Advice for a returning player

claivain

Hey guys,

I was a regular STO player a number of years ago (seriously, it must have been about 8 years or so). At that time, the skill trees were different. There was no admiralty system. I'm pretty sure the reputation system worked differently (and there weren't many factions to choose from) and the gear upgrade system didn't exist (or certainly not in the way it does now).

When I stopped playing I was mainly a Fed player, had a few T5 ships and was level 50, the highest available at that stage. I was a tac captain, running a cannon build Defiant escort and a beam build Odyssey cruiser, and I had the MACO, Omega, and Borg gear sets all at level XI. I think I knew the general builds and advice to be efficient.

Now that I've picked up the game again, everything is different! I'm seeing ridiculous DPS ships flying around and annihilating everything, and clearly the general build meta has changed. I've picked up a Kopesh since I had leftover Zen and always liked that design (under no illusions it was anything more than because I liked the look of it!)

I have been looking around online for general advice, but a lot of what I've found seems to mostly be targeted at people who know what's going on already. There are so many abbreviations when referring to kit and skills, and literally spreadsheets which I'm finding confusing! I work a stupid amount of hours and I just don't have time to dig through and find clear information (I appreciate that sounds lazy, but I'm hoping it's far easier for you guys to give me a quick run down that it is for me to spend hours combing through information I don't fully understand!).

I'm looking for general advice to help me get back into the game. What do I need to be focusing on to improve my efficiency and get those ridiculous DPS numbers? What gear sets are now considered to be the most effective? Hit me with whatever advice you think may help me get back into this game with all those changes!

Thanks in advance,

Claivain

jcsww

T5U and T6 11 and in some cases, 12 console ships are a good place to start. Lock box and R&D promo ships are a per character account only. There is a lot of lock box and Lobi fluff in the game, most of which really isn't necessary. If you want to go best of for Plasma and Anti-Proton, then you will want to look at some Lobi consoles and gear. The rest, outside of the Rep System, are pretty to acquire with very little effort outside of time gated things. If you are a member of a fleet, then fleet gear is a great place to start out quick and then work your way up to better gear.

foxrockssocks

Well, I wouldn't say the build meta has necessarily changed in that time, more that there has been a lot of power creep, however there have been a number of changes to bridge officer, BOFF, abilities that helps too. Beam overload, BO, has gone from a single shot power to a duration power just like fire at will, FAW, or cannon rapid fire, CRF. Subsystem targeting works with cannons too now.

Mostly its power creep, though. Endeavors are the newest system but a big source of some good stats and is pure power creep for players. Ship traits and specializations didn't even exist when you last played and they can be a real game changer. There are a lot of new lockbox consoles, traits, and so on that can help builds a lot. New reputation gear has some great stuff as well for the right builds.

There is so much that is new it is hard to give you very general advice on what has changed, because effectively you don't know anything about anything any more. Also, you don't need those ridiculous numbers, so don't get distracted by them when you should first try to relearn the game, grind out your reputations, specializations, and get a few more ship traits. Then chase them all you want.

I'm sure someone will drop a link to a good Khopesh build, but it is definitely a good ship to chase DPS numbers with. The ship trait is generally good too. And you probably didn't know that you couldn't even use it as a Fed until a year ago.

For some basic build rules, use one type of weapon, beams or cannons, maybe with one torpedo, use only the same energy type like phaser or disruptor or whatever, fill your Tac consoles with consoles that do +damage to your preferred damage type, especially fleet locator consoles if you can get them. That hasn't changed at all, really. From there the rest of the consoles are probably going to be various set pieces or universal consoles from missions or lockboxes to help increase damage or crit rate more.

Edit: To add, gear scales up to mk 15 now, which is more than twice as effective as mk 11 gear. You'll need to upgrade your stuff when you have the gear you want. The most efficient way to upgrade is to buy phoenix boxes in the dilithium store, and break the tokens down to uncommon tokens and buy the phoenix upgrade kits. You'll obviously need a good amount of dilithium for that, but you can buy that if you prefer to. However if you do all your reputations first you'll have plenty of dilithium for a long while, at least once you refine it all.

claivain

> @foxrockssocks said:
> Well, I wouldn't say the build meta has necessarily changed in that time, more that there has been a lot of power creep, however there have been a number of changes to bridge officer, BOFF, abilities that helps too. Beam overload, BO, has gone from a single shot power to a duration power just like fire at will, FAW, or cannon rapid fire, CRF. Subsystem targeting works with cannons too now.
>
> Mostly its power creep, though. Endeavors are the newest system but a big source of some good stats and is pure power creep for players. Ship traits and specializations didn't even exist when you last played and they can be a real game changer. There are a lot of new lockbox consoles, traits, and so on that can help builds a lot. New reputation gear has some great stuff as well for the right builds.
>
> There is so much that is new it is hard to give you very general advice on what has changed, because effectively you don't know anything about anything any more. Also, you don't need those ridiculous numbers, so don't get distracted by them when you should first try to relearn the game, grind out your reputations, specializations, and get a few more ship traits. Then chase them all you want.
>
> I'm sure someone will drop a link to a good Khopesh build, but it is definitely a good ship to chase DPS numbers with. The ship trait is generally good too. And you probably didn't know that you couldn't even use it as a Fed until a year ago.
>
> For some basic build rules, use one type of weapon, beams or cannons, maybe with one torpedo, use only the same energy type like phaser or disruptor or whatever, fill your Tac consoles with consoles that do +damage to your preferred damage type, especially fleet locator consoles if you can get them. That hasn't changed at all, really. From there the rest of the consoles are probably going to be various set pieces or universal consoles from missions or lockboxes to help increase damage or crit rate more.
>
> Edit: To add, gear scales up to mk 15 now, which is more than twice as effective as mk 11 gear. You'll need to upgrade your stuff when you have the gear you want. The most efficient way to upgrade is to buy phoenix boxes in the dilithium store, and break the tokens down to uncommon tokens and buy the phoenix upgrade kits. You'll obviously need a good amount of dilithium for that, but you can buy that if you prefer to. However if you do all your reputations first you'll have plenty of dilithium for a long while, at least once you refine it all.

That's solid advice. Thanks for taking the time to reply

szerontzur

If you're from the era of "Escorts Online", then most of the same stuff still applies. Probably the main shift for the modern meta is stacking multiple sets to improve your chosen damage type through overlapping set bonuses. Plasma and Tetryon are probably the most awkward to build for right now; Disruptor and Phaser are probably the easiest/most popular; you can honestly use whatever type you want to though - there are options for all of them.

Aux2Bat builds are pretty popular due to a specific Duty Officer synergy that effectively halves your cooldown times, but you can easily get by with simply slotting Photonic Officer in a science seat if you allocate your Captain skillpoints for cooldown reduction. Otherwise, firing cycle haste is pretty big right now, but the sources of it are fairly limited.

As for getting to "ridiculous damage"; what was once a small hill of effort has become a vast mountain range with many sharp cliffs. The quickest/least intensive path is the science vessel route focusing on exotic damage. If you're wanting to go the energy weapon route, you're going to need a lot more resources, learning, and dedication to get there.

section31agent

Time is what you need and a ton of dilithium. Nothing replaces investing hours to earn reputation. Oh yeah MONEY helps (alot). A good fleet can help too

vetteguy904

oh, and you have a head start if you are using the toon with the Omega rep @ tier 5. the Maco 2 pc and the assimilated drive is not "meta" but it's still good enough to keep you alive in anything up to elite content, so you can research and build the gear you want, you already have gear that's good enough. Google the DPS league builds and look at the builds on STO academy. The dragon build was around back then I think and has only minor tweaks the Kopesh is a great platform and you can get the best pets in the game in the romulan drones.