We bring on STO’s Executive Producer Daniel Stahl and get a major update on the Foundry, the Enterprise content, details on the new Oberth class ship, and many details on the Duty Officer System, including THOUSANDS of new missions!

In MATH this week we’ve got the tips and tricks to get you started creating your own adventures in the Foundry!

Plus – Our quick take on the new Bajoran Uniforms, and of course the latest Ask Cryptic.

Thanks to:

FreshBooks.com for sponsoring this week’s episode of STOked!

Our STOked App:

Grab the STOked iPhone/iPod App and download STOked on the go!

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Show Notes:

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The post Stahl on Foundry | STOked 77 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

On this week’s STOked, we’ll talk a little more about Season 3’s “Secret Project” and expose some recent behind-the-scenes hints as to what it could be. Then Jeremy gets you MATHED on using an XBox 360 Controller as your primary user interface device in STO.

And lastly, we announce the winner of our “Best User Submitted Mission” contest, as well as go on a quick tangent about Free-to-Play subscriptions in preparation for next week’s viewer feedback request.

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Our STOked App:

Grab the STOked iPhone/iPod App and download STOked plus bonus content on the go!

This Week’s Show Notes:

200 Day Vet Rewards include a Snazzy Costume! (Pics)

1. If you’ve been playing since release, and haven’t gotten yours (like me), you can check your accolades to see how far along you are.  Look for “Redoubtable”.

“Secret Project” details are starting to slip:

1. It is the SOLE focus of Season 3 Nov.
2. DStahl teases us
3. More confirmations that it is NOT an additional faction
4. ZAM article hints at revamp of exploration as a high priority for DStahl

KDF gets the shaft again!

1. Several missions had rewards added days after S2 landed, which resulted in them missing out on these rewards.  
2. Some will be available in the future for emblems/marks, but most will not.  
3. The “” will be handed out by a special NPC that should acknowledge you if you’ve completed the appropriate mission(s).

Upcoming Content Release Dates

Cryptic hosts a poll regarding future costumes

ZAM Interview w/ Daniel Stahl

1. Includes the lyrics to “The Ultimate Klingon!”

MATH:

Take CONTROL!

On this segment of You Got Mathed, I’m going review the procedures to setting up a new way to play the game:  The XBOX 360 Controller.

I want to make this clear up front:  Use of an XBox controller is NOT officially supported by Cryptic, and the design of the UI and game mechanics are not intuitive to this type of control scheme.  There is a LARGE learning curve to making this work.

First, you must own an XBox 360 Controller.  If you have a wired controller, it’s easy enough to just plug the USB into your computer and you’re done.  If you have wireless controllers, you’ll need to own a receiver which is about the same cost as buying a wired controller, so….. choose, but choose wisely.  Or you can get a play & charge kit that converts a wireless controller into a wired controller, which is definitely the cheapest method if you already own the wireless.

TO PURCHASE ON AMAZON.com:

XBox 360 Wired Controller

XBox 360 Wireless Receiver

Play & Charge Kit for XBox 360 wireless controllers

The second step is the most difficult, but most important:

Keybinding!

There are two primary methods to this, which I will attempt to explain.  You might note that neither of these are easy as using the in-game interface.  This is because, as I mentioned above, use of a controller is not officially supported by STO, and so many of the buttons themselves are not natively available from the drop-down menus in the keybinding interface.  

1)  Third Party Software

My preferred software for this, after some light digging, is XPadder.  It’s not free ($9.99) but is extremely powerful.  In my opinion, it is definitely worth the price.  But if you simply must have FREE software, I’ve been told to recommend GlovePie, but after trying it myself I was incredibly unimpressed with the software’s features and ease of use (or lack thereof).  I can’t hate that name though.

NOTE:  If you’re using 3rd party software, be sure to turn off the XBox Controller from the in-game UI in STO.  Otherwise it will auto-map some commands (but not enough to actually PLAY) resulting in dual-mapped buttons.

2)  You can also go through the manual use of slash-commands from within the STO client.  These commands are not easy to use, or understand, nor are they intuitive at all.  I attempted to use this method first and had a moderate amount of success before STILL spending the $9.99 on XPadder instead.

If you wish to understand the strange and arcane language of keybind-scripting, check out the following forum post that should get you started (also a good place to ask questions about binds):  XBox 360 Controller Keybinds (special thanks to Kakurenbo)

After all of that, it’s time to get started in attempting to tackle the learning curve.  I’ve done probably a half-dozen missions of each space & ground now, using this controller, and I still perform terribly.  But, it’s not un-fun, and I could see this potentially taking my gaming experience to a new level, once I’ve mastered it.

But there ARE several very real downsides:

Obviously, with a controller in your hand, you can’t type.  Which means that you will either have to set down the controller to speak with your buddies, or rely solely on voice chat to communicate.  Or play in silence, but that kind of defeats the purpose of this game being a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game.

The other huge stumbling block, is that there are simply not enough buttons on an XBox controller, for you to be capable of mapping every command in the game to your fingertips.  I had to sacrifice a small handful of skills in order to fit the more important bindings onto my controller.  Also, attempting to use this as a healer in an Away Team would mean death for every body involved – guaranteed.  Targeting teammates is difficult enough with a mouse + keyboard, this only elevates that difficulty.

I can sum up my opinion on the whole matter as this:

1. Superior to Mouse/KB in space, but takes a lot of mastering and tinkering.
2. Inferior to Mouse/KB on ground, for a million reasons.  Just trust me.

I have a few suggestions for keymaps, and would love to hear your feedback as well, so email me or post your question at jupitercolony.com

MAIL:

And the winner is:  “Invasion of the Ship Snatchers” — E Beyer

Over the next week, we will attempt to turn this story into a quick walkthru/cinematic.  We may fail.  When UGC launches, we will pour our entire fleet’s resources into creating this mission.

Next week’s question:  Since we’ve been talking “F2P”, we wanna hear your input.  

Positives:

Reduce the barrier for entry, bring in more players

If they go with the DDO model, ‘free’ C-Store points for subscibers

Negatives:

Subscribers (especially lifetimers) get boned?

Community suffers from “freetard bloat”?

Is it just a money grab?

So you have one of a few options:

1)  Tell us your primary argument for, or against, F2P.  We’ll share the most insightful.

2)  Tell us your ideas for some worthwhile C-Store content that would support a F2P mechanic over the long-term.

1. Must not give paying customers an edge in PvP
2. Must give subscribed players a reason to spend points (assuming an allowance system will be in place)

See you next week!

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The post XBox 360 Controller Tutorial | STOked 46 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We Interview Daniel Stahl, the new Executive Producer of Star Trek Online.  We get answers to the questions on your mind, and get some great news for Klingon players.

Plus – We feature your ideas to improving the Bridge Officers in STO!

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Our STOked App:

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NEWS:

Top news:  Craig Zincievich steps down as Exec Prod of STO.  DStahl to fill his shoes.  We’ll have an interview w/ Stahl later in this show, to cover some news about the transition, and what this means for STO.  So don’t panic!

Season 2.0 should be on Tribble & ready for testing as of Tuesday, some new shiney things that should make it in: https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=161026 (lots of screens)

              If the full patch arrives, here are some of the major points:

– Level cap raised to 51

– Ship interiors

– Lvl 46-51 sector

– Klingon PvE missions

– Fed Diplomatic Corps

– Fleet Logos

To encourage testing:  Another chance to get a Tribble of Borg (and more?) coming in a few weeks.

https://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=2804446&postcount=23

– Also in this link:  information about the upcoming Weekly Content.

Copy your character to Tribble:

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

Reverse Shield Polarity: Changes forthcoming

https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=2803429#post2803429

– The ability is currently a standard in almost everyone’s build, because it is TOO good of a tool.             

– The ideas in this thread are only IDEAS to balance the ability, but a change WILL come.

Screenshots of the revamping of Sector Space

https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=2805877#post2805877

– Make it feel more vast (tighter grids, darker tones)

– Make the ships stand out more (better lighting and selection of background colors)

INTERVIEW:

Say HELLO to the new Exec Producer:  Daniel Stahl

MAIL:

Bridge Officer improvement responses

Smuzzle:  Give each boff a specialization within their profession that results in a passive buff during ground combat when combined with other specializations.  Examples include Biologist (Science) + Weapon Manufacturer (Engineer) + Helmsman (Tactical) = 5% increase in quality of weapon equipment dropped by enemies.

Dr_Drake:  Be able to chat with your officers on your bridge/interiors.  Could just be 1-liners, chosen from a list that would include responses based on rank, profession, race and earned accolades.

Brock_Lee:  Allow passive feats to be advanced.

Micky Ward: Loyalty mechanics, driven by utilization and interaction w/ the Captain (both on missions, and via social mini-games on your ship like Chess & Poker), which would have a % effect on all abilities & recharge timers (disloyal crew perform poorly).

Scaryguy:  It all comes down to writing.  The current system could work, if the missions were just better written. (Everyone would have “the same crew” but we would at least care about them more.)

Leviathan99:  https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=157357

My Idea: Upon reaching Admiral, allow us to promote a boff to Captain and convert that boff into a CHARACTER starting in a Tier 4 ship.  These ‘second generation’ characters would need an incentive, like an extra Trait.

Multiple Requests for:

* Position assignments (Chief Engineer, First Officer, Security Chief, etc)

— Rikturscale recommends that each position would have a requirement based on what your commissioned officer lineup is (e.g., Chief Medical officer would require you to have a total of 3 commissioned science officers.  No chief without indians.)

— Rikturscale cont’d:  Each would also have an ability that would unlock. (e.g., Chief Science Officer would be capable of enhancing sensors once per hour — each anomaly in the area would have a chance of either doubling/splitting, or triggering enemy encounters that were “on the edge of sensor range.”)

* Temporary or Permanent removal of Boffs, via kidnap, injury, death or reassignment.

— Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

* Separate missions for your boffs

— Storyline driven, based on a selection of ‘traits’ or based on the innate ground traits already given.

— Include the ability to play AS YOUR BOFF, instead of the Captain.

NEXT QUESTION:

Send in your ideas to revamp Sector Space (or replace? or remove?!)

Daniel Stahl, star trek online, sto, executive producer, klingon, answers, season 2, ship interiors, level cap, Craig Zincievich, Bridge officer, improvements, fix, STOked, Jupiter Broadcasting