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Star Trek Online Free to Play |OT| Boldly freeloading where others have subbed before

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
If you can get a good group, Starbase Blockade gives around 84 marks during the bonus period in around 16 minutes, not counting the time to queue. Of course, that's a big if. If the group is terrible you can end up with 60 or sometimes even less. On more than one occasion I've ended up carrying the round while all four of the rest of the team utterly failed to do anything productive.
 

JWong

Banned
Are Elite STFs hard if I'm like not too equipped?

I think I'm going to rush as much Dilithium to get my Odyssey pack I want so badly.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
It used to be that you could get most of the gear you'd need for doing ESTFs by doing the normal STFs and saving up various STF rewards to buy stuff, but they changed that all with the Omega Reputation system. It'll almost certainly be a bit harder without access to the gear such as MACO and Omega Force, since I'm guessing you'd rather not splurge on the dilithium you'd need to buy the stuff. I guess you'll want to try to at least make sure you have Mk XI or XII gear of some sort, and have a sensible weapon loadout (i.e. proper types to take advantage of your ship type, matching energy types so you can use the better energy specific consoles) so that you'll be able to pull your weight with the rest of the team. Also make sure that you have a decent supply of repair components (you can keep them in the bank) so that ship injuries don't start to drag you down. I've seen people flying with over a dozen injuries, some apparently being multiple instances of the same ones.
 

JWong

Banned
I think I'm doing okay just grinding out the normal queues for now.

I'll be putting in fleet marks and stuff and get my credits rolling for XII weapons.

Btw, is there an item database site? Seems like there's none, or there's one that's incomplete.
 

Walshicus

Member
I think I'm doing okay just grinding out the normal queues for now.

I'll be putting in fleet marks and stuff and get my credits rolling for XII weapons.

Btw, is there an item database site? Seems like there's none, or there's one that's incomplete.
Try www.stowiki.org which is pretty comprehensive.

Should be back playing on Wednesday!
 

JWong

Banned
It's going to take me a month to muster 5k zen coins.
What would be a better ship upgrade for shorter term for an engineer?

How are carriers compared to cruisers?

Try www.stowiki.org which is pretty comprehensive.

Should be back playing on Wednesday!

I use that a lot, but it doesn't have everything. Like I'm trying to find the Fleet Store antiproton XII stuff, but it's not listed.
 

JWong

Banned
Is there a reason to get all three Andorian Escort? Or just getting the Kumari is fine.
I'm not sure of the module benefits.

And I'm not losing much for being an Engineer on a DPS ship, right?
 

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
Is there a reason to get all three Andorian Escort? Or just getting the Kumari is fine.
I'm not sure of the module benefits.

And I'm not losing much for being an Engineer on a DPS ship, right?

I would like to know too for my Tact if you find out, they seem to be the ships to get currently, but I don't know if it is worth saving up for all of them or just one.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
If you plan on using all three consoles, it's probably worth saving for the bundle. There are some set bonuses for using all three, including bonus accuracy for two consoles and giving the wing cannons access to your cannon abilities while they're off flying on their own. If you end up with more characters, then you can also use the different versions of the ship for them as well.
 

Walshicus

Member
The accuracy bonus is pretty neat. I love the overcharge attack you can fire from the wing cannons; I've done 90k shots from it...
 

JWong

Banned
Any tips on Dilithium Exchange fluctuations?

It was at 100 a few days ago, now it's at 103.
Not sure if anyone knows the trends, or what's a good price.
 

Walshicus

Member

Walshicus

Member
Wow, started that high?

I definitely should wait for a better rate.

That was waaay before there was any demand for Dilithium, so I doubt we'll return to those levels again... You need to look at the prices in the context of the sinks and sources provided for it. Anything over 100 is probably a good price to sell at, at the moment.
 

JWong

Banned
Does anyone beam boat?

I feel like setting auto-attack for my beams causes lower dps because they never really reach max weapon setting fast enough.

When a weapon fires, does it recover at the end of the attack?
 
Wow, started that high?

I definitely should wait for a better rate.


I want to stress, like Sir Fragula said. It was a very different time for the game. Realistically pre season 7 if it was this low, I'd be telling you wait. But since S7 hit and the rate dropped, it seemed to stabilize at and around 100 as the baseline.

You can wait of course, just, it's not getting back to the 170+ without a lot of the nerfs, exploits, changes whatever you wanna call them changed.


Edit: To answer the Beam Boating question; I have done it before. But that is pretty much the effect of it. Make sure to cycle some skills like Emergency Power to Weapons and anything else that can boost it. But even so.. going like.. full 7 beams will drain you regardless. I ended up just throwing some turrets instead of the back beams cause the drain was too much... unless you're KDF and have plasmonic leech.
 
Congrats on the beta invites. Are there NDAs or will you be able to take questions such as.... how is the Romulan Alien species generator?
 

Walshicus

Member
Congrats on the beta invites. Are there NDAs or will you be able to take questions such as.... how is the Romulan Alien species generator?

No NDA. I can answer more questions tonight and over the weekend, I only managed a handful of tutorial missions before I had to go to sleep...

Anyhow the Romulan tutorial is so far, the most cinematic and best presented mission in the game. So far. I'm now off to investigate a Suliban Helix, so I'll let you know if that changes. :)
 
Well if there's no NDA..

My biggest questions so far are this:

I've been considering remaking my Alien KDF main to go green instead. So does the creator for Romulan aliens still pretty intensive or did they really limit down the options / set pieces for them?


Second. I'm glad that the opening stuff is some of their best work. Makes me pretty happy. How is the rest of the stuff you've got to seen? Is it just Fed/KDF stuff C&Ped with a tiny twist or do they have their own original stuff that's truly unique to the faction?


How are you liking the ships so far?
 

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
Well if there's no NDA..

My biggest questions so far are this:

I've been considering remaking my Alien KDF main to go green instead. So does the creator for Romulan aliens still pretty intensive or did they really limit down the options / set pieces for them?


Second. I'm glad that the opening stuff is some of their best work. Makes me pretty happy. How is the rest of the stuff you've got to seen? Is it just Fed/KDF stuff C&Ped with a tiny twist or do they have their own original stuff that's truly unique to the faction?


How are you liking the ships so far?

The Alien stuff isn't on the Tribble server, we can only make Romulan characters at the moment so I don't think anyone will be able to answer that at this point until LoR actually releases, and of course it is locked behind being a subscriber when it does. From the sounds of it though it is going to be limited, they keep referring to being an Alien Hybrid so it will probably just be Romulan/Reman parts, so no Klingon looking players will be wandering around.

I haven't got that far yet, but it is definitely a much better start than what we got with Fed, and obviously KDF side which didn't really have one, much more story based and apparently why they don't want want us running around as random aliens. I haven't had a good look at the missions yet to see how far they go before they merge with the same ones already shared between Fed and KDF, but everything I've played so far has been unique to the Romulan side.

The ships are nice, I wasn't sure about the Warbirds at first as cool as the later ones look but they are pretty neat, there are a lot less of them than other factions though and no variations that aren't paid for; if these are the same ships that we go through into launch with then you get just one ship type per tier with one boff layout and no different ship parts to change your look besides ship "material" and the colour schemes. The Romulan ships look nice and all, but it was a little daunting when I jumped on and everyone and their mum was sitting in exactly the same bird-of-prey with the same look, same for the tier 2 ship, not really a lot of customisable options there sadly which is really what I most look forward to.

Once I joined a side, I went with Fed, you also open up all the Fed Ships from Tier 1-4 as far as I could see along with Zen ships from those tiers; they had the refits etc. of all the current ships on show but I am pretty sure there was no Tier 5 ship as the only one was a refitted Warbird, so they likely haven't finished or didn't want to show off the in-game version of that last ship yet. It is a shame variations of existing ones are shoved behind a paywall though, there isn't a massive selection of regular Rom ships, but hopefully they will add more.

There's currently a level limit so we can't play too far, the limit is 21 iirc, but If you buy that Legacy pack it seems like you get to use those ships already as I've seen a number of D'Deridex ship's flying around and they should be tier 4 ships which we wouldn't be able to get by 21. The seem to still be playing with clothes, but as it is on the closed beta pretty much all the clothes are new and unique to the Romulan side with special unlocks depending on who you ally with.

It is pretty neat though as a whole, I'm surprised it took them this long to do something like this, lots of nice little changes like seeing people and ships on the map in your instance and some tweaks here and there. The game seems to run slightly smoother too with all the same options as the normal game, hopefully something that will come with the launch.

I need to spend more time testing bits and bobs out, but I also don't really want to delve too deep so that I can't enjoy doing this again when it launches. It all seems to be a pretty good test bed for possible future expansions with different sides that will also be mini factions and join either Fed or KDF, I think they answered it in an Q&A but I could totally see a Cardassian expansion. But who knows what they have planned, they probably had Romulans planned for quite sometime seeing as their ships were and are likely never to be released to KDF/Fed players.

I apologise if what I wrote is a little messy and all over the place sentence wise, it's 3am and now it is bed time, lol.
 
No no I appreciate it. Any information is good information I say. As it stands I'm a lifer, so I can always come back to the game, and figured if the green side got a lot of love and attention that I wish KDF got.. well.. I know where to go. Was just hoping I'd be able to replicate my funny looking guy.
 

Walshicus

Member
RomVulBOP.jpg


Loving the "Vulcan" style hull available on the Bird of Prey...
 

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
No no I appreciate it. Any information is good information I say. As it stands I'm a lifer, so I can always come back to the game, and figured if the green side got a lot of love and attention that I wish KDF got.. well.. I know where to go. Was just hoping I'd be able to replicate my funny looking guy.

Well they are "redoing" the KDF so it has levels 1-20 now, here's hoping it has a proper story now too, my KDF character isn't that far along so I will likely start again if only to have a proper start. You'll probably still be able to make some funny looking aliens though, just not with as many extra parts.

RomVulBOP.jpg


Loving the "Vulcan" style hull available on the Bird of Prey...

Yea they have some nice ship colour options, I've always liked the Romulan green they use across their ships but the red is pretty spiffy too, I want to know if I can get a red D'Deridex, that would be cool, lol.

Hopefully they will release some more ships so we can changes parts though, I like having slight variations on existing ships, as we said in game I wouldn't mind saving up Dilithium to get some Zen to buy some sort of ship part pack for more choices in saucers, nacelles and what have you.
 

Walshicus

Member
It's designed for the early adopter 'must have everything' whales. Everyone else will buy one or two things from it, or save up Dilithium to convert to Zen.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
Well, while the server is down, I'll write up a draft of the improved walkthrough for farming Strange Alien Artifacts for EC that will hopefully go on our future fleet page.

Farming Strange/Powered Alien Artifacts

This guide presumes that you already have access to and a working knowledge of the duty officer (DOFF) system.

Strange Alien Artifacts (SAA) and their crafted end-product, Powered Alien Artifacts (PAA) are items that can be sold for a reasonable amount of energy credits (EC). Obtaining them requires an investment of only a few minutes per character, but as of the writing of this walkthrough, a PAA can sell for nearly 1.4 million EC. In order to start farming these items, you must first complete the assignment Negotiate Delivery of Rare Commodities (1/1) This assignment can be located in the highlighted sector blocks and clusters:

(image from STOWiki)

You can fly around the 6 areas to try to locate the assignment, or you can use the website http://bit.ly/DOFFS. As this is a separate and unique assignment from the eventual repeatable, it does not have a cooldown. You will need 3 Jevonite and 3 Shapeshifting Lockets. The DOFF requirements are two of any officer. Traders help with success, but even a failure will still obtain a SAA. There is no casualty risk.

This will get you your first SAA, which still sells for a respectable amount, but can be made more profitable by converting it to a PAA. In order to do this, you must go to the interior of your ship and to the science officer to first complete the Decipher Strange Markings on Alien Artifact. This assignment requires a Research Lab Scientist. You only need to complete this assignment once, which will unlock Infuse Alien Artifact with Rare Particles.

For the Infuse assignment, you will need one of each rare particle trace (Antithoron, Anyon, Duderon, etc.) and two DOFFs, one of which must be a Development Lab Scientist. This assignment will still produce a PAA even with a failure, but there is a failure risk, so it is best to use uncommon or better DOFFs.

In order to continue to farming more artifacts, you will then need to do the assignment Negotiate Additional Delivery of Rare Commodities (NADORC). NADORC has the same possible locations as its predecessor. You can also check http://bit.ly/DOFFS for availability. The DOFFJOBS channel is also helpful, as someone will usually check for NADORC upon each assignment reset eventually. When the assignment appears, it will be in the same place for everyone. It has a cooldown of 76 hours from the time you previously started it, so even if it is up, it will not appear for you if you started another instance of it less than 76 hours previously.

If you have many alts, it is beneficial to try to get them all to the assignment within a short time so you can more easily keep track of when your cooldown will end.
 

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
These server issues along with the random disconnections are starting to get annoying, they need to really sort this out otherwise it is just going to be awful when Legacy of Romulas comes out.

RomVulBOP.jpg


Loving the "Vulcan" style hull available on the Bird of Prey...

To note, in one of their updates they said that Remans have their own ship materials and once unlocked through the reputation stuff also unlocks their ship materials for that account, so hopefully we get two really cool ones, I'd love a proper dark one, a black d'deridex would be real sexy.
 
I'm watching Deep Space 9 for the first time, and I'm super pumped for the Romulan expansion.


I want to play pretty badly, but the expansion is just around the corner. Not sure whether it's worth the investment of starting just 10 days earliy.
 
So came back to play after so long and having nothing but bugs in everything it feels like. Constantly having my away team members randomly dying or falling through the floor on missions, or enemy ships that just disappear to teleport somewhere else (no they aren't cloaking).
 

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
So came back to play after so long and having nothing but bugs in everything it feels like. Constantly having my away team members randomly dying or falling through the floor on missions, or enemy ships that just disappear to teleport somewhere else (no they aren't cloaking).

Can't say I've had any of that, the only bugs I run into are either graphical glitches or when ships occasionally get stuck in geometry of stationary space stuff.
 

Hex

Banned
Ok, I am coming in and have a few questions if I may...

A) is it worth it to get one of the pre packs...like the Steam Powered or the Romulan one that is up now. (the 20.00 ones not the huge ones mind you)

B) are some servers better than others? are there rp servers and whatnot?

C) is there any reason to go gold? I play(ed) Lotro and have a lifetime so get vip perks even though the game went f2p which is pretty much like gold is in STO, never really used the store points but the bag space and vault space was a life line. Though in LOTRO you could just buy the slots as a one time hit.

D) anything else to know...?
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
Ok, I am coming in and have a few questions if I may...

A) is it worth it to get one of the pre packs...like the Steam Powered or the Romulan one that is up now. (the 20.00 ones not the huge ones mind you)

B) are some servers better than others? are there rp servers and whatnot?

C) is there any reason to go gold? I play(ed) Lotro and have a lifetime so get vip perks even though the game went f2p which is pretty much like gold is in STO, never really used the store points but the bag space and vault space was a life line. Though in LOTRO you could just buy the slots as a one time hit.

D) anything else to know...?

A) The Steam one goes on sale sometimes, so you might check that out if you like the Steamrunner ship. It's quite a good escort, and pretty much the same price you'd pay for any of the other Tier 5 ships, although this one has the extra stats that you'd otherwise need a fleet ship for, which is good. It also has the low-level version if you have some characters just starting out. A lot of the stuff that comes in the included box would be nice for a starting character, but you'll be junking most of it as you level up.

It looks like the LoR starter pack is pretty decent too, as it gives you both a premium version of one of the early ships, as well as its Tier 5 version. You also get a Borg bridge officer, which are good, although I heard they might be doing something to the efficient trait which is one of primary draws of it.

B) There really aren't separate servers as such; everything is on the Holodeck server. The Tribble server is just the test server where they first release any new content for testing, although I don't know how much they actually read feedback from testers.

C) You seem to already be aware of this, but as long as you have a subscription for even one month, you unlock most of the perks in perpetuity for any characters that exist at the time. The bank/inventory slots will be unlocked for any character already capped, or any characters that you level up during the time your sub is still active. There is one important exception, and that is the energy credit cap increase. F2P players have a cap of 10 million EC, which is a pittance, especially once you start being able to farm EC easily. You'll get the increase temporarily for as long as you have a sub, but once the sub runs out, if you did not purchase the increase (500 Zen, which is $5 but can be easily obtained without cash by trading dilithium in-game), any EC you had over 10M will just disappear forever. There are many veteran rewards that you now have immediate access to if you buy a lifetime sub, but still must wait for if you only keep subbing periodically.

D) We have a fleet, so you should join us :p
 

Walshicus

Member
I'm watching Deep Space 9 for the first time, and I'm super pumped for the Romulan expansion.


I want to play pretty badly, but the expansion is just around the corner. Not sure whether it's worth the investment of starting just 10 days earliy.

If I were you... I would wait for the expansion and make your first character a Romulan or a Klingon. The reason I say this is because the tutorials in order of awesomeness *and* usefulness now go:

Romulan >> Klingon >>>>> Federation

The Romulan content is basically the best-made mission content in the game, by virtue of having been built after three years of tool knowledge by the team.


Either way, we have a fleet that can accommodate Federation and Federation-aligned Romulans, and a sister-fleet for Klingon and Klingon-aligned Romulans.




I hope everyone has been paying attention to Darthmaul's guide on how to earn Strange Alien Artefacts for big cash. I might put one up soon explaining how to earn a tonne from the DOFF system soon.
 

Baskcm

Member
I'd say we are - especially now we've picked up a whole suit of non-Gaffers from the Klingon fleet (Imperial Raiders).

sweet might leave ma current fleet never seems to be anyone online on it

already got a lvl 50 fed and lvl 41 klingon

if anypone is online could they send me a inv

i think its salur@baskcm
 

Hex

Banned
Have everything installed via Steam and patched, will get online this weekend for the and get in touch with the Gaffers.
Looking forward to it.
Will use laptop until I have time to put together the desktop parts still sitting in the newegg box.
 

Walshicus

Member
Have everything installed via Steam and patched, will get online this weekend for the and get in touch with the Gaffers.
Looking forward to it.
Will use laptop until I have time to put together the desktop parts still sitting in the newegg box.

Let us know your character@account name and we'll invite you in. :)

See Baskcm has already got an invite!
 

Baskcm

Member
Yeah thanks.for the invite put some assets towards the starbase.

Also looking forward to doing some things with you guys with my ship
 

Walshicus

Member
What's this news about lockboxes going away?

Does that mean no more dominion ships?

It means that Dominion lockboxes will stop being *generated* by the game. There will still be a huge supply of them on the exchange and in player banks and inventories.

What might be a good idea is to save up unused bank space with cheaply bought lockboxes. Don't pay more than about 2,000 EC for any set of 20. In a few months time as the supply dwindles, the price will go up and you can sell for a lot more money.
 
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