[Askani]

How big is the client?

I installed it off the website on a completely empty drive. Looks a little short of 8 gig.

[Jomjom]

What server does GAF play on?

[Medalion]

Maybe we can form a better organized GAFleet with a central meeting area to find each other this time around if we get enough people hopefully

[Htown]

I'm Askani@Guyver000003 (I think...right)? Also, I think the firing arcs used to show up on the ship in comabt. Is there a way to turn this back on?

Hover your mouse over the weapon icon on your hud while you're in the ship and it'll show you the arc.

[Bufbaf]

Just wanted to post this to hopefully help out my future GAF armada comrades. KingDox on CAG gets credit for this find. Apparently if you buy the retail game you get the 30 day trial, which essentially makes you a Gold Member for 30 days. The nice thing is after those 30 days expire you still get to keep the bonus items you got for becoming a Gold Member. Right now the CE of the game is on Amazon for $7. That's worth it for me just for the physical items, not to mention you get the TNG costumes and the DS9 costumes. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Onli...6850850&sr=8-1 The vanilla version is even cheaper at $6.29. Additionally if you go to this link: http://www.alienwarearena.com/giveaw...iption-bundle/, you can get a free code for STO, which gives you some free bonus items as well. EDIT: Only 3413 codes left! Get 'em before they're out!

Thanks for the code! Can't order the game on Amazon.com though, but at least I should have a fancy new uniform now :>

Also is the Tag "ingamehandle@username"?

[GDGF]

Digging it thoroughly right now. Just about done with the tutorial.

[Medalion]

An example of diminishing returns I was talking about for this F2P

As I got to Vice Admiral, level 50, the highest rank you can get in the game thus far on the Federation side... all the gear that you were used to in the higher Marks that give you like better weapons/shields/bonuses get smaller and smaller to the point you don't benefit from all the energy credits you spend to get that gear after the fact.

I was under the impression that by getting to Vice Admiral, I was due a new ship credit like I had at every other rank upgrade, but no... since the F2P, you get jack squat. You get the "permission" to buy a new ship with Cryptic Points like those Retrofit ships like the Defiant or the Enterprise from All Good Things future etc, but not an actual ship token to get one of them for free like you might have before the F2P.

Not trying to turn people away from this game, but adjust expectations accordingly or find some other fun things to look forward to when playing this game.

[Jomjom]

Thanks for the code! Can't order the game on Amazon.com though, but at least I should have a fancy new uniform now :> Also is the Tag "ingamehandle@username"?

Welcome.

I believe that's right.

Mine is Jommi@jdizzle220. I'm an Andorian Engineer and I'll be looking to play a tank role. If you see the U.S.S. Masamune, say hello!

This game is SOOOO awesome so far. The character creation is the best I've ever seen in an MMO so far. It kills FFXI, FFXIV, WoW, and the SWTOR character creators (those are the only MMOs I've played). It gives you as many variables as the avatar creator in Playstation Home, except the end result is not an ugly monstrosity.

We really need to make a fleet! It looks like there aren't really different servers is that right? It didn't ask me which server I wanted to join after making my character.

[Zzoram]

An example of diminishing returns I was talking about for this F2P As I got to Vice Admiral, level 50, the highest rank you can get in the game thus far on the Federation side... all the gear that you were used to in the higher Marks that give you like better weapons/shields/bonuses get smaller and smaller to the point you don't benefit from all the energy credits you spend to get that gear after the fact. I was under the impression that by getting to Vice Admiral, I was due a new ship credit like I had at every other rank upgrade, but no... since the F2P, you get jack squat. You get the "permission" to buy a new ship with Cryptic Points like those Retrofit ships like the Defiant or the Enterprise from All Good Things future etc, but not an actual ship token to get one of them for free like you might have before the F2P. Not trying to turn people away from this game, but adjust expectations accordingly or find some other fun things to look forward to when playing this game.

I don't remember if you ever got a ship for Vice Admiral. I think it makes more sense to not get the highest tier ship just from leveling up, it's like high end loot you should have to grind out some raids to get one.

If you're annoyed with buying gear, don't buy gear. Just turn up the difficulty setting so the drop rates on enemies improve and pew pew your way to upgrades.

[Sir Fragula]

You can still buy ships for Dilithium, or trade it for C-Store points. I still use a 40-49 level ship (Sovereign) at level 50 too, so its not essential to have a VA ship.


Shall we try and get the 5 man team needed to make a Fleet this evening?

[Zzoram]

So you have to earn dilithium from missions or finding it, and you are allowed to refine some limited amount of it per day to refined dilithium that is the highest currency in the game?

Is it used to buy anything from vendors? Or is it just for trade on the C-Point exchange?

Do you have to manually allot dilithium to be refined each day (so log in every day to use your allotment)?

[Jomjom]

You can still buy ships for Dilithium, or trade it for C-Store points. I still use a 40-49 level ship (Sovereign) at level 50 too, so its not essential to have a VA ship. Shall we try and get the 5 man team needed to make a Fleet this evening?

Yes! Are some of you guys subscribers? I heard you can't make a fleet on a free account until you've played 20 hours, is that right?

[Zzoram]

I think a subscriber has to found the fleet.

GAF has a bunch of lifetime subbers, hopefully one of them does us the favor of starting NeoGAF fleet and promoting everyone to the highest non-founder rank so we can handle invites going forward.

[Sir Fragula]

Dilithium auto refines up to 7 days I believe. Some vendors take it; you can buy items and ships, and once you have ranked up a commendation category (diplomacy, science, military etc.) you can buy Duty Officers too. So its designed to be useful in of itself, otherwise who'd buy it for C-Points?


I still subscribe, so don't worry about fleet rules. We just need 5 of us online at the same time.

[Medalion]

The thing about those supposed vice admiral ships... their specs are in some ways less than the ships you get at rear admiral

The only bonus' would be the extra consoles that give you weird abilities like a cloaking device or a saucer separation or something but you may get less consoles on the bridge or a weaker hull or something

[BigJonsson]

Ummm

I'm trying to download this but the download is going super slow, I'm using the client from the STO website

Any other places to get this?


Edit - Ok, now its up to an ok speed, but not great

[Shouta]

So I've played most of the day and got myself up to Lt Cmdr 2nd grade. Space battles are as awesome as always though my hands are killing me and tracking all the ships is hard sometimes but good times. Setting up some assignments to my duty officers before I go to bed.

[Zzoram]

Ship combat is so great, I really enjoy the pew pew and the naval combat feel of trying to keep your guns pointed at the enemy while shifting your shields around.

[Zzoram]

~3.8GB client plus ~553MB patch upon launch

[Zzoram]

Um wtf why do I have 500 CP?

Did I get that when I bought STO Deluxe at launch, or did I get that for coming back as a former subscriber now that it's F2P?

[Zzoram]

The old GAFleet, is it still active? I could've swore the founder was a lifetime sub.

[Medalion]

Being a previous subscriber but ran out over a year ago, when I came back 2 weeks ago I noticed I was given some free cryptic points as well, but it was more like 800 cryptic points...in retrospect, I wished I hadn't spent it so quick so that it woulda halved my journey to get enough points to get that Defiant retrofit.

[Zzoram]

Being a previous subscriber but ran out over a year ago, when I came back 2 weeks ago I noticed I was given some free cryptic points as well, but it was more like 800 cryptic points...in retrospect, I wished I hadn't spent it so quick so that it woulda halved my journey to get enough points to get that Defiant retrofit.

What did you spend it on?

[Medalion]

At the time I didn't understand what hadn't changed, and what did... I ended up buying a ship I thought I wanted but didn't need cuz I had gotten a ship token so I wasted my points for nothing

[TurtleSnatcher]

It's awesome! Friend me Cyan@Maxrpg in game. Or just @maxrpg I think.

You'll quit in a day.. Just like Star Wars.. :P

[Medalion]

Y'all shoulda been there earlier

They actually had Q show up... he was at Earth Spacedock near the Admiral Quinn's office... if you talked to him, he could turn you into different creatures, albeit for a limited time span. You could also visit the Q Continuum but as seen as a winter wonderland (this was most likely a Christmas Holiday hold over) and compete for prizes in a race of sorts... the ultimate being a chance to win a full on Jem'Hadar Attack ship you could pilot.

[GDGF]

Hey, let's see your captains, people!

[Zzoram]

Y'all shoulda been there earlier They actually had Q show up... he was at Earth Spacedock near the Admiral Quinn's office... if you talked to him, he could turn you into different creatures, albeit for a limited time span. You could also visit the Q Continuum but as seen as a winter wonderland (this was most likely a Christmas Holiday hold over) and compete for prizes in a race of sorts... the ultimate being a chance to win a full on Jem'Hadar Attack ship.

Whatever, I'll be there for the next Christmas event.

Jem'Hadar ships aren't that good looking.

[Medalion]

I like em, but im a huge ds9 fan and love the Dominion

Its a very rare ship, and Im already a huge user of Polaron weapons and my character is a Jem'Hadar

[Sir Fragula]

I like em, but im a huge ds9 fan and love the Dominion Its a very rare ship, and Im already a huge user of Polaron weapons and my character is a Jem'Hadar

They do look pretty nifty. I'm still hoping for a "Starfleet Grey" material to be made available for the Vulcan D'Kyr science vessel I bought. There was a bit of a debate at the time they released it, with some saying it shouldn't be available as it was years out of date, and others (like me) saying it should just be a regular Starfleet ship with Starfleet colours that was built to Vulcan design aesthetics.

[DiscoJer]

Ummm I'm trying to download this but the download is going super slow, I'm using the client from the STO website Any other places to get this? Edit - Ok, now its up to an ok speed, but not great

Since it's not on Steam yet I decided to try the downloader until I saw that it was Pando!

So that's your answer - basically it's a torrent, not a direct download. How is it in this day and age that all these F2P companies are so cheap about bandwidth? Not just fly by night companies - Turbine, this, and now NCSoft, too.

The worst part is, once it's downloaded Pando doesn't uninstall itself, it keeps running in the background uploading. So be sure to remove it when it's done.

[GDGF]

Eyes burning, but still playing.

[Sir Fragula]

What server does GAF play on?

There are no servers as such to chose from. "Holodeck" is the main play shard. There's "Tribble" and "Redshirt" shards which are for public test builds, but you need to opt in to them and right now there's only a couple of minor differences between them and live.

[Zzoram]

Does the Steam version use Pando?

[shagg_187]

OP is way too clustered (sorry).

Is it a ships-based MMO like EVE or is it similar to SW:TOR?

[Zzoram]

OP is way too clustered (sorry). Is it a ships-based MMO like EVE or is it similar to SW:TOR?

It's ~60% ship based, the rest is ground based, so both?

Ship combat is much more fun and actiony than EVE, travel is faster than EVE, ground is fairly standard MMO fare except you can choose to use free aim instead of auto-target if you want Mass Effect 1 style combat (you aim, but dice rolls still affect accuracy). Also, you get to bring your bridge officers with you to the ground as your Away Team back up, so you can solo most of the missions since you'll have every class with you and can give them orders, also kinda ME1 style. No dialogue wheels though.

There is a difficulty setting, raise it for better loot drops and tougher enemies.

[shagg_187]

Thank you for the summarized reply! Guess I will download it when I head home. :)

[BattleMonkey]

It's ~65-70% ship based, the rest is ground based, so both? Ship combat is much more fun and actiony than EVE, travel is faster than EVE, ground is fairly standard MMO fare except you can choose to use free aim instead of auto-target if you want Mass Effect 1 style combat (you aim, but dice rolls still affect accuracy). Also, you get to bring your bridge officers with you to the ground as your Away Team back up, so you can solo most of the missions since you'll have every class with you and can give them orders, also kinda ME1 style. No dialogue wheels though. There is a difficulty setting, raise it for better loot drops and tougher enemies.

Eh I wouldn't say 65-70% ship based, lot of quests are heavily ground based and take up majority of said quest, especially lot of the games original quest lines which had long stretches of nothing but fighting waves of mobs. Even many of the smaller side generic quests involve a bunch of ground combat with a quick beam up for a short battle in space. It's really quest dependant, and when actually taking part in MP aspects being ground/space based is generally up to player preference.

[Zzoram]

Eh I wouldn't say 65-70% ship based, lot of quests are heavily ground based and take up majority of said quest, especially lot of the games original quest lines which had long stretches of nothing but fighting waves of mobs. Even many of the smaller side generic quests involve a bunch of ground combat with a quick beam up for a short battle in space. It's really quest dependant, and when actually taking part in MP aspects being ground/space based is generally up to player preference.

I'd still say it's more ship than ground, so maybe 60% then?

[RS4-]

Hrm, the game just refuses to download. Stark Trek Downloader has been sitting at 0.02KB/s and under for the past 10 minutes.

edit - what timing, it starts as soon as I make this post with very very random speeds.

[BattleMonkey]

I'd still say it's more ship than ground, so maybe 60% then?

Only for the fact that most of the time you simply are just floating around in your ship. Actual quest content varies though in how it's split. Outside of quests, players have little reason to leave their ship.

[Zzoram]

Only for the fact that most of the time you simply are just floating around in your ship. Actual quest content varies though in how it's split. Outside of quests, players have little reason to leave their ship.

Well you have to leave your ship to deal with merchants at space stations.

I enjoy the variety that mixing up space and ground combat gives the game.

[BattleMonkey]

Well you have to leave your ship to deal with merchants at space stations. I enjoy the variety that mixing up space and ground combat gives the game.

You only have to do that once in a while, most of the time you just stay in your ship, game doesn't really have "social hubs" or places where many players gather. And they space based merchants let you avoid having to dock anywhere to sell off stuff. I think they tried to Alpha Memory into a hub in a sense by forcing players to go there for crafting originally, but now that is not going to be needed either.

[Zzoram]

I always treated this game as a solo game anyways. I treat all MMOs as solo games because I don't want to be beholden to a raid group to be able to play when I want.

[Htown]

Why can't I use my ship's sickbay as a sickbay instead of going to a Starbase? Make it more expensive if you have to, but if the only difference between the sickbay on my ship and a sickbay at a Starbase is the presence of an NPC, let me recover from injuries by going to the bridge and traveling down to sickbay in the turbolift.

[Zzoram]

Why can't I use my ship's sickbay as a sickbay instead of going to a Starbase? Make it more expensive if you have to, but if the only difference between the sickbay on my ship and a sickbay at a Starbase is the presence of an NPC, let me recover from injuries by going to the bridge and traveling down to sickbay in the turbolift.

Having to go to a starbase to recover from injuries is a death penalty.

[Htown]

Having to go to a starbase to recover from injuries is a death penalty.

Obviously, but the time it takes to travel to your bridge, down the turbolift and to sickbay is roughly comparable to the time it takes to click "transwarp to Earth spacedock" and go to that sickbay. There's little downside, and it makes the interior of your ship somewhat useful.

EDIT: heck, if you want, make it so that Critical Injuries have to be cured at a spacedock, because "we don't have the facilities necessary" or something, but let Major and Minor Injuries be curable in Sickbay.

[Zzoram]

Obviously, but the time it takes to travel to your bridge, down the turbolift and to sickbay is roughly comparable to the time it takes to click "transwarp to Earth spacedock" and go to that sickbay. There's little downside, and it makes the interior of your ship somewhat useful.

Make an official suggestion then. Maybe they'll add it down the road.

[DeathNote]

any gameplay vids?

[Htown]

any gameplay vids?

I posted a couple of lame ones I made here.