Ask Cryptic

• Purchasing “random lots” of Doffs from the C-Store
  • Thread containing clarification
• More remastery will come, but for now “STFs are in far worse shape, and in need of love.”
• Fleet Action changes — joining queues, private actions (without level banding restrictions)
  • Splitting Ground and Space FA dailies.
• Ent-F will be a playable ship at some point during S4
• Akira refit coming during S4. Not finalized if it will be a VA ship.
• “Open PvP areas”?? (If we can get the tech worked out…)

Star Trek: Reunion
Cerberus Films Announcement
Teaser Trailer
All episodes will be available at: https://www.youtube.com/cerberusfilms

Starbase UGC’s contest:  Summer of Love
Complete rules & regulations…

Official Forums got a few tweaks. New subforums, etc.

————-

The Cure

Space Part 1
Bleh, kill borg. Easy.

Ground Part 2
General Tips –
* Go with somebody that knows where nodes are (frequently hidden)
* Pay attention to your leader!
* Ground Map is outside (avoid flanking, stay mobile)
* Engineers cannot use Force Domes (Bunker Kit) to much effectiveness

1) Equipment
At least 2 sniper rifles (for nodes, and exploits)
CRM 200 — best expose weapon, and adds slow effect
Tac – Squad Leader / Fire Team
Eng – Fabrication (Bunker kit is of limited use, but could still be handy)
Sci – Medic

2) Puzzle Tactics
* Brute Force
* Start, fail, restart (1 less spawn to deal with)
(mention “zero aggro” but that we didn’t use it)
* Drop toys between nodes, to draw aggro from beam-ins.

3) Boss tactics
Healer tank his face
He’s got a Chain Lightning attack (won’t use it if people are out of range)
TR-116 for End Boss (Target pre-order) — “Field of Fire”

SPACE – Part 3
Full Impulse IMMEDIATELY, to get to the space stations and eliminate the borg-ifiers.
If you blow up 4, the rest launch.
Try and release the Neg’vars first (farthest from you)

BOSS – Assimilated Carrier
Use AOE attacks to counteract fighter swarms

DSthal comments on Guramba

• Happened while he was out sick

Commentary from DStahl on Mission Remastering
https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=3269588#post3269588

• KDF missions will get remastered, too.
• Only 12% of players have active KDF toons.

“Decommissioned” Accolades // Mission Remastering
https://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=3262925#post3262925

• As a result of the upcoming remastering of missions (headed up by Gozer) some old accolades will no longer be accessible.
• One that has so far been confirmed, is the “SS Azura” (being replaced)

January’s Ask Cryptic
https://www.startrekonline.com/node/2237

• Craftable Refit Ship Costumes
• Season 4 will include the Fleet Action Queue system, allowing fleets to team up easier.
• Confirmed that the Foundry is being used by the Neverwinter team – likely a big reason the tech is getting so much attention.
• First Officer system may include an extra Universal Boff slot on your ship!
• Both the Captain’s Yacht (400-day reward) and Delta Flyer (omgomg) are coming soon.
• DSEs getting “replaced with something new” in Season 4.

MATH

Engines!

Standard engine variants come in three flavors:
Impulse — A standard engine, baseline
Hyper Impulse — Efficient at high energy (meaning when you are above about 60 engine power, you start gaining extra engine energy)
Combat Impulse — Efficient at low energy (meaning when you are below about 40 engine power, you start gaining extra engine energy)

Impulse engines — the baseline variety — should not be used.  They seem to have the exact same stat scaling as the other two types, but never grant additional energy.

So your choice should be based on what you typically fly with your Engine energy set at.  If it’s low, go Combat, and if it’s high go Hyper.

Exception = Efficient Impulse Engine
Can obtain from episodic content in the Lt Commander range (Past Imperfect), and it adds 5 energy to weapons, shields and aux.  So awesome!  And totally viable all the way to VA.  Even if you’re ship’s a little slower, the extra energy is tasty.  And speed rarely impacts PvE tactics.

As you go up in Marks of engines, the only thing that changes is the speed and sometimes turning rates. So if you have a lower Mk engine with a fatty bonus that you adore (like the aforementioned Efficient engine), and don’t mind the reduced maneuverability, don’t feel like you have to give it up.  The choice is yours.

Engine modifiers come in 3 standard variants as well:
[full] — increases your Full Impulse speed
[spd] — increases your standard flight speed
[turn] — slightly buffs your turn rate

Speed VERY rarely matters in PvE combat.  I know there are times in PvP where running away is a good tactic, and if that’s one of yours then by all means go for [spd] — especially since this modifier can be further multiplied by buffs such as Evasive Maneuvers.  For most folks however, I think I’d be safe to recommend an engine with Turn Rate bonuses.  Even if you’re in a highly maneuverable ship, like an Escort or something, a higher turn rate is always good.  Also, if the numbers are right on the tooltips, engines with turn rate improvements have a more profound impact on your turning, than an RCS engineering console would.

Now, let’s talk about an Engine-based tactic that is primarily used in PvP.

It’s a common buff-stacking approach that is sometimes called “Ludicrous Speed” … because it is crazy-fast.

To execute this maneuver fire off RAW SPEED BOOSTS first, then follow that up with PERCENTAGE-BASED BOOSTS.

Raw speed/energy boosts:
Aux to *** (use EngTeam + Aux to Engines)
Engine Battery
Energy Siphon

Percentage boosts:
Attack Pattern Omega
Evasive Maneuvers

As an added bonus to this tactic, there’s a new consumable item known as a “Deuterium Surplus” that can be obtained by completing a daily mission in the Alhena system in Eta Eridani. These are pretty much Evasive Maneuvers batteries.

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK

“What features would be necessary in a STO Community Portal site?”

We’ve mentioned before having RSS feeds to popular STO sites like STO-Wiki, StarbaseUGC or even Memory-Alpha.
Also mentioned having a browsable Foundry database.

What’s YOUR feature request?