There’s nothing quite so satisfying as thumping the spacebar with your thumb to fire off a broadside, and then shooting a photon torpedo out of your arse as you turn round.
The space combat in this game is truly great fun, much more interactive and intrinsically addictive than EVE’s more sim-like attempt, but more “realistic” and tactical than dog-fighting in space a la Freelancer.
Hammering the spacebar for a broadside was also a very satisfying feature of PoTBS (like STO space combat but on a plane :D ).
I set all my beams to autofire (right click on the weapon icon, it will turn green) so one spacebar press lights them all off. Hit VA and was lucky enough to complete the Odyssey quest last month - U.S.S. America - and I’m running seven phaser beam arrays and one Quantum torp up front. I’m running the “dragon” build from the STO forums, and it is pretty crazy how fast those beams burn down the bad guys when the weapon power is maxed at 125. Got high enough in crafting last night to start my Aegis set, also started the Breen missions (which are very well done).
-CJ
This may be crazy talk, has anyone done an all torp build?
I haven’t tried. Since each tube is on a cool down timer that are kinda linked having more than two tubes in any direction seems excessive. Maybe the DO that can speed up that cool down could make it more practical, and there may be a console I don’t know about too, but I dunno.
meeper
2045
Probably silly question alert:
Is there a way to toggle the power allocation to a more detailed mode than just attack/defense/speed/auxiliary? My character from when I played at release (lvl 45 or so) has a detailed power allocation panel, but my new character (lvl 15) has only the basic toggles available.
Am I missing something or does this feature unlock at some level > 15?
On the power allocation panel, hit the button that looks like the one you use to expand the hotbars. That’ll give you some variants of the power allocation panel. I think the last one has sliders on each power category.
meeper
2047
Awesome :) I’ll try it when I get home
Fair warning: that’s all from memory. I know it’s one of those fiddly little bits that does the toggle, though. :P
So Cryptic released better versions of the Odd and the Klingon flagship on the C-Store. Not just one, either. There’s a variant for Tactical, Operations, and Science for each, so three different versions. The kicker? They’re $25 each, or you can pay $50 for all three. Oh, and each variant has a special console that can be used with the special consoles from the other variants (the incentive to buy all three, even if you just focus on one section.)
Yeesh.
Yep , they are all out trying to rape the fan base who will buy these no questions asked.
At the same time offering the least amount of free content possible.
I wish they would cut prices of everything in the C-store by half, I am sure they would get just as many if not MORE sales, and the community would be happier.
Welcome to the Korean F2P model.
Very curious to see if people put up with it.
I was really enjoying STO…but the damn lock boxes finally irritated me enough that I bailed.
It is sad, we try really hard not to piss off the fanbase in our games, to see such a blatant money grab is not doing the F2P space any favors. Par for the course with Perfect World. 24 month games, suck them dry. Rinse and repeat-same games different coat of paint on them. I really hope this is not what Cryptic turns into…but it sure looks that way.
LeeArac
2052
They were charging the insane $15-$25 prices for ships loooong before F2P, so I think the ‘putting up with it’ ship has sailed… particularly considering the huge response to the Cardassian ship lottery (if the in-game ‘SOANDSO is WINNAR!’ posts are to believed) - at what must have been an average of $100+ per person who obtained the ship and well… greed appears to be working for them, as depressing as that is.
Yeah, I dunno. The lottery thing put me off. I didn’t spend any money on it but the Vegas-like approach to blasting the whole user base with winner notifications (as if anyone actually gave a shit) was way too much. I can handle the free-to-play model up to a point. LoTRO’s approach seems fairly classy and low key (complainers don’t have that much to actually complain about) but STO is looking more and more like an Amsterdam whore. That really hurts me to say because Cryptic is the only company putting serious effort into user generated content tools: which I see as the future of MMOs for creative roleplayers (also known as roleplayers).
At least the lock boxes have finally stopped dropping - for now.
They have some kind of dilithium mining event going on now, as a daily.
This weekend they are giving out a orange space suit (worth 80k dilithium), if you do the daily before Monday.
Nice of them to add grindy content that has nothing to do with Star Trek.
meeper
2056
I hit VA for the first time over the weekend with my newly rolled tactical character (so much had changed since I last played that I felt that I really needed to learn from the beginning). What’s next? Fighting Borg?
Yep, STFs, dailies, and any special in-game events are what keeps my VA busy. Do yourself a favor and read at least one of the numerious online guides. The PUG SFT groups don’t seem to talk much, so unless everyone has a pretty good idea what to do, you’ll fail the optional and maybe the mission itself.
-CJ
The nice thing about F2P is that you can just stop playing once you’ve run out of fresh content, then pick it up again for when new content arrives. No worries.
meeper
2059
No kidding. I just ran my first two STFs and I was the only one who uttered a word in either.
Another thing I’ve noticed with STO is that everyone seems to ‘need’ anything green or better - regardless of whether they ‘need’ it or not. Is this standard practice? Should I be 'need’ing everything I see? I 'greed’ed a few things that would only marginally improve me and passed on several others.
Squee
2060
Varies from group to group. I usually start by greeding things I don’t need, and then if everyone else rolls need I start doing it too. Figure what the hell.
