Please use this thread to send feedback and issues found with the new Bridge Officer Training Revamp.
Bridge Officer Training Revamp
The Bridge Officer Training system has been overhauled to allow more customization for the powers of captains Bridge Officers.
Players will no longer need to consume another Bridge Officer to give another officer a power and instead will use Training Manuals and spend Expertise Points.
Each rank of each power will have its own Training Manual.
Most Training Manuals can be purchased off of any current Bridge Officer Training Officer and will include any power which is currently available on these trainers.
Training Manuals for high end powers can be crafted in the new Research and Development School: Officer Training.
Any Bridge Officer can now be trained in Specializations such as the current Intelligence Specialization as well as the new Command Specialization.
This will also apply to all future Specializations.
The UI for both the Abilities and Stations screens have had a huge overhaul for this new training system.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
torpedo high yield 2 appears to be broken, can't train it and have 3 manuals in my inventory.
Checked against various boffs on 1 captain only.
[edit] It appears torpedo high yield 3 is trainable by a high yield 2 manual.
SCM - Infected(S) - DMG Out: 11,776,567 DPS: 114,224.70 (28.7% of Team) - Pinky@ukcaptain420 I reserve the right to have a completely different standpoint depending on my mood.
Not sure how "spare" bridge officers are supposed to work. There's a new button to show the officers, but when you click "Train", I couldn't do anything with them.
It was fairly straight forward to craft and train a new BOFF, but when when I tried to switch to it, it reset my other bridge officer powers and moved it to the first slot. Was a little confusing.
It would be nice if the manuals had a description of the skill they train.
Also how are we supposed to get the rank III abilities previously only available on rare BOFFs?
Will training manuals drop or anything or can we still use BOFFs to train skills?
First, I'm going to speak (mostly) from a new player standpoint. With the old system, a low level first character was able to train some skills as he leveled up. It was mostly free (the ec cost was very low), and even if he didn't had the necessary expertise, he could still have the skill.
With the new system, he will not be able to do so, unless he works and wait for it.
-Dil cost too high. Currently, 500dil/skill. It's moderately high for an old player like myself, but for a new player, that mean 2 academy quizz (the only low level source of dil). IE 2days of wait + another 4h from crafting the item. Chances are, that means 3 days for the item, unless someones likes to wait 4h for it (unlikely). They can't pay the "finish now" timer, since it's far too expensive.
As far as I know, there are no other mean to acquire dil at low level, other than the quizz, or opening box. But new players are probably not the ones opening boxes and earning dil claim (which are rare anyway).
While they could buy it from the exchange, prices are probably be too high for a new player with a few thousands credit in the wallet.
Suggestion : cut the dil cost to 250~ or maximum 400. 250 feels fine IMO. It shouldn't be a grind, we already have enough of them.
-Needs of crafting materials. Again, chances are, those new players doesn't have the necessary materials. They might use the exchange, but it start to be complicated for a new player.
Suggestion : remove the material price. I don't see the point, those are very common for any vets anyway.
Bugs and maybe bug (as an engineering captain) :
-I'm able to craft sci/tac manual. Alongside the engi ones. Don't know if it's intended or not.
-Torpedo high yield 3 manual doesn't work. I don't have the option to train my BOFF, even if I have the manual. It is considered as a T:HY 2 for the game, even if the tooltip says it's T:HY 3.
-Assigning newly trained skill in the space station windows doesn't work. They are either switched to another skill I don't even have, or leave the entire station empty, except for this new skill, slotted at ensign level (for a commander one). Ground seems to work so far.
-Non commissioned BOFF still have the "train up" option, even when it's not working (blank window).
-Now that we can't train BOFF with others BOFF, we are missing several skills, like Torpedo spread 3.
Quality of life :
-Can we get rid of lower rank skill when we have a new better skill at the same rank ? For example, hazard emitter 2 and 3 are both Lt slot, yet 3 is better than 2, so why I can still see and choose HE2 ? It should replace it.
Same goes for numerous skill, like GW2-3, AP:O2-3...
When we learn a better rank ability in the same slot than the lower rank one, then it should replace it. No point in running HE2 when you have HE3 anyway.
-Again, for a new player, mostly, add a tooltip on how to use a manual on the manual. Add a tooltip or help window to see what item is lacking and how to obtain it, when he is looking at skill he doesn't have. Instead of just "missing item".
Hazard Emitters III may have been misclassified as Lieutenant Level power rather than Lt.Cmdr power
On my character Ridlluc 1 (copied from Holodeck) I made a Hazard Emitters III training manual, but I couldn't initially actually use it to train any of my Bridge Officers
I selected the Lt.Cmdr Space Slot in the Skills Tab of all of my available Science Officers, and cannot find Hazard Emitters III listened in there.
Oddly enough however, I noticed that one of my Science Officers, "Tatbla", has Hazard Emitters III. But it is equipped in a Lt. Level slot. So I checked another bridge officers - and indeed, it's listed as a Lieutenant level power there.
Seems HE3 was wrongly categoried as Lt. level power - unless this is intentional?
Crafting Training Manuals for other career tracks
I was able to craft a Training Manual for Attack Pattern Omega III as Science character. Intended?
Training additional skills
It seems the cost for training new skills seems to scale based on the number of trained skills for that rank, e.g. if you train a lot of Ensign powers, that doesn't affect the cost of Lt.Cmdr powers. I like that.
Skilling a Specific Power
Also, as an observation: It seems you no longer need to rank individual BO skills. That is probably intentional?
I like it. It seems it would be unneccessary complicated.
Bridge Officer Candidates
It seems many BO candidates come entirely without any bridge officer skills? That will make a lot of BOs worthless that people carried around in case they wanted one of those rare skills like Aux2SIF3, and it will make a lot of the Exchange Bridge Officer market useless. Of course, the Exchange will get the training materials, so it will be not a big loss - but what about the old candidates? And what will happen during levelling - will get get untrained BOs, or will we get some training manuals as additional mission rewards or as NPC drops?
Rare Skills that can only be trained from BOs
There are plenty of rare skills that can only be trained from Bridge Officers. What happens to them? Currently, it seems you're just out of luck.
I'd prefer if we could just make training manuals for them...
Stations UI
I think the individual BO stations could have a more obvious indicator that you can actually click on them to configure that Bridge Officer on the right hand side, and a more ovious indicator that they are currently selected.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I am loving the way that you can swap between trained boff skills of a particular rank at will, like captain traits. That is fantastic. It's gonna make it way easier to manage my boff skills.
I also like that, on the old boff trainer NPCs who now sell manuals, the manuals are all separated by department and space/ground. Way better than having to scroll endlessly through all of them to find the one you want.
No more need to put points into boff skills! I think I like this change most of all. That was always pointless (so to speak) anyway; there was/is no Expertise cap, so of course you were always going to put all you boff skills up to 9 (assuming the interface even let you, which it only did about half the time). Now, that completely pointless hassle is gone, and boff powers are simply boff powers. Very nice. (Though I am curious as to how performance is affected -- do all boff powers now behave as if they have a full 9 bars?)
I have to agree with what people are saying about costs for rank III skill manuals, though. I don't mind it costing a little dil, but 500 is a little steep for new characters, and there should not be a cost of materials at all. (Also, four hours? Why?)
I kind of agree that rank III skill manuals shouldn't cost as much as they do, however if you must charge 500 dilithium for a manual would you consider making it for rank IV ground skill manuals? Especially now our captains have access to higher rank kit modules, it would seem appropriate that bridge officers can get access to better versions of some ground abilities as well.
Rare Skills that can only be trained from BOs
There are plenty of rare skills that can only be trained from Bridge Officers. What happens to them? Currently, it seems you're just out of luck.
I'd prefer if we could just make training manuals for them...
This. Right here. Big concern. Will we be able to train these in some way?
Why the large bridge office damage nerf to weapons?
It looks like all the damage boost from bridge officers have been removed. Moving to Tribble has caused me to lose a large amount of damage as none of the bridge office damage boosts work anymore. So far I lost raw damage to weapons, lost crit chance and lost crit damage. Those bridge officer cost over 100k dilithium if I recall correctly. One Bridge officer was a rare 1 off token that cannot be reused.
It’s not very fair to strip away rare and expansive ability away like this. Many player will feel like they wasted there time on the rare limited Bridge officers.
Why the large bridge office damage nerf to weapons?
It looks like all the damage boost from bridge officers have been removed. Moving to Tribble has caused me to lose a large amount of damage as none of the bridge office damage boosts work anymore. So far I lost raw damage to weapons, lost crit chance and lost crit damage. Those bridge officer cost over 100k dilithium if I recall correctly. One Bridge officer was a rare 1 off token that cannot be reused.
Its not very fair to strip away rare and expansive ability away like this. Many player will feel like they wasted there time on the rare limited Bridge officers.
Are talking about boff trait ? Because if so, it's still there. No change.
I tried new system on Tribble fo a few hours. It look very promising. It is kind of pricy, but it one time investment as soon as you train officer , he/she keeps the skill forever. I found one problem with the system.
Can you please clarify something? What will happened with all abilities, that only trainable by rare or very rare officer? Abilities like BO III, AuxToSif III, TS III? Is it possible to turn reserve officers with this abilities in to Training Manuals? Not on Tribble ATM. Thank you .
One of my Romulan Science BOffs on my Romulan char was missing an ability by having HE3 moved down to Lt. forcibly leaving a gap at Lt. Comm and removing the previous Lt. ability entirely.
I kind of agree that rank III skill manuals shouldn't cost as much as they do, however if you must charge 500 dilithium for a manual would you consider making it for rank IV ground skill manuals? Especially now our captains have access to higher rank kit modules, it would seem appropriate that bridge officers can get access to better versions of some ground abilities as well.
The thing is that the PADD is what costs 500 dilithium. Regardless of whether a rank II or III skill is placed on it. So in theory a Rank IV skill should still use the exact same PADD.
I tried new system on Tribble fo a few hours. It look very promising. It is kind of pricy, but it one time investment as soon as you train officer , he/she keeps the skill forever. I found one problem with the system.
Can you please clarify something? What will happened with all abilities, that only trainable by rare or very rare officer? Abilities like BO III, AuxToSif III, TS III? Is it possible to turn reserve officers with this abilities in to Training Manuals? Not on Tribble ATM. Thank you .
Well, this is what my testing on Tribble revealed. A big fat ?
You see looking at my uncommissioned BOFF list, ALL the normal BOFFs there are blanks. They have no skills, just traits. With ONE exception.
My Dominion series, Jem'Hadar BOFF who has the same trait and skills list as he currently has including the Torp Spread III. HERE'S THE TWIST! I selected the commission - train option, and the old training screen came up...and it was completely blank. I would imagine that the mission Facility 4028, is going to have a character bound Torp Spread III training manual as a reward alongside the Jem'Hadar BOFF, but as for the ones that we get from BOFFs not from special missions...I have absolutely no clue.
"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"
I love the fact we'll no longer need different boffs for different builds, massive advantage of the feature. I'll need to have a proper delve in, but having a glance over yesterday, I'm a big, big fan of this system, the aesthetics of the UI for it, and the icons being changed.
This is a feedback thread on the power icons as presented in Thomas' Dev Blog and associated pages. I have not patched Tribble nor experimented with the new system yet.
Firstly I would like to state that although it will take some time to get used to I commend the work being done to make power icons more representative of what they do, so thank you.
There is a sign in the bottom right of each icon that represents what type of power this is:
'x' represents some form of damage power
'o' represents some form of pet power
'+' represents some form of heal power
'^' represents some form of buff power
'v' represents some form of debuff power
There are many powers within the game that don't fit solely into an one of these categories (eg some powers are heal plus buff or damage plus debuff) I would suggest that you pick the main/primary component of a skill when choosing the icon.
There are also many powers that have a background that looks like the outline of a person (shoulders and head). I assume this is supposed to represent powers that affect self only, given by the way some of these borders have been removed from some skills (e.g. Aceton beam) but has been retained on many others. There is also a new triple person background that appears on a couple of the new skills (SNB and Tac initiative space). I think this should be used on skills that affect the team as this makes more sense.
Some skills have no background/border at all, and I believe this is an error, the background/border should represent how the/who the skill can be targeted on - so here is the proposal which I believe would make the system and icons have more continuity:
Single person background: target self powers that affect self only
Triple person background: team based buffs that affect the team
Circle bacground: should represent a skill that can be targeted to affect an enemy
Hexagonal background: should represent power that is an AOE based around self (like sonic pulse, CPB)
Triangular background: should represent AOE based power that affects cone in front of player (like tachyon harmonic)
Rectangular background: this doesn't exist on either the old or new powers, but I suggest that any power that could affect self if enemy targeted, or friendly if friendly targeted (like heals etc.) should have its own background.
With the above suggestings/comments below is a workthrough the skill icons as proposed in the various pages.
Eng Ground
Chroniton mine barrier: Is a pet spawn (so should be 'o' rather than 'x') and can be placed anywhere (so shouldn't have the circular background that only relates to enemy targeting powers)
Combat supply: Pet spawn again should be 'o' rather than '^'
Eng Proficiency: should have tripple person background as team skill and primary component is the resistance buff so should be '^' rather than '+'
Equipment Diag: I may be wrong but I think this power can be cast on friendlies as well as self so this could have the rectangular background (if it's self only it should be the person)
Forcefield dome: shouldn't have the circle around it
Fuse armour: targets enemy so should be in circle background
Medical Generator: This is a pet spawn so should be 'o' rather than '+' also it shouldn't have the circle background
Transphasic bomb: is a pet spawn so again 'o' and doesn't need the circle background
Quickfix: again can't remember exactly the functionality of this skill, but comment like equipment diagnostic (friendly targetable = rectangular background, self only = person)
Shield Generator: shouldn't have circle background and potentially icon could look more like med generator
Shield recharge: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Weapons malfunction: targets enemies so put in circular border
Eng Space
Aceton beam: targets enemies so put in circular border
Boarding party: pet spawn so 'o' rather than 'x'
DEM: target self only so should be in single person background
EWP: AOE around player so should be in hexagonal background rather than circular (like CPB, photonic shockwave)
Engineering fleet: affects team so should be in triple person background
Engineering team: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
EPS power transfer: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Extend shields: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Sci Ground
Hyposprays/med tricorder/nanite health monitor/vas regen: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Triage: AOE (although I remember this can be targeted to friendlies) so suggest either retangular or hexagonal background. Certainly not a circular one.
Scientific aptitude: team based so triple person background
Stasis field: should be in circular background as targets enemies
Sci Space
Energy siphon: should be in circular background as targets enemies
Feedback pulse: targets self so should be in single person background
Hazard emmitters/sci team/shield transfer: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Jam sensors/SNB/tachyon beam/tractor beam/viral matrix: targets enemies so should be in circular backgrounds
Science fleet: afftects team so should have triple person background
Tac Ground
Battle strategies: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Fire on my mark/lunge: targets and enemy so should be in circular background
Suppressing fire: this actually buffs self (although that then debuffs all enemies receiving damage) would suggest single person background.
Target optics: is actually a cone based debuff (like tachyon harmonic) so should be in a triangular background
Strike team: team based so should have triple person background
Tac Space
Attack Pattern Delta & Tactical team: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
FAW,Beam Overload, CSV, CRF, Torp Spread, Torp HY, Dispersal Alpha, dispersal beta: all target self abilities so should be in single person background. Also Torp HY should be '^' buff rather than 'x' damage. Dispersal alpha and beta icons should be changed to reflect the shapes of the minefields they lay.
Fire on my mark: targets and enemy so should be in circular background
Subsystems targeting abilities: target self so should be in single person backgrounds.
Tac initiative: I was under the impression that the space vesion of this skill only affected self (unlike the ground version that is small AOE affecting friendlies). As such I suggest a single person background (rather than triple which it has become).
Tac fleet: affects team so should be in triple person background.
Captain Skills
Fleet support: doesnt really affect self, suggest single person background removed - although this makes it look very much like photinic fleet (other than colour yellow vs blue).
Cardiopulmonary Resus: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
That's a full feedback on the currect skills although many item, set bonus, rep/spec related power icons have been missed off. I would suggest that all of these have the same rules regarding backgrounds and little bottom right corner icons are followed.
So far I'm quite liking the UI and the functionality it affords, it's also a lot better in terms of empty space. I agree that 500 dil per skill is a bit pricey however at captain level there are enough sources of dilithium (Starbase 24 being the main one) I do think halving the cost maybe making it the same as the EC cost to get these skills from the trainer.
One thing I have noticed however as I had to start a new toon because of the failure of the transfer system is all my boffs have access to all four of their ground skills, they are still ensigns so I don't know if this is intended or a bug. I'll do some more testing when I get some ECs together and see if I can change any of thee higher level skills.
This is a feedback thread on the power icons as presented in Thomas' Dev Blog and associated pages. I have not patched Tribble nor experimented with the new system yet.
Firstly I would like to state that although it will take some time to get used to I commend the work being done to make power icons more representative of what they do, so thank you.
There is a sign in the bottom right of each icon that represents what type of power this is:
'x' represents some form of damage power
'o' represents some form of pet power
'+' represents some form of heal power
'^' represents some form of buff power
'v' represents some form of debuff power
There are many powers within the game that don't fit solely into an one of these categories (eg some powers are heal plus buff or damage plus debuff) I would suggest that you pick the main/primary component of a skill when choosing the icon.
There are also many powers that have a background that looks like the outline of a person (shoulders and head). I assume this is supposed to represent powers that affect self only, given by the way some of these borders have been removed from some skills (e.g. Aceton beam) but has been retained on many others. There is also a new triple person background that appears on a couple of the new skills (SNB and Tac initiative space). I think this should be used on skills that affect the team as this makes more sense.
Some skills have no background/border at all, and I believe this is an error, the background/border should represent how the/who the skill can be targeted on - so here is the proposal which I believe would make the system and icons have more continuity:
Single person background: target self powers that affect self only
Triple person background: team based buffs that affect the team
Circle bacground: should represent a skill that can be targeted to affect an enemy
Hexagonal background: should represent power that is an AOE based around self (like sonic pulse, CPB)
Triangular background: should represent AOE based power that affects cone in front of player (like tachyon harmonic)
Rectangular background: this doesn't exist on either the old or new powers, but I suggest that any power that could affect self if enemy targeted, or friendly if friendly targeted (like heals etc.) should have its own background.
With the above suggestings/comments below is a workthrough the skill icons as proposed in the various pages.
Eng Ground
Chroniton mine barrier: Is a pet spawn (so should be 'o' rather than 'x') and can be placed anywhere (so shouldn't have the circular background that only relates to enemy targeting powers)
Combat supply: Pet spawn again should be 'o' rather than '^'
Eng Proficiency: should have tripple person background as team skill and primary component is the resistance buff so should be '^' rather than '+'
Equipment Diag: I may be wrong but I think this power can be cast on friendlies as well as self so this could have the rectangular background (if it's self only it should be the person)
Forcefield dome: shouldn't have the circle around it
Fuse armour: targets enemy so should be in circle background
Medical Generator: This is a pet spawn so should be 'o' rather than '+' also it shouldn't have the circle background
Transphasic bomb: is a pet spawn so again 'o' and doesn't need the circle background
Quickfix: again can't remember exactly the functionality of this skill, but comment like equipment diagnostic (friendly targetable = rectangular background, self only = person)
Shield Generator: shouldn't have circle background and potentially icon could look more like med generator
Shield recharge: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Weapons malfunction: targets enemies so put in circular border
Eng Space
Aceton beam: targets enemies so put in circular border
Boarding party: pet spawn so 'o' rather than 'x'
DEM: target self only so should be in single person background
EWP: AOE around player so should be in hexagonal background rather than circular (like CPB, photonic shockwave)
Engineering fleet: affects team so should be in triple person background
Engineering team: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
EPS power transfer: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Extend shields: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Sci Ground
Hyposprays/med tricorder/nanite health monitor/vas regen: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Triage: AOE (although I remember this can be targeted to friendlies) so suggest either retangular or hexagonal background. Certainly not a circular one.
Scientific aptitude: team based so triple person background
Stasis field: should be in circular background as targets enemies
Sci Space
Energy siphon: should be in circular background as targets enemies
Feedback pulse: targets self so should be in single person background
Hazard emmitters/sci team/shield transfer: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Jam sensors/SNB/tachyon beam/tractor beam/viral matrix: targets enemies so should be in circular backgrounds
Science fleet: afftects team so should have triple person background
Tac Ground
Battle strategies: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Fire on my mark/lunge: targets and enemy so should be in circular background
Suppressing fire: this actually buffs self (although that then debuffs all enemies receiving damage) would suggest single person background.
Target optics: is actually a cone based debuff (like tachyon harmonic) so should be in a triangular background
Strike team: team based so should have triple person background
Tac Space
Attack Pattern Delta & Tactical team: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
FAW,Beam Overload, CSV, CRF, Torp Spread, Torp HY, Dispersal Alpha, dispersal beta: all target self abilities so should be in single person background. Also Torp HY should be '^' buff rather than 'x' damage. Dispersal alpha and beta icons should be changed to reflect the shapes of the minefields they lay.
Fire on my mark: targets and enemy so should be in circular background
Subsystems targeting abilities: target self so should be in single person backgrounds.
Tac initiative: I was under the impression that the space vesion of this skill only affected self (unlike the ground version that is small AOE affecting friendlies). As such I suggest a single person background (rather than triple which it has become).
Tac fleet: affects team so should be in triple person background.
Captain Skills
Fleet support: doesnt really affect self, suggest single person background removed - although this makes it look very much like photinic fleet (other than colour yellow vs blue).
Cardiopulmonary Resus: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
That's a full feedback on the currect skills although many item, set bonus, rep/spec related power icons have been missed off. I would suggest that all of these have the same rules regarding backgrounds and little bottom right corner icons are followed.
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
It seems that most Bridge Officers might become superflous with this system - you can get a few BOFFs from levelling and a lot from DOFFIng, but they only seem to be good for their traits now (which means only Very Rare ones are even interesting), not for the powers they have. Is there anything in the works to address that?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It seems that most Bridge Officers might become superflous with this system - you can get a few BOFFs from levelling and a lot from DOFFIng, but they only seem to be good for their traits now (which means only Very Rare ones are even interesting), not for the powers they have. Is there anything in the works to address that?
T3 skills costing dillithium is a BIG issue to newer 30x players
I've played without boff skills for a challenge, not having the skills a fairly serous disadvantage, a 30x just doesn't have access to the dill, or need the delay with making padds
Suggestions:
1) Make it T4, or just the special T3/T4 abilities (or leave some core T3 abilities dil free at least?)
I'm guessing that's a no so that leaves something like
1) Adding *many* free pads to the "you get free B-officer" levels and story line acquisitions in game. By many, I mean enough to fully spec the B-officer and a few left over
or
2) Blank slate the officers, and offer a free choose of skills when B-officer is promoted
Also I'll also object generally to the larger and larger "dill wall" that is being built, trying to keep an healthy economy (or profiting off the lazy) is starting to make the game less and less accessible. Grind is not Gameplay!
Well, I'm sold on it. I like the fact that you no longer need to rely on someone having the skill to train then trust the person when you hand over your BOff. Also, this allows for training bound BOffs in other higher skills.
My only issue is consuming the PADD. This should be a one time craft. It's a tablet, and my tablet doesn't disappear after I read a book.
It seems that most Bridge Officers might become superflous with this system - you can get a few BOFFs from levelling and a lot from DOFFIng, but they only seem to be good for their traits now (which means only Very Rare ones are even interesting), not for the powers they have. Is there anything in the works to address that?
I'm hoping for more space traits in the future. Otherwise yeah, not much point in having many bridge officers.
The fact that as a Tactical captain I can no longer train Captain Trainable skills to my tactical bridge officers without going through the whole crafting (or buying from exchange) system seems like a huge flaw with this.
I can understand that non-Tactical Captains or Captains who do not have the appropriate skill points in "Projectile Weapons" will be pleased to be able to train their Bridge Officers in "Torpedo High Yield 3" using a training manual. It's good news for them.
Why are Tactical Captains (and presumably Science & Engineer) losing the ability to train their own Bridge Officers with Captain Trainable skills?
(I'd like an answer from a Dev, not a "best guess" from a fellow player - this seems like an important feature that's being lost and it'd be helpful to have a direct answer as to why)
Thanks everyone for providing Feedback and letting us know about any bugs you are encountering as both are very helpful hear.
Class Training Manuals - It is a bug that players currently have recipes for other class training manuals. This will be fixed in the next patch. A Tactical player should not have Science and Engineering training manual recipes exposed to them.
Rare Boff Abilities - When the system is released it will retrain any Rare Boff Abilities that a Boff had to begin with (so if a player accidentally untrained a rare ability, they will get it back on that Boff). We are also planning on releasing those Rare Abilities as Training Manuals in the future but we have not determined the method on it yet.
Traits - Boff Traits should not be affected at all by this update. Please report any bugs that you find.
Boff Training - With the release of this new system we will no longer be supporting the old functionality of consuming a Boff to train another in an ability. If you have any Boff's you were saving for this purpose you should use them now before the system goes live. We will also no longer be supporting players being able to directly train Boffs for free in an ability. Going forward all Boff training will be consistent and require the use of Training Manuals.
Dilithium Cost - Just to be clear on this cost any Training Manual that you purchase from the Boff Trainer (which is the vast majority of them) do not require Dilithium. You will only need to spend Dilithium for the high end abilities that must be crafted. We are evaluating the exact amount of Dilithium required to create the PADD component though and appreciate hearing feedback from the community before making a final decision.
Thanks,
Mike "Warpdust" McTyre
Systems Designer
Star Trek Online
Rare Boff Abilities - When the system is released it will retrain any Rare Boff Abilities that a Boff had to begin with (so if a player accidentally untrained a rare ability, they will get it back on that Boff). We are also planning on releasing those Rare Abilities as Training Manuals in the future but we have not determined the method on it yet.
If I may make a suggestion, figuring you're talking stuff like Torpedo Spread 3 and Tyken's Rift 3, why not just add them to the skill tree with the others? There aren't that many if I recall correctly, should be easy to fit them in I would think
Dilithium Cost - Just to be clear on this cost any Training Manual that you purchase from the Boff Trainer (which is the vast majority of them) do not require Dilithium. You will only need to spend Dilithium for the high end abilities that must be crafted. We are evaluating the exact amount of Dilithium required to create the PADD component though and appreciate hearing feedback from the community before making a final decision.
I'm okish with 500 dilithium being being the cost for the padds, I'm NOT ok with them taking four hours, that seems way too long to me. I would think fifteen minutes should suffice, MAYBE even a half an hour.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
Comments
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Checked against various boffs on 1 captain only.
[edit] It appears torpedo high yield 3 is trainable by a high yield 2 manual.
I reserve the right to have a completely different standpoint depending on my mood.
It was fairly straight forward to craft and train a new BOFF, but when when I tried to switch to it, it reset my other bridge officer powers and moved it to the first slot. Was a little confusing.
Exchanging BOff Candidate for set of four manuals for skills he poses would be nice
Also how are we supposed to get the rank III abilities previously only available on rare BOFFs?
Will training manuals drop or anything or can we still use BOFFs to train skills?
First, I'm going to speak (mostly) from a new player standpoint. With the old system, a low level first character was able to train some skills as he leveled up. It was mostly free (the ec cost was very low), and even if he didn't had the necessary expertise, he could still have the skill.
With the new system, he will not be able to do so, unless he works and wait for it.
-Dil cost too high. Currently, 500dil/skill. It's moderately high for an old player like myself, but for a new player, that mean 2 academy quizz (the only low level source of dil). IE 2days of wait + another 4h from crafting the item. Chances are, that means 3 days for the item, unless someones likes to wait 4h for it (unlikely). They can't pay the "finish now" timer, since it's far too expensive.
As far as I know, there are no other mean to acquire dil at low level, other than the quizz, or opening box. But new players are probably not the ones opening boxes and earning dil claim (which are rare anyway).
While they could buy it from the exchange, prices are probably be too high for a new player with a few thousands credit in the wallet.
Suggestion : cut the dil cost to 250~ or maximum 400. 250 feels fine IMO. It shouldn't be a grind, we already have enough of them.
-Needs of crafting materials. Again, chances are, those new players doesn't have the necessary materials. They might use the exchange, but it start to be complicated for a new player.
Suggestion : remove the material price. I don't see the point, those are very common for any vets anyway.
Bugs and maybe bug (as an engineering captain) :
-I'm able to craft sci/tac manual. Alongside the engi ones. Don't know if it's intended or not.
-Torpedo high yield 3 manual doesn't work. I don't have the option to train my BOFF, even if I have the manual. It is considered as a T:HY 2 for the game, even if the tooltip says it's T:HY 3.
-Assigning newly trained skill in the space station windows doesn't work. They are either switched to another skill I don't even have, or leave the entire station empty, except for this new skill, slotted at ensign level (for a commander one). Ground seems to work so far.
-Non commissioned BOFF still have the "train up" option, even when it's not working (blank window).
-Now that we can't train BOFF with others BOFF, we are missing several skills, like Torpedo spread 3.
Quality of life :
-Can we get rid of lower rank skill when we have a new better skill at the same rank ? For example, hazard emitter 2 and 3 are both Lt slot, yet 3 is better than 2, so why I can still see and choose HE2 ? It should replace it.
Same goes for numerous skill, like GW2-3, AP:O2-3...
When we learn a better rank ability in the same slot than the lower rank one, then it should replace it. No point in running HE2 when you have HE3 anyway.
-Again, for a new player, mostly, add a tooltip on how to use a manual on the manual. Add a tooltip or help window to see what item is lacking and how to obtain it, when he is looking at skill he doesn't have. Instead of just "missing item".
On my character Ridlluc 1 (copied from Holodeck) I made a Hazard Emitters III training manual, but I couldn't initially actually use it to train any of my Bridge Officers
I selected the Lt.Cmdr Space Slot in the Skills Tab of all of my available Science Officers, and cannot find Hazard Emitters III listened in there.
Oddly enough however, I noticed that one of my Science Officers, "Tatbla", has Hazard Emitters III. But it is equipped in a Lt. Level slot. So I checked another bridge officers - and indeed, it's listed as a Lieutenant level power there.
Seems HE3 was wrongly categoried as Lt. level power - unless this is intentional?
Crafting Training Manuals for other career tracks
I was able to craft a Training Manual for Attack Pattern Omega III as Science character. Intended?
Training additional skills
It seems the cost for training new skills seems to scale based on the number of trained skills for that rank, e.g. if you train a lot of Ensign powers, that doesn't affect the cost of Lt.Cmdr powers. I like that.
Skilling a Specific Power
Also, as an observation: It seems you no longer need to rank individual BO skills. That is probably intentional?
I like it. It seems it would be unneccessary complicated.
Bridge Officer Candidates
It seems many BO candidates come entirely without any bridge officer skills? That will make a lot of BOs worthless that people carried around in case they wanted one of those rare skills like Aux2SIF3, and it will make a lot of the Exchange Bridge Officer market useless. Of course, the Exchange will get the training materials, so it will be not a big loss - but what about the old candidates? And what will happen during levelling - will get get untrained BOs, or will we get some training manuals as additional mission rewards or as NPC drops?
Rare Skills that can only be trained from BOs
There are plenty of rare skills that can only be trained from Bridge Officers. What happens to them? Currently, it seems you're just out of luck.
I'd prefer if we could just make training manuals for them...
Stations UI
I think the individual BO stations could have a more obvious indicator that you can actually click on them to configure that Bridge Officer on the right hand side, and a more ovious indicator that they are currently selected.
I also like that, on the old boff trainer NPCs who now sell manuals, the manuals are all separated by department and space/ground. Way better than having to scroll endlessly through all of them to find the one you want.
No more need to put points into boff skills! I think I like this change most of all. That was always pointless (so to speak) anyway; there was/is no Expertise cap, so of course you were always going to put all you boff skills up to 9 (assuming the interface even let you, which it only did about half the time). Now, that completely pointless hassle is gone, and boff powers are simply boff powers. Very nice. (Though I am curious as to how performance is affected -- do all boff powers now behave as if they have a full 9 bars?)
I have to agree with what people are saying about costs for rank III skill manuals, though. I don't mind it costing a little dil, but 500 is a little steep for new characters, and there should not be a cost of materials at all. (Also, four hours? Why?)
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
This. Right here. Big concern. Will we be able to train these in some way?
It looks like all the damage boost from bridge officers have been removed. Moving to Tribble has caused me to lose a large amount of damage as none of the bridge office damage boosts work anymore. So far I lost raw damage to weapons, lost crit chance and lost crit damage. Those bridge officer cost over 100k dilithium if I recall correctly. One Bridge officer was a rare 1 off token that cannot be reused.
It’s not very fair to strip away rare and expansive ability away like this. Many player will feel like they wasted there time on the rare limited Bridge officers.
Can you please clarify something? What will happened with all abilities, that only trainable by rare or very rare officer? Abilities like BO III, AuxToSif III, TS III? Is it possible to turn reserve officers with this abilities in to Training Manuals? Not on Tribble ATM. Thank you .
EDIT: Ok I found the traits but they are still broken. Pirate, Space Warfare Specialist and Superior Romulan Operative are all broken.
Well, this is what my testing on Tribble revealed. A big fat ?
You see looking at my uncommissioned BOFF list, ALL the normal BOFFs there are blanks. They have no skills, just traits. With ONE exception.
My Dominion series, Jem'Hadar BOFF who has the same trait and skills list as he currently has including the Torp Spread III. HERE'S THE TWIST! I selected the commission - train option, and the old training screen came up...and it was completely blank. I would imagine that the mission Facility 4028, is going to have a character bound Torp Spread III training manual as a reward alongside the Jem'Hadar BOFF, but as for the ones that we get from BOFFs not from special missions...I have absolutely no clue.
Firstly I would like to state that although it will take some time to get used to I commend the work being done to make power icons more representative of what they do, so thank you.
There is a sign in the bottom right of each icon that represents what type of power this is:
'x' represents some form of damage power
'o' represents some form of pet power
'+' represents some form of heal power
'^' represents some form of buff power
'v' represents some form of debuff power
There are many powers within the game that don't fit solely into an one of these categories (eg some powers are heal plus buff or damage plus debuff) I would suggest that you pick the main/primary component of a skill when choosing the icon.
There are also many powers that have a background that looks like the outline of a person (shoulders and head). I assume this is supposed to represent powers that affect self only, given by the way some of these borders have been removed from some skills (e.g. Aceton beam) but has been retained on many others. There is also a new triple person background that appears on a couple of the new skills (SNB and Tac initiative space). I think this should be used on skills that affect the team as this makes more sense.
Some skills have no background/border at all, and I believe this is an error, the background/border should represent how the/who the skill can be targeted on - so here is the proposal which I believe would make the system and icons have more continuity:
Single person background: target self powers that affect self only
Triple person background: team based buffs that affect the team
Circle bacground: should represent a skill that can be targeted to affect an enemy
Hexagonal background: should represent power that is an AOE based around self (like sonic pulse, CPB)
Triangular background: should represent AOE based power that affects cone in front of player (like tachyon harmonic)
Rectangular background: this doesn't exist on either the old or new powers, but I suggest that any power that could affect self if enemy targeted, or friendly if friendly targeted (like heals etc.) should have its own background.
With the above suggestings/comments below is a workthrough the skill icons as proposed in the various pages.
Eng Ground
Chroniton mine barrier: Is a pet spawn (so should be 'o' rather than 'x') and can be placed anywhere (so shouldn't have the circular background that only relates to enemy targeting powers)
Combat supply: Pet spawn again should be 'o' rather than '^'
Eng Proficiency: should have tripple person background as team skill and primary component is the resistance buff so should be '^' rather than '+'
Equipment Diag: I may be wrong but I think this power can be cast on friendlies as well as self so this could have the rectangular background (if it's self only it should be the person)
Forcefield dome: shouldn't have the circle around it
Fuse armour: targets enemy so should be in circle background
Medical Generator: This is a pet spawn so should be 'o' rather than '+' also it shouldn't have the circle background
Transphasic bomb: is a pet spawn so again 'o' and doesn't need the circle background
Quickfix: again can't remember exactly the functionality of this skill, but comment like equipment diagnostic (friendly targetable = rectangular background, self only = person)
Shield Generator: shouldn't have circle background and potentially icon could look more like med generator
Shield recharge: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Weapons malfunction: targets enemies so put in circular border
Eng Space
Aceton beam: targets enemies so put in circular border
Boarding party: pet spawn so 'o' rather than 'x'
DEM: target self only so should be in single person background
EWP: AOE around player so should be in hexagonal background rather than circular (like CPB, photonic shockwave)
Engineering fleet: affects team so should be in triple person background
Engineering team: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
EPS power transfer: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Extend shields: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Sci Ground
Hyposprays/med tricorder/nanite health monitor/vas regen: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Triage: AOE (although I remember this can be targeted to friendlies) so suggest either retangular or hexagonal background. Certainly not a circular one.
Scientific aptitude: team based so triple person background
Stasis field: should be in circular background as targets enemies
Sci Space
Energy siphon: should be in circular background as targets enemies
Feedback pulse: targets self so should be in single person background
Hazard emmitters/sci team/shield transfer: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
Jam sensors/SNB/tachyon beam/tractor beam/viral matrix: targets enemies so should be in circular backgrounds
Science fleet: afftects team so should have triple person background
Tac Ground
Battle strategies: can target friendlies so rectangular background
Fire on my mark/lunge: targets and enemy so should be in circular background
Suppressing fire: this actually buffs self (although that then debuffs all enemies receiving damage) would suggest single person background.
Target optics: is actually a cone based debuff (like tachyon harmonic) so should be in a triangular background
Strike team: team based so should have triple person background
Tac Space
Attack Pattern Delta & Tactical team: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
FAW,Beam Overload, CSV, CRF, Torp Spread, Torp HY, Dispersal Alpha, dispersal beta: all target self abilities so should be in single person background. Also Torp HY should be '^' buff rather than 'x' damage. Dispersal alpha and beta icons should be changed to reflect the shapes of the minefields they lay.
Fire on my mark: targets and enemy so should be in circular background
Subsystems targeting abilities: target self so should be in single person backgrounds.
Tac initiative: I was under the impression that the space vesion of this skill only affected self (unlike the ground version that is small AOE affecting friendlies). As such I suggest a single person background (rather than triple which it has become).
Tac fleet: affects team so should be in triple person background.
Captain Skills
Fleet support: doesnt really affect self, suggest single person background removed - although this makes it look very much like photinic fleet (other than colour yellow vs blue).
Cardiopulmonary Resus: friendlies are targetable so should be in rectangular background
That's a full feedback on the currect skills although many item, set bonus, rep/spec related power icons have been missed off. I would suggest that all of these have the same rules regarding backgrounds and little bottom right corner icons are followed.
Hope this is helpful.
...#LLAP...
One thing I have noticed however as I had to start a new toon because of the failure of the transfer system is all my boffs have access to all four of their ground skills, they are still ensigns so I don't know if this is intended or a bug. I'll do some more testing when I get some ECs together and see if I can change any of thee higher level skills.
Actually the correct thread is here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1345181
In the Bridge Officer Training store, there's no way of finding out what the new abilities do before purchasing them.
Hovering over the appropriate manual doesn't give enough information, and neither does right clicking on the item.
Also, 'Training Manual' doesn't seem very 'Star Trek' to me. How about 'Training Programme' or 'Training Simulation' or something?
Cheers
K
This has always this way.
T3 skills costing dillithium is a BIG issue to newer 30x players
I've played without boff skills for a challenge, not having the skills a fairly serous disadvantage, a 30x just doesn't have access to the dill, or need the delay with making padds
Suggestions:
1) Make it T4, or just the special T3/T4 abilities (or leave some core T3 abilities dil free at least?)
I'm guessing that's a no so that leaves something like
1) Adding *many* free pads to the "you get free B-officer" levels and story line acquisitions in game. By many, I mean enough to fully spec the B-officer and a few left over
or
2) Blank slate the officers, and offer a free choose of skills when B-officer is promoted
Also I'll also object generally to the larger and larger "dill wall" that is being built, trying to keep an healthy economy (or profiting off the lazy) is starting to make the game less and less accessible. Grind is not Gameplay!
My only issue is consuming the PADD. This should be a one time craft. It's a tablet, and my tablet doesn't disappear after I read a book.
Centurion maximus92
12th Legion, Romulan Republic
12th Fleet
=\/= ================================ =\/=
I'm hoping for more space traits in the future. Otherwise yeah, not much point in having many bridge officers.
I can understand that non-Tactical Captains or Captains who do not have the appropriate skill points in "Projectile Weapons" will be pleased to be able to train their Bridge Officers in "Torpedo High Yield 3" using a training manual. It's good news for them.
Why are Tactical Captains (and presumably Science & Engineer) losing the ability to train their own Bridge Officers with Captain Trainable skills?
(I'd like an answer from a Dev, not a "best guess" from a fellow player - this seems like an important feature that's being lost and it'd be helpful to have a direct answer as to why)
Free Tibet!
Class Training Manuals - It is a bug that players currently have recipes for other class training manuals. This will be fixed in the next patch. A Tactical player should not have Science and Engineering training manual recipes exposed to them.
Rare Boff Abilities - When the system is released it will retrain any Rare Boff Abilities that a Boff had to begin with (so if a player accidentally untrained a rare ability, they will get it back on that Boff). We are also planning on releasing those Rare Abilities as Training Manuals in the future but we have not determined the method on it yet.
Traits - Boff Traits should not be affected at all by this update. Please report any bugs that you find.
Boff Training - With the release of this new system we will no longer be supporting the old functionality of consuming a Boff to train another in an ability. If you have any Boff's you were saving for this purpose you should use them now before the system goes live. We will also no longer be supporting players being able to directly train Boffs for free in an ability. Going forward all Boff training will be consistent and require the use of Training Manuals.
Dilithium Cost - Just to be clear on this cost any Training Manual that you purchase from the Boff Trainer (which is the vast majority of them) do not require Dilithium. You will only need to spend Dilithium for the high end abilities that must be crafted. We are evaluating the exact amount of Dilithium required to create the PADD component though and appreciate hearing feedback from the community before making a final decision.
Thanks,
Mike "Warpdust" McTyre
Systems Designer
Star Trek Online
If I may make a suggestion, figuring you're talking stuff like Torpedo Spread 3 and Tyken's Rift 3, why not just add them to the skill tree with the others? There aren't that many if I recall correctly, should be easy to fit them in I would think
I'm okish with 500 dilithium being being the cost for the padds, I'm NOT ok with them taking four hours, that seems way too long to me. I would think fifteen minutes should suffice, MAYBE even a half an hour.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade