Star Trek Online Open Beta LiveBlog Bonanza Part 2

Continuing on from Star Trek Online Open Beta LiveBlog Bonanza Part 1

9:23 pm GMT

After about half an hour of play, I’ve gotten kicked again and am having trouble getting back in. I’d just taken a turbolift down to another area in order to destroy some borg devices that are blocking communication. Might see some real combat soon! Beaming people into space just isn’t the same, especially as vacuum did not upset the Borg as much as I thought it would.

Movement and controls seem a bit mushy and unresponsive, but that could easily just be the betalaunch server lag and nothing to worry about. We’ve still not gotten to the meat of the game yet anyway, ground and space combat.

Hmm, it just occurred to me that the USS Khitomer is named after the Klingon planet, best known for the Khitomer Accords between the Federation and the Klingon Empire (now broken), but also for the Khitomer massacre. Lets hope my adventure takes after the former rather than the latter. I guess they named the ship before the treaty broke down.

10:00 pm GMT

A spot of fighting!

Star Trek Online Tutorial 5 Combat 300x172

Assimilate this!!!

Your phaser has two settings, as you might expect. One does damage, while the stun setting does a bit less damage but stops them in their tracks for a while. All seems to work pretty well on these surprisingly unfrightening Borg. I can also punch them if I want to. I don’t.

I expect we get a lot more combat options later on.

Belay my mocking of the punch. It’s actually quite good, knocking oppononents back away from you.

10:16 pm GMT

After fighting my way past more Borg I receive word that the ship I was serving on, the USS Madrigal (which I named, of course), is also under assault by the Borg. I’d better get back over there, but before I go, I am offered a bit of help in the form of a bridge officer to go with me. There are three available, one of each class, but I can only take one.

Star Trek Online Tutorial 6 Choosing Officers 300x171

Cute Andorian, I choose you!

Given that I could use a little muscle, and also because she is rather cute, I decide to take the Andorian Tactical Officer. To my distress, I receive a burly male Bajoran tactical officer called Exar. It appears those folks I talked to were just examples. It’s a good thing I needed a tactical officer anyway! Ensign Oakshadow should probably be keeping his mind on things other than love right now anyway.

Time to beam on home and kick the Borg off my ship!

10:38 pm GMT

Oh dear. Turns out the Borg aren’t the only folks around here who don’t abhor a vacuum.

Star Trek Online Tutorial 7 Floating In Space 300x171

Khaaannnn!!!!!!!

I have to take my hat off to whoever designed these personal force fields. They’re brilliant! I was kind of expecting to be beamed to the USS Madrigal though.

Seems to be some sort of bug. I think I’m supposed to be getting a taste of space combat right now. Will try logging out and back in, IF I can get back in.

10:59 pm GMT

Kicked again, but I’ve gotten into some ship-to-ship combat!

Star Trek Online Tutorial 8 Ship Combat 300x172

Lock phasers on that vessel!

It’s quite good fun. Think PotBS ship combat, but faster and in three dimensions. Once you’ve gotten the hang of interacting and flying about a bit, while rescuing survivors from some damaged Federation vessels, you then get stuck in on the Borg. Not sure how my science vessel compares with the other two starting ships, but Borg probes have no chance!

Something I should have mentioned. All these tutorial areas are shared with other players, rather than instanced like in some games. The ship combat area is busy indeed. I’m not entirely sure how credit for kills is worked out yet, so I hope I wasn’t kill stealing anyone.

11:31 pm GMT

Hmm, bit of a problem. After I got back in, I was back in an area of space that I had already left after completing the objective. I’d destroyed the damaged probes, and then gone to warp to go get some active probes elsewhere. Warping put me in a different zone, but diconnecting put me back where I started. My objective is still to kill active probes, but there are none here, and I don’t have the option of warping to wherever they are, as that was something I got for completing a previous objective. Because it’s a tutorial mission you can’t restart and try again. Trapped forever in the Wrong Zone! Oh woe!

This could be a show stopper.

00:26 am GMT

Ensign Oakshadow seems permanently trapped. I’ll create a new character and see if I can get beyond that point.

Hitting a bug which permanently traps your character in the very first space mission is a little bit worrying, but this is what Beta is for. I’ve reported the bug.

1:55 am GMT

Presenting our new hero, Arkturas Reh! While Arkenor is MIA, Arkturas will be taking over liveblog duties. He is a custom race with some fairly randomly picked attributes.

Star Trek Online Tutorial 9 Arkturas 300x171

Arkturas Reh, Engineer.

He’s the one on the right, and yes, he’s quite short.

3:01 am GMT

Our tiny green understudy successfuly defeated the activated probes, and beamed down to the planet surface. Down there the lag was so bad that there was a small mob of us standing next to a mission objective, a crate, waiting for it to realise we were there and let us take our shiny new phaser rifle.

Suddenly a voice from beyond cried out that there would shortly be a patch, and that the server would be coming down very soon. This came to pass, and the server is offline. I’ll post the patchnotes as soon as they appear.

4:18 am GMT

Just downloaded 15 MB worth of patchy goodness. No details on the content yet. We’re on version ST.0.2010108b.14 now. It does seem to have reduced the lag considerably.

The server is up. Arkenor is still trapped, alas, but we’ll carry on with Arkturos.

5:20 am GMT

Arkturos made short work of the Borg planetside and was recalled back to Earth’s Shipyard to speak to Admiral Quinn.

Star Trek Online Tutorial 10 Stardock Earth 300x171

Stupid looking planet. Oceans should be purple!

It looks like the Shipyard is a major hub for the Federation, with all manner of merchants and trainers. You can even buy new bridge officers if you’re so inclined. There’s also a broker for selling to other players, though nothing on it as yet. I can’t afford anything in the shops yet either, but I’m sure that’s only a short term problem. Items are spread over so many different unlabelled merchants across the station that it’s going to be a real memory game to find the right one.

The station feels a bit like a doctor’s waiting room, but I suppose that is the nature of Federation.

Admiral Quinn has given Arkturos another mission to sort out. We’ll deal with them tomorrow, though I want to give exploration a try first if I can, and maybe a patrol mission.

See you tomorrow!

The adventures continue in Star Trek Online Open Beta LiveBlog Bonanza Part 3!

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