Character Update (Grell Edition)

     I have update Fleet Admiral Grell's character page. He has done quite a lot since the last time I did an update on him.The new page show's where he currently is at in gear and weapons for both himself and his ship.
     As for updates to STO in general, the Crystalline Catastrophe is over. Grell, Zombee and Torc all got the Crystalline Torpedo. They are also currently testing out on the live servers some adjustments to the Azure Nebula Advanced STF mission to make it possible for pugs to complete it. So far it is a good change except for one issue. The optionals are really random on your ability to complete. You have to "rescue" a certain point value of ships, in this case 10, with in a 4 minute (I think) time frame. The problem is that there are only four spawn points to rescue ship from. And if they don't spawn a total of 10 points amongst those points on the initial start of the optional, you will never be able to make those 10 points. Ships don't respawn fast enough to get a second set and get them rescued within the time frame. This means that the majority of the time, the optionals are not possible to be completed. The scenario doesn't provide the ship points to complete it. But, unlike before, if you fail the optional you do not fail the mission. You just don't get bonus marks. This change alone is great. If they can make it so that enough ship points are guaranteed to be present when the optionals start then I think they have a model that can be applied to all the other Advanced STF queues.
      Grell has completed all of the story line including the Delta Rising portion. Grell is far behind in gear quality and and rarity when compared to Zombee. SO most of my efforts are focused on getting his gear all upgraded to the right level. This means I have to do certain STF's at advance to get the crafting materials to make the upgrades. It's slow going, but I will get there.
     
      Couple things to note...STO released a new story episode with weekly rewards. The rewards are to get a a three piece Imperial Romulan Navy ground set. Grell will be using this as his primary armor. The other thing of note is that on April 2nd will the new Delta Recruit event. This requires that you make a new character and take it through the leveling process. But there are some modifications to the normal experience and apparently there is an Temporal Agent that will be helping you prepare for the fight against the Iconians as you level. This will also unlock special rewards for your already created characters too. I will be creating at least one Delta Recruit because that is what they say is all that I need to unlock things for my account across all factions. So expect to see coming character updates for this new character. I am planing on making him a Rom-KDF Engineer Alien (Avalonian). Haven't settled on a name yet.

       Well, I hope you enjoyed this update and I will see you later!

Character Update (Zombee Edition)

                So I updated Fleet Admiral Zombee’s Character page. It shows what changes I have made in gear, skills, reputation, commendations, research, traits and specializations I have acquired. But I wanted to detail it a little more here just so that everyone will know why some of the changes have occurred.

                First off, we should cover what has changed in STO overall, so that you can get a sense of why some things are there and what is new to the game.  With the end of the Winter Event came a little breather before the next event, the 5^th Anniversary of STO. In this Event you ran a new story mission that covered some details about the Kobali. At the end of the first run through you can get the Vaudwaar Uniform. Also you get a significant number of Qmendations that is used to get the Kobali Samsar Command Cruiser, a Tier 6 ship. The Anniversary also brought us a new specialization called Command.  Once one character got the Cruiser, and then all remaining characters on that account can get the same ship at a significant reduction in cost. Within the new Story Mission there was the option to find and accept a Kobali BOff that would be an Engineering Command Officer. Also reruns of the Story Mission will get additional pieces to the Kobali Space Set. I picked up a couple of the pieces but haven’t put in the time to what pieces I am missing for this guy.

                After the 5^th Anniversary came the Crystalline Catastrophe event. In it you need to collect 14 crystal shards. Which you can get once per 20 hours, and turn them in to get a torpedo that acts like a Anti-Proton Beam. It gets affected by some beam powers and by some torpedo powers, and deals out Anti-proton damage instead of kinetic damage. I am in progress on this and have collected 10 fragments so far. You also will get a big drop of unrefined dilithium ore, fleet marks, and marks of reputation choice. Also, as each mission is run you get to select a choice of marks and dilithium payout.

                I was also able to complete the Delta Rising story line. I had discovered that I was playing the missions on the hardest setting. The fact that I got as far as I did on a suboptimal setup made me feel good about my piloting skill and gear choices. I have since tuned the setup to up my DPS. In fact, the game has made a decided switch in its mission structure to actually support DPS’ing over any other play style, they added timers that if you don’t complete fails the entire mission. Most of these timers involving killing a certain number of things in a specified period of time, so high DPS will always get the team through on these missions.

                As for the upgrading of gear, most everything but the shields and deflectors are Mark XIV and at least Very Rare.  I just recently was able to build an Omnidirectional Phaser Beam Array. It’s Mark XII and Ultra-Rare quality. Replaced the Omnidirectional Kinetic beam with this unit and will now upgrade it to Mark XIV, The Shields and Deflectors are Mark XII and Very Rare so they will be upgrade to Mark XIV. If the shields or deflectors gain any more quality along the way then good for me, but otherwise I am not going to worry about it. Very Rare Quality is good enough for me right now.

                SO that’s what Zombee has been up to date. I am going to try and catch up with all of my guys and then get back to a regular schedule again. Until then, Enjoy!

Character (and Life) Update

                Hello again everyone. Long time since I last wrote to this blog. And I am sorry that it has been so long. My personal life has had a bunch of turmoil recently. I found myself without a job do to another person’s shenanigans. With this sudden shift in employment came a desperate search for a new job. During this search, I took ill. While generally a very healthy person, this was quite an issue to deal with when you have no health insurance. As I recovered from that, I did find work at lower pay and responsibilities than I once had. I happily worked there till a better offer came along three weeks later. When I tendered my two weeks’ notice, they just told me to go home.  So I spent another week unemployed, getting sick again, and trying to do things around the house.

                While all of this was going on, my relationship with my wife became strained do to these stresses we both are under. Between her school work, job, kids, my sickness and lack of income she was not handling the pressure well. And my own sickness and, admittedly, depression over my job loss did not help to alleviate these issues. We argued, loudly and frequently. Our children, while not involved directly, heard us nonetheless and were upset themselves. Suffice it to say it’s been a bad couple of months.

                But, I do have a new job. Which has eased some of the tension between my wife and I. And I have been feeling better and healthier these days. So I am clearly making a recovery on all my Real Life fronts.

                As for gaming, while all of this has been going on, I still played STO and other games to help me deal with stress, take my mind of bad things for a bit, and for something to do when I couldn’t sleep. So I am glad to say that I do have some progress to announce about each of my characters. But I will hold on to that for a different blog for right now. There is a lot to go over in regards to the characters.

                What I really want to write about now is the passing of the amazing Leonard Nimoy. The character of Mr. Spock is so iconic that there is no equal to it. Spock was first character that, as a kid, I actually connected with and felt kinship with. Even to this day people will call me Spock just because of my ability to spout out details on the discussion topic at hand. When I first learned I could play in Star Trek Online, I made a Vulcan modeled a bit after me in looks.  Admiral Danic still is part of my stable of federation characters and is most obviously a science officer.

                In Star Trek Online, they have honored the memory of Spock, Leonard Nimoy, and other Star Trek connected people with putting in two statues and three plaques. The Statues are of Spock doing the Vulcan salute. One is placed on the planet Vulcan and the other is on the planet of New Romulus. They are very large and very well done. And is a very good resemblance of Spock as an Ambassador. The Plaques are placed in at the command centers for The Federation, Klingon Empire and Romulan Republic. The plaque lists the name of all of The Original Series important people that have passed away. Among them being Leonard Nimoy, Gene Roddenberry, James Doohan, DeForrest Kelly and Majel Barrett. Once you have clicked on the plaque, there is a continue button which takes you to another screen listing a bunch of important contributors to Star Trek that have passed away. My understanding is that the members of The Original Series will be placed on that front panel and the rest of the major contributors from all the TV series and movies will be placed on the second panel. There by immortalizing all who had and major contribution to the Star Trek Franchise after they have passed away.

                I think it is great that they are doing this and recognizing everyone of importance connected to Star Trek. At some point I will get every one of my characters to get a picture in front of the plaques and statues that they can go to, so that I can always retain that memory for me.

                In the near future, hopefully over this next week, I will get my notes all updated and then do an actual Character Update. Until then, Enjoy!