Thera and back again....

With a lull in my main alts training time I decided to be impulsive and take a covert ops into Wormhole space in search of two things, find and see Thera & general fact finding exploration regarding navigating and scanning in that space.
Nothing like practical application to burn learning facts into the 'ol noggin.
Living in Wormhole Space, Wormholes 101, Wormhole Fundamentals To name a few are all good resources. There is so much information, so much good information that wading through it all is a task and a half so I decided to jump in literally.

I've had some experience with WH space but never lived there. I've read blogs and articles about life there etc. It made sense to me to start this off with the more general learn stuff objective and find my way to Thera at some stage. I decided to not over think this little venture and skipped reading a lot of content.

My alts skills in the scanning department are not stellar but I think they at least cover the basics.

The ship I chose was one he had the most skills in. The Buzzard like his skills covered most bases. The basic fit I chose for it was nothing special either, I simply downgraded some items, added a T1 1MN MWD, warp core stab, MAU and replaced an expanded launcher with a core version and added in some SOE Probes.

Next up was to insure this little minnow as I fully expect to get killed. I was surprised that there was not a bigger payout for the max level.

After considering the ships fit, the skills my alt had and the options on the market for changing that fit I made one final change.
I swapped out a small Grav for an Algorithm Bank. T1's of course.

Next up on the non existent list was to park up my main and hop onto a "clean" clone that would take the plunge.

So I had a clone and a ship, I decided to undock and "do this thing".
The system I was in, in hi-sec of course, had two cosmic signatures, one combat and one WH, how fortuitous. Best a place to start as any....

I do like that each type of WH now has its own aura/colour.

So I entered the system and started to stick my nose about.
Yes I bookmarked the entrance point on the other side so I could jump back without scanning it down again. Very important.
I made a safe point or two and launched my probes to start scanning. D scan was a problem as my filter settings were not optimal even when I thought they were.
The system was occupied but didnt' seem to see any active members. I did see that all the planets had customs offices and that they were owned by a rather famous pvp áss kicking alliance. I wasn't going to be doing anything uncloaked.

I had two choices, I could scan down another WH and see what I jumped into from there or I could warp to my entrance bookmark and get back to hi-sec.

It felt risky at a safe to uncloak and reload probes never mind anything else in system. Data and Relic sites would need an SOE ship for covert/combat capabilities to a point. I'd learnt that at least. That's a large isk gamble (to me) I will not be taking just yet.

I chose to scan out another WH and move on. I uncloaked and launched probes, warping and recloaking as I went. I warped cloaked a few times to be random and scanned down a new WH to jump into. I repeated the probe collection routine, cloaked and warped etc and did the final warp to the WH entrance. Good thing I decided to land a little off the WH as there were "others" gathered there.
Unluckily I was uncloaked while distracted looking up detailsof the people and ships on the overview, I couldn't read fast enough, I warped to my entrance bookmark asap and activated my cloak.

Tail firmly between my legs I was back in Hi-Sec.


At this point I was glad to have peeked into it but had done more on previous jaunts with less experience.
My Main in a Drake running some sites in another persons active wormwhole is a whole other story.
While back in the hi-sec system I saw that there was a site I could loot and ran it with 20k loot, hardly the payday I could get in null or WH space but it was all about the little victories at the moment.
As I hacked my way through that site I remembered a WH system mapping site, Siggy, this made me recall another site that I had to search for but was inactive. A few more clicks later I came across THE site I remembered seeing before that would save me randomly and forever scouting a way to Thera: https://www.eve-scout.com/. 
So using it's information I had an entrance from a Hi-sec system 15 jumps form me that would lead me directly into Thera. It felt almost like cheating!

There is such mix of community/tools/apps/sites that make the game better, but I think that without researching even a bit you loose out on the enhancements the metagame brings. There is just so much of it(current and legacy).

So I travelled and made my way to the system that was listed as having the WH to Thera, scanned it down and with the info from the website knew if was the correct one.

And Jumped through.

I expected the system to be camped and swarming with pvpers in a Star Wars Mos Eisley kind of way. It wasn't.
Dotlan seems to have been blocked on showing kills/details for the system. But zkill gets the pvp kill data. I wasnt' worried about the pvp of getting podded. I wanted to see the system for myself to say that I was there if nothing else. And I did, Checking out each station (not that there is any real variety).

 

I looked at some sites and checked out the very large warp times to get anywhere in the system. I took it all in.

I did not see one person on the undock or near any station. I didn't see much on Dscan except for some mobile depot's and can's in space.
It felt very very empty.
zkill shows activity but I can't help but thing that if the SOE/interbus or some other neutral/all faction corp was given a policing contract the system would be used as a new Jita for WH players/corps/alliances. I'm sure CCP is Thera-crafting its strategy on this system and policing it is the last thing on their mind. Maybe I missed the high noon or maybe only certain time zones are active in it.

 
I like that the system is so big. I actually feels as a solar system should be. Expansive.

CCP should think about a change in the gravity of all star systems to enlarge the current systems to be bigger. A consequence of the recent star explosion perhaps. A way of altering the systems of Eve into the Eve solar systems 2.0. That may be too much tinfoil hat thinking.

After warping up and down the system and looking at the sites (literally) I warped back to the bookmark entrance and jumped back to hi-sec.
Mission accomplished.
Only the more general WH discovery to go. I think I'll be doing that with another character who I'll get to join a proper WH corp and see how that works out.

I've yet to fly my Main alt back to his HQ and refit his Buzzard and clone jump to get more training in. Or maybe I'll take another run or two in a WH.... Time will tell.

Sharing is caring....

Player trading within Dust 514 has been wanted and needed since the game started. The news that it is coming later this month sounded good.

It's a great new feature and seems to be done in a no hassle way, as long as you trust the person your giving stuff to.

Dust trading

"Give" is the big keyword here. I don't see why they couldn't have done something similar to Eve contracts, or better still done it like a wow mail where transporting items is instant and has a COD (cash on delivery) option. It's a subject that's been talked and discussed at length but this new system is what's happening.

As it stands the biggest butthurt for me is that to use the system you need to be at loyalty level 4.
That sucks.
I play this game as a Free to Play game, I invest no money into it. I've been playing for the guts of a year and am only 3/4 the way though the second level (level 1). I'm not alone in thinking level 4 is too high. #14, #44, #53.

My main has lower level items/suits that will never be used again. My alt could use them.
My alt has items/suits that will never be used. My main would find these handy.
What's the harm in trading these with my own characters.
Even with a lowering of the level I probably wont' be allowed to use the new system on either of my characters.

Post #64 sums this up nicely.

#64

Gaming habit....

Good article.... about "Why habit formation is the key to long term retention".

 

 

I can see CCP moving in ways that will form more of this kind of loop. 

The last few years you can see they are making things "better"/"simpler" and giving appeal for a broader range of players. While still keeping the die-hard niche somewhat happy. 

 

Eve's pvp buzz is a heart pounding experience at first. 

Then you get used to it, you try to reclaim that first feeling by adding to the mix or taking a more expensive ship out to pvp in. You have the added bonus of fleet camaraderie that helps and replaces that rush with a hunter pack mentality. 

Even as a carebear in my early day's I'd be literally freaking out after loosing something/anything. Now I'm losing Loki's and just shrug my shoulders and pretty much say "meh".

 

It's a tough balancing act but wow is the real master of this art. Scary when you start thinking how long your subscribed to a game.... 

 

At least things in Eve are more "permanent". A frigate you fly in your first week can be more useful in your tenth year.

My New Eden Update....

My game time in Dust of late has been revolving around further "suit spinning", not quite like the Eve version but setting up suits/fits and testing them out, it has it's fun.
Since the last major patch the number of "better" items that are salvaged after fights has seen my asset count soar. Not that I can use half the suits or items I have but it's nice to see what other options there are.
I've used some of the reward suit that allow more slots to be used as they give more power and cpu usage. Although I have scaled back on this, I want to keep the "better" gear for when I can better use it.... somewhere down the line. The best thing I did recently was to buy a few of the pre-fitted suits for my race/faction and use them. I got the militia, standard and advances suits. The militia was not pre-fitted but I used the standard suit as it's template. Oddly enough the standard suit/fit was way better than the militia. lol. I began with 200 standard suits, and another 100 since. Best fun in using them. They allow the skills I have to be used more effectively.  The militia suits/fits (250 of them) are going to be left in the hanger till I sell or scrap them. Or use them inmatches where I don't care about the loss's. I need about 250k SP to finish off skills needed to be able to use the pre-fit advanced suits so I'm only buying/using enough standard suits as I go.
This has lead me into refitting my own Templar gear/mods/fittings, experimenting with new items and modules and to adjust and learn. Getting the "hang" of the market to find the prefit suits is all spawned from my starting a new alt, my first Dust alt. As part of the starting gear there was not just faction specific fitted starter suits but cross faction fits listed. Needless to say I tried them out and after consideration I have to say that the Minmatar seems like the most fun and powerful to play (for my low sp alt anyway) Amarr comes second mainly due to the scrambler rifle with Galente and Caldari being last. Caldari being very last. My new alt has none of the free perks that the main has but it is still a lot of fun to play. I like the way that the alt is treated as a character in it's own right getting it's own set of daily missions to try and it's own daily logon bonus.
It may not have any active SP time but SP is being built up by the matches and bonus's completed. That's a nice thing without taking away form the real time sp tick on the main.


The daily mission rewards are continuing to be a great motivator. They add a one more kill/game/capture element to my game time. I'm looking froward to the next event that will add some spice.
I've not looked back using the mouse and keyboard either, it really is the only way to play!
There is so much potential with this game. So many people could still be attracted to play. I was glad to hear that CCP is making a profit form Dust, very welcome news. I hope that CCP can see that there could be a lot more done for the game and in turn CCP, if there are a few more resources used to help it along....

 

Good trailers/promos, pity there are no new ones.

There has been a lot of talk on Eve blogs about what players consider to me their main character. People have been sharing their perspectives. The first blog I read on this was Evehermit's Who are you, who am I? entry, that then lead me onto the others he listed.
It's something that's been on my mind for a long while. I have main's and alts and I consider them to be my own perspective on the game. But I dont' really do anything with them that would pigeon hole them into one category. I consider both of my accounts to have a main. Both mains have the most SP per account and are along the same lines (mission runner, pve, hi-sec carebear jacks of all trades). Albeit one is 30 million sp lower than the other. I've talked about these and my alts before and I've talked about getting them into different activities, maybe not like a specific alt doing only one thing but a pack of alts of all trades. Maybe I need to pigeon hole each one more.
The main problem when I do start to look into getting them specialised is the time needed. I recently gave an example of my main alt(yes it's a term), looking into joining a WH corp. The time and activity level needed to join the corp at the level I wanted was so much that it would outstrip the way I currently play the game and take up way more time than I currently spend between all my characters.
The only success I've had is with my null alt, I was very lucky with him to be in the corp he is in mainly because I'm left alone to do my own thing, no mandatory fleet ops etc. Interact when I want to. I've extended his game time by 6 more month's.
The game time on my Amarr alt has run out but there is still another 160+ day's of training to do.
My Minmatar alt has about 60 day's of training left and will need about another month on the end of that.
I've stopped paying for my wow subscription and that's how I justified my null alt's extension of time. I still feel the need to train my Minm and Amarr alts but at the same time I'm conflicted. Why train them if I'm not going to use them more. Training for the sake of training is a time and RL money sink. I need to use my characters more. And for better reasons than to micromanage what I've already invested in.
At the moment besides my null alt all my characters can pretty much be considered to be solo play in the hi-sec sandbox, that is less of a taboo now than it was in the past.
It takes so much time and effort to try and get a good corp with good people you can interact with. Despite the RL friends I've played with in Eve there are only a handful or other corps that I can say I've been part of in all my Eve time.

Having waffled away far too much I can say that in game I've started to streamline what my characters can use and should keep. selling off the rest or transferring it to my main on my first account (my main main, yes it's a term ;-p) to be held only by him or sold off. The previous redistribution has only made the assets become a clutter over a larger area.  I can see myself clearing and stripping away a lot more or this clutter to bring more streamlined meaning to what my characters use and should use more. Just because a character can fly every ship doesn't mean that character needs to own every ship.... 

The news about changes to Brave is continuing to evolve. Interesting to see.
http://www.themittani.com/news/brave-leadership-crisis-alliance-leader-forced-out
http://evenews24.com/2015/04/06/lycton-kondur-removed-as-brave-collective-executor/

The new vid for the TV areal.... Sorry Jackdaw Caldari T3 Destroyer:

 

I liked the o7 show's Report:

Happy Easter....

Fanfest Panels....

Some more fanfest panels have been posted up on youtube. Here is the link.

It will take some time to go through what sounds interesting and what may be interesting, but these two are on the top of my list:


EVE Fanfest 2015: EVE & DUST 514 Community Panel 

EVE Fanfest 2015: Developing Apps on Google App Engine 

Operation Magic School Bus....

A project worth supporting.
This link has the in game contact info.

https://mikeazariah.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/ooc-art/

The Scope: Drifter Activity Intensifies

My Eve Update....

Not much has been happening for me within Eve at the moment. Not much that I can waffle on about anyway. I think I've been doing more in Dust with Eve open on the side rather than the other way round which I feel should be the way.

My Null alt has been checking his market orders and only done enough mining to update the items that are selling. These include some T1 weapons and modules, haulers, probes (scan and combat), and some items like large containers. It's been a massive scale back after the market "crash" a few weeks ago. But the income from it is ongoing. It is a more competitive market and has needed more attention of late. This lats PI is the best earner, at a guess it would be about 100 Million a week. If I was meticulous about the PI and the market I'm sure I would make a lot more.  I've not done the mining for ore to sell as ore and the ratting has been non existent but both are options should circumstances change.  A lot of war dec's has meant that there has been zero hi sec activities so no PVE or testing of my new Tengu that is really my old Tengu at this stage.
PVP with this character has also been on my mind but I'd like to get his current "batch" of training our of the way, that's more to do with my not wanting to "waste" training time rather than anything I'm looking to skill into or use.

Both of my Hi-sec carebear main's have been ship spinning, maintaining their PI/data-core farming and micromanaging hangers and ships.
In fact that has been the fate of my Hi-sec alt as well. I have been looking into getting into the WH site of things with him but everything I've been looking into corp wise has lead to a larger commitment than I could do as a casual gamer. All others that are looking for less commitment only give very flaky information and I've heard too many stories from friends about being awoxed especially when corps can choose to have friendly fire be illegal and don't. Maybe that's just my paranoia kicking in.

My Amarrian alt is still skilling up in an SP explosion that has seen that alt vary so far off course then just being a trader and hauler. She also just received a T1 Apoc battleship from my main main, the skills to fit it, mainly the T2 weapons are still to be trained into so that's six month's away. Again another thing that is "ongoing". 

 

A while ago I decided to stick with hauling and courier contracts using an Impel and a Prorator with this alt rather than get a Providence, but to quote a phrase, picking have been slim. so business has been bad.

Rounding up the alt list is my Minmatar alt. Again another hi-sec carebear but this time based around the minmatar faction. Not that I'm a role player but like my Amarrian alt, this alt is faction specific. Just because.
I decided to setup this alt to be able to farm datacores. To do this with a level 4 datacore agent I needed the faction/corp/agent standing for this alt to be at 5.0. Of those options (faction/corp/agent) the best standing was from faction. This allowed me to skip the level 1 and 2 agents and just straight to farming standing with level 3 agents for the corp that has the agent that will supply the datacores. So off I went with a Cyclone and started the grind. These level 3's are easy to do as they have none of the complexity of the level 4's, usually it's easy to warp into the mission, kill the mission objective while tanking the incoming dps, warp out and handin the mission. Easy stuff.

As a hi-sec carebear I'm adverse to loosing standings. Even if that faction is the enemy of my alts faction. So when I got a mission to go kill some Amarrian faction npc's I declined the mission. The next mission that the agent gave was The blockade. I remember this mission vaguely from doing it at level 4 levels. I kind of remembered it as being a high dps, lots of rats kind of vague mission that was harder to do then was worth. So all in all I decided that taking my alts Loki instead of the battlecruiser.  The Loki with this alt has been able to tank level 4's with all modules on and be cap stable. It's been a brick in level 4's.Accepting the mission, off I went to get ride of this mission and move on to get more standing.
My lack if remembering the level 4 version of this mission and my lack of looking things up should have been more of a warning to me.
By this time in reading you've probably guessed it but I lost the Loki... yeap, the ultimate carebear shame. I lost a Loki in a level 3.
I started off the mission and all was going well, I was killing the smallest ships first. The small ships were obviously the triggers as when I killed them more npc's would appear. No problem as I was killing and tanking it with no problem. About the 4th wave of reinforcements came but instead of being the same 80km away reinforcement this new wave landed 4kmn from me. DPS hit me hard. I was obviously at their optimal as the first of their volley's took my shields. I aligned to be on the safe side but before I could warp off I was siting in my pod. Ho-Lee-Cow. wtf.

I know the changes to the Loki and other T3's were done but I seemed to be tanking and acting normal in this mission... plus its "only" a level 3...... I took the loss in stride and warped out and got a battleship to over compensate and finished off the mission. That's not to say that I didnt' mull the thought to maybe submit a ticket to see if there was something that happened that could explain why it didnt' warp in time... but I didn't.... even writing this I'm rethinking should I....

After the mission handin I spent the alt's isk to replace the Loki into an updated and enhanced version of it. I've not done any more mission yet but I'll go back to the cyclone and see how things go. This alt is broke in the isk sense, gonna be a lot of PI and missions to make that isk back... Good thing I started the process already.

TIE Fighter....

Found this while surfing the net....

Fanfest over... Good things coming....

So with Fanfest over there is a lot to digest on the Eve Online front.
Overviews of both Day 2 and Day 3 are interesting  There's a lot to look forward to seeing realised in game.


I am particularly looking forward to the structure changes, the full details are here. I'm glad I took down and sold my POS when I did.

Of the new effects coming I really like the look of these two.

POS Shield

Ship Explosion

There are lots more that can be seen here.



The new scope video adds to the mix:

There has been a lot of chatter about Pandemic Legion pushing into Brave Newbies space and the sound cloud clips that have surfaced have been interesting.
Brave-middle-management-meltdown

Brave-evacuation-underway

Fanfest 2015 - Day 1 in review from CCP

http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/fanfest-2015-day-1-in-review/

DUST 514 - Collected Learnings

Eve Online Update....

I've had this in draft's for a while now but I'm only getting to write it up and flesh it out now. With luck I'll finish this post and write up a decent view of what I'm doing in Eve with my characters tomorrow. It's late now so I'll see how much I get to waffle and what I get to remove from this.

CSM voting has been completed and I'm glad to say that I got to vote my selection with all my accounts. And the results given in the fanfest keynote presentation today were a win for my top pick.


The scope news spots are continuing and are great to watch.

I really, really enjoy them.

The latest video to carry the story forward is from fanfest and is a real teaser.

 
 Another major part of fanfest's presentations today was the Eve Valkyrie video.

Eve Valkyrie looks like it will be a big title on PC and PS4, I'll be very much staying with it on PC and will look forward to it.
Part of me can't help but think back to when video's like this were shown about Dust514 but I think that CCP had well learnt it's lesson. Indeed Dust 514 may not have had much "air" time or mention at all in the live feeds but Dust is listed on the Fanfest scedule. Listed along the lines of the playerbase and "learning" from the experience. There does not seem to be any current info on what they are doing with the game and where it's future is going.
Dust would have so much more and the community would be so much more forgiving if CCP was clearer on details, for fanfest I'd have expected more. Dust 514 is after all a product and CCP does employ a number of people in the Dust 514 team, why should merchandising and Eve Online models get more of a mention than a subsection of the playerbase that IS in the sandbox.
The current playerbase has already slated the lack of Dust 514 in the keynote and I think the video and comments in the forum best represents the overall generalised view Dust 514 players have about CCP. Maybe my comments are premature as fanfest is ongoing. Things can change. But I read this with interest and the response is also interesting.

For some reason the way CCP is going about their VR games very much reminds me about my love for the Splinter Cell games. I like Splinter Cell. I played it on the original xbox and on the 360, each release after the other. I knew about the Splinter Cell offshoots on phones and DS's etc, but I was never tempted to keep up with them even when those other "smaller" releases had free gifts and unlocked items for the main triple A releases on the main systems. That memory makes me wonder how much CCP will push each new slice of the Eve universe on every platform/system/device they can and how much they will want to swing off the Eve Online branch. Maybe I need a tinfoil hat.


Fanfest is worth watching (http://www.twitch.tv/ccp), the future year ahead of Eve is looking to be quiet a blast. And the Eve Valkyrie should be very interesting.

I'm not a fan of the new UI icon's I can see why they would want to do it but modernisation for modernisation sake is not always a good change.
Maybe it's just me but they new icon's, especially the drone identifiers look very space invader...

As for adding the plus sign on top of the NPC icon's again for me this looks completely naff and throws the icons off.

Overall I think the new icon's add a new form of hieroglyphics to the game that the spreadsheet fans will love bit that if you had to describe all these new icon's to a new starter to the game. really if a vet reading a dev blog is making faces then a noob has no chance. Thankfully they are tweaking these and with luck they will get good feedback and adjust things to be "better".

There is so much information from fanfest, form the keynotes/main presentations, that it will take time to look into in detail and as fanfest continues there is sure to be more information and further details. I have to say that I was surprised by the "stats" presentation, fro enjoying it and for the surprise that the last two years worth of data is available for each character.... I almost looked up one site that would present my characters data but I think I'll leave that till I have more time to really check it out.

Nullsec sov is a key point and as with every ting in Eve is related to so much more, there is no way even with all that's been said and argued about it that a proper conclusion can be seen as the future is hidden in NDA'd material, Even the info from Fanfest hinted at more structures that would truly change the face of what we know... time will tell, the other side of fanfest may be clearer.


Besides Watching Fanfests details I tried looking for more updates to the Eve 101 video's but It looks like CCP has taken over eve 101's spotlight on video's on eve. CCP are doing their Flight Academy well but I did like the 101 series.


There was a great article on mmo player behaviour from PC Gamer that is worth reading.


Evogenda had a good post here as well that seems to echo elements in my own game time in Eve.

I'll leave this post and waffle about my characters tomorrow. Apologies in advance for the spelling, a late night spelling check is no spelling check at all. o7

Eve Trial

The trials for Eve Online have been changed to 30 day's..... click here to get yours!!

Democracy 3....

I came across this game, as I do with many, by accident.

Democracy 3 peeked my interest as an offline, micromanagement nirvana. But dont' let my description put you off. Like most games I get I check up on them before I buy, in this case the game can be summed up by one very good youtube video review:

 

Well worth checking out the "WTF IS" channel for more like it.

I went and go the game on steam with 3 addon's for less then €30 on steam.

I don't think that it's a game I'd blog about but there's a "one more try" addiction to the game.
My first two UK game terms were marred by bad fiscal management and a lack of zeal for reelection, the third in the US ended with my and my cabinets bloody assassination.

Dust 514 Update....

My time in dust 514 is ongoing. I like the new daily missions, although they seem like they are old hat now. It's always great to get a feature of a game that makes you wonder how it existed without it. I especially like the daily 1 battle win that grants an unlock key for an encryption box. I have far too many encryption box's, 600+, I wont' be spending money to buy Aurum to buy key's to unlock them but free key's are a bonus. There is still uncertainty on the future of Dust 514 and what Legion will be. And what will be transferred if Legion does exist.

The war barge is a nice addition as well and adds that incentive to build on something to increase yourisk/dps etc.... Wow Garrisons in space.

Despite the CPM elections I can't find anything outside the official forums from the CPM, it is a smaller community but it was much more vocal, 2013 must have been the height, last year at fanfest it was slaughtered at it's own red wedding and no wonder there is silence.
Despite Dust's young comparative age against Eve. I just wish there was more. You can't google anything on Eve Online without tripping over pages of posts.I guess each community will be it's own.
But I'd love to see a site dedicated to the fitting of dropsuits!

At least the devposts continue.

The last event held in the game, the 5 Million Clone challenge, was interesting. It definitely made more people play the game as matches were played with full teams on both sides. A drop in numbers was evident once the event was over. One match after it yesterday had 4 people per team, that's the worst I've seen even before the event. But the results as listed in this devblog was interesting! As were the rewards, very much appreciated.

Next up is Hotfix Echo, I look forward to seeing these changes in action.Tweaking for balance is always a good thing... most of the time!

Not my vid but one I came across, interesting and I like the first track of music played :)

Entropia....

I found this article a while back and bookmarked it. I good read and lots of details about the game. I've only now gotten to read it. I have a friend that plays Entropia and has talked about his experiences but it all sounded like too much hard work. Sweating animals for instance.... I didnt' want to know any more details.

Star Trek Online.... take 3.

In the slow end to my wow gaming time I've started to take up Star Trek Online again.

It's in game news said at the time that it was having it's 5th Anniversary! 5 years. I must be having time warp issues. I can't believe it's been out for 5 years!

 

This time warp means I really only spent a very short time at it's start, and my last visit would have only been a blink of an eye.

This time round I've spent a lot ,ore time in the game and have enjoyed it without noticing the time put into it.

There are a lot of people playing the game, the space no matter how far flung always seems to be alive with people and ships coming and going.
Thankfully as I was a subscriber and bought a better edition at the start I do end up with a few good perks and rewards. Not that they are amazing but they help. The best one being that I have a Trill character, so can choose other alien factions to play rather than earning that in game or unlocking it.
I've noticed the amount of micro-transactions you need to get ahead, to have shiny ships and gear. But that has not taken away from the "Free to play" version, if you dont' want to put anything into it you don't have to.

Combat (at least in space) is very much about shield balancing and direction. Weapons have an arc of fire so that generally means keeping your forward shield at maximum and always keeping that forward shield facing the enemy. That becomes harder when against multiple enemies.

 

Combat is eased when killing smaller enemy ships first, avoiding large yeild torpedo's or weapons if possible by adjusting speed, shooting incoming slow moving torpedoes and as always with any mmo, teamwork. The effort needed to do well in combat is not overly complex at all, fitting out ships and characters is a simplified version of wow's character gearing. And unlike Eve online death has no consequence as like wow you simply respawn to continue where you left off. For me, that does not take anything away from the game. It's fun. Even if the ground combat is much more of a button pressing mash up.

STO is a melding of all the shows time lines, with older and newer Trek technologies and characters brought together in a way that works. I'm a fan of the franchise but not a die-hard. Purists will be having fits if they don't take the game for what it is.

The vista's are nice and some moments are very impressive in my opinion.

From killing Borg in a daily mission....

 

          

                        ..... to combating wayward Klingons, STO has it all.

The story lines are the best part of STO. I found myself playing through the space and ground based missions (like an epic quest chain) without noticing I was spending time on it. They were interesting and offered a story driven way for your character to interact with npc's effortlessly. Levelling was then not a grind at all.
Every 10 levels you get a new rank and with it a new free ship.
It was so effortless I found myself levelling up,  reaching a new decade level was granted a mission to speak to the admiral for a new ship but in completing the "quest chain" I had levelled up another 10 levels so was granted a second mission to speak to the admiral for an even newer ship.
So was granted 2 free ships and one I didnt' even get to use!
That may sound like it's too easy to level up but all that I've described above has left me at level 33 (of 50) and only halfway through the second of the story lines. there are , with 2 extra top level left to do. That's not to mention the special events and reputations to grind away with. Just like wow and Eve online there are factions that you can get reputation with and those factions offer rewards. Better gear and ship upgrades are they main way to ease life in STO, to do it faster you pay.

STO like wow's garrison's has the option to send Duty officers, your very own crew, off to do missions and look into R&D to upgrade items you have. The mission rewards include XP to level your character and this adds up quickly as well.

Editing your character/bridge crew and ship in both looks and item usage adds to the complexity and makes you feel that you have a more personalised connection to your crew, your officers and your ships.

 

Ship 1

Ship 2

Ship 3

Character look Upgrade

Ship 5

Ship look upgrade

My second Starfleet character also got some extra time.

 

I ventured into the Klingon characters/storyline.

And did the same for the Romulan's

 

All in all I enjoyed all my characters, all the story lines are different and per character there are changes. As a free game it is worth it. More so if you are a fan of the tv shows and movies.
I may spend more time in STO soon enough but I am at a point where I have enjoyed my vacation to the land of STO and it's time to return home. Like any other vacation I've enjoyed I can see myself going back. Maybe not to do the exact same thing again but the Klingon and Romulan verities need exploration. I might then see about the familiarity of the Starfleet alt. My main will stay my main in this game and I'll see if I progress further at some stage but the variety is the first and foremost next step for me and this game has it in spades.

Eve Trial Change

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