Ark's Ark

I’ve just started getting past the point I got to in the Open Beta. Since last I wrote, STO has become a great deal more stable, and less buggy. Just in time, I might add!

The new Character Selection Screen for STO.

This time around, instead of going for a Science Vessel, which are the most heavily shielded, and of middling manoeuvrability, I have gone for an Escort. Escorts are much quicker on their toes, and have most of their weapons facing forward, so are a bit better at putting out damage. I’ve not found them to be overly fragile, as yet. STO’s version of public quests, Fleet Actions, only seem to score you for damage done, so playing an escort seems advantageous for now.

The set missions are well put together. Like Champions though, there are not so many of them that you won’t be doing every single one on your journey to Admiral, which does hamper replayability somewhat. You do have the option of doing exploration missions, but as they seem randomly chosen from a list of premade missions rather than being randomly generated at the time, once you do a few of them you start recognising which one you have just from the first couple of lines of mission text.

The vanishing Bridge Officer issue that I wrote about last week seems to have been finally squashed, and today the Klingons have been given access to a bit of extra higher-level content, which is certainly worthy of a toast of blood wine. So my list of gripes with STO is shrinking. I’m still far from convinced I’ll still be playing when my month runs out, but I am enjoying the time I have, and perhaps the first solid content patch, especially if it contains new features, will sway me.

General

* The Admiral promotion mission will now complete if players choose a fleet escort as their reward. This is not retro-active. If you’re an Admiral with a dangling promotion mission because you chose an escort, please submit a ticket to CS.
* Cardassian “Empire Defense” mission maps are now open to Klingon players.
* K7 station has been decloaked and returned to the sector map. Alleged perpetrators are being interrogated.
* The “Abandon Ship” power is now only available while in combat.
* General server optimization to increase performance.

A good bug-squashing attempt, most notable for the research changes. Until now, I don’t think anyone ever managed to get past the first researcher.

Also, the code left over from Champions Online that was allowing people to choose colours for their weapons has been removed. No more being blown up by fuscia coloured disrupter beam wielding Klingons for me!

Keep reading →

Another substantial patch came in overnight. Mostly minor bugfixes this time, but in high quantity.

Oh, just noticed the tribble change. They can no longer be used in combat. A lot of people had been using them to make themselves almost indestructible in ground combat (petting one raises your health), so that is certainly going to make a big difference. Horrid little things anyway!

Patch Notes

• A cutscene now plays after creating a Federation Character
• Updated contextual mouse cursor designs
• Costume parts in the tailor remain valid options even after hitting random.
• The character pictured at login now updates after deleting a character.
• Bridge Officer candidates that have not yet joined your crew may be traded with other players.
• Fixed the interact for the Ganalda ship vendor
• Removed some unexplored systems that were causing players trouble.
• Fixed mini map image for Risa ground, Andoria ground, Vulcan ground and Vulcan system
• Removed animated loading screens. Replaced with beautiful screen shots and concept art.
• Fixed an issue where some players were unable to respawn in PvP maps
• Fixed eject warp plasma clouds FX so they fade out properly.
• Updated Emergency power to shields to use the new “liquid” shield FX.
• Adjusted the coloring of Tykens rift FX to blend a little better.
• Fixed issue with ship explosions dropping FX mid explosion.
• Players can no longer depart system when on their bridge.
• Updated many enemy spawn animations to user proper Beam In FX
• Standardized the display names of anomalies nodes
• Updated the KvK version of Borg Hunt so that it will scale with player ranks
• Added missing merchant contacts to sector space cargo ships.
• Added Klingon versions of ground weapon fire and batleth icons.
• Fixed an animation issue where arms looked weird while holding rifles
• Fixed a bug that allowed food and drink to be used in combat
• Fixed a bug that allowed tribbles to be used in combat
• Fixed several new gameserver crashes that players reported
• Updated FX for several Klingon Kit powers
• Added more faction icons to enemy target status windows
• Added subsystem targetting to the Weapons tray, if those powers are available to the player
• Fixed Subsystem targetting powers categories so they can appear correcty in the Science vessel special UI.
• Removed the recipe search category from the Exchange
• Fixed a bug that was spawning too many Borg cubes in iPVP
• Added descriptions of how to acquire exploration badges to appropriate vendors.
• Updated the visual appearance of contact windows for both Federation and Klingons.
• Updated costume presets for some species
• Added indication when your current power value exceeds your target (due to buffs, skills, etc.).
• Added a message to the queue server that lets you know you were forced from the queue after it halted.
• The crew of the Azura are no longer wearing Starfleet uniforms
• Fixed warp cutscene playing from Sector space to System in Cardassian space.
• Klingon and Romulan Patrol missions now point to proper locations
• Added a fix to prevent the instance selection window from popping up briefly when transferring to another map
• Removed checkbox from instance selection window that would set the “always select instance when switching maps” option
• Fixed several commodity missions that were being greedy and taking all of a given commodity in your inventory, rather than the necessary amount. Fixes
• Fixed a typo with the Klingon PvE exploration mission description
• Fixed the door leaving the Qonos warriors hall so that player can’t get stuck inside
• Updated the PvE repeatable Klingon missions to clarify that players must complete the PvE map 3 times to complete the mission
• Fixed many unknown system ground missions that were put into an unwinnable state if the objectives were done out of order.
• Adjusted kill counts for all PvP ground arenas
• Clicking a power in the tray that is flagged for auto attack will now fire properly
• Removed the assault column from assault PVP scoreboard
• Added black backgrounds to the target window images so that ground headshots don’t float.
• Also added art for the new device/kit backgrounds.
• Add more translation text for non-english players. More to come.
• Adjusted mission rewards at higher levels that were giving rewards too low compared to the mission. These should be much more in line now.
• Bridge Officers can now use costume presets when customizing
• Change Memory Alpha mission text to make it clear that E’genn is in the middle of Earth Spacedock
• Starfleet was offering Klingon Empire bridge officers to Federation players instead of Klingon Starfleet bridge officers. Not anymore.
• Fix some issues with assault and area control scoreboard information where teams weren’t showing up properly.
• Bridge Officers no longer have a voice option. This will be re-added at a later date.

Known Issues

• There is a bad bug with shuttles that are causing them to despawn properly and inflicting players with 10 minute cooldowns in combat. A fix is coming soon. For now exiting the map or dying will fix the cooldown issue.
• If you end up with ground powers in your space tray, drag them off your space tray and hopefully they won’t come back
• Bridge officer powers are not automatically assigned a keybind. Moving their power on your power tray should fix this
• Some status FX will show as white squares on space targets

It looks like there were two patches last night. The larger of the two addresses player concerns (which I share) that the game has become too easy since the giant patch of the 20th of January. Though if it has left the tier 1 combat as easy as it was, it is going to be a bit of a shock for players when they hit tier 2.

Recent changes added when we unlocked the level cap introduced imbalance to combat at mid to high levels. Closed beta players will be quick to point out that things are much easier than what they remember. To address this we have tracked down the issues and reverted combat back to the intended difficulties. We hope that you will find space combat to be more challenging now, especially starting in Tier 2.

Improved gameplay balance in space

• No direct change in Tier 1 combat
• Increased damage of space enemies above level 11 (Tier 2).
• Reduced science vessel shields and hull by about 10%
• Added more interesting weapons Bridge Officer abilities to enemy ships
• All Romulan/Reman ships now use mostly plasma torpedoes instead of Photons. So their High Yields will be Heavy Plasma Torpedoes instead of Salvos (including their Bird of Prey Frigates).
• Improved Romulan/Reman Mogai – Added Plasma Turret, Dual Beams, Rapid Fire, Attack Pattern Alpha and Evasive Maneuvers.
• Improved Romulan/Reman D’deridex – Added additional Aft Plasma Array, Viral Matrix, Photonic Shockwave, and increased its used of Heavy Plasma Torpedoes.
• Improved all Hirogens ships– Added Transphasic Torpedoes
• Improved Klingon Negh’Var – Added Boarding Party at higher levels
• Improved Cardassian Galor – Added Evasive Maneuvers, and Feedback Pulse
• Fixed Borg shipWeapons (It’s tractor Beam and Cutting beam were note working)
• Fixed Torpedo and Mine powers that were unintentionally harming your own crew.
• Fixed Rapid Fire to work properly.
• Made a tuning pass on Chroniton projectiles
• Tricobalt weapons now have a 30 second shared cooldown.
• Updated the plasma ball to have slightly more direct damage and slightly less DoT damage
• Removed some Federation spawns in Klingon PVE missions that were not granting XP properly
• Added some missing end tier ships to the stores
• Removed a bad Shield HP console that was not working properly
• Reduced the damage from the Metreon Gas in the Briar Patch that was smoking everyone. Sorry Riker, we had to do it.

There as also an earlier one intended to enhance stability.:

• Some players were unable to interact with objects on public maps (such as the ground portions of the Tutorial). These now work more reliably.
• Fixed a crash when inspecting and looking up item information.
• Fixed a crash when using the Tailor
• Additional server performance updates

Another night, another patch! Most importantly, it sounds like the lack of exploration anomalies that was making the clusters so tedious has been dealt with. Also, I’m not certain, but perhaps those “exploration rewards” mentioned below are the long missing Badges of Exploration. I’ll check that out tomorrow!

Star Trek Online Open Beta 20100119a.10 Patch Notes

* We’ve removed the code that unequips items when you drag a power off of your power bar. Note that the only way to return these powers to your power bar is to have the item equipped, then open your power list (the datapad icon on your power tray) and drag the power icon back to where you want it.

* We’ve added a fix to address transactions that were taking longer than expected on the latest release. This should improve issues where players reported their weapons getting swapped constantly.

* Video setting defaults were being miscalculated improperly for some cards. We’ve made an update to address this. If you log in and your video settings are not as you expected, Go into the Options – Video menu and select Restore Defaults. If it is still not to your liking, you can use the basic and advanced settings to adjust your video resolution and display features.

* PVP Queuing systems have been updated so that they will refresh more reliably.

* Addressed reported issues of zone chat and custom chat channels not working properly or being disallowed due to zone name length.

* We’ve fixed several bugs that are responsible for the majority of the gameserver crashes on this new release. Instances should play more reliably now.

* Added mail locations to QoNos so that Klingon players can send and receive mail with attached items

* Repeatable Star Cluster missions now grant exploration rewards.

* Addressed an issue where Star Cluster anomalies were too scarce or not respawning fast enough as well as lowered the maximum number of ships per Star Cluster Instance. Exploration should now uncover more unknown systems!

* Space Weapons Cannons: Removed the limitation that prevented you from firing two cannons simultaneously. They still have a 1 second shared cooldown, which has a very similar impact. Fixed a subset of cannons that were not following this behavior.

* BOff Abilities: Cannon Rapid Fire: This ability was cancelling itself after one shot, like other attack upgrade abilities. However, this is supposed to last for a duration and improve all cannon attacks for that period. Fixed so that it no longer cancels itself.

* Addressed the issue in the Korvat system where if the user cancelled the mission dialog, you could not progress the mission. Note that there may be additional similar issues in other systems. If you find one of these, please bug it. To fix, you may need to use the “Depart System” button on your MiniMap, and then continue the mission again. If that fail, drop and retake the mission.

* Added mission text explaining changes to Klingon PVE objectives.

* Addressed an FX issue on the Ghost Ship that made the map unplayable once the player initiated the dimension shift.

Huzzah! The new patch is here for Star Trek Online, and it is decidedly chunky! There’s so much good stuff in here that tomorrow I’ll be dedicating my STO Open Beta liveblog to seeking out the changes ingame. First I need a little nap, as I stayed up for the patch note release!

Headline Updates!

* Level Cap Removed!
* Cardassian and Romulan Sectors are now open for Federation Players.
* All bridge officer candidates offer a free basic customization option when they join your crew.
* You can now use the scan button on the MiniMap HUD to direct you towards the closest anomaly.
* Bridge Officers will now request transfer to your crew at various levels.
* Leonard Nimoy has provided an audio journal overview as you enter each new Sector Block.

Release Notes and Known Issues
General

* Fixed an issue where the price for training wasn’t accurate
* There have been many updates to video performance and default settings. If the game looks different, go into Video options and update them back to what you prefer.
* Updated the price of guild bank tabs.
* When you unslot an ability from your tray it will now move the item that grants it back to your inventory.
* You can now sell items directly from the paper doll.
* Updated tribble descriptions
* Level up congrats won’t happen until Level 3
* Attempt to fix many bugs with powers not slotting in proper power trays. This may require existing players to reslot powers where you want them
* The following social maps are now availabe: Vulcan, Risa, and Andoria
* Added basic respawn protection power
* Improved loading screens
* Removing a weapon power from your power tray, now removes the related weapon item from your ship to your inventory and vice-versa
* Changed door behavior on Defiant-class bridges.
* Lt. Romaine has departed Earth Spacedock and is now back on Memory Alpha in the Romulan Sector
* Updated civilian costumes to be more random
* Added contest winners to ship tier names
* Fixed duplicate instance of transphasic bomb kit in the store list.
* Fixed bug where players could not move items into their bank or guild bank.
* Federation players now have Guild Uniform options.
* Added PvP and Exploration vendors to: Qonos, Ganalda, K7 and Earth Spacedock
* Armor now shows when equipped on Bridge Officers.
* Fixing default bridge screen so it shows a starflield instead of just a black void.
* Increase cost of renaming ships and bridge officers in conjunction with free costume changes.
* Bridge Officers will no longer pet tribbles constently
* Tribbles will no longer grow larger and larger.
* Changed starting level of klingons to 5
* Updated Klingon starting equipment. Ground and Space.
* Added Batleths to Klingon, PvP, and normal stores.
* Added very rare items to loot tables
* Fixed a bug where small ground consumables cost more than large ones. Updated pricing of consumables to be more in line with progressions. Added Consumables to Klingon equpment stores.
* Fixed Exchange searches for Lieutenant rank items.

Missions

* Tutorial has had another polish pass to improve amibient NPC animations and add final costumes for primary contacts
* Bug Fixes for Gateway, PJem
* Lowered requirement on deep space and star cluster to level 3.
* Updated enemy behavior in the Gorn Minefield and Starbase 24 Fleet Actions
* Klingon repeatable mission cooldown timers have been set to 6 minutes (the same time as it takes for the deepspace missions to reset)
* Danteri mission should now go to the appropriate planet surface.
* Repeatable star cluster missions can now only be completed in the specific Star Cluster the mission is for.
* Added a Klingon version of the Laurentian Fleet Action
* Updated mission description of the Crystalline entity fleet action
* Improved traffic control around Starbase 39 in Romulan space
* Beaming down to Memory Alpha should be easier now.
* Fixed several issues in the Friend of My Enemy mission.
* Changed all of the unknown system interacts to give players a chance to be able to join Teammates arlready engaged in a star cluster mission.
* Many systems and planets now have maps that previously did not
* Updated the map name of Pve_Competitive_Borghunt_Lt
* The turn in string for a mission now only appears in the mission objectives list if the mission is awaiting turn-in.
* Added free costume change to rank up mission
* Updated reward tables for Exploration missions
* Ranks missions were given additional instructions, sub-objectives, and waypoints in order to achieve maximum clarity regarding the Ship Requisition part of the mission chain.
* Fixed double spawn issue for C’Zann on Qonos
* Added New Sector Space Enemies
* Updated many landmarks in KFR and ROM
* Adjusted Spawn rates for Laurntian Ice Mining Ground Fleet Action
* Fixed many typos
* Added Security guards to Earth Spacedock and Qo’Nos
* Doomday Machine: -Improved AI to be more predictable. -Increased the firing arc and build up time of the main weapon.
* Unknown Alien Races now populate Star Cluster Exploration “unknown” systems.
* Fixing many Star Cluster planets that had objectives that could not be completed.
* Fixed neutral warp to Kerrat
* Disconnected neutral zone and klingon sector warps to iPvP ground maps (Otha, Qayghun)
* Added messages to inform the player when they are being offered a shared/secondary mission.
* Klingon player PvE repeatable missions now require the player to complete the open mission three times and at the end will grant exploration token rewards. These exploration tokens can be turned in to vendors on Qonos (formerly the PvP vendors which were duplicated on Ganalda) for special gear and weapons.
* Scientists can no longer be interacted with early on Researcher Rescue.
* Hostage ship at the end of Researcher Rescue now easier.
* Many many other mission bugs you filed have been fixed.

PVP

* KvK Ghostship should now drop rewards correctly
* KvK Hostile Takeover map now grants rewards properly.
* PvP Solar Wind should now grant rewards correctly.
* PvP map names standardized in queues.
* Queues no longer overlap levels, so players won’t have to face ships of incorrect tier.
* Fixed incorrect win condition on pvp areacontrol maps.
* Updated PVP queues to prevent players joining PvP at improper levels.
* Fixed display conditions for PvP scenarios so that players can access instructions mid-match.
* Distentigrated players will no longer remain invisible.
* Players who leave a PVP map prematurely have a wait time to rejoin a queue
* Corrected exploit that allowed Pvp Space Disruptor weapons to be tradable.
* Fix several queue UI/scoreboard issues.
* Updated PvP Arena queue settings
* Fixed the KvK Assimilation (Ground iPvP) map so that it now has enemies and that all the mission contacts are Klingon Houses

Environments

* Fixed some occlusions on the U.S.S. Warwick
* Fixed a few spots where you could jump into space
* Updated sky backgrounds on new planets in Federation Sectors
* There is now a minimap for Qo’nos
* Added 2 NPCs talking about sulu being admiral quinn’s office
* Added mailboxes were added in starbases where you can send receive items via mail
* removed a few patrols on earth spacedock that pathed in front of the admiral’s office – causing traffic jams

Skills, Powers, and Combat

* Improved ground combat balance. Easier at earlier levels, and more balanced at higher levels.
* Letheans – When purchasing the Telekinetic trait, Letheans received an old passive version of the trait that is no longer in use. Fixed so that they now receive the activated knockback ground ability. This will effect old and new characters.
* Saurian – Fixed a bug that prevented most Saurian characters from purchasing skills. This will apply to new and existing characters.
* Increased player ground and ship HP and Shields accross the board. This change mostly takes affect past Lt Commander.
* Cannons are now on a 1 second shared cooldown. They can be chain fired in their recharge timers, but they cannot be simultaneously fired. Previously, some cannons could unreliably fire at the same time and others couldn’t. The behavior should be consistent now.
* Increased crew size for the Tier 1 Bird of Prey to 30 so it works with “Boarding Party”.
* Fixed spawn rank on engineering fabrication objects.
* Strengthened fabricated phaser turrets, but reduced their spawn limit to 1.
* Powers that spawn critters to properly use the caster’s level.
* Restored Evasive Maneuvers to a toggle power to allow for power level adjustment during its use.
* Fixed Tractor Beam so it works better when used against certain ships.
* Adjusted Ramming Speed damage and maximum speed in combination with Full Impulse and other speed enhancement powers.
* Ground Armor Shield Regen mod is now periodic instead of continuous, gives roughly the same benefit over time
* Buffs now display how long they last, and how many times they have been stacked.
* Changed the Crystalline entity’s beam to do Anti-proton damage instead of phaser damage
* Improved Tractor Beam Repulsors repel and damage values.
* Corrected stacking errors in attack pattern powers.
* Enabled stare down on all space enemies. They will no longer instantly aggro at 10k.
* Added info text to skills indicating the requirements for unlocking ability training.
* Reworked Force Field Dome engineering kit power to grant a damage resistance to allies and repel enemies from entering dome.
* Fixed Tetryon Bolt Pistol primary attack short description
* Fixed Tetryon Beam Pistol and Dual Bolt Pistol primary attacks short description
* Reduced the number of torpedo salvos low end cruisers, escorts and battleships fire – both in how many torpedoes they fire, and how often they fire them. A similar change was made to many critter ships to reduce how often they fire off other weapon enhancing abilities (like Overload or fire at will).
* Reduced the number of heal and shield repair abilities low end cruisers, escorts and battleships – both in frequency and in magnitude.
* Fixed item info window to correctly display passive power descriptions.
* Reworked the team powers (Engineering Team, Science Team, Tactical Team) to be consistent with each other and effective. Renamed Medical Team to Science Team. Renamed Security Team to Tactical Team.
* Dual heavy cannons’ basic attack was doing less damage than the baseline. It has been brought back online with the other energy weapons’ basic attack dps.
* Reduced duration and recharge of Photonic Officer. Added duration to Tactical Initiative, which now reduces recharge on tactical bridge officer powers only.
* If you put your ship in reverse for more than 10 seconds, you will start so slowly drain power from all systems.
* Improved the damage improvement per level of activated traits.
* Generic Pacify – Added 10% Expose chance. Added hold resistance on expiration (was missing from this power).
* Gorn Bite – Increased recharge time from 45 seconds to 150 seconds. Doubled the physical damage component. Quintupled the toxic DoT damage. Increased DoT duration.
* Vulcan Mind Meld – Added 10% Expose chance. Increased recharge timer from 120 seconds to 150 seconds. Previously, this was a maintained power that had an extend duration on Hold and Confuse attribmods. Removed the extended component and stacked the entirety of the duration on the first pulse. This makes it show the full effect of the power in the tooltip. Increased the overall duration of the Confuse, and the Hold is for the activation time of the power.
* Vulcan Nerve Pinch – Added 10% Expose chance. Increased recharge timer from 120 to 180.
* Lethean Rapture – Added Exploit ability. Added 20% shield penetration. Increased recharge from 60 to 150 seconds. Increased the damage by 300%. Increased hold to 2 seconds.
* Orion Seduce – Added 10% Expose chance. Increased duration by 33% and increased recharge timer from 60 to 120.
* Fixed Aceton Field. It now properly applies a DoT and visual fx.
* Added stealth debuff to Sensor Scan ability and updated target options to include friend or foe.
* Telepathic and Acute Senses have the same stat bonus, +20% StealthSight
* Combo powers have now have short descriptions in power details lists
* Phaser Cannon Mk II: Text said firing arc was 180′, actual arc is 45′
* Ground Combat Holds – Increased player innate resistance to holds, which effectively reduces the durations of holds against players. Once holds expire, they apply additional hold resistance buffs. When players have this buff stacked on them, the resistance will become complete immunity. This does not affect NPCs.
* Space Combat Space Mines should now detonate more reliably, especially when used against large targets.
* Heavy Torpedoes – If a hostile target gets too close to the heavy torpedo while it is pursuing its target, the torpedo will explode and damage the opportune target.
* Fixed Nadeon Inversion power to work with new energy drain mechanic
* Removed bridge officer powers from Photonic Fleet. Increased recharge time.
* Fixed Tachyon Beam so its shield drain no longer tapers off over distance. The effectiveness is constant over range now.
* Ground Shields – Improved the scale of ground shield regeneration. Now, when your shields pop, they should reliably heal your shields to full regardless of your level and the level of the shield. The time to full heal should be consistent across all levels. Ground Shield Regen Enhancement – Items with this power now heal 2% of your shields every 2 seconds.

FX and Animation

* Added FX to Jam Sensors, and Scramble Sensors.
* Updated Tribble FX
* Updated explosions for several enemy ships
* Added FX to Generic species trait Telekenisis.
* Civlian no longer fast walk on Memory Alpha
* Fixed Phaser lighting issue. Light was appearing at the target and not at the source.
* Added FX to Extend Shields. The beam will now last for the duration of the power.
* Added fx to Nanite Health Monitor.
* Male characters should now use run and gun animations appropriately.
* Added FX to Science Boff Viral Matirix
* Added FX to Emergency Power to Auxiliary, Auxiliary Power to Structural Integrity Field, Aceton Field, Hazard Emitters, Tachyon Beam, Tractor beam Repulsors.
* Added bloodwine cup FX for emote.
* Added New FX for Deep space encounter markers.
* Klingons should no longer use starfeet tricorders.

Characters and Costumes

* Players can now Save/Load costumes.
* Clicking random when creating a character of a specific species is now more defined.
* Added more color options for uniforms.
* Updated character creation presets.
* Fix a visual problem with Klingon Assault weapons
* PVP Vendors are now wearing cooler gear.
* Random: reducing chance of AlienGen getting hair or eyebrows.
* Humanoids always get eybrows.
* Bajorans now always recieve earring.
* Andorians always get antenna When making new costume
* Characters always start with a badge and ensign pips
* Adding Ferengi and Starfleet Klingons to Bridge Officer Requisitions
* Reducing frequency of “old age” faces
* Updating uniform colors to have all colors, in all zones
* Pointing the short-curly-hairstyles to use the fuzzy material shader
* Removing dreads hair from most “human” species (these are a klingon specific part)
* Fixing Uniform category selections
* Klingon security officers now use more appropriate Klingon faction costumes.
* Added name generation data for Gorn, Lethean
* Added Bar Patron costumes.
* Added Asian faces to character creator

Audio

* Removed placeholder sound for Bridge Officer VO placement.
* Updated ambient audio on some Cardassian sector planets
* The interaction sound for setting the away team rally point should now correctly play when left clicking and right clicking the button.
* Lots of audio updates for bridge officer and kit powers
* Many adjustment to sfx volumes

UI

* There are now context sensitive cursors for when you can perform actions as you mouse over objects
* MiniMap update. New buttons. Help is integrated into the menu as well as status, inventory, menu, and captains log. There is a dropdown arrow button that will allow for more buttons. Large Warp/Beam and Hail buttons are now added to side for ease of click and a consant Scan button added to the frame.
* Added info button to HUD target status window
* Updated Mission Windows. Opacity never drops below 45%.
* Updated the mission objective tracker
* Added tooltip to Throttle UI
* Added distance numbers to ground team status HUD
* Access Library Computer option on minimap menu should now function again
* Reorganized the “Skill-Based Stats” section of the status window
* The Target of Target indicator will now display the correct life for the life bar.
* Social search menus all properly reference Level now.
* Item counts show again on various item UIs.
* The trade UI no longer cuts off item names and generally looks better
* Dragging and dropping items has improved
* Many updates to the Klingon HUD
* interact buttons no longer have bright white selected states on by default
* Klingon character select screen is no longer off-center
* Chat popup button uses a new and hopefully a more understandable icon.
* All Food icons have been updated
* Contact window header now matches the chat window border style.
* Updated the backdrop for the contact window so it’s 150% sexier than the plain blue gradient.
* Fatigue, Recovery, and Held bars are now movable via HUG rearrange mode.
* Added new Galaxy Map arrows to denote map connections
* Change disable camera shaking to enable camera shaking in the options menu
* Target reticles now show up on entities even if they are dead.
* The size of buff icons has been increased.
* Item info window will now appear when right clicking items in stores.
* Crew bar tooltip to show crew levels and hull regeneration rate.
* Updated icons for end game pvp, exploration and raid rewards items
* The Skill selection winodow now shows the cost of the next level rather than the current level – which is important for Bridge Officers.
* Fixed a bug that was causing incorrect information to show up on certain item tooltips.
* Updated the Power Store UI
* Map names now truncate if they are too long to properly display and instead display the full map name in the tooltip.
* Now when the character status window is opened in space (U), your ship is selected. When it’s opened on ground, your captain is selected.
* Added UI for displaying mission rewards which have been given directly to the player (not dropped).
* Completed submissions are no longer displayed on the mission helper.
* Updated icons for all the “Unique” items in the game.
* Random buttons now work much more reliably in the character creator.
* Weapon icons now correspond to their different type of attack.
* Added “Value:” label to item tooltips to clarify the meaning of the item’s value in the lower right corner of the tooltip.
* Double clicking on a mission in the mission tracker now opens that mission in the mission journal
* Clicking on the minimap’s title now gives the option to change instances (it no longer shows in the minimap dropdown) – Fleet option now only shows if you are in a fleet (same as the chat popup menu)
* The team right click menu now appears correctly if they are in different systems.
* Player titles now show over the player’s name on ground maps
* System map now shows labels all the time.
* Names are now truncated on scoreboards if they are too long
* Fixed checkbox flickering in chat UI
* Made a bunch of visual improvements to the character creator
* Added badge display in captain’s “Progress” tab.
* Added title selection dropdown to Character Status UI
* Ship weapons will only show the slots for the areas they can be slotted in.
* Fixed a bug where the ship item comparison tooltips would appear when looking at players rather than the ship on the status screen.
* Starfleet/Klingon hail no longer flashes when disabled
* Double-clicking a character model at the character selection screen now enters game.
* Added icons for engineering/science/tactical in “Choose your Career” UI
* Fixed “friends” command to actually open friends list
* Updated the Team Window. Controls and feel.
* Journal – Made “Episodes” display Rank/Grade instead of level as well as several other cosmetic changes
* Added info to blank officer slots to make it clearer what they are.
* You can now use the Control key to drag stacks of items rather than the Shift key so that there is no conflict with the run key
* Fixed flickering and list row height problems in guild UI
* Remove auto-attack from ground inventory/control scheme.
* “remove” now shows correctly on trade UI to remove a given item + cosmetic tweaks
* Update message for when the shard is full.
* The galaxy map now shows which sector you are currently in as well as your approximate location.
* Updated Team window buttons, added missing button states like ‘has target’ and ’stay’. Also fixed a broken alpha channel on the rally button.
* Updated passive admiral team powers (space and ground) to use proper icons and team affect area.
* Added faction icons to the target status HUD window
* Added new Faction Icons and Klingon Pips
* Item slots will now turn red when attempting to move a Boff into them
* Fixed bug where all inventory slots would be highlighted red when dragging certain items.
* Updated the CONNING pips to reflect up to 8 levels now.
* Removed the greeting dialog so that players are immediately presented with the replicator store.
* Switch Active Weapon will queue up the swap if the primary weapon is in use

Known Issues

* Recipes are showing in the Exchange, but there are currently no recipes in game
* PVP Queue issues are still be worked on.
* Presets don’t work for tailoring your bridge officers
* Status FX are sometimes displaying as bright squares.
* Cargo ships and space traders do not bring up a store interface, even though they have interact options.
* The number of items in a stack in the Exchange is black and hard to read
* PVP and Exploration vendors do not explain how to get the badges and currency needed to claim rewards
* Some civilians are illegally using Starfleet uniforms.
* Brige Officers cannot be traded at this time
* Some rifles can cause arm animations to look odd
* Left clicking targets will often select someone behind you instead of what you were clicking on
* Some test VO for bridge officers is playing unexpectedly.
* Many headshots will camera pan unexpectedly
* Shield indicators can sometimes go away on the HUD and never come back
* There is non-existant ‘dueling’ zone on Andoria. This is not intended to be a PVP area and is being removed.
* Power Trays can sometimes be blank and not display your tray. To fix this, change the row number back and forth to display the tray again
* Free Fleet Escort ship is missing from the store. If you reach Rear Admiral Rank, you will not be able to get a free Fleet Escort (you can purchase it). All other ships are available as a free reward choice at that Rank (There is a free Advanced Escort available).
* If you have multiple cannons (Player and Critters), sometimes hitting fire all will allow all your cannons to fire one pulse – adding bonus damage. Only one cannon should be able to be fired at one time. This bug applies to critters with multiple cannons as well.
* Rapid fire is disabling as soon as you fire one cannon. It is supposed to last 15 seconds and allow you to fire all cannons in Rapid Fire mode for that time. A fix is on the way very soon.
* Mid-range level ground critters (low teens) are hitting too hard. We will be reducing their damage slightly.
* Chroniton Torpedo Tuning. They are doing too much damage and not enough debuff. This is getting tuned. They will do slightly less damage then they are doing now, but will have a significant slow and turn radius debuff. This affects players and enemies.
* You can fire too many Tri-cobalt devices in a row. They will be put on a global cooldown. This affects players and enemies
* Metreon Gas Clouds are doing too much damage
* There is no current way to now display armor equipped on your Bridge Officers

Mostly more stability fixes.

General

* Many changes were made to improve game performance, especially time to transfer between areas.
* Address issues where level ups, rewards, skill purchase, and item transactions would lag for several seconds.
* Fixed an issue where some clients would freeze on the loading screen.
* Fixed an issue where some powers you dragged to your power bar were not saving their location when logging back in.
* Fixed an issue were some powers could not be placed on the power bar.
* Added a notification when a player tries to purchase something but does not have enough currency.
* Fixed an issue where level up FX were not playing at all level ups.
* Tuned the max players in early Fed Deep Space encounters.
* Fixed a rare issue where some items were getting lost on some characters.
* Fixes some map transfer issues with teams attempting to go to a player’s bridge.
* A message is now given if the map a player was attempting to transfer to has crashed before they got there.

Known Issues

* We are looking into long PVP queue times and actively working on addressing these systems.
* When in a Star Cluster exploring unknown systems, please bug missions that cannot be completed due to missing objectives.
* Chat has been lagging at times up to several minutes. The team is hard at work on a fix.
* Klingon starting equipment is below where it should be. Fix coming in another patch this week.
* Klingon stores are not selling very many items. These will be updated soon.
* Some Exploration Planet Surface missions are not completing due to missing objective.
* Klingon players can join PVP queues prior to completing their starting mission which will make the character unable to complete their mission chain and progress any further. Do Not Join PVP queues until AFTER you’ve completed your starting mission and leveled up to 6.
* There are UNTRANSLATED text errors in stores if you cannot purchase an item.
* C’zann, a Klingon contact, has a doppleganger in the bar at Qo’nos that offers the same content.
* Skin color choices run off the left side of the client when customizing a character.
* Bridge Officer descriptions in the store run off the screen. Trick is to move the Store window to the top of the screen and the tooltip descriptions will scroll down.
* We have reports that auto grouping may not be working in all systems.
* In some rare cases the bridge officer reward you accept while still in Sector Space may disappear and not be rewarded. If this happens to you – bug it.
* The Map Systems List has some text and UI errors at the top for sector blocks that is messed up.
* Comparison Tooltips may sometimes not updated as you equip and unequip items in space.
* If you crash out of a map during a warp cutscene – you can end up invisible until you map transfer again.
* Food items that are equipped to your device slots will show up on your power bar with a multiplied stack number.
* Random buttons in the uniform page of the character creator will randomize your body shape as well.
* Loading screens are still work in progress.
* Anti Aliasing support is disabled for some video cards at this time.
* Contact headshots may animate and move in odd fashion. This is being adjusted.
* There are some placeholder sound FX being used in contact windows to denote where VO will go.
* Alt-Tabbing out of the game window can cause performance stuttering when returning to the game.
* Enemy ships will show the incorrect faction icon in the target status window.
* Completed mission objectives do not clear from the hud tracker until the mission completes.
* Some powers may not slot as expected on your space power tray.

We’ve had another downtime and patch tonight in the Star Trek Online Open Beta:

Star Trek Online 2010108b.16 Patch Notes

General

* Fixed an issue where the client would freeze at the loading screen.
* Fixed for several of the performance issues that were causing powers to not draw as well as FX not playing.
* Made several server side adjustments to ease an issue where transactions were being delayed. This would have many different impacts such as spawning as the inappropriate character or ship, not getting your rewards, and hiccups in game play.
* Fixed a game crash when some players exiting the tailor.
* Upgraded the code that checks for what maps are available to help with the “Map is Full” issue.

Known Issues

* Chat has been lagging at times up to several minutes. The team is hard at work on a fix.
* Klingon starting equipment is below where it should be. Fix coming in another patch this week.
* Klingon stores are not selling very many items. These will be updated soon.
* Some Exploration Planet Surface missions are not completing due to missing objective.
* Klingon players can join PVP queues prior to completing their starting mission which will make the character unable to complete their mission chain and progress any further. Do Not Join PVP queues until AFTER you’ve completed your starting mission and leveled up to 6.
* There are UNTRANSLATED text errors in stores if you cannot purchase an item.
* C’zann, a Klingon contact, has a doppleganger in the bar at Qo’nos that offers the same content.
* Skin color choices run off the left side of the client when customizing a character.
* Bridge Officer descriptions in the store run off the screen. Trick is to move the Store window to the top of the screen and the tooltip descriptions will scroll down.
* We have reports that auto grouping may not be working in all systems.
* In some rare cases the bridge officer reward you accept while still in Sector Space may disappear and not be rewarded. If this happens to you – bug it.
* The Map Systems List has some text and UI errors at the top for sector blocks that is messed up.
* Comparison Tooltips may sometimes not updated as you equip and unequip items in space.
* If you crash out of a map during a warp cutscene – you can end up invisible until you map transfer again.
* Food items that are equipped to your device slots will show up on your power bar with a multiplied stack number.
* Random buttons in the uniform page of the character creator will randomize your body shape as well.
* Loading screens are still work in progress.
* Anti Aliasing support is disabled for some video cards at this time.
* Contact headshots may animate and move in odd fashion. This is being adjusted.
* There are some placeholder sound FX being used in contact windows to denote where VO will go.
* Alt-Tabbing out of the game window can cause performance stuttering when returning to the game.
* Enemy ships will show the incorrect faction icon in the target status window.
* Completed mission objectives do not clear from the hud tracker until the mission completes.
* Some powers may not slot as expected on your space power tray.

Looks like Cryptic are taking the “test” part of the STO Open Beta Test seriously. A Good Thing. They’ll be keeping us in the starter areas until we’ve given them a good working over.

I’ll be live-blogging the Open Beta launch later today.

Patch Notes Known Issues for Jan 11 2010 – ST.0.2010108b.10

Open Beta will start with characters restricted to playing Federation and Klingon sectors only. You will not be able to access Romulan, Cardassian, or Borg space until we update a little later on into the Beta.

In addition, all players will hit a level cap at 16 – which should be enought to complete all missions available in your respective sectors. You’ll be unable to spend new skillpoints after you hit the cap until we open up the other sectors. We ask that you play through all of the content you can find available to you. This will ensure coverage of everything in the sectors before you move on. You will progress enough to advance past your initial ship and into and through your first tier Cruiser, Escort, or Science vessel.

* Fixed the power trainers to display which officers are eligible for training
* Open Mission rewards were calculated 1-3 levels lower than they should have been and have been adjusted
* If the system you are warping into doesn’t exist, we’ll quickly fail the warp instead of sending you back to the Tutorial
* Addressed an issue in Star Clusters where the systems you would find where not as random as they could be
* Fixed an issue where items received in different regions would sometimes fail to equip
* Your character will now face your target on the ground when firing a weapon
* Science vessels were not getting all of their starting gear. They now come with approriate loadout.
* Updated random values in character creator
* Fixed an issue with anomalies in star clusters not being set on the proper cooldown
* Increased XP rewards for the first 6 mission
* Updated reward tables for items scanned in Star Clusters
* Fixed the zoom in/out bind commands as they were reversed
* Fixed an issue where female eyes would pop out during dance emotes
* Added back the ability to exit PVP maps using the Depart System minimap button when not in combat
* Added reward tables for all Fleet Actions (Fed and Klingon)
* Added maps for Klingon Deepspace Patrol Systems
* Fixed a UI issue where multiple windows would overlap strangely
* Teams should now be able to enter the same “Explore Unknown System” maps. This needs more testing so please file bugs you find.
* Sector space wandering mobs will now avoid system spawn in points
* Klingon ships should now have more texture options in the Ship Customization Window
* Rewards received from PVP and Fleet Actions will now go directly to your inventory
* Fixed an issue where you could not place items in the bank
* Addressed a crash with searching the Exchange
* Players now receive an error message when they attempt to drag a bound item to the Fleet Bank
* Many PVP maps now grant rewards correctly
* Star Cluster missions were completing in any cluster. They are now cluster specific
* Updated many NPC costumes
* Added info text to skills indicating the requirements for unlocking ability training
* Fixed an issue where too many batteries were dropping in space
* Removed Aenar and Tellarite bridge officers from the stores
* Cannons were draining too much power when fired. They are now draining power appropriately.
* Star Cluster Unexplored System missions should no longer have empty nouns in mission dialog.
* There are now PVP item vendors on Qonos, K7, Earth Spacedock, and Ganalda Station
* Updated the name of badge names and icons (pvp/exploration/medals)
* Updated AI of Sector Space wandering enemies
* Fixed some collision issues on Klingon Ships
* Removed “sidekick” option from the cryptic generic UI
* Fixed some occlusion issues on several maps

KNOWN ISSUES
Here are things we know about and are already working on

* Klingon players can join PVP queues prior to completing their starting mission which will make the character unable to complete their mission chain and progress any further. Do Not Join PVP queues until AFTER you’ve completed your starting mission and leveled up to 6.
* There are UNTRANSLATED text errors in stores if you cannot purchase an item.
* C’zann, a Klingon contact, has a doppleganger in the bar at Qo’nos that offers the same content.
* Skin color choices run off the left side of the client when customizing a character.
* Bridge Officer descriptions in the store run off the screen. Trick is to move the Store window to the top of the screen and the tooltip descriptions will scroll down.
* We have reports that auto grouping may not be working in all systems.
* In some rare cases the bridge officer reward you accept while still in Sector Space may disappear and not be rewarded. If this happens to you – bug it.
* The Map Systems List has some text and UI errors at the top for sector blocks that is messed up.
* Comparison Tooltips may sometimes not updated as you equip and unequip items in space.
* If you crash out of a map during a warp cutscene – you can end up invisible until you map transfer again.
* Food items that are equipped to your device slots will show up on your power bar with a multiplied stack number.
* Random buttons in the uniform page of the character creator will randomize your body shape as well
* Loading screens are still work in progress.
* Anti Aliasing support is disabled for some video cards at this time.
* Contact headshots may animate and move in odd fashion. This is being adjusted.
* There are some placeholder sound FX being used in contact windows to denote where VO will go.
* Alt-Tabbing out of the game window can cause performance stuttering when returning to the game.
* Enemy ships will show the incorrect faction icon in the target status window.
* Completed mission objectives do not clear from the hud tracker until the mission completes.
* Some powers may not slot as expected on your space power tray.
* Bridge officers species are not always what they claim to be in the officer requisition “store”. You may think you’re getting a Ferengi and end up with an “Alien Gen”.
* We have reports that some Star Cluster doors are crashing clients. If this happens you will see a CRC error and be asked to give a bug report. Please post the name of the map in the bug report. It will start with SC_