Incline Official codex Star Trek Online topic :salute:

[Matticus]

The UI programmer assured us that he did everything he could think of to optimize the UIGen system.

The clunkiest part of the UIGen system and why it's such a performance dog is that it recalculates everything every frame, instead of being driven more by events, so that the more UIcrap you have on you, the more calculations are performed...every frame. This pretty much prevents it from ever achieving high FPS because the more FPS you have, the more it thrashes. Especially when it's being recalculated faster than the game can possibly be generating new information to render.

You are correct. I wasn't aware of the UI updates occurring more frequently than render updates, but the layout/update functions occur every frame and there was never a supported way to make it conditional or event-driven. However, given that UI elements often query several systems to display information, it's not easy to guarantee that there are reliable callbacks for each piece of data and even if you solve that there's another daunting problem of how you'd even teach the front-end developers where all of their data is coming from and which callbacks they need to use.

It's ultimately a solvable problem but it was difficult enough to scare off everyone that worked on the low-level UI code.

 

[Bliblablubb]

use shuttle that have shorter maintenance duration to burn assignments with low wield instead of using pass token

[Norfleet]"SEND THE FAILSHIP!"[/NORFLEET]

And if the failship actually manages to succeed, it's time to promote someone to Admiral. Only promotion requirement at Starfleet seem to be "bring ship home in one piece" after all.

When ASS was introduced, all the low tier boats were discounted, so we could aquire a lot of failships for cheap. Including the Miranderp, because ships you had already removed from inventory didn't count retroactively.

Playing the Jemmie reminded me how much ASS sucks for new players. My JH had, what, 3 ships and a shuttle at his disposal before blocking the "one person at a time" console for an hour. New players will spend a looooooot of time until they maxed it out. Or even get decent income. Does he even get the 4 free ships of his choosen faction?

 

[Blaine]

Publicity materials for the Victory Is Life expansion and the Gamma Recruit event explicitly state that they're designed to help rapidly bridge the gap between new players and veterans.

They wouldn't lie, would they?

 

[Bliblablubb]

They wouldn't lie, would they?

"Delta Raisin is the best expansion ever and players love it!"

3 Reps and a T5U ship with the weird patented cryptic loadout totally bridges the gaps to players who have maxed all reps and fly around in fleet T6 canoes sporting gold MK16 and consoles worth thousands of cybershekelz.

There are three lights after all.

 

[Norfleet]

Publicity materials for the Victory Is Life expansion and the Gamma Recruit event explicitly state that they're designed to help rapidly bridge the gap between new players and veterans.

To be fair, it does help. You can leap out of the gate and immediately begin hanging with the crowd of people who are actuallly playing the game.

When you consider that 95% of players would ragequit before they ever reached that point, according to actual statistics taken from console cheevo tracking, this is probably important. Somehow. Of course, the remaining 80% of those 5% who survived will still ragequit before getting anywhere. Just getting to where most of you non-Blaines are puts you in the < 1% of survivors.

 

[Blaine]

The developers have backed themselves into a corner that they can't escape from. They've balanced the game's reward systems such that acquisition is at least slightly difficult for veterans—or at least for the lazier/more casual segment of veterans—so that they'll occasionally buy a few Zionbux. In the process, they've made the game extraordinarily off-putting not only for new players in general, but even for potential new whales.

Although I fully expected something along these lines in a vague sense, I'm still on the fence WRT whether or not I'll be sticking around in STO. In the only other F2P game I'm familiar with, I actually got to have fun while leveling up and grinding, whereas in STO new players truly aren't allowed to have any fun at all unless they plan to pump hundreds of dollars per month into the game. As a minor aside, I don't think it helps that the game's poorly-coded UI causes it to run like a janky pile of shit no matter what sort of rig a player owns.

As is stands now, it seems I'm tasked to roll up enough characters to fill all of my slots, grind them to 52/61 (which is very fast using Woodpecker Style, but still stone-boring), and then set every single one of them up to relatively quickly gain a few thousand dil per day. I'm not sure why Norfleet had us create Fed toons, since they can't do cat food turn-ins. Between cat food, possibly the fleet R&D daily, and presumably some combination of other things like running queues and grinding at least some rep on at least a few toons, let's say we're gaining 3k dil per character per day.

If we started doing that tomorrow—6 toons, 3k dilithium per toon per day, for 28 days straight, with absolutely no breaks—then we'd have 504,000 dil. I already have 60,000 dil right now, so I'd then have enough to exchange all of that dil for 2,000z and buy the Gamma Starter Pack.

In total, I'm looking at grinding for over a month for what I assume will surely be at least 3-5 hours per day, every single day, in order to finally turn over almost everything I earned for a starter pack worth $20 of premium currency. In other words, I'll be working a part-time job for a month in order to "earn" $20 worth of microtransaction currency. As for actual ships, the good ones cost around 3k, or 50% more than that starter pack, per ship.

Feel free to correct me if I'm off on any of that. Grinding for months and months just to get kinda-sorta up to par (in a game on the decline, no less) is a steep ask even for someone who's been playing MMOs and MUDs since before WoW existed.

 

[Norfleet]

The developers have backed themselves into a corner that they can't escape from. They've balanced the game's reward systems such that acquisition is at least slightly difficult for veterans—or at least for the lazier/more casual segment of veterans—so that they'll occasionally buy a few Zionbux. In the process, they've made the game extraordinarily off-putting not only for new players in general, but even for potential new whales.

I think STO generally capitalizes on regret. You're expected to fuck up, and then pay money to unfuck yourself, etc., etc. I, of course, reject this notion in favor of a "Do it once, do it right" attitude to everything. This tends not to win me many popularity contests in the wider community, which tends to begin screeching about things like "FUN!" and whatnot, preferring to instead simply shit their pants and then smear their feces on the wall while screeching like the inbred simians that they are.

Although I fully expected something along these lines in a vague sense, I'm still on the fence WRT whether or not I'll be sticking around in STO.

Indecisiveness is unbecoming. There are only two options that make any sense: Quitting as immediately as possible, I.E., never starting, or going for the end. Every other outcome in between is suboptimal as you expend effort without changing the outcome (you still quit). Do, or do not. There is no try.

In the only other F2P game I'm familiar with, I actually got to have fun while leveling up and grinding, whereas in STO new players truly aren't allowed to have any fun at all unless they plan to pump hundreds of dollars per month into the game.

Well, if you weren't directly exposed to me, you'd probably be having fun, too. I ain't called "ruinthefun" for nothing. It's not that new players "aren't allowed to have any fun", it's that nobody who hangs around me is allowed to have any fun, because I'll always be there, reminding you of why everything you're doing is stupid and mathematically wrong and that FUN IS A FILTHY PARASITE.

As a minor aside, I don't think it helps that the game's poorly-coded UI causes it to run like a janky pile of shit no matter what sort of rig a player owns.

True, but on the other hand, later on you sort of embrace these aspects of the UI as being useful.

I'm not sure why Norfleet had us create Fed toons, since they can't do cat food turn-ins.

I didn't, but this is still false. Fed totally have catfood turn-ins. If Feds didn't have catfood turn-ins, this shit never would have gotten named "Catfood" in the first place, since the ones on the Klingon side aren't even cats. It is, in fact, Feds which predominantly performed catfood turn-in, as Klingons had...alternate options. You're free to pick any faction you want, but I specifically recommending covering all your bases initially for giveaway claiming. Not to that you were supposed to fill every slot with one or the other. The two factions have decidedly different growth curves, though. The KDF growth curve climbs fast early, but starts to plateau earlier while the Fed curve starts out as utterly shit and eventually overtakes. Romulans get a significant jumpstart on the latter, not so much on the former at this point, which is why I suggested this, not to mention covering your bases since you already had a Red faction. At the high end, it matters somewhat less because you hit another cap, the easy-8, and other concerns start to dominate your choices.

If we started doing that tomorrow—6 toons, 3k dilithium per toon per day, for 28 days straight, with absolutely no breaks—then we'd have 504,000 dil. I already have 60,000 dil right now, so I'd then have enough to exchange all of that dil for 2,000z and buy the Gamma Starter Pack.

Well, you need to leave one slot for the character you're supposed to be creating, so only 5.

In total, I'm looking at grinding for over a month for what I assume will surely be at least 3-5 hours per day, every single day, in order to finally turn over almost everything I earned for a starter pack worth $20 of premium currency. In other words, I'll be working a part-time job for a month in order to "earn" $20 worth of microtransaction currency. As for actual ships, the good ones cost around 3k, or 50% more than that starter pack, per ship.

Nah, you never buy those except on sale, you never break the pack, so it works out to about an average of 1600 Z per ship (6000 -20% / 3). As usual, Funtards get screwed over.

Feel free to correct me if I'm off on any of that. Grinding for months and months just to get kinda-sorta up to par (in a game on the decline, no less) is a steep ask even for someone who's been playing MMOs and MUDs since before WoW existed.

I did warn you not to come. You HAVE noticed that our fleet is helpfully emblazoned with a number of references to labor camps, yes? WORK MAKES YOU FREE!

A lot of people opt to just cave and drop starter Shekels. I, of course, view such things as weakness, and I tolerate no weakness. I see paying for anything as a concession of defeat, that you weren't able to make the game your bitch. My people value work, persistence, and NEVER GIVING UP YOUR SHEKELS. WORK MAKES YOU FREE! The time-sensitiveness of this activity is also sort of partly a factor of when you happened to show up. Had you showed up EARLIER, you would have caught something else, and likely not be facing this particular rush. Had you showed up later, well, you'd be even more fucked!

 

[Blaine]

Indecisiveness is unbecoming. There are only two options that make any sense: Quitting as immediately as possible, I.E., never starting, or going for the end. Every other outcome in between is suboptimal as you expend effort without changing the outcome (you still quit). Do, or do not. There is no try.

It's not a choice between going on a day hike or taking a canoe trip. I need more information—namely just how much drudgery is required to set up an engine to provide a reasonable resource stream (as opposed to paying $ for everything), how much drudgery is required to keep it running, and whether or not the pot of gold at the end of the shit-rainbow is worth that much drudgery in the first place. Mind you, I'm not talking about having everything you've got, since that's not possible to achieve before PW shuts the game down for good (outside of RMTing entire accounts, which I won't do).

My goal from the beginning has been to sort of stick my head back into MMOs for a little while before they slip entirely into obscurity, and STO fits that bill rather well.

Well, if you weren't directly exposed to me, you'd probably be having fun, too. I ain't called "ruinthefun" for nothing. It's not that new players "aren't allowed to have any fun", it's that nobody who hangs around me is allowed to have any fun, because I'll always be there, reminding you of why everything you're doing is stupid and mathematically wrong and that FUN IS A FILTHY PARASITE.

Yeah, well, you're long on commandments and short on details and the big picture, so I've had to try to figure some of this out for myself. For example, you breathed not a word about cat food, even though we could have begun doing it immediately with almost no time overhead. Maybe that's for the best, since much of it is probably is stuff we can figure out as we go along; but it's worth noting that if you don't tell us exactly how to not have fun, we'll probably discover how to not have fun only in the process of having fun.

I'm not sure why Norfleet had us create Fed toons, since they can't do cat food turn-ins.

I didn't, but this is still false. Fed totally have catfood turn-ins. If Feds didn't have catfood turn-ins, this shit never would have gotten named "Catfood" in the first place, since the ones on the Klingon side aren't even cats.

I didn't say you forced us, but that's what you recommended, so that's what we did. I had a feeling you'd probably correct me on the lack of Fed catfood. This is a variation on the ancient MMORPG technique wherein you want to know the answer to something, but instead of simply asking, you broadcast wrong information. People are much more likely to correct you than to answer helpfully, because telling someone they're wrong and bad is a lot more fun than just giving a helpful answer.

Nah, you never buy those except on sale, you never break the pack, so it works out to about an average of 1600 Z per ship (6000 -20% / 3). As usual, Funtards get screwed over.

I think I see what you mean, but I was referring to the individual ships on sale at the actual ship vendor. Lockbox/Lobi/event ships, of which there are a huge number and which represent the bulk of cross-faction ships, are already off-limits to us. Are you saying we'll never buy a Tier 6 ship? That shit ain't free, and they cost Z.

I did warn you not to come. You HAVE noticed that our fleet is helpfully emblazoned with a number of references to labor camps, yes? WORK MAKES YOU FREE!

You did indeed, and I haven't forgotten it. Ultimately, we're responsible for ourselves, and appreciate the advice you do dispense, but I certainly don't consider you on the hook to get us going since your first and wisest piece of advice was turn 180 degrees and walk away.

A lot of people opt to just cave and drop starter Shekels. I, of course, view such things as weakness, and I tolerate no weakness. I see paying for anything as a concession of defeat, that you weren't able to make the game your bitch. My people value work, persistence, and NEVER GIVING UP YOUR SHEKELS. WORK MAKES YOU FREE! The time-sensitiveness of this activity is also sort of partly a factor of when you happened to show up. Had you showed up EARLIER, you would have caught something else, and likely not be facing this particular rush. Had you showed up later, well, you'd be even more fucked!

That's easy for you to say while sitting atop your dragon hoard earned over many years. Note that I don't begrudge you the hoard. The hoard inevitably turns to ashes one day; I walked away from a king's ransom earned in six years playing EVE Online, and fairly recently gave away my Warframe dragon hoard to half a dozen Codexers and old clan friends. There was so much of it that each individual person received a small fortune.

If I do drop starter shekels, it will probably be for the full Gamma Vanguard Pack, since it offers Cardassians (which I dearly want) and a sizable load of cross-faction ships that are/(can be?) unlocked account-wide. I'll probably get two of them, since Lazing Dirk isn't retarded enough to waste money on absolute nonsense, whereas I am.

 

[Norfleet]

It's not a choice between going on a day hike or taking a canoe trip. I need more information—namely just how much drudgery is required to set up an engine to provide a reasonable resource stream (as opposed to paying $ for everything), how much drudgery is required to keep it running

It depends on how far down the rabbit hole you're willing to go. The most labor-intensive parts are the first parts. After that, well, it depends on how far down the rabbit hole you're willing to go. That's about as much as I can say about it here.

Yeah, well, you're long on commandments and short on details and the big picture, so I've had to try to figure some of this out for myself. For example, you breathed not a word about cat food, even though we could have begun doing it immediately with almost no time overhead.

That is because you have yet to accomplish the FIRST commandment I gave you, which was to CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS. Yes, Catfood exists, but you don't have any realistic means of efficiently obtaining it until you OBEY MY COMMANDS.

I didn't say you forced us, but that's what you recommended, so that's what we did. I had a feeling you'd probably correct me on the lack of Fed catfood. This is a variation on the ancient MMORPG technique wherein you want to know the answer to something, but instead of simply asking, you broadcast wrong information. People are much more likely to correct you than to answer helpfully, because telling someone they're wrong and bad is a lot more fun than just giving a helpful answer.

I'm familiar with this technique, which is why in my interactions with the public, I simply assert and argue.

I think I see what you mean, but I was referring to the individual ships on sale at the actual ship vendor.

Those are the same ships, only sold as singlets, meaning, you get fucked by packbreaking, than from the store. I have not given you any specific orders to get any of those things yet, so they should not be of concern to you if you were actually following my directions.

Lockbox/Lobi/event ships, of which there are a huge number and which represent the bulk of cross-faction ships, are already off-limits to us. Are you saying we'll never buy a Tier 6 ship? That shit ain't free, and they cost Z.

Let me put it to you this way: I own pretty much the entire store. I DON'T PAY MONEY. We'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

That's easy for you to say while sitting atop your dragon hoard earned over many years.

I'm actually pretty flat-ass broke. You see all those expensive, shiny things I can't afford, where, as I often say, "I'm not Crosis and I'm not made of money."? Yeah, I'm broke.

If I do drop starter shekels, it will probably be for the full Gamma Vanguard Pack

If you do drop any starter shekels, you'll drop them on whatever I tell you to drop them on, otherwise you've just pissed them down the drain.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Doesn't really look like you have broken Blaine yet. THE_APPRENTICE has become unruly! Shameful.


Reminds me of the times when putting down unruly Gorn was mandatory each day. Ahh good times...

 

[Blaine]

Doesn't really look like you have broken Blaine yet. THE_APPRENTICE has become unruly! Shameful.


Reminds me of the times when putting down unruly Gorn was mandatory each day. Ahh good times...

We're not unruly! We've been hard at work! See?

 

[Norfleet]

You aren't even supposed to BE there.

 

[Blaine]

Norfleet, you'll be ambivalent to hear that we've each constructed an additional 1.5 pylons, leaving 1.5 pylons left to complete. At least another .5 is on the docket for tomorrow. I say "1.5" because we finished the fourth characters up to faction selection, which even when rushing full-bore takes just as long as doing Woodpecker Style all the way from level 11 to 61+.

I'll be honest: I don't like this very much, and not because of the grinding itself. Are these just throwaway pylons, or aren't they? No true care can be taken naming or customizing the character, choosing skills, or setting them up a certain way. I can't pick some of the races I want, because those are behind a paywall. They can't actually be used for content right now anyway without skills, ships, or gear. If they're just throwaways we don't need to care about aside from grinding, then why are you telling us to roll fresh characters instead of using shit-tier level 61 Jem'Hadar that require no grinding? Is it because of the incidentals (multiple low-tier ships, etc.) picked up along the way?

Regardless, it will be done.

I should mention that Lazing Dirk wants to use a Jam'Hurdurp as his fifth pylon. We've already got three Romulans and a Gorn each. Is that a workable choice?

 

[Norfleet]

I'll be honest: I don't like this very much, and not because of the grinding itself. Are these just throwaway pylons, or aren't they?

Yes and no. They're pylons, not necessarily intended to be your primary toons at this time, but they're not throwaways.

No true care can be taken naming or customizing the character, choosing skills, or setting them up a certain way.

Well, picking a name can be helpful, but these are details you can change later, the name being one that costs you. You shouldn't be choosing any skills, except maybe ground skills, at this time because you have no ships ro spec for, anyway. It certainly does not hurt to pick race/class combinations you think are particularly appealing to you in the future (Although the game heavily biases towards Tac). Any cosmetic tailoring can be changed at any time free of charge, so little effort should be expended on this at this time.

I can't pick some of the races I want, because those are behind a paywall.

Indeed, but unless you have some kind of fetish and want EVERY character the same race, there are plenty to choose from.

They can't actually be used for content right now anyway without skills, ships, or gear. If they're just throwaways we don't need to care about aside from grinding

Think of it like an assembly line. Your job is to bolt the right front wheel on. How the hell does a car drive with one wheel and no engine? The answer is: It will get those other things later on in the process. Besides, do ANY of your characters have skills (except for WRONG ones, which you'd end up having to pay to unfuck anyway), ships (the free garbage you are given does NOT count, but you'll see soon enough), or gear (again, the free trash you're given is not gear and is shit I simply toss into the vendor)? Answer: No. Before you can have any of these things on ANY character, you must CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS.

then why are you telling us to roll fresh characters instead of using shit-tier level 61 Jem'Hadar that require no grinding? Is it because of the incidentals (multiple low-tier ships, etc.) picked up along the way?

Incidentals, economic benefits, statistical benefits, access benefits, and not having to roll back any work later. The idea is that these characters will someday become useful and even playable. But that day is not today. I think the Eve analogy would be creating 30 mining accounts that do nothing but mine. Will they someday do something else? Perhaps, but today, you can't afford any of that, so shut up and mine! Titans don't grow on trees, etc.

 

[Blaine]

No true care can be taken naming or customizing the character, choosing skills, or setting them up a certain way.

Well, picking a name can be helpful, but these are details you can change later, the name being one that costs you. You shouldn't be choosing any skills, except maybe ground skills, at this time because you have no ships ro spec for, anyway. It certainly does not hurt to pick race/class combinations you think are particularly appealing to you in the future (Although the game heavily biases towards Tac). Any cosmetic tailoring can be changed at any time free of charge, so little effort should be expended on this at this time.

I can't pick some of the races I want, because those are behind a paywall.

Indeed, but unless you have some kind of fetish and want EVERY character the same race, there are plenty to choose from.

You specifically told us to create Romulans. It's as if we're having a different conversation all of a sudden.

I imagine we'll probably ultimately only gear up and play one or two characters, so that's all right I suppose, but at this point my eventual Cardassian character will be starting from 0 on reputation and everything else weeks/months after I started playing the game.

And yeah, I've noticed that this game is heavily biased toward Tac, because dealing lots and lots of damage is the only thing that seems to matter (and it doesn't help that NPCs are at least partly immune to Subnucleonic Beam et al.). Ground combat is an exception, since Eng has excellent protective shields and utility and Sci has nice debuffs and heals, the absence of which can be clearly felt during Elite ground missions where everyone's a Tac officer.

 

[Norfleet]

You specifically told us to create Romulans. It's as if we're having a different conversation all of a sudden.

Yes, Romulans, as in, the Green Faction. Admittedly, there are all of three possible races for Romulans, one of which is locked behind a wall, which sort of limits your choices, but I did mention the entire "Alien" thing. I then mostly waved off the details and left them up to you to decide because they weren't important.

I imagine we'll probably ultimately only gear up and play one or two characters, so that's all right I suppose

What usually happens is that you start with a character and build that up, then at some point the desire to build something new and different to fill an unrelated niche takes hold. At this point, there are two options.

1. Smart: Use one of your existing, partially developed farm toons as a platform.

2. Stupid: Uselessly buy this thing on your "main", resulting in a main character that has to tear apart its original development and retool to do this thing, and now has an entirely useless set of things it can't use anymore.

There are a lot of people who choose the Stupid option. Apparently, new science is telling me I can't talk them out of it, and that the poor are stupid and will remain stupid, so if you disappoint me, I'm just going to abandon you and let you derp your way to death. Don't disappoint me. You've been doing okay so far. That is, to say, you're doing crap, but at least you paid better attention than most of the other halfwits I've tried to teach anything to. Keep up the throughly mediocre work. EMPHASIS ON WORK.

But there are a lot of playstyles, all potentially gaining validity at some point, as well as some whimsical and flash-in-the-pan things you might give a whirl to. Having some partly built infrastructure is a huge step. If you didn't have this farm-based infrastructure in place, where you will passively and slowly maximize your reps and shit using MAXEFFICIENCY methods that I give you which makes this practical without much effort, you would be unable to deploy yourself to this new direction, and would be thus tempted to do something stupid, like that idiot Mito. No, you don't know who that is. Just know that this is an idiot who hasn't done as I told him to. Don't be a Mito. Not that I guess you can resist it, if you're going to, so I guess there's little point in admonishing you. Either you will, or you won't. If you do, I'll be like this.

but at this point my eventual Cardassian character will be starting from 0 on reputation and everything else weeks/months after I started playing the game.

Normal. And not really as bad as it sounds. You see, the first characters to finish the rep unlock an ability called "Sponsorship". You're probably aware of all this already, so I won't belabor it further, but it makes a HUGE difference in how quickly subsequent pylons get up and running.

And yeah, I've noticed that this game is heavily biased toward Tac, because dealing lots and lots of damage is the only thing that seems to matter (and it doesn't help that NPCs are at least partly immune to Subnucleonic Beam et al.).

Well, NPCs aren't specifically IMMUNE to it, but it has no effect on them because it attacks a thing that they don't have: SNB removes a target's buffs, and most NPCs don't have any and are tough purely because they are giant flying bricks of HP, against which there is no shortcut or way to weaken them beyond MOAR DPSes.

There's a few Really Fucking Annoying ability-buffs they DO use, though, and not having someone who can deploy this can leave you at a bit of an unpleasant impasse, so Sci isn't a total loss in space.

SpaceEng, on the other hand, is mostly hopeless.

Ground combat is an exception, since Eng has excellent protective shields and utility and Sci has nice debuffs and heals, the absence of which can be clearly felt during Elite ground missions where everyone's a Tac officer.

I find that Sci is hilarious and practically rules the roost on Ground, if not in raw damage, certainly the ability to set the map on fire and fling your enemies helplessly like ragdolls. Eng is in a less strong position: Being very ponderous and underpowered when forced to move quickly, Eng fails to fit in well in most roles. You can deal a lot of damage to stationary and predictable targets, but most missions involve GO GO GO, so this is of little help. When you're needed, you're NEEDED, though. GroundEng is also very strong in the farming department. While your damage is not particularly high, it IS very low effort: You deploy a bunch of turrets, pets, and mines, and your enemies die to them. A bit slowly, but without much personal exertion on your part.

 

[Blaine]

You specifically told us to create Romulans. It's as if we're having a different conversation all of a sudden.

Yes, Romulans, as in, the Green Faction. Admittedly, there are all of three possible races for Romulans, one of which is locked behind a wall, which sort of limits your choices, but I did mention the entire "Alien" thing. I then mostly waved off the details and left them up to you to decide because they weren't important.

The only thing you mentioned to me personally about Aliens is that they come pre-gimped somehow. That's all right, though, because I'll still be able to create a Fishman for my fifth pylon. Ideally I would have had a Gorn, Klingon, Predator, Romulan, and Fishman, and then the required Jem'Hadar, followed later by a Cardassian and eventually a Reman; as it is, I'll have two additional Romulans smelling up my character selection and will need to add yet more slots if I want a Predator and Klingon eventually.

 

[Norfleet]

The only thing you mentioned to me personally about Aliens is that they come pre-gimped somehow.

Man, you have a real talent for remembering the exact opposite of what I said. Aliens are frequently considered the superior choice, particularly compared to races that lack any space traits at all, as they receive a free-choice trait slot instead of a fixed racial, enabling you to slot an OP lockbox trait of your choice.

That's all right, though, because I'll still be able to create a Fishman for my fifth pylon. Ideally I would have had a Gorn, Klingon, Predator, Romulan, and Fishman, and then the required Jem'Hadar, followed later by a Cardassian and eventually a Reman; as it is, I'll have two additional Romulans smelling up my character selection and will need to add yet more slots if I want a Predator and Klingon eventually.

You're going to want to add more slots anyway, so this isn't a big deal. I run like 50-something slots myself. WE REQUIRE MORE MINERALS. Even if you're not going balls-out, the standard 4-pack expansion will net you coverage for your Klingon, Predator, Cardassian, and Reman, and the Elite Starter Pack will give you another slot, as well as upgrading the slots of all your existing toons and such, and giving you an account bank to schlep shit through. And enabling you to actually have money, as there is a starter EC cap of a measly 15mil, which basically means you are an economic unperson. This will be your next target after you address your Gammard concerns.

 

[Blaine]

The only thing you mentioned to me personally about Aliens is that they come pre-gimped somehow.

Man, you have a real talent for remembering the exact opposite of what I said. Aliens are frequently considered the superior choice, particularly compared to races that lack any space traits at all, as they receive a free-choice trait slot instead of a fixed racial, enabling you to slot an OP lockbox trait of your choice.

SOMEONE said so on the channel; otherwise, I wouldn't have an opinion one way or another, since I don't know enough about the game to have one.

It sounds like there's a seditionist in our midst.

 

[Norfleet]

I have consulted the channel logs and cannot find any record of this alleged conversation. The text "alien" appears only twice, both in completely unrelated contexts. It does not appear this subject has been discussed one way or the other with you in the channel.

 

[Blaine]

Huh. Not sure where I got it from, then. It surely wasn't random chat, because I don't pay attention to that.

It's not important anyway, as the characters I actually want to play Barbie with will be the Gorn, the Fishman, possibly the Romulan I actually like, the Cardassian as soon as possible, and later the Reman. Predator would be interesting as well, but we'll see.

 

[Blaine]

Well, they do also offer liberated Borg, which despite being a laser eyepiece and a small texture is still a desirable option.

 

[Bliblablubb]

I have consulted the channel logs and cannot find any record of this alleged conversation

Your channel logs are incomplete then. Must be russian hackers at work again. Sad.

Right at the beginning of the Gammard adventure, the filthy casual faction (Aarne + me) told him that Romulards are the mandatory master race, which prompted you to immediately kill all fun by telling him: "DON'T LISTEN TO THEM!".
Because Romulards are locked into "mediocre rom op" trait, while aliens can spend a fuckton of money to buy superior lockbox traits and apply them later. So technically yes, Aliens start a little gimped compared to real Romulards, but they will surpass them in the hands of a professional.

Kids these days, cannot into listening to their teachers...

BTW: you can save a toon's look and later load (and copy that) to a new character. This way you make an Alien look like a real Romulard space barbie and get both.

 

[Blaine]

Yes, it's the students' fault. It can't possibly be the fault of teachers giving contradictory information that the students can't even retain properly due to lack of context while they're in the midst of information overload and just trying to get a handle on the UI and controls.



I'm just glad we now know where I got that snippet of information.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Heh, from now on I will imagine you too as "Norfleet Skinner" and "Bart Blaine". I feel some serious parasite infections coming up in the future.


Shameful, I know.