Dust to Dust - missing theme line

fruitvendor12 · February 2015

It's a good mission. But honestly, one has a alien-created entity that repeatedly attempts to kill Federation staff and to create war between the Vaadwaur and Hirogen.

The mission lacks direction. Solving position dependent maze resolution with a known USB/mouse-keyboard bug that can stop us in mid-response - ok, fix the underlying mechanics. Like so many things cryptic I do not have the USB device problem with other games, other games do no corrupt my router, etc. Solve that problem mechanic, then rely more on it. USB peripherals are not mysterious.

Ok I drifted. Point is, this Harry Kim analogue is out to murder federation personnel. Why is the only path line incurring serious personal injury? (game fiction - in franchise "we" would be red shirts, so many disassociated molecules with trace entangled atoms...)

Picard might sacrifice 1-3 red shirts - he was a noble leader. /sarcasm

Kirk would take it more personally... so would Janeway and have been as trigger happy as Kirk, post first-season Sisko, and the last-two-seasons Archer. Heck season four Archer would probably have nuked all of Korbal.

I mean, the pseudo Kim guy is already a reanimated corpse. Blanking his nervous system is just turning him off so he can be turned back on again. Was a third-grade maze system time waster the only way to walk that thought?

BTW, loose the mazes. That's not content, just a time burner. Please understand content is preferable. If the best way to engage us is mazes you are walking away from a top earning franchise, creating the circumstances that cause folks to walk away.

bobtheskull99 · February 2015

first I've heard of any such bug.....

also the maze...I loved it, best part of the mission.....I hope when the devs said they may add similar mazes to future content they weren't just blowing smoke...it was I nice change of pace

fruitvendor12 · February 2015

Everyone ought to have a maze.

kodachikuno · February 2015

wondered when someone would complain that they had to solve puzzles instead of kill everything and move on... I loved this mission and its mix of combat, plot, and puzzle. The only disappointment was that the maze was static not dynamic per run. Also I use a usb mouse(on a cord) and have never had an issue with STO short of the Omega mini-game and thats more just cause I suck at it with a mouse I think

nileight1 · February 2015

The known usb problem that no one else has heard of?

Please define "content."

millimidget · February 2015

nileight1 wrote: »

The known usb problem that no one else has heard of?

Is it confirmed, then? Because I've been experiencing it since the anniversary released.

Hopefully they'll resolve it when the anniversary event concludes. I'd hate to be forced into uninstalling the game just to confirm it is the cause; I probably wouldn't reinstall it afterwards.

davefenestrator · February 2015

Odd, I have a USB wireless mouse and I've yet to be beaten to death by purple monkey dishwashers.

repeatedly attempts to kill Federation staff

Not really. Zombie Kim "locked up" the Kobali, warned off you and Clone Kim. He is attempting to scare you off and keep you away until he can contact Voyager and return to it.

I'd hate to be forced into uninstalling the game just to confirm it is the cause;

Whaaa? Even if STO does to something to turn your KB - Mouse into feral predators that roam the night, it will only happen when you run the program. STO is not an always-running service, it only starts when you tell it to.

nileight1 · February 2015

davefenestrator wrote: »

Whaaa? Even if STO does to something to turn your KB - Mouse into feral predators that roam the night, it will only happen when you run the program. STO is not an always-running service, it only starts when you tell it to.

Or maybe that's just what it WANTS you to think...

rsoblivion · February 2015

Err USB issue? What's this issue that stops mid response?? I've only noticed lag preventing responses...

As for the Maze, it's a nice little addition, but we just used a grapple hook to span a chasm. I'm pretty sure that the grapple would beat both the maze and the electrified panel game too...

Oh and as for the maze itself it's mighty considerate of the Vaadwaur to put consoles in there to highlight the dead ends! I prefer when a story/mission is written that there is some context for everything to exist, not a case of HEY we made a maze and a panel game, now you mission writers bugger off and write a mission that includes them...

The fact it's one of the better missions in the game is a clear indication of the production values.

gonalius · February 2015

I liked the maze. That said, I think that the map is the perfect place to have the long ignored profession-based interactions. So say Science could short out some of the electrical bits, an Engineer lower more routes through the maze, and Tactical could do... Something with the platforms.

gaevsman · February 2015

gonalius wrote: »

I liked the maze. That said, I think that the map is the perfect place to have the long ignored profession-based interactions. So say Science could short out some of the electrical bits, an Engineer lower more routes through the maze, and Tactical could do... Something with the platforms.

I agree with these, and about USB problems, no, no problem at all, they are just inanimated objects... wait.. Kobali, death... mmm, i'll lock my keyb and mouse at night just in case...

kodachikuno · February 2015

agreed on it being a great place for the career specific options!

happymarvin · February 2015

sopwithsnipe wrote: »

You must have missed the complaints then. A handful of people have been whining about the maze since the event started. I recall one guy claimed it kept taking him 45 minutes to get thru it.

You have to be kidding me... 45 minutes? Took me ten minutes the first time, and that because I was trying to get to what turned out to be a Command Boff hiding in the thing, and the fact I'm terrible at puzzles.

wazzagiow · February 2015

to be fair it was a time waster. in star trek they would put a force field up and you'd have to work out how to take it down. so it's pretty rubbish to think that harry kim, kobali or not would stop you by putting a maze up in your path with an exit. seemed a bit stupid even for ensign harry kobali kim. the maze just lacked trek. rest of the mission was pretty good tho. but the bulk of this delta quadrant story hasn't been good at all. so the sooner it's over the better.

fruitvendor12 · February 2015

wazzagiow wrote: »

to be fair it was a time waster. in star trek they would put a force field up and you'd have to work out how to take it down. so it's pretty rubbish to think that harry kim, kobali or not would stop you by putting a maze up in your path with an exit. seemed a bit stupid even for ensign harry kobali kim. the maze just lacked trek. rest of the mission was pretty good tho. but the bulk of this delta quadrant story hasn't been good at all. so the sooner it's over the better.

That was basically my take. Look, the first thing I said was it is a pretty decent mission.

As far as the USB thing, I get responses from folks in game all the team agreeing. The most common work around seems to be resetting the UI controls to default. As I've almost never overridden them I can live with that approach. I've had the same problem across three machines: an Ultrabook, my alienware aurora and my x51. Overpriced to be sure but all factory matched. Point being, it's hardly because I run over marginal equipment.

I get it that some people like running the exact same maze three times for each toon to get the ship set. I really really get that for some folks that is a sense of variety and accomplishment. I really really do get it, and I really really am not one of them. It traded away the potential for interesting race/class approaches either through tasks or dialogue for a simple third grade level puzzle to see who can find the moved cheese, except of course in this maze the cheese never moves. Woot.

And in this case we have one of the most conscientious officers in Star Fleet intentionally trying to kill and maim, because that is what the distilled essence of Harry Kim would do - kill to go home. We saw the Kim character subjected to all kinds of coercion over the, and it is a stretch to say a quantum duplicate resurrected with Kobali therapy would warp the man's core values so thoroughly.

It's not a bad mission, mechanically. The premise is unfortunate in how it treats the Kim character but I can live with that. I like the shifting platforms etc. I just got irritated that while playing shuffle board with energy fields the game would suddenly ignore my input leaving me in the middle of a field.

A person gets testy when it happens several times in a row.

markhawkman · February 2015

Um... what sort of USB device was it? I use a USB mouse daily and have no issues, but it's a mouse with a cord. I used to use a joystick too. *points at sig* aside from the difficulty of configuring it, it worked flawlessly. Also it used a cord. Every wireless USB peripheral I've ever tried has had issues with periodic hiccups. Hence why I'd never even attempted to use them with STO.

davefenestrator · February 2015

And again, he "locked up" the Kobali in the temple, he did not kill them. If you missed that OP, play it one more time.

He can't be trying to permadeath the player since he know's we'll just respawn

More seriously, just assume the voltage is at taser levels not lethal.

markhawkman · February 2015

sopwithsnipe wrote: »

We have a young man with an overwhelming desire to return home to his loved ones, who finds himself revived in an alien medical facility being subjected to medical procedures designed to rewrite his DNA and turn him into one of them. His captors are refusing to let him return to his people. They won't let them know he's still alive. And while all this is going on these alien monsters are attempting to murder his personality and implant a new personality with false memories that he is one of those evil monstrous aliens.

So no, it isn't a stretch for Harry to react the way he did.

Actually... he thinks the Kobali are actually Vidiians. The last thing he remembers is Voyager being attacked by Vidiians. And he's from far enough into the series to know what being a prisoner of the Vidiians usually entails. got vivisection?

millimidget · February 2015

rsoblivion wrote: »

As for the Maze, it's a nice little addition, but we just used a grapple hook to span a chasm. I'm pretty sure that the grapple would beat both the maze and the electrified panel game too...

You use a pre-existing cable to cross the chasm.

markhawkman wrote: »

Um... what sort of USB device was it?

Wired.

I doubt it's the mouse, because since the mouse began having issues I've also had issues with one of my flash drives. It's not an issue with a single USB panel, because it happens on any of the usb panels on my machine. I doubt it's the motherboard or power supply, because I would likely be having issues with other devices, but it's limited to just those two devices.

The next most likely cause google revealed is some sort of fiddling with registry keys. It seems other game developers have produced similar issues, and some users have resolved this problem by cleaning up their registry.

I'm not saying that it's absolutely Cryptic's fault; I just felt it was prudent to wait until the end of the anniversary event to see if any related update resolves the issue, before really going overboard cleaning out the registry or replacing hardware components.

davefenestrator wrote: »

Whaaa? Even if STO does to something to turn your KB - Mouse into feral predators that roam the night, it will only happen when you run the program. STO is not an always-running service, it only starts when you tell it to.

It doesn't necessarily need to be caused by an active process. Alternatively, it may be the result of some setting STO forced onto my system.

I wouldn't be surprised if something they did to get guitar-hero to work in this game was causing problems elsewhere.

I equally wouldn't be surprised if there was an already underlying problem that the guitar-hero mini-game brought to light by putting stress on that problem.

mustrumridcully0 · February 2015

markhawkman wrote: »

Actually... he thinks the Kobali are actually Vidiians. The last thing he remembers is Voyager being attacked by Vidiians. And he's from far enough into the series to know what being a prisoner of the Vidiians usually entails. got vivisection?

ANd not to forget... he puts up traps that are highly visible. it aren't tricky mines he's putting up there that kill you unannounced. It's huge electrical discharges that can be seen from far away.

That seems almost a step nicer than putting cloaked mines around a wormhole terminus and announcing to everyone that there is a cloaked minefield around the wormhole terminus.

If you still go there, it's your own risk. It's not like Kim/Keten is goading you to follow him.

Heck, when you go over the retracting bridges later, he's warning you that he's getting the Command Codes from you.

gonalius · February 2015

wazzagiow wrote: »

to be fair it was a time waster. in star trek they would put a force field up and you'd have to work out how to take it down. so it's pretty rubbish to think that harry kim, kobali or not would stop you by putting a maze up in your path with an exit. seemed a bit stupid even for ensign harry kobali kim. the maze just lacked trek. rest of the mission was pretty good tho. but the bulk of this delta quadrant story hasn't been good at all. so the sooner it's over the better.

If there are forcefield emitters in the temple. If not, he jury-rigged barriers in our path with what was available in an attempt to stop us or at least gain time to do... Something. Then of course we sent him command codes, and he came up with the plan to steal the flagship.

lored2death · February 2015

Maaaaze-ooola=corn goodness

themartian · February 2015

The whole thing in the temple is a bit "video gamey". That said, I do appreciate the effort to do something that isn't straight up combat. The only bit I didn't like was the platform section at the end as I am really bad at it. I would have said the maze is the easiest bit to do as it doesn't require any skill, just a sense of direction and some persistence.

As a side note, I really do like what they did with the weather and all that outside the temple. It looked great and really gave a sense of atmosphere.

Dust to Dust - missing theme line

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