I still jump in and out occasionally, but the non-federation storylines feel so gutted. Like, I know they cut some of the Klingon stuff and the Romulans feels like they had a hatchet job done to them too. So no I am just playing space barbie occasionally between Federation story updates.
Star Trek Online (Now for free and people are still playing!)
- Thread starter Moody
- Start date
For a new player I think the Romulan and KDF faction stories are still very good even if some old favorite episodes are no longer with us. A fair amount of what they cut away was clunky and dated or just padding.
That is post storyline merge, which is either Yesterday’s War or Future Proof, so yeah. Falls under the Discovery stuff.
And J’la… J’ula? Fucking Julia, or whatever the fuck her name is, gets the most undeserved “redemption arc” I have seen in a bit. It barely even qualifies as a arc. It just sort of “we’re cool now, sorry for the warcrimes!”
And J’la… J’ula? Fucking Julia, or whatever the fuck her name is, gets the most undeserved “redemption arc” I have seen in a bit. It barely even qualifies as a arc. It just sort of “we’re cool now, sorry for the warcrimes!”
I think so, I'll find out soon since I'm also playing on PS5 and don't have any KDF alts.
Console has its good and bad points. One of the good ones is being able to set most powers to auto-activate. So no need to keep clicking Photonic Officer, Emergency Power to x, Beams Overload/FAW or Cannon RF/SV, etc. or anything else you want to trigger as often as possible.
On PC you can set a shortcut up to execute all the contents of a 'bar', so no need to click individual items. Put them on one of the numbered trays, set a shortcut up in STO Keybind and done. Easy spam bar!
Wrakkenruan
Ars Praefectus
Lifetime sub currently down to US$150 through noon PST March 1, 2024, and then US$200 until April 4, 2024 at noon PST.
I started down the path of Iso's recently, the RNG is just punishing. I've crafted 3 phaser, polaron, and disruptor to keep (of the 6 I'd need)... Sold a bunch of AP, Photon, Plasma, Cannon, Beams etc. I should have kept better track. I've spent more on re-engineering rolls then I am willing to admit - I now only do it until I hit at least 1 sellable damage type.
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I feel like the in-game economy is in the toilet just because there hasn't been anything worth spending EC or even really Dil on in a long time. They need another Fleet holding just to burn down the dragons horde of Dil the players are sitting on at the moment.
I am space poor atm, <150k dil across my 3 mains and not sitting on a stash of unrefined... I swapped builds on 3 characters (went specialist firing mode vs BO/CSV) and needed to Epic a bunch of new stuff. On then plus side I now have 2 epic phoenix prizes.
They've really done this to themselves, the unlimited chars/dilithium farming has always been absurd. It should be an account wide resource. The Exchange is a mess, no one is opening infinity boxes like they use too, so desirable traits are scarce. The lobi and to a lesser extent phoenix stores need updates to drive people in those directions.
I assume most new folks are injecting actual cash (zen) into the economy and are completely priced out based on casual gameplay.
They've really done this to themselves, the unlimited chars/dilithium farming has always been absurd. It should be an account wide resource. The Exchange is a mess, no one is opening infinity boxes like they use too, so desirable traits are scarce. The lobi and to a lesser extent phoenix stores need updates to drive people in those directions.
I assume most new folks are injecting actual cash (zen) into the economy and are completely priced out based on casual gameplay.
This. Space Barbie is too expensive.
My primary character (“Federation” Human) and ship (Kelvinverse Dreadnought) are kind of set at this point. I did re-engineer a couple of things on the ship, but it was so expensive I just kind of said “good enough.”
You can add me to the list of spenders but not in a whale way. I buy $20 worth a zen a few times a year when on sale and use that as my pool of credits or refined dillitium. I spend zen for keys when I need more credits (keys are worth 12 million credits on the exchange) or I buy 50K refinded dillitium for 100 zen ($1ish). Since I don't have a lot of time to game/grind this is the compromise I make to still enjoy the star trek experience and get what I want. I haven't gone all in on the meta though trying to buy every lobi ship to min/max a ship; I just buy and fly reasonably priced space barbie ships.
Admittedly I won't be buying zen for a while, even with my new Romulan I'm raising, I still have over 4000 zen right now so I'm good for a while. He's level 52 now flying a cloaking Romulan pilot ship with all polaron weapons so he can use the special weapon off the prize ship from a month ago. It's a very diff experience trying cloaking and pilot-ship for the first time.
Can someone point me to the TL;DR version of "What is today's meta in STO?"
Basically, what ship(s) do I need, what weapons do I need, what BOFFs and whatnot do I need to take a really old account that I haven't played in several years and actually be functional in the game?
Basically, what ship(s) do I need, what weapons do I need, what BOFFs and whatnot do I need to take a really old account that I haven't played in several years and actually be functional in the game?
You can be functional with just about anything. While I'm sure there are high level players still in the game they don't dominate the discussion the way they do in other games. That said there is a pretty big gulf between the equipment you get on a ship when you first unbox it and what you can achieve with even a modest amount of tweaking. It somewhat depends on your playstyle. There's always just juicing some beams to the max and orbiting around stuff until it explodes, which is the majority of the playerbase. You can also almost completely ditch the beams and focus on science magic and torpedoes, which I've had a lot of fun with. Playing as an aggro tank is much less explored territory, and honestly I don't think it was ever a meta favorite.
Any way you go it takes a minimal amount of effort to be better than everybody else in your typical random grouping.
Any way you go it takes a minimal amount of effort to be better than everybody else in your typical random grouping.
Agreed. Any T5 and up ship is viable for max level content on Normal difficulty; it's how you build it that matters.
For that, STO Better (https://www.stobetter.com/) is your friend. I've used their general guides to build a few different types of ships (beam boats, cannon boats, science ships) and 2 very specific builds based on some of main contributors' builds for the exact ships I owned.
If you enjoy learning the intricacies of how systems in STO work you can read each of their advanced guides cover to cover or similar info in slide form. However, if you just want to focus on a specific type of build (basically answering your question) I highly recommend using one of their general build guides based on the arch-type of ship you want to fly. These guides focus on the mechanics you'll need to learn/understand for your chosen type of build and they offer various tiers of gear/BOFFs/skills for each type of build so even a free-to-play player can build something decent.
Honestly half the problem with this game is knowing all the different synergistic equipment/BOFFs/skills out there. With 13-years worth of released content it's tuff to wade through a Wiki hoping to piece together all the data you need. These guides simply help you lock into what to go after. My favorite thing about these guides is that they also explain various 'flavors' of a playstyle that work well so you're not just locked into 1 type of weapon and 1 type of damage. So I can still build a Ferengi Maurader with Ferenginar Plasma weapons like I want, and the guide helps me locate the appropriate plasma-enhancing gear to compliment it.
Beyond the guides above, another SUPER useful tool they host is a progression guide. This is an incredibly useful tool to review both when doing your first build using what you own, then again when you are ready to start improving your build by spending resources (in-game earned or purchased). It's a great tool to really focus your progression without wasting resources.
Have fun!!
I very, VERY recently crossed the threshold into being able to do elite TFOs.
Considering I started playing when you needed to worry about how much crew you have on your ship during a fight, I may have progressed slowly. The secret sauce was to make a science toon and spend some lobi from a previous event chain on a Hur'q Assembly, and go torp/sci.
As far as the wiki thing, yeah, that's basically how I "got gud", plus asking questions in ESD. I'd do random dives into the wiki, go annoy ESD chat, rinse, repeat. I am now apparently Zoey Squirrel's nemesis
Got to say, though, STO's community is generous, they gifted me some pretty pricey gear (holy crap, a conductive RCS with ResAll is a LOT of EC), and the advice ends up being pretty damn useful as well.
This game needs a fitting tool similar to some of Eve's third-party external fitting tools. Something where you can plug stuff in and see how the math actually works out.
I mean just figuring out what "stack 1" vs "stack 2" damage bonuses are can be a pain. The word "bonus" means stack 2, and the only other stack 2 is criticals. Each stack is additive, and then the 2 stacks multiply 1 by 2. So if you have a +40% plasma energy weapon module, that's stack 1. +all damage, also stack 1. However, something like the Dragonsblood flame reactor from last summer's event that says "bonus" damage? That's stack 2. So if you use disruptors with disruptor vulnerability locators, and the dragon mod, you get some fun math
Unfortunately, what made EFT and others work was access to game data. I'm not sure that STO will ever open up that way. but, if you fark around a lot and get a parser (which reads your mission data and tells you who did how much damage, and with what) you can figure it out.
Unlike most pubbies, Arsians tend to be fairly intelligent
It's also worth noting that sometimes you actually want to make non-optimal choices. For instance, the Gamma reputation warp core gives spectacular bonuses to map travel. Like base warp speeds in the mid-20s and slipstream of 48, and also major transwarp cooldown bonuses. If you're sciency, you pair it with a Gamma deflector that gives science BOFF cooldown reduction (but only when you upgrade it, so you'll never know unless you wiki the thing) and get a set bonus that boosts speed and turn for everyone in group when you're doing group content like TFOs.
I finally got confident enough in the mechanics to try a DEW/SCI build without spending a buttload of money. We'll see how that goes, but so far, so good. Rumor has it they're expensive, but it's doing ok, so far...
EDIT:
It's worth noting that some of the VERY recent content has some really good traits. For instance, Inertial Supremacy from the new escort. If you happened to do a KDF toon on the very recent event, you can combine IS with Withering Barrage from the ship they give you for free, which makes Cannon scatter volley last 14 seconds. Shared cooldown on CSV is 15 seconds, so you can effectively perma-run a multi-target armor debuff on multiple targets. This also works with Fire At Will (who's Will?) and Torpedo Spread. But, CSV is the easiest to perma-run.
Even my pure science toon runs it, using omnis in the aft slots to spread the good word. Grav well, FAW, let everyone get together, then drop the DPS hammer on a festival of debuffed victims. Did I mention I like to add attack pattern Beta?
Considering I started playing when you needed to worry about how much crew you have on your ship during a fight, I may have progressed slowly. The secret sauce was to make a science toon and spend some lobi from a previous event chain on a Hur'q Assembly, and go torp/sci.
As far as the wiki thing, yeah, that's basically how I "got gud", plus asking questions in ESD. I'd do random dives into the wiki, go annoy ESD chat, rinse, repeat. I am now apparently Zoey Squirrel's nemesis
Got to say, though, STO's community is generous, they gifted me some pretty pricey gear (holy crap, a conductive RCS with ResAll is a LOT of EC), and the advice ends up being pretty damn useful as well.
This game needs a fitting tool similar to some of Eve's third-party external fitting tools. Something where you can plug stuff in and see how the math actually works out.
I mean just figuring out what "stack 1" vs "stack 2" damage bonuses are can be a pain. The word "bonus" means stack 2, and the only other stack 2 is criticals. Each stack is additive, and then the 2 stacks multiply 1 by 2. So if you have a +40% plasma energy weapon module, that's stack 1. +all damage, also stack 1. However, something like the Dragonsblood flame reactor from last summer's event that says "bonus" damage? That's stack 2. So if you use disruptors with disruptor vulnerability locators, and the dragon mod, you get some fun math
Unfortunately, what made EFT and others work was access to game data. I'm not sure that STO will ever open up that way. but, if you fark around a lot and get a parser (which reads your mission data and tells you who did how much damage, and with what) you can figure it out.
Unlike most pubbies, Arsians tend to be fairly intelligent
It's also worth noting that sometimes you actually want to make non-optimal choices. For instance, the Gamma reputation warp core gives spectacular bonuses to map travel. Like base warp speeds in the mid-20s and slipstream of 48, and also major transwarp cooldown bonuses. If you're sciency, you pair it with a Gamma deflector that gives science BOFF cooldown reduction (but only when you upgrade it, so you'll never know unless you wiki the thing) and get a set bonus that boosts speed and turn for everyone in group when you're doing group content like TFOs.
I finally got confident enough in the mechanics to try a DEW/SCI build without spending a buttload of money. We'll see how that goes, but so far, so good. Rumor has it they're expensive, but it's doing ok, so far...
EDIT:
It's worth noting that some of the VERY recent content has some really good traits. For instance, Inertial Supremacy from the new escort. If you happened to do a KDF toon on the very recent event, you can combine IS with Withering Barrage from the ship they give you for free, which makes Cannon scatter volley last 14 seconds. Shared cooldown on CSV is 15 seconds, so you can effectively perma-run a multi-target armor debuff on multiple targets. This also works with Fire At Will (who's Will?) and Torpedo Spread. But, CSV is the easiest to perma-run.
Even my pure science toon runs it, using omnis in the aft slots to spread the good word. Grav well, FAW, let everyone get together, then drop the DPS hammer on a festival of debuffed victims. Did I mention I like to add attack pattern Beta?
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Oh dude I'm jealous! The few times I've hazard a dip in the Elite TFO pool I was not really contributing compared to others. One day I'll sit down and really lock down a great ship to run. My Maurader is super tanks so I do damage just by surviving, but 25K DPS is simply not enough in Elite diff.
It does take a bit of planning, yeah. I found science worked best for me, but sci boats generally tend to the squishy side. Cannon builds on escorts put down some pretty good DPS as well.
I'm more of a casual player. When I create a new captain it's with a theme in mind like a Discovery captain flying the Disco carrier with disco phaser beams, or a TOS captain with either the Paladin and TOS skin or (thanks to the campaign) a TOS Connie. I put enough effort into gear, powers, etc. to do well in Advanced but not Elite.
Console players: remember to claim your free T6 ship token tomorrow (Tuesday) for the anniversary.
Console players: remember to claim your free T6 ship token tomorrow (Tuesday) for the anniversary.
I am pretty casual as well, but can hold my own in Elites and run the random elite tfos for advanced parts. I've been around since beta and don't mind spending a bit of money here and there, so I have access to most things, except promo ships and a few events that I missed.
Meta is hard to define, they beefed up specialized firing modes fairly recently, which lets to stack the best weapons like beams and cannons on builds and opens things up a bit.
You have to pick a ship, figure out what you like to fly (circle vs turret and single target vs multi-target) determine what the optimal firing mode is for that ship based on what is the highest rank of ERL, RRTW, CSV, or BO/FAW that it can equip.
Next you pick your cooldown reduction method, Aux2Bat, photonic officer, Boimler effect.
You build out from there based on your available ship traits. Gear comes a bit second personally, as there are a decent number of mission rewards and reputation sets that are swappable and fairly obtainable. The basics are fully upgraded weapons and engines/core/deflector/shields. Consoles slots get tight due to the locator (tactical/Universal slots) vs Isomag (Engineering/Universal slots) meta, but you basically use as many of those as you can carry (only 1 type) and stack in some resistance/heal along with Crit chance/severity, and any Cat2/1 damage you have access to with an eye toward 1 or 2 set bonuses.
STOBetter has decent guidance on all of this, look at a few builds (don't focus only on your preferred energy type (e.g. phaser) as it doesn't really apply as much to Personal Space Traits/Ship Traits) to see if the writer has good guidance on budget replacements.
Try things, use a parser - realize it might take multiple runs if someone is doing 200+ damage on ISA you might have a hard time getting a read on your abilities. Piloting is huge in any TFO, if you are not on target you are not doing much damage.
Use only Phoenix and Omega upgrades, buy the evasive maneuvers refresh doff from Lobi shop. I think most of my builds always slot a few common skills: Hazard Emitters, Emerg. power to the weapons 1, Emerg. power to engines, Kemocite-laced (if using torps), Boimler Effect + photonic officer.
As far as Fleet items to buy, I'd buy Locators (if you are using them) and SRO Boffs first as those will be the most transferrable of items across builds.
[edit: FYI-I think the new wiki is stowiki.net, I think Google directs you to the old one]
Meta is hard to define, they beefed up specialized firing modes fairly recently, which lets to stack the best weapons like beams and cannons on builds and opens things up a bit.
You have to pick a ship, figure out what you like to fly (circle vs turret and single target vs multi-target) determine what the optimal firing mode is for that ship based on what is the highest rank of ERL, RRTW, CSV, or BO/FAW that it can equip.
Next you pick your cooldown reduction method, Aux2Bat, photonic officer, Boimler effect.
You build out from there based on your available ship traits. Gear comes a bit second personally, as there are a decent number of mission rewards and reputation sets that are swappable and fairly obtainable. The basics are fully upgraded weapons and engines/core/deflector/shields. Consoles slots get tight due to the locator (tactical/Universal slots) vs Isomag (Engineering/Universal slots) meta, but you basically use as many of those as you can carry (only 1 type) and stack in some resistance/heal along with Crit chance/severity, and any Cat2/1 damage you have access to with an eye toward 1 or 2 set bonuses.
STOBetter has decent guidance on all of this, look at a few builds (don't focus only on your preferred energy type (e.g. phaser) as it doesn't really apply as much to Personal Space Traits/Ship Traits) to see if the writer has good guidance on budget replacements.
Try things, use a parser - realize it might take multiple runs if someone is doing 200+ damage on ISA you might have a hard time getting a read on your abilities. Piloting is huge in any TFO, if you are not on target you are not doing much damage.
Use only Phoenix and Omega upgrades, buy the evasive maneuvers refresh doff from Lobi shop. I think most of my builds always slot a few common skills: Hazard Emitters, Emerg. power to the weapons 1, Emerg. power to engines, Kemocite-laced (if using torps), Boimler Effect + photonic officer.
As far as Fleet items to buy, I'd buy Locators (if you are using them) and SRO Boffs first as those will be the most transferrable of items across builds.
[edit: FYI-I think the new wiki is stowiki.net, I think Google directs you to the old one]
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I've always felt that for the price of c-store ships these days, they should at least come with blue quality auto-levelling gear...
Console has free "new season" packs with 2 x 2399 phaser rifles (character bound on claiming the pack) and an elite Captain token not the easy-to-get ship tokens. These are in the Xbox and PSN stores not the zen store. Xbox is the Star Trek Online Both Worlds Verdant Pack, PSN is Viridian
Can someone promote my newest character to join the fleet? Sasha
I'd like to pick up a few fleet items for my new T6 Dyson ship. Pretty stoked that these released as I've always wanted to build a Proton build but didn't want to invest heavily into a T5 ship.
I'd like to pick up a few fleet items for my new T6 Dyson ship. Pretty stoked that these released as I've always wanted to build a Proton build but didn't want to invest heavily into a T5 ship.
You should have access and the ability to invite/promote your other toons on this character. Let me know if there are any problems.
Looks like I'm lacking that ability. I'm currently a Lt and the "Promote a lower rank" right isn't checked for Lt fleet rank. Also, when I find my new toon in the Fleet roster I don't get the "Promote" button.
I think I promoted your new toon up not your primary. I will just do all of them.
Thanks! I got the few buys I needed in. Now I gotta play a bit more to get her the rest of her gear.
Has anyone else had problems with crashing to desktop during the new mission? I had three crashes, two on the ground part which was annoying because it played the whole cutscene and reset all of the conversations when I logged back in. I'm afraid to do the TFO because I don't want to drop out in the middle randomly.
On the other hand my rig is getting pretty old and it might just be failing hardware.
On the other hand my rig is getting pretty old and it might just be failing hardware.
I haven't done the new missions but I haven't had any issue with the tfo. It's basically just like No Win but it's ground. 12 rounds of borgies getting roasted with science.
Oh, as an aside, you basically are in just one room that's reasonably small so bring out your engies and all your stationary goodies. It's a light show up in this one.
Looks like enough people are maxing out the Endeavor tree that Cryptic is tossing in some more options.
https://www.playstartrekonline.com/en/news/article/11575872
The interesting thing is the new "weapons damage" buffs which read:
Which makes me ask "does that literally mean 1 extra damage per level, up to 25 extra damage"? I would think it should be 25%, but other fields list percents and this one does not. If that's literally 25 damage on guns that start at 1,200 damage after grinding many many weeks that's a strong contender for the most useless endeavor perk choice possible.
https://www.playstartrekonline.com/en/news/article/11575872
The interesting thing is the new "weapons damage" buffs which read:
| Weapon Damage Alpha (Space) | Increases your ships' damage output with Plasma, Phaser, Proton, Psionic, and Cold damage weapons in Space. | 1 | 25 |
Which makes me ask "does that literally mean 1 extra damage per level, up to 25 extra damage"? I would think it should be 25%, but other fields list percents and this one does not. If that's literally 25 damage on guns that start at 1,200 damage after grinding many many weeks that's a strong contender for the most useless endeavor perk choice possible.
An update on this. I was poking around in the BIOS for my motherboard for an unrelated reason and noticed that it had a "Maximize Game Performance" box checked, which was apparently the default. According to the docs is a "factory overclock" targeted at the graphics card. Turning this off solved my crashing problems and had no noticable impact on my framerate.
I reckon if you are going for [new] Endeavor perfection (which will take years apparently), this would be the last option you'd pick.
If these go into the pool for everyone who hasn’t capped it is going to really dilute and limit access to crtd etc.
Anybody doing the latest daily grind? Which do you think is better, the ground based TFO where you have to split the team, or the somewhat longer space based mission that you can solo? I have slight concerns about the TFO because it requires you to use a tiny bit of brainpower and thus may be too much for some of the playerbase.
I've been doing the ground grind as it's a nice change of pace to exercise my Dominion character I made a few years ago and never got him out of his T5 starter ship.
This summer I've been working on him turning into a carrier captain. Pretty fun having to learn basically a completely different play style of being a tank for my pets. Further, it's actually been fun working on grinding out reps/missions I don't normally touch. Just about done with it, hitting 35K DPS solo in various Patrols; that's about the limit of my typical builds so I'm happy.
This summer I've been working on him turning into a carrier captain. Pretty fun having to learn basically a completely different play style of being a tank for my pets. Further, it's actually been fun working on grinding out reps/missions I don't normally touch. Just about done with it, hitting 35K DPS solo in various Patrols; that's about the limit of my typical builds so I'm happy.