing ships (not worth it, since the cost almost makes you want to spend CCs, which is their intent for F2P), duty officers, and high end crafting Ing, the only thing worth crafting purple in the first place. once you have one toon with full crafting ranks, you never bother with others...

[kung flu]

Been playing this since it first came out, never really stopped playing since, it has improved a lot with all the updates. I have three characters now, 2 Feds and a klingon, all tactical officers. I joined a really great and freindly fleet, thats the main reason i have managed to keep playing this game, we always seem to be doing stuff and we never really experienced any periods of inactivity. Now the game is F2p we recruited many new players too

My fleet is called "Maquis Vanguard"

Edited January 21, 2012 by kung flu

[Hikuro]

Just started playing it. It's not to bad, surprisingly easy to control. But man I got no clue how to do the whole money thing to buy stuff.

[Funkenstein]

Play some of the PVP arenas to get energy credits fast. You don't get any at the beginning without selling items on the market.

[Greyryder]

I have three characters now, 2 Feds and a klingon, all tactical officers.

I prefer science characters, but I love my tactical captain's fleet escort. I put a Mk. XI RCS accelerator in it, and it's just too much fun to fly. Probably a waste of a console slot, but I'm having fun with it.

[Dangaioh]

I am enjoying this game over again...

I have 3 feds and a kdf officer. For the feds, 1 tact and 2 engineers, for the kdf an orion engineer female. Gonna try for an all female Orion crew and set life support to sauna.

[UN Spacy]

This game is wayyyy too easy to level up to 50.

[mikeszekely]

This game is wayyyy too easy to level up to 50.

Yeah, you do only the main story missions and easily hit 50 before the end.

Ironically, when I quit playing back before F2P, the opposite was true. I did all the story missions, the patrols, and the exploration missions, but I didn't want to do the PVP or group PVE stuff. It was fairly easy to get to Commander, but you had to start repeating the exploration missions or do the PVP/PVE stuff if you wanted to hit Captain.

[Greyryder]

I started my Klink character a while back, just for dilithium/C-point farming. Ran a few missions with him, before focusing on just the dailies. These days I only log him for duty officer missions, and emailing surplus contraband to my fed captains. He's a major general, mostly from the DOF mission XP.

Finally got fed up with my Fed sci's Odyssey class, and went back to his assault cruiser. The Ody's feel like they take most of the afternoon, just to turn around.

[Hikuro]

Well somewhere I f'ed up. I lost the main firing or action button on my hot key and now it's just blank. Doesn't matter which weapon I put on my character. Any suggestions on how to get that back? maybe I need to go to sickbay?

[Funkenstein]

Press P to open up your skills menu. Drag and drop into your skill bar.

[TehPW]

Press P to open up your skills menu. Drag and drop into your skill bar.

one thing i did on ground was put my attacks on my mouse, so i can make more use of my powers without hitting CNTL1-0

[Dangaioh]

Login to claim a free tribble now, before April 2nd 10am PDT.

[David Hingtgen]

I'm not falling for that trap. Soon you'll have a hundred tribbles, crowding out all your inventory slots, ruining your hyposprays, clogging up the Jeffries tubes...

[Dangaioh]

True, but you can always get a Cannibal tribble to take care of them.

http://www.stowiki.org/Cannibal_Tribble

[Hikuro]

True, but you can always get a Cannibal tribble to take care of them.

http://www.stowiki.o...annibal_Tribble

Klingon genetic engineering!!

I'm doing pretty good! I'm a captain now but it's getting a tad too repetitive in gameplay. Not too mention it feels like the leveing up becomes slower and slower once you hit Commander. seems like a lot of my time is doin fleet missions with other players versus single missions for storylines.

[Zor Primus]

Yeah I cancelled my paid sub...not playing thanks to swtor, and the other day when I came on it seems the game didnt like the update i did on my ATI drivers so my ship is all black boxy around the edges...there isn't a fix for it so I'm plotting all my ships on a collision course with a sun...queue BSG theme.

[UN Spacy]

[Radd]

Did they ever add any new ship designs? I really couldn't stand most of the ship styles. I finally got myself an Excelsior and pretty much was done with the game. I hate the Next Gen and STO unique ship styles. I understand there's licensing issues to prevent them from getting a lot of the ship designs from the Starfleet Command games or the new movies, but it just seemed like there was a handful of ship designs and a limited number of customization options for each ship class.

Also, did they put the interns on the environments? Every interior in the game seems like it's designed for Zentradi. I feel like an ant whether I'm on my own bridge or at Starbase, or in some civilian freighter that's being raided. I noticed the NPCs tend to float at their work stations, standing or sitting, because everything is so out of scale.

Another visual design quibble, but I noticed even when I made my character 5'9", everyone else in the game towered over me. Is everyone in STO 6'8"?

[Hikuro]

I don't know if people really mess with the character features that much.

As for ship designs, they've released some new stuff. Like there's the Odyssey class that's officially designated the newest Enterprise as. And a new Akira style ship known as the Armitage class, and a Carrier of some kind that's suppose to be loaded with fighters.

They're also allowing you to build your own star base system if you're apart of a fleet I guess. But I don't wanna join any ol' fleet unless it's a good one and it's so hard to figure that out.

[Radd]

Ooo. The Odyssey came out around the time I'd stopped playing. I did the mission that gave you one for free (tho I'm not nearly high enough level to access it). Didn't hear about the Armitage or this new carrier.

Less so interested in the fleet stuff. Mostly because I'm not invested enough to really say I intend to keep playing. The most fun I have with the game is trying to come up with interesting ship names that fit the character limit.

USS Uninvited Guest

USS Another Fine Product

USS Irrational Discourse

USS Big Stick

USS Wrench in Your Plans

USS Happy Accident

USS Horse You Rode In On

USS Voiding Your Warranty

USS Diplomatic Pressure

USS Economic Sanctions

USS Tingling Sensation

USS This May Hurt A Little

And so on.

[mikeszekely]

So I'm thinking it's probably been around a year or so since I played STO (I remember playing it heavily after I moved in the fall of 2011, but I'm not sure how long). I might have to get into again, though, since they announced their first real expansion, Legacy of Romulus. Not only will Romulans be a playable faction, but stuff's getting added to the Klingons, too, so you can start either faction at level 1 and not have to play the Feddie stuff first.

I'll have to see how many character slots I have, and maybe even buy one or two more.

[Hikuro]

I played a bit last night, acquired an Ambassador class after completing the Yesterday's Enterprise redux event and saving Castillo and Yar's collective asses so they can go commit suicide again. All in all, quick easy event. Kind of fun to fight in the Enterprise C.

Also, reason I'm posting this is I managed to find ship models of some of the variant cruisers used in the STO series and have an Odyssey Class with a fair amount of detail to her on shapeways. Only problem is there are no decals of any kind seeing how it's fanmade and no ones even tried. Has anyone come across these fine looking ships made by fellow STO players and bought them? I'm a little iffy on mine, it's stated to be a 1/2500 scale to work with my other model kits, but the price is pretty cheap compared to another version I found with less detail by 40 bucks!

[Atharun]

I started playing again about a month or two ago and it is worth it to go back and play even if only for a few weeks. Always fund to create a character and new ship.

[mikeszekely]

I played a bit last night, acquired an Ambassador class after completing the Yesterday's Enterprise redux event and saving Castillo and Yar's collective asses so they can go commit suicide again. All in all, quick easy event. Kind of fun to fight in the Enterprise C.

Also, reason I'm posting this is I managed to find ship models of some of the variant cruisers used in the STO series and have an Odyssey Class with a fair amount of detail to her on shapeways. Only problem is there are no decals of any kind seeing how it's fanmade and no ones even tried. Has anyone come across these fine looking ships made by fellow STO players and bought them? I'm a little iffy on mine, it's stated to be a 1/2500 scale to work with my other model kits, but the price is pretty cheap compared to another version I found with less detail by 40 bucks!

There's an event to get a free Ambassador? What do I do? I must have this!

[Hikuro]

There's an event to get a free Ambassador? What do I do? I must have this!

Yeah I think so. When I logged on yesterday a message suddenly popped up to examine a temporal anomaly and ended up tracking an ambassador class ship that ended up being the Enterprise C getting screwed up once again and resetting the timeline to not only alter everything, but was barely even in the 24th century with the federation I guess being destroyed by t he Tholians who have kidnapped the Enterprise C and her crew. After I set her free and blew up all the tholians I finished the mission and was given a pass to go to earth dock and get me my own Ambassador class ship.

[mikeszekely]

Yeah I think so. When I logged on yesterday a message suddenly popped up to examine a temporal anomaly and ended up tracking an ambassador class ship that ended up being the Enterprise C getting screwed up once again and resetting the timeline to not only alter everything, but was barely even in the 24th century with the federation I guess being destroyed by t he Tholians who have kidnapped the Enterprise C and her crew. After I set her free and blew up all the tholians I finished the mission and was given a pass to go to earth dock and get me my own Ambassador class ship.

Excellent! While I hadn't played in awhile, and I wasn't planning on playing again until the Romulan expansion, I'm glad you told me about this. Between whatever bonuses I had, special events I'd played, and ships I'd bought, my main toon had gone Constitution, Constitution refit, Excelsior, Galaxy, and Sovereign, plus I'd done last year's anniversary mission to net an Odyssey. An Ambassador was the only "Enterprise" he didn't have, so he just completed the set! I'll probably run the mission with my alts tomorrow, although they're both too low to use it and one of them is supposed to be doing science ships and the other tacticals. (I really ought to buy two more slots so I can play the Klingon and Romulan campaigns).