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

[Scout101]

You could always BUY dilithium for zen on the Dilithium Exchange. That's the quickest way.

Quickest, yes, but involves your credit card unless you're sitting on a veteran stipend.

Easiest way is just to run a couple space STFs. pretty good chance you'll get a blue or purple salvage, and it can be traded for a Mk XI or Mk XII antiproton weapon. Or should at least get an EDC or two, and can cash those in for DIL. That way's free, and shouldn't take more than 20 min or so per run. Space is a lot faster than ground

 

[Mage]

Stupid question maybe, but what are PUG's and STF's?

 

[Jim Gamma]

PUG: Pick-up group. A group of indibiduals who sit in a queue for a mission and don't form a team until they get into a mission. This leads to a lack of coordination, compared to pre-arranged teams, and you're less likely to win the mission or get the optional objectives.

STF: Special task force. A five-person mission that cannot be played solo, and requires more skill and coordination than regular missions. (At least, that's the aim.)

 

[Mage]

PUG: Pick-up group. A group of indibiduals who sit in a queue for a mission and don't form a team until they get into a mission. This leads to a lack of coordination, compared to pre-arranged teams, and you're less likely to win the mission or get the optional objectives.

STF: Special task force. A five-person mission that cannot be played solo, and requires more skill and coordination than regular missions. (At least, that's the aim.)

Cool, thanks for the explination.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Just a heads up for those of you hoarding STF resources like EDC and stuff.
Cryptic is about to do another currency conversion for that stuff.

That means, EDC, Borg Salvage, Tech, Borg Requisition Forms are all folded into the new Reputation System and turned into Omega Marks.

The good news is, this makes random drops go entirely away but is could potentially more grindy.

The bad news is, there will be a conversion loss similar to the old Mark system to dilithium. So some people might lose out big Time.

So you have to decide if you want a headstart with the new rep marks but suffer an overall loss or turn All your stuff in now for gear or dilithium while it still has it's old value.

Not an easy decision, since last time Cryptic also introduced the Veteran Boff for those people wo lost a real lot of their stuff against the capped dilithium starter pay out.

Same thing is gonna happen to the Reman Data Logs you get from the vault to craft into the Reman set by doffs.

 

[Scout101]

why is it that they feel they can't just convert things straight up, and they have to screw someone over every time? If a chip is worth 1 point, why is there a need to take some away if you trade in, say 50? They're going to let you grind a ton of whatever the new crap is, just give us fair value for what you're taking away. They were worried about the DIL thing, and then made it super-easy to get, and people have millions. If you played to earn the stuff, why is it repeatedly taken away?

And crap like this is why they're confused about having an angry fanbase that really doesn't trust them...

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Because they still want you to play the system.
They don't want you to go the vendor one minute after the thing goes live and buy everything there is.
That's how they rationalized it in the Priority One interview.

 

[Scout101]

Then make the ratio less overall. If 1 chip is worth 1 mark, don't give me 25 marks for 100 chips when the guy trading in 20 chips got 20 marks. Either give me 100, or have the 1 chip be worth .25 marks to begin with. Just make it fair, seems obvious. DON'T screw over the heaviest users of your game. Especially if they JUST got over you screwing them the last time you decided your currency system was crap and reorganized things.

Do we have any info on how things will exchange yet? Trying to figure out what to do with my stuff. if the 'we're going to steal from you' ratio is above what I have, no reason for me to panic and cash stuff in, as it'll make more sense to get the exchange for the new currency. Anything that doesn't look like it will exchange well, or if you have too many you start to lose value, I'll want to see about ditching for EC/DIL.

Cashed in a couple hundred EDC, just to be safe. Bought a couple Borg DOFFs from the vendor, made sure I equipped my ships with couple different builds (phaser beam boat, antiproton beam boat, antiproton DHC, Phaser DHC, all with a couple Quantums), all MK XII Purples. Figure that gives me decent flexability with what I want to do, but still have like 45 purple salvage and 60 or so blue salvage, wanna figure out what the cash-in ratio is, whether grabbing more DIL makes sense. Had like 450 in chips, so got it down to under 300 after the DOFFs by buying and vendoring the borg retro sets, put a couple mil in the bank. Dunno if I should keep going with that, or hold out for the new currency.

The tech, not sure what to do. Just can't land the damned purple ground drops, only have a single piece of one set (Omega armor). Space, I've got both purple sets completed, and 3 tech pieces, but they don't add up to another kit. 7 or 8 blue tech pieces sitting there. No idea if turning these into DIL is better than seeing what we get for new currency for them, would hope they'd have decent value in the new setup...

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

It would be awefully nice if they posted a conversion matrix at some point a good time before the conversion takes place AND let us know of any consolation prices if we lose out in the proces.

 

[Ruaidhri]

It would be awefully nice if they posted a conversion matrix at some point a good time before the conversion takes place AND let us know of any consolation prices if we lose out in the proces.

What do you think the odds of that are? Did they do it last time?

 

[Scout101]

Not really. What we saw was a rough idea of it from people doing the math on Tribble.

You'd THINK they'd try and give you rough numbers, so you could protect yourself if they know you're going to lose out in conversion. In theory, the 'stolen' chips are to prevent an inrush of currency without going through the new channels, right? They aren't actively trying to screw us (so they say). You'd think they'd want to show us what the limits are, so we can try and cash them in for other stuff rather than losing them completely.

It's the kind of goodwill/trust gestures that seem to be pretty lacking from Cryptic, really. They know they're screwing some of us (whether they HAVE to or not is a side issue), you'd think they'd show us some of the math so we can choose to go through with it or try and get below the line and avoid the cull. What'st he downside to warning us?

Syberghost, maybe that's one you can try and pass up the chain, as you appear to have ins/be buddies with some of these guys? Some sort of chart, so we can figure out the conversion rate, where the caps are, etc.

EDCs are worth X, up until you cash in Y of them, and you only get .25X after that
Rare salvage, Purple salvage, blue and purple tech, etc.

Just knowing those numbers would remove a lot of angst, and let people choose what to do with the info. the issue isn't that the system is changing (not really, people will get used to that), it's that in every one of these changes so far, people have lost out. Showing people that they should cash in that extra stack of EDCs for DIL or BOFFs before the conversion so they don't lose them would make people a lot happier over it.

 

[syberghost]

I've started a thread on the official forums requesting they give us the numbers in advance this time. Maybe that will get them thinking.

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=6113721#post6113721

 

[Amaris]

Well crap. I've been saving up EDCs to get some better gear, and now this.

 

[Scout101]

I've started a thread on the official forums requesting they give us the numbers in advance this time. Maybe that will get them thinking.

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=6113721#post6113721

Thanks! Got a way to get BranFlakes to flag on that one as well? Seems like a no-brainer, as if there has to be a cap, telling us what the conversions will be so we can avoid getting screwed seems like the right thing to do. has the added benefit of chort-circuiting the noise that will come after, if they warned us and gave us enough time to try and adjust.

Well crap. I've been saving up EDCs to get some better gear, and now this.

heh, get grinding! Anyone know when the rumored cutover date will be? In any event, saving the EDCs doesn't really do a ton for you. Cash in the 15 for the easy-to-obtain Borg set. After that, just keep pounding the STFs (on elite if you can handle it) to try and get the blue or purple drop. Don't cash any of them in until you see what drops you get. once you've got one or two blue drops, use those two and buy the 3rd with the 40 EDCs, now you've got a set. Earning the drops to get to 40 EDC should hopefully result in at least a blue drop somewhere.

It's the damned purple drops you just can't beat. Can't buy your way out, just the random number generator. And if you have that drop already, can't even pass it to someone in your group that needs it, or even give it to your OWN alt. That's been frustrating, when I just needed that CSE engine drop. Had 7 of the blue drops I didn't want, and couldn't help out anyone else, or my other alts. And then you'd see others in your group get the purple drop they didn't want (once, 2 people in my group got it, both already had 2 full sets), and you get junk. Frustrating, but in theory, part of the upcoming change should fix that.

Unfortunately, it means you lose the LUCKY side of the coin, too. If you get it on your 5th try, you're golden. Not anymore. Guaranteed to get it eventually, which is great (and should have been a factor before, even if it meant gradually increasing your luck with the RNG), but means the shortcut chance is gone. Plus they'll probably nerf it so it takes more work anyway, and is the equivalent of being unlucky 100 times in the old system first

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Well I just finished changing the uniforms on Kenny and his Boffs to TOS colored version of the TNG uniforms and even made a redshirt Boff which let me take advantage of both TOS and TNG's why of identifying the cannon fodder.

 

[intrinsical]

Let me play devil's advocate here.

Even if Cryptic publishes a chart that says 1 EDC = X Omega Marks, it tells us nothing. We still won't have any idea how many Omega Marks or any of the other requirements needed to get a piece of MACO gear.

Even today, months after Season 6 was released, no one knows what the cost of tier 5 starbase projects would be since Cryptic never released it and no one has a starbase of sufficient tier to even view the project costs. I am betting the same thing will happen for these Omega Fleet and Romulan personal projects. Chances are, we won't even find out that we're loosing out on the EDC/Borg Salvage conversion rate until a month or two down the road when people finally start unlocking the Mk XII gear projects.

So unless Cryptic publishes two charts, one with EDC/Salvage to Omega Marks conversion rate and another chart with complete cost requirements for each and every Omega Fleet project, I don't see how we'll know if we have been screwed.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I think it will help, if they do.
True, wie don't know what the future costs are, but that would matter more if the conversion will be linear, which I doubt.
The more EDC you have today, the more you suffer diminishing returns I believe. Up to a point where you run into a wall of cap.
That's how they handled things a year ago.
So it could be my current 60 EDC get me still 60 Marks, but at 100 EDC I would only get 90 Marks. At 500 I might only get 250 and every other EDC I might have is simply gone...

So knowing this would very much help me decide, if I better spend what I have know or if I am good keeping it.

 

[Scout101]

Exactly. It's not about knowing the costs of the new thing, it's just about trying to minimize the pain/loss in the conversion. They seem to insist on the diminishing returns model, so it would be nice to know where the cap is, so you can cash in stuff you've saved up OVER the cap, rather than just have it trashed.

I ASSUME we're getting screwed in the Item costs X today, will cost X + Y tomorrow setup, as that's how they've opperated every time now. I just want to avoid losing stuff completely. If you have tech today and don't have the real gear yet, you should definitely cash in now. The math is more important if you have the gear, or don't have enough tech to get the whole set, in which case it would be nice to know if you should let it convert, or cash it in for DIL now before it evaporates...

 

[Vendikarr]

So unless Cryptic publishes two charts, one with EDC/Salvage to Omega Marks conversion rate and another chart with complete cost requirements for each and every Omega Fleet project, I don't see how we'll know if we have been screwed.

Well of course we're gonna be screwed. We just don't know how bad the sex will be yet.

 

[intrinsical]

And in other news, Tribble testers are reporting that the old 4 piece Borg set is being split into two totally separate sets. Borg Deflector + Shields + Impulse Engines will form one 3 piece set. Apparently the Borg Console together with some new Borg torpedo and beam weapon will form a brand new set.