Star Trek Online

All better now.





There are some really weird missions in this game. Like the one where we went to the Soap Bubble Planet in Shiny Sector.

I don't remember exactly what happened, but the quantum fluctuations of all the lye sitting around messed with the trans-cortical filigree of the transdermal subspace lattice or whatever, and the entire ship got split into male and female versions.

It was a real pain getting everybody and everything back together, especially since the snails didn't want anything to do with the spice. But eventually everyone and everything was reassembled, and everyone learned An Important Lesson that we all need both our "masculine" and "feminine" sides in order to be effective, functional human beings. (Also, malfunctioning transporters apparently don't like unicorn dogs. Who knew?)

The weirdest mission so far, however, has to be the one where they acknowledge the existence of "And The Children Shall Lead".


Oh, and here's a shot of my Captain checking over his Bridge Officers. I didn't change much about the Officers' appearances, other than the colors and keeping the top consistent, but here they are for completeness's sake.

On a totally unrelated note, never give a Tellarite female a chainsaw. It will end badly.


So today I said a very fond farewell to the, er, whatever class that one was, and hello to a Constitution refit.
[?=a few pictures]




[/?]

And here's a shot of it engaging an enemy.

Guess who won.

So, the interactive star systems have blurbs now. I like.


Hit Commander today and there's just not much to pick from. Four nacelles look ridiculous, all the science vessels look ridiculous, Excelsior costs $$$ . . . I'll probably go with a (modified?) Akira and give it the name I was going to give my Defiant. The Akira is more appropriately shaped anyhow.

The Constitution will always be my flagship, of course.

Thanks, but no. About the only thing I've bothered buying so far was a Saurian brandy, so that the one chain of duty officer missions could get moving.


This one means business!

Nice ship!

Well, thank you. Ideally I'd have used the curve-down struts (edit: Like so), but those cost actual money.


Yesterday I got to Captain, and . . . well. I tried my best, but there's only so much you can do with lumpy misproportions like these.


But I wanted to have a science ship, just to have a complete set and experience, and this was the rank to get one at.


Been doing well in space fights. D'Deridex are the only things that consistently give me fits; most other stuff has been pretty smooth sailing. Ground fights ought to be easier now with my bridge officers' new skills.

Excellent work. I haven't been able to play much lately because my laptop has taken to overheating when under strenuous load. Overheating to the point where it shuts off to keep from frying itself. New rig will be here next week, and then we play.

I left my tweaked Sovereign's saucer unpainted for a while because I didn't care for any of the choices . . . but I finally decided that it needed a little something for the direct overhead view, and you know what? I think this works pretty well.





I've been enjoying the big fleet events, and now that I've finally upgraded to a level-appropriate split-beam gun and figured out that I can use some of those ground abilities in my second tier, away missions tend to go much more smoothly.

Don't mess with a Connie.







We got the new fancy-pants starbase addition, the plaques of Enterprises past and present. It looks pretty nice for what it is.




And the Mark II [Spd] engine I've had since practically the beginning has finally outlived its usefulness. What a run. *salute*

I know it'd be crippled on Hull Points, but I'd love to have a Tier 5 Fleet Version of the Connie Refit. CBS has repeatedly put the kibosh on a Tier 5 TOS Connie (and for good reason).

Even the Excelsior is pushing it. In game terms, the design and space frame of the Batch I ships are 116-124 years old. So, I can see and understand the reluctance. But, then again, it's also patently ridiculous that we have NX Class and D'Kyr Class ships in the game. Doubly so when you remember that the D'Kyr is a Vice Admiral Tier 5+ Ship.

Well, it's also ridiculous that 'Starfleet changed the uniform rules in 2xxx to blah blah blah' and now nobody wears the same uniform at all . . . hence defeating the idea of having a uniform. So they could totally do it. Discover that the proportions + size of the Constitution class are particularly suitable for a particular warp configuration, then say the resulting top-tier ship is intended for particular duties . . . then sit back and let the players use it for the same thing they use everything else for, blowing stuff up.

I'm re-downloading STO from Steam as I type this. Going to start over.

Be sure to add us. I'll invite you to the fleet if you want. I see NAHTMMM online now, I need to start giving you a shout.

Will do next time I'm on. I'm going through every tutorial in detail because I've completely forgotten the mechanics.

Leveling is laughably easy now. My Science Officer is at Captain 37 and I just now got to the first Romulan mission (supposed to be Lieutenant Commander 17). I'm thinking about skipping the whole Romulan Arc and getting into the DS9 stuff. But, I'm also thinking about just doing them in sequence until I get to Vice Admiral and then skipping the Breen Arc. That's my absolute least favorite story in the game.

I hate that it's so easy now. When the game first started, leveling wasn't too difficult, and I leveled up to Rear Admiral inside of about a month. They went and made that even easier, I guess to get people to pay for end game toys. I don't know. I just don't like that it's such a milk run.

I mean, honestly, how crappy is it when there's Vice Admirals running around asking questions that anyone above Lieutenant should know?

Ah, they stretched it out in the middle. I can see it now.

You fly through Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, and to a certain extent, Commander. I suggest it's to make you feel like you're doing something. Basically, you jump 1-1.5 Levels per mission. Then, when you get to Captain, they start slowing you down. I'm a Captain 39 now and I'm lucky if I get 0.5 Levels per mission. You spend Levels 1-29 learning the basics on a fast progression. Then they slow you down, say, from Levels 30-45ish to teach you how to play your class (you finally have all your "abilities" and ships that can use them). Then it's a quick jump from Level 45-50 where you should now be prepared for "End Game."

I'm starting to get back into the swing of things. I'm going to try and not use the exchange and only use pickups, crafting, mission rewards, or Starbase requisitions. Spending time on the exchange and buying the best of the best on the cheap made the game too easy and was a big reason why I lost interest in the game and abandoned Diablo III during the 2nd act.

^ I guess some people get a kick out of shopping, but for me the joy is in getting something randomly that you can use. Where's the fun in loot if you've already got an optimal set of equipment?

I just got a constitution class ship.

I have a security officer captain named T.E. Lawrence.

If anyone wants into the WF fleet, please let me know. I need your handle (IE: User@Username). I also want to get away from just being a WF fleet. We need people desperately.

I've renamed the fleet Task Group 77.2 (aka Seventh Fleet Support Force) to try to help move us away from WF's small userbase.

So, I bailed. I joined a large fleet (UFP) that is about 18 hours away from Level IV. I already have a Fleet Defiant and she's kitted out with Elite Fleet Ultra Rare Mk XII Antiproton and Quantum Weapons [Dmg]x3 [Acc]. In a day or so I'll have enough supplies for an Elite Fleet Ultra Rare Mk XII Covariant Shield Array [Cap]x3 [ResALL].

The USS Mi Amore Cadenza arriving at New Romulus. The new system is awesome.

D&D online is fun.

They've fucked the game by taking dilithium drops from STFs.
They want us to buy Zen and convert it. I'm done wasting time and money on this game unless they change it.

Yeah I saw that Zen shit and haven't played it since. I upgraded to Win8 with a new hard drive recently so I don't think I'm even going to bother with installing it from Steam.

Does anyone want a Mirror Universe Deep Space Science Vessel? I have a Requisition pack for one if anyone wants it.

nah already have one plus a mirror recon and a mirro starcruiser.

hoping to get the full set but not sure how many or what types are there

The new Enterprise 1701-C mission came out the other day, and now I've got my Ambassador class ship, The U.S.S. Spitfire.

When you complete the mission (which was fun!), you get a T3 and T5 version of the ship. I saved the T3 and am using the T5 to roam the galaxy in.

The ship itself is well balanced, for a cruiser, and packs a punch while taking a hell of a beating.

Here's a few screenshots:











I think they did a terrific job. Only downside? No custom bridge.
Still, the mission was fun, I got a free ship and a free uniform.

I can't complain. If you're a Science officer or an Engineer that leans towards Science, this is the cruiser for you. I just completed the 20-man Starbase Defense mission in the Ambassador Class with absolutely no deaths and the only damage I received was more than easily dealt with by my skills despite being right in the middle of every engagement.