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uppercaseplz
Member Posts: 20 Arc User
Hello, I thought I'd take the server being down (read: opportunity to stop getting blown up all the time) and introduce myself.
My name is Mike, I live in Canada. I saw someone playing this game and casually asked how much it cost since it looked nice and he said "free". I joined up and started playing and now it's something I look forward to doing (read: getting blown up all the time).
Anyone else here new and more or less totally oblivious as to how to play?
My name is Mike, I live in Canada. I saw someone playing this game and casually asked how much it cost since it looked nice and he said "free". I joined up and started playing and now it's something I look forward to doing (read: getting blown up all the time).
Anyone else here new and more or less totally oblivious as to how to play?
The Borg have it all wrong. Resistance is not futile. Resistance is electromotive force over current. Hasn't the Borg Queen ever heard of Ohm's frickin' Law?
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Don't worry, you'll learn the ropes soon enough. And everybody dies in this game. Well, except for the dudes who know how to use the Scimitar, but everyone knows that the Scimitar is OP and gloriously so.
I was a newbie once (about 9 months back, now), and I learned pretty fast. Been with my fleet 6 months or so, got my Scimitar pack a month back and already addicted to it. Once you get some really good endgame loot (like the Solanae set from Step Between Stars), you die less often. If you know what you're doing, you can survive elite Borg STFs with non-Fleet gear.
I advise doing normal STFs before the elites, and asking for help from fleetmates when you do graduate. Some fleets take newbies on tutorial runs, which can be lots of fun.
Play through all the FEs, so that when the next rerun rolls around you can get yourself the special rewards more easily. Let me tell you, my Breen boff is a nightmare on the ground.
Play the Foundry, there are a lot of great missions in there.
Welcome to STO, and enjoy!
A scimitar is a type of sword, I know that much.
What is an STF, and what is an FE?
I have an assault cruiser and one thing I don't get is that my stations have different rankings. For example, I have a tactical officer at Commander rank but the station is only Ensign. I can only therefore use his Ensign abilities. Is there a way to level up stations on a ship?
I basically warp around doing missions as I stumble into them and hit that "Distress Call" and do those Borg missions.
I get lost easy.
Having both a Federation and Klingon character, I recommend playing the Federation 1st because more players are in that faction and there are several multiplayer PvE (player vs enemy) missions... go to Starbase 24. There are also many "enemy combat zones" that you can simply fly into to develop your space combat skills. The Klingon faction (a.k.a. KDF - Klingon Defense Force) have fewer players and is a bit limited in scope due to that. There are supposedly some multiplayer PvE missions that you can queue up, they are in fact the same as for the Federation, but no one plays them so those missions never start, at least based on my experience.
However, you can simply stick with the main story missions. I have generally abandoned the main story early during the game and simply did "whatever" for both characters. There are many missions that you can do for both factions, but at least in my opinion it is a bit easier with the Fed. The Romulans are also a playable faction, however, there comes a point in the game where you must choose to align with the Fed or KDF. So I will play them after completing the mains story for both Fed and KDF. After choosing which side you will align with, you will be playing the same late game missions for either the Fed or KDF.
I recommend you watch the following video which is basically a walkthrough of the Federation tutorial missions. He adds plenty of commentary as a seasoned player so some of that can be useful to you get a handle of the game. I think there are a total of 4 videos. The videos are made by Brent "The Doctor" Justice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLtJ-pZoFys
This is his walkthru for the KDF tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pqgzjz1gAY
Here's the link to his YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/user/JustGaming4Us
Scimitar in this case is one of the three Scimitar-class dreadnought warbirds, which are overpowered compared to all other ships except the Jem'Hadar attack ship (or "bugship") and the Voth Bulwark Dreadnought Cruiser.
STF is a Borg Special Task Force, a type of PVE queue. FE is a Featured Episode, a special story mission, usually part of a series, with a special reward.
No, you cannot "level up" boff stations. If you prefer more tactical bridge officer abilities, go with an escort ship. If you prefer more science abilities, go with a science vessel. Cruisers are Engineering-heavy.
ZEN is the currency used by Perfect World Entertainment (PWE) for all their games. You can purchase ZEN using reak money. In the US 1 ZEN equals $0.01, so 2,500 ZEN equals $25. ZEN can also be earned in the game itself. This is done by earning dilithium ore which can then be refined into dilithium crystals. You can technically earn as much ore in a single day as humanly possible, but you are limited to refining only 8,000 ores into crystals per day. You can google "dilithium farming" to find out how to earn the ore. Refined dilithium crystals can be exchanged for ZEN (again, this is something to google). The most recent exchange rate is 128 crystals for 1 ZEN.
Using the about info that means to buy the Romulan Scimitar using in game currency you need to have 2,500 * 128 = 320,000 refine dilithium crystals. Assuming you earn and refine 8,000 dilithium per day, it will take you 40 days to purchase the Scimitar.
"End Game" means you have maxed out your character at level 50 and you can only fly "End Game" ships with a level 50 character. However, you get free ships in the game as you advance. You get a free ship at levels 1, 10, 20, 30, and 40.
If you want to be a really good PVPer, you kind of need to buy SOMEthing. Whether the Avenger or the Mogh (if you prefer KDF side), or the Scimitar pack (if you like Rommies). Otherwise, it is entirely possible to succeed with free ships; I took a sovvie (assault cruiser) through Cure Found Elite once and didn't die once. Of course, my DPS was pants, but I survived.
I got the bundle pack, only took me 20 days to farm the ZEN. But then again, I had the advantage of having 6 level 50 toons to grind dil on. Even with some time constraints cutting into my margins, I made it easily.
STO (Star Trek Online) is primarily focused on single player which is why I am playing the game. It seems the PvP action is not as active in this game compared to other MMOs. I don't know myself since this is the 1st MMO I am playing and I don't play PvP missions.
STO is setup so that you do not have to spend money if you don't want to finish the main story. Of course if you are interested in PvP and you want the best equipment, then that involves either spending the money or do a lot of dilithium grinding to convert to ZEN so that you can buy stuff from the C-Store. You also need to join a Fleet (guild) because Fleet ships basically have about 10% better stats than non-fleet ships. However, it is not that simple. I am not part of a fleet, but you cannot simply join a fleet on day 1 and access you everything. You must earn the right to purchase those ships, weapons and miscellaneous equipment. There will be a lot of grinding involved if your objective is to get the best of the best stuff.
I do those duty officer mission things where I send people away for minutes/hours/days at a time and get dilithium ore that way. I think I have just over 10,000. I was gonna save up like 100,000 and buy some weird/nice ship with it all.
I started out playing Romulan, got to level 42 and then started over with Federation which I'm now level 50 at.
If the game server ever comes back up I might start a Klingon character.
One thing I find overwhelming is the number and types of weapons. My assault cruiser (Federation) was outfitted with just phasers and tactical consoles to boost them. But then I decided to put random weapons on just because. I think I have like 2 quantum torpedo launchers, a tetryon cannon or 2 and some other strange guns.
I have no idea what I'm doing, I just hit the "FIRE ALL" button until they die. Or until I die and end up with like 50 injuries on my ship, at which point I give up and run away.
Yeah, with multiple toons you can do a lot of grinding to exceed that 8,000 cap per toon, per day. But I just wanted to keep this simple.
For one toon and assuming no bundle pack or whatever, it will take a minimum of 40 days to refine 320,000 worth of dilithium ore into crystals.
I play this game for some time now, and finding the right build is the most fun part in this game
I then decided to swap them out for all those random weapons I keep picking up and now I'm like a Highlander with my face painted blue and dressed in weird rags charging my enemy with a chicken in one hand and a broken sword in the other.
Unfortunately, you are going to need much more than 100,000 refined dilithium to buy a ship. That only works out to about 781 ZEN.
You can find out more about weapons in the link below. Personally, I use Phaser Beam Arrays MK XI on my Sovereign class heavy cruiser; a.k.a "Sovvie" , Assault Cruiser. It is the canon weapon of choice for Federation starships.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ship_weapon
Each weapon type has different effects and it is best not to mix different energy weapon types because you get a -10 damage penalty. But some people seems to like to mix different energy weapons for overall "better effect". It seems many people do not like phasers at least for PvE missions because phasers only has a chance of disabling a random subsystem for a short period of time against AI ships and it seems not to have much affect at all. However, they seem to be the weapon of choice in PvP because the disabled subsystem effect does in fact work against player ships. Pretty well it seems.
The best weapon type depends one who you ask, but the general recommendations are Antiproton and the Romulan Fleet Plasma Weapons.
Thanks for the inputs, it'll help me make a more informed decision.
Also, should I join a fleet?
Go to the main forum page (http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/index.php) and scroll all the way down until you see Fleet Administrative Station, that is the sub-forum for fleets where various fleets advertise and where you can ask fleet specific questions.
Personally I am not in a fleet. I might join one, but the reason why I play STO is mostly for single player action. If I do join a fleet it will probably be a low tier medium size one and help them build up. The higher the tier more likely the fleet have the best equipment; Tier 5 being the highest. However, fleets must do projects before certain things becomes available. Since I am not in a fleet I cannot you accurate information. But for example, you may have joined a tier 5 Romulan fleet, but it may not have built a shipyard yet which allows you to buy a Scimitar.
A fleet where people who are confused hang out.
Yeah.
The Tachyon Beam ability for Science Bridge Offices (BOff) also drains shields.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Tachyon_Beam
There's also the Energy Siphon ability for Science BOffs.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Energy_Siphon
A couple of great sites that will help you:
STO Wiki: www.sto.gamepedia.com
Articles like "Bridge Officer Ability", "Playable Starship", "Sets", "Consoles" and "Ship Weapon" go through a lot of issues and pointers. I know a lot of people say they're outdated, but I have yet to find these articles incorrect, just if something changes, they may be inaccurate in terms of minutiae (i.e. not 100% anymore... but if you're confused, it'll still remove the confusion). If you don't know what different weapons, skills, etc do, they provide a good grounding point.
STO Academy: www.stoacademy.com
It's a site where players put up their own ships, shuttles, skills etc for other players to look at and explore. Together with the STO Wiki, these 'sample builds' can provide an insight into what other players are doing. I have put all my ships and shuttles on there together with skills trees, ground teams etc, and an explanation in the notes as to why I've done things the way I did. I cannot recommend highly enough, building your ship, toon and away team in STO Academy, ticking the boxes of everything you can use, and then building your skills tree to benefit. You don't get enough points to cover everything you would like (even sticking to the "maximum 6 points in any skill" rule of thumb), and it's annoying to discover later that you've got points in something that you actually don't even use.
Ultimately, it's up to individuals as to what works for them (and what doesn't). I personally enjoy the "Trial and Error" approach, actually experiencing what really works for me, and why something works or fails. It also depends on what you personally find rewarding: I enjoy playing a sort of semi-canon, adventure-style PvE game where my goal is a decent level of survival (getting blown up in a FED cruiser is, as far as I'm concerned, a failure of build or play, even if the PvE "succeeds" with all optionals... it just doesn't feel rewarding for me in those circumstances. Others consider huge damage that allows them to not even bother considering any sort of strategy to be a success... I wouldn't personally. To each their own).
A few other notes:
"Rarity": such as the common, uncommon, rare etc. is incorrectly named. A common is almost "base level" or "standard issue". Uncommon will have say, "standard issue +1", rare is +2, very rare is +3. Use these terms to judge the "rack rate" of equipment, so you don't replace Mk XI purples with Mk XII blues and only then notice they've got the same "rack rate" stats. Handy hint: hovering over any image brings up its basic stats. Right-clicking brings up in-depth information. Very little of what is driven by buttons in STO actually has a "button" on it.
"Bridge Officer Level": Four levels of 'skills' but more like 'basic', to 'top end' ship abilities stations... each ship has lots of basic skill slots, and only a few top-end capabilities. Think of these as ship-based rather than crew-based: a tactically-inclined ship has limited scientific capabilities so your Cmdr-level science officer might know how to make a gravity well, but the ship is incapable of doing so. In another less-ship based and more play-based example, I put my Romulan "First Officers" or Federation "Security Chiefs" in a universal or tactical "ensign" console as my style is to imagine ordering them to "order security to repel boarders" when invaded by Borg drones. The "ensign" label of the station is to me, irrelevant.
"The net": okay this is my personal way of thinking of it... everything you choose limits your ability to choose something else (in economics, it's the "Opportunity cost"). Everything you choose can also be benefited by other things in the value chain. The joy for me is in making those value chains work as well as they can. To take an example: an engineer is the only captain that can use the engineering kit "bunker". This kit provides the ability to use turrets. Turrets benefit from skills points in both "Turrets and drones", and (for the other things in that kit) "Generators". The survival of these turrets and generators benefits from Duty Officers on Ground Duty who provide a chance to beam in more turrets (up to three instead of one), to beam in extras (such as a bonus medical generator when beaming in a shield generator), or the ability for these things to regenerate or survive better. Bunkering means staying put, which means using ranged weapons (such as sniper rifles) rather than short range (such as pistols or melee). This affects not only your weapons choice, but also calls for points in "Weapon damage". Bunkering means you survive on-ground better, which frees up more of your limited skills points for your space-based skills, which allows you to work a large ship like the Odyssey better than if you had to have lots of skills points in ground. As an engineer, you also get a passive ground skill called "Orbital Strike". This benefits from a special trait called "orbital devastation" where the beam follows the enemy around for several seconds. If I recall, this damage is improved by skills points in "Demolitions". The Bridge Officer traits affect how things work for them too, and their training, and their equipment. If you want to bring a "security officer" with you in a bunkering crew, the last thing you want them to be able to do is "lunge" and "pounce"... or they'll spend half the mission unconscious away from your bunker.
In a much shorter example to build on this: Romulans have access to a ground trait that gives a bonus to plasma ground weapon damage. If you're a Romulan Engineer using the Bunkering Kit and with that trait, your weapon should be plasma, and likely will be a plasma rifle. If you take Tovan Khev with you everywhere, IIRC he has that trait as well, so his will be plasma for the benefit of that bonus. Perhaps a way of looking at it, is that part of the trick is identifying how you're limited... and working to turn it to your advantage by your other choices.
The point is, forget the 'names' of things for a moment and instead ask a few key questions:
Then go trial it. If it works, great, if it doesn't, try tweaking other things or work out why it's not working for you, regardless of whether others think it's a "must have' (or that it "doesn't work"... even though for you it does).
I suppose the final point is: STO is as easygoing or as complex as people want it to be. It's forgiving, and there are so many options and ways of playing that you can start out enjoying one thing and moving on to other things over time. So enjoy, explore, and remember that improving your own play style is part and parcel of what makes it great!
Hope this helps
Below is a link to the Federation Assault Cruiser. The right part of the screen shows that stats of the ship including the bridge officer stations. Because cruisers are set up as "engineering oriented ships" in the game, the stations allows for higher ranking abilities to be used. There is a commander level station and a lieutenant commander level station. However, tactical only has an ensign and lieutenant stations. The single science station is limited to lieutenant.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Assault_Cruiser
Tachyon 3 is a commander level ability, since the station itself is only limited to lieutenant rank abilities, you cannot use Tachyon 3. Trust me I didn't not know about this until after I promoted all my BOffs to commander.
You need to have a Science starship which would have a commander level science station for you to use that ability. But that also means you will probably only have one tactical station and two lower ranking engineering stations.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Deep_Space_Science_Vessel
When choosing a ship one thing you must consider is what type of BOff abilities you would like access to. The Romulan Scimitar only has a lieutenant level science station so you will not be able to use the science officer's Tachyon 3 ability. There are 2 universal stations (ensign and lieutenant commander) which are flexible. You can stick a science officer in the lt. cmdr universal station, but that will not give you access to Tachyon 3.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Scimitar_Dreadnought_Warbird
Hey, welcome to STO. You'll get the hang of it, I'm sure. There is a lot of good info in the previous posts. I've found the community to be really helpful in my 8 months playing this game. You'll blow up a lot less after a while. I hope to see you in game if they ever get the servers back up.
Cheers!
Have fun, kill baddies.
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