At this point it is cosmetic but some of the Cryptic missions, and several player generated Foundry missions, take place on a Federation vessel. Not often yours which is a shame.
There is some functionality on your ship, however. Down on the Engineering deck you can access the transporter pad to swap from your starship to a shuttle (or fighter if you have one). Shuttles are used on a couple missions but are, in general, just vanity devices or toys. Cool toys. Even shuttles have their own interiors. In the mess hall and in the captain’s quarters you can set up trophy displays. I find myself hanging out on my bridge when I’m taking a break. Just like the ambiance of it and it’s nice to see my crew hanging out. I’ve spent some time on them.
I like the idea of setting up trophy cases, anything in fact to encourage you to spend time in there. One of my “dream game” scenarios has always been to have an independently mobile space ship that you could walk around, with functional assets, and the ability to look out of viewports into the actual world as it’s happening. That would be so immersive. When I stepped into the shuttle for one of the early Vulcan escort missions, for a second I thought I was there, but then I realised the starfield outside the shuttle was just a stationary skybox. One day…
[edit] I’ve just thought, it would be fantastic if you could sit down in your ready room, pull up the computer and browse various archives (eg. from Starfleet Academy) a little like you can in Skyrim when you set up a bookshelf in your house and sit down for a good read. I haven’t seen any evidence yet of a large database you can sit down and read anywhere, so perhaps I’m just still dreaming.
You missed out then, man. In Star Wars Galaxies we did have functional multiplayer starships with rendered interiors. I had a YT-1300, just like Han Solo, and various crews over the years. Folks loved playing gunner on it but there was also a co-pilot who could use special space abilities and, scattered around the interior, various consoles and conduits that could blow out during a fight and players would have to run around and repair them.
Best of all, the interior was fully customizable. I tricked mine out in all kinds of ways including a mini-cantina, a sensors/survellience suite, and other things. Had a couple Eyes of Mesra (little plastic looking eyes that would answer questions like a Magic 8-Ball) hanging like fuzzy dice down over my control panel. I think Wash would have approved.
Screens from Star Wars Galaxies.
The cavernous thirty-foot ceilings of the starship interiors in STO really kill the ambiance for me.
Speaking of which, holy shit, the Odyssey’s bridge is HUGE. I’ve been in movie theaters with smaller screens than that.
…and we’re down. Damn, fighting off vile Klingons on an away mission too. This can’t end well. I guess I should have asked before I got hooked, but how stable is the server in general?
-CJ
It’s been pretty stable for the past month. Obviously, traffic got heavy when F2P opened up for everyone, and doubly so this weekend with all the free goodies being given away.
It seems like they bring it down pretty much daily. But usually those are scheduled in advance…I’ve not yet seen the world crash. Apparently there’s a first time for everything though.
Those are scheduled maintenance downtimes, usually to patch the game.
The game crashed quite a bit at the start due to lag / being too full.
Everyone that went through that hell in Season 1, got a free emote.
Its the SHAKA emote.
“Shaka, when the walls fell.” (meant as a metaphor for disaster.)
It was sorta awesome to see a waiting queue, as I haven’t seen one since back when the first featured episode came out.
Being a lifetime member got me right on , after it said for a moment (2-3 seconds) that i was 2 of 130 waiting to get on.
Could I get an invite to Quarter to Fleet? I’m Alandria@ColonelT – Thanks!
Why do I find this out now, I wonder? sigh Oh well, one day. And thanks for the images.
Cal
1913
Im not sure i can keep playing this again, my pet peeve still exists.
I create a char, i pick my perks, and get things like - +10 Warp core + 10 shield blah blah
I have never been more frustrated when creating a char, as i have NO IDEA what these bonuses do, and they are never really explained. The ground combat perks make sense, but the space ones are just bizarre.
Even in the tutorial, when i come to get my Bridge Officer, i never REALLY know what each one does, the game fails to explain what skills come with each etc.
Then in the main game and i look at my skill tree, i realise i dont know what any of these things mean, or what putting points in them does.
Those numbers related to base power levels. The more power the more effective the systems are. As to how much more powerful, well, hell I never get too worked up about that. I always figure more is better. Usually works fine for me. But hit the google and find out more if you’re that curious about the underlying math.
I would spend $5.00 in a heartbeat for an iPhone app that let me manage duty officer assignments on the go.
Come on, Cryptic! Take my damn money.
I think the possible issue there is that duty officer assignments vary by sector, and the only way to get them is to actually warp into that sector. It’s why some people use the Borg set all the time. Warp 14 gets you around to all the sectors in a hurry.
But, yeah, I’d kill for an app like that. Or any kind of official app, really.
I’ve never played EVE online, but STO is by far the most complicated MMO I’ve ever played. It’s daunting. So many abilities, bonuses, with no idea whatsoever what they do. Getting a new officer and then figuring out if you should have them Train up one of your existing officers? Whole Eee Shite. I have to open like seven windows in game, four out of game – and I still don’t know wtf I’m doing.
You have to look under “Skill-based Stats” on your Character Sheet. It’s really pretty unintuitive, but they’ve put all of those oddball stats that you would think would be attached to your ship on your character. So like your “Starship Gravitron Generators” stat is under the Science stats on your character sheet. Then if you mouseover those stats, there’s a quite detailed tooltip that’ll pop up.
But yeah, there’s a lot of stats, and they get even more complicated as you get more stations and more BOs.
Ha, wow, I just tried to log in to check out my bridge crew situation and was informed that the game was full and that I would have to wait to log in. In fact, I was 1217 of 1242 queued up to log in. Fuck that, I’ll go play Angry Birds.
Wow, you only get one character slot on F2P?
