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Mission Review: "Ghost Ship"
kirksplat
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Mission review: "Ghost Ship" by Cryptic Studios.
As my journey through the universe of Star Trek Online continues, I am now a "Rear Admiral, Upper Half," and I'm making my way through the Romulan series. I haven't done a review in a long time, but I can sum up the gap between then and now. Generally speaking, the Devidian series/TOS stuff was the highlight of the game. My reviews of those missions would have been mostly positive, if I had done the reviews.
But, now, I'll try to get back into these reviews, starting with the mission "Ghost Ship." I should say that I haven't been following the Romulan story that closely, and I've had to skip several missions due to bugs. For example, I tried to play "Minefield" 4 times only to see enemies get stuck in asteroids (so I couldn't target them and complete the mission). I also skipped "Ground Zero" because I lost interest almost immediately when task was kill 5/5 mobs in space. I just wasn't in the mood.
So, now, onto "Ghost Ship." I am to proceed to the Great Bloom, which is an area of space that Starfleet has been studying for 30 years. It is the site of a battle from Nemesis. I vaguely remember the plot of the terrible film (IMO), but sure, it makes sense that Shinzon's super weapon left behind tons of "thalaron radiation." This stuff is dangerous. It consumes organic material at the sub-atomic level, the game says. Nasty stuff.
So I get to the Great Bloom and I see radiation samples to scan. As I get closer, I also see an ally ship. I want to investigate the ship first, of course. It's called the U.S.S. Warwick, and it looks damaged. People may be in danger.
But no, my bridge officer demands that I scan radiation first. OK, fine. Radiation samples scanned. "Captain, I'm getting an automated distress signal. It's the U.S.S Warwick." She sets a course and we investigate.
"Scans show no signs of weapons fire. Engines are offline... no lifesigns." Suddenly, a Hirogen ship appears out of nowhere, and tells me that his trap has worked. Obviously, this Hirogen is now suspect #1. Somehow, the U.S.S. Warwick fell victim to Hirogens who probably sent the crew to a planet for a great hunt. He's left the ship here as bait.
Technically, he's wrong. The trap did not work. Starfleet sent me here to scan radiation. They seemed very unaware of the missing U.S.S. Warwick. I wonder how the ship got here. I also wonder how long the Hirogens have been waiting for a Starfleet vessel. They must not have issues with all the radiation that eats people at a sub-atomic level. Well, it's not affecting my ship, either.
My first instinct tells me to capture the vessel and interrogate the captain. He may know what happened to the crew of the Warwick. But, no, I must destroy him. Pew pew, boom.
I beam to the ship and discover dead people, exactly 5 on a ship with a crew of 200. I scan 5 of 5 bodies, when my officer tells me that their neural energies have been drained. "Devidian?" I want to ask. Why did we have to scan 5 bodies? We know what to look for. We've done this before, and your tricorder should know how to identify a body killed by these brain-eaters.
Oh, and I should say that while I was scanning the bodies, I experienced what can only be described as one of the dumbest moments of the entire game:
"Scan Crates..." Yellow text: "You scanned the scanners!" Accolade: "Always the scanner, never the scanned."
/facepalm.
Ok, so I'm off to engineering where I read a very Cryptic log. The crew can't fight the "thiolic radiation." It's killing people. Is that similar how the "thalaron radiation" that eats us at a sub-atomic level?
Or, was the Nemesis stuff just some random reference to an event in a movie that has no real connection to the plot?
Why was ship stuck here? Why didn't it escape? What kind of a captain just lets their ship hang out here while the crew dies? All power was routed to try to keep the crew alive. OK, I guess that's plausible, but I probably would have gone to warp at the first sign of trouble.
And why is none of this affecting my ship? And what about the Hirogens?
OK, well it's Devidians, but thiolic radiation must have killed others too. Unless the Hirogens... no, I'm going to forget about the Hirogens. At some when playing these missions, my brain thinks: "Well, that was a mob just thrown into the story for no reason other than a time sink."
So I set up a technobabble field to unmask the Devidians. Set up 5 pattern enhancers... this poor crew. That's what happens when your captain doesn't read his intel briefings about Drozana.
Then I beam up, where a Romulan ship has decloaked. After a clever line about how I destroyed peaceful Hirogen scientists, we fight. And then I beam back down to fight more Devidians. Then I beam back up to fight what looks like Romulan ships protecting Devidian portals.
In the midst of all of the fighting, Spock congratulates me and I get hailed by Quinn, who has new orders for me to stop what I'm doing and explore a nebula. Like a good captain, I hang up on the most important fellow at the mushroom. I ignore his orders. Back to the mission...
What is going on? The Romulans and Devidians are working together, and those portals are causing this "thiolic radiation," not to be confused with sub-atomic consumers. Now I have to fight these Romulan ships to destroy the Devidian portals.
I'm so sick of space battles. And right when I think the mission is over, and I might get some kind of explanation, I discover a battleship, which doesn't exactly register as a battleship. it looks Romulan, unless I just wasn't paying attention and mashing buttons. It's a tough ship. I die and I die and I die and I die.
There better be a good explanation for all of this.
"Sir, that may have been a Devidian ship." Mission complete.
A Devidian ship somehow synced with my reality AFTER I destroyed all of their portals, which were protected by Romulans.
Am I missing something? Perhaps because I didn't play "Minefield" or "Ground Zero." Is any of this explained?
It's probably because I didn't play "Minefield" or "Ground Zero," right? Let's see if the next mission explains the Devidian and Romulan alliance. It's called "Friend of My Enemy."
As my journey through the universe of Star Trek Online continues, I am now a "Rear Admiral, Upper Half," and I'm making my way through the Romulan series. I haven't done a review in a long time, but I can sum up the gap between then and now. Generally speaking, the Devidian series/TOS stuff was the highlight of the game. My reviews of those missions would have been mostly positive, if I had done the reviews.
But, now, I'll try to get back into these reviews, starting with the mission "Ghost Ship." I should say that I haven't been following the Romulan story that closely, and I've had to skip several missions due to bugs. For example, I tried to play "Minefield" 4 times only to see enemies get stuck in asteroids (so I couldn't target them and complete the mission). I also skipped "Ground Zero" because I lost interest almost immediately when task was kill 5/5 mobs in space. I just wasn't in the mood.
So, now, onto "Ghost Ship." I am to proceed to the Great Bloom, which is an area of space that Starfleet has been studying for 30 years. It is the site of a battle from Nemesis. I vaguely remember the plot of the terrible film (IMO), but sure, it makes sense that Shinzon's super weapon left behind tons of "thalaron radiation." This stuff is dangerous. It consumes organic material at the sub-atomic level, the game says. Nasty stuff.
So I get to the Great Bloom and I see radiation samples to scan. As I get closer, I also see an ally ship. I want to investigate the ship first, of course. It's called the U.S.S. Warwick, and it looks damaged. People may be in danger.
But no, my bridge officer demands that I scan radiation first. OK, fine. Radiation samples scanned. "Captain, I'm getting an automated distress signal. It's the U.S.S Warwick." She sets a course and we investigate.
"Scans show no signs of weapons fire. Engines are offline... no lifesigns." Suddenly, a Hirogen ship appears out of nowhere, and tells me that his trap has worked. Obviously, this Hirogen is now suspect #1. Somehow, the U.S.S. Warwick fell victim to Hirogens who probably sent the crew to a planet for a great hunt. He's left the ship here as bait.
Technically, he's wrong. The trap did not work. Starfleet sent me here to scan radiation. They seemed very unaware of the missing U.S.S. Warwick. I wonder how the ship got here. I also wonder how long the Hirogens have been waiting for a Starfleet vessel. They must not have issues with all the radiation that eats people at a sub-atomic level. Well, it's not affecting my ship, either.
My first instinct tells me to capture the vessel and interrogate the captain. He may know what happened to the crew of the Warwick. But, no, I must destroy him. Pew pew, boom.
I beam to the ship and discover dead people, exactly 5 on a ship with a crew of 200. I scan 5 of 5 bodies, when my officer tells me that their neural energies have been drained. "Devidian?" I want to ask. Why did we have to scan 5 bodies? We know what to look for. We've done this before, and your tricorder should know how to identify a body killed by these brain-eaters.
Oh, and I should say that while I was scanning the bodies, I experienced what can only be described as one of the dumbest moments of the entire game:
"Scan Crates..." Yellow text: "You scanned the scanners!" Accolade: "Always the scanner, never the scanned."
/facepalm.
Ok, so I'm off to engineering where I read a very Cryptic log. The crew can't fight the "thiolic radiation." It's killing people. Is that similar how the "thalaron radiation" that eats us at a sub-atomic level?
Or, was the Nemesis stuff just some random reference to an event in a movie that has no real connection to the plot?
Why was ship stuck here? Why didn't it escape? What kind of a captain just lets their ship hang out here while the crew dies? All power was routed to try to keep the crew alive. OK, I guess that's plausible, but I probably would have gone to warp at the first sign of trouble.
And why is none of this affecting my ship? And what about the Hirogens?
OK, well it's Devidians, but thiolic radiation must have killed others too. Unless the Hirogens... no, I'm going to forget about the Hirogens. At some when playing these missions, my brain thinks: "Well, that was a mob just thrown into the story for no reason other than a time sink."
So I set up a technobabble field to unmask the Devidians. Set up 5 pattern enhancers... this poor crew. That's what happens when your captain doesn't read his intel briefings about Drozana.
Then I beam up, where a Romulan ship has decloaked. After a clever line about how I destroyed peaceful Hirogen scientists, we fight. And then I beam back down to fight more Devidians. Then I beam back up to fight what looks like Romulan ships protecting Devidian portals.
In the midst of all of the fighting, Spock congratulates me and I get hailed by Quinn, who has new orders for me to stop what I'm doing and explore a nebula. Like a good captain, I hang up on the most important fellow at the mushroom. I ignore his orders. Back to the mission...
What is going on? The Romulans and Devidians are working together, and those portals are causing this "thiolic radiation," not to be confused with sub-atomic consumers. Now I have to fight these Romulan ships to destroy the Devidian portals.
I'm so sick of space battles. And right when I think the mission is over, and I might get some kind of explanation, I discover a battleship, which doesn't exactly register as a battleship. it looks Romulan, unless I just wasn't paying attention and mashing buttons. It's a tough ship. I die and I die and I die and I die.
There better be a good explanation for all of this.
"Sir, that may have been a Devidian ship." Mission complete.
A Devidian ship somehow synced with my reality AFTER I destroyed all of their portals, which were protected by Romulans.
Am I missing something? Perhaps because I didn't play "Minefield" or "Ground Zero." Is any of this explained?
It's probably because I didn't play "Minefield" or "Ground Zero," right? Let's see if the next mission explains the Devidian and Romulan alliance. It's called "Friend of My Enemy."
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by kirksplat on
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Comments
But since I love to use the tactic of creating a new sub-plot in the stories I write that will leave my future readers/viewers/players wondering "what is going on?", I'm rolling with it.
It opens the door for a more sinister Devidian plot, more intricate Romulan/Iconian plans... I just hope that story doesn't end up like the final season of Stargate Atlantis, providing so much potential never tapped.
Er... I think that's a stretch. The mission should tell me that, especially in the context of sto where the Devidians are ghosties. Did they impersonate anyone else in STO? And these were great ships. I don't remember Devidian trains in Time's Arrow.
I replayed the mission since it has been so long since I last ran it. The Hirogen were actually Hirogen and the Romulans were probably Devidians, so I believe. I agree with most of your points. Why were there Devidians on the Warwick in Romulan space? Did they pick them up on Drozana? This mission was part of the Romulan storyline that released with the game and the Devidian FE's came out after that. This was never explained but they had the opportunity to do so. If the Warwick was used as a Hirogen trap, wouldn't they have noticed maybe their hunters or the other 220 aboard Warwick being killed off? As the Bassen Rift can block out subspace communication, I can see Starfleet not knowing the ship was there but you'd think they'd at least have somewhat of a clue, i.e. extrapolate from the ship's last position and warn a Captain and crew they are sending near there. It did take my science officer awhile to figure out the crew was killed by Devidians. I guess he didn't want to jump to conclusions? The portals in space had shields, didn't know portals had those. Also as you stated thalaron radiation in the area was a non-issue however a plasma torpedo caused my ship to break out in plasma fire. One would think if my hull became compromised the thalaron would've been a huge problem but no. If the anomolies in space became visible by flooding the region with ionizing radiation, why were their ships still disguised as Romulans? Their 'true form' should've become visible. We don't know that 'true form' as a Devidian ship was never seen onscreen and the Devidian series never introduced one. Another opportunity missed. I remember when the FE was released people were disappointed by this. Whatever happened to Cryptic's goal of re-mastering all of the episodes? This would be one to go back and touch up for sure. Guess that plan went by the wayside with so many other plans. Good review.