Midgame F2P Struggles | Star Trek Online

[@marsm9]

You can get consoles through some of the reps. The DSC ones are really good, but of course that requires dil or luck of the drop. But yea that is interesting there are no other places to get consoles. Very surprising.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Good point -- the discovery rep does have most of the consoles there for dilithium (besides the energy-specific tactical ones).

[@Nemoticon]

I've only ever been a F3P player, only ever having bought Zen at end game once, for a ship. I've always found STO-F2P to be very easy, very inclusive and highly enjoyable. I've played other F2P games where they throw the fact that you are F2P in your face every 10mins. You don't get this in STO, it caters for and welcomes all. In fact, I've levelled 2 Feds and 1 each of all the other factions to lvl 65, entirely as a F2P player. Games used to be sooooooooo much harder back in the day, reaching end game in itself was an achievement alone.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Very true, other games are much much harder for F2P and not being a subscriber is throw at you much more in other games. I'm just making the point that if someone doesn't understand the game's mechanics, they can still be successful by bumbling around in this game until around level 30-40 and then (without more natural power spikes from leveling) this weird difficulty spike can come out of nowhere -- which is why there are many players in the 40's to 50's range of levels with lackluster builds that ask for help on STO Reddit and such or just leave.

[@Nemoticon]

@@CounterYoloGaming Oh, the video is great for those who don't know. And yeah, there are moments when you feel a little under equipped as a F2P player. Though I do feel STO handles this comparaatively well. I'm always happy to help if anyone needs some advice, the game has a decent community xD

[@j.mangum7652]

Gotta agree with you on your points here. As a player that's been STO'ing around for four years now I realize that when making a new character the old adage"it takes a village to raise a child"applies as all your other dilithium laden characters have to pitch in dil, R&D items, upgrades;etc. to help have the new character grow. Plus having fleet pals taking pity on our noobishness helps with tips and generosity. Btw, I think in your If you're listening Cryptic segment you should have added shield generators as well. Just my opine.

[@vulturnuszan]

note on the exchange when you can drag and drop items into the search bar and it will auto populate the text name of the console or item into search, you can then set the rarity or rename the mark level to make a more specific search. I actually find space combat at lower levels more enjoyable. At high levels you just spam abilities and obliterate stuff. At low levels you have to work on draining shields then hitting the hull with torpedos trying to focus your damage at one side of your target ship, while at the same time making sure your ship has shields on the side you are taking damage, the combat is slower and more tactical that stuff becomes less important at high levels.

[@dzobie]

Honestly I've enjoyed every minute of it. I'm already up to t5 in several reputations and have several complete sets. I'd say the struggle in this game is much less notable than other games.

[@TheRealKoltoroc]

that K7 dilithium vendor is only half weird. It is a remnant form the ancient days when the dilithium store had the same selection that was removed at some point. The weird part is that they forgot to remove it from K7

[@CounterYoloGaming]

I wasn't a part of the early days of STO, just starting to play a little after the game no longer required a subscription when I started college. It's interesting to hear from more veteran players what it was actually there for. Thanks!

[@TOSStarTrek]

Build is everything in this game. Same for ships. Everything you need to play a good playable toon/ship can be got for 100% free it only takes a little grind.

[@chadwickmccarty4944]

I'll admit for my new characters nowadays I usually select specific missions to get upgradeable gear, level to 60 asap, top off my gear how I want then relax & casually go through the missions mostly in order. There are some really good story line missions throughout STO. I know Cryptic has had mechanics so a player would receive better gear every 10 levels before, but I wonder if Cryptic has ever considered scaling for console gear: the engineering, science, & tactical consoles. Excellent video as usual for a subject probably often over looked nowadays.

[@Retset]

OK, yes, this stuff is hard to get through the vendors etc. I think the easiest method is to keep every mission drop, loot drop etc, rep box reward almost regardless. As time progresses, make builds around whatever matching stuff you have! That said, I just move stuff/dosh over from established toons, as you suggested! Anyway, great guide for newer players.

[@TheRealGraylocke]

I've not seen a vendor that sells consoles either to be perfectly honest. I remember, back in the day, with my first toons, just scraping by with loot drops and common gear from the exchange. My recommendation, use the duty officer npc missions to grind out EC, dil, and the occasional bit of gear as much as possible. And the Admiralty ones when you get there. Grind both for XP, you can level a toon fairly quickly that way. Don't hesitate to repeat missions that offer decent gear or set pieces to collect the full set.

[@josecorchete3732]

I know that is an old video, but I'm disagree with the beam configuration: 3x beams 1x torpedo in front, but in the rear you want 2x beams 1x turret 1x clipping to speed/turn weapon (tractor beam mines, chroniton torpedoes, etc...), cause anyways you can only maneuver your ship to the front, so you need to get sure that you can outmaneuver anything trying to get in your rear arc.

[@josecorchete3732]

Also, there's other console that provides full defense (Duranium? Cant remember the exact name)

[@prabalb]

Thank you for this video! Even though its old, this content is still pertinent and excellently presented. I have scoured through other content creators on YT , Reddit and sto-better, and while I have received useful information from those sources, this video felt much more digestible personally (as well as many of your others). Cheers!

[@pilksuk]

Hmm I might create a new account and go through the leveling process again to see these struggles as I cant see why new players would struggle these days with all the weapon sets/consoles from missions, the way the game scales content I dont see why leveling should have any pain points I mean you can now stand on ESD and spam patrols which scales to you level and offers big XP gains.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

First time new players can struggle when the only thing they are playing are missions to try to understand the story and progress through the game. Yes, you can level through other means to get to endgame, but most of those great mission sets and weapons are Iconian War missions and later -- while if you play through all the missions you end up being late 50's in levels without any sets fighting the Vaadwaur in the Delta Quadrant for instance. Many players come to Star Trek Online for the lore & story instead of your typical MMO player trying to maximize the easy XP gains like patrols and skipping around to get easy mission rewards. Playing the content in order -- especially without a grasp on how the mechanics of the game works -- gets tough after a while for a new player.

[@goontubeassos7076]

@@CounterYoloGaming agreed, I teach some new players and there is a lot of information dump, baby steps is best when new players ask questions or you dump it on them. Then over lap information that connects to each other

[@falkwulf3842]

Love the breakdown, and your explanations. I have to add though that at level 40 most players are getting spam bombed with fleet invites. This was the key for me as I joined a fleet that had been around for a good long time. At level 40 the fleet gave me a free tier 5 ship and a 3 fleet modules. Thus I was able to net myself a powerful tier 6 Fleet Ship by saving for a week and a half to obtain the other two fleet modules to net myself a Tier 6 Fleet Advanced Research Vessel.

[@tyneskipper]

excellent vid. one oif the things i did with my main character was just build my alts ok gear to get them to end game. then just rinse and repeat

[@permeus2nd]

So the biggest tip I have is don’t be afraid of running from a fight, if your getting the crap kicked out of you run put as much distance as you can between you and the bad guys, heal up then come in slow and see if you can pick them off one at a time, yes it may be slower but it’s faster than Zergging it and dieing over and over, but this also brings me to my second tip don’t worry about dieing, it’s counter to my first tip I know but you Respawn most NPCs don’t you can even use your death to kill them with a warp core breach (I can’t count the times I’ve been asking why I’m dead then realise I was too close to the bad guy when he died) . Perhaps my favourite gameplay thing that STO does in normal play is I don’t have to constantly pay to repair my gear, anyone that’s played one of the other MMOs (wow, FF14, GW2) will now this pain.

[@Duckspuddle]

The vendor console on K-7 that sells gear for dill, is 1 of the original (year 1 STO) If I am not mistaken. It was the only place to buy VR gear other than the exchange, before the introduction of Fleet Star bases.. needless to say selling VR consoles at one time was a very lucrative/profitable business on the exchange if you acquired them thru the toys doff mission or as a drop when doing a stf. The new content the loot drops are straight garbage now a days..

[@CounterYoloGaming]

I can imagine. I remember reading on the STO Wiki that originally some of the gear took lobi to upgrade from mk X to mk XII, so for a while VR mk X was probably the endgame for many players. I just never really thought it through to consider that they originally didn't include a console vendor at all to have a business market for it -- though not even including a common vendor for them is a little weird in my perspective.

[@adamwilder2943]

Thanks for the video sir, as I,myself have been in said scenario during my time in sto as a F2P player several years back.

[@invidofinp1828]

I jumped on that lifetime sub discount like it was a female dax.

[@cwiggy34]

Im still confused about the claim of hard content. Nothing in STO is hard. I was f2p for 6 years. Finally dropped the money a year ago for life time. All you have to do is put time into the game. I put a hour in a night. Work for it and its yours. Remember a famous quote. "When everyone is super no one is.!"

[@CounterYoloGaming]

STO isn't hard vs other games. The issue with STO is that it is ridiculously easy pre-level 30 and then, once your F2P starship doesn't get much more powerful after level 30, you actually have to build your starship correctly (which many new players don't, as they didn't have to to get to that point with random equipment). I'm just trying to explain *why* there are a LOT of people once they get to around 47+ that start to have serious issues and complain on the Reddit threads -- because they never had to actually look at their builds prior to then to actually play and progress through the missions. Most of my time in STO is dedicated to helping newer players (

[@TheMilitantNerd]

i have 3 characters all max level with T6 ships and everytime i get to the part when i start facing the cardassians and the alternate Uni. (DS9 era ) i die so much i never finish the missions it becomes so frustrating and i quit the game this has happened 3 times so far. I really wanna dive into the story and see what the game has but this keeps happening?

[@djdaethstar238]

Sorry to necro this, but it came up as a suggestion for me as I really appreciate CY and his videos. First off, this probably should be updated and sent to Cryptic/PWI. As a returning player, from about 7 years ago, this game has a lot of holes in it to this day. Certainly some Quality of Life things but more importantly, the LACK of direction once out of the tutorial. Sure you get popups when can access new features and the ones that stuck with me were the voice-over ones. The rest usually popped up at inopportune times and I would just click off them. Those popups could be used to direct people to use the mail system, market, and pretty much any new thing they would need to know how to do/use. There is way too much in the game that is over most folks head such as research that really needs more attention paid to it although it isnt really used like it should be. One of my suggestions that would probably help with this problem is doing what they do with scaling ships. Make the equipment on any acquired ship be common infinity scaling. Obviously you are going to replace them as soon as you can as it is just the bare minimum. It gives the new player time to learn how to play, save up resources to get better gear, and not have to worry that they are so far behind everyone else that they quit of of hopelessness. Granted, it doesn't solve every issue but it is better then the NOTHING they have done so far to address this stuff. BTW Keep up the good work. Your videos have really helped me in my return to this game. Without you and a lot of the content creators in this game, i am sure there would be a lot less people enjoying STO if it would even still exist. Thank you!

[@PaulCabana]

Hey looks like you've stopped YT, so in case you still care, this video nailed it. This is exactly the issue no one talks about. Until watching this video I was totally lost

[@Goonie3353]

As it was listed in one of the comments - Discovery rep. has consoles from drops that are quite easy to obtain; except for 'daily efforts', you can also launch 'DSC Legends expedition hourly' - it cost only marks, exp and EC and if I recall it correctly you can do it up to 3 times per day so 3 more shots on droping a good console :) As for DSC consoles themselves there are 2 variants with 'pax' or 'bellum' mod, first (pax) one enhances hull cap, second one (bellum) adds about +1,1% to crth so its worth to consider them even latter in game (link: sto.gamepedia.com/Reputation:_Discovery_Legends#Space_Gear) . Another rep that can spam console from time to time is Dyson but IMO it's usefullness is highly situational - works good only for proton dmg builds or if you are stucked with mission drops (link: sto.gamepedia.com/Reputation:_Dyson_Joint_Command#Space_Consoles). As for marks - one of the best way to aquire them is probably 'join random' pve - reward is choice of marks + bonus, also from time to time 'Red Alert' tfo's are available. Now in case of earning EC - there is always 'tour the galaxy' available so if you hit lvl 50 'slip stream drive' is available and since transwarp option is added to almost all of the missions in game you can also use it to transwarp to various distant localizations in sector space without triggering transwarp cooldown and around lvl 50 this mission grants around 500k to 1000000 of EC per run (if it wasn't nerf recently) but that 15 minutes of time is big downside of that mission.

[@radeadcool]

Was doing some Delta recruit stuff and the Romulan stuff was hard. Even at level 65, whats going on with the Romulan missions The Best Defense, Last Stand and Turnabout?

[@CounterYoloGaming]

The Best Defense is the hardest of the shuttle missions in-game (a mission you are just about guaranteed to die a few times in) -- to the point that even its TFO version doesn't have an elite version for some reason... When I played against the Elachi for the first time in these mission in ground combat without retraining them (back in the day) in better abilities they were indeed hard. When I played romulans for the first time in this game, my starship typically got through 2/3 waves, then died, then zoomed back to finish off wave 3. If you gear is suboptimal it's ok. Luckily, Delta recruits at least get some free purple gear as they level to help keep them competitive without as much reliance on mission rewards or RNG gear drops.

[@therealdannymullen]

I know this vid is a year old, but they must have done a tremendous job rebalancing the game before I started playing 2 months ago, because I've got 4 toons at max level already.

[@Twistedvaccine]

What type of consoles are you talking about as the Spire has all the consoles, Tactical, Engineering and Science consoles. Universal, well, obviously not.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

It's been a LONG time since I made this video. I need a timestamp to know where in the video you are referring to.

[@Twistedvaccine]

@@CounterYoloGaming Apologies, i know, they've been in game since Spire, i know you mention it a few times but the first time you mention it i believe is 26:15. Brilliants video though :)

[@CounterYoloGaming]

@@Twistedvaccine Ok, gotcha, this old video! In that section, I was trying to find a location for tactical consoles outside of fleet-specific maps -- and I was honestly stumped for the most part. I am aware of tactical consoles available on the fleet versions of the spire & colony. If they are on the regular map (non-fleet) of the Spire map, i genuinely would be interested to know the location of the vendor or person to talk to. There are a LOT of players on this channel that don't want to be a part of any fleet at all, and would really benefit from it.

[@Twistedvaccine]

@@CounterYoloGaming Old but still one of, if not the best out there, you do amazing work CY. So, outside of fleet consoles, you have the ship equipment requisitions officers that are near the manage ships officers (ESD/KDF Space dock) Where you can buy weapons, ship equipment and they're upgradable. You can buy the upgrade tokens and consumables from there too, all for EC. To be honest, I've been playing so long and in a fleet so long i forgot about them too. Hope this helps!