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Priority One Podcast - EP 174 - Fluid Dynamics

elijahmreelijahmre Member Posts: 195 Arc User
Greetings, Captains! You're listening to Episode 174 of Priority One Podcast, the premier Star Trek Online podcast! This episode was recorded on Thursday, May 15th, 2014 and published on Monday, May 19th, 2014 at PriorityOnePodcast.com!

Happy Monday, Captains! In episode 174 of Priority One Podcast, Jayce, CookieCupcakes, and Elijah dive in to Fluidic Space with Visualization Scientist & Priority One’s Science Advisor, Dr. Robert Hurt. In STONews, the Ferengi cup overfloweth with Lobi with a featured episode rerun, new literary challenges, changes to weapons, and a new parties on Risa. Later, in our Community Spotlight segment, ChivalryBean returns with his Foundry Officer’s Report and a review of Brothers of Man by gwalchavad. And of course as always, we’ll open hailing frequencies and see what’s incoming from you — our listeners.

Topics Discussed

This week's Community Question
  • Do you use mines as a weapon on your starship? How do you think the new [RADIUS] modifier will affect the mines?
  • NO MORE TRADEABLE NERVE TONIC?!?! Will you quit STO?

Let us know YOUR thoughts by commenting below!
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Comments

  • chalpenchalpen Member Posts: 2,207 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Your podcasts need more cookie whine.
    That nerve tonic rant was pretty funny
    Should I start posting again after all this time?
  • platewearingbirdplatewearingbird Member Posts: 455 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Who needs mines when there's the KCB and turrets?

    The only good mine was the transphasic cluster torp and Cryptic nerfed then ignored it.

    Nothing's more useless than a weapon that sits and waits for something to be stupid enough to run into it.
  • orangeitisorangeitis Member Posts: 5,222 Arc User
    edited May 2014
  • azurianstarazurianstar Member Posts: 6,985 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Nice study on Fluidic space. Interesting to think of it as artificially made. But, I think it's better off as just being another universe. That way it opens up more possibilities of "what else lies in fluidic space?"

    NO MORE TRADEABLE NERVE TONIC?!?! Will you quit STO?

    Guess Nerve Tonic is OP, so they had to nerf. Stuff must be stronger than Romulan Ale. :P

    Do you use mines as a weapon on your starship? How do you think the new [RADIUS] modifier will affect the mines?

    Simple answer: No and No.

    Mines in STO never impressed me as an weapon. They are far too limiting and their damage is no better is if I used a regular torpedo. The only time I ever used mines, was in the old STF days when we dropped Tricobalt mines outside the Transwarp Gates and the Borg flew right into them as they spawned. However, since they did that torpedo / mine pass a few years ago, the old Breen Cluster Torpedo became a nice weapon to have.

    That's why I don't see adding a Radius will make them any better. Their explosive yield is not large enough to do any real damage and they are rendered useless with all these AoE abilities.
  • rinksterrinkster Member Posts: 3,549 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I do sometimes use mines on cruisers.

    I often find myself in fleet actions attempting to control an area.

    Slowly filling it up with mines works for me.
  • azurianstarazurianstar Member Posts: 6,985 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Elijah, thank you to ask Geko the next time you talk to him is when they are going to address the UI bugs that's plaguing STO?"
  • elijahmreelijahmre Member Posts: 195 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Cookie and Skiffy have been doing some research on the topic. Hopefully, they'll have some tips on this next episode.
  • kazamiyukarinkazamiyukarin Member Posts: 158 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Hi guys! Great job as always! I always enjoy listening to you.

    Unlike many others, I love love love my mines. I find them to be very useful, especially after you've taken out a shield facing. Often times when fighting, I fire a whole minetrap and then lure attacking ships into it. I for one am glad to see a radius modifier because I always thought that the range of mines was at an odd distance and I always wished that it was an even 0.5km. However, only seeing them on bio-molecular mines saddens me, and I hope that they will add them to other types of mines. This modifier will definitely make my gameplay against the Undine easier, but unless they add it to other types of mines, I don't think that the modifier is useful in the long run. Mines are not very popular and adding an (arguably) useful modifier to only one type of them will not help much.

    As for nerve tonic, I never really cared for it lol.
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  • tacofangstacofangs Member Posts: 2,951 Cryptic Developer
    edited May 2014
    Re: Performance, there were changes made to the graphics settings defaults. Especially for higher end cards. If you have a high end card, your draw distance default is now twice what it used to be.
    I don't think that accounts for everything you guys have been seeing, but PLEASE double check your graphics settings, and if you have poor performance, lower them some.
    Only YOU can prevent forum fires!
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  • thetaninethetanine Member Posts: 1,367 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    tacofangs wrote: »
    Re: Performance, there were changes made to the graphics settings defaults. Especially for higher end cards. If you have a high end card, your draw distance default is now twice what it used to be.
    I don't think that accounts for everything you guys have been seeing, but PLEASE double check your graphics settings, and if you have poor performance, lower them some.

    When S9 first opened on Holodeck, my machine had a very dramatic decrease in framerate. However, I have left all the settings maxed out, as they always were. In the time since, my framerate has restored itself to an average of 60fps all the time now.

    I saw a post about there being "junk" in the code that was making our video cards work overtime. Is this true? Was the junk taken out?

    The only change I made to the graphics settings was to uncap the framerate. I don't know why that was set to begin with.

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  • overlapooverlapo Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    tacofangs wrote: »
    Re: Performance, there were changes made to the graphics settings defaults. Especially for higher end cards. If you have a high end card, your draw distance default is now twice what it used to be.
    I don't think that accounts for everything you guys have been seeing, but PLEASE double check your graphics settings, and if you have poor performance, lower them some.

    With Dynamic Lightning on the Undine Battlezone becomes a slideshow. With it in off it is completely smooth and performance problems free. I don't think the drawing distance is doing that.
    Other than that the only other graphic issue I have seen is the fact that the game now prioritizes the other player's GFX (weapons firing, powers, so on) over mine making my weapons invisible in a busy area.
  • futurepastnowfuturepastnow Member Posts: 3,660 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I had terrible performance until I turned shadow quality down to Low. That's with a Radeon 5850, fwiw. Could run it on high before S9, so they definitely changed something for the worse.
  • aelfwin1aelfwin1 Member Posts: 2,896 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    elijahmre wrote: »
    This week's Community Question

    NO MORE TRADEABLE NERVE TONIC?!?! Will you quit STO ?

    Over this ?
    No ... , but ... this just got added to the list of pointless changes that someone at Cryptic thought of , someone discussed it with someone else and then the decision was made to implement (and/or put on the schedule) .
    I mean seriously -- who sits around thinking : well I'm gonna make them grind for every dance they dance ... -- and they will have only once dance at a party !!!
    (who does that without twirling their mustache and going "Mu-Ha-Ha-Ha" ?? :()

    The other things of this "caliber" I consider :

    - The removal of the ability to fly around Earth . No more "I can see my house from here" moments for you -- those were clearly OP .
    - The removal of the ability to rotate your toon in the character selection screen . Now you can only zoom in-out . What , did that make too many ppl stare mesmerized at their characters too long -- instead of logging in and grinding ?
    - And ... then new Drozana maybe ? Just maybe ... .

    Anyhow .. good job CookieCupcakes .
    It's nice that some ppl see the little changes that are not player friendly and not just the major ones .

    tacofangs wrote: »
    I don't think that accounts for everything you guys have been seeing, but PLEASE double check your graphics settings, and if you have poor performance, lower them some.

    Most players didn't need to "boost performance" until New Romulus came around .
    Many grudgingly accepted that , because we understood that a large map like that had it's own demands .
    Nothing we've heard so far explained the "need" for what you call "changes to the graphics settings defaults" -- but what many have called ... -- well imagine a few colorful metaphors .

    The Season 9 graphics "upgrade" was not needed . Or it was needed and it's really-really not working as intended (according to the FPS loss & weapons fire disappearance that players are reporting) .
    Either way , turning around and putting the issue at our feet and asking us to make changes based on Cryptic's usual "performance" (push out half baked stuff , iron out the bugs later ... maybe ... if there is time ...) -- this development practice is becoming nauseating .

    You guys at Cryptic may be PWE's new "research and development" arm , but we -- your players didn't sign up for that job , and it's time someone at Cryptic took notice of that .
    We're not your labrats thank you very much !
  • azurianstarazurianstar Member Posts: 6,985 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Yeah, there was a noticeable change in Video Card performance with Season 9's launch. From what I hear it's mostly those with NVIDIA cards. While it's smoother now, there is some still noticeable bumps in the road where STO suddenly freezes and blacksreens for a few seconds, then resumes like nothing happened.
    elijahmre wrote: »
    Cookie and Skiffy have been doing some research on the topic. Hopefully, they'll have some tips on this next episode.

    Good to hear.
  • dragonsbrethrendragonsbrethren Member Posts: 1,854 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    tacofangs wrote: »
    Re: Performance, there were changes made to the graphics settings defaults. Especially for higher end cards. If you have a high end card, your draw distance default is now twice what it used to be.
    I don't think that accounts for everything you guys have been seeing, but PLEASE double check your graphics settings, and if you have poor performance, lower them some.

    Just for clarification, are you saying the defaults are now set higher, or that the settings themselves have changed? As in, was "high" on the old settings now closer to "medium" on the new ones? If so, that would definitely explain the people who claim they can no longer "max" the game, since max is now higher.

    It doesn't explain the people with all their settings on low that are still experiencing issues, though. I personally run a low end system and haven't had any new framerate issues. but others don't seem to be so fortunate.
    Yeah, there was a noticeable change in Video Card performance with Season 9's launch. From what I hear it's mostly those with NVIDIA cards. While it's smoother now, there is some still noticeable bumps in the road where STO suddenly freezes and blacksreens for a few seconds, then resumes like nothing happened.

    I'm on a low end, pretty old by tech standards nVidia card (GT 240) and haven't had any new issues, as I mentioned. That said, I've been lazy and haven't updated my drivers in forever now.
  • tacofangstacofangs Member Posts: 2,951 Cryptic Developer
    edited May 2014
    If you use the sliders, Max will have higher settings and be more intensive than it was previously.
    Only YOU can prevent forum fires!
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  • azurianstarazurianstar Member Posts: 6,985 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    tacofangs wrote: »
    If you use the sliders, Max will have higher settings and be more intensive than it was previously.

    "More intensive?" You mean turn it from Star Trek to Abrams Star Trek, complete with lense flares? :P
  • captfabulouscaptfabulous Member Posts: 292 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    My only significant gripe with the changes is that very often in STF battles my weapon VFX will disappear, making it difficult to know exactly what I'm doing, or if I'm doing anything at all. I've gone thru all the settings, played around with lowering a few, but didn't see any improvement. I was really looking for something that controlled the amount of effects, or effect draw distance or something that might control the display of visual effects, but there doesn't seem to be an option for that. So I'm not really sure if the problem is on our end.
  • edited May 2014
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  • darknessmutadarknessmuta Member Posts: 187 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    My only significant gripe with the changes is that very often in STF battles my weapon VFX will disappear, making it difficult to know exactly what I'm doing, or if I'm doing anything at all. I've gone thru all the settings, played around with lowering a few, but didn't see any improvement. I was really looking for something that controlled the amount of effects, or effect draw distance or something that might control the display of visual effects, but there doesn't seem to be an option for that. So I'm not really sure if the problem is on our end.

    This happens pretty much anywhere now if your ship is attacking something that is not on the same plane as it, so 99% of the time it seems. It is really annoying since there are times I cannot tell when my ship has stopped shooting unless I move the camera around to an angle where the attacks are visible or just keep mashing the spacebar.
  • zathri83zathri83 Member Posts: 514 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    The pvpers couldn't adapt to nerve tonic. :confused:
  • adorkabledoriadorkabledori Member Posts: 237 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    tacofangs wrote: »
    Re: Performance, there were changes made to the graphics settings defaults. Especially for higher end cards. If you have a high end card, your draw distance default is now twice what it used to be.
    I don't think that accounts for everything you guys have been seeing, but PLEASE double check your graphics settings, and if you have poor performance, lower them some.

    If the new graphical settings finally will be saving like it should to, then I will check it. In case you haven't noticed it yet, those settings ain't saving at all. :mad:

    Oh, quick remark on Fluidic Space. It's equal to not moving it all, and sitting around as a duck. Geezes, can you exaggerate more with those cheesy sticky sperm balls.
  • orangeitisorangeitis Member Posts: 5,222 Arc User
    edited May 2014
  • philosopherephilosophere Member Posts: 607 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    tacofangs wrote: »
    Re: Performance, there were changes made to the graphics settings defaults. Especially for higher end cards. If you have a high end card, your draw distance default is now twice what it used to be.
    I don't think that accounts for everything you guys have been seeing, but PLEASE double check your graphics settings, and if you have poor performance, lower them some.

    Thanks Taco!

    Following your instructions, dialed back all three detail distance settings to medium and it has indeed made a difference (fps). On ESD, dialed them further back to low and even better.

    Is it possible that the change(s) you indicated have had more far reaching effects than was intended? Misplaced decimal point or the like? If you could poke the appropriate Dev(s) it would be greatly appreciated by all us experiencing these graphic issues which have taken some of the luster off the great work you all have done in S9.

    :)

    PS. If someone there could drop us a line in the Graphical and Sound Issues it would be greatly appreciated by myself and the rest of the kids.... if I may suggest here would be a great place to start. :D
    Are we there yet?
  • warmaker001bwarmaker001b Member Posts: 9,205 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Do you use mines as a weapon on your starship? How do you think the new [RADIUS] modifier will affect the mines?

    In very, very rare instances do I ever use mines and only on very specific builds. The only mines I consider valid for general use are:

    Transphasic Mines as part of a Transphasic Torpedo Boat (since "Transphasic Projectile" boosts both the torpedo and mines, crucial with the Breen Cluster usage... so might as well use Transphasic Mines also).

    Nukara Web Mines: For very high Aux running ships, and even then, only if it can do DPB2 or DPB3 and whatnot.

    Other than that, even with the [RADIUS] mod, everything else is still too situational. Unless you're attacking one of the very few non-shielded things in this game like a Borg Gate, the use of Projectiles (which are what Mines & Torps fall under) are easily negated / overly mitigated by any sliver of Shields since they absorb something like a ridiculous 80% of the damage. PVP or PVE. Mines from Photons, Tricobalts, Quantums, Plasma? Useless. The faintest presence of shields on a facing these things hit will render their damage pointless. Even the Omega Kinetic Shearing will mean nothing since the trait only calculates damage that gets to the hull... so if the shields negate at least 3/4 of the damage, and only uses 40% of the bleedthru damage, they are all pointless.

    Lastly: A major concern regarding mines is that the fast moving nature of today's STO means fast ships outrunning mines. Laying down a net of mines means nothing. The [RADIUS] mod will still be useless if the players simply zoom past everything.

    In short, I don't see [RADIUS] helping mines at all. They are not going to make more types viable. They are not going to make them more viable in PVP, either. You guys have an interesting philosophy of making Projectiles nearly completely negated by the smallest presence of shields, while Energy Weapons obliterate everything with no penalty.
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  • ussprometheus79ussprometheus79 Member Posts: 727 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    overlapo wrote: »
    With Dynamic Lightning on the Undine Battlezone becomes a slideshow. With it in off it is completely smooth and performance problems free. I don't think the drawing distance is doing that.
    Other than that the only other graphic issue I have seen is the fact that the game now prioritizes the other player's GFX (weapons firing, powers, so on) over mine making my weapons invisible in a busy area.

    It's not dynamic lighting in the settings. I've had a lot of time playing with the various settings and this made no difference either way. It's good though that it helped you.

    A lot of people are still having FPS problems. Going for the detail sliders as taco hinted, I got a marginal increase from 4FPS to 6FPS in the problem zones. Namely SB24.

    Still more for them to look at unfortunately. :(
    If you've come to the forums to complain about the AFK system, it's known to be bugged at the moment.
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