Warmaker

Oh, I remember getting that movie. I still have the VHS

I've seen some of the Taiga Dramas from NHK. Nobunaga: King of Zipangu - Saw it in the US at Channel 26 in the Bay Area / CA. Loved it and the many facets of the man, and out of all the Daimyo in the Sengoku Jidai, he interested me the most. Yoshitsune - Saw it while temporarily in Japan. Since it was on TV, I had to watch it with no subtitles. *sigh* Other Samurai flicks I've seen. Ran - A given. Kagemusha - Another given. Samurai Banners - Caught this on DVD a few years ago.

The promotional pics of the Jolly Rogers edition looked great BTW, but the final products were examples of POS workmanship, quality control, awful ethics. The IRIAF "Persian 'Cat" looks intriguing, but doesn't mean s**t until they show production versions, especially from those brave enough to buy them.

Star Wars Force Commander - 1999 or 2000? AT-AT's in 3d, and that was it. Tried campaign twice to see if anything branches out to different directions, i.e. staying as an Imperial. Otherwise very standard RTS. Deeply disappointed. Kings Field - PS1 game; My roommate had it. I liked the open game world but I got motion sickness playing it. I kept on trying to play it, but eventually couldn't bear it any longer. Dynasty Warriors - Liked it at first but I felt that after a while, Koei was giving it the 'ol EA/Madden treatment. At least with Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy games they tried bring new things to the table. But DW were essentially the same games. Madden - When the series first came out, I followed every edition until '97. It was then that I realized that EA was only updating the rosters and adding a few flashy graphics every year, and getting Football suckers to buy it year in, year out. With the proliferation of internet access and consoles with such access, do they even update the Madden series' rosters every year despite the year edition? I wonder...

Get a few levels at the Kahless Expanse series of Nebula missions. Eventually you'll get quests to go do PvP fights. For the Klingons, you MUST PvP to get your XPs. There are quests / missions that give rewards for doing that. There *is* PvE for the Klingons, but once you get to LtCmdr, it gets old very, very fast. The rewards are okay, but as you gain rank, the nebula kill X ship requirements get higher and higher, and there is a general 6 minute mission cooldown before you can move on to the next stage (i.e. 3 enemy signals in a nebula). Forget going to specific planets. Just hit the PvP que and get at it, because there isn't anything else to do in the faction. As far as traveling goes, there isn't much. Qo'Nos, various nebulas, and Gonalda Station. And that's it. Stick a good amount of time in the Klingons and you will get good in PvP since that is all you do to advance. You also get to see how things go from a different perspective, get new ideas.

Uxi, be careful with what you ask for in regards to Cruiser maneuverability You'll be saying the opposite once you get to the T4 Fed Cruisers. The Galaxy handles like a beached whale.

Didn't get too far into it with my KDF toon. I stopped playing there when I realized that the mission counters for beating those enemy signals / zones weren't working. Still, it was kind of funny going into those areas with the Feds, and not trying to blow each other up. Hell, my Negv'har was geared for PvP tanking and with Extend Shields, I was saving many Fed players. Too bad support doesn't garner you points for loot.

Hilarious! IMO, why add the DP? Right now it is very easy to get rolled and die multiple times in a short span. Most especially so if you're in a Escort type of ship. It's a pain in the ass already that your skill cooldowns do not reset on respawn. I would have figured the devs find ways to ENTICE people to play PvP, not give them any more reasons to not try it. Especially for the KDF, since it is supposedly a "PvP oriented" faction.

My Vulcan Federation character, T'Pal. CO of USS Relentless, NCC-93570, a LtCmdr at the time of this screenie. Just recently got her to Cmdr. My whole crew is decked out TWOK style, but to keep my character a bit different, elected to go with non-canon white trousers + maroon stripe. Interestingly and not by design, half my Bridge Officers, including the skipper, are Vulcan. USS Relentless. Constitution Class Ships: STILL going where no man has gone before. Sitting in Spacedock over Earth for repairs & upgrades

THANK you for this bit of info. Now my Fed toon doesn't have to look like some goofball anymore.

I'm a hardcore KDF player, and I will say the Klingon faction is absolutely hurting in this game. There never was that many of us to begin with, and it sucks to see our numbers bleed down even more. Players in this faction are really looking at this first major patch to take care of the issues because so much is wrong or outright missing for the KDF. If Cryptic impresses me with this patch and actually makes the KDF worthwhile, I'm sticking around alot longer. But until then, the Empire is on the verge of total collapse. Several days ago I hit Brigadier General. I've been keeping with the Battlecruisers on the KDF ship lineup, so at Tier 5, I stuck with the Negvhar. Thinking on toying with a Carrier next, but until then, I'm doing fine with the Negvhar. My gear sucks for it at the moment as a BG2. Can't customize jack with the Klingons in the current state of the game. Can't even get a true, all green warship like the Klingons are supposed to have.

Loved the series since Civ2

Quite a bit irritated with the repeated server crashes. Nothing like being in a good, close PvP match and the damn thing shuts down. Been happening alot.

As far as the addition of more factions / races down the road: Romulans: The next to be added, IMO. Disruptor and Plasma warship weaponry are already ingame. Ship models are already there, at least for several types including the D'Deridex Warbird. Haven't seen a Valdore yet. As far as uniforms go, I hope Cryptic includes TNG TV/Movie uniforms for them. Also, since they did have TOS Fed / Klingon uniforms, the Romulan TOS equivalent would be nice also. If the Federation players hate Klingon alpha strikes out of a cloak, they're REALLY going to hate the Romulans From my experience so far into Tier 3 though... Cardassians: I haven't seen any models / npc Cardassian ships ingame. But character models are possible. How are their ships going to play? As I recall from TNG episodes, Cardassians were strong believers in tough defenses and disciplined formation fighting. Meaning they'll fight closer to the Federation style. I'll go out on the limb and say they'll move slower but are tough. You just don't see ANY fast moving Cardassian ships, nothing like BoPs or those throwaway Federation fighters (I thought the Federation cared about crew survivability? lol) or the Defiant. If Cryptic had balls, there'd be no Escort Class, but a nasty emphasis on things to promote staying power, especially if in close proximity to other Cardassian warships. Dominion: Haven't seen any Dominion related characters or ships ingame. I've been trying to make a Jem'Hadar but can't make him look like one. Haven't tried making a Vor'ta yet. IMO, their introduction would be later on. Like a big expansion pack. If the Dominion is going to break the peace treaty and reenter the quadrant, it would be a huge game event. The Klingons and Federation have been blasting each other to bits, weakening each other. The Romulans may be involved in that 2 way fight also, but they're not exactly in as powerful a position due to the loss of their homeworld and the core of their population. The Cardassians are still probably reeling from the Dominion War and the huge loss of life on Cardassia at the end of the war. Basically all the big players are worn down, even if they did unite against the return of the Dominion. Their technology would be more capable in meeting the Dominion compared to the first encounters, but by this time, they'd be badly weakened from fighting each other. It'd be a fun little era, IMO, where everyone has to ally together against a Dominion faction. If they return, they're going to arrive in force. Dominion ship selection would be very small. A huge emphasis on Escorts (the numerous Jem'Hadar fighters), cruisers, and a HUGE battleship class. There was very few ship types seen in the shows.

The Lion's gotta eat, y'know!

Never played WoW. The funny thing is that I'm usually not a PvP'er type in most MMOs. SWG was the last time I did alot of PvP before STO. In MMOs, I'm usually the DPS or Tank type of character. But for Star Trek, I always liked the Klingons. I did like the cloaked raiding aspect that light Klingon warships were good for in the shows, but STO IMO doesn't explore that enough. The part I was talking about in my last couple of posts is one of those few times where a Klingon skipper can actually be a predator looking for the unwary. In PvP ques / quickmatches, it's not like that.

I know it's borked. I said I didn't care if the mission "succeeded!" My goal is just to go in there, sneak around, kill some Federation, escape / cloak, repeat, cause havoc. Nothing like seeing the Feds jump on a big Borg Cube, have their hands full, and this Klingon Battlecruiser decloaks behind them to pick them off 1 by 1 and disappearing. I know I'm likely not going to get credit for victory in the War Zone's mission parameters. However, I *do* get credit for killing Federation for other PvP oriented missions When there are other factors for the Feds to worry about, the Fedball ceases to exist. That's where I come in

Over in Tier 3, a very nice time to be a Klingon: The War Zone where the Borg are in the middle. Klingons and Feds can both be on the same map but are hostile to each other. Good fun is coming in cloaked, looking for the Feds who are concentrating on Borg spheres / cubes. Wait until worn down a bit, decloak, annihalate a couple of them, egress and recloak before they fully realize what just happened To hell with the zone mission success, just kill a couple Federation ships. Fun being a predator, a shark in the water looking for blood, a lion in the fields looking for the unaware and weak...

Gonna toy around by making a "Torpedo Cruiser," something I got from a mod for the old Starfleet Command 3 game. But that'll be later in the day. Right off the bat, I know it's going to be tough for it against shields, but in a team environment, the others will whittle the shields down, then i follow up with a huge salvo of torps (one of which would be HYT). There's already some guys floating around with all beam / energy weapon ships.

I learned the lesson the hard way in heavy PvP in Tier 2 about Science Vessels. Traditionally we'd like to decloak and focus fire on weaker ships, escape, recloak, repeat. Traditionally we'd like to start off with Escorts then Science Vessels, but going after the Science Vessels is very dicey IMO. Sometimes they go down quick (slower than a Escort, faster than a Cruiser), but a few of those Sci Ship skippers got their game down pat and are hard as hell to bring down with the entire team bashing away. You can still bring them down, but it takes so long that the rest of the Fedball starts tearing us apart the longer we pursue a Sci Vessel.

Deeply disappointed with the Jolly Rogers Tomcat they screwed up with. While the idea of a Persian 'Cat is intriguing, JSI will probably f**k this one up also. If they couldn't get right for the very first 1/18 Tomcat release ever, especially in a famous scheme like the Jolly Rogers, what makes you think they'll get this one right?

Yesterday got to Klingon Commander. Went for a different pace by choosing a K'T'Inga Battlecruiser as my Tier 3 mount, compared to being a Bird of Prey skipper in Tier 1-2 (not like there was any other valid choice). I miss the agility, frontal firepower, and battle cloak of a Bird of Prey, but my staying power is alot better with a bonafide cruiser. A very big deal, IMO, for the Klingons since the devs seemed to have ignored (and still do) the Klingons in actually having a cruiser for Tier 2. Lots of BoP skippers but there are a few more Klingon cruisers out there to give some staying power. In this role, she can take a good punishment from a Fedball when certain skills are lined up right, hopefully giving the BoP's a clean pass or two. As far as visuals go, I opted for the old school K'T'Inga appearance from TMP era. Don't need no steeenkin' "Refit" from the TNG-hippy era. My character's a Science Officer, but the ship has 2 slots for Engineers, 1 for Tactical, 1 for Science. I need to tweak my BOff skills some more as well as slowly upgrade my gear which is mostly LtCmdr / Tier 2 equipment still. I opted not to go with all Cannons since it's a less maneuverable mount. 2 Tier 2 Plasma Beam Arrays (Fore / Aft), 2 Quantums (1 x Tier 2, 1 x Tier 3 Mk VI), and my reliable and now obsolete Dual Heavy Plasma Cannons from Tier 2 (x2) for the front. I've been pretty lucky with the Aft Quantum tube lately. Like making it look like I'm escaping, opponent giving chase with depleted front shields, then I send a HYT Quantum down their throat for the killing shot. As a Klingon player, the only ship I fear in the Federation lineup are Science ships. Escorts & Cruisers can be dealt with and we have rough equivalents (Tier 3 onwards). But the Klingons have NO Science ships which really brings a problem in team longevity. The Science vessels are killers with the stuff they can do and are no slouches in survivability.

When I attended AE school back in 1993-1994 in NAS Millington, TN, there was an A-5 suspended on a stand out in front of the chow hall. I had never seen the thing before and I was into military aircraft since a kid. All I could say was this: The damn thing is HUGE! Makes the Tomcat look like a kitten with its sheer size.

LtCmdr (2) for my Klingon, sporting a Tier 2 Bird of Prey. Going traditional Dual Heavy Cannons to the front x2, Photons, and Disruptor Turret to the rear. Debating getting a Disruptor Beam for the rear for more damage and still decent arc. I'd like to experiment with Plasma Dbl Cannons x2 and Plasma Launcher (with High Yield) for my decloaking alpha strike, but I need serious points for that gear. The Tac Officer BOff has High Yield I (Lv9) and Cannon Rapid Fire I (Lv7). Thinking of tweaking the Engineer out of Hull Repair (which I'd miss alot) for Emergency Power to Engines to egress out of being focus fired by the Feds (Emerg.Power to Engines + Evasive Maneuvers).

Got a Lv6 Vulcan skipper: Lt.T'Pal, USS Commanche Which of course meant that I was eligible to roll a Klingon toon: Lv10 Klingon: Lt.K'nBek, IKS Vak'lhr Already had ample opportunity to PvP with fellow Klingons and leave a few burning "Fedbear" hulks behind