STO questions

[StarSword]

Ah. Well, let's just say that I find it annoying because to me it suggests lazy scriptwriting, not a properly military Federation practice (unless we assume that military authority is by default male, which presents its own problems).

It's got a basis in reality though. I think I've mentioned before that both my parents are retired US Navy officers? I'm only half-remembering the conversation but I believe Mom told me the Navy's default form of address for female superiors is, indeed, "sir". Something like, you're saluting the rank, not the chromosomes. Although she also said it's generally best to ask.

I do have to say I find their storytelling fairly shoddy pretty often. The faction-specific episodes are reasonably decent-- I'm enjoying the Klink stuff so far, the Romulan was okay even if it was mostly "find us another world and kick Tal Shiar ass", and the Federation stuff is not too intolerable. But when it comes to cross-faction episodes, I find it highly unoriginal to simply stick all factions with the identical episodes-- Nimbus and the Tholian alt-universe are probably the two worst examples so far. Though I do have to say the story of the Tholian mirror-universe event was actually pretty decent, it felt like an actual Star Trek episode with how things just kind of merge into the mirror universe and back out. Complete with timeship deus-ex-machina

The Cardassian episode was kind of boring, though, to be honest. The highlight was the space-walk on DS9. Otherwise, it's running around DS9, shooting Jem'hadar, running around Bajor, shooting more Jem'hadar... ooh, fancy Federation prison... just another bout of shooting bad guys... go back to DS9, hey nice spacewalk, shoot more Jemmies, and that's about it. The mini-mission where you do things for the diplomats was kind of decent, but was total padding.

I'm just grinding at this point with my Vice-Admiral and hoping the Dyson Sphere episodes will be fun enough. Dinosaurs with laser beams... mmm.

Yeah, Cryptic's writing is rather annoyingly hit-or-miss, and the overall story arcs tend to feel rather disjointed (though to be fair, the latter does give it somewhat of the feel of a Star Trek TV season ). I don't think it's a coincidence the better Foundry missions are often rated as being better than the official outings, despite us not having access to the full array of assets and level design tools.

[Simon_Jester]

Ah. Well, let's just say that I find it annoying because to me it suggests lazy scriptwriting, not a properly military Federation practice (unless we assume that military authority is by default male, which presents its own problems).

It's got a basis in reality though. I think I've mentioned before that both my parents are retired US Navy officers? I'm only half-remembering the conversation but I believe Mom told me the Navy's default form of address for female superiors is, indeed, "sir". Something like, you're saluting the rank, not the chromosomes. Although she also said it's generally best to ask.

Well, that's a healthy attitude- in which case I should damn well be able to have a female character say "call me ma'am" to her own bridge officers. I have two male captains and one female, and the female one... honestly she'd be even more of a stickler for "ma'am" than Janeway is/was.

[RogueIce]

For bonus funtimes, try "Everything Old is New" and "Night of the Comet" with you and your away team dressed in authentic TOS uniforms, and get questioned about your strange-looking uniforms.

To be fair, it probably would have been a PITA to put that in. After all, you can wear the TOS tunic and TOS pants (and the top/skirt combo for the ladies) but they could be a purple shirt, bright orange pants and white boots. They would no doubt find that strange in the 23rd century. Heck, even a subtle one: perfectly canon red TOS uniform...but with the TOS Command patch, which would also be out of place to a 23rd century Starfleet officer. Or maybe a Lieutenant Commander wearing a Captain's tunic?

So yeah, I can see why they wouldn't bother trying to program that one in. Not impossible, per se, but they'd have to make sure the uniform colors, parts and assignment patches matched up. And I can't see them implementing a system like that just for the one mission.

The sir/ma'am thing could have been implemented fairly easily, I'd imagine. But then if it is established in Trek that they use "sir" for everybody, well that's not on Cryptic. And I do know they try to respect the canon and show's conventions, inasmuch as it is a game so they bend the rules on stuff like a wildly varying uniform code and all sorts of ship types running around. So take it up with Trek's writers, not the Cryptic staff.

[Lord Revan]

isn't the TOS uniforms C-store stuff anyway so you can assume most people wouldn't have those. personally I used the slightly modded Sierra 1 uniform I use normally, I've switched the colors in the shoulder area so it's mostly black with stripes and collar with the department colors(kind of like the Sierra black but with different design to the colored parts).

that said I wish they'd while the option to tweak the colors of armors as most of them look rather clownish with mostly prime colored and colored lights, now if they were mostly black or dark grey with the light showing the department colors now that would look cool, hell some of the more covering kits are like that.

[Scottish Ninja]

I seem to recall there are a couple of armor patterns that are more like that, but they're not the Energy Harness ones that are probably most broadly effective out of the basic armors. By the time you consider trying something to optimize your ground build you should probably be looking at set gear anyway, and the associated costume options there.

Speaking of which, I would still definitely pay zen for a) the ability to have additional sets of costume slots for bridge officers that I can switch all at once (ie, choose from, say, "duty uniforms", "armor", "off-duty" and b) the ability to use non-uniform costumes on my boffs (because seriously why not). You used to be able to through a console command but it got broken when Legacy of Romulus dropped and they revamped the character creator. I used to be able to go into missions with a full away team with color-coded MACO outfits (before I decided to standardize with the Dyson Researcher uniform).

[StarSword]

isn't the TOS uniforms C-store stuff anyway so you can assume most people wouldn't have those. personally I used the slightly modded Sierra 1 uniform I use normally, I've switched the colors in the shoulder area so it's mostly black with stripes and collar with the department colors(kind of like the Sierra black but with different design to the colored parts).

Personally, I think the Starfleetiest uniform available is actually the Odyssey uniforms you get from the fleet starbase tailor. It's basically an evolution of the DS9-style uniform, with a flash of metallic braid between the shoulder and torso sections. I've been considering grabbing it to build a dress uniform.'

Here's mine.

Click to enlarge.

This isn't completely up-to-date (I've added bits of the TWOK, Diplomatic, and Bajoran Militia uniforms to some of them recently) but it's close. Eleya (far left) uses Sierra 4 with a different color pattern because I decided that in my personal version of the Starfleet of 2409, ship COs get a different uniform (kinda like how Honorverse ship COs get a white beret). The rest of them wear Sierra 3 with the same color pattern as the DS9 uniforms, except for Dul'krah (the horned alien) who is originally non-Starfleet military personnel who got special permission to wear his old uniform. The belt on the Andorian in the middle comes from the fleet dilithium mine.

I've also got a MACO costume I switch Eleya to when I go on away missions.

[Lord Revan]

speaking of MACO is the rep grind projects real time or game time, meaning will they complete 20h from when you started them regardless of your actual play time or do you have play 20h with that character to complete them?

as for optimizing, I play for fun, not nerd cred so I don't worry about optimization that much, I might end doing it but I'm not gonna loose sleep over it, tbh I made the uniforms the way they are cause it made them look a bit like the 25th century version of the ENT uniforms and those are one of my favorites (sure there's a lot of wrong in ENT but the uniforms aren't one of those things for SF personal at least).

[Agent Sorchus]

speaking of MACO is the rep grind projects real time or game time, meaning will they complete 20h from when you started them regardless of your actual play time or do you have play 20h with that character to complete them?

hell no you don't have to do 20h playtime. that would be hellish. Every 20hours real time things usually unlock to be done again. Sorta like a facebook game.

[Lord Revan]

speaking of MACO is the rep grind projects real time or game time, meaning will they complete 20h from when you started them regardless of your actual play time or do you have play 20h with that character to complete them?

hell no you don't have to do 20h playtime. that would be hellish. Every 20hours real time things usually unlock to be done again. Sorta like a facebook game.

I'm guessing you unlock more stuff to do as you go up in the ranks as well.

[RogueIce]

They're completely redoing the Reputation projects for season 9, making it more like the Dyson system. Which I find loads better. So unless you want to burn tons of EC between now and then, I'd recommend focusing on Dyson and just waiting for the revamp to go live.

[Scottish Ninja]

Yep - there's five tiers, and you unlock a bunch of stuff at each one, although with the older reps all the best Mk XII gear is sitting up at T5. With Dyson rep Cryptic finally realized that anything short of Mk XII is a fucking waste of time and resources so they dole out bits of the Mk XII set along the way. Season 9 is supposed to drop in April and revamp the older rep systems a bit - they should get a little easier to progress, and bring equipment in line with the way Dyson rep handles it - so no more Mk X and XI crap. Here's the devblog with the info on that.

[Lord Revan]

so a good plan would be probably to get cheapest ground set for fast remodulation to make the Borg ground combat less annoying and then wait for Season 9

[Lord Revan]

quick question should I get the special Borg console for my Starfleet char (and possibly my KDF as well if I get her to level 50 fast enough) or just wait for season 9 for that, since atm best you can to when season 9 will come is April but there's 30 days in April and if season 9 goes live at 23:59 on April 30th it would still be technically in April.

[Elheru Aran]

I don't know about fancy consoles, but on the off chance there might be some kind of upgrade it won't hurt to wait a while. Honestly I wouldn't worry about it too much as long as you can still have fun one way or another.

[StarSword]

quick question should I get the special Borg console for my Starfleet char (and possibly my KDF as well if I get her to level 50 fast enough) or just wait for season 9 for that, since atm best you can to when season 9 will come is April but there's 30 days in April and if season 9 goes live at 23:59 on April 30th it would still be technically in April.

You mean the Assimilated Module? Absolutely, and the kinetic cutting beam as well. The two-piece bonus for that set is too good to pass up.

I wouldn't add the Omega torpedo, though. Unless you're running a specially designed torp build torps aren't as useful as energy weapons, and the Omega torp is way outdamaged by the Romulan Hyper Plasma Torp anyway (especially after Cryptic fixed the bug that made the Omega torp fire every two seconds).

[Zwinmar]

Threw me way off seeing that you couldn't buy ships with just credits...like you used to be able to. Guess it got changed when they went free to play. Ship selection is the main area that is keeping me away from the game, as well as the Romulan uniforms being so limited. I thought that you would have access to all starfleet uniforms if you went that route as well as ships, same with the kdf..nope.

[Lord Revan]

Just a quick question but which one would be better for a engineering character to use at Brig. Gen. KDF Negh'Var or the Klingon carrier, as I'd still prefer a cruiser type craft but the Lt. only tac station in Negh'Var seems like I'd be gimping myself badly.

[StarSword]

If you want something cruisery at that level, I'm honestly thinking see if you can find a Mirror Negh for a decent price on the exchange. Bit more tac, not as engi-heavy. Regular Negh has the same problem as the Galaxy: way more engi than anybody ever needs.

[Lord Revan]

If you want something cruisery at that level, I'm honestly thinking see if you can find a Mirror Negh for a decent price on the exchange. Bit more tac, not as engi-heavy. Regular Negh has the same problem as the Galaxy: way more engi than anybody ever needs.

well atm Mirror Neggy is 2 mil in the exchange which is a bit too much for my budget (I've yet to get even 1 mil on any char) though I might try getting that sum if that ship is still useful at max level.

got regular Neggy for now.

[StarSword]

2 mil in the exchange

Ouch. I figured it'd be lower than that considering I picked up a Mirror Patrol Escort (a.k.a. Mirror Prometheus with the Prime!Defiant boff/console layout) for 10k. Guess not enough people have been popping Hirogen lockboxes.

[Elheru Aran]

Speaking of those lockboxes, how useful are they, honestly? Because I'll be darned if I spend real money to buy the master keys...

The Klingon storyline thus far isn't bad. I haven't gotten very far, only into the Fek'Ihri invasion, but so far they're doing a decent job of trying to make the player feel like an actual Klingon with moments like having to duel mooks for information, participating in a Klingon funeral, going on a drive-by raid, etc... Not a bad way to create the mood you'd think a Klingon would have. Now if they could be a little more culture-specific, that would be nice. "Oh, you're a Gorn? What are you doing working for the Empire?" etc.

Oh, those Fek'Ihri? Are they supposed to be stupid-easy to kill in ground combat? Because that bit when they invade the First City, about all I had to do was stand around and take pot-shots, my squad and the Klink NPC's were doing just fine cleaning up by themselves...

[StarSword]

It occurred to me, Revan, that I've got about 17 mil on my main. I could probably get you a Mirror Negh if you want.

Speaking of those lockboxes, how useful are they, honestly? Because I'll be darned if I spend real money to buy the master keys...

Eh, depends on the lockbox. The Voth lockbox had these special antiproton weapons with a 25% chance to debuff the target's damage output (and antiproton is a good energy type anyway). The Hirogen tetryon weapons in the current lockbox are garbage (they replaced "low chance to damage all shield facings" on regular tet with "low chance to cause damage-over-time to shields").

The real attractor is the lobi crystals, which lets you get gear from the shops on Drozana Station. There's some really good stuff there.

The Klingon storyline thus far isn't bad. I haven't gotten very far, only into the Fek'Ihri invasion, but so far they're doing a decent job of trying to make the player feel like an actual Klingon with moments like having to duel mooks for information, participating in a Klingon funeral, going on a drive-by raid, etc... Not a bad way to create the mood you'd think a Klingon would have. Now if they could be a little more culture-specific, that would be nice. "Oh, you're a Gorn? What are you doing working for the Empire?" etc.

Or in my case, a Lethean, who are STO-canonically aligned with the KDF because latinum. Barring the Nausicaans you couldn't pick a species less likely to be the thlIngan Hol-spamming lunatic they wrote you as.

Oh, those Fek'Ihri? Are they supposed to be stupid-easy to kill in ground combat? Because that bit when they invade the First City, about all I had to do was stand around and take pot-shots, my squad and the Klink NPC's were doing just fine cleaning up by themselves...

Honestly, the only low-level ground enemy likely to give anyone smart a particularly hard time, barring a large numerical advantage, are Klingon Swordmasters. Even the Borg are garbage these days unless you're playing an elite STF.

[Agent Sorchus]

Yeah klingon mirror ships always sell for more, cause both supply and demand are there for them. The mirror Carrier, Raptor and now the Neg'var are all supposed to be quiet good though. And for personal experience the Mirror Neg'Var is basically the perfect ship for the current "meta." Easily worth 2 million when you consider the special lockbox ships are (low end) around 70million EC and not nearly as far superior to non-lockbox ships.

And yeah ground combat is pretty damn easy, mostly cause people don't seem to like it so rather then making it good through challenge they made it boring easy so people can get it done as quickly as possible.

Although interestingly at one point someone used the foundry to set the differing NPC factions against each other and most consistently on the ground the orions came out on top. In space was a slightly different case of course.

[Elheru Aran]

What's ridiculous about the lock boxes, I don't know if it's just me but every single damn lock box I have ever come across has been Hirogen. No Breen, no Cardassian, no Borg, no whatever. Just Hirogen all over the bloody place. I imagine some of that stuff might be useful but I am not going to bother collecting Hirogen lockboxes because right now, frankly, if I picked one up every time I saw one drop I'd have 200 by now (not even kidding).

[Lord Revan]

Oh, those Fek'Ihri? Are they supposed to be stupid-easy to kill in ground combat? Because that bit when they invade the First City, about all I had to do was stand around and take pot-shots, my squad and the Klink NPC's were doing just fine cleaning up by themselves...

as long as you don't allow them to gang up on you in melee and you remember that disruptor at your belt isn't just for looks the grunt Fek'Ihkri are easy.