Apologies for bumping an old thread, just wondering whether there was any appetite for a brief outline on the next level of ships (ie, Commander) or even the one after, from new players? Or had people got the hang of things by the time they've hit Level 30??
The NX is not a bad starting ship, I found it to be a better option than the default Miranda you start off with.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Apologies for bumping an old thread, just wondering whether there was any appetite for a brief outline on the next level of ships (ie, Commander) or even the one after, from new players? Or had people got the hang of things by the time they've hit Level 30??
I am glad you did bump it. I like reading it and helping out where I can. My contribution for today: Weapon Set Ups.
"I want my ship to be just like the one in _____!" Hoo boy! How many times have I heard this over the years. If you give any ship in STO the weapons loadout it had in the series or the films, your ship isn't going to perform as well as it could. Gasp! The Horror! How dare they?! It's not fair! Nope, sure isn't. But it is what it is. Since we have to adjust to what plays well in the game we might as well not bother with series or film ship setups once we get past weapon types.
Beams vs. Cannons. Beams are nice. They are also for ships which can broadside while circling the target at about 8km. Cannons are nice as well. They are very handy on those ships which can turn on a dime and have lots of power and lots of Tactical Console slots. As I recall, I wasn't very good at steering my ship when I first began playing. So Beams allowed me to fight well without worrying about maneuvering so much. As I acquired more experience with moving my ship, I was able to use cannons more effectively. Cannon fire just flat looks sexier coming from a ship, though. But since we're just starting out, how about we leave looking sexy until later, hunh?
"Well how about using both, Thunder?" Good question. Glad you asked. It's how most of the NPC ships are set up. You know, the ones you kill over and over while they do the same stupid things over and over. You sure you wanna do that?
Dual Beam Banks! Twice the fun? DBB's are decent. Provided one doesn't get carried away with them. For me, they work best on the 5/3 ships. Their firing arc is restricted but not as much as Dual Cannons or Dual Heavy Cannons. I learned I did not have to be as good at moving the ship as with cannons, too. But whenever I was moving away or alongside the target, my DPS dropped off the cliff.
Torpedoes Away! As in as far away as possible from my ship. Torps kill DPS. And getting good DPS is currently the best way to fight in this game. Not gonna debate the philosophy of this here. It's been done to death everywhere else. I just recommend not placing torps on your ship at first. If you have to have them to get that "real Star Trek" feel, I recommend placing one in a rear facing mount. It is where you'll get the most use out of it at first. Since most of the NPC Bad Guys wind up on your six anyways.
Mine Launchers are like torpedoes. But more so. All of the things which make torps a less than optimal choice apply equally to mines. With the added virtue of not moving towards the target at all unless it blunders to within point blank range of them. And even then it can shoot them down before the mines do any real damage.
Turrets Just the thing for when you need that little extra something coming from the back. Nothing more. Tried an all turret build once. Fed Science vessel. It was a lot less than I hoped for. Still, one or two are okay. At the back only. I tend to think of turrets and torpedoes as secondary weapons and group them accordingly. On a four/four ship I'll mount one torp and one turret in rear slots. The other two rear slots are for beams. Since I'm usually broadsiding anyway, this gives me one more weapon firing in the front until I turn. Although the damage one turret does is small. It also gives me something with which I can shoot at torps, mines, and fighters without having to worry too much about how I move my ship.
Below are how I have my current ships set up. Try these out if you like and see how they work for you.
Torpedoes Away! As in as far away as possible from my ship. Torps kill DPS. And getting good DPS is currently the best way to fight in this game. Not gonna debate the philosophy of this here. It's been done to death everywhere else. I just recommend not placing torps on your ship at first. If you have to have them to get that "real Star Trek" feel, I recommend placing one in a rear facing mount. It is where you'll get the most use out of it at first. Since most of the NPC Bad Guys wind up on your six anyways.
Mine Launchers are like torpedoes. But more so. All of the things which make torps a less than optimal choice apply equally to mines. With the added virtue of not moving towards the target at all unless it blunders to within point blank range of them. And even then it can shoot them down before the mines do any real damage.
You should caveat this actually normally good piece of information with... if you're building a science ship using a "pure" particle generators build... you want to then use torpedoes instead of energy weapons.
Did not know torps were preferred weapons for Sci ships which were particle generator builds. I've never tried to build one. Thank you for the assist.
We're getting dangerously out of newbie territory here... but so any newbie is curious...
A pure part gen build will generally require a Captain to do the exact opposite of common STO sense... they tank their energy power levels to as low as they go... and cap Aux... and possibly shields. Beams are there simply to do sub-system targetting... and torps because they don't rely on weapon energy perform higher when weapon energy is sitting at the 50-75 level after modifiers. This is doubly true when you see that many of the torps secondary effects can be effected by part gens... and that most science ships have very limited tactical console slots. You're DPS primarily comes from your BOff abilities... and the secondary effects of your torps... the primary damage of your torps is just icing on the cake.
A hybrid energy weapon/part gen build does use energy weapon... and generally is what most science ship drives end up doing initially anyway... but is harder to actually accomplish at end game because of the need to balance out so many energy levels. Some hybrid builds will add a torp to simply remove all the drain that is occuring from hybridization and to utilize some of those seconard torp effects that their part gens are capping out.
The reason to mention this now to a newb... is that there are many torps that are given out during your leveling that aren't great... but will help at the very early end game before they have access to great gear... but are still very functional in either a pure or hybrid build.
For a science ship driver it's kind of important to know where you want to go with your build at end game... and save stuff that'll help towards that end.
I'm in that grey area between newb and mostly harmless.
Have a Mat'Ha with a level 60 science captain. At the moment I am running all Polaron load out (basically the first full set of one weapon type I obtained). From this, I have 3xBA and 2xBB at the front, 1 Polaron Turret and 1 Torp at the back. All tact slots (except the console for its special attack) are +damage for Polaron, Engineering is Leech and hull, Science is Shield +regen rate. All of this is a mash up of Rank XII - XIII green/blue/purple gear from missions / reward boxes for reputation.
I have all of the sets (I think) from the Missions (Jem'hadar etc). I should add I'm trying to run a drake build, but I don't quite have the DOFFs for this (yet)
So where now? I could start buying Reputation gear - Kinetic Cutting beam seems popular
I could start to craft (max rank 10 ), but I have no idea what mods to get on the T2 gear. Guides seem to be split between +acc, +CritD, +CritH
I guess, what I am missing, is that in all other MMO's I've played, there is a recommended minimum stats that you need for each tier of multiplayer contact - you must have 400 hit, 25% crit chance, 45% crit damage etc. This doesn't seem to exist here....
I'm in that grey area between newb and mostly harmless.
Have a Mat'Ha with a level 60 science captain. At the moment I am running all Polaron load out (basically the first full set of one weapon type I obtained). From this, I have 3xBA and 2xBB at the front, 1 Polaron Turret and 1 Torp at the back. All tact slots (except the console for its special attack) are +damage for Polaron, Engineering is Leech and hull, Science is Shield +regen rate. All of this is a mash up of Rank XII - XIII green/blue/purple gear from missions / reward boxes for reputation.
I have all of the sets (I think) from the Missions (Jem'hadar etc). I should add I'm trying to run a drake build, but I don't quite have the DOFFs for this (yet)
So where now? I could start buying Reputation gear - Kinetic Cutting beam seems popular
I could start to craft (max rank 10 ), but I have no idea what mods to get on the T2 gear. Guides seem to be split between +acc, +CritD, +CritH
I guess, what I am missing, is that in all other MMO's I've played, there is a recommended minimum stats that you need for each tier of multiplayer contact - you must have 400 hit, 25% crit chance, 45% crit damage etc. This doesn't seem to exist here....
Any advice would be welcome.
imo the turret and trop are wasting space. the KCB is indeed a great choice, and even more so if you couple it with the assimilated console. the other aft weapon couple be an omni beam, which you can pick up pretty cheaply off the exchange.
as far as crafting goes, +acc has been popular in pvp due to players having such high defence values that need countering. acc doesnt benefit you so much vs npc, not nearly as much a crtD. with pvp being pretty much dead i reckon the crafting goal (as far as ec value) is crtD all the way. crtDx4 or crtDx3 [pen] is worth way more than anything else. i just binned my mk12 accx3s because they arent even worth the update cost imo. i think you will find most experienced players will try to crank up crtH with tac consoles (locator tac consoles from the spire) and boost crtD as far as possible in the weapons. there are also a few universal consoles that boost crtD, like the bioneural infusion circuits.
i dont think i would bother trying to craft gear tbh. it seems to be a case where you have to take it pretty seriously to get good results, and that would involve spending millions and millions on crafting doffs and creating hundreds of mk2 purple gear hoping for a lucky roll of the dice.
in contrast, you can instead buy those purple mk2 weapons and upgrade wisely and have them at epic quality before you even hit mk10.
Is there any reason to keep Ships as I level or should I just sell off the previous Tier when I level (10,20,30, etc)?
You don't actually "sell" them. Rather you dismiss them. I tend to dismiss my Tier 1 thru Tier 4 ships sometime after I reach level 40, unless I have a bit of nostalgia for a particular ship.
At least for me the lower tier ships serves no purpose other than to store some ship gear so that they do not take up space in my inventory. If you join a fleet that likes to role play, then maybe there is a use for lower tier ships. Or perhaps you like the novel idea / challenge of flying a lower tier ship in a difficult mission.
For example, prior to the release of Delta Rising, which means before the game became a DPS race, very experienced players could load up a Tier 1 ship with very rare Mk XII gear and complete an Advanced STF mission. Of course, that is now more or less impossible.
OK, so KCB it is, and I need to start crafting beams... I don't think any of the Beams have decent modifiers, most are [Acc] and [CritH]
Do I have to get a lvl2 Purple AP Beam with [CritD][CritD] or will any quality (as long as it has the correct modifiers) suffice, and I just hope for quality increases as I level it?
If I use (for example) an Omega upgrade from the Xmas event, will this boost an item by multiple levels, or is it capped at just one level of increase per upgrade item? i.e. will it go from a II to VI (for example) or will it be capped at level III regardless of the upgrade item?
OK, so KCB it is, and I need to start crafting beams... I don't think any of the Beams have decent modifiers, most are [Acc] and [CritH]
Do I have to get a lvl2 Purple AP Beam with [CritD][CritD] or will any quality (as long as it has the correct modifiers) suffice, and I just hope for quality increases as I level it?
If I use (for example) an Omega upgrade from the Xmas event, will this boost an item by multiple levels, or is it capped at just one level of increase per upgrade item? i.e. will it go from a II to VI (for example) or will it be capped at level III regardless of the upgrade item?
the single omega token will take you several levels, not just to 3. i dont recall the exact mark... but it is more than a few. imo you are best served choosing a purple mk2 weapon with the best mods you can, ideally cdtDx3. then use an omega token AND a blue x2 quality accelerator. if you do that you get a 40% chance to upgrade rarity each round.
Later Content - or 'Help I'm an Admiral and things just got serious!!'
When you reach level 50, which will occur before you finish the story arc, STO really opens out - you gain access to 'endgame' level ships but your enemies are tougher.
As a Rear Admiral Upper Half (Level 40) you will receive leave from Admiral Quinn for your last set of free ships (unless you're a Lifetime Subscriber, which I wont go into details here). This last set - base Tier 5 - include the Prometheus (Advanced Escort), Sovereign (Assault Cruiser) and Trident (Deep Space Science) ships. For most free players, this is the pinnacle of your choice of ships. However, you can grind Dilithium Ore, refine it into Dilithium and eventually trade it for Zen to purchase higher level ships from the Zen store - dont fret, it sounds daunting at first, but you'll get there surprisingly quickly if you focus. Do not purchase cheaper ships (which will be Tiers 1-4) as you've grown past them already - focus on (at least upgrade-able) Tier 5 ships - check the STO Wiki before buying.
As a Vice Admiral (Level 50), with enough Zen, you will gain access to top of the line ships such as Tier 5 - Upgraded and Tier 6 ships, the Reputation system which in turn provides access to high-end gear, traits and so on. From Level 50, STO changes significantly from a sole focus on following the story, to the (as at Season 9: Delta Rising) the seemingly never-ending 'grind' for top end gear, Player-vs-Environment (PVE) "Fleet Actions" where you can earn Reputation Marks and Dilithium, and other content.
Hi, so given Season 10 has been released, I have made a few updates through the text (eg, removing sector blocks, mentioning Delta Recruits etc), plus I added the above quoted section to provide some advice towards the end of the game - recently on the Academy forum there have been a few new players asking for guidance as they hit Level 50 or so.
Grateful for thoughts, advice and opinions on improving this text.
Hi, so given Season 10 has been released, I have made a few updates through the text (eg, removing sector blocks, mentioning Delta Recruits etc), plus I added the above quoted section to provide some advice towards the end of the game - recently on the Academy forum there have been a few new players asking for guidance as they hit Level 50 or so.
Grateful for thoughts, advice and opinions on improving this text.
Is the bolded part a link? Because its not in your quote.
Most important thing for handling the bad guys is to be adaptable. Just because you got from 1 to 50 doing the same thing in every fight doesn't mean that will still work from 51 to 60. Some strategies work better on some enemies.
You can't "just tank" the vaadwaur voth or heralds they have too many debuffs. To survive them you need more than armor, you need cleanses like hazard emitters, engineering team etc. But say the undine, you need maneuverability, don't fight them without attack pattern omega or at a minimum emergency to engines/aux to dampers, etc.
One build to rule them all doesn't really exist... That takes skill. So be flexible and be willing to change based on what you need.
I wish to god I had read all this before I started playing a couple of weeks ago. I got too excited at playing and am currently at lvl 54, and way over my head haha. Big thank you tho to everyone for taken the time to post the advice on here. Even at all that I have missed I've learned a lot here to try make the long haul that bit better.
I've dreaded writing any posts after seeing that a Dev had his family threatened over something being nerf'd. I am thinking of going for the T-6 ships and would rather now get them and develop them rather then down the line. Without committing to a certain ship can anyone advice me on what exactly would be best?
Its purely for battles only. Also if it is worthwhile actually starting an alt character and try to build him up slowly?
And lastly might not be the proper area here but in regards to joining a fleet. The do's and dont's, what to look out for, what it involves. I wouldn't want to join one that says hey we need you to buy us all new ships lol
Once again many thanks to everyones posts on here.:)
I wish to god I had read all this before I started playing a couple of weeks ago. I got too excited at playing and am currently at lvl 54, and way over my head haha. Big thank you tho to everyone for taken the time to post the advice on here. Even at all that I have missed I've learned a lot here to try make the long haul that bit better.
I've dreaded writing any posts after seeing that a Dev had his family threatened over something being nerf'd. I am thinking of going for the T-6 ships and would rather now get them and develop them rather then down the line. Without committing to a certain ship can anyone advice me on what exactly would be best?
Its purely for battles only. Also if it is worthwhile actually starting an alt character and try to build him up slowly?
And lastly might not be the proper area here but in regards to joining a fleet. The do's and dont's, what to look out for, what it involves. I wouldn't want to join one that says hey we need you to buy us all new ships lol
Once again many thanks to everyones posts on here.:)
Welcome to STO!!
At the moment, whilst the Delta Recruit event is on, I would strongly recommend that you start new players as Delta Recruits - they gain a bunch of benefits that helps them level faster and all you need to do is complete the tutorial and then think about playing them later. If you are free to play, you might wish to make one of each of the factions (Fed/Rom/KDF), though if you're buying Zen ships you cant share them across characters.
Otherwise, I agree with westmetals' post!
I would also encourage you to post away - done worry about haters or flamers; they mostly dont post on this part of the forum at least! We're always happy to help new and returning players.
Thank you both very much for the reply and the advice. I did forget to say I'm in the Federation and human. I have already one Delta rec. I'll start the other ones today to have them there also.
If I'm right in understanding then I can purchase a Zen ship on my main account and it wont be available on my delta accounts then? If it was it would be a great bonus but nothing major I want to try my best to focus on my main account.(we've been through so much together haha)
I think for the mean time I might leave out joining a fleet until I find out whos who ect so I don't join one that is considered the tribbles of the galaxy! Great advice on the doff's Thank you both again!
Zen is held at the account level - if your f'ed earnt some zen you can use it to purchase something for your rom etc.
What we meant was, say you bought the tier 1 Constitution ship, all federation chars on your account can now use it for free. However, your Klingon character can't. As you have three character slots by default, you can make one char from each faction to experience different story lines, ships, equipment or etc. However if you made three fed characters, it makes purchasing low level ships more worthwhile as the chars can share them.
I wanted to both so used Zen to buy more character slots - enough is never enough!!!
Don't forget that Romulan characters can use the ships - and C-Store ships - of their allied faction up to Subadmiral level (Tier 5), including their special consoles; don't be afraid to buy a C-store ship that you like and claim it for both a Starfleet or KDF character and an allied Romulan. Even a Warbird can benefit from a Bio-Neural Warhead (KDF-alligned) or a Point Defence Turret console (Starfleet-alligned).
And putting them together with Singularity abilities can make for some unique and effective combinations - try linking a 'Picard Manuver' console from the Starfleet Heavy Cruiser Retrofit (T3) with a T3 warbird's 'Singularity Jump' to jump in with a warp shadow distraction (Picard Manuver) and jump right back away from an enemy while leaving a gravity well right on top of them (Singularity Jump).
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q, TNG: "Q-Who?"
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
the only thing I don't agree with is to dismiss all the boffs . Since the DR-event there's quite decent ones at very start for Romulans for example ( one has either gravity well II or even III if I recall correctly ) . Obviously you don't hang to them indefinitely but they do just fine at the start .
True, but the skills can very easily and cheaply be trained on other BOFFs, and the one thing you can't change is the traits. Purple-quality BOFFs come with better traits. And you cannot use Grav Well II/III until level 30 anyway (as you can't promote officers to a high enough rank until then).
Yeah, Romulan BOffs - even the 'starter' BOffs of Tovan The Indismissible, Satra from "The Helix" and Hiven from "Gasko Station" - get gypped on traits thanks to coming with 'Plasma Specialist' and leaving a player with a Kobayashi Maru of keeping them equipped with Plasma ground weapons and losing out on some options (Antiproton Anti-Borg, Sonic Antiproton, Bio-Molecular, etc. All the good Anti-species weapons) or having a trait that does absolutely nothing...
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q, TNG: "Q-Who?"
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
Yeah, Romulan BOffs - even the 'starter' BOffs of Tovan The Indismissible, Satra from "The Helix" and Hiven from "Gasko Station" - get gypped on traits thanks to coming with 'Plasma Specialist' and leaving a player with a Kobayashi Maru of keeping them equipped with Plasma ground weapons and losing out on some options (Antiproton Anti-Borg, Sonic Antiproton, Bio-Molecular, etc. All the good Anti-species weapons) or having a trait that does absolutely nothing...
first : why the hostilty ? Second : as I stated , you don't hang on to them indefinitely but the guide is suggesting to dismiss them immediately and that's unwise ( suggestion for next time : read before spitting venom)
first : why the hostilty ? Second : as I stated , you don't hang on to them indefinitely but the guide is suggesting to dismiss them immediately and that's unwise ( suggestion for next time : read before spitting venom)
Talking about reading, my guide describes Federation players, not Romulan! ;-)
Still, the plasma weapon specialist is very hany until the endgame grind because you don't get access to cheap antiproton weapons from the rep system until then. Also, iirc Satra had useful space traits (even though she is green)...
Comments
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I am glad you did bump it. I like reading it and helping out where I can. My contribution for today: Weapon Set Ups.
"I want my ship to be just like the one in _____!" Hoo boy! How many times have I heard this over the years. If you give any ship in STO the weapons loadout it had in the series or the films, your ship isn't going to perform as well as it could. Gasp! The Horror! How dare they?! It's not fair! Nope, sure isn't. But it is what it is. Since we have to adjust to what plays well in the game we might as well not bother with series or film ship setups once we get past weapon types.
Beams vs. Cannons. Beams are nice. They are also for ships which can broadside while circling the target at about 8km. Cannons are nice as well. They are very handy on those ships which can turn on a dime and have lots of power and lots of Tactical Console slots. As I recall, I wasn't very good at steering my ship when I first began playing. So Beams allowed me to fight well without worrying about maneuvering so much. As I acquired more experience with moving my ship, I was able to use cannons more effectively. Cannon fire just flat looks sexier coming from a ship, though. But since we're just starting out, how about we leave looking sexy until later, hunh?
"Well how about using both, Thunder?" Good question. Glad you asked. It's how most of the NPC ships are set up. You know, the ones you kill over and over while they do the same stupid things over and over. You sure you wanna do that?
Dual Beam Banks! Twice the fun? DBB's are decent. Provided one doesn't get carried away with them. For me, they work best on the 5/3 ships. Their firing arc is restricted but not as much as Dual Cannons or Dual Heavy Cannons. I learned I did not have to be as good at moving the ship as with cannons, too. But whenever I was moving away or alongside the target, my DPS dropped off the cliff.
Torpedoes Away! As in as far away as possible from my ship. Torps kill DPS. And getting good DPS is currently the best way to fight in this game. Not gonna debate the philosophy of this here. It's been done to death everywhere else. I just recommend not placing torps on your ship at first. If you have to have them to get that "real Star Trek" feel, I recommend placing one in a rear facing mount. It is where you'll get the most use out of it at first. Since most of the NPC Bad Guys wind up on your six anyways.
Mine Launchers are like torpedoes. But more so. All of the things which make torps a less than optimal choice apply equally to mines. With the added virtue of not moving towards the target at all unless it blunders to within point blank range of them. And even then it can shoot them down before the mines do any real damage.
Turrets Just the thing for when you need that little extra something coming from the back. Nothing more. Tried an all turret build once. Fed Science vessel. It was a lot less than I hoped for. Still, one or two are okay. At the back only. I tend to think of turrets and torpedoes as secondary weapons and group them accordingly. On a four/four ship I'll mount one torp and one turret in rear slots. The other two rear slots are for beams. Since I'm usually broadsiding anyway, this gives me one more weapon firing in the front until I turn. Although the damage one turret does is small. It also gives me something with which I can shoot at torps, mines, and fighters without having to worry too much about how I move my ship.
Below are how I have my current ships set up. Try these out if you like and see how they work for you.
Four/Three ships
Front: Beam - Beam - Dual Beam - Beam Rear: Beam-Torpedo-Turret
OR
Front: Beam - Dual Beam - Dual Beam - Dual Beam Rear: Beam - Torpedo - Turret
Four/Four ships
Front: Beam - Beam - Dual Beam - Beam Rear: Beam - Torpedo - Turret - Beam
OR
Front: Beam - Dual Beam - Dual Beam - Beam Rear: Beam - Torpedo - Turret - Beam
Five/Three ships
Front: Beam- Dual Beam - Dual Beam - Dual Beam - Beam Rear: Beam - Torpedo - Turret
You should caveat this actually normally good piece of information with... if you're building a science ship using a "pure" particle generators build... you want to then use torpedoes instead of energy weapons.
We're getting dangerously out of newbie territory here... but so any newbie is curious...
A pure part gen build will generally require a Captain to do the exact opposite of common STO sense... they tank their energy power levels to as low as they go... and cap Aux... and possibly shields. Beams are there simply to do sub-system targetting... and torps because they don't rely on weapon energy perform higher when weapon energy is sitting at the 50-75 level after modifiers. This is doubly true when you see that many of the torps secondary effects can be effected by part gens... and that most science ships have very limited tactical console slots. You're DPS primarily comes from your BOff abilities... and the secondary effects of your torps... the primary damage of your torps is just icing on the cake.
A hybrid energy weapon/part gen build does use energy weapon... and generally is what most science ship drives end up doing initially anyway... but is harder to actually accomplish at end game because of the need to balance out so many energy levels. Some hybrid builds will add a torp to simply remove all the drain that is occuring from hybridization and to utilize some of those seconard torp effects that their part gens are capping out.
The reason to mention this now to a newb... is that there are many torps that are given out during your leveling that aren't great... but will help at the very early end game before they have access to great gear... but are still very functional in either a pure or hybrid build.
For a science ship driver it's kind of important to know where you want to go with your build at end game... and save stuff that'll help towards that end.
Have a Mat'Ha with a level 60 science captain. At the moment I am running all Polaron load out (basically the first full set of one weapon type I obtained). From this, I have 3xBA and 2xBB at the front, 1 Polaron Turret and 1 Torp at the back. All tact slots (except the console for its special attack) are +damage for Polaron, Engineering is Leech and hull, Science is Shield +regen rate. All of this is a mash up of Rank XII - XIII green/blue/purple gear from missions / reward boxes for reputation.
I have all of the sets (I think) from the Missions (Jem'hadar etc). I should add I'm trying to run a drake build, but I don't quite have the DOFFs for this (yet)
So where now? I could start buying Reputation gear - Kinetic Cutting beam seems popular
I could start to craft (max rank 10
I guess, what I am missing, is that in all other MMO's I've played, there is a recommended minimum stats that you need for each tier of multiplayer contact - you must have 400 hit, 25% crit chance, 45% crit damage etc. This doesn't seem to exist here....
Any advice would be welcome.
keep them as ship equipment banks until you find you really need a free slot in your shipyard.
free jkname
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imo the turret and trop are wasting space. the KCB is indeed a great choice, and even more so if you couple it with the assimilated console. the other aft weapon couple be an omni beam, which you can pick up pretty cheaply off the exchange.
as far as crafting goes, +acc has been popular in pvp due to players having such high defence values that need countering. acc doesnt benefit you so much vs npc, not nearly as much a crtD. with pvp being pretty much dead i reckon the crafting goal (as far as ec value) is crtD all the way. crtDx4 or crtDx3 [pen] is worth way more than anything else. i just binned my mk12 accx3s because they arent even worth the update cost imo. i think you will find most experienced players will try to crank up crtH with tac consoles (locator tac consoles from the spire) and boost crtD as far as possible in the weapons. there are also a few universal consoles that boost crtD, like the bioneural infusion circuits.
i dont think i would bother trying to craft gear tbh. it seems to be a case where you have to take it pretty seriously to get good results, and that would involve spending millions and millions on crafting doffs and creating hundreds of mk2 purple gear hoping for a lucky roll of the dice.
in contrast, you can instead buy those purple mk2 weapons and upgrade wisely and have them at epic quality before you even hit mk10.
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You don't actually "sell" them. Rather you dismiss them. I tend to dismiss my Tier 1 thru Tier 4 ships sometime after I reach level 40, unless I have a bit of nostalgia for a particular ship.
At least for me the lower tier ships serves no purpose other than to store some ship gear so that they do not take up space in my inventory. If you join a fleet that likes to role play, then maybe there is a use for lower tier ships. Or perhaps you like the novel idea / challenge of flying a lower tier ship in a difficult mission.
For example, prior to the release of Delta Rising, which means before the game became a DPS race, very experienced players could load up a Tier 1 ship with very rare Mk XII gear and complete an Advanced STF mission. Of course, that is now more or less impossible.
OK, so KCB it is, and I need to start crafting beams... I don't think any of the Beams have decent modifiers, most are [Acc] and [CritH]
Do I have to get a lvl2 Purple AP Beam with [CritD][CritD] or will any quality (as long as it has the correct modifiers) suffice, and I just hope for quality increases as I level it?
If I use (for example) an Omega upgrade from the Xmas event, will this boost an item by multiple levels, or is it capped at just one level of increase per upgrade item? i.e. will it go from a II to VI (for example) or will it be capped at level III regardless of the upgrade item?
the single omega token will take you several levels, not just to 3. i dont recall the exact mark... but it is more than a few. imo you are best served choosing a purple mk2 weapon with the best mods you can, ideally cdtDx3. then use an omega token AND a blue x2 quality accelerator. if you do that you get a 40% chance to upgrade rarity each round.
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Hi, so given Season 10 has been released, I have made a few updates through the text (eg, removing sector blocks, mentioning Delta Recruits etc), plus I added the above quoted section to provide some advice towards the end of the game - recently on the Academy forum there have been a few new players asking for guidance as they hit Level 50 or so.
Grateful for thoughts, advice and opinions on improving this text.
Is the bolded part a link? Because its not in your quote.
Most important thing for handling the bad guys is to be adaptable. Just because you got from 1 to 50 doing the same thing in every fight doesn't mean that will still work from 51 to 60. Some strategies work better on some enemies.
You can't "just tank" the vaadwaur voth or heralds they have too many debuffs. To survive them you need more than armor, you need cleanses like hazard emitters, engineering team etc. But say the undine, you need maneuverability, don't fight them without attack pattern omega or at a minimum emergency to engines/aux to dampers, etc.
One build to rule them all doesn't really exist... That takes skill. So be flexible and be willing to change based on what you need.
I've dreaded writing any posts after seeing that a Dev had his family threatened over something being nerf'd. I am thinking of going for the T-6 ships and would rather now get them and develop them rather then down the line. Without committing to a certain ship can anyone advice me on what exactly would be best?
Its purely for battles only. Also if it is worthwhile actually starting an alt character and try to build him up slowly?
And lastly might not be the proper area here but in regards to joining a fleet. The do's and dont's, what to look out for, what it involves. I wouldn't want to join one that says hey we need you to buy us all new ships lol
Once again many thanks to everyones posts on here.:)
Welcome to STO!!
At the moment, whilst the Delta Recruit event is on, I would strongly recommend that you start new players as Delta Recruits - they gain a bunch of benefits that helps them level faster and all you need to do is complete the tutorial and then think about playing them later. If you are free to play, you might wish to make one of each of the factions (Fed/Rom/KDF), though if you're buying Zen ships you cant share them across characters.
Otherwise, I agree with westmetals' post!
I would also encourage you to post away - done worry about haters or flamers; they mostly dont post on this part of the forum at least! We're always happy to help new and returning players.
If I'm right in understanding then I can purchase a Zen ship on my main account and it wont be available on my delta accounts then? If it was it would be a great bonus but nothing major I want to try my best to focus on my main account.(we've been through so much together haha)
I think for the mean time I might leave out joining a fleet until I find out whos who ect so I don't join one that is considered the tribbles of the galaxy! Great advice on the doff's
Zen is held at the account level - if your f'ed earnt some zen you can use it to purchase something for your rom etc.
What we meant was, say you bought the tier 1 Constitution ship, all federation chars on your account can now use it for free. However, your Klingon character can't. As you have three character slots by default, you can make one char from each faction to experience different story lines, ships, equipment or etc. However if you made three fed characters, it makes purchasing low level ships more worthwhile as the chars can share them.
I wanted to both so used Zen to buy more character slots - enough is never enough!!!
And putting them together with Singularity abilities can make for some unique and effective combinations - try linking a 'Picard Manuver' console from the Starfleet Heavy Cruiser Retrofit (T3) with a T3 warbird's 'Singularity Jump' to jump in with a warp shadow distraction (Picard Manuver) and jump right back away from an enemy while leaving a gravity well right on top of them (Singularity Jump).
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
Yeah, Romulan BOffs - even the 'starter' BOffs of Tovan The Indismissible, Satra from "The Helix" and Hiven from "Gasko Station" - get gypped on traits thanks to coming with 'Plasma Specialist' and leaving a player with a Kobayashi Maru of keeping them equipped with Plasma ground weapons and losing out on some options (Antiproton Anti-Borg, Sonic Antiproton, Bio-Molecular, etc. All the good Anti-species weapons) or having a trait that does absolutely nothing...
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
first : why the hostilty ? Second : as I stated , you don't hang on to them indefinitely but the guide is suggesting to dismiss them immediately and that's unwise ( suggestion for next time : read before spitting venom)
Talking about reading, my guide describes Federation players, not Romulan! ;-)
Still, the plasma weapon specialist is very hany until the endgame grind because you don't get access to cheap antiproton weapons from the rep system until then. Also, iirc Satra had useful space traits (even though she is green)...