Star Trek Online Discussion Thread - Delta Rising

[Hartzilla2007]

Sometimes, I feel Cryptic hires the worst network engineers I have ever seen. Since this morning, I have not been able to login to STO at all. The launcher either fails to start because it cannot connect to the patch server, or I manage to login but again is stuck as the launcher tries to find the patch server.

The last time I experienced such network problems in STO, I could not play the game for almost a full year despite sending lots of customer support tickets and making lots of forum posts. I'm just hoping this time, it is not a repeat of my year of STO hell.

People on STO forum are complaining right now too, so it seems not to be just you. There's something ugly going on with the server.

Fingers crossed it'll be solve soon.

Probably has to do with the surprise bonus marks/dilithium/xp event thing going on getting more people on this weekend plus the new featured episode.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

I had problems yesterday. Today - had zero problems. Did the feature episode.

 

[LeadHead]

Tonight has been rather frustrating. Took 5 attempts to log in, then played Crystaline catastrophe and the rubberbanding was so bad that controlling my ship was impossible and I got slapped with a 2 hour ban because I didn't contribute. Hard to think of non-profane words to express my feelings on that.

 

[intrinsical]

Speaking of ships... I'm waiting for another ship sale to buy a nice cruiser for my engineer, but I don't really know which ship I'd like.

Right now I'm flying an Andorian escort: small, fast, nimble, so I'd like a change once in a while for a different play style.

Any suggestions? I'd prefer something medium - not too sluggish - and with Intel over Command.

How about the T6 Arbiter Battlecruiser? It is a cruiser-escort hybrid, doesn't move or turn as fast as an andorian escort but its not sluggish either. It has a Lt. Cmdr Tac/Intel station and its Emergency Weapon Cycle trait is really excellent (I bought the ship just for its trait alone).

http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/9421533-star-trek-online%3A-federation-t6-battlecruisers

 

[Gul Re'jal]

^That sounds interesting. Thanks Do you own her? Any personal comments?

And it's good it doesn't have the turn rate of the Andorian ship. That little girl is all over the place and requires a lot of attention, so I'd like something that can tank better and be a graceful lady that's not in rush

Tonight has been rather frustrating. Took 5 attempts to log in, then played Crystaline catastrophe and the rubberbanding was so bad that controlling my ship was impossible and I got slapped with a 2 hour ban because I didn't contribute. Hard to think of non-profane words to express my feelings on that.

Ouch! I know the feeling. It happened to me a while ago in Gateway to Grethor. I felt additionally bad leaving my team, because one person already left, so they'd have to complete as just three. But since I was pretty much useless, having no control over my ship, my staying wouldn't make any difference.

2 hour ban.

 

[intrinsical]

^That sounds interesting. Thanks Do you own her? Any personal comments?

And it's good it doesn't have the turn rate of the Andorian ship. That little girl is all over the place and requires a lot of attention, so I'd like something that can tank better and be a graceful lady that's not in rush

Honestly, I almost used the Arbiter for my main before changing my mind at the last second. The only reason I changed my mind was because I was using a Fleet Armitage Heavy Escort Carrier and the Xindi Olean Heavy Escort Carrier allowed me to do a direct upgrade without having to make any changes to my expensive Mk XIV ship gear.

The T6 Arbiter a very flexible ship in terms of design. The ship is equally good with Dual Heavy Cannonss, Beam Arrays, or Dual Beam Banks. Even better, because of its Lt. Cmdr Universal station, you can specialize the ship as a tac, eng or sci. I'm not 100% sure but I think its also one of the few fed ships that can use a cloaking device (alas, the ship itself doesn't come with one).

And I just realized you can have a Fleet T6 version of the Arbiter with additional 10% shields, 10% hull hitpoints AND 2 science consoles instead of just 1.

I think out of all the non-lockbox T6 ships, the Arbiter is probably one of the best ships available. The only other non-lockbox T6 ships that may rank better are the Pilot ships. If you are just looking at the Fleet T6 ships, the Fleet Arbiter is probably the best available if you want a heavy hitter.

 

[Gul Re'jal]

Thanks! All that sounds quite yummy

If only she weren't so fugly But I could grow to like her look.

Ok, that's one of good options.

Anybody else?

 

[LeadHead]

Looks like there's some explanations to the poor performance of the game. They just reported on Facebook that the servers have been attacked. Now we can all wrestle the decision to log in for bonuses in all things or the possibility of being compromised by a hacker. Yay.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

The Arbiter is pretty awesome. I fly it on my main, who is an engineer.

 

[intrinsical]

I honestly didn't have a close look at the Arbiter when I bought it as all I wanted was the trait. But after reviewing the ship, two of my younger alts are now captaining the ship. For one, I will soon be upgrading it into a Fleet Arbiter.

 

[Rocketeer]

Appreciate the info on the Arbiter. What is the "must have" ship for a Lvl 60 Fed Engineer? I've played through the Excelsior varients and they served well. Currently flying a Fleet T5+U Excelsior.

Thanks

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

An engineer makes every ship a bit tougher, so I usually go against conventional wisdom with them and put them into escorts or destroyers.
A good ship these days might be the pilot vessels.
An engineer will not get them to their full damage potential, but any incoming damage that gets past defense can be absorbed easier so your boffs can compensate for the dps loss compared to a tac captain.

 

[intrinsical]

Although my perspective is a little different from Timelord's, my ship recommendations are largely the same as his:

• Tactical Pilot Escort
• Manticore Heavy Destroyer (Lifetimers/Veteran only)
• Arbiter Battlecruiser
• Alita Heavy Escort Carrier

Ship type doesn't matter much these days as, sadly, the game's PvE queues has are designed around ships that spam high damage beam-fire-at-will. So if you want to do very well in PvE queues, find a ship that ideally has:

• 4-5 Tactical Console slots
• 6-7 tactical Boff Ability slots
• 2-3 Science Console slots (Optional)

The T6 ships I listed above all fit these criteria. After that, it is just a matter of equipping the ship with:

• As many Vulnerability Locators as the ship can hold
• 2 x [EPS] consoles (preferably Exotic Particle Field Exciters (Sci), but EPS Flow Regulators (Eng) work equally well)
• Warp Core with [AMP]
• 2 x Beam Fire-At-Will III
• 2 x Attack Patterns Beta/Omega
• 2 x Tactical Teams I

 

[Gul Re'jal]

An engineer makes every ship a bit tougher, so I usually go against conventional wisdom with them and put them into escorts or destroyers.

I think so too. Who can be better to fix a glass cannon if not a miracle worker

In my case, I already have a glass cannon (the Andorian escort), so I want something tankier to have something different for a change once in a while.

Each of my 3 Romulans flies a different ship (big - medium - small), so I don't have that problem on the Green side, but I have only 1 Feddie, so I'm just a bit bored with the escort. I'll get back to it, when I'm bored with slower and heavier ship


I'm looking closely at Arbiter, and also Presidio, as people also have good things to say about it. Presidio has Command instead of Intel, so less preferred, but it's not a stopper for me.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Maybe the heavy escort carrier would be a good alternative. It's still in the camp of escorts, but a bit tougher than average and has that bit of carrier game play.

Or you are patient and wait for the T6 Souvereign.

 

[Gul Re'jal]

I did think about the new carrier, but I'm not big carrier fan.

Do we know for sure we get T6 Sovereign? It'd be nice, if it were together with T6 T'Varo, which I also want.

I'm waiting for a sale anyway, but knowing life, those new ships would appear 2 days after a sale

 

[Jim Gamma]

^New ships don't get put into the sale, anyway. I don't know what the time limit is, but I think it's something like 6 months before they'll give discounts.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

It is just a matter if when, not if.
But the T'Varo will be part of an iconic bundle with the T6 B'Rel and T6 Defiant (Valiant).

 

[Gul Re'jal]

Right. The "small ones" pack

I don't think I heard anything definitive about T6 Sov, but it's good to know it's going to happen... some day. I may get it then.

^New ships don't get put into the sale, anyway. I don't know what the time limit is, but I think it's something like 6 months before they'll give discounts.

Good point. And solves my "dilemma"


The last sale was in May, so I'm hoping the next one is soon.

 

[intrinsical]

Given we just had a zen sale, there should be a ship sale some time between now and New Dawn's launch.