Someone playing STO?

[Paxan_1]

Hi all,

well, i thought i should have a look into Star Trek Online, i'm a trekkie :rolleyes: , and so i thought it doesnt hurt me to try a free to play game. Well, after 9h playing (not at once..) i have some questions, maybe someone here can help me :)

I'm a noob there, i have my Miranda Class Ship with some equipment (dont ask me what i have...), flying around, doing some missions, shooting down Klingons (sorry, youve attacked me first ;) ) and earn..., i dont know...

What i've figured out is you have to pay something for everything. Well, i have sold some stuff i thought i dont need in the Space Dock and got 11000 (something ) for it.

I've heard something about dilithium.., where can i find it? I've seen i have 840 of it (dont ask me how i got it...). I got a free torpedo launcher, but to be honest the one i still have equipped is better. Is there a statistic screen for me ship value? I have no idea. I'm just flying around and kill Klingons. In my last mission (training) i destroyed several 3 Bird of Pray wings and some bigger star ships (they were lazy i could outmanoeuvre them easily).

I also tried some of these strange two cannon weapons, they ware worthless, my mkii phaser is better.

 

If someone of you would have some nice starting tips would be great :yes:

 

Sarah

[Vagrant0]

If someone of you would have some nice starting tips would be great :yes:

 

Sarah

Not particularly active, but hit level cap and got a pretty good handle of the game.

 

Let's start things off simple, currency.

 

You have three basic types of currency, Energy Credits (have a squiggly little symbol), Dilithium, and Gold Pressed Latinum. Each are used for more or less different things.

 

- Energy Credits are sort of the main quasi-unlimited currency (in that it can be farmed endlessly). This is what you get when you sell things to NPCs, or use the exchange, and subsequently what the exchange uses. Since particularly good equipment or special items are usually gotten easiest from the exchange, having a few million credits is a good goal. And similarly, the best way to get lots of credits is by selling drops,, data samples, and other stuff you aren't using on the exchange. Energy credits are also used to buy commodities which are, in turn, used by crew assignments, or diplomatic missions. Most of this stuff will make more sense as you continue playing.

 

- Dilithium are essentially like special currency. This is mostly used for buying additional ships (other than those you get from rank ups), special equipment (non-replicatable materials for research skill), or sold on the dilithium exchange for the Real Money Shop tokens. You get this from missions and other activities and is pretty much necessary at late game. Unlike energy credits, the amount of dilithium you can get each day is fixed due to the need to refine what you get before it can be used... Meaning that even if you get several thousand dilithium from missions in one play session, you can only refine about 8000 of that each day. You should still make it a point to do the missions that give you this again and again daily since more is always good.

 

- Gold Pressed Latinum is like a minor currency. This is used mostly for crew assignments, rare missions, or buying "social" things, like non-combat pets, bits of decor for your ship interior, and the like. It can however only be gained by spending energy credits playing Dabo, so getting a large supply of it means lots of time just sitting there hoping to get lucky.

 

 

Regarding ships, and how to equip them depends largely on the type of character you have (tactical, engineering, science), and what sort of role you want to play in group battles. The type of ship you have (cruiser, escort, science) also plays a significant role in what types of bridge officers you can have since not all ships have the same types of bridge stations. At later game there is more flexibility, but not enough to change how a ship is played. The general breakdown is like this.

 

----Captain -> Officers ->Ship type -> role

 

Tactical === Mostly Engineering === Cruiser === Aggressive Tanking

Tactical === Mostly Tactical === Escort === Pure DPS

Tactical === Mostly Science === Science === Weak Support

 

Engineering === Mostly Engineering === Cruiser === Pure Tanking

Engineering === Mostly Tactical === Escort === Burst DPS

Engineering === Mostly Science === Science === Balanced Support

 

Science === Mostly Engineering === Cruiser === Support Tanking

Science === Mostly Tactical === Escort === Debuff DPS

Science === Mostly Science === Science === Specialized Support

 

But, you should be aware that Support doesn't mean unable to do damage, but rather that most of the damage done (often massive amounts late game) usually comes from special abilities and how your skills are setup. Your character's skills adjust how to play with a given ship, but the majority of your role is decided by the ship itself and what crew members you have assigned to bridge stations.

 

 

The type of weapons used are pretty flexible, and for most Federation ships, you can do reasonably well with phaser arrays and torpedoes (front, and eventually back). For other weapon types, cannons are usually best on an escort, and turrets (only 1 since damage is low) on a cruiser to counteract the slow turn rate. Dual beam banks should be avoided almost entirely since their damage and arc of attack is so low that you're almost better off using cannons. Mines can be pretty useful for cruisers, but requires good placements.

 

Damage types themselves are a whole mess of complicated stuff depending on who you're attacking (phasers, disruptors, and plasma tend to have the higher DPS). But, beams and cannons are usually best at reducing shields, and kinetic weapons (mines and torpedoes) don't do much damage unless shields are down. You'll want to have something from both categories. Beyond that, I wouldn't be too concerned about the specifics until you start getting into admiral ranks.

 

 

Regarding skills... That's a statistic nightmare but this could probably explain things better than I ever could.

http://www.stowiki.org/Tactical_skill_table

 

Fortunately, it is relatively hard to go horribly wrong, and most of these things only have some meaning at end game when you're trying to get the most out of a specific ship or role. The general rule of thumb is to focus on those things that are related to ship hull, shields, weapons accuracy, power levels, weapons damage, then special abilities... in that order.

 

The different deflector statistics relate to the role your ship is playing as well as what skill levels you have. Mission reward equipment usually scales as you level based on the level you started the mission, so the easiest way to equip your ship in good equipment is to do missions and take those components as rewards or just sell them on the exchange. Some missions can be replayed, so you can get multiple sets of the same level of item, or different rewards.

 

 

 

Crafting is a whole other ball of wax, and generally you're better off just selling data samples you collect on the exchange since most of the crafted items that don't require non-replicatable materials can be bought from the exchange for less than what their sample cost was. Non-replicatable materials are those which are only bought with refined dilithium, and subsequently exist primarily as a way for people to spend real money to buy game tokens, to sell for dilithium, to use for getting large amounts of energy credits. The equipment from this crafting is reasonably good, but is essentially an economic balance mechanic.

[lonewolfkai]

A little out of the loop myself, but does flying a ship still require other people or do you hire your own NPC crew?

[Vagrant0]

A little out of the loop myself, but does flying a ship still require other people or do you hire your own NPC crew?

As far as I know, STO has never allowed more than 1 person to control a ship. I think you're thinking of some other game which didn't last very long due to the logistical problems of getting 5 competent people together at the same time who wanted to have anything to do with eachother.

[hoofhearted4]

idk, but STO sounds like a pretty interesting game, and F2P. im not a Star Trek fan in the least (literally never seen an episode) would the game still be worth trying out even for a non Trekkie?

[Vagrant0]

idk, but STO sounds like a pretty interesting game, and F2P. im not a Star Trek fan in the least (literally never seen an episode) would the game still be worth trying out even for a non Trekkie?

You don't need to know too much of the lore to play the game, but it certainly helps to understand the plot, who's who, and having that trek vocabulary can make things easier early on.

 

From a pure game standpoint, the ship to ship combat is probably one of the best I've seen for large scale battles and follows similar premises to actual navel combat (larger ships turning broadside to eachother to maximize the damage done). Ground missions are a little derpy, but thankfully aren't too common and can usually be limped through using engineering turrets.

 

You may however find yourself watching through a season or two of TNG, DS9, or Voyager on netflicks just to fill in the gaps.

[lonewolfkai]

A little out of the loop myself, but does flying a ship still require other people or do you hire your own NPC crew?

As far as I know, STO has never allowed more than 1 person to control a ship. I think you're thinking of some other game which didn't last very long due to the logistical problems of getting 5 competent people together at the same time who wanted to have anything to do with eachother.

For some reason, I thought that was the plan. To have a crew. Oh well.

 

You mentioned ship combat, is it similar to EVE Online? What happens if you get blown to pieces?

[Vagrant0]

You mentioned ship combat, is it similar to EVE Online? What happens if you get blown to pieces?

On default difficulty, you just respawn on the same map with temporarily reduced hull and crew (that regenerates from waiting a short while or traveling back to where you were). On the harder difficulties you get long-term system debuffs that remain until you get your ship repaired at a starbase or by using components. Meaning that the death mechanic is extremely forgiving from the standpoint of not losing very much. Dying too frequently however can lead to being unable to complete missions, especially large scale battles where you have to destroy things quickly or protect some other ship.

 

In short, nothing like EVE.

[lonewolfkai]

You mentioned ship combat, is it similar to EVE Online? What happens if you get blown to pieces?

On default difficulty, you just respawn on the same map with temporarily reduced hull and crew (that regenerates from waiting a short while or traveling back to where you were). On the harder difficulties you get long-term system debuffs that remain until you get your ship repaired at a starbase or by using components. Meaning that the death mechanic is extremely forgiving from the standpoint of not losing very much. Dying too frequently however can lead to being unable to complete missions, especially large scale battles where you have to destroy things quickly or protect some other ship.

 

In short, nothing like EVE.

Sounds interesting. I'll have to give it a try sometime.

[Rennn]

idk, but STO sounds like a pretty interesting game, and F2P. im not a Star Trek fan in the least (literally never seen an episode) would the game still be worth trying out even for a non Trekkie?

 

I tried it for a while... I'm not a trekkie, and I never got into it. It's interesting though. If it'd been the same thing, but with Star Wars instead of Star Trek I'm sure I'd still be playing it. I just can't get into a Star Trek setting personally...

 

One thing I didn't like is that it can be hard to win many of the random encounters. Random Borg attacks and such happen so often that most experienced players are sick of them, so they don't enter the battles. That just leaves the noobs to get slaughtered of course, since they're the only ones who really want to participate in many of the random encounters.

 

Idk about the game in general though. I didn't play it long enough to really learn what it was like.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Rennn