In honour of Mr Leonard Nimoy’s voiceovers for Star Trek Online, which were finally enabled in the most recent patch. And also because I never miss an opportunity to post videos of Star Trek actors singing.
Or you could start at the beginning (It’s a very good place to start) with Part 1!
2:02 pm GMT, Day 10
Last night we finally had the major patch that we’ve been waiting for. Patch notes here. Amongst the highlights, the beta level cap has been removed, and all zones have been opened up for visiting. Today I’m going to go in search of the changes the patch has wrought.
The first thing I notice when logging in is that I now have another character slot to use, a 3rd. This was supposed to unlock when you unlocked Klingon, but had not been doing so until now.
Logging Arkturos Reh in to the Vulcan Sector I am greeted by Leonard Nimoy giving me some backstory to the area. Pretty cool.
Many of the NPCs you speak to have changed in appearance. Admiral Quinn is looking much smarter in his Admiral’s uniform as he offers me some more missions that he did not have for me yesterday, both of which, I note, make a point of saying that Starfleet is not all about combat.
I also have a new contact called “Bridge Officer Requisitions” who gives me two new Bridge Officers. They have green names, so I assume they’re somehow superior to the white names ones you acquire through normal channels. I don’t have room for that at the moment, and I am unwilling to delete any of my current crew, so they’ll have to sit in my candidate section for a bit.
The Patch has changed much.
You can also see in that picture how the general UI has been shifted about, especially the top right area. It’ll take a bit of getting used to, but I think it is an improvement. Many skill and inventory icons have changed for the better.
I’ve popped back to Sol’s Spacedock to see if it has changed. The NPCs are a bit more chatty, and I see them talking about other players. Previously I only saw them speaking about me. They do seem to be having trouble figuring out peoples genders though, calling a passing male human officer “she”. Their uniforms seem to have improved also.
Next, there is somewhere else I must visit. A pilgrimage if you will.
2:43 pm GMT, Day 10
The various NPCs you speak to for travelling between sectors have also been properly dressed and equipped now, and there are much improved loading screens between each zone.
The maps too are far better. The Galaxy map actually tells you where you are, and the Sector map is properly labelled so you no longer have to click on a star or POI to find out what it is. Other players and enemies also appear of the Sector map.
Arriving in the Beta Ursae Sector Block, I find myself on the far western side of it, as if I had entered from the Zeta Andromedae Secotr Block. I should have appeared on the far eastern side of Beta Ursae.
And I’ve arrived!
Ba Ba Ba Baaa, Baaaa Ba Ba Baaa!
Deep Space 9, home to my personal favourite Star Trek Show. It looks more or less right, though I was slightly sad that it didn’t play any themes from the original opening when you entered the zone. Lets make up for that oversight now.
Imagine hearing that as you approached the station. It would be beautiful.
Once on board, I excitedly run about the Promenade, looking for things I recognise. They’ve tried, I think, but the limitations of Cryptic’s engine really show through.
For instance, Quark’s Bar, once I found it, is instanced rather than part of the station. That’s OK, but Quark’s was also on three levels. You might remember the spiral stairways that wound up and down between the levels. they were within the bar itself, and often used for scenes. Unfortunately the engine can’t deal with something like that, so they’ve been removed, and replaced with this: a huge passageway that is the only way between the three levels, winding its way in lonely fashion around the outside of the bar.
Stairs are hard.
I guess that is a small point, but it does demonstrate how poor the engine is when this is the solution to a problem as simple as going up some stairs.
To be fair, they have tried. I suspect the artists just ran up against engine limitations.
Quark's Bar on Deep Space 9
Nobody sits down at Quark’s these days. Maybe business was so bad they has to sell all the decent chairs. Even Morn’s stool has gone :(
The promenade is better done, but like everything in STO, it is as if it they doubled the scale. Jake and Nog would break their necks if they fell from up there!
Deep Space 9 Promenade
Oh well. That’s what I get for expecting things to be like they look in the shows. Let us return to game related things.
4:40 pm GMT, Day 10
One of the new quests Admiral Quinn gave me, “Scientific Mandate”, is to speak to Lt Commabder E’genn at Memory Alpha in the Teneebia Sector in the Alpha Centauri Sector Block. It is only a level 4 mission, so I’d better go sort that out. May well be a part of the tutorial.
Missions in your mission journal now have an expected rank, rather than just a level number, which is a nice touch. As I enter the Alpha Centauri Sector Block for the first time, Spock gives me some backstory on the Romulans.
Beaming down to Memory Alpha, the first person I meet is Lt. Kirayoshi O’Brien, son of Miles and Kaiko. Good to see the O’Briens are still hard at work!
Oops, turns out E’genn is back at Earth’s Spacedock. I was only supposed to talk to him ABOUT Memory Alpha. Oh well. While I’m here I have a look about. It looks like this is the main site for turning the bits and pieces we get from anomalies into upgraded gear. It’s a nice looking place, though like most locations so far it suffers from being too big and empty.
I pop back to Sol to see E’genn, and he gives me some samples to deliver to Memory Alpha! Gah! That’ll teach me to read my missions properly!
I deliver the samples to Commander Jenna Romaine at Memory Alpha. I think until this patch she was standing in the middle of Sol spacedock, as she seems very familiar, and has the same recipes for anomaly-fueled upgrades.
Alpha Centauri Sector Block is otherwise much too advanced for me, so I head back to Sirius Sector Block to sort out the other of the Admiral’s new tutorial missions which involves heading back into the Delta Volanis cluster and doing a few more explorations. I won’t bore you with the details of those unless something has changed.
On arrival in Delta Volanis I am surprised to see a great number of player ships, but no anomalies. Ordinarily most of those ships would be inside exploration missions, but it seems something has been done to the anomaly spawn rate, or perhaps they are just single use now before despawning. Now when an anomaly appears, everybody has to race to it to be the first person to go where no-one has gone before. I manage to get into one after a few minutes, but this aspect of the game has become much more frustrating now. (Update: This is apparently a bug and will be fixed!)
Scanning is vastly improved (unless you enjoy roaming empty space looking for the last objective that you just can’t find.). Now when you use your scanner, it points vaguely in the direction of the nearest objective to you. Like so:
There's something on the long-range scanners Keptin!
As I find out on down on the planet, it works just as well there too. I’m on a forest world, and I’m quite taken by how nicely done this particular planet map is.
When we're done with the Orions, let's have a picnic!
Next I do a space combat exploration. It *might* be luck, or my imagination. These things are very subjective. But I am finding space combat much easier than I did yesterday, and loot seems to be dropping more often. Not sure if that is a good thing in the long run.
7:32 pm GMT, Day 10
As things stand, today’s patch has increased the chances of me playing through my free month. What there is to STO is more polished now. I still suspect that I’ll find the lack of an economy, and the repetitive nature of the missions to be a block to me subscribing further.
Looking through the STO forum, it seems that the perception that the game has been made too easy by the patch is shared by a lot of people. Since the patch I have not needed to use any of my shield boosting powers, rendering them a little pointless. As usual, there are some people who think that the new difficulty setting is much better, but in my experience they are not the sort of people that stay with a game for very long.
Much Later
There has been another patch, hopefully sorting out the anomaly situation in the exploration clusters. Patch notes can be found here.
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
Or you could start at the beginning (It’s a very good place to start) with Part 1!
8:34 am GMT, Day 9
After finishing up, and getting a little annoyed by, a round of exploration quests, it’s time to rejoin the main plotline with “The Kuvah’Magh”.
Give peace a chance!
Miral Paris is the child of my 3rd least favourite Voyager character, Tom Paris, and my 3rd most favourite Voyager character, B’Elanna Torres. Though as we’re talking about Voyager, that’s not necessarily saying much.
Conceived in the Delta Quadrant but born on Earth, her bizarre genome, being 3/4s Human, and 1/4 Klingon, gave her immunity to a fatal Klingon disease called Nehret, and allowed the Doctor to create a cure. Anyhows, looks like we’re going to meet her!
9:11 am GMT, Day 9
Arriving at Regulus IV, we see Orion ships clustering around a communications satellite. They’re using it to jam all subspace transmissions from the surface. This speaks of foul deeds, and I shall put a stop to it!
With the Orions disposed of, we can now communicate with the surface, where all is not well. Lieutenant Paris reports that Orion and Klingon forces are attacking the embassy. No doubt they serve forces within the Klingon Empire who do not desire peace with the Federation.
Time to gather my away team, and prepare to put a end to this infamy!
We beam down and are greeted by Lieutenant Miral Paris. She seems a bit jumpy.
Miral Paris, ready to leap into action!
It seems that Klingon forces and their Orion lackeys are trying to disrupt the peace conference, and have planted explosives around the facility! We must make haste!
Oh, looks like she’s coming with us. That’s handy, what with her being some sort of god and all.
9:49 am GMT, Day 9
We quickly find the first spatial charge, defeat it’s defenders, and disarm it. From here, we can see the embassy building itself, under heavy assault as Federation and enemy NPCs battle it out. We go over to lend a hand.
This turns out to be something of a mistake. The enemies (and good guys) respawn rapidly, and it is hard to persuade my squad, and especially Lieutenant Paris to leav the area, as they prefer to stay and fight. The enemies also grant no skillpoints or loot, and staying here isn’t going to achieve anything, so I finally manage to drag everybody away and get back to looking for spatial charges.
Miral has zero shields and health, but keeps on fighting. These quarter-Klingons are made of tough stuff. She doesn’t seem to regenerate like we do, so I heal her up just for appearances sake.
Looks like the server went down while I was writing that last paragraph. Can’t get back in just now.
CrypticOps just posted:
Currently, the Star Trek Online Server is down. We are aware of this issue and are currently working to bring the server back online as soon as possible. ETA on bringing the server back up is 50 minutes. Please keep an eye on this page for updates, and notification when Star Trek Online is available again. Thank you, The Star Trek Online Team
1:18 pm GMT, Day 9
And now we’re back on the field of play. I reappear in Sector Space, but have a button offering me the opportunity to carry on with my mission. I’ll have to redo the progress I made in the ground part, but at least I can skip the space combat against the Orions at the communications array.
When we finish deactivating all the bombs, Miral Paris tells me that the Klingon leader has taken hostages within the Embassy itself, and it awaiting a worthy foe. Apparently that’s me.
We soundly drub the Klingons in the Embassy, but more are arriving in orbit. Back to the USS Madrigal!
In space we are contacted by the Klingon ambassador, who sort of apologises for the whole business, and says that General B’Vat is at the bottom of it all and about to arrive. We shall fight him together!
A few Birds of Prey appear, and by the time I finish destroying them all the Ambassador is nowhere to be seen. I hope he didn’t get destroyed. I *thought* they were all shooting me! Nevermind. The missions in STO are so linear that I doubt it’ll make a difference to anything whether he’s dead or not.
General B’Vat arrives in his warship. Not best pleased with my pesky interference, he moves into attack position. Then I explode him lots.
B’Vat shakes his fist angrily, says we’ll meet again, and departs. You don’t actually see him shake his fist at you, but it was that sort of text screen. Could I have found my first arch-nemesis?
And with that “The Kuvag’Magh” is complete. I quite enjoyed that, especially the ground-based part. Heading back to Sol to do some selling. they could really do with putting a space station in Regulus Sector Block.
4:03 pm GMT, Day 9
Next up, “War is Good for Business”. I hope it involves the Ferengi. They’ve been my favourite race since DS9.
The Science Ship “ShiKahr” is experiencing intermittent power failures in the Celes system. I’m to go and render assistance.
Their engines are out of action, hampering their ability to check out anomalies in the local asteroids. I’m going to take some of their scientists onboard and go do some anomaly scanning.
The asteroids in question this time are huge ones on opposing sides of the map. The major problem is that they lie within nebula, making full impulse speed impossible. It is a slow slow journey between them. There is a single raider fighter buzzing about. Not sure what he’s up to, but I doubt it’s alone.
The final asteroid seems to be doubling as a base for the Orion Raiders. I blast my way through them and scan the last anomaly. With that done, I’m asked to warp to Starbase 114 with my data.
We arrive at Starbase 114 without incident, and I beam the scientists over. While I’m here, the commander of the Starbase asks me to investigate a mysterious theft. Three containers of highly explosive kemocite have been stolen, and it is vital they be located! I agree to beam over to their cargo bay in my deerstalker.
Captain Cleveland informs me that a Ferengi was hanging around hear the cargo bays. Could he be responsible? Poor Ferengi. Everybody always assumes it’s them. I won’t give in to such prejudices, and will approach the investigation with an open mind!
Our scans of the cargo bays find a variety of interesting clues, but nothing that points to the identity of the thief. Sure, it could have been a Ferengi Codebreaking device that was used to break in, but anyone could have gotten their hands on one of them! We return to our ship to scan the nearby cargo ships for kemocite. Which one could it be?
Oh Ferengi. Why is it always you?
As soon as we start scanning he does a runner, and shoots off into the distance, but we’re in hot pursuit!
He cleverly heads into a nearby nebula, causing me to lose full impulse, and he gains further on us. From the murk of the nebula emerge Nausicaan vessels. Perhaps the little scoundrel has paid them to block any pursuit, or perhaps he’s working for them. Either way, I have to get through them.
That was a tough fight, made harder by getting hit by the bug that stops you being able to fire your torpedos. In a lull in the fight, I swapped my torpedo launcher out for a phaser turret, a low powered phaser with 360 degree field of fire.
With the Nausicaans out of the way I move in on the Ferengi ship, only to find out he’s beamed down to an asteroid base nearby. He’s not getting away that easily. Five to beam down!
One interesting apect of ground combat is that most ranged weapons have two sorts of attack. One is a regular zap, but the other, which can be AOE, a stun, or just a nasty superzap, is on a longer timer and is either an “Expose” or “Exploit” attack. Expose attacks have a chance of putting an enemy into an exposed state. If you then use an Exploit attack on them, it’s pretty awesome. You do massive damage, and likely as not manage to vaporise them, as sometimes happened in the TV show.
I carry a phaser rifle with an exploit attack, and have kitted out most of my crew with Expose attack weapons. I have a fair bit of fun vaporising Nausicaans as we move through the base to find that pesky Ferengi!
And here he is! He’s larger than I expected, but we finally manage to beat him down enough for me to slip a tag onto him, and beam him to justice.
Annoying Arkturos Reh is bad for business.
And that is the end of “War is Good for Business”. Can it be? My last two plot adventures have had surviving bad guys at the end of them. Mayhap we shall meet again, Mok and B’Vat!
Another quite entertaining mission. The plotted ones are fairly decent, though they still suffer from being too much about combat.
5:24 am GMT, Day 10
The major patch we’ve been waiting for has arrived!
Or you could start at the beginning (It’s a very good place to start) with Part 1!
9:08 am GMT, Day 8
Onwards and upwards. For Lieutenant Reh’s next mighty deed we go on to the 4th sector patrol with “Patral the Kassae Sector”. The Kassae Sector is of the Regulus Sector Block.
It seems that each sector is progressively more difficult, giving you a very simple progression through space. You’re lead forward by the missions you receive, especially the patrol ones.
The Servin System is a space combat. I have to confess I did this one last night before going to bed and forgot to write it down, and it has now blurred into every other space combat I’ve done. That is the problem with STO missions. They do mostly all seem very similar to eachother, without the distinctive locations or opponents that might cause them to stick in your memory.
At the Dace System, an archaeological research team has been unearthing proto-reptilian artifacts, and the Gorn (who’s empire once covered this area, and lay claim to the territory) are taking an interest. This may tie in to the Researcher Rescue mission I did yesterday, or alternately just be a rehash of the same plotline. Star Fleet has detected increased Gorn activity and, because diplomacy is SO 24th century, needs you to kill 5 squadrons of them. And thus the scientists are safe to go plundering the Gorn’s history.
I transwarp back to Earth Spacedock to have a rummage through the Fleet bank, which is getting a bit full. Transwarp is an instant teleport to Sol, with a 30 minute cooldown. Quite handy as the Regulus Sector Block does not appear to have a starbase.
A lot of things here that enquiring minds have wanted to know!
The first week of Open Beta has been amazing!
We have seen more signups and players than we ever imagined we could. So very many people have shown interest in Star Trek Online and logged in to play that we’ve actually had to scramble to support everyone. Our core engineers are this very second working like crazed technology wielding madmen to improve performance and stability across the board. We’re also adding a lot more hardware to accommodate our players.
p.s. Sulu is right behind you in Quinn’s office. Right there, behind the other desk.
Stability and Performance
Where the heck did you all come from!?!
Reality has exceeded even our wildest expectations. We looked at numbers from Closed Beta, numbers from games we’ve worked on in the past, and some numbers that float around the games industry. Based on those numbers, we predicted that about 65% of the keys we generated would eventually turn into active players (some keys never get delivered, others are lost in spam boxes, some are never redeemed, etc.). And, we predicted about 1/6 of those redeemed keys would turn into players that game at the same time. It’s what we call our concurrent users or CCU, for short.
The actual numbers crushed our predictions.
So, we tore apart our logs and began doing a lot of extra optimization work even while we stumbled upon some truly bizarre crashes that can only appear with this sort of load. The result? The shard has been steadily improving over the first few days of Open Beta. Given the hardware we’re adding and a couple more fixes we have in the pipe, shard performance and stability should continue to improve over the coming week.
Space Combat Alpha Strikes
There appears to be an issue with enemies performing devastating Alpha strikes in space — all ships will target the first player, take him out, and move through the rest of the squadron. This makes space combat, when you’re teamed up, very difficult.
We’re addressing this in the next major patch. For now, flying in a tighter formation with your team will help.
Klingon, Klingon, Klingon
Better stores are coming to Qo’noS. You’ll be able to purchase disruptors, consoles, and all the things a proper warlord needs to improve his starship and clobber his pathetic, cowering enemies.
Your ship’s starter gear is getting an upgrade as well. You won’t be able to sell this to the store for as much as you used to, but it packs a meaner punch out of the gate.
PvP maps and queues are getting a lot of attention. We’re working on all the queue and map issues we’ve seen reported and we’re jamming as many fixes as possible into the game.
Bridge Officers
Starting at Lt. Grade 6, new and sometimes strange recruits from Starfleet and the KDF will periodically ask to be transferred to your starship. Every few Grades, you’ll automatically receive more Bridge Officers.
By popular demand, Bridge Officers can now be immediately renamed and tailor when they join your crew. Sex and species are still off the customization block, but pretty much everything else can be meddled with.
UI
The build you are playing does not feature an enormous amount of work the UI team has done.
For instance, the mini-map, team window, away team controls, and many of the HUD elements have all received an overall look and feel pass. The sector maps are way more useful and the galaxy map now tells you where you are, too. A gigantic number of small fixes have also gone in to tighten up the overall HUD experience.
Klingon UI is also looking great. Icons, buttons, FX and everything else has been re-styled in true Klingon fashion. The next major patch will have you piloting a Bird of Prey using a HUD General Martok would be proud of.
Finally, and most importantly, the crew bar on the space HUD now looks like little people… But it’s so sad when they get depleted!
Exploration Improvements
We’ve fixed many bugs in star cluster missions. We’re finding and crushing them. You target ’em and we fire the torpedoes. So keep those bugs coming, please.
More alien races and stranger alien races will appear with greater frequency in those clusters now. Some are friendly and in need of assistance… Others, not so much.
Scanning
Due to popular demand, we’ve added in-game scanning FX.
On ship and on ground, pressing the scan button located near the mini-map will point you to the nearest object that you can interact with.
Looking for that last alien artifact on a bizarre and unfriendly alien world, but you just can’t seem to find it? Hit the scan button! Looking for a particularly hard to find spacial anomaly in a far-off star system? Hit the scan button! Looking for Sulu? … Look out! He’s right behind you!
Level Cap
Have no fear! The current level cap will be removed sometime this week.
We’re really looking forward to opening up the entire game for our testers. You’ll get to visit DS9, Memory Alpha and advance your characters past Lt. Commander.
Again, thank you so much for showing an interest in our game and helping us to improve the experience for all. We really appreciate the feedback and we look forward to hearing more and more and more as we continue to develop and improve Star Trek Online far past its February launch.
Or you could start at the beginning (It’s a very good place to start) with Part 1!
5:44 am GMT, Day 7
The last day or so it has been almost impossible for me to log into Star Trek Online, owing to the servers being full. It looks like the weekend rush is over, and Arkturos Reh has taken to the skies once more!
He’s a rank 7 Lieutenant. Once he reaches rank 10 he’ll be promoted to Lieutenant Commander and have access to tier 1 ships (the starter ship being considered tier 0).
Star Trek Online Episode Guide
Above you can see all the missions I currently have. I prefer to deal with the lower levels ones first, so as to not have to do them later when they’re no longer any sort of challenge. Having already done the Patrol the Vulcan Sector, and Patrol the Orion Sector, I may as well finish off the Sirius Sector Block and Patrol the Risa Sector also. As I slightly outlevel this missions so it shouldn’t take too long.
