[Elwood]

Originally Posted by Hood

Elwood what are the unreplicatable materials?

I got the necessary materials to craft a top of the line phaser sniper rifle and all of a sudden it's asking for 90 and an additional 7 'sets' of the above.

Also I don't have enough research points so if and when I get them can you please craft me a rifle. Please?

Unreplicatable materials? I haven't even looked at crafting since the launch. I have no clue. But, yes, I'll be more than happy to craft whatever anyone wants.

Originally Posted by Uncle Albert

The Sao Paolo was released with this patch. Tempted to buy it just so I can put the quad cannons on my retrofit Defiant, even though I keep hearing that you can't equip more than one of them.

I bought it. The quad cannon looks pretty good firing off of the Defiant. Not so much on the Galaxy-X though. It's kinda...puny.

[Hood]

I bought an Excelsior to get the transwarp console. Not seeing any options for transwarp travel though.

[Hood]

Given the spoils on offer for the STF missions it's worth us trying to arrange a few together.

[El Chup]

^ Friend me @ElChup47 and we can team.

[El Chup]

Originally Posted by Hood

I bought an Excelsior to get the transwarp console. Not seeing any options for transwarp travel though.

My Excelsior refit seems to have lost it's transwarp console at the moment....mind you I haven't respeced on that character yet. My Defiant Refit kept it's cloak.

[Uncle Albert]

Confirmed you definitely cannot equip more than one quad cannon.

They'll let you collect as many as you want, though.

I may have to go back on my word and fly Defiant when my Engineer hits captain. Really wasn't looking forward to a Galaxy, and i did pay for the Sao Paolo...

[Elwood]

I got the Borg Engine today. It's 0.14 slower than the Aegis Engine in game space. So, I'm swapping it out in Sector Space when I have to go long distances.

I need to dig out that Stoked episode that dealt with the Aegis and Borg sets. They did the math and found an optimum combination and I don't remember what it was.

[El Chup]

^ How did you get it? Did you buy it?

I ask, because Khitomer Accords still shows up in my mission list and I did both ground and space versions after season 5. Space shows as completed adn ground doesn't on the mission list so I was hoping to get the last birg piece that way.

I also tried The Cure (Space) on Elite to start collecting for the MACO and Omega sets, but my team got their arse kicked!

[Elwood]

Yeah, a public team can knock out the Space portion of Infected in about ten or fifteen minutes. Throughout the course of Friday and Saturday, I did it ten times and bought both the Borg Engine and Borg Shield. Over the course of this next week, I hope to get enough Encrypted Data Chips to get the Borg Deflector.

I concur about the Elite stuff. You're just not going to win unless you have a well coordinated team. I've tried Infected, The Cure, and Khitomer Accord once on Elite. If my mental math was right, I was surviving a whole fifteen seconds before I was defeated. So, I stopped bothering. We could probably do it, but we're all going to have to agree on a time and we're going to need voice coms.

[El Chup]

Well I'm up for it. I wants me some fancy Omega stuff.

[El Chup]

Just completed Infected (space) Elite and got two data chips. So how to I go about getting the Borg Tech? Are they just random drops if you're lucky?

[Uncle Albert]

I'd really like to complete all those Borg missions myself.

[El Chup]

The Elites versions are doable - provided you don't get a collection of numpties playing with you and you've been through the normal versions a couple times already so know what to do.

[Elwood]

The gear is available at DS9. When you beam in, go straight. It's one Kiosk past the tunnel down to the Shipyard.

The Omega Force and MACO gear is only available via "Prototype Borg Salvage." Those are random drops from Elite level STF runs and each STF drops a different Salvage. One does ground weapons, one does ship weapons, etc. etc. Oh, and they are random. Since Friday, I've run the space portions of Infected, The Cure, and Khitomer Accord at least three times each and I've run the ground portions of them once. I have one, one Borg Salvage and it's "Uncommon" (Good for Mk X Gear) not the "Very Rare" Prototype (Good for Mk XII Gear) because it was normal difficulty and not elite.

But, you can buy the "Retro" Borg Gear from the guy behind the counter under the "General Merchandise" section. Each piece takes 5 Encrypted Data Chips.

[Uncle Albert]

And what the funk is Borg Salvage good for?

[Elwood]

I take that back. I think you CAN buy the MACO and Omega Force gear with Encrypted Data Chips, but it takes an obscene amount. I want to say it's 100 EDC's for one Mk X item, 150 EDC's for one Mk XI item, and 200 EDC's for one Mk XII item. Don't quote me on that though. My math may be wrong.

So, to get one MK XII ground set and one MK XII space set, you'd have to run an STF 1,200 times.

[El Chup]

I'm not seeing the option to buy the Omega/MACO stuff without the special drops.

So basically these are super rare pieces of equipment and the chances of most normal players ever having a set of them are pretty damned remote.

[Elwood]

I just checked it out. You're correct. You can only buy "Special Reserve" Omega Force and MACO gear with "Prototype Borg Tech" which is only dropped, at random, on Elite Level STF runs.

The Borg Salvage is good for Very Rare Mk X, Mk XI, and Mk XII gear that's little different than the gear offered by the old Emblem Vendor at ESD. Well, I actually think it's a little inferior. I'm one Salvage unit short of having enough to Qualify for a Mk XII Very Rare Ship Weapon. But, they're all inferior to what I have. My Mk XI Phaser Beam Arrays have the [Acc] and [Dmg] x2 modifiers and I actually do more damage than I would with the Mk XII Very Rare Phaser Beam Arrays from this vendor. The only advantage is that these Mk XII Arrays carry the [Borg] modifier which has a 7.5% chance to do 1,000 "radiation damage" versus the Borg and only the Borg.

Meh.

[Elwood]

Stream of Consciousness:

Even with all the confusion, I'm happy with "Season 5." I was more than a little nervous about the revamp of the skill tree. They still didn't really separate Space and Ground skills. That is, they didn't give them separate points. They're just more clearly marked.

But, thanks to STO Academy's skill planner, I'm okay on the ground. But, my Galaxy-X has gone from an okay ship that fits my play style to being the Battleship it was always meant to be. So, the skill revamp was a

Secondly, for good or bad, they've pulled off what they wanted. The Borg are now meaner and closer to the enemy they should be. They wanted the Borg to be the focus of endgame content. They've done it. At Rear Admiral and beyond, it's all Borg all the time. That's also why the vendors are offering equipment with the [Borg] modifier. As a Vice Admiral, I'm expected to fight no one but the Borg. For that, I give them 3/4

The Duty Officer mini-game (that's really what it is) is interesting, but I don't know if I see it holding up long term. I have the "Active" officers I want giving me the bonuses I want. So, except for the sake of completion (having played all the game's content) and earning Energy Credits and Dilithium, I see little reason to play that particular mini-game. But, I am playing it. So... ?

I know the next Featured Episode series is going to revolve around DS9, but if nothing else, I'm glad they gave me a reason to go back to DS9. From a Trek standpoint, it's my favorite location in the game. So, I'm very pleased every time I head over and I see lots and lots of ships outside in Sector Space and I see the various instances crowded with people. From a semi-social player's perspective, this is a great thing. So,

[El Chup]

I've decided to start running the normal versions of the STFs as much as possible so that I become an expert at them. I'm then going to dive back into the Elites and try and do well on them.

On a seperate note, what's the most efffecient way to grind for dilitium now?

[Uncle Albert]

Shit, where do you spend dilithium? They could really do a better job of disseminating information like that. Not everyone wants to pore over their message boards all fucking day to find something that should be announced with an in-game bulletin.

[El Chup]

^ Not annoucing the changes properly is one of my biggest beefs about these updates.

I had to find out what little I know so far from the messages boards and I still don't know where to use dilithium, nor do I know what the Deferi Borg invasion is all about nd when it actually takes place.

[Hood]

The dilithium vendors are at Spacedock. But it's prohibitively expensive - IIRC 22000 for a weapon.

[Uncle Albert]

Where, specifically, and in which space dock? I've only gotten as far as noting that the place to exchange emblems for weapons was removed.

[El Chup]

Originally Posted by Hood

The dilithium vendors are at Spacedock. But it's prohibitively expensive - IIRC 22000 for a weapon.

Seriously? My entire previous haul was just coverted into 120,000. If that's what it costs to buy then it's an utter imbalnce compared to the prvious cost and, frankly, an utter piss take....a bit like the shafting I git for reach 500 days a few weeks too late.

Worst part of it is that they have no customer service whatsoever. You try and bring these problems to their attention and you either get a stock response or ignored.

[El Chup]

Originally Posted by Uncle Albert

Where, specifically, and in which space dock? I've only gotten as far as noting that the place to exchange emblems for weapons was removed.

Same.

[Hood]

Take the turbolift to ship requisitions.

[El Chup]

Homosexuals.

[Elwood]

Originally Posted by Elwood

Now, this may or may not be sound advice. You're going to need to keep up with the Dev Blog posts and the stuff on the official forum. But, it sounds like you'll want to buy/craft your purple gear now.

The emblem exchange rate is going to be beyond miserable. The average player can earn about ten or so emblems per day without committing to much time to the game. That means it would take roughly three days of grinding to get one purple piece of gear. In Cryptic's attempt to actually make Very Rare gear Very Rare, at the current exchange rate on Tribble, it's going to take 1-1.5 months to grind enough dilithium to buy one purple piece of gear.

Originally Posted by Elwood

I hope you've done all your spending and crafting already.

That's why I said to spend all of your emblems and do all of your crafting before Season 5 went live. I knew we were going to get hosed on the exchange rate.

[Uncle Albert]

I did.

Well, the spending anyway. I don't have the patience to fuck around with crafting. Was working on a good collection of cannons, turrets, and consoles for my main toon, then started diverting credits to buying stuff for my lower-ranked toon.

Did find where you spend dilithium near ship requisitions, though. Was pleased to discover they started selling that Mk X rare Combat impulse engine with the turnx2 modifier. Picked that up somewhere back when I bought my first captain-level defiant, then I never saw them sold anywhere again. Kept that bad boy until I got my Aegis set, actually.