Yeah you need to be there before the center of the particle touches the yellow line.
For the first three or so particles destroyed, I find that listening for the capture verification sound before moving to the next capture points is better than any of the visual clues. After that I listen for the speed of the capture sounds for determining wait periods between moving capture points. Of course by the last two particles to destoy, if your running a near perfect score, it seems to me there *is* no waiting period - just moving the mouse.
FYI: My mode score is 2500 with 2700 being not that uncommon - excepting those games that lag or jump. So hearing the captures works pretty darn well for me.
Edit: particles destoryed = main right particle. particles collapsed = particles captured.
Didnt Bort give up the fact that you don't get a chance at a bonus particle until after...1200 was it?
It's 1300. However I find that 2300 is the real magic number. In fact I would say exactly 2300 has the best chance. I find that in gathering 81 traces (about 30 scans) I get 3 bonus awards (mostly shards).
I agree, noticed this even last year, 2300 is the best for getting the bonus.
I suspect the majority of players will not benefit very greatly from the omega particle game especially if they run the game only once at each of the 3 locations from the daily mission.
granted I am not a very dexterous player but each daily mission I have only ended up with 1 of each of the 3 coloured traces.
given that you need 1 of each colour to create one sliver, 3 slivers to create one shard, 3 shards to create one fragment and 3 fragments to create 1 omega tech upgrade you would need a total of 27 of each coloured particle to create 1 omega upgrade.
sure I have been collecting extra particles each day and playing with my 3 main characters but I am doubtful that I will end up with any more then between 1 or 2 upgrades on each of my 3 main characters by the end of the event.
not that I am complaining, my main goal is the ship anyway so anything extra is a bonus but still it would have been so much better if they could have skipped even one of the steps in creating the omega upgrades so I would have 3x as many upgrades.
I have tried keyboard & mouse with no difference to the end result BTW.
I specifically farm them on one character every day. After the daily I'll farm until each color reaches the next hundred. Takes up my morning, but then I don't have much to do in the mornings. Now that I have my ship I'm taking all ten toons through the daily for marks.
I've become pretty good at getting the 2300+ needed to get three particles and a sliver. Shards drop occasionally and fragments drop very occasionally for me. I've been making shards/fragments/upgrades just from the slivers I've been getting. I have a stack of 999 of each color in the bank and about 500 of the three colors in my inventory. For me, the mouse is far superior to the arrow keys. Anyone else's mileage may vary on that.
That's about the only way anyone will get enough traces/slivers/shards or fragments to make very many upgrades. Personally, I think a perfect score should be awarded three traces, a sliver and either a shard or fragment.
Just thought of something. Where is your resolution at? I had to switch from high to medium because the minigame was unplayable. On medium it runs fine.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
I have a comment or observation that I made concerning the population of particles. Lower number instance will have more particle on average than higher number instance, instance #1 the best. I also observed that instance population doesn't seem to have much of an effect on particle population, only lower instance number does in most cases as there is always a few exception.
In general I found space more subject to lag and such while playing minigame, ground usually has less lag and a smoother play.
Since it's the second year I play this game I easily get lots of perfect score. So much so that I voluntarily sandbag myself to keep it between 1700 and 2200 to get more slivers before I reach my stopping point for traces, usually around 100 per color.
Jamal : Tactical space specialist. USS Bug Warrior and many others
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
Nope. 600 is my average. I've never broken 900. And since you still get a Trace even if you get a zero, I given up fighting the mini-game. I now read a book and ignore the game's cursor and score. Every minute I gather a new Trace, set up for the next and go back to my book. Three-quarters of the way through Star Trek: Spock's World.
Might not work for others, but it's worked for me.
Just with the traces I've banked I can get 74 upgrades. I've already been making (and using) them. Just from the slivers, shards and fragments I've been picking up.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
If I'm on my home desktop PC, I'll hit 2500+ on average; I sometimes TRIBBLE up my rhythm, especially when finishing one minigame and starting another but which weirdly causes a ripple later causing me to drop to 1900 or so. However, I also use my laptop when I'm away from home, typically over weekends and such, which is an old first generation i3 380m. To say that gameplay and performance on the laptop is frustrating is an understatement, though it may help account for my love of cruisers and the lower requirement for perfectly timed abilities. With that in mind, I offer the following advice (which, if it's good enough, pieces of which could perhaps make their way into the main post as a means to provide hints and tips at a glance?)
Firstly, become familiar with some of the console commands through the chat bar. Knowing your FPS and ping is remarkably helpful.
'/showfps 1' (disable with '/showfps 0')
'/netgraph 1' (disable with '/netgraph 0')
If like my laptop, you're relying on integrated graphics, the separation of processing in this section doesn't really doesn't matter enough overall as to be worthwhile. Just try it all and see what works...
When it comes to performance and relative load, your CPU is generally tasked with keeping track of where everything is and what interactions are occurring (abilities, damage, mouse-over UI, etc) where as your graphics processor will be dealing with textures, lighting effects and just generally anything pretty though some lesser interactions can be moved onto this processor (can anyone say Physx?), I'm not aware of any in STO but then I'm not a dev so who knows what's running where. This means that if your CPU is the issue, finding a quieter map with less going on is going to help a lot, reinforcing the advice to go to a space map with a lower population. This advice may also help if your seeing higher ping times as there's more information being passed back and forth on busier maps. On top of this again, it has appeared to me that certain maps are simply less responsive than others and lag a little - just find where works for you...
Further to this is the UI and its scaling. I have absolutely no clue why, but the performance hit from the UI is staggering in STO, as an example, my laptop can see 5FPS and higher average difference just from my Inventory being open/closed, not to mention chat windows, etc. While minimal, I did see some small improvement keeping the UI scaling ( options menu > Basic tab > at the bottom with a slide bar) at 1.00. I did try Alt-F12 to remove the HUD (and get up to the heady heights of 60fps from about 30), but this removed the minigame too, which isn't so helpful. So close everything you don't need and don't scale the UI if you can avoid it.
If however your graphic processing is the issue, there are a couple of techniques which can give you some boost.
Firstly, zoom into your ship as much as you can, and angle your view to open space or otherwise 'empty' areas. Also, turn off any shield, engine or deflector visuals. Just by removing some textures and effects from your active viewing angle can boost your framerate by 3 or 4 fps.
Secondly with the help of another console command ('/renderscale x.xx' make sure to replace the 'x's with numbers from 0.01 up to 1.00, though you shouldn't really ever need to go lower than 0.50) you can lower the rendering resolution of the game. This doesn't affect the UI, so don't worry about not being able to see options, chat, etc, or being able to undo the renderscale command (though you may wish to have chat closed as above) it will reduce your graphics load and get you some more frames to keep track of the minigame better.
All in all, little things like these add up and ideally, you want to get yourself 35+ frames per second with a ping close to or under 200ms.
Lastly, it's been said many times already, but mouse use is the go to input method for higher scores unless someone on the dev team wants to provide us with a way to bind keys to each lane and turn it into 'Trek Band; Omega edition', complete with 'melora' to play on? With that in mind, and I almost hate myself for saying this, Sheldons advice to adjust your mouse sensitivity in your computers settings is probably the best route to making the most of your movements, if only to help you retain the 1.00 UI scale. I hate doing it, it feels weird going between mice set at different speeds, but it really is the best option. Finding the right spot for your mouse, striking the balance between short movements of the mouse and precision of the pointer might take a little trial and error, but it's worth it for those particles.
What everyone buying Zen are really saying while all these bugs are still floating freely:
Stop new content until quality returns
All good advice. I've found that Vulcan space can really lag, especially with ships warping in and out. Wolf 359 isn't as bad and the bit of lag from people warping in and out doesn't mess my game/rhythm up too bad. Doing DS9 space out by the wormhole can get tricky if you're in the middle of a game and the wormhole decides to open. That's messed me up plenty of times. If it pops up before I start a game, I'll wait for it to close again. DS9 ground can be frustrating because when the omegas pop on the other side of the station from the multi-purpose room, your scanner will point at the exchange. But I've finally memorized where they pop up in sequence, so that isn't so much of a problem if I'm farming there. Though for reds, Vlugta is a nice spot since it's small and doesn't take much running to get to the next particle.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
All good advice. I've found that Vulcan space can really lag, especially with ships warping in and out. Wolf 359 isn't as bad and the bit of lag from people warping in and out doesn't mess my game/rhythm up too bad. Doing DS9 space out by the wormhole can get tricky if you're in the middle of a game and the wormhole decides to open. That's messed me up plenty of times. If it pops up before I start a game, I'll wait for it to close again. DS9 ground can be frustrating because when the omegas pop on the other side of the station from the multi-purpose room, your scanner will point at the exchange. But I've finally memorized where they pop up in sequence, so that isn't so much of a problem if I'm farming there. Though for reds, Vlugta is a nice spot since it's small and doesn't take much running to get to the next particle.
I'm sure there's some difference in degree of impact for various maps, but my mains are K7/Ganalda, Drozana and Bajor, all space. Let's face it, when Q says he almost forgot that Ganalda existed, it's probably true and most people only show up briefly for Omega or fleet building supplies.
What everyone buying Zen are really saying while all these bugs are still floating freely:
Stop new content until quality returns
I move the mouse to the next particle in between the audio clicks and get a tick tock rhythm going on which works very well for me. Turning off the sound for several rounds and relying on the visual cues can help as well.
Maybe next year they'll fix the problem with messages appearing over the particle trace game screen. It gets real annoying when a particle message or 'joe so-and-so was awarded X cruiser' appears over the collection game while in the middle of collecting particles.
Maybe next year they'll fix the problem with messages appearing over the particle trace game screen. It gets real annoying when a particle message or 'joe so-and-so was awarded X cruiser' appears over the collection game while in the middle of collecting particles.
why i move the game to the right of the screen before starting it each time. You see me move it in any of the vids I posted.
Maybe next year they'll fix the problem with messages appearing over the particle trace game screen. It gets real annoying when a particle message or 'joe so-and-so was awarded X cruiser' appears over the collection game while in the middle of collecting particles.
why i move the game to the right of the screen before starting it each time. You see me move it in any of the vids I posted.
I remember reading a very recent patch note saying they fixxed it. Well...it's not.
I would suggest either moving your notifications or turning them off (rearrange HUD). Also, move the notification for when a new particle spawns. And like Tarran I also move the game miniscreen to the lower right of my screen. For me this seems to create the smallest hand movement possible.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
All good advice. I've found that Vulcan space can really lag, especially with ships warping in and out. Wolf 359 isn't as bad and the bit of lag from people warping in and out doesn't mess my game/rhythm up too bad. Doing DS9 space out by the wormhole can get tricky if you're in the middle of a game and the wormhole decides to open. That's messed me up plenty of times. If it pops up before I start a game, I'll wait for it to close again. DS9 ground can be frustrating because when the omegas pop on the other side of the station from the multi-purpose room, your scanner will point at the exchange. But I've finally memorized where they pop up in sequence, so that isn't so much of a problem if I'm farming there. Though for reds, Vlugta is a nice spot since it's small and doesn't take much running to get to the next particle.
I'm sure there's some difference in degree of impact for various maps, but my mains are K7/Ganalda, Drozana and Bajor, all space. Let's face it, when Q says he almost forgot that Ganalda existed, it's probably true and most people only show up briefly for Omega or fleet building supplies.
I too didn't care for Ganalda for a long time. But at one moment I was reminded the 'contraband cat' (I know, it ain't a Caitian and not even a Ferasan for KDF) is there. Then it's become one of the best spots to station my KDF alts. All the services you need on a relatively small map.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
What messes me up from time to time when trying to collect particles is actually the start of the mini-game when all particles move very slowly. I sometimes I do not stop long enough to capture the particle before moving on. I am kinda used to the frantic pace towards the end when you basically have to continuously move the mouse up and down to capture the particles in a fluid motion. The beginning of the mini-game is a go/stop process.
There have been many times I have missed 4 particles in the 1st and 2nd wave, but after that I capture the rest of the particles (most of the time) to end up with a score of 2,300. Of course every now and then I loose my rhythm in the middle of the mini-game, or I encounter mouse lag.
As for Ganalda... I frequent that station very often. I generally only go back to Qo'Nos if I want to do the Path of 2409 test, or exchange a very rare / rare Doff that is bound to my toon (like from Instigate Defection mission) for lower quality Doffs so that I can put them up for sale on the Exchange.
Event Wrap-up. Well it's all over folks. I was there in Wolf 359 when the curtain fell. A few fireworks went off and then everyone dispersed to the winds.
Had a great event this year. Much better than last. The difference was playing in emptyish space zones versus ground zones last year. A slider that moves where you tell it to instead of sticking made the the game many times more fun and playable. I clocked in at almost exactly 45 minutes per day every day, and will end up with around 70 kits when the processing is done.
I hope everyone had a peaceful and prosperous celebration. Here's hoping we're all here for the 7th.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Comments
For the first three or so particles destroyed, I find that listening for the capture verification sound before moving to the next capture points is better than any of the visual clues. After that I listen for the speed of the capture sounds for determining wait periods between moving capture points. Of course by the last two particles to destoy, if your running a near perfect score, it seems to me there *is* no waiting period - just moving the mouse.
FYI: My mode score is 2500 with 2700 being not that uncommon - excepting those games that lag or jump. So hearing the captures works pretty darn well for me.
Edit: particles destoryed = main right particle. particles collapsed = particles captured.
I specifically farm them on one character every day. After the daily I'll farm until each color reaches the next hundred. Takes up my morning, but then I don't have much to do in the mornings. Now that I have my ship I'm taking all ten toons through the daily for marks.
I've become pretty good at getting the 2300+ needed to get three particles and a sliver. Shards drop occasionally and fragments drop very occasionally for me. I've been making shards/fragments/upgrades just from the slivers I've been getting. I have a stack of 999 of each color in the bank and about 500 of the three colors in my inventory. For me, the mouse is far superior to the arrow keys. Anyone else's mileage may vary on that.
That's about the only way anyone will get enough traces/slivers/shards or fragments to make very many upgrades. Personally, I think a perfect score should be awarded three traces, a sliver and either a shard or fragment.
Just thought of something. Where is your resolution at? I had to switch from high to medium because the minigame was unplayable. On medium it runs fine.
In general I found space more subject to lag and such while playing minigame, ground usually has less lag and a smoother play.
Since it's the second year I play this game I easily get lots of perfect score. So much so that I voluntarily sandbag myself to keep it between 1700 and 2200 to get more slivers before I reach my stopping point for traces, usually around 100 per color.
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
I am getting the sweet 2300+ needed for three traces/sliver more easily than before though. That's usually what I shoot for.
Might not work for others, but it's worked for me.
Gather ye omega particles while ye may.
If gathering the traces one at a time works for you, that's great
blocknite from reddit created this.
The Omega Particle Calculator!
jsfiddle.net/02df7t79/2/embedded/result/
Updated my first post in this topic.
Thanks.
Just with the traces I've banked I can get 74 upgrades. I've already been making (and using) them. Just from the slivers, shards and fragments I've been picking up.
Firstly, become familiar with some of the console commands through the chat bar. Knowing your FPS and ping is remarkably helpful.
'/showfps 1' (disable with '/showfps 0')
'/netgraph 1' (disable with '/netgraph 0')
If like my laptop, you're relying on integrated graphics, the separation of processing in this section doesn't really doesn't matter enough overall as to be worthwhile. Just try it all and see what works...
When it comes to performance and relative load, your CPU is generally tasked with keeping track of where everything is and what interactions are occurring (abilities, damage, mouse-over UI, etc) where as your graphics processor will be dealing with textures, lighting effects and just generally anything pretty though some lesser interactions can be moved onto this processor (can anyone say Physx?), I'm not aware of any in STO but then I'm not a dev so who knows what's running where. This means that if your CPU is the issue, finding a quieter map with less going on is going to help a lot, reinforcing the advice to go to a space map with a lower population. This advice may also help if your seeing higher ping times as there's more information being passed back and forth on busier maps. On top of this again, it has appeared to me that certain maps are simply less responsive than others and lag a little - just find where works for you...
Further to this is the UI and its scaling. I have absolutely no clue why, but the performance hit from the UI is staggering in STO, as an example, my laptop can see 5FPS and higher average difference just from my Inventory being open/closed, not to mention chat windows, etc. While minimal, I did see some small improvement keeping the UI scaling ( options menu > Basic tab > at the bottom with a slide bar) at 1.00. I did try Alt-F12 to remove the HUD (and get up to the heady heights of 60fps from about 30), but this removed the minigame too, which isn't so helpful. So close everything you don't need and don't scale the UI if you can avoid it.
If however your graphic processing is the issue, there are a couple of techniques which can give you some boost.
Firstly, zoom into your ship as much as you can, and angle your view to open space or otherwise 'empty' areas. Also, turn off any shield, engine or deflector visuals. Just by removing some textures and effects from your active viewing angle can boost your framerate by 3 or 4 fps.
Secondly with the help of another console command ('/renderscale x.xx' make sure to replace the 'x's with numbers from 0.01 up to 1.00, though you shouldn't really ever need to go lower than 0.50) you can lower the rendering resolution of the game. This doesn't affect the UI, so don't worry about not being able to see options, chat, etc, or being able to undo the renderscale command (though you may wish to have chat closed as above) it will reduce your graphics load and get you some more frames to keep track of the minigame better.
All in all, little things like these add up and ideally, you want to get yourself 35+ frames per second with a ping close to or under 200ms.
Lastly, it's been said many times already, but mouse use is the go to input method for higher scores unless someone on the dev team wants to provide us with a way to bind keys to each lane and turn it into 'Trek Band; Omega edition', complete with 'melora' to play on?
Stop new content until quality returns
I'm sure there's some difference in degree of impact for various maps, but my mains are K7/Ganalda, Drozana and Bajor, all space. Let's face it, when Q says he almost forgot that Ganalda existed, it's probably true and most people only show up briefly for Omega or fleet building supplies.
Stop new content until quality returns
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
I remember reading a very recent patch note saying they fixxed it. Well...it's not.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
My character Tsin'xing
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I too didn't care for Ganalda for a long time. But at one moment I was reminded the 'contraband cat' (I know, it ain't a Caitian and not even a Ferasan for KDF) is there. Then it's become one of the best spots to station my KDF alts. All the services you need on a relatively small map.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
There have been many times I have missed 4 particles in the 1st and 2nd wave, but after that I capture the rest of the particles (most of the time) to end up with a score of 2,300. Of course every now and then I loose my rhythm in the middle of the mini-game, or I encounter mouse lag.
As for Ganalda... I frequent that station very often. I generally only go back to Qo'Nos if I want to do the Path of 2409 test, or exchange a very rare / rare Doff that is bound to my toon (like from Instigate Defection mission) for lower quality Doffs so that I can put them up for sale on the Exchange.
Had a great event this year. Much better than last. The difference was playing in emptyish space zones versus ground zones last year. A slider that moves where you tell it to instead of sticking made the the game many times more fun and playable. I clocked in at almost exactly 45 minutes per day every day, and will end up with around 70 kits when the processing is done.
I hope everyone had a peaceful and prosperous celebration. Here's hoping we're all here for the 7th.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."