test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Mission Review: Broken Circle - 4/5 Stars. Bugs and lag not withstanding.
AdmiralThrax
Member Posts: 26 Arc User
View the full article here (with screen caps).
A somewhat ‘spoiler-free’ review.
Despite the efforts of the past several weeks, this mission was loaded with Lag Spikes. Lots and lots of lag. It wasn’t game-ending frustration, but I get the impression that today’s launch delay may have had an impact on the game which is still being felt tonight. On my second run, I came to a screeching halt with a bug.
BROKEN CIRCLE
The latest featured episode certainly cranks up the war to a new level. To be honest there hasn’t been a sense of urgency, partly do to the limited effect the Iconians are having in the rest of the game. Unless you’re actually tuned into the featured episodes and a few STF’s, the Iconian War so far has felt like something happening to someone else. This mission changes that impression.
The mission begins with a briefing in the Kyana system near the Delta Gateway, and home to the Alliance/Krenim Research facility and a quickly gathering strike force. A quick count of the Armada in the background makes it the largest task force ever assembled in Star Trek Online.
Once you beam over to the station – stop – and don’t trigger the welcoming statement from the Klingon aide. Take the time to see the station, walk around and come back to trigger him to proceed to the next introduction. It’s worth a look. One thing you can say about this featured episode is that the environments are incredible. Kudos to the environmental team – this place feels like the Krenim Weapon Ship. (On an aside – I know why they held back on offering the Krenim Weapon Ship yet… we haven’t built it yet).
After meeting with old friends (I swear Seven’s gotten younger), you join the Alliance Commander in the briefing room. As you arrive you have a chance to talk with other mission members, and for a moment have a decent conversation about efficacy of researching a temporal weapon with a member of Temporal Investigations. Lets be honest – we are talking about violating the Temporal Prime Directive. The conversation is a nice nod to to classic Trek.
The music during the briefing will fill you with dread. It’s so not trek-like, and yet fits the scene setting the tone for the discussion. We’re in deep do-do, and we’re about to do something very Klingon.
After joining Captain Tom Paris with Alpha Wing, Phase One of the combat is entirely in space outside the Iconian Dyson Sphere. The battle does not go well. Subtle details of ships in need of help and the Klingon’s direct choice of how to continue the mission were pitch perfect. Another nice nod to Trek canon.
Phase Two takes us into the sphere to press the attack on the Iconian Command Ship, which is desperately trying to regain energy. Your job is to hold off reinforcements while carrier teams bring in boarding parties. Like The Herald Sphere, you’re inside the ring of gateways holding off emerging attacks from multiple directions.
Phase Three you join the boarding parties, who are facing tough resistance from Herald reinforcements. Luckily you have experience dealing with them by now, and after running Brotherhood of the Sword, you now know how to shut down the Iconian power junctions.
After the first junction goes offline, you meet your next major combat. M’Tara herself.
You have to admit this is what you’ve been waiting for since you saw the Kahless clone battle and wound one of the Iconians during House Pegh. The running battle has multiple stages, slowly revealing little details of what gives the Iconians thier strength.
Take the time to stop and look around. The environments inside the Herald ship are amazing. With each section you clear, and more power conduits you turn off, it’s becoming clear you might just win this.
The ongoing ground battle is glorious
It takes everything you have to survive. And yes, something cool happens.
(Bug: during my second run of the night with another alt, the mission bugged during my second encounter with M’Tara. Thinking ahead, I had deployed engineering gear where she appears. The mission came to a screeching halt as M’Tara refused to appear. Even waiting for the gear to disappear did not help. I used task manager to stop the process, and returned to the game, only to be stymied again. Very frustrating.)
Phase Four – escaping the sphere, you begin to search for survivors as you make a hasty retreat. The view screen is devoid of life as the entire Armada of Alliance ships has been eradicated, apparently taking a significant chunk of the Herald ship with them.
—
Like the Undine attack on ESD from ‘Surface Tension in season nine, this mission is expansive in it’s scope and and intensity. No part of the space combat felt contrived. If it were not for the lag and the episode ending bug, I think I would have run it a few times tonight on different toons.
4/5 Stars
A somewhat ‘spoiler-free’ review.
Despite the efforts of the past several weeks, this mission was loaded with Lag Spikes. Lots and lots of lag. It wasn’t game-ending frustration, but I get the impression that today’s launch delay may have had an impact on the game which is still being felt tonight. On my second run, I came to a screeching halt with a bug.
BROKEN CIRCLE
The latest featured episode certainly cranks up the war to a new level. To be honest there hasn’t been a sense of urgency, partly do to the limited effect the Iconians are having in the rest of the game. Unless you’re actually tuned into the featured episodes and a few STF’s, the Iconian War so far has felt like something happening to someone else. This mission changes that impression.
The mission begins with a briefing in the Kyana system near the Delta Gateway, and home to the Alliance/Krenim Research facility and a quickly gathering strike force. A quick count of the Armada in the background makes it the largest task force ever assembled in Star Trek Online.
Once you beam over to the station – stop – and don’t trigger the welcoming statement from the Klingon aide. Take the time to see the station, walk around and come back to trigger him to proceed to the next introduction. It’s worth a look. One thing you can say about this featured episode is that the environments are incredible. Kudos to the environmental team – this place feels like the Krenim Weapon Ship. (On an aside – I know why they held back on offering the Krenim Weapon Ship yet… we haven’t built it yet).
After meeting with old friends (I swear Seven’s gotten younger), you join the Alliance Commander in the briefing room. As you arrive you have a chance to talk with other mission members, and for a moment have a decent conversation about efficacy of researching a temporal weapon with a member of Temporal Investigations. Lets be honest – we are talking about violating the Temporal Prime Directive. The conversation is a nice nod to to classic Trek.
The music during the briefing will fill you with dread. It’s so not trek-like, and yet fits the scene setting the tone for the discussion. We’re in deep do-do, and we’re about to do something very Klingon.
After joining Captain Tom Paris with Alpha Wing, Phase One of the combat is entirely in space outside the Iconian Dyson Sphere. The battle does not go well. Subtle details of ships in need of help and the Klingon’s direct choice of how to continue the mission were pitch perfect. Another nice nod to Trek canon.
Phase Two takes us into the sphere to press the attack on the Iconian Command Ship, which is desperately trying to regain energy. Your job is to hold off reinforcements while carrier teams bring in boarding parties. Like The Herald Sphere, you’re inside the ring of gateways holding off emerging attacks from multiple directions.
Phase Three you join the boarding parties, who are facing tough resistance from Herald reinforcements. Luckily you have experience dealing with them by now, and after running Brotherhood of the Sword, you now know how to shut down the Iconian power junctions.
After the first junction goes offline, you meet your next major combat. M’Tara herself.
You have to admit this is what you’ve been waiting for since you saw the Kahless clone battle and wound one of the Iconians during House Pegh. The running battle has multiple stages, slowly revealing little details of what gives the Iconians thier strength.
Take the time to stop and look around. The environments inside the Herald ship are amazing. With each section you clear, and more power conduits you turn off, it’s becoming clear you might just win this.
The ongoing ground battle is glorious
It takes everything you have to survive. And yes, something cool happens.(Bug: during my second run of the night with another alt, the mission bugged during my second encounter with M’Tara. Thinking ahead, I had deployed engineering gear where she appears. The mission came to a screeching halt as M’Tara refused to appear. Even waiting for the gear to disappear did not help. I used task manager to stop the process, and returned to the game, only to be stymied again. Very frustrating.)
Phase Four – escaping the sphere, you begin to search for survivors as you make a hasty retreat. The view screen is devoid of life as the entire Armada of Alliance ships has been eradicated, apparently taking a significant chunk of the Herald ship with them.
—
Like the Undine attack on ESD from ‘Surface Tension in season nine, this mission is expansive in it’s scope and and intensity. No part of the space combat felt contrived. If it were not for the lag and the episode ending bug, I think I would have run it a few times tonight on different toons.
4/5 Stars
0
Comments
I don't understand why she couldn't kill my away time outright. I don't remember anyone mentioning anything about weakening Iconians or developing some kind of a counter measure against their powers. First Iconian we saw killed the Klingon High Council in the heart of First City with complete impunity.
I wasn't sure what our aim was for the mission. Did they mention us assassinating M'Tara at any point prior to meeting her? Why are we going to all this trouble just to kill one of their leaders? Shouldn't we have taken the opportunity to try and talk to her?
I swear, every time there's a Klingon character in these episodes, the writers lose IQ points. Just a lot of mindless aggression and no clear goal or objective from start to finish.
At any rate, I hope the Alliance loses the war.
quite possibly the worst FE in terms of consistency and story. if there had been some kind of leadup to it, losses, alerts, actual planets taken..something. nada. just plopped in with nothing to support it.
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
From what I've gathered they're trying to reclaim their birthright. If not for the fact that they're all female, they'd be a race of Didacts from Halo 4. I'd really like to interact with an Iconian without having to shoot at something, but the darn Klingons only know how to fight and for some reason they're in charge of this war.
The worst part was the acting? of the iconian.
"lololol i can kill you with a wave of my hand lololol."
Oh TRIBBLE i thought.
"lololol no i can't tricked you"
Any reason why you can't? Nope, none given. Ran out of ideas eh?
"lololol i'm a invincible you can't hurt me lololol"
"you are hurting me, i will kill you now lololol"
Because she was playing around before? Can she now hand wave and kill me? Nope, still not. So basically pointless posturing. Nice mustache there.
"i am now dead, lololol i have this super power to summon my friends, now you're screwed"
Why didn't she do this 5 fights ago when she knew i was draining her power and killing her? Yup, no reason again.
So the 2 friends pop up, i'm thinking, NOW i'm in for it. They are super pissed. More mustache twirling threats. Then they hand wave and we all DIE!!!!..........
No, they didn't, they just threaten to kill us, then let us leave. Why? You guessed it, still no reason.
My only conclusion is that the writers are terrible and can't think of anything other than bad 80's action movies.
It's just clicked, and I have a horrible feeling I know exactly how this plot will play out. Basic summary is everyone dies, we lose prime words, they'll be nothing left but us and a handful of other personnel at this research station. The last mission will be Iconians swinging the hammer on what's left of the Alliance. We mount a desperate defence in space and then fall back into the station. We have a last stand on the Krenim ship bridge and with Heralds bearing down on us and every other ally dying "press F to fire" pops up.
Cutscene! Our captain dodges fire as our own Boffs get killed one by one. We get shot in the leg or something but somehow we get to the console and hit the button before passing out. A big flash and we wake up back at our home systems. Everyone who died is magically alive and no-one has a clue about Iconians or the war.
"it was all just a dream"
That about sums it up for me.
I am tempted to give it a solid 0, mostly for how cryptic handled the Iconians at the end of the mission...
I don't think we should have ever seen the Iconians in person, but that is just me.
Heh, pulled a Dallas on us.
then
That would've done most of it for me.
Agreed.
This mission was mostly miss for me.
I would have thought that such a big fleet would have to given the ok from Starfleet Command or whatever.
Just this one guy say we go now, and that's it? No need to inform ppl like Quinn, or SFC of this to get the go ahead??
And since when did we know that shutting of the thingymajigs would hurt Iconians?? Didn't happen in in earlier missions afaik. Did we all of a sudden get Force visions that told us this fact??
What I liked about the mission was the very nice art work for the research station. Very good environmental work there. Was really worth it just running around on that station and taking in the sights.
I gotta agree with no bugs, quite frankly I was surprised, playing tn on 10.5 launch day I was shocked how smooth it went.
Tom Paris deduces that she is using her own power for the gateways, so in order to weaken her, we shut down power junctions so that she can't recharge herself.
Again, she used her own energy to power the gateway through which she had just arrived.
.....Really?
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Second, when we have wiped out no fewer than 12 of the enemy's vessels and lost only 4 of our own with the appearance of the dreadnought, that is not really sufficient cause to tuck one's tail between one's legs and "Run away! Run away!" And this is the second time Tom Paris has used the same line "We're ... we're falling back." Frankly, I don't really think that's in-character for him. I grant that the first time, he was concerned about his daughter's safety, and I understand that and might have done the same thing if I were in such a situation with either of my main's daughters, but it just felt like Starfleet was trying to wimp out in this mission, and Tom Paris has never struck me as cowardly or wimpy.
Third, M'Tara may be a bit full of herself, but she has at least been semi-reasonable previously. In this mission, she acted more like I would have expected T'Ket to act, so not in-character for M'Tara. AND she's been alive for over 200k years, yet she's still so conceited that she keeps coming back to attack again and again, even after she knows she is going to die? It makes no sense. Then as a result of M'Tara being stupid, L'Mirien, the so-called "Savant," who has heretofore been the most rational and cautious of the bunch, becomes enraged and crawls up T'Ket's behind. Again, out of character.
Those are my only criticisms. And even with those criticisms, I'm giving a tentative score of 92-93% -- tentative, since I would like to check out all of the mission rewards in practice before I decide for certain, but based on the story (even with those three criticisms), the gameplay experience itself (I only had two issues: one of my BOffs got stuck at one point, and I crashed at another point; I've seen far worse in other games), and the descriptions of the rewards (descriptions which may wind up being better or worse than the rewards in actual practice), that score seems justified.
To say nothing of this:
Perhaps you should look around in the conference room. Admiral Quinn is THERE. So is Admiral tr'Kererek. (And Captain Va'Kel Shon and Commander Tiaru t'Jarok are there as well.) Not interacting/speaking with them is no excuse for not bothering to look around to see who all the people present are and then complaining that Admiral Quinn didn't give an okay for the mission.
100% agree. I rate this mission 4/10, with the 4 coming from the many pretty explosions.
The iconian war arc is THE worst writing anything called Star Trek has ever seen. I'm serious, JJ Abrams could do it better.
and god forbid we use the De-Mat gun. The TIME LORDS were afraid of it (Dr. Who) we may be in another continuity but it doesn't change how moronic it is, Desperation should not be countered with stupidity!
The very existence of a functional Krenim Timeship makes the threat of the Iconians look lame.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
L'Miren's outburst I can forgive, because they have been living together for over 200,000 years. She calls M'Tara "sister," which, even if figurative, still denotes a very close relationship. To lose someone whom you have been close with for hundreds of millennia will do some major emotional and psychological damage.
Personally, I liked the idea that the Alliance didn't want to cross the line and use the Krenim weapon before all other options were exhausted. They attempted to maintain whatever morals one can have in a time of war instead of just throwing them away because "anything to win," like B'vat during the Klingon War arc.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
As a matter of fact, he did. Twice.
And have you ever played Divide et Impera? That was as bad as Threshold and A Night in Sickbay.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Oh I know he did, I saw his films. definitely not a fan, but I recognize its better than the TRIBBLE which is sadly iconian war.
I don't think I've played those 2 episodes you mention, I've been in STO since a month before F2P but I've taken breaks sometimes months long, probably missed it.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Threshold and A Night in Sickbay are VOY and ENT episodes, respectively. Threshold was just stupid and didn't make sense. A Night in Sickbay is IMO the absolute worst episode of Trek that ever aired. Watch it and you'll see what I mean.
Actually, don't watch it. You'll be better off.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Ok, so I was wrong there. But still, sending all the ships is tactically unwise. A small number of ships to protect the research base would be a very good thing, but when we arrive back at the station in the final cutscne, there is no evidence of other ships there except damaged ones, so the station seemed to be unprotected, wich is a tactical blunder of proportions.
And for the power junctions, it was late when I played the mission so must of have missed that part.
But the mission is still not one of the better ones as far as story goes. It felt very flat and one dimensional
Well, it is a Krenim-designed holding, after all. You don't think they would use some kind of time bubble to hide it?