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

[Trek]

I figured that if I allow my self the same amount of Money's worth of C-Store points as the sub would allow me I would pretty much get everything I wanted.

[Hartzilla2007]

Trek wrote:

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Played through all my toons last night and there was indeed little difference (all of them are at VA or LG, which is part of the reason I went f2p)

The only real effect it had was that when my Gorn hit LG last night he didn't get the extra Bank/Inventory slots. However he did still get the LG ship token! (As it's a veteran reward of course).

Rocketeer wrote:

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Appreciate all the info. When F2P was first announced I thought I would never be a free player. However, Cryptic is giving so much to the F2P crowd.

I need to recalculate how much dilithium or cp's it would take to acquire the ships my characters still need. I already have a lot of things unlocked on this account and don't plan on creating any new toons (have 8 already).

So still considering the pros and cons.

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Of course you guys will be missing out of the free ship varient, hull matieral (which I think may be the Odessey based one they were talking about doing), and free uniform that are coming up in the vet rewards.

[Rocketeer]

I'm a 500 day veteran, so I have the rewards up to that point.

600 day / VA ship token - It may be cheaper to keep a paid membership versus purchasing ships for the rest of my characters. Have to run the numbers again.

700 day / Android BOFF, - I'd like to have that, but not going to lose sleep over it. Eventually it will probably be in the C-store.

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[Trek]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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Of course you guys will be missing out of the free ship varient, hull matieral (which I think may be the Odessey based one they were talking about doing), and free uniform that are coming up in the vet rewards.

Very true and I'm not ruling out eventually getting an LTS if I find these items worth it or the Veteran reward are extended beyond the 1000 days.

It was more a case that I didn't want to keep shelling out on a regular basis. Now it's either it's worth me going LTS or not.

[Hartzilla2007]

Trek wrote:

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Very true and I'm not ruling out eventually getting an LTS if I find these items worth it or the Veteran reward are extended beyond the 1000 days.

It was more a case that I didn't want to keep shelling out on a regular basis. Now it's either it's worth me going LTS or not.

Well I have the LTS and I have no complaints as not only am I paid off but I get 400 C-points a month so Cyptic is actually paying ME to play the game and I get to liberated Borg Human species to play as which is a slight upgrade over the standard Human due to the better traits it comes with (at least from my stand point). So I for one think its worth it in the long run.

[Scout101]

At some point, they need to start awarding SLOTS to go with all the benefits. Went down my BOFF list when I got the Jem'Hadar award, and tried to figure out who I could get rid of to fill him in. Breen, Jem'Hadar, Borg Sci, Borg Eng (amazon reward), Photonic Doc, that's half the slots right there. Add in the Android when i get that one soon, and almost no spots for the actual crew you pick up along the way. I already have to drop Purple BOFFs when I pick someone up, pretty close to having to drop the special reward ones, which I can't reclaim.

Similar situation for ships. When it was energy-costs only, you could always just drop one and buy it again. Now they cost tokens, and you can't reclaim them, so not gonna dump them. I kept my Fleet Escort, bought a Defiant, got the Gal-X and the Exploration retrofit VA reward, TOS Enterprise, Captain's Yacht, Delta Flier, and then have been hanging onto the Sovereign and I think the runabout just because they're paid for and can't get them back easily. Had to jettison my other shuttle to get the Oddessy.

Same deal with bank slots. Keep all the data types, a few commodities around (including new GQ ones), and you're already half full. Anniversary rewards, a few of the ship and ground sets that were special rewards you can't get again, all this stuff adds up.

At some point, there needs to be an allowance for expansion of BOFF/Ship/Bank slots without having to buy more. It's been 2+ years, the number of potential items has drifted over time. What used to be enough just isn't if you kept half the crap they give us. The choices for what to throw away are getting tougher, and they keep releasing more and more items you have to collect. Up to a point, I could buy more slots, but having to do this for each character, and on a repeated basis, really isn't worth it to me.

Don't feel I'm hoarding, just not sure where to cut at this point. Half the free bonus rewards now require me to drop something I'm using, or pay to buy a slot to accept them...

[Bird of Prey]

^^ I feel your pain. I chose to spend 200 CP for 2 extra BO slots so that I could add the Android and Jem'Hadar Boff's. I'm constantly shuffling items around in my inventory and selling off what I don't need.

Rocketeer wrote:

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I'm a 500 day veteran, so I have the rewards up to that point.

600 day / VA ship token - It may be cheaper to keep a paid membership versus purchasing ships for the rest of my characters. Have to run the numbers again.

700 day / Android BOFF, - I'd like to have that, but not going to lose sleep over it. Eventually it will probably be in the C-store.

.

I'm recently a 700 day vet, and I found out that I also get an extra character slot to start a new character.

[Hartzilla2007]

Bird of Prey wrote:

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^^ I feel your pain. I chose to spend 200 CP for 2 extra BO slots so that I could add the Android and Jem'Hadar Boff's.

It doesn't help that there is limit to how many BO slots you can have I found this out by trying to buy four and it would only let me get 2.

[syberghost]

Scout101 wrote:

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At some point, they need to start awarding SLOTS to go with all the benefits.

That's what the free CP are for.

[Hartzilla2007]

syberghost wrote:

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That's what the free CP are for.

Until you hit the limit.

[Scout101]

Also gotta buy it for each toon, not each account, so the "free" CP are more than used up just trying to keep up with those things. Since the value of the items I'd buy is cheaper than what I paid to get the "free" CP, not sure I'd classify it as that. If it was a reasonable cost to unlock more BOFF slots, ship slots, bank slots per ACCOUNT, I'd probably spend a few there. Since it's NOT cheap, and I'd have to do it on every toon (currently 5, but it fluctuates), it would cost way more than I'm given. Since the cost of the majority (not all) of items doubled when the "free" CP was introduced, not sure how valuable it really is anyway.

Weren't the "free" CP supposed to be used for recognizing the fact that we paid for access to something, and then Cryptic changed things to give that access away for free? Having to use the payback money to make up for requirement bloat seems less fun than getting to use it to buy costumes, or a ship, or whatever. And even then, there are upper limits to what you can buy. Just looking for the developers to admit that there's been a bit of bloat in the number of unique items we might hold onto over time, and gradually bump available space up for long-time veterans to accomodate that.

Just saying that if you're given a free BOFF, for example, you should get a place to PUT them, too. And if you give away enough different BOFFs over time, should recognize that more slots are going to be required (tie to to a Veteran Reward when you give away the Android, for example) to put them. Which unique, irreplaceable BOFF should you dump to accept the next one? Doubt the Jem'Hadar will be the last purple BOFF given away in the game, so eventually going to have to drop the special ones to accept anyone else.

Not saying we should have dozens of slots, and get them all free, but if you've been playing this game nonstop for 2+ years, pretty much all your spots (ships, BOFFs, DOFFs, bank) are maxed out, or close. And every time they put out more 3-piece ship sets, or ground sets, the available space shrinks. Just about anything of marginal value is Bind on Pickup, so you can't send the lesser-valuable stuff to your new characters, can't sell them on exchange, can't give away to Fleet members. Just end up putting unique things in the garbage, which kinda sucks...

[apostle83]

Can I play with you guys?

[Timelord_Victorious]

Of course, all we need is your name@handle to invite you to the fleet.

[J. Allen]

I've talked about it on the STO boards before, and while I think most of the ideas tossed out by some of the lifers and gold members are silly, I do agree that there needs to be a real reason to subscribe. For myself, I'm a Silver, and I'm fine with that because for many months I had a sub, so I got to keep everything I purchased (which I feel is as it should be anyway). In essence, I have the same stats as a gold member, I just don't have to pay, save that I don't get anything towards Vet rewards or C-points.

Still, when one looks over the benefits, there are virtually none. The Vet rewards aren't the greatest, and 400 C-points seems awfully paltry. Someone suggested 600 C-points and I felt that would be better. Another person suggested 1000 C-points, but that may be a bit much. Some of the sillier ideas were to not allow Silver players use chat, another was to keep Silver players from being allowed to reach VA, which is stupid, because some of the most expensive items in the C-Store are the endgame ships.

That's not even the biggest problem. That belongs to the same issue Scout was discussing, that everyone's running out of space, and even when you buy extra slots, you fill them up fast due to the nature of the game. I am tempted to go through my 12 ships and deleted half of them, just to make room because I know there are new ships coming that I'm going to want (Ambassador class T5, please!).

I purchased bank vault space (2 rows), and I'm still filling it up. I'm not a pack rat, everything in my bank serves a purpose. It's either my pets, the data samples, the rare commodities, or rare to very rare ground/space weapons that cost too much to buy on the exchange, so I don't throw them away. I can understand why people start fleets, so they can have the fleet bank space!

They'll need a workaround to this soon, because the whole idea is to accumulate rare and fun items, and people won't do that if they fear they have to trash them (and lose them for good) to make room for something else. It would be different if I could get rid of a ship knowing I could get it back (you can only do it for the C-Store ships), but I lost a couple of ships that way and now you have to pay in dilithium and c-points if you want them again, and right now, converting C-points to dilithium is an exercise in futility, because the rates are so low, you spend a gob of C-points for relatively little dilithium. I think we can thank the lock box/master key lottery for that one.

[Patrick O'Brien]

Ambassador class T5 for the win