Character Update

                So I have been busy looking for a new job. So I have been doing more Job searching that gaming. But I have been able to sneak some time in for gaming, all for STO though, so not much else to report on.

Star Trek Online (STO)

                Winter Wonderland is still in full swing. They have made some changes to it and removed the Tides of Ice is no longer required. So now all of my guys are just doing whatever they can to get the glossies of Q and the Winter Currencies to buy the Ship and Warp Core.

                The only other thing of note has been that the Elachi Alert Event happened this past weekend.  Running this nets you any Rep Marks. SO I just ran that for each person for my marks this past weekend. Otherwise, I have just been running the appropriate STF to get the marks that I want.

                And now we move on to the individual efforts in STO.

Fleet Admiral Zombee

                Making good progress with the getting the winter event ship. And I need very few Targ Earmuffs to get the warp core. Other than that, I was working on Omega gear but stopped to use my refined Dilithium to upgrade my gear and to enhance my ship so that I can up my DPS and finally complete the Delta Quadrant Storyline and start working on Advanced Queues.

Admiral Grell

                Making progress towards the winter ship and getting the warp core. But have a long way to go. Also just running whatever will get me Delta marks so that I can get the Delta Gear. He is now Tier IV in the Delta Alliance Rep.

Admiral Torc

                He has been making progress towards getting the winter ship and the warp core. Running what I can to get the Delta Marks. He is now Tier III in the Delta Alliance Rep.

And that was it for this past week. Hope you enjoyed!

Character Updates

                Hello again! Once more I will cover what I have been doing since the last blog. So here we go!

Star Trek Online (STO) Characters

                So the Mirror Invasion Event came to an end. Zombee, Torc and Grell were the only ones who completed it.  I didn’t have time to play the others. Even so, I did enjoy the event as it was going.

                The Junior Officer Weekend I didn’t do. There just was not enough time for me to try to do any of it.

                There also was a Bonus Marks Weekend. This event will give you about 50% more of the reputation marks than normal. I used this to stock up on the marks that I was lowest on for those guys that ran it.

                This brings us to the Winter Wonderland Event brought to you by Q. This event is where you get sent to a pocket dimension created by Q where you fight snowmen, assimilated snowmen; eat pie, race on ice and many other things. In particular, there is an event where you can race against and NPC, called The Fastest Game on Ice. If you win, you get the Autographed Q pictures that you need to get the special ship. There are three Breen Ship up for grabs. And it has the same mechanic as the Risian event. Once one guy gets the ships, the alts can pick it up after just one race. They also have a new piece to the Breen Space Set, a warp core.  But you have to complete the Tides of Ice activity ten times before you can buy it.

                Some updates were also made to the game that lowered the materials needed to craft things. This makes it a lot more feasible for me to craft things and try to upgrade my weapons and gear.  Another update they did was to lower the difficulties on certain STF’s and up the rewards across most content. These are steps in the right direction to make this better but it’s not there quit yet.

                And that’s the major things for STO, now on to the individual efforts.

Fleet Admiral Zombee

                He is now level 60. I have gotten Beams to 16, Cannons and Engineering to 13, Ground Weapons and Projectiles are at 12 and Science is level 3. I also upgrade three of the Flickenger’s forward weapons to Tier 14. All of the Nukara Space Set has been built and all of the Nukara ground gear has been bought. I have now started on making the missing pieces for the various Task Force Omega space gear. The Delta Alliance Reputation has reached Tier V, but I don’t have the necessary Delta Quadrant special currency to get the gear yet. You have to run Advanced Missions to get them currently.  They have announced that they plan to place it other things to get them so I am waiting for that to hit the server for me to start tracking done those things.

                In the mean time, I have been running the Winter Wonderland events to gather the currencies necessary to the Breen Chell Grett Warship. This is the only tactical ship amongst the three that you can get. I have 5 days out the required 25 days done for this ship. I also have picked up the tactical Kit piece, Cryo Grenades. The Cryo and Plasma grenades cannot be slotted at the same time, I currently have the Cryo’s slotted to see if they work for me. I also have picked up a winter weapon so that I can fight the snowmen effectively and gain the winter currencies as fast as I can so that I can get the Breen Warp Core. He has also completed the Tides of Ice assault all ten times. So I can buy anything now.

                Another thing to note, I have gotten 2 more specializations beyond the 10 that you get from leveling. I am still working on Commando Specialization. Once it’s maxed out, I will go on to the Intelligence Specialization.

Admiral Grell

                He is now level 55. He completed the Mirror Invasion Event and got the big payout.  He ran the Bonus Marks events but did not do the Junior Officer Event.  He also is working on the Delta Quadrant Alliance reputation, currently at Tier II.

                The Winter Wonderland Event is in progress. He is working to get the Breen Plesh Brek Heavy Raider. Of the three ships, this one is the closest to being an engineering ship. With Zombee finished with getting the ten Tides of Ice completions Grell has started on getting them.  But since I can only throw snow balls, it is very hard to be effective and get much in the way of rewards. But he will have the necessary currencies soon and will be able to purchase an event weapon to use.

General Torc

                He is now level 55. He also completed the Mirror Invasion Event and the Bonus Marks Event. He also did not do the Junior Officer Event. He also has gotten to Tier II in the Delta Quadrant Alliance reputation.

                The ship he is going for in the Winter Wonderland Event is the Breen Sarr Theln Carrier. This ship is completely geared towards science operations. Also this ship is Tier 6, while the other two can be pushed up to Tier 5U. Once Grell has completed the 10 required Tides of Ice runs, then Torc will start down that path.

                I would like to say that I played more than this, but I can’t, at least not MMO’s. I have been playing Sims Life Free play, XCOM: Enemy Within and Galactic Civilization II. 

Character Update

                Hi All! Once again found some time to write. I have a lot to cover so I hope you guys stick it through.

Star Trek Online (STO) Characters

                So I have been running the queued events a lot. The new Borg queued event is interesting on normal and not completely impossible. Though I haven’t had a run yet in which we killed all three of the final bosses in within the time limit. Best I have done has gotten two down. Still it’s a decent amount of marks, though not much Dilithium. Cryptic though figured out from watching all of this that their award structure wasn’t good and upped them.

                They also brought in the Mirror Invasion Event for three weeks. Collect 14 Multi-Dimensional Transporters and you get a big payout of 50,000 Dilithium, 500 Fleet Marks, 250 Marks of your choice and Zefram Cochrane’s Shotgun. Since this is a three week event I hope that I can do this on all of my characters. But as it stands it looks like my main three will get this done and the rest will get real close. After you get the 14 turned it, you can turn the Multi-Dimensional Transporters one at a time for 2000 Dilithium, 50 Fleet Marks and 35 Marks of any type.

                They also had a Junior Officer Weekend event. This is an event in which you go to the Fed of KDF Academies and train cadets. DO the training long enough and you can get a purple Duty Officer (DOFF) out of it. You also get a unique DOFF from the event for just showing up. That just ended this past weekend.

                So that has been the changes of note to the game…now for the Individual efforts.

Admiral Zombee

                So running the queued events is slower advancement. But I have gotten to level 58 now. Beams are still level 15. And I have gotten the ship and gear situation worked out to know what I need to do get him and his ship geared properly. He is flying the Phantom Intel Escort, USS Flinkenger. I have done pretty well with him. But like all escorts, her hull is weak. So I have to do a lot of engineering hull heal powers to keep me going. I am 8 out 14 for the big bonus at this time. I almost have all of the Nukara Space sets built and have started on the ground gear.

Vice Admiral Grell

                I have been running the Mirror Invasion only. I have reached level 53. I am flying the Aelahl Class Light Warbird Battlecruiser, the RRW Itaeru. He has collected 8 of the Multi-Dimensional Transporters so far. The lacks a little fire power because I still have Rare Mark XII gear on this along with the Very Rare Mark XII. But she is slowing getting better gear. Besides doing the Doffing missions and leveling the R&D branches, I do nothing else with him.

Lieutenant General Torc

                Also has only run the Mirror Invasion Event. He has reached level 52. He is flying an upgraded Varanus Class Support Vessel, the old IKS Roturrom. With low number of weapons this old girl has, she isn’t a DPS monster, but what she does do is weather damage very well and closes rifts extremely fast. She has can do some shield healing to others on occasion. This ship does still have some Uncommon Mark XI gear so upgrading this stuff will be of importance, but not till Zombee has done it first. I also have done Doffing and R&D missions.

Vice Admiral Daniel

                Only occasionally run the Mirror Invasion Event. He has reached level 51. I also got him flying the Eclipse Intel Cruiser, the USS Cambrian. With weapons ranging from Mark VII to Mark XI and Consoles ranging from Mark II to Mark XI, this ship is really not in the best setup yet. But she seems good enough to get through the Mirror Event in a good enough manner. She is tough as she is now and very easy to turn. And I can get the stations defenses up very quickly with her. Just need more time to get the gear up to snuff.

Vice Admiral Danic

                Making Mirror Invasion Event runs only. He is also level 51. He also is flying the Scryer Class Intel Science Vessel, the USS Scryer. With mostly Very Rare Mark XII gear, she is a very capable little ship and very durable. It will be interesting to ship how well this ship does in the storyline missions.

Lieutenant General Sisteric

                He is running Mirror Invasion Event only. He has made it level 51. He also is flying the Qib Class Intel Battlecruiser, IKS Aremtha. She mostly has Very Rare Mark XII gear on this beast. She is very maneuverable and tough. Pretty good ship so far.

Lieutenant General Kan

                He is level 51 from running the Mirror Invasion Event so far. He now is flying the Mat’Ha Class Raptor, IKS Hangraw. With most of his gearing be common or uncommon and as low as Mark IV, this ship is still very respectable and hardly ever blows up. I think once I get to this guy and get his ship up to snuff that He will be very formidable.

Vice Admiral Zemo

                I haven’t run him much in the Mirror Invasion Event. He still is only Level 50. But he did get his new ship, a Faeht Class Intel Warbird called RRW Ludelvius. She is a fun ship but with Mark IV gear and up on her she is not quite good as a DPSer yet. But she has been effective in supporting other ships killing things so that’s what I do with her so I follow one other player and help kill his targets.

World of Warcraft and other MMO’s got put on the back burner for many reasons. Chief among them is time and cost. With my work schedule being scaled back my money situation is getting tighter, so things like WoW get cancelled for now. Once my income rises back up, WoW will be fired back up. Until then, Star Trek Online, Neverwinter and Champions Online will be my MMO’s with STO being the primary game to be played.

                So that is it for now. I hope this is informative for now and hopefully I will be able to do more in the future, and more often. Until then, Enjoy!

Character Update

                Hello everyone. I have been very busy. Between work and family I haven’t had much time to write. But I finally found some time and so here is the report.

Star Trek Online (STO) Characters

                So over the past month, The XP Boost Event ended, Delta Rising was released and the Bonus Lobi and Dilithium Weekend has happened. Once the XP Boost ended I went back to my main Fed character Vice Admiral Zombee and focused on leveling him to 60. Once he is done then Torc will be leveled and then Grell. I will also continue to get all of the Rep gear and try upgrading Zombee’s  space and ground gear. But the amount of Dilithium needed to do this is massive and will greatly delay things.

                The new changes to STO have added a new difficulty structure to queued events. But this difficulty increase is really just a buff to the hp of the NPC’s. This means for most casual players, you will not be effective or generally successful on the content at the lowest difficulty setting. It takes me hours just to complete one mission in the story content because of this buff. And this on a ship that has been upgraded and with the gear that used to make it Elite queue runs take only 15 minutes.  This is a step in the wrong direction.

                And then they shut down one sector of Space because people found a way to efficiently get skill points in a short period of time. Those people that were found using this exploit had their skill points and specialization points taken from them. If you’re going to make the game an incredibly boring grind to get anywhere, expect people to find any means to shorten the grind.

                With all of these changes, I have relegated my time to just running the queued events just to level. And will go back to the story content once I am maxed level and can really effectively fight.  At least with Zombee. I have a feeling that my Eng and Sci Officers will find it easier to play the content than my Tactical Officers. I will know more once I get Zombee leveled and get ready to move on to Torc, a Sci KDF officer.

                I also won the Delta Rising Operations Pack on one of the livestreams. So I have opened and added the appropriate ships, gear, duty officers and bridge officers to people as I play them.

Admiral Zombee

                I have been leveling this character towards 60. I have made it to level 57 as of this writing.  He also gained 3 Intel Bridge officers and one new ship. Also I got to upgrade three ships for free. I can upgrade another ship using a token but I have not done so. But my new best ship for my fed tact is the intel escort ship that I got from the pack. I also have gotten to level 15 with Beams crafting and now working on other crafting paths to get them to 20. Not going to craft anything till I get everything to 20 on 3 paths. Then I will look into crafting. Until then, I am going to work on upgrading on main ships gear to Tier 14 and Legendary Quality. One of these days I am going to back through all of his gear and Bridge Officers and update his info page so that everyone will know exactly where I am at.

Vice Admiral Daniel

                Got him maxed out in level before Delta Rising was released and moved on to my next guy. He is currently parked.

Lieutenant General Kan

                He is my new KDF guy. He is a Liberated Borg Klingon Tactical Officer. And I got him to max level before Delta Rising was released. He is now parked till it’s his turn to run the new leveling content.

World of Warcraft (WoW) Characters

                So the next expansion came out. I logged on to see these changes and got so busy cleaning up the guild bank that I have not even played my guys. At some point I am going to have to do that. Otherwise, the new bag space features are great. And the character models look nice. But I haven’t had the time to do more than look around.

Airholen the Explorer

                Logged on and starting doing maintenance on the guild bank with the new changes.

Champions Online (CO) Characters

                So cryptic did a live stream of CO. As I was watching it, I got the itch to play and so loaded up Blue Adept and took off to try and have some fun. And at first, it sucked like normal. Try to do low level content (Level 15) with a level 21 character means you face level 21 guys to fight. This type of designing hurts solo play greatly. But I tried doing their version of dungeons called Alerts. And this actually was fun and allowed me to actually level the guy. I got him to 23. Blue Adept is a magic based healer so I am not very effective in combat but great at keeping others alive. But once I get this guy to max level I am going to make a more combat oriented guy.

Blue Adept

                I leveled him to 23. The Alerts give bonuses to xp, resources and other rewards so I try and rotate through them to get all of the buffs up. They made some other changes to the game which will require me to look into how that affects me.

Pocket Legends (PL) Characters

                I have been playing this game off and on for year now. And I just recently got back into it. It’s an iPhone MMORPG set in a fantasy world of Anthropomorphic Animals as the characters. Race determines class. In my case I went with a range combat type guy.

                This game auto loads you into a dungeon and then has people try and do the same content it auto joins people with you. This keeps the game fast moving and you see lots of other players all the time. And you can solo the content if you play it right. But it’s always better with others present. And the loot is shared. So no ninjaing occurs. It’s fun this way.

Airholen

                 He is an Avian Ranger, with Bird-like powers and a bow. I have him up to level 15 now.  I just like doing the missions. They are light hearted fun. And I don’t feel pressured to get better gear. Just to play smart.

                That’s all of the MMO’s that I have played over the past week. I hope something here perked your interest. I had fun figuring out what just to say here. I have rants building up in me about the state of STO and WoW, so I may just have to take the time to do my rant post soon.  Until that time, Enjoy!

Character Update

Star Trek Online (STO) Characters

                Welcome to the new format for these reports. As I expand my play time to other games again, this will make it easier for me and you to read the activities based on the game I was playing at the time. This will include a general paragraph that will be about any plans being applied to these characters as a whole and the timing of any in game events. Hopefully it will eventually contain some news about future writing projects that will be posted based on that game.

                As for STO, the R&D Weekend has ended. All the characters were used to run various crafting projects. And the first Upgrade Weekend ended and so every one of the characters got the freebie pack. Next weekend will be the second Upgrade Weekend. So expect all of the guys to run out and get the freebie pack. Otherwise, I haven’t had time to actually record the specifics on each character for the side bar so I need to sit down and do that, but after the Delta Rising goes live at this point.

Vice Admiral Zombee

                Beam School is 15. I also have 3 new schools leveling. And the Plasma Thrower has been bought and placed on Commander Lameran. He is now working on the Deflector and Shield for the Nukara Strikeforce Space Set. This will be placed on USS Warrick. I have not upgraded any of my gear yet. It requires too much in Dilithium for me to be able to get all the rep gear and upgrade. So I remain focused on getting the rep gear. Once that has been achieved, I will then turn my eye to dil farming and upgrading.

Captain Daniel

                Now rank 32. Also started on R&D projects, and flying a cruiser. I am still focused on just leveling this guy quickly so that I can go on to the Tactical KDF and then a Romulan Republic Science Officer.

Vice Admiral’s Danic, Zemo and Grell, and Lieutenant General’s Sisteric and Torc

                These guys did the R&D projects to level several schools during the R&D Weekend. Now I just park them. They will see activity once all of planned characters get created and leveled.

                I didn’t get into any other games at this time. SO I hope this was informative and you did Enjoy it.

Character Update

Vice Admiral Zombee
         Beam School is now Level 14. USS Schafer now has the Romulan Prototype Space Set completed. Now working on getting the Romulan Plasma based flame thrower weapon. After that it will be to work on the USS Warrick, a Defiant Class Tactical Escort, is next up to get the Nukara Strikeforce Space Set.
         The Bonus Skill Points Event has started. And Zombee gets nothing from it. But they have also started the Upgrade Weekends and so I am going and collecting the free upgrade modules and going to try and upgrade the gear on First Vice Admiral Zombee and the USS Sorrick.

Vice Admiral Danic, Lieutenant General Sisteric, Lieutenant General Torc and Vice Admiral Grell
            These guys have been parked while I work on other projects.

Vice Admiral Zemo
            Zemo has made it to level 50. And now he is parked while I try to level the next Character while the leveling event is going. This will be the trend till I have all of the characters leveled that I want leveled or the event is over. Whichever comes first.

Lieutenant Commander Daniel
             The current new guy being leveled. He is a Human Federation Engineer. He will specialize in the Cruiser style of ships. This will be the first Fed character I have that went through the New Federation Tutorial missions. And the first Fed guy with the freebie purple officer Flores. I has have been making a point of taking the purple BOff's that Zombee has and transferring them to Daniel so that he will just have purple BOff's from the start and never get rid of characters or wast any points. So far it is going well. I will get into this guy more in the next Update Blog, But for now, he is being focused on leveling. Once the event is over I will go back through the max level guys and finish up their story missions so that all are done and then work on getting their reps.

    SO that's what has happened. I hope this was informative, and Enjoy!

Delta Rising Soon

                So I am going to try and cover some of the changes coming to Star Trek Online and what they mean to me and my characters. This is work of my opinions and what facts that have been presented on the forums and whatever interviews I have been able to hear. Do not take this as the gospel of what’s coming. I have no special insight into this expansion. With that said, on to the show!

                Announced Features

                                So I wanted to start off with listing what they announced was coming with Delta Rising.

1.       New Level Cap to 60. Gaining the ranks of Admiral (55) and Fleet Admiral (60).

2.       New Tier 6 ships

3.       New Advancement Specialization Tree starting at Level 51.

4.       Tier 5 ships can play all of the content.

5.       Some of the Tier 5 ships will be upgradable to be comparable to Tier 6, but not the same.

6.       Old ships will get some updating.

7.       Ship upgrades will not be connected to crafting.

8.       Tier XIII and Tier XIV gear will be added.

9.       Raising the Level cap will allow them to rebalance content to combat power creep.

10.   Content will be released in stages throughout the year.

So that was what was announced as features for Delta Rising at Star Trek Las Vegas 2014.

                Level Cap Information and Thoughts

                                So getting to Fleet Admiral does not mean we will command fleets in space. It does mean that we will get to hear leveling congratulations. It also means that we will no longer have our skill points converted to Expertise Points. Currently, we get this buff to expertise points which allow us to pay for bridge crew skills, bridge crew promotions, reputation missions and duty officers missions. Being aware of this change, Cryptic has stated that they will up the expertise rewards to be on par with current level 50 gains.

                                Meanwhile, skill points will not be used to up our skills. Instead, at each leveling point you will get a specialization point which you can apply to the new specialization trees. No data has been released on what these trees contain, but what is known that this provides the leveling experience of improvement without the character actually having to level beyond 60. And that this will be expanded so that no one will be able to max out the specialization tree. I don’t think that this is reasonable to assume, but could be possible if you can do more than one specialization tree.

                                At certain levels, your character will gain things. 51 will get you a small pack of Duty Officers as a reward. 52 will upgrade you Fleet Support ability to Rank III.  At 54 your Class Ground Ability will be upped to Rank III.  55 will give you a new Bridge Officer.  57 will upgrade your class space ability to Rank III. And 60 will expand your Captain Trait slot by one. All I can say about these additions is that I hope they give people more Doff and BOff space because most people will have maxed out their current cap on both groups. I hope the new BOff will be a purple Intel Officer; otherwise it will get sold off or dropped immediately.

                Tier 6 Ships

                                Tier 6 Ship will be the next Level cap on ships. They also will come in Normal and Intel variations. Intel variations will be geared towards Intelligence gathering and scouting efforts. Normal ships will be more as next generation ships.

                                Also, these ships will come with a new ship mechanic of Ship Mastery. This is a system where you gain passive abilities that increase your abilities with that class of ship. At Tier V Mastery you will get a Passive Spaceship Trait which you will be able to slot into your New Four Starship Trait Slots. The first four traits are passive buffs for that ship class only. The tier 5 trait will be available to you on any ship at any tier. Each ship class has its own Tier 5 ability to gain.

Tier 6 ships will also get increases in Hull and Shield strength as you level from 50 to 60. It also should end at a higher amount that is greater than Tier 5. So these ships will be tougher than Tier 5 eventually.

                Tier 6 ships will also have Intel Hybrid seats for BOff’s. This will allow those positions to either use Class or Intel powers, depending on the training you put into the BOff.

                New Level Advancement System for Levels after 51

                                There have not been many details released on this subject yet. What we do know is that is Specialization Trees. These Trees will be something you get passive buffs from. As you level, your Skill Points will collect and you will get Specialization Points at certain breakpoints. Initially these breakpoints will be the same at when you get a level, but once you are max level it will continue to give you specialization points at break points beyond your level. These Trees will be expandable, and maxing out the Tree will take time. And they plan to extend these trees in future expansion. Hopefully before many people have maxed the tree.

                                What we don’t know is what the Trees are, how many there are, how many powers are in a tree, or even if you can put points in more than one tree at a time. Hopefully those details will come soon.

                Tier 5 ships can play all content

                                They say that the new content you will be able to play with your current Tier 5 ships. The content that is being created you should be able to do without needing to upgrade your ships or use Tier 6 ships. At least the story content and the Normal Queue events will be doable. Playing at Advance and Elite will require better gear and probably better ships.

                Some Tier 5 ships will be upgradable to be comparable to Tier 6

                                So upgrading a Tier 5 ship will give it 10% more Hull and Shields and one more Console. They also will be able to do the Ship mastery till Tier IV. They will not have Tier V Mastery skills. Certain ships will get free upgrades and certain ships will not get to upgrade at all. This upgrade will make these ships only less power in the fact of not having that extra bridge slot. I don’t see this as a bad thing and actually delivers on their promise of them being comparable.

                Some Old Ships will get updating

                                The models for some ships, like the Intrepid Class, will get its visuals updated. These updates will make things look better on our higher resolution screens that people have and bring the beauty back to these ships. Not all of the ships getting the updates have been announced.

                Ship Upgrading will not be connected to Crafting

                                The ships will need to get ship upgrade tokens or spend dilithium to upgrade it. It will be a button to click on the Ship Interface, my understanding, and you will only need to unlock it once per account. So if you have multiple toons, then every ship of the same class will be upgradable for free after the first one across all of your toons.

                Tier XII and Tier XIV gear will be added to the game

                                But how we get this gear has not been released. At least outside of a new feature that they are adding that allow players to upgrade their gear in Tier and Quality, maxing out the Tier to XIV and Quality to Gold (Legendary). This upgrading will apply to almost all gear in space and ground gear. You will be able to upgrade the gear without crafting. And you can get these tradable upgrade resources. The upgrade resources add a certain amount of Research Points to the unit. Once the Research point’s set point is reach you will level the Tier. As you collect the points, you will get a percentage change to level the Tier and or the quality every time you add more research points. The percentage chance is retained and built upon until that particular category is advanced. At that time it is reset to Zero. This in fact means you can buy a Tier I white item and level it up to Tier XIV Gold item. It only takes some dilithium to level it.

                Level Cap will combat power creep

                                This is true in the fact that all of the content will be redesigned to Tier 6 gear and Tier 14 gear for Elite content to be challenging. And the lower difficulties will turned down from that so that Normal will be challenging for Tier 5. This is probably the Best Quality of Life change they could do to the game. With current content being destroyed by Solo Players in less than 5 minutes, I think that this is going to be the best thing that STO could have done to it.

Well that is what I have for now on this subject. Tune in next time to for the next Character Update installment. Until then, Enjoy!

Character Updates......

Vice Admiral Zombee
      So I have been working on this character quit a bit. Beams School is now Level 13. USS Pamela K is completed as far sets are concerned. But still need to gather Purple Mark XII gear. In Fact, only the USS Sorrick is fully decked in purples. USS Fry, a Defiant class Tactical Escort Refit, is now decked out in Reman Prototype Space set and Romulan Singularity Harness Space Set. And now I am working on getting the USS Schaeffer, a Chimera Heavy Destroyer, the Romulan Singularity Harness Set. She already has the Romulan Prototype Space Set.
      I also came to a decision about BOff's. I decided that I am going to have dedicated Away team BOff's. And to that end, I have bought and started upgrading some new officers. The Standard Away Team composition for me will be the Captain, 2 Tactical Officers, One Engineer and One Science Officer. For Zombee, that means That we have Commander Dricdod, Commander Syilijia, Commander Nelen Exil and Commander Poyol Uyman as his personal Away Team crew.
     Zombee is currently decked completely out in Counter-Command Ground set.
     Nelen Exil is his Voth Science Officer and geared out in Dyson Sphere Ground Gear. Nelen is Male.
     Commander Syilijia is one of his Tactical Officers. She is Rigelian and plans are to deck her out in Omega Force Gear.
     Commander Dricdod is an newly acquired male Ferengi Tactical Officer. He will be decked out in Shattering Harmonics Ground Gear. Dricdod is still very business oriented, but is very efficient at his security duties. As an Away Team member he will be used to do more of the melee stuff and, for story purposes, will be the guy that will observe the goods and resources for use on the ship.
     Commander Poyol Uyman rounds out the crew. He is a Bajoran Engineering Officer. He will be decked out in Refractive Bulwark ground gear. He is a very jumpy guy and very quiet about his past.
      As for events. Completed the Crystalline Entity during the Bonus Marks events. Which netted me some extra Nukara Marks. I also ran the Shuttle event at least once each day to stock up in Romulan Marks. Now with no events occurring for a few days, I will be Running this guy for Rom Marks and then moving on to Nukara Marks.

Vice Admiral Danic
      Danic has been only running the missions to collect Marks during the Crystalline Entity event and during the Shuttle Event. Otherwise, he remains parked waiting for Zombee to complete his set gearing. I haven't worked on the Away Team concept for him either. But a quick glance lets me know that I have to many Science Officers. So I might be just using Science Officers in his away Team. Something to think on when I get to gearing him.

Lieutenant General Sisteric
      Sisteric, and the rest of the guys, have been run much like Danic. Gathering Marks from special events but otherwise parking. Sisteric only has one extra officer, Nelen Exil, the Voth Science Officer.  So that means I would have to get additional guys.

Lieutenant General Torc
      Torc is much like Sisteric. With only Nelen Exil as his extra officer for the Away Team crew. Again will have to look into getting more officers.

Vice Admiral Grell
       Grell is gathering Marks. Grell has two members free for the away team. He Nelen Exil but also has Nen the Breen Tactical Officer free to go.

Vice Admiral Zemo
       Zemo has reached level 35. Still working on leveling him, but with the events I haven't had much time for this. Since he is not max level, I haven't planned out his Away Team yet. But at the end of this week starts a bonus exp event that lasts till the new expansion comes out. So I will be working on getting him leveled during this time, and probably starting on new guys. With Fed Eng, Klingon Tactical and Romulan Science on deck.

   That is what I have done this few week. Hopefully, you will find this informative. I plan on doing some reviews of the recent info that has been coming out. Until I get this all worked out. Enjoy the game and I will be seeing you.

Weekly Character Update...sort of

     Hi all. I know I have recently been quiet. That's been because of work. I have put in so much more time recently that I have been tired most days. But even so, I did some gaming in. So with out further ado...the Character Updates.

Vice Admiral Zombee
      So the USS Sorrick is now fully outfitted with Counter Command Space set and Counter Command Munitions. Zombee is fully geared with Counter Command Ground Set. R&D is now level 12 for Beams School. Picked up a new VR DOff from the Duty Officer event and also got a new VR Doff from a mission. I also finally got the HoloLeeta DOff. The USS Pamela K is fully decked out with Dyson Sphere Space Set and Protonic Arsenal. So now working on getting the Dyson Joint Command Ground Set for Nelen Exil. The Crystal Entity event is back and so am working on getting this done with all characters and get the purple DOff and large amount of resources gained.

Vice Admiral Danic, Lieutenant General Sisteric, Lieutenant General Torc and Vice Admiral Grell
      Only ran the Crystal Entity event and got the HoloLeeta DOff. Don't really have the time to get the gear right now. Plans are now to do the gear for each person as I complete each person. So once Zombee has all of the gear then Danic will be next. Then probably, Sisteric, Torc, Grell and then Zemo. As additional characters are created, I will add them to the list after Zemo.

Commander Zemo
       Zemo has now reached Level 33. I am now flying a Ar'kif Tactical Warbird, the RRW Gilidan.

Airholen the Explorer
      Resubbed WoW and started playing again. This character is going to try to get as much in Valor every week and get the upgrades to the gear as well as to continue to run Ordos and Celestials to get the last of his gear.

Grodah Jenkins
      Working on getting to level 60 so that when I get Warlords I will fast track her to 90 and continue the game from there. Grodah is my Horde Hunter and is a Female Orc.She is going to be my Horde main as Airholen is going to be my Alliance main.

That's it for now. More info once I have more time. Later all and Enjoy!

Weekly Character Updates

Vice Admiral Zombee
      Crafting in Beams has reached Level 9. Completed getting the Counter-Command Space Set. The USS Sorrick is now working on getting the Counter-Command Munitions set. During the crafting weekend I spent more time running the TF's to get the crafting bonus boxes. But now will return back to the Space Battle Ground. Besides, I think I am having more fun with that battleground than I do with the STF's.

Vice Admiral Danic
      Reached Diplomatic Commendation of Rank 3, Military Commendation Rank 4, Medical Commendation Rank 3, and Colonial Commendation Rank 3. I forgot to find out how far the USS Brandon W is to getting the complete set of Counter-Command Space, but I think I just the one more piece and then I can start on the Counter Command Munitions. Danic will start running the Space Battlegrounds against the Undine too.

Lieutenant General Sisteric
       I have to make a corrections from last week update on this guy, he did NOT get to level 5 in the Engineering School. He got to level 5 in the Ground Weapon School. Other than that, Military Commendations made it to Rank 3 and Colonial Commendation Rank 2. I have the Counter Command Shields and Deflector completed and the Impulse Drives and Warp Core are under construction.

Lieutenant General Torc
        I have correction to made here too. Torc is Level 5 in the Projectiles School. Commendations have changed in in a few fields, Marauding is now Rank 2, Military is now Rank 2, Espionage is now Rank 2, and Colonial is now Rank 2.

SubCommander Zemo
       Zemo progresses in the story content. He has picked up two more ships, and is now flying the IKS Cathex. The IKS Cathex is a SuQob Raptor. And a better Tactical style ship than the Mogai Class Heavy Warbird. I didn't cover previously any bridge Crew changes, but currently Tovan Khev is a Centurian and his First Officer. and his only Very Rare officer. Lieutenant Commander L'Jinei is his Rare female Orion Tactical Officer that is taking on the roles of Chief Tactical Officer, Chief of Security and KDF Liaison Officer. Centurian Satra is an Uncommon female Romulan Science officer and is his Chief Science Officer. Centurian Veril is an Uncommon female Reman Engineering officer and his Chief Engineer. Centurian Hiven is an Uncommon male Romulan Science Officer and is the Chief Medical Officer. And his latest acquisition is Centurian Rar, an Uncommon female Romulan Engineering Officer that he assigned as his Chief of Operations.Since Zombee has been crafting Mark VI gear, I have transferring over the purple gear over to Zemo to equip his ships with till he starts getting better gear.

Vice Admiral Grell
        First off, I finally replaced the last rare bridge officer. I now have Commander Dopis Berinkla, a Very Rare male Betazoid Engineering Officer and the new Chief of Operations. Commendations have raised in several divisions. Medical is now Rank 2, Colonial is Rank 2 and Recruitment is now Rank 2. \

      So that was the past week in playing MMO's. I hope that you enjoyed the progress and I will see you later.

Weekly Character Update

     Hi all. sorry about this delay, but work decided to add to my responsibilities suddenly and I had to concentrate on ramping up for it. Now that I have gotten my self into the routine of things, I am able to come back here and try to do a catch up of a sorts.

Vice Admiral Zombee
      Since the last time I was here, the Summer Event has ended and crafting got a revamp. Because of how Crafting works now, I am funneling all crafting mats to this guy and doing all crafting leveling with him. Currently I have made it to Level 7 in the Beam School. I have also been collecting the dilithium and Marks needed to buy all of the gear from the Counter Command reputations. I have acquired the Deflector Array, Warp Core and Shields for the Counter Command Set. The Impulse Engines are in progress. After the Space Set is completed the Munitions set will be worked towards and then I will move on to the Ground set for him. The USS Sorrick is the flag ship for Zombee. USS Sorrick is a patrol escort. I also have taken to running the Dyson Sphere Space Battle Zone for my Dilithium and Undine Marks gathering efforts. Seems to be way better overall for me as my final reward is much greater overall than what I get from the STF's for Undine marks.

Vice Admiral Danic
      Still working on getting all of the Counter Command Set together. I just can't remember what all I have on this one. Other than the fact that the USS Brandon W, a Risian Corvette, is the one being equipped with this set. I have set his flagship to be the USS Searcher, a Solonae Dyson Science Destroyer. This ship is fully decked with the Solonae Hybrid Space Set and the Protonic Arsenal Space Set. This character made it to Level 5 in the Beam Schools before they nerfed the fact that you can slot more than one research DOff mission in the R&D crafting system. Since then I have not progressed any further in crafting, nor plan to. All of his mats are funneled to Zombee.

Lieutenant General Sisteric
      All reps have been maxed out to Tier V. He has picked up Nelen Exil. The IKS Ebro has one piece of Counter Command Space gear, the Shields. As a command cruiser, the IKS Ebro has proven to be more nimble than most of his previous engineering focused ships, and just as hearty. The Ebro has done better than I expected in all of the STF's have have taken her into and continues to perform is a very good way. The IKS Ebro is an Risian Luxury Cruiser. While it really seems odd that a Gorn would choose to fly a luxury cruiser into battle, it is so far proven itself to be the best choice for him. It is his flagship. Progress is being made on getting more Counter Command parts. This character also got to Level 5 in the Engineering School. Again, this character is filtering all crafting mats to Zombee.

Lieutenant General Torc
       Torc has maxed all of his Reps and picked up Nelen Exil too. The Klingon empire doesn't have much in the way of dedicated science vessels, but the best one he has is the Haj Heavy Bird-of-Prey, IKS D'npang, as his flagship. It has the Counter Command Shields so far. Working on the other parts. I know I got him to Level 5 in an R&D crafting School but I don't remember which one. I think Ground Weapons. I will have better details next week.

Centurian Zemo
    This is my new Romulan Republic character. He is a Reman Tactical officer currently flying a Dhelan Warbird and allied with the KDF. He is too early in his development to have done anything for reps or crafting or pretty much anything else. I am just purely leveling him through the story content and then I will figure out his specifics later.

Vice Admiral Grell
     He has made it to Tier V in all the Reps. The RRW Graz, a Risian Luxury Cruiser, remains as his flagship with very good results even though he lacks cloaking abilities. The RRW Graz also is equipped with the Counter Command shields, impulse engines and warp core. The Deflector is almost complete and then we will get the munitions set and then gather the ground gear. I got him to a level 5 in a crafting school, i think in projectiles, but I don't remember for sure what school.

   I know that I am leaving some details out and so will update that all in next weeks update. I just felt the need to let you guys know some details. Enjoy!

Weekly Character Update

Vice Admiral Zombee
     Still just collecting Pearls. I am thinking about running STF's to collect marks just to build them up for when the Summer Event is over and I get back to ship upgrading.

Vice Admiral Danic
     Completed getting the last part for the Protonic Arsenal on the USS Searcher. Switched the Flag over to the USS Brandon W, a Risian Corvette. This ship will be outfitted with Counter Command gear. Currently have two of the four pieces for the Counter Command space set.

Lieutenant General Sisteric
     So worked on the reps and now I can say all of them are Tier IV. I am still working towards Tier V. I am flying the Risian Luxury Cruiser as his flagship. The ship's name is IKS Ebro. This ship will be Counter Command outfitted once I have all of the reps maxed out.

Lieutenant General Torc
     Some of my commendations have been raised. Exploration has gone to rank 1, Colonial has gone to Rank 1 and Development had gotten to rank 2. Also made Counter Command rep to Tier IV. I have also transferred his flag to the IKS D'npang, a Haj class Heavy Bird-of-Prey. This ship will also be a Counter Command setup and geared for taking on the Undine.

Vice Admiral Grell
     Counter Command Reputation is now Tier IV. Also changed the flag over to RRW Graz, a Risian Luxury Cruiser. Again this will be a Counter Command setup once I maxed out the last rep.

     That's all I have had time for in games for now. I plan to at least keep playing STO for now, but I am wanting to expand this list some more. I hope this was interesting enough for you and Enjoy!

Weekly Character Update

Vice Admiral Zombee
     Finished getting all of the Pearls and got the Risian Luxury Cruiser. It's really a engineering vessel than a tactical vessel so did not bump the top ship. Staying on Risa till the summer event is over to build up pearls for next year.

Vice Admiral Danic
     So Counter Command made it to Tier V. Now working on the components to get the Protonic Arsenal set for his Dyson Science Destroyer. That will fill out that ship as best as I can get it. Then I will move on to the next ship till all of the ships are geared as best as I can get them. I also got the Risian Luxury Cruiser at the reduced price.

Lieutenant General Sisteric
      Advanced to Tier IV in the Task Force Omega, Nukara Strikeforce and New Romulus. Dyson Joint Command and 8472 Counter-Command are now Tier III. He also picked up the the Risian Luxury Cruiser and his now his primary ship. The ship performs very well even though I don't have it fully geared out.

Lieutenant General Torc
      So I attained Tier V for Task Force Omega, Nukara Strikeforce, New Romulus and Dyson Joint Command. *472 Counter-Command is only Tier III. Attained the Risian Luxury Cruiser too. Not a Science vessel so is way down the list for ships to be geared and flown.

Vice Admiral Grell
      Was able to get the Development Commendation up to Rank 3. I was also able to get to Tier III in the 8472 Counter-Command reputation. Got the Risian Luxury Cruiser too and using it as my main vessel. The Luxury Cruiser really is geared for Engineering pretty heavily.

Airholen of Baldur's Gate
       So I jumped on this character for little bit because Neverwinter has had two expansions since I was last on. Ran a single dungeon but I was so rusty on how I play the character that I was less than effective. I really should spend more time on this character. But I also looked at some of the changes and except for the adding of relics, I really didn't notice any real changes to the game experience.

      SO that is what I did this last week with my happy little characters. The stories are coming soon for the STO guys. So please hang in there. And Enjoy!

What is Crafting?

As you will notice, this is not a Weekly Character Update. I will be putting that in tomorrow. But today I was wanted to write about Crafting.

Crafting has taken a forefront in my thoughts because WoW and STO are both making changes to their crafting systems. WoW seems to be removing some of the capabilities and traits from it and with all the other changes to gear and traits crafting had to be re-looked at to fall in line with all of these changes. STO, on the other hand, is completely redesigning their crafting system. And these changes have caused discussions on their respective forums.

Now the changes on WoW to crafting have so far been low key and I have not seen much on it. But my understanding has been that the changes are to accommodate the changes they have made to the rest of game system, including healing, mana regen and stats. But I since I have not seen any real info on the changes I will not comment further.

STO changes are very sweeping and radical and are in Beta Test on Tribble server. I have been on Tribble and tried it out and have reached some conclusions about what the direction is and how well received it will be. The forums have been very vocal on this topic and have brought forth some points that got me to thinking about crafting in games as a whole.

To start with, you have to know what crafting is before you can emulate in a game. So looking up Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary for the definition of Crafting and you get: to make or produce (something) with care or skill. So to put it into words that mean something to me and related to games, Crafting is the process of making something with skill. 

Now in WoW, when you look at the crafting system and this definition, the results are good. You have to have a certain skill point level to craft a particular item. Once you have reached that, you learn from making that item till you have so much skill that that item is simple by comparison and therefore doesn't give you any more skill. This forces you to move on to other items to make to challenge your skill so that you keep learning. Therefore always making you make things that always take more skill if wish to get better. This fits the definition and so can truly be called crafting.

In the New STO crafting system, you assign a Duty Officer, basically a crewman on your ship, to make something. Upon completion of this you gain skill points and the item. Your skill level does define what items you can make but only at certain points. If you have enough Duty Officers, you can assign a different DOff (Duty Officer) to each item and your ‘skill’ advances. Your Individual DOff's doesn't get that skill, just your character. And since these DOff's can be ‘bought and sold’ on the Exchange, when a DOff leaves the skill doesn't go with it and so doesn't change your character skill. Additionally, the item created will have a random chance as to what ‘quality’ that item will be. This random chance is affected by your skill level, the mark level of the item being created, the quality of the assigned DOff, and some catalyst that you can buy from the c-store. So , following my definition,  this systems uses others to make something that sets chance of what quality the item will be based upon skill, worker quality, bought resources and item complexity. This doesn’t fit the definition well and over reaches what a crafting system is.

So what can be done about crafting in STO? STO is now calling crafting Research and Development (R&D). It seems like they are not sticking with a tradition sense of crafting in a game. SO does that mean we need to redefine Crafting or create a new definition for what they are creating? I don’t think STO is going to go down the traditional path of crafting and so we would need to redefine what exactly it is they are creating.

My first clue as to what this new paradigm is in the very name they gave it, R&D. R&D is where you have a team made up of people with various skills working together to create a prototype. The prototype is then tested to make sure it works, and figures out if this a feasible idea that the company can make money on. To apply this to STO, your DOff's is the team used to create something new. But it doesn't quite fit because you are making the same things over and over again, with random results on the quality. With the system being called R&D, it really isn't.

By that lead me to the thought that the R&D is really a manufacturing plant. Manufacturing plants take resources and put out a specified product. Manufacturing has quality controls that look at the product, doing random testing and ejecting those products that fail to meet certain standards. These ejected products are either sent back to be recycled and added back into the system, or collected and sold at a reduced cost as a way to recoup some of the loss from mishaps. STO R&D you are taking resources and creating a specific product with a variable quality. The better the quality the more it sells for in the exchange or at the vendors. This most closely resembles the STO system. SO it seems that my Starship Captain is now a Captain of Industry in a traveling factory.

Working with that idea, it would seem that you would need a workforce and plant manager. But in the system you are just selecting one person to make this item.

I need to take a moment right now to talk about the ship’s crews. There are basically four levels of Ships crew.

The captain of the Ship is you and is the top tier of the ship’s crew. And the only Player Character onboard.

The next step down is the Bridge Crew. These are NPC's that are fully customizable by the player and fill the rolls of department heads and away team membership. They also fill in ship stations and provide skills that you can use in combat. The Bridge Officer’s or BOff's also come in quality levels ranging from common to Very Rare.  All BOff's are also officers and you can promote them in ranks when you want to within certain guidelines. BOff's can also be bought and sold on the exchange, you can change what skills they have and you decide what gear they are equipped with. You also have the ability to change their looks, race, sex and name.

DOff's are the next tier. These guys are your named enlisted men and women that crew your starship. They have profession and quality levels. They also have traits. You cannot do any customization to these guys. Their name, race professions and traits are all hard coded. You can buy and sell them on the exchange and they come in the same range of quality levels. They are also the guys you send out on most of the minor mission that you have.

The last tier is the crew compliment on a ship. They are just a number on your ship that is tracked. None of them are name nor do you have any interactions with them. It’s a stat that ship has, and has crew is incapacitated you ship suffers is capabilities during space combat. They do not have a quality to them.

So going back the DOff that you can assign to make something in the R&D, I see this as you are assigning the Plant Manager. The ships compliment is managed by the DOff. And it’s the DOff'd quality that influences how the crew works for him and determines the final quality of the end product. And this fits the manufacturing style of creation.

But the randomness of the final quality of the item made was not truly explained by this. Or is it? If the crew is just a collection of unnamed guys, it might be that every time you assigned the DOff to make something, he gathers a random group of people together to retool the workshop and make the item. It’s this randomness of people that ultimately determines the final quality. And that allows me to say that the “skill level” that you acquire is not really assigned to you but to your crew. And the DOff's quality allows for it to manage the people, organize the work space and give directions in order to avoid most of the pitfalls and help increase the quality of the final product.

So the new STO R&D is really a manufacturing process, with you assigning a plant manager (DOff) to make the workers (crew) to create a one off item from a universal workshop. Seeing it as this; you can understand where they are going with this new system. But they confuse this issue by calling it a crafting system and R&D. And as long as they call it by these names, I think they will cause a lot of anger with the community. I also think that as long as they try to make dilithium, a resources that is limited in how much you can get in a day, a necessary cost to get the best gear they are going to relegate the manufacturing system to a little used feature.

My feelings to increase the usefulness of the STO R&D will require removing or dropping the cost of dilithium by a factor of 10 or more, remove c-store requirements to control quality outcomes, and making the quality randomness lowered for higher skill levels by dropping common and uncommon qualities from the outcomes. I also think that the amount of experience points it takes to go from one level to the next has to be retuned to make it a more gradual step. They also need to do this to cut down the amount of time to actually get to make level in just the one school. And there are seven schools.

These are my thoughts so far. I have more to ruminate on these changes and hope that Cryptic will actually consider what people have been saying about this new system.  Until tomorrow, Enjoy!

Weekly Character Update

Vice Admiral Zombee
       Still working on collecting all of the Pearls. 76% done right now towards getting the Luxury Cruiser.

Vice Admiral Danic
       Still working on the Counter-Command Rep and have up to Tier III. Left Risa and went to the Dyson Sphere to do doffing to collect materials and commodities.

Lieutenant General Sisteric
        Started working on all the reps with this. Decided that I can work on all the reps concurrently with all the characters at the same time. Sisteric is Tier 2 with Task Force Omega, Nukara Strikeforce, and New Romulus. He is only Tier I with Dyson Joint Command and 8472 Counter-Command. Also left Risa and went to the Dyson Sphere to run Doff's and get the best ship prepped and geared for use.

Lieutenant General Torc
         Continued leveling reps, including Counter-Command now. Currently Tier V with Task Force Omega and Nukara Strikeforce. He also Tier IV with New Romulus and Dyson Joint Command. Counter-Command has only reached Tier I so far. He also has left Risa and headed to the Dyson Sphere. Doing the same with DOff's and prepping the the right ship.

Vice Admiral Grell
          Started working on the Counter Command rep. Has reached Tier I already. Also left Risa and went to the Dyson Sphere to DOff for materials and commodities. Also trying to get the current ship geared up.

         I have not looked at the new crafting system yet. But the only misgivings I have so for for it is the Dilithium Cost requirement. I would to have one end game content have nothing to do with dilithium for once. But I want to review it for my self before really going on about it.

         SO that is what I have done this week, I hope you are having fun and Enjoy!

Weekly Character Update

      And it time again for what my Characters have done in game. Still only playing STO at the moment. But starting to look at getting WoW fired up again.

Vice Admiral Zombee
      Still working on getting the pearls for the new ship. Should be another 13 days before I have it. I also have been running one mission to build up marks for the one that I have the least of. Once Risian Summer Vacation is over, I will start looking at setting up his ship with all the Counter Command gear and work the rest of them on the way down the list.

Vice Admiral Danic
       Got Counter-Command Rep up to Tier III now. Still working towards Tier IV.

Lieutenant General Torc
       Got to Tier IV with Task Force Omega, Nukara Strikeforce, New Romulus, and Dyson Joint Command. Also now have Tier I with Counter-Command.

     I completed transcribing the In game timeline to a Excell spreadsheet for my characters. Funny thing is that the the Stardates they provide puts what my characters currently doing as being in the year of 2415. But I am going to retain the stardates to place my stories in and try to sink up as many of the stories to be the same stardates as I can. That gives me the possibility of syncing up the characters stories and maybe even have them make cameos in each others stories.
     I have started on writing the first stories for each of the characters now. I am finding that it's easier for me to find the voice for my Fed Characters than for my KDF or Romulan characters. I will write more about that process in later blog post.
      SO that is where my characters have been this past week. Enjoy!

Weekly Character Update

Vice Admiral Zombee

                Got Tier V in Counter Command. Risian Summer Event is going on and it has a new Ship to get. So I am doing the daily to collect the pearls needed to get the new Luxury Cruiser.  

Vice Admiral Danic

                Started working on Counter Command Reputation. Got to Tier II. The Luxury Cruiser has a discount for purchasing it once one has it on another character. So I collected the number of Pearls to buy the cruiser once Zombee has bought it first.

Vice Admiral Grell

                Grell did the Risian Summer event to get the Risian Corvette on the discount. Also got enough pearls to purchase the Luxury Cruiser.

Lieutenant General Sisteric

                Ran the events enough times to get what I need to purchase the discounted Luxury Cruiser.

Lieutenant General Torc

                Got to Tier III on the four reps. Collected the pearls to buy the discounted Risian Corvette and saved more for the Risian Luxury Cruiser.

                So I have been able to review my ship selections and determined that my ships are not really always geared to the strengths of my character.  So I reviewed what made Science Ships good Science Ships and made a realization of what I wanted in weapon slots, BOff stations and console slots to make good ships for me. I then applied these filters to my ship list per character and discovered that I need to move some ships around. But I don’t plan to do that till after I have done everything I want done in the Risian Summer Event.  So in July you should see some Ship changes for people.

                I also found a listing of all the stardates and things that my character has done.  I can’t seem to export it so I am manually translating it to an excel spreadsheet. This will set up my overall timeline so that I can write my stories against. I have completed all of Zombee’s in game stardates. Next will be Danic’s timeline. Once I have all of this done, I plan to start back up writing stories based on all of the characters and post them here.

                Mostly, I plan to start posting some more here and expanding my range of postings. Hopefully you all will stick it out with me as I continue this journey and expand my range. Here’s to Enjoying what you do!

Weekly Character Update

Vice Admiral Zombee

                Got Tier V in Counter Command. Risian Summer Event is going on and it has a new Ship to get. So I am doing the daily to collect the pearls needed to get the new Luxury Cruiser.  

Vice Admiral Danic

                Started working on Counter Command Reputation. Got to Tier II. The Luxury Cruiser has a discount for purchasing it once one has it on another character. So I collected the number of Pearls to buy the cruiser once Zombee has bought it first.

Vice Admiral Grell

                Grell did the Risian Summer event to get the Risian Corvette on the discount. Also got enough pearls to purchase the Luxury Cruiser.

Lieutenant General Sisteric

                Ran the events enough times to get what I need to purchase the discounted Luxury Cruiser.

Lieutenant General Torc

                Got to Tier III on the four reps. Collected the pearls to buy the discounted Risian Corvette and saved more for the Risian Luxury Cruiser.

                So I have been able to review my ship selections and determined that my ships are not really always geared to the strengths of my character.  So I reviewed what made Science Ships good Science Ships and made a realization of what I wanted in weapon slots, BOff stations and console slots to make good ships for me. I then applied these filters to my ship list per character and discovered that I need to move some ships around. But I don’t plan to do that till after I have done everything I want done in the Risian Summer Event.  So in July you should see some Ship changes for people.

                I also found a listing of all the stardates and things that my character has done.  I can’t seem to export it so I am manually translating it to an excel spreadsheet. This will set up my overall timeline so that I can write my stories against. I have completed all of Zombee’s in game stardates. Next will be Danic’s timeline. Once I have all of this done, I plan to start back up writing stories based on all of the characters and post them here.

                Mostly, I plan to start posting some more here and expanding my range of postings. Hopefully you all will stick it out with me as I continue this journey and expand my range. Here’s to Enjoying what you do!

Weekly Character Update

     Hi all. I am back from vacation. Had a lot of fun on the beach and on the cruise ship. I did get back in enough time to play some. So now for what I did in Star Trek Online....

Vice Admiral Zombee
      Still haven't gotten to Tier V in Counter Command. But I was able to run a lot of shuttle events during the special event and got a lot of marks for the all reps. I also finally switched the flag over to the USS Soyk. The weapons are about as good as I can get it. I also have gotten better gear on the ship but not the best yet. I have yet to fly the USS Soyk into battle so once I do that I will start adjusting what I can do.

Vice Admiral Grell
       Completed all Tier V in reps except for Counter Command. So now is parked and waiting till the Risa Summer Event.

Lieutenant General Sisteric
        Completed all of the storyline missions and other missions gained from completing some of the rep tiers already. I have him parked too now till the Risa Summer Event.

Lieutenant General Torc
         Completed the story line missions. Now started on the rep grind. Got to Tier I on first four reps. Like normal not doing Counter Command till Zombee is done.

      So the Risa Summer Event is going to happen soon. In it, you will still be able to get the Risian Corvette, but now you can get the luxury cruiser too. I will try to get every one one of those units. As well as floaters and the new hover surfboards to go touring around on Risa with. But I still don't think I will be getting them swim suits. But I might finally design an off duty outfit for them. Not sure yet.
       That's it for now. Not a lot done but enough to keep me busy. Hopefully I will get Torc added to the Character Pages and then look to update everyone to the currently load outs and setups. Next step is to start on the pages for the WOW characters. SO until next time, Enjoy!