Dark Nemesis -- Ranedor Killed For Your Sins.

Avalonna wrote:

NERDS!!!!!!!

Heads Up, Everyone!

Cryptic is conducting an online survey about what players would like to see added in STO. If you are a full-time subscriber or at least till the first free 30 days or even on a guest pass trial, by completing this survey Cryptic will award you 240 Cryptic Points to spend in their C-Store microtransaction shop.

http://www.startrekonline.com/survey

Last edited by Elahrerah (2010-02-23 20:12:55)

Here's a chart that will make your eyes bleed until you figure out what it means. Its testing some guy did an compares the dps ( front, side, and back) of all of the different weapons loadouts. I'm currently running 1 Dual Beam & 2 Beam forward with 3 beams aft (Orange line), which gives me the 2nd highest dps broadside, which I try to spend most of my time. Great chart for looking at your gameplay and then picking the loadout that gives you the most dps.

I started a new character, a Joined-Trill Engineering Officer. He's still at like Lt 2, but now that I have a better idea what I am doing.

My spec on my first toon is slightly messed up. I didn't figure out what I was doing until a good ways into LC.

I'm spec'd mainly for phaser & beam weapons so that is what I am staying with for now. My loadout for now is, Fore: 1 Phaser Beam, 1 Polaron Beam, 1 Phaser Turret, and Chroniton Topr to slow things down to my speed. Aft: 1 Phaser Beam, 1 Polaron Beam, 1 (I think) Polaron Turret, and I forget what other torp I'm using.

I stopped using my Automated Defense Turret in a a tactical console a long time ago, but I started using it again because it works great at shooting down mines that are close and those slow moving torps that they shoot at you.

I started with the Star Cruiser, then bought an Attack Cruiser and played it for awhile. After a few hours I went right back to the Star Cruiser for exactly what you said, it takes a lot more damage. I've got 3 Neutronium(?) Alloy consoles in the Engineering slots which puts all of my resistences, including Kinetic at about 30%. Basically, I can outlast anything.

So, Cryptic rolled out its first Raidisode with yesterday's patch, titled The Infected.

I had a chance to try it out and thought I'd give a brief rundown and opinion. We only got through the first two parts of the quest before it got too late and people began dropping from the group so I need to do it again to find out how it ends.

The preface being that the Borg have infiltrated and infected a Space Station in the Siborin System, found in the Gamma Orionis Sector through a transwarp gate. You must travel to the Siborin System, along with 4 other allies/players and halt the Borg threat. The mission is set up in a chain-quest fashion, much like City On The Edge Of Never but waaaaaay tougher. Storywise, it is very reminiscient of Star Trek: First Contact.

You'll start out in space and be tasked to destroy the transwarp gate created by the Borg to prevent more from entering the system. You'll need to take out a few waves of Probes and Cubes and then make  your way to the Transwarp Gate. There are 2 Transceivers that much be destroyed first and then the Gate, itself. During which time, you and your team will also need to fight off more incoming waves of probes and cubes. Time is definitely not on your side. The longer you take to destroy the gate, the more Borg ships that come through the gate.

Once the Gate is destroyed, your team will beam down to the Space Station and meet up with a contact within a small group of NPC's trying to fend off the Borg. You'll be fighting off, seemingly and quite literally, endless mobs of Borg drones. The trick is that there are little transceiver nodes scattered throughout the station that allow Borg reinforcements to beam down to the station, so they must be destroyed in order to advance. Again, time is not on your side and becomes a race to destroy the nodes before you become overwhelmed.

Ultimately, you'll need to make your way down to the Station's main engineering power center, where, presumably the queen is.


Overall, I found the new Raidisode has equal amounts of negatives as it has positives, much like STO in general.

While it is refreshing that for the first time you actually get to do something in STO that requires effort, it's equally frustrating and tedious in the way it is executed, especially the chain-rooting. You basically have to sacrifice half your team to draw Borg fire so that the other 2 can run in behind the enemy and take out the nodes that keep respawning more Borg drones. It's cool that the combat forces you to use your ground-based abilities more strategically but ultimately becomes confusingly chaotic when your swarmed with numerous drones, compounded with overlapping FX of all your team's ground abilities simultaneously. While there is no death penalty, as of yet, the long run back does give good incentive to do all you can not to die. There are also a few gimmicks implemented that requires at least 4 players and coordination to prevent zerging.

The rewards are pretty good. There is a mini boss at the end of each stage that drops a [Blue], better than quest rewards, possibly even on par with the daily badge rewards and I believe the Queen drops a purple.

It's a step in the right direction and there are a lot of other cool features both being tested and in development for release in the near future.

Last edited by Elahrerah (2010-03-05 15:50:19)

The last few days I have been leveling my Klingon character. Right now he is LC4. Its all PvP, but mostly I've been doing kill 10x squadrons in the Kahless Expanse. Since I haven't been putting in any points into ground abilities, I get toasted in ground battles. However, I am running a Raptor and can chew thru things pretty quick, especially shields, on 1 pass, with Dual Heavy Cannon, Dual Cannon, Photon  in front, and a Disruptor Turret in the back. I can usually chew thru any facing shield by the time my 2 Photons hit a target, using cannon rapid fire and keeping my weapons at over 100+. Even once the shields go down I can't usually get a 2nd Photon salvo off before my cannons just rip them apart.

Last edited by Destructus (2010-03-16 16:01:50)

Elah, you still playing Star Trek?

I got my KDF toon at max level running in a Raptor. 3 Anti-Proton DHC & a Quantum Torp in front, and 2x Anti-proton Turrets and a Qauntum Torp in back. This thing rocks and kills things fast.

I haven't run any of the group ones yet. Guess i should start getting into it. I did a lot of PvP at LT & LTC a little at Captain, but none since. Was going to start running some more PvP and go back and work on my Fed Cruiser RA5 which I stopped playing before the respecs.