boldly going...

[Joiry_]

That other Star NNNN mmo is going f2p on the 17th, and anyone who had previous subbed (even if just the first free month) can start beginning back on the 5th.

Iscra and Vri are there, they've taken over the fleet formed by ex-valcynites back when STO first released, renaming it the 76th Valcyn.

They've made some interesting changes. The newest are the Duty Officers - which are very similar to using SWTOR companions on the mini-missions. Except you have many more (up to 100 initially, but at Rear Admiral, I got 4 sets up to about 26 to start with). You basically assign them to realtime missions (30m to 2days), and their chance for success is based on their specialty (astrometrics, doctor, diplomat, etc), traits (tactful, aggressive, telepathic, etc) and their quality value (standard white, green, blue, purple). You get skill xp, xp for their new title tracks, and dilithium ore, which is the new universal currency for special items.

Some of the mission design is still frustrating. I tried out one of the new mission series they added since after the first month. It had its neat aspects, like flying inside a giant romulan base in a shuttle. On the other had, there was this docking bay door I had to crack the code on, and I had succeeded on the first half, but it was not at all obvious that I had, and I thought I had bugged the mission somehow. It wasn't until I really flew all around I found an obscure corner where I got a communication that led me to get the rest of the code...

Anyway, at least you can fly your ship where you want to.

[Alirc]

Sounds cool. Too bad they didn't go f2p a month ago... I'll keep it in mind if I decide to unsub SWTOR.

I still haven't tried space-on-rails! There's always next week...

[Celaki Goshi]

STO space combat owns SWTOR space combat, hands down.

Some of the ground side stuff can be a little frustrating if you're not built for ground combat but it's at least doable and semi-fun. I started a fresh Tactical Officer and up to 12 on her with space PvP and PVE the main focus of her build. Sucks that you get no retrain tokens as a f2p but whatever. If they aren't all that expensive, I'll just run duty officer missions to build up dilithium and buy C-points for a token. Not really a grind since it happens when I'm on and off line, .

[Joiry_]

Actually, if you plan to ever buy a respec token or increase your storage, paying for 1 month is the best deal. You can grind dilithium, but at 220+ di per cyptic point, it'll take a while.

I think the best strategy for anyone starting out is to go f2p at first, at least up thru Lt. Cmdr, possibly a ways into Cmdr ranks. The key is to skip your promotion ceremony (you still advance in rank & level, you just don't get the free ship token). A Lt. Cmdr ship is fairly cheap to buy on your own with dilithium, just from the daily missions. You can probably even push the Lt. Cmdr ship a ways into lower Cmdr rank missions. Once there, pay for 1 month sub. If you then do the promotion ceremony missions, you'll still get the respec token per rank. From there, you should easily make level cap in a month.

You'll end up with 5 respec tokens and get full storage. The f2p feature matrix is incorrect, if you ever pay just once for a month, you get to keep whatever storage your rank has unlocked. So if you're paying while max level, you'll get the full bank/inventory space a paying player gets, even after you unsub. Plus you'll have gotten 400 Cryptic Points for the month's sub.

I did this with my KDF character. She was already Lt Cmdr from back when the game first released, but I levelled her to General just using the Lt Cmdr ship, then subbed, did the all the promotion ceremony missions I had left hanging, got the tokens and the increased storage.

Anyway, you can find me @joiry in game.

[Celaki Goshi]

I may end up doing that, makes pretty good sense and then I can use the dilitihium for other things ingame.

I'm easy to find, @celaki there... go figure...

And no, my character is not a blue skinned alien, I'm a Trill...