Star Trek Online

[Uxi]

Surprised there's no Mac client. Bout to start building a Core i7 rig to replace my core 2 duo. Would this thing even run on my old 3.4 P4 HT with 6800GT?

[UN Spacy]

I'll need a new rig for this game.

So I won't be getting STO until few more weeks. ;_;

[eugimon]

Saw an Intrepid and an Akira today. That Akira is HUGE... it's turn rating makes no sense in light of how massive it is.

[Uxi]

Given accurate physics, bigger space ships should be capable of more acceleration and turning than smaller ones. No air, and they can put proportionally larger engines, verniers, etc.

[kaiotheforsaken]

Seen a few Sovereigns cruising around, crazy how fast one could go through 50 levels.

[eugimon]

Given accurate physics, bigger space ships should be capable of more acceleration and turning than smaller ones. No air, and they can put proportionally larger engines, verniers, etc.

there's no physics in this game. tier 4 cruisers have a turn rate of like 1/4 the rate of tier 4 escorts and science vessels. it takes a galaxy class ship 1 min to make a full 360.

[David Hingtgen]

I saw a chart that shows that cruisers have slower and slower turn rates as you go---except for tier 5, which is faster than tier 4. Correct? If so, odd. I mean, I'll accept that canonically for Sovereign vs Galaxy, based on what they were built for. But for every ship in the tier to adhere to that?

And yeah, there's slow, then there's stupidly slow. I see people complaining about difficulty simply getting places, and scanning anomalies, much less combat.

[kaiotheforsaken]

Adjusting your speed to 50% impulse for tight turns, or tighter anyways, it helps a lot. I really don't mind the turn radius on the lower tier ships at least.

[David Hingtgen]

I wondered about throttle affecting turn radius. Never really experimented much in the Beta.

[kaiotheforsaken]

At first it's tough to tell because the ships don't bank as hard when you turn under lower speeds, but it definitely helps.

In combat it shouldn't be a huge problem, especially if you are a tactical officer. Attack pattern alpha+evasive maneuvering (I think it's called) and a lower speed basically equates to turning a cruiser on a dime.

[eugimon]

u turn at the same speed, just in a smaller circle. It's not bad apparently until you hit tier 4 and then it just sucks.

The problem with tac + cruiser is it beefs up where the cruiser sucks (turning) and you don't capitalize on the cruiser's strengths (shields).

Edited February 7, 2010 by eugimon

[David Hingtgen]

My strategy for the entire 2nd half of the beta was to devote everything to weapons energy, broadside a hole in their shields, hit "evasive manuevers" and "high yield torp", then turn 90 degrees and blow their hull apart. Evasive manuevers was such a HUGE boost to agility that I almost never missed an opportunity.

[kaiotheforsaken]

I basically have a similar strat, that plus attack pattern alpha, and the torpedo volley inflicts huge damage. I'd fly more escorts, but most of my favorite ships that are in game are cruisers. Akira, Defiant and Intrepid would be exceptions.

Edited February 7, 2010 by kaiotheforsaken

[Vostok 7]

If you're in a cruiser and find yourself equipping every skill and console and engine and ability you can to boost turn rate, then cruiser isn't the ship for you.

The cruisers job is to circle the furball broadsiding the crap out of everything while the escorts swoop in and blow them to bits through the holes in the shields.

Evasive Manuvers is great for a finishing blow, but I've never had a problem with turning a cruiser.

You just gotta "know your role".

Edited February 7, 2010 by Vostok 7

[kaiotheforsaken]

In reality a cruiser functions as a "tank" type ship in group encounters, at least ideally, almost makes me want to buy the Klingon fed character and start over since I plan to be flying mostly cruisers. They have a nice +10% to threat racial.

Still cruiser turning shouldn't really be an issue, if you can keep a broadside going and want to drop a few torps, just turn away from the enemy vessel, aft launchers will usually find their mark.

[Vostok 7]

In reality a cruiser functions as a "tank" type ship in group encounters, at least ideally, almost makes me want to buy the Klingon fed character and start over since I plan to be flying mostly cruisers. They have a nice +10% to threat racial.

Still cruiser turning shouldn't really be an issue, if you can keep a broadside going and want to drop a few torps, just turn away from the enemy vessel, aft launchers will usually find their mark.

I miss the rear torpedo tube from my T3 .

I'm still only level 9. Leveling is much slower than in beta, but then I've been busy lately where I was sick through most of beta.

[myk]

there's no physics in this game. tier 4 cruisers have a turn rate of like 1/4 the rate of tier 4 escorts and science vessels. it takes a galaxy class ship 1 min to make a full 360.

I was going to ask how my favorite ship, the Galaxy class, fares in this game but I guess that answers that question...

[eugimon]

My strategy for the entire 2nd half of the beta was to devote everything to weapons energy, broadside a hole in their shields, hit "evasive manuevers" and "high yield torp", then turn 90 degrees and blow their hull apart. Evasive manuevers was such a HUGE boost to agility that I almost never missed an opportunity.

That strategy apparently falls apart with the Galaxy. The base turn rate is so slow that bumping it up with buffs just doesn't help. It's also pretty difficult against escorts because they turn on a dime and they're constantly exposing a fresh shield to you. The tier 4 cruiser has a turn rate of 5, that's nearly half the turn rate of the tier 2 cruiser and the klingon negh'var has a turn rate of 9 AND it's a bigger ship with an extra weapon slot.

And the problem with "just broadside it", especially if you're a tac, is that cruisers actually don't have the best shields, science vessels do. So while you're chipping away with the lowest DPS weapons in the game, you're also exposing just one shield surface against enemies that can *all* turn faster than you and mount more weapons than you. To make that strategy work you need to be an engineer and have the rotate shield ability but then there goes your Alpha.

It's fine if you're playing on a team since your buddies should be vaping your target for you but most of the missions are solo.

And then there's fleet actions and PVP games and I'm already noticing this in my tier 2 cruiser. By the time I got my ship turned around and pointed more or less in the direction of the next group/objective, my science vessel and escort team mates ( and they were all 4-5 levels lower than me, all brand new lt. cmdrs) are already there and frankly, they burn through the enemies so quickly that by the time I get there, there's not much left for me to do. The *only* time when I was useful was during a deep space encounter were my team accidentally pulled aggro on three mobs, two groups of two battleships and one cruiser mob. Even then, I couldn't dish out enough damage to keep their attention, I found myself using my engineering teams and shield buffs keeping the escorts alive.

Edited February 7, 2010 by eugimon

[jenius]

I'm trying to download this game via torrent now.... I can't get any sort of satisfactory rate. With the way things are going now, I won't be playing until my 10 day membership is expired.

[Uxi]

10-day membership? Who shot who in the what?

[jenius]

I guess if you buy the premium version of the game it comes with two passes to give to friends, each card featuring 10 days of using the game for free. I'm happy to report that after the first 20 minutes the download speed has really picked up. I should have the 7Gigs by after the Superbowl

Edited February 7, 2010 by jenius

[Vostok 7]

Is it the official torrent? It starts slow but supposedly gets faster, mine never went above .1 kbps when I was trying to get the client for BETA I ended up using the client download straight from their website (rather than Fileplanet or something stupid like that) and it gave me a pretty constant 60kbps minimum.

[David Hingtgen]

I think I eventually did the "least-recommended" method from Cryptic too for the Beta, directly from their own server using their installer client. Everywhere else was incredibly slow.

[one_klump]

Got mine from Steam, had it downloaded and installed in a matter of hours, all 10 gigs.

I'm just a few missions from my Akira class, can't wait

Love flying the Rapier class, but its so small. Just started fighting the Romulans, their Bird of Prey packs a bit more punch than the Klingon's. Also, don't mess with the Scimitar class dreadnoughts, at least not in a T2 escort lol.

[eugimon]

Alpha Centuri sector is a lot of fun...

our team had a tier 3 science and escort and two tier 2 cruisers... we wiped a lot on that scimitar.

By the end we had another mob or two on top of us and the scimitar was down to 2% so I pulled a picard, rammed it and when I blew up it took the scimitar down with me.

I got a ship battery for my trouble.

Edited February 8, 2010 by eugimon

[Dangaioh]

I've got to know, is there a Macrossworld Fleet made? If so, would like an invite, my Captain names are Tochiro, and Obvious @Mazinkaiser.

Edited February 8, 2010 by Dangaioh

[Ghost Train]

So I finally broke and decided to give this game a whirl. Thus far, it feels like a "nice casual game." No pressure, minimal stress. I got my noob Miranda class blown up this morning and was quite surprised to see the Respawn option and not loose any of my stuff , definitely a contrast from EVE Online. One big complaint atm is that the away missions seem kind of trite and boring... should have just focused on getting the ship mechanics just perfect. I just had a few quick questions:

- First, when people say they are level x, how does that correspond to the rank/grade system? At the moment, I'm LT with 2 grades... so what is that, 12?

- When I get a new ship as LDCR, am I locked into a class based on what I pick? Like if I go Cruiser, will I be able to try out Science vessels or escorts later on? Also, are ships free with promotions ... ?

- Also interested in a MWF fleet if it exists .

Thx.

Edited February 8, 2010 by Ghost Train

[eugimon]

So I finally broke and decided to give this game a whirl. Thus far, it feels like a "nice casual game." No pressure, minimal stress. I got my noob Miranda class blown up this morning and was quite surprised to see the Respawn option and not loose any of my stuff , definitely a contrast from EVE Online. One big complaint atm is that the away missions seem kind of trite and boring... should have just focused on getting the ship mechanics just perfect. I just had a few quick questions:

- First, when people say they are level x, how does that correspond to the rank/grade system? At the moment, I'm LT with 2 grades... so what is that, 12?

- When I get a new ship as LDCR, am I locked into a class based on what I pick? Like if I go Cruiser, will I be able to try out Science vessels or escorts later on? Also, are ships free with promotions ... ?

- Also interested in a MWF fleet if it exists .

Thx.

you get 1 ship free with promotion but the tier 1 ships are cheap so you'll be able to buy a different class and try it out.

You don't have to pick the ship class that corresponds to your character class but doing so adds abilities that expand on the abilities of the ship.

There's no MW fleet at the moment.

[Chewie]

- First, when people say they are level x, how does that correspond to the rank/grade system? At the moment, I'm LT with 2 grades... so what is that, 12?

There are 10 grades per rank and 5 ranks. 50 levels. So you're/were level 2.

[Ghost Train]

Thanks guys, that makes sense now!

I started out as a Vulcan engineer for my first character... I might stick to cruisers with my current character. After I get the hang of things I will probably create a Tactical dude for Escorts, is that job to ship pairing the preferred for DPS and general pwng?

[eugimon]

Thanks guys, that makes sense now!

I started out as a Vulcan engineer for my first character... I might stick to cruisers with my current character. After I get the hang of things I will probably create a Tactical dude for Escorts, is that job to ship pairing the preferred for DPS and general pwng?

escorts and science vessels are good for DPS

[eugimon]

Made commander... escort + heavy cannons = fun.

[Dangaioh]

gratz and nice.

[David Hingtgen]

Slightly OT, but since the Centaur-class is in the game:

Who knew there was a worse kitbash than even the Curry and Yeager class? The Elkins! Yes, it's an Intrepid saucer with Constitution/Miranda nacelles---and the fuselage of an F-14. They even left in the RIO's armrest/consoles. (the F-14 fuselage is facing backwards, but the RIO's 'pit and the spine behind the canopy is quite obvious)

www.trekmania.net/the_fleet/utopia/variants/DS9_uss_elkins_top.jpg

::edit:: Darn it, unlinkable, you have to cut-n-paste.

PS--some say it's looks more like Elnino, and I agree---despite that "El Nino" is two words.

[eugimon]

Luna class, spotted in the wild.