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Star Trek Online brings Undine up to par
Cryptic Systems Designer Jeff Hamilton is on tap for today's Star Trek Online dev blog, talking about the updates being made in Season 8.5 to one of the game's most fearsome foes: the Undine. Hamilton warns players to expect a more scrappy Undine race when the update lands on January 30th: "We felt that the Undine in Star Trek Online were not on par with the Borg in terms of their toughness and challenge rating –- so we've decided to go back and make them a little bit smarter, a little bit faster, and a little bit tougher." To accomplish this, the team has given Undine ships better AI, faster engines, more weapons, summonable reinforcements, and the preference for strafing attacks during combat. The Undine Vila-class battleship will even have a new ability to open rifts to fluidic space as part of its arsenal.
Cryptic toughening up Star Trek Online's Undine
Cryptic is tweaking Star Trek Online's Undine, otherwise known as species 8472. You might recall from Star Trek: Voyager that the Undine were powerful enough to give the Borg fits, so Cryptic has "decided to go back and make them a little bit smarter, a little bit faster, and a little bit tougher." The latest STO dev blog, penned by systems designer Jeff Hamilton, has all the details.
Latest Star Trek Online dev blog talks dinosaurs, Voth technology
Like Star Trek? Like the Voth species that made its way into Trek lore during Voyager's third season? Then you'll love Cryptic's latest Star Trek Online dev diary penned by systems designer Jeff "AdjudicatorHawk" Hamilton. He's got a lot to say with regard to STO's Voth ground combat experience including tidbits about Voth mechanical exosuits, bio-engineered dankanasaurs, and rank-and-file soldiers, medics, and so on. "When looking at the Voth as a species, our starting point was only one episode," Hamilton explains, "so we had to look at what stood out about them and extrapolate from there. Their actions demonstrated that they were highly defensive, both culturally and militarily."
Legacy of Romulus adding warp cores to Star Trek Online ships
So, warp cores. Warp cores are a thing in Star Trek, but up until very recently they haven't been much of a thing in Star Trek Online. The upcoming Legacy of Romulus expansion will change that by adding cores to every ship in the game, according to the latest STO dev blog. Systems designer Jeff "AdjudicatorHawk" Hamilton pens the diary, and in it he talks about Cryptic's desire to alter the feel of STO's space combat ever so slightly while simultaneously providing captains with new tools for both exploration and conquest. If you're fond of space combat the way it is, though, don't worry. Hamilton says that the new warp core mechanics can be "largely ignored at little cost" if you prefer. Either way, you'll probably want to read up on all the little details at the STO website.
Exclusive City of Heroes dev diary: Design insights from the Magisterium trial
Today the war ends in City of Heroes. Today players are taking up arms (and mutated plant spores) in the final battle of the Praetorian War, and it will be a glorious eruption of particle effects and superheroic feats. The Magesterium incarnate trial is arguably the centerpiece of Issue 23, and Associate Designer Jeff Hamilton flew in to give us the skinny on this chaotic fight. You can get all the details on the Magisterium as well as an exclusive sneak peek at images from the fight, all after the jump!
City of Heroes' newest Intrepid Informer discusses Incarnate additions
City of Heroes was once known as a game without much of an endgame, but the Incarnate system, which launched about a year ago, changed all that. In today's Intrepid Informer, Jeff "Arbiter Hawk" Hamilton discusses the upgrades to the Incarnate system that are rolling out as part of Issue 21's special Media Blitz update. The original Incarnate ability slots will each see new power options, including a self-targeted cone for Judgement, a mass-teleport skill for Destiny, multi-proc'ing debuffs for Interface, and a variety of control, support, and tanking boosts for Alpha. According to Jeff: The biggest challenge in making new abilities in the existing Incarnate slots is that they have to be desirable in order to be worth creating, but they can't completely supplant the existing abilities. If they were numerically superior to the original powers in the slot, we'd just be shoehorning players into taking the new powers, when our true objective is to increase the number of choices a player can make in building their character. The Incarnate system is available only to VIP players with level 50 characters. The official City of Heroes website has the full Intrepid Informer with all the details on the upcoming additions.
City of Heroes Freedom invaded by Hamidon again
Hamidon is returning to City of Heroes Freedom in a big way. How can you get bigger than a gigantic gelatinous blob like the first Hamidon? In this latest dev diary, Jeff "Arbiter Hawk" Hamilton gives us all the slimy details. The zone-wide encounter starts with a new monstrosity called the Seed of Hamidon, which drops seedlings throughout the Sunken City neighborhood of First Ward. These seedlings begin the spread of the Tellurian Plague. It is in the best interest of heroes, villains, loyalists, and resistance rebels alike to end the spread of this plague before it conquers everything, as it did on Praetorian Earth. Arbiter Hawk suggests an eight-person group for this encounter, which takes place in two distinct phases. In the first phase, it's up to players to take out both the ground and air seedlings. Don't worry, non-flying characters, because as these ground-based seedlings are destroyed, they grant Buoyant Membranes that allow players and nearby allies to take flight. The Seed weakens as players defeat the seedlings until the Seed is forced to extinguish the remaining seedlings in order to regenerate power. This is when you attack and the second phase begins. Take out the Seed quickly before it is able to completely recharge -- or the cycle starts over again. The dev diary contains many of the deadly details of the seedlings as well as more advice from Arbiter Hawk; be sure to read the entire thing before battling this globular fiend.
