Star Trek Online Catch-All

How big a buff do the tribbles give?

Seriously regretting throwing all those tribbles out the airlock.

jonnypolite wrote:

Seriously regretting throwing all those tribbles out the airlock.

A few in the fleet bank. Grab one, breed it and replace in fleet bank.

Shoal07 wrote:
Sinatar wrote:

Well when fighting against ships that fire computer controlled beams that travel at the speed of light, the manoeuvrability of a fighter is pretty much moot. It's silly that they exist at all.

Which is why we don't see them often. I think they throw some reason for why they exist in the DS9 verse, but I cant recall it.

Firing vectors. Has anyone ever played the Star Trek board game? It is simply awesomeness in a box but only covers the old ST original universe. Fighters are quite effective when you're attention is split between that and a 'capitol' ship, especially when they're loaded out with nukes or photons.

This is the first MMO I've played where I hit the level cap within the free month while only playing 2 - 3 times a week.

Brizahd wrote:
jonnypolite wrote:

Seriously regretting throwing all those tribbles out the airlock.

A few in the fleet bank. Grab one, breed it and replace in fleet bank.

I've got like a dozen basic ones in my bank if anyone wants em.

BlackSheep wrote:

Firing vectors. Has anyone ever played the Star Trek board game? It is simply awesomeness in a box but only covers the old ST original universe. Fighters are quite effective when you're attention is split between that and a 'capitol' ship, especially when they're loaded out with nukes or photons.

I guess they would have worked well back then. But this "this day and age" of star trek it seems fire control systems have advanced a lot. Fighters pretty much just soak up a single hit that would have impacted the host carrier. I guess it makes sense if the hit used to destroy them is overkill (like a torpedo) but it really sucks for the crew. Fighter pilots would be as disposable as torpedoes.

Tamren wrote:

Fighter pilots would be as disposable as torpedoes.

I'd imagine they'd be drone controlled, I mean we are practically there now so by the 25th (or whatever it is) century it seems likely.

Sinatar wrote:
Tamren wrote:

Fighter pilots would be as disposable as torpedoes.

I'd imagine they'd be drone controlled, I mean we are practically there now so by the 25th (or whatever it is) century it seems likely.

With the way our tech is going, yes, but not in the Star Trek Universe.

Tamren wrote:

How big a buff do the tribbles give?

It's hard to tell, but my Ricossa seems to give 1-2%. If I had to guess, it's probably 2.5% according to the chart, but if you check your bonuses under stats they're always lower than advertised. So a 1-ish percent showing could be anything around that.

Actually with weapons that only engage from 10km away, I'd say our tech is better than the Star Trek universe (you know, the whole flying in space and shields things aside).

Nevin73 wrote:

Actually with weapons that only engage from 10km away, I'd say our tech is better than the Star Trek universe (you know, the whole flying in space and shields things aside).

Well, in the game....

blah blah blah, how bout more pics and videos of you guys playing? I don't plan on playing it due to school but I'd love to enjoy it vicariously through you guys

karmajay wrote:

blah blah blah, how bout more pics and videos of you guys playing? I don't plan on playing it due to school but I'd love to enjoy it vicariously through you guys :)

Have to see what I can do - have a tone of screens...

One thing I've noticed about STO...it is the most non-MMO that I have ever played. What I mean by that is that that it seems to me, more than any other MMO that I've ever played, that you could easily do the whole thing solo, without ever interacting with another human being. Granted, every experience is what you make it, but, much like Star Trek itself, you pre-dominately seem to be the lone wolf, only rarely grouping up with others.

STO seems more like multiplayer Diablo than WoW or EQ in style. Much more solo and small group oriented.

This is not a bad thing.

Cmdr 7 and climbing

karmajay wrote:

blah blah blah, how bout more pics and videos of you guys playing? I don't plan on playing it due to school but I'd love to enjoy it vicariously through you guys :)

Exactly the same position I'm in. I can't get enough of the awesome screenies.

Nevin73 wrote:

One thing I've noticed about STO...it is the most non-MMO that I have ever played. What I mean by that is that that it seems to me, more than any other MMO that I've ever played, that you could easily do the whole thing solo, without ever interacting with another human being. Granted, every experience is what you make it, but, much like Star Trek itself, you pre-dominately seem to be the lone wolf, only rarely grouping up with others.

Did you play Champions Online, Cryptic's previous MMO? That's how I'd describe CO, with the addition that CO actually punished people for grouping. I've been hesitant to get STO since it sounds like STO is similar with the heavy solo, anti-grouping focus that I didn't enjoy in CO. If my assumption is wrong though I might try it out, especially since it sounds like you guys are enjoying it.

Feels like I'm stuck. I know if I can just get through the commander levels and get my Galaxy-class I'll be happy, but I hate my commander level ship so it's becoming kind of a slog. I may try switching to an escort for now, but for the moment I'm having trouble logging on and actually playing.

Xeknos wrote:

Feels like I'm stuck. I know if I can just get through the commander levels and get my Galaxy-class I'll be happy, but I hate my commander level ship so it's becoming kind of a slog. I may try switching to an escort for now, but for the moment I'm having trouble logging on and actually playing.

Yep, if that happens just switch up ship classes. Even if you aren't "spec'd" for it, PVE is simple enough where it doesn't matter. Unless it's borg. Borg are beasts and can frustrate even highly equiped and spec'd pilots. Sometimes, you just can't win a particular borg engagement. They have abilities that can simply wipe you out. This doesn't occur in missions and such, but commonly in the deep space encounters which are designed for much larger groups of ships then the lower tier deep space encounters (which only allow 5 players at a time - I don't think Borg have player limits).

Also...

So I just went to http://theenginescannaetakeit.wordpr... and this guy is collecting statistical data to try and figure out the game. I’ll highlight some interesting things that everyone may not know, but you really should read this site. And we should add the link to the OP.

Power levels: 50 is default. Anything above or below does a +/- change of 2%-4% (depending on the system) accordingly per point. So at 51 your weapons do 2% more dmg. At 100, they do double.

Beams do max dmg up to 1km, and decrease 4% after that per km. Cannons do max to 2km, then decrease 8% per km. This means after 3km, Beams are more efficient then cannons, and can even out DPS them at 10km.

Aux power affects turn rates, as well as most (all?) abilities.

The faster you’re going, the harder you are to hit. At 0, you’re hit 100% of the time. I imagine fast moving escorts (very high speed engines, high engine power, full speed) would get hit as little as 60%, or maybe less, of the time (he’s still testing base stuff here).

He also has charts that talk about optimum combinations of weapons. For beams it doesn’t matter because they don’t share cooldowns. However, Heavy cannons, for example, are most efficient in pairs, and after that they start decreasing (statistically) in effectiveness because cannons have shared cooldowns. Except for turrets. So my 2x Dual Heavy Cannons, Dual Beam Array, & torp up front with 3x turrets in the rear seems to be a very effective DPS combo.

There's a great thread on the official forums looking at different energy weapon loadouts for cruisers. LOTS of good info there but the main point is that the DPS scaling of additional weapons suffers from diminishing returns because of energy drain, to the point where you can actually hurt your DPS by adding a weapon if you don't have the energy to support it.

http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...

Loadouts Optimized for frontal

Loadouts Optimized for broadside

Loadouts Optimized for all arcs

Shoal07 wrote:

So my 2x Dual Heavy Cannons, Dual Beam Array, & torp up front with 3x turrets in the rear seems to be a very effective DPS combo.

Funny, that's exactly the loadout I settled on after a few hours of testing. My weapons are all phasers, and I have 4x [+30 Phaser Weapons] in my tac consoles, and 3x [+3 Power Transfer Rate] in my eng consoles to try to make up for the extreme power drain when I hit rapid fire. (I tired stacking +weapon power consoles, but power transfer works a LOT better in this situation).

I know some people have said you shouldn't stack consoles of the same type due to diminishing returns, but I haven't seen that effect in practice. Here's what I've seen on my phaser cannons:

# Consoles +Phaser Weaps DPS Diff 0 +0 937 1 +30 1031 94 2 +60 1125 94 3 +90 1218 93 4 +120 1312 94

So apart from the 93 DPS increase between 2 and 3 consoles, which I assume is due to rounding, adding more consoles does not have diminishing returns.

For Gunner and karmajay. I'm not putting them at full resolution (I don't think...), but you'll get the idea! My Captain ranked Science Vessel is in the first three, and my Commander ranked Science Vessel is pictured in the fourth (in the forefront).

IMAGE(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1VdLh_gs8NI/S4sHqud50VI/AAAAAAAAD3Y/W52KTuHWmwQ/s800/screenshot_2010-02-24-15-54-03.jpg)

IMAGE(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1VdLh_gs8NI/S4sHkDp0siI/AAAAAAAAD3M/A_Er9lTRRUM/s800/screenshot_2010-02-27-17-50-30.jpg)

IMAGE(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1VdLh_gs8NI/S4sHpx2eF0I/AAAAAAAAD3U/gcB9IJIq10E/s800/screenshot_2010-02-27-17-39-46.jpg)

IMAGE(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_1VdLh_gs8NI/S4sHr3TbSfI/AAAAAAAAD3c/GU48ok7a6v8/s800/screenshot_2010-02-19-22-41-47.jpg)

My Captain level ship, the U.S.S. Rock Lobster:

IMAGE(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q133/serengeti000/rock_lobster.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q133/serengeti000/rock_lobster1.jpg)

My Admiral level ship, um, also named the U.S.S. Rock Lobster:

IMAGE(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q133/serengeti000/rock_lobster3.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q133/serengeti000/rock_lobster2-1.jpg)

And my crew, all wearing the fleet uniform with appropriate coloring for their jobs:

IMAGE(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q133/serengeti000/crew.jpg)

So, given what I have seen in the charts, I think I want to switch to 1torp, 1DB, 2B both fore and aft. This means I'll front or rear with the extra dps of the DB, but still broadside with 4Bs.

The thing that bums me a bit is that you can't see the fleet uniforms with armor on. I think they should incorporate something like ME2. You wear the armor in combat, but when you are tooling around a Fed Starbase, it is just the uniform underneath.

Nevin73 wrote:

The thing that bums me a bit is that you can't see the fleet uniforms with armor on. I think they should incorporate something like ME2. You wear the armor in combat, but when you are tooling around a Fed Starbase, it is just the uniform underneath.

You can right click the armor icon when it is equipped and toggle "hide/show on costume". It's a manual process but it's better than nothing.

imbiginjapan wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

The thing that bums me a bit is that you can't see the fleet uniforms with armor on. I think they should incorporate something like ME2. You wear the armor in combat, but when you are tooling around a Fed Starbase, it is just the uniform underneath.

You can right click the armor icon when it is equipped and toggle "hide/show on costume". It's a manual process but it's better than nothing.

Yeah, armor is ugly. Turning it off was the first thing I did

I've been playing this for about a week now. I just made it to LC7 and I like the combat, the setting, graphics are really nice but I don't know; I think I may be about done with this one. It feels like I have done all variations of missions and they are starting to feel a bit repetitive and grindy. I will try to push to Commander at least and see if things change a bit, but I'm not very hopeful.

I believe I would be a lot more hooked to the game if I was a trekkie...