Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!)

[Hartzilla2007]

intrinsical wrote:

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The majority of the new fleet ships will be retrofits of current T2 to T4 ships

All of them or just some of them?

[crosses fingers that its all of them]

[intrinsical]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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All of them or just some of them?

[crosses fingers that its all of them]

There won't be fleet versions of the Constitution, NX or Oberth as they are Tier 1 ships. There also won't be fleet versions of the Excelsior or Galaxy-Dreadnought. I am not certain about this but for the Federation, only Starfleet designed ships will have a fleet version so this excludes the Vulcan D'kyr and Caitian Atrox.

Generally, ships that are sold in the c-store and come with a special console in the C-Store will have a fleet variant. While I understand the financial reasons, I do wish they would give an in-game reason for this decision.

[Hartzilla2007]

intrinsical wrote:

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There won't be fleet versions of the Constitution, NX or Oberth as they are Tier 1 ships.

But the Connie does have a T2 version.

Generally, ships that are sold in the c-store and come with a special console in the C-Store will have a fleet variant.

And the Exeter is this for the T2 Connie which I also wouldn't mind having a T5 version of only this as its a pretty good update. Though I would hope that if it makes the cut they would also include at least the Excalibur.

[intrinsical]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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But the Connie does have a T2 version.

Apparent CBS does not like the idea of players traipsing around the galaxy in a high level Connie retrofit.

[Scout101]

They should be more concerned with the REST of the crap going on in this game (or most often, NOT going on) and less about which ships are being flown around by the players.

Honestly, the "CBS doesn't like the idea" line gets tossed out a lot by Cryptic, and it doesn't ring all that true to me. Weird that CBS is fine with a year-long content hiatus of a game that had only been out a year (thus hurting their product), Star Trek being all about killing people with not diplomacy or exploration, an openly hostile message board, etc.

But they don't want to see people flying around in the Enterprise.

NX-01 or even a Vulcan ring ship is fine, of course (-150 years from even TOS, so what, 275 years out of date as of STO story time?), but a Connie would be a show-stopper. Not even that they don't want it in the game, but CBS is actually worried about game mechanics, and which ships are more powerful at what levels?

[Hartzilla2007]

intrinsical wrote:

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Apparent CBS does not like the idea of players traipsing around the galaxy in a high level Connie retrofit.

But they are apparently perfectly fine with players traipsing around the galaxy with a high level Miranda or as I think of it the Starship Explodium McCannon Fodder.

Edit

Wait never mind it look like their just letting you buy the T1 Miranda back.

[syberghost]

Scout101 wrote:

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They should be more concerned with the REST of the crap going on in this game (or most often, NOT going on) and less about which ships are being flown around by the players.

Honestly, the "CBS doesn't like the idea" line gets tossed out a lot by Cryptic, and it doesn't ring all that true to me.

Compliance with their contract with CBS is not optional. I remind everybody again of the history on Trek gaming licenses; ask FASA and Last Unicorn Games what happens when you fail to comply with your contract.

Oh wait, you can't; they both disappeared not long after CBS yanked their Star Trek licenses for non-compliance.

[Scout101]

I understand that part, just questioning why CBS would be concerned with the game at that deep a level, exactly how strong which ships should be. That doesn't ring true to me...

Failure to perform or market the game, not staying in the spirit of the Trek license, sure, lots of things I could see they'd want to shut it down over. Whether the TOS Connie is a Lvl 1 or 3 ship seems a bit beyond what I'd expect that contract to say...

[syberghost]

Scout101 wrote:

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I understand that part, just questioning why CBS would be concerned with the game at that deep a level, exactly how strong which ships should be. That doesn't ring true to me...

I suppose it's POSSIBLE that every single person at Cryptic who's ever spoken on this issue, and it's a lot of them, has lied both in public and less-public conversations. What, exactly, would be their motivation for doing so?

[Haggis and tatties]

Scout101 wrote:

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I understand that part, just questioning why CBS would be concerned with the game at that deep a level, exactly how strong which ships should be. That doesn't ring true to me...

Failure to perform or market the game, not staying in the spirit of the Trek license, sure, lots of things I could see they'd want to shut it down over. Whether the TOS Connie is a Lvl 1 or 3 ship seems a bit beyond what I'd expect that contract to say...

Very true......CBS have been very strange on this whole matter, not wanting everybody playing STO running about in doms or Cardy ships......yet are quite happy to have the franchise used too intice all those playing the game into gambling with the lockboxes to aquire these very ships.

So i take it if everybody continued to gamble on the lockboxes and everybody won those ship then CBS would be ok with everybody running about in them.

[intrinsical]

Well I finally logged into Tribble for the first time today to have a look at the upcoming Season 6 content. One of the first things I did was to check out the new fleet ships and to be honest I got lost looking at the information so I spent a little time creating a table to try and understand the differences between Refits, Retrofits and Fleet Retrofits.

STO Starship Database

From the database, I could draw a few conclusions.

* Fleet Retrofit is the best version of the ship, followed by Retrofit.

* The original ship tier matters. Simply put, don't ever get the Tier 5 Fleet Retrofit version of a Tier 2 ship. The Tier 5 ship will have less hull hitpoints, less shields and fewer console slots when compared to other Tier 5 Fleet Retrofits.

The effect the most significant for Science Vessels. The Tier 5 Nova and Olympic class ships have significantly lesser hull hitpoints and shield modifiers when compared with their Trident, Intrepid, Luna and Nebula counterparts.

Things are a little strange for escort ships as the Akira class of ships were missing on Tribble and I could not find upgrades for the Prometheus. So from what I could observe, only the Defiant, Saber and Hermes class received upgrades. Out of the three classes that received upgrades, the Saber class can be discounted as its hull and shield modifiers are weaker than the current "normal" versions of the Defiant and Prometheus. So that leaves only two escort classes worth upgrading, the Defiant and Hermes. The Defiant Fleet Retrofit has 33k hull, 0.9 shield modifier, 3eng/5tac/2sci consoles and 3 Tactical bridge officers. Personally, I find the Hermes Fleet Patrol Escort to be much more well rounded and beefier ship with 34.1k hull, 0.99 shield modifier, 4eng/4tac/2sci consoles, looses an Ensign Tactical station but gains an Ensign Universal station.

For cruisers, the Stargazer Fleet Retrofit is the worst of the bunch with only 39,600 hull and a shield modifier of 0.95. In comparison, the other cruisers have a base hull of at least 42,000 and a shield modifier of at least 1.1. The Odyssey, Galaxy, Sovereign and Star Cruiser classes are now all very comparable cruisers. As the Excelsior did not get upgraded, the Sovereign Fleet Retrofit is now a better version of the Excelsior. Galaxy Fleet Retrofit has the beefiest hull at 44,000 hitpoints and the Odysseys have the best shield modifier of 1.15.

[Scout101]

syberghost wrote:

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I suppose it's POSSIBLE that every single person at Cryptic who's ever spoken on this issue, and it's a lot of them, has lied both in public and less-public conversations. What, exactly, would be their motivation for doing so?

Honestly, I've stopped believing in (and even listening to) most of what comes out of Cryptic. Too many broken promises, intentions that never actually matched reality, etc.

For an easy example, if they can fix the android 'reward' for the 700 Vets before anyone earns the 1000 day reward, it would be appreciated. Or we could talk about KDF, or content in general, fixing PvP, how FEs were originally called Weeklies (and then became several times a year, then took a year off, then the new plan was DEFINITELY 2x a year, now after doing exactly ONE of those, it's on hiatus, possibly for good). New content is coming soon! In a month or two! By October! As soon as the buyout is through! After F2P conversion. Oh crap, it's been over a year! Could keep going a while, but I'm sure you got the picture.

As far as motivation, I'm not believing in the conspiracy theory you're trying to paint me with. All it takes is someone higher up (say, Dan) to tell the team that "well, CBS said..." and then they'd be repeating that to us. Doesn't have to be a vast thing where they're all lying to us individually. If they were told CBS said it, they'd be repeating it to us.

Just seems like a really convenient excuse, and doesn't make any sense for CBS to be that down in the weeds as far as this game goes. Big things, using characters/voices, theme of game, etc? Sure. Whether a ship (that's already in the game) is Level 1 or 2 seems a bit too micro-managing. Could be wrong, just seems an odd detail, and on the other hand, is a very convenient excuse for not doing things Cryptic doesn't want to. Makes a nice "gee, I'd love to help you , and we're all on the same side here, but you see, CBS said..."

End of the day, their shoddy customer relations/service hasn't done them any favors, and it's tough to believe anything they say at this point. Burned too many times. Maybe CBS IS micro-managing them at the ship tier level, but they just don't have any credibility with me anymore. I don't believe in anything unless they RELEASE it, and even then, they have a tendency to go back and nerf it later....

[syberghost]

Scout101 wrote:

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As far as motivation, I'm not believing in the conspiracy theory you're trying to paint me with. All it takes is someone higher up (say, Dan) to tell the team that "well, CBS said..." and then they'd be repeating that to us. Doesn't have to be a vast thing where they're all lying to us individually. If they were told CBS said it, they'd be repeating it to us.

They have frequent meetings with CBS, where multiple people participate. It would take an actual conspiracy of people lying about this for it to not be true.

[Scout101]

And aside from the giant list of items above (and plenty that didn't make the quick list I put up), we've barely been lied to at all.

Not saying that CBS DIDN'T say that, just that it's odd that they would. Cryptic has almost zero credibility with me at this point either way, though, so I'm pretty much in the "believe it when i see it" mode with them at this point. Maybe CBS IS being weird about micro-managing, but that's only one item on the bigger list you're fixated on.

The wall of excuses they've used to defend themselves has tired me out, I don't listen to much of what they tell us anymore. Believe it when it's in the game, and even then, gotta be there a while before I'll believe they won't go back and nerf it. It's probably safe if it's been in the game a while, though, as they abandon half-finished projects at a near 100% rate. Still some obvious bugs in from launch, after all! And like I said above, my 700 day vet Android isn't complete yet (despite a shifting line of blame for why that is), and some people are fast on their way to earning the 1000 day reward. If they go back and follow through on some of their EASIER promises to keep, maybe they'll gain some credibility back...

[Hartzilla2007]

So the newest vet rewards are the new ship material and a gold version of the decorated Jupiter uniforms.