I started an upgrade yesterday and the timer does not show up in the space map. The game displays the item as if the upgrade process is complete and says "claim item" which does nothing. I have to transfer to a ground map to actually see how much time is left till completion.
Also, I can not upgrade any of the MK XII Crystalline Nanofiber Shell items.
Certain items cannot be upgraded currently, by design:
* TR-116A (preorder rifle)
* Triolic pattern enhancer
* All hangar pets * All kits and kit modules
* Epic (Gold) quality starship consoles such as Saucer Separation, MVAM, or the Defiant's Cloaking Device -- note that this does NOT include starship weapons such as the Defiant's quad cannons
I do not understand your design intentions for kits and kit modules.
1. When the new kit system first went live, we discovered that Mk XII modules did not drop and were told that this was by design.
I took another look and verified that your observations are correct. I then talked to Borticus and he said that Mk XII Kit Modules are indeed not dropping at this time and that it is by design. So this is not a bug but the result of an intentional design decision.
2. Certain trade-in kits came with the wrong modules. Even after this bug was fixed, there were still inconsistencies: most Mk XII trade-in kits come with four purple Mk XII modules and one green Mk XII module, but some come with blue Mk XII modules. We were again told that this was by design.
Nope. I know that'll be an unpopular answer, but it is what it is.
Keep in mind that you have the Mk XII version at this price, while everyone else must start from Mk XI in the Upgrade System, and improve it from there.
The Ground Set also included a Costume Unlock which will need to be purchased separately from now on. So call that a built-in bonus, if you like.
Will post-Delta Rising Mk XII (i.e. upgrade system) versions of the Jem'Hadar Ground set have base stats and [Mods] comparable to the current Lobi Mk XII version of the Jem'Hadar Ground set?
These are the same as the Voth Antiproton Weapons that were included in the Voth Lock Box. So if you'd like upgradeable versions, you can acquire them elsewhere.
None of the starter equipment that comes pre-equipped on Starships will be upgradeable, other than special exceptions like Consoles and some special unique weapons (Wide-Angle Quantum, for example).
What about the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher from the Voth Palisade/Bastion and the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher [Acc][Arc] from the Voth Bulwark? These are not available in the Voth weapon packs, but could also be interpreted as "Starter" gear.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
The more I think about these upgrade costs the more I start to wonder where is the logic in their reasoning for it. It's been stated by the devs numerous times that they want people to fly more ships and not stick with just one ship, but this system kills that. I already use multiple ships on my main toon and both those ships have completely different builds... I will have to spend over 600k dilithum and hundreds of upgrade tokens just to get the gear up to XIV quality, not even taking into account wanting to upgrade them to epic quality, and that is just on one toon. The whole system as it stands now will only punish people with multiple ships on one toon or multiple toons, the dilithium cost needs to be drastically reduced, chance for quality upgrade needs to either be increased or somehow made 100% chance for a reasonable cost, and the amount of upgrade tokens needed needs to be reduced for this system to be more palatable for casual players.
ONE Captain. ONE ship. This is canon for Star Trek (T)(R)(C) CBS. Working as truly intended since TOS (The Original Series, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy). Kirk himself said in one episode (and this is a direct quote) "There are only 12 others, like her, in all of <Starfleet>." When being asked about his ship, the Constitution class U.S.S. Enterprise.
I used to be strictly FED. One captain, Tactical division. Then for a short bit KDF. One commander, Tac division. And since its inception, one commander, Romulan Tactical. I do not run alts; I only have one character. Her name is Tanis and she's full blooded Romulan. All of my money goes to her, and her alone.
Let me clue you guys in on something. You might not have been around when we had to suffer through content drought. That is why so many players created and ran several alts of either faction (we only had FED and KDF back then, and you had to be a lvl 20 FED to even create a KDF character). Players were running the same old content over and over, just with different characters, to satisfy their urge to want to play a game with a Star Trek mask on it.
NOW, we have moved past that, and are getting content at about the rate of every 90 days. And it's of a superior quality than the content that came before it. At the same time, the old content is getting rolled into the new style. Even the NPC contact speach content. Everything is moving up, but it's costing a whole lotta money to keep this level of production up.
You guys need to decide now how wise it is to run more than one character, or toon, anymore.
STO is a SINGLE PLAYER game with a MMO mask/label on it. Jump up and down and call me wrong all ya want but this is 100% bonafide truth. Take it with a spoonful of sugar, to help the medicine go down, my sultry FEDs, ROMs, and KDFs.
The future is here. And it's the color of dilithium and zen. PEACE!
ONE Captain. ONE ship. This is canon for Star Trek (T)(R)(C) CBS. Working as truly intended since TOS (The Original Series, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy). Kirk himself said in one episode (and this is a direct quote) "There are only 12 others, like her, in all of <Starfleet>." When being asked about his ship, the Constitution class U.S.S. Enterprise.
Captain Kirk might not be the best example since he commanded at least four different ships. Whatever ship he had before the Enterprise, the original Enterprise, the Enterprise-A, and the HMS Bounty (Star Trek III and IV).
Besides, this is a game. If this were to hold more to the design of Star Trek we wouldn't be firing our phasers every time some new life form looks at us funny.
Will post-Delta Rising Mk XII (i.e. upgrade system) versions of the Jem'Hadar Ground set have base stats and [Mods] comparable to the current Lobi Mk XII version of the Jem'Hadar Ground set?
They are both the same item. Ultra Rare quality will add one mod, and Epic adds one more.
What about the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher from the Voth Palisade/Bastion and the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher [Acc][Arc] from the Voth Bulwark? These are not available in the Voth weapon packs, but could also be interpreted as "Starter" gear.
The White versions of those weapons are a real edge-case, something I don't know that we've ever done on any other ship. I think we'd be more likely to add those to the existing Voth Lock Box weapon packs, than to allow them to be upgradeable.
The unique one that comes with the Bulwark can be upgraded.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
-Dil Requirements are reasonable, I'm ok with this. From what I calculated, it'd be ~301k Dil to upgrade a ship worth of gear, which if you only have 1 toon, is going to take you about 40 days, the same as doing a new Rep.
-The Mats requirement is very good, getting a superior kit is extremely easy and you often crit to get 3, the market will be flooded and these will be extremely obtainable for all. For a Superior kit, you need a single VR mat, 1 of each rare component for that school, and 15k ec. They may be pricy at first, but they'll drive up the price of Mats. This means players can get the ec to get them easily by simply continuing to play PvE queus and selling the R&D packs.
-The Time, this is where there is an issue. Right now, the time for some stuff is way too long. To get a Space Rep Set piece to MK XIV from MK XII, it takes 53 hours and 7 minutes. Currently, the system is set so that for every .6 TP, it takes 1s to upgrade. I feel that if the ratio was upped, it'd be much more user friendly. So that every .18 TP would take 1s to upgrade. I understand though that this "Buy Now" Dil button is going to make you guys money, so I would suggest Multiplying the Dil cost 3x in addition to making the projects run 3x faster. You're still going to have people dumping in Dil to upgrade instantly with there only being 3 upgrade slots, and with the fact that some people just don't want to wait at all. Anything taking >20hrs is just too long, especially when most players will have dozens, if not hundreds, maybe even thousands of items to upgrade, and there being only 3 upgrade slots.
-Three Upgrade Slots, this seems quite reasonable to me, with 3 slots, we can upgrade a full ship's worth of gear in a few weeks. For Cryptic, they force those that don't want to wait to pay. Anymore than 3 slots and people will just toss a bunch of stuff up to upgrade and then not log on for a few days. Which is not good for anyone.
-Getting better rarity, I feel this could use a bit of work due to my next subject. If the Random Mods I talk about below are fixed, then the cost associated with getting better rarity is extremely reasonable.
-Random Mods, with the cost associated with this system, it is a bit frustrating to grind an item up to UR from VR, and get a mod that is not what we want. With their being no system atm to change mods on weapons, my suggestion to end the anger towards the Random Mods is:
1. If there is a single Mod that is the Majority (outnumbers all other Modifiers), then the upgrade will give an additional of the Modifier.
2. In the Event of there being no Modifier (IE: Common quality), then a random mod is placed onto the weapon.
3. In the Event that there is no Mod that outnumbers the other mods, then a random mod is placed onto the weapon.
4. Modifiers that are limited to one per weapon, such as [Over], [Pen], or [Rapid], will not be counted by the system as a Modifier when the system is searching for the Majority Modifier. (IE: In this case: [Acc] [Rapid], there is no "majority" mod, so the system would ignore the [Rapid] mod and give the weapon an additional [Acc] modifier, turning the weapon into [Acc]x2 [Rapid])
I feel that would end the hate against that part of the upgrade system, and would get you guys more money. People don't want to dump tons of Dil in to upgrade their weapon further if they have the chance to get a undesirable modifier.
That's all I can think of for this atm, if I can think of anything else, I'll make another post.
TL;DR: I feel Dil requirements, Mats requirements, and only 3 Upgrade slots are reasonable. I feel Time & Random Mods need to be fixed, and I give my opinion on what I believe is a good solution to both.
ONE Captain. ONE ship. This is canon for Star Trek (T)(R)(C) CBS. Working as truly intended since TOS (The Original Series, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy). Kirk himself said in one episode (and this is a direct quote) "There are only 12 others, like her, in all of <Starfleet>." When being asked about his ship, the Constitution class U.S.S. Enterprise.
I used to be strictly FED. One captain, Tactical division. Then for a short bit KDF. One commander, Tac division. And since its inception, one commander, Romulan Tactical. I do not run alts; I only have one character. Her name is Tanis and she's full blooded Romulan. All of my money goes to her, and her alone.
Let me clue you guys in on something. You might not have been around when we had to suffer through content drought. That is why so many players created and ran several alts of either faction (we only had FED and KDF back then, and you had to be a lvl 20 FED to even create a KDF character). Players were running the same old content over and over, just with different characters, to satisfy their urge to want to play a game with a Star Trek mask on it.
NOW, we have moved past that, and are getting content at about the rate of every 90 days. And it's of a superior quality than the content that came before it. At the same time, the old content is getting rolled into the new style. Even the NPC contact speach content. Everything is moving up, but it's costing a whole lotta money to keep this level of production up.
You guys need to decide now how wise it is to run more than one character, or toon, anymore.
STO is a SINGLE PLAYER game with a MMO mask/label on it. Jump up and down and call me wrong all ya want but this is 100% bonafide truth. Take it with a spoonful of sugar, to help the medicine go down, my sultry FEDs, ROMs, and KDFs.
The future is here. And it's the color of dilithium and zen. PEACE!
That's kind of how I always played it. I have four characters, and my Main, my One Captain One Ship is certainly well above the others.
Captain Kirk might not be the best example since he commanded at least four different ships. Whatever ship he had before the Enterprise, the original Enterprise, the Enterprise-A, and the HMS Bounty (Star Trek III and IV).
Besides, this is a game. If this were to hold more to the design of Star Trek we wouldn't be firing our phasers every time some new life form looks at us funny.
I"m surprised that no one ever bothered to name Captain Kirk's first command. Even more surprised it was only mentioned once (Where no man has gone before). But he only commanded the Enterprise cumulatively for about a decade, and then another five years on the Enterprise-A only after the original was destroyed. I wouldn't count the Bounty :P.
Funny enough even Picard only commanded three vessels in his career, the Stargazer, the Enterprise-D, and the Enterprise-E. But he commanded the Stargazer for 22 years.
Furthermore there should be ability to win via diplomacy or at least disabling the opponent. Something along the lines of what you would find in a Civilization game. It would be nice if our Reputation could influence that. My Diplomatic Commendation Tier 4 should play in too. It doesn't have to be in lieu of combat, but an alternative ending to it.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Will you be changing the fleet and reputation stores to sell Mk XIII and Mk XIV gear? While those who already own Mk XII items will likely upgrade them, buying a Mk XII item and then upgrading it to Mk XIV seems like a convoluted method to obtain a new piece of Mk XIV gear.
They are both the same item. Ultra Rare quality will add one mod, and Epic adds one more.
I was mostly referring to the differences in the Jem'Hadar Armor (much greater DRM boost than Mk XI->Mk XII, doubled health/shield regen) and Jem'Hadar Shield (convert Disruptor and Phaser resistance to All Energy Resistance). The Lobi upgraded Mk XII versions get a very nice boost in performance compared to the Episode Mk XI rewards, and I was wondering if upgrading the Episode reward items from Mk XI->Mk XII would apply the same boost... or will the base Episode reward versions be getting enhanced DRM, enhanced health/shield regen, and a replacement to All Energy Resistance to balance the baseline Mk XI versions?
[EDIT] Ah, never mind, looks like markhawkman just answered the question right down there... assuming that is intended, of course.
The White versions of those weapons are a real edge-case, something I don't know that we've ever done on any other ship. I think we'd be more likely to add those to the existing Voth Lock Box weapon packs, than to allow them to be upgradeable.
The unique one that comes with the Bulwark can be upgraded.
Fair enough, though that then brings up the further question of whether the weapon pack items can be upgraded... will we be able to upgrade our Phased Tetryons, Elachi Disruptors, Phased Biomatter, etc. weapons, and if so wouldn't adding the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher to the Voth Lock Box weapon packs still mean making it upgradable?
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
can't upgrade:
-no upgrade button:
Solanae EV suit
EV suit - Orange
Borg Prosthetic - Maintenance Drone MK XI [CritH]x2
Bajoran Phaser Rifle and pistol
Tractor Beam mine Launcher
blue11 Neutronium
Bio-Neural
Thoron ground weapons obtained from the Delta Rep
-"fully upgraded": (the upgrade option exists, but you can't actually upgrade it)
Polaron Full auto rifle [Borg] (an antique weapon from before Omega Rep)
Nanopulse Batleth (Green)
oddness:
slotting the Jem hadar ground gear changes it to be like the Lobi version, picture, AND stats.(apparently this is intended)
Jemhadar engine went from +2.5 WepPow to +5
other body armors will often change picture
Glitched: (These tests were done without actually upgrading the item, simply slotting it in an upgrade slot.)
Personal mobility shields will become regular cap/reg shields.
the [Psi][Stn] lirpa you get from Hearts and Minds will become a regular Lirpa, but blue, with no mods...
the stats of the Counter-Command Multi-Conduit energy relay go DOWN, from 13.2/26.4 to 11.6/23.2
hydrodynamics compensator went from 3/3/17.3/23.1 to 3/3/15.4/20.5
Retrofit phaser bank displays 4.1 DPS before and after upgrade
Jem space shield went from; 5590.8/169.4/10/10/50 to 6099/169.4/10/10/75
I think the one point missing with the one ship versus more is that our characters are at the rank of Vice Admiral. Admiral's prerogative can be to have more than one ship or to just take command of a ship because they can.
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Looking for a new fleet? Drop by the in-game chat channel, "tenforwardforum", and say hi to the members of A Fleet Called Ten Forward (Fed) and The Orion Pirates (KDF). If you already have a fleet you are happy with, please feel free to drop by our chat channel if you are looking for a friendly bunch of helpful people to socialize with.
The White versions of those weapons are a real edge-case, something I don't know that we've ever done on any other ship. I think we'd be more likely to add those to the existing Voth Lock Box weapon packs, than to allow them to be upgradeable.
The unique one that comes with the Bulwark can be upgraded.
Those weapons are awesome.
Why is it that some of the most awesome weapons in the game never got more tractions?
Polarized Tetryons (Beam bank and beam array)
Dominion Polarons (Beam array and dual cannons)
Voth Antiproton (Beam array and dual beams)
All very awesome, but more variety would be more than welcome.
Proton Particle Stabilizer from dyson rep cannot be upgraded, the gravi torp and proton beam (set pieces) can be.
Satirical Feedback:
After doing This across 6-8 hrs yesterday, my only assumption is that "Fleet Admiral" means you need a "fleet" of "admiral" alts to fund 1 character to a proper maxed set of gear. Well done, I applaud your reach around technique with both this and the "not using the r&d system at all" inside of upgrading gear.
Time to go remortgage my house so I can keep pvping after DR.
From the results you folks have posted so far I am noticing a dearth of the dreaded Cryptic time-honored throwaway mod, [Dmg]. Which leads me to believe that the upgrades aren't so much random as more just plucked from a premade database that has certain combinations of results taken off. (eg I doubt you can end up with a [CritDx5]
From the results you folks have posted so far I am noticing a dearth of the dreaded Cryptic time-honored throwaway mod, [Dmg]. Which leads me to believe that the upgrades aren't so much random as more just plucked from a premade database that has certain combinations of results taken off. (eg I doubt you can end up with a [CritDx5]
Tally of Total Cost/Time for this single weapon upgrade
Rare XI -> Rare XIV
Cost = 94 "BTU", 35hr duration [940,000 EC + 65,800 Dilith]
Rare XI ->Epic XIV
Cost = 1687 "BTU", 25+ Days duration [16,870,000 EC + 1,180,900 Dilith]
+ 600zen for R&D packages{The Buff these accelerators gave was relatively worthless as it wears off after 10k point or so}
YMMV after upgrading items for about 6hours or so sometimes a 1st time upgrade crit to rarity does happen.
Hopefully the higher teir crafted upgrades will offer more than 2k tech points per use but their cost on the exchange maybe too high initially since you will need several hundred of purple quality tech upgrades to acheive upgrades across several items, especially to get to Epic status, irrc some items upgraded last nite required 318,000 tech points per upgrade chance at higher levels.
I was mostly referring to the differences in the Jem'Hadar Armor (much greater DRM boost than Mk XI->Mk XII, doubled health/shield regen) and Jem'Hadar Shield (convert Disruptor and Phaser resistance to All Energy Resistance). The Lobi upgraded Mk XII versions get a very nice boost in performance compared to the Episode Mk XI rewards, and I was wondering if upgrading the Episode reward items from Mk XI->Mk XII would apply the same boost... or will the base Episode reward versions be getting enhanced DRM, enhanced health/shield regen, and a replacement to All Energy Resistance to balance the baseline Mk XI versions?
[EDIT] Ah, never mind, looks like markhawkman just answered the question right down there... assuming that is intended, of course.
Fair enough, though that then brings up the further question of whether the weapon pack items can be upgraded... will we be able to upgrade our Phased Tetryons, Elachi Disruptors, Phased Biomatter, etc. weapons, and if so wouldn't adding the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher to the Voth Lock Box weapon packs still mean making it upgradable?
Well that's just it - we shouldn't HAVE to:
At level 60, if I open up a Special Weapons pack, it should offer me a mk XIV item. if not, then they are simply force-gating us to grind to get weapons of those marks.
I couldn't seem to find anywhere in the character status window or duty officer window to see the upgrade slots. The only way I could find it is by right clicking an item and choosing to upgrade it. It would be nice if we had a way of accessing the upgrade window so we can check how much time is remaining on what we're upgrading.
One thing I don't like is that it will take a long time just to fully upgrade a single item to the highest possible mark and rarity. You guys need to keep in mind that some of us have a hundred, two hundred, or even more of items we would like to upgrade. It isn't fair to make it take as along as building a fleet starbase to tier 5 just to fully outfit a single character.
8 weapons for a cruiser
10+ console slots on any ship
shield array, deflector, warp core, engines = 22+ items needing an upgrade just for a ship and then we have our ground equipment for ourselves and bridge officers. Players may have many types of ground sets and ground weapons.
I really don't like this whole idea of earning XP for upgrading a single weapon and it doesn't upgrade until we gain enough XP for that single item. I also don't like this idea of you not getting a rarity increase you can keep trying and trying until you have built up enough XP to guarantee success, and that's after you get it to Mk XVI.
I would prefer to just pay a flat fee to upgrade an item to a higher mark and/or rarity.
Honestly I'm getting sick of all the grind and time-gating. We have a starbase, 3 fleet holdings with the possibility of more added, 5 reputations with a new rep coming in Delta Rising, the whole crafting system, and now upgrading hundreds of equipment across multiple characters.
I have 11 characters. Will there be some sort of sponsorship program for upgrading items on multiple toons like the rep system? Or would that be too complicated?
I was hoping that item upgrades would be like T5 ship upgrades, as in, you upgrade it on 1 character and it's free to upgrade for all other characters. So it would be nice if we upgrade, for example, a beam array on 1 toon and that toon and all other toons can upgrade their beam arrays of any kind free of charge.
Rare XI ->Epic XIV
Cost = 1687 "BTU", 25+ Days duration [16,870,000 EC + 1,180,900 Dilith]
+ 600zen for R&D packages{The Buff these accelerators gave was relatively worthless as it wears off after 10k point or so}
That is absolutely insane, that is 7,000 Zen worth of material for ONE ITEM... anyone who thinks that is a reasonable cost must have billions of dilithium to burn. It would take 150 days to get all that dilithium if you ground it out and had only one toon. I did some more math today and made some projections:
Outfitting one character from XII to XIV:
4 Personal Gear (Armor, Shield, 2 Weapons): 64 Superior Tokens; 68,800 Dilithium
4 Sets of BOFF Gear (Armor, Shield, Weapon) Items: 192 Superior Tokens; 206,400 Dilithium
1 Ship (22 Items on ship): 352 Superior Tokens, 378,400 Dilithium
Total 608 Superior Tokens
653,600 Dilithium
That is 82 Days worth of Dilithium
or 3532 Zen per Character
Numbers not counting the cost to upgrade Kits, Shuttles, EC, or price of materials/time needed for Vary Rare Materials... Also not trying to increase their rarity
I have 9 Toons, it will cost me: 5,472 Superior Tokens
5,882,400 Dilthium
or 31,797 Zen
To get all them to MK XIV
Pay to win or make STO your full-time job... Alts are officially dead, time to liquidate all their assets and no longer purchase any ships for them
My suggestions stand, significantly reduce the dilithium costs by well more than half and increase the chance to get a rarity upgrade... making Epic gear only for the uber wealthy or full-time players is just going to scare casual players away.
Also these timegates are getting out of hand! Imagine what TNG would look like if it took place in the era of STO:
So when is the STO version of the Coalescent Wards (a.k.a. "Accelerator") going to appear?
Because that's what all this is leading to. Spending thousands (or more likely MILLIONS) of Dilithium or buy an Accelerator for Zen.
I'd expect there will probably be 3 maybe?
1 x Time Reduction for about 200Z.
1 x XP Boost for around 500Z.
1 x Combined and/or Guaranteed Rarity Upgrade and/or Instant Finish one for around 1000Z
And then there will probably be "packs" for 200/500/1000Z that will contain an assortment of different Accelerators that have Time/XP/Rarity Boosts, but only the Golden Ticket one will have the 100% capability.
Fair enough, though that then brings up the further question of whether the weapon pack items can be upgraded... will we be able to upgrade our Phased Tetryons, Elachi Disruptors, Phased Biomatter, etc. weapons, and if so wouldn't adding the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher to the Voth Lock Box weapon packs still mean making it upgradable?
Yes, all of those delicious exotic lockbox weapons like Elachi, FAP, Nanite Disruptor, etc. can be upgraded. The white torp that comes in the ship is starter gear, even though there's no other way to acquire them from weapon packs. If they started adding that torpedo type to the weapon packs you still wouldn't be able to upgrade the one that comes on the ship because it would still be starter gear (just like how the Mk X Antiproton beams that come on the Wells are starter gear), but at least then you could acquire a better one to upgrade from a pack. (I hereby show my support for putting Voth Transphasic-Chronitons into the Voth lockbox weapon packs.)
Tally of Total Cost/Time for this single weapon upgrade
Rare XI -> Rare XIV
Cost = 94 "BTU", 35hr duration [940,000 EC + 65,800 Dilith]
Rare XI ->Epic XIV
Cost = 1687 "BTU", 25+ Days duration [16,870,000 EC + 1,180,900 Dilith]
+ 600zen for R&D packages{The Buff these accelerators gave was relatively worthless as it wears off after 10k point or so}
Yeah, using only the "Basic" tech upgrades is a gnarly dilithium sink. (and EC sink if you buy them from the vendor for 10kEC each.) I'll definitely be ignoring them in favor of Improved or Superior tech upgrades.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
This system nuch like the crafting system is horrible. You should of just added MK XIV gear to the fleet and rep systems, leave leveless gear alone, and no rarity upgrades.
Probably nitpicking, but Shard of Possibilities can't be upgraded. At 50 this spawned 2 +5 level clones, at 60 it will spawn 2 -5 level clones. Mines seem to get bumped to 70 at mk 14, could this possibly get bumped in some way?
This system is a fracking joke. I've only toyed with it for a small bit. I have zero desire to ever spend that kind of dilithium in this sick system you vomited up. This is nothing more than a massive EC and dilithium sink rolled into one.
This system is a fracking joke. I've only toyed with it for a small bit. I have zero desire to ever spend that kind of dilithium in this sick system you vomited up. This is nothing more than a massive EC and dilithium sink rolled into one.
You'd rather replace your gear than upgrade them then...?
Comments
Also, I can not upgrade any of the MK XII Crystalline Nanofiber Shell items.
[Crystal Nanofiber Environmental Suit Mk XII]
[Refractive Nanofiber Personal Shield Matrix Mk XII]
[Hyper-Compressed Cryo Launcher Mk XII]
I do not understand your design intentions for kits and kit modules.
1. When the new kit system first went live, we discovered that Mk XII modules did not drop and were told that this was by design.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=17223971&postcount=23
2. Certain trade-in kits came with the wrong modules. Even after this bug was fixed, there were still inconsistencies: most Mk XII trade-in kits come with four purple Mk XII modules and one green Mk XII module, but some come with blue Mk XII modules. We were again told that this was by design.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=17498861&postcount=14
3. The crafting system launched without the ability to craft kits or kit modules.
4. Now, we cannot upgrade any kits or kit modules (including fleet kits and modules). Why not?
Are you intentionally making high-level kits and kit modules hard to get? Or do you simply not have the time and resources to devote to kits?
Furthermore, the damage numbers for turret modules appear bugged.
Damage of turret modules still too low
Turret Kit Module doing too little damage (XI VR)
What about the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher from the Voth Palisade/Bastion and the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher [Acc][Arc] from the Voth Bulwark? These are not available in the Voth weapon packs, but could also be interpreted as "Starter" gear.
ONE Captain. ONE ship. This is canon for Star Trek (T)(R)(C) CBS. Working as truly intended since TOS (The Original Series, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy). Kirk himself said in one episode (and this is a direct quote) "There are only 12 others, like her, in all of <Starfleet>." When being asked about his ship, the Constitution class U.S.S. Enterprise.
I used to be strictly FED. One captain, Tactical division. Then for a short bit KDF. One commander, Tac division. And since its inception, one commander, Romulan Tactical. I do not run alts; I only have one character. Her name is Tanis and she's full blooded Romulan. All of my money goes to her, and her alone.
Let me clue you guys in on something. You might not have been around when we had to suffer through content drought. That is why so many players created and ran several alts of either faction (we only had FED and KDF back then, and you had to be a lvl 20 FED to even create a KDF character). Players were running the same old content over and over, just with different characters, to satisfy their urge to want to play a game with a Star Trek mask on it.
NOW, we have moved past that, and are getting content at about the rate of every 90 days. And it's of a superior quality than the content that came before it. At the same time, the old content is getting rolled into the new style. Even the NPC contact speach content. Everything is moving up, but it's costing a whole lotta money to keep this level of production up.
You guys need to decide now how wise it is to run more than one character, or toon, anymore.
STO is a SINGLE PLAYER game with a MMO mask/label on it. Jump up and down and call me wrong all ya want but this is 100% bonafide truth. Take it with a spoonful of sugar, to help the medicine go down, my sultry FEDs, ROMs, and KDFs.
The future is here. And it's the color of dilithium and zen. PEACE!
Captain Kirk might not be the best example since he commanded at least four different ships. Whatever ship he had before the Enterprise, the original Enterprise, the Enterprise-A, and the HMS Bounty (Star Trek III and IV).
Besides, this is a game. If this were to hold more to the design of Star Trek we wouldn't be firing our phasers every time some new life form looks at us funny.
They are both the same item. Ultra Rare quality will add one mod, and Epic adds one more.
The White versions of those weapons are a real edge-case, something I don't know that we've ever done on any other ship. I think we'd be more likely to add those to the existing Voth Lock Box weapon packs, than to allow them to be upgradeable.
The unique one that comes with the Bulwark can be upgraded.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
First off, a spreadsheet I put together containing info about the costs associated with upgrading our gear. I'll be basing my feedback off of the numbers I have there.
Here are my thoughts on the current system:
-Dil Requirements are reasonable, I'm ok with this. From what I calculated, it'd be ~301k Dil to upgrade a ship worth of gear, which if you only have 1 toon, is going to take you about 40 days, the same as doing a new Rep.
-The Mats requirement is very good, getting a superior kit is extremely easy and you often crit to get 3, the market will be flooded and these will be extremely obtainable for all. For a Superior kit, you need a single VR mat, 1 of each rare component for that school, and 15k ec. They may be pricy at first, but they'll drive up the price of Mats. This means players can get the ec to get them easily by simply continuing to play PvE queus and selling the R&D packs.
-The Time, this is where there is an issue. Right now, the time for some stuff is way too long. To get a Space Rep Set piece to MK XIV from MK XII, it takes 53 hours and 7 minutes. Currently, the system is set so that for every .6 TP, it takes 1s to upgrade. I feel that if the ratio was upped, it'd be much more user friendly. So that every .18 TP would take 1s to upgrade. I understand though that this "Buy Now" Dil button is going to make you guys money, so I would suggest Multiplying the Dil cost 3x in addition to making the projects run 3x faster. You're still going to have people dumping in Dil to upgrade instantly with there only being 3 upgrade slots, and with the fact that some people just don't want to wait at all. Anything taking >20hrs is just too long, especially when most players will have dozens, if not hundreds, maybe even thousands of items to upgrade, and there being only 3 upgrade slots.
-Three Upgrade Slots, this seems quite reasonable to me, with 3 slots, we can upgrade a full ship's worth of gear in a few weeks. For Cryptic, they force those that don't want to wait to pay. Anymore than 3 slots and people will just toss a bunch of stuff up to upgrade and then not log on for a few days. Which is not good for anyone.
-Getting better rarity, I feel this could use a bit of work due to my next subject. If the Random Mods I talk about below are fixed, then the cost associated with getting better rarity is extremely reasonable.
-Random Mods, with the cost associated with this system, it is a bit frustrating to grind an item up to UR from VR, and get a mod that is not what we want. With their being no system atm to change mods on weapons, my suggestion to end the anger towards the Random Mods is:
1. If there is a single Mod that is the Majority (outnumbers all other Modifiers), then the upgrade will give an additional of the Modifier.
2. In the Event of there being no Modifier (IE: Common quality), then a random mod is placed onto the weapon.
3. In the Event that there is no Mod that outnumbers the other mods, then a random mod is placed onto the weapon.
4. Modifiers that are limited to one per weapon, such as [Over], [Pen], or [Rapid], will not be counted by the system as a Modifier when the system is searching for the Majority Modifier. (IE: In this case: [Acc] [Rapid], there is no "majority" mod, so the system would ignore the [Rapid] mod and give the weapon an additional [Acc] modifier, turning the weapon into [Acc]x2 [Rapid])
I feel that would end the hate against that part of the upgrade system, and would get you guys more money. People don't want to dump tons of Dil in to upgrade their weapon further if they have the chance to get a undesirable modifier.
That's all I can think of for this atm, if I can think of anything else, I'll make another post.
TL;DR: I feel Dil requirements, Mats requirements, and only 3 Upgrade slots are reasonable. I feel Time & Random Mods need to be fixed, and I give my opinion on what I believe is a good solution to both.
I guess I'm doing it right.
I"m surprised that no one ever bothered to name Captain Kirk's first command. Even more surprised it was only mentioned once (Where no man has gone before). But he only commanded the Enterprise cumulatively for about a decade, and then another five years on the Enterprise-A only after the original was destroyed. I wouldn't count the Bounty :P.
Funny enough even Picard only commanded three vessels in his career, the Stargazer, the Enterprise-D, and the Enterprise-E. But he commanded the Stargazer for 22 years.
Furthermore there should be ability to win via diplomacy or at least disabling the opponent. Something along the lines of what you would find in a Civilization game. It would be nice if our Reputation could influence that. My Diplomatic Commendation Tier 4 should play in too. It doesn't have to be in lieu of combat, but an alternative ending to it.
[EDIT] Ah, never mind, looks like markhawkman just answered the question right down there... assuming that is intended, of course.
Fair enough, though that then brings up the further question of whether the weapon pack items can be upgraded... will we be able to upgrade our Phased Tetryons, Elachi Disruptors, Phased Biomatter, etc. weapons, and if so wouldn't adding the Voth Transphasic-Chroniton Torpedo Launcher to the Voth Lock Box weapon packs still mean making it upgradable?
can't upgrade:
-no upgrade button:
Solanae EV suit
EV suit - Orange
Borg Prosthetic - Maintenance Drone MK XI [CritH]x2
Bajoran Phaser Rifle and pistol
Tractor Beam mine Launcher
blue11 Neutronium
Bio-Neural
Thoron ground weapons obtained from the Delta Rep
-"fully upgraded": (the upgrade option exists, but you can't actually upgrade it)
Polaron Full auto rifle [Borg] (an antique weapon from before Omega Rep)
Nanopulse Batleth (Green)
oddness:
slotting the Jem hadar ground gear changes it to be like the Lobi version, picture, AND stats.(apparently this is intended)
Jemhadar engine went from +2.5 WepPow to +5
other body armors will often change picture
Glitched: (These tests were done without actually upgrading the item, simply slotting it in an upgrade slot.)
Personal mobility shields will become regular cap/reg shields.
the [Psi][Stn] lirpa you get from Hearts and Minds will become a regular Lirpa, but blue, with no mods...
the stats of the Counter-Command Multi-Conduit energy relay go DOWN, from 13.2/26.4 to 11.6/23.2
hydrodynamics compensator went from 3/3/17.3/23.1 to 3/3/15.4/20.5
Retrofit phaser bank displays 4.1 DPS before and after upgrade
Jem space shield went from; 5590.8/169.4/10/10/50 to 6099/169.4/10/10/75
My character Tsin'xing
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Those weapons are awesome.
Why is it that some of the most awesome weapons in the game never got more tractions?
Polarized Tetryons (Beam bank and beam array)
Dominion Polarons (Beam array and dual cannons)
Voth Antiproton (Beam array and dual beams)
All very awesome, but more variety would be more than welcome.
Proton Particle Stabilizer from dyson rep cannot be upgraded, the gravi torp and proton beam (set pieces) can be.
Satirical Feedback:
After doing This across 6-8 hrs yesterday, my only assumption is that "Fleet Admiral" means you need a "fleet" of "admiral" alts to fund 1 character to a proper maxed set of gear. Well done, I applaud your reach around technique with both this and the "not using the r&d system at all" inside of upgrading gear.
Time to go remortgage my house so I can keep pvping after DR.
The common EC version of the Basic Beam Weapons Tech Upgrade was used due to availablility, it grants 2k Tech points per use.
Base Prices
10,000 EC each "Basic Beam Weapons Tech Upgrade" x 100 = 1,000,000 EC
Basic Tech Upgrade types
700 Dilithium per each "Basic Tech Upgrade" used x 100 "BTU" = 70000 Dilith
100 "BTU" = 200,000 technology points
1st Mk XI -> XII Rare upgrade
Cost = 19 "BTU", 7hr duration [190,000 EC + 13,300 Dilith]
2nd Mk XII -> XIII Rare upgrade
Cost = 24 "BTU", 9hr duration [240,000 EC + 16,800 Dilith]
56,000 Tech points needed per upgrade
3rd Mk XIII -> XIV Rare upgrade
Cost = 51 "BTU", 19hr duration [510,000 EC + 35,700 Dilith]
? Tech points needed per upgrade [was gettin tired at this point forgot screen cap]
4th Mk XIV Rare -> XIV Very Rare upgrade
Cost = 306 "BTU", 1Day 4hr duration x4 [3,060,000 EC + 214,200 Dilith]
168,000 Tech points needed per upgrade
5th Mk XIV Very Rare -> XIV Ultra Rare upgrade
Cost = 609 "BTU", 1Day 8hr duration x7 [6,090,000 EC + 426,300 Dilith]
192,000 Tech points needed per upgrade
6th Mk XIV Ultra Rare -> XIV Epic upgrade
Cost = 678 "BTU", 1Day 12hr duration x7 [6,780,000 EC + 474,600 Dilith]
3x Research Boosts, 5x Tech points Boosts [600zen for 2x R&D Packages]
216,000 Tech points needed per upgrade
Final Product Epic Retrofit Phaser Bank
Tally of Total Cost/Time for this single weapon upgrade
Rare XI -> Rare XIV
Cost = 94 "BTU", 35hr duration [940,000 EC + 65,800 Dilith]
Rare XI -> Epic XIV
Cost = 1687 "BTU", 25+ Days duration [16,870,000 EC + 1,180,900 Dilith]
+ 600zen for R&D packages{The Buff these accelerators gave was relatively worthless as it wears off after 10k point or so}
YMMV after upgrading items for about 6hours or so sometimes a 1st time upgrade crit to rarity does happen.
Hopefully the higher teir crafted upgrades will offer more than 2k tech points per use but their cost on the exchange maybe too high initially since you will need several hundred of purple quality tech upgrades to acheive upgrades across several items, especially to get to Epic status, irrc some items upgraded last nite required 318,000 tech points per upgrade chance at higher levels.
Good Hunting
That's just recockulous.
Well that's just it - we shouldn't HAVE to:
At level 60, if I open up a Special Weapons pack, it should offer me a mk XIV item. if not, then they are simply force-gating us to grind to get weapons of those marks.
One thing I don't like is that it will take a long time just to fully upgrade a single item to the highest possible mark and rarity. You guys need to keep in mind that some of us have a hundred, two hundred, or even more of items we would like to upgrade. It isn't fair to make it take as along as building a fleet starbase to tier 5 just to fully outfit a single character.
8 weapons for a cruiser
10+ console slots on any ship
shield array, deflector, warp core, engines = 22+ items needing an upgrade just for a ship and then we have our ground equipment for ourselves and bridge officers. Players may have many types of ground sets and ground weapons.
I really don't like this whole idea of earning XP for upgrading a single weapon and it doesn't upgrade until we gain enough XP for that single item. I also don't like this idea of you not getting a rarity increase you can keep trying and trying until you have built up enough XP to guarantee success, and that's after you get it to Mk XVI.
I would prefer to just pay a flat fee to upgrade an item to a higher mark and/or rarity.
Honestly I'm getting sick of all the grind and time-gating. We have a starbase, 3 fleet holdings with the possibility of more added, 5 reputations with a new rep coming in Delta Rising, the whole crafting system, and now upgrading hundreds of equipment across multiple characters.
I have 11 characters. Will there be some sort of sponsorship program for upgrading items on multiple toons like the rep system? Or would that be too complicated?
I was hoping that item upgrades would be like T5 ship upgrades, as in, you upgrade it on 1 character and it's free to upgrade for all other characters. So it would be nice if we upgrade, for example, a beam array on 1 toon and that toon and all other toons can upgrade their beam arrays of any kind free of charge.
That is absolutely insane, that is 7,000 Zen worth of material for ONE ITEM... anyone who thinks that is a reasonable cost must have billions of dilithium to burn. It would take 150 days to get all that dilithium if you ground it out and had only one toon. I did some more math today and made some projections:
Outfitting one character from XII to XIV:
4 Personal Gear (Armor, Shield, 2 Weapons): 64 Superior Tokens; 68,800 Dilithium
4 Sets of BOFF Gear (Armor, Shield, Weapon) Items: 192 Superior Tokens; 206,400 Dilithium
1 Ship (22 Items on ship): 352 Superior Tokens, 378,400 Dilithium
Total
608 Superior Tokens
653,600 Dilithium
That is 82 Days worth of Dilithium
or 3532 Zen per Character
Numbers not counting the cost to upgrade Kits, Shuttles, EC, or price of materials/time needed for Vary Rare Materials... Also not trying to increase their rarity
I have 9 Toons, it will cost me:
5,472 Superior Tokens
5,882,400 Dilthium
or 31,797 Zen
To get all them to MK XIV
Pay to win or make STO your full-time job... Alts are officially dead, time to liquidate all their assets and no longer purchase any ships for them
My suggestions stand, significantly reduce the dilithium costs by well more than half and increase the chance to get a rarity upgrade... making Epic gear only for the uber wealthy or full-time players is just going to scare casual players away.
Also these timegates are getting out of hand! Imagine what TNG would look like if it took place in the era of STO:
http://i.imgur.com/AN8IrPH.png
Because that's what all this is leading to. Spending thousands (or more likely MILLIONS) of Dilithium or buy an Accelerator for Zen.
I'd expect there will probably be 3 maybe?
1 x Time Reduction for about 200Z.
1 x XP Boost for around 500Z.
1 x Combined and/or Guaranteed Rarity Upgrade and/or Instant Finish one for around 1000Z
And then there will probably be "packs" for 200/500/1000Z that will contain an assortment of different Accelerators that have Time/XP/Rarity Boosts, but only the Golden Ticket one will have the 100% capability.
Yes, all of those delicious exotic lockbox weapons like Elachi, FAP, Nanite Disruptor, etc. can be upgraded. The white torp that comes in the ship is starter gear, even though there's no other way to acquire them from weapon packs. If they started adding that torpedo type to the weapon packs you still wouldn't be able to upgrade the one that comes on the ship because it would still be starter gear (just like how the Mk X Antiproton beams that come on the Wells are starter gear), but at least then you could acquire a better one to upgrade from a pack. (I hereby show my support for putting Voth Transphasic-Chronitons into the Voth lockbox weapon packs.)
Yeah, using only the "Basic" tech upgrades is a gnarly dilithium sink. (and EC sink if you buy them from the vendor for 10kEC each.) I'll definitely be ignoring them in favor of Improved or Superior tech upgrades.
Joined January 2009
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