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New players here, and this game overwhelms us.
ragerblade82
Member Posts: 60 Arc User
So I think I understand the ships now. What type of ship you get is what type of bridge officers>and what type of hard points it has. I understand the ships.
The skill system kinda overwhelms us, because so many skills, and I've been firing off bridge officers for new ones because blue is better than green, but it still feels like a waste to do so.Also, I can pay and give my bridge officers more skills? Ok it seems kinda strange but i think I understand.
Duty officers. Holy TRIBBLE...I mean I like the idea, but ffs it is confusing. So to get more of them I should do certain duty missions, ok..so each place I visit has more missions. Also personal missions. Oh i need to find a bartender..ok, so to do that I need to find missions that reward me one.
Man that is a pain, also the double xp on my rom confused the heck out of us, so we went fed..Like we was suppose to have a level 20 ship, but we got a level 10 one. And we was like level 22 and still not got our 20 ship. It just felt strange..and the xp rate made the story pacing off.
By my join date, I tried this game awhile back and had a hard time getting into it. I'm giving it another chance.
The skill system kinda overwhelms us, because so many skills, and I've been firing off bridge officers for new ones because blue is better than green, but it still feels like a waste to do so.Also, I can pay and give my bridge officers more skills? Ok it seems kinda strange but i think I understand.
Duty officers. Holy TRIBBLE...I mean I like the idea, but ffs it is confusing. So to get more of them I should do certain duty missions, ok..so each place I visit has more missions. Also personal missions. Oh i need to find a bartender..ok, so to do that I need to find missions that reward me one.
Man that is a pain, also the double xp on my rom confused the heck out of us, so we went fed..Like we was suppose to have a level 20 ship, but we got a level 10 one. And we was like level 22 and still not got our 20 ship. It just felt strange..and the xp rate made the story pacing off.
By my join date, I tried this game awhile back and had a hard time getting into it. I'm giving it another chance.
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You can also buy DOff's, but the price has recently been escalated to luxury status.
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
We have not been doing any side missions, Is that the missions out in space that are redish? I heard some thing about random missions, but we just been going along with story line.
Also, from reading the forums it seems her and I wasted points putting it into coil. And respecs cost money, is there a guide on dps and support ships? I told her it would be better to go pure dps it seems, but she always will be a healer type. So she wants to play support.
As for Doffs, they're pretty much your best weapons. Some cost as much as a Lockbox ship. They can offer HUGE PASSIVE advantages. It just depends on how much you want to spend. These Doffs are priced high b/c they're very rare drops from Lockboxes.
So, just play step by step, you will be learning by yourself. Now, while you doing that, dont waste dilithium or zen, that is a must. Save it.
The only problem is, with all the bugs around the game, it gets even harder to understand a lot of things. Because right now, we dont know if some things are broken, or working as intended, or they are in beta state, etc. i dont ask myself anymore if this ability is working as intended or if this weapon should inflict more damage, or if i see strange behaviours i dont even bother anymore. There is no point, unfortunately. So, take all the time in the world, because this is not a casual game, you will need to invest A LOT of time in it to understand everythig, and to fight against all the bugged and broken content.
A last advise: Everything is easier than it looks. The doff system is far easier than it looks. In fact, with the doff ui revamp, you cant get lost on it (it is designed for newbies). But in the future , when you have experience in doffing, you will realize that the new doff ui is terrible bad. Of course if you didnt get to play with the old ui, you will never know this.
Driver coils isn't a complete waste. It really helps on a daily you can do later if you get a transwarp capable engine and go beyond warp 10 cruise speed. You only really need to reclaim those points if you really plan to min/max your ship and scrap every ounce of DPS out of her you can and frankly I think a total min/max built is almost over rated of PvE, PvP is another story but I don't PvP.
You'll mosty get low quality officers from those, but they give a decent mix of the job types you'd need.
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy
Nope, I was doing the diplomatic missions like the guy said to earn rep or some thing for more people? Guess I will go check that out.
Thanks all for the advice. Will take it slow and learn as I go. Just dealing with all the loot types and trying to figure that out was becoming a pain. New officers just made us go ugh lol
The best advice I can possible give is. Find yourself a good Fleet to join. Most ppl will help you with anything.
P.S. If your not in a Fleet, message me ingame and I will invite you to the Fleet I am in.
"The 18th Fleet" Groot@hyefather
This is most likely the best option, as was posted by policestate76.
As for Zen/Dil, once Delta Rising hits, the Zen vs Dil exchange should drop very large, due to Dil being more valuable than Zen. Keep this in mind. Do you want to upgrade, or do you want to buy from the Zen store? It's up to your playing style.
Also, take into consideration of hyefather 's advice of joining a fleet. Most will help out with any questions that you need an answer to. If they don't, then they're just elitist jerks. Join a new one at that point.
Max out your Doff experience to T4 as soon as you can. Once they get an excess of experience after T4, you can activate a commendation Doff mission on a starbase, should you choose to join a fleet, or start one yourself.
And if there's one that gives a really nice reward, consider replaying it to get a second copy. That can make keeping your ship properly armed much easier.
To skip and to replay hit the button next to your minimal on the bottom left just above the zen store. This window has news and all kinds of info. The first tab is for episodes and that's where you can see the whole story and where you have the option to replay or skip.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
It's one of the best things you can do is find a fleet that supports it's members. Some fleets are very strict, some are very open. Some fleets have a singular head, others have a committee or group.
Some are geared toward PvE, some toward PVP, some are all about role-playing. Maybe you just come out and ask around trying to find a good fleet. Maybe you pair up with someone for a while and ask that player about their fleet. I got rather lucky when I finally joined a fleet, though I was flailing around somehow making it to lvl 50. Once I started playing with fleetmates, I found out that I knew so little and was horrible at playing the game. They helped me out a lot, lots of advice, helped with skills, builds, everything. Some have voice chat systems they use, which can be very helpful.
Ask around and find one that fits what you want to do in the game and what you want in a fleet/ clan/ guild, whatever you may refer to it as.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLtJ-pZoFys
I recall him stating somewhere that he plans on doing a new walkthru of the main story missions for the Federation later this year because a lot has changed, it will be based on a F2P account so that he can show people how STO can be played without having to spend any money.
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For some immediate advice, I will simply say you should take your time and learn how to play the game. Do not attempt to do too many things at once otherwise you will simply end up being overwhelmed.
The Bonus XP event is both good and bad. Good in that you can level up faster, bad in that you have less time to adjust to the game as you are quickly advancing through the game. The main story missions are not very hard to beat, they are actually fairly easy. But because of the bonus XP you are going to find that even you reach level 30 (Captain) you will likely find that you are still trying to learn how to fly your ship.
Because you are advancing quickly, try not to spend a lot of ECs on the Exchange for gear because you are going to be burning through them pretty quickly. One way to get decent gear is to repeat some of the missions you have already done. Repeating missions at higher ranks means the mission rewards will also be of higher rank (called mark or MK). For example, the mission called Everything Old Is New is a pretty good mission to repeat to get phaser beam weapons for your starship. Some players replay that missions so that they can put the phaser on the Exchange for sale.
Duty Officers
The Duty Officer (Doffs) missions can be a little overwhelming at 1st especially since the crafting system is now linked to your Doffs. You are given your 1st batch of Doffs when you reach level 11; I think you get 20 of them. With the new crafting system I think at that point you also receive around 30 holograms that is related to the crafting system. I am not going to go into crafting because it is a pretty complex topic of its own. But like all crafting systems you need resources, and time to craft generic gear at first before you can even attempt to create very rare gear.
Both Doffs and the Holograms will occupy your free 100 Doff slots. The basic difference between them is that the Holograms do not have any traits that improves your chances of successfully completing a Doff mission (or fail). Doff missions are totally optional and if you are having problems simply learning how to play the game, then don't worry about trying to learn the Doff system until later.
Doing Doff missions provides you with various little rewards with a normal success. A critical success gives you a bigger reward. Reward types include (but not limited to) EC, dilithium, Skill Point XP (for your toon), Commendation XP (depending on the type of Doff missions you are doing), crafting resources and gear. And also other Doffs. Over time these little bits of reward can add up. The missions are divided up into 12 to 14 different commendation type including Diplomacy, Espionage, Exploration, Medical and Military. Diplomacy is probably the one you should focus on because at commendation level 3 (50,000 diplomacy XP) you can enter the Omega Leonis sector block (home turf of the Klingons) where there are 4 nebulaes that have "Colonization Chain" missions that will reward you with a specific blue quality Doff. Afterwards, the "Support Colony" missions become available will reward a specific purple quality Doff on critical success. However, there are plenty of other nebulaes that you go to do these Colonization Chain missions; the only restriction is that you cannot begin them until you reach level 11.
When you fail a Doff mission your Doff(s) can either end up dead or in sickbay. Only white (common) Doffs will die. To the best of my knowledge green, blue and purple Doffs do not die... unless there is a bug. However, be aware that the are Doff missions where you are trading away a Doff for a reward. Most of the time the reward is a Doff, but not always. This is a good away to loose a valuable Doff if you are not paying attention. I do not know if the holograms "die" on failed missions.
There are many ways to acquire more Doffs. The Colonization Chain missions are one way. Beaming down to Starfleet academy is another where there is a Vulcan, Tellerite and Andorian that you can speak with to initiate a Doff mission. They have a 2-day cool down meaning once you have received your new Doffs you need to wait 2 days before starting them again. A normal success will give you a white Doff, maybe two. A critical success can reward you with a green, blue or purple Doff). There is a circular "Administation" building where there is a female officer in a booth that will offer you 4 missions to get duty officers. These missions reward 2 Doff each with a normal success. She also provide a mission for R&D related stuff which I have not done yet. Within this building is Lieutenant Ferra... more about him later... Additionally, there are a daily mission in this building which is a mid term exam about the lore of Star Trek. Answer correctly and you will be rewarded 480 dilithium ore. Answer incorrectly and you will be saying "Yes, Sir!!" to the janitor.
Each type of Doff mission falls into one of 12/14 Commendation types which maxes out at Tier 4 (100,000 XP). Every time you advance up a tier in any commendation Lt. Ferra will contact you and tell you that you can choose a free Doffs, the quality increase as your tier increases. You do not have to choose immediately. You can simply speak to him at the Academy when you are ready. Toss him some catnip as a friendly gesture... but I wouldn't attempt to pet him...
There are also Asylum and Sanctuary missions as a way to get Doffs. These can fail, but you also have a small chance of getting a good quality Doff. For example, I have received a purple Fabrication Doff doing one of these missions; they are pretty much in demand by players who want to craft gear and are worth at least 8.5 million ECs on the Exchange the last time I checked. However, you need a refugee to start this mission and depending on the race that is offering the Asylum / Sanctuary mission (like Humans, Vulcans, Tellerites) you will need a refugee with specific traits to improve your chances to get green / blue / purple Doffs. Refugees are Civilian Doffs that can be purchased from the Exchange. These missions can appear in sector space or in orbit around a race's homeworld or on the surface of the homeworld.
There are still other ways to get Doffs by doig Doff missions. "Extract Intelligence Officer" is an espionage mission that are generally found around the Omega Leonis sector block. "Instigate Defection" gives you an opportunity to have a Doff from an enemy faction on board your ship. I play 5 toons; 2 Federation, 1 Fed-aligned Romulan and 2 KDF toons. I have more Federation defectors aboard 2 KDF starships than KDF defectors aboard 3 Fed starships. By far the most defectors I have are Ferengis (security and traders). "Prisoner Exchange" missions are fairly simple, attempt to exchange a KDF prisoner for a Fed prisoner.
There are still several more missions to get Doffs, but at least I have covered most of the ways on how to acquire Doffs. However, to have a good mix of Doffs in order to do most or all of the different Doff missions with good success rates you need at least 200 Doff slot at the minimum. 300 Doff slots is more ideal. Every 100 Doff slots cost 725 Zen so you need to spend 725 to 1,450 Zen to really do Doff missions effectively.
And that brings us to the dilithium grind in exchange for Zen if you do not feel like spending real money on STO. However, that is a completely different topic that can be a bit complex on its own....
TL;DR
If you want to learn the basics of the Doff system then stop being lazy and go back up and read...
I do have one more question, that I have been getting mixed answers with ingame.
The ranking system says that my Rom char is 22 and I only just now unlocked the level 10 ship quest.
I heard double xp is going on right now, so my question is, are the ship unlocks tied to the storyline? Or am I missing some thing?
I also played a klingon (and sad that I could not start singing the war song while in battle. Q_Q) and i'm going through the same thing. I'm ranked 14 and still not able to get my free ship.
I have people tell me ingame that it is bugged, and I should wait for the rom xp to go off, because some people could not get the free rank 4 ship. Is this true?
As far as general info, I linked a bunch of different resources in response to another thread. While that player got trolled by folks thinking they had no right to ask for advice, the advice from many of the other folks is very handy... ...though I'm only going to link my own collection of reference links.
The Romulans are annoying in that the contact to receive the first ship is in a whole different location than the second.
Possible slight spoiler...
Do figure that the Romulans won't remain homeless forever. Contact for the 20, 30 & 40 ship(s) is located at said home. Therefore, you can't get your 20+ ships until that point in the storyline...
With the Romulans, as long as you get to that unlock while you're still in the 30s as far as level goes, then you'll have access to the T30 freebie that's a tactical ship. T40 gives a very engineering taste to the ship, and at 50 you're expected to know what kind of ship you want - and you'll have never set foot on a "science ship"...
To go into a little more detail - STO uses your ship more than your selected class to determine your "role" in space combat.
Most early warbirds - except the D'Dierex, are more akin to "escorts" or "destroyers" - tactically heavy ships, highly maneuverable, low defenses, built to bring on the pain.
The D'Dierex is a cruiser-class ship, big, bulky, slow turning but very well defended ship that relies more on heals and the occasional trick power to outlast the opposition.
Science ships are sort of the wizards of STO, fairly maneuverable, shields are the primary defense (so some skill with shields is ideal), light hull (lowest HP number in the game), smallest weapons count (only 6 on a full size ship) and expected to use it's science skills to do damage, but excels at crowd control or debilitating enemies.
As far as your BOffs go, for Romulans, you're going to want to eventually replace many of them with purple Romulan officers that possess the skill "Superior Romulan Operative". The reason I say "many" and not all is that the only 5 you need to have with this skill are the five that fit onto your L40 ship, or eventual L50 ship if (when) you decide to get one and can afford it.
I saw a touch of confusion over those BOff skills. To be relatively brief: Each BOff has up to 4 space skills and 4 ground skills that they can be trained in, denoted by rank and relative power level (that Commander skill's gonna be a lot more powerful than that ensign skill). Many powers can be trained at that BOff trainer back at main base, a small handful can only be trained by other captains (these are either Lt. Commander or Commander-level powers) and a small handful can only be found on rare BOffs. Each ship denotes what types of BOffs they use and what the maximum power skill they can use in that spot is - your level 10 ship has a Tactical "Lieutenant slot", which means that the tactical officer put there can use both the ensign and tactical level power that (s)he knows. Therefore, be very careful about breaking up your "freebie BOff team" you get from the stories, that group gives you most of the BOffs you'll need for any ship you fly, if you snag a tactical BOff during at least one of your level ups, you'll be set for just about every ship in the game...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
The 1st ship you are able to select for both Rom and KDF factions are tied to the story line.
For the Romulans the mission is called "Neutral No More". Assuming you did not skip the tutorial, it is the 12th main story mission which takes place after "Turning Point" where you must choose to align with the Fed or the KDF. Additionally, after you have selected your alliance you are no longer restricted to only flying to sectors controlled by the Romulans.
As for the KDF, the mission you are allowed to select your next ship is called "Test of Mettle". It is the 15th main story mission assuming you did not skip the tutorial missions. The next mission afterwards is called "Second Star to the Right, Straight on 'til Morning" which offers you an Efficient Impulse Engine and your choice of a Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Beam Array or Dual Heavy Cannons. This is one of those missions you may want to repeat if you want multiple copies of a weapon or higher MK level weapons after you rank up.
After those two missions are complete you should be able to choose your next free ship the next time you advance to the next rank. You should receive a message stating that you are allowed to choose a new ship.
With regards to the Double XP I assume it can cause a bug where a handful of people are not given the option to select their next appropriate level ship 'cuz you are ranking up very fast. The only thing I can suggest short of postponing playing STO until after Oct 14th is not to do anything that will give you XP other than the story missions which means do not bother with Doff missions until you can at least choose your level 30 (Tier 4) free ship. That would be Captain for Fed and KDF. Romulan have the ranks of commander at that level.
http://xkcd.com/1053/
and the wiki is your friend, even if it isn't always 100% up to date.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Main_Page
Joined January 2009
Actually, if you are on drozana station you might want to turn zone chat off. Local too.