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The most recent new content added to season 3 of Star Trek Online saw two special sets of ship devices added to the game.  Consisting of several parts (such as a set of shields, a deflector dish and the like), each device grants bonuses to your ship, but also gives additional bonuses if you complete the set.  However, even better is these sets also change the appearance of your ship.

The inspiration for the first set is obvious.  Especially within Voyager, as during the Scorpion 2-parter that introduced 7 of 9, the Borg partly assimilated Voyager, meaning evidence of Borg technology became visible on the hull.  So the first, Borg, set follows on this idea.  Equipping the deflector adds strange Borg-crafted spines to your ship, or equipping the engines adds Borg technology to your impulse and warp engines, causing the nacelles to glow green.   I do especially like the nod to the recent JJ Abrahams movie though with the spines from the deflector clearly being influenced by the Narada.

The nice idea behind this set, is you get the first piece from replaying one of the previous Borg missions and the other 3 from completing the various Borg STFs in the game.

The STFs have long been one of the less popular aspects of endgame content. Requiring a full team of players who know what they’re doing, the STFs are longer missions designed to be challenging to experienced players. I’ve previously run the first one, Infected, and to be honest I hadn’t been taken with it at all. I found it a long, hard slog to get through it and the rewards were pretty poor. Granted, players with more experience in it can get through it faster, but the experience hadn’t really left me a desire to try it again.

Now though, the devs have sought to address one of my big complaints. By adding pieces of the Borg set as rewards, they’ve made it more worthwhile running through these STFs, and are hoping to entice more people to try them out.  I’ve certainly noticed a big difference while I’ve been in game, with a sizeable cluster of starships all parked around the system that the first STF starts in since the sets were released, and a lot of chatter about the missions in the zone chat.  So it certainly looks like its been a success.

Of course, the other advantage of the first console being in the mission replay is that it helps advertise the additional bonuses that are sometimes present for replaying a mission (such as a type 1 phaser in one of the Klingon missions).  Again, these extra rewards for replaying are something I hope we see more of.

The other set that’s been released is the Aegis set (dubbed the “Tron” set by the playerbase, and from the screenshot its hopefully easy to see why).  This set is based off of crafting, with three elements (shields, deflector and engines) that can be crafted once you’ve maxed out all the available crafting trees.  Again, its a nice way to highlight another part of the game, especially given the revamp that’s just been done on crafting.  Like the Borg set, equipping two or three of the devices start to apply additional bonuses and abilities to your ship.  A nice side effect of the Aegis set, is that it bolsters the benefits of being in a fleet, as having everyone working to aquire the data samples for crafting made it easy to quickly equip all of the members of the fleet with this new set, often on several characters.

I’m a massive fan of these sets and I really hope the devs have more on the drawing board. They’re a nice way of drawing attention to different aspects of the game (similar to what I liked about parts of the weekly missions), and I love the idea of being able to further customise the look of our ship based on awards we’ve won.

Star Trek Online Season 3 has now officially launched on Holodeck (the live server).

For those that don’t know, in Star Trek Online “Seasons” are the descriptions of the large content update patches that all MMOs wheel out from time to time in order to spruce up the game, add new features, and squash some bugs.  In Star Trek Online though, they work a little differently, serving as a banner for a portion of the game’s lifespan.  So while Season 3 may have started with the large update that hit yesterday, it continues until the launch of Season 4, as there’s more content to come as part of season 3, that’s still undergoing some final testing and tweaking.

Unlike a lot of these large updates MMOs see (and indeed seasons 1 and 2 of STO), new content was not a big part of the Season 3 release.   Usually you might expect to see new zones open up in the game, and new missions available to be played, but here the developers had been pretty up front that instead for Season 3, the focus was going to be on polish.

Its no secret that Star Trek Online had a bumpy launch.  A lot of people suspect it was rushed out of the door early, with some content lacking, and other aspects of the game lacking proper attention.  Its a launch that dogged the game for some time, and over the course of seasons 1 and 2, these issues were slowly addressed, bringing in some Klingon PvE content, rolling out difficulty options and a death penalty, and introducing a load of new missions, including the recent, highly successful weekly missions.   So despite that rough launch, the game has come on in leaps and bounds.

However there will still aspects of the game that were obviously bugging the developers, and with that in mind, and the game looking much healthier in terms of its content, they obviously felt it was time to sort those aspects out.  And with season 3, while there may be no new missions (unless you’re playing a Klingon), its clear the love that’s gone into the changes.

For me, there’s several main areas of focus.  One is immediately clear to all players, and that’s Sector Space.  Sector Space is the view of the game where you fly from space sector to space sector, travelling to systems within those sectors in order to complete missions.  The original version of sector space (see left) came under a lot of criticism.  Its graphics had a grid transposed over space, with markers coming up from the “floor” to each planet.  I didn’t mind it too much (I rationalised it as an Astrometrics view), however a lot of players felt it detracted from the immersion in the game.  The new version of sector space however, brings a very noticeable revamp.

Firstly, all of sector space has been darkened.  The over-lit view used previously is now absent, with most of the lighting now coming from any stars you pass on your travels.  There’s now a toggle switch as well for switching Astrometrics on or off.  Switching it on provides a similar view to before.  While still darkened, a grid becomes visible.  Switching it off, and those grids and markers are hidden.  The end result gives you much more a feeling of flying through the vastness of space.   As you approach systems, stars start as small dots, before getting larger and eventually you can view the planets surrounding them, and an info box pops up to give you information about the system, as well as any previous options to enter the system or continue a mission.  Another nice visual tweak is when moving through this revamped sector space, you see stars streak past, like the familiar effect seen in the series whenever the Enterprise (or Defiant or Voyager) was travelling at warp.

Previously, where stations such as Deep Space Nine were shown in a highlighted, translucent way, again they’ve been changed, so they’re now rendered as complete objects in sector space.  So as you approach the station, there’s a feeling that you’re genuinely flying up to it, again as opposed to some kind of astrometric or tactical view from a computer terminal.  Specific areas of sector space, such as the Mutara Nebula, Great Bloom or Badlands have had effects added to them.  Before these were normal systems you approached and entered.  Now as you approach, the view of sector space shifts to reflect the environment of the stellar anomaly.    The changes are all geared to shift the feeling from some impersonal computer display to give you more of a feeling of directly controlling your ship as it travels through space, and its superbly done.

The next major change that’s really grabbed me has been crafting.  Crafting has always been something many ignored in STO.  Its based around anomalies that are scanned in space and on planet surfaces.  Gathering up these anomalies meant they could be spent in Memory Alpha upgrading basic pieces of equipment.  All sounds good on the surface, however the types of equipment that could be upgraded were quite limited, and generally you found yourself creating loads of things you didn’t need, in order to gain the crafting experience required to produce something you did genuinely want.  For me, and a lot of players, crafting became resigned to being end game content.  Something new to try and max out at Vice Admiral purely for fun, unlike other MMOs where crafting is a key part of your character’s development.

Season 3 aims to address these issues directly.  The previous distinctions between “Physical Sciences”, “Technology” etc tiers are removed, with items moved into the more logical groupings of “Personal Weapons, Ship Weapons, Ship Devices and the like.   The number of items available has also been drastically increased.  Now almost any combination of weapon or device type you can want appears.  This is the first part to making crafting relevant.  For example, previously when I hit maximum level, the weapons I could craft were no use.  The only beam arrays available were Polaron, and I use Phasers.  Now, whether you use phasers, polaron or tetryon arrays the option is there.  Likewise for the different types of consoles, shields, torpedoes, kits.  Whatever you could need.  Purple “very rare” gear is also now available (previously it was only the rare, blue gear you could craft up to), making use of the rare particle traces introduced into the game in season 2.

The only restrictions I’ve noticed seem to come with the Mark XI gear.  There, for example, only normal shields are available, as opposed to covariant (my shield of choice), regenerative or any of the others).  However I think this is still reasonable, as players need to have some high end gear that is only available through playing the wider game (in this case, to get emblems to be exchanged for the highest end equipment).  Aside from that, the developers have restricted phasers and disruptors to Federation and Klingons respectively, presumably to add a bit of distinctiveness to the two factions’ crafting.

The other major improvement was the removal of needing a base item to upgrade.  Seen as a money-sink, it was another way that crafting only became possible properly at higher levels, as you needed the cash to outlay on something to craft, and unless you’re a pretty clued up player, energy credits can be scarce at lower levels.

Instead, now the basic anomalies (of which, most players amass a huge amount of) are used to create schematics.  So if you want to create a new ship phaser, you’ll need so many anomalies, plus a ship weapon schematic in order to create it.   Again, I think this is definitely a change for the better.  Now lower level characters who’ve managed to build up a supply of anomalies can craft some better equipment for their ships without worrying about their dwindling energy credits.

I’ve been a massive fan of this revamp.  Its really turned crafting into something exciting and relevant to characters as they level up throughout the game.  And the hints of future improvements, tying in with the crew system being designed for season 4 sound like something to really look forward to.

Klingons as well, continue to benefit from each knew season release.  In this season, Klingon tricorders have finally been upgraded to detect destructible mission objectives, that are common in their PvE content.  Previously it was only objects that could be interacted with (scanned etc) that they would detect, like the Federation tricorders.  This is a great quality of life change for making Klingon missions a bit easier.

Klingons also now have access to crafting, like the Federation only more disruptor-focussed.  And they’ve also got several new daily “sortie” missions opened up to them which they can play to raid Federation transports and outposts for more data samples for use in crafting.  All these kinds of changes we’ve seen over the last few releases really make me want to get back to my Klingon and start levelling him up again, and take advantage of the fact I can now upgrade my ship through crafting.

But these are only some of the initial changes introduced with the launch of Season 3.  And so, since this has gotten really quite long, I’ll take a break, and talk about the upcoming content currently being trialled on the public test server, including the much-anticipated Foundry for user-generated missions.

The second series of weekly Star Trek Online episodes reach their climax, as Section 31 decide that the best solution to the Devidian problem is for you to travel back to the 23rd century once again and destroy the comet there that’s emitting the radiation allowing the Devidians to phase through to our world.

Straight away, again we see the devs attempting to bring in new gameplay variations, when Drake announces the secret he’s been keeping.  A system with a star that’s suitable for a time-travel slingshot attempt (as seen in Star Trek IV).  In the game, this is given as a series of navigation points, highlights as rings you must fly through in order, on a timer in order to successfully complete the slingshot.   However to make things trickier, as you go through each ring, your ship picks up speed as it gets closer to the velocity needed for time travel.

As always, I’ll praise the devs for attempting to bring more variation into the game, but I think its also fair to say, this particular mechanic wasn’t entirely a success.  While its a great idea, and the use of the slingshot within the plot also a brilliant surprise, many players found hitting all five of the rings too difficult and frustrating.  I know myself, I had about five failed attempts at it, before I noticed some people discussing it on one of the chat channels (TTS – a test server related channel that’s frequented by the devs).   On that channel, someone else was having similar problems, and it was recommended that they switched to steering the ship using the mouse, by holding down both buttons at once, rather than the usual keyboard control.

I immediately thought I’d give it a go, and got through on my second attempt.   Switching to mouse control definitely makes it a bit easier, but its still a segment that left a lot of players frustrated.  Especially as its right at the start of the mission which they’ve been building towards for five weeks.  However the good news is the developers are aware of the issues, and are looking into a compromise mechanic to help people out (I believe some sort of autopilot assist that kicks in after so many failed attempts).

However, once you get past that part, you travel back in time, and you’re immediately treated to a sight we missed last week: Drozana Station’s exterior in its prime.  Having become fairly familiar with the run down state of the station over the last few weeks (including one of the sections almost hanging off), it was really nice to see this revamped exterior.  Its still a recognisable variation on Deep Space K7, but its still a fresh, new space station exterior we hadn’t really seen before in the game, and it helped reinforce the idea that you’d travelled back in time.

Of course, one thing I’ve missed is the other nice detail.  To help hide your presence and protect the timeline, Drake had your ship outfitted with a holo-emitter system, so that your ship appears as an old Klingon D7 cruiser (amusingly this also happens if you’re playing on the Klingon side, in one of the D7-like cruisers ).  Sadly, he also appears to have equipped you with the worst disguise possible, since you’re immediately attacked by a Federation constitution class ship for attacking a colony, and at the end of the mission, some Klingons appear, none too happy that your ship is from the House of Duras.  Its a great little visual trick though, disguising your ship like this, and while I’ve not really played with the holo-emitters you can get from playing Dabo much, they work well when integrated into the plot like this (similar to the flashlight temporary power from a few weeks ago).

Onboard the station, clearing out the attacking Devidians becomes the name of the game, and for the first time in several weeks, the mission becomes straight-forward combat.  Even in a segment where you’ve to break up a barfight, this is done by just stunning everyone involved, which I found a little jarring after all the alternative options offered in the last few quests (given the urgency of matters though, its understandable that you’d take the “stun them and sort it out later” approach).

With the Station cleared out, the immediate threat is not dealt with, as the rising Triolic radiation from the comet is endangering the crew.  There’s only one engineer that can help adjust the station’s shields to filter it out in time, so its a good thing Scotty’s there on shore leave

I was really positive on the appearance of Doctor McCoy in the previous mission, and so I was very pleased to see Scotty appear here (fingers crossed at somepoint we get to team up with Captain Kirk).   As with McCoy there’s been a nice attempt to make the character look and “sound” like Scotty, and as I said in the previous mission, bumping into these important characters really helps reinforce the feeling that this is Star Trek you’re running around in (I feel similarly about Lord of the Rings Online when you run around the Shire or see a Nazgul).   There’s a familiar type of puzzle in this section, where the woman who can supply the part you need is still in shock after the Devidian attack, so you need to help get the right drink to calm her down (of course, when it comes to drink, Scotty’s the man to talk too).  Talking to Scotty gives you hints about what she likes in a drink, and then you get the barman to mix it up for you.

Its a curious part to the mission.  To be honest, I enjoyed it, as I’ve enjoyed all these “read the information and figure out the answer” puzzles, but to suddenly find yourself mixing a drink seems like an odd break in the action after the fact (and indeed, on writing it down here, I can see how out of place it seems).  To be honest though, I think this plays into a larger thought on the mission I’ll get back to later.

With the drink mixed, the part obtained, and Scotty having worked his magic to save the station, its finally time to get to the route of the problem, and take out the comet itself.  And again, this is unfortunately a part of the mission that gathered some complaints from the players.

This is the sequence mentioned earlier whereby you get attacked by the Klingons (led by another familiar face, albeit a recurring ingame character this time, rather than someone from the TV show, but its still really nice to see the game building its own continuity like this).  Essentially they attack you, as you’re trying to get rid of the pesky comet, however you’re warned of the dangers of changing the timeline.  And as you shatter each stage of the comet, more ships warp in, so its really not long before you can find yourself utterly swamped.

As I learned by my second run through of the mission, there’s a particular strategy to this section.  First time through, I’d assumed the best thing was to completely avoid the Klingon ships as much as possible.  However, this just results in them killing you, a lot.  Instead, it turns out that you can disable the Klingons (however I still avoided engaging the lead ship to be safe).  Done this way, it actually leads to a fun, challenging encounter.  At each stage, you disable the 2 Klingon D7s that appear, while dodging the lead ship (I’d occassionally use Jam Sensors or the like to get it off my back for a few seconds without damaging it), then blow up the stage of the comet, leading to new fragments or shards appearing, along with another 2 D7s.  Rinse and repeat for each stage of the comet (undamaged, fragments and shards).  As an added wrinkle, the D7s will eventually get back online, so you still need to move quickly before they all reactivate, but you get enough time that you should be able to clear everything up and head Back To The Future (!) without it being a complete nightmare.  As I say, quite a fun combat, however whether the way the ingame text is worded or something, I’m not sure, but it wasn’t clear at all this was the way to do things on my first attempt, and it became a mess.    Its definitely another section (like the slingshot sequence) that perhaps needs a little tweaking (and is being looked at by the devs).

If there’s one thing though that’s a bit off about the mission, its the structure.  And it never really dawned on me until I read someone commenting on it in the forums and I agree with them completely.  It feels like things are happening in the wrong order, when you look at the narrative of the mission.  You warp in, deal with all the stuff on the station, and only then do you tackle the route of the problem itself, the comet.    It perhaps would’ve made more sense to remove the encounter with the Federation ship, and instead start with the Klingons and the Comet itself, so you come out of time warp, and immediately nip that problem in the bud.  Then once it was destroyed, it would’ve been simple for your bridge officers to alert you to the lingering Devidians and dangerous radiation levels on the station, and have you beam aboard to deal with them.

The only issue with that though, is the Klingon/Comet encounter does make for a big finale to the mission.  So I do understand the devs presenting the mission this way.  The “mix a drink” section still sticks out, however I don’t want to take away from that section too much, as I did find it quite fun, with the background of the drink providing an amusing spin on a familiar type of puzzle.

As the final mission of the series though, the rewards are plentiful and a lot of fun.  The exclusive reward, that’ll vanish from the mission after a set amount of time is a nifty Devidian staff that you can use to drain life from your enemies as the Devidians have spent 5 weeks doing to you.  As a neat bonus, when used in conjunction with the pattern enhancer reward, it turns into a snake, just like the one in the TV show.

The other rewards though, its fair to say are the ones people have been hoping for.  Classic Trek weapons

After seeing them in action in the previous mission (where the security teams could cut you to shreds with them), everyone had their fingers crossed that the classic Trek Type 2 phaser would be part of the series reward.  As a surprise though, its not the reward that’ll vanish, and will be a permanent reward for completing the series.  graphically, its spot on, looking just like the TV show, complete with blue phaser effects.   The sound effects as well, are captured well from the TV show.  Being a weekly reward, like the other items (such as the classic ship phasers, proton gun and breen weapons) it levels along with you, so its a great weapon to keep handy throughout the game (indeed, having recently been working on my Science Officer, I’m finding the various weekly mission rewards a massive help in the game).

If you’re of the Klingon persuasion, or just a big fun of disruptors, what’s great is they actually give you the choice of weapons as well, so you can forego the type 2 phaser in favour of a disruptor pistol with equivalent stats.

However, the classic treats don’t stop there.  As also included is the original classic Trek phaser rifle, again carefully modelled on what was in the TV show and instantly recognisable.

So overall, I’d definitely say this was another successful set of weekly missions and I still love the excitement they bring to the game.  On one hand however, I would say they were let down slightly by some of the bugs in Everything Old Is New Again, and the problems with some of the gameplay elements in Night of the Comet (although once you know the tricks, its a fun mission).  However, to be fair to the Devidian series, it also came across as the more experimental of the two series, with more attempt to broaden the types of puzzles and action we might encounter, which is definitely to be applauded and encouraged.  What Lies Beneath remains one of the strongest missions in the whole game, and those issues I have mentioned with the other missions are already on the dev’s radar and either fixed, or in the process of being fixed, so any new players will be able to enjoy them hassle-free

So, after locating a time portal to the 23rd century on Drozana Station in the previous mission, Everything Old is New Again finds you and your crew stepping through the portal in an attempt to discover what the Devidians are up to.

Immediately on activating the portal, you’re treated to the interior of Drozana Station in its prime.  No longer the 200 year old, decaying wreck, its now a pristine, newly-built station , and the sudden shift in decor to recognisable 23rd  design is a great fanboy treat.

What follows is another, well-designed mission.  Being from the future, your primary worry has to be to not muck up the timeline too much.  You discover that the station is under a medical quarantine following a mysterious illness that’s draining the neural energy of the station’s occupants (suggesting the Devidians are present in this time zone as well, something later confirmed).   There’s a nice little logic puzzle where you have to overload the computer systems in the room you start in, to break the lockdown and get out in to the main station.

Once out, stealth becomes the name of the game, as you need to try and avoid security patrols while trying to put together the items you need to scan the area for the Devidians and work out a way home.  There’s a nice line of dialogue about setting phasers to heavy stun, something we don’t usually get in the game, but made perfect sense to introduce here.   Another great addition is how some groups will allow you to use diplomacy to try and bluff your way around, rather than relying in stealth, or the aforementioned stun setting.  The stealth aspect is nicely done too, allowing you to duck past the security teams as they check other rooms, or you’ve got the option to try and lock them in one of them.  These kinds of options just really add to the “role playing” aspect of the game, allowing you to make choices as to how you want to tackle a problem.

Once you make it past security, its then onto the second main part of the mission, as you encounter a familiar face.  Heading the medical efforts on the station is Doctor Leonard McCoy, and you quickly find yourself drafted into helping him develop a treatment for the Devidian-affected crew.  This again, is a nice little puzzle where you must scan infected crew members, and use the results to provide the calibration needed to heal them.

Once that’s done, its a straight run to the finish, as you retrieve the final part you need and trigger the time portal, stopping only to get some drugs to protect you from the radiation from McCoy and zap some Devidians that appear.

In terms of mission construction, there’s some really interesting and varied ideas brought into the game here.  I think this is the first time a mission’s had a stealth aspect (including an accolade if you successfully get past the 23rd century security teams without having to stun them) so that was a welcome new gameplay mechanic that I think was pretty successful idea.  The combination of the stealth and puzzles nicely fills the mission out, and means that it feels like you’ve done a lot, despite the lack of combat (unless you decided to just shoot the security teams).

The inclusion of McCoy in the mission also worked really well.  We’ve seen semi-familiar faces in the game before in the form of MacKenzie Calhoun (from the New Frontier books) and various grown up versions of Voyager characters like Naomi Wildman, Icheb and Miral Paris (who of course is a big player in one of the storylines).  However this is one of the few instances where a main character from the franchise has appeared.  The designers had obviously gone to a fair amount of effort to make the character in game a reasonable likeness of DeForest Kelley, and the dialogue seemed spot on to me, so definitely a great moment in the game.  Hopefully we’ll see more familiar faces pop up as new content gets added, as it really adds to the missions, although I appreciate with the game being set in 2409 it makes it a bit trickier without more time travel being used.

However sadly it wasn’t all plain sailing with this mission, and despite the well-constructed mission, with lots of different gameplay mechanics, this was also the first weekly where I felt a few bugs bite which detracted from the experience.  On my first run through, during the stealth segment, I’d attempted to hide in a room while the security team walked past.  This had two side effects, with the team’s patrol route interrupted, they just waited outside the door rather than moving on.  Then one member of the security team randomly respawned within the room, immediately attacking me and costing me the accolade.

Fortunately, a second bug struck when I completed the mission, as the mission didn’t properly complete on my return to the future, and instead I had to run through it again.  Admittedly though, this worked to my advantage, as it let me re-do the stealth segment and get the accolade.

On my second run through, I then again encountered a bug with the second security team, who are supposed to be in a group in a room you have to work your way past.  Instead, they would spawn further up the corridor, run into the room, and immediately beam out and run back in again.  This constant cycle made it impossible to get past them without sacrificing the accolade by stunning them.

However, these bugs are already being addressed.  The mission not completing (while this worked to my advantage) has already been patched, and I expect any other lingering problems to be picked up as well.  It was just a bit of a shame that they slightly soured my first experience of the mission.

However, bugs and glitches aside, there’s a lot to praise in this episode.  The 23rd Century setting was well realised and  feels fresh in the game.  The greater mixture of gameplay styles, combat, stealth and puzzles, and allowing the player to decide how to approach the issue of the security patrols added some depth and real  role playing to the mission.  The inclusion of Bones was a great treat and hopefully a sign that the devs will try to bring more recognisable characters into the game as things go forward, where they can.

Combined with the previous mission, there’s a real sense that the developers are trying to push the envelope of what they accomplish within the game, whether its through the detailed level design of last week, or introducing new gameplay styles this week, its nice to see the game being pushed forward rather than just relying on the same kind of content and level design that we’ve seen before.

Oops, playing catchup a little here, since I never got the chance to blog about the last few week’s missions in the new Devidian series in Star Trek Online.

Spin the Wheel was pretty short, but none-the-less a good setup episode, that set the scene nicely for what came next.   After being directed to Drozana Station to check in on a Section 31 informant, you find yourself having to fix the power grid for the station manager to get information on where to find her, and then you must play some Dabo to avoid raising suspicion when making contact.

As I say, on the surface, very short.  And was sure to disappoint some players with its complete lack of combat, but as I’ve said before I enjoy the change of pace they provide, and I feel this mission was an important stage, not necessarily for the storyline, but for introducing the setting of Drozana Station.

Existing in the Neutral Zone, it acts as a neutral trading station where both Federation and Klingon characters can stop off to access the Exchange, pick up some supplies, and play some Dabo.  And for the purpose of this storyline, its also a central point of activity for the Devidians.   For Klingon players, I imagine Drozana Station is a familiar haunt, however as a Federation player I must admit I’d never had the cause to visit there before, especially with Deep Space K7 so close by.  Drozana Station, by this mission is established as a 200+ year old station that’s not kept in particularly great state of repair, with many systems patched together.  This all becomes important in the next mission.

So, a short mission, but I think an important one.   The power grid puzzle was fun and, like the station, it also introduces the Dabo mini-game to those players who may not have been aware of it.  A nice way of advertising some of the non-mission content in the game I thought, as well as making use of existing game assets to help them meet the weekly deadline, which must be tough going sometimes.

However, with Drozana Station now introduced to the players, the next mission, What Lies Beneath, sees you heading back to it to investigate the Devidian’s appearances.  Specifically to search the lower maintenance decks for sign of where they might be gathering.

Now, to truly appreciate what Cryptic did here, you must remember this mission was released over Halloween weekend.  As you descend in the maintenance elevator, you get stopped on another deck part way down, and that’s where the fun really begins, as there’s more than Devidians hiding in the lower decks.

Atmosphere is key to this mission.  The idea of a centuries old station, kept in pretty poor repair is captured brilliantly.  The lighting is low and flickers constantly.  There are cables and debris scattered all over the place.  The setting is perfect as the spooky old space station, and its augmented nicely by the temporary torchlight drone you pick up (a great little power that).  The tension then is ratcheted up a notch when a maintenance technician is killed, and the comm channels fill up with the killer’s messages to you.

And what impact those messages have.  Voice overs are something not heavily employed by the game.  Outside of the tutorial they’re pretty rare, consisting mainly of Leonard Nimoy introducing new sectors and congratulating you on levelling up.  The STF I played also featured a little audio for the main villain, but throughout the majority of the game, voice overs are absent.  It just means that when they do appear, it really adds to the experience, and that was certainly the case here.  As the voice overs are so rare, you’re not expecting them, so when this haunting, menacing voice suddenly came through the speakers, it was a “jump out of your seat” moment.

The mission also starts to set the scene for the following week’s mission.  By the time you find the Devidian’s “nest”, you’ve encountered various Starfleet personnel in 23rd century (Classic Trek) uniforms, so the appearance of a time portal isn’t much of a surprise.  Next stop, the 23rd century.

A great pair of missions when taken together.  There’s some fun puzzles, and the atmosphere in What Lies Beneath really does make the mission.   There’s a lot of love and attention gone into this mission to make it, honestly, one of the best in the entire game.  These missions also demonstrate an element of trade off.  The shorter Spin the Wheel probably allowed the development team the time required to come up with all the textures and environmental effects necessary to make What Lies Beneath as good as it was.   I mentioned this before during the Breen missions, but these weeklies really do show off a strong new direction for the game, and I hope, as new weekly series are planned, we get even more great missions with the kind of immersion and detail as we’re seeing here.

Now that the Breen series of weekly missions have been finished for a couple of weeks (giving players a chance to get that nice Breen Bridge Officer before he went away), now Cryptic have launched the next set of weeklies, starting with Skirmish.

Immediately different from the Defera missions, this series is taking place in the existing Eta Eradani sector that forms the border between Federation and Klingon space.  The devs have mentioned this was deliberate, as they wanted to work the new content into existing sectors, rather than be continually creating new sectors, as they’ve tended to do thus far.  I must say, I think its a great idea, as there’s a lot of sectors in the game that there’s pretty much no reason to visit once your character has out levelled its missions.  Adding in new content to those sectors will help give them a more populated feeling once again, and draw attention to features you may not previously have visited (for example I never really knew about Drozana Station before).   Hopefully the user generated missions that are going to be coming up soon will also help in this regard, as my understanding is the devs intend for user missions to take place in the main game universe (rather than some kind of simulation, like the Mission Architect in City of Heroes).  As well as populating the older sectors, it also gives the developers the excuse (and resources) to go back and revamp aspects of those older sectors, like the revamp Drozana Station has received ahead of this set of weeklies.

This time, the action focuses around the Devidians.  Fans of The Next Generation will recognise them from the two-parter Time’s Arrow, and indeed they already appeared in game, in the mission Ghost Ship, although as part of these weeklies, that mission is due to be revamped slightly to include the redesigned Devidians to make it more consistent with the newer content (and may already have been, I admit I’m not sure).

Skirmish finds you heading to the Federation/Klingon Neutral Zone, after being directed there by Section 31 operative Franklin Drake.   A True Way (Cardassian/Jem Hadar) fleet has been detected in conflict with Klingons in the area.  Its well out of their way, so Drake is suspicious and wants it investigated.

On arriving, you quickly get caught up in the fight, but once its over, one of the Cardassian ships is left disabled, allowing you to board it to look for clues.  However once on board, you find something spooky is going on.

With us now on the run up to Halloween, the Devidians were a great choice for this new series of weeklies.  They provide a nice opportunity for some ghostly goings on, as the environment slips in an out of phase with the Devidians, and you see them in battle with the Cardassians, and floating through the ship.   They were similarly well used in the mission Ghost Ship, so its nice to see that idea expanded upon, and the spooky atmosphere definitely suits the time of year.

In terms of the mission itself, its the high quality we’ve come to expect from this newer content.  From the big fleet battle at the beginning, to the more familiar combat with various Cardassian stragglers onboard the ship, we also get a little puzzle similar to the Deferi medical aid mission.  On completing the mission, there’s the unique reward of a new ship device.  I confess I’ve not tried it yet, but I none the less appreciate that the devs are trying to make each mission reward something new and interesting, rather than just “here’s a slightly different set of impulse engines”.

All in all, another winner by the developers, and this content still has people amassing at the zone come Saturday, and talking about it in the forums, so the weeklies are still a really strong offering in the game.  I’m really looking forward to seeing how the plot of this series develops, since the teases about upcoming missions point to an old Starbase (should be a really atmospheric setting) and some time travel (with a shot that looks suspiciously like a classic Trek interior).  Roll on Saturday

This is it.  The starmap has been completed and the race is on to discover the Preserver legacy hidden within the Deferi sector.

And what a great finale this mission was.   I was fortunate that I was online at the time it became active, and so it became one of the few that my first run through was with other members of my fleet.  Working together as we ran through the mission was great fun, and with us all being pretty reasonably kitted out Admirals, the Breen didn’t have much of a chance.

If I was going to have a complaint about this mission (just to get it out of the way) its that the final boss, Thot Trel, who had been built up throughout the series, was actually a bit of a pushover.  I’ve now completed the mission on all three of my Federation characters, and each time he goes down pretty easily.  The boss from the week before was a much tougher fight, and so it would perhaps be nice to see Thot Trel given a bit of a power boost to make a more fitting final confrontation.

However, that’s the only negative I can say about a brilliant finale.  Most of the mission takes place on the ground, and there’s some very nice classic Trek imagery.  My whole fleet were squeeing when we went round a corner in the map only to be confronted by a replica of the Preserver obelisk that Kirk found in the episode The Paradise Syndrome.

The revamped caves get another airing as you descend into the area hidden underneath the Obelisk, and again the devs have put together a nice puzzle to unlock the Preserver Archive.  Sound-based this time, its a simple puzzle compared to, say, the starchart puzzle on Defera however its still fun, and nicely broke up the combat.

The really great thing about this mission, is the sense of the impact the events will have for the unfolding universe in Star Trek Online.  The reveal of exactly what the Archive is, will surely come back to the fore in future missions as it represents a major resource that galactic powers are going to squabble over.  And not to mention, with the continual threat of the Iconians lurking somewhere in the background, I can’t help but think the Archive will become a pivotal piece of that conflict when they finally make their move.

The rewards are again inventive, and a testiment to the devs.  The main quest completion reward being a special Breen freeze rifle which I’ve found myself using quite a bit as it provides a good main attack and a devastating secondary fire (neatly counterbalanced by quite a long build up which can be interrupted).

However, this being the finale to the series, there’s a a special reward in the form of a Breen bridge officer.  He’s a purple officer and comes with some neat ground abilities.  Of course, the devs have stated that this reward will only be available prior to the release of series 2, but to me it helps make the weeklies a bit more special, as well as providing a nice incentive to make sure people are checking in on the new missions regularly.   To be honest, knowing the game, I imagine the Breen bridge officer will turn up in the C-store in some form in a few months time, but since we get him for free for completing this set of weeklies, if it does happen, I won’t be complaining.

There’s a couple of weeks until the second series of weeklies, this time featuring the Devidians from Time’s Arrow and promising spooky old Space Stations and some time travel.  This first series of missions has certainly proven to be a massive success, with a lot of love and attention evident on the mission design, so I really can’t wait to see what this second series brings.   If nothing else, its nice to see a really positive buzz about the game following its very rocky first six months and I look forward to it continuing.

Saturday’s been and gone, and with it part 4 of the 5 part Breen storyline.

Things have hotted up now, with the ruins on Defera coming back into focus.  As you return to investigate the possibility of some ancient information being left there.

Of course, the puzzle relating to this episode has actually been in the game since this weekly series launched, so many players had previously discovered the star map fragment earlier, but it was nice to see how it actually worked in with the plot.

The rest of the mission then brings to mind the Next Generation episode, The Chase, as you run from system to system across the sector trying to find the other pieces of the star map before the Breen can get to them. As with previous missions there’s some nice visuals in these systems, especially the system with the ringed planet and all the asteroid debris.

My only real complaint with this week’s mission is that I didn’t find all the running around that involving. There’s some nice stuff in the previously mentioned system with the stellar debris for example, but it was crying out for another puzzle or bit of thought, rather than my bridge officers always telling me where to go and what to shoot. The opening puzzle was great, but slightly spoiled by being found in the first mission, so with that in mind a second, similar puzzle would’ve been the icing on the cake.

I guess I was slightly spoiled by last week’s episode really getting me to stop, read things properly and think, and having already completed the opening puzzle didn’t help.

There is some nice combat though.  The devs have nicely balanced the encounters out, so that some of them are actually pretty easy, whereas others provide more of a challenge.  And it all builds up to a confrontation on an ice planet against a pretty tough Breen boss.

The weekly reward is quite amusing too.   Its a freeze grenade, but unlike the previous ones, this one is more for the role players, as it only targets friendlies and doesn’t do anything beyond a visual “freezing” effect (so if you get hit, it doesn’t stop you moving or getting on with your gaming).  I daresay though there’ll be a few people complaining about it being used a lot around the Sol starbase, but I don’t mind it as some harmless fun

Next Saturday, its the final part, wherein we’ll finally face off against Thot Trel and discover the secret the Preservers have hidden away.  I can’t wait

This week’s weekly episode in Star Trek Online provided an interesting change of pace from what’s come before.

Following on from last week’s Breen attacks on the Deferi, you retrieve a distress signal from another ship that’s being attacked.  By the time you arrive, the ship has been driven off, and the crew are tending to repairs and injured crew members, not to mention prisoners taken from a Breen boarding party.

And that’s the big difference between this and the previous weekly episodes.  This time, there’s absolutely no combat in the mission, and its much more the format of a diplomatic mission.

There’s two main parts to the adventure, with the first finding you helping out, treating the wounded.  This involves questioning the patients, and then determining the correct drug to administer.  This was great fun, and I loved having to pay attention to what was being said, so as to be sure I picked up the right treatment.

The second patient though leads into the next part of the mission, as you must interrogate the Breen prisoners about an implant you discover in the patient.

Its a pleasant change of pace from the combat of the previous episodes, and serves to drive the plot along in a couple of interesting ways, as you discover the Breen are using the implants to examine the Deferi’s childhood memories, but also that there’s a splinter faction in the Breen that are not happy with the way they’re constantly being driven to attack civilians.

The only real complaint I can make about the mission is that its much too short.  As long as you pay attention, and pick dialogue options carefully, you can work through this mission quite rapidly, and it really feels like the mission could’ve used a third section (perhaps helping to fix the ship).

Also debuting this week was the addition of another mission to the Deferi sector.  There’s now a Breen Patrol added to the map, that if you intercept, you can discover they have Deferi onboard, and you have to figure out the best way to help them escape the Breen.  There’s a few different ways to complete this, but the way I went for felt suitably “Star Trek” to me.  Again this was probably a bit too short, but as a nice extra to the weekly mission, I enjoyed it.

While there are doubtless going to be those players who were unhappy with the lack of combat in this week’s episode, for me it helps highlight how the developers are trying to add to the gameplay mechanics, making the game feel more like the Star Trek TV show we all watched and loved, and add variety into the game.

Last week saw the second of the new Star Trek Online weekly episodes released, and after the huge success of the first episode, could this one live up to expectations?

Well, yes and no. From a plot perspective, this is very much in the middle of the story. Too early for any major plot revelations, so instead things are just moved on a little, with the revelations that the Breen are now not only attacking Deferi vessels in space, but have also been capturing their people alive for some unknown reason.

The rich level design from the previous episode is here in force as well. The space combats are set against what looks like several giant meteor fragments and the ground segment brings a much needed revamp to the “underground cave base” style of map to make it look like a much more realistic base.  Hopefully we’ll see this style of map added to the star cluster missions to revamp their cave bases as well.

Its slightly harder to talk much about this mission.  It was definitely a lot of fun to play, and the time and care being spent on the level design on these missions to my mind helps show the developers dedication to make these episodes into more of an event, and help turn around some of the bad press the game has gotten since launch.

And that feeling of an event is a great thing in game.  With so many players spread across the game, its really nice on a Saturday to log in, and see things buzzing.   Having seen a lot of negativity in the past, its great to see the player base enthusiastic about these missions, and its a lot of fun, logging in on a Saturday at 6, and seeing the sector filled with players all waiting on the new content.   Certainly the weekly episodes seem to be a big hit, and I look forward to seeing them continue for some time.