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Better weapons for ships...?
rebeccameadows
Member Posts: 8 Arc User
So I'm new. Actually, no I'm not - I started a character back in 2012 (or so), but didn't get very far. I decided to return last week after hearing good things. I had to delete my old character though, as when I logged back in again last week, she was stuck in the Tutorial (even though I finished the tutorial) and unable to move or zone out. I'm also curious as to where the ship I bought from the C-store back then (an Constitution with blue beams OMG love) disappeared to in the interim, but that's another matter.
Anyway, I've been questing. I've finished the Klingon War and Nimbus III quests and I've just started on the Romulan ones. I've levelled up astonishingly fast, incidentally, though I presume that once I hit 65 there will still be plenty to do. I've got plenty of decent ground gear already (well, decent enough anyway).
I'm still using my faithful Galaxy-class starship (even though I now have a Sovereign available), and because I'm one of 'them', I want to keep her all phasers and photons just as Ra intended. But so far, better versions of those weapons (or any weapons, actually) are not forthcoming, and I've been forced to buy the basic ones from the ship equipment NPC just to upgrade things slightly. I can't really craft good ones yet, though I'm working on levelling my R&D skills up now that I've got a handle on that. And I've finally discovered the exchange, but... for vaguely decent X/XI-type phaser arrays the cost is ridiculous - I could afford perhaps one array right now, and that's it!
While I'm not looking to min-max, as it's just not my style, I'm starting to struggle to keep up with the enemies. My shields are OK for now, but I can't do any damage! I can't realistically afford to outfit my ship with anything I can find on the Exchange right now though, unless the prices take a drastic tumble. So is there some kind of reliable way/place to get hold of half-decent ship equipment at that kind of level, even if it's a bit grindy? If so, where would I need to go?
Failing that, some easy way to earn extra credits (like, 500,000 of them) would be nice, then I could just buy what I'm after off the Exchange instead.
Any ideas?
Anyway, I've been questing. I've finished the Klingon War and Nimbus III quests and I've just started on the Romulan ones. I've levelled up astonishingly fast, incidentally, though I presume that once I hit 65 there will still be plenty to do. I've got plenty of decent ground gear already (well, decent enough anyway).
I'm still using my faithful Galaxy-class starship (even though I now have a Sovereign available), and because I'm one of 'them', I want to keep her all phasers and photons just as Ra intended. But so far, better versions of those weapons (or any weapons, actually) are not forthcoming, and I've been forced to buy the basic ones from the ship equipment NPC just to upgrade things slightly. I can't really craft good ones yet, though I'm working on levelling my R&D skills up now that I've got a handle on that. And I've finally discovered the exchange, but... for vaguely decent X/XI-type phaser arrays the cost is ridiculous - I could afford perhaps one array right now, and that's it!
While I'm not looking to min-max, as it's just not my style, I'm starting to struggle to keep up with the enemies. My shields are OK for now, but I can't do any damage! I can't realistically afford to outfit my ship with anything I can find on the Exchange right now though, unless the prices take a drastic tumble. So is there some kind of reliable way/place to get hold of half-decent ship equipment at that kind of level, even if it's a bit grindy? If so, where would I need to go?
Failing that, some easy way to earn extra credits (like, 500,000 of them) would be nice, then I could just buy what I'm after off the Exchange instead.
Any ideas?
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Okay, where to start? If you bought a ship from c-store, it should still be in c-store/z-store. That will take care of your blue beams and help you out massively, since you can claim the ship, take weapons off it and dismiss the ship to reclaim it again. Rinse and repeat until you have a ship full of blue phasers that level with you until you hit lvl 50 (I think) then you click on them to upgrade and they become MkXII (you can upgrade them at any time but then you'll pay to get them to MkXII). You can also rerun the mission in the Spectres Arc to get more blue phasers for your ship.
I'd suggest joining a fleet (at first any fleet will do so you can start earning some fleet credits) as many fleets have surplus gear they may be willing to give you (or they will have a dedicated "crafter" who can make you some).
As you level, I'd really suggest going with the highest tier ship you have until your gear is up to scratch as it really does hamper your progress to stay in a lower tier ship. You can always go back to it if you don't like the look/feel of the ship.
Hope this helps
@drowrulesupreme
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
Do what @drowrulesupreme said to get your blue beams that auto-level up to mark X then manually after that.
Keep all your ships, don't dismiss any of them. Once you reach level 52 you can start playing the Admiralty mini game. You get an "Admiralty card" for each ship you own then you send them on missions like in the Duty Officer system. Some missions pay 20,000 credits, others pay 200-1,000 dil, and when you complete a chain of 10 missions you get a dil jackpot.
Save up dil for the next Phoenix Prize Pack event. For 40,000 dil you'll get 10 packs, which will turn into 12-15 tech upgrades that are as good as 50-60 of the Superior tech upgrades but cost no extra dil.
Start working on all the reputation systems once you reach 50 since completing one gets you 32,000 dil and some of the rep gear is great. If you do one Borg red alert you can get 65 rep marks (including the once a day bonus for each rep) to cover 2 daily rep jobs. Skip the hourly ones they cost too much.
Crafting: you actually want to craft at Mark II not at higher levels. It's cheaper in mats, you get VR quality items, and you get 8+ more chances for a rarity increase to UR and Epic. Craft some VR Mk II phaser consoles (beam or cannon school), a Neutronium engineering console (damage resist), and the Field Generator science console for shield capacity. A photon torp with the SPR (torpedo spead) mod might be nice. Again, craft Mark II VR and level up. For tech upgrades, it's best to use Superior ones because the others waste too much dil.
If you have zen, you could get an instant 4.x million credits by selling one lock box key on the exchange. That would pay for a bunch of superior tech upgrades if you can't craft them yourself yet.
Also, if you want blue TOS phasers instead of TNG orange ones then you have to give up on crafting (and pen).
I don't know what happened to the Constitution C-store ship. I definitely bought it back in the day - even though I stopped playing STO quite early on, I remember it because it was the first time I ever bought something in a game. It was definitely on this account too, as it's the only one I've ever made here. Can't find any trace of the thing, though, either at the Ship Requisitions Officers, in the Manage Ships screen, or the C-store itself. Maybe it was linked to the character I deleted? Or maybe it's because I'm using the Steam version, when back in 2012 I was using the launcher on its own? Eh, I'll live.
I'd just started doing Admiralty missions the last time I played before writing the OP, though I was just treating them as a kind of bonus duty officer assignment. I didn't really appreciate how much XP/cash they dish out. Thanks to that, making more judicious use of the Exchange to sell my more valuable loot, and the prices on the Exchange taking a tumble (didn't really expect that to actually happen when I suggested it), I made enough money yesterday to outfit my ship with a mixture of blue/green XII phasers and photon/quantum torpedoes. It's made life much easier.
Incidentally, it's odd that raising funds to buy ship upgrades is even a thing in the hippy communist paradise utopia of the Federation!
I was using the (tier four?) Galaxy-class, because nostalgia, but after having a seriously hard time taking out a couple of D'Deridex warbirds, I finally gave in and looked at switching to the Sovereign (the 'best' ship I had at the time, if not the prettiest). I didn't realise that higher-tier ships had such an impact on overall stats - I thought it was just a hull hitpoint increase and an extra equipment slot/bridge station or two.
Then immediately after I bid farewell to my Galaxy and hopped aboard the Sovereign, I ended up on 'The Vault' mission, the one you do in a shuttlecraft (and the horrible one that I had to restart because my shuttle got stuck in a wall right as I was about to escape), and after completing it I levelled up enough to get the Refit Galaxy. So all is right in the world again, I'm back in a slightly-bulgier-nacelled Galaxy, and I never actually got to fly the Sovereign at all! The Ares will serve me well in the Admiralty missions though, I suppose.
While I'm talking about Admiralty missions - does the equipment on your other ships have any impact at all when sending them off on missions, or can I just leave them barebones?
I'm going to need to look up some guides on this stuff, I think...
Oh, well that explains that then! Still, I levelled-up a few times yesterday too. I think levelling-up in this game is a lot faster than any I've played before. I never actually reached the level cap in Everquest 2, for instance, double XP weekends and such included. Been playing this for about a week now and I'm already nearly there!
Where would I find details on this? That sounds like something I need to be doing! I've got about 20,000 dilithium already, though it's going to take a while to refine it, seeing as I only just figured out how to do so and there's a daily limit...
If you're still around when the Winter Event comes around, you can do the slippery race to get a free T6 ship, likely of Breen flavor, unless they decide to go a different route this year.
Crafting is not hard. As long as you have the mats you need, you can craft at Mk II and upgrade to hopefully score UR or epic. You can re-roll common mods such as acc, crtD/crtH, etc. But as someone said, not the crafting-specific mods of pen, spr, over, etc.
When you get your crafting schools to lvl 15 you can make special weapons which cost a bit to do, and you can craft superior upgrades. Getting your schools to lvl 20 doesn't do much except you have a better chance at doubling your upgrades or getting an UR special thing.
No, the stats of the admiralty cards are fixed. Also, once you're 100% sure you have a card for a ship (careful about this there can be lag in giving it) it's OK to dry dock or discharge a ship, the card will stay in admiralty.
> Where would I find details on this? (Phoenix)
Wiki: https://sto.gamepedia.com/Phoenix_Prize_Pack
There is no fixed schedule for when this event happens, but it's several-to-many times a year. Be sure to claim the daily free pack, always buy 10-packs not singles, and expect to never get an epic token the odds are something like 1 in 500.
The upgrades are the main reason to buy packs. One phoenix = 4,000 dil but does the work of 4 x Superior upgrades that cost you 4,300 dil to use. Also, the rate of rare or better when opening packs is at least 1 in 3.
Visit the NEWS page at least every Thursday afternoon to see what the weekend event(s) are: https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news
My immediate problems (not being able to inflict even the tiniest bit of damage on things like warbirds) seem to have been solved, for the time being at least. Faced another Warbird yesterday, and in concert with some judicious use of bridge officer abilities (fire at will seems to be invaluable there, particularly), I completely annihilated the thing!
I'll keep playing around with the crafting system and keep an eye out for the events you've mentioned. Much of it will be trial and error, I'm sure.
Minor note on Warbirds:
NPC torpedoes hit really hard if your shields are down. Warbirds get a version where they shoot three.
Fire at will is great for point defense here; some other considerations 1) They have a tractor beam; polarize hull will counter this. 2) They have viral matrix so it may have knocked your weapons off-line. Engineering team will counter the subsystem offline.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Yeah, I learnt that the hard way. That's why I swapped fire at will in! Though even that didn't help at first, as my weapons couldn't make a dent in the thing, and it just became a matter of how long I could survive!
So far as their tractor beam goes, I've found that just keeping my distance and circling-strafing it with phasers seems to do the trick, and firing off some torpedoes when I switch from a port to starboard orientation to preserve my shields. I get more time to react to the plasma torpedoes that way, too. I don't think I have an officer with the polarise hull ability yet though, so I might have to look into training/acquiring one ready for when I inevitably mess things up...
But staying your distance also works, as they can't use it unless you're around 5km away from them. That's not easy to do sometimes when you're not paying attention.
To note - since the OP has been away a while, bridge officers aren't limited to just knowing their abilities, you can train them with lots of abilities and switch the active ones out of combat.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Yes, don't underestimate admiralty. I oft say that once one hits level 52, the experience and dilithium just rolls on in.
I'm not sure it's been said here, and you may know this anyway. But just in case: make sure you have all phaser boosting modules in your tactical module slots. Also, save up for Vulnerability locators/exploiters if you're in a fleet and they have them unlocked.
Oh yes, and did I ever do cartwheels whenever that started going! XD So save some pennies, and stock up and hook up your best officers with abilities you think you'll most like be using.
Also, there are a couple sets that come later on in the story if you're wishing to stick with phasers. Namely the Quantum Phase Catalyst set. Those missions are called "Sunrise" and "Stormbound", and those are at the beginning of the "Future Proof" arc.
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Quantum_Phase_Catalysts
And the mission after it also has a deflector/shield/engine set to go with it:
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Quantum_Phase_Applications
Hopefully that will help you out some. Anything else, feel free to look me up, and hoot and holler!
And knowing is half the battle!
21 'til I die!
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Mission:_Beyond_the_Nexus
you can get the omini phaser beam and the consoles from this set
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trilithium-Laced_Weaponry
Both items are really good on their own and form a powerful 2 piece set.
When you play the mission
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Mission:_Sunrise
you could take the console there as reward as well as it adds to phaser Damage.
All those free story Items are found on high end builds as well by the way as they are so much better than most alternatives.
If you need any further advise on ship building please always ask and we do our best to help. Besides gear the selection of the right bridge officer powers right along with managing their cd times as best as possible can lead to considerable increases in effectivity of your starship.
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