The next quest in line "skirmish" starts at level 11. Basically it's not always a smooth leveling experience in STO. Basically when you hail Star Fleet you'll see a tab up top that says "episode". Click on that and you'll see the story line progression and the level that's needed for the next episode up. You should be really close to 11 if you're not there... basically do something (I forget if you can Duty Officer Missions at 10) or go back and do a quick patrol or replay mission (a mission in a system you've already done or on the same episode tab you'll be able to replay a mission if it's eligable)
I'm sorry I can't open a new thread to ask a question, but here goes: I opened my newly obtained officers package for Vice Admiral. I couldn't figure out how to use it and closed it thinking I could re-open it later to work on getting my new officers. Well, it dissapeared! Is there any way to get that back?
I'm also not sure why my avatar says "ensign" instead of my rank of VA, and why I can't open new threads yet. I thought the required time spent was referring to the game.
I'm sorry I can't open a new thread to ask a question, but here goes: I opened my newly obtained officers package for Vice Admiral. I couldn't figure out how to use it and closed it thinking I could re-open it later to work on getting my new officers. Well, it dissapeared! Is there any way to get that back?
I'm also not sure why my avatar says "ensign" instead of my rank of VA, and why I can't open new threads yet. I thought the required time spent was referring to the game.
Thanks in Advance
Lets start with your second question... Avatars are messed up... don't worry about it.
As to the offier package... those are DOffs (Duty Officers) not BOffs (Bridge Officers) since they come in a pack and will show up on the Duty Officer menu (look at your compass bottom, and you'll see three heads... those are the Duty Officer Section. They'll be listed under roster and used to do a mini-game that gets you some stuff like exp or they can be used to boost certain skills and powers by making them "active". You can "activate" 5 ground and 5 space, but then they're not eligable for "DOffing"... the mini-game.
When I went to the shipyard after the promotion level. The 3 ships cost 500 zen, no option to get them for free.
Another silly question, I seem to have acquired a few training manuals for my bridge crew, how do I use them.
You must be at a higher level because I think at VA they don't give you any more free ships, it's when Cryptic starts nickle and diming you for ships. There are a few missions however that'll give you a free T5 (tier 5) ship that you can use until you get up the cash/dilithium to get the zen if you care. Hey it's a free to play game, something is going to cost you.
Okay the training manuals... go to your Bridge Officer roster, view the Bridge Officer you want the manual to go onto, and you'll see the button to "learn" that skill. Press it and whamo the book disappears and that Bridge Officer learns it.
I'm sorry I can't open a new thread to ask a question, but here goes: I opened my newly obtained officers package for Vice Admiral. I couldn't figure out how to use it and closed it thinking I could re-open it later to work on getting my new officers. Well, it dissapeared! Is there any way to get that back?
I'm also not sure why my avatar says "ensign" instead of my rank of VA, and why I can't open new threads yet. I thought the required time spent was referring to the game.
Thanks in Advance
About your duty officer pack, did you double click it to close it? Or did you right-click and discard? In case of double clicking, the doffs are there. In case of discard.... they're gone forever.
And why your avatar says Ensign... thats your forum rank. As you make more posts you'll switch to Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander and Commander, to become a Captain at 500 posts. And the reason you can't open threads yet is that they cannot monitor ingame time, but they can monitor forum time. I think its 4 days of forum activity? Works awesomely to keep spam bots out.
When I went to the shipyard after the promotion level. The 3 ships cost 500 zen, no option to get them for free.
Another silly question, I seem to have acquired a few training manuals for my bridge crew, how do I use them.
You should get a free ship at level 10, 20, 30, and 40. Did you try searching in the ship vendor for ships of your ranki? In the top right corner you can select your rank, such as Commander or Vice Admiral.
To use a training manual, open up your status window (default U) and select the bridge officer you want to train. Go to skills. Go to the slot in which the skill belongs (for example, Beam: Fire at will II is a Lieutenant Space skill). There are greyed out skills, already learned skills and the skill you want to learn and for which you have a manual, the button learn. Click on it, and you're done.
Sorry - not sure if I'm supposed to start a new thread or just ask my question.
I've been trying to find the mission that gives just straight dilithium mine xp, but the only things I've been able to find give either trade or development xp. Where do I find the mission to raise my mine to tier 1? It's still sitting at tier 0.
Sorry - not sure if I'm supposed to start a new thread or just ask my question.
I've been trying to find the mission that gives just straight dilithium mine xp, but the only things I've been able to find give either trade or development xp. Where do I find the mission to raise my mine to tier 1? It's still sitting at tier 0.
you seem to have starbase xp confused with doff xp.
to increase starbase xp, you need to do starbase projects
Obligatory stupid question time: I'm a Tac captain buzzing around in an Escort, using the fun mishmash of junk acquired while leveling (still 56 or so, working on getting to 60) and I'm trying to decide on what weapons to use for a 'final' loadout. I'm trying to decide between Cannons and Beams and going back and forth on it. I could use some good pros and cons for both. Can anyone help me out?
That is the only one that exceeds warp 10. There are, as you noted, engines that also allow you to exceed warp 10, and several other items and doffs that modify transwarp and slipstream speeds.
However, warp speed is a factor of drive coil, so any warp core with the [coi] mod will give a warp speed boost.
Obligatory stupid question time: I'm a Tac captain buzzing around in an Escort, using the fun mishmash of junk acquired while leveling (still 56 or so, working on getting to 60) and I'm trying to decide on what weapons to use for a 'final' loadout. I'm trying to decide between Cannons and Beams and going back and forth on it. I could use some good pros and cons for both. Can anyone help me out?
At the moment, beam fire at will is the undisputed king of damage. "Beamscorts" have a long history going all the way back into beta and there are a few rather impressive ones out there, especially now with the omni beams to load up the rear slots. Antroton is the only one that can fit three rear omni beams (ancient, crafted and kinetic) all other damage types either much run a single turret or beam array or mine etc.
Cannons were vastly better back in 2012 and 2013. Today they are facing the dual issues of their arc of fire and reduced damage vs shields. Damage does drop off over distance more severely for cannons (starting at 5k vs 8k for beams) but this is not as severe as arc and shields. Dual heavy cannons get a free small crit damage bonus baked in that greatly helps and as a result pretty much all cannon builds assume that regular cannons and dual cannons don't exist and only dual heavy's are used. Given that beams (especially antiproton) are the flavor of the month, cannons can be a cheaper alternative (except do note that most days cannon upgrades are more expensive than beam upgrades). Also counter command reputation has a very nice "heavy turret" that helps cannon builds (only available in phaser and disruptor variations). Crafting also allows a single "wide arc" cannon.
Long a staple of PvP and fully viable in pve, there are (especially for romulan warbird and Klingon bird of prey) builds that use both. In particular a single dual beam battery and omni beam to deal full damage to shields (especially/combined with beam overload) then unloading with rapid fire or scatter volley for the kill once hull is exposed. The relatively recent changes to raiders giving a flanking damage bonus (and the space Intel specializations that do the same) work well with this build. This is my favorite.
From the point of view of "fun", beam builds are easier to keep all your weapons firing, but you have to mimick cruisers and keep your side pointing at the enemy. Cannons, reward the hit and run play style, especially effective with the cloaking damage bonus romulan bridge officers provide, or the exact opposite: they also reward the " park and fire while not moving at all" move. Cannons also synergize very nicely with the romulan singularity jump power as you fly right at the enemy drop a black hole in their face and cloak behind them where fewer guns are shooting you as you turn around for your next attack run. Beams work better with eject warp plasma as there you usually swerve in front of the enemy so they plow into the trail and thus your side is facing them at all times. Both equally synergize with gravity well.
In terms of abilities and build, beams draw power all across the firing cycle, thus keeping your weapon power up is more important/difficult especially noticeable for romulans. Cannons draw all power at the start of the cycle and often recover to full before the next volley making power considerations less severe.
When going cannons, many people overestimate the power of "cannon rapid fire". It is a strictly inferior niche power compared to scatter volley, and it does need a bit of a buff compared to the other main attack powers. Both powers increase damage, however rapid fire gives a bigger bonus while scatter allows you to shoot up to five enemies. At max, rapid fire gives +50% and scatter gives +25%. So if you were doing 500 damage with rapid fire that becomes 750 and with scatter it becomes 625 damage, a difference of only 17% if you shoot one enemy. Except this is really a full 625 each to 5 enemies for a potential total of 3,250. Due to cannons low arc of fire, this is usually only two or three enemies realistically, but gravity well helps quite a lot here. If you are really shooting only one enemy and never ever ever ever shooting two (only relevant for someone who does PvP and zero pve), get a ship like the phantom with Intel slots and run surgical strikes rather than rapid fire. Both rapid fire and scatter volley also increase the rate of fire and damage of your turrets. And both increase the chance for procs to go off (rapid fire does more since it hits multiple enemies).
Similarly, people underestimate beam fire at will vs one enemy. It increases the rate of fire globally, even with a single enemy it is a distinct damage increase, but also a proc increase due to more shots.
What are all of the cores to break warp 10.
I know some impulse engines will but I'm not interested in those just cores
Assimilated warp core
Is there any other warp/sing cores that cane break warp 10?
There are not warp/singularity cores which give you faster travel. It's solely Engines which do it. At present the Borg Assimilated Engine, the MACO Engine from Omega Reputation and Advanced/Elite Engines from a Fleet Base Store enable faster then Warp 10 speeds in Sector Space.
Does the stacking shield penetration for intel ships sensor ability apply to torpedoes?
Yes... but it's a bit wonky I haven't figured out the math fully. Basically because I'm using torps with secondary effects, I haven't figured out if the torp penetrates more then it should... or if the secondary effects are penetrting as well.
I know driver coil boosts warp speed but I thought it would not break warp 10 no matter how high your driver coil was
In slipstream the limit is removed and someone with a coil of 200 is faster than one with 85 (six ranks no items).
Also, if you have any of the above mentioned engines coil again increases speed.
If someone hits you with raiding party or diplomatic immmu ity, you break 10 and again coil matters.
All alone, no it is not enough while just flying around. Since you can get slipstream up ~80% of the time with the right build, coil is still relevant to this discussion.
Thank you, that pretty well covered what I was looking for. Still not entirely sure which route to go, but I'm starting to lean more towards Beams. I'd heard about the drop-off over distance, but hadn't seen the relative distances, and I didn't know about cannons having reduced damage against shields.
If I'm going to go flavor of the month and run Antiproton, with the crafted and Ancient Omni beams and a Kinetic Cutting in the back, that would eliminated the need to broadside, yes? If so, I'm thinking Dual Beam Banks in the front could be worth using. Any glaring reason not to, aside from the narrower arc?
(I'm plotting to do the whole craft at MK II and upgrade schtick, where applicable)
The triple-omni aft build will allow all your weapons to fire forward, yes (unless you're doing it on a cruiser with four aft slots, in which case you'll wind up with a single beam in the fourth aft that can't). Deciding between single and dual beams up front, I would say, is a function of the manueverability of the ship you are putting them on and your comfort level with the firing arc. If you feel comfortable with dual beams or a partial-dual partial-single build, do it. If you don't, then go with all singles.
Cool, I was worried there'd be some kind of big flashing neon NO! sign of a reason not to do it.
Not planning to use a Cruiser, unless I stumble on to one that speaks to me (or I feel like getting the Mastery thing on the Samsar). And if I do, I'd probably plug the 4th aft slot with something like Tractor mines or a Torpedo of some sort.
So quick question: are there any emotes other than the fan dance that need to be unlocked? I swear I saw someone doing the Party Rock Anthem dance in-game. Or was that just one of the dances that you used to be able to buy in the C-Store. If it is then
_____________________________________________________
Anyone want to give me a Temporal Heavy Dreadnought pack? I'll be your friend
Thank you, that pretty well covered what I was looking for. Still not entirely sure which route to go, but I'm starting to lean more towards Beams. I'd heard about the drop-off over distance, but hadn't seen the relative distances, and I didn't know about cannons having reduced damage against shields.
If I'm going to go flavor of the month and run Antiproton, with the crafted and Ancient Omni beams and a Kinetic Cutting in the back, that would eliminated the need to broadside, yes? If so, I'm thinking Dual Beam Banks in the front could be worth using. Any glaring reason not to, aside from the narrower arc?
(I'm plotting to do the whole craft at MK II and upgrade schtick, where applicable)
West got you covered. If you can get the triple Omni's for your rear arc dual beams up front works fine in escorts. As he mentioned, not as good for cruisers. Avoid voth antiproton's, they don't have the bonus crit damage.
A nice affordable (especially with the crystal event running) build will include the nukara deflector and shield and console. Adding the omega rep console to get a weapon power buff with the kinetic cutting beam also helps. Engine of choice is often fleet or maco, but I like the jemmy engine for free from the cardassian arc as it gives +5 weapon power.
So quick question: are there any emotes other than the fan dance that need to be unlocked? I swear I saw someone doing the Party Rock Anthem dance in-game. Or was that just one of the dances that you used to be able to buy in the C-Store. If it is then
Many.
Its a faaaaaaake only available for romulans after tradecraft mission
Samba and advanced samba only available during the summer event
Jester dance from a pre-order code no longer available
Shuffle dance from the GPL vendor (was free during first week of new club 47)
Vulcan meditation from mindscape mission
Air guitar, I dunno
Also, at least one dance (possibly 4) are only available from drinking nerve tonic and cannot be "unlocked" as such.
West got you covered. If you can get the triple Omni's for your rear arc dual beams up front works fine in escorts. As he mentioned, not as good for cruisers. Avoid voth antiproton's, they don't have the bonus crit damage.
A nice affordable (especially with the crystal event running) build will include the nukara deflector and shield and console. Adding the omega rep console to get a weapon power buff with the kinetic cutting beam also helps. Engine of choice is often fleet or maco, but I like the jemmy engine for free from the cardassian arc as it gives +5 weapon power.
I run my triple-omni builds with the Omega console as well (for the set bonus with the KCB) and, unless I have a better idea, the Obelisk warp core for the +10% AP damage set bonus.
Triple-omni is perfect for any ship with 3 aft weapons slots and no built-in weapon. Which includes most escorts, most science vessels, and a couple of cruisers. As mentioned, you can go with single or dual beams up front or a mixture of the two, entirely depending on your comfort level with your ship's turn rate and the narrow firing arc of duals. As long as they're all AP beams (so you can maximize the tac console boosts and tac BOFF skills), you'll do fine.
The Nukara, MACO, Kobali, Delta, Dyson, and I think Aegis (?) are the best shield/weapon/deflector sets from a survivability standpoint - all of them have at least two shield or hull boosters.
Thank you both for advice, especially on the non-weapon set stuff. I hadn't put much thought or research into those yet as I'd been focused on figuring out the weaponry.
I really need to work on my various Reps, I've barely gotten anywhere on most of them. Would that Solanae Deflector, Engine, Shield set from that one Dyson sphere mission be a good filler for now? The 3 piece bonus with the self heal chance on energy weapon hit seems tempting
Comments
Thank you very much I'll keep an eye on that
I'm also not sure why my avatar says "ensign" instead of my rank of VA, and why I can't open new threads yet. I thought the required time spent was referring to the game.
Thanks in Advance
Another silly question, I seem to have acquired a few training manuals for my bridge crew, how do I use them.
Lets start with your second question... Avatars are messed up... don't worry about it.
As to the offier package... those are DOffs (Duty Officers) not BOffs (Bridge Officers) since they come in a pack and will show up on the Duty Officer menu (look at your compass bottom, and you'll see three heads... those are the Duty Officer Section. They'll be listed under roster and used to do a mini-game that gets you some stuff like exp or they can be used to boost certain skills and powers by making them "active". You can "activate" 5 ground and 5 space, but then they're not eligable for "DOffing"... the mini-game.
You must be at a higher level because I think at VA they don't give you any more free ships, it's when Cryptic starts nickle and diming you for ships. There are a few missions however that'll give you a free T5 (tier 5) ship that you can use until you get up the cash/dilithium to get the zen if you care. Hey it's a free to play game, something is going to cost you.
Okay the training manuals... go to your Bridge Officer roster, view the Bridge Officer you want the manual to go onto, and you'll see the button to "learn" that skill. Press it and whamo the book disappears and that Bridge Officer learns it.
About your duty officer pack, did you double click it to close it? Or did you right-click and discard? In case of double clicking, the doffs are there. In case of discard.... they're gone forever.
And why your avatar says Ensign... thats your forum rank. As you make more posts you'll switch to Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander and Commander, to become a Captain at 500 posts. And the reason you can't open threads yet is that they cannot monitor ingame time, but they can monitor forum time. I think its 4 days of forum activity? Works awesomely to keep spam bots out.
You should get a free ship at level 10, 20, 30, and 40. Did you try searching in the ship vendor for ships of your ranki? In the top right corner you can select your rank, such as Commander or Vice Admiral.
To use a training manual, open up your status window (default U) and select the bridge officer you want to train. Go to skills. Go to the slot in which the skill belongs (for example, Beam: Fire at will II is a Lieutenant Space skill). There are greyed out skills, already learned skills and the skill you want to learn and for which you have a manual, the button learn. Click on it, and you're done.
Join the Deltas today!
I've been trying to find the mission that gives just straight dilithium mine xp, but the only things I've been able to find give either trade or development xp. Where do I find the mission to raise my mine to tier 1? It's still sitting at tier 0.
to increase starbase xp, you need to do starbase projects
My character Tsin'xing
of the actual cores, the Tal Shiar Adapted Borg Warp Core is the only one I can think of. I'm pretty sure that's limited to 2 ships.
I believe you are thinking of the http://sto.gamepedia.com/Tal_Shiar_Adapted_Borg_Warp_Core.
That is the only one that exceeds warp 10. There are, as you noted, engines that also allow you to exceed warp 10, and several other items and doffs that modify transwarp and slipstream speeds.
However, warp speed is a factor of drive coil, so any warp core with the [coi] mod will give a warp speed boost.
At the moment, beam fire at will is the undisputed king of damage. "Beamscorts" have a long history going all the way back into beta and there are a few rather impressive ones out there, especially now with the omni beams to load up the rear slots. Antroton is the only one that can fit three rear omni beams (ancient, crafted and kinetic) all other damage types either much run a single turret or beam array or mine etc.
Cannons were vastly better back in 2012 and 2013. Today they are facing the dual issues of their arc of fire and reduced damage vs shields. Damage does drop off over distance more severely for cannons (starting at 5k vs 8k for beams) but this is not as severe as arc and shields. Dual heavy cannons get a free small crit damage bonus baked in that greatly helps and as a result pretty much all cannon builds assume that regular cannons and dual cannons don't exist and only dual heavy's are used. Given that beams (especially antiproton) are the flavor of the month, cannons can be a cheaper alternative (except do note that most days cannon upgrades are more expensive than beam upgrades). Also counter command reputation has a very nice "heavy turret" that helps cannon builds (only available in phaser and disruptor variations). Crafting also allows a single "wide arc" cannon.
Long a staple of PvP and fully viable in pve, there are (especially for romulan warbird and Klingon bird of prey) builds that use both. In particular a single dual beam battery and omni beam to deal full damage to shields (especially/combined with beam overload) then unloading with rapid fire or scatter volley for the kill once hull is exposed. The relatively recent changes to raiders giving a flanking damage bonus (and the space Intel specializations that do the same) work well with this build. This is my favorite.
From the point of view of "fun", beam builds are easier to keep all your weapons firing, but you have to mimick cruisers and keep your side pointing at the enemy. Cannons, reward the hit and run play style, especially effective with the cloaking damage bonus romulan bridge officers provide, or the exact opposite: they also reward the " park and fire while not moving at all" move. Cannons also synergize very nicely with the romulan singularity jump power as you fly right at the enemy drop a black hole in their face and cloak behind them where fewer guns are shooting you as you turn around for your next attack run. Beams work better with eject warp plasma as there you usually swerve in front of the enemy so they plow into the trail and thus your side is facing them at all times. Both equally synergize with gravity well.
In terms of abilities and build, beams draw power all across the firing cycle, thus keeping your weapon power up is more important/difficult especially noticeable for romulans. Cannons draw all power at the start of the cycle and often recover to full before the next volley making power considerations less severe.
When going cannons, many people overestimate the power of "cannon rapid fire". It is a strictly inferior niche power compared to scatter volley, and it does need a bit of a buff compared to the other main attack powers. Both powers increase damage, however rapid fire gives a bigger bonus while scatter allows you to shoot up to five enemies. At max, rapid fire gives +50% and scatter gives +25%. So if you were doing 500 damage with rapid fire that becomes 750 and with scatter it becomes 625 damage, a difference of only 17% if you shoot one enemy. Except this is really a full 625 each to 5 enemies for a potential total of 3,250. Due to cannons low arc of fire, this is usually only two or three enemies realistically, but gravity well helps quite a lot here. If you are really shooting only one enemy and never ever ever ever shooting two (only relevant for someone who does PvP and zero pve), get a ship like the phantom with Intel slots and run surgical strikes rather than rapid fire. Both rapid fire and scatter volley also increase the rate of fire and damage of your turrets. And both increase the chance for procs to go off (rapid fire does more since it hits multiple enemies).
Similarly, people underestimate beam fire at will vs one enemy. It increases the rate of fire globally, even with a single enemy it is a distinct damage increase, but also a proc increase due to more shots.
There are not warp/singularity cores which give you faster travel. It's solely Engines which do it. At present the Borg Assimilated Engine, the MACO Engine from Omega Reputation and Advanced/Elite Engines from a Fleet Base Store enable faster then Warp 10 speeds in Sector Space.
Yes... but it's a bit wonky I haven't figured out the math fully. Basically because I'm using torps with secondary effects, I haven't figured out if the torp penetrates more then it should... or if the secondary effects are penetrting as well.
In slipstream the limit is removed and someone with a coil of 200 is faster than one with 85 (six ranks no items).
Also, if you have any of the above mentioned engines coil again increases speed.
If someone hits you with raiding party or diplomatic immmu ity, you break 10 and again coil matters.
All alone, no it is not enough while just flying around. Since you can get slipstream up ~80% of the time with the right build, coil is still relevant to this discussion.
Thank you, that pretty well covered what I was looking for. Still not entirely sure which route to go, but I'm starting to lean more towards Beams. I'd heard about the drop-off over distance, but hadn't seen the relative distances, and I didn't know about cannons having reduced damage against shields.
If I'm going to go flavor of the month and run Antiproton, with the crafted and Ancient Omni beams and a Kinetic Cutting in the back, that would eliminated the need to broadside, yes? If so, I'm thinking Dual Beam Banks in the front could be worth using. Any glaring reason not to, aside from the narrower arc?
(I'm plotting to do the whole craft at MK II and upgrade schtick, where applicable)
Cool, I was worried there'd be some kind of big flashing neon NO! sign of a reason not to do it.
Not planning to use a Cruiser, unless I stumble on to one that speaks to me (or I feel like getting the Mastery thing on the Samsar). And if I do, I'd probably plug the 4th aft slot with something like Tractor mines or a Torpedo of some sort.
Anyone want to give me a Temporal Heavy Dreadnought pack? I'll be your friend
West got you covered. If you can get the triple Omni's for your rear arc dual beams up front works fine in escorts. As he mentioned, not as good for cruisers. Avoid voth antiproton's, they don't have the bonus crit damage.
A nice affordable (especially with the crystal event running) build will include the nukara deflector and shield and console. Adding the omega rep console to get a weapon power buff with the kinetic cutting beam also helps. Engine of choice is often fleet or maco, but I like the jemmy engine for free from the cardassian arc as it gives +5 weapon power.
Many.
Its a faaaaaaake only available for romulans after tradecraft mission
Samba and advanced samba only available during the summer event
Jester dance from a pre-order code no longer available
Shuffle dance from the GPL vendor (was free during first week of new club 47)
Vulcan meditation from mindscape mission
Air guitar, I dunno
Also, at least one dance (possibly 4) are only available from drinking nerve tonic and cannot be "unlocked" as such.
@ Westmetals: Aegis is a hardcore tanking set.
My character Tsin'xing
Thank you both for advice, especially on the non-weapon set stuff. I hadn't put much thought or research into those yet as I'd been focused on figuring out the weaponry.
I really need to work on my various Reps, I've barely gotten anywhere on most of them. Would that Solanae Deflector, Engine, Shield set from that one Dyson sphere mission be a good filler for now? The 3 piece bonus with the self heal chance on energy weapon hit seems tempting