I’ve just wrapped up the Klingon front’s pair of time-traveling missions (City of the Edge of Never/Past Imperfect) for what is probably the third time, and I have to say — I’m still impressed with Cryptic’s handling of the Kuvah’magh prophecy.

Oh, that’s not to say that there aren’t problems with the story line. If the crazed Augmented Klingons escaped from Amar Singh, why is B’vat still leading them? Are they still allied? Just why does Captain B’vat feel it is necessary to mention that the Augmented Klingons arrived a month ago, but only brought with them a 25th-century warship weeks later? Was curing the ridgeless Klingons part of B’vat’s plan — and was curing the crazed Augments just an added bonus?

But looking at the mission in its entirety, the writers at Cryptic did a great job combining two large pieces of Star Trek lore — the prophecy of the Kuvah’magh, filled with its near indecipherable promises that “You would know me before I know the world” and “You will follow in my footsteps before I have made them”; and the cure to the Klingon augment virus, something that must have happened at some point — Klingons eventually got their ridges back! — but was unrevealed in the series. The combination of these two plots is so well done, so subtle, that all the missions’ other limitations aside, I’ve enjoyed playing it each time.

And getting to hear the Guardian of Forever talk is an added bonus.

One last bit of nerdiness for ya: the captain of the other Federation starship encountered during the “The City on the Edge of Never”, the U.S.S. Kirk, is an Andornian named Thelin. In the TAS episode “Yesteryear” — an episode involving the Guardian of Forever, and the only TAS episodes to be considered truly canon — Thelin was also the name of the Enterprise‘s Andorian first officer, in a universe where Spock was never born. Cryptic and their tricky references!

A strange thing has started to happen in STO — I’m actually enjoying ground combat.

I don’t even think I’m doing it right. I love my Engineers, but seriously? Their ground combat abilities are almost completely unappealing. Yay, I can build a bunker anywhere I want! Go forth, my little drone! Who cares. An emphasis on turtling and attrition draws out ground battles far too much. What I really want is to expose my enemies quickly and then disintegrate them with my split-beam rifles.

(In STO, there are few noises more satisfying than “AAHHH–WOOSH” noise of a vaporized enemy. In my heart, only the angry Klingon computer reporting that my enemy’s shields comes close.)

In this regard, I’ve come to appreciate two kit-based engineer abilities — Weapons Malfunction (an expose attack which disables an opponent’s weapon) and Quick Fix (which grants a significant boost to ranged damage output for a short while). Unfortunately, only one Engineer kit has both of these abilities, and its confined to Lt. Commander rank.

My solution? A team of science officers (and several Weapons Malfunctioning engies) expose my enemies, while I crouch and Quick Fix-it-up. It’s a one-trick pony, but it’s damn fun. Especially because my ugly Reman bridge officers creates an inordinate amount of exposed states. I guess his terrible looks frighten the enemy into submission?

But at some point, I should really consider making a science officer.

After several days of tinkering around with the Foundry, I’ve published my first mission — “Old, Unhappy, Far-Off Things.” A training cruiser in the Wolf 359  is attacked by Nausicaan pirates; your ship responds to the hail and quickly figures out that things are not exactly as they seem.

The mission was inspired by one of the first Foundry missions I saw — a  Nausicaan farming mission out of Wolf 359. The Nausicaans are notoriously difficult to find in game, meaning that their kill achievement is all but impossible; a mission farming them was to be expected. But it was out of Wolf 359, the site of the famous first battle between the Federation and the Borg, which compounded the mission’s distaste.

But my interested was piqued, and I decided I’d try to tell a legitimate story about the Nausicaans and Wolf 359. I hope you enjoy.

No, my loyal readers, I’m not throwing in the towel here at C-A.net; hopefully, I’ll post more than ever. However, I’m pretty proud of the quality reviews I’m pumping out over at Scan Complete — you should check them out!

The message came in via encrypted channel, only two days out of space dock. Trajan took all of the appropriate security measures, plus a few extras that he considered necessary — the sound-canceling devices hidden throughout the Cardassian’s ready room weren’t mandated per se, but in this day and age one could never be too certain.

“I trust the shakedown cruise is going well?” Admiral T’Nae inquired, her cold tone belying this opening pleasantry. Even for a Vulcan, her voice was particularly frigid. Trajan replied with a warm smile. “My crew and I thought we were done flying historical reenactments, but the Meridian is slowly growing on me.”

“However,” he added smoothly, “I doubt you called to just ask me that.”

“No, I did not. Are you aware of  ‘the Vault’, commander?”

As an MMO gamer, I seem to always be out of lockstep with my fellow bloggers. They all jump back into STO to play the Featured Episodes? I ignore the missions for weeks. I start trying to play STO again? They’re all gone off to RIFT. But you know what — despite the fleet roster being all but dead for the past week, I’ve been having a blast in the game.

It isn’t that I’m antisocial. I’d love to see my old friends playing alongside me. But when I’m playing with a fleet or a guild, I always feel under pressure to do something –  I call it “get-invited-to-a-mission-but-then-wait-someone-needs-to-go-buy-a-new-ship”-itis. And no, that’s never happened to me, and yes, that makes me sound much more antisocial than I really am. I actually like hanging out and chatting with fleetmates — but I also like to do my own thing, at my own speed. So an empty fleet has given me the chance to plod along at impulse speed, smelling the data samples and generally puttering around being an idiot.

However, there is one specific part of STO that required timely action — acquiring the limited-time Reman science officer before today’s patch removed him. So last night, I buckled down and went through the entire “Cloaked Intentions” series.

The titular Vault was the subject of the first featured episode. A moon-sized starbase built by the Romulans to study and reverse engineer Borg technology, the Vault has been dormant for nearly thirty years; apparently, the station’s automated defenses have been enough to keep out the various warring Romulan successor states.

Until today. The Vault is coming back on line, and for some God-awful reason, my crew of misfits is assigned the task of investigating.

But there is where “The Vault” is set apart from other episodes — for fear of attracting unwanted attention, we can’t use our main ship to investigate the Vault. So I and a lucky bridge officer of my choice get to head into an abandoned weapons research facility filled with stuff that will turn us into mindless drones, or desiccate our still-breathing bodies — in a shuttle. Fortunately, my 400-day Veteran’s Captain’s Yacht had just kicked in, so I got to travel to my certain death in-style.

Many other, much better writers — West Karana, Blue Kae, Scott at Pumping Irony, and GeeCee — have discussed the qualities of this rather unique mission: the different ways to get into the Vault, the station’s impressive size and the mission’s success at implementing a sense of scale, the voice acting. I want to talk about something else: the fight at the end.

When you leave the Vault, your immediate priority is to rendezvous with the the U.S.S. Lhasa, a Galaxy-class vessel hiding within a micronebula only a few kilometers away. Unfortunately, a Romulan warbird decloaks and opens fire, spoiling the homecoming. My rinky-dink shuttle Captain’s Yacht was tasked with running interference for the Lhasa, targeting the plasma torpedoes and Scorpion fighters launched by the Romulans. This minute-long fight is one of my favorite fights in STO to date. Cryptic did a fantastic job capturing the scale of the warships compared to my yacht; I felt like a bug between two dueling titans. The entire experience seemed to draw very positively on the Deep Space Nine episode “The Jem’hadar” — I’m just glad that my Galaxy didn’t end up exploding!

The next mission — “Mine Enemy” — was memorable in a different way: the return of the Horta! For reasons unknown, the Reman rebels encountered in the previous episode appear to be targeting a planet in the  Hfihar system. The planet in question was a mining world staffed by Romulan refugees and run by a greedy Ferengi who I came this close to killing. That sort of sums up my experience with this mission: many instances of failed diplomacy.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Madran whined, “I have to go talk a hundred Romulans into–”

Trajan stood, his broad chest blocking the path of the shorter, rotund Ferengi. “No, you’re not excused. Sit back down.” The words came out as a snarl, betraying the Cardassian’s growing anger.

Madran sputtered and tried to squeak out a reply. Trajan shoved him back into his chair. “Let me put this in words that you can understand. I’m presenting you with a non-negotiable contract. You will start treating your ‘employees’ better, and I’m here to… incentive that.”

“A Starfleet officer, threatening…” Madran gasped out, only to trail off as he watched the Cardassian unclip his Starfleet combadge and place it on the table. Trajan let silence fill the room, the implication of his action slowly sinking through the Ferengi’s thick skull.

People died who didn’t need to — the Romulan miner, Commander Janek — and the people who deserved to die got away.

The other three missions — the well voice-acted “Frozen”, the unequaled “Coliseum”, and the concluding “Cutting the Cord” — were all good in their own way. Rather than waste more internet electrons when others have already done a good job summing these — Karana unlocked the ‘Incarcerator’ achievement in the first; GeeCee wrote a very nice piece on the second; I already posted some about the last mission — I wanted to list my opinions about the entire series.

Playing all five of the missions back-to-back was a very enjoyable experience, and I felt that each mission was a Star Trek episode in a larger season arc. Unlike earlier, crappier mission (I’m looking at you, “Researcher Rescue“), the missions weren’t evenly divided between space and ground — you were on one or the other for most, if not all, of the time. Without being able to resort to the “now let’s go destroy X guys/spaceships, them beam out and do the opposite” I believe this allowed for a more solid and cohesive narrative. Personally, I also feel this reflects the Star Trek mythos better.  Yes, episodes are often divided between A- and B-track plots, with one focusing on ground events and one in space — but characters rarely move back and forth between each storyline. If “Coliseum” were actually a Star Trek episode, we’d have scenes of my loyal bridge crew trying to figure out where I went. But from my, the player’s point-of-view, the lack of movement perfectly incapsulated how a television episode feels.

In that same vein, I’m glad that I was routinely restricted to what bridge officers I could bring along. This also felt very Star Trek-like, and it went a long way toward making the missions seem simultaneously both more heroic and more personal. I got to imagine my Captain in his shuttle with my former Borg engineer going into the Vault, or the Vulcan science officer look on as Trajan lost his cool watching the abused Romulan refugees.

This was a memorable playing experience for me, one of a few I’ve collected while playing STO. I was really impressed by the quality of not only the writing, but also the voice acting (I want Obisek to narrate my captain’s log!) and the visual improvements. I can’t wait for the next Feature Series — I guess  Foundry-made missions will have to tide me over till then!

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Cutting the Cord

Today’s was a Saturday, and a great Saturday it was — the final Feature Episode in this STO’s most recent series was released. I just started playing STO again, and haven’t yet gotten around to playing through the new series (or any of the series, for that matter). But that didn’t stop my fleet members in the Federation News Service from inviting me along!

In practice, this meant that my humble NX-class light escort was dwarfed by Admirals Bryn Aev and Tipa D’zoph’s warships (both, coincidentally recently promoted to ambassador)…

Also: Tippa's ship was a little more Borgified than mine. eep!

… but STO‘s level-matching system really came through, and even though I had many fewer abilities than BlueKae and Tippa, I was able to stay alive and contribute some damage to the team. Furthermore, when Kae and Tippa had played it earlier, they hadn’t been able to find an engineer — thanks to my unique Fast Hacking Skillzzz, I earned them (and me) an Engineer-specific Accolade.

The mission itself was hectic and tons of fun. I haven’t played the preceding missions, so the plot was a little lost on me — as best I could figure out, a fragment of the Romulan Star Empire, acting under orders from the Iconians, had started enslaving Remans. This precipitated a Reman revolt, and as the Romulan Star Empire descended even further into civil war, we chose to side with the Remans.

Or something. The nuances of our mission were lost on me, in part because I got to do things like this…

You may fire at will, ensign.

.. and this.

Yes, that's right -- my NX-class is helping a fleet of Reman warships repel a Romulan fleet led by Empress Sela. Awesome.

I had a great time, and I’m glad that Kae and Tippa invited me along — and that I was able to contribute something to the team. It’s a shame that this was the last Featured Episode for a while, but there’s always the Remastered Episodes coming out, not the mention the fact that the Foundry should drop any day now. Exciting!

EDIT: And GeeCee should enjoy this — apparently a Horta growing/crafting daily is in the works! (Links here and here.)

Well, they say if you travel far enough, you will eventually meet yourself. Having experienced that, Number One, it’s not something I would care to repeat.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Time Squared

The joy of a lifetime subscription is that you can hop back into a game any time you want; all you need is a desire to return and the time it takes for the game to patch back up.

After a near six-month hiatus,  I decided I’d try out STO again this weekend — and in my case, the patching took quite a bit of time. As I was about to find out, all that downloading meant that the game had improved considerably.

Look, I have a problem, okay?

GeeCee astutely called me out earlier — I decided to start a new character. But I have a justification or two! No, really!

First, it’s like the great Melmoth once said, much better than I can — I find it hard to pick back up old characters. I know that I like ol’ Captain Xerxes, but the spark just isn’t back yet. Worse, I’ve forgotten what half of my crew’s abilities do, and that’s not even getting to the changes Cryptic has made. So, a new character seemed in order.

Secondly — I’ve always wanted to play a male Cardassian engineer. My love of the Cardassians isn’t new, but I’ve been holding off making an Alien-gen Cardassian because I wanted Cryptic to release an ‘official’ one.

And you know what? I’m done waiting. So meet Ensign — now Lieutenant — Trajan Rangar.

Cool guys don't like at explosions.

To help make him, I downloaded a Cardassian character template from STO Academy. It got the head perfect, but I ended up shifting the neck bulk to the maximum, and very near did the same thing to shoulder bulk. Come on! If Cardies don’t have bulging neck scales, then what are they?!

I also took this opportunity to do something I had always wanted to do…

They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far and no further!

… I killed 1,000 Borg on the U.S.S. Khitomer, earning me the “Assimilate This!” passive buff and achievement.

It was really quite simple, once I correctly set-up autofire in the game’s options.

Getting the band ship back together

Of course, a new character means a new ship with a new bridge crew. You’ve already met Wilde, and since I fully intend to write bios for rest of the crew, at present I’m not going to speak much more on that.

But the ship — well, that’s a different story. As much as I like the Constitution-class vessel that Xerxes loved to fly around, I wasn’t feeling it this time. So I bit the bullet and bought the NX-class Replica, along with rest of the set (I mean, those Mirror Universe outfits are sweet!)

The U.S.S. Hyperion

Even though Enterprise wasn’t my all-time favorite show, I did like it (especially its excellent last seasons), and I’m glad that Cryptic did such a good job bringing the NX into the game. I’m already thinking up explanations for why the heck I’m flying around the Delta Volanis cluster with a historical replica.

Impressions

I am very pleased with the updates STO has seen in my absence. Sector space is absolutely gorgeous and a pleasure to fly through; I particularly like the lore that pops up when you fly to a new system. The GUI’s font has been considerably improved, too — I keep smiling at how such a small change makes everything look nicer. Even the game itself seems to run a little better and smoother, despite so many players — when I logged in Sunday evening, I saw more activity around Earth than I had ever seen before!

Islanded in a stream of stars

One thing that threw me for a loop was the revamped-revamped crafting system. I had stuck my head back into the game right after the first crafting revamp, so I was anticipating needing to upgrade evenly-ranked items that I purchased from vendors at Memory Alpha. However, the new schematic system appears to allow players to craft items completely out of data samples, which is really nice. Furthermore, the different advancement ‘trees’ have apparently been collapsed into one, making crafting progression much easier. (If I’m wrong, please correct me!)

On the whole, the game has begun to feel much more like Star Trek, and that’s even before I’ve played the new missions. I’m looking forward to playing more — hopefully the Foundry is released soon, and I can start building non-Tribble missions!