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  • Captain's Log: Starship interiors and hints of the future

    by 
    Ryan Greene
    Ryan Greene
    08.19.2010

    Oh, hi there, readers! You'll have to excuse me; I was just enjoying a little quiet time in my quarters. My starship quarters. Inside my starship. Because I have those now. Yes, among many other features, Season 2: Ancient Enemies introduced starship interiors to Star Trek Online. Continuing from last week's discussion of diplomacy, one of Season 2's other big additions, I thought we'd spend this edition of Captain's Log examining ship interiors. Plus, we'll take a special side trip into the future to consider what else STO fans can look forward to -- in the future!

  • Captain's Log: Pros and cons of Season 2

    by 
    Ryan Greene
    Ryan Greene
    08.05.2010

    Hail and well met, fellow travelers! Welcome to another edition of Captain's Log, your weekly helping of Star Trek Online infopiniontainment. The past few weeks have been a little crazy around here, between the C-Store kerfuffle and the game's six-month anniversary. Oh, and did I mention Season 2 went live? Yep, the corking chaps at Cryptic Studios released STO's latest super-patch on July 27, introducing a bevy of new content. Now that most players have had a chance to sink their teeth into Season 2: Ancient Enemies, I thought we'd discuss some of the major new features, as we did when Season 1 hit the scene four months ago.

  • Captain's Log: Federation guide to choosing your first starship

    by 
    Ryan Greene
    Ryan Greene
    05.27.2010

    Greetings, fellow officers! Welcome to another edition of Captain's Log, your weekly dispatch from the far reaches of Star Trek Online. I hope everyone had fun tooling around the cosmos with the developers on Monday. Sadly, technical difficulties prevented me from accessing the Tribble test server. So I'm making all my engineers wear red shirts on away missions for the rest of the week -- that'll learn 'em. This week, I thought we'd cover one of my favorite aspects of STO: starships! More specifically, I'll offer some tips and information to help you choose your first ship when you reach that magic Lieutenant 11. Remember, you pretty much have to live with your decision for 10 levels, so let's make sure you choose wisely.

  • Captain's Log: A look into the future of Star Trek Online

    by 
    Ryan Greene
    Ryan Greene
    05.13.2010

    Hello again, everyone! Welcome to another installment of Captain's Log, our weekly dose of Star Trek Online goodness. I trust you all had a fine time with Captain Trout last week, learning about the Klingon beginner's experience. While you were gone, the lovely engineers on the U.S.S. Bob Wiley have installed a brandy new graphics processor, so we're back up and running! Cryptic Studios have had a busy week or so with STO. First came their big push to welcome back players, which included a free weekend for lapsed subscribers. Then came the exciting news of Cryptic's development plans for the next three months. And today saw the release of an update to Season 1.1, which includes much-needed Memory Alpha improvements and the somewhat-delayed fourth Special Task Force mission, Undine Terradome. I want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the incoming content that could make this the summer of STO -- and to ponder a few roadblocks that might get in the way.

  • Star Trek Online ship tactics, part 2

    by 
    Adam Holisky
    Adam Holisky
    11.20.2009

    Part 2 of the Star Trek Online starship tactics video premiered over at IGN, and there are a couple concepts clarified over a few subjects -- but as with the last video, it's nothing really new. The gameplay footage that's attached to the explanation is quite compelling however, especially with the boarding parties where you can see the little shuttlecrafts head towards the Romulan ship. Let's take a closer look at each of the concepts the video covers. Power management. Power management is going to play a big role, which we known about for a while. You can see some detailed pictures of part of the power management UI in yesterday's article, located along the bottom of the screen with words like Defense, Attack, and Speed. Say you have 100 units of power, in STO you're going to be able to devote 25 of those units to the shields, 10 to auxiliary systems, 50 to weapons, and 15 to the engines. Power allocation will not be immediate, it will have some sort of delay associated with it. That means you'll have to think ahead about your strategic choices.