Help a returning member..

elchup47 · October 2016

Haven't played in 2-3 years, mainly since just after the New Romulus update. I'm not looking to come back full time like I was then, but I am interested to play the story missions that have debuted since I left. I understand that there are now more missions all over. Nimbus III, the Iconians, Agents of Yesterday and so on. But my ship and gear is old and I am probably no longer at max rank.

Anyone got any tips on how to pick up again? Right now it'll just be on a F2P basis. Are the new missions dependant on having a certain quality of gear?

mustrumridcully0 · October 2016

How well equipped were yo before, and how good where you at the game? If you had no trouble in PvE before, you might find the challenge level to be increased as you start getting deeper into Delta Rising and the Iconian War, but nothing impossible.

The good news is - if you had decent gear (like good weapons and consoles, some set items), you can keep using them and just need to upgrade them at some point. Upgrade Kits (Superior Kits recommended) can be crafted or bought from the Exchange. The first thing to upgrade is probably quite simply the weapons.

Some important changes for you:

A new skill system. Your skills will be resetted. The system should not be too complicated to figure out. General advice - 1 point in any of those 3-skill nodes is probably never really wasted, and you don't need to try to go for the Ultimates- they are nice, but they require almost total dedication into one tree, and you're missing out a lot in other areas.
Trait Revamp means you'll probably have more traits then you had before - but you must still slot them.
Bridge Officer System Revamp: Your bridge officers keep the skills you trained them now, you have to configure which ones have to be active, but it should make things a lot easier for you. You might want to head to the BOFF trainer and train a pair of every class into most of the skills so you can adjust your skills easily when switching ships and experimenting with builds.
Specializations comes in two aspects
- New Bridge Officer Powers. Not all Specs have them. Your ship needs a special hybrid seat to be able to use them.(for example. Lt.Cmdr Tactica|Intel for Intel powers). Such seats exist only on Tier 6 ships, so eventually you will want one. But Winter is coming. Before a Bridge officer can be trained in such a power, he needs to consume a Qualification Training Manual.
- Specializations are also an endgame "skill system". You can have one primary and secondary active, but you can master all the specializations eventually. That also means - no respeccing of specializations.
The new Crafting System also introduced new crafting materials. Double click on your old ones to transform them into the new materials. TO train up your crafting without needing to produce stuff, there is a special Research skill at the end of the list for each Crafting category. You can slot this up to 3 times per school. Level 15 in a category unlocks a new trait and access to any speciality gear from crafting, plus Superior Upgrade Kits for that category, beyond Level 15 just boosts your success chance. There is a special school reserved for crafting training manuals, any manual you unlocked for training can be crafted there. (You don't need a level for that.)

If you feel you have forgotten how the game is played, consider making a new character. Maybe one of those Agents of Yesterday, so you have a new tutorial/early game. Once you arrive in the 25th century, it's like a regular Fed characters, but with some TOS visuals and sounds. But a lot of the early missions have now also been revamped, so it might feel a bit new, too.

fluorescentblack · October 2016

As mentioned I would roll a new character until you feel comfortable switching to an old one. The game does a good job of introducing abilities. Once you are level 10 and if you are fast or patient enough to get there you can do random encounters and level pretty fast. After the encounter ends if available change instance to another right away and you can gain levels really fast.

Episode replay Is also good. I would recommend playing on Advanced mode or higher as normal will not give good feedback on your ship setup.

elchup47 · October 2016

fluorescentblack wrote: »

As mentioned I would roll a new character until you feel comfortable switching to an old one. The game does a good job of introducing abilities. Once you are level 10 and if you are fast or patient enough to get there you can do random encounters and level pretty fast. After the encounter ends if available change instance to another right away and you can gain levels really fast.

Episode replay Is also good. I would recommend playing on Advanced mode or higher as normal will not give good feedback on your ship setup.

Is Agents of Yesterday a new faction? Maybe I should try a new toon on that?

elchup47 · October 2016

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

How well equipped were yo before, and how good where you at the game? If you had no trouble in PvE before, you might find the challenge level to be increased as you start getting deeper into Delta Rising and the Iconian War, but nothing impossible.

The good news is - if you had decent gear (like good weapons and consoles, some set items), you can keep using them and just need to upgrade them at some point. Upgrade Kits (Superior Kits recommended) can be crafted or bought from the Exchange. The first thing to upgrade is probably quite simply the weapons.

Some important changes for you:
A new skill system. Your skills will be resetted. The system should not be too complicated to figure out. General advice - 1 point in any of those 3-skill nodes is probably never really wasted, and you don't need to try to go for the Ultimates- they are nice, but they require almost total dedication into one tree, and you're missing out a lot in other areas.

Trait Revamp means you'll probably have more traits then you had before - but you must still slot them.

Bridge Officer System Revamp: Your bridge officers keep the skills you trained them now, you have to configure which ones have to be active, but it should make things a lot easier for you. You might want to head to the BOFF trainer and train a pair of every class into most of the skills so you can adjust your skills easily when switching ships and experimenting with builds.

Specializations comes in two aspects
New Bridge Officer Powers. Not all Specs have them. Your ship needs a special hybrid seat to be able to use them.(for example. Lt.Cmdr Tactica|Intel for Intel powers). Such seats exist only on Tier 6 ships, so eventually you will want one. But Winter is coming. Before a Bridge officer can be trained in such a power, he needs to consume a Qualification Training Manual.

Specializations are also an endgame "skill system". You can have one primary and secondary active, but you can master all the specializations eventually. That also means - no respeccing of specializations.

The new Crafting System also introduced new crafting materials. Double click on your old ones to transform them into the new materials. TO train up your crafting without needing to produce stuff, there is a special Research skill at the end of the list for each Crafting category. You can slot this up to 3 times per school. Level 15 in a category unlocks a new trait and access to any speciality gear from crafting, plus Superior Upgrade Kits for that category, beyond Level 15 just boosts your success chance. There is a special school reserved for crafting training manuals, any manual you unlocked for training can be crafted there. (You don't need a level for that.)

If you feel you have forgotten how the game is played, consider making a new character. Maybe one of those Agents of Yesterday, so you have a new tutorial/early game. Once you arrive in the 25th century, it's like a regular Fed characters, but with some TOS visuals and sounds. But a lot of the early missions have now also been revamped, so it might feel a bit new, too.

Wow, what a great post. Thanks.

fluorescentblack · October 2016

Elchup I am uncertain as I am only on PS4 atm and Agents is not on it. It has been about 8 months since I have been on PC and will probably be a few more yet.

elchup47 · October 2016

fluorescentblack wrote: »

Elchup I am uncertain as I am only on PS4 atm and Agents is not on it. It has been about 8 months since I have been on PC and will probably be a few more yet.

How is the console experience working out? Can you use your existing characters?

mustrumridcully0 · October 2016

elchup47 wrote: »

fluorescentblack wrote: »

Elchup I am uncertain as I am only on PS4 atm and Agents is not on it. It has been about 8 months since I have been on PC and will probably be a few more yet.

How is the console experience working out? Can you use your existing characters?

No, every platform - X-Box, PS4 and PC - are seperate. Not only can you not use existing characters, you basically have separate accounts, so you also don't carry over C-Store purchases, subscriptions or anything else over.

aksuperdually · October 2016

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

elchup47 wrote: »

fluorescentblack wrote: »

Elchup I am uncertain as I am only on PS4 atm and Agents is not on it. It has been about 8 months since I have been on PC and will probably be a few more yet.

How is the console experience working out? Can you use your existing characters?

No, every platform - X-Box, PS4 and PC - are seperate. Not only can you not use existing characters, you basically have separate accounts, so you also don't carry over C-Store purchases, subscriptions or anything else over.

Thank you, I've been looking for the answer to this question. Just finished downloading to my Xbox, and was really dissapointed to find this out.

ghostrider2416 · October 2016

Xbox 1/ if i have 5 more active ship slots (as i have) where does teir 2 ship go? How can i access it? Very confusingly frustrating. Deleted first character and started over. made rank ten once again. I dare not select free reward ship again until i know more. please help!

antonine3258 · October 2016

elchup47 wrote: »

fluorescentblack wrote: »

As mentioned I would roll a new character until you feel comfortable switching to an old one. The game does a good job of introducing abilities. Once you are level 10 and if you are fast or patient enough to get there you can do random encounters and level pretty fast. After the encounter ends if available change instance to another right away and you can gain levels really fast.

Episode replay Is also good. I would recommend playing on Advanced mode or higher as normal will not give good feedback on your ship setup.

Is Agents of Yesterday a new faction? Maybe I should try a new toon on that?

Sort of - they get a different tutorial experience, and some different effects (different tricorder, communicator, and beam-out emotes) along with a different starter ship, but they mostly utilize, and act within, the Starfleet mission set. The missions are probably worth playing through so the 'Yesterday's War' and the last part of 'Future Proof' arcs make sense (there's one moment in Ragnarok that pretty much only makes sense if you've played Return to Babel).

noroblad · October 2016

The areas past the level 50 content can be very challenging to someone with low end gear. Many, many threads on here when those areas launched about how it was unpossible to kill anything ever, and much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Its hard to put a finger on what you need in a verbal sense, but one of the things you will need going forward is a decent amount of dps and durability. There are people who can do STFs solo in less than 60 seconds. You do not need *that* level of gear and build and ship to do anything. There are people that can spend 2 hours to kill 1 ship in the new areas ... you need to be somewhere between the two extremes. If it seems like fights are way, way too hard, then you will need more stuff or a better setup -- that is about the best I can explain it. If it feels like fights are too easy, you are in good shape.

Help a returning member..

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