There is some strange choices one has to make with the low level part of the game. I have three Klingons I am attempting to level up, currently (have no time, right now).
For the part of the Tutorial that instructs new players on training BOFFs....Klingons get BFAW manual. Although, we are given cannons as our default weapons and for rewards on missions. And a new player would have to realize...this ability is for a weapon we don't have.
So, instead of something useful to try out in the tray (and actually learn how that works)...we get something that would actually impede our progress, instead.
My conclusion, they believe if someone starts a Klingon character, a player already know the basics. Which, sadly, was the truth at one time, but the tutorial shouldn't assume this, now.
I can, also, see why people tend to craft or buy gear to send over to new characters. Because there are a lot of empty console slots and they are available. In other words, if the intent was to lock low level players from using Eng/Tac/Sci consoles till they get to a higher level, it is not working for anyone but completely new players who would not know what those spaces are for.
And is there really a part of the tutorial that explains the use of those Eng/Tac/Sci consoles, at all? I think that is something else that one learns through osmosis...or friends.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
After playing it now basically 4 times in a row, yeah, it really doesn't. I always felt that way though. The Fed Tutorial teaches you the controls, but it doesn't teach you the GAME. The leveling curve is shallow which means the basics most players get there often carries them through to the Romulan stuff without a hitch, then they run into a D'D and get their butts handed to them. But worst, is once they get over that hurdle, they don't hit anything that's super serious, until they join an Elite Queue at level 60.
The Klink Tutorial, which I haven't played in quite a while now, yeah that really doesn't teach much either. It was, I think, built on the idea that players would play the Fed Tutorial first anyway (and given the population distribution, it's easy to see why). So they would know most of the basics and the rest was just kind of tacked on. Same with the Romulan and TOS tutorials. None are nearly as long or as involved as the Fed one.
That said, there are SO many systems and functions and everything else involved, I don't think the Tutorial COULD have covered it all and not been 2 hours long and full of text. Even piecemeal it doesn't really do any good. Better to stick with Reddit guides and the like ultimately.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
Okay, so highlights, mostly because the stream went down or something part way through. Managed to finish my Spectre Run in 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is MUCH faster than my last time by about 18 minutes. I tried to be entertaining but I'm kind of new at this. I love that you can hear my keyboard when I try to skip cutscenes.
I don't know when I'll do another, but it was fun to try for once.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
I watched for a little bit last night....I must have caught it just at the end because you were doing the "What is Old is New" mission.
Is shaving the time down by 18 minutes not enough to get to level 60 in 12 hours? That is what you are trying for, isn't it? Or are you trying to do it even faster than that?
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
My goal is to be able to run Midnight, which is apparently level 58 (thought it was level 57). My target time is 12 hours, but I suspect it will be higher than that, likely 15 to 18.
I want to get 5 levels an hour through at least 50. So 50 in 10 hours, which I think is possible. After that, things get a little rougher. 12 hours remains optimistic at best.
So is shaving 18 minutes a big deal? YES! That's a big difference on even the hourly scale. Is it enough to get it all the way down to 12 hours? Eh, probably not. But if I can keep shaving time like that per route segment, I might get pretty close. It's still down to routing, practice and equipment.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
So no streaming tonight, but lots of stuff with Pathfinder.
She it 50 on one of the Alpha Quadrant patrols, so I rolled over to DS9 to get the new ship and regrear and plan where to go next. Picked up the Eternal and at the name screen there was a button that was for equipping ships. Figured it would just set the ship as my current ship and maybe make things quicker. I pushed it and a box came up saying, to the effect, "you're going back to ESD to do this." Um, okay. AND IT DID!
No, it did not effect my free transwarp cooldown, so it is, effectively, a free transwarp to ESD. Wild. Which brings up a thought: Could this be used to transwarp back to ESD in the middle of the Tutorial? Not that I could think of a use for it, but it's something I want to try at some point.
The only other issue is XP. After hitting 50, the question becomes how much XP do I need to hit 58? Not so easy to figure out apparently as the game doesn't track XP values over 366,000 XP. Great. Just great. I'll have to manually do this using math. Could take some time.
New ship looks good, and 50 opens up a LOT of stuff, but I still need to jump over the lock missions to get further in. I'll do some explorations later to figure out what exactly. Now it's time to go back to actual paying work, so expect this to be quiet for a bit. Until next time.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
My goal is to be able to run Midnight, which is apparently level 58 (thought it was level 57). My target time is 12 hours, but I suspect it will be higher than that, likely 15 to 18.
I want to get 5 levels an hour through at least 50. So 50 in 10 hours, which I think is possible. After that, things get a little rougher. 12 hours remains optimistic at best.
So is shaving 18 minutes a big deal? YES! That's a big difference on even the hourly scale. Is it enough to get it all the way down to 12 hours? Eh, probably not. But if I can keep shaving time like that per route segment, I might get pretty close. It's still down to routing, practice and equipment.
Hmmm....can you get all the way to the end without doing patrols, now?
I hardly ever do the story stuff unless it is one of those Featured Episode runs....but only once a week to get the prize package.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Oh you can easily get there without doing patrols, most normal players won't even know the patrols are there. The issue is flight time.
Moving around at Warp 5 is just so terrible. Honestly, anything less than warp 9 is just too slow. More time I spend traveling between systems without doing anything, the longer everything takes. Thus the patrols which I can tap as I move along the route. They're worth about a 1/3rd of a story mission, so 3 of them equal a story mission. As warp speed goes up, patrols are less important unless they are very short at high levels, and then only on route to the next location.
The goal right now is to be able to get past as many lock out missions as possible. And I discovered that upon hitting 50, all the previous lockouts become irrelevant. At that point, Delta opens up, and so does the end of the game. So no need to go to the Alpha Quadrant, no need to visit the Omega Battle Group (which doesn't exist any more), and no need to play any of Yesterday's War. So that's good, but it does bring the question of how close can I get to 50 before having to go out of the quadrant? No idea, but I'll figure it out. Until then.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
Managed to get off work early last night and do some more research. This has revealed much to me and while I attempt to set up my post Core of the Matter route, I am left with a goal, and not sure I can quite make it.
Level 50 opens up the game. Solanea (never remember the spelling) and Delta all open up, as does New Romulus (yeah, no point going there). And by open, I mean those unskippable missions? Well, you still can't SKIP them, but you certainly don't have to PLAY them.
Better yet, the leveling curve? Yeah, it's still mostly one mission equals one level. Pathfinder is already 54 having just done some poking through the Romulan stuff trying to get times and prep for the Romulan Loop pathway. Keep in mind she's done all but I think 11 available patrols, so the fact that I haven't done much of anything beyond the Romulan storyline is just fine.
All this combined means I want to get to 50 quickly, and hopefully without having to do Vorgon Conclusions. Oh, the mission doesn't bother me, it's the START point that does, it's on the other side of Romulan space, not quite to the Borg area. Bleh, just what I need, more empty flight time. If I can't crack 50 by the time I finish the Cardassian storyline, I either need to go back and pick up missions I skipped (Doomsday and Comet, for example), or route to Vorgon Conclusions and then pick up some Breen Missions.
Not sure I can avoid it at this point. Once past it, I can just bang away at Delta and Iconian War stuff, which will bring this whole thing to a rather rapid ending, assuming the leveling holds. We'll see.
I am currently planning a streaming session tonight for the Core of the Matter route, I'll post the link a bit before I start. In the mean time, I have to go to work.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
So I'm going to do my next two segments, the Return to Earth and Shoot the Core runs. When I'm done, I'll be back at ESD. That said, this will be the first time I've done this particular string of missions, so let's see what we learn. Probably an hour or so to get things set up though, so no rush.
Yeah, I think KDF is going to be rougher without them. Still, try not to do the missions in suggested order, skip around to do them in close proximity to each other. It'll cut down on flight time. That said, I think my next attempt will be on a TOS toon. I think that might actually be faster leveling as they get their own short story line, THEN the 25c fed story. Given my desire to skip certain missions, this might be the best way to go.
Highlight from last night.
I didn't do the Shoot the Core part of the run. Will likely try tonight (have to stay up late for a night job tomorrow). Took quite a bit longer than I would have liked to hit 21, but there are a lot of patrols in this route, and likely more in the next as well. After this, the number of patrols per route drops pretty dramatically. 7 patrols this round vs 3 (well, 4, I don't really count Once and Future Agent) missions, and 11 vs 4 in the next link. Despite this, I'm confident it's the better option as I want to get to 50 not just quickly, but before I have to do Vorgon Conclusions. The extra patrols and time it takes is more valuable than raw speed. Well, that's my thought on it anyway.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
My laptop died early on, and that's where the timer was running. I added 5 minutes onto my run time to bring it to 2:18 and that's close enough for this test run. Remember, not setting records here, testing options.
Lost time trying to buy things that I couldn't buy (I can't get a stealth module from the vendor at this level, bleh). It took much longer than it should have, but I was also over stacking the patrols so that didn't help. There are SO many patrols on this route. Still ended up just short of 29, so I'm about where I should be. In fact, it's about 10,000 xp over what I expected to be at. Which is good since one of those patrols is getting routed out for poor xp gain (I swear it was full amounts last time. . .).
It's clear though that the Blockade Runner, as amazing as it is, has it the limit of what it can handle quickly. Yes, I could keep flying it until end game if I wanted, but the fights get longer and longer as a result. The time to change ships is level 30. Earlier I feel is still a waste of time (personal bias), but later is just going to hurt the run. Honestly the only reason that it got this far is the last stretch had the point defense console. If you're doing this on a vanilla run, change ships at 20.
The deaths I had were either I overstretched myself (often dying as my target died, damn warp core explosions), or I got surprised by something. More careful play, however, is NOT faster, so death is likely.
Pathfinder, meanwhile, has revealed that the Tau Dewa Patrols and Delta Patrols, all of which are repeatable, don't grant as much XP as the Genesis ones. Well, at the very least it's harder to tell if they do (Tau Dewa might, it's iffy), and worse, there's no times listed, so I can't just say which ones are quicker or slower. This isn't as bad for Tau Dewa as most are "kill 5 groups" type missions, but Delta, which I likely will be doing more than a few of, are of a much greater variety. I'll have to think how to deal with them in the post 50 race to Midnight.
That said, there is ONE more roadblock in the way: The Kobali Front. Well, it looks like it might just be the bridge mission, but I need to check to see if I have to run Kobali itself. Don't think I do, but it'll be annoying if it's otherwise. Not because it's Kobali, but because the bulk of it is so reliant on other players. Biggest threat to a quick speed run is other people, and Kobali, for the most part, is very much dependent on it for in game experience.
Nimbus has similar issues, but can still be done mostly on your own. And that's where the test runner will go next. This does mean that the Blockade Runner has 3 more patrols and a couple space battles left before it's retired, but the space battles are all with NPCs so that evens the odds a bit.
Sadly, I don't think I'll get another chance to stream any time soon. Too much work for the bulk of the month, and when I will be able to do it, I'll be having dental work instead. Yay. So for now, it's back to puttering around with Pathfinder and looking at the maps again and again to find the best route. Until next time.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
So just doing some quick research today revealed another stumbling block to my plans. Nothing terrible, just annoying.
So I charted out the Delta patrols looking to see which, if any, I should do. I do remember a lot of them, just not the exact systems, so I used the wiki for reference. Of the 27 patrols, it looks like 11 aren't worth doing at all. Too much time wasted in my recollection. I may test some later.
Then I went to check some numbers on the Solanae stuff and discovered that it looks like the tour of the Solanae sphere missions are ALL unskippable. Great, that ruins my plan to do the first and last mission of it. Or does it? Aside from the bridge mission, it looks like each is worth half a mission's worth of xp. Hmm, how much time does it waste though? Good question. Still, I want to get more xp before really diving into Delta because the missions there have ever increasing level requirements.
My goal is, of course, level 58 and Midnight. So I need to be at LEAST 54 before I get out of Delta to get through the Iconian War. If I can get both of the Solanae missions I want, plus the mini-missions, I should be 52 or 53. Then I just need to grab the easiest Delta missions and get ahead of the curve. This might work out. I'll have to do some testing.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
Comments
For the part of the Tutorial that instructs new players on training BOFFs....Klingons get BFAW manual. Although, we are given cannons as our default weapons and for rewards on missions. And a new player would have to realize...this ability is for a weapon we don't have.
So, instead of something useful to try out in the tray (and actually learn how that works)...we get something that would actually impede our progress, instead.
My conclusion, they believe if someone starts a Klingon character, a player already know the basics. Which, sadly, was the truth at one time, but the tutorial shouldn't assume this, now.
I can, also, see why people tend to craft or buy gear to send over to new characters. Because there are a lot of empty console slots and they are available. In other words, if the intent was to lock low level players from using Eng/Tac/Sci consoles till they get to a higher level, it is not working for anyone but completely new players who would not know what those spaces are for.
And is there really a part of the tutorial that explains the use of those Eng/Tac/Sci consoles, at all? I think that is something else that one learns through osmosis...or friends.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
The Klink Tutorial, which I haven't played in quite a while now, yeah that really doesn't teach much either. It was, I think, built on the idea that players would play the Fed Tutorial first anyway (and given the population distribution, it's easy to see why). So they would know most of the basics and the rest was just kind of tacked on. Same with the Romulan and TOS tutorials. None are nearly as long or as involved as the Fed one.
That said, there are SO many systems and functions and everything else involved, I don't think the Tutorial COULD have covered it all and not been 2 hours long and full of text. Even piecemeal it doesn't really do any good. Better to stick with Reddit guides and the like ultimately.
I don't know when I'll do another, but it was fun to try for once.
Is shaving the time down by 18 minutes not enough to get to level 60 in 12 hours? That is what you are trying for, isn't it? Or are you trying to do it even faster than that?
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I want to get 5 levels an hour through at least 50. So 50 in 10 hours, which I think is possible. After that, things get a little rougher. 12 hours remains optimistic at best.
So is shaving 18 minutes a big deal? YES! That's a big difference on even the hourly scale. Is it enough to get it all the way down to 12 hours? Eh, probably not. But if I can keep shaving time like that per route segment, I might get pretty close. It's still down to routing, practice and equipment.
She it 50 on one of the Alpha Quadrant patrols, so I rolled over to DS9 to get the new ship and regrear and plan where to go next. Picked up the Eternal and at the name screen there was a button that was for equipping ships. Figured it would just set the ship as my current ship and maybe make things quicker. I pushed it and a box came up saying, to the effect, "you're going back to ESD to do this." Um, okay. AND IT DID!
No, it did not effect my free transwarp cooldown, so it is, effectively, a free transwarp to ESD. Wild. Which brings up a thought: Could this be used to transwarp back to ESD in the middle of the Tutorial? Not that I could think of a use for it, but it's something I want to try at some point.
The only other issue is XP. After hitting 50, the question becomes how much XP do I need to hit 58? Not so easy to figure out apparently as the game doesn't track XP values over 366,000 XP. Great. Just great. I'll have to manually do this using math. Could take some time.
New ship looks good, and 50 opens up a LOT of stuff, but I still need to jump over the lock missions to get further in. I'll do some explorations later to figure out what exactly. Now it's time to go back to actual paying work, so expect this to be quiet for a bit. Until next time.
Hmmm....can you get all the way to the end without doing patrols, now?
I hardly ever do the story stuff unless it is one of those Featured Episode runs....but only once a week to get the prize package.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Moving around at Warp 5 is just so terrible. Honestly, anything less than warp 9 is just too slow. More time I spend traveling between systems without doing anything, the longer everything takes. Thus the patrols which I can tap as I move along the route. They're worth about a 1/3rd of a story mission, so 3 of them equal a story mission. As warp speed goes up, patrols are less important unless they are very short at high levels, and then only on route to the next location.
The goal right now is to be able to get past as many lock out missions as possible. And I discovered that upon hitting 50, all the previous lockouts become irrelevant. At that point, Delta opens up, and so does the end of the game. So no need to go to the Alpha Quadrant, no need to visit the Omega Battle Group (which doesn't exist any more), and no need to play any of Yesterday's War. So that's good, but it does bring the question of how close can I get to 50 before having to go out of the quadrant? No idea, but I'll figure it out. Until then.
Managed to get off work early last night and do some more research. This has revealed much to me and while I attempt to set up my post Core of the Matter route, I am left with a goal, and not sure I can quite make it.
Level 50 opens up the game. Solanea (never remember the spelling) and Delta all open up, as does New Romulus (yeah, no point going there). And by open, I mean those unskippable missions? Well, you still can't SKIP them, but you certainly don't have to PLAY them.
Better yet, the leveling curve? Yeah, it's still mostly one mission equals one level. Pathfinder is already 54 having just done some poking through the Romulan stuff trying to get times and prep for the Romulan Loop pathway. Keep in mind she's done all but I think 11 available patrols, so the fact that I haven't done much of anything beyond the Romulan storyline is just fine.
All this combined means I want to get to 50 quickly, and hopefully without having to do Vorgon Conclusions. Oh, the mission doesn't bother me, it's the START point that does, it's on the other side of Romulan space, not quite to the Borg area. Bleh, just what I need, more empty flight time. If I can't crack 50 by the time I finish the Cardassian storyline, I either need to go back and pick up missions I skipped (Doomsday and Comet, for example), or route to Vorgon Conclusions and then pick up some Breen Missions.
Not sure I can avoid it at this point. Once past it, I can just bang away at Delta and Iconian War stuff, which will bring this whole thing to a rather rapid ending, assuming the leveling holds. We'll see.
I am currently planning a streaming session tonight for the Core of the Matter route, I'll post the link a bit before I start. In the mean time, I have to go to work.
https://www.twitch.tv/eishtmo/
Be glad you are not doing this on the KDF side.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Highlight from last night.
I didn't do the Shoot the Core part of the run. Will likely try tonight (have to stay up late for a night job tomorrow). Took quite a bit longer than I would have liked to hit 21, but there are a lot of patrols in this route, and likely more in the next as well. After this, the number of patrols per route drops pretty dramatically. 7 patrols this round vs 3 (well, 4, I don't really count Once and Future Agent) missions, and 11 vs 4 in the next link. Despite this, I'm confident it's the better option as I want to get to 50 not just quickly, but before I have to do Vorgon Conclusions. The extra patrols and time it takes is more valuable than raw speed. Well, that's my thought on it anyway.
https://www.twitch.tv/eishtmo/
My laptop died early on, and that's where the timer was running. I added 5 minutes onto my run time to bring it to 2:18 and that's close enough for this test run. Remember, not setting records here, testing options.
Lost time trying to buy things that I couldn't buy (I can't get a stealth module from the vendor at this level, bleh). It took much longer than it should have, but I was also over stacking the patrols so that didn't help. There are SO many patrols on this route. Still ended up just short of 29, so I'm about where I should be. In fact, it's about 10,000 xp over what I expected to be at. Which is good since one of those patrols is getting routed out for poor xp gain (I swear it was full amounts last time. . .).
It's clear though that the Blockade Runner, as amazing as it is, has it the limit of what it can handle quickly. Yes, I could keep flying it until end game if I wanted, but the fights get longer and longer as a result. The time to change ships is level 30. Earlier I feel is still a waste of time (personal bias), but later is just going to hurt the run. Honestly the only reason that it got this far is the last stretch had the point defense console. If you're doing this on a vanilla run, change ships at 20.
The deaths I had were either I overstretched myself (often dying as my target died, damn warp core explosions), or I got surprised by something. More careful play, however, is NOT faster, so death is likely.
Pathfinder, meanwhile, has revealed that the Tau Dewa Patrols and Delta Patrols, all of which are repeatable, don't grant as much XP as the Genesis ones. Well, at the very least it's harder to tell if they do (Tau Dewa might, it's iffy), and worse, there's no times listed, so I can't just say which ones are quicker or slower. This isn't as bad for Tau Dewa as most are "kill 5 groups" type missions, but Delta, which I likely will be doing more than a few of, are of a much greater variety. I'll have to think how to deal with them in the post 50 race to Midnight.
That said, there is ONE more roadblock in the way: The Kobali Front. Well, it looks like it might just be the bridge mission, but I need to check to see if I have to run Kobali itself. Don't think I do, but it'll be annoying if it's otherwise. Not because it's Kobali, but because the bulk of it is so reliant on other players. Biggest threat to a quick speed run is other people, and Kobali, for the most part, is very much dependent on it for in game experience.
Nimbus has similar issues, but can still be done mostly on your own. And that's where the test runner will go next. This does mean that the Blockade Runner has 3 more patrols and a couple space battles left before it's retired, but the space battles are all with NPCs so that evens the odds a bit.
Sadly, I don't think I'll get another chance to stream any time soon. Too much work for the bulk of the month, and when I will be able to do it, I'll be having dental work instead. Yay. So for now, it's back to puttering around with Pathfinder and looking at the maps again and again to find the best route. Until next time.
So I charted out the Delta patrols looking to see which, if any, I should do. I do remember a lot of them, just not the exact systems, so I used the wiki for reference. Of the 27 patrols, it looks like 11 aren't worth doing at all. Too much time wasted in my recollection. I may test some later.
Then I went to check some numbers on the Solanae stuff and discovered that it looks like the tour of the Solanae sphere missions are ALL unskippable. Great, that ruins my plan to do the first and last mission of it. Or does it? Aside from the bridge mission, it looks like each is worth half a mission's worth of xp. Hmm, how much time does it waste though? Good question. Still, I want to get more xp before really diving into Delta because the missions there have ever increasing level requirements.
My goal is, of course, level 58 and Midnight. So I need to be at LEAST 54 before I get out of Delta to get through the Iconian War. If I can get both of the Solanae missions I want, plus the mini-missions, I should be 52 or 53. Then I just need to grab the easiest Delta missions and get ahead of the curve. This might work out. I'll have to do some testing.