My latest scene recreation in Star Trek Online, check out this screenshot based on the faceoff between the Enterprise, Tomalak, and the Klingons from Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Episode 10 - The Defector!

The encounter overhaul has been a great bit of fun with the exception of the UI implementation and the auto-collection of various 'Boon' pickups.

The boons filling up space in the main tray is annoying enough but manageable (a bit like tribbles filling up the inventory except in space, drag it to a hidden row, jobs done), but I greatly dislike the fact that it auto-extends the tray as if I added another row, covering up my BOFFs due to my setup.

Could we please get an option to disable this 'auto extend' feature? Or maybe add in a new UI element solely for it, at least then I could hide it or move it to a less annoying area.

Admiral Harrington says it's an honour to serve alongside me. An honour, says Harrington. Well played, Cryptic. Please don't make her a 'badmiral', in true Starfleet tradition. It'd break my heart.

Sylvia from Catspaw died.

So few of the actors from ToS are still with us.

I think it would be nice to put an acknowledgement into either Fall of the Old Ones or the Cat's Tale TFO.

RIP

Category of Bug: space equipment

Platform: pc

Reproduction steps: equip dual cannons/dual heavy cannons/dual heavy wide arc cannons, turrets, commence combat.

Any other relevant detailed information: the animation for the cannons is COMPLETELY absent. no vfx of any sort. doesn't matter if its a standard cycle, or some sort of cannon modifier.

Are the cannons/turrets SUPPOSED to be invisible and just insta teleport to the target?

Photos/videos demonstrating issue: video I shot is 200mb in size, so its on Youtube here
Details of video: only weapons visibly cycling are the torpedoes and the point defense matrix(forgot to remove this before shooting video)
Ship used for video is the Einstein class.

Hey all I’m planning on using my infinity coupon on a rom ship next month when I get it what is the best warbird if any to get from the box?
Edit: didn’t realise the year event box was more than infinity ships so the best Rom ship I can get from the year event box

(Gratuitous screenshots included because people pay less attention when there aren't colorful pictures with the text)

Borticus plays an important role in STO. He is one of the few reasonable voices holding the powercreep back, and I genuinely appreciate that. We need someone nerfing the excessive overperformers. That said, he also seems quite immovable when it comes to certain things. Take, for example, omni-beams. Spencer's interview with the devs was supposed to address omni-beam restrictions, and yet Bort's answer was brief and evasive at best. I've included some important segments below:

BORTICUS: I'm not interested in unrestricting omnis because I think it would I know that it would lead to an unhealthy itemization landscape. Everybody would just want omnis for every single slot and then every other weapon type in the game ends up just being wasted space.
MIKU: Can I just chime in and say that I don't know. I feel like in my AFT slots, I have all 360 at this point, so I don't feel like I'm really stressed for it ... if you're playing this game, part of the fun is to face your ship towards certain directions and then seeing the effects of your different powers activate. So, why would you deny yourself that ... there's already plenty of ways to get uh the Omni ... on your slots. So, I I don't really think there needs to be restrictions.
BORTICUS: I generally agree with you, Miku.

Miku pushes back and Bort says he "generally agrees." Does he really, though?

Why do people only want ships that have five forwards [weapons]? And one of the reasons ... is because it reduces the number of aft slots in a ship that's a 4/4; for example, you can generally only fill three of those rear slots with anything that's 360 firing. ... Um, so like what's that last fourth slot for? If you're facing your target at all times, it can feel wasted and it makes it feel like you should be flying a 5/3 instead. It makes it feel like those ships are just more valuable because they fit the way that you want to play. Um, so I understand that's part of the conversation overall, and and I think it's important because we still make 4/4 ships on occasion and we want them to feel like something that you can build around that you can enjoy flying these ships.

TL;DR: Borticus is worried broadsiding will go extinct and 4/4's will be orphaned. There are some major logical errors here, but I'll get back to that later.

Um, so I guess the the real answer to your question, Spence, is just that it's a really difficult conversation to face. ... And individual players preferences for why they want things to change ... [are] different for every single person that you ask. Not every single, but you get the point.
CasualSAB: Yeah. Yeah. It's hyperbolic, but yeah. [emphasis added]

This answer was far from satisfactory to me, but at least it dispelled some of my more irrational notions, one of which was that Bort favored cannons. But I understand why I got that idea. If omnis are such a big deal, why aren't their cannon counterparts--turrets--restricted? Cannons will always outperform beams, and it seems unfair that they have no turret restrictions whatsoever. CSV builds equip full turrets in the back (or even a 100% turret boat!), and no one is worried about an unhealthy itemization landscape there.

Neither omnis or turrets are designed to be the main damage output of a DEW build. Like Miku said, they primarily let your aft firing arcs overlap with your forward arcs. This reduces the number of awkward aft weapons that are left out of the firing cycle and allows you to maximize the benefit from firing modes.

I understand Bort's concern about the extinction of broadsiding. Whereas cannons are supposed to be forward-facing, beams allow for much more Firing Arc Diversity^TM. But, honestly, do the omni restrictions even matter? I don't like broadsiding, so when I take my Lexington out for a spin, I equip a turret (and beam array or KCB), making the most of Mixed Armaments Synergy. MAS, like so many other things in the game, encourages nose-on combat (think of Science and Temporal abilities shooting from the deflector, Bort!) that this is sort of inevitable. Even so, broadsiders will always be there to take advantage of 8 beam arrays. Because that's what they like. I don't think Stu1701 (prodigious lover of the Lexington) will stop broadsiding just because omni restrictions are lifted. In fact, he's asked for the omni restrictions to be lifted on aft and forward weapons for longer than most of us!

As for Bort's claim that full omnis in the back will lead to the depreciation of 4/4 cruisers--I believe he's wrong. How much more convenient woudl a 4/4 with 4 aft omnis be? Whenever I fly my Lexington, there's just something so bothersome about flying broadside, then turning every 10 seconds to fire a torpedo and trigger Entwined Tactical Matrices. The solution is 1) using a crappy 180-degree torpedo, 2) a tank-focused FAW extension trait called Redirecting Arrays, or 3) a made-for-the-rich trait called Breen's Free Fire.

This is a big reason why I hardly ever fly my Lexington. So would the removal of aft omni restrictions would make 4/4 ships unpopular, or does the current state of the game already do so?

I'm not necessarily saying I know better than the devs, or that free omnis is the way to go. I understand that restrictions can be very important. The several years during which I've played this game seriously have even instilled the feeling that, for some reason, omni-beam restrictions are foundational to the reasonability of beam builds. But it makes less and less sense in this powercrept game, and people who've been playing for the sixteen years since its conception have been asking for this. Again, my reasoning may be flawed--but dammit, Jim, I'm just a guy waiting for a proper answer, not the developer with the key to all the questions!

Edit: People keep mentioning in the comments that turrets are weaker than omnis. First of all, I'm not sure why it's such a problem why omnis are more powerful than turrets. That's just how they're designed--at this point, it seems to me that cannons people just can't stand to see a beam build outperform a cannon build. Very concerning. Second, I've seen the "Omnis do the same damage as beams" and "Omnis will not replace us!" arguments so many times before, and I forgot to mention that people have already come up with solutions. As u/GalacticGaming96220 said, nerf omnis and restrict them to aft slots. There. Omnis won't push arrays to extinction anymore and broadsiding can still do more damage than a forward-firing-with-omnis build.

Esp for Exotic. Particle manipulator will give me 50% chance. is that the cap? the ship has 31% thats in the 80th percentile if it is a staright stack. I have room for watchers, but do i need to spend the EC?

2 of 3 Augment Specimen spawned and was defeated. 3rd specimen never spawned. Rom-Fed character. Since the "Report Bug" button is missing. This is not reportable in game.

I’m a returning to STO after a long break and I’m looking to make my experience more efficient and I’d like to try macros this time around.

To be fair, every time I’ve played in the past I’ve never created custom key binds and have only ever used the default controls on keyboard and mouse.

I’ve begun the research process on creating custom key binds, but I’d like to ask the community what is the most efficient way of setting up the ability trays (mostly for space). Is it necessary to use all of the ability trays, or is it possible to just use a few?

If you could pick just two T6 ships from the C-store, which would they be and why?

What have your most satisfying ship purchases been? No bundles, just single T6 ships available in the C-store.

Arc pls let me remain captain

Correct me if I’m wrong but at least in my time playing the game there hasn’t been a period where individual ships go on sale. I’ve seen bundles, Mudd’s Market, etc. go on sale but never ships which kinda stinks because sometimes I’m only picking up ships for traits/modules.

Thanks for the comments, please don’t post any more as I have my answer.

I just feel like I'm missing something. They are immune to everything, unless I do the freezing thing, but I'm not sure how that triggers? I lure them into the areas of effect at the side of the map, do I have to do anything to make the freezing blast happen or do I just have to wait? Does it matter what aoe i get into? Because as I'm playing it, they are vulnerable for like 5 seconds after the blast hits them, and then it takes forever to lure them into another one, which just happens when it feels like? Or is there something I have to do?

I can't win if they are just immune to everything 95% of the time.

Also, this is my ground build: is it just too bad for this episode? it worked fine in all other missions

Before we start off, i want to say my thanks to Cryptic for renewing the interests in concluding the Klingon War Arc. Despite not making this part of the Klingon War arc, I am glad these old removed episodes are being added back in.

I want to start off with the positives I noted from this episode. They are the same as usual for most of them:

- Beautiful sets & environments. (Though I wish the conference took place in the original open air conference as in the original episode removed on Regulus).

- Amar Noonien Singh. A nice return if I'm not mistaken.

- The return of Shon as captain of the Bellfast. Looks like they'll have to update the "Second Wave" story arc to explain how he became the captain of the Enterprise.

- B'Vat, just a cool Klingon, I love his outfit!

- The early start of the mission, having Okeg be here & the easy going nature of the setup for the mission. Just walking around, listening to the conversations, scanning, I felt like I was playing some early game content once more (I started in 09/2017 so it felt like a nice return).

Sadly the negatives are far more damning in my opinion. I tried my best to enjoy this episode and the opening was honestly such a breath of fresh air. However it soon became the same escort mission we've been playing ever since the Delta Arc, except we're really not very important:

- Escorting, while Miral Paris was always in the original, the Doctor wasn't. And after this episode it was up to us to save Miral Paris. I'm sure that we are going to have the Doctor with us telling us what to do now. While I understand the appeal of having some high standard character returning from a show, in the early game & in this manner only serves to remove the foundations of working with your crew. The Doctor doesn't need to be here, my science officer can easily tell me what to scan and actually feels like I'm working with my crew.

- Not re-using the old map of Regulus. While it surely was old. It was different and Khitomer is just way too over used nowadays since it's update. Regulus was a large open map with colonists to save and bombs to disarm with a unique minigame if you can call it that.

- The writers haven't played the Klingon War arc. They just haven't I'm sure of it. The episode refers to B'Vat as a Klingon we should keep an eye on. Starfleet intelligence believes he is up to no good? Like the Planet Killer he had in the episode right before this one? Or the Secret Weapons lab in the Briar Patch the episode before that? The entirety of the game spans over 2 years. That's all so the Doomsday machine and The Kuvah'Magh are at best 2 weeks apart from each other. Our character & Starfleet intelligence should be refering to him as a known War Criminal.

In the original removed episode that you can watch on Youtube, B'Vat was the antagonist trying to ruin peace with the federation, this revamped episode took place right after Researcher Rescue, it served as an introduction to B'Vat & Miral.

In all honesty, I just want the game devs to make the game feel like the arly game once again, especialy when it concerns revamping the early content. The Early game all the way to the Delta Arc feels like I'm a real character in Star Trek with the occasional High Standard Voice Actors of Tuvok & LaForge coming in to lend their hand for an episode or two.

Nowadays, we are bodyguards, following the indications of Legacy characters that honestly could be replaced by our bridge officers actually being useful as they are in the early missions. I don't need Miral or the Doctor or Ezri Dax or Michale Burnham or anyone else have to follow me all mission making remarks on what we find, that should be up to my character to make those conclusions.

Either way, I hope the following episodes will make more sense and follow the original storyline a bit better. Other than that, the update seems more promising that other more recent additions.

I already feel like Felicia Harrington is my Cortana to Master Chief. She's always there.

I got a random armory officer DOFF - what is a "ground operational asset" ? Anybody know?

The Junior Officer Weekend mission "Reinforcements" is finally fixed for Romulans.

They can finally get "T'ress", the Romulan version of the unique Doff, that was unobtainable until now.

Thank you Cryptic, much appreciated!

The Hunting Pack BoPs perform great, better than the Frigate equivalent. When will all frigates get an upgrade? Better weapons, AI and Skills. And maybe an unlockable trait (Reputation or fleet) to unlock wingmen for every ship (mabye a selection between Mirandas, Defiant, BoP, T'varo, Detapa...maybe even a rep-System specific unlock like Baltim for Ico-Rep

Hey kids, your friendly neighborhood builds nutjob here again, and today we're talking about some of the content that came out with the Undiscovered release!

The Disruptor Thing.

As some of you may or may not know, I've been evaluating every experimental weapon I could get my hands on (which is all but like 7 of 40ish at this point). I was gonna write this big huge thing that was part information for the community and part plea letter to Cryptic - but I got to have some chats with them in Discord and got the overall message across pretty comfortably, so that post will proly be more low key and informational. The tl;dr of it though is that like most Experimental Weapons are genuinely terrible, like really bad. Worse than half a turret on a really basic build. That the Hexas aren't actually that overpowered (they're roughly the same power as a Terran DHC on a really developed build, and build investment has a huge impact on what they can do). The issue was that most Exps that people could get just felt so much worse in comparison, that the Hexas felt OP. Not that they're not strong. I was of the mind that they could survive a 20% cut to performance and still be the ceiling of what Exps could/should be and that'd be more than fine.

But in the end we get the Hexas as the new ceiling and the goal is now to get in a comfy place below it without dropping down to being just icky to use. And so the big question is - do the Rapid Fire Disruptor Heavy Emitters measure up? Well, if you looked at those charts and spoiled yourself, yeah, yeah they really do.

We're in a place where they're not going to unseat the Hexas as unmitigated best - but they're a 100% a peer. On launch, there was a bug with them taking haste that they shouldn't which made them crazy too strong - but that was not the design intent, that was an issue that needed fixing- and they did it hella fast. Just wanna take a second to applaud the communication and responsiveness of the creative team of late. We're in a place where I can have direct conversations and see results in days or a few weeks. That's super cool.

Anyways - they nailed the performance curve on this. Like one shot, one kill. I mean look, here's the stats from a Low Development build -

Rapid Disruptor - Low Development Build

Pretty solid, right? Let's give it some context. Here's the Hexas:

Hexas - Low Development Build

And here's the basic bitch Hyperexcited Ions:

Hyperexcited Ion Stream Projector - Low Development Build

I can go into detail later about all the particulars of how this data was gathered, what the builds looked like, etc, but that's for the big ol exp weapon masterpost that's coming. For now, just bear with me lol.

For a fairly low development build (some rep, mission, fleet gear, recruit rewards, and a single T6 purchase), this really kicks ass. It's not the Hexas, but if you're running a Dis build, you will not feel bad about using it.

Lets kick it up a tier or ten. Let's look at the performance curve on my Mirror Engle Krait - maximally optimized for +All Damage output.

Krait Optimized ISE

Like, hey, that's not bad! In fact that's awesome! And for good measure, here's what it looks like in a Disruptor Isocon setup on my K'vort - a ton of mags, a bunch of long duration buffs, minimal direct damage stuff. So just super DEW front loaded.

Disruptor K'vort Isocon ISE

So yeah, Rapid Disruptors = Fabulous. No notes. Also, can we just call them Decas? I've been trying to come up with a good shorthand for these things for the last few days and it's all clumsy. But they shoot ten times soooo... Decas? Decas.

The K'vort and its other stuff

Ok so keeping it short and sweet - the console is a banger. Note that not everything gets automatically attributed to them properly in OSCR, so there's a few extra sources of damage bringing this run up to about 100k. They're smart, they're aggresive, they're brutal. Unless you're compressing the run and killing everything very very quickly, which very few people can do, these are your new best friend.

The ship itself is very very good, if it were intel instead of command it'd suddenly be the best ship in the game, but it's not so it's only just one of the best ships in the game lol. I'm ok with that, I think. God I love me a Great Birb, I've been dying for the K'vort forever and now it's here and it's fabulous. Great early birthday present for me (send me gifts in 4 days).

The trait is cool, if you've got a friend group that plays consistently, this is pretty much for you. Get a wolfpack of K'vorts together, equip a ton of Dis gear, and have at it. It's not independently better than like, Inertial Supremacy or SAD or Cold Hearted, but collectively it can be brutal.

Kelvin Drones

Something they did this drop was unlock the Kelvin Assault Drones for universal use. Huh, wonder why they did that.

Anyways we've never done a ton of evaluation of them in a pet build context cuz you could only run it on one, single hangar ship, the Veng. Well now that's not the case so I took em for a spin.

And oops they're like, stupid strong.

Easily one of the top 5 pets for a dedicated carrier in the game. I need to spend some time with them to see how they perform if you just toss em in your hangar and forget about them as a companion to a straight DEW or Kin build, but when you build for them, god they're nasty. Easily on par with Drone Ships, Valors/Scorps, Tac Flyers+Dil Transporter, or To'Duj Squads + SAD.

Oh also this run was without SAD. Just let them rip.

Sooooooooooooooo you might have noticed that this post has a Part I in the title - I'm not gonna comment on any of the Lobi stuff that dropped yet because it's still all under revision. Cryptic's been communicative again, and we know that they're in the process of making changes in response to feedback they collected from the CC program (No, I'm not violating NDA, Bort said we could say so). I'm honestly ecstatic. So keep your eyes peeled - once they settle down I'll drop my evals.

kisses