Star Trek Online Open Beta LiveBlog Bonanza Part 4

Continuing on from Star Trek Online Open Beta LiveBlog Bonanza Part 3!

1:32 am GMT, Day 2

So, I speak to my new friend, Lieutenant Grall, and he gives me a mission to explore the Delta Volanis cluster, near Sirius Sector. After a quick trip at warp speed I find myself in a zone full of anomalies.

My God! It's full of anomalies!!!

These aren’t the sort of anomalies you harvest. As I understand it, visiting any of these will be a randomly generated mini-adventure. How I can resist? Engage!

01:46 am GMT, Day 2

We arrive in the snappily named System Zeta Lyrae 4322-Chi system, which seems to essentially be a large asteroid field.

System system system.

My task here is to locate 5 anomalous readings. These ones probably are harvestable. My scanners will tell me there are 5 to find, but rather distressingly it won’t tell me where they are so it looks like I’ll have to wander around this large 3-dimensional area until I get close enough to see one.

Turns out that wasn’t quite as awful as I thought it would be. While you can’t see them on the radar, or if they’re off screen, if you move the camera around enough you can spot them alright.

And with that, my first system is explored. Grall asked me to explore three systems so lets visit another!

System Psi Omega has a planet, and that planet has life. We’re being hailed. On Screen! Maintain standard orbit, Mr T’Rix.

Pleased to meet you too.

While the Federation may not have known about this system, they’ve clearly heard of us, and have mistaken us for the Home Shopping Network. I do actually have a shield generator I found earlier, but they want ten. This may be a problem.

I’m not sure what to do. I cannot give them what I do not have. I could go get some from Stardock but I don’t think I could afford any, certainly not 10. The only way I seem to have to leave here seems to be the “Abort Mission – Depart System” button anyway. Would I be able to get back? I don’t have a lot of choice, so I abort.

2:19 am GMT, Day 2

System Y720-G is home to a small colony of people displaced by the Klingons. I’ve been asked to check in on them. Bring us closer, Mr T’Rix!

Whoops, turns out these colonists have rotten luck. The Klingons have turned up and claimed their new colony too. It’s up to Reh and the Gang to go send the Klingons packing.

Ow. The Klingons are here in force, and the first group we find knocks us out. Fortunately when you lose a fight you just respawn back at your start point with all progress intact, so there’s no harm done, so far as I can tell. Once we defeated them, we found some utterly hideous body armour.

It clashes with my antennae

My biggest worry is this. Every character has a body slot, which is where armour goes. To not use armour would be to badly penalise yourself and your team. But wearing armour is not remotely Star Trek. It’s Starship Troopers. It’s Warhammer 40K. If there is some way to hide the armour then fine, but if my team and I are going to be penalised for looking like actual Starfleet Officers, that is going to bother me.

Update: Panic over. If you right-click the armour while you have it equipped in your paperdoll, you have the option to hide it. Yay!

Bah, got disconnected while writing and can’t get back in at the moment.

3:21 am GMT, Day 2

The server has been brought down for emergency maintenance. We’re up to version 2010108b.16 and the patch notes are here.

6:20 am GMT, Day 2

Yes, I keep wretched hours.

Downtime has just been extended again to midnight PST, or 8 am GMT.

The Liveblog continues in Star Trek Online Open Beta LiveBlog Bonanza Part 5!

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