You asked for it, so we delivered. With the gracious assistance of a STOked fan, we are now prepared to offer you an in-depth analysis of your favorite bar game and ours – DABO!

Before we get into all that mess though, we want to share with you some recent news and rumors – new ship models, new costumes, state of the game, engineering report and MORE!

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This Week’s Show Notes:

NEWS:
RUMOR: Nebula faces indefinite delays
(CBS approval?)
Quoted during an interview on Subspace Radio

Thoughts on “Cold Case” — this week’s Featured Episode

• Liked the ‘chase’ aspect of the mission
• Neat that the Preservers stored their data in ruins/etc.
• Jeremy was hating on the puzzle.  Might’ve just been morning-crankyness.
• Chris thinks the puzzle issue isn’t the puzzle itself, but the interface used.  A separate interface (like the waveform dealie)

State of the Game

• Seeing an increase in Lifetime memberships
• More than half of their subscribers have played the new weekly content
• Re-evaluating their C-Store attitude.  More items available in-game + purchaseable.
• A lot of KDF-specific talk, but how much will be implemented in a timely manner?
• “We have a new ground combat mode in testing that allows you to switch to a target reticule and shoot your weapons where you are aiming instead of needing to click target.”

Engineering Report
“Our recent meetings with CBS also turned up some interesting discussions and several of the features we had hoped to deliver are being rescoped and evaluated due to some concerns. This primarily impacts the Enterprise J and the Kzinti.”

New KDF ship pictures!

New costume pictures!

Shout out to Red Shirt Army
The footage used to display the STO-Advanced hacks was put together by them.  Thanks!

Massively raises the question: “What mechanics from other MMOs should STO steal?”

Cryptic’s Champions Online on sale for $6.00!  (Until Sept 22)

Comes with 30 days of free play, so it’s a great deal if you’re curious!

MATH:

DABO!

There’s necessarily a bunch of number crunching, and there’s no way that you can ‘cheat’ the system.  But thanks entirely to a very dedicated fan of Dabo (@RachelGarrett!), I do have some details and mechanics I can share with you.

The first thing you should know, is how to read the board.  Each symbol on the wheels is a combination of a suit (color), shape, and a number.  There are 3 possible version of each of these 3 variables.  This means that there are a total of 27 different combinations (3x3x3), each of which are represented only once on the board.

The innermost ring on the wheel is a wildcard where color is concerned.

In addition to the 27 symbols, there are also a number of miscellaneous symbols that increase the payout of any line they land on.

• The so called Swirl is a joker, that can act as any color, shape or count
• Two or more Quarks give a high payout. (looks kinda like a golden scarab)
• DS9 icons work like Quarks, but have a lower multiplier
• A black hole will match with nothing

Of note:  There is only ONE Black Hole per line on the board.  That means that the worst possible spin, is to get all 3 of those lined up, and win nothing.  But, if you bet on 3 lines at a time, your odds of winning something actually increase, because you can never hit this combo on two lines at the same time.  Which is another way of saying, always bet on 3 lines!  Your odds of winning increase!

ODDS!

There are SO many different ways to win, and SO many different payouts, that it’s actually completely possible to calculate an average payout for playing.

The longer you play, the closer to get to a basic exchange rate where, for every 100EC you spend playing dabo, you’ll win (on average) 88 GPL.

Now, this also means that you can easily calculate the actual EC value of all of Woody’s goods by multiplying the cost by 114%.  This ALSO means that it’s relatively easy to calculate an estimate of how much EC it will cost to get the top dabo-related accolade, which is winning 1million GPL.  By multiplying that by 1.14, you can estimate that you’ll need about 1,140,000 EC in order to achieve all of the available accolades.

In summary, dabo is entirely chance and luck, and here are some links to the payouts and odds of hitting them:

Payouts and Walkthru:  https://stowiki.org/Dabo
Dabo-related Accolades:  https://stowiki.org/Accolade/Exploration_Accolade#Dabo
Odds and Calcuations:  https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=176160

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK:

You have a few more days to send in your submissions!  We’ll be sharing your answers on next week’s episode.  Send your feedback to:  stoked@jupiterbroadcasting.com

Last week’s question:
“What can Cryptic do to create incentive to joining/creating Fleets/communities?”

Download:

The post Dabo Math | STOked 52 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We get hands-on with Season 2 of Star Trek Online and cover the new game play updates coming to the game!  Was Dabo worth the dev time?  Is Diplomacy chalk full of excitement, or a big old bore?  And what about the fleet emblems, slipstream drive, and missions galore?  We'll share the details in this first look at the new content that's landed on Tribble.

We'll cover the news you might have missed, including the fact that the latest Ask Cryptic mentions FaceBook integration!  Does this tie in to the controversy over Blizzard's RealID fiasco, or did Cryptic do it right?

PLUS – We've got your suggestions on improving the way you warp around in Star Trek Online … it's your Sector Space improvement ideas!

Download:

NEWS:

STO-Radio.com launches! https://www.sto-radio.com (TURN OFF YOUR SPEAKERS — player is set to auto-play)

    * STOked will air weekly on Wednesday @ 3pm Pacific

    * Jeremy's "You Got Mathed" will air weekly on Monday @ 3pm Pacific

    * Check out https://sto-radio.com/station-schedule for a complete line-up.

Answer to "grandfathered" Science Consoles (pre-nerf):  https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=2816988#post2816988

    * Labeled as "Prototype" but otherwise now identical to other existing consoles.

    * Sell for increased Latinum (for Dabo) or keep and perform the same as everyone else.

Possibility of starting new "second generation" characters, to use new races: https://forums.startr ekonline.com/showthread.php?p=2824968#post2824968

    * "… so think of a bundle pack where you get a new playable species, with a char slot, and you start at Captain… that sort of thing… "

Ask Cryptic:  Season 2.0 and beyond  — https://www.startrekonline.com/node/1888

    * FaceBook integration coming soon.

MATH:

(NO MATH)

EDITORIAL:

To copy your character to Tribble and try out these features for yourself: 

https://www.startrekonline.com/test-shard/character-transfer

First Look at 2.0 Features:

Klingon Missions:

    * 2 @ lvl 12, 2 @ lvl 20, 4 @ lvl 30

    * Fek'ihri:  https://bit.ly/bAB1UV

Fleet Emblems:

    * Background + 2 layers.  Kinda lame.  Hoping for at least 5 layers total, if at all possible.  And more vibrant colors.

Slipstream Drive:

    * Available at the current level cap (Vice Admiral / Dahar Master)

    * When engaged, it scoots you along at a "Full Impulse" type speed, in Sector Space.

Dabo:

    * Social, sorta:  You can see others' bets and winnings.

                 — Chat server was offline while we tested, but we'll probably see a lot of talking in the Dabo area once it's LIVE.

    * Several Accolades linked to Dabo (for betting 1000 credits, or winning 100,000 latinum, for example)

    * Dabo Rewards: https://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h171/Maccers0484/holos.jpg

    * Holographic ship costumes have a 15min cooldown and you lose the look if you are defeated.  Fit in a device slot.

    * Shot of Bort as a Jem'Haddar: ( https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/JRandall/BortHoloShip.jpg )

Scanning Mini-Game:

    * Designed by ThomasTheCat.

    * Use the arrow keys (U D L R) to refocus the red wave to match the blue one before the 'noise' reaches the right-hand side (~5 seconds)

    * If you 'lose' nothing is different from the usual harvesting. 

    * If you 'win' you get extra resources and an increased % chance of finding rare harvests.

    * Scanning Mini-game:  https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/JRandall/waveform-harvesting-minigame.jpg

    * Rare Harvest:  https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/JRandall/rareharvest.jpg

Fed Diplomatic Corps:

    * You get new "FDC XP" for completing ANY non-combat mission.  Approx 10xp per mission.

    * First Contact missions give more if you do them 'right' (impress the Ambassador)

    * Rank 2 of FDC (req 160 FDC XP) is supposed to be achieved around lvl 10 (Lt Comm)

                 — First Contact is open for testing @ lvl 2 on Tribble.

    * First Contact = Talk to 3 diplomats, answer questions.  Like a more well-written version of the infamous "Miners Quiz" mission.

    * There are also missions on Bajor, Vulcan and Memory Alpha.  All approximately similar.  Talk to people, answer questions.   

    * Diplomatic Lounge:  https://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h171/Maccers0484/diplomacy.jpg

    * Diplomatic Uniform Reward:  https://forums.startrekonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3913&d=1276562768

New Borg and Undine Missions:

    * Received @ lvl 45 from a new contact (Fed & KDF)

    * Pelia Sector Block added "west" of Gamma Orionis ( https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/JRandall/PeliaSectorBorder.jpg   )

    * One of the missions includes boarding a Cube

                 — Borg wandering the cube hallways begin as non-aggressive, but do not use AOE abilities or they will come after you!

                 — Opening a specific doorway spawns a group + node to kill.  Nearby Borg will also aggro.

    * Other mission involves boarding a Romulan vessel.

    * There is also a Fluidic Space Fleet Action ( https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/JRandall/FluidicSpaceFA.jpg )

                 — Could not access at this time.

    * Pelia Sector is sporting the new "revamped" Sector look:  ( https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/JRandall/NewSector1.jpg )

MAIL:

We asked:  How would you revamp Sector Space?  (or replace?  or remove?)

Common requests:

* Allow for course plotting from your bridge/interior, with timers to tell you when you've arrived at your destination.

    dehensley:  "Take the WoW analogy one step further:  Sector Space is riding your horse from one side of the world to the other.  Give us a Taxi service similar to WoW's flightpaths as an OPTION."

    — NEGATIVES:

                 ** Lack of social interaction (even SEEING other ships is a form of interaction).

                 ** How do you solve for DSEs?  Do they just go away?

                 ** What if you're in a team?  All on one bridge, or isolated on your own?

* Abolish zonelines!  Just DO it, and take whatever steps are necessary.

* Make it larger.  Not just by getting rid of zonelines, but also increase the space between systems, and overall travel time.  Make it feel more EPIC.

* More exploration.  Either integrate 'unexplored clusters' into more central locations (instead of tucking them into the corners), or implement more random 'distress call' type missions while traveling at Warp.

Specific ideas:

zeroBANG: "Star streaks."  That's it.  Simple.

plunkett:  "Ditch the lollipops and blue streaks.  Make systems look less generic, shrink the suns and expand the planet orbits if necessary."

bettyblue: "Integrate navigation directly into your mission journal, so that making a mission your primary sets your course to the nearest objective."

rikturscale:  "Allow fewer nearby systems to be visible – the rest lost in 'fog of war' – but load ALL dynamically on the fly, to eliminate hardstops and zoning."  Also… stop calling it "Sector Space" — just call it "Warp."

pricepreston:  "More variance in DSEs, including boarding parties (ship interior combat) and random engine malfunctions (mini-games)."

Epic thread is epic:  https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=147319&referrerid=89867 (blackavaar)

    Includes:

                 * Redesigned map key

                 * Clearer zone transition areas

                 * Adjustable course plots for transitions

                 * Advanced course settings

                               — Choose multiple destinations with "pause" and "resume" functions

                 * PICTURES!  PICTURES!  PICTURES!

The post STO Season 2 Preview | STOked 042 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.